The Master

2012 Paul Thomas Anderson movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A Navy veteran doesn't know what to do with himself. He's tried poisoning people, copulating with sand women, and ejaculating into the ocean. He's part of the Greatest Generation! One night, he finds himself aboard the boat of the titular cult-leader/new-age philosopher/self-help author and is pulled into The Cause.

OK, this wasn't one of the fifteen movies nominated for Best Picture? I can't compare what Joaquin Phoenix did here to what Daniel Day-Lewis did as Lincoln because I haven't seen Lincoln. I find it hard to believe that his Lincoln is better than Phoenix's Freddie Quell though. I really do. Forgive the hyperbolizing, but Phoenix's performance is the best and most powerful performance that I have seen in a very long time, one of those that, even if you completely forgot the movie, you'd not forget. The mannerisms, the posture, this emotion that you know he had to dig deep for as this sex-obsessed impotent guy. There's this balance of raw power and wounded weakness that is mesmerizing, and it's a treat watching Phoenix juggle the different dimensions of the character. It's amazing, the kind of character that just grabs you until you think your face is about to be bitten off. Philip Seymour Hoffman's no slouch either, and although it would be hard for me to go Hoffman over Waltz in Django, I do think the argument could be made. The tension these two create with their characters, their jagged rapport, the way they scream and spit all over each other. They're a pair of performances to behold, dear friends. There's a lengthy interview session that should be the most boring thing ever committed to film, but watching these two actors wrestle with it is nothing short of thrilling, a scene that made my heart pound as much as any action scene in the last decade. You'd never think that much suspense could be built up over whether or not a character is going to blink. Amy Adams is mighty fine here, too, even better than she was in that Muppet movie. Her character's an enigma. She's background until you notice, and then you realize that's she's the vertebrae of this thing and appreciate the way that character's created. For the second Anderson movie in a row, Radiohead-guy Jonny Greenwood handles the score. I like the chances he takes with that. I had trepidation going into this movie, but hot damn, how I loved it! It's the kind that will just stick with you, like movies from the 1970s only a lot better looking. This is the best 2012 movie that I have seen in what I'm starting to think was a really good year for movies.

Black Narcissus

1947 nun movie

Rating: 18/20 (Mark: 15/20)

Plot: A group of nuns have trouble dealing with the fact that they, unlike some of their counterparts, are unable to fly. They move to the highest spot they can find to start a school and hospital for the locals. They try to get used to their new home, and one of them goes daffy!

This is a classic clash between religion and heathenism, and although the nuns go to this location to change its inhabitants, they're actually the ones who change. I think it's because they're people. I like movies with nuns even when Whoopi Goldberg or Nic Cage aren't involved. The nun who goes nutzoid is quite the hottie, like a 1940's Winona Ryder. And I'm allowed to lust after a movie nun. I've checked the Bible and couldn't find anything against that. I can definitely do it with this movie since this movie is all about sex. Well, it's partially about sex. It's as much about sex as Alien is. Michael Powell, who co-directed it with Emeric Pressburger, even claimed it was the most erotic movie he ever made. So much of the plot of this movie and its conflicts are underneath the surface, and I think that's what I like so much about it. My brother claims that there was an attempt to make the setting a main character and that it "ultimately doesn't work very well." I don't think that's the case. I think the setting is only one of the influences on the nuns' states of mind and their outcomes, and if anything non-human is the main character, it's something like faith or temptation. The setting is breathtaking though with lots of fantastic and vertigo-inducing shots, some lovely 1940's painted backdrops, and loads of color. I really liked the color in the indoor scenes, too. A couple local characters add some color, too. My brother and I both enjoyed the antics of an over-acting old woman whose name I can't find, but my favorite character was a medicine man without a single line but who kind of works as a foil for the nuns. We also both liked the costumes of David Farrar who spends most of the movie either strolling around with a pipe and too-short short pants or straddling a pony. He's got perfectly imperfect hair. Great movie, a very quiet one that has a lot of loudness underneath.

Check out that poster. "Fascinating adventure" might stretch things a little bit. But look at how ugly that thing is.

