Bad Movie Rating: 2/5 (Amy: 3/5; Fred: 1/5; Josh: 1/5; Libby: 1/5)
Rating: 6/20
Plot: A motorcycle gang bothers people.
Hey, it's John "Bud" Cardos as one of the sadists--Firewater. Who's that? Why, that's the director of our last Bad Movie Club viewing--The Day Time Ended.
There he is! He's not a terrible actor, and plays one of the more likable characters in this movie. I don't think Satan would be all that impressed with the sadistic qualities of these dudes. The tagline on the poster up there claims this is a "rebellion of human garbage," but I never bought it. None of the BMCers but me liked Russ Tamblyn as Anchor, the leader of the gang. I'm always happy to see him though, and that's regardless of whether or not he's wearing a woman's hat. Notorious B-movie director Al Adamson cheaply creates these edgy villains. But just giving a guy an eyepatch isn't going to be enough, especially if there's one member of the gang who can't stop giggling.
The plot of this sucker seems like it was made up as they went along. It's like Adamson found three locations--the middle-of-nowhere, a gas station and diner, and a more hilly middle-of-nowhere--and filmed a bunch of random stuff. There's some grimy 70's-glazed sexual content, but it's really just a tease. There's also some violence, including some terrible fake blood and a death-by-swirly scene which is probably the best thing about the movie; however, this is far from the "most violent film of the decade" as promised on the poster up there.
I don't know. Probably if the best scene in your movie is a swirly, your movie probably isn't very good.
Plot: A religious virgin purchases a puppet with dreadlocks at a thrift store and is shocked when it knocks her out and rapes her. She's sexually awakened, but will she be able to find a man who can satisfy her like her puppet?
Black Devil Doll from Hell is the type of movie that ruins every other movie for you. You watch this, you watch something else, you say to yourself "Well, this isn't Black Devil Doll from Hell," and start wondering why all movies can't have a ventriloquist dummy with a tongue.
This starts with the longest credits ever, just a black screen with cheap-looking ("cheap-ass," the Black Devil Doll from Hell would say) words. The movie doesn't start until the 6 minute and 44 second mark, and that means that this ridiculous song--"I'm Your Nightmare"--also plays for around 6 1/2 minutes. "Nightmares come true," growls the singer. "You better do what your mama told ya, or I"m gonna come and getcha." More ridiculous is that there are female background vocals singing things like "Oh, baby, you've been bad." I'm already confused by the whole thing, and the movie hasn't even started yet.
I'm actually glad that I started this write-up focusing on the music. You would not believe the score this thing has. There's so much "What the hell?" going on with the music, apparently created by director Chester Novell Turner. It's Casio madness, the type of music that would probably clash with any scene in any movie. It's the kind of stuff early home video game companies would have rejected for being too goofy. It's bouncy and clashing when it shouldn't be, and sometimes, it's just this loud screeching noise that makes the dialogue inaudible. There's a scene in the antique shop where a woman relays the story of the Black Demon Doll from Hell, a story in which the word "puppet" is used about 60 times, where I thought the recording was messed up. Surely, I thought, nobody would put that horrible noise in a movie intentionally. I was wrong because Chester Novell Turner would.
You know what kind of movie this is? This is the type of movie where somebody named Randolpj L. Helton is listed in the credits. Now, in a world where somebody would think the score for this movie is a good idea, I guess it's possible that somebody could name a child Randolpj, but I'm willing to be it's a typo.
Let's talk about this Chester Novell Turner character. He directed one other movie, something called Tales from the Quadead Zone. The storyline for that, according to imdb, has the star from this movie reading "two spooky tales to the ghost of her dead son, Bobby." Seriously, that's what it says. I'd describe him as inept, but that seems like an understatement. Instead, it's probably more appropriate to call this outsider art. It's written poorly, but the kind of poorly where you wonder if the Turner was even mentally stable when he penned the thing. The direction makes about as much sense as the story. There's one scene with a phone conversation where the camera just kind of explores the woman's living room. I couldn't tell if the random shots of the living room distracted me from the woman's phone conversation or if the phone conversation distracted me from the objects in the living room. There are also numerous shots of a stuffed bunny that always seems to be completely embarrassed to be there.
The movie's pace is awkward, mostly because Turner doesn't really seem to know where to go with the story. This easily could have been a 15 minute short film without losing anything. Take the scene where the woman gets the puppet home for the first time, for example. She spends some time darkening its arms, really for no reason at all. She talks to it. She sings to it. She lets it see her naked. There's a creepy scene where he watches her shower while sitting on a toilet, a scene with extraneous nudity that made me feel sorry for every single person who's ever been naked. There's a scene a little later where the doll (sorry--puppet) winds up on her dresser, and she puts him back on the toilet. Why you'd want to display your new puppet on the toilet is confusing anyway. The puppet, of course, ends up on the dresser again. And she puts him back and later says, "Let me go check this puppet, see if he's still where I left him." Now, this wackiness takes up about 10 minutes of a movie that is only 77 minutes long.
Seriously, why does she want the puppet on the toilet? Doesn't she ever use the toilet?
