The Comedy

2012 not-comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A spoiled guy drifts through life and annoys people.

Tim Heidecker stars in this. He, along with Eric Wareheim, made Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie which I refused to enjoy, and he also hosts my current favorite movie review show On Cinema which you can watch on Youtube. He does that with comedian Neil Hamburger, and both Hamburger (as Gregg Turkington) and Wareheim are in this movie. But this is Heidecker's chance to show off, and his performance is just about perfect. What Heidecker's good at, both here and the online movie review show, is being awkward. He's got a screen presence that can make a viewer uncomfortable, and he's perfect for his character in this who seems like a candidate for one of the worst human beings who ever lived. He's like Nicholson's character in Five Easy Pieces although updated for the naughtier naughts. His reaction, or more accurately a complete lack of reaction, to a person having a seizure is a genius display of non-emotion. With Heidecker and friends, you'd expect this to be a wacky irreverent comedy, and it's really not, despite that title. Or maybe it is, but it's one of the darker comedies you'll see. There's a lot of funny stuff going on, seemingly improvised, but this weird sadness kind of creeps in and overwhelms the whole thing You're not finishing this movie feeling like you just watched a comedy. When the performers do improvise and go for laughs, they go straight for the potty, having conversations about how hobos' cocks are as clean as a baby's breath and hospital scalpels. Subversive humor to say the least, but it comes across as tacky and makes you not like the characters very much. Heidecker's character's decisions don't make a lick of sense, and the episodic structure and almost complete lack of anything resembling a plot--there's something about a dad dying, a brother in a mental institution, and an inheritance, but none of it seems to matter much) gives this a dreamy tone. And it makes you a little uncomfortable. That all starts with the provocative intro with the mellow sounds of some funk song while tubby guys dance and pour beer on each other and in their underpants. And then--a dick. You'll cringe right off the bat and possibly continue to cringe, but there are a few moments in this that are almost beautiful--a final scene that takes place on a beach and one where the friends have gathered to watch a slide show. And there's a Baron-Cohen-esque scene where Heidecker goes into an African American bar and nearly improvises himself to death. This movie feels raw and challenges; it almost barks at you though it barks in a laidback sort of way. It's definitely not for everybody and might not be for very many people at all, but it really surprised me.

Lemonade Joe

1964 Czech Western musical parody

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular sharpshooter tries to rid a sinful town called Stetson City of whisky in the 1880s.

The good guys wear white and refuse libations while the bad guys wear black and are actually named Badman. With 1920's color tinting and slapstick, way too many songs, ridiculous fight scenes that are speeded-up, and stock characters, this both pokes fun and pays homage to Western musical comedies. It also nails capitalism as Joe seems to exist only to shill lemonade that has a name suspiciously close to Coca-Cola. Kolaloka? That's close, right? There's plenty of silliness here--a trumpeter in black face who engages in a shoot-out with the good guy in what might be the best shoot-out I ever see, a trickster bad guy named Hogofogo who probably gets the best song, a guy who eats violins, and lines like "The night is cold; I'll need to put on my woolens" preceding a climactic trip to a place called Dead Man's Valley. The hijinks make this really entertaining even though it seems to go on a little too long, and although all the parts of this remind you of things you've seen before, it all comes together uniquely and isn't really like anything you've seen before. This is the best Czech Western I've seen and much better than Blazing Saddles despite the lack of Gene Wilder. Fun stuff!

A Woman Is a Woman

1961 Godard fun

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A stripper desperately wants to have a baby with her boyfriend, but he desperately doesn't want a baby. That's where the movie loses all credibility because the stripper is played by Anna Karina, a woman who nearly any male would be willing to do anything for, especially if it involved having sexual relations with her. Her boyfriend's flirtatious buddy seems interested, probably because he's normal, and that creates some conflict.

This one's got shane-movies favorites Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo, the latter who looks a little like Bobby Fischer and the former who I would like to invite into every single one of my dreams. Godard creates good dreams, and he can also screw with an audience better than any other director. There's a spontaneity to this that is infectious and refreshing although there are some people who would find it intolerable. Godard and his characters constantly remind the audience that this is all just a movie. They break into song like only characters in a musical can. Michel Legrand's music stabs at you like a candy-coated knife, really maddening the way it comes in and out unexpectedly. A lot of the sounds and edits seem like mistakes, but you know it's all Godard's idea of a joke. Words appear on the screen, things like "Because they love each other, everything will go wrong for Emile and Angela." He flashes shots of random elderly pedestrians during a conversation with the main characters, and he includes a lengthy scene where characters are just sitting at a table listening to a song (the funny "Tu t'laisses aller" by Charles Aznavour) while looking at a photograph. The fourth wall is busted repeatedly, mostly in comical ways with characters bowing to the audience, speaking directly to the audience, and, in what is one of the most erotic things I've ever seen in a movie, winking. Anna Karina looked directly at me and winked. And I woke up three days later in a pool of my own juices. Wait, did I write that it broke a fourth wall? This wink broke a fifth and maybe a sixth wall. And then there's a moment where she strips because, you know, she's a stripper, and the music she performs to sounds like the theme to Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, something that has the potential to travel back in time and give me my first erection at the age of four. I also liked a little dance she does in a tight blue dress. Hot Tamale! I'm glad my wife doesn't read my blog. Godard dicks around so much with this that it's a wonder he was allowed to continue making movies, but it's all very funny. They "I'll go with who performs the most amazing feat" scene made me laugh, and I also liked an argument that included the words--unspoken--"pernicious mummy." And those sounds coming from the bathroom! Oh, and I loved this conversation:

Karina: Would you rather have fish or meat for dinner?
Brialy: Fish.
Karina: What would you have preferred if you were having meat?
Brialy: I don't know. Veal.
Karina: And if you were to have beef rather than veal, would you prefer a steak or a roast?
Brialy: A steak.
Karina: And had you answered roast, would you prefer it rare or well-done?
Brialy: Rare.
Karina (getting the roast): Well, you're out of luck. My roast beef's a little overdone.

