Best F(r)iends (Volume One)

2018 comedic thriller

Rating: 10/20 (Josh: either a 4/20 or a 10/20)

Plot: A homeless drifter befriends a mysterious mortician, and the two develop a business partnership involving the selling of gold teeth. Then, things get really confusing.

As Josh says, this is a hard one to rate. On the one hand, I don't think I've laughed this much in a movie theater in my entire life. If this is intended as a comedy, it's a complete success. The weird thing is that even with my experience appreciating bad movies, I'm still having a difficult time knowing whether I'm laughing at this movie or with this movie.

In fact, I'm not even sure it's possible to be with this movie. The plot, the characters, the little twists and turns, and the nuances are all so completely bizarre that it's hard to connect with anything that's going on. Supposedly, Sestero based this screenplay on real-life experiences with Tommy Wiseau and a road trip. It's doubtful that the experience actually involved any teeth, a mysterious ATM machine, the tragic death of an entire clown family, or creepy masks. Sestero is clearly covering up the reality in mounds of metaphor, and somebody with any background on Sestero and Wiseau's relationship--like, somebody who's read Sestero's book The Disaster Artist was adapted from--will see some parallels. The problem--and I don't want Greg Sestero to read this because I don't want to hurt his feelings--is that he's just not enough of a writer to pull this sort of art-house flick steeped in metaphor and symbolism off.

It's easy to find bad movies where the director failed at horror or failed at comedy or failed at drama. My favorite bad movies are the results of writers/directors who are absolutely full of themselves. I'm not accusing anybody who helped make this as being full of themselves, but it's clearly an attempt at an artsy, Lynchian sort of movie. And to see something like that fail so spectacularly is a unique opportunity.

Here's what I expected going into this project. I knew that Sestero had written it, and I knew he had written it with the specific purpose of giving his friend Wiseau a part that would be perfect for him. After seeing previews, I really did think it might succeed as an artsy kind of film, the kind of thing where the natural oddness of Wiseau could be used in completely unnerving ways. Josh and I both thought that with the right direction, Wiseau maybe could not be so bad. He could be a fringe character in a David Lynch movie, the kind who pops in to one scene and talks about how it's hard for him to find pants that fit because his legs are two different lengths and that there's always a frog in one of the pockets and then is never heard from again.

This shattered those expectations. Tommy Wiseau is a fucking force that is impossible to ground. You just can't control Tommy Wiseau, and if he wants to wear high-heeled boots that he can barely walk in or pretend to lick a car or improvise lines or sing random lines or mess up a line and quickly correct himself, there's just no point in stopping the guy. His character looks ridiculous, sounds ridiculous, and is ridiculous. No character like Wiseau's Harvey actually exists on this planet even though the character clearly tells another that he is from planet Earth at one point. But you know what? Before I saw The Room, I didn't know there was a person like Tommy Wiseau either. And he singlehandedly takes something that would nearly be unwatchable with an absolutely oppressive soundtrack, pretentious editing with incoherent montages, and a narrative that doesn't make a lick of sense into something that is enormously entertaining. You just can't take your eyes off the guy when he's on the screen. Every bit of dialogue. Every movement. Every scene when he gets to display his athletic prowess (in this film, it's basketball). Every flubbed line. Every exaggerated gesture. Every laugh. Just everything the guy does here is completely magical.

Is he good? No! If Sestero wanted to write him a character that would be perfect for him, he failed. He wrote him a character that Wiseau is going to play exactly like he would play every other character he gets the opportunity to play--ineptly. He clearly can't remember his lines. He doesn't understand the character's motivations. He doesn't understand how one actually interacts with another human being. He's hilariously awful! But I'm pretty sure anything else would have been a disappointment.

Sestero isn't much better. For the first twenty minutes of the movie, I thought he was a mute, and I didn't think he would have handled that nearly as well as Sally Hawkins. There are times when he and Wiseau have some chemistry, the kind of chemistry that I don't think Wiseau could have with anybody else, but there are other times when even Sestero seems befuddled by what his friend is doing in these scenes. And the other actors and actresses seem even more lost in scenes they have with Wiseau. In a way, it makes things even more uncomfortable.