The worst example of Turner pacing is in a sex scene that would be notorious if this movie had been seen by more than 10 people. I can't believe how long this sex scene is. It might, as far as I know, be the longest sex scene I've ever seen. And it involves a puppet and a woman. I like sex scenes as much as the next guy, but this is the kind of thing that you just want to end after 15 or so minutes.
And that puppet! Here it is in case the poster up there wasn't enough to give you nightmares.
Of course, that's the puppet in its rightful and natural place--on the toilet. Thanks to very special special effects, the puppet does move. I have no idea how Turner managed that effect, but I believe it involved a small child who was slightly bigger than the puppet. You also should know going in that this puppet has a tongue, a tongue that might be made out of bacon. No, I don't want to spoil anything for you, but I also think it's probably dangerous seeing that tongue without being mentally prepared. Things don't get completely magical until the Black Devil Doll from Hell starts talking though. The voice work is amazing. The closing credits had "?" playing the titular doll, but Keefe L. Turner, Chester's brother, provides the voice. And Keefe gets to say the most poetic things:
"How you like that, bitch?" (After punching the poor woman in the junk, of course.)
"Did you just fart, bitch?"
Other crude statements that involve the word "bitch"
Not that Shirley L. Jones' character is exactly nice. She does call her friend a "wooden-headed bastard," after all. Jones is not exactly a good actress. I'm not sure we can blame her exactly because she's required to do and say things that no human being would actually do or say. She gets one terrific scene where she's dressing up for a night prowling for me--you know, because the puppet awakened her sexually--and she's standing in front of a mirror with these giant sunglasses. You know how much I like my mirror scenes. She says, "That'll work." And then--cue Casio! Her best moment might be when she realizes that Ricky Roach, in his only role as "first lover," can't satisfy her. Watching two master thespians work their magic is just amazing. "Wait a minute, Mama, you mean to tell me you were raped by a puppet?" Roach is playing a guy who would more than likely sleep with anything. During the act itself, he bewilderingly asks, "You can't enjoy this?" before adding, "I sure can!" Her answer is more of that Chester N. Turner poetry:
"You just hurry up and finish and get the hell out of here."
I guess the lesson is that once you go puppet, you can never go back.
A side note: Every time I watch a movie where the microphone picks up the wind, I'm reminded of a movie that I made in high school. And trust me--that's not a good thing.
Oh, boy. What else can I say? There's a cleaning montage with what might be the worst song I've ever heard in my life. There's an extended scene at a club where people are dancing, quite obviously not to the same song that we get to hear. No, we get to hear more of that awesome keyboard music, and there's no club on earth that is going to play that shit. And when she brings that puppet home for a second time? Things turn downright psychotronic. Eyes glow, Jones starts spinning, the fucking bunny becomes animated, and I lose my freaking mind!
This, ladies and gentlemen, is art with some stank on it.
Plot: A time traveler obsessed with Jacqueline Kennedy travels back to November 22, 1963 to save JFK's life. It changes history.
This is an intriguing idea for a movie, but with a made-for-television feel, a needlessly convoluted structure, and long stretches of explanatory dialogue, it just never really gets going and couldn't keep my interest. There was some potential with this idea, but it spends most of its time with a story that's just trying to go too many places, some which don't make a lot of sense. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. both wind up surviving and the Beatles never become the greatest rock band in history, but none of that, or really any of the ramifications of this change in history, are never really explained. This also tackily ventures into JFK's sexual exploits and spends way too much time with subplots involving the time traveler's Jackie obsession and his paintings.
Bruce Campbell plays an Oliver Stone type filmmaker in this, but that's just another character that is underdeveloped. It seems like he's only in the movie to say a few curse words. That, along with some nudity that really didn't seem necessary at all, felt a little awkward to me. No, there's not a Jacqueline Kennedy nude scene. There is, however, a nude Marilyn Monroe lookalike that I probably shouldn't complain about.
I had to rent Timecop from a Family Video. Since it was in the 2 for 1 dollar section, I had to get something else. This was conveniently right next to Timecop, and I figured Bruce Campbell would make it worth the time. Unfortunately, I'm kind of bummed that I spend 50 cents to watch this.
Movies-a-go-go time with this Van Damme classic. That guy's a force to be reckoned with, and before you say, "Yeah, but that was 20 years ago; what's he done lately?", remember that the dude can travel in time. In other words, watch what you say. Anyway, here were my thoughts as I watched Timecop.
Timecop. Ahh, don’t you just love the 1980’s when movies were allowed to have stupid titles like Timecop? Wait, this is 1994? Oh, nevermind. It sure does smell like an 80's movie.
I don’t know what was going on in 1863 in this country, but I dig the styles.
Trenchcoat man with futuristic machine guns has a missing tooth that doesn’t look real. And if he’s from the future like his machine guns, why would he have a missing tooth anyway?
Balloon men in the mall, doing splits. That might be great visual humor.
“Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?” muzak. That’s cute. And look--there’s more clocks. And Van Damme’s first line is about not having enough time. This is really shoving the time stuff down our throats.
Get a room, Jean-Claude and wife! This is a mall!
In the 1990’s, thugs had doo-rags and rectangular shades and moved about via inline skates. And the reaction of the old people in the purse-snatching scene is so awesome.
