Judex

1963 crime movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A crooked financier gets some threatening love letters in which the mysterious Judex threatens to kill him unless he gives back money he's apparently stolen from others. There's a funky bird party where Judex shows up to perform some magic tricks and kill the host. Or does he? After his daughter decides that she doesn't want the inheritance, a criminal female gets involved and things get a little complex. Manigances! 

It's the bird heads that got me, Channing Pollock showing off sleight of hand trickery with some doves while all these bird-headed people look on. It's entirely unclear to me how the murder actually happens because I didn't see Favraux actually drink from the glass Judex handed him. But maybe there was some more sleight of hand that I missed. This Georges Franju movie is based on a French serial from the 19-teens, a masked criminal saga from Louis Feuillade who also did Fantomas. Franju pays homage respectfully. The stylistic touches are subtle ones, but this does have a flavor. Judex's story is a little hard to take seriously, but that's part of the charm. I'm not exactly sure when it's supposed to take place, but there are some science fiction touches that don't really seem to belong anywhere. Judex has mechanical secret doors and a nifty surveillance system. More of that kind of shit, and this would have been like a less-comic Batman (the television one). The title character is interesting although I wish he would have done a little more. He's a cool cat though. The first shot of him with his bird mask is amazing, a slow pan from his feet all the way to the crest. There are some other great visuals, too--a woman floating, a nun in the middle of the road, the villainous woman in her cat burglar or equally-sexy nun outfits. I don't always understand Francine Berge's character's decision-making, but I enjoyed watching her trying to execute it all. Georges Melies' son Andre is also a doctor in this movie. I also really enjoyed the music here, especially during the title sequence. It's the second great Maurice Jarre score I've heard in the past week. Anyway, really cool movie, probably more so if you have any interest in 60's homages to silent cinema or somewhat-confusing French crime capers or Georges Franju. 

Cul-De-Sac

1966 drama

Rating: 17/20 (Buster: no rating)

Plot: A pair of inept criminals limp to the beachfront castle home of a effeminate businessman and his hot French wife and abuse their telephone, eat their eggs, and kick their chickens.

There are spoilers, but they're all in the first paragraph.

Buster didn't catch the majority of this movie, but she did watch the final 20 minutes with me and said, "That's a really sad ending, but a good movie" as she watched Donald Pleasence sitting on a rock at the end. And she's right. Mostly because the entire movie kind of is like a wrestling match between this murky madcap humor and this hopeless tension, and while you sort of figure that things will work out eventually for at least one or two of the characters because movies that are comedic at all tend to work out in the end, it just doesn't. So Buster was very perceptive. She couldn't have understood all the underlying emotions these characters carried with them. Lionel Stander's carrying around this wounded pride, the loss of a friend, and likely a latent homosexuality. Pleasence seemingly carries the weight of every decision he's ever made, this powerlessness, a strange fatigue, and likely a latent homosexuality. And Francoise Dorleac has a restlessness, too much youth, and too much power.

Much of the greatness of this movie is in its gaps. And in its chickens. Lots of chickens in this, and I've always thought chickens looked better in black and white movies anyway. I loved one shot of a chicken running from a pushed car and another with a chicken poised on a window sill with another chicken walking in the background. It makes you wonder--did Polanski direct the chickens? The movie's beautifully shot with a beautiful beachside castle, a beautiful beach, and a beautiful Francoise Dorleac whose character thankfully sleeps naked. And I just love how the clouds look in this movie. The most technically-brilliant scene has to be a quietly-magical one-shot scene on a beach, an impressive display of timing and movement that might blow your mind if you're paying attention. Of course, it's been established that I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. But gunshots at a plane, Dorleac running off and returning with a skinny dip in between, and Pleasence eating sand and clouds? It's just so cool. But this is really a movie about the characters and their dynamics. The performances from the four leads are terrific even though I don't think you could call them great acting performances. I always love Pleasence, and he gets himself a character here that somehow manages to be simply drawn and complex at the same time. Dorleac has that 1960's goddess vibe, a sexy aloofness maybe, but there are subtleties to her work here, too. Lionel Stander's crook is the most explicitly comic character, but there's a gruff to the comedy, Stander growling every line like he's Fred Flintstone. And he gets some great lines, nearly-satirical gangster goofiness like "My name ain't George and I don't have horns. I could punch that pretty puss of yours like a pumpkin." And then, you've got the always-great Jack MacGowran, the kind of actor who could even be funny when he's lying there dead. He's part of a very funny visual gag featuring a car where he gets to say "Son of a bitch!" and "I've got a problem here!" It's also great so see character's rocking the Hitler mustache.

Sometimes, I wonder if Roman Polanski is my favorite director. Is he? It reminds me that I've still never seen The Pianist.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

1985 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Max winds up in Bartertown where he runs into some troubles with the people in charge and is forced to fight in the Thunderdome, a large metal jungle gym with weapons and shouting. He's abandoned in the middle of Tatooine. Luckily, Peter Pan's friends are around to save the day.

I don't think I had seen this movie from beginning to end since the mid-80's when I watched it and didn't like most of it, probably because I was 12 or 13 and creeped out by people my age and size. This is a movie in three parts. You've got Bartertown following a crappy Tina Turner song, the movie instantly recovering with camels, a monkey, and a didgeridoo. There's a ridiculous amount of costumed fun, and I love the slow pans over the scum and villainy. Tina Turner and her cronies are never well-defined, but they're at least interesting, and the Thunderdome scene combines just the right amount of silly and awesome. Those guys in Bartertown sure like their rhyming chants. Then, you have the sagging middle bit with all the sand and the children. I did like the ridiculous head Mel Gibson's forced to wear, but this third (maybe half?) of the movie is unquestionably boring. Your mind wanders, and you really miss Bartertown. The final bit features an exhilarating train and cars chase through endless desert, and the whole thing manages to remind you of just how awesome this third installment could have ended up. There's some dark humor, there's violence, there's explosions, there's punching. It's a chaotic mess of a chase scene, but it might still rival the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This movie is better than I remember it being, and I especially liked Maurice Jarre's score, mostly when it clanks and booms.

