Silence of the Lambs

1991 best picture

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Prospective FBI agent Clarice is recruited to chat it up with notorious serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter in order to help the agency capture another guy who kidnaps women for their skin.

This movie has a trio of great scenes mixed into a character study about a character I just didn't find very interesting. The three scenes:

1) The best scene in the movie is where Lecter touches Clarice's fingers. A lot of the film has to do with their complex relationship, and that scene stands out.

2) The second best scene involves Stuart Rudin's character, Miggs. I'd imagine Rudin has had a career trying to not be the guy who flings his jism at Jodie Foster like a naughty monkey a few minutes after he screamed, "I can smell your cunt!" at her.

3) Hannibal's escape scene is thrilling, I guess, but really only if you're seeing it for the first time.

This has about as much style as a television cop drama. It's not gritty, it's not flashy, and it's not unique in any way. The story's just kind of there. And even more disappointing is that the title is really misleading. There's not a single lamb in this movie. I enjoyed the performance from Hopkins, who I don't believe blinks a single time in this movie, the kind of psychopath that a lot of actors have done their best to duplicate for the last thirty years. Foster's fine, but I don't the character lacks dimensions even though they did everything they could to give her a nice Hollywood backstory. I'm sure feminists would appreciate the character, but I don't find it all that believable that she would be sent out on the assignment in the first place. My favorite scene with her character was a shot where she was circled by a bunch of guy cops in a funeral home. Ted Levine's Buffalo Bill was a generic psychopath, but the scene where he's posing in front of a mirror with his Li'l Bill tucked between his legs is one that haunted me for months after I saw this for the first time. The butterfly or moth or whatever thing was a little silly, and I actually laughed out loud when Clarice announced, "He's making a woman suit!" Not my favorite Best Picture winner despite that line.

Rocky V

1990 sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Rocky's gotten too old to punch people anymore. He's also run into a little bit of money trouble after a crooked accountant robs him. It's back to the crappy part of Philadelphia for poor Rocky and his family. Things look grim until he meets a young boxer who he decides to train for the heavyweight crown. Meanwhile, Rocky's son Rocky Jr. starts to feel alienated and becomes cinema's first goth kid. Mickey's still dead. Creed's still dead. Read this plot summary with a rock anthem behind it, and you've got yourself a montage!

Say what you want about the idiotic Rocky IV, but this one is just dull. The title crawl from the right is thankfully back, and we get to see a big ridiculous chunk of that bout with Drago where the commies decide to change their wicked ways and root for the guy with the red, white, and blue boxing trunks. And then you get to see a naked Stallone. Fantastic. Drago must have hit Rocky pretty hard, by the way. That or Stallone just flubs up his lines. Half of what he says in those first couple movies seems to be "Adrian! Adrian!" and at the beginning of his movie, after that pounding from Drago, he actually calls his wife Mick. He also tells his wife that "Maybe [he] should take [her] upstairs and violate [her] like a parking meter" which is probably not something you should say in front of your son. Speaking of his son, played by Sylvester Stallone's actual son Sage Stallone, he seems to have just as much acting talent as his dad. He acts as well as you'd expect a guy named Sage to act. All the scenes featuring children in this movie are pretty painful, and the hip hop score doesn't help. The dirty goth kid running off after Rocky Jr. beats up his friend ("I didn't like him anyway!") is pretty cool though. It's almost like Stallone wrote for these young characters without having ever been a child himself. And when his son starts rebelling, illustrated by his earring and his use of double negatives? It just so simpleminded. But back to the father. There's an entire conversation that Rocky has with Rocky Jr. where the former barely seems like he can speak English. He's back to the braindead Rocky of the first movie! Later, he wears a sweatshirt that rivals that tiger jacket in Rocky II for pure awesomeness. Oh, and Rocky has learned magic. He pulls things from about fifteen different ears in this movie which I think might somehow be how Mike Tyson got the idea to eat Evander Holyfield. I can't explain it here because I don't have time, but I have a few charts and diagrams to explain it all.

But I'm really making this movie sound better than it actually is. Sage Stallone isn't even the worst actor here. No, that dishonor goes to Tommy Morrison as Tommy "Machine" Gunn, a character whom I could not have possibly cared less about. He does look like a heavyweight boxer, maybe a little more realistic than Mr. T. or even Drago, but he's the least interesting antagonist in the series by far, and Morrison's acting abilities are dreadful. I did like the Don King character played by Richard Gant who would later play a character who couldn't find The Dude's Creedence tape. And Mickey's back from the dead, spitting all over the champion with his zombie spit. Ok, so it's not an undead Mickey. No, that'll probably happen in Rocky VII.

The real problem with this movie is the ending. Like the other movies, this builds to a climactic fight between Rocky and the antagonist, but this is a wild no-rules street brawl. "My ring is the streets!" What the hell is the lesson supposed to be here? I can't believe this is the way Stallone wanted to end things with this character ("Yo, Adrian! I did it! I beat up some thug in the street which actually doesn't, you know, solve any of our problems at all!") and the trumpety theme music almost seems blasphemous after some experimental flashback weirdness and that idiot son of his saying, "Knock the bum out! He took my room!" So stupid. And I think George Lucas ripped off dialogue from this for his fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan. "You and me was supposed to be brothers. I loved you." I think Obi-Wan says that verbatim in Revenge of the Sith.

This movie was almost no fun at all. Rocky movies aren't supposed to depress me! One more to go, and I can't imagine a movie where Rocky boxes at the age of 90 or whatever is going to be any good.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: A Perfect Getaway

2009 movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A couple on their honeymoon in Hawaii discover that a pair of killers are on the loose. Oh, snap! And oh, double snap! They realize that the couple they are hiking with might be them!

Note: Zooey Deschanel is not in this movie after all. Apparently, I get her and Milla Jovovich confused.

I've seen this movie twice in two weeks because the second time, there was nothing on except some reminders about how bad my fantasy football teams were doing and reruns of Married with Children. It's worth watching twice for the single best line/delivery that (hyperbole alert!) I've ever heard: Steve Zahn's (Cliff's) "I haven't seen any goats!" It makes me laugh just thinking about it. Gene Siskel and I couldn't stop nudging each other after this movie was over and repeating that line. Nudge nudge, a widening of the eyes, and a whining "I haven't seen any goats!" It's the sort of delivery that can make Steve Zahn the greatest actor ever in your eyes. Speaking of greatest actor ever, Timmy Olyphant--a guy who's got my vote for actor with the goofiest last name--makes a reference to Nicolas Cage and how he gets all intense at the end of a line. There's a lot of halfassed meta-gags in this, and it eventually erupts into nothing more than scene after scene of characters stabbing each other and then pulling knives out of themselves. But for a B-movie, this really isn't all that bad. There's the kind of big twist that the kids all love. The second time I watched this movie, I saw it coming the entire time. The first time though? I'm not sure if it was because I'm stupid or because the movie broke a few of the unwritten rules of cinematic plot twists, but it was nearly chilling and entirely surprising to me. I guess. I don't know. A lot of the on-location shots of Hawaii were easy on the eyes, and so was Kiele Sanchez who is just naked enough in one scene while lying facedown on a raft to get the "partial nudity" tag in the parental warnings. Anyway, I really can't wait to watch this movie a third time!

Note: This breaks my record for most movies watched in a row that I thought Zooey Deschanel was in but she actually wasn't. At least on the Urine Couch.