Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse

1948 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The Blandings live in a stuffed New York City apartment with not enough bathrooms and not enough closet space. While Mr. Blandings is shaving one day, a thought crosses his mind--he should kill his family for the insurance money. His wife is cheating on him with a 17 year old kid who dresses up like Uncle Sam and waves to people, and his two daughters, he suspects, are secretly plotting his death. The only thing stopping them, he imagines, is that they haven't found a method that will be both clean and excruciating. By the time he's finished shaving, he's abandoned the idea to kill his family and realizes that what the they actually need is a goat. A really good goat. Then he abandons that idea as well (for a while) and decides to buy an old fixer-upper in Connecticut. A house that needs fixed up. Not a goat. Problems with the new house and property arise and snowball, leading to what can only be described as a cliched 1940's Hollywood comedy murder/suicide. R.I.P. Mr. Blandings. R.I.P. goat.

This is one of several movies my father claims is his favorite. It's cute enough and there are some mildly funny moments. I thought the entire subplot involving his suspicions of infidelity were superfluous. If my neck didn't hurt, I'd give this movie a 15.

Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell

1974 feast of blood

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The final confrontation between Itto and the Yagyu clan. He's killed off three sons in previous movies, so the guy with the white beard and eyepatch sends his daughter, a juggler, to take care of business. Dead. Then he remembers that he has another son and attempts to align with him to hunt down and kill the assassin. Dead, dead, dead. Finally, Itto winds up at a ski resort where he must face hundreds of sword-wielding skiers. Spoiler alert: Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

Completion of the hexology is about what you'd expect. There's blood, people cut in half, gratuitous breast flashes, swords sticking out the tops of skulls, etc. This episode seems a bit darker at times and then almost slipping into self-parody during the denouement when Lone Wolf is slicing up assassins on skis. Another near-ludicrous bit includes three zombie assassins who have the ability to burrow underground like moles. Weird but it works in these movies. It's too bad this concludes the series, not only because I could sit around watching this stuff all day but also because the ending wasn't quite the satisfying resolution this series deserves. The graphic novel series' ending would have been great to see.

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Dark City

1998 science fiction noir

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Poor guy wakes up in a strange bathtub in a strange bathroom adjacent to a room which happens to contain one murdered hooker. Oh, snap!

I need to see this one again. I don't like Jack Bauer at all in this one, and the ending winds up chaotic and silly. Still, this seems to me to be a better-looking, less-pretentious Matrix. Really impressive is the attention to detail in this imaginative bleak world created.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

1958 adventure

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Oh, snap! A bald magician with a lust for lamps has turned Sinbad's average-sized girlfriend into a really tiny girlfriend. Sinbad must return to the mysterious island where the giant cyclops lives in order to get a piece of a two-headed bird's egg so that his girlfriend can once again return to normal size. It's adventurous!

Ok, so the story is really goofy. And the acting is about as bad as it gets. But once again, Harryhausen's ingenious effects are there to save the day. A horned cyclops with fuzzy legs, a breathing and tail-swinging dragon, a four-armed green woman, two-headed birds, another swashbuckling skeleton. What more could you want? The film climaxes with a fight between a cyclops and a dragon which, along with the dinosaurs fighting in Gwangli, makes it completely obvious that Harryhausen was just an imaginative little kid who made his playtime available for everybody else to watch. My biggest gripe about this, other than the acting which is truly horrific, is that the genie is played by a little kid when a midget could have easily been substituted. Right up there with Argonauts and maybe even more enjoyable as it has just as many monsters while not being as long.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

2007 family film

Rating: 11/20 (Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 19/20; Dylan: Missed 1st 20 minutes and stubbornly refused to rate)

Plot: Approaching 250 years of age and on his last pair of shoes, the title proprietor of a magical toy store is ready to leave the earth. He's passing his legacy to the store's manager, Natalie Portman. But will the departure of Magorium cause the store to lose its wonder? Can a little kid who collects hats and a workaholic accountant help save the store?

