The Gore Gore Girls

1972 trashy murder mystery

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Somebody's mutilating strippers, and a suave private dick and a sexy newspaper reporter team up to try and crack the case.

Some Herschell Gordon Lewis gory funk, something I think I might have watched instead of going to church. First off, what a cool detective. He's got a cane and makes all kinds of inappropriate and cold puns about the murder victims. What's not to love about this hero? Well, except the acting of Frank Kress. I checked his filmography, and it's another example of a one-and-done, a performance that the guy knew he'd never topped so he never even bothered. The sickest thing about these proceedings is the comedic flavor which instead of giving this a healthy injection of very dark comedy only manage to make this seem like it's made by somebody who's slightly sick in the noggin. Look no further than the scene in which a throat-slitting isn't fatal but apparently a vicious spanking with a meat tenderizer is. Afterwards, the killer adds spices which in the hands of somebody a little more capable than Lewis's could possibly be funny. Here, after the extended shots of the bloody rump after other extended shots of mutilated thises and thats, it just seems sick, the wrong kind of twisted. Add relentless go-go music and prolonged scenes of nearly-attractive dancers disrobing rhythmically, and the experience of watching the movie just makes you want to take a long shower afterward. You know what you're getting into when popping in a Herschell Gordon Lewis flick though.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Psycho

1998 remake

Rating: 4/20 (Sam: 10/20)

Plot: Same as the first Psycho. But you should actually just do yourself a favor, Anne Heche, and see the original Psycho instead.

First off, I need somebody to explain to me why this exists. A shot-for-shot color (TV movie color) remake of a classic with an inferior cast? Who asked for this? Was it an experiment to see how you could put the same story and even identical imagery into the hands of a director who isn't nearly as good and end up with crap?

Had to watch it though, mostly because of the added fun of watching in there on the Urine Couch of the motel. Same reason I'd watch a Gus Van Sant remake of Vertigo if I had a job in a belfry, a Gus Van Sant remake of Lifeboat if I happened to be stranded on a raft with a Nazi, or a Gus Van Sant remake of Strangers on a Train if I operated a carousel at a cheap and filthy carnival. They're opportunities that you just can't pass up. Sam hung round for the duration, and Siskel got all pissy because he was in his seat.

The shot-for-shot remake idea is silly enough, but good ol' Gus didn't want to seem lazy and did add a few of his own personal touches, all extraneous and distracting. I did appreciate that the funky-looking falling-down-the-stairs-backwards scene was replicated with William H. Macy because that's just awesome Somebody should fall down the stairs like that in every movie. But the neon pink blood taking the place of Hitchcock's chocolate syrup? What's with that? The surreal random shots of naked people and sheep during Macy's death scene? Don't get me wrong--I can almost always be counted on the "pro" side when it comes to adding sheep to a movie, but I'm missing some symbolism or something here.

Here's some confusing trivia for you: Anne Heche, the Marion for this updated version, had never seen the original Psycho. OK, I can believe that. But the cinematographer, Christopher Doyle? I'm sorry, and maybe I'm being too hard on Mr. Doyle, but that just doesn't seem right. Think about it: a cinematographer who has never seen Hitchcock's Psycho? Isn't that something like being a roofer without ever having seen a roof or a baker without ever having tasted a cake? You don't have to answer that. It's a hypothetical question, and I'm right anyway.

Vince Vaughn? The only thing I can think of is that Vince Vaughn's uncle helped finance this movie.

You know what Gus Van Sant should do next? A shot-for-shot remake (in black and white) of The Cat in the Hat. Vince Vaughn can be in that. So can Anne Heche's nipples.

Seriously, didn't everybody involved in this have something better to do with his or her time? Gus could have made himself another gay movie. Anne Heche could have been doing some serious lesbianing. Vince Vaughn could have been training for a job as a roofer or a master baker. William H. Macy could have really been falling down a flight of stairs. Any project they decided to take on would have ended up being better than this--one of the most worthless motion pictures of all time.

Uncle Alfred does not approve one bit:

Psycho

1960 motel movie

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

Plot: The new highway's made the Bates Motel a little out-of-the-way, and Norman and his mother try to keep the business afloat. A gal who's just stolen a bunch of money finds her way to the little secluded motel, decides to take a quick shower, and ends up (spoiler alert!) losing all her chocolate syrup!

