Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

1994 manic comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: The titular detective is hired to find the Miami Dolphins mascot before their Superbowl appearance.

Ok, I don't get it. I watched this--yes, it was my first time--because I read something somewhere and was convinced that this was something. Jim Carrey was unleashed with this 1994 release, and his performance almost looks like the performance of somebody who is trying to ruin the movie. It's almost dada, Jim Carrey as an avant-garde genius or a Marx Brother whose wires became crossed during the time travel process. Nothing about the character makes sense, and once you get used to Carrey's rhythm, this is almost entertaining. Then, it's just annoying. I'm glad that Jim Carrey didn't spend his entire career doing this crap. I will say this though: You're not going to get any other opportunity to see Tone-Loc talking to Jim Carrey's ass. I'm really not sure how the other actors and actresses, some who were at stages in their career where they shouldn't have been desperate, put up with these shenanigans. I laughed exactly one time while watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and that wasn't even because of anything Jim Carrey did. No, that was Alice Drummond as Mrs. Finkle with the line "Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell." I will not be watching the sequel to this movie unless I am tricked or in a P.O.W. camp.

Bobby Fischer Against the World

2011 documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A look at the life and too-brief professional career of the titular chess player with a focus on his 1972 world championship match against Boris Spassky. [Spoiler Alert!] He loses his mind.

I think most people know the basics of the Bobby Fischer story, a story about a chess genius with a very troubled mind who wasn't very pleasant. People probably know all about the Cold War implications and how that 1972 match was a lot more than a series of games. And they might know what happened with Fischer following that match with Spassky in Iceland, how he alienated a lot of people, withdrew from society, made more than his fair share of racist comments, and seemed a little too happy about the terrorist attack on 9/11. This documentary on the guy isn't going to make anybody like him more, but it does deepen your understand about the guy as a human being, especially when describing his younger days growing up in New York with his mother and sister. This starts with an Albert Einstein quote that I hadn't heard:

"Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer."

And for the first part of the story, you get a portrait of a young artist at work, a picture colored with a ton of hard work and shaded with paranoia. Oh, and a little cockiness, cockiness that seems at odds with the real Bobby Fischer that we think we discover in this thing. The hard work aspect can be appreciated in the description of Fischer's athletic trainer (yes, this was a real thing) of the chess player working with a dynamometer and wanting to strengthen his grip so that "that little Russian" will be able to feel his handshake. And yes, ladies, there is a naked shot (from behind) of the chess master.

You know, I want to pause here to brag about my own chess abilities a little bit. I had a friend growing up named John, and like a lot of my friends, John had a father. His dad was a professor in the English department at Indiana State University, and I had a couple classes with him later on. John and I played chess, and I played a game with his dad once. It was a tight game that ended in a draw. The remarkable thing about that--and the thing that will more than likely impress my 4 1/2 readers--is that John's dad once played a game against Bobby Fischer, a game that also ended in a draw. Sure, that game was one of at least forty that Fischer was playing simultaneously as some exhibition of his prowess, but I don't think this changes the fact that I was just as good as Bobby Fischer.

But I digress. Back to the documentary. This is one of those documentaries where you know exactly how things end up but there still manages to be all this suspense in the little things. I've played over every game from the Fischer/Spassky match, some more than once, but I was still on the edge of my seat wondering if America was going to get Fischer to Iceland to even start the match. As a chess player, I almost wish there was more of an emphasis on the games and what happened even though that would have been frustrating for people who don't know or like the game. The match was described in a way to help you feel the psychological stuff that these players must have been going through. Of course, Fischer said famously, "I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves," but you can see how uneasy he is with everything that is happening around him during his stay in Iceland. And then Spassky spazzes out over chair and lights and radiation, and it just goes to show you how evil this board game can be. Fischer's story is one of the great "What if?" stories, and although it will likely make you ask the same sorts of questions, it will also help you understand his damaged mind and disagreeable personality a little more. I went in a little angry at the guy for his racist rants and wasted potential. By the end, I felt a little sorry for the guy. The details of his early life, a simple description (and some photographs) of how he enjoyed being around animals, and his last words were all touching. Those last words, although I find it almost impossible to believe: "Nothing is so healing as the human touch." Wow.

Major League

1989 baseball comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Like Slap Stick only with baseball and no Paul Newman. The owner of the Cleveland Indians throws together the worst collection of players she can find in order to come in last place and enable her to move the team to Miami. This was pre-Marlins, by the way.