“You know that purse? Doesn’t look good on you.” So we’re flashing one-liners.
Wow! Super Mullet! And now--Super Mullet has vanished!
“I don’t bake cookies for a living.”
Something tells me this picture some random guy took in the mall--you know, because that happens--is going to be important later on.
Why, of course we can include a candlelit sex scene within the first 12 minutes of the movie. Unfortunately, I shot my wad when I saw Super Mullet and had nothing left for Mia Sara’s nipples.
Uh oh! Thugs!
If you’re going to kill, Jean-Claude, you’d better make sure he’s actually dead before running off to have your way with his wife.
And now the house has exploded. And Jean-Claude is forced to show off his emotional range.
You’d think “Shit Happens” would confuse people in 1929, but I wouldn’t know because I’m not a timecop.
At the meeting with the political guys, the black guy said that making money in the past was easy, but this guy seems to have found a complicated way to do things.
“I went ten rounds with John L. Sullivan himself.” You didn’t need to say a word, man. That handlebar mustache did all the talking that was needed.
Ok, why wouldn’t your “fucking cat” exist if somebody wiped out your grandparents? Did your grandparents birth cats or something? That might be weirder than going back in time and becoming your own grandfather.
How does allowing people in the 1920’s to see that futuristic machine gun, Jean-Claude’s wardrobe, and falling people disappearing in midair not create time "ripples"?
By the way--splits!
You can tell from a guy’s beard what his intentions are, can’t you?
Umm...why did they think cars would like that in 2014?
I like Ron Silver, but he’s chewing up the interior of this futuristic car. And he’s also chewing some sort of nut snack, too. Anyway, loads of chewing.
Aha! There’s the picture! And if Jean-Claude can’t go back to save his wife, the “scumbag” isn’t going to get his money? How are those two things even related?
The makers of this sure did nail 2014. These cars. . .the fact that we still wear tie clips. Talking answering machines. Voice-activated televisions.
I still want to know how the poor guy’s house blew up.
Jean-Claude saying his lines from a videotape is definitely not a new idea, but I doubt it’s ever sounded creepier than it has here. Maybe it’s the way Jean-Claude says the word “porch”?
The White Supremacist Party?
You can’t kill Jean-Claude in his sleep a little quieter than this, fellas? Why the growling before you attempt to stab him?
“50,000 volts, motherfucker. Have a nice day.” Splits!
Jean-Claude: “I’m never funny.” This scene must have been recorded before that line he said to the purse snatcher earlier in the movie.
And there’s a naked woman. Randomly.
“Looks like safe sex to me,” says Jean-Claude. And he just said he wasn’t funny?
“Are we gonna blast to the past Yee-haa!” guy. Because every 1980’s movie needs a guy like this. Sorry, 1994.
This new character I never asked for and certainly don’t need was probably told by her director to be “more orgasmic” during her ride in the time travel machine.
“Don’t get sentimental and try to visit yourself.” Yet another masturbation euphemism.
Two Ron Silvers! They'd better find some more nut snacks!
And “Who are you? Are you supposed to be his father?” might be the stupidest line I’ve ever heard.
“Freeze!”
“Agent Walker, do you realize how inappropriate that word is? Do I look frozen to you?”
What?
Ok, Jean-Claude should be dead. Ron Silver even said that all you had to do was point the gun and pull the trigger. Why couldn’t they just do that instead of talking about it for five minutes?
I am having a ton of problems understanding how this scene where Ron Silver goes back in time to meet his future self doesn’t completely mess up the future.
Hey, bad guy! Why don’t you just shoot those highly flammable barrels Jean-Claude is hiding behind?
Guy getting his arm frozen and then kicked off might be the worst special effect I’ve ever seen.
"Have a nice day." That's it? No "freezing" puns or anything. Hell, "Tough break about your arm, buddy" would have been better. Or "So long, Lefty." How does the guy not know the woman who went back in time with Jean-Claude? Her death in the past was in the future of the present. . .nevermind.
I bet this time-warping-in-front-of-a-semi scene was a lot better idea on paper.
Oh, Mia Sara again. I wonder if I’m the only person in this movie who’s watched hoping for a sex scene with her and two Jean-Claude Van Dammes?
"Why didn't you ever kick a guy's arm off, Ferris?"
I think this movie might have plot holes.
Oh, my God! Jean-Claude’s going to drink his wife’s blood.
OK, if Jean-Claude saves his wife’s life here. . .again, nevermind. I don’t want to think about it, especially since Jean-Claude is about to fight Super Mullet!
Why do I have a feeling that Jean-Claude is about to fight himself? A split off!
Jean-Claude’s look at himself: “There’s that guy who’s been saying dirty words to my wife.”
I think Jean-Claude just went back in time so that he could get a second picture.
I’m confused about the pronoun use. “Keep him upstairs.” Wouldn’t you say “Keep ME upstairs” instead? I think I would.
I can’t tell in the dark, but it looks like Super Mullet might be wearing some sort of huge bolo tie.
So what happens if young Van Damme dies here? And if this assassination of Jean-Claude attempt failed the first time, why didn’t they just try again? My head is actually hurting from trying to figure all this out.
