The Great Buck Howard

2008 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The titular washed-up illusionist hires a new assistant who has disappointed his father Forrest Gump by not finishing law school. Buck Howard isn't the nicest of employers or the easiest to deal with, but Troy does his best to help him in his attempts to make a comeback and get back on The Tonight Show.

Love seeing Malkovich in comedy roles, and although he might not have a lot to work with here--the writing, the other performers--he's a lot of fun here as the illusionist, especially when he becomes unglued. The dopey handshake, the piano performances, and the magician showmanship that paint Buck Howard as this almost deliriously unhip fellow who is not really likable at all but still manages to be somebody you want kind of almost want to root for. The real main character--with his narration, the conflict with his father, the love interest--didn't interest me at all. That's Tom Hanks' boy, and he doesn't seem to have much of a future in this business. You do have to give credit to a movie that establishes Jay Leno as a "dimwit" and manages to include a scene with Gary Coleman, a juggling little person, and a ventriloquist in the same room without making my television ejaculate. Worth watching for Malkovich fans.

Rocky IV

1985 propaganda piece

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A powerful Soviet boxer named Drago punches Rocky's friend Apollo Creed to death. Rocky travels to the Soviet Union, a place that once existed, to train and fight the monster.

Monster. Seriously, was I supposed to be rooting against Drago in this movie, and more importantly, does the fact that I really wasn't put me on some kind of Joseph McCarthy list? As pro-America and pro-democracy as this movie is (and believe me, it's as proud to be an American as a guy wearing red, white, and blue boxers at a monster truck rally), there are some mixed messages throughout this. We start with exploding boxing gloves, not the traditional title crawl from the right, and automatically, this does not bode well. Then, you get to Paulie's birthday party where the birthday boy gets a robot. Only in America, right? This was actually the first "Rocky" movie I ever saw, and I remember being confused and bored by all this birthday and robot shit. I probably wondered, just like I did when I watched it this time, if Paulie and the robot were going to have an intimate sex scene. Apollo seemed to think so. The robot is probably a good symbol for what is wrong with America in this movie, but I'm too tired to get my thoughts together on that. I do know that America just seems so cocky and cheap and loud. You get all these flashy shots of a Camaro at the beginning of one of about five thousand montages. Then, you get flamboyant Apollo's entrance before his last tragic match, and you can just tell that James Brown confuses the heck out of Drago. So you get these clashing ideals in the ring--capitalism vs. communism, old (Apollo and his training techniques) vs. new (Drago and all those machines the commies got), a cocky guy who is all style vs. a guy who just wants to freakin' box, pomposity vs. stoicism. And by the way, I prefer Drago's entrance music more than anybody else's in any of these movies. I like movie music that I can play anyway, but that synthesizer/hissing breath thing is just cool. Drago trains really hard, just as hard as Rocky or Apollo, so I'm not sure what the message is supposed to be. And Rocky is chopping down trees for no good reason, so you know the environmentalists (probably, commies anyway) are going to be rooting against him. And then, look at the fight itself. First, you know who's going to win because these movies have gotten predictable. But look at how Rocky wins. He gets lucky during the fight, and he cheats by hitting after the bell, but they try to keep Drago as the bad guy by having him retaliate. I wonder if Rocky had something stuffed in his glove to cut Drago actually. I wouldn't put it past him! There's also a moment in round two where Rocky gets knocked down but doesn't get a count. What the heck? I just don't see how Drago is the villain in all this (aside from a half-second shot of him being injected with something which suggested he's not all-natural), but his hometown crowd does as they start rooting for Rocky at the end which has to be the dumbest thing about any of these Rocky movies. Poor Drago was probably shot like a wounded racehorse after the fight, and after all that hard work, I just felt sorry for the guy. I also feel sorry for anybody with an aversion to movie montages since Rocky IV has to break the record for most in one movie. There are at least seven, and counting the opening sequence which, just like the other sequels, is the end sequence of the previous movie, this has about forty minutes of footage that we've already seen before. It's like they filmed Rocky IV, realized they only had about fifty minutes of movie, and said, "Yeah, we can just pad the rest of this with some of the best moments from the other three movies." This movie, despite being an offensive chunk of propagandist cheese, gets a 10/20 only because you get a formidable foe with Drago (I like Dolph more than Mr. T. and the Hulkster combined actually) and because even though Mickey is dead (he shows up in those montages though), that ring announcer's mustache is alive and well. But overall, this movie should be as embarrassing to America as slavery and the treatment of the Native Americans.