Thor

2011 religious movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Odin's titular kid is too cocky and stirs up too much trouble, so he's sent from Asgard to earth where he falls in love with Natalie Portman and saves humanity from some bad guy from Asgard who is up to evil things that I never quite understand because I'm too bored to pay attention.

If I'm going to eventually watch The Avengers, apparently the greatest movie ever made, I have to do my homework and watch these other movies. I've got Hulk and Iron Man covered, so it's just this and Captain America. I'm not exactly a comic book or superhero expert, but when the most interesting character in the whole movie is "Pet Store Clerk" played by some guy named Isaac Kappy, you probably have a sucky superhero movie. Isaac Kappy's had a great start to a very promising career, by the way. No, he doesn't have his picture on imdb.com yet, but he does have three message board posts on his page and only one of them is his. He just hasn't had the right role yet because his work as "Pet Store Clerk" in this is fantastic. He's played Rowdy Prisoner, Stoner Dude, Geek, Buzter Pie (in Klown Kamp Massacre), and Hustler, but I'm willing to bet his best work is still to come. But back to Thor since this is his movie, unfortunately for him. This is the least fun I've had watching a superhero movie with the exception of Spiderman 3, but Spiderman 3 did at least have a great scene where James Franco is enjoying pie. It's all so stiff and lifeless and the scenes on Asgard taste a lot like the inside of a computer. So many grand swooping fake camera movements over shiny castles. Look at the scene where, accompanied by giant omnipresent predictable music, Thor and his peeps ride horses on a iridescent bridge after these big fake doors open. It just made me wish that I was watching a Western with real people riding real horses. Then, they go to a yellow-eyed guy who watches over the bridge. He turns out to be important, and if more people read this blog, some comic book nerd (Kent?) would tell me what his name was and make fun of me for not knowing it. I could stop all that from happening by just looking it up, but my eyes still hurt a little bit from all the Asgard glossiness. I really hated the action scenes in this. It didn't take long for me to be convinced that this whole movie was just part of a conspiracy to sell plastic hammers to children. But the action scenes confused me, especially the one where they loudly fight in the land of the ice people. There's a lot of swooshing and a lot of crumbling things, but it was mostly too dark for me to figure out exactly what was happening. Or maybe it was my television. I'm too lazy to Google "Guy with yellow eyes on the shiny gay bridge in Thor," so it's not hard to believe that I'd be too lazy to adjust the brightness on my television. Things improve slightly once Thor hits earth, and this part of the movie really could have worked as an entry in the whole stranger-in-a-strange-land genre if ("What realm is this?") it just didn't take itself so seriously. I did chortle when Thor smashed a glass in a diner. I might have enjoyed that part of the movie more, but I was confused about how a taser could take a superhero out, probably because I didn't watch this with a comic book nerd (Kent?) who would have explained it all to me. And what's with all the tilted camera angles in this? Was it the cinematographer's ingenious way of showing that Thor's world had become askew? Was it an homage to the comics? The dialogue in this is very awkward, and that might explain why the acting is almost universally bad (Pet Shop Clerks excepted), especially Natalie Portman who is quickly becoming a sort of pet peeve for me. She needs to stop before she loses all credibility. And speaking of credibility, why is Kenneth Branagh directing stuff like this? Did he run out of Shakespeare plays? Did somebody convince him that this was a Shakespeare play? Another question--isn't the whole Thor-as-a-Christ-figure thing a bit odd? Or is the whole father/son story (that's how Netflix categorized this for me, by the way) an archetype? Anyway, back to the movie. Eventually, Thor magically--and by that, I mean stupidly--gets his hammer back and fights a giant metal man in a tornado. And that's not even the big dumb climactic fight scene that all of these superhero movies seem to end with. No, that pits the sort-of good against the ambiguously evil in a special effects laden bunch of hurls and clashes that succeeded in making me wish I had gone to bed instead of watching this. And it was four in the afternoon!

This is fairly verbose, so let me simplify things for you: Watch this with a comic book nerd (Kent?), give your comic book nerd instructions to wake you up in time to see the scene in the pet store, fall asleep before the movie starts, watch Isaac Kappy's genius, and leave to buy an ice cream cone. You can thank me later.