This could have been much better and would have been much worse if Bob Uecker wouldn't have come along when the movie was starting to lose some steam and saved things. Pretty much everything he says in this is funny, and Major League Baseball should actually put him in the Hall of Fame a second time just for his appearance in this movie. James Gammon is also funny and brings the perfect voice for the team's manager. The other characters are hit and miss. The characters played by Dennis Haysbert (not easy to recognize), Charles Cyphers, and Corbin Bernsen are really just there for one joke, but the writers definitely do their best to get the most mileage out of those single jokes. Wesley Snipes is a little rounder as the terrifically-named Willie Mays Hayes, and Charlie Sheen's character has a little depth even though Sheen himself only seems to have a single facial expression. The best thing about them is that they all pass as baseball players. When baseball wasn't happening, the relationship between Berenger and Russo was, and I just didn't care about that subplot at all. I guess you have to try to bring the gals along somehow though, right? This has plenty of funny lines ("This guy here is dead!", "Look at this fucking guy.", "I look like a banker in this.", "He was a juvenile delinquent in the off-season.", "Yellowstone?", "Vaseline ball hit to short."), but nothing is quite as funny as that ridiculous mascot that the Cleveland Indians are still allowed to have--the offensively-grinning Chief Wahoo. Oh, and this starts with a Randy Newman song, and Randy Newman songs make everything better. His particular brand of irony really complements the Cleveland imagery during the opening credits.

Raging Bull

1980 boxing movie

Rating: 20/20

Plot: The story of boxer Jake LaMotta and how Jake LaMotta leaked all over the floor.

Ok, I know I just called it a boxing movie, but it's not really a boxing movie. It's a movie about a boxer. There's a difference, and that difference is what elevates this to its status as one of the greatest movies of all time. This has scenes that take place in boxing rings. They're filmed in a way that puts the audience right in the ring. The use of slow motion, the black and white grime, a camera that just leers, background sounds and the way those background sound (including birds?) are recorded just forces you to focus, and that's true of the scenes in the ring as well as outside the ring. Scorsese has this way of making this movie stuff, in some weird way, more real than reality, and that's even with the boxing scenes probably not looking all that realistic. But again, it's not a boxing movie, and Scorsese and company aren't all that interested in creating realistic boxing scenes. No, they want to create a picture of a self-destructing man's soul, the colors of that soul's bruises, the depths of its creases, and the shapes of its scars. It's not necessarily a soul you want to spend much time with, but this, maybe more than any other biopic, just traps you in there and almost forces you to watch. After a couple hours with LaMotta, you really almost feel like you've been pummeled for fifteen rounds. And there's such a range of emotions you feel with this subject. You hate the guy, you sort of feel bad for the guy, you laugh at the guy, you're scared for the guy, and you're scared of the guy. A lot of the power in this character and this movie comes from De Niro's otherworldly performance, that ability to crawl inside LaMotta's skin. De Niro likely had to take extra long showers after some of these scenes. LaMotta's character is one that doesn't make a lot of sense, but De Niro makes him make sense, makes all his flaws real. It's one of the greatest performances of all time, the kind of performance that is so good that it could almost kill a movie if that makes any sense. The kind of performance that could completely overshadow what everybody else is doing. I remember seeing this as a kid and actually believing that old flabby LaMotta was being played by a different, chubbier and older actor. Still have trouble believing that transformation. With De Niro's brilliance, it's remarkable that anybody else in this movie can float, and the fact that they do is evidence of their own abilities. Pesci can freak out like the best of them, and every single scene that Pesci and De Niro share has this great rhythm to it, as well as this electricity that you just don't see with a pair of actors all that much. Part of it might be the writing, but the words didn't stand out so much. They could have been reading grocery lists back and forth to each other, and it still might have worked. And Cathy Moriarty's performance is simply stunning. In a movie about men, she manages to not be completely swallowed up. Her eyes cut through the screen, blink right in your living room. She and her character have this power, and it's amazing to me that can deliver this type of performance since A) she was only 19 or 20 when it was filmed and B) it was her first movie. Just amazing. Scorsese's directing tricks are subtle, but he's a master, here squeezing this raw intensity on the screen. A terrific, exhausting movie.

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks

2010 sports documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Details the mid-90's rivalry between the New York Knicks and their mascot Spike Lee and the Indiana Pacers and their flopping superstar Reggie Miller.

I don't watch a lot of professional basketball. Actually, I went over ten years without watching an NBA game until the playoffs last year when I accidentally watched some Pacers vs. Heat games. I just don't have any interest in the sport, one filled with far too much showboating and whining. With the current success of my hometown team, however, I started getting a little more interested and watched this documentary on an off-night. I did watch some NBA in the mid-90's, and I remember the famous Spike Lee game so well. I already liked Reggie Miller, the kind of player who you'd probably hate if he wasn't on your team, but this turned him into a legend. This documentary does a great job revisiting the two playoff series these beleaguered franchises played in consecutive years. It's completely objective, so you don't really side with Spike Lee or the Knicks players or Reggie Miller as they're Rashomonly describing the goings-on in these games. Of course, when Spike Lee claims the Ku Klux Klan started in Indiana, a "fact" that he just didn't get right, he does lose a little credibility. Miller comes across like a charming little devil though, the kind of guy who you know you can't really trust but like well enough anyway. It was also nice to hear a lot from Reggie's sister Cheryl Miller who I didn't realize was as good as she was at this game. This documentary is either well made or these games were just that thrilling because even though I remembered how they turned out, I was still on the edge of my seat while they were being described.