As mentioned, I watched this Rocky before the others. More than likely, this one turned me against the series and kept me from giving the first movie a chance until I was in my late-20s.

One more thing--2,150 pounds per square inch, the most force of one of Drago's punches, I believe. Wouldn't that be enough to completely destroy Rocky's skull or literally tear his head from his neck? That would have been a nice end to the story actually--Adrian catching her husband's head in her lap and Rocky looking up at her and saying, "Yo, Adrian. I guess this is it for old Rocky, huh?" Or just "Adrian! Adrian!" with a cut to Paulie having his way with his robot or Rocky's son, who acts just as well as his dad, crying. That's an even better end to the Balboa story than the one I imagined for Rocky II where a truck hits the boxer and kills him in front of thousands of children.

The Cruise

1989 documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A few days in the life of New York City bus tour guide Timothy "Speed" Levitch who waxes profusely, shows off for the camera a bit, and just might be having sexual relations with the city.

I also watched this in honor of the Titanic tragedy. I'm moved by Levitch's message ("the most beautiful failure is the pursuit of individuality"), his lovely singing voice (Gershwin's "There Writing Songs of Love but Not for Me"), and the little biographical tidbits that are peppered throughout this. This is a movie that is about Levitch's loneliness in one of the most populated cities on earth than anything else. No, not everybody is going to appreciate this oddball (eyeing you here, Cory), but I really enjoy the 80-or-so-minute journey through Levitch's noggin. His goal to be "thrilled to be alive and still be respected" or desire to "look at the flower, appreciate the beauty of the flower, and have the flower appreciate the beauty of [him]" and other ramblings could be tossed off as this neo-hippie nonsense, but I just find them profound and beautiful. Maybe his worldview just matches up with mine. When he talks about having an "intimate love affair with a flower" and how that would be a much better experience than having one with "some of the more banal creatures of the human race," I can definitely identify. But no, I've never looked at leaves and thought of them as sexy. And I don't have a terracotta fetish either, but I can be entertained by his simulated (I hope) orgasm that he has while a few confused pedestrians look on. It rivals Meg Ryan's work in that one movie. The tour guide stuff was fascinating, too. You get to find out Dylan Thomas's last words, and it's always nice when a tour guide points out the sun.

"This is ludicrousness, and it cannot last!"

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

1989 grotesque art

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A brutish bully and sort of vague criminal--the titular thief--frequents the lush dining establishment of the titular cook. The titular abused wife meets her titular bookish lover there and begins boinking him nightly behind her husband's back. He's too busy eating fistfuls of pudding, behaving unruly, and verballing assaulting his friends and fellow patrons to notice anything like that. But when he finds out? Oh, snap! This goose is cooked!

First saw this at Clown College with Kent back in '93. It was my first trip through a Greenaway movie, and I just didn't get it. I think we rented that and Henry and June because they were both NC-17 and wanted to see some boobs. This has some boobs, specifically the two belonging to Helen Mirren, but that's not the reason to see this. The reasons to see this are the performance of Michael Gambon as the thief and the pretty pictures that Greenaway gives us. First, what's not to love-to-hate about Gambon's character? He's got to be in the running for the most despicable movie character in the history of film, right along with most of Shirley Temple's characters. What a villain. But since this is a blacker-than-black comedy, he's kind of funny, too, and he gets all sorts of great one-liners.

"There's a lady present. She doesn't want to see your shriveled contributions."
"You'd just be interested in whipping it in and whipping it out and wiping it on your jacket." (more clear in context probably)
"I think those Ethiopians like starving."
"A cow drinks its weight in water twice a week. For milk. Cause a cow's got big tits."
"I didn't mean that you literally had to chew his buttocks off. I meant it metaphorically."

