Hamlet Goes Business


1987 Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A modern telling of Hamlet, a play by some guy named Shakespeare.

You can't imagine the joy I was filled with when I found myself an Aki Kaurismaki movie to watch. I'm not going to detail how I had to watch this because I don't feel like sharing that. If you really have to know, just ask.

For about 4/5 of this, it's a fairly faithful adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet although Kaurismaki sets the thing in modern times. Things get a little nuts in the final act. This retains the darkness of Shakespeare's tragedy, but it definitely has that Kaurismakian deadpan humor with a little absurdity thrown in. I mean, when a central part of the story involves the Swedish rubber duck industry, and the titular anti-hero is shown eating a fistful of ham when we first see him, you know things are a little wacky. It's possible the subtitles I had were not translated very well, but it seemed clear to me that Kaurismaki doesn't know all that much about business himself, making a version of Hamlet where Hamlet "goes business" a little more absurd. Kaurismaki has some nods to noir and often uses this exaggerated music that made me smile.

The entire movie is worth it for one death scene which will likely be my favorite of the year. I chortled, ladies and gentlemen. I can't remember ever laughing at Shakespeare, even his comedies.

El


1953 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Immediately after marrying a woman whom he believes is the one for him, Francisco becomes absurdly jealous.

I accidentally watched two movies from 1953 in a row! How about that?

This is wickedly funny, and Bunuel's got his usual targets--well-to-do white folk and the church. I'm wondering what exactly he is saying about the latter here. Francisco has a connection to the church with no obvious personal spirituality or any relationship to a deity, and the church certainly supports him. The conclusion of the story has him in a place where he connected to the church, but right before that, he has what can only be seen as a pretty terrible experience in a church. And there's another troubling moment in a bell tower.

Of course, the church is where he first gets a glimpse of those feet. And it's love at first sight of those feet! I'm not sure what the Bible says about lusting after a woman's feet in church. God made women's feet, however, so maybe he'd be cool with it.

I love how over-the-top Fernando Rey (excuse me--Arturo de Cordova, though it might as well be Rey) plays the emotions of this character. Somehow, the exaggerated performance matches the absurdity of this cat's emotions.

I need to become a Luis Bunuel completist. I'm not sure why I haven't seen everything he's done yet.

Summer with Monika


1953 Bergman movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Two youngsters fall for each other, but can the romance survive when things get a little too real?

I'm glad that this ended with a flashback of a scene on a beach because it saved me the trouble of having to find that scene again on my own so that I could rewatch it. Same with a lovely scene where Harriet Andersson is reclining on the front of a boat before it retreats from the camera into a watery void that only makes sense after you've watched the entire movie.

There's a real contrast with the way Bergman is showing this pair of lovebirds. The idyllic romance, a hodgepodge of random moments and lovely shots of landscape and beautiful young people, is shot in a way that makes it seem like Bergman is in love with both characters and with their relationship. It's got the innocence of a fairy tale, but the characters are naive enough to fall prey to the sorts of villains and nefarious abstractions that always seem to lurk around the edges of those fairy tales. Once the titular summer has ended, the story definitely favors one character more than the other, and Bergman doesn't really hide the idea that one of these characters deserves our hostility.

This movie begins and ends with a mirror.

Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer


1984 cartoon

Rating: 14/20

Plot: High school students preparing for some sort of festival find themselves in a Groundhog Day scenario and try to get to the bottom of what's going on.

Anime isn't my bag, but I had to watch this for reasons I'd rather not discuss. I'm not sure how much I'm missing by not being at all familiar with any Urusei Yatsura that came before this. This is a "2," so I know there had to be a "1," and I also believe there was a television series. From what I understand, Mamoru Oshii either irritated or confused fans of these characters with this surreal and baffling narrative.

It's worth watching because of the creativity involved with a lot of the animated imagery. There are some inspired moments throughout, and all kinds of action and movement taking place on the screen, surprising since I believe this was kind of a rushed production. I just wish I enjoyed the story or the humor a little more.

Anyway, if you ask me politely, I'll let you know why I had to watch this.

Maelstrom


2000 talking fish movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A talking fish uses his dying moments to share a story about a troubled woman.

Water, water everywhere. Water is all over this one, from the title to the narrating animatronic fish to the showers to the love interest who is a diver to the stale octopus to a vehicle being submerged to the other shower scene. This was Denis Villeneuve's second feature-length film, and it has a little trouble deciding just how fragmented it wants to be. The talking fish, one that almost shares the meaning of life with us, and the various stories that weave into one big story give this the flavor of a murky fairy tale. The pieces might not come together realistically, but most murky fairy tales don't, do they?

I really liked the lead, Marie-Josee Croze. And not just the shower scenes!

More water--the use of Tom Waits' "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today." Maybe it was a little too obvious, but I'm never going to complain about hearing Tom Waits in a movie.

Full Metal Jacket


1987 war movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Vietnam stuff.

Not my favorite Kubrick film, but I do like the connections it makes between the need of man (as in, not woman) to kill and the similar need to engage in coitus with women or jelly doughnuts. It's difficult for me to connect the two distinct parts of this one--the boot camp stuff made absolutely electric by the Lee Ermey performance and Joker's continued journey while in Vietnam. There's an interesting blend of cinematic artificiality and an almost documentary-like objective voice that probably shouldn't work as well as it does. The cast is great, especially Modine who is just perfect as this guy who was "born to kill" but also longs for peace.

