Motorama

1991 road trip comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Ten-year-old Gus decides to run away from home. He does it in style though, first stealing a Mustang and fashioning some leg extenders so that he can drive the thing. He starts out on an Odyssey across the country, stopping at participating Motorama gas stations to collect cards for a game in which he'll win a buttload of money by spelling out M-O-T-O-R-A-M-A. Unfortunately, he can't find the R. He does find a lot of eccentric characters, however.

Drew Barrymore is on a lot of the poster/dvd covers for this movie, and she's in the movie for literally about ten seconds and gets no lines.

This is one of the stranger coming-of-age movies you'll ever see, not surprising since it was penned by screenwriting genius Joseph Minion who wrote both After Hours and Vampire's Kiss. It's a surreal episodic little adventure that you're not sure is a comedy until you start laughing. There's a great cast. Jordan Christopher Michael plays the kid, this really unlikable little runt who steals, curses, and litters. He reminds me a little too much of Macaulay Culkin's character in the Home Alone movies though. John Diehl plays a dopey gas station employee named Phil who's got this interesting way of trying to impress God. The beautiful Jack Nance is hilarious in his small role as a hotel manager. Only Nance can deliver the line "I forgot to tell you. . .if you catch any squirrels, give them to me" like he does. Garrett Morris and Michael J. Pollard are funny, and both Meat Loaf and Flea are in this movie. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Meat Loaf, Flea, and Eraserhead have been in another movie together. Best of all is seeing Sandy Baron--one of my favorite Seinfeld characters, Jack Klompus--who plays a really creepy guy. All kinds of odd little details--currency that is very clearly not American, a road map that is very clearly not accurate, arm wrestling, multiple occurrences of auxiliary characters thinking the protagonist is a grown man or even an elderly man, and a trip through a Purgatory called Essex which features a Klan lynching and a priest being killed. The coolest scene might be where Gus meets another character, a much older character, who has also been playing the game. This movie has a similar rhythm to After Hours and might jerk around a little too much for its own good, but fans of existential coming-of-age road movies might want to check out this little gem. 

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

1996 cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Buster: no rating)

Plot: Two boys go in search of their stolen television set and get mixed up with a pair of smugglers and the FBI.

"This sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before."

Not quite. This movie might have made me feel old if I thought about it a little more. I was never a fan of the MTV show but still managed to see this in the late-90s. And now I've seen it in 2013. It's the perfect sort of thing for a middle-aged man to watch with his mind completely shut off when he's supposed to have his mind turned on and actually accomplish things. There are a few film allusions including the opening sequence which parodies Shaft, but for the most part, this is the very opposite of clever. However, I did laugh a few times, and I liked a psychedelic dream sequence and a David Letterman voice cameo. Speaking of voices, I wonder what this had to do with the break-up of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.

I am sorry. I can't dedicate any more time to this movie.

Smokey and the Bandit

1977 truck movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen fells asleep a little before Burt Reynolds' first appearance.)

Plot: The titular outlaw drives a Pontiac Trans Am as a blocker for truck-driving pal Snowman as they attempt to illegally haul a load of Coors 1,800 miles in 28 hours in order to win a bet. On the way back, Bandit picks up a hitchhiker who has just fled from her wedding, an act which will later inspire Garry Marshall to make The Runaway Bride. The father of the groom, a tough sheriff named Buford T. Justice, chases relentlessly. Because the Bandit is played by Burt Reynolds, there's time to stop for sex.

