Saturday Night Crap-o-Rama

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

2012-01-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Rutger Hauer is a…

Curiosity: The Grindhouse trailer helped. But in the end, it all comes down to the title.

Plot: The Hobo (inexplicably played by Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner) is hopping to start a lawnmowing business in Hope Town, but with The Drake (Brian Downey) and his cronies terrorizing the populace, that seems unlikely. After a series of fights, the Hobo finally realizes his destiny and buys a shotgun. He then proceeds to use that shotgun. People lose body parts, etc.

Thoughts: My fiancée and I recently obtained a Netflix account. This makes it a lot easier/cheaper to see movies. It also means I don’t get as mad when the films I eagerly await turn out to be crappy even by SNC’s standards. Hobo With a Shotgun is a very disappointing film, simply because it is not the greatest trashterpiece ever committed to celluloid (or at least digital).

To be fair, Hobo With a Shotgun is on par with Troma’s line of horror films. This movie has buckets of blood and plenty of profanity. It is low, low culture and I know it has a dedicated fanbase. But it never lives up to the hype and anticipation. Hobo began as a joke trailer as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse. It actually won an amateur contest to boot, and it was hilarious. When it was announced as a real feature, with Hauer in the lead, well, it looked like maybe the joke would last a little longer.

Sadly, it doesn’t. Hobo has a problem with offering too much all the time. Too much blood. Too much profanity. Too many attempts at being “shocking.” There’s no nuance. No downtime. It’s pure id run rampant. Without any restrictions, it goes into sensory overload.

Reflection: I feel like an old man.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010)

2012-01-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

Tagline: When up against pure evil… just giv’er.

Curiosity: Cuz Scott said so.

Plot: A group of sexy college students is on its way to a sexy vacation out in the woods (Because fuck the beach right in its stupid beach face!) when they run into a couple of creepy rednecks named Dale (Tyler Labine) and Tucker (Alan Tudyk, freakin’ Wash from Firefly). As history has taught us, rednecks are got-damn terrifying. When one of the sexy college students (Katrina Bowden) is an accident, the hicks take her body back to their cabin, much to her friends’ horror. It’s up to the survivors, led by Chad (Jesse Moss) to rescue her and kill these godless murdering mountain men.

Or maybe it’s a case of mistaken identity?

Thoughts: Tucker & Dale vs Evil has heart. A lot of heart. In that sense, it’s kind of like a Canadian cousin to Shaun of the Dead; they’re both horror comedies that remember to be gory as well as funny and sweet. It’s a comedy of errors taken to the extreme. Bolstered by endearing performances from the leads, Tucker & Dale is a really good film.

But it’s not quite a great one, if only because writer/director Eli Craig tips his hand in the titular duo’s favor a little too soon. I would have loved if he played up the “socially awkward rednecks = creepy” angle a little more in the beginning before the body count started building.

Still, Tucker & Dale gets a lot of things right. Like how quickly sexy teens jump ahead to murder in horror movies. What the fuck? It’s also one of the few cult films in recent years to earn its laughs. There once was a time when low budget horror flicks could be unintentionally hilarious. In recent years, though, filmmakers have tried beating viewers to the punchline. These films try to laugh at their terribleness, but it just comes off as forced. Tucker & Dale sidesteps this issue entirely. Much like Wrong Turn 2, it offers strong performances that boost the pathos, a script that’s actually decently mapped out, and a nice smattering of gore. It’s a sweet, bloody film about what happens when people can’t communicate.

Reflection: “Oh hidy ho officer, we’ve had a doozy of a day. There we were minding our own business, just doing chores around the house, when kids started killing themselves all over my property.”

Creepshow 2 (1987)

2012-01-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

Tagline: When the curtain goes up the terror begins.

Curiosity: It’s a sequel to a much beloved horror film.

Plot: A kid loves Creepshow comic books, so much so that he turns into a cartoon or some shit! While reading a trio of terrifying tales, he also seeks revenge on a gang of bullies!

Thoughts: Creepshow 2 is both superior and inferior to its predecessor. It moves along faster, and its 90-minute running time is a little easier to handle. Much as I love Creepshow, it was a little uneven. Creepshow 2’s stories are all solid, even though there are only three of them this time out. “Old Chief Woodenhead,” about a wooden Native American chief who takes revenge on a some robbers who killed his owner, is a little cheesy, but it packs genuine pathos. “The Raft” used to scare the shit out of me as a kid, and it feels a little too short to me now, it’s still my favorite segment.

“The Raft” has a typical horror movie setup: Four sexy teens go out into the woods to have sexy times, and end up murderized instead. Out in the middle of a lake, they encounter this strange, oil slick-like creature. When it starts devouring the teens one by one, well, shit gets real, until all that’s left is this one guy who’s a total wiener. He gets his comeuppance though.

“The Hitchiker” is the final segment, in which a two-timing wife (Lois Chiles) hits a drifter (Tom Wright) with her car and leaves him for dead… or so she thinks. While its gimmick is a little repetitive (“THANKS FOR THE RIDE LADY!”), it comes closest to recapturing the manic insanity of the original.

George A. Romero, who directed the original, scripted this go-round, and he makes the Tales From the Crypt homage much more apparent by adding a Cryptkeeper-esque host called the Creep, played by Tom Savini and voiced by Joe Silver. The Creep is the only element of the film I don’t like. He’s poorly animated, and the prosthetics used to render him in three dimensions look a little garish for the suburbs. Still, though, Creepshow 2 still delivers plenty of fun for all the ghouls and boils.

Reflection: HEY. HEY LADY. THANKS FOR THE RIDE LADY. THANKS FOR THE RIDE.

Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)

2012-01-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Tagline: So say we all.

Curiosity: I had a deal with my Science Club cohort Nick Elmer. If he finished the artwork for our EP, Failure Ballads, in time, I would purchase the complete run of Ronald D. Moore’s adaptation of Battlestar Galactica.

Plot: Humanity is fucked. There used to be 12 planets’ worth of people in outer space, but after a devastating attack from their robot enemies, the Cylons, there are just 50,000 people left alive. Leading this ragtag team of not-robots are Commander William Adama (Edwards James Olmos, Blade Runner) and President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell, Independence Day). Adama is essentially Space Batman. You do not want to let him down because he is the greatest man who ever lived. Roslin can be a real jerk sometimes, but she has good intentions. Together, they’re trying to find the long mythical 13th human planet, called “Earth.”

Aiding them in this journey are soldier types like Adama’s son Lee (Jamie Bamber), who is kind of a wiener, and Kara Thrase (Katee Sackhoof), who gets shit done but is also kind of crazy. Adama’s executive officer Colonel Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan) is a useless drunk, but he suddenly gets really, really awesome halfway through the show. There are other people too, but I can’t discuss them without in some way giving off spoilers.

Anyway, the Cylons look like people now, which creates problems for the humans. Also hurting their chances of survival: Gaius Baltar (James Callis), the super scientist who accidentally caused the destruction of the 12 planets. Dude is hella amoral.

Thoughts: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SHOWS OF ALL TIME. I LOVE IT. I ALMOST CRIED SEVERAL TIMES WHILE WATCHING IT. YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS SHOW AND LOVE IT TOO.

...

Sorry.

The aughts were all about gritty reboots. Christopher Nolan did it with his Batman films, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick did it with Battlestar Galactica. The series is so many things – socio-political commentary on religion and U.S. involvement in the Middle East, a bitterly realist counterbalance to Star Trek, an emotionally devastating drama about old people – and it works on each of these levels. Seriously, for a show that the writers pretty much made up on the fly, BSG is remarkably solid throughout. Then again, the same can be said for Moore’s other big artistic triumph, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, so I’m not entirely surprised.

What’s even crazier is that Moore and his team took all the elements from the cheesy original show and made it work, from the religious visions to the search for Earth. Even the human Cylons idea came from Galactia 1980. While Moore gets saddled with some questionable stuff as a result – space jumps were totally stolen from Star Wars and don’t really fit Moore’s “realer is better” rule – the show overall still takes all of creator Glen A. Larson’s ideas from the ’70s and improves them.

But going even further, this is a space serial in the tradition of Buck Rogers or Commando Cody. Almost every episode flows into the next, and the perpetual set of cliffhangers kept me addicted. Of course, it helps that the scripts, actors, and production values. This shows packs a lot of heart ‘n’ action, and asks some big philosophical questions (Namely, where did we come from?). It all builds to such a perfect ending, making the whole show such a satisfying space drama.

Side note: Dude to its success, there has been a few spin-offs for BSG. None so far has been of much importance. Razor, a TV movie, is solid enough, but it’s all told in flashback, which sucks a lot of the tension out. The Plan is another flashback, but given that it ran after the show concluded, its revelations are all beside the point. I haven’t bothered with the prequel series Caprica, but based on the featurette included with BSG, I think I’ll be OK. I am kind of interested in Blood and Chrome, though. It’s a forthcoming prequel series about William Adama during the first Cylon war.

Top 10 Episodes:

Unfinished Business
Kobol’s Last Gleaming (Parts 1 and 2)
Miniseries
Water
Lay Down Your Burdens (Parts 1 and 2)
Daybreak (Parts 1, 2, and 3)
Pegasus
Exodus (Parts 1 and 2)
The Oath
Crossroads (Parts 1 and 2)

Reflection: I giggle every time Moore slips in a Star Trek reference.

My Year in Crap 2011

2012-01-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

While Saturday Night Crap-o-Rama has always been a side project, a little blog I maintain for fun, I feel like I dropped off a little too much from it in 2011. I only discussed 38 pictures, versus 116 in 2010. PRODUCTIVITY IS DOWN PEOPLE. I have two pretty great excuses, though. Reason of the First: I started this blog when I was unemployed. I have a full time job now. I’m a busy man. And important. And handsome!

Reason of the Second: Branching out to television shows takes a hell of a lot longer. I spent so much time watching science fiction shows this year. While I’m going to get back to movies in 2012, rest assured, I’ve got some lengthy posts in the pipeline.

So I’m sorry, Internet. But I watched 14 seasons of Star Trek in 2011, so I’m not that sorry. Even though it ate into my movie watching time considerably. I missed out on a lot of pictures, like Hugo, Young Adult, but most importantly, Dale and Tucker Versus Evil. That movie looks sweet.

10. The Perfect Host

The last 20 minutes are garbage, but for a while there, The Perfect Host features amazing character work from David Hyde Pierce as a the titular psychopath.

9. Paul

NO ONE ELSE LIKED THIS MOVIE BUT ME.

8. Alien Vs Ninja

The Japanese are weird. On the surface, Alien vs Ninja is a black comic tribute to Alien, but it piles on so many random Japanese-centric oddball humor, from slapstick to trannies to fan service. It’s a weird little picture, but the action is super gory and the story moves along nicely enough.

7. Season of the Witch

Nic Cage’s financial troubles have forced him into working 24/7, which is probably how he ended up as a demon slayer in Season of the Witch. But ya know what? Dude still rocks it, and an assist from Ron Perlman is always welcome. Season of the Witch isn’t the best looking movie by far, but it’s still solid B-movie fun.

6. Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America felt like a whiz bang throwback to old serials, not unlike director Joe Johnston’s other film, The Rocketeer. My boy Chris Evans finally gets the leading man picture he deserves (Dude was the man in Sunshine), and the whole thing manages to pack in lots of action, sci-fi, and romance.

5. Thor

Director Kenneth Branagh managed to cram tons of mythology, of both the Nordic and Marvel kind, into Thor without sacrificing the film’s sense of fun and action. Yeah, those first 30 minutes move at a rapid fire clip, but once Branagh lays down all the rules, his movie gets to work dazzling and kicking ass, all while slipping in a fair amount of humor. Of course, it helps that cast is game, starting with Chris Hemsworth, who delivers a star-making performance as the titular character, mixing in the arrogance and swagger that makes Thor such a cool character. Also, the guy has great abs. So, that helps.

4. Super 8

The only reason Super 8 isn’t higher on this list is because director J.J. Abrams got a little too cloying with this Spieldberg homage. Also the dude needs to design a new alien. Still, Super 8 is a pretty darn great love letter to cinema, carried by realistic performances from a cast of newcomer child stars.

3. The Guard

Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle get politically incorrect in this hilarious buddy cop picture about a local Irish law man and an FBI agent’s quest to take down a drug ring. The Guard is a quirky little picture.

2. The Debt

Jessica Chastain had a pretty awesome year. Sure, I hated Tree of Life, but she was still amazing in it. Same goes for The Debt, an adaptation of a 2007 Israeli thriller of the same name. Essentially two stories in one – about a trio of Israeli spies in search of a Nazi war criminal, and the aftermath of that fateful mission nearly 30 years later – The Debt jumps back and forth in time, revealing how far the Holocaust truly reaches. But for all its dramatic elements, The Debt is also a spy thriller, and it gets pretty damn brutal in places. But the violence never feels gratuitous and unneeded. Rather, this is a film that simply makes the audience feel each blow.

1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes should not have been my favorite film of the summer, let alone the year. It’s a CGI-laden rehash of a long dead sci-fi franchise starring James Franco. While I’ll always love Franco for Freaks and Geeks, the guy’s silver screen track record has been dubious. And yet, aside from a few groaning references to the original, Rise is a really, really good movie that stands on its ape-legs.

In retrospect, I realize that Rise is stuffed with sci-fi/fantasy ringers. John Lithgow (Harry and the Hendersons), Brian Cox (X2: X-Men United!!), and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from the “Harry Potter” series) all turn in excellent character work. And then there’s the magnificent Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) as a chimp named Caesar. The guy is one of the greatest physical actors of all time, and it all comes back to the art of mime.

At the same time, Rise has a legitimately compelling plot. It explains the initial seeds that led to the original Planet of the Apes, but it is first and foremost a commentary on animal rights. Other high class reboots of low art pieces have gotten more acclaim (Batman, Battlestar Galactica), but Rise is very much in their league.

The Shooting (1966)

2012-01-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Suspenseful desert pursuit in the High Noon tradition.

Curiosity: Director Monte Hellman went to make Two-Lane Blacktop, one of the greatest movies of all time.

Plot: A cowboy (the mighty Warren Oates) is hired to help a mystery woman make her way through the desert. NOTHING HAPPENS.

Thoughts: The Shooting is supposed to be a sort of existential Western. Two-Lane Blacktop is like that as well, and while the films are said to be rich in feeling, they also don’t have much going on in terms of plot. They’re sparse, dialogue-driven pictures. I mention these things because Two-Lane Blacktop held me riveted. The Shooting put me to sleep. My theory is simple: Criterion re-released Two-Lane; I bought The Shooting bundled with another of Helman’s Westerns, Ride the Whirlwind, for at a dollar store. Clearly, one of these is going to have crisp visuals and clear audio, and one of them was put out on the cheap with Jack Nicholson’s face on the cover, even though he plays the fourth most prominent character.

I started Saturday Night Crap-o-Rama to celebrate cult films and talk shit on odious crap. I really, really wanted to like The Shooting, but the quality of the DVD I purchased was dreadful. SNC thrives on low budget films, but they still need to be preserved for folks to appreciate them. Criterion needs show Hellman some more love and give The Shooting some much needed remastering.

Based on its reputation, I’m hoping for good things. Last year, I went through a strong Westerns phase. While I didn’t care much for spaghetti Westerns like Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” trilogy, I loved John Ford and John Wayne’s collaboration The Searchers.

Reflection: FUCK YEAH WARREN OATES.

Tales From the Crypt / The Vault of Horror (1972-73)

2012-01-01T14:50:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Death lives in the vault of horror! / Everything that makes life worth leaving!

Curiosity: Edgar Wright loves ’em.

Plots: In Tales from the Crypt, a group of British tourists get lost while checking out an underground crypt. Trapped in a strange and ancient altar, they meet a familiar looking hooded figure who reveals their future…

Meanwhile, in Vault of Horror, the same thing happens again, only with five dudes trapped in a basement because the elevator doesn’t work.

Thoughts: By today’s standards, Tales From the Crypt is a little slow and technically simplistic. Aside from a few fleeting neat-o makeup effects, it’s a very dry horror film. But the anthology faithfully recreates several of EC Comics’ finest horror stories (Even though they’re not all strictly from Tales From the Crypt the comic book). I’m so used to horror films that jolt me, but Tales actually works by honoring its namesake and delivering lots of twists.

Obviously, I can’t go into detail, but the five vignettes shown each contain a nice twist that makes them worth viewing. While these scenes aren’t necessarily “scary,” they establish a nice mood, and the twists usually are kind of clever. While the overall story of the tourists is meant to just be connective tissue linking the vignettes, a final twist actually them all to a rather satisfying conclusion.

Vault of Horror follows the same template, so it suffers a little by comparison. It recycles the final twist, more or less, only this time I saw it coming well in advance. It’s also less technically accomplished. Oh sure, there are more instances of special effects, but certain scenes suffer from technical limitations of the era, as well as censorship. Yeah, Tales looks a little fake in spots (Joan Collins’ scene has some of the worst neon-colored fake blood I have ever seen), but that movie still holds up way better.

Reflection: “AND THEN?!”

Rammbock: Berlin Undead (2010)

2011-12-30T09:50:00.000-08:00

Tagline: You can run, but you can’t hide.

Curiosity: It’s Scott-approved.

Plot: Michael (Michael Fuith) is a balding, desperate man trying to get back together with his ex in Berlin. Harper (Theo Trebs) is just a kid working on some remodeling… in Michael’s ex’s apartment. The two get caught in a zombie outbreak (ain’t that always the way?), and it’s up to the resourceful Harper and the deeply stupid Michael to find a way out of Berlin.

Thoughts: At just over an hour in length, Rammbock doesn’t have much time to mess around, and its script is appropriately, if somewhat underwhelmingly, tight. Granted, the arc of a zombie movie is pretty much set in place, but Rammbock does little to explain this fantastical thing that’s happening. Characters don’t really develop. The people just kind of roll with it; in a way, Rammbock feels like a lesser Demons, in that a bunch of Europeans encounter these horribly nightmarish scenarios and just accept them.

But while Rammbock doesn’t make a whole lost of sense, its brisk pacing means there’s little filler. It also forces its characters into extremes: Michael is thoroughly useless, thanks partially to his blind devotion to his ex; Harper has the wits to escape, but he’s stuck with this sad sack. I’m not gonna lie; my fiancée and I had a blast ripping on Michael. Fuck you, Michael. You’re stupid and ugly.

Reflection: I love how it’s only an hour long, and my fiancée still fell asleep during Rammbock.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)

2011-11-26T14:52:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Widely considered to be the greatest kung fu flick of all time.

Curiosity: Just look at the tagline. Also it heavily influenced Wu-Tang Clan. So, there’s that.

Plot: Spurred by his teacher, San Te (Gordon Liu) joins a group of insurgents looking to overthrow Qing rule. He’s quickly found out, though, and his father sacrifices himself to allow San Te to escape. Eventually, he ends up studying martial arts at a Shaolin temple. Over the course of a year-plus, he studies the 35 chambers of Shaolin in the hopes of liberating his town.

Thoughts: 36th Chamber has a reputation for being a gory, but artistically impressive, kung fu flick. It almost earns that reputation in 2011. It is indeed surprisingly bloody for a ’70s flick. While it’s certainly not on the torture porn side of things, the use of blood gives the film a certain amount of grit lacking in a genre that emphasizes showmanship over realism.

Not that it doesn’t have its flash. 36th Chamber packs plenty of fight scenes. While it goes through a considerable dry spell in its second hour, the action is solid throughout. The battles get brutal, but tastefully so. They’re not the best I’ve ever seen, but they certainly held my attention. But these things are to be expected. What sets 36th Chamber apart is its training section.

Generally speaking, training scenes in kung fu movies are filler. That’s why you don’t see them in Bruce Lee movies. They murder the pacing, both in terms of plot and visuals. But they do pad out the running time. If you want to know why kung fu movies run two hours when Western B-movie actioners run 90 minutes, there’s your answer right there. 36th Chamber, however, is actually at its strongest during this section. We see San Te achieve a peace who couldn’t find as a rebellious youth, and the exercises he practices actually kind of make sense. Other kung fu flicks pull shit out of their asses when their protagonists learn some devastating new move; 36th Chamber actually emphasizes practical tests.

After this portion, though, the film kind of stalls. San Te returns to his hometown and gets his revenge, but the movie keeps going towards a fourth act that feels superfluous. Still, I get why this film is so lauded.

Reflection: The subtitles on my DVD call the main character “San Ta.” Just one of many mistranslations.

Drunken Master (1978)

2011-11-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Gettin’ shitty ta-night? [NOTE: This is not the real tagline.]

Curiosity: It’s the movie that launched Jackie Chan’s career.

Plot: Wong Fei-hung (Chan) is a dedicated student to kung fu, but his wayward ways get him into too much trouble for his father (Lam Kau) to handle. When Fei-hung brings shame on his family (by, uh, hitting on his cousin…), his c-c-c-c-c-crazy uncle Beggar Su Hua Chi (Yuen Siu-tien) is brought in to teach some discipline. But when the assassin Thunderleg (Hwang Jang Lee) seeks a hit on Wong’s father, things get serious and/or drunken!

Thoughts: While I respect Drunken Master for the influence it had on future action stars like Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer) and Tony Jaa (Ong-Bak, The Protector), I kind of found myself drifting off halfway through the film. The first 30 minutes are some pretty strong comedy/action, as Chan goes through a series of fight ‘n’ physical comedy set pieces. In fact, as great as Chan is at martial arts, I’d argue he’s an even better comedian. Drunken Master’s humor is pretty broad, but Chan throws himself completely into the part.

But the funniest passages also slow down the flick, which then descends into an endless series of training scenes. Them shits is not funny at all. Worse, the whole concept of a “drunken master” barely enters the script until the final 20 minutes. That’s when Wong learns the art of using a staggering fighting pose to deceive opponents. While it allows Chan to segue back into physical comedy again, the idea of having Wong pretend to be drunk is incredibly forced. I get that his character is trying to set a trap for his opponent, but it comes so far out of left field, and is then so obvious, that I don’t understand why anyone would fall for it. Considering the drunken master technique is supposed to be the crux of the movie, that’s a big problem. Drunken Master would be a great movie if it came in at 90 minutes, but at two hours it’s just too bloated.

Reflection: CASE RACE!

Red Heat (1988)

2011-11-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Moscow’s toughest detective. Chicago’s craziest cop. There’s only one thing more dangerous than making them mad: making them partners.

Curiosity: I’m a big Schwarzenegger fan despite his sex scandal, but I somehow never saw Red Heat before now.

Plot: Moscow narcotics officer Ivan Danko (Schwarzenegger) is in (red) hot pursuit of the gangster Viktor Rostavili (Ed O’Ross), literally. He tracks the guy to a sweat lodge in the middle of nowhere. It’s like super hot in there, which is why all these muscley guys look super sweaty in the opening scene. It’s also why they’re only wearing, um… loincloths.

ANYWAY. Viktor escapes to America after killing Danko’s partner. Danko follows him to Chicago, where he gets partnered up with Jim Belushi (Played with great commitment by the actual Jim Belushi). Belushi is all like “I’m Eastern European-American! What could I possibly talk to this Eastern European about?! Also I like boobs and hamburgers!”

Danko and Belushi are so ethnically different! How are they gonna catch the bad guy?!

[SPOILER ALTERT]: Guns. They do it with guns.

Thoughts: I don’t know if I’m just getting older, but I did not care for Red Heat. Maybe I’ve just seen too many buddy cop movies, but Red Heat’s attempts at presenting Danko and Belushi as polar opposites is too much. It’s also horribly dated by its stereotyping. Rush Hour pokes fun at the Chinese, and there will surely be Chinese stereotypes to play on in the future, but Russian Communism fell apart two years after Red Heat came out. All those lazy jokes don’t work anymore.

Another problem with the film comes from the casting: Belushi feels so thoroughly useless throughout the movie. He doesn’t show up until about 20 minutes in, and never really does anything important. Schwarzenegger was/is the bigger star then/now, but hot-dang; Belushi literally contributes nothing to the movie besides shitty one-liners.

Still, this is classic Brownschwagger here. Arnie gets to kick ass and look cool throughout, and that opening scene in the sweat lodge really does look awesome/homoerotic.

Reflection: Shoulda cast Danny DeVito. That guy knows how to play off of Arnold.

The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988)

2011-11-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Don’t bury me… I’m not dead!

Curiosity: Bill Pullman (Independence Day!!!) gets a nail driven through his wiener.

Plot: After totally meeting his spirit animal, anthropologist Dennis Alan (Pullman) is sent to Haiti by a pharmaceutical company to research a drug that turns people into zombies. Not so much Romero zombies as voodoo zombies. This drug, called tetrodotoxin, creates the appearance of death – recipients show an extremely low pulse and no reaction to stimuli. It also robs them of their free will, turning them into slaves. When Alan attracts attention from the local zombie drug kingpin (Zakes Mokae), he’ll have to use his wits AND his spirit animal to get out alive.

ALSO HE GETS NAILED IN THE PENIS.

Thoughts: PENIS.

Sorry, sorry. The Serpent and The Rainbow features one of the most uncomfortable scenes I’ve ever witnessed, but it’s surprisingly low on gore. If anything, it’s more of a drama than it is a horror movie, which perhaps makes it more effective. There are some fantasy elements thrown in, as Mokae summons up black magic and what-not, but it’s mostly about one man’s war against a drug dealer. There just happens to be some voodoo involved along the way.

In that sense, Serpent is one of Craven’s more modest films. It’s not aggressively frightening. But it has these flashes of disturbing images that really pack a punch. The most intense of which is, of course, Pullman’s wang getting crucified. We don’t actually see anything (As of opposed to Hostel 2, where we see everything), but man does Pullman scream like it’s real. The following scene, in which he gets dumped on the street in his bloody underwear, sells the rest of it. Scary movies prey on our deepest fears; one of mine involves getting nailed in the junk.

As for the rest of the flick, it’s solid. It’s a little slow and not quite as compelling as some of Craven’s other films, but it’s got a strong script and a decent cast. Not my favorite zombie movie, but I dug it.

Reflection: PENIS.

Shocker (1989)

2011-11-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

Tagline: On October 2nd, at 6:45 a.m., mass murderer Horace Pinker was put to death.

Now he’s really mad.

Curiosity: It was bundled with The People Under the Stairs.

Plot: High school football hero Jonathan (Peter Berg, who went on to create Friday Night Lights) almost has the perfect life. He’s a star player and he’s got an awesome girlfriend named Alison (Cami Cooper) who is super cute despite always talking in a raspy whisper. There’s just one problem: Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi, fuckin’ Skinner from X-Files) murdered most of Jonathan’s family. Bummertown, U.S.A. On top of that, Jonathan psychically witnessed the whole thing.

Using his psychic powers, Jonathan is able to track Pinker’s next move and capture. But receiving the death sentence only makes Pinker stronger, as he makes a pact with a demon to become a being of pure electricity who can take over others’ bodies and travel through televisions or some shit. I don’t know, man.

Thoughts: Shocker is not a good movie. While I consider myself a Wes Craven fan, this is not his finest film. The movie has essentially four things working against it. They are…

1). Sandwiched between The Serpent and The Rainbow and The People Under the Stairs, Shocker just feel like such a light work. Serpent is an excellent zombie/voodoo flick. People is just so damn weird. Shocker, meanwhile, feels like an old school B-movie sci-fi flick. It would be great, pulpy fun if not for the fact that…

2). The running time is too damn long. Shocker is nearly two hours long, but its premise is so preposterous and its characters so goofy that it really needed to come in at a tight 90 minutes. Craven couldn’t do much cutting, though, since…

3). Shocker keeps changing its rules. The creators of Star Trek held a simple tenet: You can only introduce so many rules for your fictional world before viewers stop caring. Once you set those rules, you need to either follow them to the letter or explain why you’re circumventing them. You can’t break the laws of physics, and you should treat your fictional world the same. But Shocker keeps adding stuff. For the first 45 minutes, it’s about a psychic kid. Then it’s about a guy with electrical powers. Then it’s about a guy who lives in the TV. I personally thought the film was strongest when dealing with Pinker as a depowered serial killer. Instead, Shocker has a jack of all trades, master or none thing going on. This is further exacerbated by the fact that…

4). Horace Pinker is clearly Craven’s attempt to create another Freddy Krueger. Dude has the same annoying penchant for one-liners, and the whole psychic kids angle isn’t exactly original for Craven either. I get what makes Krueger so iconic: He tortured kids, he got them while they were at their most vulnerable, and he just straight up looked cool. Pinker’s m.o. is less specific, he just kinda showed up whenever, and he wore a lame orange jumpsuit. He’s a blander villain in every way.

Reflection: Megadeth did the soundtrack, though. So that’s cool.

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

Tagline: In every neighborhood there is one house that adults whisper about and children cross the street to avoid. Now Wes Craven, creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street, takes you inside…

Curiosity: Edgar Wright said it was good.

Plot: Fool (Brandon Adams, The Mighty Ducks) is sick of The Man (Everett McGill) holding down his people. Spurred on by his sister’s friend Leroy (Ving Rhames), the two decide to break into his house and steal enough money to pay for his mother’s much needed operation. But it turns out The Man is one freaky deaky dude, as Fool and Leroy uncover a house filled with traps, dead ends… and incestuous cannibals.

Also this represents the Reagan Administration.

Thoughts: The People Under the Stairs is a weird, weird movie. It’s hilariously dated, saturated in its early ’90s-ness by hip-hop, acid-washed jeans, and nauseatingly bright shirts. But here’s the thing: All of these slick signifiers actually boost the film’s surreal elements. The idea of a kid getting trapped in a house with cannibals is already strange; the outfits just up the ante.

People’s horror elements intrigue me. It came out after the crackdown on gore, so it’s surprisingly light on blood save for one scene. But this just makes Craven drive the characters towards a higher level of insanity. The Man and The Woman (Wendy Robie), who are never named, spend a lot of time screaming, dressing up in leather gimp outfits, and just generally acting crazed. While some aspects of the movie feel underdeveloped (the title characters don’t really factor in that much), The People Under the Stairs is still a bizarre romp. What’s truly bizarre about it is that it came out well before the Fritzl case, in which a man actually did keep his daughter and several of his incest-born children locked underground. Like I said, it’s a weird, weird movie.

Reflection: While I’m a little cool to the Reagan symbolism, I did enjoy the trickle down economics of the ending.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

2011-10-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

Tagline: The most controversial movie ever made.

Curiosity: Did you not see the tagline? I’ve wanted to see this movie since I was like 14.

Plot: Cannibal Holocaust is essentially split into two segments. When a documentary crew disappears in South America, an anthropologist named Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) goes in search of them. After bonding with a tribe and participating in one of their cannibalistic ceremonies, he is able to retrieve their film reels. The second half of the film consists of Monroe watching the footage to learn what happened [SPOILER ALERT: Shit got real.]

Thoughts: While I don’t think I could have ever liked this movie, I’m definitely too old to watch it now. Ostensibly, Cannibal Holocaust is supposed to be a commentary on society or some shit. But it’s really just an Italian cannibal exploitation flick, so that whole “who’s really civilized?” angle doesn’t make up for the copious amount of rape ‘n’ animal torture scenes. I’m an animal activist and a RAINN supporter. I don’t need to watch monkeys get their faces chopped off.

Sure, there’s a critical part of me that has to admit that this film is genuinely shocking. I felt nauseous during several scenes. But it never scared nor entertained me, nor did it provoke critical thought. As a social commentary, Cannibal Holocaust is pretty piss-poor. Reading about the film’s production made me even sicker. The director and producer cut a lot of corners to get the film made on the cheap, so they abused extras without giving them proper compensation. They slaughtered seven animals over the course of filming. At least the rape scenes weren’t real.

As an American, I believe in freedom of speech. But I recognize that that freedom still has limits. The classic example is shouting fire in a crowded theater and causing damage. But as far as films go, I know that I have things that offend me, just like everyone else. While I consider myself a fan of, say, the Hostel films, I still have to draw a line somewhere to indicate what I consider to be appropriate and inappropriate for a movie. Cannibal Holocaust is that line.

Reflection: Man, I like monkeys.

The Perfect Host (2011)

2011-10-18T13:40:00.001-07:00

Tagline: Dinner parties are a dying art.

Curiosity: David Hyde Pierce gets all types of American Psycho.

Plot: When his getaway after a bank robbery goes awry, John (Clayne Crawford) has to find a place to hideout, and fast. He settles for tricking Warwick (Pierce) into thinking he’s a friend of a friend. Warwick is getting ready to host a dinner party, but John’s lies about getting mugged are too heartbreaking for him to ignore. But when John threatens to kill him, Warwick lets loose his innermost demons. And shit.

Thoughts: For the first 60 minutes, The Perfect Host is really good. Even though you know from the advertising that Pierce is going to trap Crawford’s character, there’s still an energy that comes with watching them play cat and mouse. And when Pierce does finally go into full-on crazy mode, he gives an incredible performance. He pantomimes through scene after scene as he talks to people who aren’t there. He betrays no hint of irony as he fully commits to acting alongside hallucinations. He nails it in scene after scene, even approaching camp during a dance revue before culminating in the creepiest sex scene I’ve seen in a long time. Pierce is flawless, while Crawford gradually switches the audience’s feelings towards his character, gradually giving him sympathetic qualities that lend the film some ground to stand on. It’s a thankless straight man role, but Crawford holds his own.

But after that 60-minute mark, The Perfect Host just about falls apart. It pulls out too many twists in its final 30 minutes, and each one feels like a mistake or a missed opportunity. The wheels start coming off at a rapid clip as it morphs from a horror film to a standard cop drama, with each twist feeling increasingly belabored. While I can respect writer/director Nick Tomnay’s decision to go for something out of the ordinary here, the ending belongs to a different movie altogether. I would not have minded having a more traditional ending, even if it would have been more predictable. As is, the film can be broken up into three 30-minutes: 1) When John is in control, 2) When Warwick is in control, and 3) When twists start piling up like a car wreck.

Reflection: Pierce is as creepy here as he is funny in Wet Hot American Summer, even though the characters are only removed by a few degrees.

From Dusk till Dawn (1996)

2011-10-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

Tagline: One night is all that stands between them and freedom. But it’s going to be one hell of a night.

Curiosity: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made a vampire/gangster mash-up movie.

Plot: After Richie (Tarantino) busts his brother Seth (George Clooney) out of prison, the two hightail it to Mexico. They leave a trail of destruction along the way before picking up some hostages (a religious family played by Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu, and Kalifornia’s Juliette Lewis). They plan to hide out for a night at a roadside strip bar, but then vampires show up randomly and start causing hijinx.

Thoughts: One of the things that caught me by surprise when revisiting From Dusk till Dawn was how Tarantino and Rodriguez’s careers have progressed. While he would revisit B-movies on Death Proof, Tarantino also elevated his beloved low culture genres to high art status with flicks like Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds. Aside from forays into children’s entertainment, Rodriguez keeps making genre trash. Hilarious genre trash, mind you, but I have yet to truly love one of his movies like I did Kill Bill.

The same could be said for From Dusk till Dawn. There’s a lot of great talent involved, and Clooney, Keitel, and Lewis all give great performances. But the movie never quite sizzles. In fact, peaks early with its opening scene, in which the brothers hold up a liquor store. It’s intense, but also cheeky in its way. The downside to this is that the film never recaptures that tension, although Keitel does his best to bring the story some gravitas.

Still, it’s a fun goof of a vampire slick. B-movie icons Fred Williamson (Inglorious Bastards) and Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead) show up for a bit and give the film some much needed silliness. The special effects are cool in some scenes, appropriately tacky in others. Dusk isn’t the best movie for any of the creative forces involved, but it’s still a joy to watch them all work together.

Reflection: There’s just something about watching Tom Savini rock a leather jacket that makes sense, man.

Rubber (2010)

2011-10-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Are you TIRED of the expected?

Curiosity: A rubber tire with psychokinetic powers blows up people’s heads.

Plot: A rubber tire with psychokinetic powers blows up people’s heads… sort of.

Thoughts: One of the problems I’ve encountered with contemporary horror movies is that they’re too self-aware. They use humor to make up for, say, poor budgets or a hooky story. Humor can be a good defense mechanism on the schoolyard, but it sucks the joy out of filmmaking. Rubber, unfortunately, suffers from trying too hard to be meta/ironic.

I’m not against horror comedies. I love the Evil Dead trilogy as much as the next dork. The Monster Squad and Shaun of the Dead are two of my favorite movies of all time. But if you’re going to do a commentary on horror films, you better have something to say. Monster Squad examined finer, sillier points of monster movies (“WOLFMAN’S GOT NARDS!”). Shaun of the Dead goofed on George A. Romero’s zombie rules while still following them. Rubber tries to poke fun at the idea of schlocky horror movies with stupid monsters, in this case with a tire.

For the first 25 minutes or so, Rubber feels like an update of every terrible ’50s monster movie. It even has one of a disclaimer for the opening scene. But the film quickly disappears up its own meta-asshole. Writer/director Quentin Dupieux uses a chorus to comment on the movie’s action, but they overwhelm the movie. The story becomes more about shutting up the chorus than it is about a murderous tire. It’s a novel idea at first, as the chorus pokes fun at the movie’s ludicrous elements. But it becomes more about telling than it is showing. Watching Rubber is like attending a screening for a cult horror movie and just watching the audience instead. And that’s no fun at all.

Reflection: Oh shit, it’s Fat Neil from Community!

Black Dog (1998)

2011-10-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Tagline: The only way to stay safe to stay moving.

Curiosity: Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing! Road House! Next of Kin?) and Meat Loaf fight each other… with trucks!

Plot: Jack Crews (The Swayze) was once the best truck driver in all the world. He drove stuff from Point A to Point B, even if the stuff was nuclear weapons or whatever. He was good at what he did. But then he killed a guy because he is also a terrible, terrible driver and lost his license. He even did jail time despite being an A-OK guy otherwise.

Once he gets out of prison, though, Crews realizes his family is about to lose their house. Crews can’t go back to “the city,” what with “the gangs” and “the drugs” and “the rap music.” In comes Cutler (Graham Beckel) with an offer too good to be honest: Deliver a load of stuff, no questions asked, for a whole lot of money. Oh sure, the load might be toilets. But inside those toilets ain’t poop, it’s guns, pal.

Er’rybody wants these guns. Cutler’s buyer wants to sell them on the streets. Cutler’s henchman Red (Meat Loaf) wants to steal them for his own gains. And you best believe the FBI and ATF, spearheaded by bickering agents Charles Dutton (Alien 3, Legion… this guy is better than most of his movies deserve, really) and Stephen Toblowsky want those guns.

What’s a Swayze to do but keep on truckin’?

Thoughts: I think writers William Mickelberry and Dan Vining had an idea for a movie about truckers caught in a gun smuggling ring. That’s a decent idea for an action movie. I think they even researched it pretty thoroughly, as Black Dog explains tons of details about the trucker life, like weigh stations and lingo. Then I think they realized their movie was still boring, so they added a ton of other bullshit to spice it up.

Black Dog is a solid actioner, but it never ups the stakes enough. Oh it tries and tries to pile stuff on (Red won’t die! Cutler has Swayze’s wife and child!), but it never quite hits that perfect percentage of dramatic tension and human interest. It also ends like three times before it really ends. Considering it’s only 89 minutes long, the story really is threadbare despite being overstuffed with additions like the idea of a ghostly black dog that haunts greedy truckers.

I find the black dog concept to be superfluous to the film. It’s supposed to give Swayze’s character something to struggle against but, honestly, he’s already trying to save his house and, later in the film, his family. Dude’s got enough on his plate. At first I thought it was a bullshit addition, then I found out the black dog is actually a British myth, not an American one, and I just laughed.

Black Dog has some cool driving sequences. It’s also got my man Swayze being a hardass. But so much of the movie could have been cut, from Red’s random Bible quotes to Randy Travis’ character Earl entirely (Sorry Randy Travis).

Reflection: You still my boy, Swayze.

The Supreme Swordsman (1984)

2011-09-26T20:27:00.001-07:00

Tagline: 99 have fallen. One remains.

Curiosity: It’s been a while since I really obsessed over a kung-fu movie, and I heard good things about the Shaw Brothers.

Plot: This guy with a mustache is trying to collect 100 swords. But instead of buying them, he wants to kill dudes and take their swords. He’s building a house out of swords, you see. But when he goes to collect on his one hundredth sword, he gets defeated by this other guy. Other Guy lets Mustache Guy live, but Mustache Guy is so pissed off about it, especially when he finds out that his sensei didn’t teach him a super secret black magic fighting move. So, Mustache Guy kills his sensei and some guy’s dad, stealing both the fighting move and the most amazing sword ever in the process. It’s up to Some Guy to beat Mustache Guy, to both avenge his father’s death and to end Mustache Guy’s reign of facial hairy terror.

Thoughts: Even though it’s only 100 minutes long, Supreme Swordsman is kind of awkward to watch. Part of that is because of the subtitles. There are plenty of weird word choices – people always refer to their elders as “senior,” for example. But the movie also just jumps off halfway through and starts up an entirely other movie.

Not to get all spoilery, but most of the movie is concerned with Mustache Guy’s rise to power and Some Guy’s quest for revenge. But when it segues into Some Guy’s training, it becomes all about his misadventures, in which he takes strange Chinese herbs and tries to save a lady and even goes to hell for a bit. It’s an entirely different movie, and while it’s more satisfying than a Western training montage would have been, it still comes out of nowhere and goes on a little too long.

Then again, I didn’t buy Supreme Swordsman for the plot. I wanted to see kung-fu ‘n’ sword fights, and I got both in abundance. While the choreography is a little too clean (I prefer the primal beat downs of Bruce Lee and Tony Jaa), it still satisfied my thirst for dude-smashin’.

Reflection: Holy shit, Shaw Brothers Studio put out so many kung-fu movies.

Drive, He Said (1971)

2011-09-09T12:13:00.001-07:00

Tagline: The disenchantment of an all-American jock.

Curiosity: It sprang from the mind of Jack Nicholson after he knocked out the excellent films Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.

Plot: While star basketball player Hector (William Tepper) debates if he wants to A) play in the NBA and/or B) keeping getting freaky with his college professor’s wife Olive (Karen Black), his asshole roommate Gabriel (Michael Margotta) tries to dodge the draft. At various points, director Nicholson parades what he calls “a symphony of dicks.”

Thoughts: There were some great existentialist films from the ’70s, like Two-Lane Blacktop, Easy Rider, and Five Easy Pieces. While sparse in story, they captured a growing melancholy in the American consciousness, melded with a need to live in the now.

Drive, He Said is not that kind of movie, but it wants to be quiet badly. It tries to pose Big Life Questions, like “Why are we in Vietnam?” and “Why do we participate in consumerism?” Those questions are important, and still relevant in 2011, but since Gabriel the madman is the one posing them, they fall flat.

Gabriel is meant to represent the dark side of freedom, the unrepentant, angry, disaffected kind, and he does, but not the way filmmakers intended. Within the context of the story, he’s supposed to be a charming revolutionary who’s gonna rage against the man. His quest to fight the draft results in him munching psychotropic drugs in an attempt to be declared insane, which works, but it also causes him to sexually assault an unrelated character for no reason. The RAINN rep in me was repulsed by that scene, and all I could think was, “This guy’s a prick.” And he’s a prick through the whole got-damn movie. At no point does the movie offer any reason for anyone to like Gabriel, yet he scores loyal followers and sexual partners constantly. He’s meant to be a tragic character, but he’s so unlikable that my sympathy dissipates.

Same goes for Hector. Dude has an easy job, gets laid all the time, and whines about it. Sorry baby boomers, but thems first world problems.

Reflection: For a guy with that much body hair, you’d think Hector would be more thankful for the attention women give him.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

2011-09-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Fight for your fate.

Curiosity: My fiancée has a crush on Emily Blunt.

Plot: A mysterious shadow agency tries to stop Matt Damon from fucking Emily Blunt.

Thoughts: It makes me feel good to know that my fiancée occasionally picks shitty movies too. She might question my taste and sanity, but she’s picked some clunkers just like me. The Adjustment Bureau is one of those clunkers. An adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, the film’s sole saving grace is the chemistry between leads Damon and Blunt, by which I mean I could see Damon legitimately wanting to hump Blunt. The two show real fireworks, and I’m honestly not sure who’s more charming.

But the movie that’s built around them is lame-o. A secret organization called the Adjustment Bureau uses a guide for planning out all of civilization. While humans can control small decisions, like what to watch on TV, the big choices – who to marry, where to work – are handled by the Bureau. Free will, when it matters, does not exist in this society. And that’s a cool Orwellian sort of idea, except that it doesn’t add up to much here. For Damon, the tagline of fighting for one’s fate adds up to trying to get naked time with Blunt. That’s it.

Granted, the Adjustment Bureau doesn’t come off as nefarious, so it’s not like Damon’s character has much inkling to rage against the machine (That would probably reek too much of The Matrix anyway. Or maybe Robot Holocaust?). But the resulting plot of obtaining sloppy make-outs feels too small. The Bureau, in turn, feels too vaguely defined to build tension. They start off slightly intimidating, until you realize they’re a sci-fi riff on Judeo-Christian ideology. But I just didn’t feel like there was much at stake. The film also breaks an important science fiction rule: Never double up suspension of disbelief. I can accept that there’s a group who secretly controls the world. But they’re given a weakness near the end of the film that exists simply to create a happy ending. It smacks of bad writing.

Reflection: Emily Blunt does seem pretty cool though.

Head (1968)

2011-08-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

Tagline: A movie for a turned-on audience!

Curiosity: It came with the “America Lost and Found” boxed set from The Criterion Collection.

Plot: I have no idea what’s going on, man.

Thoughts: Head is an important movie because of what happened after its release; namely, it set Jack Nicholson up for a role in break-out films like Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Five Easy Pieces. He co-wrote and even briefly appeared in Head. The film also launched BBS, a pivotal production company if for no other reason than they made Easy Rider, which, for all the baby boomer bullshit that gets attached nowadays, is still a really, really good road movie. So yeah, let me just say that Head is an important movie.

But it sure isn’t a good one. Sheesh hoosafex, does this movie stink like butts on all fronts. It’s essentially a plotless 90-minutes in which The Monkees (Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones) run around make absurdist statements and occasionally breaking into song. They show up in various situations (a Western, a war, a big black box, etc.) and crack wise, but it never adds up to anything coherent. It’s very psychedelic, but at 90 minutes, it’s a bit of a chore. And let me say, Easy Rider managed to be trippier with its acid sequence and tell a coherent story, however sparse.

Still, Head did make me laugh a few times. The opening scene, in which an official’s attempts to use a microphone result in a repetitious drone, was hilarious. Random oddball jokes scored a chuckle (Frank Zappa appears to remind Davy Jones about the need for artistic integrity, before walking off with a talking cow). I also like whenever the laughing giant guy shows up for no reason. The movie could’ve used more WTF moments like that, because as is, Head just isn’t something I see myself watching ever again. I’m not necessarily against movies steeped in drug culture, Head is just a complete mess. Rumor has it The Monkees made it to sabotage their goofy TV image. Well, mission accomplished.

Reflection: For a great movie-with-musicians, check out Two-Lane Blacktop instead.

Spy Game (2001)

2011-08-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tagline: It’s not how you play the game. It’s how the game plays you.

Curiosity: My fiancée is all about Brad Pitt and, curiously, Robert Redford.

Plot: When secret agent Tom Bishop (Pitt) is captured trying to break out a woman from a Chinese prison, Washington goes poop-crazy. The only friend Tom has left is Nathan Muir (Redford). It’s his last day of on the force (ain’t that always the way?), but he’ll be darned if anybody is gonna mess with that handsome devil Tommy Bishop. Only thing is, Muir needs to trick his opponents in order to free Bishop. He’s gotta play the game. The SPY game, if you will.

The spy game involves sending in the Navy SEALs to fuck shit up [SPOILER ALERT].

Thoughts: What makes Spy Game so great is that it’s essentially two hours of Robert Redford being smarter than everyone ever. People will be all like, “Hey Robert Redford, your friend is totally gonna die and you can’t save him and also you have to retire, dick-butt.” And then Redford will say “Yeah, you’re right,” to their faces. But in his head he’s all “Shazam! I got this.”

…and that’s pretty much all that’s going on. We get a lot of weird backstory about Pitt and Redford meeting in Vietnam (the bulk of the story takes place in 1991, by the by), which is hilariously First Blood-ish. But mostly, it’s just your body Redford telling people to eat a bag of dicks. Because that’s what happens when you lose the spy game, baby.

Reflection: I don’t think Brad Pitt has any lines for the first 40 minutes. Discuss.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

2011-08-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Evolution becomes revolution.

Curiosity: Apes be getting crazy! Also my baby girl wanted to see this for some reason (I blame Freida Pinto).

Plot: Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco) is trying to cure Alzheimer’s, and the key to doing so lies in creating a virus that can repair brain cells. Not only does this virus repair cells, though, it also creates new ones, resulting in a marked increase in intelligence in the apes he’s testing the virus on. But when one of the apes, Bright Eyes, goes psycho-crazy, Rodman loses his funding and is ordered to kill the rest of the test subjects. But he can’t bring himself to kill Bright Eyes’ baby, Caesar (Andy Serkis). Instead, he raises Caesar in secret with his Alzheimer’s-stricken father (John Lithgow). Rodman and Caesar become good buddies, and together they pick up a pretty lady (Pinto) and have some great times.

Then shit gets fucked.

Thoughts: I feel like most of my praise for Rise of the Planet of the Apes consists of backhanded compliments. It’s pretty good, despite being the seventh Apes movie and having a terrible ad campaign and jumping around plot points considerably. But it’s true: I don’t think many people on the Internets thought it was gong to be a good movie, and instead it’s the best movie to come out this summer. What the fuck.

If anything, what makes the film work is that it borrows strategies from Batman Begins (gritty reboot that respects the source material and jettisons camp) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (the most human character isn’t actually human). Serkis has always done incredible motion capture work (Lord of the Rings, King Kong), and Apes is yet another moving performance from the guy in a wet suit. But the whole cast is great, if underutilized. Franco gets plenty of screen time, but Pinto, Lithgow, and Brian Cox all feel underutilized. They’re great, as is Tom Felton (trading the British douchebaggery of Draco Malfoy for the American douchebaggery of Dodge Landon), but they all could have gotten more.

But then, Apes needs its brisk pacing to keep things moving, considering it takes place over the course of about 15 years or something. It also jumps from genre to genre – rom-com to sci-fi to drama to action – so focusing on any one element might have derailed the film. While I wouldn’t exactly put it on the same level as Batman Begins or 2001 – too many convenient plot twists – it’s an emotionally affecting work. You can come into with the thinnest awareness of the Apes franchise and still get caught up in the characters, although fans will surely enjoy all of the references to the series. Sure it gets clunky at times – recycling that “Damn dirty ape” bit is too obvious – but as a whole, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is easily the best movie of the summer.

Verdict: Seriously, best movie with worst ad campaign 2011. I’m glad it’s making money despite the truly shitty trailers and posters.

Heavy Metal (1981)

2011-08-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

Tagline: A step beyond science fiction!

Curiosity: I was never allowed to watch it as a kid. That, Black Sabbath’s “Mob Rules” is on the soundtrack, and that tune fuggin’ rules.

Plot: Dudes fuck busty ladies with their boners. Also, some bad guys are trying to obtain a green orb with mysterious powers.

But mostly boners.

Thoughts: Oh wow. Oh… geez, man. In order to appreciate Heavy Metal, you really need to be in the film’s target demographic, which is horny 13-year-old boys. Otherwise, you might fixate on how every character is nothing more than a sex party waiting to happen, or how the plot is a paper-thin boob-delivery system. But even judged as fan service, Heavy Metal falls short due to uneven animation. I just don’t think the human body works the way the film depicts.

As science fiction, Heavy Metal is even worse. The orb actually reminds me of the one ring from Lord of the Rings, in that both are evil objects that few can control. Except Lord of the Rings is a literary masterpiece, and Heavy Metal is a piece of shit.

But wait, given that the movie is called Heavy Metal, it surely must have a ballin’ soundtrack, right? Wrong. Outside of Black Sabbath and maybe Blue Öyster Cult, there is no metal on the soundtrack. Sure, it’s got Devo, whom I love, but they seem inappropriate. What makes the collection laughable, though, is the inclusion of artists like Journey, Sammy Hagar, Grand Funk Railroad, and fucking Stevie Nicks. I know Heavy Metal is “inspired” by a sci-fi erotica mag, but this music is just shit.

Reflection: IF YOU LISTEN TO FOOLS / THE MOB RULES / GUITAR SQUEALIE!

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

2011-07-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Discover the origin of the first avenger.

Curiosity: My man Chris Evans plays Marvel’s best piece of political commentary, Captain America.

Plot: Scrawny Steve Rodgers (Evans) just wants to serve his country, but with all his health ailments, the armed forces continually reject him. Finally, though, he meets German ex-pat scientist Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who admires his dedication to a moral life that defies flags and governments and stuff. The good doctor selects Rodgers to be the test subject for a super soldier formula, much to the consternation of folks like British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and U.S. Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones). Even his best friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan, who is Romanian. DID YOU KNOW THAT?) can’t believe Steve’s luck. But when Nazi spies kill Erskine and unveil a new, technologically advanced sect called HYDRA, Steve quickly sets about proving his worth.

Thoughts: I really need the Avengers movie to be good. It was cool when the idea first got floated out in Iron Man, but I’m starting to get burned out on the build-up. Films like Iron Man 2 and Thor were uneven due to the Avengers side plot; Captain America is bookended by Avengers developments, distracting from an otherwise solid, gee-wiz sort of World War II action piece a la Indiana Jones. The creamy middle consists of a stellar cast (Seriously; everyone pulls their weight, just like in Thor), fun action sequences, and even a bit of humor. Yeah, Captain America gets hokey in spots, but that comes with the character. It’s even a little endearing.

If Avengers sucks, Captain America will be diminished. Which is a shame, since director Joe Johnston (The Wolfman, The Rocketeer) delivered a tightly paced, fun, but still emotionally rewarding movie. Yeah, it’s a little by-the-numbers as far as superhero movies go, but the cast elevates the script considerably. Evans sparks chemistry with just else everyone else in the cast, from his love interest Peggy to his enemy the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, nerds’ go-to guy for anything dorky and intense). Another important difference is in how the movie switches up the superhero movie conventions. Steve doesn’t have Spider-man or Batman’s tortured psyches or Iron Man ‘n’ Thors’ issues with redemption. He just wants to do the right thing, and he won’t stop until he’s done his duty. In other movies, the superhero has to develop his personal code of ethics; Rodgers always knew where he stood even before he became Captain America. The character can be boiled down to a single line: “I don’t like bullies.”

I find that endearing, and while I take issues with the film’s ending (Not Johnston’s fault, but it still wastes some great opportunities to mine Marvel’s vaults), I still loved Captain America from start to finish.

Verdict: Seriously, give me an Invaders movie with Cap, Sub-Mariner, and the original Human Torch. Do it up.

Creepshow (1982)

2011-07-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

Tagline: The most fun you’ll ever have BEING SCARED!

Curiosity: It’s a mash-up from Stephen King and George A. Romero (You might know him from a zombie movie or two or three).

Plot: Set up as a tribute to the horror comics of yesteryear, Creepshow opens on a little boy (King’s own son Joe, who now writes the pretty awesome Locke & Key series) getting yelled at by his dad (Tom Atkins, Night of the Creeps. He’s also one of several cast members to show up from The Fog) for reading trashy comics like, well, Creepshow. After Atkins throw out the first issue, the film jumps into a series of horror vignettes.

Thoughts: While it could never be considered a major work from any of the cast or crew, Creepshow is still a charming little horror movie. Compared to today’s standards, ’80s horror movies, or even just Romero’s work alone, it’s tame in the gore ‘n’ violence area. But King’s script crackles with humor, lending the film a lot of extra appeal. He also turns in a hilarious performance as a yokel who finds a meteor. Much has been written about King’s acting being subpar at best, embarrassing at worst, but I honestly thought his bug-eyed overacting actually suited the material. Plus, it’s Stephen freaking King. If the author of Carrie, Cujo, and The Eyes of the Dragon wants to ham it up, so be it.

Despite running two hours, Creepshow keeps moving at a fine pace, jumping from one macabre tale to the next. The strongest of the bunch is clearly “Something to Tide You Over,” in which Leslie Nielsen takes revenge on Ted Danson for stealing his wife. It comes right after King’s bit, so it’s a refreshing antidote to all the overacting. The two thespians strike a nice balance between drama and humor, which is exactly what the film overall set out to achieve. Of course, I’m fond of the closing skit, “They’re Creeping Up on You,” in which Romero’s good friend Tom Savini gets to cut loose some creepy effects.

Reflection: Honestly, I could see myself using this to ease my kids into the horror genre.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)

2011-06-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

Tagline: It’s Evil Dead 2, Braindead, and The Matrix, times ten, turned up to 11!

Curiosity: Patch.com editor Sam Fran Scavuzzo loves this movie. That dude is dark. Also, one of the fights was a staple on The Daily Show during the increasingly distant Craig Kilborn period.

Plot: Set in the distant future (2001), Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky tells the story of some guy named Ricky (Siu-Wong Fan) who is 1) awesome at kung-fu and 2) in prison for reasons no one understands. But as Ricky begins taking out crime lords one by one, it becomes clear why he’s really here: To kung-fu kick the opium market right in the nards.

Thoughts: There’s something about Riki-Oh that is so absurdly, graphically violent that it becomes hilarious. Horror movies have suffering through a terrible torture porn period, in which movies that lack substance glorify debasing the human form. None of those flicks, like the Saw franchise for example, matches Riki-Oh’s level of gore. The guy just wrecks people:

At just shy of 90 minutes in length, Story of Ricky manages to move along at a brisk pace. The fight scenes aren’t too great on a technical level and the storytelling is ho-hum, but the special effects, cheap as they appear at times, are hi-larious. It’s a little more straight faced than, say, Kung Fu Hustle, but it’s still an entertaining comedy as much as it is an action/martial arts flick.

Reflection: My fiancée and I had a cultural exchange this weekend featuring Tree of Life and Story of Ricky. I like my movie better.

Tree of Life (2011)

2011-06-26T20:32:00.000-07:00

Tagline: OH HEY DINOSAURS!

Curiosity: The buzz has been good, Brad Pitt has shown excellent taste in projects recently, and my fiancée wanted to see it.

Plot: Tree of Life’s plot is almost beside the point, but here goes: Jack (Sean Penn) reflects on his past, specifically on his father and mother (Pitt and Jessica Chastain, who are more remarkable but whose characters are never named) and their different parenting techniques, as well as his brother who died at 19. The film is primarily made up of impressionistic snapshots from Jack’s youth.

ALSO DINOSAURS SHOW UP.

Thoughts: Oddly enough, Michelle and I developed an award after seeing another Pitt vehicle: The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford inspired the “Most Beautiful Piece of Shit of the Year” award. Both films possess amazing cinematography, but lack compelling storytelling. In Assassination’s case, the film relied too much on narration (a tool of the lazy screenwriter) and long, uncomfortable, nearly homoerotic pauses between cowboys. Tree’s problem is that it doesn’t go anywhere.

Which is a shame, because while it’s an awfully slow movie, I was still really, really plugged in for the first 90 minutes or so. The film opens with some surreal, artsy scenes establishing the family’s dynamic. Then we get hit with a powerful series of shots as characters react to Jack’s brother dying. Then the film juxtaposes this very personal tragedy against all of existence, literally. We get shots of volcanoes erupting and planets forming and dinosaurs hanging out. And it looks darn good too. The dinos are CGI, but they look decent. Primarily, though, the special effects were handled Douglas Trumbull, who came out of retirement as a favor for director Terrence Malick.

What’s funny, to me at least, is that the universe stuff made me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Trumbull just so happened to work on, as well as Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The guy comes from an older, better stock of special effects coordinators, and it shows. Tree of Life is an emotional film about family, but it packs some gorgeous sci-fi visuals along the way, proving while computers make filmmaking easier, they do not necessarily make them easier. Director of Cinematography Emmanuel Lubezki (who also did great work with films like Children of Men and, um, The Cat in the Hat) supplements these effects with a swirling cascade of shots that keep the viewer attached. Tree of Life is a marvel to look at, and proof that Hollywood needs to look backwards in order to move forwards.

But the script is sadly empty. Outside of Jack realizing he’s turning into a strict, bullish man just like his Navy-bred father, there’s little going on in terms of plot or character development. The movie never truly, definitively comments on the ideas it puts forth about life or death as concepts or as they apply to Jack’s brother and his passing’s impact on the family. Tree of Life had me for the first 90 minutes, but those final 50, where nothing happens, were a chore. While my fiancée and I certainly got a lot of mileage out of discussing the film and its meaning, it’s ultimately something I will never watch again.

Reflection: NEEDS MORE DINOSAURS PLEASE.

Thor (2011)

2011-05-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Courage is immortal.

Curiosity: Overqualified cast and crew makes a wiz-bang comic book movie.

Plot: Thor (Chris Hemsworth, who I just realized rocked it in his one scene as Captain Kirk’s dad in the Star Trek reboot) is a totally ballin’ god of thunder. He’s got a sweet beard and everybody loves him. He’s about to take over as king of the magical land of Asgard from his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins, who seems to have recovered nicely from The Wolfman), when a trio of Frost Giants infiltrate the palace. Frost Giants and Asgardians have an uneasy truce after a long way, and in response to this insubordination, Thor and his friends attack the Giants at home and nearly spark a second war until Odin intervenes. Infuriated with his son, Odin banishes Thor to Earth until he can learn how to not be such a knee-jerk asshole.

Then Jane (Natalie Portman) hits Thor with her car. Repeatedly.

Thoughts: Like the 2008 reboot The Incredible Hulk, Thor is about as good as it can be with a source material that I’m not particularly interested in. If anything, it’s superior to Hulk in that director Kenneth Branagh manages to take a way denser backstory and streamline it for mainstream audiences. Thor is several different movies. It’s a fantasy epic a la Lord of the Rings, with a dense mythology and a dash of psychedelic imagery. It’s also a comic book movie, with superpower and Marvel tie-ins. And when Hemsworth and Portman are left alone, it turns into Kate & Leopold.

But Branagh juggles all of these elements, never letting a single angle overwhelm the picture. The problem is that Thor at times comes off as manic and workmanline, jumping from action set pieces rapid fire while still shoehorning in human drama. It’s never boring, but it’s also never quite as fun Iron Man.

Still, the film gets a lot right. Like I wrote earlier, it takes a dense story and strips it to the essentials. Every character gets enough screen time for us to understand their importance and motivations [SPOILER: The lone exception is a new Marvel character that just kind of appears out of nowhere with little introduction. If I wasn’t familiar with Marvel comics, I’d probably be confused by such a high profile actor showing up for 10 seconds]. The film is heavy on fantasy without drowning the audience in explanation. And Kat Dennings shows up every few minutes with a spacey one-liner!

Thor isn’t quite an all-consuming blockbuster like Iron Man or The Dark Knight. But I suspect it will hold up on repeat viewings. I also have to say that Branagh found a worthy lead in Hemsworth. Dude strikes the right balance between bravado and ridiculous. He’s unafraid to go big with Thor, but he never tips over into melodrama. He also handles the bits of comedy Branagh slips in adeptly, so much so that my fiancee and I are still cracking up about those scenes a day later. I loved watching him gaze deeply into Stellan Skarsgård's eyes whilst drinking a shot/beer combo. I loved watching him pal around with Asgardian friends. I especially loved watching him get hit by Natalie Portman's car over and over. Also, that boy is cut. Yowza.

Side note #1: This movie does not need to be in 3-D.

Side note #2: The brouhaha about Norse gods being played by non-Nordic actors is stupid. Branagh cast this film based on skill, not skin tone, and it paid off.

Reflection: You know you’re fully in the Whole Foods cult when you can recognize random objects in the background like dish soap and know how good/bad they are for the environment.

Alien vs Ninja (2011)

2011-04-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Hundreds of years ago… They fought back!

Curiosity: It’s got Aliens versing Ninjas!

Plot: A group of Inga ninjas are returning from a successful round of ninja-ing when they see a fireball rip through the sky. When they go to investigate, they encounter aliens! Fighting occurs. The ninja’s leader, Yamata (Masanori Mimoto), is determined to take the creatures down, doubly so when they kidnap his best friend (Shûji Kashiwabara).

Also there’s a lady ninja named Ren (Mika Hijii) and she gives lots of fan service.

Thoughts: Overall, I’m pleased as punch about my purchase of Alien vs Ninja. But man, that first half hour was just torture. Writer/director Seiji Chiba intended the film as a sci-fi/horror/comedy mash-up, and the initial 30 minutes rely way too heavily on stupid slapstick. The comedic foil (Ben Hiura) is so grating the way he brays and mugs. It’s very Japanese, I’ll put it that way, so expect lady-boys, screaming, slapping, and fan service. Lots of fan service. There’s a lot of dialogue and set-up in the beginning as well, and for a while I thought Alien vs Ninja might not have the budget to pull off its hilariously great idea.

But then things take off. Chiba himself said he wanted to take Ridley Scott’s Alien and present a more Japanese interpretation, so he opted to include ninjas because ninjas are cool. He realized the concept was goofy, though, so the film quickly took a self-aware sense of humor. The actually comedic bits fail hard, but the lack of restraint results in some stupid/awesome fight scenes. AvN actually does a nice job balancing CGI, wire work, and fight choreography. It’s not the best looking sci-fi flick out there, but it hides its budget well enough. It also doesn’t shy way from violence or gore. Interestingly, this Alien homage comes off more like a Predator rip – elite fighters in the woods do battle with an extraterrestrial adversary. While it ultimately comes off like an anime, that plays to the movie’s strengths.

Reflection: The creatures look like Alien meets Evangelion meets dolphins.

Eat Pray Love (2010)

2011-04-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

[SNC is proud to present its first guest contribution, from none other than the inspiration for this very blog, my fiancee Michelle. Turns out she watches shitty movies too. This review makes me love The Expendables even more.]

Tagline: Let Yourself GO

Curiosity: During the two weeks I was home dying with some awful virus, my dad encouraged my mom and I to watch this movie for free On Demand. The 133 minutes just seemed too much to bear. As I got healthier, I kept thinking “I like watching movies with my mom,” “I like Julia Roberts...still,” and “someone I really respect told me this was a great book.” Oh, and I really wanted to see the shots of Italy.

Plot: A privileged white lady (Julia Roberts) living in a gorgeous house with a successful career as a writer (I know, right) realizes she doesn’t love her first of at least two husbands and the normal path of life (getting married and having babies) isn’t working for her. So, she lets hubby know how she’s feeling after attempting to pray...and then, starts banging this young, super lame, pseudophilosophical hottie (James Franco) moments after her divorce. (Score.) White lady/Liz Gilbert also is unhappy with said hottie, so she tells her BFF (who is the only lady who seems to have some sense aside from the cute Swedish blonde later) that she’s going on a yearlong journey to Italy, India, and Bali. The purpose of this journey is to find herself and change her life for the better, and the people she meets on the journey help her do so...?

[SPOILER: She’s still the same at the end, and ends up with another dude after trying to be alone.]

Thoughts: This painful telling of a woman finding herself made me do nothing but cringe and laugh. The protagonist comes off as a mysteriously wealthy, self-centered, leach in this trite tale. Her white people problems of not reaching self-actualization when you have all the means to are not unique. Though the basic plot should be one that millions of women can relate to and I, myself, should definitely be able to relate to, I could not care about Liz no matter how hard I tried. Her suffering is a suffering I’ve felt but would never call suffering; I’d call it life. And it is portrayed so lamely, that even though I typically have compassion and empathy just oozing out of me and I get paid to do so, it was nowhere to be found. I don’t know how her BFF, the aforementioned one with sense, whom had this great piece of dialogue at one point - “Liz, having a kid is kinda like getting a tattoo on your face. You should be certain it’s what you want” - put up with her.

The scenery of Italy was beautiful, and the friends Liz met there were sweet, even bordering on real for a few moments. I did like Liz’s philosophy on eating pizza and 40 lbs. worth of other Italian food: stop worrying about muffintops and enjoy, a man has never thrown you out of his bedroom after seeing you naked. And the scenes did make me hungry. I also liked when the little old Italian lady Liz rents from implies that all American women are foodies and tramps.

Next up was India: this was the most painful stretch of the movie. At times, I zoned out. I peed three times. I really wanted to slap Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins). He was an obnoxious, know-it-all, whom is in recovery after almost killing his kid many years back and, again, we’re supposed to care about his problems and find him likable as he espouses bumper sticker wisdom to us. (I think Liz even calls it that at some point.) Liz also develops a relationship with a 17-year-old with a pre-arranged marriage; she can’t even have a reciprocal relationship with this poor adolescent, though, because she is thinking of her own wedding. SHE IS ALWAYS THINKING OF HERSELF AND HER PROBLEMS. Then, Liz goes to Bali, gets drunk and laughs too much at a naked guy, falls in love with Javier Bardem/Felipe, freaks out about falling in love/control of life, gets a bladder infection (so relatable!), AND decides to cruise the ocean with Felipe thus “letting go” because a toothless, wise, practically incomprehensible, guru tells Julia the whole lesson is LIFE IS CRAZY. (Suck it up, people.)

Reflection: If they hadn’t thrown in the plotline where Liz helps a mother and daughter by getting them 18,000 American dollars to put towards a home, I could honestly say this woman had no redeemable qualities. Since they did throw that in there, I just have to say I wasted what felt like 4 hours watching a film I will always call White Lady Problems. Also, I am hungry for pasta.

Paul (2011)

2011-03-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Who’s up for a close encounter?

Curiosity: My beloved BFFs Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back! And they’re working with American laughmeisters like Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Joe Lo Truglio.

Plot: Now that they’ve finally made it to America for Comic-Con, English sci-fi nerds Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) decide to celebrate by taking a tour of the country’s most famous UFO hotspots. Things quickly go awry, though. First they piss off some local rednecks (David Koechner, some other guy).

THEN THEY MEET A FRICKIN’ ALIEN NAMED PAUL (Rogen).

After befriending the eponymous Paul, Graeme and Clive decide to help him get back home, befriending the uber-Christian Ruth (Wiig) along the way.

Thoughts: I liked Paul. It’s not as consistently funny as Pegg’s most revered works (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), but it has a sweetness to it that compensates. The film is a love letter to science fiction, and Steven Spielberg in particular. Much like Pegg’s best work, Paul is stuffed with references to sci-fi’s finest moments.

That said, it drags a little in the middle. Wiig’s love interest Ruth doesn’t feel like a fully formed person. Her character ignites a debate about creationism versus science, which by association questions the existence of a God, but the movie can’t comfortably slip in such a Big Issue^TM comfortably. Paul stalls for a moment, but then picks back up once Ruth drops it.

Director Greg Mottola won me over with Adventureland, but I found myself constantly comparing him to Pegg and Frost’s good buddy Edgar Wright, who helmed that holy trinity of British comedy listed above. The film looks good overall and Paul looks great, but part of me wanted to see Wright’s take on the material, if only because I find his cinematography to be a little more compelling. Hot Fuzz had some amazing establishing shots and action scenes. Pegg and Frost have called Paul a tribute to America in addition to sci-fi, but Mottola doesn’t really do much with his sets. I didn’t get much American sentiment out of the film besides A) rednecks are c-c-c-crazy and violent and B) we totally have the best nerd culture.

Still, Paul is a nice balance between Pegg’s nerd love and Rogen’s crass druggy humor. It’s a little more dependent on familiarity with its references than Pegg’s other works (Hot Fuzz, for example, is a legitimately good buddy picture. It helps to be aware of Bad Boys II and Point Break, but it’s not essential), but the film covers such a great swath of sci-fi. It’s a cult movie for a quite sizeable cult.

Reflection: Blythe Danner is in this movie for like five minutes and she gets the two best jokes.

The Quiet Man (1952)

2011-03-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Action...Excitement...Romance...Fill the Screen!

Curiosity: Irishmen engage in the longest fight scene committed to film (at the time).

Plot: Having retired from boxing after accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, wealthy Irish-American Sean Thornton (John Wayne) returns to his homeland in search of solace. He almost gets it when he marries the beautiful Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara), until her brother Will (Victor McLaglen) refuses to pay her dowry. Determined to never fight again, Sean loses Mary Kate’s respect, throwing their sexy, sexy Irish marriage into jeopardy.

Will Will stop being such a dick? Will Sean kick his ass and/or get laid? Are any of these characters sober?

Thoughts: For St. Patrick’s Day, my fiancé and I decided to down some Smithwick’s and watch The Quiet Man. And eat pizza. Because pizza is awesome. The Quiet Man is awesome too.

I have some reservations about celebrating it for this blog, since the movie actually won two Oscars, but c’mon. Anyone who’s seen The Quiet Man will tell you that part of its charm comes from it being about barely functioning alcoholics with anger issues. Barely any of these characters have jobs. They just drink and argue six days a week (On the seventh day they go to mass). Shit, Wayne and O’Hara barely belong together – Mary Kate is batshit insane, freaking out with little provocation, while Sean tends to kick the crap out of her a lot, culminating in him dragging her five miles on foot. This is like a drunken Irish version of Taming of the Shrew. It does quiet her down, though.

Of course, it helps that John Ford was such a brilliant director. He and cinematographers Winton C. Hoch and Archie Stout won awards for their cinematography, and deservedly so. The Quiet Man explodes with bright colors, from the costumes to the sets to Maureen O’Hara’s gorgeous red hair. Watching O’Hara and Wayne court along Irish farmland is some of the most beautiful footage I’ve ever seen.

The Quiet Man is love letter to Ireland. Its characters are eccentric and inebriated, but dang it if they aren’t appealing too.

Reflection: John Wayne dragged Maureen O’Hara through sheep shit. Now that’s realism.

Ong Bak 3 (2011)

2011-03-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Do that thing where you knee people in the face.

Curiosity: It’s the thrilling conclusion to the mighty Ong Bak 2.

Plot: Ong Bak 3 picks up where 2 left off, with Tien (Tony Jaa) getting carted off by Lord Rajasena’s (Sarunyu Wongkrajang) men. Rajasena has his bones broken and is about to Tien put to death when he escapes. While Tien heals, Rajasena has strange dreams about an usurper to the throne, eventually made manifest by an even badder bad guy named Demon Crow (Dan Chupong). DC kills just about everybody he comes in contact with. Meanwhile, Tien studies dance and grows a beard.

Thoughts: Considering the sequels have next to nothing to do with the original, Ong Bak would’ve been a questionable trilogy anyway. But at least the first two installments were solid throughout. 3 mucks up the plot considerably, to the point the film drags despite running only 95 minutes.

But here’s the thing: 3 gets a lot of stuff right. It shows Tien’s evolution as a fighter while wrapping up his personal growth from 2. It also slips in some Buddhist philosophy. Those scenes are slow too, but in a good way that should appeal to martial arts fans. But when those bits get mixed in muddled storytelling, the film falters. 3 introduces fantasy elements via the magical Demon Crow, but he jars with the film’s previous set tone of realism and attracts some lackluster special effects. The fight scenes are great; the CGI is not.

I have to believe that some elements were lost in translation, but the plot points of 3 comes off as uneven. Characters’ deaths are often underlit and barely remarked on. For a while, I forgot that I love Tony Jaa.

But the movie is nicely bookended by nice action sequences, and the final 20 minutes are just amazing. Though slightly tainted by bad CGI, 3 delivers some of Jaa’s most intricate stuntwork yet, with a whole slew of humans and elephants fighting all at once. It’s also some of Jaa’s most brutal choreography yet. While it’s a little disappointing coming after 2’s surprising emotional depth, Ong Bak 3 should still satisfy many a Jaa fan until the inevitable Ong Bak 4.

Reflection: I’m getting old. I had to break this movie up into three installments because I kept falling asleep around midnight.

Trapped (2002)

2011-03-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

Tagline: It was the perfect crime… until she refused to be the perfect victim.

Curiosity: Charlize Theron and Courtney Love are the top two billed stars.

Plot: The Jennings family is ridiculously cute. Will (Stuart Townsend) is a jet pilot AND a doctor! Karen (Theron) is wicked hot and appears in magazines and stuff! Abby (Dakota Fanning) is cute and precocious just like every Dakota Fanning role ever! Yep, things are pretty spiffy for the Jenningseseseseses.

Then Joe Hickey (Kevin Bacon) roles up with a gun, kidnaps Abby, and tells Karen tough shit. To her face! If Karen and Will are going to get Abby back, they’ll have to follow Joe’s 24-hour schedule… and pay up $250,0000! And let Joe diddle Karen private bits at some point!

Courtney Love rolls up at some point and looks pretty beat up.

Thoughts: Tonight my fiancé and I decided to watch a movie together. This is sometimes a difficult task on account of our divergent tastes. She wanted to watch Love and Other Drugs because it had acting. I wanted to watch Unstoppable because it had Denzel Washington and Chris Pine fighting a train. We saw The Illusionist last night. I’ve gotten my share of culture for the week.

Ah, but then we spied Trapped. We both like Charlie Theron. We both tolerate Courtney Love. And the thought of Theron beating the snot out of Kevin Bacon in the final quarter sounded promising. Not so.

Trapped consistently piles on scenarios to drag out its running time, with the kidnappers constantly bungling the job. The film reminds us constantly that they’ve ransomed four other kids prior to Abby, but offers little proof in terms of capability. Bacon and Love’s characters fail to properly research the family they’re attacking. Karen keeps coming up with ways to stop them (including holding Kevin Bacon’s wiener hostage!), only to smack her down so as to pad the film. A late period revelation about Joe similarly extends the story longer than it needs to go.

Speaking of padding the film, Townsend’s character is kind of superfluous. Theron does all the legwork. But he does get locked in a room with Love. Now that’s the real crime.

Reflection: This movie taught me that you can hide a scalpel in your butt.

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977-ish)

2011-02-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Lost horror film of the seventies.

Curiosity: Patton Oswalt had a great bit about this previously unreleased ’70s cult horror film on Werewolves and Lollipops.

Plot: So, there’s this Death Bed. It eats. It’ll eat anything – apples, fried chicken, PEOPLE. This is because the bed is possessed by an evil force thanks to demon blood. And people keep sleeping in this bed and getting eaten. Just constant death bedding for about a century. We know this thanks to narration provided by a British guy whose soul became trapped in a painting after he was eaten by the Death Bed.

Thoughts: Death Bed isn’t as bad as its reputation would suggest. That doesn’t necessarily make it good, but it displays fleeting moments on genius that defy its low budget, amateur roots. Here’s where the film gets things right: Director/writer George Barry actually thought about how a Death Bed would eat people. The result is like a venus flytrap; the Death Bed captures people and then dissolves them with acidic ooze.

Here’s where he gets it wrong: Just about everything else is terrible and hammy. The dissolvent makes sense; having the Death Bed make chewing sounds is stupid. Sure, it’s campy, but it also doesn’t make any sense, darn it. Also nonsensical: No one reacts when bad things happen to other people. Oh sure, people scream when they get eaten by the Death Bed. But when a character’s hands get dissolved when he tries stabbing the mattress monster, his sister doesn’t react at all. His hands are nothing but bones and she doesn’t say shit. What a jerk.

There is one lengthy scene where Barry perfectly captures the thrills and chills of horror movies, though. One female character almost escapes the Death Bed, and there’s a lengthy sequence where she attempts dragging her bloody, broken body out of the room. I’m sure Barry made the scene so long so he could eat up the running time (Even with all the padding and lengthy narration, Death Bed is still only 80 minutes long), but there’s something simultaneously titillating and uncomfortable about watching this character crawl, futilely, across the floor and up a set of stairs before ultimately being claimed by the Death Bed. Horror offers a degree voyeurism, and this scene puts the viewer right there.

But then, Death Bed also has funny/bad special effects and relies on narration to overexplain important plot points only to jam in an elaborate, unearned ending. Movies shouldn’t have this tough of a time showing instead of telling, but Barry seems to actively loathe writing dialogue when a British narrator will do.

Reflection: Glad I saw it. I’m sorry I paid for it.

Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

2011-02-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

Tagline: According to science, Bigfoot doesn’t exist.

Curiosity: John Lithgow and Sasquatch battle crime!

Plot: Avid hunter George Henderson (Lithgow) and his family “accidentally” hit a strange creature on their way home from a camping trip. Upon discovering that it’s none other than the legendary Bigfoot (Kevin Peter Hall), George decides to bring the corpse home with him FOR SCIENCE.

Later that day, however, the corpse, now dubbed Harry, returns for revenge upon Seattle. A French… maybe French-Canadian hunter (David Suchet) stalks Bigfoot, much to George’s chagrin. Having learned that hunting is bad, George begins shouting a pro-vegetarian message to anyone who will listen.

Thoughts: Released in 1987, Harry and the Hendersons might be one of the most influential films on my childhood. At 25, I realize that this might be the film that introduced me to the fine art of saying everything “sucks.” It also possibly buried an animal rights/vegetarian agenda in my subconscious, which didn’t manifest itself until high school.

I also think the movie just warped the way I perceive cinema. On its surface, Harry and the Hendersons is a delightful, family friendly romp. But there are certain scenes that lend it a more adult-oriented air. There’s a surprising amount of profanity, for one. There’s also a scene between Harry and George’s daughter Sarah (Margaret Langrick) that haunts me. Harry brings Sarah flowers [Side note: When trying to determine Harry’s gender, Sarah is the only one to point out Harry’s massive dong]. When she smiles at his gift, Harry gently puts his hand on the side of her face… and knocks flying to the ground with a loud thud. It’s so violent and random. And that thud really pops. In my head, I pretend Harry straight up pulled an Of Mice and Men on Sarah, but that’s maybe too dark. Anyway, animal rights. That’s cool.

I now find myself well-stocked on Harry and the Hendersons stories. Did you know Harry (Hall) also played the Predator? And that he died of complications from HIV? Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London, Star Wars: A New Hope, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, and, um, Norbit) designed Harry. He won a fucking Oscar for that shit. The film was adapted for TV. The show ran for three seasons. Harry murdered several characters throughout the show’s 72-episode run. I find clips of the show oddly compelling:

Reflection: I forgot to talk about George’s adorably nerdy son Ernie (Joshua Rudoy)! He’s so cute!

House (1977)

2011-02-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

Tagline: HOUSE!

Curiosity: It’s acknowledged as being an insane, weird movie. So, there’s that. And it’s endorsed by noted SNC sex symbol Ti West.

Plot: Unhappy with her father’s decision to remarry, Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) goes with six of her friends to visit her aunt in the country. But then her house starts doing some crazy-ass shit, man.

Thoughts: Oh. Oh… wow. House lives up to its reputation for being a strange flick. It’s not necessarily gory or disturbing. But it is extremely surreal, made with a low tech sensibility that actually makes it stand out. Star Wars needs constant upkeep; House will always look like a feverish dream. In his introduction to the film, West notes that director/co-writer Nobuhiko Obayashi utilizes every possible camera and special effect available. And it’s completely true.

While Obayashi was always an experimental artist at heart, for a while he made his living doing commercials. Weirdly enough, that helped create House’s sensibility, as the film conveys plenty through mood and setting. When Gorgeous’ step-mom-to-be shows up onscreen, her every move is greeted with a soft focus lens, generous lighting, and copious amounts of air to billow her skirt and scarf. She looks like an angelic movie star; no wonder Gorgeous hates her.

The film is unabashedly hyperactive and bipolar. Obayashi’s background allows him to make everything bright and loud. He jumps from comedy to drama to horror in seconds. The result is not necessarily a true horror movie, but it’s an appealing experimental effort, one that forces the audience to draw its own conclusions. It can be frightening if you want it to be, but I honestly took it as a black comedy, a darker Looney Tunes short. You can find it stupid if you want (One character is killed by a piano, another by pillows), but it’s honestly a hilariously creepy viewing experience.

Reflection: I want to see where Obayashi went from here.

Tango & Cash (1989)

2011-02-01T22:20:00.001-08:00

Tagline: Two of L.A.'s top rival cops are going to have to work together... Even if it kills them.

Curiosity: Kurt Russell’s movies in the ’80s were feckin’ awesome.

Plot: Rivals Tango (Sylvester Stallone) and Cash (Russell) are the two top cops in L.A.s, costing drug lords millions of dollars each year. Criminal mastermind Perret (Jack Palance) has big plans for them though: Frame them for murder and then ship ’em off to prison. But Perret wasn’t counting on Tango and Cash becoming partners, Odd Couple-style, and the duo soon breaks out and gets to bustin’ skulls.

Also Cash macks on Tango’s sister (Teri Hatcher), who is both a stripper and a drummer. The ’80s were weird.

Thoughts: Tango & Cash feels like it could have been an awesome ’80s cop show, if only because the script forces in so many angles while still being merely a good Lethal Weapon rip-off. As is, it doesn’t seem totally sure what it wants to be: A pre-CSI tech drama, a screwball comedy, a sexy sex party, or a rootin’, tootin’ action flick. I know the beauty of the buddy cop genre is that it can mash up a bunch of different styles, but T&C doesn’t develop any one particular idea, leaving me with plenty of questions, such as…

-Why does Teri Hatcher work a stripper who plays drums?

-How do Kurt Russell’s gun-boots work? If I had boots that shot bullets when I kicked, I would use them ALL OF THE TIME. Even in my sleep.

-What other kind of freaky deaky masochistic shit is Stallone into?

-What’s Jack Palance’s deal? With the mice? What’s up with that?

-Why do the characters speak almost exclusively in one-liners?

-How come no one notices that when Kurt Russell disguises himself in a dress, he still looks exactly like Kurt Russell in a dress? What is this, Looney Tunes?

T&C asks more questions than it answers. Still, I got my fill of Kurt Russell. Stallone gets stuck playing straight man most of the time, but Russell is, well, classic Russell: Cash is kind of insane and loud and passionate and he has fucking GUN-BOOTS.

Reflection: Holy shit, that's Robert Z'Dar from Soultaker!!

Cobra (1986)

2011-01-31T21:41:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.

Curiosity: It came bundled with Tango & Cash. Also, did you know that it’s star/writer Sylvester Stallone’s adaptation of Beverly Hills Cop?

Plot: Marion Cobretti (Stallone) has a ridiculously lame name, so he opts to go by “Cobra.” Dude is a lone wolf cop from the “zombie squad.” He takes the jobs no one wants, man, and he gets results, dammit. He blows away criminals while saying things like “This where the law stops and I start!” But there’s one crook he can’t blow: The Night Slasher (Brian Thompson, Luke from season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!!).

But when TNS leaves a witness (Brigitte Nieslen), Cobra must protect/make-out with her, in the name of street justice!

Thoughts: While I love a few of his movies, I have a tough time embracing Sylvester Stallone. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Rocky series and all, but the guy’s movies reek of calculation, whereas a picture from Dolph Lundgren or Arnold Schwarzenegger will almost definitely come packed with giddy thrills. In Cobra, Stallone goes out of his way to craft a badass character with potential to launch a franchise, and generally fails.

Let’s get this out of the way: I mildly liked Cobra. I was surprised that Nielsen could act, as I only know her really from The Surreal Life (and Rocky 4: Smashin’ Communism!, of course). Ironically, the comedy was strong too, thanks in large part to the banter between Stallone and Reni Santoni as Sergeant Gonzales. They just riff back and forth about food for no reason. Hi-larious!

But all the parts where Stallone tries to make Cobra out to be tougher than Rambo feel over the top, and mind you this was the best decade for movies like that. Cobra dresses all in black. He kills criminals with a minimum of 20 bullets. And he totally doesn’t care about parking restrictions. BAD. ASS.

Thompson, meanwhile, gets saddled with a villain so poorly defined that he was nowhere to go but up. The Night Slasher is apparently part of some sort of ax cult, we never learn what’s up with that. Still, he gets a chunk of lines near the end where he gets to just be all types of crazy/scary, and he kills it.

In fact, that bit of dialogue is probably the only legitimately unnerving moment. Cobra attempts to play like a slasher movie, but it’s completely gore-free. Considering it came out the same year as Aliens, From Beyond, and The Fly, I don’t understand why the film didn’t push for a harder R rating. Hell, the lone sex scene isn’t even a scene; merely a jump cut. Cobra is cartoonishly violent in a way that only eight-year-olds with lenient parents could love.

Reflection: I can’t believe this movie made $188 million in theaters. Anyway, here’s the ending:

Ninja Bachelor Party (1991)

2011-01-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Let’s do it! Let’s be ninjas!

Curiosity: It’s the only film starring stand-up legend Bill Hicks, available commercially for the first time on The Essential Collection.

Plot: Clarence (Kevin Booth) is a Robitussin addict looking to kick the habit and pick up ninjitsu. His parents don’t approve, his girlfriend leaves him, and he gets his ass kicked a lot. But one day, during a Robi-trip, he sees a vision: Travel to Korea to study the way of the ninja with Master (Hicks).

Then he gets his ass kicked some more.

Thoughts: While its plot is thin and its production value poor, Ninja Bachelor Party is the kind of low budget curio that I can’t deny. It helps if you’re a Hicks convert (I agree that he’s the father of alt-comedy, but he represents the style’s shortcomings as well as its successes), but it should appeal to fans of weird comedy.

At the same time, though, it’s a legitimate love letter to martial arts movies complete with several training montages. I’m not going to put it in the same league as Black Dynamite, because Michael Jai White is a way better filmmaker, but the final showdown between Clarence and Dr. Death (Hicks, in a dual-role) is much longer than you’d think, and they get in at least a handful of legitimate fighting moves. Granted, Ninja Bachelor Party took eight years (and only $5,000) to make, and it certainly looks like it, but it’s still a solidly entertaining flick.

Essentially, you get Hicks and Booth riffing into a microphone. Rapid fire one-liners mix with stranger comedy, like when the film opens with 10 anti-piracy warnings and closes with enough made-up credits to eat up one-sixth of the running time. I love it because A) it’s funny in a “What the hell?” sense and B) it shows that Hicks was more than just f-bombs and Goat Boy sex stories. My favorite comedians didn’t hit their stride until their thirties (See Patton Oswalt, Tina Fey, etc.), and I think Ninja Bachelor Party hints at the truly odd depths Hicks could have gone if he’d lived longer. His stand-up material is still pretty good, but I honestly think Party could have lead to something greater.

Reflection: …or maybe it’s just a better-than-average home movie. You tell me:

Season of the Witch (2011)

2011-01-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

Tagline: This January raise some hell.

Curiosity: Witches get stitches, courtesy of Nicolas Cage (Wicker Man) and Ron Perlman (Alien Resurrection), as well as a bunch of awesome movies with Guillermo del Toro).

Plot: Behman (Cage) and Felson (Perlman) fight in the crusades for years. Like a decade. But when they’re forced to kill women and/or children this one time during their decade o’ slaughtering, Behman freaks the fuck out and quits. The Church hates defectors, though, so the duo is soon arrested. They are offered a pardon on one condition: Deliver a young girl believed to be a witch (Claire Foy) to a monastery for judgment, in the hopes it will help end the plague ravaging Europe.

CGI wolves come into play at some point.

Thoughts: Season of the Witch is a revision or two from being the best movie of the year. Cage and Perlman turn the movie into a buddy cop picture that just so happens to be set in the Dark Ages, while Foy gets to project such a wide array of states, from predator to prey. The movie doesn’t do much with the “Is she or isn’t she a witch?” angle, but Foy at least makes the procedure bearable with range. Cast-wise, this movie is about as good as it can be.

Where Witch falters is in budget and dialogue. I think that, given another $10 million or so, the fight scenes could pop a little more. The CGI could be crisper. And maybe the same sets wouldn’t seem so obviously re-used as the characters travel from one locale to the next. Script-wise, the movie needs a better sense of humor – Cage and Perlman play off each other really well, but they don’t get much to work with.

The script is perhaps too single-minded in its approach that it forgets to add more flavor, hence the underwhelming dialogue. It also occasionally cuts corners and allows characters to reach conclusions well before they should have. Case in point: The girl uses illusions to trick a guy into falling on the sword of a knight-in-training that I like to call Sir Fuck Up (Robert Sheehan). The goody guys figure out that she did it right away, and they’re right, but if I was in the scene, I would just assume that Sir Fuck Up done fucked up. I can’t see the illusions, but I sure as fuck can numb nuts get all stabby-stabby with his sword. That kid fails so hard so often.

Still, the movie moves a nice pace, has some cool fight scenes, and features a cast that honestly deserves better material. Season of the Witch is sub-Lord of the Rings fare, but it’s still better than most. I can think of three movies named Season of the Witch. This is arguably the best of them.

Reflection: In true LotR fashion, the movie also ends three times before finally ending. Christ.

My Year in Crap 2010

2011-01-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

Based on how many “legitimately” good films show up on my list, I think 2010 may have been a good year for cinema. Then again, I also thought Mega Piranha was better than Black Swan or Shutter Island, so take that statement any way you want. Point is, this year I fell in love with the art of storytelling hard. What’s funny is that some of these films aren’t even perfect. I have plenty of problems with, say, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but it’s such an entertaining film, and such a great companion piece to its source material, that I hold it up high. How many adaptations can boast that?

I do want to set some ground rules before proceeding. In order to be considered for 2010, a film has to receive some degree of prominent distribution, whether it be a wide theatrical release or DVD one. Black Dynamite is technically a 2009 film, as that’s when it was first screened, but it wasn’t made available to the masses until this year. A Single Man opened in New York City and Los Angeles in 2009 so as to qualify for the Oscars, but fuck that shit. It didn’t go wide until 2010, so I’m counting it here. As my tolerant, beautiful girlfriend will tell you, I have little tolerance for films released to tactically take advantage of awards seasons. I think art belongs to everyone.

OK, rant over. Let’s talk about boobs and explosions.

15. Edge of Darkness

I’m surprised to find Edge of Darkness, a tepid Mel Gibson thriller here. At the time, I sneered it off the last gasp of Gibson’s career after all those drunken racist/anti-Semitic remarks, but the film delivers great drama, complete with ridiculous death scenes and unbelievable dialogue. Gibson might be washed up and/or a terrible person, but he still knows how to do a cop action flick.

14. Predators

Predators is about as good a sequel as anyone could have hoped for. The original is untouchable in my eyes, but the string of cash-ins and spin-offs have left this brilliant sci-fi staple diminished. Predators actually brings new ideas to the table, as well as a great cast, including Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, and Lawrence Fishburne. There are some great action set pieces (Yakuza vs. Predator? Hell yes) and a nice smattering gore. The original is still king, but at least we can finally call this series a franchise without snickering.

13. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

It’s a shame rising horror auteur Ti West couldn’t settle on a final edit of Cabin Fever 2 with his producers: The film he turned is a manic dark comedy in the Troma vein, which is a huge departure from West’s more slow ‘n’ cerebral approach on The House of the Devil and Trigger Man. As is, the movie flows nicely from bit to bit as horny teens contract a flesh-eating disease. Having watched both a director’s cut and a final version, I ultimately prefer the DVD edition that the producers chose – it’s grosser and funnier.

12. Shutter Island

…and we’ve got a serious film on the board. Leonardo DiCaprio had a great year with Shutter Island and Inception, which have the same set-up (Guy with a hot dead wife has trouble separating reality from fiction) but are still awesome anyway. Director Martin Scorsese takes an admittedly flimsy plot – you see the ending coming well in advance – and still turns it into a riveting psychological thriller. Anchored by strong performances and direction, Shutter Island was an early knockout.

11. Machete

Robert Rodriguez has had a long, fruitful creative relationship with Danny Trejo, so it’s about time he gave Trejo his own starring vehicle. Machete isn’t quite perfect – I’d get rid of a stunt-casted Lindsay Lohan and maybe tweak Robert De Niro’s part – but it delivers plenty of baddassery courtesy of Trejo as a wronged Mexican ex-cop looking to avenge his family. And hey, I can finally say I like a Jessica Alba movie. And who knew Steven Seagal had a sense of humor?

10. Expendables

Sylvester Stallone’s latest franchise takes the best action stars of the ’80s, ’90s, and today and puts them all in one movie. It’s sort of a belabored, tongue-in-cheek nod to the over-the-top testosterone movies of yesteryear, and just a straight-up throwback. Stallone wrote and directed in addition to starring, and he deserves credit for giving each cast member a shining moment. Jason Statham is the best overall – he beats up a shit-ton of dudes and ends up with Charisma Carpenter – but Expendables shows love to everybody. It’s like one of those little league soccer games where everybody gets a trophy, even the kids who suck so hard. My favorites here are Dolph Lundgren (the funniest) and Mickey Rourke (who takes hammy dialogue and turns it into fuckin’ Shakespeare).

9. Mega Piranha

That’s right, a ScyFy (ne Sci-Fi) Channel Original Movie cracked my top 10. But you have to understand something. Mega Piranha utilizes its televised roots to its advantage, staging its action-y bits early and often in bite-sized portions. It titillates, it rocks, it has a guy bicycle kick piranhas!

8. The Town

Ben Affleck directs and stars in this homoerotic heist movie. His character wants to quit robbing banks, but his unhinged buddy Jeremy Renner (always great) keeps sucking him back into a life of crime. But when Affleck falls for a pretty lady (who he “may” have taken hostage during a job), things come to a head. The Town is solid in all areas – good cast, decent dialogue, and plenty of great scenery. No one scene is particularly amazing, although I do love Affleck’s shooting style. He so clearly favors the actors above all, packing plenty of close-ups in. The highlight: A topless shot of himself doing chin-ups, with some softcore lighting thrown in. The Town has been done plenty of times by Hollywood, but this outing is thoroughly enjoyable.

7. Black Dynamite

Michael Jai White’s love letter to blaxploitation proves that, in addition to being one tough kung-fu master, the guy is really, really good at comedy. Black Dynamite succeeds no matter what happens. Some jokes revolve around how cheap the blaxploitation films look. Other jokes stem from legitimate budgetary cuts and technical snafus. Meanwhile, White dishes out awesome one-liners and snaps necks, all whilst wearing a sweet mustache.

6. Toy Story 3

Pixar continues its streak of beautiful/traumatic kiddy movies. Granted, Toy Story 3 isn’t as emotionally affecting as Wall-E or Up, but its themes of growing up and moving on still hit hard. The characters go from facing irrelevance to death and back, in scenes that forced audiences to respect Pixar as a storyteller for all ages. Plot-wise, it nicely rounds out the series while leaving things open-ended. Overall, it’s yet another artistic triumph for the studio, although Cars 2 will probably ruin the party.

5. True Grit

Jeff Bridges is the hi-lariously ornery cowboy. Matt Damon fails at everything. Hailee Steinfeld is too smart and headstrong for her age, and that applies to her character and her acting. Give that girl more roles. But more importantly, let’s hear it for Ed Corbin as a character I call Dr. Bear. Dr. Bear rides around bragging about his bear skin, even if you didn’t ask. Dr. Bear will sell you a dead body, but he gets to keep the teeth. Dr. Bear should have his own TV show.

The rest of the movie is good too.

4. Inception

What I love about Christopher Nolan is that he takes basic movie concepts and gives them a highly involved, rewarding effort. Memento is a murder mystery. His Batman films are still just superhero movies. But he has a firm grasp of drama and takes traditionally B-movie premises and elevates them to high art. Inception was perhaps Nolan’s most difficult, un-mainstream movie yet. Not since Memento has he expected so much of an audience. Leonardo DiCaprio leads a gang of thieves as they attempt to plant false information in Cillian Murphy’s mind through a process called inception. It’s essentially a bank heist movie with sci-fi trappings, but it’s artfully done and compelling. Inception takes the old cliché “It was all a dream... or was it?” and makes it new again.

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I was a little hard on Scott Pilgrim when it first came out. It attempts to house seven books of plot within one movie, and it can’t. The best adaptations stand on their own. They don’t necessarily hit every plot point (The Godfather, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), but they recreate the tone of a certain world and make you believe. The worst adaptations butcher the tone and fuck with the facts, or worse, hit the key points but go about it all wrong. Those versions depend on you already loving the source material. Pilgrim is somewhere between the two. I have friends who loved it without having read the books, but I still feel that it works best with prior knowledge. Having read Bryan Lee O’Malley’s wonderful series, I can say that Edgar Wright’s adaptation functions well as a companion piece. It captures the comic’s spirit. It gives some characters the shaft (Kim Pine), but it also fleshes out others (Knives Chau). It has a bitchin’ soundtrack and a great sense of humor. It’s the greatest video game movie since Mortal Kombat, despite not actually being based on a video game.

2. How to Train Your Dragon

DreamWorks Animation is still second-tier to Pixar overall. But thanks to How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda, they’ve finally begun to move away from disposable pop culture riffs into something less cynical and more heartwarming. Furthermore, this is the first year they actually beat Pixar. As much as I love Toy Story 3’s emotional resonance, How to Train Your Dragon is the movie I see myself viewing more often. It’s a thrill ride about Vikings fighting dragons with a message of tolerance thrown in. The voice cast is stellar – check out my man Craig Ferguson – and the animation is pretty darn neat. Between this and last year’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Pixar finally has some real competitors.

1. A Single Man

Oh man, this list gets topped by a “legitimately good” movie that wins on a technicality? Lame sauce. Still, A Single Man, the story of a gay English professor coping with the death of his lover, was my favorite film of the year. First time director Tom Ford utilizes his fashion background to create an impossibly beautiful film. No other movie on this list better uses color to convey mood. You know exactly what Colin Firth’s character is feeling at all times thanks to the work Ford puts in. Of course, Firth is a stellar actor (I still need to catch The King’s Speech), so he fills in where Ford can’t, projecting a performance equal parts melancholy and sexual longing. Brokeback Mountain made a big splash a few years ago for delivering a gay love story, but I found it too over-the-top. A Single Man is the better film, simply because it stays away from politicizing homosexuality and instead focuses on common human feelings like love and longing. That I, a heterosexual jackass, could identify with Firth’s character is much more important than the fact that the character is gay, and in a way is also the more important sociopolitical statement. It’s a movie about love. That the kid from About a Boy, now all kinds of grown up, shows up super tan and super naked, is beside the point.

And hot. My gosh that guy turned out alright.

The Complete Works of Quentin Tarantino (1992-2009)

2010-12-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Pop culture reference!

Curiosity: With the release of the Quentin Tarantino Ultimate Collection, it’s pretty easy to scope out the controversial director’s entire filmography, outside of Four Rooms and Inglourious Basterds.

Plots: Witty characters try to kill each other while screaming racial epithets.

Thoughts: Along with the work Kevin Smith and George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino’s films are essential viewing for high school students. At that age, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction hit their hardest thanks to sensationalistic dialogue and violence. But unlike Smith or Lucas, Tarantino’s work ages with his audience, but I’ll get to that later.

Dogs and Pulp made Tarantino’s name and, for about a decade, were the only bright spots in his legacy. While he’s written some good scripts (From Dusk Til Dawn), ultimately his vision can only be distilled by the man himself. You recognize a Tarantino film when you see it – the dialogue snaps. It’s rapid fire and it’s packed with allusions to other work, either directly or symbolically. The violence is extreme. In every Tarantino movie, characters are perpetually about to be ousted, from the failed robbers (and one undercover cop) in Reservoir Dogs to the Allied spies and Nazis in Inglourious Basterds.

But you have to see those movies at a young age. Reservoir Dogs has some great, iconic performances, with Michael Madsen as the psychopathic Vic Vega standing out, although Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Steve Buscemi handle themselves nicely as well. But the film showcases Tarantino’s greatest weakness – he so badly wants to make a blaxploitation film. The almighty N word gets tossed around a lot in Tarantino’s dialogue, so much so in Dogs that it kind of derails the film once you get a little older. I always thought Spike Lee played the race card too much, but he was absolutely right when he called Tarantino racist, as far as Reservoir Dogs is concerned. The racial stuff doesn’t really contribute to the plot or all the all-white cast, so its rampant use is off-putting.

Everything else Tarantino did in the ’90s feels like an apology for his glib behavior in Dogs. Befriending Samuel L. Jackson was a good start. It’s great watching the interplay between Jackson’s fury and John Travolta’s more dialed down approach in Pulp Fiction as a couple of hitmen. Their stories bookend the film, which is broken up into three vignettes. In the middle is Bruce Willis, who tends to get the shaft when people talk about Pulp Fiction. And when fucking Bruce Willis can’t get top billing, you know a movie must be good.

Pulp Fiction is undeniably Tarantino’s finest moment in the ’90s. The pacing is tight, the cast is great, and the dialogue is simply amazing. It’s a pity, then, that Tarantino’s follow-up, Jackie Brown, isn’t as good. I found its bloated length, straightforward storytelling, and lack of violence underwhelming in high school, and while I found the film more compelling this time around, I still found it disappointing. Still, watching Pam Grier try to outwit Samuel L. Jackson’s gun smuggler is occasionally entertaining, and it arguably features one of Robert De Niro’s last great performances.

Tarantino needed time to grow as a filmmaker, and he came back with vengeance – literally. Kill Bill parts one and two tell the tale of the Bride (Uma Thurman), a former assassin left in a coma by her compatriots. Having lost her baby and the last few years of her life, she’s looking to settle a few scores, especially with the titular Bill (David Carradine). The first part is all action, the second mostly dialogue, but they form a cohesive, entertaining story, with knockout cast. Thurman stands out, delivering a performance that alternates from grief to rage in several shades. Never has an actor radiated so many different kinds of pissed, and it turns out she’s solid action chops too. On the flipside, Carradine is seductive as the bad guy, leading the movies from simple revenge fantasy to a more complex drama. This is Tarantino’s best work, although Inglourious Basterds might be just as good.

In between the two, unfortunately, is Death Proof. One half of a double feature with his friend Robert Rodriguez dubbed Grindhouse, Death Proof stars Kurt Russell as a murderous stuntman who hunts down women in his “death proof” car. It’s a jumbled uneven mess. Parts of the film nail ’70s Roger Corman-sploitation horror, and Russell is such a good villain and appears to be having a fun time, but the film has too many dry spells. Like all Tarantino movies, extreme violence punctuates lengthy scenes of dialogue, but this time out the lines really aren’t all that clever, which means the movie is often boring. Still, it’s got Kurt Russell. That dude rocks.

Death Proof was just a genre exercise, though. Tarantino got back to more epic storytelling with the war movie Inglourious Basterds. Set over the course of four years during World War II and told in four languages, it’s perhaps his most ambitious film next to Kill Bill. Each scene is fraught with tension. Granted, every Tarantino movie has characters who are perpetually about to either catch somebody or be caught themselves, but it’s most true and effective here. Spies and refugees try to hide from and blend in with the brightest of the Nazi army, resulting in a cat and mouse game where players frequently shift positions of power.

There are plenty of knocks against Tarantino – he borrows a lot from other movies. He exploits racial tensions. He was in Little Nicky. But he still creates adrenaline-filled, witty movies. If you get anything out of this essay, it should be this: Buy Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill parts one and two, and Inglourious Basterds. Everything else is up for debate, but these movies aren’t.

Reflection: I probably could have just done an essay on each film, huh?

Ninja Assassin (2009)

2010-12-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Fear not the weapon but the hand that weilds it.

Curiosity: I LIKE NINJAS!

Plot: We open on a bunch of Asian gangsters being super tough. They do super tough things like get tattoos and hang out with their shirts off. And they’re all like, “We are so tough.” But then ninjas kill them dead, establishing that ninjas are tougher than tough guys.

Then this boring agent lady (Naomie Harris, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) talks for a long time. I fell asleep during this part like three times.

Then we meet Raizo (Korean pop sensation Rain, who also starred in I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK. I want to see this movie based on the title alone). He’s hanging out, doing laundry, when ninjas get all up in his business.

Then boring agent lady does more talking for like another half-hour. Jesus Christo.

At some point ninjas fight, and there’s some bullet time involved. I don’t remember.

Thoughts: Ninja Assassin’s opening scene is so awesomely awesome that it probably should have ended right there. Just gimme five minutes of ninjas killin’ shit and call it a day. Sadly, the filmmakers saw fit to introduce this infernal plot in which a renegade ninja and Europol agent try to take down one of the nine ninja clans in the world. At times, the film weirdly recalls Braveheart and Aliens, especially the latter once the ninjas start fighting marines or whatever. Ninja Assassin can’t find a balance between action and plot-advancement, and becomes this bi-polar movie that’s both boring and overstimulating.

But at times it’s gloriously, hilariously bad. The film depends on characters all having birth defects resulting in their organs being misplaced, thereby allowing them to surviving getting what should be some fatal stabbings. The movie also relies on the Inverse Ninja Law, which states that one ninja is a death machine while multiple ninjas become useless and easily defeated. Ninja Assassin is woefully uneven, but when it fully embraces its B-movie status, it really comes through.

Reflection: Could have done without all the awkward zooms, though.

TMNT (2007)

2010-12-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Raising shell in 2007.

Curiosity: It’s a belated sequel/reboot. And Leonardo and Raphael fight each other!

Plot: Set some time after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, TMNT finds the turtles divided. Leonardo has been in South America training to be a better leader. Donatello and Michelangelo are leading less interesting lives as a computer support technician and children’s birthday party entertainer, respectively. Raphael, angry and impulsive as ever, has taken up an alter ego, the Nightwatcher, and fights crime, unbeknownst to his family. But when the Foot Clan, stone warriors, and 13 monsters from another dimension start making trouble in New York City, the turtles must come together and fight as one.

Thoughts: TMNT is a film of compromise. It was made using CGI so as to cut down on costs. It juggles action, humor, morals, and dark themes. As a result, it’s neither the most compelling Turtles film (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) or the funniest (The Secret of the Ooze). But it ropes in an impressive voice cast (Mako, Sarah Michelle Geller, Chris Evans, and Patrick Stewart, among others), and Imagi Animation Studio provides great visuals.

The movie’s plot isn’t especially interesting – needs more Shredder – but it re-establishes the characters after 14 years away from the big screen. Better yet, the film offers up a series of amazing animations. Sure, it makes the film somewhat unbalanced, as scenes that advance the story kill time in between stellar vignettes, but there’s a strong series of visuals all the same. The highlight of the movie is clearly the showdown between Leonardo and Raphael about halfway through the movie. The characters have always butted heads, but none of the previous movies addressed those tensions quite so viscerally, and it’s clear that Imagi went out of its way to make this scene count. The brothers battle it out in the rain, under NYC lights, with all their might. TMNT depends on nostalgia, but damn if this fight didn’t get my heart pumping.

Other highlights include Michelangelo skateboarding through the sewers, as well as when the good guys storm the bad guys’ lair. Three years after its release, TMNT holds up well. Some of the human models look unfinished, but the turtles look great, and they’re the ones that count the most. Like I said, this is a movie of compromise. It isn’t the funniest or most action-packed, but it’s also less ridiculous or sterile compared to II or III. I still prefer the first two films, but TMNT is a welcome addition.

Reflection: Ha ha, remember Cute is What We Aim For? Why the hell is Casey Jones listening to them? Bring back the hip-hop.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

2010-12-17T01:19:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Ancient Japan 1503. Without a map, without a clue, without a pizza.

Curiosity: It features the triumphant return of Corey Feldman to the role of Donatello, as well as Elias Koteas as Casey Jones.

Plot: April (Paige Turco) is ready for a vacation, but she stops at a flea market to pick up some gifts for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Splinter before she goes. She picks out an ancient Japanese lantern to give to Splinter, but it opens up a portal in time before she can do so. The lantern switches two people at a time, so when April gets sent to Japan in the 1500s, Prince Kenshin (Henry Hayashi) gets dragged to New York City 1993. The turtles go back in time to rescue April, but they quickly become embroiled political strife.

Thoughts: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III has better fight scenes than Secret of the Ooze, but that’s not saying much considering Ooze was toned down to satisfy oversensitive parents. At least Ooze had humor, though. III’s dialogue is a chore to sit through, as each line consists of clichés and/or lazy references to pop culture. Why the fuck would the Turtles shout “Schwing!” when April rips herself a short skirt? That’s interspecies erotica you’re playing with, man. Knock it off.

The special effects are also lacking compared to previous installments, which unfortunately coincides with the Jim Henson Company’s departure from the series after Ooze. Mouth movements don’t synch up with voices, especially in Splinter’s case.

Even things that should be boons, like the return of Feldman, are annoying. Suddenly Donatello has SO MUCH TO SAY ALL THE TIME, and plenty of it is stuffed with made-up scientific facts about time travel. III is tolerable, but just barely. All it really does successfully is remind me how much I like the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Reflection: The soundtrack features “Tarzan Boy” by Baltimora. Twice.

Tron: Legacy (2010)

2010-12-17T00:27:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Now with 80% less title character!

Curiosity: It’s a sequel to a sci-fi cult classic starring Jeff Bridges. And Daft Punk supplied the soundtrack! That’s neat.

Plot: Kevin Flynn (Bridges) disappeared some 20 years ago, but his legacy lives on through his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund), who occasionally shows up at Kevin’s company ENCOM just to fuck around. But when Kevin’s old buddy Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) receives a page from Flynn’s Arcade, Sam goes to check out. There, he listens to Journey for a while [NOTE: No joke. Sam spends like five minutes listening to Journey before advancing the plot. It’s both obnoxious and awesome], and then stumbles upon a dusty old computer hidden beneath the arcade. A couple of keystrokes later, Sam finds himself in a world his father told him about but never showed him – the inside world of a computer. But things aren’t well here, as a guy who looks like an ageless, CGI version of Kevin is running things with an iron fist. It’s up to Sam to find his dad and get home.

Thoughts: TRON: Legacy gets so much right that it hurts to criticize the film overall. The intro is hilariously over-the-top, somewhat knowingly, and is packed with winking references to the original film. First time director Joseph Kosinski both honors and builds on the computer world, updating TRON’s visual aesthetic. The cast is generally great. The top two performers are Olivia Wilde as Quorra, a lady program who is clearly designed to be a nerd boy’s fantasy but is still kind of awesome anyway, and Michael Sheen as an albino Ziggy Stardust.

Bridges is another matter. He’s a riot as Kevin, since he pretty much plays him like the Dude, but his performance as CLU2, a program resembling Kevin, is distracting. Partially because CLU2’s fascist tendencies force uncomfortable WWII symbolism, but also because CLU2 is meant to look like Bridges circa the ’80s. The filmmakers achieved this effect through CGI, and while Legacy may later be remembered as a defining moment in digitally changing actors’ looks, the film itself looks significantly worse because of it. Maybe it’s the uncanny valley acting up, but CLU2 is off-putting. He looks like Bridges, but not enough like him to seem natural. I mean, he’s the only character who doesn’t seem to have pores.

Still, though, the performances carry a lackluster script, one which squanders a lot of goodwill towards the original film by bastardizing Tron (Boxleitner). I’m not going to get too spoiler-y, but I will say that Cyclops (James Marsden) got a better shake in X2. The script also occasionally bullshits what computers can do – something that the original film did quite a bit but at least it did so endearingly.

That’s why Legacy can boast a strong cast, director, soundtrack, and special effects and still kind of suck. I didn’t hate this movie, but it’s hard to love with its forced ending and underwhelming plot. The Matrix ripped off Tron pretty hard, but Legacy ruins its integrity by ripping off Matrix Reloaded.

Reflection: BUT Cillian Murphy gets in a cameo.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

2010-12-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Back by bodacious demand.

Curiosity: That was fun the last time. Let’s do it again!

Plot: Set shortly after the events of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Secret of the Ooze finds the turtles and Splinter living with April (now played by Paige Turco, who kind of sucks). However, with evidence that the Foot Clan survives, the group heads back to the sewers to establish a new base. The Shredder (David McCharen) is alive and pissed as heck, and he plans to use the mutagen that created the Ninja Turtles to breed his own mutant army.

And the whole got-damn time, Keno the pizza boy (Ernie Rayes Jr.) is the only one who does any got-damn martial arts.

Thoughts: Everyone I know talks about how Secret of the Ooze is so funny, but no one ever mentions that it sucks balls. The action is too toned down. Casey Jones is gone! The bad guys can’t accomplish shit. A decent chunk of the characters were recast, with the most distracting being April and Donatello (Corey Feldman did not return to the role, sadly). And it’s so dumb that Keno is the only one who gets to do actual fighting. The turtles’ hijinks takes on a frustratingly manic tone this time around.

Gaaah, but Ooze has some great lines, like “It’s quiet.” “Yeah, a little too quiet.” “It’s Raph!” “Yeah, a little too Raph.” And let’s be honest, the scene at the end where Vanilla Ice freestyles “Ninja Rap” is pretty great. As inane as it gets at times, the slapstick humor makes me laugh a lot, especially in the first scene. It is all the evidence you need to argue for or against stunt casting, but why the filmmakers thought Vanilla Ice’s fans would crossover with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is beyond me.

But compared to the original, which was funny and action-packed and kind of, well, good, Secret of the Ooze suffers. Put it this way: I legitimately enjoy the original movie. The sequel, however, is best viewed from an ironic distance.

Reflection: I just wish they would let Keno do his thing, is all.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

2010-12-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Hey dude, this is NO cartoon.

Curiosity: I, uh, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, OK?

Plot: The Foot Clan, lead by the sinister Shredder (James Saito/David McCharen), is recruiting New York City’s youth, including a young Sam Rockwell (Galaxy Quest, Iron Man 2), to create the ultimate network of thieves. Standing in their way is April O’Neil (Judith Hoag), the only television reporter with the guts to tell the truth. A fearsome foursome known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Not to be confused with Biker Mice from Mars) chips in as well.

ALSO there is this guy named Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) and he hits bad guys with hockey sticks.

Thoughts: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one of the greatest children films of all time, and here’s why. First, it’s not afraid to go all in. During the late ’80s/early ’90s, there was this push to sterilize violence in youth-oriented entertainment, but the first Turtles movie has the guys actually using their weapons and actually engaging in fights. And it actually looks kind of good, as far as dudes in rubber suits go. I was surprised to see Jim Henson designed the turtles, but considering how good the effects look, I guess I shouldn’t be. What you get here is a legitimately good ninja flick.

Admittedly, though, the film has its flaws, but they only serve to make it better. Movies like this always have a kid character thrown in for younglings to relate to; in this case, it’s Danny (Michael Turney), a wiener with a tie-dyed Sid Vicious shirt. He’s so lame - this kid looks like he would never steal a glance, let alone a wallet. Fuck you, Danny.

There were also a couple “uh-oh” moments, in which I picked up on stuff I wouldn’t want my kids exposed to. There’s a little bit of racism at play here, as well as one gay joke. I was also surprised by how frequently the turtles curse. Raphael’s first word is “Damn,” and he uses it a lot. He also gets in a “bitchin’.” I find it amusing that this movie caused a stir over the fight scenes, but nobody cared about the language. I wouldn’t necessarily call Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles homophobic, but c’mon. That kind of humor doesn’t belong here, partially because bringing up sexuality means we have to deal with how badly the turtles want to mack on April (I hate interspecies erotica), but also because the joke will go right over kids’ heads. It’s dead air.

Most of the dialogue is great, though, peppered with tons of one-liners the whole family can enjoy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles holds up well 20 years later.

Reflection: For a while, this was the highest grossing indie film of all time. Radical.

The Tourist (2010)

2010-12-11T20:29:00.000-08:00

Tagline: The perfect trip. The perfect trap.

Curiosity: My girlfriend loves Angelina Jolie’s movies. Which means I’ve seen most of Angelina Jolie’s movies.

Plot: Elise (Jolie) is a sexy British lady, and police officer Acheson (Paul Bettany, Legion) is all like, “Dang she’s pretty. Track that shit.” Also her ex-boyfriend Alexander (MYSTERY CASTING!!!) has stolen like a gajillion dollars from everyone ever, so people are pretty interested in that too. Alexander is trying to hook up with Elise, on account of her solid hotness rating, but he needs to throw detectives off their trail. So, he writes her a letter asking her to seduce a guy who looks similar enough to him so folks will focus on that dude instead. Elise chooses the clearly boring math teacher Frank (Johnny Depp), who is clearly from Wisconsin. Listen to that accent! Look at that haircut! That’s a Midwestern math teacher haircut if I’ve ever seen one.

Thoughts: Let’s get the good things out of the way so my girlfriend won’t be mad at me (She really liked the movie). The Tourist is set in Paris, France and Venice, Italy (Those are in Europe!), so the locations are pretty much gorgeous across the board. Jolie looks great and gives a solid performance. The film also has a nice, slow pacing, lending it a retro, classic movie feel. And my lady and I agree that Paul Bettany is awesome as the cop who sucks at his job. Most movies would turn the bungling cop into an annoying slapstick type, but Bettany, being Bettany, fucks up his job with conviction. I didn’t even know his character was named Acheson until I looked it up just now. We just screamed “Godammit Bettany!” every time he messed up.

SPOILER: The entire film is dependent on Bettany fucking up. I’d have to rewatch the film to check the numbers, but I guess he makes at least five important decisions that A) are the opposite of helpful and B) serve to drive the plot along. Bettany fucking up = deus ex machina.

Anyway, here’s where the film hilariously fails (Please reread my comments on Bettany): Jolie and Depp have no chemistry, and, to be honest, Depp doesn’t seem to be trying all that hard here. No accent. No attempt to look like the character’s background would suggest. He’s just Depping it up.

The film’s slow pace often comes off as ridiculous. The plot is super cheesy – I guessed the twist ending about halfway through, thought, “There’s no way they would do something that stupid,” then laughed a bit when I found out I was right. The movie is paced like it should be something grander, but it’s just not smart enough to warrant that. This is B-movie popcorn fare, and needed to be treated as such. That’s what made Salt and Wanted so great. The Tourist instead is too slow and plodding – made especially clear during a hysterically slow boat chase scene – to hit that mark. It’s still a funny bad-good movie, but I can’t say I’d watch it again.

Although I do like watching Paul Bettany fail...

Reflection: Paul Bettany is married to Jennifer Connelly. What a dick.

Suspiria (1977)

2010-12-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

Tagline: WITCH!

Curiosity: It’s the most well known film from legendary horror director Dario Argento.

Plot: A coven is hunting down sexy dance students!

Thoughts: Script-wise, Suspiria is a little bit silly. The dialogue is clumsy and the murder scenes only kind of make sense. Let’s just say Argento abuses the concept of witches tricking people with magic. Suspend your disbelief, though, and focus on the cinematography. Each murder scene is beautifully paced and shot. The colors pop. Forget that the blood looks a little too bright; it matches the film’s overall color scheme too well to criticize.

Each set piece looks gorgeous. I want to live where Suspiria was shot, because each room has a vibrant, distinctive look. Horror films don’t get taken very seriously, but Argento’s taste in locations really makes an impact on the film. You remember each place. His use of shots is great too. A lot has been made about how violent his films get, but sometimes his most effective shots are the ones that show the least, like when he shows a wide shot of a guy getting attacked by a dog. It’s so much scarier to realize that no one can possibly save this guy, that he is totally alone.

That said, man this movie is hella violent. What’s weird is that it’s necessarily gory per say. Compared the torture porn of the last decade, Suspiria is tame in that regard. But it’s more effective. You don’t see buckets of blood shooting forth, but each knife wound is expertly focused on, and even turned into an artistic effort when displayed against each set. And man are the deaths elaborate. Not Saw-elaborate to the point of being stupid, but these victims really take beatings. The actors convey pain and fear masterfully, as Argento cooks up crazier and crazier methods.

Suspiria certainly has its dry patches, and admittedly it loses some steam after its first big kill – it’s the most brutal, set in the most visually appealing set – but overall the film holds up as iconic horror installment. And the music is killer.

Reflection: I think this article makes me sound like a psychopath.

Predator (1987)

2010-12-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

Curiosity: Arnold Brownschwagger and his muscley friends fight a monster in the jungle.

Plot: Super ripped, super sweaty CIA operative Dillon (Carl Weathers, Rocky I-IV, Happy Gilmore) hires Dutch (Brownschwagger) and his team of elite commandos to go into Central America and extract some American hostages. But when they get there, they realize they’ve been set up – twice. Dillon lied to Dutch so he could get him to take out a guerilla camp, knowing that Dutch would only comply if he thought it was a rescue mission. But neither of them knows that a third party has taken an interest in their activities, and is stalking their homoerotic adventures throughout the jungle…

Thoughts: Like a lot of Brownschwagger movies, Predator has an awesomely intense homoerotic visual style, with tons of ripped, muscle-bound dudes sweating all over each other. This one might be his gayest film, as Predator spends so much time establishing the characters as tough guys that they come out the other end, appearing effeminate. There’s a pair homoerotic relationships at play, first between Dutch and Dillon, but also between Mac (Bill Duke, Commando, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit) and Blain (Jesse Ventura). Dutch and Dillon are comedically, over-the-top gay, complete with arm wrestling and one scene where Carl Weathers takes his shirt off for no particular reason. Mac and Blain, meanwhile, are more dialed down – they just really enjoy each other’s company, and the character development Mac goes through after Blain’s death is heartwrenching, as he mourns his lost lover with a mix of anger and sadness, eventually devolving into madness.

Or maybe ’80s action movies were just too melodramatic. Anyway, Predator is an awesome action/sci-fi/horror film. Going back, I was amazed at how slowly the original is paced. Compared to the loud wiz-bangs of the sequels, Predator has a precise, gradual style. If it wasn’t so action-packed, I’d compare it to the slow burn of Ridley Scott’s Alien.

I should probably clarify that Predator is slow to the extent that its main plot doesn’t kick in until about 40 minutes or so. That’s right; the predator doesn’t get around to doing stuff until the film is nearly halfway through. Up to that point, Predator is a straightforward ’80s action movie on par with Commando or Rambo: First Blood Part II. The alien hunter hangs out in the margins while Dutch and co. fight guerillas. Some people might see this as dragging out the running time, but in actuality, the movie is just asserting the badassery of the characters. Blain kicks the shit out of bad guys for the first half of the film, which is why it’s so intense when the Predator takes him out in seconds. Most films would just state this kind of stuff in the beginning, but Predator bothers to prove every character trait. And it even tosses in a couple of Ah-nold’s wonderful one-liners, like when he stabs a guy and then says, “Stick around.”

Reflection: Predator was jokingly written as a sequel to Rocky IV AND it stars Carl Weathers? TOO PERFECT.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

2010-12-06T08:57:00.001-08:00

Tagline: The show has been cancelled...but the adventure is just beginning.

Curiosity: It’s like Star Trek but with Tim Allen!

Plot: While they were once respected actors, the cast of the beloved sci-fi show Galaxy Quest now eke out a living appearing at conventions. Star Jason Nesmith (Home Improvement’s legendary Tim Allen) eats up the idol worship, but the rest of the cast can’t stand him or the fans. Their fortunes change, however, when a group of real aliens, led by Mathesar (Enrico Colantoni), arrive. Thinking that the characters they played on Galaxy Quest were real, the aliens beg the cast for help in fighting off their enemies. Hi-larious space-related hijinks ensue.

Thoughts: Hot dang I like Galaxy Quest, even though the show is perhaps too dependent on Star Trek for relevance. Still, it’s a really funny sci-fi spoof, thanks in great deal to the cast. Allen is pretty much Allen, although he throws in a little bit of William Shatner from time to time. Sigourney Weaver spoofs her fame as Ripley by playing a sexpot. Alan Rickman essentially plays himself as a failed actor, imbuing lines with much more weight and emotional depth. The two standouts are in the margins, though.

Sam Rockwell plays Guy, an actor who appeared on the show once as a “red shirt,” a character who dies early on to establish that the plot is serious. He spends the movie anxiously waiting for real life death to come, and Rockwell often channels Bill Paxton circa Aliens to great comedic effect. Tony Shalhoub’s character was the chief technician on the show, but since he doesn’t actually know anything about spaceships, he ends up being a sort of inverse Scotty: Mellow and not terribly useful. He undercuts a lot of the drama in a pretty funny way, which is even more credible since the character really isn’t all that defined in the script. Per the DVD’s featurettes, Shalhoub pretty built the character from scratch.

But while Galaxy Quest functions well as a comedy, it’s also a legitimate science fiction film, filled with explosions, space travel, and aliens. To that extent, viewers’ familiarity with Star Trek needn’t be that great; the film overall holds up well. But Trekkers/Trekkies will definitely appreciate the humor more.

Reflection: Look, it’s Rainn Wilson before The Office both made and ruined his career!

RED (2010)

2010-11-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Still armed. Still dangerous. Still got it.

Curiosity: It’s like The Expendables but with a more critically acclaimed cast.

Plot: Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retired black-ops CIA agent looking for love. He’s developed a phone relationship with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) and wants to take it to the next level. They have so much in common, and while Moses doesn’t want to rush things, he really does think, deep down in that place he refuses to admit exists, that he could love and be loved. Be known. Be held.

Anyway, then some dudes show up with machine guns and blow the fuck out of his house, so he kills them dead and then meets up with his retired super spy friends and they have cool super spy adventures while making cracks about whippersnappers.

Thoughts: While the angles are different, The Expendables and RED are fairly similar movies about old hands kicking ass in a kitschy fashion. But RED can’t step Expendables’ groove. For all its flaws, that movie was just too great. And while it was certainly a dumb movie, it never felt dumbed-down. RED, meanwhile, spells out every location and plot change to an obnoxious degree. It tries so hard to be a silly, over-the-top spy thriller, whereas Expendables just is without resorting to pretensions.

RED has a solid cast though. Not Dolph Lundgren-good, but still pretty good. Willis is, of course, badass. That’s kind of what he does. Parker and Helen Mirren are to RED what Mickey Rourke was to Expendables – way better than their respective films probably deserve. And you know what, I like Karl Urban. Dude rocked it in Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and, uh, Pathfinder, and he goes blow for blow with Willis, and that guy has left many a Hans Gruber dead in his wake.

But man was I let down by Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich. Freeman phones it in, although his character is a big deus ex machina anyway. Malkovich is meant to be the comedic relief as a drugged out retired agent, but his role becomes tiresome quickly.

nd the same goes for the film overall. RED isn’t particularly funny or action-packed. It’s a solid afternoon movie, the kind you watch once and then never think about again, but that’s it.

Reflection: I’m kind of annoyed Brian Cox isn’t on the movie poster. He’s so much better than Freeman here AND his character is more important. WTF?

Push (2009)

2010-11-26T21:51:00.001-08:00

Tagline: One push can change everything. [DO YOU GET IT?!]

Curiosity: I like Chris Evans. Dude needs to be in more good movies.

Plot: Spurred by Nazi research, the word’s super-powers have been cultivating psychic armies for decades. They have various abilities – telekinesis, mind-reading, some shit where you scream really loud and people’s brains explode – but when certain psychics prove too powerful to control, the U.S. government steps in and neutralizes them. What a bunch of dicks. This policy leads to the death of the father of Nick (Evans) and the abduction of the mother of Cassie (Dakota Fanning). The two meet by fate in China and begin a rebellion.

Thoughts: Push could be a great TV show. It has enough characters and plot points to sustain a couple of seasons. But as a movie, it hurts. The film tries to cram in as many plot points and rules as it can, but given that the film ends on an unsatisfying ending meant to set up a sequel that’ll probably never happen, that might not have been such a great. The movie bullshits it way through how psychics work, introduces more rules than it needs, and then peters out in the last 30 minutes.

Oh but I love the cast, sort of. I’ve been a supporter of Evans since Sunshine and Fantastic Four, flawed films bolstered by his acting. Fanning shows a talent beyond her years. But Djimon Hounsou can’t satisfy the demands of his role as the bad guy, and Camilla Belle’s character stops her from doing a whole lot.

The script itself is trash. The dialogue is cliché, the pacing is a bit too slow, and the story needs to be less obsessed with introducing superpowers. At the very least, the film needs to shave off 10, maybe 20 minutes, because there’s a certain point where I got sick of watching the filmmakers force and then violate a series of rules on how psychics work. Push has some neat effects and story ideas, but it doesn’t add up to anything consequential.

Reflection: For a movie about dudes throwing guns at each other, this sure was boring.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

2010-11-22T22:27:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Mo’ demons, mo’ problems.

Curiosity: I closed the store tonight and have to open tomorrow. I needed to do something in between the two.

Plot: Part prequel, part sequel, Paranormal Activity 2 focuses on Kristi (Sprague Grayden), sister of Katie (Katie Featherston) from the original, and her family. Kristi and her husband Dan (Brian Boland) just had a boy, named Hunter. Dan in turn has a daughter from a previous marriage named Ali (Molly Ephraim). The film follows the same documentary style of the original, with the Dan installing a thorough video surveillance system after their home is burglarized (OR IS IT DEMONIZED?!).

Anyway, weird shit happens.

Thoughts: As far as unnecessary sequels go, Paranormal Activity 2 works. Depending on your perspective, it either advances the mythology of the original, or tacks on extra detail we don’t really need. I lean towards the latter, even though the film is generally solid. This sequel is stuck in a weird spot, because it has some great scenes and the acting one-ups the original, but in order to understand the ending, you need to have seen the first film. Which in turn means acknowledging that the movie recycles almost everything.

Paranormal Activity 2 boasts better special effects, but considering the original was essentially a home movie, that doesn’t say much. If anything, I want to know why this version cost $3 million, when writer/director Oren Peli made the original on like $15,000. And there are some great scares, even though most of them are of the “gotcha” variety. A “gotcha” scare is whenever something loud and unexpected happens. It takes advantage of a bodily reaction to noise. Our bodies flood with adrenaline with a start, preparing for a fight or flight scenario. You can’t exactly turn that off. While 2 thankfully spreads these moments out, it’s still a little cheap, especially since the movie fails to recreate the sparse atmosphere of the original.

Paranormal Activity gradually builds in intensity until shit gets real. 2 hits a wall and goes “Eh, fuck it. Let’s get this over with.” It’s a shame because the cast is better this time around. The original certainly had problems, like superfluous supporting roles and a bum ending as far as the wide release is concerned. But it still haunts. I don’t see myself watching 2 again.

Reflection: Also, it’s totally bullshit when they reference the Clash of the Titans remake. This movie is supposed to be set in 2006. CONTINUITY ERROR YOU GUYS.

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

2010-11-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

Tagline: It’s like Batman!

Curiosity: I bought this movie specifically because my girlfriend Michelle said Zorro sucks. Boy did I show her!

Plot: In the 19th century, Zorro (Anthony Hopkins, because why not?) kicks the dickens out of the Spaniards on behalf of Californians everywhere and then hurries home to his family. It’s totally awesome and hi-larious until the Spaniards, led by Don Rafael (Stuart Wilson), show up, murderize Zorro’s wife, steal his daughter, and burn his house down. Zorro celebrates by rotting in prison for 20 years.

Then Antonio Banderas shows up, Zorro gets his shit together, and they kick butt again!

Thoughts: I’m going to make the following concessions about Zorro, in fairness to my girlfriend. It’s silly that none of the leads are Hispanic (Well, besides Matt Lescher as the psycho-crazy Harrison Love, but he’s supposed to be white). Banderas is the first Spanish actor to play Zorro, who’s supposed to be a Spaniard… except he’s technically playing Zorro II, who’s supposed to be Californian. Catherine Zeta-Jones does a good job with the accent as Zorro’s daughter, but Hopkins is clearly playing himself with a tan. The plot gets a little nonsensical at times, and the running time is a bit bloated.

But this is an action/comedy with explosions and swords and Antonio Banderas! Dude gets along with everybody. His scenes with Hopkins are funny; his work with Zeta-Jones smolders. Smolders! What’s great about Zorro is that he’s exactly like Batman (OK, Bob Kane probably ripped off Zorro…), only fun. And not campy fun either. The character plays with his foes, making fools out of them. Accordingly, this movie delivers plenty of physical comedy courtesy of Banderas. My only regret is that Robert Rodriguez, who was slated to direct, dropped out over budgetary issues, only to have his successor, Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Edge of Darkness) get like twice the money Rodriguez originally asked for.

Reflection: This movie made like $250 million. Take that, Michelle!

Star Wars Uncut (2010)

2010-11-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

Tagline: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Curiosity: Some folks from Vimeo remade Star Wars (Or Episode IV/A New Hope or whatever the hell we’re supposed to call it now) by stitching together 15-second homemade recreations. People then voted online to select the best submissions. The result is essentially a real life Be Kind Rewind.

Plot: Really? You don’t know the plot to Star Wars? Basically, a whiney farm boy, a whiney princess, an old guy, a super cool cowboy and his best friend who is also a dog/bear/gorilla thingy, and their two gay robots fight imperialism… IN OUTER SPACE. Some of them use this thing called “the force.” It’s kind of like Neo in The Matrix. The farm boy studies magic from the old guy, like Harry Potter and Dumbledore but with swords instead of fake Latin phrases. It kicks off an epic trilogy. Sort of like a sci-fi Lord of the Rings. It’s kind of like the Masters of the Universe of the ’70s, now that I think about it. And it has that guy from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!

Thoughts: With all of the remakes I’m dreading (Total Recall, The Toxic Avenger, freaking Spider-Man), you’d think I’d be against anyone touching the original Star Wars trilogy. Hell, after the remastered editions and the “new trilogy,” I’ve been burned out on Star Wars for the last few years. But mastermind Casey Pugh and a massive group of loyal fans have created something charmingly low tech and humorously faithful. By breaking New Hope up into 15 second clips, this adaptation made me realize that the entire movie is one big iconic quote fest. New Hope is a film I’ve seen countless times. It’s ingrained in my DNA. So it was fun for me to watch this fan film and try to figure out what was going on. Sometimes the shots that make no got-damn sense are just as compelling as the ones that do.

Considering the film is 90 minutes long, it’s insane how many people contributed 15-second clips. There’s a lot of repetition, though. Pretty much anytime people try to include a pop cultural riff, they fail, either because so many folks do it (Too many Star Trek and Simpsons references. Come on, nerds, try harder!), or because they force a reference in without actually making a joke (Clerks, Space Balls). It’s the Date Movie approach to filmmaking. Also, the CGI scenes look like crap (Just like in the real movies!).

Still, though, the film overall is a humorous tribute. Here are my top five favorite parts:

Anything involving children, animals, or both, which is the exact opposite of what I look for in “real” movies. The only thing better than Han Solo and Chewbacca is Han Solo as a little kid and Chewbacca as a dog.
Anything with stop-motion or hand-drawn animation.
Anytime someone impersonates Chewbacca.
The first time Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000 show up as C-3PO and R2-D2.
Han shoots first!

The movie is an amazing hodgepodge of animation and home video. The special effects vary greatly, which is neat. The audio varies too, which is frustrating. But it’s a fun curio, a nice reminder that a long time ago, before all the cash-ins, we all loved Star Wars.

Click here to watch the full film.

Reflection: That’s it, I’m gonna make a tribute film to The Marine.

Star Wars Uncut "The Escape" from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

The Crazies (2010)

2010-11-13T22:19:00.000-08:00

Tagline: Fear they neighbor.

Curiosity: It’s a remake of a George Romero film and got decent reviews. Also, I had a chance to watch it for free.

Plot: Officer Good Guy (Timothy Olyphant) is having a grand old time at a baseball game when a weird guy with a shotgun walks on to the field. The sheriff tries to talk the guy down, assuming he’s drunk, but when he cocks the gun and points it at Officer GG, homeboy acts in self-defense and blows him away. Needless to say, Weird Guy’s family is bummed out over this occurrence, and things get extra awkward for GG when the toxicology report reveals that Weird Guy’s blood alcohol level was 0.0.

Meanwhile, Officer Good Guy’s wife, Dr. Lady (Radha Mitchell), examines a creepy farmer. She thinks he’s OK, but she’s wrong. So wrong that Creepy Farmer sets his house on fire and kills his family. Dr. Lady sucks at being a doctor.

As more and more of the townsfolk start going psycho-crazy, it’s up to Officer Good Guy, Dr. Lady, and their disposable friends to figure out what's going on.

Thoughts: If I had paid to watch The Crazies, I suppose I would have been perturbed over its content. It’s not as gory as the trailer had hinted, and the script is more like a template than an original story. In fact, the script is frustrating in almost every possible way. [SPOILER] People are going crazy from a fast-acting virus/chemical thinger, but it seems to work at 1/10^th speed on key characters [/SPOILER]. Locations picked for scares just seem stupid, like an extended scene where the characters get trapped inside a car wash. Maybe it’s because I worked at a car wash when I was 14, but they’re not the all-encompassing Saw-like death traps that horror films make them out to be. They’re designed specifically so cars can get off the tracks, forward or backward. Also, there should be like, I don’t know, 30 emergency exits sprinkled throughout. This crap didn’t work in The Final Destination, it doesn’t work here. Also, do they even have touch car washes anymore? Shit wrecks paint jobs. Perhaps that’s the real scare?

Sorry. Sorry. Anyhoozle, the leads are generally likeable, but their scenes are so rote. Put it another way: I care about the characters that die, but I do not care about the ones that live. Maybe if the film delivered in gore, I’d be more forgiving. But outside of two pretty scenes, the film just doesn’t go there.

I will say this, though: Director Breck Eisner pulls off this one neat-o trick. See, the townsfolk are insane murderers, but when left alone, they just kind of walk around silently like pod people. There’s a scene where Dr. Lady is saying goodbye to her house. She walks into the nursery for her unborn child and starts giving this monologue about “what could have been.” It’s a pretty wistful monologue… except it’s not technically a monologue, as there is a woman standing in the corner, silently staring at her. It’s such a simple, understated scare – Eisner doesn’t punctuate the scene with ridiculously loud audio. He just slowly pans over and lets the audience realize that something freaky is going on mere seconds before it occurs to the character. I feel bad for spoiling this scene because I think it’s the best in the film.

Or, it would be if Eisner didn’t recycle the trick over and over again. By the end of the film, what was once clever in its subtlety becomes annoying in its repetition. Which I suppose describes The Crazies in general. There are some cool scenes, but they don’t add up to a good movie.

Reflection: This carwash bullshit has got to stop, people.

Slumber Party Massacre 3 (1990)

2010-11-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

Tagline: It’s Driller Time… and This Bit’s For You!

Curiosity: It came bundled with the other Massacre movies.

Plot: Jackie (Keely Christian) has the house all to herself this weekend, so she decides to have a party. She invites all of her closest friends… and this fat douchebag named Duncan (David Greenlee). They enjoy pizza and beer and whatever.

Then a dude with a giant power drill shows up and murders them all.

Thoughts: While it starts off promisingly by introducing a weird sense of humor, mostly courtesy of awkward neighbor Morgan (Michael Harris) and NOT that fat fuck Duncan (He’s meant to be the comic relief, but he got-damn does that guy suck ass), Slumber Party Massacre 3 is in some way even worse than the first sequel. At least that movie was maintained the same consistent level of crappiness. 3 goes from promising to offensive.

Now, horror movies are meant to shock. I don’t mean to come off as a prude, but the tone the film takes made me uncomfortable. The original was a black comedy, so while it introduced some obvious symbolism with the Driller Killer’s drill being, ya know, a phallus penetrating young ladies, it was never treated too darkly. This movie, however, makes the symbolism even more obvious, to the point that the killer’s attacks double as rapes. Which means the film spends up to 30 minutes showing us, the audience, repeated rape scenes.

And these are sloppily assembled rape scenes at that. This film looks so cheap that the actors don’t bother using live power tools – it’s obvious that the drills and chainsaws aren’t even on, with live sounds dubbed in. It looks so cheap. And while I guess I can justify the filmmakers being too cheap to pay for fake drills, it’s not that hard to fake a real chainsaw. Just take the chain off. The formula behind the Slumber Party Massacre series petered out painfully here, but at least I’ll always have the original.

Reflection: Also, the first one at least justified the nudity. 3’s “let’s have a striptease contest” idea is just stupid.

Slumber Party Massacre 2 (1987)

2010-11-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Tagline: Let’s take a shit on Joe Pelone’s childhood.

Curiosity: I hated this movie so much when I was a kid. But it came bundled with Slumber Party Massacre so…

Plot: Courtney (Crystal Bernand, Wings) is a well-liked teen. Her high school crush Matt (Patrick Lowe) seems interested in her. Her band, which sounds like The Bangles which really means they sound like The Hollies with female harmonies, is starting to come together. And now she’s going to take a weekend vacation with them to celebrate her birthday. Yep, everything is totally awesome for Courtney.Then a dude with a giant power drill (Atanas Ilitch) shows up and murders them all.

Thoughts: Man, fuck this movie. Slumber Party Massacre 2 completely loses sight of what made the original film so great. Slumber Party Massacre was an uncomplicated slasher flick that doubled as a dark comedy. It offered simple thrills, if you wanted them, but it was also pretty darn funny, all but guaranteeing itself a cult-following. The sequel, however, gets everything wrong.

The original was a crowd-pleaser, dishing out nudity and gore right away. The sequel doesn’t get to the murderizing until the final 30 minutes. While it offers a few bogus “dream sequence” scares, they’re all stupid. Courtney bites into a sandwich and thinks it’s a hand! SpoOoOoky! The film tries to push this “is it real or imaginary” angle by implying that Courtney is insane, which I honesty buy because A) she has some pretty intense/idiotic hallucinations and B) it’s the only way I can accept that the killer is a leather-clad rock ‘n’ roller with a guitar/drill. I feel like producer Roger Corman sat down with writer/director Deborah Brock and was like, “What do kids like? Rock ‘n’ roll, right? Put that in there!” The Driller Killer is so cartoonishly designed to seem cool that he just looks pathetic.

Slumber Party Massacre 2 cribs moves from Rocky Horror Picture Show and A Nightmare on Elm Street (and shamelessly plugs Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, another Corman production starring The Ramones. Broke actually went on to make a sequel to it, and it was just as crappy as this movie), but it never coheres into the sort of sexy/creepy/fun set-up of those films. While there are cool/graphic kills late in the film, overall it is neither scary nor kitschy enough to function as a horror or comedy film. And that ’80s soundtrack hurts, man.

Also, there aren’t enough boobs.

Reflection: If I was Courtney’s friend… wait, no. We would never be friends. Bitch is crazy.