Over the Top

1987 arm-wrestling epic

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Estranged truckdriving father Lincoln Hawk tries to reconnect with his son after his ex-wife's death. His father-in-law is against the idea, and his son doesn't like the idea either. Hawk wins his son over after impressing him with his arm-wrestling prowess.

Pow! I saw this movie in the dilapidated movie theater in Brazil, Indiana, as a middle school student, and I thought it was pretty stupid back then, and I was a pretty stupid kid in 1987, the type of kid who still thought the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi made perfect sense. It's your standard father/son road trip movie sprinkled with the arm-wrestling scenes, scenes that seem to be there only so Stallone can show off his guns. Then, the truck crashes into a mansion, and you realize what a stupid story you're watching and, at least at the age of thirty-nine, start to doubt your decision-making abilities. I've been a busy guy the last few months, and I just haven't had the time to watch as many movies as I'd like. So I get a little free time and watch Over the Top? This movie reminds me of just how bad I always was at arm-wrestling. This movie came out and made a very tiny splash, but it was enough of one to get kids to start arm-wrestling each other. We'd all try the little wrist twist thing that Stallone uses in this, but I'm not sure it ever did anything. Neither did putting our baseball caps on backwards. I'm really glad that was explained in this movie, by the way, or I would have lost sleep. I had little twigs for arms, and even girls would beat me although I had trouble focusing because the physical contact with a female made me giddy. I'm surprised Stallone's character didn't have the same issues because most of his opponents are real lookers. A handful of them are interesting characters who aren't given a chance to shine and add a little personality to this drab movie. One of the main issues is that arm-wrestling isn't really all that interesting, even in a Hollywood motion picture where you have some white-knucklin' edge-of-yo'-seat back-and-forth action. It's a lot of slow-motion grunting and despair. The biggest issue with the movie is the kid. He's played terribly by David Mendenhall, an actual kid, and although the acting is as terrible as you'd normally expect from a kid, the main problem actually has more to do with the writing. Basically, the kid comes across like a real asshole. He flees across traffic on a highway in an effort to escape, says, "I hate you!" a few too many times, and grows to like Lincoln Hawk a little too quickly. But Mendenhall doesn't help matters. I mean, if you can't look effectively disgusted after Sylvester Stallone says, "Would you like to use my shoulder for a pillow?" then you're just not an actor. This movie doesn't know how to develop a story or its characters and instead leans on a bunch of montages. I thought one song during an early montage was the worst thing I'd ever heard in my life, but then I heard another song that might have been worse. It was like Eddie Money and Frank Stallone, the latter who I bet is related to the star of this movie, were having some kind of competition to see who could make my ears bleed most. So many montages though. I think one montage even contained its own montage.

Slap Shot

1977 hockey comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The aging player/manager of a hockey team learns that it will be the team's last season because the mill that provides most of the jobs for the town is closing down. He starts spreading the news that a town in Florida is planning on purchasing the team while encouraging some goons to play a more violent form of the sport in order to drum up interest in the Chiefs.

I'm not sure how I watched this as a kid, but it was a movie I liked. Paul Newman makes cussing seem so cool, probably influencing my potty mouth. Unfortunately, his clothing repertoire in this also influenced my wardrobe which probably explains a lot about my formative years. I don't find this movie terribly funny. In fact, it's a little loud, kind of a busy movie. I also don't have any interest in hockey, but I do really enjoy the hockey scenes in this. I love how the camera moves low, right over the ice. The use of real-life hockey players with a Paul Newman who apparently could move smoothly on the ice himself, along with the colorful dialogue ("Frog pussy"), give this an authentic feel. The Hanson brothers, played by a Hanson and a pair of Carlsons, are fun character even when they're just sitting around doing nothing. You almost want to laugh at their antics before they happen because they're the type of characters who you just have to see to be reminded of antics you've previously seen. A goofy smile on a teammate's face when the Hansons first play as he says "These guys are a fucking disgrace" sums it all up beautifully. This has an interesting clash of realistic violence and hockey mayhem--little bits of blood on Newman's uniform after a first fight, for example--mixed with some goofy comedy slapstick hijinks that for whatever reason just works. Unlike a lot of sports comedies, I think this one grows with time. Newman--who should have won an Academy Award for this performance based solely on the way he says "retarded" in the movie--said that this was one of his favorite roles and that he had more fun filming this than any other movie. I think it shows. I'll always have a sweet spot for this movie.

