The Frighteners

1996 horror-comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Frank Bannister uses his ability to communicate with ghosts to con people. One cloaked ghost is flying around making numbers on people's heads and killing them, however, and Frank has to find a way to stop him before he's put away for the crimes.

I was trying to describe this movie to somebody I work with. I couldn't really articulate what was good about it, and I couldn't really articulate what was bad about it. It's enormously entertaining though. It's that manic sort of entertainment, the kind that can only be created by a charged and creative and loopily unpredictable mind like Peter Jackson's. The Peter Jackson who directed this--as opposed to the one who created the boring King Kong remake or all those really long movies about little people walking around New Zealand--is the same Peter Jackson who directed Dead Alive, Bad Taste, and Meet the Feebles. Here, he gets a little star power in Michael J. Fox who is every bit as likable as he is in every single other thing he's done, even when he's not surfing on top of a van. It's a little hard to buy Fox as any kind of a bad guy. He's sort of an anti-hero here, a guy who is playfully conning but nevertheless conning a community out of money by taking advantage of a gift he received in an accident that took his wife's life. Right off the bat, Jackson's asking you to root for a rather unscrupulous guy. But that guy gets to run around on those little feet of his and make big eyes and say, "Whoa!" a lot, so you end up rooting for him. That, by the way, is what Michael J. Fox does best. He'll be remembered as the guy who could run around and say, "Whoa!" I wonder if Jackson would have made Fox a hobbit? I guess we'll never know. Also really fun to watch is an unhinged performance by Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame. The character doesn't make a lick of sense, but he's hilariously portrayed and as eccentric as any character you're likely to see. I was really impressed with the special effects team behind this. The ghosts were cartoonishly goofy, almost like something you'd see sitting next to you at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World, but it was fun watching them splash through walls, manipulate the settings, and suffer disfigurements. The Reaper-esque bad ghoul is effectively sinister and visually cool whether he's rubberizing the carpet or wallpaper (not sure how he makes the setting elastic like that) or floating around as a Cape Monster. There are a lot of fun periphery characters including John Astin's ghostly The Judge and a character played by the son of last year's Torgo Award winner, Jake Busey, a guy who almost won his own Torgo in 2011. A lot of the movie really shouldn't work. Or maybe I should say that a lot more of it shouldn't work because there is quite a bit that seems a little too messy. Peter Jackson spills his soup quite a bit with this thing. Still, it entertains from beginning to end with a strange energy and creative story and was really hard not to like.

Barry recommended this just about two years ago.

The Monolith Monsters

1957 killer rock movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Rocks invade earth.

Of course, they're not just rocks. They're aliens. And they're not even aliens. They're black people, and when black people start popping up or moving into a predominantly white neighborhood, white people need to do something. Of course, all it takes to get rid of black people [SPOILER ALERT!] is some salt water. Everybody knows that black people can't swim!

You just have to love a movie where the threat--the titular monsters--is giant rocks that grow, topple, and freeze anybody who touches them. It's the least amount of personality that I've ever seen in a movie monster, but it's such a unique premise that it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong. I liked the rocks. The growing effects were kind of cool, and I really liked how the rocks stand out with the black and white photography. Other great special effects involve people standing completely skill or showing a room or area, showing other things, and then showing the place again after somebody's thrown black rocks all over it. This is a really wordy science fiction movie. It's really closer to a science fiction/mystery hybrid than a science fiction/thriller or science fiction/horror movie like you might expect after looking at the poster there. Of course, there's this constant music that tries its best to make you think that the whole thing is thrilling. At times, the tense dramatic music is inappropriate, like when it picks up during a scene where a guy drinks some water or again when a little girl picks up one of the rocks while on a field trip to the desert where the children are instructed not to touch anything they don't recognize. Oh, speaking of her, she's Linda Scheley in her only film role, and although I probably shouldn't criticize six-year-old actresses in old movies like this, she's really awful. Luckily, her character goes into shock pretty early in the movie. Shrinking Man Grant Williams stars and has slightly more charisma than the rocks. This movie will be enjoyable to people who like to watch smart people try to figure out something that seems impossible even if the ultimate answer is a little disappointing.