There are a few nods to The Room (like that aforementioned basketball scene) in this that might have been a little too obvious. I did appreciate how weird this movie was willing to be. I mean, that clown family. A very strange trailer for Volume Two (which comes out in June) was shown after this (along with about 20 minutes of other bonus footage including a music video) that makes it seem like it might be even stranger than this first installment.

So if this is a comedy, it might be a resounding success. If it's a straight thriller, it's a laughable failure. Whatever it was, I was about as entertained as I've ever been in a movie theater. And I can't wait for Volume Two!

I got to see this with my fiend Josh.

The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians

1981 comedy adventure

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A guy tries to rescue his betrothed, an opera singer named Salsa Verde, from an evil bearded guy in a technologically-advanced castle.

It's sad that I'm eventually going to run out of movies by Oldrich Lipsky, my new favorite director, to watch. Not only is this directed by Oldrich Lipsky, my new favorite director--it's also co-written with Jiri Brdecka, who wrote some of Karel Zeman's movies, and features some "special props" from Jan Svankmajer. If this isn't right up my alley, I don't know what is! Holy smoke and gun powder!

It's a lot of fun, sort of in a Python-esque way. There's a lot of absurdist visual comedy here--blowing kisses over the phone, a ridiculous-looking surveillance device, the contraption the villain's henchman rides around in, the awakening of a storyteller who sleeps in this cloud of hair, the random singing of the protagonist that kind of serves as his superpower as he's capable of breaking things with his voice, the reversing of a rocket launch, a painting that sings when it's stabbed, guns that pop out of the henchman's chest when he bops himself on the head, a winking villain breaking the 4th wall, the marching of the comical and likely inept police, some cool animatronics ("All she is good for now is to polish silver with.), the Svankmajer "special prop" that is the professor's gadget hand, an "Up the trees!" escape from a cascade of boulders, how amused the characters are with self-opening doors, death by cello. There's just so much humor packed into this very slight story. It's a blast!

Maybe the best compliment I can give it is that it's very Czechoslovakian. 

Whimsical anachronisms, a castle design that is very elaborate with all of its working parts and eccentric details, and a story peppered with unexpected moment after unexpected moment all make this about as much fun as a comedic adventure story can be.

Bad Movie Club: The Lock In

2014 Christian found-footage horror movie

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (J.D.: 5/5; Josh: 4/5)

Rating: 3/20

Plot: A trio of teenagers discover the dangers of filthy magazines when they sneak one into a church lock-in and somehow unleash a demon.

Christian found-footage horror movie. Just let that sink in for a bit. Are you automatically expecting something really embarrassing and terrible, because if you are, I'd like to remind you of Matthew 7:1: "Judge not lest ye be judged." Because maybe you're the one who is embarrassing and terrible.

No, you'd actually be right. This is exactly what you would think a Christian found-footage horror movie about the dangers of dirty magazines would be. I'm too lazy to put any research into this, but I'm fairly positive this is funded by a Baptist church, and if you add "church-funded" to the "Christian found-footage horror movie about the dangers of dirty magazines," it makes it sound even worse, right?

What's the one thing that could automatically kill a found-footage horror film or mockumentary? Bad acting, right? Well, this is filled with bad acting from the top of the credits to the bottom with the exception of a little demon kid who pops in and doesn't have any lines. It's hard to give a performance that is bad enough to stand out in a sea of bad performances, but the kid who plays Justin in this manages to do it. He's mostly behind the camera, only adding his occasional voice to the story. It's when we finally get to see him that we understand why they chose to keep him off-screen as much as possible. He's terrible. He can't even sit and do nothing in a way that seems realistic, and when he's given other things to do--like engage in a conversation or try to expel a demon by yelling about Jesus and gesticulating wildly or nearly drowning in a baptismal--he's even worse. I was actually embarrassed for his entire family, and if he gets to the pearly gates and sees Peter pull out a dvd copy of this movie, he should probably be worried.

Attempts to ape Blair Witch are obvious here, and I thought this was going to end a little like The Blair Witch Project did. The filmmakers (Rich Praytor who directed and played, I'm guessing, the pastor and Beverly Banks who wrote and played, I'm guessing, the mother who prays for her son to keep his trap door closed in one of the most wonderful movie prayers you're likely to ever experience) fooled me though, throwing in a twist that really doesn't make much sense followed by another twist that makes even less sense and a final twist that brought on stigmata and ruined one of my favorite shirts. The film ineptly combines footage the kid is shooting with surveillance camera footage into something that was supposedly whittled down so that the elders could know what happened. I'm not sure why that was necessary since all the elders are really going to discover is. . .

