UHF

1989 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: George Newman is a manchild with an overactive imagination. After getting fired from yet another job, he falls into a position as manager of a television station, Channel 62. With a little help from his friends, he transforms Channel 62 from a station that shows reruns of Mr. Ed nobody watches to a station with oddball entertainment suddenly able to compete with the major networks.

I've been on a "Weird Al" kick lately, so I decided to revisit this now instead of waiting around for a Criterion release or the five and a half hour director's cut. I didn't think it was funny in 1989 when I saw it in the theater with my brother. Now I'm older and should actually be more mature and should find it even less funny, but that's not the case at all. It's rarely clever, but Yankovic's odd brand of humor manages to connect more than you'd expect if you just described this to somebody. The parodies and satire are about what you'd expect if you followed the man's 1980's work. The Rambo part and Gandhi II are the best ones. Of course, there's so many ideas here (sort of like Weird Al thought this might be his only chance to make a movie and had to use up every single idea he had) that not all of them are going to work. The "Money For Nothing" parody that cleverly spoofs the partly-animated video (an early-MTV staple) but is all about the Beverly Hillbillies sort of seems out of place. Poodles being tossed from a window though. . .that's always going to be pretty funny. Bonus points for its prescience--it's interesting how the crap on Weird Al's t.v. station is not much different than the crap networks are feeding us today. Michael Richards, pre-Seinfeld, demonstrates the physical comedy and dopiness that would be associated with Kramer in a few years. And the Nanny is also in this. This is frequently dumb, the sort of thing fans of Airplane would appreciate, and has a story that almost gets in the way of the fun, but it's bound to make you laugh while it slurps up your IQ points. Funniest moments: Rambo's makin'-things-explode face, the audience of Weird Al's kiddie show, the guy's pet show and Weird Al and his friend's response, the Indiana Jones parody. . .oh, nevermind. I could go on and on.

Fascinating note: The midget in this one (Billy Barty) appeared in over 120 film and television roles, and although he would have been old enough, was not a Munchkin.

Nostalgic:

The Hudsucker Proxy

1994 comedic drama


Rating: 16/20



Plot: An imbecile from Muncie moves to the big city following graduation from business school. He's got dreams of making it big but can only find a job in the mailroom of Hudsucker Industries on the same exact day the president of the company takes a dive from the 44th story window during a board meeting and winds up as jelly on the street below. The board, led by mean guy Sidney Mussburger, strategize to find a way to make the company's stock dip so that they can buy up the bulk that just flew out the window. Their plan involves making that Hoosier imbecile president of the company and creating panic with investors.



Delightful! This is considered second tier Coen bros. stuff, but second tier Coen is so much better than a lot of most filmmakers' first tiers. Here they pay homage to those fast-talking sophisticated 1930's comedies (see: Sturges) and they and their actors do a very good job. The script is quickly paced and witty, and the movie looks and sounds fantastic with shots that simultaneously look innovative and old and big music straight outta 1935. This isn't often laugh-out-loud funny, more gee-that's-clever funny, but it is entertaining as hell. The lead actors on the poster are very good, but it's the little side parts (a lot of Coen regulars) that really bring the fun. There's also a lot of fun in the little side details--the period stuff, the visual gags, recurring jokes. The plot may get a little loopy by the end and this might annoy people who aren't familiar with what the Coens are spoofing (I didn't appreciate it much when it first came out), but it's quality entertainment that grows on you and reveals layers with repeated viewings.



Here I am remembering that I haven't seen Barton Fink in a couple years:

Gates of Heaven

1978 documentary



Rating: 15/20



Plot: Errol Morris documentary about pet cemeteries, focusing on both the business people who bury and the folks who have their beloved pets buried. Settings shift from a guy with a failing pet cemetery and his battles with the local rendering business to a very profitable family business in California.



There's a roller coaster of emotions in this cheap-looking but never cheap documentary. There's nothing fancy and nothing tricky here unless you consider careful editing tricky. Morris sets the camera in front of these people and lets them prattle on. It's never fancy, it's infrequently exciting, and it's considerably rewarding. Difficult for most people, me included, would be the lack of narrative. This is idea driven, more philosophically reflective than entertaining. There's no music, no narration, no real transitions from one idea to the next. And not all those ideas connect--there's a rambling woman babbling about her son not talking to her anymore and the hippie kid more concerned about his musical aspirations than burying pets--so the final product is like a ball of string with lots and lots of loose ends. I wonder if subsequent viewings would tie anything together. Regardless, this is an interesting approach to exploring the topics of death, the way people deal with loss, and the afterlife.



Note: This is the film at the center of the bet that resulted in Werner Herzog boiling and eating his shoe. It's also, almost bewilderingly, one of Roger Ebert's top ten favorite movies.