That's just beautiful and perfectly and nonsensically describes these characters and their relationship. And they trill their R's. The introduction/opening credits were interesting, by the way--large colorful words popping rhythmically onto the screen to introduce the three leads. I wonder if it influenced Gasper Noe. This movie really isn't Godard's greatest achievement, but it's a lot of fun and has this great energy.

I feel the need to point out that Anna Karina is not really naked in this movie.

Silence of the Lambs

1991 best picture

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Prospective FBI agent Clarice is recruited to chat it up with notorious serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter in order to help the agency capture another guy who kidnaps women for their skin.

This movie has a trio of great scenes mixed into a character study about a character I just didn't find very interesting. The three scenes:

1) The best scene in the movie is where Lecter touches Clarice's fingers. A lot of the film has to do with their complex relationship, and that scene stands out.

2) The second best scene involves Stuart Rudin's character, Miggs. I'd imagine Rudin has had a career trying to not be the guy who flings his jism at Jodie Foster like a naughty monkey a few minutes after he screamed, "I can smell your cunt!" at her.

3) Hannibal's escape scene is thrilling, I guess, but really only if you're seeing it for the first time.

This has about as much style as a television cop drama. It's not gritty, it's not flashy, and it's not unique in any way. The story's just kind of there. And even more disappointing is that the title is really misleading. There's not a single lamb in this movie. I enjoyed the performance from Hopkins, who I don't believe blinks a single time in this movie, the kind of psychopath that a lot of actors have done their best to duplicate for the last thirty years. Foster's fine, but I don't the character lacks dimensions even though they did everything they could to give her a nice Hollywood backstory. I'm sure feminists would appreciate the character, but I don't find it all that believable that she would be sent out on the assignment in the first place. My favorite scene with her character was a shot where she was circled by a bunch of guy cops in a funeral home. Ted Levine's Buffalo Bill was a generic psychopath, but the scene where he's posing in front of a mirror with his Li'l Bill tucked between his legs is one that haunted me for months after I saw this for the first time. The butterfly or moth or whatever thing was a little silly, and I actually laughed out loud when Clarice announced, "He's making a woman suit!" Not my favorite Best Picture winner despite that line.

Bay of Blood

1971 Italian horror movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A bunch of people murder each other in an effort to inherit an island. The island isn't very happy about it.

This was on my radar because of its bitchin' alternate title--Twitch of the Death Nerve. Apparently, this has more alternate titles than any other movie which I guess is something. Here they are:

Carnage
Bloodbath (or Blood Bath)
Bloodbath Bay of Death
The Odor of Flesh
Before the Fact
The Antecedent
The Last House on the Left, Part II (Note: It has nothing to do with The Last House on the Left.)
New House on the Left
Ecology of a Crime
Chain Reaction


Ok, most of them are in other languages, but trust me, there's a lot of them. And that's not counting a few working titles--The Stench of Flesh, Thus Do We Live to Be Evil, and That Will Teach Them to Be Bad. This movie's also notable as being a hugely influential slasher film, spawning films (for better or worse) like Halloween and the Friday the 13th franchise. The latter, which I've never really had much interest in, apparently borrows a few murderous acts from Bava shot-by-shot. What makes this movie a little more interesting than a lot of crappy slasher flicks that follow it is in one of those alternate titles--Ecology of a Crime. One could look at all the violence of this thing and wonder what's wrong with people, but the real villain might be a little sneakier than just something like human nature or greed. There are mysterious forces at play here, right up until the shocking conclusion which works as black comedy perfection and a final karmic exclamation point. This is very cheaply produced, but there are some great stylistic touches, like the slowing wheelchair wheel in the aftermath of the first murder. There's also some first-person stuff that predicts the opening sequence of Halloween. Oh, and there's German actress Brigitte Skay playing Brunhilda, a character you get to see every inch of if you're into that sort of thing. Lots of this is gruesome with its fair share of decapitation, impaling, slicing, and dicing. This could use better pacing, but Bava does a lot with a little and adds a little depth to the violent genre. And that ending!

Primer

2004 time travel movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Two guys accidentally invent a time machine and use it.

What?

Surviving Life (Theory and Practice)

2010 psychoanalyticka komedie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A bearded gentlemen meets a beautiful woman in a dream and tries to discover a way to dream more so that he can be with her.