On the surface, this is a chunk of 1970's sleazeballery, your typical counter-culture truck drivin' action/comedy flick. But this is the Shakespeare of truck drivin' films, less a movie really than a transcendent experience, a film that comes from some place you could never understand. Watching Smokey and the Bandit isn't like watching another movie. Well, at the very least, it shouldn't be like watching another movie. If you watch Smokey and the Bandit correctly, you really have to leave your body and watch yourself watching the movie, and I'm convinced that only the most virtuous viewers can make that happen. I watched this movie back in the late-70's, probably because my step-dad was a truck driver. I'd been to church, but watching Smokey and the Bandit is what really convinced me there was a God. How else could one explain Burt Reynolds' mustache? The speed of these vehicles? The human capacity for coming up with the idea that drives the plot of this movie--a bet to illegally transport Coors across state lines in time for Big Enos and Little Enos's party? Burt Reynolds is a force. There's no way his laugh, his crotch, his smile can possibly be organic. There are a limited number of possible effects that the Bandit character can have on individual audience members. Woman will at the very least want to smell Burt Reynolds, and in more extreme but also more likely cases, they will will want to have a sexual encounter with Burt Reynolds. And men? They will either shit in their pants or, in more extreme but not all that likely cases, want to have a sexual encounter with Burt Reynolds' hat. And almost everybody watching Burt Reynolds in this movie will want to get in his motor vehicle and drive it as fast as he can, just praying that somebody starts chasing him. But as amazing as Burt Reynolds is in this movie, it's really Jackie Gleason that is the heart and soul of this movie. Gleason, mostly improvising, has dialogue that John Keats wishes he would have been alive to write. No, I'll take that back. John Keats wishes he would have lived long enough to even hear lines like these:

"Give me a diablo sandwich, a Dr. Pepper, and make it quick. I'm in a God damn hurry."
"There's no way that you came from my loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm going to do is punch your mama in the mouth."
"You sumbitches couldn't close an umbrella."
"Get off of there, you Schnauzer's tit."
"My name is Smokey Bear and I'm tail-grabbin' your ass right now."
"Do what I say you pile of monkey nuts."
"Duck or you're gonna be talking out your ass."
"Nobody make Sheriff Buford T. Justice look like a possum's pecker."
"This happens every time one of these floozies starts poontanging around with those show folk fags."
"I'm going to barbecue your ass in molasses."

Combine writing like that with the cinematography, Burt Reynolds' mustache, and the grace of Sally Field and you've got yourself something a little closer to poetry than just your average movie. The incomparable Jerry Reed plays Snowman so well that you wonder how much of his life was spent talking on a CB radio. He also contributed a song or two that you won't be able to get out of your head for a week or so after you watch this movie, especially if you're like me and had to watch it six times straight. Paul Williams plays Little Enos, and he's not really a little person but I'm using my tag anyway. He wrote "An Old Fashioned Love Song" which became a hit for Three Dog Night, the first band I ever saw in concert. He also wrote "We've Only Just Begun" and "Rainy Days and Mondays" for the Carpenters and, most importantly for me, "Rainbow Connection" for The Muppet Movie.

Two bits of Shane trivia: 1) I stopped wearing jeans, for obvious reasons, after seeing this movie. 2) Sally Field was my first lover.

Stranger Than Paradise

1984 comedy

Rating: 20/20

Plot: A guy in New York has his life disrupted by a visit from his young Hungarian cousin. She stays for a week and grows on him, enough for him to drive with his pal Eddie to visit her in Cleveland with money from gambling. Later, they go to Florida.

Here's another one of those great one-and-done performances. Cecillia Stark, who plays Aunt Lotte, played this part when she was 85 or 86 and died in 1985. When I watched Stranger Than Paradise this time, probably my fourth or fifth time, she was my favorite thing about the movie. "You son of a bitch!" might be the funniest delivery of a line ever, and her way of answering the door when Willie and Eddie visit cracked me up. Hers isn't even the best performance in this movie. No, that would be the brief appearance of Rammellzee as the guy who gives Ava some money. Almost shockingly, this was his only acting job. He didn't die though. Rammellzee, who sounds like he stole his name from a fairy tale or something, probably just figured there was no way he was topping this. Nice glasses, by the way.

