Squeak's Reviews

#115 - Gangster Story

2008-04-24T21:22:00.005-05:00

Since I didn't really remember any of the details about this movie I went on imdb.com to refresh my memory. Here's whats funny about that: the picture that shows up on the page for this movie is completely wrong. It has a color picture of Walter Matthau, and he's sporting a sweet 70's/80's era 'stache. Well guess what, this movie was made in the 60's, sans 'stache, and it's in BLACK AND WHITE. I don't know where they got that picture, but they must have thrown it on some DVD or VHS cover somewhere trying to sell some copies. All this boils down to yet another sign that you are watching a crap movie. If the picture used on the packaging of the movie to try and sell the movie is NOT from the movie for sale, the movie probably sucks ass. In this case, it does.

This movie was Matthau's first foray into directing. It was also his last. Now I don't wanna pile on good ol' Walt cause he's a good guy. I mean, how could you not like Walter Matthau? But this movie just isn't that good. I think it was made before he was a well known star, so I guess it doesn't count against his overall score. You see, it's just dull. No real soundtrack that I can remember. A bunch of static shots. A lot of flat dialogue. And here's the thing, the plot is actually a good one. As shocking as it is, you've got Matthau playing a gangster. He's on the run from the law and hides out in a small town. While there, he robs a bank or some small town gangsters and pisses some people off. Honestly, I don't remember too many details and had to remind myself of the ones I do have. I just remember a dull, plodding movie that could have had more suspense.

Here's the good news: this is last movie in the Classic Ganster Movies set. That means I don't have to try and remember details about an old movie rating anywhere from average to bad that I watched over a year ago. I get to do it with other crappy movies. Trust me, there are some crappy ones coming up. I don't have any bad news, I just didn't have a better way to start off this train of thought. Hell, I'm trying to figure out to end this thing with a clean break. I mean, I didn't say much about a movie I don't remember that well. That has to be fascinating to read. Just wait, there's more where that came from.

#114 - Gangs, Inc.

2008-04-15T20:30:00.005-05:00

Hello boys and girls!! Didja miss me? It's only been...oh, let's see...A YEAR since my last review. Why so long? Well, I moved to a new place just before summer and then soon after I got a new job that has me on the road a lot. I know what you're saying. Why don't I do it while I am on the road and stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere? I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. Now, I have kept watching movies on my blockbuster.com list, but not as frequently as I did before. Again, I have no reason to not bring them on the road with me, I just don't. Every time I have brought them they haven't seen the light of day. But for every time that has happened, there has been a dozen more times where I was in my hotel room with nothing but shite on the TV and wishing I had the damn DVD's with me. Oh well, it is what it is. Having said all that, I am now going to attempt to write reviews for movies that in some cases I watched over a year ago. If that isn't retarded, I don't know what is. Some of these movies really sucked. I may not be able to thoroughly state why they sucked, but at some point I hope to catch up. Its gonna be up to imdb to help me out in some cases.

Without further ado, we have Gangs, Inc. This is the second movie in a set of three that goes by the name Classic Gangster Movies. I know it's been a while, but what do we remember about these cheapie movie sets? That's right, the adjectives in the title are usually the opposite of what they describe. These are not classics. They couldn't even be mistaken for classics. Now, that doesn't mean they are bad, just not classics. I will say that this movie was at least interesting. What happens is that the leading lady is an innocent girl who has to go to jail. I don't remember why, I just know that she didn't do it. While in jail, she becomes a tough ol' broad, and when she gets out, she's a criminal and she wants revenge. Not bad. I found myself wondering why this sort of story hasn't been redone by Hollywood more often. Maybe it has. I'm just not aware of it. They probably put them into sucky movies so no one knows about them.

I wanna mention the actors real quick. As I was watching I couldn't help but think I had seen the leading lady before. I didn't know who she was, but she looked familiar. Turns out she was in a movie I had seen just five movies earlier, King of the Zombies. That tells you how bad that movie was. And she is really good in Gangs, Inc. She plays a hard case dame really well. Very entertaining. Think of it like this: Catherine Zeta Jones was in The Phantom. I know. I don't remember either. That movie sucked so bad that you don't even remember some of the people in it. You think of her in Zorro first. Well, take that example, but instead of a two year gap, it's only five viewed movies. Thats ridiculous. Here's another thing: Alan Ladd was in this movie. Yeah, it says it on the cover, and yeah, he's on the cover, but he's barely in the damn movie. It's a classic case of a movie made by someone before they become a star, so they put that star on the cover to try and get people to buy or watch it. It's false advertising. Sure, it is technically an Alan Ladd movie, but come on people!! And another thing: if an actor uses a different name for a movie than he normally goes by, you have to use the better name. The big guy in the picture is Jack La Rue. Apparently he has made some movies and is well known in some circles. But in the opening credits for this movie he goes by the name Lash La Rue. Hello!! That name is freaking awesome. By no means should they have him go by his actual name. COME ON!! Lash La Rue? Are you kidding me? I love it.

So, that's my first review in a year. I don't know how frequent these will be from this point on, but I'll do what I can. Hopefully they don't suck. I will let you know that the randomness of the selections get even crazier than you may remember. There was a lot of movies not readily available at the top of the queue, so things were sent in a less than orderly fashion. It at least makes it interesting.

#113 - Ma Barker's Killer Brood

2007-04-15T20:27:00.000-05:00

As the schizophrenia continues, we get another selection that has three movies on one DVD. This time around, the set goes by the title, Classic Gangster Movies. If there is anything I have learned while doing this, it is that the adjectives used to describe these kinds of movie collections are usually the exact opposite of what the movies should be described as. In this case, the only thing that makes them classic is that they are old. I suppose that the type of movie is classic, as well as how they made it, but in my mind, classic means that it is memorable and can stand the test of time. I'm assuming that none of you, except maybe one, have heard of this movie. And thats a big maybe. Therefore, this movie is no classic. It's not even a cult classic. It's just another old movie that is being put onto a DVD without the decency of digital remastering. Nothing as bad as Spooks Run Wild, but is it too much to ask to put forth some sort of an effort to make the movie look and sound better? Enough is too much!! You have the technology. We all know it works. We have all seen the results. I'm begging you DVD makers to use it.

But that's not why you came here today. You wanna know all there is to know about this movie. Well, I'll give you some info. It's about an hour long, black and white, has mom with a killer brood. Actually, it appears that in the midst of all these classic(there's that word again) gangsters, there was a team made up of a mother and her children. I would say that this is her story, but I get the feeling that the entire thing is a completely fictitious. I have no historical evidence to back that up, but it just seems to be the case. I'm sure the two Dillinger movies had plenty of fictitious moments, but they seemed to have a few more moments, such as his death, that were based on fact. This doesn't seem to be the case with this one.

Now that we have established that this is a movie filled with made up stuff in it(who knew?), let's actually talk about the movie itself. It's not too bad. It's not good, but we finally have another bad movie that has enough elements in it to make it fun. The best is Ma Barker herself. The movie is really all about her and the way she runs the show. If you believe this story, she was more of a badass and more coniving than Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and all those guys combined. And let me tell you, the name Barker was never more deserving than for this character. It's ridiculous and over the top, but seeing her literally bark out orders to everyone in her nasty cold blooded style is pretty amusing, and at some times quite humorous. It takes a while for the movie to get going, which is hard when it's only an hour, but once the boys grow up to be men, it gets to be more like the gangster type movie it should be. I can't say that it's worth a recommendation, but it wasn't too bad.

#112 - Cyrano de Bergerac

2007-04-10T21:04:00.000-05:00

Knowing that this movie was coming up, I intentionally kept my review of Jose Ferrer's Cyrano brief. I knew I was going to be writing this review next, and I knew that I couldn't write about this Cyrano without referring to the other one. It wouldn't make any sense to not do a comparison of the two, and what's nice about it is that I get two compare two movies that are producing the same story. With the Dillinger movies, I had two different kinds of movies that only shared a main character. It wasn't like they were both going off of the same material. But in this case, both movies are derived from the same play. It becomes more like a comparison of how the two filmmakers presented the story. This may be obvious to some, but I felt it to be a noteworthy tidbit.

First of all, this is a French production with subtitles. While I am fine with that, I have a problem with being able to fully evaluate the acting. Don't get me wrong, I can tell if the actors are bad or not, and they are all pretty good in this one, but I can't fully analyze it like I want to. With Jose Ferrer, every single word was crafted and spoken with a purpose in mind. I can't analyze Gerard Depardieu on that level because I don't understand French. I don't know the words he is using and I can't comprehend his use of inflection or how he emphasizes certain words. I was bummed about that because I couldn't fully compre the two performances like I wanted to. I know that some of you out ther are saying that there is no comparison, but I would disagree. This version of Cyrano is a lot less theatrical in it's style, and therefore Depardieu's performance had to be created to fit in that world. I can only say that his performance was very well done, but I can't say how well he fit into his world compared to how Ferrer fit into his.

I can say that while the earlier Cyrano was all about Jose Ferrer, this version seemed to be more about how well the filmmakers adapted the play for film. And they did a great job with that adaptation. The performances were more natural and the scenes flowed in a way that was less scene by scene, and act by act. But I got the feeling that they wanted to show you more of the adaptation instead of letting happen naturally. What am I talking about? Well, in this case, I am referring to the art direction. A tremendous amount of care and detail was put into recreating the various sites and locales that were the period for Cyrano, whatever period that was. They were actually very well done, and with ALL of the wide angle shots, you could see so much of it. It seemed like every new set had it's own wide angle shot so that you could see how good they were at making an authentic period looking building interior. I only have a beef with it because it gave the film an epic scope for a story that is quite intimate. Even the scenes on the battlefield are intimate, but for some reason, I can't remeber very many wide shots for those scenes. I think there was one or two while the battle was taking place, but nothing like they had earlier in the movie. You have a budget, use it wisely. Don't try to wow me with pretty pictures for a story that stands up on its own.

What it all comes down to is that I woul like a mix of both movies. Personally, I like my movies to be movies, and my theatre to be theatre. I am not the biggest fan of plays on film. Adapt the screenplay to fit the medium, or stage it in a less theatrical way. Of course, if the Ferrer version was done that way, his performance would not have been the same, and I loved his performance. Give me the intimacy of the earlier one, with the natural style of the new one. Give me the english language. I only half mean that. I have no problems with subtitles. If had to make a choice, I would go with Ferrer's Cyrano, but Depardieu's version has it's merit. Both are good movies.

#111 - Cyrano de Bergerac

2007-04-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

There is a part of me that looks forward to watching some of the older Oscar winning movies. It kind of has to do with the same idea behind me no sequels first rule. I like to see what came before so that I have a better understanding or point of reference of where other movies come from. But there's something particular about the Oscar winners that I like. I think it's because they are supposed to the best, and therefore, my mind puts them down as "the" point of reference for everything else. I don't always agree with what I see, as in The Great Ziegfeld, but at least I have that perspective. I will admit that I get more geeked up for the pop culture type of movies, but I watch those for different reasons. I have another set of standards for them, and expect different results. It's the way it should be. You can't watch an art house movie through the same glasses as a summer blockbuster, and vice versa. It does a disservice to both.

Needless to say, mostly because the picture says so, this is one of those older Oscar winners. And I bet you can guess what award it won, and who won it. That's right, Jose Oscar Ferrer. What? Oscar isn't his middle name? Oh...right. Anyways, this guy is good. Without taking the time to see who else was nominated, it's easy to see why he won. It is amazing to see how in control of his character and the material he is. Every move, inflection, gesture, and glance is carefully planned out, and there are no wasted movements. Everything he does serves the ultimate purpose of the character and the script. I was unbelievably captivated by his abilities.

The movie itself was well done, especially if you like theatre. It was essentially a play shot for the big screen. One set per scene. Scenes broken up into different acts. Not a whole lot of adaptation done in the way of the script, but they did make a good effort to vary up the camera angles in the scenes. It helped make that aspect of the movie more interesting, which I think is important for a style choice that doesn't always lend itself to great cinema. That, or they really wanted to give you every possible look at the nose, which I think has nostril size inconsistencies through the movie. All I'm saying is that at some times it looked like one nostril was bigger than the other, and at other times it looked like they were the same. This is not a critcism because I dont wan't to be a film continuity geek. Just something I may have noticed. It's not confirmed. I could be totally wrong.

#110 - Spooks Run Wild

2007-04-03T22:02:00.000-05:00

Take everything that was bad about King of the Zombies, amplify them, and then add even more things that are unbelievably difficult to sit through, and you have Spooks Run Wild. Seriously, this movie wasn't even good in a nostalgic sort of way. It wasn't even good in an "it's so bad it's good" sort of way. The fact that it's a Bela Lugosi movie other than Dracula, which is the only movie of his I have seen, doesn't even keep this one from drowning into the depths of despair. The thing was only an hour, and it was too hard to sit through. In fact, the disc was damaged, and I couldn't even see the last chapter of the movie. Normally, whenever that has been the case, I have them resend the movie and I don't write anything about it until I have watched it all. With this one, I refuse. I won't do it. You can leave your comments that tell me how that breaks my rules about seeing a whole movie from beginning to end, but I don't care. I'm never intentionally letting this movie into my place of residence again. And just for the record, it is the second movie on the Ghostly Grins DVD. For those with short memories, I won't be watching the last movie on the disc because it is a sequel, but I am getting that movie and it's predeccesor whenever blockbuster.com decides to send it to me.

You wanna know what really sucked about the movie? It's called The East Side Kids. Six kids, who are apparently hooligans, as well as from being from some sort of an east side, are the main characters of the move. It seems that they are also intended to be the humor of this movie. The problem with all of this is that at best, they only occasionally display some sort of humor-like substance. The rest of the time is spent with humorless tedium. They try too damn hard to sound like the humor of the day. I say, leave it to the proffessionals. It's why they are legends, and you ended up sweeping floors in some warehouse in a forgotten back lot for a shut down studio. I'm not a fan. Can you tell?

You wanna know what REALLY sucked about the movie? The picture quality. If I wanted to watch a worn out VHS tape, I would have checked out one of my own. If I wanted to watch a worn out VHS tape via digital technology, I would have transfered one of my own to DVD. Is it too much to ask that if you take the time and effort to put a movie on a DVD, you actually take the time and effort to make the damn thing viewable. It looked and sounded like a poorly transfered videotape. The contrast was so bad, that some dark scenes were IMPOSSIBLE to see. And it's a monster movie, so there are a shitload of dark scenes. And I know that some older movies have the occasional case of choppy editing. I have learned to accept it since it's usually quite rare or infrequent, except for this one. Some scenes have three or four "jumps" all on one camera angle. Ridiculous.

How is it that people can cram so much bad into one hour? I know they do it on TV all the time, but movies are a different beast. They serve a completely different purpose. These days, they'll a least stretch out the crap they put onto the big screen to at least an hour and a half. You would think that with only one hour to work with, you would try to use your time wisely, but they don't. They wasted every single second. If I could see the movie better, or at least the whole thing, I don't think it would make on bit of difference. This movie was dreadful.

#109 - King of the Zombies

2007-03-29T20:13:00.000-05:00

Oh man, there is a crapload to talk about with this one. Which is kind of odd considering that it's only an hour long. But my plate is full, so I'll get right to it. First and foremost, we have some legal business to discuss. WHAT? It's true. You see, there is a bit of a dilemma involved with this movie. Actually, it's not the movie itself, it's the DVD it came on. This movie was part of a three movie DVD entitled Ghostly Grins. No problem with that, we have run into this before. The problem is that the third movie on this DVD is a sequel, and I have not seen its predecessor. The conflict here is between the well established "no sequel" rule, and the desire to watch all three movies in the DVD, as they have been packaged for sale. After brief deliberation with unofficial consultant, Bubba K, Esq., it was more than time to bring the matter to my legal representation, Fosberg and Chubbs. After much discussion, it was determined that I cannot sacrifice the "no sequel" rule. While willing to go along with whatever ruling was reached, I didn't feel right not watching the last movie. But alas, luck was on my side. There just so happens to be a DVD with the sequel and it's predecessor on it. Therefore, I can rent this DVD in order to see all movies on the DVD, and keep the "no sequel" rule intact. So it's done. The only problem is that blockbuster.com is continuing to deliver its movies in a ridiculously inconsistent manner. So, I'm watching the first two movies on the DVD, and I'll have to wait until the other DVD arrives to watch the other two movies. Kind of a pain in the ass, but this strengthens the "no sequel" rule. Maybe next time I will pay closer attention to what movies are on a DVD compilation, and do something about it ahead of time.

Anyways...King of the Zombies. Sounds good doesn't it? Well, you would be wrong. It's not a very good movie at all. But like many older movies, there is a bit of entertainment to be had by watching them, purely on seeing how bad they are. The good ones reach a level of being so bad that they are good. This one has it's moments, but ultimately it falls short of that status, probably because there is too much talking and not enough zombie action. And lets be real, the zombie action that is there, isn't that great. I mean, how is it possible that an hour long movie about zombies can have moments of tedium? Instead of a movie where they have to fight off zombies and destroy the king of the zombies, we get a bit of a whodunnit on a a tropical island, mixed in with a bit of campy humor. But its all so obvious, from crashing a plane into a graveyard, to the menacing master of the house, and the freaking title of the movie. The problem is, they drag it out over most of the movie. "Something's not right here." "I agree, but I don't know what it is." Gee, what could set you off? Could it be that the master of the house has a striking resemblance to Ardath Bey in The Mummy?(That's the old one people) Could it be that this guy has a wife who is essentially a vegetable? Could it be that every time you enter into a scary house, there is usually a reason for it being so scary? Seriously, you took an hour to tell your story, and most of it was spent on two guys figuring out the most obvious mystery known to man.

And here's the big kicker of it all...the movie is blatantly racist. I'm not talking about anything as blatant as black face, minstrel type of rascist, but it's more than your run of the mill black milkman kind of character who enters the room with something along the lines of a "Yessuh". Let me explain. One of the boneheads who takes to long to figure out what's wrong with the island has a valet, or whatever he was called, and this guy is black. The man is the comic relief because nothing says funny more than a sassy black sidekick. Okay, fine. Whatever. But it gets really rascist with some of the lines they wrote for him. I have examples, and I wrote them down to get them exactly right. First and foremost, the plane they are all in crashes on a strange tropical island. The valet wakes up with his head on a tombstone. He is afraid that he has died and begins to freak out when the other two find him and reassure him. What's his line after that? "I thought I was a little off color to be a ghost." Are you kidding me? I mean, I knew this went on, but I had never seen it with my own eyes, and had no idea how blatant it was. The guy sees a zombie for the first time, and what does he say? "If it was in me, I sure would be pale now." I was shocked. But as bad as it is, you've gotta keep this stuff out there. I know that there are people out there who would be so appalled at this, and they would never want this movie to be seen again. But I say it stays. This kind of thing was the norm back then and we have to know what it was like in order to make sure that we are never like that again. You take this away, as bad as it is, and no one learns from it. All that aside, I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't be watched because its a crappy movie. Forget the rascist part, the movie sucks on its own merit.

#108 - Born to Kill

2007-03-21T20:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I didn't have to wait very long. Those of you who read my Dillinger review(the old one), know that I was withholding judgement on Lawrence Tierney until I saw more of his work. I couldn't tell if he was a great actor playing a great part, or a one trick pony that fit perfectly into the kind of movie that was being made. I have reached the conclusion that he is the latter, but I am okay with that. I'm sold. I think he's great. Sure, he's not the best actor, but what he does is so entertaining to watch it doesn't matter. It's not like he's Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare. This man is stone cold, hard boiled, and all those other descriptions of a classic gangster heavy. His death stare is absolutely perfect. You do not want this guy to give you his death stare. It will turn your blood cold. I realized that I had reservations about him because the movie he was in wasn't that great. Put him into something with a better script and better director, and his talents come shining right through. While writing this I also realized that for some dumb reason, I called him Gene instead of Lawrence in my review of Warren Oates' Dillinger. I fixed it, so all of you who noticed...(stunning silence)...can withhold your comments.

Now that I have said all of that, I will tell you that I think this movie actually belongs to Claire Trevor. It's all about that no good dirty dame. She gets caught up into Tierney's world of murder, and is somehow attracted to it all. She starts playing the game. Not the murder game, but the deception and backstabbing game. I gotta tell you, she is a worthy adversary for Tierney and at many times proves herself to be on equal standing with him in the department of being stone cold nasty. I can't say that I understand the reason for having them be in love with each other, except for danger attracting danger, but it is what it is, and the interaction between the two of them is so tremendously compelling that I can look past it. Major kudos to Claire Trevor for sticking it to the king of hard cases.

This movie forces me to specify another sub-category in this film genre. I wouldn't say that it's a film noir like White Heat because it doesn't have that stylized grit to it that noir reminds me of. It's not a gangster movie because none of these people are gangsters. Sure, Tierney is a criminal and has some underworld type things going on, but were aren't dealing with organized crime or anything like that. I guess the only label I can put on it is Crime Drama, but that's kind of by default. I don't really have a good label for this kind of movie. I guess it could be a pulp kind of thing, but I don't really have a good definition for what is pulp, so I can't go with that. I guess the main thing is not what it is, it's what it isn't, and that's a noir film or gangster flick.

#107 - Dillinger

2007-03-18T23:02:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back, I review another movie by the same title starring Lawrence Tierney. While I enjoyed the movie, I found myself wanting more out of the story and portrayal of John Dillinger. Soon after posting, I got a message from my friend Boog. On his own movie page(It's under My Peeps...figure it out shmuck), he had recently talked about watching this movie back in the day, and in his message, he suggested that I watch this version of Dillinger. I was interested in this movie after reading what he had written, but I was more excited that I was actually going to be able to watch a movie that someone had recommended to me. Boog has recommended movies before, and while I make note of them, I can't bring myself to put them in my queue because it would break up the anal retentive nature of my movie placement process. This does aggravate some, and they have refused to recommend movies to me anymore. All I can say is that it's not personal, I just have a thing going and I don't wanna break up one of the most important aspects of it, the randomness. Having said all that, I actually had this DVD out and ready to watch the same day that Boog sent his message. And I did watch it that day, which was in late February. This goes to show you how behind I am in writing my reviews. I have just been a bit lazy about writing them. I have still been watching movies, just not reviewing them. Do not fret, they will be reviewed, and in the order of viewing. I have about six to do, and believe me, the schizophrenia is ridiculous. But that's not why you came here today.

Everything that I wanted out of the Tierney version of Dillinger, I found in this one. The story starts off a bit differently in this one. Dillinger has already established himself as one of the nations top bank robbers, and thankfully so because we are able to start off with a truly wonderful scene. In this scene, we see Dillinger robbing a bank, but it is shot from the perspective of a held up bank teller. Dillinger, who is masterfully played by Warren Oates, looks through the bars of the teller window and exudes confidence, charm, and a restrained ruthlessness. It was completely captivating and in a matter of moments, established the kind of person that Dillinger is. There are movies than can't establish a convincing main character at all, and this one does it in the first five minutes. Not to mention the symbolism of the iron bars.

I found the story to be pretty good as well. It's less plot driven than the Tierney Dillinger, and this left room for a look at what makes Dillinger tick. This is not to say that we are witnesses to an epiphany about the mindset of a notorious bank robber. Instead, we are shown a hint of humanity, as opposed to Tierney's stone faced ruthlessness. It might not be fair to compare the two movies since it's clear that there were different reasons for making them, but since I have seen them so recently, I can't help but do it. Warren Oates is just phenomenal. He has a great supporting cast, but he commands full attention, and delivers on every account. I particularly like the scene where he is parked on the border of Mexico. He could easily drive on over and be done with it all, but he's a bank robber, and doesn't know anything else. He's trapped by his own devices, and even with the opportunity to escape, he can't break free from it. This depth of character is completely missing in Tierney's performance, but he was in a different kind of movie. His performance actually fit into the film, it's just that his lack of depth made his movie good, while Oates' performance makes his movie great.

Another thing that appealed to me was the look of the movie. The picture quality has a grainy texture to it, and I find this to be a crucial aspect to the mood of the film. It doesn't have bright colors, and it doesn't have sharp lines. From what I can tell, this was a trend in the 70's and may have something to do with technology allowing filmmakers to do more location shots, but in this case, it was clearly done for a reason. I also have a feeling that this movie was overshadowed by the popularity of Bonnie and Clyde, but I think it has it's own wonderful merit. I haven't seen Bonnie and Clyde, so I can't get into that discussion, but it is in my queue, and someday, we will come back to it. For now, I have to consider this the best of the genre in that time period. I reserve the ability to retract that statement in the future.

#106 - Comic Book Confidential

2007-03-11T22:26:00.000-05:00

Now this is what I am talking about. Where Comic Book: The Movie failed, this documentary succeeds. What we have here is a history of comic books that is told in a way that the fanboys can appreciate, and that the not so hardcore fans, like myself, can get interested in. Why, I might even go so far as to say that someone who isn't really a fan of comic books might enjoy this movie. This is largely due to the fact that the director of this documentary treats comic books as a legitimate art form, and gives them the respect that they are due. Add to that a little bit of being well made, and you have the ingredients for a good documentary.

I will admit that I am probably biased. Well, maybe not biased so much as I was bought off early. The first person we see interviewed in this documentary is none other than William M. Gaines. This man's father is responsible for the creation of comic books and Gaines took that creation and ran with it. He created some memorable comics, most notably Tales from the Crypt and one of my all time favorite things ever, MAD Magazine. Don't worry, it was a comic book first. Having him and Harvey Kurtzman in this movie was a treat for me because I read a TON of MAD Magazine growing up. While I didn't always understand all of the humor related to current events, or much of the references to historical moments or personalities, I recognized the sarcasm and satire that was contained within. My parents didn't let me watch rated R movies, but they had no problems getting me a copy of MAD. Little did they know that MAD would rot my brains in more ways than a movie could ever do. But it was a comic book, and comic books are for kids, right? Needless to say, MAD is directly related to my humoristic tendencies, as well as my cynical outlook towards many of the things that make up this world as we know it. That's why I was bought off early. Seeing Bill Gaines in his office, which I am presuming was at MAD headquarters, was enough to suck me in. Good thing the rest of it was worth watching.

So we get a history of comic books, which is nice because like all art forms, it went through periods of struggle, misunderstanding, and adaptation. What makes this documentary good is that it talks to some of the men who laid the foundation for the industry. And to top it off, they read segments of their comic books. Jack Kirby reading the origin of Captain America. Will Eisner reading from The Spirit. In fact, most of the comic book creators featured in this movie read from their work, but it's the old timers that really stand out in my mind. They brought a great historical perspective about how they began writing comics as well as the struggles they faced, especially the Comic Book Code.

I felt as though this documentary had three parts to it. The first being the origination of the medium. The second being the evolution of the medium through the years, as well as the simultaneous explosion of underground comics. There was a lot said about the underground comics that came out of San Francisco in the late 60's, but there wasn't quite the level of historical perspective that you got from the earlier artists. There was definately a sense of what and why, but I didn't quite get the same feeling of impact they had on the comic book world. I have a feeling that this may be due to the fact that this documentary was made in the 80's, and the impact, from a strictly historical perspective, wasn't completely understood. It was clear why they were an important part of the world of comic books, but I didn't get a feeling of the complete social impact, I could be completely wrong, but that's the feeling I got. Finally, there is a segment on current comic books. No historical perspective at all, but a good understanding of what has evolved from the layers of comic book history. It's unfortunate that this movie was made in the 80's because I wanted them to keep going. There's fifteen more years to talk about. But if that movie wasmade today, they wouldn't have gotten to talk to Bill Gaines, and that was the highlight for me personally. So I take it as it is. I have no choice.

#105 - Comic Book: The Movie

2007-03-02T21:39:00.000-06:00

There are times when I am forced to admit that what I am watching was just not made for me. What I am talking about are things that are probably well loved by people who are great fans of the subject matter, but since I am not one of those people, I end up being completely un-entertained. But for some reason, I have this ability to see why these things are enjoyed by those fans. My biggest example of this phenomenon is The Vagina Monologues. For those who don't know, this is a play that is performed all across the country, every year on Valentine's Day. A few year back I worked on one of these performances and it was there that I realized that while it is a hugely celebrated event, I was clearly not the target audience. This is not a criticism, but at the same time, I don't feel that I can completely praise the work. Now is the point in the review where I relate a play that is a celebration and a liberation of womanhood with a mockumentary staring and directed by Mark Hamill and set at a comic book convention. Hey, the phenomenon is the same, be it liberated women or hardcore comic book fans.

I like comic books. I'm much more of a cartoon fan, but I enjoy comic books also. Much of my humor was formed in my youth by reading every issue of MAD magazine available and it's obvious rip-off Cracked. Hey, you gotta get your Don Martin fix somehow. While hanging out on the periphery at times, I have never been too deeply immersed in the comic book culture. I enjoy the artwork and storytelling talents involved in their production. I would also enjoy attending a Comic Con convention. I'm just not fully absorbed into it on the level that I think the target audience for this movie is.

First of all, there's the cameos. Most of this movie was shot on location at Comic Con when they held it in San Diego a few years ago. Needless to say, there were a ton of comic book people on hand to take part in the movie. Some of them were obvious and pointed out as such. Matt Groening, Ron Perlman, and Ray Herryhausen are some that were on the floor while they filmed. But there were many moments that were obvious cameo moments, but I had no freaking clue who the hell they were. There was a list of the cameos in the credits. I knew some names, recognized others, but most I had no idea who they were. But I guarantee you that serious comic book fans would have not only known those names, but they would have recognized those people when they were shown in the movie. These were the moments where I didn't think this was a movie for me. Comic book fans probably LOVED the cameos. It had no effect on me.

Having said all that, let's talk about it as a movie. There are some things I enjoyed, but there are things that I didn't that may have been responsible for not being able to overcome the fanboy element. I think the most important thing is that as far a mockumentaries go, it's just not very good at it. There were too many scenes that were obviously scripted. The point of a mockumentary is to tell a story, but in a documentary style. Documentaries don't have narrative scenes in them. The climactic scene itself belongs in a narrative film, not this one, at least not how they presented it here. And the thing is, the truly mockumentary moments were the best parts. The interviews with Stan Lee, Kevin Smith, and Bruce Campbell are great, but the best is when Mark Hamill is wandering around the convention floor interacting with attendees. He is playing a hardcore idealistic comic book fan with a tendency towards the golden age, and it's quite entertaining to see him roam the floor. Another great thing is that most of the other principle actors are cartoon voice over performers. of course, I didn't know all that until looking at the special features. And get this, former Baywatch babe, Donna D'Errico was in the movie playing the actress hired to play Liberty Lass, and she was quite good. She played her part very well and at times was quite humorous. I was shocked. She was also pretty damn hot, but nothing was as hot as the brief shot of the chick dressed up as Hawkgirl. But that's a different story for a different time.

#104 - My Left Foot

2007-02-26T21:30:00.000-06:00

And the schizophrenia continues. If I remember correctly, this movie was fifth on my queue list when it was sent to me. On top of that, the movies that it jumped over should have been sent a while ago. Instead of boring you with the same old rant, I will give some kudos to blockbuster.com, but also voice a concern. The kudos that they deserve are for their delivery speed. I don't know what they did because the enevlopes are the same, but I have been having a tremendously good streak of one day turn arounds for deliveries and returns. It had been two days, which is nice, but one is even better. I know that Netflix advertises a one day delivery, but that's not what I have and I can only base my response on what I know. One thing I do know is that all DVD's not readily available can REALLY cause problems when it comes to multiple disc sets. This is my concern. I have a three disc set coming up that, unlike the Beasties Video Anthology, is very disc order specific. And wouldn't you know it, as of right now, the first disc is not readily available, and for some reason, this is one of the sets that isn't locked in to be sent in order. I just know that they are gonna send the other two discs first and I am going to have to sit on them until the first one decides to show up. That means that I would essentially be down to one disc at a time. One step forward, two steps back. But I endure because I have seen the worst already, and nothing that happens with this list can compare to what this list has already done to me. How about we talk about this movie?

My first impression of this movie was that it was very good. I though it was well made, well acted, written, directed, and all that stuff. The more I thought about it, and it is quite thought provoking, I enjoyed it more and more. The attention to detail and the filmmakers commitment to their storytelling is amazing, but there is something that stood out to me. I guess I am used to Hollywood movies with a disadvantaged main character where they force feed the sympathy, as if you couldn't have some yourself. This movie does not do that. Okay, let's play catch up for those who don't already know. My Left Foot is based on the autobiography by Christy Brown, who happens to have been born with Cerebral Palsy and only has full use of his left leg. He wrote the whole book using...have you guessed yet...my left foot...no...wait...his left foot. Anyways, I get the feeling that Christy Brown does not ask for sympathy when telling his story, and this movie does not either. It's basically his story of how he learned to be a human being despite his tremendous disadvantages. There is no pity. There is no heart break. There is tremendous internal strength by Christy himself, and his entire family.

I can't finish this review without talking about the Oscar winners in this movie. It is purely coincidence that I am writing this the day after sitting through the snoozefest that they put out as the Oscar broadcast this year. I could easily rant on and on about that, but I have chosen not to because I just don't feel. Do keep in mind that this is a criticism of the Oscar broadcast overall. Ellen was good, but the only Oscar nominated movies I have been able to see were Cars and Children of Men. Talk about schizo. Anywho, the Oscar winners in this movie were Daniel Day Lewis and Brenda Fricker. While I don't know who the other nominees were, and haven't taken the time to see who else was nominated, I can honestly say that they absolutely deserved them. Lewis was amazingly able to recreate the uncontrolable actions of a palsy victim. But it wasn't a caricature. There was never a time when I felt he was showing us a palsy victim. It was so unbelievably honest and in the midst of it, he was able to show us a human being with great frustration, heart, determination, and charm. Forrest Gump and Rainman ain't got nothin on this guy. And the kid playing a young Christy Brown was amazing also. And Brenda Fricker, man oh man. She's one of those actresses that you see all the time, usually in some sort of matronly role. Well, she is phenomenal. The struggle of not knowing what exactly to do in the face of hardship, yet willingness to do whatever it takes, and with a smile. The struggle of someone who knows what a cruel world it is because she has lived it and therefore is afraid to let her son out into it, even though the reward is probably greater than the risk. The struggle to support your child, even though you have little hope that he could ever lead what is considered a normal life. She portrays all of that, and a tremendous amount more. And she makes it look it easy. It's so subtle, and is a wonderful complement to Lewis' performance. I can't say that there has never been a movie like this before, but I sure haven't seen anything like it.

#103 - Dillinger

2007-02-23T20:16:00.000-06:00

I don't know if you can read the tag line on the top of that picture. If you can't, I shall repeat it for you. It says, "His story is written in bullets, blood, and blondes!" How great is that? Aliteration aside, that is fantastic, that's how great it is. Think about it. Is that not the perfect tag line for a low budget black and white gangster movie from the 40's? Believe it or not, I really have nothing more to say about it. I just think it's classic.

You may have noticed that I refered to Dillinger as a gangster. I used this term for a reason, but first, let's go back a few months. I don't remember when, but some time ago I rented, watched, and reviewed a couple of movies by the names of White Heat and The Big Heat. These are classic movies of the noir genre. I know, I know, get to the damn point. I'm only mentioning it because I think there is an important distinction between noir films and gangster movies, even though the subject matter is somewhat similar. I found those two noir films to be much more dynamic and intense than Dillinger. The suspense was at a much higher level and the performances by the leading actors were superb. Dillinger seemed to be playing on a much lesser level in terms of drama and overall storytelling. The noir films were more psychological and suspensful, whereas Dillinger was more...well...bullets, blood, and blondes. It's not really a criticism of the movie other than it's what makes this movie just good and entertaining as oppossed to great. I enjoyed watching this movie because it was my first real introduction to the 40's gangster style, but White Heat and The Big Heat were much more satisfying to watch.

Now, I can't write a review about this movie without mentioning the main man himself, Gene Tierney. Myself, I only became aware of Tierney after watching Reservoir Dogs, as I assume many out there did as well. Or at least they rediscovered him. According to the film synopsis on blockbuster.com, this was the first movie to launch Tierney into cult stardom. I took particular note of this mostly from what I saw in Reservoir Dogs and what I know about Quentin Tarantino. What do I know about Tarantino? No more than anybody else does, but what is particularly of interest to me and my point is that fact that he is a film geek. I know that before he broke out, he spent a lot of time of watching a ton of old movie while working at a renal store. This made him a bit of a film historian. The knowledge and perspective he gained is not only evident in his directing choices, but I know that he uses it in his casting. Unlike most people in Hollywood, he remembers great performances and chooses to use those people in his films. Hence, John Travolta, Pam Grier, Robert Forster, etc. Well, to get to the point, Gene Tierney has to be one of those actors, and Dillinger is apparently where it all got started. So I paid special attention to his performance, and I gotta say, I wanna see more. Not because I was caught up in his tremendous portrayal, but because he appears to be a one trick pony. Its a damn good trick, but I wanna see more to really get a feel for his abilities. This is not a slam on his performance. He is a damn good tough guy, but I don't know that there was much acting going on there. I think Tierney is a legitimate hard ass who could easily knock the shit out of you if you pissed him off. I just feel like I need more information before I submit my final verdict, which is odd because I apparently have enough information to blab on like I know what film noir and gangster movies are after only watching a little bit of each genre. Oh well, that's my damn story, and I ain't changing it.

#102 - Rembrandt

2007-02-16T18:20:00.000-06:00

Look at that picture. Doesn't it look like he got caught in the middle of something and is trying to play it off like he's not doing anything wrong? We're not talking like he was doing something inappropriate to a nude painting or nothing, but that guy got caught in the act. I bet he was painting a nude picture of the hot young neighbor lady and his old bitty of a wife walked in on him. "Uh, I'm not doing anything. Well, yeah, I'm painting...something. No...no...you can't see it. Why? Uhm...it's not done yet. You know I don't like to show my paintings until I'm done. What are you talking about? I've always been like that. No, no, don't look!! Hey, I think the goats just got out of the yard. We don't have any goats? The pigs? The hedgehogs? The newts? Oh yeah, we don't even have a yard. Okay, if you promise not to look until I'm done...I'll promise to...uh...let you throw all my stones at the next witch hunt. Deal? Deal. Okay. No, I love you more. NO, I love you more." Maybe that's not exactly what happened, but by looking at that picture you can tell that Rembrandt is up to something more than just painting.

And why, pray tell, would I spend so much time in my opening paragraph with all of that rambling on? The answer is simple. There's not a whole hell of a lot to talk about with this movie. It really doesn't do or say anything. You get a segment of Rembrandt's life that is clearly being told in a fictional way. That's fine and dandy, but by the time our story begins he is already a well renowned and famous painter. Okay, there goes any of the potential dramatic tension as he struggles with his art. He has a couple of wives, both of whom die, but you don't really care because it doesn't seem to affect him all that much, or at least beyond those particular scenes. There really is no dramatic tension in this movie whatsoever. And while I am no expert in the life and times of Rembrandt, I just have to think something interesting happened to him. Since this is probably the case, you could have put that into a movie, especially when it's fictional account of his life. That's right, these guys made up what happened, and yet nothing really happened, and yet, things seemed to happen. I don't get it.

Paradox? Did you say "paradox"? Well, yes boys and girls, there is a paradox in this movie. And that paradox is a simple case of bad writing, yet good acting of that bad writing. I'll explain. We all have learned of my dislike of what they did for the life of Rembrandt, but Charles Laughton's performance of this character is really well done. In other words, I hate what you're doing, but you're doing it well. That's a weird place to be. On top of that, the scenery was well designed, and believe it or not, the directing was well done too. That's right, it's a movie that was merely average, yet I am applauding the acting, scenery, and directing. While this sounds impossible, I believe it can actually happen when filmmakers seem to have made exactly what they wanted to make, but the final product just didn't work. It's unfortunate, but I guess it happens.

#101 - Danger: Diabolik

2007-02-14T21:21:00.000-06:00

Oh baby, this is choice. What we have here is another link to the Beastie Boys. The Beasties used clips from an old super spy looking movie in their Body Movin video, and if you couldn't guess, this is that movie. It turns out that the guy is the best thief in the entire world and spends the movie evading the law or sexing up his hot lady friend. Usually, one leads to the other cause nothing is a better aphrodisiac than high dollar smuggling followed by a narrow escape from the law. One of the things that made this movie interesting was seeing what the Beasties took from this movie and put into their video outside of the obvious use of film clips. There is a surprising amount of stuff, and it's used in some interesting ways. If you haven't seen the video, they show it on this disc along with a little interview with the director of the video, Nathanial Hornblower, a.k.a. Adam Youch, a.k.a. MCA.

Aside from the Beastie Boys connection, there is a TON of stuff here that amuses the living hell out of me. This is another case of seeing the source material for a seemingly endless amount of spoofs. And the style of this movie is so over the top in every aspect that it is quite easy to do a spoof of. Everything is way over the top. The heists, the escapes, Diabolik's underground lair. By the way, the guys name is Diabolik. What's interesting about the film's style is that if you take any of the individual elements of the film(plot, acting, scenery, cinematography), they are ridiculous. None of it is believable and could easily be considered cheesy. But the makers of this film went to the extreme in all aspects. How many times have you watched a movie where the film makers were too scared to commit to the ridiculousness of what they are making, and therefore ending up making the movie worse than what it would have been if they just had some cojones? These guys went there with everything. Sure, there is overacting around every corner, but does it matter that much in a movie where the government takes all of their gold and melts it into one huge brick as a lure to catch the master thief? AND HE STEALS IT TOO!! Look, it may not be your thing, but it is certainly amusing, and consistent from beginning to end.

And now for the serious analysis. There is a point in this movie where the government puts a bounty on Diabolik's head. He decides that no one can cash that in if there is no money. So he blows up all of the country's financial institutions, thereby destroying all financial records of any kind. First of all, that's ridiculous. Second of all, that would NEVER be allowed to be filmed in this day and age. This is not a condemnation of the current atmosphere that is sensitive to all things deemed "terrorist", it's just something that put things into a bit of a perspective for me. This feeling was supported by some of the things in the bonus features. The bonus features brought up some things that I hadn't thought of, but are related to what was on my mind. Mainly, what the mindset of Italians was in the late 60's. Think about it, the main character of this movie is a villain, and not in an anti-hero way. He is a criminal, the police are trying to catch him, and we are rooting for him to get away. He makes them look like fools at times, and we enjoy every bit of it. It's an interesting reversal of what we are used to seeing and puts more things into perspective for me. Of course, there's also some sweet lovemaking with his hot ass lady friend on the piles of cash that they had just stolen and taken to his underground lair.

#100 - Beastie Boys: Horseplay

2007-02-06T23:57:00.000-06:00

TAADAA!!! Trumpets blaring!!! Horns...also blaring!!! It's a momentous occasion complete with sweeping changes. Okay, it's not that sweeping. A new template to change things up, and it's the shwanky new Google thang so I can add things on the sidebar without having to know HTML, which is good because HTML and me are not on a level playing field. And add things I did. I have lists of reviewed movies I really liked and strongly disliked. If you can't figure out which is which, you...are...a...moron. I have put all of the movies that fall into their respective categories in for now, but I will whittle it down over time so that I don't have a super long list there. In case you hadn't noticed, I aim for brevity. I was shocked to see that I recommended about a third of the movies I watched. Of course, the majority of them were movies that weren't good enough to fully recommend, or bad enough to totally hate, which is kind of sad. And since HTML is my mortal enemy, and since changing things over deleted some custom changes I had done for the old template, there is no sitemeter or subscription option at the bottom of the page. But do not fret!! I will somehow figure out how to get those back. I had help putting them there in the first place, I will require help to put them back. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the new arrangement. If you don't...tought shit. I'm not changing anything until review 200.

But let's get to review 100 since that's what you really came here for, isn't it? Oh, you're bored at work? I have no shame, I'll take it. Well, here's another DVD that is related to the Beatsie Boys. I say related because it's the unauthorized biography of the band. When it's unauthorized, that means there is either something in the biography that subject matter doesn't want you to know, or the subject matter had absolutely nothing to do with the production of the biography. This was the latter, and therefore, is pretty lame. Well, it's not really that lame, it's just not very worthwhile. First of all, this has the look and feel of a cheepie, direct to DVD production. Also, I think it's British. I have no evidence of this other than the fact that the narrator has a British accent. At least it was only an hour long.

Here's my real beef with the whole thing: while there was a lot of info about how the guys got together and developed their sound, they weren't involved at all, so it's was interviews with ex band members and childhood friends. Sorry, but I need more than what that can offer me. And the thing that really blows about it is that there are NO Beastie Boys songs. UGH!! Bleech! I understand that this was a low budget operation, but if you aren't going to have any of the tunes you are talking about, I'm not interested. What's funny is that there is a brief moment where we actually hear from Mike D himself. The only thought that came to me at that point was, "They ponied up to get a short clip from somebody else's interview, but they couldn't swing some freakin' tunes?" But by far, the most hilarious part of the whole thing is the interview with the old band memeber who got kicked out before they even called themselves by their current name. What's funny about it is when he is talking about being kicked out for drinking too much and all that crap, he is sitting in a bar and drinking a beer. I'll reapeat: While talking about being kicked out for too much drinking, HE WAS IN A BAR, DRINKING A BEER!!! At what point didn't you realize that your drinking issues caused you to miss out on millions. I hope for your sake that the producers paid for the tab cause you probably need all of the money they are giving you to do the interview. But I digress. Kind of a lackluster DVD for a milestone review, but what are you gonna do?

#99 - The Work of Director Spike Jonze

2007-02-02T23:21:00.000-06:00

Those of you out there that are regular readers of this page may be confused by this DVD entry. Why would you be confused? Well, if I didn't know any better, and usually I don't, I would wonder how in the hell a DVD that celebrates the work of one of the most imaginitive directors in recent times could possibly be related and/or linked to an old black and white movie about loggers in Wisconsin. The simple answer is...IT DOESN'T!!! Well...actually...the grammatically correct answer would be...IT ISN'T!!! You see, in the last few weeks to months, the ability of blockbuster.com to send the DVD's in my queue in the order that they were placed into said queue has been quite lacking. It's common for them to send the #2 movie before the #1 movie. Sometimes it just happens. But when the movie is listed as available, I pretty much expect it to be...well...available. I have been sent the #5 DVD, even though there were four DVD's on the list in front of it, all listed as available. I have had the #3 DVD sent, that according to blockbuster.com needed a short wait before the inventory was restored enough to be able to send me a copy. Problem is, there were TWO movies in front of it that were listed as available. That's right!! They sent the unavailable one before the available ones. In a way, I'm all for it. You all know I am going for a random thing here, this just makes it a little bit more schizophrenic. I just wish they would get their damn availablity straight. I don't want the top of my queue list to get clogged up with unavailable movies, but I also have no faith in the fact that they are actually unavailable. I also don't want to delete the unavailable ones from my queue because I do know that in time they can become available. Oh well, I'll just keep on rolling with what they send me, but don't be to suprised by the order of DVD's because sometimes it's just not gonna make any damn sense.

And now for the DVD at hand. I love this guy. You know I love this guy, especially if you read my review of Adaptation. His imagination, his conceptualization, his ability to make the abstract normal, and his commitment to his vision are all top notch qualities. TOP NOTCH. But this DVD is all about his music videos. This means I get to see a couple of Beastie Boys videos again, and a couple of Weezer videos that I already have on DVD. But there are a bunch more from the like of Dinosaur Jr., The Breeders, The Pharcyde, Fatboy Slim, Bjork, and more. It's kind of a greatest hits of his videos, cause he made a lot of them and theres only about twenty of them here. There's a ton of stuff on this DVD also. Tons of commentaries as well as some short documentaries. I had to split it up into three viewings. The videos, the videos with commentary, and the documentaries. I'm not gonna comment on everything, but I will comment on what stood out to me.

The flaming guy on the cover is from a Wax video. As good as the video is, I probably couldn't recognize the song if you played it for me right now. Maybe I could, but the point is that I get so absorbed in the video that I don't really pay attention to the song. The Pharcyde video is phenomenal. Again, I don't remember the song, but the video is tremendous. They filmed it with everybody walking backwards and then played it in reverse, which has them moving forward, but in an odd way. The best part about it is that the members of Pharcyde memorized the song in reverse. This means that even though they are walking forwards/backwards their mouths match the lyrics of the song. There is a special feature with a behind the scenes look at that video which is quite good. Making a video for a Notorious B.I.G. song where everybody is played by kids is not only imaginitive, but the attention to detail Spike used to replicate the style rap videos had in the 90's is so good, I had moments where I thought it was a replication of an existing video. I wised up after listening to the commentary by P. Puffy Daddy Combs, which brings me to the commentaries. The commentaries were done by the artists who Spike made the videos for, which I find to be quite interesting. Some of the videos have commentaries from performersin the videos. This is highlighted by Christopher Walken commenting on his Fatboy Slim video...which is one of the best ones on the disc. Also, there is an extended commentary segment where the Beastie Boys do commentary on some of Spike's other videos. Very entertaining, especially when they joke about how Spike still owes them money. Finally, and I am cutting myself off here because there is a ton of stuff to talk about but I don't want to blab on forever, the Bjork video is tremendous. I'm not a big fan of Bjork. Just not my thing. But this song is actually quite good, and the video does a bang up job of highlighting the music and its charm. And you can't go wrong with a dancing mailbox. The Fatboy Slim video for Praise You is probably his most famous and widely praised video, but I mention it for another reason. The fictional dance troupe that Spike created for the video took on a life of its own when it went to perform at MTV's Video Music Awards. There is a documentary on the disc about their preparation for that performance. It might be the most entertaining part of the video, mainly because of Spike commitment to the character throughout the whole thing, including the awards ceremony. Finally, and believe me I am cutting this short because I don't want to babble on more than I already have, but I certainly could, the Bjork video is tremendous. I'm not a big fan Bjork's. Just not my thing. But this song is actually quite good, and the video supports and emphasizes the music about as well as any video I have ever seen. Wildy fun and inventive. I mean, you can't go wrong with a dancing mailbox.

#98 - Come and Get It

2007-01-27T22:07:00.000-06:00

Oh goody!! Nothing is more exciting than a story about loggers in Wisconsin around the turn of the last century. That's right. I said loggers....in Wisconsin....turn of the LAST century. Kind of makes the title a wee bit ironic if you ask me. But, let me just say that this movie is only partially as boring and unentertaining as it seems. By that I mean that it's not completely boring or unentertaining, but it ain't exactly something I would put at the top of my list of lumberjack classics. And don't act like you don't all have your own little list of favorite lumberjack movies. Firestorm doesn't count cause he's a firefighter and just happens to be in the woods. That, and no movie that stars Howie Long as the main character should be in a favorites list of any kind.

This movie was adapted from some book that I don't remember the name of because I watched this a while ago and haven't gotten around to writing the review until now. I can't help but feel that the book was more entertaining, which is usually the case, but I think more so for this movie, and I'll tell you why. The story is one of those sweeping tales of ambition, lost love, and all the crap that goes with it, and there's a lot of stuff in the stories that can't fit into a whole movie. It seems to me that whomever adapted the novel decided to stick with the most important plot points and try to fill in what they can between those points. Don't expect me to know who adapted the novel. If I can't be bothered to remember or even look up the name of the novel, what chance is there that I would know or look up the screenwriter? Absolutely none. To get back to my original point, with little more than important plot points, I found it hard to really get invovled in the movie. It's like when I read The Partner by John Grisham. Whole lotta plot, and little else to sink your teeth into. The difference being that one is about a lawyer who staged his own death in order to cover the fact that he stole a crapload of money, and the other is about LOGGERS IN WISCONSIN!!! Let's review. A movie about loggers that is more plot than anything else. Wake up the kids!!!

I will admit that there is a part of me that is curious about the whole story. Since it is based on what I can only assume was a popular novel, then there HAS to be more to the story than what I have seen, and that may be some well written stuff. A lot of times the stuff that is cut out of the movie versions of a story is the most imaginative aspect of that story, but really hard to transfer over to the big screen. I think this is why we should outlaw the phrase "the book was better" as a criticism of a movie. It's not a valid point. I can't tell you how many times I wanna know how a movie is and the first thing someone says is that the book was better. NO SHIT!! But thats not what I asked!! I didn't ask how the adaptation was. We may get to that in our conversation, but it's not what I asked. If the movie was better than the book, that is something that is worth pointing out because it is extremely rare. The only movie that comes to mind at this point is Lost World, and that wasn't even that good of a movie. Kind of tells you how I felt about the book. Along the same lines, I really get iritated by the purists. You know the people I'm talking about. These are the losers who raise hell because a movie wasn't exactly the same thing that the book was. Two words for you: "loosely" and "based". Get over it. I open up Yahoo! one day and there's a story about people who are unhappy that the movie Eragon doesn't follow the book that well. With all the things in the world to get upset about, you have to piss and moan about a movie based on a book about a kid riding a fuckin dragon? Yes, I have been disappointed when a movie screwed uo the story of a book I enjoyed, but I will talk about the aspects of the movie that I didn't like and why. Just saying the book was better doesn't say anything at all because it usually is. And these people get so adamant about it. Well you know what, you purists can go jump off a cliff, and take the continuity error geeks and editing mistake eye-hawks with you. Have I ranted enough? Good.

#97 - Hoffa

2007-01-14T19:55:00.000-06:00

If I remember correctly, there was a trend in the 90's of making biographical movies on controversial subjects or individuals. I'm thinking along the lines of JFK and Nixon, but I haven't seen either of those, nor did I take the time to look up when they came out, so I could be talking out of my ass. It just seems like there was a trend back then and this one was in the middle of it all. Todays trends include superheroes, uplifting sports tales, and my least favorite, horror/monster movie remakes. Superheroes and sports tales I understand because these are stories that have been around and/or shared for years. As far as the horror/monster movies go, if you have something to offer us with a remake, then go for it. Otherwise, I'm not interested. And since I haven't seen any of them other than King Kong, it's shows that I'm not interested, and besides, King Kong is on a different level than the remakes anyways. Have I gotten too far off track yet?

I had low expectations for this movie. Mostly because there was a bunch of controversy around it, and I don't remember it doing that well. That controversy probably has to do with the controversial nature of the subject matter, and while box office results are in no way a measuring stick of the value of a movie, I had a feeling that it was another built up epic that, despite it's good intentions, fell short of the hype. Well, I think we have a rare case where none of that happened. First of all, it's an interesting movie. Most of that is due to the top notch performances by Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito, but another part of it is due to my next point. This is not a carbon copy Hollywood biopic. I sat through much of it thinking that they were setting up Hoffa as a hero, but the there were moments where he does some pretty underminded things, so he's not a good guy. I couldn't tell what they were saying about him, until it hit me that they weren't taking a stance at all. They were remaining ambiguous about one of the most controversial figures in recent American history. There are people who think he was a no good criminal who was in with the mob, yet at the same time, you have someone who was loved and revered by working men all over the country. Polar opposites, and now you get to decide. I think that's quite interesting and unbelievably brave. Normally, a movie tells you what they want you to think. I get the feeling that people have come to expect that, and when they don't see it, they reject it, which is a shame.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this is a tremendous breakthrough of cinematic achievment that deserves another look. I'm just saying that it does something different than what I normally see from this kind of movie. I have no doubt that this isn't the first movie to do such a thing, but as far as I know, it's the first one I have seen, and I think it's unique for such a high budget Hollywood movie. Even with all of that, there is something dangerous about this movie that I have to mention. Much of what you see in this movie is fictitious. Danny DeVito and Armande Assante's characters were both created to move the story along. While I have no problem with historical fiction, there is no indication in this movie that these two people are fabricated. I had to watch the bonus materials to find this out. This is the kind of thing that changes people's perception of history. I don't normally watch the bonus stuff and if I hadn't I would have thought that most of this was accurate. Dramatic liberties aside, Hollywood has to be careful with the big stick that it wields. I recently watched Robert Wuhl's Assume the Position again and much of what he talks about relates to this matter. Be careful Hollywood, and more importantly, be aware movie goers. You can bitch and moan all you want when a movie hasn't been adapted word for word from the book, but think about when history is changed. I'll get off my soap box now.

#96 - New York Stories

2007-01-09T20:43:00.000-06:00

I liked exactly two thirds of this movie. This is when those of you who don't know anything about it go, "HUH". Well, this is one of those movies that is actually three short films with a common theme. It's like Four Rooms, except that it was released first and there are only three segments and I haven't seen Four Rooms anyways so I don't really know that its like four rooms in any other way than structure but that was my original point so I'm rolling with it. I bet if you guess really, really hard, you could figure out what the common theme in this movie is. The thing is, they aren't movies about New York, they are movie set in New York. And remember, I only liked two thirds of it. At this point, if it isn't completely obvious what that means, then maybe your time would be better spent trying to figure out why donut holes don't really fit into the holes in donuts.

First segment: Life Lessons by Marty S. You may have forgotten because it has been awhile since reviewing some of his movies, but that's Martin Scorsese. This movie is about an established artist, played by Nick Nolte, who has hired an aspiring young artist as his assistant, played by Rosanna Arquette. Now there's some backstory of sexual relations and her doubting her artistic abilities and his ability to create something for his next show, but what really makes it all interesting is the jealousy he portrays as she tries to break free and discover her own artistic voice. There are moments when he is a mentor, there are moments when he appears to be a manipulative pervert, there are moments when his jealousy causes him to make a scene in public, and there are moments when he appears to be truly remorseful in a pitiful kind of way. I found myself wondering if he was in control of his actions, yet fueled by jealousy, or if the jealousy was in control of him and he was intentionally fueling it himself. I'm not sure if that made any sense, but we get the answer at the end of the segment, and I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Just know that it's an "OH NO YOU DINT!!" moment.

Second Segment: Life without Zoe by Francis Ford Coppola. Another classic director. It has to be good, right? NOT!! This movie about a rich couples daughter who primarily lives in a shwanky Manhattan apartment with her butler while her parents are off being rich around the globe. Apparently she's a savvy young girl who has a knack for getting things and people together to come together. In retrospect, I guess I can see some of the intricacies of the script, co-written by Franky and his daughter Sophie, but it seems like more of it was written by a young girl...like Sophie. I just couldn't wrap my head around the storyline and that's mainly because I didn't know what kind of movie it was supposed to be. Much of it has the feel of a Nickelodeon type movie with a kid main character that uses their little wiles to save the bake sale, or some shit like that. But then, it's filmed in a style that is completely different from a kids movie. It's a juxtaposition that just doesn't make sense to me because most of it is cutesy stuff that contradicts much of what I see. I found myself wondering why the hell I was watching this movie. Did Franky walk down to breakfast one day and say to Sophie, "You write something and I will direct it, just make sure it's in New York." Then he reads it and goes, "Oh shit, she wrote a fucking kids movie. I know mobsters and Joseph Conrad, not kids movies. Oh well, we can call the whole thing art, give it a limited release just before the end of the new year and hope for some Oscar buzz." Hmmm...not so much.

Third Segment: Oedipus Wrecks by Woody. For those of you that have been reading all of these reviews you may remember that Radio Days was my first Woody Allen movie, and I wasn't too impressed. Well, this little segment is more of what I was looking for. It's stereotypical Woody and I know this because all I know are his stereotypes. Insecure Jewish guy who seeks advice from his therapist because of the neuroses he has developed from the relationship with his mother. It's classic, well I think it's classic. Woody is Woody, his mother drives him crazy, and his neurotic rambling is quite entertaining. Here's the twist, and it's funny as hell, they go to a magic show where his mother is volunteered to go on stage. She gets put into a box, the magician pokes swords through, and abracadabra, she has disappeared. But when he removes the swords and opens the box, she is actually missing!! Fantastically funny moment. Especially Larry David as the stage manager. Well, she appears a couple of weeks later, but it's just her head floating in the skyline over New York City. So bizarre, yet so amusing. And it's great writing too. Most of his neurotic nature is unfounded, and when she is gone, he feels that a great weight has been lifted from his life, but then his neuroses are amplified as she tells all of Manhattan the things that drove him crazy in the first place. Julie Kavner is great as the psychic who tries to help him out. Quite amusing. And I am ending this review because I have gone on longer than I usually like to. Felt I needed to give each segment is due, even if one of them didn't have much to offer.

#95 - Star!

2007-01-04T21:41:00.000-06:00

I have made it abundantly clear in the past that I am not very fond of musicals. Rather than babble on about it again, I'll go a different route. This route is one where I say that even though I don't like the genre, I know top notch talent when I see it, and everybody knows that Julie Andrews is top notch talent. I love Mary Poppins and can deal with most of The Sound of Music, but let me tell you, I think her performance in this movie is better than the both of those. And those are classics!! This movie is over three hours long and she is on screen for a vast majority of it, and there was no moment where I felt that what she was doing was out of place, overdone, or that irritating, which in my mind is easy to do with musicals. Can you say segue?

Here's where I once again redefine what a musical is in my mind. Rather, I will explain to you why this movie is not a musical, and therefore led to my better enjoyment of it. To me, a musical is when you have a story where the characters break out into song at seemingly random, yet predictable moments. Look everybody, we are having a sleepover and I am imagining that I am Sandra Dee.....let's sing about it!! Why does Star! not fit into this category? Because it's a biopic about a stage performer. Julie Andrews plays stage legend Gertrude Lawrence and every song that she sings in this movie is a performance. You can't have a movie about Johnny Cash without music, but that doesn't mean the movie is a musical. The same rule applies here. If the movie is about a singer or band, that singer or band has to perform in the movie, but since that activity is the natural action of a singer or band, then the movie is not a musical. I'm sorry, but farmers in Oklahoma don't dance around and sing in the corn fields. By the way, that's a new rule I just came up with so if Fosberg and Chubbs could draft that up and fax it over, I could take a look at it and make it official.

The question I had about this movie was why it wasn't more popular considering the performance by Andrews. I mean, when it all comes down to it, I only thought the movie was okay. Andrews was great and Daniel Massey as Noel Coward was a tremendously entertaining foil. But why hadn't I heard of it before? I perused the net and found a summary on some site by some dude(I don't remember the details) and he seemed to think it was because the character was dependent on a relationship with a man for true happiness and this didn't sit well with the women's lib movement in the late 60's. Uhm...how can I put this...WRONG. Way to put a modern spin on something and not really watch what was there. Let's not forget that she was seeking a deep interpersonal relationship with anyone. Let's not forget that she tried to have a relationship with her daughter and that didn't work out. Sure, a lot of time was spent on her relationships with a handful of guys, but he search for a meaningful relationship was only the focus of the latter part of the movie and was clearly the result of having spent her life searching for the limelight and focusing on her own fame, only to find that she had little to show for it in the way of true friendship. I think I found the real culprit for the lack of success of this movie by reading the blockbuster.com synopsis. It says that this movie was marketed as the follow up to The Sound of Music. Oh marketing guys, why do you set yourself up for failure by trying to pull something like that? When you take a movie that is legendary and try to attach something that is completely unrelated to it, there is no way that you can possibly meet the expectations that you have established. No matter how good this movie is/was/may have been, people must have gone in thinking they were going to see something like The Sound of Music, and that is not what Star! is. Screwed up by crappy marketing. Good thing Hollywood has learned from their mistakes....ahem....

#94 - The Beastie Boys Video Anthology: Disc 1

2007-01-02T21:13:00.000-06:00

Not only has it been a while since I wrote my last review, it's been a while since I watched this DVD. A busy work schedule and the holidays have proven to be a distraction, but not to worry, football season is almost over and that means more movie watching time. Of course I make no guaruntees since there is only about a month between the end of football and the start of March Madness, and then soon after the end of basketball and hockey is right around the corner. Basically what I am saying is that you are gonna have to deal with what I give you. I ain't gettin payed, and you ain't payin nothin, so you better be happy with what you got.

As far as this DVD goes, you had to know it was coming. You could be an imperceptive moron, and if that is the case, then every day is a suprise to you, isn't it? I will iterate again about how stupid blockbuster.com can be for sending the second disc first. And for those of you who are saying, "Why don't you use Netflix?", well, blockbuster.com was cheaper at the time. They have since corrected that, but I don't feel like changing. I also have an irrational tendency to reject the trendy stuff. For example, I don't have a myspace page. I know. It's crazy. Here's another thing, I don't want to own a Razor cell phone. I must be crazy because you see those things EVERYWHERE. Most importantly, it's a good that this page isn't really a b@#g, because that is the most annoying trend of all, if not the most annoying phrase in recent history, and I wouldn't want to be a part of that.

Am I rambling on or what? I must be avoiding something. Actually, it's more of a case of not having much to say that I didn't already say for the second disc, which was the first disc I got. Good videos, good music, all the same points about the camera angles and the remixes. Blah, Blah, Blah. Here's the real scoop. I also had to break this DVD into a couple of two and a half hour segments. I watched every remix and camera angle available. The problem is that these two disc came around a time when the finances were a bit tight. In other words, I was broke. So I stayed home and did nothing for a weekend. Unfortunately, this same weekend my Xbox was broken, and the cable and internet were not working properly....for the WHOLE WEEKEND!!!! Over the three evenings of the weekend, I watch the majority of these discs and I wanted to smash my brains in. There is something known as too much of a good thing, and this was it. Too many remixes in a short period of time is enough to turn your brain into shit.

In order to make actual comments about the DVD itself, I give you this short paragraph. The different camera angles for Intergalactic are some of the best in the entire set. The Beasties in space suits running around the train stations and streets of Japan is great to watch, especially because it's crowded and the people don't know what is going on. Side note on the angles, the angle changing feature wasn't working right on this disc and it made it harder to watch them. Add that on top of what I said earlier and the rage was compounded. While Body Movin is a good video, it was never my favorite Beasties song. I didn't think it really sounded like the Beatsies and was kind of disappointed. Turns out I am an idiot because the version that has been released is the Fatboy Slim remix. I finally heard the actual song. Still not my favorite, but more like their stuff, which is good. Side note on the video, the movie that the video is a spoof of is in my queue list. Lookin forward to that one. If you don't know what the movie is, too bad!!! And in closing, the last video on this disc happened to be So Watcha Want. Another one of my all time FAVORITES by these guys, so I went home happy, figuratively speaking.

#93 - The Beastie Boys Video Anthology: Disc 2

2006-12-18T22:40:00.000-06:00

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "How in the hell is he watching Disc 2 first? He must be breaking some rule. That can't be allowed! I won't stand for it!! KILL THE MONSTER!!!" Okay, maybe the last part was a bit much, but this is a good example of how dumb Blockbuster.com can be. Sometimes when you put in a multiple disc set, it goes in to your queue in a way that the discs will only be sent in order. For some reason, this was not the case with this set and they sent disc two first. I expected that it might happen here, but I was hoping against it. I had a dilemma on my hands. I have a strict "no sequels first" rule. Along those lines, I have a strict "season 1 goes first" rule for TV DVD's. I was concerned that watching disc 2 first would break some sort of rule. The last thing I need to hear is a bunch of grief about not sticking to the rules that I myself have made up. Well, I consulted with the senior member of my legal representational firm, Fosberg & Chubbs. He told me that I was not breaking any rule since I was not disrupting any kind of chronological production release order. So, if you don't like that I watched disc 2 first, bring it up with him. I have been given explicit instructions that you must fill out all concerns in triplicate, combine it with a self addressed, stamped envelope, and shove them up your candy ass.

Let me start out by saying that I loves me some Beasties. I mean I LOVES me some Beasties. The very first CD I ever bought was Check Your Head and to this day it is my favorite Beasties album. Needless to say, I was pleased that the first video on disc 2 was for Sabotage. Not only is that one of my favorite Beastie Boy songs of all time, it might very well be their best video, EVER. For those of you who don't know, this video is the Spike Jonze directed take off on 70's TV cop drama intro's. Has nothing to do with the song, but what videos really do anymore. Besides, I don't really care because it's top notch entertainment, especially if you like bad wigs and mustaches. And the best part is that the disc has numerous alternate angles that show more video footage than you see in the final product. The video has about three story lines edited in and out. The different angles show the different stories. It's fun to watch. I can't stand it. I know you planned it.

Here's another great use for the alternate angles. The Beasties constantly employ a couple of techniques in their videos. One is that they take one long shot for the whole song and seem to ad lib everything while playing to the camera. They do this in a number of different ways, and then edit them all together. With the angles, you get to see the whole shot, which is very interesting to watch, especially the ones where they are walking along following the camera. The other technique they use is to do one take for the whole video, but they use multiple cameras for that take, and then edit them together. Well, you guessed it, you get to see the whole shot from each angle. Good stuff there.

The DVD also has a number of remixes for the songs. I am not a fan of remixes for anything, but some of the remixes were actually pretty good songs by themselves. The weren't that great and kind of hard to sit through. I watched each angle and listened to every remix individually, which took a long ass time to do. I broke it up into two viewings that were about two and a half hours each. If this was some music act that I didn't like, I don't know that I would be able to do that. In fact, I may have to veto some stuff in the future if it comes up. I vetoed the Al Green gospel music DVD, and I like Al Green. I just don't need to watch a gospel music DVD. Okay, a little off track there. It's a good DVD, lots of songs from lots of albums, mostly Pauls Boutique, Check Your Head, and Ill Communication, but there's even a song from Pollywog Stew. Talk about OLD SKOOL. It's quite enjoyable, and guess what...there's another disc coming.

#92 - American Splendor

2006-12-11T22:42:00.000-06:00

I love it. I love it. I love it. You wanna talk about something that hits all the right buttons in my brain. I love the subject matter. I love the concept for the movie. I love the presentaton of the movie. Truly fantastic, well done, imaginitive, and quite unique. It's right up my alley in so many respects. Should I continue to go on and on about it, or actually say what it is I liked about it? Right.

First of all, the movie is a bio-pic. Or is it "biopic"? No, that sounds like an eye disorder or a problem in the renal division. Anywho, this movie is the story of Harvey Pekar, who happens to be the author of the classic underground comic book that I bet if you really thought about it, you could figure out the title of. The comics, which were originally drawn by Harvey's friend R. Crumb, are essentially autobiographical tales about his life as a file clerk, and this movie is based on those stories. Oh yeah, count me in.

But here's where it gets really good, and what I think makes it unique. Harvey Pekar is excellently played by Paul Giamatti. The narrator of the movie is Harvey Pekar himself. It makes sense. He was the voice of the comics, why not be the voice of the movie. But wait, there's more. We actually get to see Harvey in the movie. And not in a halucination scene sort of way like Fear and Loathing. We see him in a documentary style interview way. So, other than what we know about Harvey from the narrative portions, we get a little deeper and more personal than we otherwise would. I think this is a fascinating technique. It's not a case of using dramatic re-enactments to support a documentary, it's documentary type elements to add more depth to a movie. Where this really gets interesting is in the case of the people around Harvey. The other characters in the movie, specifically his wife and his co-worker, are interesting characters with bizarre eccentricities and quirks that you could see coming from a comic book world. But just as honest as Giamatti's performance is about who Harvey Pekar is, so are his co-stars. And we know this because the people they are based on are in the movie as well. It's fascinating to see what appears to be odd caricatures turn out to be real people. It's fascinating. It's funny. It's touching. It's well made in all aspects. Oh, and there's discussion about the social ramifications of Revenge of the Nerds.

#91 - Adaptation

2006-12-05T20:32:00.000-06:00

I loves me some Charlie Kaufman. I loved Being John Malkovich. I thoroughly enjoyed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I haven't seen his others. What I love about his movies is how he is able to take an abstract concept and present it in a naturalistic setting using masterful levels of humor and quirkiness. What you then get is a movie that has interweaving elements of humor that is not quite at a dark comedy level, abstraction that's completely real to the world that has been created, and a surreality that actually combines the two together. He does not juxtapose reality and abstraction in order for us to step away from reality and view the differences through a lens. Instead, through his use of surreality, he combines the two together so that we can see, feel, and learn from the inside. On the surface we are given the unusual, the odd, the quirky, the offbeat, the peculiar. But more importantly, we are given a foundation of internal honesty that is at the very core of everything he presents to us. It's fantastic. It's dynamic. It's infinitely entertaining, and this movie may be the most honest of the ones I have seen because it is so introspective.

Let's see, how to describe this movie? The movie is based on the book The Orchid Thief, so you have that story involved, but the main character is actually Charlie Kaufman himself. Stick with me here, but the actual story of the movie Adaptation is about Charlie Kaufman writing the screenplay for the movie Adaptation. How good is that? Seriously. Wrap your brain around that for a bit. Is that not the best thing you have heard of in a while? At first, you think that the clips of the story you see is what he is writing. Pretty straightforward storytelling. Nothing different there. But, much of what we see at first is Kaufman's struggles with adapting a book that really isn't a story into a story without going too Hollywood with it. What's fascinating about this is that you, the viewer, know that he is writing the movie you are watching, but Charlie Kaufman the character does not. That's all I am going to say about the story. The last quarter of the movie is fantastic, especially once you realize what is going on. I give you the premise. I tell you it's good. But you must go see the movie, because it is even better than what I have said here, and besides, trying to explain it all would take longer than I am willing to give. And you should see it anyways.

A couple of things I want to touch on here. First, as good as Charlie Kaufman is at writing, I am eternally thankful that there are delightful lunatics out there in the world like Spike Jonze to make the writing work. I am also eternally thankful that there can be at least one music video director that doesn't make shitty looking movies, and the movies he chooses to make are Charlie Kaufman's. Secondly, the character of Charlie's brother Donald is fantastic. You see, Donald isn't a real person, yet he is credited as a co-writer, was nominated for an Oscar, and actually has an imdb.com page. That is terrific. And the fake brother being Charlie's internal alter ego with a Hollywood mentality is great. And he's Charlie's twin, also played by Nicolas Cage, and here's the crazy thing, they play well off of each other. How is that possible? The interaction Cage has with his two characters is tremendous and I can't even begin to think about how difficult that is to play off of somebody that you are going to play later. This is one of those movies that Nicolas Cage does that can make me forget and forgive the piles of turd he puts out there like Con Air and Gone In Sixty Seconds. These are the kinds of things he should be remembered for.

#90 - Bad Santa

2006-11-27T23:11:00.000-06:00

It was actually the unrated directors cut packaged as Badder Santa. But I protest that name due to the fact that if there was to ever be a sequel to this movie, it should be titled Badder Santa. But they ruined it. Now they are stuck with Bad Santa 2. Snooze. And they can't use Even Badder Santa because that's what should be used to complete the trilogy. And while I'm on the subject, can we stop with the cute ways we title the unrated DVD releases? Seriously. Uncorked Edition? That's not even a play on words. It's not even witty. It's not even a freakin pun. Besides, I have come to the opinion that an "unrated directors cut" doesn't mean a goddamn thing. I'm sorry, but a different shot of a kid humping a pie is not the drastic change to the movie that the title implies. And it sure as hell doesn't warrant two versions to be released in stores. And speaking of two versions, if you are going to release Pan and Scan movies with the same cover as the Widescreen, PLEASE do a better job of distinguishing between the two so I don't have to go back to Target and try to return an opened copy of Batman Begins. Is that too much to ask? On another note, isn't Lauren Graham hot?

Seriously, huge crush on Lauren Graham. Partly because she's easy on the eyes, but she's funny too. From News Radio, to Celebrity Poker, and late night talk show appearances, I like her a lot. I've even watched bits and pieces of Gilmore Girl reruns, but I have to change the channel quickly before the fast paced, back and forth prattling between her and Becky give me an aneurysm. So, I got a picture of her showing a little tushy and some tongue, even if it is a foreign poster. I wasn't gonna get a Badder Santa photo. And here's the interesting thing about her in the movie, compared to the delightful lunacy that sums up everyone else's characters, she appears to be the only normal person in the whole thing. BUT, and that's a huge interjection, her kinky little fetish might make her the craziest one of all. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but her "catchphrase" is one of the funniest, bestest, most unexpected things I have seen in a while. You wanna talk about coming out of nowhere. Fantastically amusing.

This whole movie was amusing. It's a dark comedy, which I like, and has a tiny bit of absurdity thrown in just to keep you guessing. I mean COME ON, that kid is one of the oddest creatures being passed off as a human being that I have ever seen on film. Was he written that way? Cause if he was, that kid pulled off a hell of a performance, cause he's just weird. And speaking of good performances, John Ritter was fantastic. It's a shame that he passed away during filming because I would have loved to have seen how he was meant to fit in to the rest of the movie.

I will admit that I wanted a little more from Billy Bob Thornton's character. As rude and crude as he is, I was expecting a little more rude, and a lot more crude. I guess it just didn't quite push the envelope for me enough, but I recognize that as personal preference and not neccessarily anything wrong with the movie. In all honesty, I think he was put on this earth to play this role. He was fantastic. The scene where he cusses out the mom and kid while he eats his lunch is making me laugh just thinking about it. The piece of lettuce that hangs off his mouth as he barks out at the two is such a fantastic and hilarious moment, that if I forget everything about this movie, I will always remember that part. Well, that and Lauren Graham's line.

#89 - Comic Book Villains

2006-11-25T17:12:00.000-06:00

I think I can. I think I can. I wish I could. I wish I could. Ah ..... oh ..... ahhhh ...... uhmmm ........ not quite. Sorry. This is the little cult movie that couldn't. It wants to. It wants to in the worst way. It has a lot of things going in its favor. Things that definitely help in the desire to be a cult favorite type movie. But there are a number things about it that get in the way and it inevitably falls just short.

For those of you who don't know, and I am assuming this means all of you, I'll give a brief plot summary. In Smalltown, USA, we have two rival comic book shops. One is run by Donal Logue, a lifetime comic book purist. The other is run by Michael Rapaport and is more successful because they also sell toys, stickers, etc. A rich kid comic book fan lets both of them in on a secret collection of comic books that was owned by a recently deceased resident of their very town. What follows is are the cutthroat attempts by these two rivals to own this holy grail of comic book collections. I like to think of it as a dad in a crappy family sitcom on Fox versus a dad in a crappy family sitcom on Fox.

Sounds like a good premise, but where everything goes wrong is that it doesn't make up it's mind about what kind of movie it wants to be. There's a bit of the movie that attempts to be in the same vein as a Kevin Smith movie, especially parts of Mallrats and Chasing Amy, but the writing isn't quite up to par with Smith's. In Kevin Smith movies, the characters have legitimate literary debates about characters, storylines, and artwork. In this movie, it's more about how much comic book trivia Logue's character knows. Not as amusing, or effective.

Ultimately, this movie is a dark comedy because these people go to pretty extreme measures to obtain a fortune in comic book gold. This is fine. I would have no problems with that if they maintained the style throughout the movie. For example, there are scenes that have a quirky musical score playing underneath them. It's kind of like a Danny Elfman score, but more from Pee Wee's Big Adventure than any of his other stuff, and not as good. An Elfman sound would have fit a dark comedy, but they chose the wrong one to emulate, and the one they did doesn't fit with the Kevin Smith-esque moments. And then there is Cary Elwes' character, who we first see in a strip club drinking beer watching his girlfriend dance. He kind of treats her rudely, but that's okay because he's the heavy. He is the one Logue hires to steal the comics. You see, he's a bad guy, and we know this. Given that, I am at a loss to find the reasoning behind the scene where he is lying with his girlfriend, in the house he is renovating, talking about where he is going to put her music studio because he is doing all of this for her. Awwwww, it's so sentimental and unbelievably out of place for this movie, and his character. He's the tough guy. He's the mean bad ass. If you put an emotional aspect to his character into the movie, you have to keep it in the movie beyond the scene where you introduce it. Otherwise, that scene is an anomaly and should have been cut.

There is a lot of stuff in this movie that I really like. The relationship between Michael Rapaport and Natasha Lyonne is quite odd. I would have liked to have seen more. Donal Logue's character turns out to be really sleazy, skeezy, and pretty interesting, I would have liked to have seen it used better. And in my opinion, Danny Masterson is underused, while DJ Qualls is overused. This is probably because I like Masterson more, but he also seems to have the right wiring in his head for a dark comedy. Plus, the movie uses DJ Qualls as the narrator and apparently the main character, but really, the story revolves around Logue, so less Qualls would have worked. I guess what it all boils down to is that I would have told the story differently, or at least tweaked the screenplay in a number of ways.

#88 - The Secret Lives of Dentists

2006-11-21T21:24:00.000-06:00

From foreign art house movies, we transition into independent films. When I made comments about art movies can only be art if they are foreign, that wasn't completely true. It's high art that is foreign dramas. The regular art, which is all we could possibly hope to produce in America, is available in the form of indie films. You see, there are obvious layers of art, and along with them come layers of pretentious people who are their champions. Therefore, my thick sarcasm. But as you come down from on high, things become more tolerable. What I am saying is that I like indie movies. I think that they are the source of some of the most imaginative and innovative work being done. But people can be just as snobbish about their indies as others can be about their art house flicks. Now that I sound like a broken record, which is probably more annoying than the people I am blabbering about, I think it's best that I talk about the movie I watched, especially since it's a good one.

I thought about why the creators of this movie chose dentists to show the secret lives of. I'll get more into it later, but the movie isn't about dentists specifically. Instead, it's a story about what may be happening to these people outside of the their office. Given that, I felt that it could have been any kind of medical doctor. The Secret Lives of Pediatricians. The Secret Lives of General Practitioners. The Secret Lives of Anesthesiologists. You get the point. For me the idea of a doctor as being the cheerful person you go see when you have problems and don't really know much about them beyond that is something that works regardless of what type of medicine they practice. But as I thought about it a little more, the relationship one has with a dentist is a unique one. You sit there with your mouth open, unable to talk while your dentist is picking and scratching away at your mouth. And yet you are able to maintain a conversation about whatever comes up. Also, if all goes well, you see your dentist more often then other doctors, and when you do, they are right in your face. It's a pretty personal, face to face relationship, yet you know very little about them beyond the moments you are in the chair, which is a pretty comfy chair. So, I think the choice of dentist is quite an interesting one.

But as I said, this isn't about what we know of our dentists. The main characters in this movie are a married couple and are both dentists that share an office. This adds an interesting dynamic because the story is about what happens as their marriage falls apart. This is a warning because a lot of the movie deals with the husband and his assumptions about his wife's infidelity. It's pretty brutal to watch at times because the signs are right there, yet he doesn't ask because he's afraid of what would have to happen if it were true. But here's the thing, this has some elements of a dark comedy, which make it that much better. Dennis Leary plays a patient that has some dental work that goes bad, so he confronts him about it in the ways that only Dennis Leary can. But after that, Leary becomes the devil on the shoulder of the guy as he tries to ignore the signs and keep his family together. It's great to watch Leary try to get this guy to just take a stand and lash out, while the guy attempts to maintain his mild mannered ways. It's a fascinating movie. Serious moments, humorous moments, and even some moments of delerium all add up to a pretty interesting and entertaining slice of life/character study sort of thing with a quirky little tweak to it. I recommend that everybody take a look at it, unless the infidelity issues would hit a little too close to home because some of those moments are pretty brutal to watch.

#87 - El Dia Que Me Amen

2006-11-15T21:52:00.000-06:00

Just what you always wanted. It's more art!! While this movie is not a Film Movement selection, it clearly displays the inherit danger of my selection process. It is very easy to get caught in a genre rut. It's like the time a while back when I was stuck watching crappy Don Bluth cartoons that proved his work on Rats of Nimh and some others may have been an anomaly. Did I just use the word "proved" and "may" in the same sentence about the same subject? And it was only two movies, but it seemed like SO much more. Anyways, getting caught in a foreign drama/art house rut is not exactly the kind of thing that I look forward to. Of course, I have to remember that part of the reason for doing all of this is to be surprised by movies I wouldn't normally watch, otherwise known as The Search for Before Sunrise. This movie is a prime example of when that search goes well.

I don't exactly remember what the title translates into. Something about the day I fall in love, or something like that. And look at that picture. Love in the title and a romancy looking cover don't bode well. I am already not a fan of romances and there are obviously inherent dangers in even liking one. But this is not a romance. Sure, there are issues with love and all that crap, but it is by no means the point of the movie. The main character is a man suffering from a depression that is so severe that he is unable to leave the house. The story begins when his long gone childhood friend returns home and they are reunited. These two characters provide an interesting juxtaposition wherein we have a character who can't leave his house next to a character who has traveled the world, and yet neither of them are able to sustain meaningful relationships with those around them, not to mention their families. It really is an interesting contrast.

Now I know what you are thinking. You're thinking that a movie with a main character suffering from depression can't help but be bordering on the edge of over dramatic. Okay, maybe that's just me, but it was a concern because I just wasn't really in the mood to sit through anything like that. Thankfully, this is a different story. Joaquin(that's his name) isn't in the usual self loathing, introspective, emotionally wrought kind of depression. It's more of a fear to take a risk and connect with the outside world that has caused him, in his mind, to waste his life at such an early age. He spends much of the early part of the movie almost numb and dazed, but there is something in his eyes that a real person is still in there. You can't help but get behind this guy and root for him to at least break through, if not get completely better. He is aided by his childhood friend, who is struggling to overcome her emotional hangups, which means instant drama. It really is an entertaining movie filled with humor, charm, and a tremendous character that is done with the perfect mix of subtlety and measured energy, if that makes any sense. I was quite pleased with the whole thing.

#86 - Viva Laldjerie

2006-11-13T22:17:00.000-06:00

Oh boy!! More art. This is another Film Movement selection, but I was able to find a picture that wasn't from the collection, and that's what I went with. And of course, it has all the elements that have been discussed in previous reviews: foreign + dramatic = art. More art than you know what to do with. More art than you can shake a stick at. More art than you can legally use to turn your nose up at others with. So put your scarf on, even if it's during the summertime, and let's go watch a film.

Now that I have said my standard and predictable diatribe about art house movies, I will say that this movie isn't that bad. Of course, I am comparing it to the tediousness of Raja. While this may not be a fair comparison because they are two different movies attempting to do two different things, it's what I did, and you'll just have to deal with it. What makes it good is that it's not Raja, and what makes it bad is that it's just okay. Well, bad isn't the right term because it isn't really a bad movie. I did have some problems with it, which in some cases may be due to my lack of knowledge about current events in Algeria.

The main character of the movie is a young girl whose name I can't remember, so we'll call her Viva. She lives with her mother, a former cabaret star who will go by the name of Laldjerie, or Jerry for short. What we get is a story about tradition versus modern times with a bit of western culture versus traditional Islam versus modern perceptions of Islam, all set in the city of Algiers. The story about Jerry is quite fascinating because she was apparently a huge cabaret star who has faded into past due to modern times and the taboo nature of what she used to do. Her search for validity and a connection to her past is quite interesting. It's Viva's character that I can't wrap my head around and since she's the main character, that doesn't bode well for my overall impression of the film. At the start of the movie, she appears to be an irresponsible young slut, but for some reason that doesn't last. She is a little bit at odds with her mother, but it's hard to say why other than the usual generation gap, which isn't that exciting to watch. She has a guy from the neighborhood who has a crush on her and borders on the edge of stalking, but nothing really happens with that. The more I think about it, she appears to be nothing more than a catalyst for what goes on around her. Some of her actions inadvertently cause others harm, but she doesn't know that she is responsible, so no lesson learned. Since I am unable to truly grasp the impetus behind the main character, I find it hard to truly enjoy the whole movie, even though there are a lot good things going on in it.

I would like to take this time to respond to a few comments made by some regular readers of this page known to you all as Fosberg and Chewy. It is in regards to my review of the movie The Notebook. Apparently, my manhood has been brought into question due to my positive review, however hesitant I was to say it. I believe the initial comment by Chewy had to do with renting the movie as oppossed to just catching it on cable. According to him, this would make me a girl. Of course the implication of his statement is such that would make one believe that Chewy watched the film on cable and of his own free will as opposed to a random selection, which is how I came to watch it. This would make Chewy much more of a girl than I. In response to all of this, Fosberg decided to throw in his two cents, declaring that what Chewy was saying was that I was a girl for actually liking the movie. Well, I hate to say it, but it seems to me that this is in no way way what Chewy was saying. Rather, I feel that this is a comment that was thrown in by Fosberg in a unrelated piggyback tactic that does not properly defend the merit of Chewy's initial argument, yet gives a "point" to Chewy. To which Chewy has since chimed in with his agreement. Well....I only have two responses. First, I thought that I made it clear that I was conflicted about the movie. I felt that I expressed myself quite clearly about enjoying a certain aspect about the film that was good enough to carry my interest through the uninteresting romance segments. I also felt that I was able to convey an appreciation for the work done on the movie, even though it is not my favorite genre. It isn't easy to step outside my own likes and dislikes to see the level of work done by others. Secondly, if you two bi-coastal butt buddies aren't man enough sac up and admit when you like shit that you normally don't like, then keep it to your damn self and don't bring your insecurities down onto me. Remember Chewy, you are the one who caught movie on cable, probably sitting alone in the dark with a pillow and some popcorn. And Fosberg, if you think I am a girl for liking this movie, why don't just come out and say it instead of "riding the backside" of someone else's comment. I guess if you are gonna hide your balls somewhere, Chewy's backside is as good as anywhere else.

That is all. I have said my peace. Let the shit storm begin.

#85 - The Notebook

2006-11-08T22:45:00.000-06:00

Um...I don't really know how to go about saying this. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. But you might want to lock the doors, pull the shades, turn out the lights, put the kids to bed early, call in sick, consult a physician, know your cuts of meat, use only as directed, have your pets spayed or neutered, and most important, don't lick the poison frogs. You see, I liked this movie. NO!! WAIT!! I see why people would like this movie. No...dammit...I don't know. I think I liked it, and I don't like thinking that I liked it. But I didn't really like it because it's just an okay movie, and I LOATHE romances. Here's the key to it all: I really enjoyed a certain part of the movie that, while only a little part of the movie in terms of time, was good enough to carry the rest of the movie for me. I'll explain.

The main story, otherwise known as the RHO-mance, is set in the 1940's and involves a blue collar lumberyard worker and the young daughter of a well to do financier/businessman/rich guy. Heard this one before? OF COURSE YOU HAVE. There was nothing really new about the story at all. Guy sees girl, instant attraction met with instant rejection, eventual acceptance after some sort of a irregular behavior, activity or stunt, whirlwind romance, disapproval by the rich kids parental units, eventual fight and separation, years of sadness, longing, and resentment, and then the obligatory "random" re-introduction. Otherwise known as BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. The acting for the main story is well done, as is the directing, and even the dialogue is worth noting because none of it a sappy or over dramatic, even if it is the same old story.

