Despicable Me 2

2013 sequel

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 16/20; Dylan: 7/20; Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 17/20; Buster: ?/20)

Plot: The AVL (Anti-Villain League) enlists former supervillain Gru--the titular "me"--to help them track down a supervillain who has used a giant magnet to steal an Arctic laboratory. Grum and Lucy, an AVL agent, investigate. Gru thinks it seems like the work of El Macho, a villain who dresses like a Mexican wrestler, but it's probably not because he's dead. Only it is totally him. Meanwhile, Gru struggles with his lack of love life and raising daughters who may be starting love lives of their own.

Those minions sure got annoying in this. I still think the main character is likable enough, and a lot of what Steve Carell says and how he says it is kind of funny. But that's about it. The new character's annoying, the new bad guy is annoying, and the minions are annoying. I liked but didn't love the original in what is bound to be a series at least as long and tedious as those Shrek movies, but this just seemed like a loud bunch of colors. The story just seemed like an excuse to throw out a bunch of gags, and there were musical montages galore which just seemed like a waste of my time. The writers tackled far too much here, and the movie felt at times like it was just flailing. These days, animated movies are made a lot better than this, and they have much better stories. I was checking the watch pretty quickly during this one and don't really feel like writing more about it. I'm not sure enough time can pass where I'll feel like seeing another minion again. One of the minions?

I Hired a Contract Killer

1990 Aki Kaurismaki black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A depressed Frenchman in England decides to end it all after he loses his job and is given a watch that doesn't work. He's apparently not very good at that either and hires the titular killer to do the job for him. Soon after, he meets a woman selling roses at a pub, falls in love with her eyes, and changes his mind. The contract killer, however, is relentless.

This story might not be completely original, but the execution is undeniably Kaurismakian. Sometimes Kaurismaki's camera doesn't move at all. Here, it does, but predictably, there's nothing at all flamboyant about this, and the pacing and dark and deadpan humor are as reminiscent as Jarmusch as ever. This one is in English although Jean-Pierre Leaud's English is a little on the broken side, and that might make it the most accessible Kaurismaki that I've got on my blog. I could throw some of the dialogue on here, but it's not going to mean much without the context and delivery of the actors. But I'll do it anyway. I liked these two a lot:

Henri: It doesn't work--thees watch.
Secretary: Yes. It does.

Margaret: Why did you leave France, Henri?
Henri: Said the don't like me there. (At least I think that's what he said. His accent is pretty thick.)

See? I told you that wouldn't work. This isn't going to be laugh-out-loud comedy for most people, but I did laugh at Leaud's "Where I come from we eat places like this for breakfast!" attempt at tough-guy during one scene. And this little screw hook thing he puts into a wall during his first suicide attempt--should that have made me laugh? Leaud, the kid in The 400 Blows, is funny here although like most Kaurismaki actors, he doesn't really look like he belongs as the hero in a movie. Margi Clarke is entirely devoid of personality although she does have a pair of eyes, but that lack of personality, in a way, makes the whole relationship even funnier. I liked Kenneth Colley as the killer. He's menacing enough, and this movie does get its share of suspenseful moments, too. The first attempt on Henri's life, a scene surrounded by footsteps, is really good, and a just-missed encounter also worked well. Unlike a lot of Kaurismaki's movies, this doesn't take place in Finland, but he still found locations like you'd typically see in his movies--a doctor's office with "Surgery" on a the storefront on a street littered with trash bags, Vic's French Hamburgers with a cemetery in the back. All in all, it's another winner from one of my favorite directors!

Shane Watches a Bad Movie with Friends on Facebook: Curse of Bigfoot

1976 Bigfoot movie

Rating: 2/20 (Fred: 2/20; Josh: 2/20)

Plot: Five teenagers with an interest in archaeology and their teacher go on a field trip with a guy who claims to be an archaeologist. They find a lot of prayer sticks and some rocks. I'm not even fucking joking. That's seriously what the script of this movie had them find. Prayer sticks! After a lot of unnecessary scenes of the characters standing around or eating, they stumble upon a cave where they find a mummy. That mummy later comes to life as a Bigfoot creature and wreaks havoc. Three of those teenagers, sadly, had to be institutionalized, and it turned their teacher into a real grouch.

Bigfoot isn't spotted very often, but I found something that is even more rare than the elusive beast: Interesting parts of this movie!

So here's how this happened. There was a movie called Teenagers Battle the Thing made around 1963 that makes up the bulk of this. It was unreleased. In 1976, two of the kids in the original played two entirely different characters, and an extended exposition was filmed to set up the last hour of the movie which was that original early-60's movie. So you have a half an hour of exposition where a guy (or girl--we couldn't tell) in a pantsuit gets attacked by the titular monster, a teacher in what must be some sort of Introduction to Monsters class that we didn't have at my high school talks about monsters and tells a story about two guys who get attacked after seeing the monster, and a surly guest speaker comes in to that classroom and shares his story--the original movie's story--with the class. And then it ends abruptly.

And in between what passes as important plot points in all this? Lots of extraneous shots of slowly-driving trucks (twice anyway with two different trucks), shots of the teenagers and two adults scaling a mountain, weird day/night continuity errors made weirder by having dialogue about seeing stars, conversations about going into town to buy pop, a minute-long scene involving a character giving another character some money for an orange pop, lots of prayer stick (I swear I'm not kidding about these) explanation, and a few shots of the monster itself. The monster's obviously a dude in a costume since this is either the late-50's, early-60's, or 70's when this is being made. It's a terrible costume. The monster's got something wrong with one eye, iffy fangs, and patches of hair missing, and I'm not sure why the makers of this decided to ever show a close-up of the thing. Well, just look at the cover. I guess hundreds of thousands of years in a cave will do that to you though. It's hard not to laugh whenever the monster shows up on screen which is not a good thing considering this is supposed to be a horror film. The acting's almost as ugly, and curiously--though not surprisingly at all--none of the credited actors in this movie had a second acting role in their filmographies. The non-credited ones did, including Jackey Neyman who was Debbie in Manos: The Hands of Fate. Boy, think about it. You're in two movies, and one of them is this pile of crap and the other is Manos: The Hands of Fate. That's what I'd call a career. It's also the only movie the director made. And it's the only movie I've felt the need to apologize for to the other Bad Movie Clubbers, one that required a pep talk in the middle just to get everybody to man up and make it through the thing. Curse of Bigfoot will numb your mind as it takes seemingly hours to get to any kind of plot at all and mostly seems to cut out what most people would consider the good parts to show the mundane, like a weird experimental film almost.

Song of the South

1946 repressed classic

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Somewhere in the happy-go-lucky postbellum South, Johnny's family travels to Grandma's plantation. Johnny's upset when his dad takes off, however, and has trouble adapting. Just as he's planning on running away, a storyteller named Uncle Remus tells him some stories about animals that teach him lessons about life. Meanwhile, there's a cat, a pair of mean brothers, and a girl. And a bull!

I'm trying to guess why people consider this movie offensive. Is it that former slaves--this isn't, as some people who have never seen the film think, about slaves but during a post-Civil War time where plantations in Georgia would more than likely not look as healthy as they look here--are shown as so content with their lives? Is it the "Mr. Bluebird on my shoulder" line? I mean, why does the bird have to be blue? I don't see color; I just see the bird. Or--and this is definitely the most offensive part for me--is it that the movie makes white people seem so boring? Seriously, rich white people are as dull as hell! No, here's what is most offensive--a suit with a lace collar that poor Bobby Driscoll is forced to wear in this. Wowza.

It's definitely not, or shouldn't be, the animated folk tales with Br'er Rabbit and his friends and antagonists. And no, "tar baby" is not offensive in context, and these stories are important as folklore and as a part of American history and African American culture. A prologue says they're "rich in simple truths, forever fresh and new" and Remus later claims they're "stories that don't do no harm to nobody, and if they ain't done no good, how come they last so long." I always like what Disney does with folklore--the tall tales, mythology, even the Washington Irving story which isn't folklore at all but feels like an urban legend--and the Br'er characters are as lovable and unique as anything they created during this time. This was the first Disney movie featuring live actors, and a lot of times, you get the flesh 'n' blood characters walking around an animated world or in a real world with animated characters. The first "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" (one of Disney's best tunes, ya know) is magical with Remus walking in a suddenly animated world. It's like a splash of cold water there, and I also really like a scene where he has a conversation with a frog and starts fishing. James Baskett, who did win an Academy Award (first for a black actor) even though he wasn't able to attend premiere festivities because of segregation laws, is fantastic in this. Indianapolis can claim him and should do it proudly just because of the way he says the word bo-dacious in this movie. Sadly, he died at 44, two years after this was released. That made me really sad, but reading about the child protagonist of this depressed the hell out of me. Geez, Bobby Driscoll's story is a tragic one. I don't think I'll be able to watch Peter Pan or Treasure Island the same way again, and Disney doesn't even want me to watch this again. Driscoll's a bit child-actor-in-the-1940s since that's something that's impossible to escape from, but he and Glenn Leedy--the kid who played his little black friend named Toby and who didn't appear in another other movies--are both pretty good. I can't say the same for any of the Faver siblings. Georgie Nokes might win my Tootie award this year for his delivery of "Where'd you get those clothes at?" and the only thing for old-fashioned than the way the blacks are portrayed in this movie is the silly thumbs-in-ears-finger-waggin' taunting motion that Nokes does in this. Gene Holland, the other Favers brother is almost as bad himself, and Luana Patten completes the bad acting Faver trifecta with her performance.

This movie is dated in more ways than just the one that makes it offensive to a lot of people. But seriously, if you want to gripe about how life as an ex-slave is painted so idyllically, what exactly do you expect? Do you really want a children's movie to show Uncle Remus, after he was telling stories and saying he forgot the time and later was revealed to be lying to be beaten severely on screen? Driscoll's story tends to drag a little, and things get a little silly near the end when he's chased and pummeled by a bull (unfortunately off-screen although a shot of a prostrate Driscoll with the bull standing about fifteen feet away with a "What? What did I do?" expression on his face is kind of funny). Still, this is a good film and shouldn't be nearly as embarrassing as the Disney people seem to think it is. It's worth seeing for the animation sequences and Baskett's performance at least.

Vinni Pukh (and a few other Russian cartoons)

1969 Russian Winnie-the-Pooh

Rating: n/r

Plot: Three of the stories fans of Milne or the Disney Pooh cartoons will be familiar with--Pooh tries to use a balloon to get some honey, Pooh and Piglet visit rabbit and eat his food, and Eeyore has the most depressing birthday ever.

I really enjoyed this, but my wife, a fan of Pooh, didn't care for it. It's charming with a much different look but similar innocent style as the Disney versions. There's a childlike wonder with the shapes and colors in this animation. Pooh looks more like a bear although his paws aren't attached to his body. Most bears I've seen have their paws attached. This Pooh's more rotund, probably not even a shape that would permit walking. He sings a song over and over again, something that sounds really angry because the Russian language sounds a little angry even though he's singing "Param-taram" and talking about how it doesn't matter if he scratches his head because it's filled with sawdust. Although I guess that would be enough to make a person angry. Eeyore's just as profoundly melancholy, and his first appearance--a shot of colorful flowers and a panning up to his weeping reflection in a pond--is a beautiful work of art. He throws out one more "damn" than the character in the Disney version. Owl's a woman in this, and Piglet, who apparently exhales helium, is wearing a blue-and-white-checkered number instead of the weird striped pink body suit thing. I almost watched this sans subtitles because it really wouldn't have mattered, but I'm glad I found a version with them because I liked the humor.

Since the Vinni Pukh shorts didn't add up to a full-length feature film, I decided to watch "The Story of One Crime" which was also by Fyodor Khitruk and made in 1962. It's a more adult story since there really is a crime--a bludgeoning. Russian cartoons didn't include adult contemporary stories when Stalin was around. This was cute and sometimes clever, but it's nothing that will last forever. I watched a couple episodes of Nu, Pogodi ("Well, Wait") by a guy named Kotyonochkin. It's sort of a Russian Tom and Jerry thing with a wolf and a bunny. I liked it fine but wondered if there was something more subversive about the whole thing. Apparently not as Kotyonochkin did not like subtext. Nu, Pogodi was apparently wildly popular with children. Finally, I watched "The Glass Harmonica" by Andrei Khrzhanovsky again. I'd written about it previously when I watched it as part of a Russian animation compilation, and it's still just as great. The first animated film to be banned in Russia, this is a beautifully surreal piece that at times as imagery and imagination reminiscent of Yellow Submarine. It's cool, and if you are in the mood to watch some Russian animation, the Pooh shorts or "The Glass Harmonica" are both recommended.

The White Reindeer

1952 were-reindeer movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A gal gets married and instead of buying a self-help book decides to visit a witch man to help her in the sack. Instead, she becomes the titular were-reindeer and starts killing off men in the village.

After a haunting song accompanying shots of the Finnish snowy landscape, this seemed like a silent movie from 1952. It started wordless and dialogue was used sparingly throughout which adds to the mysterious feel. I don't think director Erik Blomberg had to try very hard, but there's some great imagery in this. An alter surrounded by antlers sticking out of the snow is a creepy-enough visual. There were also loads of reindeer extras, a herd of gray against an almost entirely-white background, and there's a beautiful close-to-final (should have been the final) shot of dusty snow blowing across the surface of ice. Some raucous reindeer racing at the beginning certainly looks like a dangerous activity, speaking of reindeer. I felt sorry for one poor guy with only one antler. And I was really impressed with the movements they get from this reindeer. They've made it look like the animal knows it's part of a movie and is cooperating fully. The humans are good, too, at least the pair who stand out. Most of the characters are treated with about as much importance as the snow. The reindeer is somebody named Mirjami Kuosmanen, and she's really good in a style from 25 years earlier with those exaggerated silent movie mood swings and faces. I really like the way she's lit in this movie. And the witch man is really awesome, Arvo Lehesmaa who might be using actual words (I don't know Finnish) but sounds like he's just making noises.

By the way, I did a little research and found out that this kind of thing happens in Scandinavia all the time.

I watched this on Network Awesome.

Metropolis

1927 science fiction movie

Rating: 19/20

Plot: In the futuristic titular city, the rich thinkers live above the ground, frolic in beautiful gardens, and wear some of the gayest costumes imaginable. The workers exist subterranean where their jobs are often dangerous. One of the above-grounders, the knickerbockered Freder Fredersen, spots Maria, a sort-of prophet from below who babbles on and on about how the "heart" will someday join the "hands" and the "head" together. People just listen to her because she's a cutie. Freder is enamored and heads down to do some stalking, and he ends up taking the place of one of the workers. This is kind of an issue since Freder's father is Joh Frederson, the leader of Metropolis. Meanwhile, an inventor who once loved Joh's dead wife has invented a hot robot woman.

This was the first time I'd seen the two-and-a-half-hour restored version from 2010. It looks terrific for the most part with giant music, and the added material definitely makes it more coherent than the version I saw a long time ago. This was the first full-length science fiction movie, and Lang's not horsing around, creating an epic that you could almost accuse of being overly ambitious. The message behind the story might be as relevant as ever, but I don't really watch movies for the politics or social critiquing. The themes, if anything, are a little heavy handed. But the wonderful visuals make up for all that, making this a milestone and an artistic achievement. These are some of my favorite visuals ever, and seeing things filmed in the mid-20s that seem brand new to me in 2014 is nothing short of movie magic. Start with the most indelible image--that hot robot woman. Should I be this sexually attracted to a robot? A scene where Maria--Brigitte Helm who is quite the silent babe herself--transforms into the robot is mesmerizing, and the special effects really wouldn't catch up for another thirty-five years. The early scenes of the workers marching to their jobs, despondently and in unison, and an opening shift change sequence is fascinating. The machinery below, just like the urban landscapes above, are so big and beautiful. I liked watching the workers at their tasks. There's a rhythm to their work that would have existed even without the aid from the music. I also liked the visuals during a chase scene through catacombs, one of the finest examples of Expressionistic setting. Seven deadly sins statues certainly are sharp, and a truly menacing flood scene with camera angles and movements and quick cuts used to artificially create the action makes for a terrific climax. Hell, just the impressive array of extras is enough to get you excited. This thing really is fucking grand! Brigitte Helm is a star here, versatile and sexy. I'm wondering if she got the part right after the producers saw her eyes or if they had to see her long beautiful fingers, too. Her physicality in that chase scene is great pantomime, but when she belly-dances--as the robot--in translucent clothes? Well, it's something to behold, and I am not ashamed to admit that it gave me a Roaring Twenties boner. I really loved the reactions of the men during that scene, their faces piled on top of each other with the magic of superimposition. What a scene that is. She wreaks havoc, including some gay silent movie fisticuffs. And when she winks in this movie? I paused the movie to thank God. Gustav Frohlich is your typical dopey 20's cinema hero. And those knickerbockers! They might make it difficult for some people to root for Freder in this. Then again, this takes place in 2026 which means I only have to wait a few years for extreme knickerbockers to come back in style. I can't wait. By the way, if I were Freder's father, I think I'd put a stop to the way he touches me in this. The inventor's an interesting character who never makes much sense at all, and there's a guy called the "Thin Man" who really should be called the "Oddly-Shaped Man." My favorite male character was chubby Grot played by Heinrich George. He's the "hands" if you're keeping score at home, and he has this burning-at-the-stake dance scene that is pretty sweet. I also like his method of avoiding handshakes--stubbornly shoving both hands down the front of his pants--and may borrow the move. A lot of people think silent movies are really boring. They'd probably think this movie is really boring, too, but I don't think there's any way somebody can watch this and not be impressed with the vision of the people who put this together and the execution to get that vision on the screen.

Miller's Crossing

1990 gangsta movie

Rating: 19/20

Plot: A movie about hats. Or, the story of a guy playing chess with himself. Or, a gangster Yojimbo. Take your pick, but I think it's a movie about hats.

"There's nothing more foolish than a man chasing his hat."

Coen brother movies, like classical music pieces I've never heard before. I'll hear something new to my ears; think about how it's always been around before, always been as beautiful as it is, and will stick around forever; and think about the genius that goes into the creation. The Coens are like virtuoso musicians. And they're contemporary, of course, making things in the present tense that have obviously not "always been around before," but that's how you know you're watching a masterpiece. This movie's considerably younger than I am, but it feels like it belongs in the history of movies, canonical and classic. This, like a lot of Coen Brother movies, will last forever. They're playing a music that is familiar, one that definitely fits snuggly in a genre, but it's a piece of music that will last forever because they hit all the right notes perfectly.

The right notes: That hat blowing through the woods in what we later learn is a dream sequence; Marica Gay Harden's Verna's open blouse; Leo's squeaking shoes; the slang, even when a "wart on his fanny" idiom doesn't register with one character; the looks of a dog and a little kid in a flat cap at a dead guy; dead guy's drooping toupee; the colors of that ladies room; Verna's right hook and the shake of her rump as she walks out of that room; the crack of a mirror; the way Turturro is dwarfed by the chair he sits in when we first meet his character; a fat kid's sailor outfit, an outfit he has to be squeezed into; Mike Starr, Kenny from Ed, and his size and the patience demanded as he prepares for a pounding; rumpus choreography; a match lit on a cop's badge; curtain transition; curtain transition again, majestically; gagging accompanied by "Oh, Danny Boy;" walks up flights of stairs in unison; smoke from a Tommy gun; dialogue with dialogue--shifts from Tommy to Leo during the revelation about Verna; an elongated scream that could very easily be the new--female--Wilhelm; a slowly-passing street car; blue-gray smoke; the sound of a stretching leather glove; a sly silver gun on a tiny table; bruised faces and the groaning of trees; a pair of nearly identical Italians sitting on the mayor's couch; Sal's shaving nicks; another hat on the stairs and an old lady concerned about her cats.

I'd always had a little trouble keeping up with gangster plots and characters until I realized they're a lot like samurai movies. This one is a lot like Yojimbo or, if you're a cowboy, A Fistful of Dollars. The plot's complex because you don't get the internal monologue of these characters and their motivations are often difficult. The Coens borrow from two Hammett novels and, of course, The Godfather since you really can't make a gangster movie since The Godfather without borrowing from The Godfather. This is the one that led to some writer's block which led to Barton Fink which made me give this a bonus point because I love Barton Fink so much. The characters are well-defined and brilliantly acted. You could always do worse than starting a movie with Jon Polito--that mustache, the way he smacks his lips as he prattles on about the ethics of fixed fights, establishing a sort-of theme right from the get-go. Finney's Leo is a great character, too, a boss so flimsy beneath his tough exterior that it almost seems like he's already bullet riddled. "Johnny, you're exactly as big as I let you be and no bigger" makes him Godfather-esque, but that's just the brawn talking. But Finney can punch, and Leo can shoot, evidenced by his escape from his assassination with one of the most amazing death scenes of all time, all machine gun chatter and absurd fire and jerking around. Byrne's Tom Reagan is a suitable Irish Eastwood/Mifune, foreshadowing with his "When I've raised hell, you'll know it," and almost exactly as smart as he thinks he is. I'm not sure Harden's worth a war, but she's really good here, too. Or maybe she is worth a war. She can tug on a cigarette, and as I mentioned, I did watch her walk out of that restroom. Eddie Dane seems like a composite of a bunch of other characters; J.E. Freeman plays him like a cliche, but it works, and his death is another absolutely ridiculous scene where the character's surrounded by antlers and a gorilla screams madly. Mike Starr's great although having him sing at the titular crossing wasn't the best move, and Tic-Tac (Al Mancini) is awesome, especially with his laughter during "hanky time." But check out John Turturro! Man, I love that performance! There's a little Jesus in his walk at one point, and he manages to create the most pitiful soul that I think you're ever likely to see on the screen during the scene at Miller's Crossing at the center of this movie. It's powerful stuff. I love these fragile characters in their tough-guy hats, and I love the story they find themselves in.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds

1984 animated fantasy

Rating: 14/20 (Mark: 11/20, docking it points for an extraneous and pointless umlauted 'a')

Plot: Most of Earth consists of toxic jungle inhabited by giant insects. The titular princess of the titular valley has befriended the insects somewhat and roams the jungles freely. Her people's halcyon life in the valley is disrupted when the Tolkmekians, led by a gal with one arm and a metallic vagina (I'm guessing) and an irritating son of a bitch, invade and kill their king. The Tolmekians have plans to unleash a Big Fire Man, one of the seven giant warriors who destroyed most of mankind. They want to use it to fight the insects. A blind lady reminds everybody of a prophecy about a hero in blue who will reunite mankind and nature, and if you've ever seen any movie at all like this, you can probably guess that it's going to be Nausicaa.

This predates Studio Ghibli but helped launched Studio Ghibli and should get a little credit for that. It's Miyazaki, so you can guess that it's a fantasy that oozes the fantastical. It's colorful, a world filled with stunning landscapes and a variety of interesting insects. This might not be as textured as his later films, but it's still beautiful to look at. There are a lot of action sequences with various spaceships maneuvering through clouds and pew-pewing at each other, and that all looks good, too. In fact, there's not a lot that I would complain about with the animation. The characters and their story, unfortunately, are all a little boring. Fantasy's not really my bag anyway. I really have to be in the right mood to watch it, and my brother forced it upon me. I couldn't really protest because I was eating his pizza and farting on his couch. The female protagonist is your typical Miyazaki heroine, but the boy she later befriends, a guy voiced by Shooby LeBoof actually, doesn't add much to the story. The bad guy warriors look interesting enough in two types of armor, but about half of them are bring swords to a gun and tank battle which doesn't make a lot of sense and they all shoot about as well as Stormtroopers (the Star Wars ones--not the Nazi ones) in dogfights. Uma Thurman voices the main evil woman character, one that is almost interesting. She did get my mind wandering when she made reference to something the insects did to her body that only a man lucky enough to marry her would find out about. The main evil guy character irritated me, but I did like how he looked visibly bored or annoyed a lot of the time when things were going on that had little to do with him. And he got my mind wandering a bit, and I wondered how difficult it would be to get into Disneyland or Disney World dressed like him just to see how many people wanted their pictures taken with me. And then I started thinking about dressing like other characters--Poppins' chimney sweep buddy, for instance--and instantly put that on my bucket list. But back to this movie. I did enjoy how a lot of this looked, but I didn't care for the story too much, and the music was really irritating, especially a high-pitched la-la-la-la-la-la-la theme song that accompanied what I think was a flashback and a pivotal scene later in the movie. There was also a generous portion of disco music. The voice work wasn't great in this thing either. I might not have known exactly where this story was going to go, but by the time it all resolved, I wasn't surprised a bit at how it was resolved. And I wasn't surprised a bit that it dealt thematically with man's relationship to the environment and the dangers of war. I don't speak Japanese, but I can only assume Ghibli means hippie. It's nowhere near upper-echelon Miyazaki, but it's pretty enough and has those cool-looking insects. No metallic cooters though. That's disappointing.

I Married a Witch

1942 rom-com

Rating: 15/20 (Mark: 14/20)

Plot: Aspiring politician Wallace Wooley is getting married in the final days of his campaign, but the cute little titular witch and her father, both who were burned by Wooley's Puritan ancestor for being "too witchy," return to mess things up. The witch harasses at his home, attempts to give him a love potion, and finally shows up at his wedding in order to make his life miserable.

I've only got one other Rene Clair movie on the blog, the great A Nous la Liberte. This is a charming comedy that breezes along nicely, and Veronica Lake is very easy on the eyes if you're into petite flirtatious blonds. I thought Fredric March was a little too old for the part, and Lake really outshone him for the majority of this, especially during the first half when it seemed like the poor actor was doing everything he could just to keep up with her. Of course, that might have been part of the point.  Like most romantic comedies, especially ones made during the 1940s, things move a little too briskly at times. But who am I to argue? I mean, love is more powerful than witchcraft. We did learn that in this one. There are some cute special effects--dancing brooms, flying taxicabs, hovering smoke--that blend with the story and the flesh and blood actors and settings very naturally. Cecil Kellaway plays the father of the witch/bride, and I really liked when he was on the screen. When he voiced smoke or sometimes smoke inside a bottle, he sort of overdid things though. But he played a drunkard in that classic film style very well and had some versatility to his voice that I enjoyed. Kellaway wasn't nowhere near the little hottie that Veronica Lake was though which probably explains why he didn't get the part as the witch. I just thought she nailed this part--perfectly flirtatious, perfectly pouty, perfectly witchy and human both. I don't think I've seen her since Sullivan's Travels which I also liked her in. Boy, she sure helped Wooley dodge a bullet in this one. I should check out more Rene Clair movies.

I watched this at my brother's house under the influence of root beer and framed cat pictures.

Prince Avalanche

2013 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Following devastating wildfires in Texas, a road worker and his girlfriend's brother get to work repainting yellow lines on the road.

First, I want to get this out of the way: Paul Rudd could easily play Oates in a Hall and Oates biopic assuming that Oates is the one whom I'm thinking about. Oates has the mustache, right? And he really should because a Hall and Oates biopic would be absolutely amazing.

You can tell this is an independent film because of how many scenes involve the two characters camping or working. It might be a quarter of the movie. This sometimes feels like a more briskly-paced Gerry except there's a more of a quiet slapstick and humorous awkwardness with the characters' relationship. Here's a piece of dialogue that occurs after the characters have had a fight ending with Paul Rudd's character jumping or falling off a "cliff" and injuring himself:

Alvin: I don't know what I was doing. I feel like such a fool. I was running, and I reached the cliff, and all I know is that I either wanted to fly or kill myself."
Lance: Kill yourself by jumping off a twelve-foot cliff?
Alvin: Sometimes I can do things that can't really happen.
Lance: What does that mean?
Alvin: I'm impossible.

I love that! When the characters do communicate, the interactions seem straight out of the Theater of the Absurd school of drama. Rudd always plays awkward really well; he's sort of making a career of it actually. Emile Hirsh is also good, quite naturally butchering the English language with meandering stories and half-thunk aspirations and dreams. Their nasty rapport makes for uncomfortable comical conflict. Rudd actually says "I could beat you up" at one point, following it with a bicep flex and a flee through the woods when Hirsch grabs for a large crescent wrench. A weird chase that follows involves war paint and a whoop. Hirsch gets an awkward masturbation scene while Rudd shows off his dance moves in what has to be the gayest fishing scene in any movie I've ever seen. Anyway, they both play "loser" really well, and their deliveries and comic timing is about perfect.

But although the movie is often funny, it's more than just a comedy. No, this is also a ghost story. Or maybe it's a time travel story. Really, I don't know what else is going on, but there's a strange vibe that makes you wonder if there's something ethereal or otherworldly about either some of the characters or maybe all of the characters in this. And it gives the movie a layer of tired sadness on top the madcappery. And that's exactly how I like my comedies--sad. Text at the beginning preceding shots of a wildfire tell us that four lives were lost, and there are really only four characters in this thing if you don't count some waving children at the very end. Are they all dead? You've got the titular avalanche (I think--Alvin + Lance = Avalanche?), a trucker named Moses played the late Lance LeGault--sadly, this was his final movie--who says cool things like "You're hopeless as tits on a boarhog," and an old lady looking for her pilot's license in the ashes of a burned house. The latter is in the truck with Moses a few times, but he doesn't acknowledge her and even claims not to see her. She refers to "digging in [her] own ashes" to Rudd's character and claims that "everything's past tense now." Rudd's lips don't move during a lot of the conversation he engages in with her. It all makes you wonder what is really going on with these characters long after the movie's ended. Are they ghosts? Are Lance, Alvin, and Moses representations of the same guy? If so, middle-aged Alvin's words to Lance, his younger self, that he "quite literally could amount to nothing" certainly seem sadder. I wish I would have figured out that there was something else going on with all this earlier so that I could watch out for more clues.

There's a remarkable scene with a long shot of Rudd and Hirsch approaching their little truck and opening a door. One of them says something about birds, and three (I think) doves fly out of the vehicle. The remarkable thing is that one of them flies straight into the camera. Accidental beauty? Well-trained doves?

All in all, another movie that I'm not smart enough to understand but ended up really liking.

Big Top Pee Wee

1988 sequel

Rating: 10/20

Plot: The titular goofball enjoys his life as a farmer. He has lunch with his fiance and enjoys time with his talking pet pig Vance. One day, a giant storm brings a bunch of circus people crashing down on his property, putting a strain on his romantic life and ruining his reputation with the townspeople. But the show must go on, and Pee Wee does what he can to help Kris Kristofferson and the other circus people put on the best farm-themed circus ever!

This may have gotten a bonus point for being the screen debut of Saved by the Bell's Dustin Diamond, but it's not something I would ever admit. And since it's a circus movie, especially one with a freak show, there's got to be a little person, and Mihaly Meszaros as Andy is pretty good. Meszaros really was a circus performer, but his real claim to fame was wearing the Alf costume when that lovable sitcom alien was shown in full. And Vance the Pig's voice is provided by Wayne White, the subject of this documentary. Kristofferson plays the circus manager like he's doing time. There's no way he can consider interactions with his wife Midge--a terrible special effect--or a conversation he has about George Washington Carver as the height of his career. And there are a bunch of circus performers--acrobatic brothers, a bearded lady, a half-man/half-woman, a strong man. Of course, this is a Pee Wee movie, so he's going to be in 95% of the shots. And don't get me wrong. There are a few Pee Wee moments that got me to chuckle, possibly because I was stoned. A scene where he feeds birds by chewing up food and spitting it in their mouths was magical. He enjoys breakfast with his animals, gets egg salad on his face, growls at Mihaly Meszaros like only Pee Wee Herman can growl, dances with a sheep, gets hit in the head with apples, and has a great reaction to the half-man/half-woman. And a random shot of mud-wrestling children made me laugh. This has the outrageous sense of humor that makes Pee Wee's Big Adventure so good. What it lacks is a solid idea or anything close to a classic Pee Wee Herman moment. Really, I'm not sure how the idea was greenlit in the first place. "Hey, let's mash together life on the farm with the circus, add a love triangle that will make the protagonist look like a horny and unlikable bastard, and make us a new Pee Wee movie!" The "Big Top" part is really shoved to the background for the majority of this, and the romance is played far too straight. And Pee Wee really is unlikable. I mean, he's got his flaws in that first movie but cheating on his fiance takes him to new heights of unlikability. And [SPOILER ALERT] he has sex. That's right--Pee Wee Herman pops his cherry. There's no on-screen sex scene where his red bow tie starts spinning in circles or anything like that, of course. No, they borrow Hitchcock's train-through-a-tunnel symbol so that adults, and probably a handful of children who have snuck peaks at their dad's magazine collection, know what's going down. Following that, things get all Freudian with a hot dog tree Pee Wee's growing in his greenhouse failing, the hot dogs shriveling up and becoming cocktail wieners. I'm not sure what that's saying because my dad hid his magazines too well, but I know it's saying something. This movie has a very lively score (Note: I have the soundtrack on cassette if you ever want to borrow it.) and I really did like a lot of the stuff with the farm animals and some sight gags with them. But it is a very disappointing follow-up to the big screen debut of the character.

True story: I had actually never seen this movie all the way through. As a fan of the first movie, I did go to the theater to see it but was thrown out for masturbating during that scene where Pee Wee feeds those birds. It's a little embarrassing to admit that, but nobody--and I mean nobody--will ever read this.

Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: Damnation Alley

1977 post-apocalyptic road trip

Rating: 9/20 (Libby: 5/20, 15/20, or 11/20; Fred: 12/20; Josh: 8/20; Jeremy: not sure what happened to him)

Plot: Oh, snap! Nuclear bombs ruin everybody's fun except for George Peppard's because nobody can ruin that guy's fun. He's got a few cigars and a futuristic Winnebago, so he's good to go. He and three other survives set out to find the titular place for reasons never adequately explained. That or they're going to Albany. Along the way, they lose a couple guys, pick up another couple people, and encounter all sorts of dangers.

First Bad Movie Club viewing of the year was only slightly incoherent and had laughable special effects. And the plot was paper thin, really consisting more of a handful of episodes--giant scorpions, a radioactive tornado, killer cockroaches, slot machine fun, inbreds-- than a story, especially since I really never had a handle on where they were going or why they were going there. It certainly looked fairly interesting. The sky becomes a variety of superimposed psychedelic colors--fuzzy greens and oranges and purples--that seem to have been an impulsive decision during post-production. There are color continuity errors, but maybe that's also just a product of the earth being knocked off its axis. I'm not a scientist, so how should I know? The giant scorpions, which for some reason are purple, are also superimposed. Jan-Michael Vincent performs motorcycle stunts through desert sands as he avoids these things, but they're only there so that his character can play a practical joke on another character which is all a little silly. Those menacing cockroaches are no laughing matter, and the token black character, who of course doesn't live to see the end of the movie, has one of the more painful deaths at their hands. Or legs or whatever las cucarachas muertas have. The big tank thing itself, the Land Master, looks cool enough except when it turns into an obvious model during a big flooding sequence. And Peppard, who one of the Bad Movie Clubbers seemed enamored with, was a bad ass although he started developing this accent midway through the movie, an accent that just kept getting more and more out of control. He probably picked it up at Ellen's Cafe where they encounter a triad of rednecks, one played by Seamon Glass, a name I just had to type. I made a Deliverance joke upon their appearance, but it turns out Seamon Glass, a name I just had to type again, was one of the Griners in that movie. And that's also no laughing matter. Jackie Earle Haley plays a kid, but probably just got the part because of his rock-hurling accuracy. He also delivers the best line in the movie: "Can I have a sucker?" This suffers from an overuse of stock footage, confusion about why there are working slot machines, and underdeveloped characters, but the score's pretty good, the visuals are kind of interesting, and you really can't mess with George Peppard.

New band name, inspired by one of Libby's comments: Radioactive Crotch

D.C. Cab

1983 comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: The hi-jinks of a bunch of cabbies in Washington D.C. One of the Baldwin brothers comes along with aspirations of starting his own company. There's kidnapping, a lost violin, and a competing cab company that all threaten to interrupt the proceedings.

Mr. T., that guy with the mohawk who towers over the Capitol Building up there, is featured prominently on all the posters for this, but Adam Baldwin gets top billing. T., as I call him, is just part of an ensemble cast, a collection of C-list comedians. Most of them retreated into the shadows following this movie. It's Bill Maher's first movie, but he's already got that smugness down. Gary Busey brings his absurdly broad shoulders and even broader teeth, stomping around like a tornado arriving fashionably late to a wrecking ball's birthday bash. Busey is pretty much playing a raunchier version of himself post-motorcycle-accident, or at least the closest to his current self than I've seen in other pre-motorcycle-accident appearances. If this is worth watching at all--and it isn't--then it's for his Elvis impression. T., as we all know, is quite the master thespian, growling lines like "My cab ain't no motel!" and flexing his temples. I"ve always been curious about Mr. T.'s pants. It always looks like he's wearing faded yoga pants or something, the kind of pants that seem to be threatening to show off more of Mr. T. than anybody needs to see but ending up showing off just the right amount of Mr. T. The best character is a sort of homeless philosopher named Mr. Rhythm. He's played by Whitman Mayo who Humphrey Bogart's third wife should have married after Bogart started sleeping with Bacall so she could have been Mayo Mayo.

I'm going to start a new paragraph just so we can pause and appreciate the fact that I've got two blog in a row with somebody named Mayo. That's not quite as impressive as my "man" streak, but it's pretty good!

Whitman would have been somewhere around 15 in the mid-40's, but there was a pretty noticeable age difference with Bogart and Bacall, too. Anyway, Mr. Rhythm passes off some good advice in the movie: "Don't let your dick run your life. That's Mr. Rhythm's good advice. Save your life." Even more motivating was this pearl of wisdom: "If you can go through the night without committing suicide, then you ok." The "Around the Clock, We're Gonna Rock" song--clever lyrics there--dates this thing, and if that doesn't, the chauvinism and racism will. I felt forced into watching this thing because it was expiring on Netflix, but it wasn't worth my time at all. Well, I take that back. I did find out where my childhood nickname--White Bread Chicken Shit Hockenberry--came from. But I didn't laugh a single time which is usually bad for a comedy.

Casablanca

1942 classic

Rating: 20/20 (Richard Parker: 20/20)

Plot: In the unoccupied titular (four words into 2014, and that word's already happened) Moroccan city, Rick wears a bow tie and runs a cafe during World War II, the one with the Nazis. He's got some rubble-rousing in his past and like a lot of the occupants of Casablanca, he's stuck, but he's lucky because he's got a piano-playing sidekick named Sam, a token black character. Sam's allowed to play any song he wants except for one--"Them's Be Steppin'," the 1940's equivalent of "Who Let the Dogs Out". Suddenly, a story happens: A seedy guy gives him a pair of letters of transit to hide for him following the murder of some German guys (probably Nazis who probably deserved it) on a train. Things get very complicated for Rick when his old flame--a hot little Scandinavian number called Ilsa--shows up in his cafe with her husband, Victor Laszlo, a Resistance hotshot. People drink a lot.

Here's a question: Why don't parents name their boys Humphrey anymore? I just checked some statistics, and only 8 babies were named Humphrey in 2013, and it's not been in the top-1,000 names for any year in the last 100 years. You'd think the popularity of Bogart would at least help it bust into the top-1,000, wouldn't you? It's got a cool meaning--"Peaceful warrior" or "Peaceful giant"--and is a nice tough-sounding name. That or the name of that kid who people beat up and who more than once each school year breaks and ink pen in his mouth and has to ask to go to the bathroom to get himself cleaned up. But let me tell you something. That kid's got an inner beauty and will probably shoot up in height and gain some muscle mass in college just like his pa, and then who's going to have the last laugh?

I don't always love Humphrey Bogart, but I usually do. And he's the absolutely perfect actor for this role. Bogart always seems a little sickly to me, a broken-down little version of a man, and he plays cynical as well as any actor in cinematic history. Yet, he still manages to exude this raw manly power as well. Rick's a character who needs to be a little withered, one that life has sort of beaten some of the crap out of, and I can't think of another actor who would have nailed that character like Bogart does. And then, enter Bergman with just the right touch of fragility herself but also this effervescent energy that somehow pours into Bogart and makes his jacket shine just a little bit whiter. She's got demon irises, and if you're not careful, you could get lost in those eyes, tangled in the retina and optic nerves, and drown in the sclera, all the while just hoping that she saw you for a little bit before you expired. And you can argue with this if you want, but I've always thought great Hollywood beauty is even more beautiful in black and white--Bergman here, Mary Pickford, Berenice Bejo, Maria de Medeiros, Jack Nance. Bogart and Bergman bounce off each other so beautifully here that if I were Lauren Bacall [Note: I am not.], I would have been a little peeved. Maybe. I'm too lazy to research exactly when Bogart and Bacall got together. Well, ok, I'm not. They married in 1945, but he was married to somebody named Mayo in '42, and I bet she was peeved. As peeved as somebody named Mayo can be anyway. If not, I bet she was peeved when Humphrey started diddling a barely-legal--by today's standards anyway--Lauren Bacall. Mayo, by the way, has never been a popular name either. It means "yew tree plain" which isn't nearly as cool as "peaceful giant." It's probably why the marriage didn't work actually. I mean, you can have one spouse with an odd name, but can a marriage with two oddly-named people survive? Like, they walk into a big Hollywood party, and people say, "Look, there's Humphrey and Mayo. Let's stay away from them tonight because he's chewing on an ink pen again. And she's just fattening."

But enough with the Hollywood gossip. That's not the kind of blog this is although I bet my wife would enjoy this information if she did a little more than just skim. There are other actors in this movie, too. Actors, I said, because other than Bergman, there are not many females clubbing in Casablanca. Perhaps that's why Bergman radiates as much as she does? Claude Rains as a great complex character, Renault; Conrad Veidt; Syndey Greenstreet; the great Peter Lorre. It's a perfect storm of awesome performers, and they get such terrific writing to chew on in this. Honestly, I could probably do without half of the twenty times Bogie says, "Here's lookin' at you, kid," but so many lines in this thing have just permeated pop culture. Starts of beautiful friendships, women walking into specific gin joints when they could have easily walked into countless others, the problems of people not amounting to a hill of beans in our crazy world, piano men playing certain songs for old time's sake, the heart being a person's least vulnerable spot, folks kissing other folks as if it were for the last time. They're lines that have become part of the American language, and the whole script is just filled little bits of magic that screenwriters just can't make happen naturally. There's also a great humor that pops out of the tension and melancholy. This movie came out over 70 years ago now, but the writing and rapport between the performers makes it still seem so fresh. This is one of Hollywood's most complex love stories, one that takes a small moment in the lives of three people and requires you--except for the flashback which I wish wasn't necessary--to fill in a lot of gaps yourself, including the great gaping gap at the end of the film. And that ending! Talk about Rick and Ilsa's relationship all you want, but my favorite relationship in this movie is between Rick and Renault. Curtiz's direction is simple; he lets the acting and writing tell the story for the most part although I do like how the camera moves through Rick's cafe and there is one shot of Bogart's shadow opening a safe that I really like.

A lot of classic movies don't live up to their reputations. This is one that does, the kind of classic that improves with each viewing and one that is as flawless as any film you're likely to ever see.