There may be an animal buried in here:

Salesman

1969 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin follow four Bible salesmen as they pitch the Good (and really expensive) book, mostly to people who can't afford it. The Gipper, the Rabbit, the Bull, and the Badger travel to Chicago, the East Coast, and Florida to show off their techniques. The Badger begins to mope around after he has problems--finding homes, getting in homes, selling his goods.

Excellent cinema verite concerning the American dream! The guy occasionally ham it up in front of the camera, but for the most part, this looks to realistically portray the job. And it's a lot of fun (and funny) to see the gimmicks--flattery, guilt, jokes, browbeating--used by the salesmen. Also fascinating are the down times, when the salesmen are sitting around, discussing what to eat, whining, singing, playing cards, swimming, or whatever. A gritty reality show, Salesman works because it's one of those movies that manages to hold a mirror up to society and reflect how simultaneously humorous and pathetic particular people are at a particular time. It's the fringe details (background televisions, asides, lingering cameras, subtle expressions) that make this something special.

Here's a guy who once sold Avon door-to-door (unsuccessfully):

The Wandering Swordsman

1970 kung-fu

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A swordsman wanders. Eventually, he wanders a little too far and into a robbery scheme of "Fail-Safe" Kung Wu and his posse--a guy with a whip, some guys with swords, a guy with these huge gold fist things. Leap, Wandering Swordsman! Leap!

Not great fight choreography and really stupid-looking wire stuff (these characters are bouncing all over the place, defying the laws of gravity in really cheap-looking ways), but enough blood and fun to make this another worthwhile Kung-Fu-riday venture. At one point, our hero is fighting dozens of men with a sword sticking all the way through him, a sword which he actually uses to kill a couple guys while it's still protruding from his abdomen. That's pretty badass! I liked the hero in this (David Chiang plays him), but the bad guy characterization didn't work. Neither did the romance. Fun little Shaw Bros. flick regardless.

Look at how much I enjoy Kung-Fu-Riday!

Hombre

1967 western

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The title hombre is thrust into a situation where he has to adjust to white man life after being raised by Apaches. While traveling via stagecoach, he feels the prejudice of his white fellow travellers. When there's an unexpected change in their travel plans, however, they must depend on him for survival. He says a bunch of really cool things.

I actually think this suffers a bit by having Paul Newman in the lead role. His nonchalant attitude only sort of makes him seem like a calm and collected hero. There's just something draining about watching the main character lackadaisically going about his business. Newman almost could have played his part from a recliner. Ultra-laid-back, he delivers his lines in a barely audible mumble, and every line (unfortunately, here) is quotable, coming from the pen of a writer (Elmore Leonard in this case) instead of the mouth of a dude who was raised by Apaches. Still, the lines are really good ones. The plot's also a little goofy, but the story is at least told well with some great moments of tension, great mountain scenery, an eerie set piece that is some sort of abandoned mine, and, all things considered, a good script. I liked the colors in this, too. I also liked the guy who played the Mexican (Frank Silvera). He had some good lines. Oh, and the ending was good.

Here I am trying to figure out what "hombre" means in American words:

Oldboy

2003 drama

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Dae-su Oh, a married father of one, is minding his own drunken business one night when he is kidnapped and imprisoned. After fifteen excruciating years, he's freed. He meets a girl in a sushi restaurant, and together, they try to solve the mystery of who imprisoned him and why. Things are uncovered shockingly, and the protagonist shows off his carpentry skills.

Stupid and almost mind-numbingly dull, Oldboy ends up being one of those style-but-no-substance movies. I couldn't buy anything that was going on, didn't even care about the mystery, and found it nearly impossible to become emotionally invested. There's a twist of Crying Game proportions, but I was able to see the twist coming from 1/4 of a mile away and by then didn't care anyway. This nearly nudges against innovative at times, but then it takes its silly flashbacks, cardboard character types, the thumping techno soundtrack, and lame attempts at art-house surrealism and retreats back into cliche. It's all too bad. I was intrigued up until the point when he stuck a live octopus in his mouth. After that, the stupid grabbed hold.

Here I am wondering if I should see any more movies from Korea:

Note: I knew Roger Ebert had given this a four-star review because I saw it on the front of the dvd box. Seeing now that the imdb rating of 8.3 ranks this as the 114th best movie ever made, that it finished second behind that Fahrenheit 9/11 for the top prize at Cannes, and that it has an 82% at rottentomatoes makes me scratch my head. What the hell did I miss?

I'm Not There

2007 biopic

Rating: 17/20 (Jen lasted ten minutes. She said, "I don't like this," and then fell asleep.)

Plot: The life and career of Dylan 1961 to circa 1980 using six and a half characters representing the early myths detailing his arrival on the scene and pre-career meanderings, the early days in Greenwich Village as the spokesman for a generation he didn't really want to speak for, the plugged-in "Judas" period, the years he wanted to disappear lowlighted by a devastating divorce and a motorcycle accident, the 70's revival, and his dip into contemporary Christian rock 'n' roll.