Fire, Ice & Dynamite

1990 movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Sir George fakes his death and makes all the people he owes money to and his three children compete in a race called the Megathon to win his fortune. Lots of stunts happen.

At least the stunts were good. This is a sequel to Fire and Ice, a movie that I haven't seen. Apparently, it's mostly lots of skiing stunts strung together with a little bit of a plot and narration by John Denver, a man who died during his own stunt. If you liked the stunts in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, you'll like the stunts in this more. Willy Bogner, Jr. directed this and was a cameraman for the Bond movies that featured skiing. This has also got Roger Moore, my favorite James Bond, and some bald people. Oh, and Roger Moore's son is in there. My guess is that Moore said he would be in this movie but only if his son could also get a part. It took me a really long time to figure out that this is supposed to be a comedy, and that's never good. The comedy is just as dangerous as the stunts. Did I mention that there were stunts in this movie? Because there are! Stunt people bungie jump, white water raft, fall, plummet, ski, ski more, climb things, explode, and ski. At times, it's like a live action Wacky Races although nowhere near as entertaining or as funny. Marjoe Gortner makes an appearance, mostly in a helicopter as an announcer for the Megathon. I'm guessing there are also some Olympic athletes who were tricked into being in this as well as Isaac Hayes and Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin trivia: Did you know that Buzz Aldrin was the first person to defecate on the moon? That's real trivium, readers. I'm not making that up.

I was confused by a bunch of references to bananas in this, but not as confused as I was with a song that popped up in the middle of this, something that made me wish the stunts would come back. I did mention that there were stunts in this, didn't I?

Poolhall Junkies

2002 pool movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: An ex-hustler returns to the game in order to help out his brother.

This is like Rounders for the pool hall. It's got the narration with some pool jargon, a troubled relationship, a character being dragged back into his former life, and an older mentor. The older mentor in this is Christopher Walken who apparently knows his way around a pool table. So does Mars Callahan who not only stars in this, but wrote and directed it. I'm guessing it was so he could show off his pool skills. Rod Steiger plays the type of character he always plays well (his last role actually), and Ricky Schroder is also in this except he's apparently Rick Schroder now. You know, because losing that "y" is likely to jump-start his career. I almost liked this movie, but it felt awfully derivative, and whenever there was humor, it seemed like humor that had already been in movies ten years before this was made. It's really the type of movie that you watch, know it's not very good, and still enjoy anyway. You might even be able to guess exactly where it's going and still enjoy it.

As one of my blog readers could tell you, I am an accomplished pool player myself. That might be why I enjoyed this a little more than some people would. I'm also very good at sex which might explain my love for pornography.

My new life goal: Have a picnic with Rick(y) Schroder, play badmitten, and convince him to drop the "k" in his name and try out Ric Schroder for a while.

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?

Rounders

1998 poker movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A law student quits playing poker after John Malkovich takes all of his money. When an old friend just released from prison gets into a little trouble because of some gambling debts, the law student has to get back in the game to help him.

What's with that poster? I'm not sure any of the actors look exactly like their characters in this movie. It's almost like they photoshopped them all in there or cut and pasted them from other movie posters.

I love this movie and have seen it several times. It's a movie that inspired me to start playing cards, and even though it's obviously movie poker that they're all playing, it's still the most realistic Hollywood poker I've ever seen although The Cincinnati Kid ain't bad. When I saw this the first time, I loved the sleazy underbelly that these characters wallowed in, and I also loved Damon's narration, surprisingly since I don't usually like narration outside of the noir genre. I'm not sure if this movie is quoted way too often or if the screenwriter just lifted from a book of poker cliches, but the narration really helps the uninitiated understand the game.

An aside: I remember playing poker at a guy's house once, and this 20-something named Shawn strolled in with a bag of fast food. "Boys," he announced as he stacked his chips, "you better watch out. I watched Rounders today." From the right mouth, that would have been kind of funny, but Shawn was being completely serious. And then he lost something like 40 bucks.

Look at that cast! Damon's great even though I don't always like how his mouth looks in this movie. It kind of looks like it does in all of his movies. It's that one expression he makes, like tortured acceptance or something. You know the one. John Turturro is used just enough, but like a lot of his smaller roles, you almost wouldn't mind seeing a movie made with his character as the protagonist. Loved his answer and subtle shrug when answering a "How have you been?" question. Edward Norton is fantastic. There's a physicality here that is just perfect, even the way he eats a hot dog. He's just so good at creating this slimy character. "Depends on the grip" is such a great line, and his first scene where he's gambling with cigarettes in his waning moments at the prison really tell you all you need to know about the character. Martin Landau's also really good as a judge. And then there's John Malkovich, playing a fucking Russian. I'm not sure if his accent is terrible or spot-on, but I don't really care. I just know you don't want to touch his cookies. There's a note on them and everything! "Just like a young man coming in for a qvuickies." "I am still up 20 grand from the last time I stick it in you." (That one with a really awkward pelvic thrust which is my current favorite movie scene ever.) "Mr. son ov a beech, let's play some cards." "In my club, I will splash the pot whenever the fuck I please." Oh, he's just so perfect.