This fun little 50's entry in the "big things threatening humanity" sci-fi sub-genre was recommended by Barry. He wrote about the thing on imdb.com back in 2000. Some cat named Oscar beat him to the punch.

Barry and I would both like to apologize to any black people who read this. And there probably isn't a racist subtext in The Monolith Monsters.

Beauty Is Embarrassing

2012 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The life and work of a unique artist, Wayne White, a guy who writes dirty words on landscape paintings and made puppets with Pee Wee Herman.

Add this to the pile of documentaries about weird artists or otherwise-abnormal individuals that I like. White's an interesting guy because of his background in the hills of West Virginia or someplace like the hills of West Virginia and his emergence as this creative force in what I'd imagine is an area not known for treatin' people who make art kindly. I like art that seems to have been made by an artist who only wants to please himself. I also like my art with a dose of irreverence; the less serious the art, the more likely that I'll appreciate it, and White's funny word paintings don't really say much of anything but made the teenager inside me (poor choice of words?) giggle (that makes it worse, right?). That's the part of me that appreciates art, by the way--the immature side of me. It's the same reason I'd still watch Pee Wee's Playhouse, and White was a puppet-creating machine and puppeteer on that show. Seeing a bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff with that show was really great for this fan, of course. I also liked watching him make and then wear a giant LBJ head, and a gigantic and gigantically goofy museum piece was about the most whimsical piece of art that I've ever seen. This is a funny and inspiring documentary that almost approaches touching at one point, and I really enjoyed it. I just love creative people, and the world would be better off--at least way more interesting--if it was inhabited by more Wayne Whites.

My favorite part: White says, "You're only going to be on this earth for 80 years, so you better get on it. Time's running out." And then the next shot is him dancing in a giant LBJ mask. Beautiful editing there. 

My brother recommended this to me because he had noticed that I hadn't used the word "whimsical" on the blog for a while.

Here's a word painting that I stole from somebody on the Internet:

Goon

2011 hockey comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A dumb guy in a family of smart people amazes a hockey coach with his fighting prowess and is signed to the team despite his inability to skate or play hockey. He's the titular goon, a guy put on the ice not to score goals or even do much at all related to hockey but instead fight opposing players and protect his team's talent.

Doug Glatt. Hasn't that name been used in another movie comedy? I know I could Google this and get an answer, but I'd rather somebody else do the work for me. This is one of those dumb comedies that seem to attract Eugene Levy, so it's no surprise that Eugene Levy is in this. And Eugene Levy's eyebrows. Seann William Scott is our protagonist, and I don't like him or any of the dumb movies that he's in, mostly stuff with Eugene Levy's eyebrows. As I wrote in my Dukes of Hazzard review, Scott has too many first names and too many n's in his first first name. That's reason enough to not like him, but he also plays simple-minded goofball too naturally. Having said that, he's a likable doofus here, and this movie, though not really very good, is frequently funny. Raunchiness abounds ("We have not pissed together since last time we double-teamed Belchior's mother.) as the characters all seem to have Tourette's Syndrome or something. The goalie gets the best lines, likely improvised although the announcer is pretty funny, too. There's never too much hockey. A love subplot, likely forced into the screenplay to get the ladies on board, succeeds in making the main character more likable but is other pointless. My favorite line: "It was Doug Glatt in the conservatory with his ass."

Doug Glatt. Seriously, where have I heard that name before?

Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence

2007 PBS documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Ferret owners talk about their pets as they prepare for the annual Buckeye Bash, a sort of perverse ferret beauty contest.

My brother recommended this. I might have the title all turned around. This appears to be a television program called The Pursuit of Excellence and this is an episode about ferrets. I just like how Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence sounds though, so I'm sticking with that. Mark compared it to the work of Christopher Guest which is pretty accurate. These ferret owners are almost too strange to be real, but I'm only a little bit ashamed to admit that I felt that I was laughing at them instead of with them the entire time. When they say things like "Ferrets are my reason for being," sing seemingly endless songs about the animals while wearing tie-dyed shirts, discuss "Rainbow Bridge" which is apparently some kind of ferret heaven, dress up their miserable-looking animals, and or make claims that ferrets are somehow special because "if they die, they accept it," it's kind of hard not to want to poke fun. Cuteness abounds, but this is definitely more about the owners of these pets than the pets themselves. If you're looking for a little "Which ferret is going to win" type suspense or a feel-good story about an underdog ferret winning at the Buckeye Bash, you'll be disappointed. You just won't care very much at all. And it's a little anticlimactic when there are 327 ferrets at the competition and 400 ribbons are given out. Still, this is an entertaining little documentary, one that probably would appeal to fans of Guest's mockumentaries.