It's great stuff. And it's dark and filthy, almost enough to make you feel dirty for watching the thing. It's like low-brow potty humor for the artsy-fartsy crowd. I mean, the movie starts, just like Ridicule, with a character pissing on a guy, but this takes it one step further and adds fecal matter. But as grotesque as things get, Greenaway and his cinematographer Sacha Vierny of Last Year at Marienbad fame keep things so artistic. Greenaway doesn't make motion pictures; he makes motion paintings. And there are countless shots in this son of a bitch that just floor me as the camera moves through the kitchen of the restaurant. There's no way this restaurant is passing a health inspection, by the way. There are feathers flying all over the place, a random castrato, a naked guy with shit all over him, cigarettes in the soup, a chubby shirtless guy, a truck of rotting meat, people having sex right there by the loaves of bread. But it's all so beautiful, and it's just not fair that I can only take in Greenaway's visuals with one of my senses. I'd really like to use more of them. I love the way he toys with colors in this movie with the character's clothing changing color as they move from room to room. One great scene involving a fork has this gradual reddening as the thief passively (ironic passivity) spreads something on a cracker before an intense bathroom destruction. And how the heck does one choreograph dogs and breaking bottles? Oh, man. Throw this movie in a museum because it's a visual masterpiece, marred only by a lengthy conversation near the end of the movie that I think almost spoils the surprises at the end. That scene's problem might be the acting of the cook though. Otherwise, just a lovely and disgusting movie.

Rocky III

1982 sequel sequel

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Rocky's now the champion of the world (see Rocky II, or just the beginning of Rocky III since it shows you the end of the second one anyway) and is fighting chumps. A new challenger with a mohawk bursts onto the scene. A blast from Rocky's past comes along to help train him for his big fight. Meanwhile, there are Adrian problems.

This is no worse than the last sequel, but as entertaining as things are--and they are mostly very entertaining--things are really starting to get ridiculous here. I do love the title crawl from the right in these. Iconic. After that, the movie goes downhill, but I'm glad I got to see the end of Rocky II again since I didn't notice blood on the referee the first time. Then, we get not just one montage but two, including an "Eye of the Tiger" montage with a Muppet sighting. The characters are as colorful as the storytelling is formulaic and clumsy. Mickey's in there to deliver his Mickey-isms, my favorite being "You ever fight a dinosaur, kid? They can cause a variety of damage." And there's Mr. T. whose Clubber Lang would be a really cool character if he wasn't just stealing Apollo Creed (love the names in these) dialogue from the other movies--my suspicions, at least--and if there wasn't all that cartoonish grunting. It takes away a little of his presence, I think. The Rocky character seems even less brain-damaged than he did in the first two movies which makes no sense at all. Stallone's writing makes it clear that he might not be all there, however. Adrian seems superfluous all of a sudden, and the less screen time for her, the better. And then there's Hulk Hogan as Thunderlips. What the hell is going on with that match with Thunderlips? And what the hell is he talking about most of the time? Love slaves? Punching cops? Who thought this scene was a good idea? Rocky's screaming of "Adrian!" (of course) and "Catch me!" when Thunderlips is getting ready to throw him into the crowd were funny though. And I didn't realize Hulk Hogan was so huge. Anyway, this is a fun enough little movie, but it's so cartoonish and doesn't have nearly the emotional impact of the others.

And nobody thought taking Mickey to a hospital would be a good idea? What's wrong with these people.

Titanic: The Legend Goes On...

2000 abomination

Rating: 2/20

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

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

The Producers

1968 comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: An accountant and a theater promoter come up with a can't-miss plan to swindle their way into riches by getting people to invest in a show guaranteed to be a flop--Springtime for Hitler. The plan does not go as expected.

It's Gene Wilder in the Unhinged Character Hollering Competition of his life! Good ol' Gene can get frantic, upset, and angry with the best of them, but flabby Zero Mostel as the producer and unlikely ladies' man, Kenneth Mars as the play's writer, and Dick Shawn as the titular dictator in the musical-within-a-movie all give him a run for his money. Watch Wilder going bonkers over his blue blanket, however, and you'll want to hand him an award of some kind. There are some classic moments and a lot of stuff that seems dated, but it's hard for me to see a room full of Hitlers practicing their saluting and not want to laugh. And remember, the fuhrer never said baby. That's all I have to say about this movie.

Rocky II

1979 sequel

Rating: 12/20

Plot: The world champion's pissed following the improbable conclusion to the last movie. People are questioning whether Creed really deserved the decision, and his ego can't take it. He pressures our titular hero into a rematch. Rocky's reluctant, and his manager and wife aren't happy with the idea. Family pressures and an inability to read become other obstacles that Rocky must overcome, and there's only one thing that can save him--a leather jacket with a tiger on it!