The IMDB trivia page for this one has a few fun nuggets. Randy ol' Alfred referred to Perkins as "Master Bates" throughout the production. And this is the first ever movie to show a flushing toilet. Oh, and Marion's white car (lots of black and white symbolism in this movie) is the Cleavers' car on Leave It to Beaver.

Well, Jennifer had not seen this movie. Not only that--she had no idea what happened in it. I was a little envious actually. I remember when my father showed me this when I was three. The iconic house, the quick edits during that so-complex shower scene, the shocking ending. I want to see all that for the first time, too! This rolls along like a B-movie directed by an auteur, and its brilliance is really in the chances that Uncle Alfred takes with the story and the breaking of movie conventions. Killing the lead actress off halfway through the movie? C'mon. You're just not supposed to do that. The psychotic mother/relationship that would make Oedipus cringe and Freud demand to be helped out of his underpants? No wonder Walt Disney refused to let Hitchcock film on Disney property because of this "disgusting movie"! Herrman's score is among the best, right up there with Jaws when you're talking about most recognizable and duplicated scores of all time. Unlike some of my favorite Hitchcock movies, this one doesn't get better each time you watch it. It's not without flaws, and without the surprises, it's just not as much fun. You unfortunately can't watch this for the first time more than once. But with its iconic imagery, that incredible score, one of the creepiest villains in movie history, almost overwhelming suspense, and a nipple that I might have only imagined, this is still something that you'll never forget.

Having said that, when I asked Jen for her rating, she at first said, "Psycho? I don't remember it."

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.

Urine Cough AM Movie Club: Psycho 3

1986 sequel

Rating: 5/20

Plot: It's more silliness at the Bates Motel, a motel only slightly less spooky than the one I work at. Norman's apparently still out and about, hitting on nuns and attracting drifters. A nosey newspaper reporter comes along to find a story. Stuffed birds watch it all with their dead eyes.

I had no plans to watch this movie, but I thought it was cool to watch a movie about a motel while working at a motel and couldn't pass up the opportunity. I've wondered why the motel I work at hasn't been closed down. Same question needs to be asked about the Bates Motel, right? I've not seen the second movie, but I just couldn't take my eyes off this thing after all the nun craziness at the beginning, the arm-sewing insanity, the taxidermy, and the dancing boy. You get the iconic setting imagery, a few creepy moments, and a soundtrack with all kinds of nifty electronic sounds. You also get a shower scene and an attempt to replicate one of the original's goofier scenes--the falling-down-the-stairs scene. Perkins is particularly wooden, probably because he had to perform double duty playing is iconic character and directing this nonsense. Not sure who wrote this but he apparently had trouble figuring out if he wanted a comedy or a horror flick. It's a little bit of both as a lot of the scenes are played for giggles while other scenes that aren't supposed to be funny at all end up funny anyway. And I believe the line "You can twirl my baton" is in the movie somewhere. That's the only "note" I took on this movie, but a precursory Google search makes me wonder if it was actually in the movie at all. Maybe I was dreaming or maybe one of my motel's guests said that to me at one point. Nevertheless, Hitchcock wouldn't have allowed that line to be in his movie or in the real life of somebody watching one of his movies. Oh, and Jeff Fahey's in this movie! The guy's ubiquitous! I just checked and he's got eleven movies coming out this year alone. Eleven! That's more than the amount of lesson plans I'll write this school year. One more thing: this helps seal a work-in-progress theory I have about the posteriors of nuns. I don't feel like getting into that now though.

The Lovely Bones

2009 garbage

Rating: 7/20

Plot: A little girl is lured into this bitchin' underground clubhouse by her creepy neighbor who plays with dolls. To use her words--it's neato. Unfortunately, her good time ends when she's murdered and stuffed into a safe. Stuck in CGI-purgatory, she wanders around watching her family and her murderer.