Cowards Bend the Knee (or The Blue Hands)

2003 silent soap opera

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A hockey player knocks up his girlfriend and takes her for an abortion in the back room of a beauty salon. During the procedure, he falls for the daughter of the owner of the beauty salon and runs off with her. Unfortunately, she won't allow him to touch her until the death of her father is avenged. A hand transplant operation takes place, followed by murder and sex. And there are some hockey player wax figurines that come to life.

This ten-part short feature was originally intended to be shown in a museum, each six-minute chunk shown through a separate peephole. That would have been an annoying way to watch a movie. I'd predict that a lot of people would be annoyed by the style of this anyway. It's silent, but even those used to silent movies might find the strange techniques--off-putting camera angles, repetitious movements, rapid-fire movements, lengthy but hilarious title cards--a little too strange. And, of course, there's the subject matters covered in this thing, a wacky hodgepodge that could only come from the mind of Guy Maddin. Jen, who started watching this movie with me, was done when the dicks made their first appearance. In the dicks' defense, I think she was about to call it quits even before they showed up. I found it all hilarious, maybe the funniest Maddin movie I've seen. Lots to love here--hockey seizures in sperm samples, beauty salon bordellos, 5-minute breast grope attempts, a gorgeous slow procession to Beethoven's 7th, titular blue hands and warm pies, forced combing, a smoking and corset-wearing abortionist, blind grandmothers, shampoo murders, faked hand transplants, ghost whores, fisting, an ice breast, the feeding of wax hockey player figurines, a questionable check for a pulse, and an Orlacian shower butt poke. Yeah, mostly the typical ingredients for a soap opera.  And the typing of "Orlacian shower butt poke" reminds me why I watch movies in the first place. My favorite scene was one in which Maddin imagines what a late-20's sex scene's sound effects would have been like. Completely ridiculous, but it made me giggle like a fourteen-year-old with a monocle. Definitely find this if you're a Guy Maddin fan already, and it might not be the worst place to start if you want to dig into his work and have a high tolerance for weirdness.

Kingpin

1996 bowling comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A former prospective bowling superstar whose career was cut short--or more accurately, mangled short--after a hustle-gone-wrong gets a chance at redemption after he meets an Amish bowling phenom.

Penalties incurred for both an unfortunate cameo by the ever-annoying Chris Berman and Blues Traveler. Not even a Jonathan Richman appearance and the great Chris Eliott ("Look at George and Wheezy go!") can make one forget Berman and that damn harmonica-happy fat man. This might be the second best bowling comedy with a few good individual lines (liked "Nasty cheese-grating accident" with that nodding bearded woman and "You're on a gravy train with biscuit wheels" would be something I'd add to my own repertoire if I had a better memory) and some fun characters but with a deluge of potty humor and kick-in-the-groin jokes that don't really work, too much meandering, and too many montages. That ridiculous rubber hand is a nice prop which is utilized just the right amount for a comedy like this. And by that, I mean it's used way too much. Woody Harrelson's funny enough, more as the straight man, and although the character is arguably in poor taste--the right kind of taste for a movie like this--Quaid's also good. Bill Murray's appearances which bookend the off-kilter buddy movie outshine the stars though. He's such a nonchalantly terrible character and plays sleazy perfectly here. Early scenes in a restaurant where Murray's character just says hi to somebody or throws a rude request at the waitress let you know all you need to know about Ernie right away. And his hair and his bowling style are hilarious. Lin Shaye's good as the disgusting landlady, but it's almost too good because the thought of the character makes me sick to my stomach. This is an uneven comedy with a too-predictable storyline, but there are enough laughs to make it worth the time. I'm giving a bonus point for the "Attaboy, Luther!" which was a clever little movie allusion and reminded me of Don Knotts.

Real Steel

2011 Rockem Sockem robots movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Down-on-his-luck ex-boxer and current boxing robot manager Hugh needs some cash to pay off some debts and replace his robot that was destroyed by an angry bull. And no, I am not making that part about the bull up. When an ex-lover and mother of a son he doesn't care about at all passes away, he sees it as a money-making opportunity. He and his son fix up a robot together and take it on on the road, and then the robot turns into Rocky.

