Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

2012 romantic disaster comedy

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 14/20)

Plot: They've tried everything, but a meteor is going to collide with earth and kill everybody. A lonely divorced insurance salesman befriends a neighbor and promises to get her to her parents in England. They travel to visit his high school sweetheart. Along the way, they find a dog.

Jen claimed repeatedly that she had already seen this movie. In a way, it does feel really familiar although I can't really think of a movie that is like it. It's an interesting premise that I'm sure has been done before, maybe even better, but I wish writer/director Lorene Scafaria would have done a little more with it. This drifts along, meanders, and takes a few turns off roads that it didn't need to be on in the first place. I liked Steve Carell fine regardless of how mopey he was, and I also think Keira Knightley is as cute as a button. You know, because objectifying women is something I like to do here at shane-movies. What I'm not sure is if I liked the chemistry between Carell and Knightley here. There's cuteness here, a touching little love story, and a few good songs, but this isn't really anything I'd care to see a second time. I did like the ending quite a bit.

Battletruck (aka Warlords of the Twenty-First Century)

1982 Mad Max rip-off

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Some dudes got the titular vehicle and wants to use it to push everybody else around. A guy with a motorcycle and John Ratzenberger are not about to let that happen!

If this was the movie advertised on the colorful sci-fi-rific poster up there, it would really be something. Unfortunately, this one is just boring, both as a legitimate post-apocalyptic road warrior movie or as a B-movie/unintentional comedy. With the latter, you know it's obviously produced very cheaply and quite possibly sans script, but it's not quite inept enough to be worth the time of a bad movie aficionado. As the former? The colorful moments are few and far between, and the characters are some of the least engaging you're likely to meet. This is definitely a case where the bland title Battletruck fits a lot better than the bitchin' mayhem that could have been Warlords or the Twenty-First Century. The hero's humdrum, so boring that it's impossible to believe he can ever do anything heroic. The leading lady is homely, and the bad guy is more dull than he is evil. The battletruck itself is a monstrosity that is nearly as intimidating as Spielberg's 18-wheel antagonist in Duel. I did like this little creation of John Ratzenberger's, something that looks like it could have come straight from The Cars That Ate Paris:

That little slug bug turned out to be nearly invincible! Roger Corman, of course, produced this movie. It's not one I would recommend. My favorite thing about it is that everytime a character dies, they sound like they're trying to create the new Wilhelm Scream or something.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

2010 masterpiece

Rating: 1/20

Plot: A young couple fall in love. Eagles inexplicably begin attacking; sometimes they explode. The couple fights for survival and learns about the importance of taking care of the environment.

James Nguyen directed this. The story goes that it took him four years to make this beast of a film, and he was understandably disappointed when Sundance rejected it. To promote the film, he decorated his van (probably the same one in this movie) with fake blood and birds and drove around blaring screaming and screeching sounds out of speakers. He got the idea for Birdemic: Shock and Terror from watching The Birds and An Inconvenient Truth.

This'll be the worst movie I see this year. It's The Room quality but with more action. You know, because of all the exploding birds. They don't show up right away though. Like Hitchcock, Nguyen gradually builds up the suspense. The first forty-five minutes involves the main characters hooking up, but about half of that time is used for scenes of the guy character driving around. There's even a lengthy scene where he leaves his house, gets gas, and then goes back home. That's it. Nothing else happens. He just gets gas. Another great scene that seemed utterly pointless involves a business meeting-turned-celebration where the actors stand around clapping for a very long time. I'm talking about an unnaturally long time.

Unlike Hitchcock, this movie's got this wild is-this-thing-on camera work and the worst sound problems you will ever experience while watching a movie. I don't think I'm wrong about that either. And the birds look like cartoons and don't mesh with the real stuff at all. It's the worst CGI that I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure your average ornithologist, when given very tiny magic markers, could have done a better job just drawing directly on the film. And, as I mentioned before, they sometimes explode when they collide with things. The juxtaposition between the romantic plot of the first half of this movie and the bird apocalypse of the second half is so jarring. There are a couple of scenes that might foreshadow a bird apocalypse, but for the most part, it's just wham-bam-thank-you-m'am! Bird attack! Add the most irritating sound effects ever, and you've got something pretty special. Just check it out for yourself:

Yeah, those are coat hangers that they're defending themselves with. But don't worry--the guy in the brown shirt's got a machine gun in his van, and believe me, he knows how to use it!