The more you know about Dylan, the more you'll enjoy this. In fact, I don't think this would make much sense at all to anybody who hasn't at least had a cursory glance at the life and times of the icon. Clearly not a movie for everyone (too artsy, somewhat pretentious, difficult, masturbatory, fragmented, self-referential), I think the multi-genre, multi-perspective, richly-textured and fractured approach adds up to an utterly fascinating piece of art. This makes the average biopic and that Across the Universe look like complete garbage which, of course, they mostly are. I'd expect no less from the guy who made a film based on the life of Karen Carpenter using only Barbie dolls though. Tremendous acting top to bottom; standing out most was Cate Blanchett in a role I frankly expected to be disappointed by. Boy, she sure had the mannerisms and cadence down. This is also great visually with some surreal touches, black and white Fellini-esque cinematography, artsy-fartsiness galore, and some interesting editing choices that are hard to ignore. Flashy and pompous enough to hate except that I thought it was pretty brilliant and loved it instead. The whole thing's like a stained-glass window dropped by clowns. But in a good way. Being a huge Dylan fan couldn't have hurt though.

"Come down from there. You're going to get yourself killed!" David Cross as Allen Ginsberg? See you later, Allen Ginsberg!

I'd love to talk about this one with somebody who doesn't know much about or just doesn't like Bob Dylan. I'd also like somebody to tell me whether or not I should see Velvet Goldmine again. I remember hating it.

Picture deleted.

Dan in Real Life

2007 romantic comedy

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: Dan, a newspaper advice columnist and single father of three daughters, falls in love with a woman he meets in a bookstore while visiting his family somewhere on either the East or West coast and finds out later that the woman is his brother's new girlfriend who the family then also falls in love with which makes things really awkward for Dan, a newspaper columnist and single father of three daughters. Things turn sinister when Dan goes batty and kills and eats his entire family and follows it up with a trip to the bowling alley. He bowls a 126, brags about his spare on the ninth frame, and plays Boys Don't Cry's "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" on the jukebox thirty-seven times.

A Sleepless in Seattle clone, but at least it's not a particularly offensive one. I did like Steve Carrell in this, but a lot of the sentiment was so cheap, and the cliches were piled on pretty thickly. Choppy and tidy. Predictable, almost funny cookie cutter stuff, but not a terrible way to pass a couple hours with a lovely somebody who smells a lot better than I do.

One smelly person/one non-smelly person:

Juno

2007 comedy

Rating: 12/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: Michael Cera is at it again, running around like a perverse sex fiend and impregnating our little girls. He's knocked up the title character, an eccentric and free-thinking sixteen year old. This development looks like it could ruin her life, a life spent mostly hanging out with Michael Cera and her annoying best friend who (plot hole!) for some reason nobody kills by the end of the movie. Juno eventually decides to give the baby up for adoption and finds a suitable wealthy couple. She becomes attached to the prospective adoptive father who, like her, enjoys horror movies and music. Then she gets bigger and bigger and bigger and tries to sort out her emotions about Michael Cena, parenting, the adoptive parents, and love. Meanwhile, Michael Cena runs around looking for another little girl's life to ruin.

Well, this was cutesy. Cutesy dialogue, cutesy Juno, cutesy Jason Bateman, cutesy soundtrack. The script sort of zings along as if the characters had been practicing it for months. The characters are mostly easy enough to like, even the character who is supposed to be the bad one. The story is a bit too predictable and the story-telling too traditional, but this Judd Apatow clone actually works better than Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up. Probably because the human, more mature side (the "soul" part) doesn't seem forced. This didn't seem realistic to me, and I should know since I was once a sixteen year old who was impregnated by Michael Cera. Although I did like a lot of the individual songs (Moldy Peaches, Bowie, Kinks, Belle and Sebastian, lots by the female half of the Moldy Peaches), I got tired of the pattern of dialogue, loud cutesy song, more dialogue, loud cutesy song, more dialogue, loud cutesy song, etc.

I can't wait for that Arrested Development movie.

I took this picture with my feet!

Westworld

1973 science fiction western

Rating: 10/20

Plot: For the low cost of 1,000 bucks a day, vacationers can stay at an adult amusement park to get the ultimate experience in virtual reality. They have their choice between Westworld where they can play cowboys and Indians, Romanworld, and a medieval world. A homosexual couple, neither who are Burt Reynolds, decide to visit Westworld. They're having a great time shooting up robots, having sex with robots, and doing other things that cowboys do like robots until those robots start malfunctioning and killing everybody. Then they have to ask for their money back. Yee-haw!