Well, I can't share that. It would spoil one of the movie's twists, and I wouldn't want to do that.

"Father, help Nicky keep his trapdoor shut." I swear a line very similar to that is in this movie. What part of a male adolescent's anatomy would be the trapdoor?

As you might expect for a church-funded movie, there are some impressive special effects. We get to see an invisible demon opening a door, for example. That or somebody was able to push the handicap button without being in the shot. There's a demon-possessed trashcan that flies across a hallway. That was pretty solid. There was a window that wouldn't break no matter how hard that kid swung a chair at it. Maybe that would fall into the "great pantomime" category more than "great special effects" one. The creepy demon kid doesn't look too bad actually, but I think it was the sound effect used that helped that moment work.

Two more favorite moments:

1) An impromptu scene where the trio of boys make puppets of themselves out of cups, presumably to try to forget that all of their friends are dead and that a demon is likely to get them, too. Because that makes total sense.

2) A guy walking into the shot by mistake during the big baptismal drowning sequence.

This is on YouTube if you'd like to endure it and discover for yourself how pornography (well, dirty magazines) can get all of your friends killed and make preachers turn to selling insurance. It's the best argument I've ever seen to keep my trapdoor shut.

A Perfect Day

2016 dark comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Aid workers in war-torn Yugoslavia try to extra a large corpse from a well.

Dragica Stojkovic, the old lady who played "Cow Lady" in this, will probably never appear in another movie.

If I have to watch a war movie, I'm more likely to like it if it's a dark comedy. This really isn't a war movie although war surrounds these characters. It's more about the absurdity of trying to get a job done and how difficult it can be to find something as mundane as rope and how, even if you find your rope, it might not even matter in the end.

I enjoyed spending time with these characters played by Tim Robbins, Benicio del Toro, and especially Fedja Stukan. And of course Dragica Stojkovic who played "Cow Lady."

The Sweet Hereafter

1997 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A lawyer rolls into a town dealing with a tragedy and tries to put together a lawsuit.

This was not the feel-good movie of 1997. It might have been the feel-bad movie though.

It's a very honest look at grief and what tragedy can do to a community's past, present, and future. It grips, kind of pulls you under its spell, and gives you all these fragments that, when you put them together, adds up to a devastating complete picture. The movie's not a puzzle. You don't really have to figure out how to put pieces together or solve anything. You're really given everything you need right at the very beginning, but the storytelling still has this abstract quality that makes it more like an impressionist painting than a straight narrative. And that's appropriate since grief is one of those emotions that really can't be defined in a specific way or with any clarity.

The Dark Crystal

1982 puppet fantasy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: It doesn't really matter a whole lot.

Surprisingly, I had never seen this despite my love of Henson's work and puppet in general. I think it had a lot to do with the look of the Gelfing characters. They just don't look like puppets I would want to spend any time with. So even though a movie that is apparently the first live-action movie with no human actors should have been right up my alley, I just never bothered watching it.

It popped into my local theater, however, and that gave me the perfect opportunity to see it. I'm glad I did because of the puppet work, the impressive and elaborate set design, and the great special effects. The puppetry here is as innovative as you'd expect from something Jim Henson and company poured so much energy into, and there's a lot of stuff in this that is just stunning. With every scene change, you're in awe of just how big this particular setting is, how much movement there is on the screen at any given time, and the creative forces that went into making this variety of characters. There's a depth to the sets, and the creatures range from grotesque to strangely beautiful. Frequently, you find yourself not even seeing these things as puppets but as organic living things from some strange world. The voicework doesn't always seem all that inspired--aside from Frank Oz's Piggy-esque work--but it's a lot of fun seeing all these puppets popping up throughout this story. At one point, I turned my left and said, "This must have been like the Avatar of 1982, don't ya think?"

There wasn't anybody sitting next to me, and that's good because I hadn't showered in several days.