You have to love any movie that starts with "grabastic pieces of amphibian shits" etc. and end with the Mickey Mouse Club theme song.

The House That Jack Built


2018 drama...or maybe comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A serial killer details five violent incidents to Bruno Ganz.

I was taking some notes in an effort to break down what I think this sorta-messy movie might mean, but I gave up. I assume it's autobiographical, the five incidents described by the titular serial killer alluding to stages in the ornery career of Lars Von Trier, but I don't know if I'm at a stage in my life where I want to think all that much about his career. Repeated references to Glenn Gould, all the stuff about engineering with cathedrals and arches, a William Blake shout-out, duck feet. There's a lot to digest in this one. I have no doubts that it all comes together, and that Von Trier was taking us to specific places through choppy waters. Well, I take that back. I have doubts that it all comes together because a cinematic prankster was at the helm, and this boat might have just been drifting around aimlessly.

It was definitely entertaining enough although my wife seemed annoyed that she had to be in the same room with it. I tried to tell her that the director wanted us to feel uncomfortable, but she wouldn't buy it. I was surprised at how funny the movie was, lots of dialogue or actions frequently deflating this protagonist, making him much closer to a joke than the psychopathic genius he was supposed to be. There was a surprising amount of really dark comedy that worked here.

Still, I don't really want to watch this again to better decipher the thing. It's odd to me how intellectual and seemingly impenetrable a lot of this is while a lot of the symbolism and allusions seem like something a first-year film school student would come up with.

Fatal Attraction


1987 horror movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A married lawyer cheats on his wife and regrets it when she reveals herself to be an obsessed psychopath.

White people. Pfft.

Michael Douglas is fatally attracted to Glenn Close? Glenn Close is fatally attracted to Michael Douglas? I'm not sure who is fatally attracted to whom, but one problem I have with this movie is that I didn't like either character. Michael Douglas is a dick, and the movie's efforts to turn him into a character the audience can root for somewhat by showing a scene where he wants to engage in sexual intercourse with his wife but can't because his daughter--who I thought was a son at that point, I have to admit--didn't effectively help me like the guy any better. One, his character had an issue with his shirt buttons. I can image this exchange:

Michael Douglas: [walks onto the set with his shirt unbuttoned to a few inches below his sternum]
Director Adrian Lyne: Ok, Michael. We've got an issue with your shirt. Wardrobe!
Wardrobe: [starts to explain something but is cut off by Michael Douglas]
Michael Douglas: No, this is how my character wears his shirt.
Lyne: I don't see that for your character. Let's have wardrobe. . .
Michael Douglas: This is how I'm wearing my fucking shirt! Stay away from my buttons! Get in here, Glenn Close. And. . .action!

Michael Douglas's character, even during a scene where he's finally telling his wife the truth about his infidelity, still lies, saying that it was only one night when those two spent a couple nights together. I remember because I was feeling sorry for that dog, an animal that was getting so much screen time that I figured he or she (I had the same problem with the dog that I did with the kid) would get a chance to paw his way into heroism at some climactic moment, but she or he doesn't, instead just noticing some water dripping from a ceiling and then not doing anything about it. It's the kind of movie dog behavior that would have embarrassed Lassie. I'll tell you that.

Glenn Close is made more and more unlikable as the movie goes. Unless I missed it because I was a little bored, I'm not even sure there was foreshadowing at all. It was just Glenn Close being sultry and giving Michael Douglas a blowjob in an elevator and then all of a sudden cutting herself and acting like a psychopath. They really piled on the crazy after that, really to the point where it was all a little too unrealistic.

Lyne: Ok, in this scene, Anne Archer, you notice the stove is on. You investigate slowly and find your daughter's bunny in there. Of course, you're shocked.
Michael Douglas: Hey, guys. I'm going to wear my shirt unbuttoned to my navel in this scene.
Bunny: Can I get a stunt double for this?

That rabbit sequence was nuts, but a later scene juxtaposing a fun time at an amusement park and some frantic driving by Anne Archer's character was even nuttier.

This movie reminds me of the 80s, and I don't want to be reminded of the 80s. Or see that much of Michael Douglas's chest.

Wings of Desire


1987 angel movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Angels wandering around Berlin and listening to the thoughts of human beings long to experience humanity themselves.

An elderly storyteller in a library, one who had trouble putting on his glasses in a sequence that could almost be described as slapsticky, reminded me a little of Buster Keaton.

Maybe the best thing about this movie is how it makes every aspect of humanity beautiful. That includes all the stuff that is normally considered beautiful but also our worries, our pains, our disappointments, our missed appointments, our love of goofy entertainment, our heartbreak, our tragedies, our dramatic nostrils, and our loneliness. I'm not the biggest fan of humanity, but Wim Wenders wins me over, making it nearly impossible--at least for a couple hours--to not love people.

This could be seen as a challenge for any humans or angels watching it to learn how to be amazed. I love the line about how a person has to find about about life by himself or herself and how "that's the fun of it." The film challenges people to weigh the now against the forever.

There's a significance to this taking place in Berlin, of course, but I'm not the right person to write about any of that. I'm not the right person to write about any of this.