I've waited and waited for this to be available for me to watch and finally gave up and watched it on Youtube. Worth the wait? Absolutely! New Svankmajer should 1) be more of a regular thing and 2) should be celebrated as a holiday. This one seems very cheaply done. There's stop-motion, a lot more than in the last feature film, and a lot of the animation is cut-out stuff similar to the hilarious soccer short called "Manly Games" in this collection. This is very funny, too, and although I reckon the imagery and surrealistic asides would befuddle a lot of people, I couldn't keep the smile off my face while watching this. Half of this takes place in the main character's subconscious, the perfect setting for a surrealist like Svankmajer, but the conscious world isn't without the surreal touches. The main character spends a lot of his waking hours being psychoanalyzed, again perfect fodder for Svankmajer. The inside of the noggin is, after all, where all of his movies take place, isn't it? The odd visuals--chicken-headed folk, animated meat, a gigantic tongue, rolling apples, eggs, bananas, extracted teeth, antlered men, faucet-headed people, watermelons, flowers sprouting from women's heads--are easier to digest in this, like Svankmajer is picking and choosing from The Rudimentary Guide to Interpreting Dream Symbols or something. The psychological issue at the heart of the whole thing's been used enough to become a cinematic cliché, but none of that makes this any less fun. If you like your avant-garde animated movies on the playful side, this is definitely for you.

Even Dwarfs Started Small

1970 movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Inmates at some sort of institution run amok.

This was actually the first I knew of Werner Herzog because I was on a crazy quest to get my hands on bizarre movies as well as movies that had little people. I was instantly a fan. What choice did I have? It's a cast of little people! I'm not actually sure what the point of that is. Honestly, I'm not completely sure what the point of the entire movie is. I don't think Herzog's focus is broad, and I don't think he's filming anything satirical. Instead, I think this has more to do with individual psyche, a kind of duel between the part of a person that wants to go by the book and follow the rules and be normal and the part of the person that wants to raise hell and burst seams and piss fire. Herzog films this almost like it's a documentary. There are several times when the performers--all, I believe, non-professionals--will look at the camera and presumably at Herzog, sometimes like they believe they might be in danger. It gives this an odd kind of realism. At times, they do look like they're in danger, especially Gerhard Maerz who plays a character named Territory. I believe that's the little guy who was run over by a car at one point during the filming and caught fire in another scene. He's the real stuntman of the group--climbing out of a moving vehicle to the top, etc. Herzog put these little actors and actresses through some stressful situations, so stressful that he promised he would jump into a bunch of cacti following the filming. None of these actors went on to have film careers. In fact, almost all of them have only this movie in their filmography. Pepi Hermine played "The President" in this and also played the president in Downey's Putney Swope. Helmut Doring was also in Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and he's awesome in this, spending almost the entire movie laughing demonically. It's the kind of laugh that you'll hear long after the movie has ended, maybe in your dreams and maybe in somebody else's dreams. You really can't take your eyes off this guy. Doring is the tiniest of the bunch, and there's one scene where he spends about five minutes trying to get onto a bed. Of course, that's not the most interesting thing these characters do. They have a forced marriage ceremony, peruse dirty magazines, interrupt a blind duo's game, disrupt piglets' dinner, conduct an insect wedding, make a car drive in endless circles, destroy typewriters and rugs, start cockfights, have pointing contests with trees, and crucify a monkey. Other than that crucified monkey, there are other shocking and bleak moments involving animals. There's a one-legged chicken that Herzog's camera watches for a long time, a scene where some chickens play with a dead mouse, and a really disturbing scene with piglets suckling a dead mother. And the movie starts with a slow circular pan of the premises and then a shot of a chicken pecking at a dead friend. Herzog's always got great endings, and this one doesn't disappoint. In fact, it's one of my favorite movie endings ever--Helmut Doring laughing while watching a defecating camel. It's a shot which goes on way too long which, in my opinion, is just the right amount of time.

Mulan

1998 cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Buster: 20/20)

Plot: The titular feminist, with the help of the talking donkey from the Shrek movies, has to become a man in order to save her father's life and the future of China.

There are animation issues with this one, but it's hard to argue a movie's greatness when it features the voice work of Mr. Miyagi, the dude in the Chinese restaurant in that Seinfeld episode, and Sulu. Is Mulan a Disney princess? She's one of the better role models if she is. I mean, sure she runs away, steals, lies, and befriends a dragon, but she's a good smart and brave character who I wouldn't mind my son emulating. Her army friends--including a little fellow voiced by Harvey Fierstein who, if I made animated films, I'd have do all the voices in one of my movies just to do it--are good comic characters although her love interest is a little generic. The bad guy is menacing and brings some darkness, and I'm glad the Disney people didn't decide to unleash Gilbert Gottfried to give voice to his bird. I also like most of the songs, especially the exciting "I'll Make a Man out of You," a song which, when I first heard this in 1998, helped encourage me to urinate standing up. Some day, I will make an animated movie based on my personal urination history. Tentative title--I Pee: Stand Up for Yourself, Hotshot. Harvey Fierstein will provide the voice of young Shane and older Shane, Shane's father, Shane's mother, Shane's best friend Vernon, Shane's future wife Jennifer, "locker room bullies 1-17," and Rodolfo the Talking Toilet. And his character in Mulan if I can get the Disney people to let me borrow him.

The Natural History of the Chicken

2000 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Chickens.