The Catechism Cataclysm

2011 comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Father William is not a very good priest. His parishioners don't get his stories, and he spends more time watching viral videos on Youtube than with the Word. He's encouraged to take a break by an older priest, and he meets up with an old acquaintance who used to date his sister and convinces him to go on a day-long canoe trip with him. The adventure starts with Father William accidentally dropping his Bible in the toilet, and things go downhill from there.

I had to give a bonus point or two for that title, the only reason I watched this movie. It never really feels like a real movie to me, and I'm not sure there's much of a point--at least I missed it--but this made me laugh a few times. His defense of an old-lady-with-a-gun-story with an "It's in the book of Job" made me giggle, but almost immediately, I wondered if this is the type of character who can carry an entire movie. Steve Little's weird looking and has an even weirder voice, and his Father William seems more like an auxiliary character than a protagonist, somebody who should be in a film even less than that bald guy from Airplane! And who wears a helmet for a canoe trip? You get used to this guy's oddness, and since comedy involves surprises, I think that hurts a bit. I liked the friend, this cool loser played by Robert Longstreet. I'm not sure it's a chemistry between the two as much as it is a complete clash of characters, but the dynamic was good enough to carry a movie that is largely made up of scenes where they're just talking. Well, until Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn come along and wacky things up a lot. I liked Robbie's stories, especially the love story between Miquel and Maria and a lollipop. Touching stuff, even when Robbie ends the scene by snapping at William that "it's not an amazing boner story." I will say this about The Catechism Cataclysm: I think I'll remember it. And I'm curious to see what else director Todd Rohal does even though I don't generally like people named Todd. This is the sort of movie I think I could probably make. No, I don't necessarily mean that as a bad thing. I'd have a lot less music though. The ironic heavy metal music didn't bother me in this as much as the big dramatic movie music. Music in contemporary movies has really been bugging me lately. It seems like it's only there because somebody thought it was supposed to be there.

The Ruling Class

1972 black comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: After the 13th Earl of Gurney Carradines himself while wearing a tutu, Jack becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. The problem? He's a paranoid schizophrenic who is convinced that he is Jesus Christ. This does not sit well with his uncle who, along with his mistress, cooks up a plan to send Jack straight to the institution. Meanwhile, his psychologist tries to cure him using a second Christ, a plot that works in convincing Jack that he is not Jesus but something very different than Jesus. Oh, snap!

I need to get one of those galvanized pressure cookers. This movie is probably way too long, and I only laughed a little on the inside, but Peter O'Toole's performance multifaceted crazed performance, the smart little satiric pokes, and the unpredictability of it all make it a unique and worthwhile experience. This juggles genteel and manic so well, with characters acting just like they should one moment before bursting into spontaneous song and dance numbers the next. When the butler or whoever he is starts singing early-on in the story, I scratched my head and thought, "This isn't supposed to be happening, but I'm glad it is." Even the other characters didn't seem sure that it was supposed to be happening. O'Toole carries the film as Jesus and Jack and the other Jack. His entrance with a smattering of halo-ish light around his head is terrific. O'Toole's great at spitting out these absurdist rants ("I can cock my little finger with the best!") but his physicality here is also impressive, whether he's dancing around, hanging on his cross/bed, or being tortured by the Electric Messiah. Man, I loved that Electric Messiah ("Sometimes God just turns his back on his people and breaks wind and the stench clouds the globe...I am the high-voltage man!" is something I'm probably going to find opportunities to quote), and the shots of O'Toole wrestling with a gorilla wearing a top hat were beautifully absurd. Bad night for Christ there, and I think that gorilla stuff might be straight from the Bible although it's been a while since I've been to church. I think this is a movie that Bunuel would have enjoyed, and it reminds me a little of those Lindsay Anderson movies that came out around the same time. No, I didn't completely understand the film's message, but this was a fun ride right until the chilling climactic scene in the House of Lords.

This was kind of recommended by Cory.

The Favour, the Watch, and the Very Big Fish

1991 comedy movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Louis takes photographs depicting Biblical scenes, and his boss is on him because he has yet to find a suitable Jesus. Meanwhile, he does a favor (sorry, favour) for an actor pal--orgasm voice work for a pornographic movie--and meets Sybil who he is smitten by. Her story leads him to meeting a piano player who looks a whole lot like Jesus. But this is just the beginning of Louis's problems.