The Gods of Times Square

1999 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A look at religious zealots and street preachers along the sleazy 42nd Street around the time a Disney Store is put in.

This documents a very specific time and place, and it really couldn't be more fascinating. I like documentaries where somebody's just letting a camera roll to capture whatever's captured, and this works best when it does that. A whole sanctuary full of general oddballery here. There's a preacher rapping about "roasting on your roaster while you're toasting on your toaster while you're coasting on your coaster" because "God's gonna treat you like a butterball turkey." Shots of street performers, a woman with two pairs of sunglasses, lots of Calvin Klein advertisements, and strip joint facades interrupt interview snippets with some positively creepy folk, most who seem anywhere between slightly and extraordinarily unhinged. Militant black guys call for a war with whites, and director Richard Sandler and his testicles argues with one of them. There's a guy who claims to be Jesus returned as a grunge musician who is going to first marry Madonna and later get into international affairs. There's a soulful guy who throws in the old "to the break of dawn" rap cliche. There's somebody calling for "faggots hung from lightposts throughout the city" after the faggot Olympics. Mickey Mouse as the Antichrist (I knew it!), Mom and Pop hot dog joint sadness, recurring folk filled with the Holy Spirit. This is a funky montage, filled with characters with eclectic spiritual beliefs. Some of these people even have conflicting religious beliefs within themselves, including the director who claims to be both Buddhist and Jewish at different points. Speaking of him--there are times when I'm bugged by his voice. When he speaks, things get a little frustrating and unfocused, and I thought there were a few times when he was condescending. One other thing that annoyed me was this belligerent fellow who later said he was a substitute teacher. He was so completely rude that I wondered if he was for real. No way a person's going to really act like that. Still, a fascinating document that will very likely make a believer out of you.

Recommended by Matt.

Henry Fool

1997 movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A garbageman named Simon meets the titular failed writer who helps his inner poet emerge.

This movie was so long, and although I really liked the performances of Thomas Jay Ryan as Henry, James Urbaniak as Simon, and Parker Posey as neither Henry or Simon, I didn't like their characters at all. There were some darkly comic moments in this, but like the Hal Hartley shorts I was tricked into watching, I found the whole thing agonizingly pretentious. And too long. I don't know exactly what it is, but I just have trouble trusting this movie, and its messages seemed muddled to me. It was like the Paul Ryan of movies. It should be noted that I watched this movie while extremely sleepy, however. It's probably the type of movie that I should give a second chance to, but it's just so freakin' long and I probably won't.

My brother recommended this one.

Pumpkin

2002 parody

Rating: 14/20

Rating: Sorority girl Carolyn is forced to train the titular special needs athlete for the upcoming Olympics. She annoys her sisters, her boyfriend, and her family by falling for him.

This was recommended by somebody based on my love for Harold and Maude, and it really does seem like my type of movie. It took me a while to figure out what this even was--the soap opera acting, the terrible music, dialogue that couldn't be this bad unless somebody worked hard to make it this bad.

Pumpkin: Carolyn, why does the moon change?
Carolyn: I really don't know, Pumpkin. I'll try to find out for you, OK?

But wait just a second! That's it! Somebody wrote this like an after-school special written by a team of mentally-challenged people intentionally, and once you
figure that out, the satire does deliver. And I did laugh a few times. A bite out of a McDonald's cheeseburger made me laugh because of how it ruined a tender moment so greasily, and I loved a discovery that some really cheesy music was non-incidental. I also enjoyed the "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" singalong, a reaction during a party crashing, a car crashing, the collapse of a poetry teacher, a Long Beach Tech meal, and an opening ceremony featuring sombreros and cowboy hats. Oh, and there's a Belle and Sebastian montage, something else that gives away that these people are in no way serious. Parts of this do seem to drag a little bit, and I imagine the film's style would be off-putting for most people. And it just doesn't feel completely complete, like something's missing. Or maybe it's that the movie goes too far without going far enough. I think you'd know what I mean here if you've seen this. Anyway, an interesting concluding bit of dialogue and final shot are good. This movie isn't nearly as good as Harold and Maude, but it's not going to be a complete waste of your time if you like that sort of movie.

