[Rec]

2007 found footage zombie movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A news reporter and cameraman doing a piece on the lives of firemen get trapped with a bunch of people in a quarantined apartment building. It's zombilarious!

First, there's nothing too intelligent or original about this. I want to get that out of the way right off the bat. Also, I want to throw my main gripe out there--the found footage realism is screwed up with this little what-where-they-thinking? camera trick in the middle of this. But if you're just wanting something scary in that things-jumping-out-and-scaring-you kind of way, this Blair-clone delivers pretty hard. Don't misunderstand. It's not The Blair Witch Project exactly. Here, the filmmakers don't depend solely on mood, ambiance, subtle creeps, and mere suggestions of the evil that is lurking about. No, with [Rec] (dumb title, by the way), you have a lot of the violence and mayhem take place right in front of the lone camera. I was impressed with the set-ups, almost a choreography, and the apartment building's winding stairwell and long hallways gave a lot of opportunities for some creative horror shots. The final scenes take place in a room packed with details. So there's creepiness in this movie, but there are also those Rarr! Creepy thing! scenes that made me pee a little bit. And there are a lot of those. If you're into that sort of thing, I'm sure you'll like this. That this found footage genre hasn't gotten old yet, at least for me, is pretty amazing. I think I like that this genre's got legs.

Death Rides a Horse

1967 Spaghetti Western

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Oh, snap! Young Bill watches a gang of Wild West thugs kill off his ma, his pa, and his sister. Bill's spared, becomes a sharpshooter, and looks for revenge, a dish which is adequately served tepid. Meanwhile, Lee Van Cleef finishes an extended time in prison and is looking for the same people. They get in each other's way.

There's no shortage of these awesome Spaghetti Westerns. And Lee Van Cleef has no shortage of cool, especially when he gets to play a tough and complicated character like this guy. John Phillip Law can barely keep up. He's charming, probably plays his character too naive, and sells "tough cowboy" about as well as Alan Ladd. This has a nice assortment of bad guys, and I like how they all follow this samurai-like code despite being, you know, bad guys. And like a lot of Westerns made in Italy, this has plenty of left-field twists. And the Morricone? The main theme is so big that Quentin Tarantino didn't have to steal for Kill Bill; no, "Death Rides a Horse" pushed its way into the production and demanded to be a part of The Bride's tale of revenge. So powerful, something that really grabs at your arm hairs. Speaking of that Bill, this Bill's got more than a little in common with that Uma, enough so you get the feeling Tarantino drew some inspiration from this. This one's got a brutal beginning to set up a nice revenge tale, one with more quick zooms on these characters' gnarled faces than you're likely to see in your average kung-fu revenge flick. Definitely recommended for fans of the genre. My favorite scene: three notes played by the piano man.

Cool Hand Luke

1967 movie about Christ eating eggs

Rating: 19/20 (Dylan: 13/20)

Plot: The titular ex-war hero is put in jail for what seems to be an absurd length of time for cutting the heads off parking meters. He doesn't like jail all that much and tries to escape over and over again.

Dylan and I are going to work our way through a big list of prison escape movies, and this is the first. So far, all this little prison break film festival has done is prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I have a gay son. I mean, how can you watch Joy Harmon as "Girl Only in the Movie to Wash a Car and Show How Horny Inmates Can Be" washing that car and give this only a 13/20. That extended scene sure extended me! That's just one of a whole bunch of memorable scenes in this. The boxing match, the egg scene ending in Newman striking a Christ pose, the chain-gang rushing to finish the road, the "Night in the Box" speech so fantastically parodied in Toy Story 3, the famous "failure to communicate" line that I borrow all the time to use in my classroom, a little Dennis Hopper, a little Harry Dean Stanton, a little of Kokomo Indiana's own Strother Martin (a man who taught Charlie Chaplin's children to swim), Newman singing "Plastic Jesus" in a scene that nearly jerked tears from me. You also get one of the coolest "bad guys" of all time with Sunglasses Man, a character the Coens would later lift for O Brother. One of those late-60's counterculture in-praise-of-nonconformity flicks that I like so much with the added Christ figure angle, another of my favorite motifs. Add a terrifically cool Newman performance and you've got something pretty special.

Special note: I will not have any problem at all if any of my children are homosexuals. I just wanted to get that out there.

Dead Snow

2009 Nazi zombie movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Some medical students go on holiday (isn't that what it's called over there) to a cabin out in the middle of Norwayere. That last word is a portmanteau word--Norway and nowhere. I think I did a good job with it. Expect more portmanteau words as my confidence builds. A mysterious stranger stops by, warns them about Nazis, and then leaves. Then, as expected, Nazi zombies.

I think this will satisfy your desires if you get a hankerin' for some Nazi zombie action. I guess that's a sub-genre--Nazi zombie movies. I think I've only seen one other (Shock Waves), but it wouldn't shock wave me to learn that there were dozens more of these. I was just happy to see Norway again to be honest, but there's enough in this movie to keep it fun enough. It's not for the squeamish, however. Most of the movie is red blood and wrinkled gray on white snow, and there are some scenes where you get more red than gray or white. And disembodied body parts. And scenes where guys stitch up wounds in their necks while blood gloriously and noisily continues to spurt out. This alludes to Evil Dead, Brain Dead, Friday the 13th, Indiana Jones, and April Fools Day in ways that might be fun to fans of those films. It's also got a contender for line of the year when the stranger says, "If you stand with your intestines in your hand, will you know what to do?" Speaking of intestines, Nazi zombies seem to like them. The screenwriters must like them, too. Lots of intestine action, but nobody gets choked with his own intestines. I think I have a label for that. I'm not sure how I liked how these zombies moved. What I really didn't like about this were the clashing tones. This went from deadly serious with mutilation and head squishing to, after a pause, a terrible and ill-timed joke that made things too goofy, even for a Nazi zombie movie. I also hated the big scary music that was used throughout this thing. Sure, the big scary music probably made me jump a few times, but it was a detriment to the overall tone of the movie. This is good in chunks (pun probably intended), but it's a little uneven and just seemed to be missing something.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

2006 parody

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular megamaniacal spy is sent to the titular city to run a chicken business and investigate the titular spies.

Berenice Bejo. I don't know how her name is actually pronounced, but I'm going to say it so that it rhymes with "very nice pea-ho." Anyway, I might put her on the list--the list of women who, if they decided because of the celebrity status that this blog has given me, send their people to find out if I'm interested in dating them (that's how we celebrities court each other), I'd consider it. Hold on a second! Only if my wife leaves me. This movie delivers the funny even though you have to read everything. It's like a sophisticated Austin Powers in a way, like how Austin Powers would be if that titular spy was played by Will Arnett instead of Michael Meyers. Or maybe it's more Steve Carrell. Jean Dujardin's got the right kind of obnoxious charm for the role, and he doesn't step out of bounds here as silly as this sometimes gets. I think part of the reason this works is because the spy story is interesting enough to keep the momentum whether the comedy side of things is working or not. The movie looks good, too, cool visuals that make this look just like a spy flick from the 60s should look. I especially liked an underwater sequence that was sort of like a skeleton junkyard. This probably does have more homoerotic giggling flashbacks than your ordinary 60's spy flick would. I really liked the music. My favorite bit of dialogue:

OSS 117: What's that smell?
Guy: Chickens.
OSS 117: And the noises?
Guy: Chickens, too.

It's probably funnier in context. Or maybe it's just funny to me because I'm French. What do I know? After all, I'm the guy who gives bonus points to movies with Berenice Bejo in them.

Airplane!

1980 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: See Zero Hour!, another movie with an exclamation point.

That the plot of this is lifted so accurately from that disaster movie is my favorite thing about this movie. Well, with the possible exception of Leslie Nielsen. Now, I was pretty sure that I'd already written about this movie for this blog, but I used my newest blog feature (the much more comprehensive search box to your right) and couldn't find it. This movie makes me laugh and groan alternately. Surely, the Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker combination who wrote this knew that a lot of this material would inspire groaning. Of course they knew it, and don't call me Shirley. This has a great cast, a collection of actors who get it and realize the importance of not overdoing the lines. All except for one guy--Stephen Stucker--whose performance is maybe one of my least favorite comedic performances ever. He sticks out like a mangled thumb, the clown prince of stomping, an I'm almost embarrassed for him. He didn't have a long career, probably because he almost singlehandedly ruined this movie. I wonder how many scenes had to be deleted because they were Stuckered. This movie was probably supposed to be three hours long until they realized they'd have to remove 90% of Stucker's scenes. But enough about him. I watched this movie because I desperately needed to laugh at something really stupid. It succeeds at that, maybe better than any other comedy. I do, perhaps unfairly, blame this movie for a lot of stuff that follows it. That includes the sequel.

The Man Who Saved the World

1982 Turkish Star Wars

Rating: 2/20

Plot: A pair of kung-fu fightin' astronauts (or are the cosmonauts in Turkey? [or did Turkey not even have anything that even remotely resembled a space program?]) land on what must be Tatooine where a demonic wizard is doing a variety of things that he hopes will result in, I believe, the destruction of the world. They battle his evil minions and try to locate a magic sword while parts of the Raiders of the Lost Ark score plays in the background.

That might be the poster of the year. Always good to start with the positives.

Seriously, this just plagiarizes music from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Not only that, it plagiarizes space battle sequences from A New Hope. It's not just little snippets either. This is huge chunks of film. They look odd because they're squashed into a different aspect ratio, but I still think it counts as stealing. It's strange hearing the Indiana Jones theme while X-Wings fly around the Death Star.

Watching the credits, I noticed that Turkish people already have good Star Wars names, so that makes things easy. I also noticed that the company that produced this beast is named Kunt Films.

This actually looks like the type of movie that would be produced by Kunt Films. And no, I'm not really sure what that means. But wouldn't this thing be in a Kunt Films production:



That's the Darth Vader of Turkish Star Wars, an evil wizard. Of course, this differs from the Star Wars trilogy because the Turkish Star Wars Darth Vader dies which means he won't end up being anybody's father if there's ever a sequel to this thing. And that, dear readers, is how you spoil two movies in one sentence. Although I doubt anybody reading this hasn't seen the Star Wars films, I still should probably apologize. Hopefully this other image from The Man Who Saved the World will make up for it:

Yeah, that picture is random, but so is most of this movie. After the initial Star Wars space battle scenes, there's a lengthy scene where the hero and the other hero ride on horses to the Raiders theme. The horse-riding scenes are chopped up with shots of monsters. Now what I can't figure out is why the makers of this thing decided to show us close-ups of these growling beasts.

Toilet tissue mummies, obligatory tinfoil "stormtroopers, an absurdly-large and unwieldly magic sword, chaotic fight choreography, trampolining, the most maddening sound effects I've ever heard, metal hands, sliced furry things, exploding decapitated heads (Seriously, what the hell? A mummy thing is decapitated. The head is thrown at another mummy. Explosion. Does that make sense in Turkey?), blue robot lasers. It's all pretty brilliant. And this ends in what has to be the worst special effect I have ever seen. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's the evil wizard's head chopped in half vertically. If nothing else, this movie has inspired me to look for the Turkish Titanic movie. Oh, snap! These guys:

Moneyball

2011 baseball movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: The somewhat-true story of Billy Beane, ex-ballplayer and GM of the small-market Oakland Athletics. Going against traditional baseball logic and the advice of his team scouts, Beane leans on the advice of math whiz-kid Paul and attempts to replace three key players lost to free agency with misfits no other team has much interest in. After a slow start, his team begins winning, giving credence to his oddball ideas.

This is a solid movie with some good performances (Full disclosure: I had no idea that was Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe) but the music gives it the atmosphere and depth of a television drama and more than a few Hollywood touches keep things a little flat. For a die hard baseball nerd, this is a real treat as you get in-depth look at the innards of a professional baseball team. I especially liked, even if they weren't all that realistic, the phone conversations that Beane had with other general managers as trades were (almost) discussed and dealings were done. There could have probably been more baseball action, but it might have distracted from the real story. The combination of actual footage and reenactment was really well done though. Pitt "just talks" his way through this (Jen's words, not mine) but has enough personality to make you want to follow the character around. Initially, I thought his story meandered a little too much, but it all came together nicely at the end. The "annoying" little girl (again, Jen's words) who played Pitt's daughter (Kerris Dorsey) was really good in limited screen time. Also given screen time: actual baseball player Royce Clayton as Miguel Tejada. Oh, and that White Sox first base coach (Tom Gamboa) who was attacked by drunken fans in Kansas City. No, that can't be right. He must have been a Royals first base coach attacked by fans in Chicago.

Chad Bradford, the guy with the goofy wind-up, trivia: Bradford would literally scrape his knuckles on the pitcher's mound dirt occasionally when he threw pitches.

Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

2011 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: In 1987, a couple of friends fresh out of high school migrated to San Francisco from the Midwest and signed a lease to stay in a cheap pink apartment building. On the way out, their new landlord warned, "Oh, by the way: The neighbors can get loud." Those neighbors--two old men named Ray and Peter and their occasional guest Tony--would bicker loudly at all hours of the night. One of the kids confronted the men and was subsequently threatened. They decided to record the two's arguments, eventually making taped recordings of the spirited and drunken conversations to give to their friends. And long before the word "viral" ever became a thing, the tapes were exchanged enough times to make the arguments of Ray and Peter a cult phenomenon. This documentary takes a look at the phenomenon and the ensuing arguments when people tried to make a buck from it.

This is the sort of thing that I have an interest in. I've had the recordings for a long time, and I was excited about the documentary coming out. After watching, I think I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, the audio documents themselves are fascinating and frequently hilarious. But it for sure crosses the line into exploitation, and watching the pair who recorded Ray and Peter attempt to strike it rich with their "art" rubbed me the wrong way. It's not just them either; there's a pretty big group of people who have illustrated Ray and Peter's fights for comic books, remixed the recordings, or attempted to have movies made. Most telling in this is when Eddie Sausage and Mitchell D. change the liner notes of their cassettes to include copyright information. There are also some things about this that kind of annoyed me. The reenactments were on the goofy side, and their attempts to get an on-screen interview with Tony, the only surviving voice from the recordings, made me a little uncomfortable. I might feel a little dirty the next time I pop in my Shut Up Little Man! recording, but it won't stop me from enjoying it anyway.

My favorite line from those recordings remains the same: "You always giggle falsely. You don't have a decent giggle in you."

Broken Flowers

2005 mystery movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Don Johnston's a sad Don Juan, but his life just isn't complete. His latest in a series of likely hundreds of girlfriends walks out on him, and the same day he gets a letter from an anonymous former lover informing him that he has a 19-year-old son who might be looking for him. His nosey neighbor does some research and sends Don on a journey of self-discovery in which he visits four of his girlfriends to find out which one sent the letter. Journey of self-discovery? That sounds like crap they'd write on the back of a dvd box.

This movie can be summed up by describing the contrast between Don and his neighbor, humorously played by Jeffrey Wright. Winston's got the family, a cluttered but colorful home, a bubbling enthusiasm, a desire to explore and seek answers. Don's alone in a quiet and almost bare-by-comparison house and almost seems resigned to the fact that he is going to die alone. This is as enigmatic as most Jarmusch flicks are, and although I'm sure Don's journey is supposed to represent the stages of something-rather, I can't place my finger on what those stages are or even what they're the stages of. To me, this is a movie about reflecting on the past in order to attempt to grasp something that was missed. I love the mystery of the thing and the little visual pink clues dropped all over the place. Murray's fun to watch although he isn't terribly funny. As usual, he shows off this ability to say more without any words at all than most actors can say with an entire page of dialogue.

This reminds me: I need to see that other Jarmusch movie that I haven't seen yet.

Trees Lounge

1996 downer

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Tommy the mechanic's not very good at life. He lost his last job because he stole some money from the garage and gambled it away. He can't find another job because nobody wants to hire a mechanic who will steal money from the garage and gamble it away. And he's lost his girlfriend. At least he's got the titular bar, a place where everybody knows your name but is too drunk to pronounce it. Can an ice cream truck and a new young friend turn Tommy's life around or is he doomed to be just another loser on a bar stool?

Buscemi tells this could-have-been biographic tale of loserdom without any style whatsoever, and I don't think there are too many characters out there who could wear a complete lack of style as well as Tommy. Buscemi's good in the role. He just plays "loser" so well, something I'm sure he's going to be really proud of. Bronson Dudley is a presence as Bill, a character who gets almost no lines and is basically in the movie just to drink himself to death. All he needed to play his part well is the right face, and he's definitely got that. I'm sure Mr. Dudley would be equally proud to know that. This moves as plotlessly as the life of an alcoholic probably moves. It never idealizes, never Hollywoods it up. It also has multiple scenes with an ice cream truck, and ice cream truck driver has become one of my dream jobs along with postman, taxi driver, and gigolo.

When the Wind Blows

1986 cartoon

Rating: 17/20

Plot: An old couple prepare for nuclear holocaust by following the instructions in a government manual. It works fantastically!

I don't know this for sure and haven't researched, but I'm pretty sure the old dude is supposed to be Charlie Brown all grown up. I'm not sure why he develops an English accent though.

File this along with the devastating Grave of the Fireflies in the drawer marked "Cartoons That Might Make You Cry." Like Grave, this one shows how the violence of war affects everyday people, only this one's got a funny old retired couple instead of children. This one also isn't quite as devastating. I don't think. It's been so long since I saw Grave and I don't see myself popping it in again. The animation style is mostly very traditional and very simple; however, there are moments when it ventures into more experimental territory like during a dreamy dandelion sequence or some shots post-bomb. And I do really like how the "camera" moves through the old couple's house in this one. Watching the colorful--though muted--couple maneuver through the gray chaos after the war, like personified naivete wandering through a landscape of hate, makes for some unforgettable imagery. The writers and animators don't hold back--these characters cough up blood, lose their hair, develop festering boils, and soil themselves. It really clobbers you over the head with its point and toys with you emotionally, but I've got the kind of sensibilities that fall for this sort of thing. And even though the Cold War (in my opinion the most boring "war" we've ever had) is long gone, what this addresses is timeless and very very real. The sad truth at the heart of this movie--that old people are really pretty stupid--will unfortunately never go away.

World's Greatest Dad

2009 dark comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Lance has always dreamed of being a professional novelist but has settled on being a mediocre and unpopular teacher of poetry at a high school. He tries his best to raise his little hellion of a son, a socially-awkward and potentially dangerous young man. Things aren't going great with the art teacher he has a secret relationship with either. Things start to look up for the poor guy following an unexpected tragedy.

I may have given this one a Robin-Williams'-penis bonus point. I've heard rumblings about Robin Williams being famously well-endowed. This movie reveals the truth. But that's a spoiler, and I probably shouldn't have started with it. It's too late now, and there's nothing I can do about it. So Robin Williams' penis is big, and Bobcat Goldthwait is one sick, dark writer. World's Greatest Dad grabs tattoos by the balls and shakes it around until more taboos spill out. More people will squirm at what happens in this more than they'll laugh, but I found the movie engaging for its duration. I loved Daryl Sabara as the son in a performance that spells out awkward with all capital letters. Thinking about a shirt with his picture almost makes me laugh. I thought I knew his face but couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then I found out that he's the kid from Spy Kids, and it's great to see that he's grown up and become the type of actor who is willing to be in awkward masturbation scenes. I know Antonio Banderas would appreciate it at least. Sabara is like the anti-Cera here. Now before you Cera fans jump down my throat, let me make it clear that I like Michael Cera just fine, even when he's sporting a mustache like in this picture. Anyway, Sabara gives us a great comic performance here. Williams is good as well although there are far too many close-ups of him. I could identify with his character as a language arts teacher, especially with the kid who plagiarized Queen/Bowie and recited "Under Pressure" as his own original poem. I had a student do that with Johnny Cash once. I also liked the haiku that a character named Andrew recited. You can almost tell that Goldthwait's got some ADHD issues or something by the way his movies flow. This is no exception, and it always seems like things are threatening to become unhinged at any moment. The movie's good, but there just seems to be missing a big of reality or something that keeps it from being great. I did appreciate the Santa Claus Conquers the Martians poster hanging in the background in one scene.

Clerks

1994 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A convenient store clerk and a neighboring video store clerk have various adventures. Dante's got girl problems, and all he wants to do is play hockey. After all, he wasn't even supposed to be at work today.

I appreciate this movie more than I like it or laugh at it. I like its laidback feel, what it is compared to other early-to-mid-90's comedy films, and what Kevin Smith and company do with almost no money at all. The movie and its characters feel personal, and I think it makes for an overall warm viewing experience. I like the oddball little slice of life and the shenanigans of these goofy characters. I've never really found this movie to be all that funny, however. This is the classic example of the type of movie that seen in a context is completely brilliant but that time hasn't been all that good to. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and blame this for all of the people who think that anybody can make a movie. James Nguyen, the famed director of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, probably saw this and thought, "Hey, if this is a movie, then I bet I could make one!" Not that that's an entirely bad thing, of course.

Playing hockey on the roof, by the way, would be dangerous. I just want to point that out for any kids who might be reading this. If you are going to play hockey on the roof or anywhere else, might I suggest you do it in a pair of Zubaz. Zubaz are a pant that allows you the comfort and flexibility needed to make some sweet music as you skate around your competition on the court. Or ice if you're into that. You can find all kinds of reasonably priced Zubaz in a variety of colors here. Embrace the awesome!

Attack the Block

2011 hip-hoppin' sci-fi

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A group of thugs battle fuzzy aliens.

I didn't like any of the characters in this. And I know what you're thinking--oh, snap! Shane-movies is a racist movie blog! But check yo'self, fool. I didn't not (double negative is fine here because the movie characters wouldn't mind--a new shane-movies rule) like the characters because they're black inner-city kids. I just don't like people from England. And "English" isn't a race, so it's cool. These kids were really unlikable heroes, not just in an anti-hero way either. I guess I like my anti heroes to be working alone. This crew's rude and criminal, and I hated the way they talk. I can't say I have any experience in the bowels of South London, and I suppose people really might talk like this, but I can't imagine people actually talking like this. I don't have a problem with slang and in fact proved beyond a reasonable doubt how hip I am when I typed "Check yo'self, fool" up there, but this dialogue's about 85% slang (actual statistic) and really irritating. I was rooting for the alien monsters, partially because they're fuzzy since it's difficult to root against creatures that are fuzzy and partially because they were mute. They were loud though. A lot of this movie is just special effects and noise, and once the action of this gets started--pretty early in the proceedings--it doesn't let up much at all. When it does, things are clumsy. When you don't care for the unlikable characters, you don't really have any interest in seeing them develop or grow. Not that they do a whole lot or anything. That's not the type of movie Attack of Block is. It's not the type of movie that I'll really remember either. And for a movie that is mostly fuzzy aliens fighting inner-city kids, that's probably a really bad thing.

Note: I was going to give this an 11/20 but decided to start calling this "the Goonies of my generation" and immediately changed the rating to The Goonie.