When I saw a preview for this in the theater (directly after a Transformers and Pink Floyd collaboration preview), I turned to my lovely date and whispered, "Did Hollywood finally give us that movie based on Rockem Sockem Robots that we've been waiting for since we were kids?" This is really sappy, overwhelmingly predictable, and offensively rip-offy, the type of movie I'm usually going to hate. But this one got to me a little bit. I liked the way the father/son relationship grew even though it grew like only something planted and watered in Hollywood can grow. I always find Hugh Jackman likable even though his character makes the kinds of mistakes that make it difficult to root for him. The ending was beyond stupid, and the Rocky parallels were almost sickening. Hugh Jackman, thinking he was in a Rocky remake actually started yelling "Adrian! Adrian!" at the end. The robots were all a lot smarter than Rocky Balboa though. Of course, Talia Shire isn't in this movie. It's Evangeline Lilly. She's a lot more attractive, but the makers of Real Steel could have saved a lot of money by eliminating her character altogether without losing much of anything. The real stars of the show, as you might expect, are the Transformers themselves. No, they don't transform, but the mix of CGI and robot puppets works really well to give this all a realism. You really feel like those giant robots are there with the characters although I'm not sure the people in the front few rows of these bouts are responding realistically. I mean, wouldn't there be a threat of giant pieces of metal flying into the stands? A whole leg flies into the stands at the rodeo at the beginning of the movie, but apparently it doesn't weigh a whole lot because an adolescent girl walks off with it like it's a souvenir. It's unfortunate scenes like that that keep this from being a better movie. I did like that this movie is set just eight years into the future. It's got a science fiction feel while still feeling realistic. Well, as realistic as something from Hollywood's garden is going to get, I guess. I did like those robots though, and I'm glad they didn't just limit them to red and blue like in the game. These have some variety, and one even has two heads which, now that I think about it, seems like something a boxer wouldn't want to have. This movie based on a Richard Matheson story could have been a lot better, but it still managed to be a lot better than I expected it to be. Oh, and a special nod to John Gatins who plays this mohawked meth-head, the owner of the two-headed robot. His performance is so over-the-top that it almost distracts from everything else that goes on in the movie, and that takes some serious talent.

The Love Bug

1968 car race comedy

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 18/20 [slept through most of the movie], Dylan: 14/20; Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: Down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas is tricked into purchasing an anthropomorphized Volkswagon Beetle. He paints a racing stripe and a number on it and starts winning races. Shipoopi! The car dealer attempts to first buy the car back and later sabotage the titular bug, and Jim finds himself in a climactic two-day road race to hold onto his little round friend. And no, I'm not calling Buddy Hackett little or round.

Disney's the main problem with this one. With the Disney folk behind the wheel (pun intended) of this production, there's no chance we'd get to see a naked Michele Lee or Buddy Hackett which is really unfortunate. This is the movie that made me fall in love with the incorrigible Hackett as a kid. I like all the performances though. In fact, there was a time in my young life that I wanted to be Dean Jones more than I wanted to be Harrison Ford. David Tomlinson, with perhaps a better agent, could have been one of the greats. He's a great comic villain here though.
Joe Flynn, another Disney regular, is his usually bumbling fun self, and Benson Fong early in my life that [censored because of racial insensitivity]. And Hackett's character is so cool here, this sort of Zen mechanic with a great name--Tennessee Steinmetz--talking about how kelp aerates the liver or how he befriends claw machines or how one can unscrew the inscrutable. I almost wanted to come here and type up how this is the greatest car racing movie of all time, but my heart wouldn't have been in it. I will say with complete sincerity that has one of my favorite scores of all time although I'm saying that while only remembering the theme music and its variations. Watch this movie and you just can't stop whistling that thing. It does sound as dated as the scene with hippies ("We're all prisoners, chicky baby. We all locked in.") seems though. I was amazed even as a kid with how much of a character they made Herbie, and that's without any cheesy special effects to make him frown or laugh like he's in Pixar's Cars or something. It's done with camera angles and lighting, director Stevenson and his cinematographer taking advantage of the Volkswagon's unique curves and features to humanize the vehicle. It's genius. Herbie's attempted suicide--a scene which almost seems too ridiculous now that I type that--was a real downer. But no, this isn't a depressing movie about a suicidal punch buggy. This is a lighthearted family comedy, and the gags are unpredictable and funny, especially a scene featuring a bear which my family really enjoyed. Not Jennifer, of course. She was asleep. It's too bad for her because when we watch Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, she won't even understand what's going on.

This was the last live action feature that Walt Disney authorized, by the way. Well, unless his frozen head is somehow still running things.

La Course en Tete

1974 cycling documentary

Rating: 13/20 (Mark: 15/20)

Plot: A look at Belgium cycling superstar Eddy Merckx as he trains and races and juggles a family life.