I watched this because I'm giddy about the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road. And because I wanted to see Angelo Rossitto who is absolutely brilliant in this. This guy's career fascinates me. How many other actors can you name whose career started in the silent era and lasted until 1987? It's pretty impressive. And I just realized, while skimming through his 88-credit filmography (a ton of uncredited work, sadly), that he was a Saucer Man in Invasion of the Saucer-Men. I'm glad he got a great character to play in this movie right at the end of his career.

I might have to do an Angelo Rossitto fest soon!

Bad Movie Club: Plan 9 from Outer Space

1959 sci-fi classic

Bad Movie Rating: 5/5 (Fred: 5/5; Josh: 5/5; Jeremy: 5/5; Libby: 5/5; Libby: no rating)

Rating: 2/20

Plot: I already wrote elegantly about this right here.

I've seen a lot of bad movies, and although this movie deserves its reputation as a bad movie classic, it's not the worst movie ever made. See? Just look at that rating. It's twice as good as Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Ben & Arthur, and The Room. This has everything that a bad movie aficionado could possibly want, save bad child acting.

Terrible special effects? Check.
"Science" that would have Copernicus spinning in his grave? Check.
Bad acting? Check.
Continuity errors? Check.
Awful dialogue? Check.
Questionable character motivations? Check.
Borrowed music and stock footage? Check.
Hilariously cheap sets? Check.

You watch this movie--or any movie that Ed Wood Jr. had anything to do with--and you just know that it was made by somebody who was very special, one of those minds that comes along less frequently than Haley's Comet. Some of my BMC colleagues hadn't seen this, and it's probably a must for any bad movie club. I'm happy to give it a spin every few years.

Special Post: The Neighbors

201 television sitcom

Rating: n/r

Plot: The lives and shenanigans of tenants in an apartment building.

Four episodes of this were unleashed this weekend, apparently because God and/or Hulu love us. They've threatened to release eight more sometime this summer. I can't wait.

Somewhere, I read a little review of this--Tommy Wiseau's sitcom and follow-up to his masterpiece, The Room--and it was all about how the man responsible for the worst movie has now made the worst sitcom. And I thought, "Nah, that's just a writer trying to be clever." I figured this would be too self-referential, and that Wiseau, especially after trying to convince people that The Room was an intentional comedy rather than what we all know it really is, was out to make something intentionally terrible in an effort to cash in on his infamy. And while that very well might be the case (I doubt it though), its ineptitude is so masterful, almost awe-inspiring. It's outsider art from quite possibly the greatest of all outsiders, almost poetic in its incompetence. Wiseau's apparently been working on this for eight years, but it seems like it was made in about a week and a half. It's awful, deliriously awful. However, I was enormously entertained, far more entertained that any sitcom I've seen since Three's Company.

Here's the progression of my moods from the moment Bad Movie Club member Johnny alerted me to these to the moment I finished them early this morning:

1) Unbridled excitement--boner-makin' excitement--that I disguised as cautious optimism
2) Confusion
3) Utter disbelief, with a sort-of is-this-really-happening open-mouthed stupor
4) A slightly more uncomfortable confusion
5) A giggle-filled feeling of spiritual calm
6) Complete euphoria
7) Something else that a word hasn't been invented for yet

Part of me didn't want there to be any more Wiseau productions. I was content with seeing him pop up here or there in other people's projects, and I just knew that it wasn't possible to repeat the magic of The Room. Something like The Room is a once-in-a-lifetime work of art. There's no way any other Wiseau production can be anything but a disappointment, right? Well, with The Neighbors, Wiseau does for situational comedy what he did for tragedy with his feature-length film. If he tackles an Alexander the Great biopic or something next, he can hit the history/tragedy/comedy trifecta and be the 21st Century version of Shakespeare. And no, this isn't The Room. Nothing is. But by the time I got to the end of these four episodes, I had learned that there's room (no pun intended) for a lot more Wiseau in my life. This isn't The Room, but it's something very special, and I'm glad I will have the opportunity to watch this over and over again in some insane way of trying to unlock its many mysteries.

The insanity starts with episode one, "Meet the Neighbors," a 32-minute gut punch of free-form randomness and accidental absurdism. I think any discussion has to start with Wiseau's hair. I mean, you expect Tommy to say something like "vulnar language" in a scene, but nothing can set you up for the experience of seeing that hair. There's light racism, a chicken, and Tommy Wiseau underwear product placement. And there's the introduction of The Neighbors' catchphrase, it's "Book 'Em, Dano" or "Did I do that?" or "Nanu nanu" or "Up your nose with a rubber hose"--"What a day." That's it. Just "what a day," usually delivered four or five times per scene by Wiseau's Charlie the manager character or his assistant. In this episode, there's a running gag about borrowing 20 dollars that made me feel like the dumbest person alive because I couldn't understand why that would be funny. It was like something the Marx Brothers would have come up with if they were all brain damaged. You learn that you gotta keep your salt and pepper in separate jars. You see a guy with a chicken catching a pair getting ready to get busy in a "laundry room" and delivering this fantastic "Whoa! You guys were having fun!" like you'd expect a 7-year-old to react. There's a fight scene, during the weird scene where some edgy racial humor is attempted, with a rapper who lives in apartment 666 and an Asian guy who's really having trouble keeping a straight face. But the best performances, along with Tommy's, belong to a pothead and Cici, the woman who apparently owns the chicken. She's Pamelia Bailey, my new favorite actress, and this is apparently her first acting gig. The pothead has his moments, including where he regrets "selling" a gun to another tenant with an over-the-top "What did I do? I'm an idiot! Ahhh! Ahhh! I'm ok," but Cici's just insanely bad. That freak-out in the hallway and the accusation "You want to have sex with it!" (yes, about her chicken) are just the kinds of things that make life worth living.

Best moment from episode one: It's got to be Tommy Wiseau as Ricky Rick, his other character who I believe is supposed to be a teenager. Yes, that's right. Wiseau plays two characters in this. There's a moment featuring a crotch grab and one of the most beautifully-written lines that you'll ever hear that made the eight-year wait for this sitcom worth it. If Can't Stop the Music wouldn't have already succeeded in making me gay, hearing Tommy talk about his gun would have done it.

In episode 2 ("Princess Penelope Arrives"), we finally get to hear that creepy Wiseau laugh, the kind of thing that will haunt your dreams. But in a good way. And Tommy takes off his shirt exposing some arms that look like they've undergone torture of some kind. In episode 2, things get oddly patriotic, but only that type of patriotism that Wiseau can deliver where the British are criticized, apparently because they "think they own everything." Oh, and there's a rendition of "God Bless America" that would likely make eagles and Native Americans cry. "God bless America. . .home sweet home. . .da da da whatever." Andrew Buckley, Troy the pot dealer, continues to be gloriously bad, especially with a reaction to a menage a trois idea that followed what was obviously an embarrassing attempt by Wiseau to include lesbianism in his sitcom. There's a scene with a flasher that, unless it's going to be alluded to in episodes 5-12, had nothing to do with anything. It did give Cici a reason to say (possibly improvise) "Fifi? I'm Cici! That's Fifi!" And if you doubt Wiseau's ability to bring the flasher back into the story in a future episode, check out how he brings has a suicide flashback in this episode. Wiseau shows off an ability to weave in and out of all this human drama in a way that would make most storytellers envious.

Best moment from episode two: In any other episode of any other television series, it'd be the one where a guy makes a mess with some ice cream, the kind of scene that made me wonder if there was anything in this series that isn't completely pointless. But there's a scene in this with Troy the pothead and Cici where the former thinks a chicken is a tiger, and that scene has moved ahead of the birth of my firstborn on my list of most important moments of my life.

Episode 3 is called "Sliding Cake," a title that reminds me of a foreign poor translation of a movie title or something. It's like somebody with a limited vocabulary was forced to watch this episode, bludgeoned for a half an hour, and then told to title this with the first thing that popped into his head. The "sliding cake" is a reference to an epic party scene, the kind of thing you watch and almost wish could be the last thing you ever see. This is the episode where I started to realize just how oppressive the transition scenes--an exterior shot of an apartment building with some light techno music--were. There's more laundry room silliness, a cat fight, more Cici magic, and a character named Bebe's reaction to a surprise party that contains about the most horrifying scream I've ever heard. And there's also apparently a stuttering black guy who lives in the building. Oh, and more product placement, of course. I've got to buy a few pairs of those underpants, and yes, I will wear my pants low to show them off.

Best moment from episode III: It's got to be a flashback of the post gun-deal scene with Troy's "I'm ok."

And then it all ends (for now!) with episode four which, for reasons that are completely unclear to me, is called "Black vs. Yellow." Ricky Rick was the star of this episode, and it was during this one that I realized that character's jacket actually advertises the sitcom that he's a character in. There's one great moment where Ricky Rick says, "Wow. What a day," stealing Wiseau's other character's catch phrase. But he saves it with a "That's what Charlie would say." Ricky Rick also asks a character if she's a communist or a democrat and says, "Can I strangle you a little bit?" for no reason at all. Fidel Castro, a dickhead, makes an appearance, and most of the tenants come by Charlie the manager's office to sing "Frere a Jacque" because that's just the sort of thing people would actually do. And it was in episode four when I had my sitcom orgasm in a long time (last time was also Three's Company) when both of Tommy Wiseau's characters end up in the same scene, thanks to some truly magical special effects. It's was the best moment of my life.

Best moment from episode IV: What? It wasn't the double Wiseaus? No, it was not. It was a scene later when Ricky Rick keeps spitting water all over the place. Holy shit. What is going through this man's mind.

I'm not joking when I say that I don't think I'll be able to sleep until the next four episodes are released. In the meantime, I'll probably end up watching these a half dozen times.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

2014 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A continuation of the shenanigans in Basin City.

I'm not sure if it's just that the two hours of the first movie with mostly these same characters, the stylized violence, and the neo-noir caricaturization were more than enough or what, but this just didn't work as well. And I can't figure out why Marv, Mickey Rourke's character, is even in the last story since it takes place after he died. Of course, you have to be willing to throw all reality out the window in order to enjoy a movie made by people who have thrown all reality out the window. This is a cartoon for adult, probably just adult men, except if Wile E. Coyote was shot as many times as some of these characters, he'd probably die. I'm not sure the stories are as strong or as creative in this installment, and the style, something that felt fresh in 2005, feels more like a rehash here. It's still often entertaining, especially if you like seeing cartoon characters beheaded, but you get a little bored during this one. Seems like most of the characters, at least the ones who aren't yellow, returned for this one with Powers Boothe's Senator Rourke standing out the most. Boothe's got the perfect face for this sort of movie, and his voice is even better. His villainous character helps connect everything that's going on in Basin City this time around. Rourke, Willis, and Alba return to do more of the same. Josh Brolin steps in for Clive Owen, Gordon-Levitt just doesn't feel like he fits to me, and Haysbert replaces Michael Clarke Duncan as Manute. Christoper Meloni and Ray Liotta are also around. And they're all fine, just a little stiff because of the combination of being forced to act in front of green screens and read these hyper-stylized hard-boiled lines of dialogue or narration. Of course, the real star of the show is Eva Green who plays the "dame" in the title. Her character is the best written, and she spends about half of the movie naked, it seems, so there's not a lot to complain about with her. As an exaggerated femme fatale, she and her character just work, and although at first I was skeptical that she was really enough to kill for, I was eventually won over. I think a lot of it had to do with the clever colorization of some of her features, especially those blue eyes. Still, she's naked enough times to make this feel a lot more exploitative than the first movie. The whole thing just feels like a knock-off, a copy, a cheap variation. I definitely wanted to like it a lot more, but I was a little bored with this sequel. I'd still see a part three though, but maybe not unless it came out in 2022.

Oh, I forgot how much I liked seeing Christopher Lloyd in this. I'm adding another point. I also thought I kept spotting Jim Jarmusch, but it wasn't him.

Kung-Fu Saturday: Holy Flame of the Martial World

1983 martial arts shenanigans

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Everything you need to know is on that poster up there.

That's just lazy blogging right there. It made you look at that hideous poster again though, didn't it? It probably made you look at it for longer than you would have looked at it. There were other posters I could have used, but when you've got the opportunity to use one of the worst movie posters you've ever seen, you take it. But it really doesn't tell you anything about the plot of the movie, who any of those characters are, or whether a cricket paddle is even allowed to look like that. I'm not sure I'm the person to tell you all about the plot of the movie though.

Do you prefer kung-fu movies that are plausible and sensible? Well, this Shaw Brothers production probably isn't for you. I really like this early-80's stuff, the point in kung-fu movie history where it seemed they all got bored with the genre and decided just to throw everything at the audience to see what sticks. With Shaw productions, you can expect certain things--loads of garish colors, far too much imagination, artificial sets. Holy Flame of the Martial World has loads of garish colors, far too much imagination, and artificial sets. It's also got something called "deadly echoes," this ghostly laughter that is used as a weapon by a kung-fu master full of jelly; flying swords and then more flying swords; a quartet of ghosts, I think, with colorful arms; pink and blue cartoon cave ghosts straight out of Scooby Doo, impenetrable waterfalls; caves with neon light floors that would make John Travolta start to tremble; Chinese characters flying around and attacking a guy in a cave; guys who attack with cymbals and make a great funny-sounding noise as they walk up walls; reanimated Frankenstein-esque corpses (more like Carradine's Frankenstein in Death Race though); a snake boy who I actually thought was a woman, the character responsible for something called "snake bladder blood finger power" which, to me, just seemed like a red finger; lots and lots of cheap-looking skeletons. The kung-fu itself ain't bad, but you have to have an appreciation for that brand of martial arts action where characters are flying around. You can even see a wire or two in there if you're looking closely enough, and the thing is, it doesn't even really distract from what's going on. There's no way you can watch this without thinking of wires anyway, so actually spotting them doesn't matter. The fight scenes are about as frenetic as kung-fu fight scenes can get, characters moving as fast as artificial lightning. It's all freakin' nutsy, but there isn't a single moment in this thing that isn't pure entertainment. You might not understand what the hell is happening--a brother/sister thing, people fighting over goofy-looking swords that any self-respecting 10-year-old would refuse to play with when play-fighting in his yard with the neighbor kids, some of your traditional but nonetheless confusing good vs. evil stuff--but you'll enjoy it. The film bursts with creativity, the sort of thing it's almost impossible not to have fun with.

Favorite line (probably out of context): "We'll take your balls from you."

I also liked an "energy fusing scene" that I at first thought was the most awkward sex scene of all time until it was revealed that the characters were actually sitting in giant golden cauldrons. This movie's also got one of the weirder training sequences you'll ever see, and I think a lot of it must have involved characters on a Sit 'n' Spin. Add a great death scene with a Shaolin monk who says, "It. . .went. . .right. . .through me!" after being killed by, naturally, a ribbon. My favorite line, however, is "We'll take your balls from you" which, because I'm a child, made me laugh. Oh, and how can you not like a movie that ends with characters saying "Good bye" while flying off on giant swords.

I need to take Kung-Fu Saturday more seriously. I love these movies but for whatever reason don't watch them much.

All Is Lost

2013 survival story

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A sailor finds himself in a little bit of trouble after he wrecks his boat out in the middle of nowhere and later runs into a storm. He fights to survive while the odds are stacked against him.

Robert Redford hasn't been in nearly as many movies as I would have guessed. It's something like 42, but one of those was an uncredited role as a "tall basketball player" which doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not going to pretend this is like a performance to end all performances or anything, but it's impressive to watch a guy carry an entire movie devoid of any other characters. None. Well, unless sharks and fish count. His role is nearly wordless although there's one terrific "Fuuuuuuuuck!" that he gets to utter at one point. This really is a study in Hemingwayian grace under pressure or stoicism. I know I would have screamed "Fuuuuuuuck!" more than a few times if I was in this guy's rubber pants. I can't even drive to work without screaming "Fuuuuuuuck!" a dozen or so times. This had to have taken a physical toll on a guy in his late-70's, and Redford apparently insisted on doing almost all of his own stunts for this. The film's got a realism that I liked a lot, and part of that is what seemed to be the gradual weathering of Redford's face and hands. At that age, he started out slightly weathered anyway. His performance is a good one, all subtle expression and body language, but it's really the ocean that's the star of this show. I don't know how much of this was special effects wizardry, but it certainly looked real to me. And if a lot of it--shots of storms, boats passing by, schools of fish darting around, circling sharks, and other things I can't mention because they'd be spoilers--is the kind of stuff where you can't quite figure out how it was even filmed. The ocean's so expansive, which I realize is kind of a dumb thing to say, but there's something about the way it's filmed here that makes it seem even more obvious. A lot of the shots of Redford are right up in his grill, almost claustrophobic. You're right there with the guy as he tries to be resourceful and survive this experience. And then there's the background which is just an endless blue void. It's enough to make a guy feel small, even somebody who played Jeremiah Johnson. There's almost nothing at all sentimental or artificial about this guy's experience, and he's not a big action hero who has all the answers and is capable of saving himself in a way that only people in Hollywood can. He's an everyman; he's even called "our man" in the credits. And that helps the audience connect his experience to stay alive with its own.

The ending: If you've seen this, what do you think happens? If you haven't seen this, you should probably stop reading. Seems ambiguous to me. He's quite obviously given up as he's decided to Leonardo Dicaprio into the depths of the Indian Ocean. The last shot we see before the screen goes blindingly white is a hand grabbing his, but that hand just doesn't feel like it could actually happen, does it? Are we supposed to take that at face value, or is that light supposed to be, you know, The Light? Am I reading into things too much because I always secretly hope nature wins in these man vs. nature stories?

The ABCs of Death 2

2014 horror/comedy anthology

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A second anthology of 26 shorts that find the horror and comedy in death.

My brother will be interested to know that Laurence R. Harvey, that guy in The Human Centipede sequel, is in a post-credits scene. Masturbating.

I feel a little dirty and juvenile for even watching these, but I really like the idea. These are up-and-coming directors except for a few familiar names, and the results are exactly what any reasonable person would expect. There are a couple really good ones, a bunch of mediocrity, and a few that you wish you didn't have to watch. There are nine decapitations, quite a bit for 26 short films, a high number of jugular spurts, and some references to urine. There's not as much nudity as the first one, as I recall, but there is one disturbing sequence where a man is sans penis.

Here, I'll go through them all for you, hopefully without ruining anything.

A is maybe one of the best ones, almost clever and fairly well executed. It has some hyperkinetic edit grossness which, if something like this is any indication, is the thing now. Somebody named E.L. Katz did this one.

B is silly and underdeveloped, kind of a found footage thing with a badger. C is for Completely Pointless apparently, a look at capital punishment.

D is one of the too-few animated ones, and I'd like to see more by director Robert Morgan. It's animated grossness with some interesting ideas and visuals, kind of like a cheapo Quay Brothers without the subtlety or anything genuine about it. Interesting to look at anyway.

E starts with a fart and has some interesting transitions in its lone beach setting, but it has the feel of an extended commercial or something and isn't nearly as funny as anybody thinks it is. F has an unclear message and is silly when it probably could be saying something interesting. There's also yet another close-up of excruciating pain if that's your thing. It seems like a lot of these directors' thing.

G will make you open your eyes a little wider. I thought it was pretty funny although it was trying very very hard to be pretty funny. "Look! Can you see anything I can wank with? Can you?" This one had jugular spurting but was shocking for far more creative reasons. A guy named Jim Hosking directed it. Unfortunately, I don't want to see anything else directed by a guy who looks like this:

Although now that I look at it again, it sort of looks like somebody I really like.

H, I thought, was a cheap Plympton knock-off, but then it turned out to be Bill Plympton. It was probably something he did in his sleep though. I was some Japanese weirdness with some dumb-looking special effects and a story that wasn't fleshed out enough to really make any sense. J was a little hard to watch with an oppressive message about homosexuality and a wild exorcism scene.

K was one of my favorites, even though it kind of dissolved into weirdo Japanese-style horror imagery. But the inky snow globe surreal imagery followed by a Rear Window-esque series of violence was fun. Not sure why it was called "Knell" though. This one was directed by a Lithuanian woman named Kristina Buozyte.

L is, I hope, the worst thing I watch all year. Laughable effects (straight out of Birdemic) and with a monster that looked as silly as any monster I've ever seen. The setting is Africa, and a Nigerian named Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen directed it. This cat somehow has 73 director credits on his filmography.

M has Rupert (a Hoosier, I'm proud to say) from Survivor in yellow-stained tighty whities attacking people in the streets. It turns out to be a lame joke with a punchline that I probably should have predicted. I do like the word "masticate" though. N is clumsily edited and has terrible acting by all involved. It was almost interesting but turned out to be strangely unpleasant for reasons I can't even identify. O was another Japanese one, but who needs to see more zombies?

And then there's P, the one that seems to be overwhelmingly the least favorite if you only research the imdb message board. This one seemed to have the production values of a Christian church play and was so weirdly stupid that it actually became likable. Distorted face match blowing, a creepy toothed baby. It didn't make sense at all, just incomprehensible slapstick, but it almost made me laugh. I kind of liked it. Turns out that Todd Rohal directed it, and I know him from the interesting and wonderfully-titled Catechism Cataclysm which I also thought was funny.

Q has a gorilla costume. R had a story with a piece I must have missed, some Russian roulette game that goes for mysterious but ends up obscure. S had a cool use of split screen but ended up just being really nasty. Like a lot of these, its twist didn't totally work because there wasn't enough room for any development. T was degrading and stupid, the kind of thing you probably could expect from something called "Torture Porn." U was for Utopia. I don't know what the commentary was exactly, but this had fire effects that were at least as bad as the ones in the "I" short. V is a found footage thing with the kind of acting that makes this sort of stuff just not work at all. I think 14 year olds must have been responsible for writing this one, and it's woefully unpleasant.

W was one of the more interesting ones, something that appealed to the 80's kid in me. It's a fun action figure kind of thing, and although the special effects weren't very good (probably intentionally so), it felt like a perverse juvenile delinquent cousin of the Power Rangers and has a "Fantasy Man" with something very David Carradine about him.

X? Well, they went with one of the three words in the English language that starts with an X and decided to see how they could push the boundaries with it. It's not pleasant either. Y is more insanity from Japan.

It finishes strong enough with Z and a 13-year pregnancy, a deadbeat dad, and some impressively gross effects. I'm not sure what the short was saying or if it was even saying anything, but I liked it even if it made me a little uneasy.

There will likely be another of these in 2016, and I'll probably watch it, too, just because it's the type of thing I like to waste my life with.

Big Hero 6

2014 Best Animated Feature

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 16/20; Abbey: 16/20; Buster: 90/20)

Plot: I don't feel like writing a plot synopsis for this one.

The story's a little predictable here, and I"m surprised that for such a geeky movie, there's this complete disregard for science. However, Big Hero 6 has enough exhilarating animated action sequences, likable characters, and pathos to whisk along as a piece of quality family entertainment. I think my favorite thing about this might be the world building. The story takes place in San Francisco, but it's a weird Tokyo-influenced modern San Francisco. So there are familiar sights like cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge, but the city has this parallel universe vibe that gives the whole thing life. The background details for the settings are beautifully done, and this is the kind of thing I'd actually like to see again just to ignore the story and characters and absorb all the stuff back there. The movie really sounds good, too. I like the sounds of Baymax's squelching vinyl and the cacophony of robotic whirrs and clankings. Don't get me wrong though. It's not that I didn't enjoy the characters. Baymax, voiced by Scott Adsit from 30 Rock, was adorable and made me laugh a few times both with the slapstick antics and some humorous lines. He kind of reminded me of a big clumsy silent movie character. Well, except he talked and made noise. Hiro's the kind of stock teenage character you get in movies like this, but his arc is satisfying enough. The others? Well, I can't recall any of their names. There's a stoner guy. There's a couple women. There's a black dude. They add some flash, but they don't have the depth of the characters in The Incredibles or even the other Marvel superhero movies. The villain looks really cool with his army of microbots and his kabuki mask, and he's at least got some dimensions as a bad guy rather than just wanting to take over the world or wreak havoc or be vaguely villainous. Of course, anybody who's ever seen a good vs. bad action movie like this will more than likely know who the villain is way before the big dramatic reveal. It's about as sneaky as a Scooby Doo episode. It's really not great storytelling, sort of matching that formula that all the other Marvel movies seem to have. Still, this is vivacious fun, where it seems like the animators really wanted to challenge themselves to do some special things. I was particularly blown away by a scene near the end with all this purplish weirdness, like I imagine a trip through Syd Barrett's head circa-1968 would have been like. I'm sure we'll get some sequels with these characters, and I'll actually look forward to them.

St. Vincent

2014 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: The touching story of a kid from a broken home, his busy mother, a pregnant stripper/prostitute, and Vincent, a cantankerous, drunkardly, gambling shell of a man.

This feels tired from the first minute and then languidly stumbles along predictably for another hour and a half or so. Very paint-by-numbers stuff here but with performers trying some different things. Unfortunately, none of those things work. Melissa McCarthy takes on a more human character and is fine although any female actress at all could have substituted for her without anybody noticing. Naomi Watts can't pull off the Russian-whore-with-a-heart-of-gold, something that would be a cliche if I could think of a single other example of the character type. And Bill Murray is just awful in a movie that he just didn't need to be in. He's got a wavering Brooklynite accent that, even at it's very best, doesn't quite sound like something Bill Murray should be doing. Murray seems to be going through the motions here, almost like he's trying to see if his face wrinkles can handle things on their own. And then, a little over halfway through the movie, the writer finds a way to make his performance even worse by giving the character a life-altering medical issue. Moments become laughable but for exactly the wrong reasons. Murray does get a nifty dance scene, but it's to Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love," a song which already had all the laughs squeezed out of it for a Jim Carrey movie. At least the kid was good. Murray's always worked well with kids, and Jaeden Lieberher and he have a good rapport. The dialogue they were given doesn't always help them out much although I did laugh once during a conversation about Hitler. Surprisingly, it was Lieberher's delivery that did it though, not Murray. This movie reeks of sentimentality, goes exactly where you think it will go at each step of the way, and is about as deep as a kiddie pool after a brief rain shower. And it's got Wilco songs (well, Jeff Tweedy), and Wilco is a group I hate even more than I hate the fucking Eagles (man).

Fantomas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine

1913 first of a serial

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The villainous Fantomas robs a hotel, abducts a guy, and gets himself arrested.

This isn't terribly interesting, an under-hour first in a series of French Fantomas films that feels much longer. There's intrigue and mystery, but the storytelling suffers from this stiffness, the characters never really come to life, and there's none of the ingenuity of early cinema that usually gets me overly excited. I might watch the four subsequent films, but I don't think I'll be in a hurry to do it.

Here Comes the Boom

2012 comedy

Rating: 10/20 (Josh: no rating; Jeremy: no rating; my students: no rating)

Plot: A former teacher-of-the-year who just doesn't care anymore becomes inspired after it's announced that budget problems are going to cause Fonzi to lose his job. He decides to become a mixed martial arts fighter to help save his school.

Henry Winkler is probably the best thing about this movie, but it's kind of sad that he seems to play nothing but wide-eyed dumb characters at this stage in his career. I don't really know if that's true because I'm not really sure what he's done.

We used to watch movies every once in a while at my school, but that practice kind of stopped after somebody realized that piping movies into every classroom in the building was probably illegal. But this was standardized testing week, so exceptions had to be made. 8th graders like when portly fellows fall down, when anybody is kneed in the head, and especially when somebody vomits on somebody else. We actually didn't get to see the end of the movie, but I knew what the end of the movie would be about five minutes in. You know that Kevin James, always strangely likable even though he never seems like the type of guy who should even be in movies, will get the girl, win the big fight, save the school, become that inspired teacher again. You know that the student who likes music will end up changing her father's mind. You even know that the guy training Kevin James will earn his citizenship at the end of the movie. If only the ride to get to all those stops was a little more fun. This wasn't really funny at all unfortunately. I did think that Kevin James looked pretty good in the parts of the movie where he was required to be athletic. Guy could throw a punch convincingly.

Co-workers and Bad Movie Club guys Jeremy and Josh and I opened up a Google Hangout so that we could discuss the movie. I forgot to ask them for their ratings.

Also, because of a nutty schedule, one of my classes this week was an hour and ten minutes longer than my other classes. I found various ways to waste that time and showed them Sherlock Jr. today. They seemed to like that one even though there isn't any projectile vomiting scenes.

Bad Movie Club: Nukie

1988 science fiction adventure movie with talking monkeys and a perverse computer

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (Libby: 1/5; Josh: 3/5; Jason: 1/5; Fred: 1/5; Kristen: 2/5; Jeremy: no rating)

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Two aliens crash land on earth and end up in Africa and Florida. They try to reunite with the help of a computer, a pair of African brothers, a nun, and a guy who has a helicopter that can apparently make the trip from Florida to Africa. .

"What do you think of my shirt?" A monkey says that line, probably three times. A monkey! Yes, this is a movie with a talking monkey, played by Charlie the Chimpanzee in his only role. Unfortunately, this movie is so bad that it destroyed a monkey's career. And that makes me a little sad. So does the sight of the main character:

Somebody get Nukie a fucking Kleenex! Are you bad with names? You'll be able to keep track of our two main characters because they say their names more than late-80's rap acts. Here's a sampling of this movie's dialogue:

Miko: Nukie!
Nukie: Miko!
Miko: Nuuuukie!
Nukie: Miiiiiiiikooooo!
Miko: Nukie!
Nukie: Miiiiiko!
Miko: Nuuuuuukiiiiiieeee!
Nukie: Miko!

That exact bit of dialogue is actually in the movie 73 times. It's like the screenwriters (Sias Odendal, who had his word processor taken away from him and was never allowed to write another screenplay, and Ben Taylor, who for some reason was) needed to pad their screenplay and inserted photocopies of a page of "Nukie! Miko! Nukie! Miko!" in random places in there. Or actually, what probably happened was they just had their deaf neighbor watch E.T. the Extraterrestrial and Mac and Me back-to-back, try his best to read the characters' lips, and quickly write down all the dialogue in shorthand so that Odendal and Taylor could insert the photocopies of their "Nukie! Miko! Nukie! Miko!" dialogue in there. Actually, here's what the movie is like: It's like Mac and Me--all juiced up on Coca Cola and Big Macs--lured E.T. into a dark alley with some Reese's Pieces and then brutally raped and impregnated it. Then, during a complicated pregnancy, E.T. chain-smoked and drank nothing but alcohol. And 17 months later--Nukie was born. Or Miko.

Actually, we weren't sure why the movie was called Nukie because Miko is easily just as important. See, here's Miko getting ready to have what I believe is cinema's first cybersex scene with a computer:

Nukie doesn't interact with a computer. He just wanders around Africa scaring giraffes and talking to surly monkeys. That's before he befriends a pair of African boys.

See, there's some parallelism with the brothers and Nukie and Miko's attempts to reunite, and it's all so sweet that you'll shit yourself right about the same time as Nukie tries to fly a helicopter, a decision that doesn't make much sense at all since Nukie can actually fly. The brothers are named Tiko and Toki. So, Nukie, Miko, Tiko, and Toki in a movie that is really Sucky. One of those brothers was actually in another movie--Terminator Woman. Oh, and you see that nun up there? That's Glynis Johns from Mary Poppins. Somebody needs to make a sequel to Saving Mr. Banks called Saving Mrs. Banks about the making of Nukie. Miko is played by a woman who didn't have any other roles, and Nukie has to be played by two different people, I believe because one of them died tragically either after catching on fire during a scene or being eaten by stock footage of a lion. Neither of the guys who played Nukie did anything else either, probably because they couldn't get the stench of Nukie off them. This movie with about 15 minutes worth of plot is worth the time for bad movie aficionados because of the terrible costumes, the gross sentimentality, African tribesmen Benny Hill-ized, some of the most pointless narration since The Beast of Yucca Flats, that randy computer, those talking animals and a liberal use of stock footage, Charlie's shirt, a nun with a wedding ring, and some killer special effects. Once again, none of my fellow Bad Movie Club jockasses seemed to enjoy this one nearly as much as I did.

Oprah Movie Club Selection for February: The Black Klansman

1966 early blaxploitation movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Well, it's sort of on the poster up there. A light-skinned black man infiltrates the KKK in order to get revenge after his young daughter is firebombed to death.

Maybe this is just the white guilt speaking, but I thought the ending of this was very unsatisfying. I know that, at least on a cinematic level, the way the entire plan nearly falls to pieces at the end adds some dramatic tension and some suspense, but it was all so clumsy. I wanted blood. I wanted the bad guys to suffer. And I wanted more of those bastards to meet an undoubtedly very disappointed maker.

This is also known as I Cross the Color Line, by the way. And look at this poster:

That looks like an entirely different movie, one that focuses on sexy Andrea who, even though she's an important enough character, is not really a main character. She might be the worst actor in the thing though. Her "Little Mary? Not Mary!" overreaction after the main character gets the bad news about his daughter being set on fire is the type of thing you probably shouldn't laugh at. Later in the movie, she gets to play drunk. She's played by Rima Kutner, and this was Rima Kutner's only role.

Ted V. Mikels is not known as a great director. And this  isn't a good movie. But it's an interesting movie and a movie that's sort of daring for the mid-60's, pre-blaxploitation and a couple years before MLK Jr. was assassinated. The conflict's stirred up once segregation is made illegal. That's not popular with Southern whites ("Black boy, you done tored it!" is one of my favorite lines in this), and the Ku Klux Klan reacts with their general intimidation tactics, a lynching and murder, and then a firebombing that goes either horribly wrong or horribly right depending on who you ask. There's social commentary there, probably because you can't make a movie where a black guy becomes a member of the KKK without some sort of message, but the whole thing is so clumsily delivered. A couple cops talk very briefly, almost like it was a scene added during post-production to give the whole thing more of a message, about how they're making a big mistake "not treating these. . .people like human beings." There's the main character, played by Richard Gilden who wasn't really in anything else of note unless playing a "Hebrew in Dathan's Tent" in The Ten Commandments is notable, who alternates between complete rage and something very different at the end. I'm not sure what his plans were exactly during the climax of the movie, but it seemed like he was leaning toward compassion to me. There were also a pair of guys who represented more of a violent response to racism and inequality. I never caught the main guy's name, but his mute sidekick muscle was called Barnaby. The speaker sure did try to Act (with that capital-A) the hell out of that role though. Notice the bravado when he gives a pep talk in the bar. I was actually pretty close to pausing the movie to go outside and kill a white person or two myself. Anyway, they represent the more Malcolm X philosophical approach to Civil Rights, I suppose, but their story doesn't end well at all. So there's probably a bit of a message there, but it, like the rest of this thing, is a little muddied. Gilden's not 100% hero in this. There's a terrifically awful scene after he gets the phone call about his daughter being killed where he starts choking his blonde girlfriend while saying, "White! White! White! White! White!" It actually made me laugh out loud and pee a little bit. After that, he runs down a tunnel while the dialogue from the previous scene is repeated, all echoey. It's trippy stuff. "You know who did it? The Klan! The Ku Klux Klan!" I'm never sure exactly how the guy's wig works, but the character was smart. And when he said, "Hang onto your socks, Chuck!", you knew he had white-guy talk down.

If he's not 100%, that's fine because the villains are 100% bad. The KKK violence in this is pretty harsh like KKCaricatures,. They sure like burning their crosses, and there's a tiny burning one and a quick zoom after a quartet of Klansfellows shoot down a character. And then they firebomb the wooden puppet version of the little girl. It's harsh stuff. I actually learned a lot about the KKK from this movie. For example, they like their K-words nearly as much as burning crosses. They use words like klavern, konklave, kludd, knights. I'm surprised that the subtitle after the initiation scene said "congratulations" instead of "kongratulations" actually. Turns out, they have a very formal initiation process. And they have the title of Grand Cyclops which helps make John Goodman's character in O Brother, Where Art Thou? make more sense. Well, makes him something other than an allusion to The Odyssey anyway. The Klansguys say things like, "A hangin's more excitin' than throwin' a bomb," and they say them in cartoonish voices that sound like they belong in a Disney movie. And one chubbier Klansman gets really excited following the initiation sequence and starts shaking enough to make me wonder if he was related to Chris Farley. Anyway, I was a little shocked with how hard it seems to be to even get in the Klan.

My favorite character was played by Whitman Mayo of Sanford and Son and D.C. Cab fame. He was Mr. Rhythm in the latter. Here, he plays an old man even though he was only 36 when this was released. He was Redd Fox's old friend in Sanford and Son, too. He's a bartender in this, and gets to be a bad ass. Samuel L. Jackson should play Alex in the remake. "Now I'm gonna ask you kindly to get your motherfucking ass out of my motherfucking bar."

Man, is the opening to this something else. The credits appear over a shot of a cross burning while the type of theme song you'd expect to hear in a 50's Wild West film plays. "The Ku Klux Klan killed my little girl," croons the singer, poorly. "So he'll get vengeance as the first black Klansman." It's really a beautiful thing. This ends with a pretty terrific ending, too, the guy wandering up a hill in a forest before there's a halcyon shot of clouds and a John F. Kennedy quote that I didn't bother reading.

This movie would have been a little more violent if it had appeared in the 70's. The white bastards would have gotten theirs a decade later. Still, I'm glad I watched this rather unusual film, probably Ted V. Mikels' best movie.

Anybody else watch it?