Down by Law

1986 somnambulistic Three Stooges movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A former D.J., a pimp, and an Italian immigrant wind up in the same jail cell where they chant about ice cream and plan a break-out. Then, they break out.

These Jarmusch films sneak up on you. The genius of them, that is, tapping you on the shoulder and then doing a funny little shuffling dance step when you turn to look. Or sometimes just flashing you a goofy thumbs-up sign and giggling. The genius of Jarmusch is in how he uses the silent moments, spaces. The same part of me that likes the poetic and quietly slow perfection of a baseball game is the part of me that loves Down by Law and Stranger than Paradise. You get space to deal with your own thoughts, crawl in there with the characters, soak in the gray details. Jarmusch is also so good at taking advantage of his settings, here the dirty city and almost hauntingly empty streets (A quick thought: I was surprised to see so many names in the credits. As with his other movies, Jarmusch doesn't waste much time showing us superfluous characters. He's got to have some kind of record for lowest extras to movie ratio.), the architecture, a very limited and sparse jail cell, the bayou. There's just so much for me to love here that I wonder if Jarmusch made this movie just for me--an oily street littered with Tom's broken records and discarded things, the prostitute's giggle after the "bygones be bygones" line, the punky guy, that long pan over the prison bars over Lurie's "fake jazz," the mention of Beepy Rapozo and the imagining of all this insane shit, a brawl scene that makes think I could take Tom Waits in a fight if we came to blows, Waits in a hairnet (a dream come true), the appearance of Benigni and how he changes the film's tone and brings a little sizzle, Benigni's standing around and failed attempts to talk to Lurie and Waits (classic Jarmusch here), the line "Cigarettes don't help with hiccups, not in this country," the aforementioned nutty "I scream for ice cream" scene that makes me smile whenever I think about it just because there's not another director alive who would put that on the screen, Tom Waits' unnatural but engrossing performance that I can't take my eyes off (a scene where Jack tells him that he's going east and Tom gives a little twitch of his hand--it's a brilliant twitch!), "Jack! Jack! Do you have some fire?", the way Waits says "Bob," the amatory dance in the cafe, a sinking row boat, the final Bob Frostian shot that is almost overwhelmingly beautiful and sad. If you don't at least like this movie, I don't want anything to do with you.

Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky

1991 kung-fu movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: The titular guy who can't decide how to spell his name winds up in a prison run by corrupted officials and has to put a few fist-shaped holes in a few guys in order to survive.

This was high on my list of Things Shane Needs to See for a really long time, and then I finally saw it and ended the experience surprisingly flaccid, especially for a movie with so many internal organs that end up external. Naturally, I had to see it again, only to discover that although it's technically a pretty bad movie, it's one you just can't look away from. It's ridiculously dumb, the dumb exemplified best in a scene where our hero spills a dude's intestines with one punch, hits another guy so hard that he explodes, and takes a spike through his hand without batting an eye before "Tattoo Guy" (my name for him) says, "Hmm...you're not bad." Not bad? He just disemboweled a guy with his fist and made another guy explode! Tattoo Guy sure has high standards. There's another intestine-heavy scene featuring what might be the pun of the year--"Alright! You have a lot of guts, Oscar." Despite all the mayhem and very-low-budget gore (these inmates' heads look like they're made out of Play-Doh), this movie strangely lacks personality. The characters are either too goofy or bland, but at least the bland ones fit in with the ugly and bland prison setting with its tomato-soup-colored floors. But a movie that can't find its personality despite scenes of nails on faces, heads being punched off, multiple eviscerations, guys skinned alive, chin demolition, hand destruction, and a guy with an effeminate voice kicking a dog in half for no good reason is a movie that has some issues. Some distracting dubbing doesn't help. But as a bonus to all the kung-fu gore, you do get a great scene where a guy takes a dump and sings "Satisfaction" about as poor as one can sing it and another scene where Japanese people are playing basketball, a spectacle that probably looked exactly like you'd expect it to look.

Chicken Run

2000 animated prison break movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A bunch of chickens, led by feisty Ginger, attempt to bust out of Tweedy farms. They fail many times, and things get more critical when the Tweedy decides to abandon attempts to make it with eggs and purchases a giant chicken-pie-making machine. A performing rooster named Rocky flies in and agrees, reluctantly, to teach the chickens to fly.