The lead actors are awful. Alan Bagh might as well have been made of plywood. His co-star, Whitney Moore, is cute as can be, and I nearly gave the movie an extra point just for her posterior. But the "supporting casts" (that's what it says in the credits) is what really makes this a magical experience. Moore's character's mother seems bad at first, but then there's an extended shot where she's giving a thumbs-up sign that made me change my mind. There are two child actors playing Susan and Tony, and they are truly awful, even compared to other bad child actors. But in this movie, they just fit right in. There's a hippie character whose lines are stolen from John Lennon songs (and An Inconvenient Truth) and he might get the line of the movie when he says, "Whoa! I hear a mountain lion!" Guy-in-Easy-E-Shirt and Lady-on-Bus-with-Colorful-Shirt are only on the screen for a few minutes, but they really shine. So good. And just when I think periphery character acting can't get even worse, our characters enter a gas station and meet the gas station employee. Oh, boy. There's also a great musical number called "Just Hanging Out" sung by somebody named Damien Carter.

There's another picture of a bird attack. I know I didn't set it up or anything, but neither did this movie. And I wanted to both shock and terrify you. I apologize if you wet yourself. Here's what happens to you after you get attacked by these birds, by the way:

The thing that makes this one even more special is that Nguyen's got an environmental message that he wants to hammer into our heads. It's clumsy hammering though, like he's using a giant inflatable hammer and trying to drive in a thumb tack. There are news snippets (fake ones) about polar bears dying, scenes where the main character is trying to have solar panels added to his house, conversations with an environmentalist/bird professor ("You certainly know a lot about birds." "I should. I'm an ornithologist."), and my personal favorite touch--a scene of serenity near the end of the movie where the characters eat seaweed on a beach, serenity that is interrupted by the little girl saying she wants a Happy Meal which apparently is the cue for the cartoon eagles to start attacking again. Nguyen must not like McDonalds.

I wonder how Nguyen feels about Zubaz, the best pants money can buy?

This movie is highly recommended to all lovers of bad movies. It really has to be seen to be believed.

Fish Story

2009 movie without a single fish

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Oh, snap! A comet heading straight for earth threatens the existence of all life on our feeble little planet. Thankfully, a Japanese punk band recorded the titular rock song back in the 1970s. Wait. What?

A second viewing might make large chunks of this seem superfluous, but it was so much fun watching everything come together that I don't mind. I was sold from the beginning with an old guy in a motorized wheelchair pushing over some bikes with his cane before a shot showing the ominous fireball. There's an obligatory Bruce Willis allusion, paranormal record collectors, end time prophets uttering things like "Even if today is the last day of the world, I will still plant my apple trees," fruit tort faux pas, apple pie kung-fu, and a funny nod to The Karate Kid. The real one--not the one with Will Smith's daughter. This is a sharp little movie puzzle, and I'd like to check it out again to see what pieces I may have missed. That song ain't half bad either!

The Bed Sitting Room

1969 post-apocalyptic black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: It's three or four years after the misunderstanding and unfortunate incident, namely the accidental start of a nuclear war that lasted two minutes and twenty-eight seconds including the signing of the peace treaty. Characters wander through a decimated and desolate England filled with broken dishes and mounds of shoes and dusty abandoned traffic jams. You've got a couple parents trying to take care of their daughter, a young woman who is seventeen months pregnant. You've got her beau, a guy in a white suit. You've got a guy who is convinced that he is turning into the titular bed sitting room. They all search for hope and peace in post-apocalyptic England while the new queen-by-default, Mrs. Ethel Shroake, sits atop her horse in front of an arch constructed of washing machines.