I'll argue that Rocky inexplicably seems more lucid the more he gets hit in the head, but that tiger jacket? Nobody in his right mind is going to see that thing and think it's a good idea. He also proposes to Adrian ("Yo, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind marrying me very much."), clumsily, at the zoo in front of a tiger who looks to be embarrassed that he has to be in the movie, and Gazzo's driver in the first movie told us that the zoo is where retards like to go. Remember: driver's words; not mine. Later, we get the classic "I never use condominiums" line, Rocky's admittance that he can't "tell time real good" [sic], and the reading "It makes me smeal mainly" from a cue card. And there's that Tarzan yell again, something that's got to be scripted. So the answer to another character's question "Do you think you had brain damage?" would still have to be a definitive yes, but his brain still seems stronger than it did in the first movie, a trend that will oddly continue through the first four of these movies.

This is very much a case of "second verse, same as the first." We start by showing the end of the first movie again, something that happens in all the rest of these Rocky movies and in The Karate Kid II. There are more Jesus allusions, and the biggest difference is that we get a more offensive, improbable Hollywood feel-good ending. Now, I'm not a boxing expert (there was a time when I did watch a lot of boxing though), and I've never even been in a fight, but I might know more about the sport than Stallone's character here. If somebody is punching me, I'd at least know to put my hands up and protect my face. The boxing match that ends this chapter in the story could only happen in a movie. But more offensive than that to my sensibilities is the whole Hollywoody Adrian coma nonsense even though we get to see a premature baby with more hair than Mickey and hear what might be the worst poem ever recited on film. Am I a bad person for laughing during that scene? I like that the Apollo Creed character has two sides here--the showman and the more classy other side. And initially, I thought Burgess Meredith's Mickey was going to save this thing. The more Mickey we got--"He'll hoit ya poymament!"; "A good snarl can give you what the Bible calls a psychological edge."--the better. Later, I changed my mind about that as Mickey turned into more of a parody. Still, Burgess Meredith is the best thing about this movie.

My idea for how this should have ended: At the 1:30 mark, while Rocky is running and being chased by about a thousand children, he's struck by a truck and dies instantly. That would have saved us all from a lot of nonsense.

One more thing: I'd like to live in a place where guys sing around burning trashcans.

Wet Hot American Summer

2001 comedy movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: It's the summer of 1981, the last day at Camp Something-Rather.

Did people in 1981 use the word "douchebag" as an insult? I would have guessed late-90s for that one. This has a who's-who of funny famous people, and it is frequently pretty funny. It's episodic, great for the MTV generation, so if you don't like one of the threads (like Molly Shannon's arts-and-crafts-loving character's subplot), you don't have to suffer much. This is an example of a movie that is more fun than it's good. You have to wonder though--is a parody of the already-too-goofy summer camp movie genre really necessary? The conversations between David Hyde Pierce and Janeane Garofalo were the funniest parts of the movie, but I did like Christopher Meloni's Gene character. I did not recognize him, by the way. Oh, and look who else is in this movie--Bradley Cooper. I think I broke my record for most movies without Bradley Cooper before seeing this one.

Something really bothers me about Paul Rudd. I'm not saying that I want to fight him or anything, but I wouldn't have any problem fighting him if it became necessary. I'll even call him a douchebag right to his face.

Rocky

1976 love story

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The titular boxer, an over-the-hill part-time amateur pugilist and part-time loan shark bruiser, gets the chance of a lifetime when the cocky heavyweight champion of the world challenges him to a match. Balboa balances training and courting Adrian, a shy pet store employee, and prepares physically and mentally for his second chance.

This isn't a movie about just one underdog, the titular one. It's an underdog overdose! It really lays on the resurrection theme pretty thickly from the get-go with the first shot being a painted Christ and the word "resurrection" actually appearing on a sign in the background. I also love how Rocky is later compared to Albert Einstein, Beethoven, and Helen Keller. Which gives me an idea--maybe I'll tackle a Helen Keller boxing movie after I finish writing and directing my sequel to The Diary of Anne Frank. I can't watch Carl Weathers without saying, "You got yourself a stew." But he's good here, convincing as both a boxer and an actual human. He's got pizazz. My favorite bit of acting from any of these movies is Apollo's look in the 14th round after Rocky gets up again. Love Burgess Meredith's Mickey, too, so grizzled. His face is perfect for this part as a guy with 1,000 years of boxing experience. Maybe Stallone should have had his character write the movie to make the boxing parts of it a little more believable. Another thing I respect about this movie is that is that it succeeds with two hearts--the sports story and the love story. You get a brutal 15 rounds of bloody boxing, cracked ribs, blood being spat out, cut eyes, etc., but the movie ends with an "I love you!" The result of the boxing match can barely be heard in the background as Rocky looks for his gal. I really am touched by the whole thing, as manipulative and movie-ish as it is.