Holy hell! Young Jean-Claude is now dead!
Oh, nevermind. He’s back walking around again after taking the bullets in the chest and falling off the roof. No ill effects from that either, apparently.
Silver: “No, you moron. If he were dead, he wouldn’t be here.” Come on, Silver. It’s entirely fair to have questions about what the hell is happening here.
Finally! Super Mullet in action!
12 second until the explosion.
Bunches of lines of dialogue.
10 seconds until the explosion.
A bunch more dialogue.
What the fuck is happening?
Whoa! What happened to the Ron SIlvers there?
It’s possible that timer read a minute and 20 seconds. The movie’s given me a blinding headache, and I am no longer able to tell time. That might be ironic, but I wouldn’t know because somebody who can’t tell time probably doesn’t understand irony.
Jean-Claude’s really confused now because his son is pudgy.
I’m not sure how this would work exactly. How can he have no memory of a son?
Plot: A missing kid returns 8 years later, and NASA takes interest and buys him a Transformers toy because they believe aliens were involved.
I guess we'll call this the first time that I saw Flight of the Navigator. I was 12 when I went to a theater with some friends to see this movie, but I had broken my glasses and couldn't see the screen. I thought the movie sounded fine, but all these 80's E.T./Goonies-inspired movies are always a little too loud. 80's kids enjoyed bombast, I guess. They also liked lots of name-calling in their movies. You know, like dork or scuzz bucket.
Once again, the time travel stuff doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it even a little bit, but this is an entertaining little slice of Disney sci-fi. I really liked a brief scene with a bunch of goofy Muppet creatures. One's just an eye that screeches "Ai ai ai ai" like it's Charo or something, and Puckmarin reminds me a little of Stitch. I also really liked the flying scenes and the look of the spaceship.
Sleek! The cool materializing steps, the shiny and complex material. This is one cool ship, and those 80's kids were probably jealous of young Joey Cramer for getting to pilot that thing. What happened to Joey Cramer, by the way? Did he become Fred Savage?
Nevermind, I just answered my own question. They look exactly the same. And that's not racist because I am white and only a couple months younger than Cramer/Savage.
Speaking of missing children, where did Albie Whitaker, the weird-looking kid who played Cramer's brother in 1978, go? This was his only performance. He's got more threads on imdb.com than he does items on his filmography. (Both threads are people wondering what happened to him.) I guess it's possible that he didn't get any more roles because he looked like this:
Now that I think about it, I doubt "scuzz bucket" or "dork" were words that anybody used in 1978.
Ok, I looked that one up because I have nothing better to do with my time. Dork, as we know and love it, came into use in the late-60s. In the earlier 60s, it was a vulgar slang term for the penis. I couldn't find any information on scuzz bucket or scuzzbucket.
You know who else is in this movie? Paul Reubens, who voices the robot or whatever the hell it is. At the point where the ship starts laughing with Pee Wee Herman's recognizable chortle, that this starts to wear out its welcome. The flying scenes are still cool, the perspective shots almost looking like a ride at Epcot Center or something, but after a while, you're kind of just ready for the kid to find his way back into 1978. Good ol' Howard Hesseman is also in this, and so is a young Sarah Jessica Parker.
How about all those UFO fake-outs at the beginning of the movie. You get a "Hey! That's a UFO; no, it's only a Frisbee" moment. That's followed closely by a "Look! A UFO! No, wait. It's a blimp" moment. And then there's a "Ok, that's definitely a UFO. Nope--it's a water tower" moment. I'm just going to go ahead and blame Spielberg for that whether that's fair or not.
Here's something I thought about while watching this. When Fred Savage meets Sarah Jessica Parker's character with that crappy robot, we get to see part of a music video by a band called Blancmange. Parker, shocked, asks, "You've never seen a music video before?" Sadly, that could probably apply to kids now, too. Later, there's a little Twisted Sister, and for the second movie in a row, the Beach Boys show up. Once again, it seems as if makers of time travel movies are screwing with me. The score for this is dated but really cool, by the way. Mystery tones and adventure notes, the perfect soundtrack for family space adventures.
You know something else I wondered about? There's a reference in this to the "Pixar Elliptic," and one line borrows Don Rickles' "you hockey puck" insult just like Toy Story. Were the Pixar people fans? Nevermind. Forget I typed that because it's stupid.
In a movie like this, you'd expect to see product placement. And, of course, you do. There are McDonalds mentions, Coke allusions, and another shot at poor Twinkies. What did the Twinkie people do to deserve this treatment in science fiction movies?
This is a fun little movie, but I bet I would have liked it a lot more as a bespectacled 12 year old.
I should not have written blog entries tonight. These are unreadable.
Plot: An ATF agent is recruited to help find out who is behind a terrorist attack on a ferry n New Orleans.
Maybe this is the movie that had the timefolding. I'm starting to think that watching this many time travel movies in such a short time is a bad idea.