There are things I really wanted to like about this. Lots of potential. Unfortunately, it ended up looking like a strangely half-assed production, extremely predictable and trite. I'm most offended by the terrible puns and schmaltz, but there are also some special effects that were just embarrassing. The movie also jars you with whimsical but pointless dopiness butted up against forced poignancy and reflective bits of dialogue. The scene that typifies the movie? Natalie Portman's character laughs at Dustin Hoffman's character as he dances on bubble wrap for approximately twenty minutes. I'm not sure if I'm exaggerating or not, but exaggerating doesn't seem like something I ordinarily do. After that twenty minutes, different music starts up and they have a conversation about death. Then it's time for another scene, probably something involving a monkey, a giant ball, or something that is funny because it's moving around in a way that it shouldn't move around in. There's also a lack of character development that actually distorts the movie's central themes. Natalie Portman's character and the little kid don't grow; the accountant's character changes far too abruptly. I actually was optimistic about this one but it's another one of those films that is not as good as its opening credits. It really reminds me of Jumanji or, especially, the sort-of sequel Space Jumanji, and that is not even close to a good thing.

Horton Hears a Who!

2008 Dr. Seuss adaptation

Rating: 11/20 (Dylan: 8/20; Emma: 16/20; Abbey: 19/20)

Plot: When the obnoxious title elephant hears what he perceives to be a scream from a floating speck, he feels compelled to save whoever made the scream. He discovers that the speck is actually an ultra-microscopic world inhabited by Whos. He decides to move the speck to safety, but standing in his way (for reasons I can't fully comprehend) is a bitchy kangaroo. Meanwhile, on Whoville, the mayor tries to convince everybody that the elephant and their dangers exist.

This is the best screen adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book yet! All that essentially means, however, is that it isn't the equivalent of exhuming Theodore Geisel and urinating freely upon his corpse while standing next to a burning pile of his books which seemed to be the goal of everybody involved in the production of The Cat in the Hat. The main problem with this cartoon is that it is too loud. Just look at the title. Even it has an exclamation point! I have no problem at all with the animation, and in fact, I think this comes a lot closer to capturing the whimsical Dr. Seuss world than the other adaptations, maybe even the classic Grinch cartoon. There was texture, especially in the scenery, and a lot of the background stuff (weird contraptions, sight gags) were fun. Unfortunately, I had to hear it, too. I would have preferred seeing stills and having a narrator (preferably Werner Herzog, but I wouldn't be too picky) read from the book. The added dialogue was rarely worth adding, and the characters (too many, by the way) weren't all that likable. They almost had too much personality. I'm not saying that Jim Carrey and Steve Carell aren't very good at what they do, but I bet having no-name actors voice the roles would have actually helped matters. Or, Crispin Glover could have played all the parts. He wouldn't have overdone it. The movie's also too long at just over 79 minutes. Lots of scenes seemed extraneous, and a musical finale was so dreadful that I pointed to the television and screamed, "You're losing a full point for that, creators of Ice Age!" That probably explains Abbey's rating of 19/20.

By the way, am I the only person on earth who would love to see a full-length feature film version of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish?

Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers

Animated shorts from '84-'03

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Animated realizations of the nightmares of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.

These macabre, surreal miniature epics creep and crawl through the shadows of Joe the Plumber's dank subconscious. Busted puppets are employed to dust off bric-a-brac and twitching baubles, uncovering perversity, fears, obsessions, and things Joe the Plumber will never ever understand. Moody musics (Stockhausen the most known name; some guy named Lech Jankowski does the music for 2/3 of the shorts though) accompany grotesqueries. Strings waver, eggs vibrate, antiquated instruments flutter, and feathers dance. The Quays are brilliant with set design, mostly artistically-designed miniatures in black and white, but the camera work is stunning as it maneuvers delicately through secret places, loses focus, becomes engulfed in shadows, etc. Less comedic (more uneasy) than Svankmajer, seemingly an influence since one of these pieces is named after him, these surreal shorts are abstract spectacles, the works of visionary auteurs. My favorites: "Street of Crocodiles" and "Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies" but also, for sentimental reasons, the videos for rock-and-rollers His Name Is Alive which was my introduction to the Quay world. Recommended for Eraserhead fans.