Like Avatar, unfortunately, the visuals are much better than the story and the characters. Essentially, this is a Lord of the Rings knock-off but with a crystal sliver taking the place of a ring. There are characters who are good and evil in ways that you'd expect them to be in a 1980's fantasy movie, maybe until the end when things get a little more blurry. The journey this Jen the Gelfing hero undertakes isn't anything that hasn't been seen countless times. It's a narrative that hits all the beats that a fantasy flick like this is supposed to hit, and if it wasn't for the spectacular puppetry and visuals, this lifeless story and characters would not be remembered today and surely not shown in a movie theater in 2018.

I have showered since watching this movie. I was starting to smell like Aughra there for a bit.

Taste of Cherry

1997 movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A guy drives his truck around in search of somebody who will bury him under a tree after he commits suicide.

Roger Ebert famously despised this movie, and I can understand the arguments he makes that it's not very engaging, that it leaves too many questions unanswered about the protagonist and his motivations, and that there's a pointlessness to the deliberate pacing. I think it's a near-masterpiece that has this ability to say so many things in such simple ways. Simple shots of landscape or the meandering truck, dialogue between the suicidal guy and one other person at a time with simple camera shots by Abbas Kiarostami himself from one seat or the other in the truck, and a complete lack of flash give this a gritty and poetic tone. In a way, that matter-of-fact tone and complete lack of cinematic flair make the single moment in time that this movie focuses on that much more profound. As with all movies that give the audience this much space, Kiarostami almost forces you to consider what is happening with the protagonist and how difficult the favor he's asking of others might be.

All the ironic shots of bulldozers or other large digging and dirt-dumping machines while this poor guy can't find anybody to bury him. A soldier, a religious fellow, a taxidermist. What's the significance of those roles? Is there a sneaky humor below the surface of all the melancholy? What are we to think about the meta-rific surprise after the story's denouement?

I really liked Homayoun Ershadi in the lead role, mostly because of how flat he is. He plays this part with almost no emotion, and although that could make the whole thing very cold, especially with Kiarostami's minimalistic approach, it really does more to create this haunting mystique.

Grizzly

1976 bear movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: It's like Jaws but with a really big bear.

Imagine Jaws, but replace the shark with an 18-foot bear and, since 18-foot bears aren't usually found in the ocean, place all the action in the woods. You've just made the movie Grizzly in your head, so congratulations, you budding genius director!  Coming just a year after Spielberg's blockbuster, this is one of the more blatant rip-offs you'll ever see. Google Damon Packard's remixed Grizzly trailer if you don't believe me which cleverly combines the visuals of the bear movie with the voiceover of the Jaws trailer. You can barely tell.

Speaking of Packard, I actually watched his "redux" of Grizzly where he humorously adds exaggerated sound effects, really juicing things up with demonic bear grunts and growls, big action movie helicopter sounds, and general thrashing; hilarious off-screen voices; footage of confused-looking extras and even himself as a clumsy auxiliary character; and lots more gore. It's unclear what the point was, but it was entertaining.

SpaceDisco One

2007 science fiction movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: I'm not really sure, and since you don't care anyway, it doesn't make sense for me to even bother.

Damon Packard is either a genius or insane or, mostly likely, a combination of both. Whatever the case, his particular brand of playful avant-garde goes a little over my head here. At about an hour long, this unauthorized sequel to both Logan's Run and 1984 is stuffed with ideas. There's stuff about technology as you might expect, the low-budget spin showing off Packard's boundless creativity and sense of humor. There's a bunch of meta stuff, scenes showing the film crew and the director, venturing into mockumentary territories at times. There's stock footage of roller rink action that Packard spices up with cheap computer graphics to give it a chaotic and beautiful sci-fi psychedelic sheen. It's possible that there are too many ideas in this thing as it's a very sloppy hour, but it's difficult not to appreciate his skills as an editor, his idiosyncratic approach, and just his enthusiasm for the material.

Love, Simon

2018 great love story

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A gay teen, who hasn't come out to anybody, befriends a mysterious gay guy at his school through email. When an annoying kid finds out, he creates some problems for Simon and his friends.