I love this little movie from the Aardman folk who bring us the Wallace and Gromit movies and not just because it can technically be described as a women's prison movie. Sure I wish they were a little more prolific, but these are labors of love, and the amount of detail that goes into these things makes them magical for children and adults. The details given to the strange looking characters and their odd expressions (I just love how the chickens have teeth in this thing) give them real personalities. The voice work is great in this, especially Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson as Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy and Benjamin Whitrow as the lone rooster Fowler. "The turnip's bought it!" and "Don't be ridiculous; I can't fly this contraption!" still makes me laugh. Mel Gibson, the only American voice in this thing, gives a terrific and inspired voice performance in something he could have been tempted to phone in so that he could concentrate on his first love--hating the Jews. The little details in the setting are also nice and give this location that you could easily imagine a Steve McQueen or Paul Newman trying to escape from a little of its own personality. There's so much on the screen to see here; it's so complex for a stop-animation feature. There are scenes where you have an impossible number of chickens making all these impossible-to-coordinate movements, and it's just amazing. Amazing, but I guess not impossible since they pull it off. Things get a little goofy at the end with an action sequence that crosses the line into absurdity and completely ignores the laws of physics, and a lot of people will get a little sick to their stomachs with the terrible puns delivered by a pair of questionable rats. Birds of a feather flop together, it's raining hen, "Dough!', poultry in motion, it's like an oven in here. Uggh. Otherwise, this is well written and clever with more than a few fun references to classic films. It's entertaining for the whole family! This is one of those movies that I have seen about a hundred times, by the way.

Oh, and it reminds me that I have a pirate movie to watch!

Women in Cages

1971 women's prison movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Pretty much the same as all the other women's prison movies.

So here's the deal: The most popular blog post of all time here at shane-movies is my write-up for The Little Mermaid. And it's not even close. So I tried to figure out why that's the case in order to figure out ways to generate more blog traffic.

At first I thought it was just an angry reader who just couldn't stay away and kept reading the The Little Mermaid post because he is worried his blood pressure might be too low. Then, I investigated further.

The words "horny teenage mermaid" appear right near the beginning of the post. And I could picture bloated sweathogs drooling in front of their computer monitors as they Googled "horny teenage mermaid" with their pants half-unzipped. It was easy for me to picture because I'm one of those guys. The words "sexual awakening of a young girl," "hot sea witch," and "Buddy Hackett" probably brought people to that post, too. And any combination of the words mermaid, vagina, sex, and saucy. Or, for the ladies, "nondescript prince."

Naturally, I started thinking about how I could, like a Pied Piper of movie bloggers, lead unsuspecting perverts to my little blog since it's been a dream of mine to hit the 10 1/2 reader mark. I don't discriminate, ladies and gentlemen. I'm a lot like the Christian church or the Statue of Liberty and will take anybody I can get with open arms. Maybe some bloggers out there don't want poor, tired, or huddled masses dirtying up their comments, but I'll gladly take 'em! And I don't want to limit that just to perverts either though I suspect three of my readers probably could safely be labeled "perverts" or at the very least derelicts.

So here it is. Here's the flute this Pied Piper is using to trick the masses into finding my blog. It's been 4 1/2 years, people, and I just can't be happy with 4 1/2 readers anymore. The Hunger Games + women's prison movies + nudity + "horny teenage mermaid" + Buddy Hackett? I don't see how this plan can fail. I thought about throwing in words like "naughty nurse action," "juicy sorority party," "throbbing," "waxy nips," spandex jumping jacks," "Duchess of Spain sunbathing," "MILF drinking a milkshake," "polka-dotted panties," "hot pudding wrestlers," "x-rated aquarium," "Kim Kardashian," "studly fireman," "naked shuffleboard," "salami treat," or "elderly spanking," but I figured that would be considered cheap.

And new readers? You can bet that all of the entries are just as good as this one!