This absurdist Richard Lester film based on a play by Spike Milligan is a surreal, post-apocalyptic trip, like a more consistent and headier Monty Python. No, it's not a laugh-a-minute comedy. It's wry and dry and dreamily English, a Puddin' Pop for the subconscious. I was hooked during the opening credits when the actors are listed according to height instead of the typical order of appearance or billing. Dudley Moore was the second shortest on the list, by the way. I have a high tolerance for the absurd in movies and, ironically perhaps, a low tolerance for the absurd in everyday life. I realize that some people probably wouldn't find a movie where so many characters randomly and maybe senselessly turn into bed sitting rooms, parrots, and wardrobes very funny at all. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing though. Along with Dudley Moore, you get his partner-in-funny Peter Cook as his co-police-inspector riding in a funky hot-air balloon and Marty Feldman (you'd recognize him) as a nurse. I was most impressed with the landscapes assembled for post-apocalyptic England. Nearly vacant, a vast expanse of abandoned junk, those aforementioned shoe hills and broken china, and escalators leading to nowhere, I really bought the world and it's handful of inhabitants. It's all darkly cheeky and drearily comedic. And there may be some Swiftian satire packed in with all the garbage and ash, but I was missing too much context to pick up on it. I was just in it for the Puddin' Pop anyway. Next time I see this, it'll be back-to-back with Dr. Strangelove, by the way.

Look at that poster! No wonder nobody saw this movie in 1969!

The Book of Eli

2010 post-apocalyptic Bible lesson

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Eli's got a special book and a gun and a sword thing. He's been traveling a post-apocalyptic wasteland for a long time, goin' out west where the wind blows tall and Tony Franciosa used to date Tom Waits' mother. In fact, he's been heading west for thirty years, fighting off people who are trying to either steal his book or eat him or a little of both. A man named Carnegie, not played by David Carradine, witnesses Eli beating down some suckas and tries to get him to join his posse. He even sends the daughter of the blind girl he's currently banging to seduce him and convince him to stay. Eli ain't having none of that and stays focused on his mission to get his special book into the proper hands.

Denzel's never been cooler, and Gary Oldman's never been slimier. I like post-apocalypse movies anyway, this one a modernized take on the Mad Maxes if you replace gasoline with ideas. This one delivers some nifty, if not too reminiscent of other computer-aided action sequences from contemporary ultra-stylish action flicks, punch-'em-out scenes and shoot-'em-ups. One at a farmhouse, a house that like everything else in the movie is surrounded by enough shades of gray to make this almost a black and white movie, features a long shot where the camera drifts back and forth between the opponents. It's very stylish, very cool, and almost poetic. This also delivers visually. Things are digitally altered enough to make this more Sin City than the aforementioned Mad Max, but it's a look that gives the movie a uniqueness and creates some memorable set pieces. It's the kind of thing where you know the characters are probably spending a lot of time in front of a screen, but you don't really care because it all looks so cool. The story's so simple that there might as well not even be one, but it almost works like a tricky little fable about knowledge and the powers and evils that it can bring. And Tom Waits has a role, a character he nails like he always does, making you wish that he was in there a little bit more. Cool little flick, likely destined for the cult classic shelf more than anything. I do wonder how Christians could misinterpret this one though. After a single viewing, I'm not sure I'm confident in my own interpretation.

Tom Waits note: I read on a mailing list about Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling telling Howard Stern that he was taking acting classes with Tom Waits. I'm not sure if that means Waits was teaching a class or a fellow student of Martling. If it was just The Jokeman's idea of a joke.

Gas-s-s-s or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It

1971 hippie fest

Rating: 11/20 (Mark: 13/20; Amy: 12/20)

Plot: A bunch of (probably smelly) people fight for survival after a poisonous gas kills everybody over the age of 25.

An anarchic mess of a movie with a psychedelic clash of ideas, like acid-baked concert poster mash-ups, and a sloppy soundtrack, Gas-s-s-s is one of those movies that I really wanted to like but couldn't. It's packed with ideas and all kinds of things to look at. But like a lot of movies like this (I type that knowing that there really aren't a lot of movies like this), it actually suffers from having way too many ideas and things to look at. The humor's goofily dated, and there's just not anything for the typical viewer (and I consider myself 100% typical) to grasp on to. It was like I'd been put on a roller coaster that was falling apart and told that I couldn't hold on to the rail thing or I'd have to start the ride over again. The guy next to me liked the ride a little more than I did, but at least I didn't drink and vomit up an extra-large cherry Slushie and something called a "jumbo dog" like the guy behind me. This is a product of the rebellious early-70s, probably more interesting as a counter-culture relic than as a cult classic. It's probably a must for Roger Corman or Bud Cort fans though. Speaking of the latter--as I continue in my quest to see every Roger Corman movie (bet you didn't even know that was even a quest!), I continue to be amazed by the guy's versatility. And even if his movies aren't always good, they are almost always interesting and worth watching. Gas-s-s-s is, too, but its potential is unfortunately wasted by a half-assed pseudo-absurdist script and no-budget aesthetics. It's also a movie I'll never discuss with anybody because a) nobody has seen it and b) I don't want to try pronouncing the title. Gas-s-s-s. I'm afraid I'd accidentally put an extra couple s's in there.