But let's talk about Rocky. I'm making my way through the Rocky movies, two-thirds of them for the very first time. It seems that with as much as Rocky gets punched in the head, he should become more and more brain-damaged. I think that's how brains work anyway though admittedly, I am not a scientist. In this first movie, Rocky is so simple and childlike, and Stallone plays the character as mentally challenged. He has conversations about turtle food with himself in the mirror; Tarzan-yells at a dog that I believe is named Butt Kiss; asks, "How do you spell Del Rio?"; says things like "Hey, I won't let that happen no more, about the thumb, you know?"; has trouble opening his locker, something that I see the dumbest 7th graders in the world accomplish daily (OK, to be fair, he does technically get it open, and it's a padlock problem rather than a Rocky's brain problem, but still--it took him a long time to figure it out, right?); greets birds with a "Hey, birds!" that rivals the way Tommy Wiseau's dog greeting (seriously, all bad movie appreciators need to check out The Room) and later compares birds to "candy, like flying candy"; has these goofy arguments with Buddy the driver (Rocky, "I don't like YOUR face" is not a good comeback to "I don't like your face." It really isn't.), a character who says, "I heard retards like the zoo" which made me wonder if the Dead Milkmen were inspired to write a song after seeing this movie; says "I ain't never talked to no door before" which is, if my counting is correct, a triple negative, a line he delivers after needlessly introducing himself as Rocky twice; introduces himself as Rocky to Adrian again on the television because he must have gotten television and radio confused ("Yo, Adrian. . . it's me, Rocky.); impresses girls with the old "Ahh ahh ahh ahh! I just dislocated my finger" trick; asking if he's talking too loud which, most of the time, he really is; delivers a nice "Ehh-yo" cymbal crash after his punchlines; refers to himself as both dumb and a moron; thinks turtles and a gold fish are "rare animals"; explains his Italian Stallion nickname by saying, "I invented that one day when I was making dinner." (By the way, are boxers supposed to give themselves nicknames? That seems amateurish to me.); gets egg all over himself when he drinks his breakfast; says "moo" at one point; asks, "Does it ever snow in here?" which might have been a joke but it's hard to tell sometimes with Rocky; and says Apollo "looks like a big flag."

But as the Rocky story progresses, he sounds more and more intelligent. I don't get it.

It's almost too bad there were sequels. Alone, Rocky is a great feel-good story and piece of Hollywood myth-making. And it teaches the audience a lesson that yes, even a mentally-challenged way-out-of-his prime fighter can lose a boxing match.

Screwball: The Ted Whitfield Story

2010 comedy

Rating: 6/20

Plot: During the 1994 baseball strike, professional wiffleball legend Ted Whitfield attempts to break the home run single single record of 122. Controversy surrounds him as cheating accusations arise.

This half-assed mockumentary, one that doesn't really follow its own rules and ends up being a half-mockumentary/half-straight-fiction, has a handful of interesting ideas mixed in with all the poop and penis jokes and cheap drug references. I thought having this coincide with the '94 strike and a lot of subtle references to McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds was kind of clever. The blue dinos, a performance-enhancing vitamin, and the diming the bat episode were almost funny. And it was fun hearing a pretty good Harry Caray impersonator. Unfortunately, this wears thin very quickly. It really should have been a nine-minute short on Youtube instead of a feature-length movie. Oh, well. At least I got to use my bestiality tag again. A movie about wiffleball does seem like a promising idea. And this one, though nowhere near a good movie, did inspire me to start up an adult wiffleball league once I recover from my foot injury surgery. Two-man teams, standard rules. So far, I've recruited one other guy, and I know my brother and brother-in-law will play. So I guess you could say that Screwball: The Ted Whitfield Story was an inspiration.