Oh, Women in Cages. It's not very good, a lesser entry in the women's prison genre. Pam Grier plays a sadistic guard this time, and she doesn't wear the uniform as well as the prisoner garb she did in The Big Bird Cage. We get into blaxploitation motifs when she starts mentioning her life in Harlem. Smack at age 10 and working the streets at 12. It explains why she enjoys strapping half-naked women to large wheels or employing crotch burning though. "Crotch burning" is probably a word combination that will draw a certain crowd here, right? The story's not all that engaging, but you do get your obligatory shower scene, your obligatory catfights, and your obligatory torture sequences. Andres Centenara makes a very brief appearance but isn't on the screen enough to matter. This is a hastily-put-together production that is way too serious to be much fun. Corman produced. And here's the real poster which, as much as it might surprise you, isn't really a very honest depiction:

The Big Bird Cage

1972 women's prison movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Horny Terry is arrested for a crime she did not commit and sent to a prison labor camp for women. Meanwhile, some people who want to raise money to start a revolution get the idea to bust out a bunch of the women at the camp for their cause. The result? Mud wrestling!

How about that tagline--"Women so hot with desire they melt the chains that enslave them!"

So what are you really looking for in a women's prison movie? Sexy women? This has a few of those--Pam Grier at her toughest and the stunning Anitra Ford, a future Price Is Right gal. Nudity? It's got that, too, and not just with the aforementioned blaxploitation superstar or a woman Bob Barker would probably later sleep with. You get a shower scene or two, a genre favorite. You also get a really tall woman covering herself in lard and attacking another woman in a river with floating coconuts. Gritty and brutal prison life depictions? The titular bird cage is a giant rickety mill that gives the producers of this (yes, Corman's involved) an excuse to show sweaty and scantily-clad women climbing stairs and engaging in hard work. Perverse torture scenes? Check, including a great scene where Ford is chained and hung from her hair. How about action? Hell, yes! One only needs to point to the handful of scenes featuring mud wrestling, but there's also a terrific scene where Pam Grier and her boyfriend Django have a chicken vs. knife fight. And does this have the great acting you would expect from a feature like this? Why, yes it does. Sid Haig shows comic versatility as a revolutionary although it's not one of the most politically correct performances you're likely to see. Grier's just a presence. My favorite performance of them all is Andres Centenara as the cruel Warden Zappa. Love how he screams all of his lines with a chunky accent and kicks small animals. The best thing about this movie, other than all the nudity, is its tone. This isn't a movie that the actors or director Jack Hill is taking too seriously. I think it's hilarious how the amateur revoluntaries talk:

Guy: Me and the boys have been talking about the revolution.
Other guy: Yeah, like how to get it started and stuff.

The comic tone, the cool setting, and the gals-in-chains thrills make this a near masterpiece of the genre.

Cube

1997 movie about people doing math

Rating: 12/20 (Dylan: 13/20)

Plot: Seven strangers wake up in the titular cube. Well, really it's a whole bunch of cubes inside of one big cube. At least that's what they think. It's not like they can see the outside. Some cubes are booby trapped, so they have to be careful as they maneuver about to locate an exit. At least the cubes have pretty colors.

"Is that your two cents worth, Worth?"

"For what it's worth."

"But it is pointless!"

"That's my point."

See, this almost turns into an Abbott and Costello routine a few times. I think it's intentional. Dylan and I have been quoting that second bit of dialogue all week. This is a less-traditional entry in our prison escape movie festival, and it really was a little pointless. Of course, that might actually be the point, a sort of nihilistic or existential nightmare. It's not a bad premise, and I have to give credit to director Natelli for making something that looks so cool on what was likely a minuscule budget. Unfortunately, the writing isn't very good at all, and the acting might be worse. The woman who played the doctor (Nicky Guadagni) is the worst of the bunch, but the others really aren't far behind. Granted, I can't imagine shooting something like this would be much fun, and they did have a lousy script to work with. After a couple scenes of shocking violence, this loses its momentum and turns into a story about people doing math while really bad music plays. Seriously, this has a soundtrack so bad that the music actually made me tired. My initial prediction, by the way, was way wrong. They surprised me by using a different cliche than the one I thought they were aiming for. Neither would have made for a satisfying ending though. All in all, Cubeis a failure, but it's at least a pretty interesting one. And, in case I didn't mention it before, it's got math in it!

Papillon

1973 prison escape movie

Rating: 17/20 (Dylan: 14/20)

Plot: The true story of Henri Charriere, a thief wrongly arrested for the murder of a pimp. He's sent to an island prison in South America and decides that he doesn't like it very much. He develops a friendship with the wealthy and mousy Louis Dega who helps him plot an escape. His attempts don't work out very well.