Best thing about this one: I get to use my "bagpipes" label. A bagpipe-heavy score, by the way, never really made sense to me. I was tricked into watching this by my brother who translated La Course en Tete as "The Way of the Tits" and told me it was "boob kung-fu" which, as a warm-blooded American male, I was excited about. And then this didn't have kung-fu or boobs, just a bunch of cycling. And I mean lots of cycling. For the cycling enthusiast, this might make a lot of sense on its own. I had to have a lot explained to me by a cycling enthusiast, almost as much I need comic book movies explained to me by comic book enthusiasts. I also had problems with the chronology of this, and I suspect that it was all sort of random. There was a lot of exciting cycling action, but after a while, enough was enough. Once this hit the four hour mark, I had hit my limit. I did come away with a respect for Eddy Merckx though which I suppose was the point. My favorite bits: an opening montage of a bunch of old-timey bicycle footage and a later montage of a lot of horrendous accidents. One of those probably was accompanied by inexplicable bagpipe music.

Rocky Balboa

2006 sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to an original good movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: The titular former heavyweight champion of the world is adjusting to a new life as a retired athlete whose fame has withered away, a restaurant owner who owns a burgundy jacket, and, sadly, a widower. That's right. They'll killed off Adrian, probably because of some contract dispute with Talia Shire. There's a fire burning (boynin' as Mickey would have said) inside Rocky, and he longs for one last chance in the ring even though he's in his 90s and can't find those ridiculous red, white, and blue shorts still drenched with his buddy Apollo's junk sweat. The new champion, a cocky and unchallenged Mason Dixon (seriously?), becomes disturbed when ESPN boxing analysts suggest that Rocky was a better fighter with a virtual match between the two proving them right. Rocky agrees to an exhibition match. Cue theme music/workout montage!

The best thing about this movie is that it isn't the last movie. This is the first one of these sequels where we don't have to watch a big chunk of the previous movie, presumably because they were all embarrassed by Rocky V. "What? This is how we ended it?" This makes for a more fitting end for our character (though a part of me was hoping this would end in his death) but it really feels like they've dug up a dead horse so that they could beat on it. Like a pinata, hoping that candy or maybe even money will come out. Everything that reminds me of the other movies feels tired, and everything that is different isn't really different. For example, Adrian's gone, but this movie still manages to have her stink all over it. His restaurant's got pictures of her all over the place, and there's a sickening scene where Rocky returns to his old crib and says "I remember when she was standing there" which of course makes an Adrian ghost appear. In the years that have passed since the last movie, Paulie's become a complete cartoon. My favorite Paulie moment is when he's rambling, "I got a watch! I got two watches!" I wasn't sure if that was comedy or tragedy so I laughed and cried at the same time. Another nice Paulie moment:

Paulie: Are you made because your wife left you?
Rocky: She didn't leave me. She died.
(Blubbery weeping)

Mason "The Line" Dixon (seriously, they really went with this?) has the boxing chops, but doesn't have nearly the personality of any of Rocky's other opponents, even Tommy Morrison in that last pitiful movie. There's the obligatory training montage where you get to see Rocky do all the stuff that he did in the previous movies when he was much younger. He even runs up those steps, this time with a dog. Here, it just seems like an excuse to show off how good Stallone thinks he looks as a guy in his 60s. Speaking of that, something artificial has to be going on there, right? And speaking of artificial, I didn't buy the father/son stuff in this. And where was Rocky's son anyway? You're telling me that they could get Skip Bayless in this, but Stallone's son was too busy? And holy cannibalism! There's Mike Tyson's tattoo! Iron Mike gets to say, "You got that midget with you right there!" which makes me wonder why the heck anybody would let Tyson improvise in a movie. And once you've thrown Mike Tyson talking about midgets in a movie, you have nowhere to go but down, so the boxing match that takes place afterward is anti-climactic. I'm not a boxing expert, but I'm pretty sure this fight would have been stopped in the 2nd. This lays the theme on so thick that the whole thing seems like an over-icing'ed cake collapsing under its own weight. It's like a very small cake, a heaping layer of Adrian, a layer of father/son, and at least five layers of redemption.

My two favorite things about this movie: Rocky's new quirk--a "How ya doin?" long after a "How ya doin?" is appropriate in a conversation. He does it twice. And the second is Angela Boyd's performance as "crazy woman who turns all gangsta in the bar" which is quite possibly the worst performance from any of the Rocky movies. And that's saying something! "A fool? I'm the fool? You're the fool!"

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings

1976 baseball movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Negro League pitcher Bingo Long's in the declining years of his baseball career. He's disgruntled, tired of the way the owners of the baseball teams treat the players. The firing of his pal Rainbow after a beanball is the last straw, and Bingo gets together some stars from various teams to form an all-star barnstorming team. The owners, understandably, are irritated by that.