Fat Girl

2001 movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: While on holiday (cause that's what they call it in Europe), a pair of sisters meet an older law student. He sneaks in to visit the older sister at night while the titular fat girl snoozes or pretends to snooze across the room. Then, a bunch of other things happen.

Matt recommended this one, and I don't know what to think about it. It wasn't something that I enjoyed, but I'm not sure it was made for anybody to enjoy. And it made me a little uncomfortable, but I suspect director Catherine Breillat was trying to make me uncomfortable. I have fuzzy ideas about what this is all about, but I really feel like I need somebody, probably a feminist, to help fill in some gaps for me. I wonder how I'd see this differently if I were a woman. To me, the whole thing seems like one long joke that was never intended to be funny, a joke with the most depressing punchline of all time. I did like the performances. Roxanne Mesquida plays the attractive older sibling. She's cute (and I can type that because she was of age when this was made) and plays this naive-but-doesn't-quite-know-it thing really well. The villain, Libero De Rienzo, was especially scary for me, a guy with three daughters. He's also cute, and I'm not sure whether or not I should be typing that or not. He's almost good enough to allow me to call this a monster movie. And then there's the titular fat girl played by Anais Reboux, a non-professional actress although she did appear in a T.V. movie around the same time as this. Most of this movie is her doing what she's doing on the poster up there, halfway covering her face while her sister is seduced by an older guy on the other side of the bedroom. But her performance is fantastic here, and I'm not just talking about when she's singing about crows eating her worthless lump of raw meat body. There's nothing all that flamboyant in what she does, but there's this depth, this understanding, that makes it a pretty special performance. The tone of the bulk of this is ominous, like the quiet before the storm, and during that storm, Breillat gets a little tricky. She throws an idea at you, makes it stick (for me at least), and then hits you with something shocking and frightening following by something just as shocking and frightening and a little snippet of dialogue that manages to be even more shocking and more frightening than all the other shocking and frightening stuff. This is not a happy movie.

Hands on a Hard Body: The Documentary

1997 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Twenty-four contestants participate in an endurance competition to win a brand new truck.

What I liked about this one is that a marketing gimmick turned reality television episode managed to transform into something a little more profound. The motivations of these various characters was fascinating, and psychologically, it was just interesting to follow the different states of mind of these contestants. There was a giggling fanatic who kept having these mini laughing religious experiences, a woman with no teeth supported by her husband with no teeth who claimed he could stay up without sleep for 101 straight hours and had a 20-ton air conditioning unit that could bring the temperature of his home to 12 below zero, a young woman who just wants to use the victory as a ticket out of town, and a former winner of the competition who had an almost zen-like approach. His description of this as a competition to see "who can maintain their sanity the longest" is accurate and makes for a fascinating contest, and there were some moments of real tension and suspense as the contestants started dropping. It's also one of those glimpses of something that could only happen in small-town America.

A couple bits of trivia from imdb.com: 1) Robert Altman planned to make a film based on this contest. That could have been terrific. 2) During the 2005 contest, one of the contestants stole a shotgun from a nearby K-Mart and killed himself during one of the breaks. Yikes. That person really stunk at the contest!

The Last Broadcast

1998 horror mockumentary

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A documentarian attempts to get to the bottom of the gruesome murders of some public access show hosts looking for the Jersey Devil. It's horrifying!

I want to get settled right off the bat--the only thing that this movie has in common with the far superior Blair Witch Project is that they both have a lot of trees in them. Only a small portion of this is found footage stuff. The rest is complex and gimmicky with all kinds of television trickery and those big sound effects you hear when you're watching those television expose things. The guy making the documentary got on my nerves and misused the word "ironic," and the acting from the rest of the cast was just not good enough to carry this thing. Things get repetitious and tiresome, and there's not a single moment of this where there's any real tension or scares. By the time we get to the big twist at the end, things stop making sense almost entirely. Not only that, it confuses matters by breaking its own pseudo-documentary rules. If anything, this made me appreciate the brilliance of Blair Witch even more. The simplicity of that one, and Paranormal Activity as well, is what makes that one successful. The makers of this one bite off way more than they can chew, and they end up with a big mess.