"Put all hope out of your mind. And masturbate as little as possible." I have given similar advice.

This second feature in this little prison escape movie festival Dylan and I are enjoying might be a little bit long with an ending that is a little too short. If that makes any sense. You've got a lengthy set-up with some characterization and an introduction to the notorious setting. The prison escape and ensuing outcomes should have been split evenly in thirds for the rest of the movie, but nothing at all should be changed about the first prison escape attempt and the solitary confinement scenes that were the result. And that would have made a movie that you could debate is already too long even longer. Anyway, a minor quibble. There's so much to love in this. You get another cool prison-escape guy with Steve McQueen, and as much as I have trouble understanding what Dustin Hoffman is trying to say through his nose in some of his movies, he's as good as I always expect him to be. Not Mr. Magorium good maybe, but still good. There's a scene where McQueen and Hoffman wrastle a very authentic-looking alligator (or crocodile, whichever they have down there) that is almost as harrowing as the scene in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium where Hoffman and Natalie Portman are playing with bubble wrap. Speaking of the realism, that's one of the things I really like about this one. There's a brutality here that you just can't help but absorb, especially in that aforementioned solitary confinement sequence. The bugs, the cracks on the walls, McQueen's pasty skin, the beads of sweat, the costume filth, the cold cold cement, and even the darkness feel as real as you can possibly hope something on your television screen could feel. Later, it's the weather, the mud, the lepers. Even a chicken gets injured! This story meanders wonderfully, takes time to really savor the minutia. Contrast that to the brute quickness of a guillotine scene. Startling and effective without any unnecessary trickiness. I also liked a couple surreal dream sequences in this, and the opening scene with a prisoner march through the streets with more extras than I think I've ever seen in a movie was also an impressive cinematic feat. My favorite line: "Blame is for God and small children." Cool, cool movie, one made even cooler knowing that it is probably 100% true, not fabricated a bit.

Cool Hand Luke

1967 movie about Christ eating eggs

Rating: 19/20 (Dylan: 13/20)

Plot: The titular ex-war hero is put in jail for what seems to be an absurd length of time for cutting the heads off parking meters. He doesn't like jail all that much and tries to escape over and over again.

Dylan and I are going to work our way through a big list of prison escape movies, and this is the first. So far, all this little prison break film festival has done is prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I have a gay son. I mean, how can you watch Joy Harmon as "Girl Only in the Movie to Wash a Car and Show How Horny Inmates Can Be" washing that car and give this only a 13/20. That extended scene sure extended me! That's just one of a whole bunch of memorable scenes in this. The boxing match, the egg scene ending in Newman striking a Christ pose, the chain-gang rushing to finish the road, the "Night in the Box" speech so fantastically parodied in Toy Story 3, the famous "failure to communicate" line that I borrow all the time to use in my classroom, a little Dennis Hopper, a little Harry Dean Stanton, a little of Kokomo Indiana's own Strother Martin (a man who taught Charlie Chaplin's children to swim), Newman singing "Plastic Jesus" in a scene that nearly jerked tears from me. You also get one of the coolest "bad guys" of all time with Sunglasses Man, a character the Coens would later lift for O Brother. One of those late-60's counterculture in-praise-of-nonconformity flicks that I like so much with the added Christ figure angle, another of my favorite motifs. Add a terrifically cool Newman performance and you've got something pretty special.

Special note: I will not have any problem at all if any of my children are homosexuals. I just wanted to get that out there.

A Nous la Liberte

1931 French satire

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Emile and Louis are tired of wasting away in a prison cell. They long for freedom, so much that they feel the need to sing about it even. They attempt an escape, and while Emile makes it to the other side of a pair of walls, Louis is captured again. Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, the guy who breaks out winds up becoming a rich and successful owner of a factory that makes phonographs, a device that apparently played MP3's back in the 1930s. Eventually, Louis also, regardless of his actual intention, succeeds in breaking out of jail and meets up with his buddy when he gets a job at the factory.

