Cory's Birthday Movie Celebration: Destroy All Monsters!

1968 monster mayhem

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A posse of alien chicks invades earth by unleashing the collective of monsters imprisoned on Monster Land. Some astronauts have to find a way to defeat them. Rawr!

That's right--the tradition of honoring reader Cory's birthday in the cheapest way imaginable is continuing. This year, I've picked what I believe to be fifth on his favorite Godzilla movie list.

This is a movie very obviously made for children. There's nothing wrong with that, and that's better than the cartoon I thought it was going to be with a first scene involving a rocket blast-off. All of these movies are a little goofy, but this one just feels goofier. I think it might be the heavy narration, especially during the first part of the movie. When the narrator said "a place called Monster Land," I again thought that I was watching a cartoon. I am glad that he introduced all the monsters though. I didn't remember their names later on though, except for the ones I'd already seen in the other movies. I'll tell you one thing about that narrator and his description of Monster Land. There's a whole lot of science going on there. Also making this whole thing so goofy that adults should be embarrassed for liking it (No, I'm not talking about you, Cory, because that would be a terrible thing to do on your birthday.): a scene where Rodan eats a dolphin; a scene where Rodan humps another monster, dryly, I assume; a doctor's suicide with an obvious dummy and the longest scream I think I've ever heard in a movie; the 1999 laser guns that make pew-pew-pew sounds; the dubbed voice of this old guy; and another dubbed voice that is supposed to sound French, I guess. One of the scientists says "the monsters look cute" at one point, and that might be part of the problem. Some of them are a little too cute. Despite the goofiness, this is almost wall-to-wall action. And I liked seeing the monsters in new locations with some familiar landmarks. The miniature stuff is well done although the movie's pretty much done with urban settings by the midway point. Some of the miniatures are complex and even having moving parts. And they're grander in scale, probably because they needed to make room for ALL monsters. The city does look a little devoid of people though, a little lifeless. Maybe at this stage in this series of movies, people knew the signs and found safe locations when they knew giant monsters were on their way. This is packed with monsters, probably too many! I still don't care much for Rodan, but I did like the spiky guy and the long guy. Son of Godzilla? Well, I just don't know about him. His voice is really silly, and he shoots smoke rings. I enjoyed the alien monster tadpole things, but the "burning monster" which turns out to not even be a monster at all is about the lamest thing ever. Oh, and Ghidorah and his trio of heads makes an appearance. They really weren't kidding with the "all" in that title! Of course, the star of the show is Godzilla, and he gets his moments. One series of scenes has some guys running from Godzilla in the woods, and I'm pretty sure some of the shots inspired shots in Jurassic Park. My favorite Godzilla moment comes early, a scene where he does a crotch chop move like that bowler Pete Weber. With the same lively music I've come to expect from these Godzilla movies and barely a slow moment, this is a fun and entertaining giant monster movie. Especially for children!

Happy birthday, Cory!

A Talking Cat!?!

2013 talking cat movie

Rating: 2/20 (Emma: 4/20; Abbey: 3/30)

Plot: The titular cat!?! brings a pair of families together.

"Is that a cat?" You'd be surprised how many times that line is in this movie. This is a movie about some people who apparently have never seen a cat before. And that's weird because there are several times when the cat gets up and walks away and you can clearly see cat food on the floor. That leads me to believe that these are people who have cat food but who aren't sure what a cat looks like. And that's the real mystery of this movie. This is one of those movies where all the pieces come together so imperfectly to produce something so beautifully awful that you want to tell everybody you know about it. The acting isn't the worst that you'll ever see, but combined with everything else, it seems almost magical. The worst offender is Eric Roberts who provides the voice of the cat. The cat is fine, but Roberts sounds like he was locked in a closet, fed nothing but vodka and oatmeal pies, and forced to read his lines. He mostly sounds tired, and when he doesn't sound tired, he sounds bored. When he doesn't sound tired or bored, he sounds like he has come to a point in his life where he despises himself and his maker. Johnny Whitaker isn't a realistic father or millionaire, but he's got a soul patch and does a great Bogart impression. Justin Cone is awful as his son, surly and effeminate in cut-off jeans. He nails one line though: "I did see a cat--that one!" Soap star Kristine DeBell is just as bad playing a character who doesn't need oven mitts when taking things out of an oven. She does play exasperated well, probably because that's how she feels about having to be in this movie. The music is also terrible, and whoever scored this thing should be put to death immediately. I know that sounds harsh, but we're talking about somebody who threw a MIDI version of "La Cucaracha" in this thing. This is clumsily written and poorly paced. I was convinced halfway through that this was possibly written in under a half an hour. Cheese puffs were mentioned extraneously, the explanation of the cat's powers of human speech were never explained in a way that made sense, and the human characters seemed to have been created by people who have never heard human beings interact with each other before. Most impressive of all might be the special effects that allow the cat to talk. I was confused about whether the cat was "talking" to the human characters telepathically, but the magic of special effects made it clearer later with an animated black mouth. Dreadful, the kind of special effect that makes you feel sorry for everybody involved in the production of this so that you start weeping in front of your daughters. This is the type of movie that is around ninety minutes but seems like it goes on for ninety days, sad since it was really about twenty-five minutes of movie padded with random shots of a waterfall and some trees. In fact, the only thing that might have been in the movie more than nature shots were shots of the cat's butt hole. That thing popped up so many times in this movie that I began to wonder if it was intentional.