Blood Tea and Red String

2006 stop-motion fairy tale

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Some bird-headed bipods and some upright white mice battle over the fluffy heart of a crudely-made doll. I can see why they're fighting though. That is one hot doll!

Matt knows how much I dig grotesque puppetry and recommended this one to me. It's not very long, and not-very-long is just about the right length since this one wore on me a little bit. I liked the characters and the entirely voiceless storytelling approach, and like most stop-motion geniuses, Christiane Cegavske's got a clever way about her, creatively but in an almost old-school way showing the movement of water or other non-character movement. This really does look like an old-school puppet production for children, only it's a bit too surreal and bloody and just plain weird. They do have the feel of those more kid-friendly Jiri Trnka films though with a fairy tale ambiance. And not unlike a Svankmajer movie, this utilizes sound effects really well. Cegavske does a terrific job creating this imaginative little world of hers, and she makes technical brilliance look so easy. I'd love to see more, but it seems that she's not in a situation where she's going to be prolific.

The Human Centipede: First Sequence

2009 entomologists delight

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Two women get lost in the woods after their rental car breaks down, and they wind up drugged by a sadistic doctor who, along with another poor guy, wants to use them to make the titular pet monster. None of the three are too happy about it.

I watched this because it was highly recommended by my brother who claims that it's the third best horror movie of all time. I'm honestly not sure it's a horror movie and laughed (inwardly, because they'll commit you if you laugh out loud at this sort of thing) more than I was scared, sort-of enjoying it almost as a black-psychocomedy. Most of the fun comes from the brilliantly comic performance of German Dieter Laser as Dr. Mengele or whatever his name is. Like a German Christopher Walken, he's got this face that would make most people think, "I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't drink water that this guy offers me." When he's working to cover his tracks, shooting somebody while the victim is pooping, opening a door, lethally injecting somebody with an evil stare that seems like that might be the actual cause of death instead of the injection itself, saying "Bite my boot!", or doing a chicken impression, Laser never fully convinces as creepy exactly but is 100% entertaining. My favorite scene is when he's explaining the impending surgery to the three future sections of his centipede and uses these rudimentary drawings. I also liked that the cinematographer's name was Goof de Kooning. I wish the other actors in this were a little better. They played things straight, screaming and ruining their mascara with copious tears, and although I can't imagine this being any good if they had played it any other way, the performances clashed with the comic tones. This movie wasn't nearly the gross-out fest I feared. It's actually about as tame as a movie with people's mouths being surgically attached to people's anuses can be, I think. I wouldn't call this the third best horror movie ever and I'm not going to rush out and see what will inevitably turn out to be eight or nine sequels, but I'm not totally disappointed that I watched this.

Seriously. Goof de Kooning.

Anybody want to go trick or treating with me dressed as the Human Centipede?

Bronson

2008 Clockwork Orange for the 21st Century

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

Plot: Based on the story of Michael Peterson, England's most notorious and violent prisoner. At nineteen, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for armed robbery, and because of violent behavior in prison, his way of "making a name for himself," he's spent more than thirty years in prisons and asylums, most of them in solitary confinement. He is not a good role model.