As startling as a lot of the imagery is, it's maybe the performances that carry this. Bruno Ganz will break your heart. And if Peter Falk's performance in this isn't perfect, then I'm not sure a perfect performance can exist.

Angel Heart


1987 neo-noir

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A private detective is hired to find a missing war veteran and finds himself in the center of a mystery that is way over his head.

This is silly but stylish neo-noir with an ultra-cool and super-sexy Mickey Rourke. He's also super-sweaty, but that might be part of his appeal. The dude can work a match, and he's got this way of creating this character who is an everyman without seeming like a normal human being at all. My favorite quirk about his character, other than his willingness to wear a nose guard he's gifted, is how he's got a thing against chickens.

Robert De Niro is also in this, but he doesn't do much. He must have borrowed from the Brando contract where he gets to do all of his scenes while sitting. He twirls a cane, shows off obscene fingernail length, and gets a close-up while he's eating a hard-boiled egg.

This narrative kind of goes where you might expect it would, but that doesn't necessarily prepare you for the silliness of the denouement. A gratuitous sex scene, gratuitous voodoo, gratuitous elevators, and gratuitous Satan are all employed in an effort to pull this whole thing together.

Opera


1987 operatic horror movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A killer stalks an opera singer.

With Argento, you can assume you're getting style over substance, but nothing can prepare you for the raven ensemble cast here. Lots of perspective shots--some from the ravens, some from unseen figures behind vents, some from stalking murderers--and as you'd expect with this director, a great use of color and some gory deaths. I watched with closed captioning because some of the dubbed dialogue was hard to pick up, and at one point, the caption read [wet stabbing]. There was a lot of wet violence in this one, so if that's your thing, this will be your thing.

Maybe those were crows. I'm telling you--ravens/crows is my new alligators/crocodiles.

Here's something I learned from this one--"opera singers are incredibly horny." Who knew? Ironically, the cute little prima donna played by Cristina Marsillach isn't at all. In fact, in the lone scene where things are about to get sexy, she's not able to get it up, so to speak. It would have been the most disappointing part of her boyfriend's night if there wasn't wet stabbing in his future.

Is "stupid artsy-fartsy" a genre? This mash-up of artsy-fartsy visuals, inventive camera work, and opera pretensions with a pretty dumb plot is a mix that gives this a unique voice. I wasn't the biggest fan of Suspiria when I saw that one, but I think I must have been in the mood for Argento's stupid artsy-fartsiness this time.

Yeelen


1987 fantasy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A magical father/son conflict.

Holy cow! The poster is a gigantic spoiler! Don't look at it!

For a fantasy with so much magic at the center of it, this sure is flat. I have a lot of trouble with the rhythm of African films, I guess. There is some visual magic in this, individual shots really inspired, but when there's dialogue in this, it really slows down. It's a case of too much telling instead of showing, but you have to assume a lot of that is because of budget constraints.

This is your classic son-fleeing-from-a-father-who-is-trying-to-kill-him narrative, but the movie is clearly about penises. Both father and son bring their own phallic symbols to a climactic fight, and at one point, the son even has the great line, "My penis betrayed me."

If I had a dollar for every time I've said "My penis betrayed me," I'd be making money in a really weird way. Apologies to Mitch Hedberg since that's totally his joke I just ripped off.

I got to learn about fetishes, see a guy in a hyena suit who apparently has never heard a hyena laugh, and enjoy a wild Komo meeting that featured a painted guy who showed off this stamina to just sit and do nothing that could rival my own.

Case for a Rookie Hangman


1970 Gulliver adaptation

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Apparently, a section of Gulliver's Travels.

Fell in love with this one early after some Keaton-esque car shenanigans before this launched fontanel-first into some feverishly-paced surrealism. This is based on some part of Swift's Gulliver's Travels that doesn't involve him being much bigger or much smaller than everybody else, but early, it's more like a sinister Lewis Carroll. Main character--Gulliver, naturally--is in a black and white cartoon, and floors are hopping and birds are emerging from pockets. After the initial flurry of surrealism reminiscent of Cocteau's Orphic trilogy, things slow down and allow a more traditional story to emerge, though that's as fractured and as borderline incoherent as a dream.

Sadly, this Czech new wave flick didn't make the government as happy as it made me. It was banned and director Pavel Juracek, who showed autuerist promise here, didn't work again. The whole thing's kind of ruined my weekend. What a loss that was!

Scent of a Woman


1992 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A kid at a private school takes a job watching over a blind guy during Thanksgiving break, but the job is more than he bargained for.

It's arguable that Al Pacino's Oscar-winning performance in this is a little uneven, but there's nobody else who can do what he does here. He rises above a mediocre story and sketchy writing and gives this performance that makes this entertaining even at a bloated 2 1/2 hours.

Out of those 2 1/2 hours, I definitely don't like the last third nearly as much as what comes before it. It's pretty much from when he hops in that Ferrari to the end of the movie. Things get silly and Hollywoody, and by the time we reach the movie's second climax--the one for the plot that we don't really care about after the really goofy climax of the other plot--it's a little hard to take it all seriously.

Take out the individual moments in this that are truly great, most of them involving Pacino doing things or delivering some monologue about this or that, and there's a lot to really love about this one.

Benny's Video


1992 horror movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Parents of a screen-obsessed teenager who needs some fresh air get upset after he gets a new haircut.

Knowing Haneke's other work and the basic plot of this one, I was pretty sure it wouldn't be an easy watch. And it's not. There were definitely times that I'd rather have been watching The Toxic Avenger or whatever the teenager in this was watching than the subtly disturbing violence in this one. It starts with a shot of a pig getting a bolt pistol to the head, and then Haneke decides to show us that again in slow motion because it's the exact kind of imagery he wants to force us to watch. Visually, it wasn't anything too bad, but there's this repetitive dog barking that sounded horrifying in slow-mo. The act of violence at the center of Benny's Video is both disturbing and shocking, and the aftermath is just as disturbing and shocking. And I'm not just talking about that haircut.

Most disturbing is a teenage girl's observation that "It's snowing" while watching a video. I don't want to explain why to anybody who hasn't seen the movie though.

There are two overhead shots of McDonalds food on a tray. I'm not sure what Haneke is getting at. All of the other visuals in this seem so deliberate that this pair of shots seen so far apart in the movie have to mean something. Or who knows? Maybe it's just product placement and Haneke was able to fund the project with those shots.

I was impressed with the kid who played Benny--Arno Frisch--as well as the guy who played his dad, but the performance that really blew me away was Angela Winkler as his mother. Both parents are so good in a scene where they are watching the titular video, but Winkler really delivers something special in a couple other key scenes, one where she's crying and one where she lets out an inappropriate chortle.

The Innocents

1961 ghost story

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A lady takes a job watching over a pair of siblings and then starts seeing ghosts and believing the children are possessed.

If this movie is more about sex than it is ghosts (and it certainly is), what do you think of all the birds and reptiles? Well, that turtle definitely gets a lot of screen time. The turtle isn't the best example of a reptilian phallic symbol, I guess, unless it is. Those birds are pervasive, adding suspense with amplified fluttering or moving in slow motion near turrets where ghost-men lurk. White flowers (are they roses?) are also omnipresent, the birds and flowers fighting for screen time. Add in all those stalking statues and Deborah Kerr's darkening wardrobe and you've got a lovely forest of symbols for our protagonist to maneuver through.

Now that I think of it, isn't the first thing that Flora (ahem) says when she meets her new governess a question about whether she's scared of reptiles? The turtle might not be much of a phallic symbol, unless it is, but that maid didn't seem to know the difference between one and a frog. I'm onto something here, but I'm not sure what it is.

The real creepiness in this sorta-horror movie is in its ambiguity. You wonder about the importance of this uncle character, for example. I mean, he's almost comically dickish, admitting with no hesitation that he wants nothing at all to do with these children, children who could probably be seen as symbols themselves. Kerr is clearly projecting once she's at the sprawling property, but is the uncle a stand-in for a spurning ex-love, an absent father, a chastising priest? Is he the catalyst for the mental deterioration of our protagonist? More ambiguity--do the ghosts actually exist at all or are they figments? Do the children even exist? Who exactly is an "innocent" in this movie? What does that maid know? What does that turtle know? Is that beetle escaping the mouth of that statue or was it just being sexually adventurous? If the children do actually exist, are they really possessed or is that all in Kerr's character's mind?

I mean, I often jump to conclusions about the possible possession of children myself, but it's odd how quickly she reaches that hypothesis, isn't it? See a ghost, decide that the kids are acting a little strange (possession, I realized, is pretty close to entitlement), decide that they must be possessed? As a narrative, Miss Giddens' experiences don't really hold up, and seeing this story unfold from her perspective makes the whole thing a little unreliable, adding to that ambiguity and, as a result, the creepiness.

I loved how this thing was shot. The lighting is so good, and there are always so many layers to every shot. I can see somebody arguing that filming in this kind of location with the water and those flowers and the statues and the curves of that mansion would be easy to make beautiful, but I think there are some special things being done with the cinematography here. I love all the shots with a character in profile in close-up with another character or something else in the background and then the more impressionistic splotches of foliage or mansion walls behind that. Lovely, lovely stuff.

I have to talk about the sound, too. The sound effects are often exaggerated--those birds!--and the screams in this are especially screamy. This is most effective when the sound effects are more subtle, and it's even more effective when it's sans music. The score was awfully jaunty at times. I do love how the voices echo during certain scenes in the house.

If there's one thing that personally scares me more than anything else, it's seeing figures approach windows. Screw you, Peter Quint.

Maybe it's the turtle's shell that's supposed to be important. Oh, there's just so much to unpack in this one! I think I loved it.

Honeymoon in Vegas


1992 romantic comedy

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Nicolas Cage is reluctant to marry but finally decides to because Sarah Jessica Parker looks really good in tight dresses. They fly to Vegas where Sarah Jessica Parker grabs the attention of a professional gambler who decides to try to win her in a poker game. He does, and Nic Cage gets to freak out about it.

Hold on a second. What's the movie with a bunch of Elvises that has Kurt Russell in it? I think I'm getting those two movies confused. I'm not sure if that one has dreams of a protagonist's mother vacuuming naked as an important plot point though.

This is a dopey romantic comedy where it's nearly impossible to buy the romance between the love interests though they do have some comedic chemistry in a few scenes. Cage and Jessica Parker (just Parker?) work well in a screwballish fashion even when the characters don't make a lot of sense or really seem like they share that much history. And there are multiple times when their characters don't make a lot of sense. None of the Freudian mom stuff and Nic's reluctance to marry make much sense, even when they throw in the stuff about how his job further sours him on matrimony. Later, Parker (Jessica Parker?) shows some questionable decision making that, following Cage's desire to play poker rather than see his girlfriend in that bikini, makes it seem like these two should just give up and find somebody else to not be fully invested in. Surprisingly for a romantic comedy, they're not in a lot of scenes together. Sarah Jessica Parker really does look fetching in those tight little dresses, but I always kind of had a thing for her in the early-90's anyway, mostly because I am attracted to women who have three names.

Cage gets multiple opportunities to freak out, and he screams at random people at airports or casinos or wherever better than any other actor in his place could. My favorite Cage moments are usually when he's supposed to be an entirely normal human being but can't quite pull it off. His sing-songy "Yoohoo! Can I get a roo-oom?" at a hotel front desk made me laugh, and there are a few other deliveries and gesticulations that are pretty close to what he's pulling off in Vampire's Kiss.

James Caan looks like an actor who realized this whole thing was a terrible idea halfway through the filming. I realize I'm not supposed to like his character, but for me, it was hard to have any feelings at all about the character. For the bulk of the movie, he seemed like a better option for Sarah Jessica Parker's character than Nicolas Cage, but the screenplay kind of made him artificially nastier a little later in the story.

Peter Boyle has what is perhaps an unfortunate cameo, Pat Morita makes an appearance, and Seymour Cassel gets to chomp on a cigar and wear a ridiculous suit as a poker player named Tony Cataracts. You know who else makes his very first screen appearance in this? Bruno Mars, as a young Elvis impersonator. So that's something.

After a cute animated introduction, this has its moments here and there and is definitely worth watching for Sarah Jessica Parker's skirts and Cage's Cage-ish performance. Otherwise, it's an underwhelming screwball comedy straddling a couple of decades where that's exactly what you'd probably expect.

Spoiler: How many Nicolas Cage movies end with him in a plane over Las Vegas? I can think of two.

Between Two Ferns: The Movie


2019 comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Zach Galifianakis takes to the road to complete ten episodes of the titular webseries for Will Ferrell in order to have his dream of having a network talk show come true.

I broke both my "No Will Ferrell Movies" and "No More Netflix Original Releases" rules for this. I laughed a lot because Zach Galifianakis is hilarious, but the movie itself, a mockumentary that starts out about the inner-workings of the show but winds up being a road movie, isn't great. The comedy misses just as much as it hits, and the narrative, maybe intentionally cliched, appears to only be there as an excuse to show the interview snippets. It's fun seeing these celebrities willing to have a sense of humor about themselves, and it's clear everybody involved is having fun during some outtakes where characters are broken during the closing credits.

I really enjoyed seeing comedy legend David Letterman and that giant beard of his.

It's doubtful that I'm going to remember much of what was funny about this in a week or so, but I can see myself putting it on in the background while I'm doing other things.

The Story of Qiu Ju


1992 crotch kick movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: After her husband is kicked in the crotch by the village chief, a wife seeks justice.

Hey, I'm almost to the end of the 1992 movies. I don't watch a lot of movies from China, but I like Zhang Yimou. Yimou-regular Gong Li stars, and she's great because she doesn't do a lot. It's simple storytelling, and the humor is subtle.

The inciting incident in this movie, one that happens before the opening scene of the story, involves a man named Wang Shantang kicking another man in the crotch. I kept waiting for another plot element to pop in, but this really is just about a woman seeking justice for her husband being kicked in the nuts. You kind of have to appreciate that, don't you?

Wang Shantang. Once again, I'm doing nothing but proving how much of a child I am.

Howards End


1992 period drama

Rating: 13/20

Plot: I don't have another second to devote to this movie.

My father recommended this bloated period drama that I incorrectly assumed was about the posterior of a guy named Howard. He liked the portrayal of the class system, and he liked the characters. I should have known better because his taste in movies is suspect.

Is it just me or is it hard to tell whether an English person is a good actor/actress or just English?

I was nearly bored to tears watching these characters. My favorite part of the movie is when the train would pass by the poor couple's home.

Fool's Fire


1992 TV movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: See "Hop-Frog," by E.A. Poe.

Wanting to be a Michael J. Anderson 1992 film completist, I had to watch this television adaptation of E.A. Poe's "Hop-Frog" short story about a crippled dwarf jester getting revenge on a king and his court. It's one of Poe's whiny tales written as a not-so-subtle attack on his critics or literary enemies. If this movie has a weakness (other than the murkiness which might have been more of a problem with the YouTube version I watched), it's that it retains Poe's classical language which at times is a little awkward. Of course, without that, we wouldn't have gotten "Ah! A distressing odor! I seem to feel my bowel moving," and since that will likely replace "The smeller's the feller" or high-pitched giggling as my go-to after a particularly offensive unleashing of flatulence, I guess I'm glad the language is like that.

I'm also fond of "I say there is no arse-wiper like a well-downed goose. Take my word for it." I will, grotesque puppet. I will.

Did I mention this movie has puppets? There are essentially two human actors, and the rest of the cast is rounded out with these grotesque puppets. One scene even has the puppets (really people in costumes, I guess) watching a puppet show, and if you don't think I had an erection during that scene, you really don't know me at all. The puppets look cool, not far from characters you might expect to see in The Dark Crystal or something. They're definitely not your grandchildren's puppets.

This was Julie Taymor's debut, and the chances she's taking and allowed to take for a television movie always keep this interesting. She's visually creative, and this early work is no exception, especially evident in her transitions. I was all-in before hitting play because I knew this had both Michael J. Anderson and puppets, but the opening shot of a rat eating through a cloth or something to reveal the characters behind it would have hooked me anyway. Another great example is where she transforms a characters neck into a tree trunk.

Michael J. Anderson is terrific in this. There's one scene where he makes a chair and this has this shirtless meltdown accompanied by a looped wind noise, and it's just fantastic. If this guy doesn't win my Billy Curtis award this year, something is probably wrong. His love interest is played by Mireille Mosse whom you would likely recognize from City of Lost Children. She's also really great!

I don't know if I did a good enough job selling this one, but it's highly recommended.

The Crying Game

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Pushing Hands


1992 Ang Lee movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Conflicts arise between a family and the husband's Tai Chi master father.

The choice was to watch this movie--Ang Lee's very first film--or Ang Lee's new movie that has at least two Will Smiths in it. This has less scenes where characters punch other characters with motorcycles, but it does have one surprising action sequence. Me, I was just watching and distracting myself with thoughts of wearing nothing but Tai Chi shoes from now on.

Ok, I stopped writing this review and went to Amazon and ordered a pair of Tai Chi shoes. They were like 14 dollars, so I think this might be my thing now. If this works out, this could be the type of thing that changes my life. Wish me luck, friends.

This movie is a fine debut although the acting is suspect and the storytelling gets a little wacky after a strong start. Lee's best here when he tells the story visually, like in the beginning when he uses the structure of this house to tell you everything you need to know about the relationship between the old Tai Chi master character and his daughter-in-law, an author, without any dialogue at all. There's some really great visual storytelling early on.

Man, I'm really excited about these shoes.

Edit: I gave this an extra point because of the shoe thing.

In the Soup

1992 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A writer with a 500-page screenplay looks for financing while trying to woo a pretty neighbor. A sketchy benefactor enters his life to make his dream easier to accomplish, but unfortunately, things get a little complicated.

Steve Buscemi looks like either a young Gary Cooper or Don Knotts depending on which character you ask in this movie. Those ideas belong to Jarmusch and Carol Kane in their cameos, and there's also a dog that can read minds in that scene.

This is a charmingly strange little movie, Alexandre Rockwell's look at the independent film scene slightly surreal, entirely unbelievable, and delightfully wacky. And I'm using too many adverbs, and I apologize to both you and Steven King, neither whom I am trying to offend. The non sequiturs with  Seymour Cassel's fingers and hemophiliac brothers and a tiny clown accompanied by a guy in a gorilla suit keep the viewer on the toes. With inconsistent narration, apparent lapses in storytelling, characters that don't really make a lot of sense, and a whole lot of lines that seem to confuse even the actors, especially Buscemi with those ever-bulging eyes of his, this certainly is as free-spirited as comedies get, at least ones with a little blood in them. It's all very quirky but rewarding for those who have a particular sense of humor.

And a love for the late, great Seymour Cassel. Man, is he just about perfect in this thing. He can take any line--the sneakily poignant ones and the ones that seem to make no sense at all--and just nail it every single time, just perfect deliveries. He's an actor who can normalize a character's behavior where he steals a Porsche dressed as Santa Claus, and I'm not even sure how he does it. Cassel was always good in everything he ever did, and he's working magic here. Buscemi is exactly what you assume he'll be as this beleaguered screenwriting hopeful, and he bounces off Cassel so well. They even get a chance to show off their dancing skills. One displays some sweet moves; the other shows off some physical comedy chops. Or maybe he just can't dance.

And hey! Sam Rockwell is also in this! Apparently, he was ubiquitous even in the early-90s. Rockets Redglare also makes an appearance as "Guy," and Stanley Tucci gets a funny scene where he wants to pass by on Buscemi's fire escape.

That little clown with the gorilla, by the way? That's Michael J. Anderson, the "arm" in Twin Peaks. So he had himself a busy year. He was also in a television movie and an episode of Picket Fences that year. In case you're curious, he was also Samson in Carnivale, found himself in a mid-80's music video from Yoko Ono of all people, and played Bruno in Tiptoes.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice


1978 animated fantasy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A kid becomes the titular sorcerer's apprentice but realizes quickly that his master isn't a great guy. He learns some dark arts and falls for a girl with the moon in her face. 

While done on the cheap because there was no other choice but to do things on the cheap, a lot of 70's animation benefits from the experimentation required to do things on the cheap. This isn't my favorite movie from the guy I called my favorite new director earlier this year--Karel Zeman, whose name spelled backwards is Namez Lerak--but the heavily-narrated cut-out animation is nifty and the story is quirky enough to keep one's interest, at least for the brief running time. I really like when things get weird in this--flowers transforming into skulls, a half-skinned cat thing, interesting fight choreography during a magical cockfight with these strobe effects provided by a grinning skull. Things are often a little static, likely because it was done on the cheap, but there's some attention to detail, a few surreal moments, and a couple genuinely beautiful moments. The best of the latter is when the main character Krabat sees his love interest for the first time, mostly her singing in silhouette until a bit of moonlight illuminates her face perfectly. The cut-out countenances are surprisingly expressive at times, and I liked how Krabat's peers were all gray. I guess that can happen to a fellow when you're stuck working in the mill of a magical douchebag. 

I assume this is based on a Czech folktale, but I'm far too lazy to look that up. 

A Bunch of Buster Keaton Shorts from the 1940s

I had avoided almost all of Buster Keaton's post-silent filmography because it's almost painful for me to hear him speak and the whole thing just makes me sad. After watching a documentary recently, I decided that while these shorts produced for Columbia Pictures in the late 30s and early 40s weren't going to be as good as the 1920's output, there would still be enough moments to make them worthwhile. So here we go. 


Man, I really can't stand Keaton's voice. It's part of what makes one of the best actors in the silent era into an actor who just isn't any good at all in the talkies. Solid storytelling isn't a requirement in these sorts of comedic one-reelers, but the set-up here feels especially ludicrous. I was most offended seeing an obvious dummy during a wheelbarrow stunt probably, but Buster's using his body really well during a dance sequence with chamber pots on his feet and during a sequence when people are trying to get his clothes off him. Yes, that's just as hot as it sounds. Exaggerated sound effects give this a Stooges-esque quality that made me a little uncomfortable.


It's like four stooges with this one, two couples taking turns tossing each other around, smashing things on each other, throwing punches, and yes, hurling pies at faces. The problem here is that this one was a little mean spirited and not really funny enough to make up for it. There was a fun 1940's cat fight in this and a sequence involving ironing pants that was either pretty funny or pretty funny only because I was desperate to like something that was going on in this. At least the ex-wife's boyfriend character (Matt McHugh) thought the whole thing was funny. 


Buster's in familiar territory here with this Civil War romantic comedy, but the whole thing just made me wish I was watching The General for the tenth time. There's one funny moment, some butter churning, and a really good death scene. Like all good pieces of historical fiction, you should learn a little something about the past, and in this one, I learned that the Civil War was won with comical concussions. Buster's characters in these things are really dopey, but they lack the likability of the ones he played in the 20's films, even the dopier ones. 


Alarmy stock photo. 

Holy crap, there sure is a lot going on in this twenty minute short. There are some almost funny ideas in this one, and some nice pratfalls though Buster looks a little slow. I enjoyed an unparallel parking gag, one that was really funny right up to the point where it was needlessly explained. As a guy who finds the misery of others funny, I also liked a hellish bus ride. This also has a repeat of an old Buster bit of physical comedy when he manhandles a drunk woman. It's an oldie but goody. 

This also has a great line, the first time I was actually happy any of these weren't silents. "He's got my bumper! What will my wife say?" Now that I've typed that out, I'm not sure I actually like it. 


The gags in this one are silly, cheap, and inconsequential. There's a close-quartered changing sequence on a train (most of this takes place on a train actually) that is almost something. Most disappointing is a scene where parrot noises are mistaken for the sounds of sexual pleasure, a bit that could have been gold if they could have gotten away with a little more in 1940. Buster also gets to imitate a parrot, maybe the first time I'm glad Buster was getting to be funny with sound. I have no idea what this title has to do with anything.


This was the first of these Columbia Pictures shorts. I'm not sure why the dvd release didn't put them in order. I liked this one, at least after the long awkward exposition. Things are kept simple in this with the main character--another unlikable Buster character--showing off a variety of funny costumes and getting a chance to run a lot. Keaton at this age could still run, just like a 1940's Tom Cruise. The jokes repeat themselves with this one--motifs, I guess--with Buster falling off a boat about six times. There's a funny serenade attempt and another funny dance sequence.


I want to point out that this short is called "She's Oil Mine." It's two stooges in some sort of shop. I guess he and the other guy are plumbers. The other guy is Monte Collins, a guy who can have things dropped on his foot with the best of them. Buster sure can comically swing a sledgehammer, a move that reminded me so much of Buster in the early 20s that I almost cried. There's some terrible acting in this, but at least there are extended sequences where Buster is shirtless. There's some dark dueling humor in the last chunk of this.

This was the last of these Columbia shorts. Buster opted not to renew his contract, and I think it's because of the horn sound effect they added to accompany a character getting struck in the posterior with a broom handle.


He's a clumsy oaf in all of these! There was such grace to his characters in the movies he made in which he had full control. It's a shame what the talkie era did to him, a real squandering of his talents. This is the second short in a row where somebody is trying to kill him, but the plot of this one is a little disjointed. There are some special effects that are nearly effective, at least more than the jokes, and a few of the pratfalls show that he's still got it as a physical comedian. This one does end in a chase, the exact thing I've longed to see in any of these Columbia shorts. It's a car chase, and there's a stunt driver wearing a different hat in some shots, but at least it's a chase. It's not a bad one either, one that features a ton of cops.


"Stop acting so spooky or you'll give me the Jim Jims!" 

Reminiscent of the 1920's short with the haunted house, this one has plenty of haunted silliness but really stretches the premise. It's got a magician/spiritualist, and for reasons that I can't understand, a penguin with roller skates. Of course, maybe you don't actually need a legitimate reason to have a penguin on roller skates. I don't know what to say about some exaggerated gulping sound effects, but I did like a cool bit with a swinging picture. I think that was yet another recycled bit. There are parts of this that resemble something like creativity, but like with the car chase in the last one, you just wonder what it could have been if Buster had full creative control. 


Taming of the Snood? That's what you're going with? I think what I like best about this one was that Buster's character was the owner of a novelty hat store. I think my favorite was the cricket hat. The woman who plays the maid in this was in five of these as well as two Cassavetes' movies--Minnie and Moskovitz and A Woman Under the Influence. Her name is Elsie Ames, and she's pretty funny in these. She can take a fall; that's for sure. In another time, the rapport between Ames and Keaton could have been something special, but he just doesn't seem all that committed in these things. This has its moments, I suppose, and some fake Lloyd-esque building-scaling hijinks that are almost fun. Almost fun--perhaps that's the nicest thing I can say about these Buster Keaton shorts from the 1940s.

Birdboy:The Forgotten Children


2015 animated movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Some children (forgotten, it seems) try to escape an island while the authorities deal with the spawn of Birdman, an alleged terrorist.

As odd as the imagery, the anthropomorphized alarm clocks or inflatable ducks, and the talking animal characters are, this one is surprisingly sweet as well. Very creative animation and movements with these characters who aren't too far removed from the kinds of talking animals you might find in a Disney movie but at the same time being completely unique. Quirk and heart in equal doses, this has a lot of moments that made me smile because I enjoy the bizarre and at least one moment that nearly made me cry. Diving deeper into the allegory, I ended up in a deeper funk than I was in prior to starting this.

Still, recommended.

More Movies from 1992

Here are more movies I've seen in the last couple of weeks from 1992, the year I became a manchild.


This movie about a love triangle between a blind guy, a woman hired to take care of him, and Russell Crowe was highly regarded by Josh Larsen, a critic with whom I sometimes agree. It's the second young Russell Crowe movie I've seen in my journey through the cinematic year of 1992, and there's something really magnetic about him. Hugo Weaving plays the blind guy, and he makes that face that he always makes but is also really good. An actress I don't know named Genevieve Picot is the third tip of that triangle, and she's delightfully nasty. The dynamics are interesting, and the buddy relationship that forms between Weaving and Crowe's character adds a bit of humor that kept it lively. The funniest moment takes place at a drive-in with Weaving pulling off some surprising physical comedy chops. "I forgot" is a line that got a laugh out of me. The soundtrack is by a band I think I used to listen to called Not Drowning, Waving, and there's a driving percussive thing accompanying a lot of this that gave the movie an energy. A lot of this centers on an interesting premise of a blind guy taking pictures and having somebody describe them to him, and one great moment has Picot assembling a bunch of photos with pieces of Russell Crowe in them to create this Picasso-esque version of him. A 16/20.


Tilda Swinton plays a centuries-old man who somehow transforms into a woman (spoiler, probably) and Billy Zane effectively plays a queen in this fartsy and quietly feisty feminist film. I don't know if it's feminist or not. It does have the line "I can think of only three words to describe women, none that are worth expressing." Tilda's titular character breaks the 4th Wall a few times, and the whole thing is sly humorous. It's got an odd rhythm and some lovely framing that almost tricked me into thinking I was watching a Peter Greenaway movie. If only Michael Nyman had scored the thing. Actually, the score (by David Motion and director Sally Porter) was really good. 16/20


Not sure if this has aged well with all the mockumentary comedies that have followed it. I'm also not sure who would be filming this thing. That was really distracting with this viewing though I like these middle-aged angsty Woody Allen movies. Since I'm at a mature age now, I should probably rate this a 16/20, but I don't know if I really like the movie or not. These "Best of Year" lists I've been working on sure have forced me to watch or rewatch a lot of Woody Allen movies. 


Almost abandoned ship with this Paul Schrader drug dealer drama because of a really yucky crappy opening song (by The Call, I believe) and enough early saxophone in the score to make this this feel like an 80's movie. Colors are lurid, and I'm also not sure what to make of all the scarves. I stayed in to see what Willem Dafoe was up to, and it turned out to be lots of scenes where he's writing in a diary because Paul Schrader apparently really likes to show his characters doing that. Sam Rockwell and David Spade, the latter playing a character called "theological coke head," also make appearances. This movie wasn't very good. 10/20. 


I'd seen this before, of course, but that third season of the series might give this a whole new context. My memories were sketchy though I did remember that the film has a sinister ceiling fan and a white horse that just materializes in the middle of a bedroom. I did not remember how significant the roles of creamed corn and a monkey play in this though. I swear, the first chunk of this thing with the investigation of a murder is straight comedy, but the rest of this bounces between comedy and horror in a way that only Lynch can make work. I considered watching this a second time to unwrap its mysteries, the early mentions of the number 6 and the letter T either red herrings or possibly a nod to Sesame Street. Then I thought better of it. This movie is a lot funnier than Husbands and Wives. Sheryl Lee's performance is a gonzo one, but when she laughs at that angel, it's quite a moment. And man, that band sure can groove! Let's go with a 15.5 out of 20. 


Don't know Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang, but this reminded me a little of Wong Kar-Wai, probably superficially, and I liked it, especially for a first film. There are moments when it might struggle to find a consistent voice, shots of elevator buttons feeling a little extraneous. There's so much water in this, water seeping from below and raining from above. Characters are lost, one literally asking "Where am I?" more than a few times, and there's one reference to AIDS that made me wonder how important that particular crisis is to this movie. I have no idea what the titular deity has to do with anything.