Twister

1989 tornado movie that isn't that 1996 tornado movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Not much of one. A carbonated beverage tycoon lives with his son, daughter, grand-daughter, and housekeeper. He's dating a woman who hosts a religious program for children. His children want to find Mom. The daughter's ex-husband wants back into the fold. Somewhere mixed in all this is a tornado.

But no, this isn't that more famous and funnier tornado movie with Helen Hunt and that nondescript guy. I would have rather been watching a version of that with Crispin Glover though. That one's pretty straightforward. This one will have you asking, "What the hell am I watching here?" At times, I had to wonder if the actors and actresses were even on the same page in the script. Or even if there was a script. The movie's called Twister, but to be perfectly honest, it could have been called Ping Pong, Soda Pop, Bad Guitar Music, or Inflatable Dinosaur because those are just as important to the "plot" of this thing than the tornado. I'm positive that this is supposed to be a comedy, but I'm not sure there's an audience who's going to be in on the joke. You get all kinds of terrific dialogue, including this gem:

Dylan (ex-husband character played by Dylan McDermott, kissing Maureen in front of a giant television showing some cartoon): Can we go someplace more private?
Maureen: Let's go outside.
Dylan: No. I just came from there. There's a tornado out there.

What? And then all of a sudden, there's a horse in the house. None of the characters seem bugged by its presence, so why should I be? Of course, I put this on for the Crispin Glover, and he doesn't disappoint. Well, unless you're disappointed by baffling acting performances for characters that don't make much sense. He's weird here, even for Crispin Glover. He spends a lot of the movie in a red velvety suit, probably from his own personal collection, and gets a reverby musical number that sounds like it might be improvised. It reminded me a lot of outsider musician Jandek. You also get a scene where Glover's beaten up by a young Tim Robbins and another later scene where Crispin Glover fights a wall. He gets angry a few times, and it's always fun to watch an angry Crispin Glover. There are also cameos by guys named Donal Donnelly and Ralfe D. Reber as a twitchy doctor and a golfer respectively. I think the latter they must have just found on the golf course a few minutes before shooting the scene. It's his only film credit. Donnelly was in Godfather III and some other things though. But my favorite performance in this comes from none other than William S. Burroughs in a tiny role as Man in Barn. Seriously, I'm surprised I didn't have to clean myself up after find a movie scene where William S. Burroughs and Crispin Glover are in a barn together. Burroughs' target practice (of course) is interrupted and he answers a "Where's Jim?" question with the classic: "Jim got kicked in the head by a horse in February. He went around killing horses for a while. Then he ate the insides of a clock and died." That cameo alone was worth about five points for me.

Let me know if you want me to review the tornado movie with Helen Hunt and the nondescript guy because I'll do it for you!

Ridicule

1996 witty movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Some French guy travels to Versailles in order to get the king (Louis CXVII or something) to help him drain some swamps. He learns quickly enough that the only way to get an audience with the king is to be wittier than everybody else. He's assisted by a doctor whose lovely and bosomy daughter is trying to perfect her diving suit invention. Meanwhile, there's a whore who kind of looks like Lyle Lovett, and she keeps trying to play footsy with him while he's busy getting his wit on. I'm sure it would have all made perfect sense back in the 18th Century.

Just two minutes in, a guy whips it out (it, being the penis) and urinates on an old man wearing an eyepatch. Cory recommended this one; he really likes that sort of thing. Here are three things that stand out about this movie:

1) This is exactly why everybody hates French people. In a way, it's hard for me to believe that people were ever like this, but then I think about how people are today and believe that people were definitely like this. I like the characters' faces after they make a witty remark, most, by the way, that I didn't even understand. Their expressions made me laugh and want to punch some random French guy.

2) The writers of this totally took that "jawbone of an ass" gag (where a character thinks of a witty retort way too late as he's traveling home from one of these awesome parties) from a Seinfeld episode. You know, the jerk store one.

3) I'm going to try to find every opportunity I can to say "Your butt is wider than your mouth" to people. I don't even know what that means, but it definitely sounds like something.

I liked this movie though I'm not a big fan of stuffy period pieces regardless of how much beautiful cleavage they throw on the screen. The costumes and settings provided a colorful backdrop to the frequently clever dialogue. And although I thought a lot of this was a little cold or, yes, stuffy, I thought a scene near the end with some deaf mutes was pretty touching. If I knew anything about French history and what happened to some of these people after most of this movie takes place, I bet I would be able to appreciate some of the irony more. Nice recommendation, Cory, and definitely not something I would have popped in on my own.