I forced somebody to see this once, and he didn't like it so much. He liked the characters fine but was annoyed because they didn't have anything to do. I don't know why good movie characters need a lot to do anyway, but one of the main reasons I think this movie is funny is because these characters don't have much to do. It lets them and their relationships grow in a unique way. These characters exist in a kind of purgatory, characters shaped by forces they can't understand. Willie whines about Eva "disrupting" his life which is funny because he doesn't really seem to have much of one. He watches T.V., eats T.V. dinners, plays Solitaire, stands or sometimes sits around, occasionally goes to the track. Of course, that is while Eva is in town, so who knows what kind of exciting life the guy has when she's not around. The character doesn't do anything and trudges through this kind of bleak existence because there's nothing for him to do. Jarmusch's characters live in these empty worlds, these dead lonely cities. New York never looks this completely empty in any other movie, Cleveland's bleak, and even Florida looks like the most depressing places on earth. I imagine Budapest was just as depressing. It's not the place that shapes these characters' lives. They all look the same according to Eddie. Eddie gets that who you are is not shaped solely by where you are. The forces that control us are the same in New York, Cleveland, Florida, and Budapest. Twice, Eddie talks about how beautiful a place--Cleveland, Florida--is and responds to "Have you been there?" with a "No." During the scene in a car where you can see the person operating the camera in the rearview mirror for a length of time that almost made me uncomfortable--seriously, he's got like the fifth most screen time in the movie--Eddie asks is Cleveland looks like Budapest. He knows though. You can't escape your circumstances, Eddie and Willie, and there are horse and dog races all over the place. And I love that this movie is bookended with planes.

Don't get me wrong. Watching this movie is not a bleak experience, and I think it's a little funnier every time I see it. "It's Screaming Jay Hawkins and he's a wild man so bug off" gets me every time, and a scene in a movie theater might be one of the funniest scenes without dialogue ever. It's not comedy for everybody, but for me, it's a pretty special movie. Jarmusch almost invented his own film language, his own rhythm. It never really feels like the language and rhythm of real life--more like a fairy tale that Rammellzee could feel comfortable in--but it somehow ends up more authentic than real life. It's like real life stripped of its skin, and there's something so refreshing about that. And funny!

Ironically, the one reader who would most agree with me probably didn't read this because it's got too many paragraphs.

The Puffy Chair

2005 puffy chair movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Josh makes a road trip to surprise his father on his birthday and give him the titular piece of furniture. He takes his girlfriend along though their relationship has been strained. Along the way, they pick up Josh's bearded brother.

This movie's got the puffiest MacGuffin in cinematic history! The handheld camera might have given this a cinema verite feel, but it also made this seem really really cheap and was sort of annoying. And I nearly shut this off after five minutes because I couldn't stand the voices the guy and gal were using with each other. It reminded me of the "Snooki" episode of Seinfeld. There also might be more "dudes" in this than Lebowski, and I don't mean that as a compliment at all. This one really grew on me though as it established whatever rhythm it was going to have. A lot of it was the performances from the three principles. This has a realistic come-as-you-may plot, and it would have completely fallen apart with bad acting. Mark Duplass, brother of his co-writer and director Jay Duplass (dad Larry Duplass also makes an appearance), is good, but his co-star Katie Aselton, even though her character is more whiny than likable, is terrific. And cute! I think I almost recognized her from an episode of The Office (the superior American version) and a fantasy football sitcom called The League. This lags in bits, but there are a few really funny scenes, one which caused me to reminisce about my days with the urine couch. This isn't anywhere close to comedy perfection, but I look forward to seeing more from the Duplasses.

The Emperor's New Groove

2000 movie where a David Spade character befriends a fat guy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular emperor, a young and arrogant spoiled brat, has plans to build a waterpark on a hill belonging to a gregarious peasant named Pacha. A power-hungry associate named Yzma attempts to assassinate Emperor Kuzco but winds up turning him into a talking llama instead. He has to depend on Pacha to get back to his kingdom and un-llama himself. It's a hilarious adventure!

Sure there' a midget Tom Jones in this, but other than his opening song, this isn't a musical. And thank God for that! This offering seems a little adventurous for the Disney folk. This one's got an ornery rhythm, and although there isn't anything objectionable, I imagine its general attitude might be off-putting to some parents. It's playful and as colorful as Robin Williams' squelchiest brain farts, but unlike his unhinged Genie, the modern references in this--boy scouts, exotic bird bingo--are never obvious. This is stuffed with visual gags, and the jokes in the dialogue are rapidfire, the funny coming so quickly that you really need to see this more than once to catch it all. So much contributes to this unique liveliness this cartoon's got. You've got the good voice work from the likes of sarcastic Spade ("He's doing his own theme music!") who, for at least part of the movie, narrates unreliably; John Goodman; freakin' Eartha Kitt as one of Disney's most inept villains ("Should have thought about that before you became a peasant."); Patrick Warburton as her even more inept sidekick, the rare dumbass character who doesn't get annoying by the end, a character whose every bit of dialogue is funny; even John "Piglet" Fiedler with one of his final roles, an Old Man cameo surrounded by movie after movie after movie in which he has to voice fucking Piglet. The action sequences, those scenes of adventure that must have been the reason this had a "mild peril" warning stamped on it, have both a zip and a wang. The sound effects accompanying all the mild peril were also great, giving this almost a Looney Tunes flavor--wacky and lively. The settings, a variety of gnarled locales with no regard for buzzkills like continuity, just pop, and I like the cool transitions from place to place and scene to scene. The whole movie's got a look that I liked a lot--the characters with exaggerated angles of necks and limbs, the jazzy movement, explosions of color. It's all very refreshing. Buster watched this with me and instantly wanted to watch it again. She was, however, high.

Smoke Signals

1998 Native American movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Victor and Thomas are a couple Native American teens living on a reservation. Thomas is a nerdy storyteller, and Victor's kind of a cool jock. They're not friends exactly, but when Victor's estranged father dies, Thomas, whose life was saved by him, travels with him to pick up the ashes.

This is apparently the first feature film written, produced, directed, and starring Native Americans. It works as an understated comedy with a nice theme about the sins of our fathers regardless of the Native American characters even though the storytelling tradition of the people is important to the way the story's told. Evan Adams is so good as the nerdy Thomas Builds-a-Fire; the way he tells his mostly pointless stories is like he's trying to hold on to hundreds of years of tradition. The dynamics between the two kids are interesting. They've got their problems, and it's easy to identify with the two characters as they deal with those problems in their own ways. Gary Farmer from Dead Man and Adaptation is also in this. This isn't deliriously funny or anything, but I did enjoy the antics of the weather/traffic guy for the reservation radio station KREZ, and I learned a catchy little song about John Wayne's teeth.

Deadhead Miles

1972 truck movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A possibly-crazy Cooper steals a Peterbilt, paints it yellow, and starts a transcontinental trip. He picks up the Jeffersons' butler, and they have a series of misadventures.

If you like trucker movies or 70's counterculture road movies, you need to check this one out before you forget about it and it goes away forever. A large percentage of the population ain't going to get this Malick-penned undiscovered little gem, but for those who do, it's going to hit hard. I came for the truck driving and Malick script, stayed for Alan Arkin's ridiculous performance, and fell in love with the Paul Benedict brilliance. Let's start with that script which seemed aimed straight for my funny bone. There's very little story here, just episodic free-form truck-driving tomfooleries, but there's a great feeling of nostalgia and a celebration of the open road. The story has a very made-as-you-go feel, but not in a bad way at all. Take this sequence when the characters try to go to a drag race: They can't get into the drag race because they either can't pay or don't want to pay. Paul Benedict's character says that he is going to watch the drag race from inside. The two have a little fight. Benedict buys a fake mustache. They steal a doll. Arkin rips off the dolls head and attaches it to the bottom of the gear shift in somebody else's truck. He moves the gear shift which contorts the doll's face and then says, "The world is bigger than you know." Nothing in that scene connects with anything else. Hell, the scene doesn't make sense on its own, but for whatever reason, it adds to the experience and is really funny. Here's another bit of dialogue after the characters throw full stolen bottles of soda at signs from their moving cab in a scene that might be about six bottles too long:

Arkin: Boy, I never had so much fun. Howdy mighty damn!
Benedict: Golly.
Arkin: That was fun.
Benedict: Gee.
Arkin: That's what I call fun.
Benedict: That was something all right.

Come on! That's almost Shakespearean! I also liked this exchange, following some enthusiastic singing:

Benedict: You know "Red River Valley"?
Arkin: Yeah.
Benedict: You want to sing it?
Arkin: No.

As I type that, I realize it's one of those you-had-to-have-been-there moments, but I don't care. I'm typing it anyway. I'm not sure any of the dialogue would work without Arkin and Benedict. The latter I was just thrilled to see. Arkin is completely unhinged here, so close to Depp's Hunter S. Thompson that you almost wonder if Depp drew inspiration from this before remembering that he drew his inspiration from an actual guy. Arkin's performance is one of the oddest I've seen as he hollers at blow-up dolls, claims his name is Bingo Freighthaulers, or tells stories about Jesus. A lot of the fun is this weird rapport that Arkin and Benedict have. Watch Benedict's face as Arkin is talking through a drive-in showing of Samson and Delilah when he says, "Hey, look at Jesus up there!" or claims that "Jesus don't make no deals." Or when Arkin's rambling something like "If I see him again, I'm gonna stick his head with a fork mumble mumble mumble" followed by a pained scream, a moment when Arkin just gives up on using words. That look on Benedict's face is priceless. My favorite moment (possibly ever) is when both characters are screaming. A feeling of euphoria washed over me, dear readers.

OK, I'm going to start reminiscing with myself about this movie that none of you will ever see. My new favorite movie!

Oh, but for all you Richard Kiel completists--you could blink and miss him, but he is in this one. You know, the dude with the 7'2" teeth.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Rat Race

2001 comedy movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An eccentric rich guy collects a group of Vegas vacationers and sends them on a race to retrieve a briefcase with two millions dollars hidden within a New Mexican storage locker. He and his friends bet on who will be first while the racers scheme to get ahead.

I saw this on a plane once and now again on network television; in other words, I've yet to see this entire movie. And if that means I've missed a potential Whoopi Goldberg nude scene, I may have to grab it on dvd from a K-Mart clearance rack and watch it again. This doesn't succeed because of any originality. It's been done and done again with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (That's Mad) and The Cannonball Run 3. But despite the lack of Buddy Hackett or Burt Reynolds' mustache, this brings some unexpected laughs because its writer (WFMU's own [and Monk creator/writer Andy Breckman) takes it some places other writers might not dare take it. You get some poking fun at mental illness, child molestation, sacred cow Lucille Ball, and the abuse of livestock. Oh, and Hitler. The humor's broad, ranging from dumb-as-dumb-gets slapstick to a lot of clever bits. Like the aforementioned road race movies, this has a huge cast. Rowan Atkinson ranges from absolutely brilliantly comic to really annoying. Jon Lovitz is always a guy who I don't want to like but just can't help myself. And John Cleese is hilarious in a role that might be largely improvised. This is rapidly-paced for the OCD crowd and has a lot of unpredictable fun. My biggest gripe--the use of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" which really cheapens the proceedings.

Do any of you know of a movie that has a Whoopi Goldberg nude scene? I'll take partial nudity even. Thanks in advance!

Easy Rider

1969 hippie manifesto

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A couple hippies strike it rich with the resell of some cocaine. They decide to get on their motorbikes and travel across the country to New Orleans. Along the way, the meet some hippies, a bunch of people who don't like hippies, Jack Nicholson, and some whores. Then, they die.

I'd taken all these wonderful notes about Easy Rider, how it's a laid-back indictment of the American dream with a graceful and poetic narrative-within-the-narrative about the history of America and the failure of capitalism. Stuff about the symbolism of Captain America driving a motorcycle fueled by cash and how free sex is more pure than sex you have to pay for and how freely chasing your ideals will only get you shot by some rednecks. Or maybe it was wasting their freedom got them shot by the rednecks. It was great stuff, but you'll have to take my word that it existed because I ended up wadding it up and stuffing it down my pipe and smoking it. I like the three leads--nonchalant and doomed Peter Fonda as Wyatt, the continuously giggling Dennis Hopper as Billy, and the lively Jack Nicholson in that goofy football helmet. I also really like the look of this movie; Laszlo Kovacs' cinematography perfectly captures the American landscape and the mysteries of our past, working almost like a visual folklore. Although I think a lot of the scenes were filmed by stoned locals Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda encountered on the journey. Easy Rider takes a turn for the weird near the end during a cemetery acid trip scene, dating the movie somewhat but nevertheless a nice trippy diversion. This is a movie just flooded with music, probably too much, and people who don't like this movie very much will argue that in addition to the thing being a relic from an era they probably don't like much, about sixty percent of the movie consists of shots of the actors riding their motorcycles while flower power anthems blare. Fair enough, but it perfectly captures the moods and wasted ideals of the time, and if you look a little deeper, you'll see it's packed with meaning. One thing I can't stand though--the blinking transition thing. That's just irritating.

Something Wild

1986 existential romantic comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The good news--Successful businessman Charlie has just been promoted to vice president! The bad news--his wife and children have left him, and he's a little lonely. That's probably why he falls for Lulu, a free-spirited and sexually adventurous gal who kind-of kidnaps him for the weekend. They get busy in a cheap motel room before heading off to meet her mother and attend her high school reunion. That's where they meet Ray, played by an actor named Ray, Lulu's ex-husband who just got out of jail. Ray isn't happy to meet Charlie at all. Oh, snap!

As likable as I think Jeff Daniels is (and heck, the guy's very nearly lovable), his character is too dopey in this. I really had trouble rooting for the guy after a while, especially after Ray came along. Daniels' character suddenly had this wide-eyed hero-worship thing that was annoying. There's nothing wrong with Ray Liotta, but the movie jarringly shifted gears when he came along, changing from a quirky screwball rom-com to a quirky and unpredictable but ineffective thriller. I liked Melanie Griffith and the blend of flirtatious and naive that she brings to the character. And she's Melanie Griffith, so there's a little bit of naked in the movie. There's a whole lot of music in this, and I had to give a bonus point for The Feelies playing the high school reunion. This has an 80's feel, never good since the 1980's were the worst decade for cinema, but it recalls After Hours a bit with an everyman character being tossed around by the universe. I guess the difference is that Charlie has a little more control over his situation. Well, his nutsack does anyway. There's a Jonathan Demme quirkiness that makes this whole thing an entertaining weekend, a something wild about Something Wild that keeps it a notch above most other romantic comedies. And since I typed that last sentence, I probably shouldn't be allowed to blog anymore. So long, everybody!

Honkytonk Man

1982 tuberculosis public service announcement

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Red crashes onto his sister's dust-caked Oklahoma property, a Grand Ole Opry invitation in one hand and a bottle in the other. His 14-year-old nephew Whit looks up to him and is a much better driver, and his mother reluctantly allows him to accompany Red on his trip to Nashville. They misbehave along the way.

This movie's covered in a layer of dust, like all good Depression-era flicks should be. And it's filled with all sorts of dusty eccentrics, colorful character after colorful character. They're not entirely believable (neither is Clint's honkytonk man exactly), but they're entertaining enough, especially when they talk about panther piss, folks who've got money "ten miles up a mule's ass," and dogs shittin' peach pits. My favorite line's right at the beginning when Red tumbles out of the car he's just driven onto the Waggoneer farm and his sister drawls, "Is he dead?" This is one of those meandering, stream-of-conscious road movies, and it's also a pretty good buddy movie. The buddy is Eastwood's son, and their rapport naturally drives the picture. It's fun watching Eastwood and son steal chickens, rob poker players, drink, and visit whores. A subtitle for this could have been Honkytonk Men Gone Bad. There's an ease in the direction and writing that almost makes things look kind of lazy, and this is a story that's been done and done again and one that will undoubtedly be done again and again in the future (see: Crazy Heart). Like Bad Blake, I'm the songwriting and Eastwood's singing voice aren't totally convincing. The songs are OK and his voice is OK, but there's nothing that makes me think Red should have been a legend. This stands out most when Red, in the recording studio, becomes too sick to finish a song. Marty Robbins grabs the microphone and finishes for him, and completely blows him away. That's a nice moment actually. I did enjoy watching Clint tickle the ivories or pick his guitar though. Honkytonk Man's an example of a movie with a lot of good pieces, but sort of like the poster up there, it just doesn't seem complete.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

1974 Peckinpah joint

Rating: 16/20

Plot: When the daughter of some wealthy plantation owner winds up pregnant, he demands the daddy's head. Part-time piano player and full-time loser Bennie finds out about the bounty for Alfredo Garcia's head, and visits one of his old flames. She informs him that Alfredo has already died, and the two , who decide they're in love, travel to his grave to retrieve the head and collect the bounty. Things don't go smoothly, however.

On the surface, you've got a grimy, slow-paced action story that looks like a product of its time. But this work's got some dimensions, layers of grime that make this the type of movie that's got a soul. It's the soul of a sinner or a drunkard or a guy who rubs his junk on vegetables at the supermarket, but it's still a soul. The locations match the grimy plot. Pekinpah paints Mexico to be a truly magical place here, all dilapidated buildings, homely people, dust, and wrecked cars. The Mexican landscape and the faded colors of the dumps and dives these characters inhabit give this the feel of a raunchy dream. At one point in the movie, there's a family that is chasing the protagonist. They're driving this wonderfully battered blue car, something that looked like somebody had taken a sledge hammer to it. It made me laugh out loud. And although the pervading mood is one of despair or hopelessness, there is some off-the-wall humor in this movie. The protagonist is a great character, an A-grade anti-hero. If I had to be a loser, I'd choose to be this guy, a guy who doesn't care how badly his tie clashes with his shirt, sleeps with his sunglasses on, shoots pistols in the air while driving his convertible, takes exaggerated swigs from his bottle of vodka while he drives, and says really cool things like "You two guys are definitely on my shit list" and "You're looking at me with your goddamn fuckin' eyes." I haven't seen a lot of movies with Warren Oates, but I have to imagine this was the defining role of his career. He's got a way in this movie of simultaneously slurping in everything around him while looking utterly defeated the entire time. It's one of those performances you'll remember, simple but very effective. This is far from perfect (I can't figure out why Kristofferson's scene was in this), but it's a great movie about the price you have to pay to obsess, chase your dreams, and have things your way and the type of cult classic I imagine could be in some people's personal top tens. Other people? Not so much.

A Larst recommendation.

College Road Trip

2008 comedy

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Overly protective and loving father Martin Lawrence goes on a college road trip with his daughter, one of the kids on The Cosby Show. It's annoying!

File this in the "Forced to Watch Against My Will" category. Very derivative, predictable comedy that I'm frankly shocked to find out came out in 2008. It's got the feel of a 60's Disney comedy. I kept waiting for Hayley Mills to show up and start crunk dancing. Color-by-numbers comedy that is made more obnoxious by some performers who decided to take their characters beyond quirky and well into annoyingly unrealistic. And nowhere near funny. I protested this choice of school movie (it followed a field trip) but nobody listens to me. Me! A guy with his own movie blog and an impeccable history of rating movies! Oh, well. Screw 'em!

Duel

1971 television movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A guy with a red car is terrorized by a truck driver in a scary-looking truck.

Steven Spielberg's first feature-length film (released in theaters about a decade later after being shown on television) is a pretty dang good psychological thriller with some deft camera work, a haunting score, and a building sense of realistic tension. The truck, since Spielberg wisely never shows much of the human behind the wheel, becomes the antagonist, and like all good thrillers, it (unexpectedly) is a great, menacing one. As weird as it sounds, the truck's performance is very good, and I'm sure that the truck could have gone on to have a very good career in acting if not for the typecasting and the addiction to heroin. There's a point in the movie where the whole big rig vs. Dennis Weaver conflict becomes a bit too silly, but the movie's just the right length and never drives into overly-precious territory. I wish I would have had Convoy ready to pop in as part of a double feature after this one. Or Maximum Overdrive!

Pee Wee's Big Adventure

1985 children's movie

Rating: 15/20 (Dylan: 12/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 16/20)

Plot: A borderline psychotic man-child has his prized possession, his bicycle, stolen. The title adventure is had as Pee Wee, following a tip from a fortune teller, heads to the basement of the Alamo to find the bicycle.

Hit and miss entertainment that both children and adults can sort of enjoy. Burton does a good job bringing Pee Wee's world to life for the duration of a full-length film in a way that doesn't become completely obnoxious, filling the screen with lots of color and stuff to look at. There are a few fun spoofs, some clever visual gags, and some memorably bizarre characters. There are also some moments where unfortunately things have been stretched pretty thin, and the climactic scene on a Hollywood set seems pretty derivative. Danny Elfman's score is really good though, and Paul Reubens, an enormously talented shoulda-been, is fun to watch for the most part. As a father, I wish the characters were a little nicer though. It's hard to root for Pee Wee at times because he's not always a very likable guy. Still, this sails along at a great pace and is entertaining even though it lacks the manic imagination of the television series. It also lacks Paul Reubens masturbation, but that's probably good since it's a kid's movie and all.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

2006 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Borat, Kazakhstan's number one journalist, is sent to America to film a documentary on what makes the country so great. He falls in lust with Pamela Anderson after catching an episode of Baywatch on a hotel television and sets out for Los Angeles to find her.

On the one hand, this makes the misanthropic half of me laugh more than anything else. Attacks on idiocy, brutal satire, jabs of irony. On the other hand, there's something so hateful about a lot of this, and it's often unnecessarily crude. On the one hand, I really love the interaction with the actual, unsuspecting masses--the rodeo crowd, the guy trying to teach Borat how to tell jokes, the gun store owner, the used car salesman. On the other hand, the Pamela Anderson plot is cheesy and low-brow and pointless. On the one hand, Cohen's probably a genius and would have been deserving of a best actor nomination for this largely-improvised role. On the other hand, I really didn't need to see his ass. I like Borat and I'll likely see it lots more times and I look forward to seeing the new one with the gay character, but when I think about how good this movie should have been, it really annoys me. Channel it, Borat!

How's Your News?

1999 documentary

Rating: 4/20

Plot: A group of individuals with varying degrees of mental handicap are exploited by filmmakers to make a road trip from east to west coast incoherently interviewing folks along the way. This film tracks their stops in Connecticut, New York, D.C. Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Las Vegas, and Venice Beach.

The four points I gave this movie were for the street musician on roller blades at Venice Beach. That guy's pretty awesome. Honestly, I should probably give props to the news reporters as they enthusiastically attempt to interview every day people. Sometimes completely obliviously. Seriously, one guy is entirely unintelligible and another guy is just rolled onto the sidewalk and left there with no ability to communicate to wag a microphone at perplexed passers-by. Thing is, there is absolutely no point to any of this. There's nothing revealed about the average American in this like in that Borat movie. There's nothing accidentally revealing about what handicapped people are capable of accomplishing. There's no big discovery, no drama, no developing story. All this ever succeeds in being is mildly interesting and quirkily humorous, and that, I believe, makes the whole thing appalling. If you've seen this and know that I'm missing something (entirely possible with me), then let me know.

The Big Bus

1976 disaster movie spoof

Rating: 11/20

Plot: It's like Titanic but on a nuclear-powered bus making a nonstop trip from New York to Denver. And there's a terrorist in an iron lung instead of an iceberg. And everybody ends up ok instead of just the rich people. And nobody draws any pictures of any naked people.

This parody of disaster movies predates another faux disaster comedy by a few years. This one is played a little bit straighter (though it's still wacky) and probably isn't as funny. That's right. I'm referring to United 93. This has some moments (the Airplane-esque bus driver bar fight scene is almost funny, and I like the recurring cannibalism joke) but a lot of the jokes fall far short of funny. Ruth Gordon is in this and underused. The lead is played by a guy named Joseph Bologna, but that's all he's got going for him. There's almost nothing memorable about his character. There are moments when this teases you and almost becomes a funny movie, poking fun of lots of disaster movie cliches. Unfortunately, even those moments are few and far between.

Trafic

1971 French comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Mr. Hulot is traveling to Amsterdam with a couple associates to show off a funky recreational vehicle at a gigantic car show. Unfortunately for him, trafic [sic] jams, accidents, the po-po, and general silliness get in his way. How do you say "Oh, snap!" in French?

Tati's last film isn't his best film, but it definitely has its share of zany, entertaining moments. So much of the movie lags, and whereas those lags generally build up to something great in Playtime, they often go nowhere at all here. At time, this moves as quickly as the trafic [sic] jams Hulot finds himself in. The final shot is great, and there are lots of other slowly-unfolding bits of brilliance. One complaint would be that there's just too much talking in this. As expected, not a lot to laugh out loud at, but there's still enough sweetly entertaining here to make it well worth seeing. On par with Mon Oncle if not as brilliant as Playtime or M. Hulot's Holiday.