Watched this with good buddy and blog reader Kent about a month ago. I had to do a search for the cliche "tour de force" on my own blog to make sure I haven't overused that phrase. Using cliches is bad enough, but when you overuse them? Well, make no bones about it, I know there's more than one way to skin a cat (proverbially) and that it's a good rule of thumb not to use cliches as a writer, and I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but the day I start using cliches is the day pigs fly. I've used the words "tour de force" twice in the previous three-and-a-half years I've done this blog--once for Vincent Price in Theater of Blood and once to describe the performance of a camel. So although I don't really want to use the words again, I can't think of a performance where it's more appropriate than with Tom Hardy's here. Kent tells me that Hardy, for all you Nolan Batman movie fans, is going to be a Mexican wrestler in the next movie. I also noticed that he's going to be the titular character in a Mad Max movie that supposed to come out in 2012. I guess Mel Gibson is either too old, too crazy, too busy talking to a beaver puppet, or a combination of those. This Bronson performance is powerful stuff. He's witty, frightening, hilarious, completely unhinged, tragic, overly-theatrical, deeply human. For the most part, the script calls for a playfulness with this really violent persona, and Hardy plays him with just the right amount of bravado. It's that type of performance where you worry about the actor a little bit, wondering if he's every going to be able to come back down and be normal again. He's in (perhaps literally) every single second of this movie, and he hoists the production on his back and carries it like a fiend. Terrific stuff. The movie itself is flashy and gritty, and it really does remind me of A Clockwork Orange just like the quote on the poster says. You've got theatrics, classical music, ultra-violence, very dark comedy. And that aforementioned playfulness. This movie never takes the tragic tale of Peterson seriously while managing at the same time to say a little something serious about society and what we expect from our celebrities. There's even some animation thrown in. Bronson's also endlessly entertaining, one of those movies I felt like I could have immediately watched again. Probably not Kent though. He actually fell asleep. It was his third or fourth viewing of this monster though.

Shane-movies trivia: I think this movie might be responsible for a sebaceous cyst on my back exploding and leaking a smelly yellow pus all over the place. I can't prove it, but that is the type of movie this is.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

2008 heavy metal documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Lips and Robb Reiner (note the extra "b") have rocked as the founding members of heavy metal almost-wases Anvil since they met at fourteen. Now well into their fifties, they haven't given up the dream of becoming
rock 'n' roll gods. This documentary follows them on a disastrous European tour and the recording of their thirteenth album as they try to fulfill their dreams.

"Out in the schoolyard--
Little peaches play,
Rubbin' their beaves,
Got a lot to say."

At first, you just think you're watching some This Is Spinal Tap knock-off. Then, you realize it's not a mockumentary at all, that Anvil are real hosers who have been reaching for rock 'n' roll stars for about forty years. There are comic moments, including more than a few that recall Spinal Tap, but it's the very human moments that makes this one so special. You really grow to like Lips and Reiner, connect with their struggles, and root for them to taste at least a little bit of success. And I'll tell you without any shame, that I teared up quite a bit during one scene. It's likely going to be my favorite movie moment of the year, in fact. Sonically, Anvil's music isn't really my bag, but I was really impressed with Robb's drumming abilities. His stick work made it impossible for me not to hold up the devil horns. And I'll tell you what--I'd consider myself an artistic success if I had fans like Mad Dog and the guy who drank beer through his nose. A roller coaster of a documentary that juggles humorous moments, really sad scenes, and ultimately touching and beautiful footage this well should be seen by anybody regardless of how much they like bands that play their Flying-V's with a dildo.

Sir Kent recommended this little gem to me.

Waste Land

2010 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Popular Brazilian artist Vik Muniz befriends catadores who rummage through Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill and collaborates with them to use some of the recycled materials they save to make works of art.

The emotional impact of this caught me off guard, probably because I wasn't initially sure that I liked Vik Muniz's art or understood his motivations. The shots of the landfill and the catadores doing their jobs are pretty bleak, but you soon realize that this isn't about the location or a job that could easily be featured on one of those "Most Terrible Jobs Ever" television programs. At least it's not entirely about that. No, this is more about the individuals who work there, and the way this documentary (and Muniz) treats them as individuals is what makes this special. I enjoyed meeting these people, hearing about their pasts and problems and hopes and dreams, and most importantly, seeing the expressions on their faces that showed how much Muniz's work meant to them. More than any other documentary about art, you get to appreciate the impact that artwork can have on people, and that's a truly beautiful thing. This is a documentary that made me feel good.

My brother recommended this one.

Oprah Movie Club Selection for May: House (Hausu)

1977 Japanese coming-of-age story

Rating: 16/20 (Mark: 16/20)

Plot: Gorgeous isn't too happy about her father remarrying following the death of her mother. She writes a letter to her mom's sister and invites herself and some friends over to her house (the titular house) for the summer. On the way [Spoiler Alert!] they purchase a watermelon. Soon after their arrival, one of the girls disappears. More and more bizarre and possibly supernatural things start happening to the girls. A suspicious kitty lingers.