Good news: A Talking Pony!?! is in post-production. It features DeBell and Whitaker, so it must be a sequel. Also, director David DeCoteau has a movie in post-production called My Stepbrother Is a Vampire!?! I almost wish I was making the punctuation up.

It's possible that I'll see a worse movie this year, but this is a strong Manos contender right now. And Roberts, in a voice-acting role, just could grab himself a Torgo. He's really that bad here.

Is There Sex After Death?

1971 sex comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Dr. Rogers from the Bureau of Sexological Investigation roams about in the Sexmobile and interviews experts in sexual matters, talks to everyday people on the streets, and visits key sites to answer the titular question and others.

Prankster Alan Abel and his wife created this now-dated look at sexuality. It's funny forty-some years later, but after a while, it gets a little tedious. There are plenty of naked people, but if this makes any points at all, it makes them early. The wad is shot, so to speak, and then it keeps going. Abel himself plays the roving reporter and does it as a sort-of straight man. It's amazing that he keeps his composure while sitting so close to so many naked people or hearing an actor say, "For the vegetable, it was exquisite," or a "Professor of Dildography" talk about "millions of miles of unused orifice," or an x-rated magician ask, "Is that not your urine sample?" or an expert claiming that "you'd be up to your ass in dwarfs" if one of eight didn't die during sexual intercourse. In between all that, Abel takes us to a sex Olympics, a nudist colony where they sing "Dinah Won't You Blow Your Horn" and later dance in a way that makes nudity seem like a pretty terrible invention, a perverse art gallery, and a pornographic opera. Oh, and there's a brief penis puppet show. Robert Downey Sr. makes a pair of appearances, but he's nowhere as entertaining as Earle Doud who plays the x-rated magician or Marshall Efron who plays Vince Domino, the "master of filth and excretion" who talks about making a pornographic film with a goose and a donkey. This is nothing revolutionary, some bits fall completely flat, and it's not always even all that much fun, but it's an interesting enough little time capsule item nevertheless.

And Now the Screaming Starts!

1973 horror movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Newlyweds are traumatized by a curse involving a ghost and a severed hand.

Why the hell don't I have a Patrick Magee tag for this blog? He plays a doctor here. Love that guy. Peter Cushing is also in this. I don't really have much use for these creepy period horror movies aside from the architecture and the wonderful cleavage. This has some nice artwork--portraits that sometimes have ghostly eyeless figures popping out of them. There's also some sideboob, severed hand strangulation, gyrating paintings, and some maddening zither. Seriously, if you're one of the oddballs who doesn't like the zither action in The Third Man, the score for this will likely annoy. There's also this great scene where a guy shows off his hands, a scene that was stretched comically. This isn't a terrible movie, but it's not one that is going to be all that memorable unless cheap-looking severed hands does it for you.

This movie is one of the rare ones with a title that both has punctuation and makes a complete sentence although starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction would most like make the screaming start in most English classes.

FDR: American Badass!

2012 historical comedy

Rating: 7/20

Plot: Roosevelt fights Nazi werewolves, straight from the history books.

This movie has its moments, and Brian Bostwick and Ray Wise are good as the titular president and MacArthur respectively. Unfortunately, this thing is just so cheap. And I mean "cheap" in every single sense of the word. The effects are cheap--CGI explosions that I bet my son could make and pasted-on werewolf fur. The humor is cheap, a lot of dick jokes and polio jokes that are the sort of thing I hate the television show Family Guy for. And cheap puns. Marco Polio and a play on "debriefing" somebody. This was written by the guy behind that wiffleball movie  I watched earlier this year. Ross Patterson is his name, and he has a small part in this one, too. I think this guy's got some potential as both an actor and a writer, but he's got to learn to channel things and probably mature a bit. He's probably a little too South Park-inspired for his own good. He could also, of course, use a little more money to work with. There's a whole lot of ugliness here, definitely more than laughs. One scene probably typifies this most:

FDR has just had an affair in which his mistress squirted ketchup and mustard on his "tiny little polio legs" because, I guess, they resemble hot dogs. Eleanor pops in and says, "What the shit?" There's a bit of an argument which ends in Eleanor saying, "Tell them a rainbow took a shit on your legs." Now, I could be completely wrong. That might be historically accurate. Or it could just be completely tasteless. Either way, it makes me wonder why I watched this.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

2012 animated pirate movie

Rating: 16/20 (Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 19/20; Jen: fell asleep)

Plot: Pirate Captain (that's his name) desperately wants to win the coveted Pirate of the Year award, but he's terrible at plundering and pillaging. All he's really got is a strangely immobile beard. He befriends a lonely scientist named Charles Darwin (yes, same one) and lucks into a chance to win a science prize because of his pet bird.

Delightfully goofy and manic with enough little details that I want to see it again, this feature from the Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run people (well, Peter Lord--not sure where the other guy's run off to) isn't afraid to get a little politically incorrect or throw an obscure reference at you. I doubt either of my daughters recognized John Merrick in there, but that made me laugh, and leprosy, in my humble opinion, is always pretty funny. This is stuffed with clever references for adults, and what I like about them is that they aren't necessarily just timely references. And there's a funny monkey. This bursts with creativity--a variety of interesting characters stuff the screen; there's clever movement all over the place, especially in a couple action sequences that can only be created by somebody involved with the Wallace and Gromit stuff; the Darwin-meets-pirates idea is original and very funny; and the visual and verbal humor, some just as juvenile as you'll find in Chicken Run, give this a fast pace. The makers of this aren't shy about putting all of their ideas on the screen, and at times it's almost overwhelming. As with the other features and shorts, the characters are so simple, but their movements are so clever and complicated, and the addition of some CGI sky and water blends wonderfully with the stop-animation stuff. It's a great-looking movie, so good that you might mistake it for all-CGI, and there's just a terrific amount of detail put into each shot. I was sold near the beginning during a scene that managed to combine something called "Ham Night" with the Pogues and moonwalking. This is probably too odd and random to be an instant classic or anything, but I can't think of a recent movie I've seen that I've enjoyed watching more. Of course, I haven't seen that many movies recently, so maybe I enjoyed it just because it was a movie. Cartoon pirates always help though. You know, like in those Johnny Depp Disney movies.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

2011 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Jeff, who lives at home, is going nowhere fast. Unless you count his mother's basement as a place. He's mother sends him on an errand to get supplies to fix a cabinet, and he runs into a guy named Kevin. That's not generally all that interesting, but he had answered a wrong-number phone call from somebody looking for a Kevin earlier that day and decided that there was some significance. Later, he runs into his brother, and although they don't really get along very well as adults, they work together to find out if his wife is cheating on him.

The Duplass brothers again, makers of The Puffy Chair, a movie I liked about as much as this one. Like that one, it's got realistic characters who it's not difficult to like. I suppose the Jason Segal and Ed Helms characters are based on the Duplasses. Some of the humor works just fine. I liked discussions about the anagram of K-E-V-I-N and the pussification of Gandhi. I'm not sure what the hell is going on with the music, and at times, this movie feels a little unfinished. The script, the filming itself. Something just didn't seem complete about it. But I give it credit for feeling, although there's some vague oddness there, like an actual unpredictable day in the lives of actual people. It comes together in a way at the end that you'll only really see in Hollywood. Still, despite the film's flaws, I think this one is worth checking out. And like I said with The Puffy Chair, I'm really interested in seeing how the Duplass brothers' careers grow.

Titanic: The Legend Goes On...

2000 abomination

Rating: 2/20

Plot: Apparently, this is based on the true story of an actual boat called Titanic that ran into an iceberg and sank. Except this version has talking mice and rapping dogs.

I shit you not, dear readers! Rapping dogs. Not only are they rapping (poorly) on a ship that sank, oh, roughly sixty-seven years before rap music even existed (that's right, suckers, I'm throwing credit to "Rappers Delight" and the Sugarhill Gang), but they are doing their thing doggy style in front of a brick wall, a kind of wall I'm not sure they had on the RMS Titanic, that has a piece of paper with the words "rap music" written on it. This follows a classic line, perhaps a historically classic line but I'll have to do some research on the Titanic tragedy to know for sure, uttered by one of the mice: "If it wasn't for you, I would have ended up in somebody else's digestion!" One of the rapping dogs is carrying a boom box which I'm not sure was invented by 1912 either. I'm not sure how many people were in the room where this scene of the movie was planned and actually decided it was a good idea, but they might as well have gone down in one of those submarine things with James Cameron, found a few victims of the tragedy, brought them back to the surface, strapped them to an iceberg, and pointed and laughed at them. It would have been less offensive maybe, unless Celine Dion was invited. Speaking of her--there might be a song in this that is worse than that grating song from Cameron's little boat movie. I'll call it the "Yi yi yi ya ya, You're in My Blood, You're in My Blood" song. Actually, it's not only worse than the Celine Dion song (which I call "Goo La Doo La Gooly Doo")--it might be worse than the Titanic tragedy itself. This thing is poorly animated with out-of-proportioned characters, on-screen jitters, and stiff backgrounds. And most of the characters seem ripped from other movies--loads of Disney, Speedy Gonzalez, An American Tale, Home Alone maybe. Lots of stereotypes, too, the kind you just don't get to see much since they stopped showing the Warner Brothers cartoons. Appalachia, Jews, Mexican. The sound and translation work are equally embarrassing, with some lines not making much sense at all and some lines being repeated in this almost trippy way. It's bad in bewildering ways, probably (taking into account the tastelessness of the whole thing) the worst cartoon that I've ever seen.

Viva Knievel!

1977 movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: After breaking into an orphanage, healing one of them, and flirting with a nun, Evel Knievel nearly dies in a motorcycle stunt while attempting to jump over cages full of circus animals. Well, he breaks his arm anyway. He impulsively retires. He's lured to Mexico and back into the jumpin'-over-things game because. . .well, I think it has to do with money. Leslie Nielson, however, wants him dead so that he can use his trucks to transport drugs into the United States. Meanwhile, Knievel tries to bag a newspaper reporter.

I had an Evel Knievel lunchbox as a kid. Actually, I don't know if I had one or not, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I did for the blog. The stuntman intrigued me, and this is without even getting a chance to see him in this movie or knowing that he had healing powers. That's right. It only takes about five minutes of movie before you get one of the most heartwarming and beautiful scenes in motorcycle stunt movie history when an orphan tosses away his crutches and says (I shit you not), "You're the reason I'm walkin', Evel. You're the reason I'm walkin'!" Brought a tear to my eye anyway. Evel Knievel isn't all heroic in this. In fact, a lot of the movie makes him look greedy and surly. He's mean to Gene Kelly. Poor Gene Kelly, by the way. What did he do to deserve this? He does deliver a powerful anti-drug speech while standing next to a nodding Frank Gifford in which he references Indianapolis and says, "Narcotics will make you blow all to hell!" I was convinced. Leslie Nielson plays the bad guy, cardboardily, and Lauren Hutton is the love interest/newspaper reporter. Also, Marjoe Gortner and his curly hair are in this. Marjoe plays a rival stuntman, and he's about the most interesting character in this thing, probably because not much of what he does makes sense. Of course, I was probably just distracted by that hair and his creepy eyes. Frank Gifford plays himself a lot more naturally than Evel Knievel who at times looked like he knew he was making a terrible mistake but that it would be worth it because a hell of a lot of lunchboxes were about to be sold. For those of you into motorcycle/car chases, the one that makes up the finale of this stunt-and-drama-filled extravaganza seems like it's at least forty-five minutes long. The most thrilling stunt, to me at least, was a spill from a wheelchair though. That might have been the only stunt that Evel Knievel, really not in his prime here, actually had anything to do with. I also laughed outloud when a child fell off a motorcycle. Note: I'm still trying to figure out if this is a real movie.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go not take narcotics.

Airplane!

1980 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: See Zero Hour!, another movie with an exclamation point.

That the plot of this is lifted so accurately from that disaster movie is my favorite thing about this movie. Well, with the possible exception of Leslie Nielsen. Now, I was pretty sure that I'd already written about this movie for this blog, but I used my newest blog feature (the much more comprehensive search box to your right) and couldn't find it. This movie makes me laugh and groan alternately. Surely, the Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker combination who wrote this knew that a lot of this material would inspire groaning. Of course they knew it, and don't call me Shirley. This has a great cast, a collection of actors who get it and realize the importance of not overdoing the lines. All except for one guy--Stephen Stucker--whose performance is maybe one of my least favorite comedic performances ever. He sticks out like a mangled thumb, the clown prince of stomping, an I'm almost embarrassed for him. He didn't have a long career, probably because he almost singlehandedly ruined this movie. I wonder how many scenes had to be deleted because they were Stuckered. This movie was probably supposed to be three hours long until they realized they'd have to remove 90% of Stucker's scenes. But enough about him. I watched this movie because I desperately needed to laugh at something really stupid. It succeeds at that, maybe better than any other comedy. I do, perhaps unfairly, blame this movie for a lot of stuff that follows it. That includes the sequel.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

1990 romantic movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A mental patient kidnaps an actress, suggests that they get married, and refuses to take no for an answer.

I've got to start with this since I'm a pervert: I have a new favorite sex scene, the bathtub scene in this movie featuring the lovely Victoria Abril and a wind-up diver toy. That's worth the price of admission alone. I guess my problem with this one is that the movie had to be about Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril and their characters' relationship and not more about Maximo Espejo, the director played by Francisco Rabal. He gets a great line though: "When you put your heart and genitals into something, it always ends up personal." I might have that put on my tombstone. Banderas is fine, but the lead characters lacked depth, and their love story was actually pretty boring, despite all the bondage. Morricone's score is dull, 80's fizz. There is a nifty and colorful musical number with a trumpeter who has a mini-pompadour, cheese-covered keyboards, an old lady, a young girl, and a polka-dotted lead. And there's some He-Man figure decor which, for whatever reason made me laugh a little bit. But if I ever watch this again, it'll be for the toy diver scene which makes me cry just thinking about it.

Cannibal! The Musical

1993 historical musical

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The story of Alfred Packer, the lone survivor of a failed mining expedition somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Upon his return to society, he's tried and convicted of eating the rest of his party, something you're apparently not supposed to do on a mining expedition. His only hope to escape an impeding hanging is a young newspaper reporter named Polly Pry and some Japanese Indians.

This one, as you'd expect being an early project from one of the South Park dudes, is a mixed bag. It's a musical about cannibalism, so it's nothing I need to be talked into seeing. Since this is a Trey Parker project, you might guess that the songs would be pretty good. They are, too. Parker's songs have a way of feeling they could actually be in a legitimate musical until you listen really closely to the lyrics and hear things that would have Rodgers and Hammerstein reaching for their shotguns. Lyrical genius:

"The sun's as warm as a baked potato."
"The sky was a lot more blue when I was on top of you."
"My pa was an elephant, but that is irrelevant. My ma was an Eskimo."
"I've got a chest of wonder and balls of thunder. I can break right through a wall."
The entirety of the snowman song.

This is brazenly low budget, and I really got a kick out of the costumes and faux facial hair. The trapper characters' outfits were the best. They even had "Trapper" across their backs which made me laugh. My favorite characters were the Indians, played stereotypically by Japanese people. Favorite line: "We are. . .Indians. Look at all the teepees." All kinds of little oddities in this one--references to The Odyssey and unexplained aliens. This one isn't a home run or consistently great, but it can be mentioned in the same conversation as an Airplane or a Holy Grail, which a lot of comedy directors would take as a huge compliment. People will think a lot of this is pretty juvenile but there's enough clever in here to make it worthwhile. Also of interest to South Park or Team America: World Police fans or anybody who likes musicals or cannibalism. And if you appreciate both musicals and cannibalism? Hold on tight!

Who Am I?

1998 premake of The Bourne Identity

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Special agent Jackie Chan tumbles out of a helicopter, bangs his head on a tree branch, and forgets who he is. He befriends a tribe of Native Americans living in South Africa but reconnects with society after helping a woman win a off-road racing event. Suddenly, everybody's trying to kill him, and he finds himself in a situation that he must kick his way out of.

The last twenty minutes or so contains some great kick-'em-in-the-noggin action with a dangerous glassy slide and a furious fight on a rooftop. Most of what precedes that final act is just dumb and confusing action story-telling. There are twists and turns that either don't make sense or just don't work, some awful acting, a bunch of explosions, a bunch more explosions, a car chase, some guns. It feels derivative, not a problem if the action's got me on the edge of my seat or if the characters are interesting. That's not really the case here though. I like my martial arts movies simple. I just want to see cats kicking each other. I don't need all this story, especially this sort of convoluted story that I have to pay a lot of attention to. That final twenty minutes? That's something I could watch again. The rest of it? Don't need it. By the way, I don't think he actually makes that face he's making on the movie poster above at any time during this movie. So if you were planning on renting this to see him make that face, don't waste your time. You'd be better off enlarging the image and shaking your monitor around and making explosion sounds with your lips.

Repo! The Genetic Opera

2008 genetic opera

Rating: 8/20 (Anonymous: 12/20)

Plot: It's the year 2056, and folks organs aren't working too well anymore. Luckily, there's GeneCo, a company that helps the needy get transplants. And if the patient can't make make his or her payments? Well, the organs are repossessed violently by a masked singing repo man. A girl with a mysterious illness, her dad, a grave robber, the president of GeneCo, and his idiot children all sing about it.

Apparently, there are a ton of posters for this one. One of them even clearly says at the top "From the producers of Saw" and a little bit lower "Paris Hilton" but that didn't stop my brother from grabbing this and inviting me over to watch it with him. For the most part, Repo! The Genetic Opera looks and feels just like something made by the producers of Saw that happens to have Paris Hilton in it would. For a musical to work, the music has to be good, and the throbbing gothic industrial shit in this is not, lyrically or sonically. Musically and visually, this is pretty gross. I was surprised that this movie had the budget it did. The sets were elaborate, and the dark future the makers of this envisioned is fully realized although it suffers from some CGI-ugliness. The concept is clever enough to deserve a decent budget, I suppose, but it's so poorly executed. The acting is bad universally, and strangely, a lot of the performers don't sing very well. I suppose it would be hard to have to sing such poorly written lines while trying to keep from laughing though. Perhaps that was the situation with actor Bill Moseley, a guy who's had a lengthy career doing small bits in horror movies including Army of Darkness. Nearly every time he was given screen time, I wanted to laugh, and I'm not sure that was the intention. When the producers of Saw tried to inject a little dark humor into the proceedings--a few bad puns here and there, some gross-out stuff--it didn't work at all. Repo! The Genetic Musical ends up nothing more than an attempt to make the next Rocky Horror Picture Show. I don't like that movie at all either but wouldn't even recommend this to people who do. For those out there who happen to enjoy this sort of thing, it sets up nicely for a sequel. Anonymous and I will be there opening night, probably dressed up as Blind Mag and Luigi Largo respectively.

Paris Hilton, by the way, plays a character whose face falls off. I thought for sure I was watching a Carl's Jr.'s commercial during that scene.

Kill!

1968 samurai comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A ex-samurai bumps into a farmer who desires to become a samurai in a dilapidated old town with a few people and a chicken in it. They end up on opposing sides of a gang war.

More a parody of samurai cinema than an actual samurai movie, Kill! is an entertaining ride albeit a convoluted and wacky one. I really liked Tatsuya Nakadai as the "Man with No Name" character Genta. He seemed recognizable, but that's probably just because all samurai look the same. And that's not racist because samurai ain't a race. Look it up. Look up Nakadai's resume, and you'll see a ton of movies I've seen though. I remember watching this movie before I should have (like, before I'd watched a bunch of the other movies on Nakadai's resume), and I understood it even less. This time, I dug it despite not completely being able to follow every twist and turn, every betrayal and backstab. The cinematography's nifty, the camera often finding itself in places other directors wouldn't put it, and Okamoto, like so many other Japanese action directors, sure can frame a scene. He also knows how to set a mood, from the claustrophobic fort the seven guys hole themselves up in to the ubiquitous dust during the opening ten or so minutes that reminded me more of a spaghetti western than anything else. And speaking of that genre, I thought the music, obvious nod to Morricone, was strange but also strangely fitting. Pretty cool flick, the personal level of coolness probably determined by how many of these types of movies the viewer has seen.

Kihachi Okamoto is the director of a really bitchin' movie called The Sword of Doom, by the way. You should definitely see that one.

Breaker! Breaker!

1977 truckdriver kung-fu movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Chuck Norris, truckdrivin' tough guy, puts his ears on and gets word that his brother is lost in Texas City, California, a town run by a corrupt judge. Chuck, his roundhouse kick, a yellow t-shirt, and a tacky blue van with a giant eagle painted on the side go looking for him. Unfortunately for the citizens of Texas City, California, they're not smart enough to realize that the best way to get rid of Chuck Norris is just to shoot him.

Seriously, I'm with the Judge Trimmings (that's his name) on this one. "He was unarmed." When an action hero gets by on ingenuity, resourcefulness, or something else, I can accept it. But when he's walking out in the open in broad daylight, and the bad guys can't figure out a way to kill him, there's a problem. And speaking of Judge Trimmings (that's his name), what a character you've got here. George Murdock plays the character like he's in a Shakespearean production. He's Acting with a capital A. His lines clash incongruously with everybody else's in Texas City, California, things like "I'm gonna stick ya! I'm gonna stick ya!" repeated by a guy with a pitchfork and another hick whining, "The guy's a bad dude!" Texas City and its occupants reminded me a bit of the locale and characters in Deliverance, so imagine Hamlet replying to "Squeal like a pig!" This doesn't seem like an authentic representation of the profession of truck driving. At the end (SPOILER ALERT!), a bunch of unseen truckers, including one named Mudflapper, come to the rescue after easily locating this dump town (Texas City, California) sans modern technology and crash into buildings in their manic search for Chuck, all while taking turns crackin' wise on their CB's. Their CB banter sounded like the type of thing that was improvised, possibly by some of the dumbest people on earth. At one point, a trucker (maybe Mudflapper) says, "I haven't had this much fun since I broke my shoulder." I had to rewind that to make sure I heard it correctly. Without context (did I miss a prequel to this?), that makes no sense. This also has one of the most terrible musical montages I've seen in a long time with this insipid pop song accompanying scenes of Chuck Norris and Arlene just standing in various places. And there's a stutterer with a stutter that, just like the representation of truck driving, doesn't seem like an accurate representation of stuttering. Chuck Norris says, "I had a brother but I lost him," to him. There's also a wonderfully poignant moment when the stuttering character says, "I'm-I-I-I-I'mma, I-I'm m-m-m-m-m-ma-ma-m-mad at y-y-y-you," leading to one of the bad guys, the stutterer's brother, doing a little soul searching. Oh, and there's a scene where the stuttering guy makes love to a stuffed lion in a barn. But you can't talk about a Chuck Norris movie without discussing the fight scenes. They're nearly nonstop, but they aren't entertaining at all. I couldn't understand why a kick to the abdomen seems to finish off anybody. Maybe that's because Chuck Norris was the fight coordinator for Breaker! Breaker! I've never been roundhouse-kicked in the stomach by Chuck Norris though, so I'm not exactly an expert. I do know that if I was to remake this movie, I'd have anybody who is roundhouse-kicked in the stomach to violently explode in a CGI fireball. That would totally rule and oddly wouldn't really affect the believability of Breaker! Breaker! It all builds to a climactic fight scene where the hero, right after he's been shot, survives having hay and a tire hurled at him, fights off a man attacking him with a hook and later a bottle, and ends up killing the guy with a roundhouse kick to the abdomen. All while a horse watches!

Special note: Jack Nance followed his award-worthy performance in Eraserhead with a performance as a truck driver in this one. Maybe that's why Cory recommended it to me.

This trucker movie was recommended by Cory!

Food, Inc.

2008 horror movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: Troubling expose about how food production has changed. It's not good. Essentially, we're all going to die if we keep eating.

Scary stuff, people. There's not much that was really revolutionary here. Animals are being maltreated. A handful of corporations run everything. Corn is used too often. We eat things that are unfit for animals. The meat we eat is filled with hormones and fecal matter. The government doesn't really care about us. Corporations try to mislead consumers or keep them in the dark about what is in the food they eat. A waterfall of chickens, no matter what anybody else says, is really kind of funny. They're mostly lessons already learned and this is a ton of information to try to digest. It's a ninety minutes bursting at the seams, like the typical American threatening to break apart the fragile fabric of his action pants. It's presented very well, however, and the documentary is as entertaining as it is informative. Similarly to Al Gore's horror movie about how we're all going to drown (same producers actually), this spits out the problems but left me pessimistic. There was a flashy little list of tips before the credits, but most of the solution to our food production problems can't be solved by the average Joe Blow. And this particular Joe Blow is way too lazy to really do anything about all of this anyway.

I believe this was recommended by Oprah. I wouldn't want to eat her either.

The Thing from Another World!

1951 science fiction movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Some army men discover a space ship buried in the ice somewhere near their Alaskan post. They decide to dick around with it and bring a space-monster-on-ice back to base. It turns out that he's a vegetable man! Vegetable man! He thaws, and havoc is wreaked.

A movie with a title this goofy isn't supposed to be this good. And speaking of the title, I'm sticking with the punctuation mark because the poster up there has one. Movies are always better when their titles include punctuation marks. Speaking of that poster, that's actually more of the monster than you get to see in the movie. It's more the suggestion of the monster, quicky glimpses, sound effects, and the after effects that create tension in this 50s Frankenstein-like-dude-on-the-loose flick. And the theremin-heavy score, of course. The winter wonderland setting also works well with the black and white to set the mood. Most interesting, I think, is the characters' banter, something that sets this apart from more ordinary science fiction movies from this time. You learn more about a lot of these people rather than just one or two of the most important ones, and there's a really interesting conflict other than the obvious man vs. space monster conflict. I also like the overlapping dialogue, almost reminiscent of Robert Altman. I think this one holds up very well. The fact that the monster is made out of celery is actually enough to make this a classic.

Them!

1954 giant thing movie

Rating: 18/20 (adjusted--1 bonus point for each Wilhelm Scream)

Plot: Strange things are afoot somewhere in New Mexico. Turns out, gigantic ants, the product of nuclear testing, are causing problems. An old man, his daughter, an FBI guy, and some state policemen have to figure out a way to stop the spread of these giant insects before they destroy humanity.

The most shocking thing about this horror movie? Definitely that it isn't all that bad. From the appearance of the title (in striking red with the exclamation mark--always a bonus) to the well-done climax in Los Angeles sewers, this is really a pretty good film. There are moments of typical B-movie acting and dialogue. A couple drunkards really overdo things, and the now-late Fess Parker is amazingly awful as Mr. Crotty. I do worry that watching this movie last night played some part in the death of Fess Parker, but that doesn't make much sense. I really like some lines in this, ones that seemingly defy logic: "The blood must be 10-12 hours old." "Everything seems to indicate a homicidal maniac." The old man's order of "Get the antenny!" The old man's talk about a Biblical prophesy come true. The guy who kept shouting "Make me the sergeant in charge of the booze," something that I'm sure a fan of this movie has shouted uncontrollably during a period of inebriation. Other flaws in logic? Sure. Why is there only one ant footprint? What's 9 years have to do with anything? Why's there a ribcage? Where did these small town coppers get a couple bazookas? Are there really 700 miles of Los Angeles sewers? But you know what? None of that really matters. This movie has one dull filmstrip too many, and at times, I really wished they'd stop all the talking and get to more scenes with giant ants ("Shoot the antenny!"), but there's a lot of good here. I really like the use of props--pieces of cloth, bones, twisted guns, discombobulated baby dolls. And I really think they do a great job creating atmosphere with desert winds and wildly swinging hanging lights. I also liked the little girl, especially in the scenes where she's stunned into silence. One more note: This movie has not just one and not just two but three Wilhelm screams. My well-trained ears heard them all, probably because my ears don't have all that much to do. Jen doubted me, so I made her look it up, and sure enough, there are three Wilhelms in Them! I don't care what you say. That is just freakin' awesome.

What I learned from watching Them!: ants are kind of mean.

This was another Cory recommendation.