The problem with this one is that the premise is really hard to accept. I'm not sure it ever makes any sense at all, and although I tried to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy this as an action thriller, I just couldn't. It almost seems like the makers of these time travel movies deliberately create all these holes just to mess with us. I do like that typical energy that Denzel Washington brings into the movie. The guy's just so likable. And I also like how the Beach Boys factored into this mess. But it really is kind of a mess, the "science" involved really just a poorly-thought-out excuse for a really unusual car chase and some other action scenes.
Plot: A dead soldier is used to stop a terror plot using an idea borrowed from Bill Murray.
"Source code is not time travel."
Whoops! The "science" behind this fiction is explained, but I'm not sure I even wanted an effort there. It didn't make sense to me anyway. Time folding and eight minute increments, and you wonder if any of it actually makes sense.
Is it entertaining? Yeah, it thrills. Like Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow, a lot of the fun is in the recurring imagery. You've got your one character who, at least after a while, is aware of what's going on while the others are just going about their everyday business. Gyllenhaal's character makes his mistakes, he gets closer and closer, and just as you suspect he would, he eventually solves the whole thing. The ride's fun enough although the plot has its holes and nothing really feels all that new. I'd also argue that the ending kind of breaks the movie's rules. There's a twist and then another twist, and it was probably two twists too many.
I did really enjoy the beginning of this movie--lots of shots of Chicago, a duck that you'll eventually get sick of seeing, and a cool score. It feels very classic, almost like something from a Hitchcock movie. Things only start to go downhill when there's some crappy train exploding effects that they wind up showing multiple times.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't really like what Jake Gyllenhaal was doing. It's another interesting movie; the guy seems to do those exclusively. I do really like that Vera Farmiga who, if you look at her from the right angles, looks a little like his sister.
This brushes up against the moral issues with something like this, but it just doesn't cover enough ground. At the same time, it dabbles too much in sentimentality with a father/son subplot and some unnecessary romance. And there's just something about that happy Hollywood ending that rubbed me the wrong way.
Lots of Dunkin' Donuts in this movie, by the way.
This write-up is even worse than my normal ones. I'm sorry about that.
Plot: A motorcycle racer is whisked a hundred years into the past where he confuses the locals and
I'm going to save all spoilers for the last paragraph of this write-up. Unfortunately, the very best thing about the movie is something I can't really talk about without spoiling the entire movie.
First off, I don't think Lyle Swann is a good name for a hero. This movie is cowritten by the Monkees, and you'd think the Monkees would know better than to name their hero Lyle Swann. I don't like the name Lyle, and I don't like that Swann has an extraneous 'n' in it.
William Dear was Michael Nesmith's cowriter and also directed this. He's responsible for both Harry and the Hendersons and Simon Says with Crispin Glover. So right off the bat, you know there's talent involved. The score for this is a distraction most of the time, and most of this movie feels like one of those made-for-television jobs. It builds to a climactic shoot-out that is far too lengthy and gets a little boring. And it's accompanied by more terrible music. Things fall apart a bit and get a little dopey.
However, the goods outweigh the bads in this one. You've got Peter Coyote playing a silly villain, yelling about wanting machines. Fred Ward plays our hero, right before he played Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff. He's not exactly made from hero material, but that actually works perfectly because the character is completely unaware that he's even in the past. That's kind of a neat twist actually--a time travel movie in which the character hasn't even realized that he's out of his time. I really enjoyed watching Belinda Bauer as the love interest.
She's fetching, and the character, at least until she becomes yet another damsel in distress, is cool. She shoots off a guy's nose ("He's hurt real bad! Oh, God! She blew his nose clean off!"), and she forces our hero to strip at gunpoint which is pretty hot. I also like how they manage to incorporate "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" into their lovemaking. I know I can't think about that short story without getting horny. Afterward, she tells Lyle that he can leave--probably because she found out his name--because "I'm through with him."
The other characters add color. Carl, the unfortunate guy who lost his nose, has a terrific voice, and Jack Peoples, although he's not in the movie for very long, is fun. Peter Coyote's sidekicks bumble, and they can't shoot at all. Swann can though. Well, at least there were some pew pew sounds when he flipped somebody the bird. That's kind of like shooting. There's a cool enough setting. It's mostly miles of desert, but you do get some pointed rock formations a little later on. And there's a great "Attaboy, Luther" moment when one extra gets pretty goofy and loud when Coyote's trying to ride the motorcycle. "Kick it again, Reese. You're gonna have to do better than that."
Also--I learned that the Confederacy totally would have won the Civil War if Lee had had a motorcycle. They don't teach you that in American history.
Here's the last paragraph. There's a Somewhere in Time necklace trick here, the kind of thing that I would have caught earlier if I was a little smarter. Like in Somewhere in Time, the necklace will forever be caught in this 100-year loop where it shuffles back and forth from the 1880's and 1980's. That's cool enough, but what that necklace really reveals is either the most embarrassing oversight in the history of film or a giant slice of mindfuckery. I'm definitely leaning toward the latter because there's no way this can't be intentional. Lyle Swann's biggest adventure in this movie? The dude becomes his own fucking grandfather. That's the kind of time travel nonsense that would make Doc Brown shit himself. I think that might be my favorite movie twist ever.