Eraserhead

1977 family drama

Rating: 20/20 (Dylan: 2/20)

Plot: Surviving in the murkiness of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, Henry spends his days watching radiators and the plump-cheeked women within them and hanging out with his girlfriend Mary. After a visit to Mary's home, he finds out that he's apparently impregnated his girlfriend. They marry, and a mutant worm baby is born. Mary, possibly suffering from post-partum depression, eventually leaves, and Henry begins life as a single father. An obvious influence on Knocked Up.

Dylan's thoughts: Eraserhead was a terrible movie. The amount of time between different characters' dialogue seemed to increase later in the movie. This was annoying and probably used to make the movie seem longer. The movie was supposedly set in a post-apocalyptic world. Most of the weird events, however, seemed to be dreams. It was hard to discern what did actually happen and what wasn't real. The big reason for this was that the "real" parts were just as strange as the dream parts. The plot of the film was very faint. The basics can be slightly understood, but many elements (mostly the dream parts) had little to do with this plot. There were also many parts that seemed repetitive. These were usually in the night scenes and seemed to be a time filler just like the dialogue. The intended humor in the movie was not actually funny. It was a bit random but did not provoke a response. I found it more weird than funny. The acting was also really terrible. This is one of the worst movies my dad has ever forced me to watch.

My thoughts: This, like Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and the book Trout Fishing in America, is one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th Century. And it doesn't even have the word "trout" in the title! This is obviously the type of movie you have to watch with your groin. Your subconscious will get it. That'll explain the internal vibration.

Jubilee

1978 punk rock unpleasantry

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Thanks to a mystic mime with a shimmering crotch, Queen Elizabeth I, an advisor, and a midget are able to travel to 20th Century England. They find that it's a pretty trashy place. Living in that modern England are several filthy punk rockers. Like most punk rockers, they're funny looking. Scantilly-clad Crabs, spiky-haired Mad, the shirtless Amyl Nitrate, Chaos, Angel, Sphynx, and Viv, bored out of their minds, talk a whole lot and then run out and do what punk rockers do best--act punky. They vandalize, murder, pillage, and expose themselves. This likely upsets the midget. Then they play Monopoly. But, since they're punk rockers, they don't follow the rules! Hell yeah!

Made with his non-actor punk rocker friends on a budget of apparently sixty-five dollars and seventy-three cents, Derek Jarman's Jubilee looks exactly like you'd expect it to look. It looks like trash. Now I understand that Mr. Jarman was probably intentionally making a trashy film and that's generally something that I can appreciate, but this was not entertaining or insightful at all. I believe the non-relatable characters rambling long and philosophical, the shocking images of late-70's counterculture, Hitler allusions, and the bad hair were supposed to make me feel something, but that's the biggest problem with this movie--I didn't feel anything at all. Jubilee is a poorly written and even more poorly acted, and with the possible exceptions of pretty boy Adam Ant and oft-nude Crabs (my brother's favorite part of the movie, it seems), there's very little here worth seeing. This is gross, languid, and stupid when it needed to be full of energy and dangerous. It's not shockingly memorable enough to be as "good" as a John Waters' movie, it's not satirical or smart enough to be A Clockwork Orange, and it's not original enough to be truly avant-garde. It's nothing more than an embarrassing pop culture artifact that nearly made me wish I was watching a movie about deviant disco dancers instead.

Sort of recommended by my brother.

Lessons of Darkness

1992 science-fiction documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Herzog films burning oil fields in Kuwait and the workers trying their best to put the fires out.

Entirely engrossing piece here. Herzog narrates (at first, I thought, unnecessarily) and places the burning oil fields in a different context, almost like a disturbingly cautionary sci-fi movie, capped by a disturbing final line that for whatever reason stuck with me until I went to sleep. The imagery is spectacular, almost like a mixture of 2001 and somebody's home video of their vacation to hell. Swirling operatic music accompanies the startling nightmarish images of apocalypse, and it's all very very effective.