Jeff Goldblum as Jesus? I'm in! This one's understated, very dry, and a little black, probably just like I like 'em. Goldblum is as funny as I've seen him, both as a piano player who doesn't look like Jesus at all (the faces he makes as he plays when his character is introduced are almost as entertaining as watching Chico play) and as the guy who not only looks like Jesus but starts wondering if he actually is Jesus. "My God! I'm so hungry!" got a nice laugh from me as did the "Don't touch me. Don't poke me" scene. And Goldblum's attack of a violinist was hilarious, a scene containing the second fork stabbing I've seen in a week. Hoskins is a bit of a straight man here, but he's a good one. The story is unpredictable and possibly a little too bizarre for most people with some scenes (I'm looking at you, healing-with-a-a-golf-ball scene) and a punchline that I don't think I liked very much. But the goat humping, the statue of a monkey strangling a woman (seriously, what is that?), and the beggar's sign ("IMA BLIDN") made up for the stuff in this that didn't work. This will have to hit the right people at the right time, but I'm really glad I watched it.

Red State

2011 shoot-'em-upper

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Some dumb kids use the Internet to find a cougar willing to have sex with, but they end up abducted by a religious cult with a leader who wants to kill them because they're homosexuals.

I stopped following Kevin Smith on Twitter after watching this movie. Said to myself, "I just can't follow somebody who made this movie on Twitter." Yeah, I've seen worse movies, but this one seems to have an agenda which makes it even worse. This is a movie that thinks it's more intelligent than it is when the truth is that Kevin Smith really isn't a very good director and doesn't have much of a story to tell here anyway. You put your characters in a mildly horrifying situation (note: This isn't really a horror movie as promised on the poster up there. It's definitely more of an actioner.), go nowhere with it, and then have a scene where everybody is shooting at each other that takes up about half the movie. The biggest problem is that you don't really care about any of the characters. This is a movie that doesn't really have a good guy. It's bad vs. bad, and unless everybody gets it in the end, you're not going to be satisfied. Speaking of the ending, how ridiculous does this thing end? The cutesy little trick that Kevin Smith pulls here should cause him embarrassment. The lone good thing about this movie? The performance of the versatile Michael Parks as the preacher man. In the hands of another director, this character and performance could have been something. In Kevin Smith's hands? Not so much. Kevin Smith, you just lost yourself a Twitter follower. And I'm a guy who follows Neil Hamburger!

Santa Sangre

1989 Jodorowsky funk

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A boy is traumatized by some horrible experiences that took place during his young life with the circus involving a tattooed woman, his knife-throwing daddy, and his mother who worships a no-armed woman with the religious cult across the street. Following his release from an asylum, he tries to put his life back together again. That's made difficult when he runs into his no-armed mother who controls him and demands the use of his arms. His childhood sweetheart and a little fellow try to help him out.

It's really the type of movie that makes a plot synopsis pointless which explains the half-hearted effort I gave it up there. This is a psychosexual Freudian (aka Freddian) horror-comedy that is probably unlike anything you've ever seen or in some cases unlike anything you'll ever want to see. My plans were to make Santa Sangre my Oprah Movie Club pick before I got depressed about that whole thing and passed. I'm sure it would have been dug by all. This is Jodorowsky's third best film after Holy Mountain and El Topo, and although it's not as bizarre as those two, it's pretty bizarre compared to everything else. I still chuckle a little when I see this labeled as one of his most accessible. Jodorowsky seems to have had more of a budget to work with in this one, and he uses it to compile some artful visuals and utilize his vivid imagination. Not that he needed much money to help him out anyway. Drenched in film-school symbolism and saturated in cartoon colors and Part-Fellini (probably just the circus thing), part-Psycho, part-Bunuel, and all Jodorowsky, there are scenes throughout this that will linger in the mind for a long time. There's an elephant funeral that has to be seen to be believed, and the choreography and timing required for the scenes where the mother "uses" her son's arms is impressive. There's also a great little person, Jesus Juarez as Aladin. And you get a scene where some actors with Down Syndrome visit a prostitute. Exploitative? Yeah, probably. Original? Definitely. Oh, and there's a scene where a guy peels off his own ear. I'm sorry. I should have warned you all about spoilers before typing some of that. It's a challenge, but it's a thoroughly entertaining one. Shame about the dubbing though. It's also a shame that this guy can't get financing so that the rest of us can see his dreams. I keep reading that he's making a movie, but then I'll see where the Russian producers "just disappeared mysteriously" and then there's no movie.