Nice little baseball movie here and probably the second best movie that Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones were in together. And was Richard Pryor an Ugnaut? Maybe him, too. The comedy didn't quite work for me in this, but the baseball and it captures the feeling of the late-30's and the oft-flamboyant trash-talking Negro Leagues and African American life style so well. And I should know because I grew up a black boy in the late-1930's. I enjoyed the parallels, the writers having a little fun with baseball lore. There's a catcher half the size of Midget Cadell and a one-armed player a la Pete Gray. Richard Pryor's attempts to break into the majors as a Cuban and later Chief Tokohama was straight from my favorite baseball story of all time when a black player tried to break into the league in 1901 by claiming to be a Native American. And some of Bingo Long's antics--sitting his outfielders down, for example--seemed straight from Satchell Paige's biography. So it's a lot of fun as a baseball movie, and there are some nice social themes in there as well. Don't go into it expecting something Major League funny though. The characters are more likable though. Billy Dee's smile is infectious, and James Earl Jones is great here. This is the best baseball movie he's ever been in, of course.

Rocky V

1990 sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel

Rating: 8/20

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

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

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

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

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

Rocky

1976 love story

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The titular boxer, an over-the-hill part-time amateur pugilist and part-time loan shark bruiser, gets the chance of a lifetime when the cocky heavyweight champion of the world challenges him to a match. Balboa balances training and courting Adrian, a shy pet store employee, and prepares physically and mentally for his second chance.

This isn't a movie about just one underdog, the titular one. It's an underdog overdose! It really lays on the resurrection theme pretty thickly from the get-go with the first shot being a painted Christ and the word "resurrection" actually appearing on a sign in the background. I also love how Rocky is later compared to Albert Einstein, Beethoven, and Helen Keller. Which gives me an idea--maybe I'll tackle a Helen Keller boxing movie after I finish writing and directing my sequel to The Diary of Anne Frank. I can't watch Carl Weathers without saying, "You got yourself a stew." But he's good here, convincing as both a boxer and an actual human. He's got pizazz. My favorite bit of acting from any of these movies is Apollo's look in the 14th round after Rocky gets up again. Love Burgess Meredith's Mickey, too, so grizzled. His face is perfect for this part as a guy with 1,000 years of boxing experience. Maybe Stallone should have had his character write the movie to make the boxing parts of it a little more believable. Another thing I respect about this movie is that is that it succeeds with two hearts--the sports story and the love story. You get a brutal 15 rounds of bloody boxing, cracked ribs, blood being spat out, cut eyes, etc., but the movie ends with an "I love you!" The result of the boxing match can barely be heard in the background as Rocky looks for his gal. I really am touched by the whole thing, as manipulative and movie-ish as it is.

But let's talk about Rocky. I'm making my way through the Rocky movies, two-thirds of them for the very first time. It seems that with as much as Rocky gets punched in the head, he should become more and more brain-damaged. I think that's how brains work anyway though admittedly, I am not a scientist. In this first movie, Rocky is so simple and childlike, and Stallone plays the character as mentally challenged. He has conversations about turtle food with himself in the mirror; Tarzan-yells at a dog that I believe is named Butt Kiss; asks, "How do you spell Del Rio?"; says things like "Hey, I won't let that happen no more, about the thumb, you know?"; has trouble opening his locker, something that I see the dumbest 7th graders in the world accomplish daily (OK, to be fair, he does technically get it open, and it's a padlock problem rather than a Rocky's brain problem, but still--it took him a long time to figure it out, right?); greets birds with a "Hey, birds!" that rivals the way Tommy Wiseau's dog greeting (seriously, all bad movie appreciators need to check out The Room) and later compares birds to "candy, like flying candy"; has these goofy arguments with Buddy the driver (Rocky, "I don't like YOUR face" is not a good comeback to "I don't like your face." It really isn't.), a character who says, "I heard retards like the zoo" which made me wonder if the Dead Milkmen were inspired to write a song after seeing this movie; says "I ain't never talked to no door before" which is, if my counting is correct, a triple negative, a line he delivers after needlessly introducing himself as Rocky twice; introduces himself as Rocky to Adrian again on the television because he must have gotten television and radio confused ("Yo, Adrian. . . it's me, Rocky.); impresses girls with the old "Ahh ahh ahh ahh! I just dislocated my finger" trick; asking if he's talking too loud which, most of the time, he really is; delivers a nice "Ehh-yo" cymbal crash after his punchlines; refers to himself as both dumb and a moron; thinks turtles and a gold fish are "rare animals"; explains his Italian Stallion nickname by saying, "I invented that one day when I was making dinner." (By the way, are boxers supposed to give themselves nicknames? That seems amateurish to me.); gets egg all over himself when he drinks his breakfast; says "moo" at one point; asks, "Does it ever snow in here?" which might have been a joke but it's hard to tell sometimes with Rocky; and says Apollo "looks like a big flag."

But as the Rocky story progresses, he sounds more and more intelligent. I don't get it.

It's almost too bad there were sequels. Alone, Rocky is a great feel-good story and piece of Hollywood myth-making. And it teaches the audience a lesson that yes, even a mentally-challenged way-out-of-his prime fighter can lose a boxing match.