The Happening

2008 movie

Rating: 2/20 (or 20/20. . .I just don't know.)

Plot: It all starts happening in Central Park. A contagion in the air makes people freeze, begin acting silly, and take their own lives. Mark Walhberg's a high school science teacher in Philadelphia who, when he hears the news, flees via train with his wife, a colleague, and the colleague's daughter. They look for a safe place to be but find that the toxin is spreading rapidly. And perplexedly.

This movie has to be a joke. That, or M. Night is just experimenting and trying to find out just how bad his own movies can get. This guy's to the point in his career where he should no longer be allowed to make movies. Let's examine that career:

The Sixth Sense: Enjoyable, but I'm guessing it's really overrated garbage. I've yet to see it twice because I just assume it'll not be good.

Unbreakable: Not good.

Signs: Even more not good.

The Village: Embarrassingly awful.

Lady in the Water: Haven't gotten the privilege to see this one yet, but I'm guessing it's slightly worse than "embarrassingly awful" and slightly better than "should end a director's career."

This one: Really feels like one of those parody movies, like the Scary Movie people decided to spoof Shyamalan. I'm not sure I've seen worse acting in a movie. Imagine if you were talking to a buddy about bad acting and your friend said something dramatic like "Look out, Grandma! It's the chicken-suit killer!" and you said, "No, that's too bad. No acting in a movie would ever be that bad." Well, this acting is that bad. There's not one character in this movie who communicates or acts in realistic, natural ways. And when you combine that bad acting with a laughable script and a ludicrous plot, you've got the perfect storm. There's also a message behind the suckage, and that message is completely heavy-handed.

Disclaimer: I did laugh more while watching this than I've laughed during a movie in a long time. If it turns out that Shyamalan intended this as a comedy, the man's an absolute genius and I will reevaluate and make a rating adjustment. Thinking back at some (unintentionally?) hilarious scenes--a scene where Wahlberg's character starts singing in an inexplicable effort to be admitted into a house, an old woman accusing the main characters of stealing, every single line the army guy says, a scene at a zoo, Leguizamo's character giving a minor character a math riddle to solve, when Wahlberg has a conversation with a plant, the guy arguing the virtues of hot dogs--it almost seems impossible that this isn't a comedy. Oh, man. I actually can't wait to see this movie again! Funnier than that remake of The Wicker Man!

Ok, I just watched the deleted scenes and laughed hard enough to produce tears. There's a scene involving a kid playing a violin that has to be seen to be believed. Maybe the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life! There's no way this movie isn't supposed to be funny!

South Park: Bigger, Louder, Uncut

1999 animated comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A raunchy movie's foul language corrupts the youth of America. Mothers fight back by putting a series of events in motion that lead to America declaring war on Canada. Meanwhile, Satan and Saddam Hussein await the final sign of the apocalypse so that they can rule the world together. Oh, snap! The South Park children (minus the one that always dies) have to act fast to save the world from Satan. And censorship!

A lot of this is timeless satire although this movie won't ultimately have the staying power of a Duck Soup or Weekend at Bernie's II. I prefer Parker and Stone's Team America, a movie I've yet to find another fan of. There are lots of clever moments and tons of really stupid ones in this, but nobody can deny that the songs are genius. I won't be able to get "Uncle F*cker" out of my head for weeks.

I own this movie. What I really wanted to watch wouldn't work on the laptop. Not that I'm making excuses.

The Omega Man

1971 sci-fi adventure movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: See the superior The Last Man on Earth and the completely awful I Am Legend. Only this one has more black people.

This is comparable to the Vincent Price movie right up until the monster things start talking. When Charlton Heston is driving around, playing chess with a bust, and screaming, "There is no phone ringing, damn it!" it's all fairly entertaining. There's just too much human interaction in this. The acting is terrible. The zombies are stupid looking. The music is so bad that it somehow manages to look stupid, too. A product of the early 70's as much as the Will Smith version is going to be firmly stuck in this decade, this barely entertains and grows more and more tedious as it goes on. At least the chess in it looks real enough.

I Am Legend

2007 remake

Rating: 5/20

Plot: See The Last Man on Earth but take out Vincent Price and put a tough action hero in his place.