Smoke Signals

1998 Native American movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Victor and Thomas are a couple Native American teens living on a reservation. Thomas is a nerdy storyteller, and Victor's kind of a cool jock. They're not friends exactly, but when Victor's estranged father dies, Thomas, whose life was saved by him, travels with him to pick up the ashes.

This is apparently the first feature film written, produced, directed, and starring Native Americans. It works as an understated comedy with a nice theme about the sins of our fathers regardless of the Native American characters even though the storytelling tradition of the people is important to the way the story's told. Evan Adams is so good as the nerdy Thomas Builds-a-Fire; the way he tells his mostly pointless stories is like he's trying to hold on to hundreds of years of tradition. The dynamics between the two kids are interesting. They've got their problems, and it's easy to identify with the two characters as they deal with those problems in their own ways. Gary Farmer from Dead Man and Adaptation is also in this. This isn't deliriously funny or anything, but I did enjoy the antics of the weather/traffic guy for the reservation radio station KREZ, and I learned a catchy little song about John Wayne's teeth.

Hobo with a Shotgun

2011 70's movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: The titular hobo arrives in a town I believe is named Fuck Town, a "satanic dystopia" if you believe the graffiti. He finds nothing but crime and corruption, sticks his probably filthy hobo nose where it doesn't belong, and ticks off the town's big wig and his dopey sons. Finally, he's pushed too far, gets his hands (probably filthy) on the titular shotgun, and takes the law into his own hands.

Oh boy. What am I getting myself into here? This seems to be a halfassed production rushed out there to take advantage of the 1970's grindhouse revival. It's about as subtle as a hammer to the groin. More than likely, there was a scene featuring a hammer to a groin in this mess somewhere. This is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all but that probably needed to. There are moments of manic bloody genius if you're looking for a gorefest as guys are decapitated with barbed-wire nooses, heads are smashed between bumper cars, arms are broken on video game joysticks, faces are slapped with socks full of coins, school children on buses are flame-throwered, chests are pierced with ice skates, and. . .well, you get the idea. But the storytelling, acting, and writing are so bad, even for this sort of thing. See, you can't start a movie with a group of really loud people decapitating and a record-breaking amount of dick jokes (seriously, tally up the number of dick references in the first ten minutes of this thing) and then transition to the protagonist staring at a lawn mower with some sad piano music. What am I supposed to feel there? Somebody's head just flew off and a bunch of people danced as his blood rained down on them, and now I'm supposed to appreciate the depth of our hobo protagonist? You're asking for too much, filmmakers. You're distracted and, if you're the type of sicko who appreciates this kind of over-the-top gratuitous movie violence, amused during the bloody action sequences that take up at least half of this movie, but when the movie slows down, you realize how bad it is. Just check out some of this crap:

Hobo, after being taken to his prostitute friend's house where he will be given a sweatshirt with a bear on it: "I see you have an empty picture frame here. Why don't you put a picture of your family in there, or a dog or a cat?" What happens to that picture frame made me laugh. Or this line from the hobo: "You seem like a smart and intelligent girl. You should be teaching, tell people about beautiful things and miracles." You also get to learn a lot about bears during this touching scene. Then, there's what might be the action one-liner of the year: "First, I have to wash this guy's asshole off my face." I'll credit Rutger Hauer with one thing--he grabs onto this character and gives it his all. I'm not sure if he's playing this character without irony at all or if he's on some kind of level that I can't even comprehend where he knows that I don't know how seriously he's taking this movie and is just toying with me. Or he understands that I'm going to wonder if he's just toying with me, drops hints in his performance that he might be toying with me, and ultimately plays it as straight as he can. All of those are possibilities, and I don't feel that I can appreciate the tragic beauty of the scene where the hobo is talking to a bunch of newborns without knowing which. Anyway, here's my favorite dialogue from the movie:

Prostitute: This isn't the only place grass grows?
Hobo: Are you serious?
Prostitute: Yes.

It's not my favorite moment though. That would be a pair of emergency room doctors trying to save a girl's life which might be the funniest thing I see all year. And wait a second. Now there are armored guys and an octopus thing? This movie's just too much for me to handle.

Rutger, contact me. I'd like to send you my screenplay for my grindhouse kung-fu revenge flick sequel to The Diary of Anne Frank.