This is from Mark Lewis, the guy responsible for Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, another entertaining and unusual documentary. This is chickens and it's a natural history. Really, it has a lot more to do with people and their relationships with chickens than chickens themselves, and it really couldn't be more entertaining. In fact, it might be "eggsactly what you're looking for" if you want something that will make you laugh and, if you're anything like me, just feel a whole lot better about the world in general. There's a lot of yodeling though. It sounds like the music in Raising Arizona which is from the throat of Pete Seeger if I'm remembering correctly. You get to see a woman in Maine with sixteen chickens, chickens she refers to as her "friends." Her story is one where she resuscitates her once-lost-but-now-found-frozen chicken with CPR. It's an odd enough story, but here it's portrayed with reenactments complete with dramatic music, and it's hilariously awesome. That's juxtaposed with shots of incubators and fattening facilities where week-old chicks are pushed along a conveyor belt and vaccinated roughly. You get a tale of a guy who likes roosters and the noise pollution that his neighbors complain about; a guy in overalls imitating chickens; a red-haired lady who blow-dries her Pavarotti-loving rooster that she refers to as her "soul mate," writes poetry about, and dresses in something she calls "panties;" a chicken whisperer; a guy named Elwynjohn who spins a yarn about a headless chicken named Mike that lived ("That's when I started thinking, 'Boy, I'd like to have that.'"); a guy's story about one of his chickens and a hawk (again reenacted, seemingly without special effects which is remarkable) that will more than likely make a believer out of you. What you'll believe in is beyond me, but you'll believe in something! Pretty awesome stuff, despite that "eggsactly" pun.

Reflections of Evil

2002 movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A bulbous guy named Bob unsuccessfully sells watches on the street and frequently engages in shouting matches with fellow pedestrians. He wanders a sort of purgatory. Meanwhile, his sister Julie, a girl who died from a drug overdose a long time ago, searches for him in an attempt to save him from a sugar addiction.

Damon Packard wrote, directed, and starred in this stunningly original piece that I'd like to label "outsider art" if it wasn't so aware. If I understand the story correctly, Packard spent an inheritance to make this movie which I think is about Hollywood, Hollywood's affect on our psyches, human beings' inabilities to get along with each other, human beings' inabilities to get along with themselves, overindulgence, paranoia, the role that media plays in our lives, and probably countless other things; made about 25,000 dvd copies; and sent them to celebrities. It reminds me of what the Residents did with their "Santa Dog" single although if Packard sent one of these to Richard Nixon, he was probably too late.  Their reactions were collected on his website which doesn't seem to exist anymore. Unfortunately, I can't find any of those. The movie is a real treat for oddballs like me with the right sensibilities. It's a collision of nightmarish, horrifying imagery and hilarity that you don't see much outside of David Lynch's stuff. Things start with low-budget shots of a wandering spirit in a ghostly-white nightgown, shots ultra-eerie or mysterious because they are low-budget ones. The after-school special music gives this a weird 70's vibe. Then, the onslaught begins. Off sound-effects, voices obvious and comically dubbed with actors who had no idea that they were actors in a movie, an extended vomiting scene that is probably about six times longer than it actually needs to be, warping effects, characters shouting like they have Tourette's, sound effects from other worlds, drug-dazed horrors. The style's unique, and the results are very funny while managing to seep into your skin a little and reach parts of the soul that you're not usually aware of when watching a movie. There's a redundancy to the proceedings and a cheap experimental flavor that will turn off most people who like "real" movies. I want to make it clear that this is not a movie for everybody, but more adventurous cinephiles will discover a lot of beauty in all this ugliness. I know nothing about Damon Packard, and this is the only movie of his that I've seen. I suspect he's a very cynical individual, but he finds some humor in all these aspects of society that he doesn't like very much. A lot of the voices put to some of these "characters" made me laugh, and I loved one of his sister's lines: [Spoiler Alert!] "You died on the E.T. Adventure in 1984 from a sugar overdose." The hilarious behind-the-scenes reenactment of what seems to be a Steven Spielberg shoot also made me laugh, almost uncontrollably. Best of all? Amidst a lot of chaos filmed (illegally) at Universal Studios: A Klaus Kinski ride. Just let those three words sink in a little bit. Klaus Kinski ride. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw a monkey across the room.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

2012 coming of age movie

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: A shy high school freshman befriends step-sibling seniors, and they spend about a year trying to figure out the title of a David Bowie song.

This might have hit me a little more than similar movies because Charlie and I would be about the same age. I was introverted and knew a lot of the music from the movie. And I liked the Smiths. Of course, I would have recognized the Bowie, and I never would have stood up in the bed of a rapidly-moving pick-up truck even if I wanted to impress Hermione Granger. Charlie had bad things happen to him, and I never did. Still, spirits kindred enough, and I really felt and pulled for the guy. I wanted the kid to bang Hermoine! I have no idea who Logan Lerman is or what kind of career he's about to have--he seems busy enough which makes perfect sense to him because of how good he was here--but I thought he was great. It's a controlled performance. A kid doing too much in that role would have completely screwed things up. Ezra Miller was almost a little too much. That kid, by the way, was born the year I graduated which makes me feel incredibly old. I thought Watson was good enough, but there's something kind of, I don't know, artificial about her. But I did think the characters, even the auxiliary ones, seemed real in a movie-kind of way, and their stories sneak up on you and take hold in ways that you didn't really expect. I was surprised that I laughed at all, and I was surprised at how bad I felt for the characters at times. Oh, and neither Jen nor I recognized Mary Elizabeth as Mae Whitman, "Egg" from Arrested Development, which is something we thought was funny. I've tried wrapping my mind around what it means to be "infinite" as Charlie describes himself at the end of the movie, and I've settle on that meaning different things for different people. Whatever it is, there's something kind of beautiful about it.

I had a "Bust a Move" moment as a high school kid. I think it might have even involved Young MC! Man, I would have loved this movie as a high schooler.

Life of Pi

2012 best picture nominee

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: It's the exact same plot as Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain except instead of gay cowboys on a mountain, there's an Indian boy and a tiger on a lifeboat.

I made it through about 1/3 of the book several years ago before I remembered that I didn't like reading and stopped. When I heard that a movie was being made, I wondered if it was filmable. I saw previews and snippets during the Oscars, most backed with this faux-Enya music, and fully expected to hate the movie. I ended up really digging it although my date hated it. At one point, she said, "If that tiger starts talking, I'm done." And I think she rolled her eyes more during this than with any other movie. I could feel them rolling. The eye-rolling isn't entirely unfair. This little fantasy is filled with all kinds of little details that just don't seem right. Bananas, after all, really don't float. The man-shaped island, a silly rainbow, meerkats that stand around and watch a tiger devour them. A lot of this is just silly. Add in some obviously-CGI animals, and this is a little hard to take at times. Don't get me wrong. This is some of the best CGI that I've seen, and I'm amazed at what they do with these animals. You really get to the point while watching this where you can't tell what is real and what is created by a computer, and then you start doubting that any of it is real. Is Suraj Sharma, painfully sympathetic in the role as young Pi, a real person or was he made by some flabby guy with too-large glasses sitting in front of a computer monitor? What about the bulging eyes of Irrfan Khan, the guy who is also really good as the older Pi? Are they real? They kind of look like Large Marge's eyes. Ang Lee's visual effects wizards must have had a lot of fun creating these waves, tossing in some extra stars, rustling animal fur, piling meerkat on meerkat, maneuvering colorful fish just below the surface of the water. And as plastic as it all sometimes looks, it really is stunningly beautiful at times. I didn't care for a new-agey display where Pi looks into the depths of the ocean and sees a whale made out of different animals, a variety of ocean life, and eventually the sunken ship, but that might have been because of the aforementioned faux-Enya music more than anything else. For the most part, this is just gorgeous. Besides, the inability to tell what is a visual trick and what is really real matches the storytelling ambiguity, the uncertainty of the viewer in knowing what parts of Pi's story is real. The unlikely friendship--a one-sided one apparently--has a beauty that matches the visual beauty, and I almost wanted to cry while older Pi was describing his feelings but Jen's audible eye-rolling ruined it. This is fluffily philosophical and not all that dense although that gives it enough space for the viewer to have the freedom to let the thing develop a bit in his or her own mind. And although there's definitely an adventure/survival story element during the majority of the movie, there's also a lot of playfulness and humor as well. Good stuff.

The Life of Emile Zola

1937 best picture

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A 19th Century French writer makes his living trolling society. When an innocent man is court-martialed for being a spy and sent to Devil's Island--a historically not-very-nice place--his wife comes to Zola to look for help. Zola risks his own freedom by trying to uncover the truth.

There are things that are dated about this, but it doesn't take away any of its impact. The titular character is nice and meaty, the kind screenwriters create just so that some actor can tackle the role and win an Oscar. Paul Muni's that actor, and his performance is a powerful one. He seems to gain wisdom as he ages, and gets all kinds of juicy lines to make Acting with that capital A happen. His big courtroom monologue should be more famous than it is. Muni shows some versatility since there's nothing gangsta about Zola at all, and he seems to get better as the movie goes on. I also really liked the performance of Joseph Schildkraut as the wrongly-accused Dreyfus; he nails one of his final scenes as he emerges from a prison cell as an older Dreyfus, and he does it without any words at all. Beautiful stuff. Dieterle's direction is simple and probably more effective for it. There are some lighting choices and slow zoom-outs that reminded me of moves from the silent era. Other than that, there's not much style to speak of which only helps you focus more on the complexities of the story. Like Argo, the history's a little hugger-muggered, but it's not as sneaky as Affleck's storytelling. There's even a title card that tells you it's not 100% historical at the beginning of the movie. This is a movie that is never really gripping, but it's consistently interesting, and the performances make it a 1930's classic that more people should probably know about.

And I really need to throw "muckraking" into conversation more.

Recommended by Cory.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (Redux)

1985 wacky children's movie

Rating: 16/20 (I forgot to ask the students I watched this with.)

Plot: The titular masturbator tries to locate his stolen bicycle.

I watched this at school on one of those days when we celebrate mediocrity. We got to pick our own movies, and I was showing them The Karate Kid. Unfortunately, the Internet stopped working around the time Daniel was buying Elizabeth Shue lunch, and since I was streaming the movie, we couldn't continue. Luckily, I had this as a back up.

I watched this the same day I got my evaluation rubric from my assistant principal. It's not good news. Turns out that I am a barely effective educator which sucks because I really do want to be good at my job. I'm convinced that I'm no longer wanted at the school that I work in. The administrator is mad at me because I wasn't wearing shoes one day when I went to pick up standardized test materials from the office. We had this conversation:

Ass. Principal, looking down at my feet: Do you have shoes today?
Me: Yes. My feel have been bothering me during softball season, so. . .
Ass. Principal: You need to fix this situation.

Then, he was mad at me because I was reading Elie Wiesel's Night, a book that I think all students should read. The problem is that it's on the 9th grade reading list. The problem I have is that nobody seems to read it in 9th grade. He also made a reference to me when conferencing with another teacher. "Shane's a good guy," he said. He also said, "Shane the Brain," laughed, and then repeated, "I call him Shane the Brain." I wasn't aware of this, and although it sounds sort of harmless, I'm not sure he means it in a good way. Combined with news I heard two days ago that my principal referred to me as an "oddball" when talking to a teacher I'll be working with next year, this is troubling.

I don't really want to teach there anymore, but I'm too expensive for any other school to have any interest in me. After all, who wants to hire a guy with as much experience as me who still manages to only be "barely effective"? And what else am I going to do? I'm an English major, and I now have a master's degree that any non-education people would be impressed with. I can't do anything else anyway! No skills whatsoever. I fear that I'm going to have to spend the rest of my professional life in a place where I don't feel appreciated and where apparently I'm only barely effective.

It really dampened the emotional high that you get from watching Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I wrote about this movie somewhere else. Here, I'm giving it an extra point because of the raw sexuality displayed in the scene where Pee-Wee is wrestling with a shirtless Francis in a pool. Or maybe it's a large bathtub. Francis is Mark Holton who had arguably the greatest year of any actor in movie history with this movie and his role as Chubby in Teen Wolf. He's definitely a lot better than "barely effective." This movie's uneven and juvenile, and it doesn't seem to be too distant from current movies and television made for children that irritate me. That's a misplaced adjective clause because it makes the reader thing I'm talking about children who I hate instead of movies and television that I hate, but I'm leaving it because that seems to be the sort of thing a "barely effective" educator would do. Somehow, this manages to deliver more joy than irritation though. Absurdly large silverware, a Rube Goldberg breakfast, bicycle fetishism, the lonely meanderings of a middle-aged man-child, the juvenile exchange with Francis, bike gymnastics as impressive as any bicycle scene not involving Muppets, some teens stoic reactions after a Pee-Wee bike crash, the reference to "things you wouldn't understand" when talking to Dottie, the Hitchcockian music and nods to Vertigo when Pee Wee discovers that his bike has been stolen, Elfman's genius in helping this thing swim, Amazing Larry's plethora of trickery, Madame Ruby and her shoddy prognostications, Large Marge and animated Large Marge following an animal gag, a Harryhausen allusion, a tour through the Alamo sans basement, a hobo played by Burton-regular Carmen Filpi, the kid taking a picture of Pee-Wee after he asks about the basement and is answered with laughter, Satan's Helpers and Pee-Wee's answer that "Nobody hipped me to that, dude," a dream sequence involving clowns, elves, manic energy.

A quick question--Is Pee-Wee struggling with homosexuality? Is his "big adventure" the discovery of the unexpected pleasures derived from experience with female genitalia? Is Diane Salinger and Diane Salinger's voice enough to get an immature homosexual in a tight-fitting suit a little curious? Is "the basement of the Alamo" a euphemism? Is a dinosaur's mouth a yonic symbol? Am I overthinking things or not thinking about them enough?

My 8th graders seemed to like this movie for the most part. They laughed a lot. One of them, when we were still on the menu screen, asked, "Isn't that the guy who self-abused himself in a movie theater?"

I've never seen Big Top Pee-Wee which is strange because I like Pee-Wee and circuses. I'm sure there's a little person in it. I do have the soundtrack on cassette, but I'm not sure why.

Argo

2012 Best Picture

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: One of those countries with all the oil finds a bunch of white people and decides to attempt the world record for the longest sleepover. Six people aren't invited, presumably because they are "dweebs," and they go whining to some friendly Canadians where they subsist on a diet of elk juice and sugar-free Pop-Tarts. The U.S. sends in a guy who they think might be Mexican because he has a dark beard to play a practical joke on them all.

This is very well done drama, tense and meticulously detailed. The period details and snippets from news footage or speeches helped nail the realism, at times almost to the point where I thought it was a little too much, like they were shoving the fact that all of this might have happened just like this in my face. It's definitely one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction type films. The best part about it, I think, is that it maintains high levels of suspense even if you know the outcome and the fate of all these characters. It's edge-of-your-seat stuff as things build to a tense crescendo, a final series of close calls after a whole bunch of other close calls. I'm impressed with Affleck's direction--as well as his depiction of a Mexican man--because he pulls this all off without any trickery. This is all fairly straightforward, pretty much exactly what a movie version of this story would have looked like in the 1970s if that were possible. I also liked that there was a little humor mixed in with the drama, a lot of it from the characters played by Alan Arkin and John Goodman.   Argo's got good performances, an authentic look and feel (I have no idea about the historical accuracy or inaccuracy of what's going on), a consistent tone, and a ton of thrills. I'd watch it again and probably enjoy it just as much. But is it really a Best Picture?

I heard, by the way, that they're working on a sequel featuring Boba Fett. That is definitely something to look forward to.

Slap Shot

1977 hockey comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The aging player/manager of a hockey team learns that it will be the team's last season because the mill that provides most of the jobs for the town is closing down. He starts spreading the news that a town in Florida is planning on purchasing the team while encouraging some goons to play a more violent form of the sport in order to drum up interest in the Chiefs.

I'm not sure how I watched this as a kid, but it was a movie I liked. Paul Newman makes cussing seem so cool, probably influencing my potty mouth. Unfortunately, his clothing repertoire in this also influenced my wardrobe which probably explains a lot about my formative years. I don't find this movie terribly funny. In fact, it's a little loud, kind of a busy movie. I also don't have any interest in hockey, but I do really enjoy the hockey scenes in this. I love how the camera moves low, right over the ice. The use of real-life hockey players with a Paul Newman who apparently could move smoothly on the ice himself, along with the colorful dialogue ("Frog pussy"), give this an authentic feel. The Hanson brothers, played by a Hanson and a pair of Carlsons, are fun character even when they're just sitting around doing nothing. You almost want to laugh at their antics before they happen because they're the type of characters who you just have to see to be reminded of antics you've previously seen. A goofy smile on a teammate's face when the Hansons first play as he says "These guys are a fucking disgrace" sums it all up beautifully. This has an interesting clash of realistic violence and hockey mayhem--little bits of blood on Newman's uniform after a first fight, for example--mixed with some goofy comedy slapstick hijinks that for whatever reason just works. Unlike a lot of sports comedies, I think this one grows with time. Newman--who should have won an Academy Award for this performance based solely on the way he says "retarded" in the movie--said that this was one of his favorite roles and that he had more fun filming this than any other movie. I think it shows. I'll always have a sweet spot for this movie.

Oprah Movie Club Pick for March: Se7en

1995 horror crime movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A soon-to-be-retired detective breaks in a cocky young detective as a high-concept but psychotic serial killer punishes people for their deadly sins.

This thing's fucking depraved and so devoid of anything resembling hope that I imagine only real sicko could actually be a fan of it. Plus, it's called Se7en with that number in the title, another thing that only those with twisted or damaged souls could appreciate. My feelings are mixed. It's a downer, diving so brazenly into the depths of despair that I'm actually surprised it's so popular. At the same time, it's executed well, artful in its disturbing nature and shameless wallowing in this muddy wretchedness. This seems like the type of movie made in those early days of the Internet for people who would surf the net for celebrity autopsy photos or giggle through Faces of Death IX, but like all artistic triumphs, this is something that sticks in your head and gut for a long time after you've finished the thing and returned it to Carl's Videos. You'll remember that bloated fat man (Bob Mack in his only film role) with his eyes open and a puke bucket under the table that you can almost smell. You'll remember zombie man coughing himself alive, and you'll remember how you jumped a little even though you'd already seen this movie and knew that he was about to cough himself alive. You'll remember Freeman pondering whether he should open that box or not and then his expression when he looks at the contents. And you'll remember Spacey's eyes and wonder how an actor can make his eyes that expressionless.

Part of what makes this memorable is where Fincher places this movie. The first 3/4 of this movie is set in this anonymously decaying city, a bleak place with perpetual rain. It's all creaky fences and half-assed graffiti. When the characters are in their apartments, the outside sounds--cars, crying babies, unintelligible yawping, sirens--penetrate the walls. I watched this movie with headphones, and these outside sounds seemed to surround me and were almost overwhelming, really painting this world of complete chaos. The environments these characters find themselves in are bleak, almost in suffocating ways. There are barely windows in this movie that aren't cracked or broken, dust hangs in the air, walls are peeling and splintered. It is not a happy world at all, visually very far from the "fine  place" described by Hemingway at the quote at the end of the movie. And that rain! Are there any scenes that take place in the city where it's not raining?

The performances are great from top to bottom. Brad Pitt plays a hotshot so well that you'd almost think he was some kind of hotshot in real life. He probably touches his hair too much in this movie, and there are a few times when he probably could have used a second take, but he creates this character, as one-dimensional as the character really is, very well. The climactic "What's in the box?" scene may go down as his most powerful moment in his film career. Freeman is great playing the same character he always plays, a guy who can never ever lose his proverbial shit. I don't think I've ever seen a young and stupid and loud Morgan Freeman in a movie. Does such a movie exist? His opening line--"Look at all that passion on the wall."--almost tells you everything you need to know about his character. Not just the words--the delivery. He's tired and has stopped pretending. The early scenes in the movie have Freeman's character asking questions that people either don't want to hear or don't understand. And he sleeps to a clicking metronome. (Side note: I think movies are automatically better with metronomes. Surely I can't be the only person who finds metronomes sexy.) The clash between Pitt's idealism and Freeman's apathy works largely because of the acting. Paltrow is fine, mostly in the background. She's got a pretty head which is all that really matters in this movie. A lot of her scenes, probably because the mystery and the cat-and-mouse games in the rest of the movie are more interesting, seem like a waste of my time. I also liked R. Lee Ermey (Sarge in the Toy Stories) as the police captain or sergeant or whatever he is. His answering of a telephone with a grumpy "This isn't even my desk!" is one of the very few moments of comedy in this thing. The other would be Spacey's line about a dead dog which is a terrific bit of black comedy although knowing what you know about what's about to happen in that scene, it would almost seem appropriate if Spacey's character looked at the camera and apologized for the line. Spacey is Malkovichian in the role, and though he's only in a small chunk of the movie, he takes advantage of every word he gets to create his character. Oh, and shane-movies favorite Mark Boone Junior is in this playing "Greasy FBI Man." He's perfect at playing a character who doesn't seem to want to be in the movie he's in. And I don't know who plays the guy scraping Somerset's name off the door, but that guy shines in a 4 1/2 second role. He just nails that scene, nearly steals the whole movie as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, I can't find his name.

Quick question: (And I'm sorry for spoilers, but this is the Oprah Movie Club, and you were already supposed to have watched this.) What do you think of the whole library card thing? Is it my imagination or is that a little lame? Chaucer, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare. It's not like these aren't difficult texts to acquire. The killer had books in his apartment. If he's going to go to the trouble of having his freakin' fingerprints removed, it doesn't seem like he would be so careless with a library card.

From the squelchy NIN remix over ominous credits featuring meticulous crazy person activity to the shocking conclusion, this is a movie that your stomach will never forget. It's not pleasant, but neither is the world sometimes.

This is currently the 22nd top-rated movie on imdb.com. I know there's absolutely nothing scientific about those ratings, but for a movie this pessimistic or bleak, that seems so high.

The Prestige

2006 magician movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Two magicians in 19th Century England stretch a professional rivalry to ridiculous proportions.

Another little Nolan puzzle movie. I usually complain about them to people, but there's actually not a Christopher Nolan movie that I don't like and he's got a consistency that most modern filmmakers would love to have. So I probably don't know what I'm talking about. I missed this one when Nolan sneaked it between a couple Batmans, but I really liked it. It's a spiraling sort of movie, one that twists around and around and on top of itself, and I was intrigued by the whole thing. The rivalry between Bale and Jackman's characters was palpable, and the performances of those two were just great. Jackman plays dual roles, brilliantly. Michael Caine mumbles and points a lot. He really emphasizes every other word with a point in this movie. David Bowie makes an appearance, and so does Scarlett Johansson which makes for three superheros. And one King Kong since Andy Serkis also has a small role, this time as an actual human being. I think it was actually him anyway. Maybe they hooked him up to a computer and had him pretend to be a human being and then put a CGI Serkis in the movie. This is a movie about rivalry and obsession, and the allusions to Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, although I don't have enough background knowledge to really know what's going on or how accurate it all is, it added an interesting flavor to the whole thing and didn't make it quite as shocking when the whole thing transformed into a science fiction movie midway through. I also liked the look of the movie. 19th Century London is gorgeous, all browns and grays and faded blacks. But as good as the effects, the visuals, and the performances are, the real star of the show is the writing and structure. Like Memento, this is one that I immediately wanted to see again just to put some of the pieces together a little better. You could accuse it of being gimmicky and maybe even accuse Nolan of pulling a ridiculous ending out of his ass, but the more implausible parts of this serve to compliment the movie's themes, and it all raises some fun and complex philosophical questions, almost like little koans. It's complex material that is handled in a way that gives it just the right amount of coherence and the right amount of frustration as you watch it and keeps you guessing a little bit even after the credits have rolled. And it's all enormously entertaining although arguably a little too long.

I know one of my readers really hated this.

Killer Joe

2011 drama

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: A kid with financial troubles hires the titular creep to get rid of his mother in order to share some insurance money.

After seeing his work in this and Bernie, I think I'm ready to take Matthew McConaughey more seriously. In a way, I don't want to because I have to look up his name every time I have to spell it and then, after I've spelled it, look it up a second and a third time to make sure that I've spelled it correctly. And I can't type his name without thinking of oppressive pectorals. But I'm impressed with what he does here, taking this strange character and nailing it with just the perfect amount of quiet. This a natural fit for McConaughey and his nipples, and it's such a dark character that it makes you wonder how he ever fit in the skin of those characters in all those romantic comedies. Of course, he's not the only dark character here. They're all sinners in one way or another. They're such terrible human beings that I don't think I could have argued with anything that might happen to them by the time the credits began rolling. Sinners and unbelievably dumb, so dumb that I'm willing to bet it would be a turn off for a lot of viewers. More than likely, the plot could do that all by itself. The weirdness in this one really creeps up on you. Sure there's a constant thunderstorm in this Texas town, an obnoxious doggy, an early surreal sequence that suggests thoughts of incest, and all these trailer park details, but the massive creepiness really sneaks up on the viewer during an incredibly intense and tension-packed final twenty minutes or so. Jen and I watched this movie late on a week night, and we both had trouble going right to sleep after it was all over, and I think I have to credit writer Tracy Letts (I am, by the way, surprised that a woman wrote this thing), director William Friedkin, and the cast for crafting this little nightmare. In fact, I suspect that they all got together just to figure out a way to make us lose sleep, and if that was truly their ultimate goal, they were successful. However, it's not all doom and gloom with Killer Joe as there is tons of masterful black comedy. The scene that I imagine most people will always remember after seeing this is one of those that will make you not be able to think of an everyday object, in this case a chicken leg, the same way again. And the way McConaughey says one word here--"Leg"--is just perfect, such simple genius. That's right--I just used "McConaughey" and "genius" in the same sentence.

This trailer trash jolts, makes you more than a little uneasy. If that sounds like a good reason to watch a movie to you, you'll get something out of this.