By the way, I follow Alejandro Jodorowsky on Twitter. Highly recommended despite 95% of his tweets being in a language I don't speak. I think probably Canadian. He's like an advice columnist. One follower asked him, "Any advice for mental clarity?" and he answered, "On Sundays, lock yourself in the house and repeat, incessantly, one word: ass." It's sound advice.

Deliver Us from Evil

2006 documentary

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Apparently, Catholic priests have been molesting children and the church has been covering it up for years. Who knew? Director Amy Berg finds herself a pedophile willing to speak on camera about his experiences with being shifted from parish to parish following molestation accusations.

She finds him and takes him to a park to interview him. A park just crawling with sexy little children. It's difficult for me to figure out why exactly. I guess she was more concerned with getting a nice shot of Father O'Grady leering at a little boy than just letting his words speak for themselves. Getting it all directly from the pedophile's mouth is really the only novel part about Deliver Us from Evil. This is all old news, right? This is just Amy Berg jumping at the chance to shock and awe with a documentary subject, finding herself a bad bad priest and a composer who isn't afraid to pour it on pretty thick and then pretty much letting the documentary make itself. Because there's not exactly anything new here. There's nothing about this that will help anybody heal or help solve the problem. It's shooting priests in a barrel, and although finding parents willing to cry their eyes out on camera makes for some pretty good documentary footage, it's all pretty pointless in the end. And speaking of parents, you get just as upset at the parents in the stories of these molested children as you do the criminal priests and the higher-ups who help cover it all up. Father O'Grady, by the way, seems mentally ill. I'm not real sure why he agreed to appear on camera anyway, but there seems to be something wrong with the guy's mind. Other than the insatiable urge to touch children, I mean. There's just something missing, and you can see it in his eyes. Don't get me wrong--the information in this documentary is important. I just really didn't like the film's style, organization, or length. It felt like a television expose that was twice the length, one that wasn't exactly organized in a way that enhanced the experience. It's like a color-by-numbers documentary that didn't quite know when to quit. I guess I can be happy after watching this that my mother quit being a Catholic before I was born and that I'm smart enough not to put my children in situations that are dangerous to them. Other than that, I'm not sure why I needed to watch this.

The Pumaman

1980 Italian movie about English-speaking Aztec superheroes

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Kobras, an evil gentleman, has gotten his hands on a magical Aztec mask which he intends to use to control the world. An Aztec arrives to find somebody, specifically Pumaman, to stop Kobras. Well, it's either an Aztec or Jack Nicholson's buddy in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. The Aztec locates Pumaman, paleontologist Tony Farms, and gives him a magic belt which gives him yellow pants, a black shirt with a picture of a mask on the front of it, and a red cape. Suddenly, he's got destructive claws, night vision, and the ability to fly, and he's all ready to put a stop to the evil Kobras's evil plan.

Well, Pumaman sort of flies. It's not exactly the best special effect I've ever seen. It's essentially the actor bent slightly at the waist and making a flailing motion with his hands in front of a blue screen. It's not good at all, but apparently the producers of The Pumaman thought the flying effects were their ticket to box office success because it seems that over half of this movie is scenes of the low-grade, no-budget superhero stumbling through the air. The costume's ludicrous. I'm pretty sure I could grab articles of clothing from my closet and drawers to put together a better costume than Pumaman's. Add dopey fist fights, a space ship thing that looks like a Pokemon ball, Stonehenge, fake heads, disco funk, and black leather outfits. Despite the low quality of the movie, there's still a lot of wisdom squeezed into the dialogue of The Pumaman, most provided by the Aztec. Before watching this, I didn't know that dinosaurs became extinct because they forgot how to love each other. Now I do. And I'll definitely take the "It's not how one sleeps but how one wakes that is important" proverb to heart. I don't know anything about Aztec religious beliefs, but I'm going to have to find a church to see if I can get my hands on one of those belts. Or an Aztec buddy! Pumaman!