It's just a guess, but I'm thinking Rene Clair wasn't totally ready to embrace the new technology that would allow the characters of his films to speak, just like his buddy Charlie Chaplin. So much of A Nous la Liberte reminds me of silent comedy, and Clair tells the story of these two guys visually a lot of the time. And visually, this movie's really impressive. I'm not sure there's anything I'd describe as fancy with the camera work or its movements, but the cinematography definitely has more of a modern feel than almost all the other comedies I've seen from the 1930s. So although we do get to hear the characters communicate, I'm not sure we really need to because the visuals do a good enough job telling the story. We definitely don't need to hear them sing. The songs aren't very good anyway, and if you call this a musical, you have to call it a half-assed one. Satirically, it seems pretty subversive, actually exploring similar ideas as Chaplin's Modern Times. Maybe that's why the studio sued Chaplin for cinematic plagiarism, but really, I don't see that much that these movies have in common. I'm a sucker for great visuals, it's one of those whimsical French dealies, and this is just the kind of comedy that hits my sweet spot. Yes, that's a reference to my taint.

A very cool Cory recommendation. I think the movie poster probably first attracted him.

I Am a Fugitive from the Chain Gang

1932 prison movie classic

Rating: 17/20

Plot: It's hard times for James Allen, World War I hero. He returns home and then leaves home to find his fortunes, instead getting arrested for helping rob a hamburger joint. Prison, as well as the titular chain gang, aren't nearly as much fun as James had heard it was, and after a while, he plans his escape. Then he does escape, eventually becoming a highly successful engineer in Chicago. However, thanks to a nasty woman, he finds that he can't exactly escape his past.

Paul Muni's name sure is big on the poster up there. It's bigger than the silly title of the movie! That's appropriate actually because his performance really is that good. Atypical for early-30's drama, his is the type of gritty and realistic performance that you'd expect from a more modern actor, like a John Ritter or the kid who played Steve Urkel. The story might get a little tired as James' life gets better, bogging down the movie somewhat, but the first half of the movie has a true grit and the social commentary, although maybe not exactly timely, still delivers. It's a tough movie, the type of movie that would have no problem beating up Gone with the Wind to teach it who's boss. I'm not sure if the ending should be famous for being shocking or for completely dropping off at the end, almost like the screenwriter had a deadline to meet. I liked it well enough though. I was really impressed with the camera work, the movements throughout the prison or around the chain gang. That's also atypical for a 1932 movie. Add this to the list of movies that have full sentences for titles.

The Mackintosh Man

1973 spy thriller

Rating: 14/20

Plot: English intelligence agent Joseph Rearden is recruited by the titular man to pose as a diamond thief in order to be arrested, infiltrate a spy ring, and uncover just who is behind it all.

Not a bad little Huston action thriller although I was pretty confused most of the time. Paul Newman's performance is weird. I'm not sure exactly what his nationality was supposed to be, but he definitely wasn't convincing as an Australian jewel thief as his accent drifts in and out. He's not convincing as an action star either, especially when he's awkwardly punching or kicking people during a big escape scene. Newman sort of goes through the spy motions, and there's no depth to his character. The plot's pretty typical for this sort of thing. A big twist barely seems like a twist at all. There's nothing new with the action scenes although a prison bust-out sequence is nifty and a car chase, mostly because of the locale and the vehicles involved, is fun. I liked Maurice Jarre's repetitive score, reminiscent of the zither madness in The Third Man. I had trouble identifying the instrument, but it was something atypical, and I liked how the music felt free to just stomp in whenever it wanted to.

The Birdman of Alcatraz

1962 bestiality epic

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Robert Stroud, our hero, is serving a life sentence at Leavenworth prison for killing somebody. While there, he has problems getting along with the guards and other cons, spends some time in solitary, and then kills a guard who was going to report him for getting too aggressive earlier. He's sentenced to die, but his mommy whines until he gets the sentence reduced to life in solitary. One day, he finds a new friend, an injured canary. This new buddy gets him interested in ornithology. He gets some more birds, builds some cages, gets Telly Savalas interested in ornithology, and becomes an expert in the field.

This is a heavily-fictionalized account of the real Robert Stroud. "Loosely-based" probably a strong enough, and I'm sure Stroud's family appreciates having their relative's history rewritten like this. But that's not my main problem with the film. My main problems are that it manages to be both too long and have a story that's undercooked. Things are also pretty flat, and it's just too much of a movie. I liked Burt Lancaster in this version of Stroud. The character's development isn't 100% believable, but Lancaster's able to go from violently apathetic to delicately nurturing in a believable way. I enjoyed seeing Savalas with some hair, and I also thought Karl Malden was good as the warden in this one. The film is weakened by Thelma Ritter's annoying performance as Stroud's mother. I also liked a lot of the shots of Lancaster's life in prison. The black and white photography's crisp, and at times I wished it was a little grittier. The birds, specifically the training involved in getting them to do what they do, really steal the show. All the scenes with the birds are wonderful, from the simple moment when Lancaster gets his bird friend to fly to his finger for the first time to the more complicated multi-fowl shots later on. An extended scene showing the birth of a bird (or maybe some sort of alien being) is also cool. This is hampered a bit with far too much narration (part of what makes it too movie-ish), but my favorite scene might be when the narrator briefly shifts to second person to describe life in solitary confinement.

Le Trou

1960 prison break movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Four middle class inmates share a French jail cell. They face long sentences and have decided that their only hope is to escape. They've got a wonderfully subtle plan that involves hammering through the floor. Unfortunately, a new guy arrives and they don't know if they can trust him. They do, and together, the men make le trou.

Ahh, I love the prison escape movies. Great Escape, Alcatraz, A Man Escaped, Shawshank, Stalag, Grand Illusion, Papillon, the television show Prison Break. Without question, this one needs to go near the top of the list. Psychologically tense, Le Trou toys with ideas about how movies are supposed to go. Unlike Alcatraz, this seems a little more realistic to me because there's not a recognizable face. That could be because this is French, but I believe Becker used non-actors here. I really did enjoy the audacity and brute force the men use to bust through the floor of their cell, but I also like the tiny details of their plan that are revealed. The pacing allows for you to both appreciate those finer details and feel like you're in there with the hopeful prisoners. I also really liked the character development at the beginning of this. I thought I was going to have trouble keeping the characters apart, but they're developed into separate entities very naturally early on. Le Trou is a prison escape movie that not only thrilled me but one that really hit me in the gut. I felt these characters. And I'm so happy I got to see most of them in their underpants.

This was a winter rates recommendation.

Escape from Alcatraz

1979 prison escape movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Only three people escaped from the notorious Alcatraz prison. It was all at the same time, and apparently one of them was Clint Eastwood. This is their story.

Good flick. Clint is Clint, with that familiar mysterious aura and squinting. His presence is almost distracting in this movie, and as much as I like Clint Eastwood, this could have possibly been a better movie with an unknown. I did think the casting of Patrick McGoohan (ironically, the Prisoner) was perfect. There are few moments in this that are cliches or that will become cliches during the next decade (as well as some Shawshankian touches), but there are more moments that are off and keep things irregular and interesting. The first scene in the cafeteria could almost be classified as Lynchian. Noodle-slurping thugs, match stunts, a guy called Litmus because his face turns red/blue when he's hot/cold, a dude talking to his pet mouse. It manages to remain thickly suspenseful even though you know from the beginning whether or not they make it. And it's also just slow enough to appeal to the thinking man, those who want the escape plot to unfold gradually and not miss a single meticulous detail. Good music, too. As always, more shower scenes would have been great. I'm not sure I saw enough ass.

Anybody know any good female prison escape movies?

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2000 Homer adaptation

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: It's a faithful adaptation of The Odyssey of Homer. In the middle of 1930s middle America, three escaped convicts (logorrheic Everett and his dopey companions Delmar and Pete) try to find their way to a treasure before the valley's flooded and said treasure is submerged at the bottom of a lake. And, of course, before the law catches up to them. Along the way, they bump into blind prophets, sirens, Babyface Nelson, prospective governors, and a cyclops.

I love everything about this movie. I love the comedy which perfectly combines brilliant performances with brilliant writing. I love the music, the timeless folk music that manages to both capture the Great Depression era and seem otherworldly. I love the Homer allusions and the nods to Hollywood screwball comedies. Most of all, I love the cinematography where the settings add so much color and become just as important as the characters. This film's got such a texture, an impossible-to-duplicate texture, that makes this a one-of-a-kind piece of filmmaking that I imagine will keep it around forever. It's got to be close to impossible to watch this movie without smiling often. It's definitely one of those movies I can watch again and again without ever getting tired of even though people watching it with me might get tired of me laughing in anticipation of certain upcoming gags. Both literary and dumb, there's enough here to appeal to nearly everybody, and it'll even teach you a few new vocabulary words. It's hard to believe that this is only the third best Coen comedy. It might have the single best Coen Brother scene, however, with that can't-believe-I'm-seeing-this KKK rally that even has a Wizard of Oz reference. Any discussion of "best movie musical ever" must include O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Watchmen

2009 movie

Rating: 15/20 (RD: 15/20)

Plot: The times they have a-changed, and in an alternate universe 1980's New York City (in which Richard Nixon is inexplicably still president and American won in Vietnam), superheroes have been outlawed and crime is everywhere. People live in fear of a seemingly inevitable nuclear holocaust. Following the murder of aging costumed hero The Comedian, another costumed superhero called Rorshach runs around in a fedora to warn his former cohorts about a potential threat against all superheroes and try to figure out who's behind it. Comic books explode as invitations to the apocalypse are mailed out.

I was unclear about my own anticipations going in, and coming out, I was more unclear about whether what I watched was brilliant or crappy than I have been following a movie in a long time. I'll borrow from RD, my friend who recommended and loaned me the graphic novels a few years ago (I should add, by the way, that without that reading, I might have been completely lost during this nearly three-hour movie): it was almost as if this movie had two directors, one who wanted to make a silly blockbuster that would make fanboys drool and pee their pants in delight and another who understands subtlety and grace and wanted to focus more on the depth of the graphic novel--the philosophy, the satire, and the dark dark humor.

The brilliance. An absolutely stunning opening scene followed by a gorgeous opening credits with bizarrely artistic visuals that simultaneously shocked, amused, and enlightened while "The Times They Are A-Changin'" blared. The rest of the visuals--seamless CGI, breathtaking imagery, fight scenes straddling the line between over-the-top and over-the-over-the-top. The story itself which retains the difficulty of the graphic novel's narrative structure, unfolding gracefully with flashbacks and (maybe?) flashbacks within flashbacks. There's so much to see; this is an absolutely jam-packed nearly three hours. And this is the exact kind of movie that excites me, the kind you just want to discuss endlessly and the kind which I believe people will be discussing for years and years. Nuances, depth, power, ambiguity. So much of this is so great, transcending comic book movies and blockbusters, baffling and tickling the audience, and holding that mirror up to our world in a way that reflects now, twenty-five years ago, sixty-seven years ago, and two hundred years ago. But. . .

There was so much wackiness, so many times when the movie loses focus, and so many unfortunately embarrassing moments in this. There was a necessary but troublingly campy sex scene, a few too many of those moments where this slipped into goofy action mode (self-parody?), and lots of stuff that should have easily ended up on the cutting room floor. There was some genuinely awful acting. There were some truly odd soundtrack choices ("99 Luft Balloons"? Was that incidental or was that supposed to be on a jukebox since the setting was the 80's?) and some scenes that might have been unnecessarily super-ultra-violent. I also hated this animated creature that was in the movie for no apparently reason. It looked really stupid.

I'll add four more things. 1) I really look forward to seeing this again. It's a feast. 2) I don't see movies often at all in movie theaters. I almost forgot that I had to buy tickets and am lucky RD was with me or I would have probably been beaten and arrested. But I wonder how much seeing movies in theaters makes those movies seem more impressive than they would be on my television screen. 3) I believe this is better than any Batman movie ever made. Add any Incredible Hulk movie to that. 4) My favorite audience member comment: "Doesn't anybody in this movie wear clothes?" I doubt I see more big ol' blue CGI penis this year.

The Shawshank Redemption

1994 movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Fancy pants banker Andy Dufresne is sentenced to two life terms in prison for killing his wife and her lover. It's a crime he claims he did not commit. "And how am I going to serve two life terms anyway?" he says, tears rolling down his babyish cheeks. "I've only got one." He attempts to adjust to prison and the frequent invasion of his anus and befriends another lifer, a black Irishman called Red. Red, serving a life sentence for sexually abusing penguins, learns from his new buddy all about how hope can set one free.

"What is your malfunction, you fat barrel of monkey spunk?" Captain Hadley had all the best lines. Actually, the writing is part of what I love about this movie, and I'm not just talking about lines involving monkey spunk. This is, after all, the movie that introduced "pinch a loaf" to my vocabulary. Some of the dialogue taken on its own might seem hokey, but with quality acting, it manages to sound smooth and natural. Morgan Freeman seemed born to play Red, and Tim Robbins is, as usual, very good although he probably has the largest and most distracting forehead in Hollywood. There's nothing all that spectacular about this story, but it's one that's told very very well. The film looks beautifully gritty and is stuffed with some truly great moments--the Mozart, the birdman, the warden's conversation with Robbins' character during inspection, others. Jen thinks this movie is predictable. I'm amazed that a movie can have so many Hollywood moments, things that really should make me sick to my stomach, but that it all still manages to work extremely well.

Note: Now that I think about it, Tom Hanks' forehead is by far more distracting. I can't even attempt to explain what's going on with that thing.

El Mariachi

1992 action movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: All he wants to do is be a mariachi. He's mistaken for another guy, a guy who carries around a guitar case filled with weapons after his escape from jail, and finds himself smack in the middle of a low-budget adventure with condoms filled with fake blood and romance.

I couldn't get the director commentary off because, apparently, I'm a cretin. Rodriguez did manage to convince me that this is probably the greatest 7,000 dollar film ever made. There was so much made for so little. While the story is actually pretty pedestrian, the action scenes are good and the characters are interesting enough. The little happy accidents (like the turtle featured on the movie poster) give this movie a texture, and I had to give the movie a bonus point for the scene with the musician showing off his keyboard skills after the protagonist applies for a job at the place he plays. It might not always look great, but it's an entertaining debut.

The Desperate Hours

1955 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Three cons--a smart mean one, a a thuggish stupid one, and a nice quiet one--escape from prison in none-other than Terre Haute, Indiana. I was born there, but not in the prison. They make their way to Indianapolis/Broad Ripple (I live near there!) and visit the home of the Cleavers soon after Wally's sex-change operation. They weren't invited, but luckily, there's enough chicken in the fridge for everybody. While waiting for a shipment of money from his woman in Pittsburgh (I've never been there!), Griffin and his two cohorts say mean and threatening things and quickly wear out their welcome. Waving guns around will do that. It looks bad for the Cleavers as they struggle with whether action or inaction is the best move. There seems to be no way out. Oh, snap!

Good flick with terrific mounting tension (so many loose ends add to it--the boyfriend, the cops, the girlfriend's traffic violations, the dumb little kid, the conflicts between the criminals, the trash man's arrival) and great acting. Really, even the brat isn't all that bad even though I couldn't get past my initial "Hey! That's Beaver Cleaver!" thoughts. Like a lot of 40's/50's thrillers, you know pretty much what's going to happen, but it's the stuff that goes out of the range of that pretty much that moves this from the pedestrian to the pretty great. Also impressive is the very realistic range of human emotions on display here. There might be moments where the characters are acting like movie heroes, but it's always due to their vulnerability and faults rather than the whims of a Hollywood screenwriter. I like Bogart here, and he gets some good lines. He does hold a gun like an old man though.

This was a Cory recommendation.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

2004 comedy

Rating: 4/20 (Jen: 1/20)

Plot: See title.

I always feel like there's a gap in my movie education whenever people I know talk about movies like this. "What? You haven't seen Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle?! It's effin' high-larious!" Well, it's not. Neil Patrick Harris is nearly funny, and I accidentally laughed once or twice (I liked when Kumar was urinating on a bush and another guy walks up and starts peeing on the same bush), but there's no way I would call this effin' high-larious. And I suspect that Dude, Where's My Car and the Harold and Kumar sequel aren't funny either. I think canned laughter would have helped me out a little bit. I did love those special effects with the cheetah though! This reminded me of all those comedies from the 80's that I didn't like--Police Academy, Weekend at Bernies, E.T. No, maybe it's actually those 90's comedies that are all the same that this reminds me of. Would this have been funny if I had any experience at all with pot? What about if I'd had recent experience with whatever White Castle serves as meat?

I could use an effin' milkshake.