Some Hausu trivia: The Japanese studio Toho asked director Nobuhiko Obayashi to make a film like Jaws. As George W. Bush would say--"Mission accomplished!"

The second half of this film is likely exactly what Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel had in mind when they invented movies way back in 1929. It starts off like an after-school special though, albeit an artsy-fartsy after-school special directed by a guy who really wants to be an Artist with a capital A and isn't shy about using every stylistic trick in his bulging back of tricks. Before the manic free-for-all Evil Dead-like horror/comedy that everybody who watches this movie will remember (the part with homophagous pianos, demented kitties, killer chandeliers, disembodied heads, dancing skeletons, mouthy eye sockets, menstruation symbolism, inexplicable bananas, aunts retreating into refrigerators, etc.), you get a gaggingly-colored "dull" melodramatic coming-of-age story, but even with that, there's a sense of foreboding and enough wackiness that you know, even if you weren't warned beforehand, that somebody would be eaten by a piano later in the movie. The dvd special features told us that Obayashi started with commercials, and with Hausu, it seems like he wanted to regurgitate every single stylistic trick he'd learned, presumably because that's what American Steven Spielberg does. It reminds me of when I took Vernon to Palestine, Illinois, for their Labor Day weekend rodeo events and we decided to raid the cabinets and refrigerator and dump every ingredient we could find into a cup so that we could dare each other to drink it, probably because that's what we imagined our hero Steven Spielberg did during his spare time. We drank it, and it was disgusting. A majority of people partaking in Hausu might also think it's disgusting, mostly because the images, although the aforementioned tricks used to create those images are familiar, aren't anything the typical viewer is used to. This is weird even by Japanese standards, and you never have any idea what to expect next. I mean both of those as compliments, by the way.

I'm still wrapping my head around what it all means. You've got some pretty obvious symbolism throughout (ripe watermelons, blood, bananas [I guess?]), and the horror, even though it's too comically over-the-top to actually be horrifying, seems to represent the horrors in a young girl's life as she has to deal with changes. My theory: The girls (intellectual Prof, creative Melody, athletic Kung-Fu, hedonistic Mac, sweet Sweet, imaginative Fantasy, and pretty Gorgeous herself) are all chunks of the same young girl, a young girl who discards of various aspects of her personality as she blossoms into womanhood. So what do you think, Oprah Movie Clubbers?

My prediction, by the way: This will be a bit more devisive than Do the Right Thing.

The Saragossa Manuscript

1965 dream epic

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A collection of frames, stories within stories within stories that are within other stories. A soldier retreats into an abandoned house to keep from being blown to pieces. He finds a large book with some unusual pictures. An enemy soldier translates the book for him and discovers that it was written by his grandfather. The grandfather's story is all about him trying to discover the quickest route through the mountains to Madrid, a haunted voyage that involves sleeping with his own cousins, stalking crows, repetitious gallows, demon-possessed men, erect gypsies, and the Spanish Inquisition.

A free-floating dream of demons, hanged men, kissing cousins, and skull chalices, The Saragossa Manuscript is a too-long masterpiece of visual brilliance, surreal mystery, and weaving narratives. It's so beautifully photographed in black 'n' white with terrific imagery, landscapes littered with bones, gnarled trees, ornate palaces, war-stricken towns with dilapidated buildings. This is the sort of movie that you can love to watch for its three hour length. Not necessarily completely understand, mind you, but feel with your eye buds and absorb. It's really got a similar, very organically weird, feel that those Parajenov movies I love have, movies that float. I also loved the musique concrete soundtrack that complimented the imagery. Those weaving narratives? It's too much to swallow in a single viewing as the viewer is forced to follow a story told by somebody telling a story within somebody else's story that is already a part of the original story, almost Inception-esquely. But they interconnect in pretty brilliant ways, constantly surprising while bewildering. The results are mysterious, romantic, and at times very very funny, my favorite bit of humor being the grunting of a possessed man. Possession slapstick! It's all an enormously entertaining and completely unique experience.

Apparently, this was the favorite film of Jerry Garcia, a maker of ties. Luis Bunuel, the "Spanish Allen Funt," also dug it.

The King's Speech

2010 best picture

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

Plot: In this hilarious remake of Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy, Harold is a future king of England who conquers his fear of public speaking (glossophobia, if you care) after driving a trolley ridiculously fast through New York City's busy streets and climbing a 12-story building. Thankfully, he lives to tell about both so that The Queen with Helen Mirren can happen sixty years later. I just don't know what I'd do if The Queen with Helen Mirren didn't exist. This also, I believe, rips off The Karate Kid. Not the original. No, the remake with Jackie Chan. I'm not sure how the Oscar people didn't catch that.

The only gripe I have here is the same gripe I have for any movie featuring a character who stutters: Mel Tillis of Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II fame didn't get his chance to shine in a serious role. The King's Speech is that sophisticated sort of movie made so that people can throw awards at it. Not that they aren't deserved. Colin Firth's excellent as George VI. Realistic stuttering, I imagine, is difficult to pull off. I'm not a professional actor or anything although I do frequently act out scenes from my own screenplays while standing in front of a full-length mirror. And I've tried to pull off realistic stuttering, admittedly to practice in case I'm ever in a situation where I can make fun of people who stutter. Can't do it. So Colin Firth's ability to not only pull off a realistic stutter while simultaneously showing off the range of emotions that he does (quietly showing them off, I should note) is impressive. His isn't the only impressive performance--Geoffrey Rush matches Firth classy word for classy word while Helena Bonham Carter's really good as the queen. I like the way the movie is shot, too. Backgrounds are used to accentuate the characters' emotions, and there's a crispness to the picture that I really like. The movie's also not all stuttering all the time either. The natural development of the friendship between George and Lionel is just right, and there are some humorous moments in the dialogue, my favorite being during a dinner scene when somebody farts and both men point at each other before Guy Pearce's character pokes his head through a hole in the ceiling and reminds everybody that "the smeller's the feller" before blowing a raspberry, winking awkwardly, and disappearing to bugger a tart or something.

I'm starting a petition to get Colin Firth in either Cannonball Run III or a television remake of the 1970's sitcom Alice, by the way. Let me know if you're interested in signing it by leaving a comment below.

Edit: I had spelled Colin Firth's name incorrectly four times. Luckily, I fixed it before he saw it because that's the sort of thing that could ruin his year.

Ip Man

2008 Hong Kong Phooey

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The tale of Yip Man and why he lost his Y. Loosely (I imagine very loosely) based on a real-life tough guy in Foshan, a town packed with martial arts schools, who single-handedly-and-footedly beats up every single Japanese person and teaches China the art of Wing Chun. Bruce Lee, according to the poster, learned from him.

Not only is this an action-packed kung-fu film stuffed with lots and lots of images of guys getting kicked in the side of the face in slow motion (a modern kung-fu movie idea that will likely be beaten into the ground), it's a great movie. The cinematography is impressive, and the 1930s Foshan they've created is very realistic. The acting's good, especially the stoic Donnie Yen as the titular Yip, a guy whose got that gift of having such a presence even if he's not doing anything, reminiscent, I think, of the commanding screen presence that Bruce Lee had. And the scenes when he actually does do things on screen? Electric. The fight scenes are terrific--intensely exciting and often even emotional. There's a scene near the middle of the film where Yen fights Japanese soldiers for the first time, and from the moment he says, "I'm going to fight ten of you mo-fos" (that's my paraphrase) to the last strike, I was all goose-pimply. It's one of those fight scenes that, if you enjoy martial arts movies, you just have to rewind and watch again. You never really get the sense that Yen's character is in any danger at all though; in fact, I wondered if it was in his contract that he was not to be struck on screen or something. Still, regardless of whether or not there's any suspense about who is going to win any of the fight scenes, it's great fun watching Yen's quickness and fluid movement and there's nothing going on that makes it unrealistic or fantastical like some other modern kung-fu classics. With flying fists, swinging axes, dancing long poles, and busting bones, this has enough to please both old school kung-fu aficionados and fans of all those beautifully photographed, more mature martial arts dramas that have been made this century. I'm not sure about the historical accuracy. I'm also pretty sure that Ip Man is really a glossy action-oriented propaganda film. But who cares?

A confession: I may have watched this only to prevent it from being Kairow's movie-of-the-month selection for March because it would mess up the movie I want to pick in a few months. He can have credit for the recommendation though.