I'm sure Yul Brynner went to his grave proud of his work in this one. Not only is he just phoning in his role from The Magnificent Seven (same costume, I believe!), but he dies like a pansy about thirty-seven times in this movie. This is incredibly dated and stupid on almost every level. Couldn't stand either of the main characters or their stupid hair/moustaches, and somebody should be embarrassed about the B-western action choreography. The main character runs like a girl! The man-on-android action was nothing but a tease. Twice I laughed loudly enough to wake Jennifer up. Westworld is a science fiction western made by people who know nothing about science or westerns. More plot holes here than a sponge's biopic! Yee-haw! Apparently, this is going to be remade. That has Academy Award written all over it!

Note: I would have given this a 14/20 if Yul Brynner would have jerked around on the floor after his deaths. I've always wanted to see Yul Brynner jerk around on the floor.

Here I am:

Blade Runner

1982 sci-fi noir

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Indiana Jones, a retired archaeologist, has been hired as a terminator of replicants. The replicants, androids who feel and think and act like humans, have become illegal. Indiana Jones runs around getting beaten up by five dangerous replicants, falls in love with one of them, and then runs around some more until the movie ends.

I don't like this movie very much. I didn't like it much as a kid when it had the voiceover and the neat-and-tidy happy ending, and I don't like this "super-duper director's cut in yo' facizzle" or whatever it's called. It looks fantastic with non-CGI effects that don't look dated at all. The future urban landscapes, the use of shadows and lights, and the technological imaginings give this atmosphere and create a moodiness typical of 40's-50's noir. Unfortunately, the wooden acting, poor dialogue, and slow-motion pace nearly made me fall asleep. Dylan did fall asleep. I can see this as a movie I might like more if I see it again as an adult, but I don't foresee two hours I'll be willing to spend doing that in my near future, maybe not even in 2019.

Here I am trying to keep my eyes open:

Unforgiven

1992 western

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Will Munny's killed a lot of folk--women, children, anything that walks or crawls--but hasn't shot at a man or drank alcohol for over ten years. Instead, he's tried his best to settle into farm life with a wife and two children. His wife dies and his struggles on the farm escalate at around the same time a young buck visits him with a proposition. The self-named Schofield Kid wants to partner up with Munny to hunt down a couple cowboys who cut up a prostitute. He initially declines but eventually, with old partner Ned, meets up with the kid to travel to Big Whisky. Little Bill, the sheriff in Big Whisky, isn't happy about the prostitutes' bounty and tries his best to rid his town of assassins.

Near-classic has great acting (Hackman being the most memorable although Richard Harris is also enjoyable), great characters, great dialogue, and great visuals. There isn't much wasted here. Well, I don't care for the prologue and epilogue bookends. Beautifully structured with cranky poetry, dusty existentialism, and bloody mysticism.

Summertime is here. Summer is the season of the western. Here I am watching the first of probably many:

C.S.A.:The Confederate States of America

2004 satirical (?) mockumentary

Rating: 10/20

Plot: This is a look at what American history would look like following a Confederate victory in the Civil War. Disguised as a BBC documentary and interrupted by hilarious advertisements that seemed straight out of MAD TV, this starts with the war itself and then moves through reconstruction, imperialism, isolationism, World War II, a Cold War (with Canada), and contemporary times.

The only thing shocking about this is how humorless it was. It attempts provocation or edginess, winds up just pointless. The visuals and interviews were well done and made the thing look authentic, but it doesn't raises any real issues. There's maybe an intriguing idea here, but it's very poorly executed and not worth seeing.

No picture.

Have Sword, Will Travel

1969 Shaw Brothers kung-fu

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Ying Ke-Fing is a swordsman whose skills have depleted with sickness and age. He and his peeps annually escort a whole bunch of government silver from one place to another place. Two of that crew, Hsiang and Yun, are students of the latter's aunt, a "master of hidden weapons" or some shit like that. They're also engaged. When a mysterious and very poor wanderer with lightning-speed sword skills pops into the picture, a high-flyin' kung-fu love triangle develops. Hsiang and Yun must figure out whether this stranger is who he says he is or if he's actually a spy for the Flying Tiger Gang. Whatever he is, they decide, he sure is tiny!

Kung-Furiday! Lots of swords in this one, and, by the end at least, lots and lots of carnage. This starts with an in-studio ballet of slashing and violence behind the credits. From there, things get a little sluggish during the exposition, but by the time this builds to the climactic ambush scene, a lot which takes place in the various levels of a tower, it gets violently poetic and exciting. Love stories are generally extraneous in action flicks, but the triangle here adds to the suspense and character development. But who cares about all that on Kung-Furiday? We want swordplay and wire-aided leaps through the trees and fountains of blood and dorky sound effects. Have Sword, Will Travel's got all that.

School's out, so my Friday martial arts entertainment won't be on the big screen for a while. Here I am: