L'Inhumaine

1924 sci-fi romance

Rating: 15/20

Plot: At a party at a mansion, several men vie for the attention of an "unusual woman," the titular inhuman one.

This was very high on my "Wanna See" list for a long time, mostly because of this description of its release that I'm quoting from this website (silentology.wordpress.com)

"At each screening, spectators insulted each other, and there were as many frenzied partisans of the film as there were furious opponents. It was amid genuine uproar that, at every performance, there passed across the screen the multicoloured and syncopated images with which the film ends. Women, with hats askew, demanded their money back; men, with their faces screwed up, tumbled out on the pavement where sometimes fist-fights continued."

That just sounds like my kind of movie!

It was actually worth the wait as this was the most Guy Maddin silent film I've ever seen. Well, other than the ones Guy Maddin actually makes, I guess. Russian-style cuts, every special effect from the early-20's cinema effect toolbox, and fantastic set designs combine to make this a consistent visual feast even when the story's dopey melodrama doesn't do much for you.

This doesn't have a lot to do with the actual 1924 version of this Marcel L'Herbier film, but the score on this Lobster Films release of this was one of the weirdest I've ever heard for a silent movie. It was by Aidje Tafial and the Alloy Orchestra, and it was something else. Some day, I might slap this movie on in the background just for that score.

Speaking of music, there are three instances where this silent movie uses music without any sound at all--you know, because it's a silent movie--to heighten tension. One is with a band at the party at the mansion, a mansion with these creepily-masked servants. Another features a guy jamming on a balalaika, and a third is a shot of a phonograph with the title card announcing, "Unexpected music. . .hateful."

And speaking of title cards, this one has some that I have reason to believe are weirdly-translated. Those title cards are as interesting to look at as the rest of this movie. There's a Cubist influence there and in some of the set design, created by a team of designers. The checkered dining room floor in a pool with ducks, a foliage room, and a wild sci-fi laboratory are highlights.

This was sort of a vanity project of an opera singer named Georgette Leblanc. She's not great here, and it's hard to imagine all these fellows crawling and clawing over each other to win her affections. Her story starts fairly grounded with the exception of those strange masked servants. I'll say this--the lady knows how to throw a party. A barrel foot juggler and a fire guy? The storytelling itself is slow, especially in the first half where it seems to take forever for things to get going. The middle bit paced much better, but the climactic scenes where things turn into a fantastical science fiction movie in a beautifully designed laboratory is exhilarating.

I really enjoyed this one, and if that upsets any of you people with screwed-up faces or askew hats, we can meet outside for some fisticuffs.

Kings of the Road

1976 road movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A roving movie theater projector repairman befriends a suicidal man, and the two embark on a road trip.

"Who are you?"
"I am my story."

Maybe I'm biased because there's a reference to my birthplace of Terre Haute, Indiana, in this German road movie, but I loved this thing. Come for the extended shot of Rudiger Volger (still sounds like a James Bond villain to me) taking a very healthy dump and stay for the exploration of time and place, an almost accidental character study or two. Volger, the star of the other two Wenders' road movies in the trilogy, has got himself a mustache in this one, and he's much goofier here. He spins, he giggles, he drinks by holding a glass with a pair of tongs. He takes that healthy dump, and I love these shots of him watching his new friend played by Hanns Zischler. Volger's characters in these are all enigmatic. While on the surface, this one seems like a tough nut to crack, this Bruno Winter might be the one who is the easiest to figure out. He's a character comforted by his story being him moving through specific places at specific times, and that's something we can all identify with.

Almost all road movies use the journey as a metaphor, but Wenders does it that a little more profoundly here. I also liked a sketchy link to a meandering trip like this and the "fantasy" of learning letters and words, especially since this is a movie that rarely depends on language to get its points across.

And, there's a masturbating projectionist! So that's exciting.

Robert Muller once again was the cinematographer, and I also loved the music, most of it from somebody with the cool name Axel Linstadt.

This was my favorite of the three Wenders road movies, but all three were great.

City of Women

1980 erotic nightmare

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A randy guy ends up in a city of women.

This erotic nightmare was constructed when Fellini was around 60, and it feels so much like a younger man's surreal and adventurous exploration of the mysteries of the opposite sex. With fire-eating, genital-kicking ("I won 1st prize for the best kick in the testicles."), vaginal slide shows during which Coca Cola can be enjoyed, hallways of sexual conquests and its cacophony of orgasms, 3000 RPM vibrators, Fred Astaire-esque dance numbers, tricks with a woman picking up coins and pearls with telekinetic genitalia, jaw harp use to celebrate a 10,000th sexual conquest (What was Wilt Chamberlain's instrument of choice?), whimsical ghosts and belly dancers, Laurel and Hardy impersonators, Snow White inspired polygamy, hooded shadowy roller-skating women ("They all get fever fever for my beaver beaver."), stuffed kitties in a greenhouse, dog funerals, cake urination, loads of phallic symbols, tongue lamps, an awesome car chase, and a hot air balloon, this definitely has no shortage of dreamy ideas. It's a free-flowing soup slosh of a movie, something that I imagine was courageously personal for young Fellini. Were these his fears, his fantasies, his memories, his infidelities, and his frustrations splashed on the screen?

"Couldn't you tie a knot in your dick when it was limp?" the protagonist asks the doctor character who is celebrating that 10,000th sexual conquest.
"Limp? It's never limp," is the reply.

A "Marcello again?" and a "What kind of film is this?" spoken during the opening credits made me worry that this would be too meta, but that was that for that. The first and last shots are fittingly of that classic cinema visual pun of train and tunnel, and this was this for this. It's a super-shaky train ride, though it's not vibrating at 3000 RPMs, and Marcello Mastroianni, a Fellini stand-in, looks in trouble from the get-go. He's overly randy and you just know he better hold on more tightly than he is on that shaky train ride. He gets a great first line though--"Fantastic arse." Has a lovely posterior ever gotten a man in more trouble than Mastroianni finds himself in here?

Stand-outs include a feminist song number called "A Woman without a Man" ("A woman without a man is like a somersault without a rifle," for example), slides through sexual-awakening memories and mammaries with a trio of guides, and a wife's dance in front of a big window with these undulating leaves. It's a good-looking dream with cinematography by Guiseppe Rotunno, the guy who did All That Jazz. You could say the ending is a predictable cop-out, but it's the only perfect ending there could be for a movie that flows like this.

The overall lesson, I suppose, is a timeless one--don't follow strange women from trains to forests no matter how fantastic their arses might be.

Cory's Birthday Movie Celebration: Godzilla Raids Again

1955 sequel

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Having nothing better to do, Godzilla raids again. This time, he brings along a buddy.

The last few years, I've had to celebrate Cory's birthday by watching a Godzilla movie that he's never mentioned before which might be better than that year I watched the Smog Monster one even though I knew it was his least favorite. I've blown through the titles that he's cited as good ones, but something like that isn't going to stop me from continuing this tradition of giving him the cheapest birthday present in the history of birthdays. I believe I started doing this in 2011 and will probably continue doing it until I run out of Godzilla movies or Cory stops having birthdays.

This year, because I once again didn't plan ahead, I had to watch what was available for streaming and found this second movie in the series. It's not as good as the first one. As always, here are my stream-of-conscious thoughts as I watched this thing. Happy birthday, Cory.

Godzilla raids again! 

A mushroom cloud and references to scientists perfecting “giant mechanical monsters.” I’m already depressed. We're a few seconds into the movie, and I've already got my mind on Trump and the end of the world.

This narration and stock footage at the beginning leads me to believe I’m watching an American version of this one which I always assume are worse than the Japanese versions. I’m going to apologize to Cory in advance, but hey, you have to watch what’s available. And he can always recommend one!

Now there’s a new narrator talking about “old-fashioned” pleasant little community of Kayo. With people “content with what they are doing” and understanding that hard work brings happiness, this sounds like it's heading into propagandic territories.

That’s the most excited I’ve seen somebody get about tuna.

The problem with these Movies-A-Go-Go things are that there’s no way something like that last sentence can have any meaning to somebody not watching this while reading it. Even if you did see a guy flying over the ocean looking for schools of tuna and then being really excited when he spots some, it wouldn't be funny.

Anyway, I'm going to call that character Tuna Guy.

And now the romantic subplot has been revealed. It’s important to get that going before there’s any mention of, you know, monsters or anything. You come for monster rampage, but you stay for the romance.

How about this dialogue:

Sweetheart of Guy Who Gets Excited about Tuna: “Tsukioka, are you tired, my dear?”

Guy Who Gets Excited about Tuna: “Not too tired to go dancing with you tonight.”

Sweetheart: “Alright, alright. Come to the house early, you see? Papa’s loaning me the car.”

Sweetheart’s Co-worker: “Someday, I’m going to be loved like that. Take me?”

Sweetheart: “Ha ha ha. I can’t. Get your own guy.”

Co-worker: “Kiss me again. I’m all yours. Ha ha ha.”

Sweetheart: “Ha ha ha. Silly girl. Always clowning.”

I’ve just got to say--with clowning like that, it probably doesn’t even seem like work.

I'm aware that the dubbing probably took a lot of the magic out of the above co-worker rapport.

Tuna guy’s buddy is named Kobayashi. That’s the same name of that guy who used to be the best at eating hot dogs, right?

Kobayashi is going down!

Why is a narrator needed for this? This is really bad storytelling.

Uh oh, Kobayashi hurt his wrist. That’s his frankfurter-gripping wrist!

Whoever is dubbing Kobayashi is doing an incredible job. I guess this character is supposed to be comic relief.

Man, this is talky! Whoever put together this American version must have thought that American audiences needed everything explained to them. And this is even before we elected Donald Trump president.

“Horrors in the world of science are part of nature’s plan.” Keep telling yourselves that, climate change deniers.

Angilosaurus, anguirus. "Original plundering murderers." They sound like gangstas! That's the kind of description a late-80's rapper would have used to describe himself.

They have brains in several parts of their body? Radioactivity can bring them out of hibernation? They can use fire to eliminate the human race? This all sounds very scientific. If you're going to waste our time with scientific mumbo-jumbo in these sci-fi fantasy movies, make it at least somewhat scientific. Otherwise, don't explain anything at all. Just have monsters exist.

Oh, boy. We’re about to get a Godzilla-movie-within-a-Godzilla movie. There's nothing that gets me more excited when watching an action movie than a scene with a scientist showing off a film strip he's brought to a meeting.

Wait, he’s showing a film that shows the beginning of the world? How'd he get footage of that?

I’m waiting for one of the scientists to stop this guy who brought the film strip with footage of the first Godzilla movie and say, “Hold up a second. This just happened last year, so we remember it all. A 50-foot monster attacking Tokyo was a big enough deal that it made the news, ya know.”

The response of the military guy when film strip dude said they got rid of him with the "oxygen destroyer" was pretty good. It was like a polite eye roll.

“Our faith is no longer in the lap of science but in the lap of the Gods.” Great, Mike Pence wrote this.

I hope this prehistorical monster spotting doesn’t mess up these two’s plans to go dancing.

Tuna Guy just used the slang term “banana oil." “Ah, banana oil!” I’m bringing that back into the vernacular if I can figure out what it means.

The military should be able to afford better monster models to put on their map. I guess World War II really depleted their funds.

All this narration makes this seem like one of those film strips I used to have to watch in elementary school.

Oh, good. They did get to make it to a club for some dancing. You know, because the threat is completely gone.

During this extended dance sequence, I’m going to remember back when this movie was about Godzilla.

Somebody just mentioned the monsters being somewhere else "instead of the Chicago area." Japan has its own Chicago?

Silly, gullible people of Osaka!

The monsters sound terrifying in this--this screechy echo. I also have to say that I might prefer my Godzilla in black and white. There's something menacingly oily about him and he doesn't look nearly as rubbery as he does in the color movies. I think this Godzilla is more terrifying.

With that noise, Godzilla sure isn’t sneaking up on anybody though.

I may have completely missed it because I was busy typing instead of paying attention to all the narration, but why is Godzilla attacking Osaka? Is he just mad that Tuna Guy and his dopey friend landed on his island briefly?

There goes a lighthouse! Finally, some monster destruction!

This plan to lure Godzilla away with flares seems like a flawless one.

I’m confused about what these escaped convicts have to do with anything, but I’m sure some narration will clear that up soon.

The trio of escaped cons are actually narrating their escape. “Come on--let’s run fast to get away!” type stuff. “Here’s a truck! We’re lucky we found this truck. We will drive in it to get away from the police who are chasing us with the hopes of catching us and putting us back in prison where we belong because of crimes that we have committed.”

I’m not clear about what just happened. But at least I know how this is going to be related to Godzilla. To clear it up for people not watching along--the escaped cons ended up being terrible drivers and crashed into the cannery, starting an inferno. That's going to distract Godzilla from the flares being used to get him away from the city.

Where’s Godzilla’s friend anyway?

“Oh, horrible.” I think Tuna Guy might have been talking about the special effects there.

I remember my brother and I once got in a brawl and managed to destroy an entire mall. That’s what Godzilla and his spiky buddy are doing.

Explosion! Guy says “Oh, my factory!” and starts to run toward it. What was his plan there? Was he going to put the flames out with his bad acting?

Ok, Tuna Guy’s girlfriend is watching this destruction from afar. Here’s the narration:

“From her father’s house, Hidemi looked out the window and saw the awesome sight.” [Not needed. We can clearly see the character looking out a window.] “The tragic blow had finally come. In the far distance, the terrible fire raged on, consuming the city that she loved. As the smoke billowed toward the sky, it told its own story. It was a nightmare of horror, and as she turned back from the bitter sight, her heart was heavy with sorrow. Silently, she uttered a prayer. Why had this awful thing happened to her people? What had they done to earn such a dreadful punishment?”

All that was with really sappy music, by the way. Banana oil!

I'm not sure if that was an appropriate use of "banana oil" or not. I hope this doesn't ruin Cory's birthday.

It’s fitting that I’m watching this Godzilla and spiky guy fight the same day Putin and Trump had their summit. This reminds me a lot of that except there’s a lot more fighting and no ass kissing. And Godzilla isn’t putting his hand up the other monster’s rectum and treating him like a puppet.

Yet! This will fly to the top of my favorite Godzilla movies list if that happens!

I think Spiky Guy just said, “Oh no he didn’t!” If I had more time, I'd translate their screeches, but this action is fast and furious. And spiky.

Some of these buildings that are falling down are very clearly not very well constructed.

Yeah, pull out your pistol. That’s going to do a lot of good against these two.

Is Godzilla giving Spiky Guy a hickey? That actually might have happened during the Trump/Putin summit.

I'm sure Spiky Guy has a name. A better blogger would look that up. 

Here are more of Tuna Guy’s girlfriend’s thoughts narrated for us. Not nearly as effective as the slow pan over the ruined city. That looked cool.

Nobody cares about this guy’s plans for the cannery. People lost lives something like four hours ago, and there's still a monster on the loose. But yeah, let's hear all about how you're going to keep canning tuna.

In that guy's defense, it's what Republicans are doing. "Sure, our presidents is likely treasonous and just put down our country while standing next to an enemy, but have you seen those unemployment numbers? And the tuna has never tasted better!"

These people are awfully jolly a few hours after their entire town has been destroyed, especially since they’ve lost track of one of the monsters.

These people on the fishing boat watching Kobayashi’s plane are probably just excited to see him because they know there’s a strong possibility that he will crash again.

This has turned into a movie about fishing and reunions with old military buddies.

A drunken sing-a-long of “For He’s a Jolly Old Fellow,” complete with arrhythmic clapping. That’s my kind of party!

Godzilla sunk the fishing boat now? I’m starting to think he’s just got something against this fishing company. Maybe he's colluding with the tuna!

What the fuck? It might strike the U.S.? Now I’m going to start caring!

MAGA. Make America Godzilla-Free Again. That's what Democrats should run on for 2020.

Now Kobayashi is asking for advice from Tuna Guy’s girlfriend on what present “a boy can give to a girl.” It’s nice of them to include a mentally-challenged character, but this seems a little exploitative.

That last scene just completely interrupted a scene where Tuna Guy is flying around looking for Godzilla and his girlfriend is begging him to come back but he doesn’t want to because he is tired of being a coward.

Why is Godzilla just standing there, and why do they think he’s going to be doing that for an extended time?

“And now, you must die!” Spoken like an action hero who doesn’t have a good screenwriter!

Ok, the bombs weren’t working, so Kobayashi says, “So. . .help. . .me!” and then flies into the side of a mountain. I think this was to show the other pilots a Plan B--avalanche Godzilla to death since he's really attached to this particular spot for some reason.

“Papa, Kobayashi died.”

“What are you saying?”
“He died. More than an hour ago.”

“Good lord. How did this happen?”

Umm, I can answer that. He flew into the side of a mountain to show the other pilots how to make an avalanche instead of just suggesting that verbally.

I love how they used the infrequently used military command of “Hop to it” there. It brings a definite authenticity to this whole thing.

As this plan is put into action, I just have to keep reminding myself that if they fail, EVERYBODY WILL DIE! I think a narrator said that earlier even though Godzilla has just been standing in the same spot doing nothing for several days.

For a monster with brains all over his body, he’s not really showing much problem-solving ability during all of this.

Ice chunk avalanche montage. It made me want a glass of tea.

“I lowered my head as I thought how [Kobayashi] has died.” Umm…because he didn't know how to use words to communicate an idea? I'm sorry, Tuna Guy, but your friend was kind of a dumb ass.

I’m trying to think about whether burying Godzilla in ice is really a foolproof plan. I guess since he doesn’t ever come back, it must have worked.

Well, that certainly seemed like a movie made by a studio that knew it had a good thing in this Godzilla character but didn't have any idea what story it wanted to tell. Or how to use the big guy! Godzilla does next-to-nothing in this movie. He barely raids at all.

Sorry to Bother You

2018 comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy in Oakland gets a new telemarketing job and quickly learns that he has more success when he uses his "white voice." His rise in the company conflicts with the beliefs of his more political and artistic girlfriend.

So far, this is my favorite 2018 film made by a rapper. This is the debut of The Coup's Boots Riley, and his vision, willingness to take chances, and subversiveness are on display in this movie that works just fine as a dumb comedy but has a whole lot to say about seemingly everything that happens to be on the writer/director's mind. Though there are ideas borrowed from elsewhere, this is about as unpredictable as a movie can be, the director closest to Riley's aesthetic and frequent dips into magical realistic waters being Michel Gondry. Of course, that might just be because Gondry is referenced during the part of this movie that is stop-animated and I was tricked into typing that.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen! This movie has a stop-animated sequence. Stop-animated cavewoman breasts, to be specific. And I'm not about to pretend that every single gag or every single idea that Boots Riley has here works because it doesn't. In fact, it makes the entire production a little sloppy. It takes a sci-fi freaky left turn, it has sequences like the main character's rap performance that feel like non-sequiturs, and the one big picture idea at the middle is joined by about three dozen other thrown-in ideas. But the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach Riley has here makes it one of the most vivacious theater experiences I've ever had, a messiness that keeps the audience on its toes. It frequently makes you laugh, at least if you have an appreciation for the offbeat, but it also makes you think. Riley clearly wants his audiences to do both here.

With the whole "white voice" thing ("white voices" voice actors Patton Oswalt and David Cross are perfectly chosen), you'd think there would be a lot about race in this, and there is. There's little pokes at thematic issues that have to do with black expectation, black role models, black athletic prowess, and slavery. But there's so much more. A big part of the plot has to do with unions, for example, and there's all sorts of stuff that ties into corporate greed, selling out, 21st Century entertainment (with a television program that would fit right in with the world Idiocracy imagines), and the art world, none of which are issues that are exclusive to African Americans. The Oakland where all this takes place isn't far off from a realistic innercity, but there's something askew about the setting. It's an alternate reality or its a dystopian future or its something, but it's not really Oakland, at least not the Oakland I saw in those MC Hammer videos from the late-80s. At the same time, the issues being satirized are ones that don't seem far from the reality of the last thirty years, even the most far-fetched ones. Riley might be throwing a ton of ideas at his audience, but they all happen to resonate, creating a kind of satire mosaic that really comes to life at the end.

Speaking of the end, I really need to talk about it. I'm not going to spoil anything, but this does take that sci-fi turn I mentioned earlier. Surprisingly, its biggest surprise--one that involves a special effect that I'm willing to bet would be off-putting to a lot of audiences--connects it with a handful of other movies from 2018. Anyway, this movie has a definitive ending that is satisfying, but Riley then takes it a step further. And then he takes it a step further than that. I'm still processing the last fifteen minutes or so of the movie. I like how things are tied together in a climax--a lot of those divergent elements brought together--but I don't think I like the very ending of the film.

Lakeith Stanfield was in last year's Get Out, a movie called Get Out, so he fits right in with this year's Get Out, too. OK, that's just the brainwashed part of me talking. This really isn't this year's Get Out. Stanfield is really great here though. You like his character even when he's making the worst decisions possible, and he works as this slouching, mumbling everyman. Tessa Thompson plays his artistic girlfriend with giant earrings, and she's just delightful. Danny Glover, the aforementioned voice actors, Terry Crews, and really everybody else just fits into this oddball Oakland world of sketchy telemarketing (as if there's any other kind!) so well. Oh, and Armie Hammer has just the right balance to make his character work. That's another great performance.

I laughed, I squirmed, and I thought. What else could a guy want from a summer movie, right? Boots Riley is a creative force, and I'll be excited to see whatever he decides to throw at me next.

Crooklyn

1994 family dramedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A family in Brooklyn. Wait, that's not a plot. Those are just the characters and the setting. I really should have my blog taken away from me after crap like this.

The last film from 1994 that I wanted to watch before making my list isn't one of Spike Lee's most well-regarded joints, but I liked its period details in these slices of this family's life, its vibrant style and colors, and the packed soundtrack. And it really does have a packed soundtrack, an amount of songs that might rival Forrest Gump and its double-disc soundtrack. Sure there might be a new song every two and a half minutes in this movie, but the R&B cuts slide in perfectly with the action on the screen.

This was written by Spike and a couple of his sisters, Joie and Cinque, and the love that the director has for this time period, this particular neighborhood, and these characters gushes from the screen. The opening is wonderfully nostalgic, a montage sweep through the neighborhood as the kids play various games that city kids would have played in that era while Marc Dorsey's "People Make the World Go Round" plays. It's a great introduction to this world, the kind that can make a middle-aged guy like me envious of the kids who get to live in it. Of course, that halcyon existence isn't the whole picture. Like all families, this one has its share of problems. By the time we meet the rest of the family and are introduced to those problems, however, the Lees do a good job of acclimating us to a world that at least this viewer doesn't have experience with.

Dad's rushed prayer, somnabulistic urination, glue-sniffin' drug trips, Connie and Tito's grocery store dancing, whisper-singing along with the Partridge Family, a fight over Trix, battles with neighbor Tony and his Coke bottle lens and keyboard stylings, sibling rivalry and sibling love. This movie works better when it focuses on the little slice-of-life moments or on the inconsequential than it does when it dives into drama. Spike Lee's direction is flashy, but it's in a sneaky way, not really drawing attention to itself as much as it draws the audience into the lives of these family members. For 2/3 of the film, the visuals and humor keep this burbling.

Once the family takes a trip to the country, Lee loses his way a little. The first issue is the way the scenes in the country are filmed. Lee obviously wants to give this new setting a different look, but the way he tries to accomplish that is just distracting. I had to look it up. Lee filmed those scenes in "widescreen without anamorphically adjusting the image," at least according to the IMdB trivia page. I don't really know enough about film to understand what that means, but essentially, the picture was stretched vertically so that the characters seemed a little squashed. It's meant to be disorienting, but I really thought it was a huge distraction.

By the time the entire family is back in Brooklyn, the drama's also elevated, and I just didn't think the drama worked as well as the humor here. I'm sure the Lees are telling the story as it actually happened. Folks who want spoilers can take a look at the biographical details of Spike Lee's life. The dramatic events covered here would be difficult, I imagine, for an artist to spend a lot of time with. Maybe that's why that part feels a little bit rushed to me. Or maybe that's part of the point. Maybe life's curve balls and tragedies come at you so fast, especially when you're a child who can't really understand much of the real world beyond your stoop, that you don't really have the time to let things sink in.

My favorite character was the white guy played by David Patrick Kelly. I refuse to think about what this might mean.

Before the Rain

1994 dramatic triptych

Rating: 15/20

Plot: I don't have time for a plot synopsis. I'll cover it in the review below.

There's a possibility that I might appreciate this first Macedonian-produced film more if I saw it a second time. I had previewed the basics--that it was three interrelated stories split into chapters called "Words," "Faces," and "Pictures," that it dealt with the effects of war and violence on ordinary people, and that there were some intentional continuity errors. I really dug the film's daring structure. The first story deals with a pursued teenager and a monk who attempts to help her. The second takes place in England with a reporter, her husband, and the photographer she was sexually involved with. The third follows that photographer back to Macedonia where a connection to that girl from the first story is revealed. Each story has its own character development, rising actions, and climaxes, but the way they interlock makes the entire thing cyclical in a nifty way. The film's structure enhances (or is enhanced) by the primary themes about the cycles of violence and the way love fits into the whole thing.

There's one major continuity error that really messes with your mind. I wouldn't want to spoil anything, but it involves a character from one story who seems to be deceased in one part of the story before he or she does a whole bunch of other stuff. It's a daring move from first time director Milcho Manchevski, but I think it helps reinforce that theme. The Beastie Boys track "So What Cha Want," storms, and the words "Time never dies, the circle is not round" find their way into each story in the triptych. Those words about time sound like something from Twin Peaks, don't they?

Some really choppy editing hamper things a bit, especially in "Words," the first of the three. But maybe it's just because I enjoy seeing monks on film or something, but I thought that story was the best told. The characters from the second are unlikable, and the climactic event of that story didn't make a lot of sense. The third story has some pacing issues. And by pacing issues, I mean that it's a little boring.

Watching sheep being born sure is fun to watch.

The Mask

1994 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A shy loser finds a magical mask that transforms him into a charismatic zoot-suit-wearing ladies' man. But is he in over his head?

When this came out, a friend of mine named Jason and I couldn't stop laughing at the previews. We were seeing something else in a theater, and when the preview for this came on, we had mini religious experiences right there in our seats. I think I probably even peed. When I eventually saw this for the first time, there was no way I couldn't be disappointed.

So why am I seeing it again? I have no idea. I was working on a "Best of 1994" list, saw that '94 was the year Jim Carrey emerged onto the scene like a chimpanzee popping out of an elephant's rectum, and figured that I'd give it another chance. My tastes in entertainment have actually become a little dumber since I was in my early-20s, but I also suspected that I'd missed some nuances that made me severely underrate this.

As I probably was the first time I saw this, I was annoyed with how mean-spirited and misogynistic this is. It starts a little ugly, gets much uglier, and then somehow manages to get even uglier than that while at the same time reminding me of the live-action Scooby-Doo movie. Reminding a person of any live-action Scooby-Doo movie should actually be a crime.

There are actually elements of this that I like. The very first shot of Edge City creates this comic book dystopia, but the promise of anything interesting there is never fulfilled. The scenes after Carrey puts on the mask are like Looney Tunes cartoons come to life, and there's very creative animation and sight gags. I liked a couple extended song and dance numbers, one with the fetching Cameron Diaz after Carrey announces that they're going to rock this joint and another with a Cuban Pete character.

Carrey really did have some year in 1994. This, Pet Detective, and Dumb and Dumber? That's two in the top-ten highest grossing movies as well as the 16th. Not bad for a guy who makes funny faces. When Carrey's called on to act like a normal person in this, he just can't do it. The dog is more of a natural actor than he is. However, he's really good at being a cartoon, and he's in his element when he's got that mask on. A lot of his performance is special effects and stunt/dance double work, but he still gets enough to do in that mask to show that he knows how to move comically. The 4th-Wall busting and one-liners mostly don't work, but some of the visual humor does and it all holds up surprisingly well about a quarter of a century later.

The most magical moment in this doesn't involve special effects at all. It's a scene where Carrey tries to show off the mask's powers for Ben Stein. That one even got a chuckle out of me.

I didn't need to watch this before putting together my Best of 1994 list.

Uncle Drew

2018 movie based on a commercial

Rating: 9/20

Plot: An old school street basketball legend reemerges and gets the old team back together to help a coach bring home a championship.

Did you know there was a TV movie based on the Mean Joe Greene Coca-Cola advertisement where he gives a kid a bottle of the soft drink? It has Henry Thomas, that kid from E.T., in it. I didn't, but I came across that when doing some research to see if there's ever been a good movie based on a television commercial. Apparently, Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan met on tiny television screens before they worked together for the big screen in Space Jam. I don't know if I'd consider that a good movie though.

I enjoyed the Uncle Drew Pepsi commercials because I was fooled into thinking it was guerrilla filmmaking, that the onlookers didn't know this old fart in a sweatsuit was actually an NBA all-star. And there was something fun about watching an elderly guy breakin' the ankles of these punk kids. And yes, I'm only using terms like "breakin' ankles" because I think it might make you all think I'm hip. Anyway, the Uncle Drew commercials--or at least the first one--really worked. But could it work for a feature-length film?

That answer would be no. Aside from being my second movie in a row that has a reference to Gladys Knight and the Pips, I never really had any interest in anything that was going on here. Even the basketball scenes bored me because they lacked the energetic surprise of the original commercial. Characters barely responded to Uncle Drew's team being elderly with the exception of a few mean-spirited jokes about old people.

Lil Rel Howery, the friend in Get Out, brings all of his trick (that's not a typo--he's only got a single trick) to the table as the guy who's arguably the main character. He's good at being louder than most of the other performers in the movie, and that's about it. Nick Kroll steals nearly every scene that he's in, but I don't mean that in a good way. It's like he steals the scene, runs off to the woods with it, beats it against a few trees, and then returns it. The basketball players succeed when they're doing things on the basketball court that a limited section of the population can do. But I noticed there was an "acting coach" in the credits, and that individual needed to do a better job of helping these guys and gal convince me that they were an old person with actual human emotions. They all were apparently told that talking in a barely intelligible grumble would be enough to make them sound old. There's a random dance-off thrown into the mix, likely because the makers needed to fill some time; Shaquille O'Neal gets to show the world his bare ass; and Chris Webber gets to play around with a fake baby that is the most obvious fake baby I've seen since American Sniper.

Everybody seems to be having an absolute blast, and that kind of energy can be infectious. Maybe it was for some people watching this, but I've apparently had my shots.

Attempts to give this sports comedy some heart fall completely flat. There's a half-assed attempt to throw in some stuff about old vs. new ways, friendship, and redemption, but all it manages to do is be a little funnier than the parts of this that are supposed to be comedic.

This also loses a full point for having bad chess. That's a pet peeve.

Product placement should be expected in a movie based on a commercial. Along with Pepsi, this advertises for Nike, Footlocker, and Aleve, the latter which I could have used after hearing Lil Rel Howery scream at me for over an hour and a half.

I will say this--Dikembe Mutombo is a treasure. He's seen a couple times in a poorly-done ESPN documentary spoof at the beginning.

Random note: I may have been in a bad mood during this movie because of some annoying kids in the theater with me. They came in toward the end of the previews, very politely asked a couple a few seats down from me if they could move closer to me so that they could all sit together, and then sat together and made a bunch of noise the entire time. I would have been pissed if I was one of the people who moved for them.

The Equalizer

2014 action movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A mysterious guy who likes to read finds himself engaging in some of the violent activities of his past after a prostitute he's befriended finds herself in a little trouble.

Here's a case where the preview of a sequel to a movie persuaded me to check out the original. Denzel Washington, who isn't bad here at all despite all the criticisms I'm about to pile on this movie, is always a presence, and the sequel's preview intrigued me.

Nearly every cliched second of this ultra-violent and weirdly ultra-serious mess bored me. When your favorite scene in an action movie like this is one where Washington's character visits an old FBI buddy and she, her husband, and Denzel eat soup and stare at each other awkwardly, the action movie probably has a problem on its bloody hands. A Mark Twain quote attempts to class this up right away. Following that, it's a bloody romp through fields of cliches, making the whole thing lazily predictable. The writers needed some easy characterization for Washington's character, and they handled that as lazily as possible by giving him a dead wife and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder so there's a reason for him to be mysteriously mopey and for the director to include scenes where he toothbrushes his New Balance sneakers for some close-up product placement. They also make him a consumer of great literature, lines about books like The Old Man and the Sea just oozing with meaning and too-obvious symbolism. They also give him a lot of dialogue with his prostitute friend and his chubby co-worker where he gets to be super inspirational. It's only when Denzel claims that he was a Pip and shows off some dancing moves for no real reason at all that he breaks free from the cliches a bit.

The villains are equally cliched. They're these vaguely familiar and heavily-tattooed baddies, all part of some sketchily-realized crime syndicate that engage in the sorts of activities that crime syndicates in Hollywood movies generally engage in. One dude has some bitchin' boots with skulls on them. Add in that chubby co-worker who you just assume is going to get his chance to shine at some point in a big action climax and that prostitute with the heart of gold, and you've got yourself a collective of characters who seem like they've been transplanted from a nearly identical action movie.

Speaking of action, there's a lot of it here. Denzel moves great here, and there's not a moment that I didn't buy that character. But that was almost a fault as there's exactly one fight in this entire movie where the character is in any kind of peril at all. Deaths in this are especially gruesome even when they don't need to be. These bad guys are corkscrewed in the gullet, drilled through the backs of skulls, hanged with barbed wire, sickled through the neck, and glassed in the face as Washington charges toward his finish line like a one-man wrecking crew. Slow-motion effects are overused with bad guys getting shot up in slow-motion falling sprinkler water and things explode in slow-motion puffs of fire.

The score for this is one of the most obnoxiously bland scores I've ever heard.

Will I still see the sequel to this? Probably. I don't have a lot going on in my life right now.

Eat Drink Man Woman

1994 food movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A chef adjusts to a live without taste buds as his three adult daughters deal with love, religion, careers, and other things women deal with.

Ang Lee so intricately pieces together these lives for his audience, and I got sucked right in although I can't think of a reason why I'd care about any of these people. The shots of the dad preparing all this food in an opening sequence hooked me. IMdB tells me that that opening sequence took over a week to film, but it was worth it, probably just for the shot of the guy inflating a duck with his mouth.

That memory of watching Sihung Lung, which sounds like some sort of affliction that coal miners might suffer from, inflate that duck inspired me to look up a bunch of pictures of classic game show host Gene Rayburn, so this review of Eat Drink Man Woman has taken me over three hours to write. And by the way, if you can't figure out the connection between duck inflation and Gene Rayburn, that one is on you, friend, and not on me.

Actually, maybe that was a goose. Do people even eat geese? Great. Add geese and ducks to the animals that I get confused along with alligators and crocodiles and crows and ravens. This lack of rudimentary animal knowledge probably should disqualify me as a movie reviewer. In my defense, this bird that was being inflated did not have any feathers. Apparently, you don't cook fowl with the feathers on.

I've spent more time than I should looking for a gif of Sihung Lung inflating the duck. How does one make a gif? Before continuing this, I'm going to take a look at that.

I just watched that opening sequence again with all the food. I have to admit, friends, that I got a little hard. I had no luck making a gif, but I watched the duck thing seven times which is almost the same thing.

This is taking me way too long to write, and I'm not sure I've even said anything about the movie yet. That's probably not good.

Along with the scenes where the dad--or in a couple of scenes, one of the daughters--prepares food, I also liked an early shot where the father is called into the gigantic kitchen where they're preparing food for a whole bunch of people in a very fancy place. The way the camera whisks through that kitchen, all that activity, the noise swells. It made the kitchen look like the most exciting place on earth, and for all I know, it really is. I mean, people inflating ducks and all.

No spoilers, but I loved a scene with the dad's friend who, earlier in the movie, says, "Just like me to be almost killed by a fart." I really hope that's the title of the final chapter of my autobiography, but I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

I was surprised to see Wendy's in this. Is it product placement if you follow all these exquisite shots of all this food preparation and then follow it with shots in a busy fast food restaurant? Probably not.

I've digressed enough, but I kind of loved spending time with these characters. Ang Lee gives us fragments of information about the lives of these daughters, filling us in one insignificant detail at a time, and it all comes together so perfectly. Sunday dinners have these "little announcements" that almost work like punchlines, bringing surprises and revelations. It has a lot to say about--without telling you anything at all--father/daughter relationships, the clash between traditions and modern thinking, the way families communicate (through food or, in one case, through karaoke), friendship, people's taste for life, romantic love. With only hints at actual plots, Lee still manages to give us surprises around every corner.

I even laughed once during a scene that takes place at the school of the daughter of one of the father's daughter's friends. I'm clearly not trying hard with that last sentence, but I have to go look for more pictures of Gene Rayburn and watch the guy blowing up the goose a few more times.

Cries and Whispers

1972 comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A woman with bitchy sisters is dying.

I watched this Saturday morning right after I finished preparing my eggs, avocado, and sauerkraut and wouldn't recommend that. It's not the happiest way to begin a Saturday.

My wife's sending me to the store now, and that is not a good way to start a Tuesday or whatever day this is. Wednesday? I guess it's Wednesday. And yeah, I'm aware that 11 o'clock is not technically the start of a day, but I haven't been up for long and there weren't any eggs in the refrigerator.

Those red fade-outs seem daring.

I like how Bergman refuses to give us all the information we need to understand these characters, at least all at once. Opinions are allowed to vary, but when you put all the pieces together, it's hard to like most of these human beings.

It seems Bergman's trying to say something about the importance of human touch. If I had watched this on a Thursday, I might have been inspired to go to the supermarket and fondle people. I didn't though, so I'll just buy some eggs and whatever else my wife wants me to pick up.

What day is this anyway? 

Wrong Move

1975 road movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A wandering writer meets some new friends and travels around with them for a bit.

This slyly strange road movie contrasts with Wenders' Alice in the Cities, the first of a "road trilogy," in a few ways. Most striking is that it's in color. I missed the black and white cinematography, to be honest, although the opening overhead shot with rain droplets collecting on the camera lens was lovely.

Second, there's not anything sweet about this one. Rudiger Volger plays the writer in this, too, but he's got a very different character in this one. They're both writers, and they're both drifting around, but there's something jerky about this Wilhelm figure.  The other characters aren't exactly great people. There's a stalking poet who, when he does get a chance to share his gift, blathers about sperm from a member. There's a sex-crazed actress. There's a guy who communicates far too much through a harmonica rather than language, and he's got a horrible secret. His traveling companion is a mute acrobat, and I guess she's ok unless it's a guilt-by-association thing. Even extras are a little nasty in this one. The travelers pass a fighting couple at one point, and there's a crazy guy yelling at them from a window, calling them pigs and rambling about planes racing through their heads. The exceptions are the suicidal widower the characters spend some time with and a street performer rocking an accordion and wearing a gigantic bell contraption on his or her head. The former delivers a soliloquy about loneliness that was stunning.

And the lengthy soliloquy reminds me of a third difference between this and Alice. This movie is very talky, and the ideas don't often have a lot of space to breath. There's a lot of talky narration from Volger's character, and lengthy conversations only almost take us to ideas that feel complete. Wrong Move tends to slowly ramble, kind of like its characters. I probably prefer that to a movie that spells everything out though.

Robby Muller also did the cinematography for this one, and there's one terrific moment involving a pair of trains where Volger is watching a woman and we briefly see his reflection in the shot with the woman.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado

2018 sequel that is arguably completely unnecessary

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Josh Brolin's character and Benecio del Toro's character continue to fuck with Mexican drug lords.

Did you know that Benecio del Toro's first film role was as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee-Wee? I didn't, but I was trying to remember what he had won Academy Awards for and noticed that. I assume all of his awards were for his work as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy and have stopped researching.

I'm probably putting words in my friend Rubber Duck's mouth, but Benecio del Toro is his favorite actor. Rubber Duck once said something about how he'd watch any character del Toro played, but in my mind, that means "Benecio del Toro is my favorite actor" or something similar to that. I have a feeling that Rubber Duck will skim this, and this next sentence is for him and him alone:

Text me, man! I have a couple of weeks until I have to go back to my day job and would love to get together to catch up.

I'd love to know his feelings about del Toro's character in these Sicario movies, too. He's quite the bad ass in the first installment, and in this one he's borderline mythical. There's a definite moment in this where the story moves from being about del Toro and Josh Brolin's characters doing stuff to being a story about del Toro's character. I still haven't made up my mind about whether that Logan-esque story is when this gets more or less interesting. I know things get a little too ludicrous by the time all this is wrapped up, odd for a sequel to a movie that worked partially because it was realistically gritty. Alejandro's journey in this definitely helps cement that character and probably del Toro as a complete bad ass though.

Brolin's good, too, especially in scenes where he gets to wear Crocs.

I'd write more about the moral ambiguities in this sequel or about how it's missing a little something without Emily Blunt's character letting the audience borrow her perspective for the duration, but I have to go take my first shower in several weeks and don't have the time. I also don't have time to check for typographical errors.