It seems that this movie is really important for some people, and that's great. I'm glad it resonates with an audience that is probably more of an intended audience than me. The movie's got a lot to love about it. The characters, though they're the types of kids with the types of friendships who could only be seen in a movie, are really easy to like. There are some really terrific moments--like a surprise dance sequence that looks like it belongs in La La Land more than a coming-of-age love story like this. A lot of the soundtrack is really good. Some characters--moms, dads, school drama club directors, Buster from Arrested Development--jump in and say just the right things at just the right moments. The movie's got an effervescence that makes it extremely watchable. There's some great humor, a lot from Tony Hale and Natasha Rothwell's vice-principal and teacher characters. "Stop pretending that trumpet is your penis. It's a rental." That might be my favorite line of the year. And I really liked the young actors, especially Nick Robinson who plays the titular character. I thought he was really good although I would have been fine with less narration.

But there are issues that really distracted me and kept me from really feeling this movie. The tagline says that "Everyone deserves a great love story." As a liberal-minded person, I completely agree with that sentiment. I'm just not totally sure this is a great love story.

At the center of the movie's problems is that the connection between the two characters doesn't feel real. Simon falls in love with the guy he's exchanging emails with, but I can't really figure out why. They have similar plights, they're both gay, and. . .well, if there's anything else revealed in those email spurts, let me know. I understand why they would connect as individuals working through nearly identical issues, but I just didn't buy them as soulmates. It was almost like Simon was desperate to fall in love with anybody--the guy blowing leaves outside his house, any of the characters he imagines could be Blue, probably anybody in that school who is not Tony Hale or female.

The unrealistic, overly-written-for characters didn't help either. You've seen these character types in countless movies before. They seem to be characters who have wandered into a 2018 movie from 80's television shows about adolescents and schools, and I don't mean that in a good way. Schools don't really look like this. Principals don't act like Tony Hale. Teachers don't talk like Nathasha Rothwell talks to students. Bullies certainly don't act like the bullies in this movie. And the kids' friendships, though I can't say it's not fun to watch, just don't feel like friendships that could really exist. It's probably true that the caricatures made the movie a little breezier or a little more vibrant, but it also hurt the story's credibility.

A huge problem for me was the story's main conflict. This might be a little spoilery, so you can skip this paragraph if you want. There's a boy who finds out about Simon's secret and screenshots his emails. He then uses those to blackmail Simon into getting something he wants. I just didn't really buy that this particular character, though he was annoying in that way an 80's television show can make a kid annoying, would go about things the way he did, and I didn't really buy any of Simon's actions because of all that.

Though I think gay teens probably deserve a better love story, this is still an entertaining enough movie. It's also probably worth checking out just because you get the added satisfaction of knowing that this is the type of thing that makes Mike Pence's blood boil. That's something.

Chickens in the Shadows

2010 musical mockumentary

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A pop duo from the late-70's called Toasters 'n' Moose reunites for a trio of shows.

This is Vincent Gargiulo's only feature-length film. He's got a bunch of shorts (including "The Muppetless Movie" which is a trailer for a fake movie that features humans playing the Muppet characters), but I'm not watching them after seeing this and "The Muppetless Movie," a trailer for a fake movie that features humans playing the Muppet characters. That and Chickens in the Shadows (no idea why the movie is called this, by the way) are funny ideas, but they never move beyond funny-idea territories. Gargiulo should probably just pitch ideas to other writers and filmmakers.

Toasters has a line in here about how something is "funny because it's unexpected and it doesn't make any sense." Gargiulo seems to assume that his movie and characters are going to be funny because there are moments when things are unexpected and don't make any sense. Unfortunately,the ideas are so poorly written and executed, and there's very little in this movie that is actually funny. The no-budget filmmaking would be excusable if the material was better, but these jokes just don't land. Terrible acting also gets in the way, ruining any chance at authenticity needed to make a mockumentary like this work at all. If the acting was better, I'm still not sure this would work because they've got nothing at all to work with. Estelle Piper, in her first role, might give the worst performance, but that might have more to do with her having the most lines. Really, they're all pretty bad at this.

I did almost enjoy the appearance of a "singing pervert" and one song with the lyrics "Taste the biscuit, taste the goodness of the biscuit" that was performed in a secondhand store. That almost sounded like a Ween outtake.

Force Majeure

2014 family drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A family of four on a skiing vacation find their relationships tested because of the response of the father during an avalanche scare.