This was awful. Will Smith, absolutely terrific in gems like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Wild Wild West, is absolutely terrible in this one. The emotions are transparent and forced, and the only thing I nearly believe about his character is that he is kind of a tough guy. The best thing about this movie would be the static shots of an abandoned New York City. Any time there is any action, however, it looks completely fake. The CGI effects are embarrassing. They look unfinished, and I'm surprised a movie that looks like this was allowed in theaters. The zombie vampire things in this really make you appreciate the geniuses behind Jar Jar Binks. Very cartoonish, video-game stuff here. About an hour of this movie seems extraneous. It's almost like I accidentally watched a version with the cut scenes included, but that's not possible unless the theatrical version of the movie was only 40 minutes long. That might have been nice actually. The producers of this one really Hollywooded it up. It's become an action-adventure movie with a true action-adventure hero. It replaces the psychological thrills of the Vincent Price version with zombies-jumpin'-at-ya horror garbage. It tries to inject humor in ways that just fall flat. It's got big explosions! If Richard Matheson hated The Last Man on Earth (his screenplay adapted from his novel), I bet he'd really hate this piece of crap. If you're reading this, Richard Matheson, let me know!

No picture available. If there was a picture, you'd see a person really hating the movie he's watching.

Cloverfield

2008 science fiction horror movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A monster thing attacks New York City and rips off the Statue of Liberty's head. People panic. Some kids try their best to find one of their friends and survive the ordeal.

Completely stunned. It's part Alien, part Blair Witch, part Godzilla but still retains originality. It's got fervor, an emotional yank, and edge-of-the-seat thrills all thrust at ya with the use of a handheld camera and special effects that (for the most part) don't look like special effects. I was impressed with the acting. More than the dialogue at least since I thought there was actually too much of that. This movie breaks my 2008 record for sitting motionless in the chair afterwards, and for whatever reason, I almost cried. A disorientingly intense experience.

Me:

Reign of Fire

2002 apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy adventure movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Oh no! Dragons have taken over the world! Survivors in England, including an American using a faux English accent to try to fit in better, cower in fear, trying their best to replenish a food supply and keep hopes alive. Luckily for these hapless and helpless Brits, some Americans come along and do what they do best--save the day and make the world a better place for everybody. Led by a bald surfer/dragonslayer, the Americans try to recruit soldiers in order to take on the dragons and win back the world.

Pretty decent popcorn stuff with fancy, and nearly seamless, CGI-effects and fine visuals. It's a summer blockbusterish and fairly mindless piece of escapism, but it doesn't suffer from lame attempts at humor or romance subplots or anything terribly cliched. Instead, it's a pretty straightforward action-adventure science fiction thing that doesn't always make a lot of sense but is nevertheless exciting enough in a Mad Max sort of way. I don't mind the generally-maligned McConaughey here, but I dislike Christian Bale more with every movie I see him in. And was it my imagination or did this movie just have one woman in it? Lots of tough guys in this though. I should have made "tough guys" a label. This would be an interesting movie to remake but with one substitution--CGI-donkeys instead of the dragons. No, two substitutions--Billy Curtis instead of Christian Bale. Or anybody else.

This was an RD recommendation. He's an American.

Another American:

The Last Man on Earth

1964 horror film

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Some kind of plague has seemingly killed everybody but Vincent Price, a man who apparently has some kind of back problem. He lives a lonely and monotonous life during the day hanging rings of garlic and mirrors, cleaning zombies out of his driveway and taking them to the local zombie-burning pit, whining about his dead daughter and wife, and making stakes to drive through hearts. At night, the zombies attack his home and say really menacing things like "Morgan, we're going to kill you." Then he decides to get a dog.

Ok, I love Vincent Price. Movies are automatically better with Vincent Price in them. He's one of the greatest actors of all time. But even though his performance here (most of the time completely alone) could be described as flawless, he does have difficulty making everyday activities look normal. Throwing things across the room in anger? Nope, looked completely awkward. Staking zombies? Nope, looked like he's suffering from rheumatism or something. Getting in a car? Come on, Vincent! How difficult could that have been to pull off? This is a pretty good little movie, and it's hard to imagine what the I Am Legend author didn't like about it to insist that his name was not used in the screenplay credits. I can't compare it to the new one which I've not seen (or even Omega Man since I've not seen that one in a while). The zombies were comedic, for some reason armed only with flimsy two-by-fours and their menacing grunts. I'm also curious to know whether stores that sold mirrors and nothing but mirrors were pretty widespread in the 60's. This had some of those typical science fiction problems where the science part makes very little sense, but the fiction part was at least absorbing. I could have done without the early narration (it's not necessary when you've got Vincent), and the flashback really slows down stuff. It's a flashdrag. Still, definitely worth watching, and I'll watch those other two later on this year to see how they compare. I doubt Moses or the Fresh Prince can hold a candle to Vincent Price's performance though! At least they couldn't hold a candle as awkwardly!