People my age may recognize this MTV-commissioned short:

The Quay Brothers are likely Youtubable. Check it.

Great World of Sound

2007 dramedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Martin gets a job as a music producer, a sort-of talent scout in charge of locating prospective artists and getting them to fork over some money in exchange for some time in the studio. If it sounds like a shady operation, that's because it is. Clarence, a father of six, is simultaneously hired and trained by Shank (yeah, that sounds like the name of an honest businessman) and becomes Martin's partner. They travel to Birmingham, Louisville, Nashville, and Indianapolis to discover new talents, and even though they make a pretty good team, Martin's conscience starts to get in the way.

I spent much of the movie wondering how the scenes with the "try-outs" (there are lots of them, maybe even too many) looked so natural. I'm guessing the performances were real and the lines from the two leads were improvised. At least two of the auditions had to be written and staged, but the others were surely from actual aspiring musicians/singers who answered some sort of ad. Lots of subtle humor in this, but there's also a heart to the film. As the drama unfolds, it's almost impossible not to empathize with Martin as he struggles with his new job and his relationships. The movie's far from perfect and really falls apart at the end, but I do like the actors who play Martin and especially Clarence a lot and think it's a promising start to Craig Zobel's career as a filmmaker. Unlike with Brown Bunny, I didn't recognize Indianapolis in this one.

High Plains Drifter

1973 weird western

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A mysterious stranger rides into tiny Lago, a town with a checkered past of shadows and whip cracks. He kills a couple three roughies, rapes a woman, and agrees to help the townspeople by protecting them from three guys just released from prison who may have a reason to come and shoot up the place. But it comes at a price--anything the stranger wants. So he makes the midget the sheriff/mayor and paints the entire town red. Hell arrives.

Strange western. With Eastwood in his "Man with no Name" role and little person Billy Curtis, there's almost too much tough guy in this one. The plot is simple enough, but there are layers and a lot, I think, that is open to interpretation. (I have my own theories involving Angels of Death and purgatory.) My favorite tidbit about this is that Eastwood wrote to John Wayne about potentially working with him following the release of this movie. John Wayne apparently hated the violence in High Plains Drifter so much that he wrote a pretty nasty letter back saying he had no desire to work with him. Odd, because the violence doesn't seem especially graphic when compared to earlier Leone or Peckinpah movies. And it may just be my sick mind, but I thought this movie was more comedic than it was violent. I wonder if Wayne would have worked with Billy Curtis. Man, that would have been something.

Burn After Reading

2008 black comedy

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Simple-minded Chad and lonely aspiring plastic surgery patient Linda, both employees at a gym, stumble upon a cdr containing the memoirs of the recently-dismissed C.I.A. agent Osbourne Cox. After he rudely turns down their request for a reward, they, thinking what they have is top-secret information, decide to blackmail him. It doesn't work out very well. Caught in the crossfire are Cox's cheating spouse and the womanizing sexaholic with whom she is sleeping. And that, Steve, is how you avoid ending a sentence in a preposition.

This is one you've got to stick with because it sort of grows on you as it builds to some typical Coen moments. Like Lebowski, this is built on well-written and oft-hilarious dialogue (also, parallel or repeated lines are used frequently), but something about it seems a little half-assed, a Coen toss-off, at times even a private joke to which few people will be hip. (There you go again, Steve.) I like the performances although McDormand and Pitt might over-do it a little. The unpredictability goes a long way, and I think the comedy works despite frequently venturing into such dark territory at times that the writing only seems to nudge up against comedy or tiptoe the line between funny and uncomfortable. But shouldn't all good comedy make people uncomfortable?

The Color of Pomegranates

1968 biographic poem

Rating: 19/20

Plot: Sayat Nova was an Armenian troubadour. He was born, had a childhood, read books, saw a nipple and a seashell, touched a chicken, learned the lute, fell in love, dressed in red, dressed in black, reflected, entered a monastery, swam in a river of lambs, moved his hands around, lit candles, and died.

So Parajanov made an even better movie than Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. The fact that I have never seen a movie like this and will never see a movie like this again means something. With no camera movements and no dialogue (not to mention how the "actors" all stare expressionless directly into the camera), this is far from conventional. But it's also the most stunningly original thing I've ever seen. Symbols float in shots that belong on museum walls. Delicately surreal, jaw-dropping, and hypnotic, The Color of Pomegranates sucks you in and spins you, tickles your mind, licks your lungs, strokes your lobes, and sets fire to your genitals (in a good way). This is one of those movies you watch and then say, "I can't believe I just watched that." Can't remember the last time that happened. Actually, after watching this, I can't remember any other movie I've seen. I would not be surprised at all if this is the best movie I see this year.

Faust

1994 Svankmajer flick

Rating: 17/20

Plot: See Marlow, Christopher.

This version of the Faust story is a lot funnier than 1920-something silent Murnau version. It's even, arguably, more visually imaginative and fantastically stylized. Arguably. Svankmajer's mix of live action, marionettes (sometimes sans strings), and stop animation creates an off-kilter universe of twitching cobwebs, junk-drawer chicken bones, and closet ash and shadows. And a dude has sex with a seven-foot tall wooden puppet. I know what folks'll say. Folks'll complain that this is too much of an onslaught of the random, too much of that weird-for-the-sake-of-weird type stuff. But I disagree completely and think that this grows with multiple viewings. Surrealist funk that hits you right in the loins! This isn't my favorite Svankmajer movie, but it is my brother's and is probably one of the easier ones to locate.

Things to Come

1936 science fiction movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: In 1940, a second World War breaks out. It's a long, devastating war, one that leaves civilization primitive and plague-ridden, a world of rubble and mist. Zombies and barbarism abound. But not to worry, kids! Science and technology is here to save the day! Let's build a flying machine! Let's dress in silver! To the moon or bust, caveman!

The ideas of H.G. Wells are interesting if not exactly prescient and the special effects and imagery isn't all that dated. The unfortunate thing here is that the movie is so boring. This is great whenever nobody is talking, but it's laughable and silly whenever they do. I think that's likely because the English are mostly laughable and silly and boring. The montages of war-torn society have a modern feel, and the set design (the ravages of war and the futuristic civilization 100 years after the war) look terrific. Too bad there's a story. I reckon this is something that fans of the sci-fi genre should check out even if they won't enjoy it all that much.

Jason and the Argonauts

1963 mythological romp

Rating: 16/20

Plot: All young Jason wants to do in life is put together a slow-pitch softball team that ccan ompete for the national title. What's standing in his way? An addiction to medication for hyperactivity and his own phallic hallucinations. Not having any previous problems with hyperactivity, the medication slows him down significantly as it makes him hypoactive and languid and forces him to pay far too much attention to things, sometimes waiting for days for somebody to finish a story that was already long finished. The hallucinations (a giant phallic bronze statue, harpies, a multi-phallic lizard, a grotesquely lopsided dildo, a talking phallic figurehead) also slow him down in his quest to find softball talent as he's thrown him trembling into the corners of his phallic ship. Can he find a starting pitcher before the big tournament begins?

It's too bad there's so much cheese on the edges of this epic. At the heart, you've got some of Harryhausen's best work. The story is pretty stupid and sprawling with that mythological goofiness. There's not a lot to love when there's not monsters on the screen. I'm not sure this story would even make a lot of sense to anybody without at least some background in mythology. The characters are also wooden, and they aren't helped by trite dialogue. But it's easy enough to forgive that when you've got classic action sequences like when the giant statue guy pops out from behind the mountain or when those skeletons start doing their skeletal thang. Bitchin' stuff! Despite its problems, it's at least as good as anything Peter Jackson's done with the possible exception of Meet the Feebles.