This starts off good enough with some Brian Eno (Airports, I think, but later we also get the exhilaratingly great "Third Uncle") but it eventually morphs into a nonsensical downer glazed in this faux-spiritual depth with poorly-defined characters and some of the worst writing you'll ever hear. "Neato." "Suzy's in the in-between." Uggh. Heaven or purgatory or whatever you want to call it is apparently nothing more than being stuck in a gazebo in th e middle of somebody's screen-saver circa 1997. And honestly, if that's what heaven looks like, I think I'd rather see what's on the other side because those colors could make an angel vomit up his unleavened bread or whatever they eat. I'm sure Peter Jackson's version of hell would have Andy Serkis in it as some demon monkey or maybe Beelzebubba himself though, so it's a tough call. Putting up with Devil Gollum or living inside a kitschy Japanese music video or a commercial for flavored water? And I don't usually do this, but I'm going to go ahead and spoil this one for you. If you haven't seen this, I don't want you to anyway. This film is more guilty at Hollywoodily tying things together than anything in recent memory. Instead of satisfying or realistic ways of ending things for these characters, it all turns into this feel-good thing that made me almost ill. I'm sorry, Peter Jackson et. al., but that's just not life. The scene where the killer gets his? Come on, Peter Jackson! Maybe that's how karma works in New Zealand, but I'm not buying it. Peter Jackson's capable of good things when he's making orcs fight or destroying zombies with lawn mowers. But when it comes to portraying real human emotion on the screen, he's just not the guy. It's actually a little troubling to me that the scenes with the cliched pervert are done very well while everything involving the family made me sigh audibly. I hated this movie.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Frenzy

1972 shocking masterpiece

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Oh, snap! London's got itself a Jack the Strangler who sexually violates his female victims before tie-ing them in the necks until their tongues hang lifelessly out. Since poor Richard stumbled into an Alfred Hitchcock movie, he's mistakenly suspected by the po-po after his ex-wife winds up dead. He's all like, "Whatever, man. I didn't do nothing!" and tries to find the real killer like the guy searching for the one-armed man or O.J. Simpson to prove his innocence.

I like working Monday mornings at the motel because one of the channels I get for the Urine Couch AM Movie Club shows a Hitchcock movie. The one before this was The Birds, one of the most erotic movies ever made in my opinion, but I missed it because I got the dates mixed up. Like a lot of Uncle Alfred's later films, this one seems a little dated. It just looks like a product of the 1970s to me. But although it's not quite a masterpiece, it's a tense thriller with some great moments that nobody but Hitchcock, here at his surliest and randiest, could provide, most famously in a great long shot that walks the viewer backwards out of the scene of a crime and into the street. Unlike a previous scene, this one spares us the brutality, but the shot might be even more chilling because of it. Just masterful stuff. That earlier scene is especially brutal, the camera lingering on the violence before ending with an almost clownish shot of the victim with her tongue hanging out like a child pretending she's just been strangled. Another great scene involves the murderer hiding in a potato truck. Like most of Uncle Alfred's work, he offers a generous helping of dark humor with the moody violence, so there's this odd blend of grim and comical that I really liked. And the perverse old man threw in some nudity as well! I liked the cast a lot, more probably because I didn't recognize any of them, and the finale, with one hell of an final line, rivals my favorite Hitchcockian endings. This is a well-written, edgy thriller that works as a final semi-masterpiece. It's also got a lot of really ugly English people in it. Do they all look like that?

The Man with Two Brains

1983 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Neurosurgeon Dr. Hfuhruhurr, still mourning the loss of his wife, falls in love with a woman he runs over while giving an egotistical interview. He saves her life thanks to his screw-top technique and marries her. Unfortunately, Dolores Benedict is incapable of love and is more than likely planning on murdering Hfuhruhurr for his money. Now I'm not sayin' she's a gold digger, but she ain't messin' with any broke neurosurgeons. And she won't consummate the marriage, leaving Hfuhruhurr frustrated and unable to focus on his work. They honeymoon in Europe where the doctor falls in love with a brain in a glass jar that he can communicate with telepathically. If only there was a body in which he could put this beloved brain! Oh, snap!

Moderately funny movie with jokes ranging from nearly clever to far too obvious. At times, it seems like a middle schooler wrote this which is only good for the gratuitous nudity or partial nudity, mostly involving the sultry Kathleen Turner or, more accurately, Kathleen Turner's body double. This wears out its welcome kind of quickly and turns into nothing more than an excuse for Steve Martin to wave his arms around in an exaggerated way like he does in every movie or television show he's in. Don't get me wrong. Steve Martin waving his arms around in an exaggerated way is hilarious! This is dumb comedy, patched together and flailing and predictable, and although there's definitely a place for dumb comedy, this is nowhere near a classic of the genre. Paul Benedict plays a butler.

The Dark Knight

2008 summer blockbuster

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The Joker, tired of stealing from mob banks, unleashes madness on Gothem City. Batman, the cop, and the district attorney try to stop him.