Scared:

The Road Warrior

1981 apocalyptic western

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Mad Max, following a new haircut, has gas.

Here I am enjoying Mad Max II:

The Simpsons Movie

2007 comedy

Rating: 13/20 (Dylan: 11/20; Emma: 10/20; Abbey 20/20)

Plot: Pretty much the same as most episodes of the television show--Homer makes a big mistake and then the family has to scramble to fix things. This time, Homer doesn't give a hoot, pollutes, and causes the EPA to put a giant dome over Springfield. The rest of the Springfieldians grab their pitchforks and torches to throw down on the responsible family, but they manage to escape and head for safe Alaska. Homer later must return to save both the town and his family.

This was just like the typical episode of the show stretched into 90 minutes. Not a bad episode with lots of funny moments and probably too many current pop references. It was pretty much exactly what was expected with only the occasional annoyances--some pandering to Simpsons fans and some look-at-what-we-can-do-cause-it's-not-on-television stuff. There's no way it couldn't be self-referential and the show is satirical, so I'm not sure how I can complain about that. I could probably complain about Spiderpig, but the seven year old inside me really thought that was funny. I would have liked to see more of the minor characters. They all just sort of popped in and out to deliver their one or two lines. In fact, I'd like to see an entire movie with just Lenny and Carl. It could be just like Midnight Cowboy. But I digress. This is the type of movie where you're really digging the first 30 minutes but then you only sort of enjoy the second 30 minutes and then you keep looking at your watch for the final 30 minutes. Quite possibly the longest credits I've ever seen by the way.

Look! I'm enjoying myself!

Six-String Samurai

1998 neo-samurai spaghetti western comedy

Rating: 11/20 (Abbey, who's sick, watched a large chunk of this but refused to give it a rating. "I don't like it, and I don't want to watch it.")

Plot: Forty years after the Russians have taken over all of America with the exception of Las Vegas (that would be 1957 for those of you interested in history), a suave and calm and collected 50's throwback with busted glasses, a suit, a guitar, and a sword travels to take over the kingdom from none other than Elvis Presley. He stumbles upon an orphan (as he's being orphaned actually) who refuses to leave his side. They meet critters, fiends, cannibals, dirty astronauts, bowlers, Death and his posse, more rockabilly bands than you can shake a samurai sword at, and a large chunk of the Russian army along the way. Buddy is forced to fight and fight again as his relationship with the child grows in a way that makes everybody a little sick to their stomach.

This was Johnny Suede meets Kill Bill (both volumes!) meets a Tom and Jerry cartoon meets El Topo (kid + desert + umbrella) meets Mad Max meets Dr. Strangelove meets Fistful of Dollars meets Evil Dead II meets a strange Seventh Seal/"Devil Went down to Georgia" hybrid meets The Wizard of Oz meets Rambo meets an episode of the Power Rangers in a darkly comic rockabilly circus. So it should have totally worked! The reasons I didn't like it much (although I was entertained for 3/4 of the time; the rest of the time I was just wanting scenes to end) are the same reasons I didn't like Bubba Ho-Tep. There's just too much stupid here, along with too much of an effort to create a cult classic and a cult icon along the lines of an Ash in Evil Dead. He even had one-word one-liners very close to Bruce Campbell's "Groovy." Another midget appearance in this. If Leonard Cohen were a midget, this would make four in a row, I think. There were cool scenes and I did like the stark desert (another desert movie!) cinematography and some of the action sequences. The latter, however, did get a little monotonous. Buddy gets an angry look and jumps up in the air with his sword above his head. Buddy chops a bunch of people up. They don't bleed. Wild stuff here, but it just doesn't completely work.

Here I am, apparently ticking off Lucyfer because I'm in her spot: