Plot: Same as this version of the Hemingway novella.
Despite obvious flaws, I do really like the Spencer Tracy movie, but this 20 minute short will be the one I recommend to anybody wanting to see a film adaptation of a Hemingway book. But I first have to start with that poster. A must "sea" movie, poster? Really? You're going with that pun? You've got one of the most beautiful and unique animated movies I've seen in a very long time, and you're soiling it with that?
This is a co-production with Canada, Russia, and Japan, but it's the work of Russian animator Aleksander Petrov. I'm not sure I completely understand the process, but it involved 29,000 frames handpainted on glass. That's handpainted. It also took two-and-a-half years to complete. Apparently, Petrov would move the paint around with his fingers to give the impression of fluency, and it really is some of the most beautiful animation I've ever seen. It just looks like a labor of love. And sure, the water looks watery, the sky looks sky-y, the humans are humany, the fishes are appropriately scaly, and all that, but you can tell the angles, the position of the "camera," has been carefully considered, too. To borrow a word from the poster, it really is stunning. And to borrow a phrase--it's a must "sea" film.
The music by Denis L. Chartrand and Normand Roger isn't always perfect, like it can't quite match the beauty of the visuals. I'm not sure how it could though! Also, there's a scene where the guy and the fish--true brothers, if you've read your Hemingway--are swimming together in what I believe is the sky, and that's a little yucky. And maybe the voice work. . .oh, nevermind. Don't pay attention to my nitpicking here because this is a nearly flawless adaptation of a great story.
Plot: Documentary filmmakers uncover a secret organization that's involved in moon inhabitation, time travel, and sunglasses.
This certainly isn't short on ideas. This is the only film from writer/director Matthew Avant, and I suspect it's because he shot his wad and used every single idea he ever had. It actually nearly all comes together in a way that's almost satisfying, but it's ultimately a little too sloppy and too predictable. It really seemed as if Avant had trouble making up his mind about whether he wanted to make a found footage flick, since those are all the rage, or a fake documentary, and this sort of settles somewhere in the middle of the two. So although the myriad of ideas are intriguing, a conspiracy theorist's wet dream, it just doesn't work.
These sorts of movies live or die with the acting, and the work in this is inconsistent. It's at its best when the actors playing scientists or researchers or former cult members are providing interview snippets. You could see those and maybe believe this is a real documentary. When it gets into the found footage area, however, it's not always convincing. I don't think the leads--the documentary filmmakers or the older gentleman who gives them a lot of information--are terrible. In fact, the older guy who plays the former cult member and moon inhabitant is really pretty good. Some of the sunglassed, Agent Smith-looking heavies and especially the overly-frantic talk show caller took me out of the experience.
Something else that took me out of this experience was the music. There was far too much music in this, and there arguably should have been no music at all.
I'm semi-impressed with what Avant was able to do with probably not a lot of money, but a lot of its issues could have been fixed during the writing process.
Plot: A mopey vampire reconnects with the love of his eternal life, another vampire. They find their lifestyles threatened by rabid fans, an impulsive sister, and changing times.
Pal Larry and I disagreed on The Limits of Control, the Jarmusch feature film that preceded this one. He, a longtime Jarmusch fan who would rank Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law as two of his favorite comedies just like I would, hated it. I liked it, but in a sort-of lukewarm way, and it would be the movie I'd put last in a list of best Jim Jarmusch movies unless Permanent Vacation counts. I don't really remember the movie all that well either. This movie, which automatically gives you a sour taste in your mouth because it's a vampire movie in a time when somebody like Jim Jarmusch just shouldn't be making vampire movies, has a similar feel to that movie. And that means that it doesn't really feel all that Jarmuschian. I have reasons to believe that Larry disliked this one, too.
I liked it though. What really stood out to me was the music, a large chunk performed by Jarmusch's band SQÜRL, this crunchy screeching guitar-driven doom-psych stuff ostensibly performed and recorded by Thor's brother's character in this movie. It was a little like a darker, less competent Godspeed You Black Emperor! and perfectly complimented the overall ennui or lethargy that hung from some of these characters. What are you going to do when you've lived for centuries, apparently starfucking but ultimately existing as a recluse and outsider despite being gifted? You multitrack yourself and compose music in collaboration with the cosmos of your brain's right hemisphere. Or the left one. Alligators and crocodiles to me. The spinning opener with a Wanda June cover is a thrilling opener.
I also liked the performances. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton. Actually, in this movie, Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are very nearly Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. They're vampiric, and although their names--Adam and Eve--are really too cheesy, I like their tired apathy and their eternal perseverance. And I bought their love even though it wasn't explicit. Of course, how could that love not be real when the couple is dancing to Charlie Feathers and eating blood popsicles while playing chess? Even better than those two was John Hurt as Christopher Marlowe, that Christopher Marlowe. I've learned that John Hurt kind of steals any movie he's in though.
This is also sneakily funny, like your typical Jarmusch comedy. No, it's not as funny as his earlier films, the ones that might make you laugh out loud, but it's still funny in that way where some people won't even know it's supposed to be funny. Hiddleston gets a standout line and walks around in a comical get-up as "Dr. Faust." The comedy's subtle, but you'll have to let out a controlled chuckle if you're a hipster so that the other hipsters around you will know you're in on it.
You'd be tempted to think this is a movie about love because there's a romance at the heart of it and the word "lovers" is in the title. It might be a semi-autobiographical movie about the director, a bit of an auteuristic outsider himself. And it might be a movie about Detroit, a city which, according to Swinton's character, "will bloom again." Detroit is really another character in this story.
I don't think there's a chance we're getting another Stranger Than Paradise, and I'm not sure Jarmusch's maturity (or whatever you want to call it) as a not-very-prolific filmmaker really excites me. The movies of this second half of his career are still more interetsing than most of what's out there though.
Plot: A widower and his daughter renovating a hotel have strange visitors from another time.
Check out that poster! Without reading a plot synopsis for this movie, which is also called Grand Tour: Disaster in Time, you wouldn't have any idea what this is about. It looks like it could be about a guy who is struck by lightning while lighting his farts, but that would seem to be a huge spoiler alert.
If you're keeping score, this makes three time travel movies for Jeff Daniels, at least if you count Pleasantville as a time travel movie. The guy certainly picks some interesting roles for himself in between some junk roles. I like Jeff Daniels much more as a 41 year old than I did as a 20-something-year-old, so apparently, he's the type of actor who grows on you.
I do want to warn you about something though. And yes, I realize this is a spoiler, but I think going into this movie with this little bit of knowledge could save somebody from a shock that might give them a heart attack. This movie, although it starts slowly and mysteriously, gets wackier and wackier as it goes, eventually just tossing out all rules we've learned about in all these other time-travel stories and acting like it's never even seen Back to the Future or heard of paradoxes. Our character even screams, "Fuck the physics!" at one point in this movie. And eventually, you've got two Jeff Daniels on screen at the same time. As far as I know, that's the record for most Jeff Daniels on the screen at the same time, but I'm far from a Jeff Daniels expert.
I liked this movie, and I liked the premise, a concept that's apparently borrowed for a 1999 television movie called Thrill Seekers that I'll probably get around to watching later. In this, the time travelers are tourists who are visiting the past in order to witness disasters--the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, the Hindenburg explosion, etc. And with that, you've got the old question about whether or not a time traveler should attempt to change things in the past to save lives or avoid these disasters. The "time machine" itself is a little bogus, but the creepy voyeuristic aspect is cool, and it does bring up that interesting philosophical and moral dilemma, one that is looked at both globally and personally here.
There's an actor named Time Winters in this movie. He's only in one other time travel movie.
Favorite scenes: One cool shot with a drugged Daniels in a spinning room and another where he punches a woman like he thinks he's Nicolas Cage or something.
Question of the Day: If you could travel back in time and observe (just observe--not change at all) any one disaster, which would you pick? I know what I'd pick, but I'll save it for the comments.
Plot: A linguistics professor is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and deals with her rapidly-declining memory and other mental faculties.
Julianne Moore is always great, and--predictably--she's great here in a role that requires her to show a range of vacancies. Did she deserve her Best Actress award? Well, there's a scene in this where she pisses herself because she can't find the bathroom and Alec Baldwin looks like he's about to burst into laughter. You know--the natural state of a Baldwin brother. Actually, let's have a look at the guy. Here's a collection of pictures of Alec Baldwin from various stages in his illustrious television and film career. Study them.
See? In every picture, the guy's either just about to laugh or trying to hold in a laugh. You can Google Image Alec Baldwin yourself if you want, but this is mostly what you'll see. The only other Alec Baldwin you'll see is one that is about to come through your computer monitor and yell at you. That's likely either because a paparazzo is trying to take a picture of his wife or because somebody's told him he's not allowed to play Words with Friends.
Oh, you know what? This movie references Words with Friends. Do you think he read that in the script and didn't make the connection? Or did he read it in the script and say, "Wait just a second. Are screenwriters Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland messing with me here?" but then agree to do the film anyway?
But I digress. Alec Baldwin's character definitely shouldn't have laughed at his poor Alzheimer-ridden wife's micturating herself, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. I wanted to say something about her Academy Award. And I'm saying that if Moore actually did urinate in that scene, she definitely deserves the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. If I find out that piss was nothing more than special effects or, even worse, computer-generated piss, I think the award should have gone to somebody else.
This movie's fine, and it's about an important subject, one that's close to my wife's heart. I thought it was a little jumpy and, at the same time, a little redundant. And Kristen Stewart was in this for some reason. Moore really was good whether that urine was real or fake.
Plot: Aliens, under the pretext of creating a "Children's Land" that will somehow encourage peace, summon Gigan and Ghidorah in order to lure Godzilla into a trap. Can our big green friend save humanity once again?
I only celebrate two birthdays on this blog--the birthdays of Nicolas Cage and Cory. When you're getting the same treatment as Nicolas Cage, you know you're pretty special. Every year, I watch a Godzilla movie on July 16th as some weird idea of a birthday present to Cory, a guy who I like even though he doesn't see the genius in Eraserhead or The Phantom Menace like I do. I ran out of Godzilla movies that he told me were good ones and just have to watch whatever's available. I remember another reader telling me that this particular Godzilla movie was really bad, so I decided to watch it.
And as a special treat, this is Movies A-Go-Go style because that seems to be enormously popular. So here are my always somewhat convoluted thoughts as I watched Godzilla vs. Gigan, aka Godzilla on Monster Island.
Jun Fukuda directed this. I'd almost kill to have a last name like Fukuda.
This homework monster idea sounds really good actually. [Context: The main character, a comic book writer, brought a homework monster idea to the table. Essentially, it's children's fear of homework materializing in the atmosphere into a monster. See? Really great idea!]
Godzilla Tower in World Children’s Land--I thought this was going for an anti-capitalism subtext, but this playground library thing doesn’t seem like that much of a money maker.
Strict mother monster now? Man, this guy’s got some great ideas! Homework Monster? Strict Mother Monster? What will he come up with next? Chores Monster?
Monster Island shot--a final shot of baby Godzilla spitting a smoke ring accompanied by a fart sound. Before that, the shots of those twitching monsters almost made me giddy.
Godzilla looks so proud there. I'd be proud, too, if my son could do that. Or if my son could do anything!
Rotating desk scene--I really want one of those for my classroom. Complete with the dramatic music that plays when he rotates.
What good’s a rotating desk if people can just walk around and see you though?
Whoa! What’s with this guy’s outfit? I think this might be a Japanese hippie. I like how he just helps himself to our protagonist’s corn cob, typical Japanese hippie behavior.
This is already too many pictures!
“Those Children’s Land people are the enemies of peace.” Maybe this has an anti-Disney subtext.
Godzilla Tower is 13 stories high. And you can smoke in it. These are the kinds of things that matter to me when I'm watching a Godzilla movie.
Monster Island inhabitants apparently enjoy the sound of malfunctioning tapes. Godzilla’s eyeballs are silly in this movie.
What the hell is this talking business? Whoever came up with this idea should be slapped! Or thrown off the top of Godzilla Tower. [Note: More on this later. Barry had mentioned that Godzilla and the monster I'm going to be calling "Spiky Guy" talk in this movie. In this version I watched, they don't. In others? Well, hold on to your asses!]
Godzilla translation (since they didn’t give me subtitles): “Damn it! Those kids are playing their experimental electronic music too loudly again! Get them off my lawn!”
I’m secretly hoping that Godzilla and Godzilla Tower fight.
I haven't done the research, but I'm willing to bet Japan's got something that looks like this.
I’m watching this on something that forces commercials on me. So while I have a break--This is the second Cory’s birthday in a row where I’ve watched a Godzilla movie that is supposed to be awful, somehow making the absolute worst and cheapest birthday present even worse. This year, I have to confess, I was actually looking forward to this. Seriously--for like an entire month, I've been excited about watching a Godzilla movie on July 16th. It's like I need an excuse or something.
There’s too much time in this movie devoted to the comic book artist with terrible ideas, the chubby hippie, and the girl with no pants driving around with this dopey music in the background trying to figure things out. Bring on the monsters! This movie owes me fighting.
Fumio, who is dead but isn’t dead, died while climbing a mountain with his English teacher. And now the rule we have in my school district that prohibits student-teacher mountain-climbing expeditions makes perfect sense!
Now the bad guys are going to play “the tape of peace” which I believe was the name of Yoko Ono’s first album.
[Nope, but she does have two albums with "peace" in the title.]
Oh, boy. I just rubbed my hands together and sat up in my seat a little bit. We’re going to have some tanks vs. Spiky Guy action!
Spiky Guy seems a little too lumbering to be any kind of a menace. Well, until he makes that terrible noise that he makes. That would annoy the crap out of anybody.
Anguirus is Spiky Guy’s name. I looked it up during a commercial, but I won't remember it. His eyes don’t move. I think you either have all the monsters with moving eyes or you have none of them with moving eyes. Having both seems like some sort of continuity error.
The Japanese military = terrible shots. No wonder they had to crash their planes into things at Pearl Harbor. They couldn't shoot.
I can only assume this random gift of cigarettes is product placement.
Oh, it wasn’t random at all! It was part of an evil plan. This movie is way smarter than I am, I guess.
Ok, why are Ghidorah and Gigan floating around in space? Did Superman’s dad get mad at them and put them in a mirrors like he did with Zod and friends?
As a middle school English teacher, this is giving me ideas. Now I want to find a student to team up with to take over the world with the help of a pair of space monsters. [Clarification: Yes, I know the bad guys aren't really teacher and student. It was their cover. Still, those ideas are very real.]
Great. We have a hero who can’t make it up 13 flights of stairs.
Cool--the bad guys have cockroach shadows. Cue drunken horn and out-of-control theremin music.
I think some of these tanks might be toys.
I’m a little disappointed in the lack of movement from Ghidorah and Gigan. They don’t flap wings or anything while flying. They’re as motionless in the air as Godzilla Tower.
Finally! Building destruction! [Note: I thought the Tokyo destruction in this was pretty well done, at least average for one of these movies. It was a nice chunk of movie after a ton of exposition, too. I was starting to wonder if this movie was really as bad as Barry thought.]
Mannequins in Japan apparently look like this:
Actually, I’m wondering if these are supposed to be real people. You know, since the tanks are supposed to be real.
See, now Ghidorah and Gigan are animated. These destruction scenes are pretty cool although Gigan apparently has a tummy saw blade that makes it look like he’s having sex with buildings he’s rampaging.
Where are the screaming people? There's a disturbing lack of pedestrian mayhem here!
Godzilla and Spiky Guy are taking forever. Where the hell is Monster Island anyway? And they’re talking again. Barry, when he commented about this movie, told me they talked. This isn’t much different from how Ghidorah chirps or how they talk in other movies. I saw during a commercial break that in one version of this movie, talking bubbles were added. I’m going to have to find that.
[Note: I found that. This is probably what Barry saw, and it's definitely pretty dumb.]
Actually, this might be the best thing I've ever seen.
I like the bad guy mayhem music. It's familiar, probably recycled, but I really like it.
I think that even more than the fighting in these monster movies, I like all the posturing that takes place before the fight. If there were translations of the monster speak, I’m sure there would be a few "yo’ mama" jokes in there. "Yo' mama's smells so bad, Tokyo crumbles even before she gets there! Oh, snap!"
Ha! Zip-lining dolls! And they’re not even wearing the same clothes.
The one near the top is the woman with the diamond-patterned shirt. That's just bad doll-makin'!
Wait a second! Godzilla isn’t even fighting Gigan. Spiky Guy is. And it looks ridiculous!
Rock volleyball, with Spiky Guy setting for a Godzilla spike at Gigan, is a little silly, but not as silly as when Gigan starts clapping with those pointy hands of his. Or when Ghidorah lightnings Godzilla right in the crotch.
Yikes! That was a lot of blood! That had to be the big guy’s jugular. I have new respect for Gigan and his stomach saw.
Godzilla responds to seeing Godzilla Tower exactly like I expected him to--with a slap to his own head.
I kind of wish Trump Tower would do to Donald Trump what Godzilla Tower is doing to Godzilla. [Clarification: Shoot him with a blue laser until he's motionless on the ground.]
Yikes again! Spiky Guy’s blood splashed on the camera! That's a Kill Bill-esque blood spurt!
Elevator door opens, and the bad guys fall for the drawing-of-the-good-guys-with-dynamite-behind-it trick! And where did they get this picture of themselves anyway?
So they were literally cockroaches. That still doesn’t explain why their shadows were cockroach shadows when they had human forms earlier. The makers of this movie don’t seem to know how shadows work which is strange since they seem to have a complete understanding of all sorts of other scientific things.
Godzilla’s really getting his ass kicked. I don't think I've seen one of these movies where Godzilla's in this much trouble.
Some of Gigan’s gesticulations are comical, mostly because he’s got goofy-looking arms. I’d be embarrassed to hang around him if I were Ghidorah. Parts of him are pretty badass, and he's got his moments, but he really seems like he was designed after some Japanese kid won a Sketch Your Own Monster contest.
This fight scene is getting a little sexual. Godzilla violently teabagged Gigan while Spiky Guy and Ghidorah were necking. Sadly, I might be getting a little turned on.
Spiky Guy’s power revealed--he can hurl himself ass-first at another monster being held by another monster.
Terrible screen shot here. My apologies.
And with this cool final shot [but another lousy screen shot], Cory's birthday present has ended. Happy birthday, man! I hope it was a great one!
Plot: It's the year 3000, and humans try to take back Earth from alien invaders called the Psychlos, a race of extraterrestrials who enjoy chuckling.
Someday, I'd like to be considered a bad-movie aficionado. I have work to do, and this is one of those bad-movie classics that I should have seen a long time ago if I'm going to be taken seriously. Here were my thoughts while I watched this seven-hour movie. And yes, by now I realize that these probably aren't going to make any sense to anybody who hasn't seen the movie recently and that they're probably not as funny as I think they are. It's too late now because I've already copy and pasted all of the words here from another document.
Movies A-Go-Go!
Think about movies with "Earth" in the title. Have there been any good ones? And, go!
Green letters on black background. Does anything look more 1980s than that? We're seconds into the movie, and I already feel like throwing up.
Subtitle: A Saga in the Year 3000.
If there’s this alien race that has come and gone from earth and nearly wiped us out, why do humans think a wooden door with wooden spikes is going to stop them?
Wow, our fashion sense has gone to shit in 1,000 years. And what are the Scientologists behind this movie trying to say about humanity? How did we regress this much? I guess this is what John Travolta leads to.
People also over-enunciate in the future because it’s one of those movies.
This scene where Rock and some guy (Carlo apparently) who makes throat noises reminds me of the last time I played miniature golf actually. And that’s why I’ve never played miniature golf again. [See, here's the perfect example of something that doesn't make sense unless you're watching the movie. By the way, this miniature golf course scene almost convinced me that I was about to watch some underappreciated sci-fi classic. I thought it looked cool. Here's a picture:
Sorry: No picture available.]
Uh oh! Mall security! This is exactly why you don’t make campfires and cook meet in the middle of a mall. A guy will chase you around with really bad special effects.
I think our hero just ran through 8 glass walls. I think? Maybe it was a a replay of him running through the same glass wall? Does “You Break It; You Buy It” apply in the year 3,000?
I’m pretty sure these special effects are terrible for 2000. I know they’re bad for the year 3000.
“Don’t breathe the air! It’s poison!” Actually, I think they’re piping in the stench from this movie.
“Sure you might! And I might suddenly grow a third arm!”
“You’re out of your skull-bone!”
This is the type of dialogue we're going to have in Battlefield Earth. And that, Battlefield Earth, is why people laugh at you.
Travolta and Whitaker laughing--they’re not going to think things are that funny when they read reviews of this movie. [Note: I'm amazed at how much screen time is devoted to Travolta and Whitaker laughing. Here's a compilation of their laughing that somebody put together:]
Earth--one of the ugliest crap holes in the universe? The arrival of this king guy [Zete--inspired naming with this movie] brings out an even worse acting than Travolta. [Michael MacRae, by the way. And I'm not so sure about that "worse acting" comment that I typed there.]
Oh, my. They’re laughing again. These Psychlos are certainly jovial guys.
Nevermind. Nothing is worse than Travolta in this movie.
More laughing.
Why are lines echoing? Is that supposed to be artistic?
“The senator’s exact words to me--and I’m quoting. . .” That’s what “exact words” means, isn’t it? Is this how L. Ron Hubbard's novel reads or is this the genius of the screenwriters?
Planet Psychlo is the color of medicine I used to take as a kid.
All that fighting over some sort of pistachio jello?
Oh, I really liked how that guy said “economics” there.
More Psychlo chuckling. They think everything is funny!
More artsy-fartsiness: cockeyed camera angles. For no reason! Artsy-fartsy angles and weirdo echoing. I think that forces this into bad-bad movie territory rather than good-bad.
Every transition in this movie is a swipe from the center. That’s as tiresome as the rest of this movie.
Crumbling tower: Some of the worst CGI I’ve seen in a long time. I guess that's the best that you can get from Travolta's Pulp Fiction money?
Oh, forget I said that about the tower. That spaceship thing was even worse. This entire movie is gross, and I'm starting to hate myself again.
Travolta seems proud of his hand prosthetics in this. They’re rubbery and hairy and nothing to be proud of, but he seems to be finding every opportunity to hold those bad boys up. Maybe that’s acting.
Look at that thing!
I really really hope Travolta’s character gets an opportunity to dance in this movie.
“What do you think a man-animal would like to eat? What would he consider a treat?”
“How the crap would I know?”
I just find it hard to believe a Psychlo would say "How the crap would I know?"
Ok, I guess they’re not speaking the same language here? Otherwise, Travolta isn’t giving away his plan, right? It’s a good plan, by the way--release the man-animals and wait for him to find his favorite treat. That plan's just as intelligent as the writing for this movie.
Travolta finished at the top of his class? Really? I’m finding it impossible to believe that this guy can be the top of anything.
“Crap lousy ceiling!”
Clinko language slave. And there’s a jellyfish. And some magic dust. This might be the stupidest-looking scene yet. And trust me--that’s really saying something.
“Are you hungry, little fellow? Yes?” It’s a case where ignorance is bliss because now our hero is going to have to understand the Psychlos’ terrible dialogue like the rest of us.
That hero, by the way, is apparently named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. And he's played by somebody named Barry Pepper.
Was Barry Pepper supposed to be Tom Cruise? He looks a little like Cruise.
More movies need guy playing rudimentary horns on cliffs.
Oh, good. It’s Chrissy again. Sabine Karsenti plays her, very poorly. I'm starting to forgive all bad acting in this movie though because I think it's mostly a writing problem.
“Do you want lunch?!”
I knew this movie was bad, but I thought it had a terrible reputation because of the Scientology angle. But no--this is really as bad as its reputation would lead you to believe.
Field trip! Travolta takes our hero to a library to read the Declaration of Independence and to a farm to see cows. And this scene where Travolta’s showing off his marksmen skills by shooting cows is about as manly as a movie scene can be. Behind the back? Oh stop, Travolta! It’s not quite the dance scene I was looking for, but I guess it’ll have to do.
The lights in the night sky are planets?
Chirk’s forehead, long fingers, wild eyebrows, and tongue. And now I’m spent. I would not have predicted that I'd masturbate while watching Battlefield Earth, but there you go.
“I’m going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a straight diet of Kerbango.” I'm just going to add this to the masturbation rolodex. [Oh, my! That's Kelly Preston!]
Who’s this guy who fudged the books? I bet he was in Dune.
Shaun Austin-Olsen, and he wasn't in Dune. The character's name is apparently Planetship, by the way. What the hell kind of name is that?
Battlefield Earth drinking game: a shot every time the characters talk about leverage.
There’s no way the Washington Monument is still standing in 1,000 years.
I’ve completely lost track of what’s going on here. Maybe it’s because I’m not a Scientologist. All I know is that Carlo has regressed into a human who can only make that throaty grunting sound and say “Piece of cake!”
Leverage!
When Travolta said “Don’t be crazy!”, he sounded like Tony Manero. Until then, I was completely believing him as an alien.
Whitaker should be embarrassed. What was he doing before this movie that he felt like he had to do this movie?
“Our friendly bartender!” Severed head with giant music! Whitaker gets his hand shot off! This is nearly comedy gold.
I am really looking forward to the end of Battlefield Earth. This is an exhausting experience, easily the hardest I've had to work in 20 years.
This has turned into an explosion fest, but Carlo’s celebration after he shoots down a spaceship makes it all worth it.
Jets. Yeah, this is realistic.
I just checked on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’m surprised to see that 4 critics out of 148 gave this a favorable review.
"Blow the dome!" Paul Reubens got in trouble for that very thing while watching a movie, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to include that line so many times.
“THEY’RE KILLING US!”
I bet you can’t predict Carlo’s final words in this movie.
I have no idea what happened there, but a lot of shit blew up.
Travolta--still laughing until the very end.
I'm not sure we can take anybody involved with the production of Battlefield Earth seriously ever again. Or Scientology, of course. This is to Scientology what [insert name of any Christian movie here] is to Christianity.
Plot: It's a battle of the sexes as a gold digger meets up with a successful womanizing divorce lawyer!
I'd been meaning to give this another shot anyway, but the recent death of Irwin Keyes who plays "Wheezy Joe" in this gave me an excuse. I couldn't find either of Keyes' time travel movies, one called Timegate: Tales of the Saddle Tramps and the other featuring Pat Morita. Keyes had an interesting career with some interesting roles. He was Shorty the Stagehand in Lynch's On the Air, a police officer in The Warriors, the hunchback in Motorama. He was even in an episode of Growing Pains, but I don't remember whether he had any scenes with Boner Stabone. Black Dynamite, House of 1,000 Corpses, The Flintstones. I'm not sure he was ever better than in his brief role here, the kind of minor but memorable character that can exist only in the Coen brothers' wacky world. His exit is about as memorable as it gets. Rest in peace, Wheezy Joe.
I should make a Wheezy Joe inspired top-ten list of favorite Coen Brother auxiliary characters. Joe's making it, especially if my top-ten list has fifteen items on it like it usually does.
This movie isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. In fact, it's really pretty good. I think it's a combination of a few things. First, I'm older and more mature. Second, I have more experience with the kinds of comedy the Coens are trying to pull off here than I did when I first saw this. Third, I'm pretty sure I was disappointed that this was a movie made by the same people who made Fargo and The Big Lebowski, and I'm better able to detach the experience of watching this from my expectations. As an homage to 1940's screwball comedy, the Coens already had done it better with the criminally-underrated The Hudsucker Proxy, but this is definitely worth watching and will probably make you laugh.
We open with a great scene with Geoffrey Rush singing Simon and Garfunkel in his car. It leads to hijinks that feel kind of like Coen light. The opening sequence is almost funny, but it all seems strangely forced, not like something that belongs naturally in the Coens' world. It's almost like seeing a tiger in a cage in Indiana instead of seeing one out in the wild. It actually takes a little while for this thing to gain momentum, but once it does, it's fluent and nearly virtuosic. There are cute animated credits, choo-choo foreplay, an Abbott and Costello routine at the beginning of a courtroom scene, a bagpipe version of "Bridge over Troubled Water," and a shot of Living Without Intestines Magazine.
This was George Clooney's second Coen romp. The character's not as good as his first, but he plays this Cary Grant thing so well. Lines that aren't things that anybody would say ever, an exaggerated version of things that 1940's suave characters said that also weren't things that anybody would say ever, come out of his mouth so naturally. I'm pretty sure I have a thing for Catherine Zeta-Jones, and if there's any actress alive who could make characters fall into the traps they fall in, it might be her. Of course, I have a thing for Billy Bob Thornton, too. He's funny here, previously acclimated to the Coen Brothers' world. But man, those auxiliary characters. You've got Coen-regular Richard Jenkins playing a another lawyer. And then there's a scene-stealing performance by Jonathan Hadary as Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy who performs while holding a little yippy dog. I mean, watching this is worth it just to hear Hadary say, "She specificated a man with a wandering peepee!" And Tom Aldredge as a near-death Herb Myerson, even wheezier than Wheezy Joe? Man, I love that performance, probably just because of how he says the word "form."
So no, this isn't higher echelon Coen Brothers' stuff, but when you stack it against other rom-coms from the last 25 years, it more than satisfies. Worth checking out again if you haven't seen it in 13 years.
I don't know why I'd never even heard of this movie until faithful reader Josh included it as one of his twelve selections on his "Museum Movie" list. I'm glad he brought it up because it was comedy gold from start to finish.
This is a Peter Bogdanovich adaptation of a stage production, and I imagine the camera's ability to move around a bit makes it more enjoyable that it would be in the theater. A lot of movies based on plays feel a little stiff; this is vivacious, mostly because of a rapidfire series of gags and great lines. This is in three acts where we essentially get to see the play performed three times--once in a last-minute rehearsal, once a behind-the-scenes look while it's being performed for an audience, and once more during a performance in Cleveland. Real-life conflicts intensify and get in the way of a production that depends on timing and rapport of the ensemble cast, and disastrous failure really isn't ever funnier.
Speaking of timing and rapport and ensembles casts, that's really what makes this movie so much fun. I guess one could make the argument that the script is so good--self-referential, stuffed with irony, peppered with smart slapstick and great visual gags that a lot of people might not even catch the first time through--that any performers thrown in there would be fine. I thought this collective was fantastic though. I haven't liked Michael Caine this much in a long time as the exasperated, philandering director. Comic legend Carol Burnett gives a spirited performance. Christopher Reeve, who I don't think I'd normally associate with comedy, is almost too big and dorky to fit on stage with everybody, but he proves he had some comedy chops. John Ritter always makes anything he's in better. I always love seeing Julie Hagerty. And Denholm Elliott is hilarious, too. Even if you hate laughing and have no interest in watching a bunch of people trying to be funny, this is worth seeing to appreciate the timing of these actors, the masterful way the visual gags--a simple thing like opening and closing doors, for example--are set up, and these performers not trying to outdo each other but working with each other to create something magical.
This should be closer to a highly-regarded comedy classic than it is. It's quick and witty, faithful to traditional Hollywood comedy while still seeming completely fresh almost 25 years after its release.
Plot: Formally homeschooled Cady navigates the cliqueish waters of her new high school and infiltrates a group of preppy and snobbish mean girls called The Plastics.
I just want to point out that watching this was not my idea. It's not a Rachel McAdams thing at all. As likable as she is in the dozen or so time travel movies she's in--and I haven't stopped thinking about her since I watched About Time--she's completely unlikable here. Of course, she's supposed to be unlikable, so I guess it's a job well done. Lindsey Lohan is supposed to exist somewhere in the gray area between likable and unlikable, but I thought she leaned too much toward the latter to make the character work.
Tina Fey's written better stuff. This is a return to 80's teen comedies, like a Heathers without as much darkness or anybody doing weird Jack Nicholson impersonations. I don't think the satire really connects, and it's only funny in spurts. Tim Meadows was just about my favorite part of the movie actually.
Plot: The story of how one man--Len Cella--came up with the idea for Vine, the short-video sharing technology.
See this guy?
That's Len Cella. If you don't like the look of that face, you're not going to watch this hour-long collection of his shenanigans because its the only face you're going to see.
These really do feel like Vines (I'm not sure if I'm using this term right. I'm too old to understand technology, after all. My son, in fact, just told me yesterday that nobody has or cares about blogs anymore, and here I thought my blog was about to take off.), and if I have to applaud anything, it's that Cella is doing something that I don't think anybody was doing at the time and really does kind of anticipate this whole anybody-can-be-a-celebrity idea that today's technology allows.
Unfortunately, I don't think there are a lot of people out there who would think Len Cella should be making short films for public consumption. I just can't imagine anybody being entertained by these, with the possible exception of Len Cella himself. As a kid, my brother and I made all these cassette tapes with these puppets we called Gnarlies. That's right--we recorded puppet shows on cassette. Why we did these with the puppets on our hands is still confusing to me. These weren't funny or clever or entertaining at all. They remind me of Len Cella, a guy who isn't really funny or clever or entertaining at all. The difference is that he should know better because he was an adult in the 80s when these were made. I imagine that he had some friends or coworkers always telling him how funny he was or something, and he decided that it was a gift that needed to be shared with the rest of the world.
Few, if any of these, were worth the amount of time it took for Len Cella to set up his camera. He rigs up things, little inventions like a cheap artificial heart or toothpaste tubes that he's punched holes in or boots tied to mattresses that he's leaned against trees, and probably is inventive enough to have one funny idea at some point in his life. Unfortunately, I don't think I saw that good idea anywhere in this collection.
Something strange happened as I watched these. And trust me--I did watch all 58 minutes of this first installment of Moron Movies. Yes, there is a sequel called, I think, More Moron Movies, something I doubt I'll ever see. But as I watched, I just kept getting sadder and sadder. I was sad for Len Cella who I dobut accomplished what he set out to accomplish. And I was sad for myself because I really started to feel that I was wasting my life away. It was one hour of my time, but this is the kind of shit I waste my time with all the time, and those hours with people like Len Cella add up.
By the time this was over, I was as depressed as I have been for a long time.
The short pieces range from a couple of seconds to maybe 20 seconds. Actually, I doubt any of these hit 20 seconds. They go by quickly enough that you'd think it wouldn't matter if they were bad. If one of the comedy bits is terrible, you don't have to wait long for another one. But that doesn't really apply when they're all terrible.
Here's the kind of genius you can expect from the appropriately-named Moron Movies:
--A caveman looks in a mirror and says, "Damn, I'm just as ugly as my friends. We're never gonna get anywhere being this ugly."
--Mount Rushmore 2
--"They didn't have any fingers left so they gave me a monkey's tail. It isn't worth a damn." And in a separate short: "They didn't have any ears left so they gave me a foot. I hate it." Predictably, by this point, he's got a shoe balanced over his ear.
--A "hamburger comedian" and later a "chicken comedian," shorts where meat with Groucho Marx glasses is dragged across the floor.
--"Jello makes a lousy doorstop." This is exactly what you think it would be.
--"I can type 90 words a minute, but nobody will hire me because I'm a shark."
--Ass appreciation class ("This is a good ass.")
--Learning that 80 frog farts can propel a canoe sixteen feet.
--A bit called "Perverted Cameraman," featuring nothing more than several zoomed shots of animal butts.
--Speed reading. Then speed writing. Then speed sleeping. The kinds of ideas a kid might have a recess. "Hey, guys, watch me speed read!" before flipping through pages really quickly.
--Walking a pet 2x4
--Several shorts where he's attached baby bottle nipples onto his face and says they're warts. It scares you because it makes it seem like Len Cella has actually reproduced.
--"How about Dickie DooDoo Disease?"
The worst thing about this? Len Cella's fake laugh he does in this. It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
Plot: A woman kills her husband right after midnight on New Year's Day, but then finds herself starting the previous year over with a chance to make things right. Will she manage to change that tragic outcome or is she trapped by fate?
"She made a wish, a tragic one at a magic time." That's almost poetry!
I really liked the idea behind this movie and am surprised it hasn't seen a remake or two. I like what we learn with poor Sheila Page's story, about how destiny's a "stubborn old girl." It's a cool story, but it lags in a 1940's way, and most of the performers overact. Well, I take that back. The woman all overact with those sort of loud exasperated woman voices. The guys all act ike guys in noirish 40's pictures. The music's gigantic, really in-your-face at times. It's almost comical during one scene where a character says, "He can walk," a sentence punctuated with this huge music.
This movie might be worth watching if you typically like films from this period, but it's a little frustrating that a story idea with so much potential winds up being so hohum. It's almost like the makers of this were fatigued after coming up with the idea and had nothing left when actually trying to tell the story.