One of my favorite things in movies is beautiful shots of inconsequential things. Ruben Ostlund's movie is filled with those. A lovely shot of snowy mountain peaks against a nighttime sky backdrop with an unidentified flying object that turns out to be a drone, a wall of shoes, ski-lift mechanisms, lots of skiing, a character disappearing in this chilling fog. Of course, some of those might not be inconsequential. But anyway, this is a beautifully shot movie, and I would contend that it's even a movie you could understand without having any dialogue. There is language, the kind you have to read at the bottom of the screen unless you happen to speak Swedish or whatever language these people are using. But is the dialogue in this really necessary? So much of this story is told through the imagery and the body language and the way these characters are shot. Most of what is going on with this married couple isn't spoken anyway, but these two can't conceal their issues because Ostlund just won't let them.

A plot synopsis might make this sound like a downer, a film all about a disintegrating marriage. Knowing that two kids are also experiencing trauma because of how their parents are acting or that a bearded pal of the father also gets sucked into the whole thing makes it seem like even more of a downer. A film that dives into an investigation of masculinity, contains a scene where characters are sharing primal screams, and showcases characters who are the "bloody victim[s] of [their] own instincts" just sounds like a hoot, doesn't it?  Force Majeure, however, is definitely a comedy. My favorite funny moments involved the patriarch of the family being called "the best looking man in the bar," the contradictory arguments (instinct vs. logic) of his friend after hearing the story about the avalanche, some hilarious whimpering, and some windshield wipers. The windshield wipers even made me laugh out loud.

Two knock-out parallel scenes: synchronous teeth-brushing, urinating, sideways glancing, and lowering of toilet seats. Those scenes show so much about this couple's feelings toward each other without a single word exchanged.

This was pretty enough and fun enough that I'd like to see it again soon. I have questions about the colors of the children's coats, why we see three out of four of the family members urinating at some point in the movie, and what smoking has to do with anything. And the irony of using the "Summer" part of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in a movie that won't make anybody think of summer. That's got to mean something, right?

Oh, I almost forgot to mention my favorite character--a nosy, wordless (as I recall, at least) janitor who kind of watches a lot of this unfold at the same time we do. He's great!

Unsane

2018 psychological thriller

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A woman is committed to a mental health facility against her will and is then terrorized by a figure from her past. Or is she?

The stupid title of this movie should have been warning enough. Unsane? That's not even a word.

After Logan Lucky and this, it's clear that Steven Soderbergh should have stayed retired. I was semi-excited for this one because Soderbergh was experimenting again and making a genre film. Maybe, I thought, Soderbergh's ideas are forcing him out of retirement. Sadly, anybody at all could have made this movie, and there are loads of other directors (Sean Baker, for instance) who could have done a much better job. This fails to thrill, the characters are as flat as you'll ever see in a psychological thriller or horror movie or whatever you want to call this, and the iPhone filming style utilized much more effectively in Tangerine adds nothing to the story or the experience.

There were lots of snickers from the crowd during this one. There might be some moments that you could call darkly comic, but for the most part, this plays out like a straight thriller. The main problem is that it just doesn't thrill. It's predictable and really dull, and I never really connected with the character or her plight. I don't think that's Claire Foy's fault although I did think her performance as our troubled and fairly unlikable protagonist was wildly uneven. It might have been partially Joshua Leonard's fault. I don't want to say much about who he plays or what his character's role in this whole thing is because it would spoil the whole thing, but there are a lot of times when the combination of his bad acting and the bad words he's given to say completely wrecked the tone that Soderbergh needed to establish. The other actors and actresses are capable although there are times when the characters almost seem to be asking, "What am I doing here again? Why does this character exist?" They're background, but they don't do much more than the gray walls to bring this setting to life.

The final 20 minutes or so reminded me of late-70's or early-80's movies, and that very well could have been what Soderbergh was going for. The blend of those older psychological thriller tones with this newfangled iPhone filming technique could have been fascinating, but neither side of that equation seems fully realized. I thought the iPhone thing could have given the filmmaker an opportunity to throw in some guerrilla-filmmaking moments or give this a more intrusive quality, but it doesn't do either of those. I also suspected Soderbergh wanted to say something about the effects of smartphones on our lives, but it doesn't seem like there's anything there either. There are some moments when the style is cable of making the audience feel like voyeurs, but for the most part, it just makes the whole thing seem very cheaply made. That's fine--I like a little grit in my movies. But other than one chaotic moment with some cool-looking double-exposure effects, I didn't feel like the style of this added anything at all. Weird camera angles, oppressive close-ups, and shots through foliage really served no purpose. One wonders if Soderbergh's justification for filming this with phones would be something as shallow as "Well, I wanted to prove that I could seem like an indie filmmaker or even a complete amateur even though I'm a well-known director who has worked with Brad Pitt."