Plot: A millionaire and self-proclaimed wrestling aficionado wants America to be a force in the Olympic sport and sets up a training facility on his property. He recruits the successful Schultz brothers to train with Team Foxcatcher, but it doesn't really go very well.
There are probably four things I'm always going to remember about this movie by Bennett Miller, best known as the director of The Cruise.
The first is Steve Carell's shapeshifting proboscis, probably one of the most inelegant thing you'll ever see in a movie. Carell's performance is really good, and it's not just because it's some sort of fantastic impression of a real-life murderer or because he was willing to wield that honker. His performance is good mostly because of how he performs when he doesn't have any lines at all. He's a menacing presence, and a lot of it is just how Miller's camera shows him lurking in so many scenes because it's hard to lurk in a non-menacing way, but a lot of it is all these subtle mannerisms. It's the tilt of his head, the character's confusion about where his arms should go, lumbering movements. And, of course, that nose!
The second thing is a scene that takes place in a hotel room with Channing Tatum. It's not a particularly realistic scene, and Tatum appears to be acting in it, but it's nonetheless powerful. There's a passion that oozes from the screen. Tatum's good in mostly a very quiet performance. I was convinced that both he and Ruffalo--who I felt was even better--were actual wrestlers, so they had the physical part down. And I liked how subdued the performances were even during moments when you would normally figure that they wouldn't be. These are three good performances, all with just the right peaks and valleys.
As you'd probably predict, the chilling climax of this sad story is also something you'll remember. It probably wouldn't work as well without the way the rest of the movie is paced. At times, things are dreamy, and there's so much here that is unspoken. The viewer's required to fill in some gaps, jump to conclusions, and make some guesses. But that ending! It's chilling stuff. Carell's coldness. Sienna Miller's reaction. The bodyguard's reaction. Ruffalo's writhing. There's nothing fancy with the scene, something that matches the tone of the rest of the movie, but it's definitely effective.
My favorite scene, however, is a moment between du Pont and Mark. They're on their way to an appearance where Mark has to introduce du Pont. Tatum is reading through the introduction and has trouble with the words ornithologist, philatelist, and philanthropist. And they bounce those words back and forth about five or six times. It's quiet enough, but there's this intensity to the whole thing that manages to capture exactly what this relationship is all about and foreshadow things to come. And then, there's cocaine.
I was a little surprised at how much I ended up liking his one.
Bad Movie Rating: 3/5 (Libby: 4/5; Ozzy: no rating; Russell: 2/5; Johnny: 2/5; Josh: 2/5; Fred: 2/5; Amy: 2/5; Kristen: 4/5)
Rating: 8/20
Plot: Aliens play a series of practical jokes on a family living in the middle of a desert.
It's really all incomprehensible though. There's a stop-motion fairy, some stop-motion monsters, lots of blinking lights, a neon green pyramid thing. There's also, as one of us pointed out, a sickening amount of yellow in this movie. If you don't like yellow, steer clear of The Day Time Ended. This is a movie that suffers from its creators being overly ambitious. Maybe it's because the movie had four different writers. But I'll always take creativity with incoherence over something boring but coherent, and John "Bud" Cardos isn't afraid to use every single idea he's ever had in this movie. The stop-motion is crappy, the story makes no sense, and there's all that yellow, but Cardos keeps you guessing which makes it a little more fun.
We were excited about this because it had a Mitchum in it--Christopher, another son of the great Robert Mitchum. Unfortunately, he can't deliver like his older brother James. He's a lesser Mitchum. There's also an annoying child played by Natasha Ryan. "Jenny" spends most of the movie getting herself lost and talking to inanimate objects.
Heroes have flaws, but you wouldn't know it from this movie because this is America. In America, flaws just get in the way of good storytelling and the promotion of big American ideals. Clint Eastwood might as well have just made a G.I. Joe cartoon because it would be about as accurate and still push forward the agenda he's pushing. Actually, the product placement in this movie is just as blatant as the frequent mention of Twinkies or scenes taking place in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond in Click. The "product" in this case is ideology instead of something you can purchase and consume or wash yourself off with or sleep on.
Chris Kyle, in that big Texan drawl that required me to turn on the subtitles, talks all about how this is the "greatest country on Earth" and how he "felt [he] was made for something more," the kind of stuff that without a doubt will have guys wearing their American flag t-shirts singing their rah-rah-rahs. Early in the Kyle story, we get a speech from his father about sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs, and that pretty much gives us all the information we need to know. You can probably understand everything you're supposed to understand about this Hollywood version of this very real Navy SEAL and then turn off the movie and tell people that you've seen it. Did the real Chris Kyle get some remarkable killin' done and save a bunch of Marines' lives? I have no doubts that he did that, and unless you're the most pacifistiest of pacifist liberals, the guy's a hero. A real American hero. But this almost embarrassing tribute to him, based on his own writings, feels more like the type of celebration we'd have for an athlete or a guy who's really good at video games. I'm a little surprised we didn't have statistics on "headshots" or something. His nickname becomes "The Legend," and after a while in this redundant and bloated look at his heroism, he starts to feel more like folklore and less like a flesh-and-blood human being. He's Babe Ruth. Or maybe he's Paul Bunyan, swinging a sniper rifle instead of an ax.
Here's what I wonder, and I hope this doesn't put me on some sort of blacklist or something. I mean, I hope I can still fly after saying something like this. Chris Kyle has a nemesis in this movie, a former Olympian named Mustafa. Isn't Mustafa, an equally skilled killer, the exact same type of hero as Kyle? Of course, he's protecting a guy who uses drills on people's skulls, but is that much different than rooting for a guy who loved killing Iraqis, actual human beings he "couldn't give a flying fuck about." Here, read this:
It makes our hero look a little less legendary and a little more like all the rest of us pathetic human beings, doesn't it? And if this were just a movie about a fictional sniper, I'm not sure I'd have the same problems with it. Yes, it would still be propaganda, but it would come with a warning label. Here, people just eat this up as the honest-to-God truth, and, maybe making it worse, I think Clint Eastwood knew that going in.
I can forgive everybody involved for two reasons. The first is the use of the word "gnarly" in there somewhere, of course used by a Marine to describe how our hero was able to snipe somebody. The second is this scene right here:
You don't see it here, but they also gave the baby a CGI hand. It was so fake looking that I couldn't stop laughing. It might be my favorite thing from any 2014 film.
Plot: An ambitious architect gets himself a remote control at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond and gains the ability to stop time, fast forward through the boring parts of his life, mute people, etc. It's hilarious for the audience but not as wonderful for the architect as you might think.
This movie features Twinkies quite a bit, and Adam Sandler gets his remote control from a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. There's also mention of going to TGI Fridays, so that's what we call a Product Placement Trifecta. Only they're all a little negative. That remote control is given to Sandler by Christopher Walken who I believe is playing the devil. He's not explicitly Beelzebub, but I thought he hinted at it. So really dumb people--the kind of audience these movies seem aimed at--might end up watching this and thinking that Bed, Bath, and Beyond is hell. And the Twinkies make the characters fat, so that doesn't seem like a strong advertisement. No such thing as negative publicity though, right? And I have to admit that I really wanted to try one of those Twinkies with chocolate.
At one point, Adam Sandler screams--his preferred method of delivering his lines because he wants to make sure we really here them--the following: "All right, America. Have your laugh. I'm an idiot." Now I don't want to pick on Adam Sandler because I'm sure he's a nice enough fellow. But couldn't that be the tagline for almost every single movie the guy stars in? There's also a scene in this movie where Sandler freezes his boss, a character played with an alarming enthusiasm, and then positions himself on his desk so that he can fart on his face repeatedly. That's generally how I feel when watching an Adam Sandler movie actually.
It's not as offensively malodorous as the rest of his oeuvre actually. In fact, there's a little bit of heart and a nice enough lesson to go along with this; in a way, it feels like a modern-day It's a Wonderful Life or something, but one made by a Frank Capra who enjoys fart gags and thinks a recurring joke featuring a dog violating a stuffed animal is hilarious and the sort of thing that gets more hilarious the more times you see it. Oh, and a Capra who insists on having child characters who curse. See, that's kind of what Adam Sandler movies are to me--movies where they have kids curse in order to get a laugh. So all that immaturity kind of clashes with some nice themes. You do sort of feel stomped on by that message by the end, stomped on by Adam Sandler's big hairy boots.
It's always good seeing the great Henry Winkler, and a scene with him is where it was easiest to empathize with the main character. I like that James Earl Jones does the commentary for his life. It wouldn't be who I would pick (I'd go with Werner Herzog, obviously), but Jones is still a good enough choice. I also though Christopher Walken, even though he really shouldn't waste his time with movies like this, kind of stole the show. When he talks to the dog about the animal's violation of that duck ("Nice work."), it almost made the amount of times I had to see that worth it. In the end, the message is just too heavy handed, and the main character is too much of a jerk to be redeemed in the end.
This was the third movie I've seen in a very short time where a sad character is in a cemetery with the New York City skyline in the background. Is that the same cemetery? Is it a famous one?
Question of the Day: Who would you want to do the commentary track for your life?
Plot: Doc, a private detective, investigates the disappearance of a former lover.
It has the feel of smooth jazz, like 70's cats who haven't discovered the funk yet. But there's this grime and gristle, and if it's all hazy, who the hell are you going to blame? You can't blame me. I didn't write the book. That was Thomas Pynchon. I didn't write and direct this movie either. That was Paul Thomas Anderson. How's that for a marriage? A guy who writes abstruse novels thick with words and characters and a guy who, at least for two of his movies, ambitiously tackled two fistfuls of characters and themes and stuffed our screens with them. They're perfect for each other!
This movie isn't going to please everybody. If you want a narrative that makes complete sense, steer clear. Or maybe you just need to set aside a few days to watch this movie over and over again until the narrative becomes fully formed--like a sea monkey or an erection. Like obscure noir films tossed in a cinematic blender, this movie's got all the parts of your classic fatalistic crime pictures but completely fails to add up to any kind of whole that will satisfy somebody looking for something like that.
But this isn't a movie about story, and if you just kind of lean back and let the thing wash over you, you'll feel--if you're anything like me--just like you do after a pretty good sexual encounter. You'll nearly pant! There are things that will frustrate you, unappealing birthmarks or a barely-perceivable odor, but we're talking multiple climaxes here. This is a movie you have to make love to. It's what I'm expecting from Paul Thomas Anderson--one of my two favorite directors named Anderson--from now on. This? Confounding and brilliant. The Master? Brilliant. Magnolia and Boogie Nights? Brilliant. There Will Be Blood? Freaking brilliant! How about a comedy with Adam Sandler? Nope--still brilliant!
This movie's also a comedy although you could be forgiven if you missed that. I laughed several times, but that could have been the mood I was in. I've seen this compared--and not in a complimentary way--to The Big Lebowski. It's not as funny as the Coen Brothers' best movie. It doesn't have the quantity of quotable moments, the auxiliary characters don't stick around long enough to make you want to dress up like them and head to a convention, and it's just not overtly comedic. But it's still really funny, at least funnier than almost any Adam Sandler movie I can mention.
Side note: Of course, I couldn't even think of Adam Sandler's name earlier today. My daughter asked, "What's Billy Madison?" as she was studying for her SAT (yeah, I don't know either), and I said, "It's one of. . .shoot, what's that guy's name?" My wife, a huge fan of Sandler's work, had to help me out. So I'm not sure I'm the best judge of what is or is not as funny as one of the guy's movies.
Brolin's bananas, a character's name Denis actually rhyming with penis, a line about what Godzilla said to Mothra ("Let's go eat."). Seriously, if you're not busy being frustrated because of the incomprehensibility of this or its length, you'll enjoy some laughs.
It does remind me of Lebowski in that it is more about showing characters working their way through these situations rather than creating a satisfying story. Also, both movies seem almost like lamentations or elegies for a past time. In Lebowski, you've got Vietnam replaced a new desert-y Vietnam that isn't as good, aging hippies turned bowlers, Bridges reminiscing about being seven guys, the other Lebowski crying that the bums lost. Here, you've got this transition between the troubling free-spirited 60's and the equally-troubling and often baffling 1970's. You've got Brolin's Bigfoot, The Man when he's not imitating fellatio on a Bluth banana. And there's Phoenix's Doc who is the opposite side of the same coin or maybe just a side of a completely separate coin. I can't pretend to know, and I don't carry change on me anyway. The characters' dynamic, just like the rest of the movie, is more than a little confusing.
Man, I really want to watch this one again.
There are a lot of fun minor characters. Katherine Waterston stuns as Shasta, the love interest. Benicio del Toro's fun as Sauncho. Owen Wilson plays himself. Martin Short takes a challenging role and runs with it like he does everything else except with less Olive Oyl arm action. Eric Roberts, of A Talking Cat?!? fame, makes the most of his limited screen time and dazzles. And Joanna Newsom? Oh, boy. She narrates and shows up on screen--but maybe not in the movie's reality--a few times, and I fell in love with her voice. And then there's Joaquin Phoenix who, once again, gives this mesmerizing performance. He's in nearly every scene--if not every scene--and it just amazes me what this guy does. Captivating. My favorite Phoenix moment is one where he reacts to a picture that he's shown. It almost makes me laugh just thinking about it even though it's hard for me to decide whether it's the worst acting I've ever seen or the greatest acting I've ever seen.
The movie's also got a cool soundtrack (Can!) and score by Radiohead guy Jonny Greenwood.
This movie will frustrate, but it's colorful enough that all those parts add up to something that, if it never quite coheres, ends up worthwhile.
Plot: A kung-fu master cop travels back in time to Nazi Germany to battle Hitler.
Oh, those nutty Swedes.
I watched this because I couldn't not watch it. Here I am in the midst of a time travel movie fest, and this crowdfunded little film spoofing 80's cop and action movies and featuring time travel drops into my lap? I think this accomplishes its purpose. It feels a little like a live-action Adventure Time with its over-the-top silly cartoonish action scenes, its arcade games coming to life and destroying heads, and its eccentric cast of heroes and villains. It lampoons, but it does so lovingly. The punny one-liners, an animated bit that reminded me of the 80's G.I. Joe cartoon, references to balls, the synth score, a Nintendo Power Glove spotting, the David Hasselhoff. This thing oozes 80's cheese, for better and for worse. Although I enjoyed the creative rampage, there are almost too many ideas. I mean, you've got a cop car being flipped by a skateboard, that angry laser unicorn video game, head explosions, a baby stroller on fire, and another head explosion, and that's just in the first minute and a half. The lead, played by writer/director David Sandberg, Keanu-Reeves it up with a headband, smashing telephones and teen-wolfing on his own car as he bursts onto the action scene, delivering his one-liners in a raspy monotone. There are knock-knock jokes, and Steven Seagal splits.
After that unusual and lively start, however, the antagonist is introduced and the film loses steam. You sort of get it early on and then wonder why it's still happening after a while. You realize that it's really parody without any real point and that what is being parodied is ridiculous enough on its own and doesn't even need the lampooning. Hitler's kicked in the jewels, and you nod your head because it's what you expected to happen. Then, it's all thankfully over.
The effort is appreciated on this one, but I wouldn't recommend this to anybody who can't really spare the 30 minutes.