Just when I thought this one was over, it went on for another (nearly incoherent) 40 minutes, keeping me up way later than my normal bedtime of midnight and making me grouchy this morning. As with most comic book movies, I didn't understand a lot of what was even going on, and Dylan wasn't around to explain it to me. Harvey Dent's transformation near the end befuddled me. But probably not as much as Batman's voice befuddled me. There was way too much movie here--Nolan was trying to fill half a paper cup with forty-three thousand pounds of grape jelly, the sweet kind that you can get at the 99 cent store, the kind that makes you feel really guilty for no good reason. That's why, after a little less than five and a half hours of sleep, I woke up with a mysterious purple stain on the front of my pajama bottoms. And I'm still going to contend that the action sequences in these two Batman movies don't make a lot of sense. Pass the popcorn, biatch!

No Country for Old Men

2007 cat and mouse crime drama


Rating: 18/20


Plot: A hunter with a woman's name and the shadow of a minor league hockey team mascot has lost his shooting touch. His focus is gone as he can think of nothing but his impotence. "It just doesn't work no more," he says to the sands and the clouds. He smells brownies and wanders into a Mexican picnic. Unfortunately, the eatin' has finished and the brownie supply is depleted. The Mexicans are sleeping, but one of them, a somnigrapher, doodles a sketch (or sketches a doodle depending on whom you ask) of a man with a terrible haircut and a Boy Scout sash tuning a piano. The sleep-writer scrawls, "Their [sic] guy take napping be side [sic] tree yonder. Check pant's [sic] 4 brownie lol!" and the hunter wanders to the only tree in this particular part of Texas to hopefully meet a reasonable man. The man gives him the last brownie, or at least the part that he has not yet eaten, but only on one condition--the hunter must transport his suitcase full of prawns to a place that is very far from where they currently were. The hunter agrees. A man with terrible hair, working desperately to earn his last Boy Scout badge before he reaches the age where Boy Scouts, according to the Boy Scout Code, are no longer allowed to earn badges, decides to help in order to get that treasured "Seafood Mobilization Badge" and be named "Boy Scout of the Century" by the Boy Scout Board of Boy Scouts. Ironically (or perhaps not ironically since I'm like most Americans and have no clue what that word even means), the hunter is terrified of bad haircuts and flees from the Boy Scout. The chase is on, the hotel bills are enormous, and the tension is thick as the characters wonder how long prawns will keep in a suitcase!


Brilliant. There was nothing I didn't like about what I was seeing on my television for two hours until the very end when there were some things that I didn't like seeing but then later realized that I actually liked those things, too. Jolted, amused, palpitating, and completely entertained, I watched this and was thrilled that it lived up to the hype. It's stylish without looking stylish--the tight and gritty action scenes, the nearly complete lack of music, those little details that the Coen brothers can draw attention to like no other directors. Great acting, and not just limited to Javier Bardem's role as a character that will never be forgotten. That Chigurh is a bad guy hard not to root for, a guy so completely evil and quizzical and tough and philosophical and mysterious and devastatingly original that you don't even feel guilty when you root for him. Such a cool story, and it moves along so quickly that you don't even realize the two hours have passed. Decidedly non-Hollywood, No Country for Old Men toys with expectations and hammers you with lessons deep and bleak. Brilliant. I can't wait to see it again.


Here I am enjoying No Country for Old Men:

Peeping Tom

1960 psychological thriller

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A psychologically-damaged serial-killing voyeur films the fear of the women he kills with his portable camera/weapon. As he lurks around acting all creepy, his weird-looking downstairs neighbor becomes interested in him and his work. A blind woman says some perplexing things.

The ideas and images in Peeping Tom ruined director Michael Powell's career. Critics blasted it as "perverted nonsense, "frankly beastly," and as "the sickest and filthiest film [the critic] can remember seeing." One critic wrote, "The only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeing Tom would be to shovel it up and flush it down the nearest sewer. Even then the stench would remain." I haven't seen a film hated that much since that Tom Green movie where he swings a baby by the umbilical cord and diddles a horse's genitals. I remember that artistic masterpiece getting similar reviews.

This one dug into ideas about voyeurism and the role of the audience in horror/thriller movies, and although it wasn't terribly realistic or even close to flawless, it did manage to create tension and suspense and mood without showing any violence at all. Textured, colorful, and visually interesting, this just seems thematically and stylistically ahead of its time. I do question the decision to cut the scene featuring the protagonist admiring and filming an ejaculating elephant, but what do I know...

Here I am watching the first part of Peeping Tom after waking up on the 1st (had to finish it on the 2nd):