I haven't even mentioned anything about the story. It really makes no sense, but I can't really say much about that without spoiling things. Suffice it to say that eye-rolling moments abound, especially during an ending that I think was supposed to be some kind of twist.

Evan Almighty

2007 comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: New congressman Evan Baxter is harassed by God until he agrees to build an ark.

I was on a family vacation where we didn't have any free time at all. On our lone day off, I was flipping through channels, and this one was just beginning. I was starving for some movie entertainment, so I watched the entire thing.

There's a lengthy ark-building montage where Steve Carell, a guy I really do like, keeps falling down, hitting his thumb with antiquated hammers, and getting slapped in the balls with boards. I'm actually not sure I'm remembering that last part right. He might not actually suffer any testicular trauma in this movie, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he did because that's the sort of rich idea the writers (Steve Oedekerk is the name, but there are four other credited writers) and Pet Detective (and Patch Adams) director Tom Shadyac seem to think is comedy gold. That's not a complaint that this gets too crude or anything because it's not that type of movie at all. In fact, I think you could probably get away with showing it in church. And who knows? Maybe Trump supporters could be fooled into thinking it was based on a true story. So it's not crude humor; it's just unimaginative, bland humor, something that Steve Carell must have been attracted to mostly because he was getting paid lots of money to do it. It's the type of idea that seems like it could probably write itself, but not in a good way. Everything is so obvious and on the nose.

That includes a superficial attempt to attach some sort of environmental or political message to the whole thing. It's like Shadyac had to make this as part of a homework assignment, finished it all quickly, and then checked the assignment details or the grading rubric the teacher had provided and noticed that he had forgotten to add a universal theme, didn't think the whole "trust God" thing was strong enough, and tacked on the environmental stuff.

The modern-day Noah story could have maybe worked in my delicate hands, but this is Tom Shadyac and 2007, so Noah needs to be louder and the special effects need to be big. Note that I described them as big there, not as good. The animal stuff works in some cases, but at times, the CGI animals look ludicrous, and bad special effects during the climax are distracting.

I'm surprised this wasn't followed by Dale Almighty, a modern-day Abraham retelling where Morgan Freeman convinces Will Ferrell to kill his own son. That would be a hoot!

After this, Bruce Almighty came on. I'm not sure why the channel decided to show them in that order. By that time, I was getting ready to leave the hotel and couldn't pay much attention, but I did watch enough to be reminded that Jim Carrey, when he wanted to, was capable of singlehandedly ruining a movie with his acting.

I'm thinking of writing my own "Almighty" movie based on the story of Onan, the Old Testament's most notorious masturbator. Paul Rudd would be perfect in that!

The only other movie I was able to watch was Les Diaboliques. I already wrote about that movie right here and have nothing to add. It's better than both Evan Almighty and Bruce Almighty. We also saw Coco last night after we got back from our trip (my wife and Abbey's first times), and I have nothing to add to my thoughts about that one either. I did cry again though.

Going Places

1974 anarchic movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A couple of pals travel around France with a couple of pairs of testicles.

I prefer The Testicles over Going Places for the title of this one. Watching the opening sequences, that former title would make you wonder if this is all about the possible damage Gerard Depardieu is doing to his testicles by running around in those ridiculously tight pants.

There's no character arc here, and the decisions this pair of protagonists--and the third traveler they spend large chunks of the film with--make are often difficult to understand. Their freeflowing romp through France feels naturalistic, and at times, it's almost poetic, at least in a grimy way. It's poetry like Ginsberg's though, typed furiously on papers taped together into a roll so that time isn't wasted removing and replacing pages. Or was that Burroughs? I'm not completely sure what we're supposed to learn from any of it and probably prefer Bertrand Blier's original ending where the characters die in a car crash. The 1940s would have preferred that ending, too.

The Testicles!