Now, it's the side story involving James Garner and Gena Rowlands that really did it for me. Rowlands plays a woman suffering from dementia and Garner plays a man who keeps her company by reading her a story, which happens to be the main story of the movie. It is an absolutely fascinating relationship that develops itself quite well throughout the entire movie. If it was not for these two characters, I would have cared very little for this movie, but as I said earlier, it was their story that kept me so engaged in the movie that my attention was held during the same old love story. This is significant. It's like watching a bad movie just because there is a hot chick in it, except it's operating on a bit of a different level.

Finally, there is something I have to mention. Some of you know that I strongly dislike people who make a big deal out of simple editing incontinuities. I won't get into it again, but it ups the level of irritation in my body, which is already a little shaky. ANYWAYS, I have a simple note. A slight suggestion if you will. If you are shooting a scene at a carnival set in the 1940's, make sure that the modern day ride where people are riding in SPACESHIPS is NOT in the background. The ferris wheel is fine and quite appropriate. But other than a carousel, there is no ride that I can ride in the present day that should have been seen in that movie, much less one with freakin spaceships on it.

#84 - Raja

2006-11-01T22:27:00.000-06:00

Here we have another movie from those crazy cats at Film Movement. You may remember my review of Falling Angels. That's the Film Movement movie that I really enjoyed, recommended that you seek it out...and nobody did. Don't try to tell me you tried. I know the truth. You're all fans of Rock-a-Doodle and got pissed off when I thought it sucked and figured I must suck too. Be that as it may, I will iterate again...nay...I will reiterate that people should take the time to watch falling Angels. And on that note, Raja is nothing like Falling Angels.

As I am sure I mentioned before, Film Movement movies are art house movies, which due to my prejudiced cynicism, the pretentious alarm starts going off in my head almost instantly. You get those people who turn their nose up at Hollywood movies just because they are from Hollywood. They turn their nose up at anything with a budget because in some way money can't translate into art, or even good movies. I know I'm generalizing here, but so are they, so that's what you get. So what makes a movie art? Well, first and foremost, it HAS to be foreign. This is crucial. It is imperative. Secondly, it has to be a drama because comedies are in no way an art form, unless it is a dark comedy or a social satire. Rule of thumb for this is that if you laugh out loud while watching the movie, it cannot be art. Finally, a movie is art if you can't eat popcorn while watching it, other wise known as the Eddie Izzard rule. Raja passes all of these rules with flying colors.

To this point you may have sensed a tone of dislike in this review. That may be because it is normal for me to rant and rave like I have been doing after I have watched something I disliked...or more accurately...hated. Do be clear, I did not hate this movie. The acting, writing, directing, and everything else is exactly what it needed to be in order to tell the story as it was desired to be told. What I have a particular distaste for is the genre. This is the first modern European drama I have ever watched and it fits the stereotype perfectly. It's stiff and rigid. It has a tremendous amount of internal angst wrapped around pent up desires and jealousy. Oh my god, the desire is thick, but nobody does anything. The two main characters play little games to make each other jealous, and apparently it worked because they hated each other at some point. It's hard to explain because according to the story there is a crapload of strong emotion, but it is pretty much all internal and in my mind had little justification. In other words...SNOOZE. I just don't get the appeal.

I think what made it hard was that one character spoke French and the other spoke Arabic, which to my untrained ear are both just foreign languages that couldn't be less discernible. So it seemed like they couldn't communicate at the beginning or in the middle, but at the end, they were communicating. Did I miss something? And if I did miss something, when the hell did I miss it? Sure, this movie had an underlying background about class differentiation in a post-colonial Morocco which apparently led to a heightened intensity of these two people's supposed passion as well as making their relationship that much more unconventional and taboo. That's all fine and dandy, but one would think these things could have been talked about in a more palatable format. I mean, can somebody do something? Can somebody actually say something instead of fucking around with indirect dialogue and heaping spoonfuls of subtext? PLEASE?

#83 - House of Flying Daggers

2006-10-18T21:59:00.000-05:00

This review is historic. WHY? Well, this is the very first review that I am writing in the same day that I have watched the movie being reviewed. What a concept. And it only took 82 other times to make it happen. Sure, I could have done it before, but it seems like lately if I don't write something the day of viewing, it may take a week or so before I can get to it. So, here we have it. I make no guarantees that it will be any better, and don't get used to it either. Just thought it was worth mentioning since it's obviously rare.

I love all of these Asian historical epics. I find them fascinating, well written, well acted, and the cinematography is some of the most amazing work you will ever see. I am a sucker for historical epics in the first place. The fact that these movies are in a foreign language and about a history that I know next to nothing about is of little import. I loved Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I loved Hero. I loved Kung Fu Hustle. Okay, that last one was a bad example, but it's still a fun movie. What I particularly enjoy about the Asian epics is that they take a moment in history and create a world that includes a little mythology, a little bit of fable, and a little bit of good ol' storytelling. The great thing with the movies I have seen is that they all seem to use these elements in different, yet amazingly effective ways in order to tell their stories. This movie is no less amazing, and go figure, it's from the director of Hero. I didn't know that until I got the picture for this review, but I can definitely see some similarities of visual aesthetics and style.

Here's the shocker with this movie: it's a romance. But this ain't yer daddy's romance. In fact, you don't even realize what it is until late in the picture when you have been sucked in by the story and extremely stylized combat scenes. By that time you are drawn in by the intensity of the situation that has been established. But it's not done by bait and hook. The only reason that it is so unexpected is because it's not what I expected to see from this genre. I was caught up in excellent fights, beautiful imagery, and what appeared to be a story about miltary vs. fugitives. As I have said before, I am not a big fan of romances. But when a movie portrays a romance in a unique way, I find it to be quite entertaining. This is the case with this movie. And another thing, I've barely talked about the beauty of the film and I sure as hell haven't said anything about the ending, both of which are quite notable, but I want you to see for yourself.

#82 - The Circuit 2

2006-10-17T23:31:00.000-05:00

Here's the thing, when I watched the first Circuit movie, I knew that this one was soon to follow. So when that movie completely sucked, as shocking as that may have been to you, I knew that there were difficult times ahead of me. But it didn't come right away and when it did I got ridiculously busy at work, which you may have figured out due to the lack of reviews lately. I mean come on, three reviews in September is kind of sad. Anyways, this movie came and sat next to my TV that whole time. And I knew it was going to be bad. And I knew that I was eventually going to watch it. And the buildup was horrible. It just sat there, and as I came and went, I would look at it, knowing the pain that was in store for me. And it knew what I knew. And I knew that it knew what I knew. And the negative anticipation built up as the weeks went by until finally........I watched this movie. The entire thing. And I gotta tell you, it sucked just like I knew it would. Interesting thing about it was that it was better than the first one, while still sucking, and for the exact same reasons that the first one sucked. If that makes any sense.

You want to know how you know that the movie you are watching is a crap movie? The actor with second billing is Mr. Falcon Crest himself. That's right, your Renegade and mine: Lorenzo Lamas. Here's the rub on ol' Double L, as bad as he is, and he is bad, in the context of this kind of movie, he's actually pretty good. It may not make sense, but I think I can explain. Let's say that Double L's talent is like a walnut and the quality of a movie is like a box one might put that walnut in. A good movie might be like a box for...let's say...a refrigerator. A walnut in a box that size is really insignificant and almost unnecessary. But a movie like this might be like a box for...let's say...a pocket watch. Pretty big deal, wouldn't you say?

So, the exciting plot of this movie is that the girlfriend the main character got in the first movie is investigating an underground fighting "circuit" involving inmates from various local prisons. She gets caught and beaten and our hero goes undercover to fight his way to the truth and get his revenge. The fights, which this movie is presumably all about, are just as bad as the fights in the first movie. And it uses the same technique of using the same fighters over and over, even though the "circuit" is supposed to be dangerous enough to die in. And the final fight that takes place on a beach in the crashing waves is unbelievable. It is a bad idea compounded by bad technique and bad editing. But really, at that point, a bad ending is actually a good ending because it is the ending.

I do have a favorite part in this movie. It's quite a gem. Double L plays the editor for our main characters girlfriend. After she gets beat up, Double L and Olivier go to investigate something. When they get to their car, they are confronted by a gang of thugs who, and this is the best thing in the world, are upset about an article that was written about them in the paper. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!! That's it!!! Gang bangers sitting around at home, reading the Times, and one of them takes umbrage. I can picture it right now. "I ain't writin' no mutha fuckin letter to the editor! I'm meetin that bitch in the parking lot!!" Or would that be "letta to the editta"? Priceless nonetheless.

#81 - Star Spangled Rhythm

2006-10-11T19:05:00.000-05:00

So, here we have the second movie from a Bob Hope Classics DVD. If you you read the My Favorite Blonde review(It's #80...you should be able to find it), you know that I enjoy watching Bob Hope perform and the idea of seeing more was a good one to me. So...when was he going to show up? Seriously, I was watching this movie under the assumption that I was going to see Bob Hope, yet he was nowhere to be found. I thought to myself, "What the hell is going on here?" How do you have a movie in a Bob Hope tribute DVD...AND NOT HAVE HIM IN IT!?!?!? Well, the answer is simple. It's not really a Bob Hope movie. In fact, it's something altogether different. But he does show up, so I guess it counts. Lets put To Kill A Mockingbird in the Robert Duvall collection. Let's put Father's Day in the Mel Gibson collection. Let's put Home Alone in the John Candy collection. Let's put Arachnaphobia in the John Goodman collection. Get my point?

What we have here is a veritable who's who of Paramount Studios from back in the day when actors, directors, and writers were contracted to individual studios. Mary Martin. Dick Powell. Alan Ladd. Dorothy Lamour. Veronika Lake. Fred MacMurray. Hope and Crosby. Preston Sturges. Cecil B. Demille. And there are tons more. How could they possibly cram all of these stars into one movie? Well, all you need is a paper thin storyline about a young man in the military on shore leave visiting his father who works at the Paramount lot. I could go into details about the story, but there really is no point because that's not what this movie is about. As I was watching this movie, I felt as though I was in the middle of a two hour advertisement for Paramount Studios. Cameos galore, numerous styles of musicals numbers that are placed into the film in various contrived ways, and a number of different comedy scenes and routines that are also placed in the film in their own special ways. It's weird. I didn't like the premise cause it seemed so obvious what they were doing, but the scenes and numbers were very well written and well done and fun to watch. Upon a teeny bit of poking around, I found that this was Paramounts first effort to make a film for soldiers fighting in the war. Given that, I can't frown on this film because it does what it was intended to do. I just wish it was a more complete movie, like National Velvet.

You know what I like about some of these older movies that have show within a show type performances? I like it when the shows are supposedly thrown together at the last minute, and then the production value is absolutely top notch. Huge sets, special effects, the whole shebang, and thrown together overnight. I understand that I am bringing up something unimportant to the point of the movie, and honestly, I hate people who bring up these kinds of points as a negative aspect for a film. You know those people. The kind of people who complain about weak character development in summer blockbusters. The kind of people who complain about editing continuity errors. Sometimes, and I do mean sometimes, these things don't really matter. In the case of this movie, I happen to find it amusing, mostly because I'm in the entertainment business and I know that putting something like that together takes MONTHS of planning and WEEKS of preparation.

Do you ever get the feeling that sometimes I am not writing a review and instead I am rambling on about random topics related to movies that only sort of relate to the movie I watched and therefore I end up not saying much about the movie at all? Yeah, me too.

#80 - My Favorite Blonde

2006-09-28T23:54:00.000-05:00

Oh...to be pleasantly suprised when you aren't paying attention. Some of you may remember WAAAAAAAAY back in the early reviews when I watched a few movies about homosexual topics. Admittedly, I am a little bit homophobic and since I wasn't paying attention...well...you can read the reviews yourself. In the case of My Favorite Blonde, I was not paying attention...again. When it cleared my queue and was sent to me, I was assuming I was going to get stuck with a lame Hollywood musical that would leave me beating myself in the face with a rusty metal spatula in order to take away from the pain of what I was watching. In other words, what I should have been doing while watching Bus Stop. Instead, I pull the DVD out of the envelope and see the classic profile drawing of Bob Hope. A strong "WHEW" soon followed.

I love Bob Hope. You have to. Even if you don't like golf. Unfortunately, most of my exposure to him is in the later years of his life. His cameo in Spies Like Us, for example. I've seen clips from when he hosted the Oscars and other appearance on the television. I have seen bits and pieces of some of Hope and Crosby's "road" movies, but that was SO long ago, I remember little of it other than a song sung on the back of a camel. If you couldn't figure it out, I was excited to watch this movie.

Usually, when I have a long, positive buildup, it is quickly followed by a review explaining how the movie was the exact opposite of what I expected. This is because I am a hack writer, and I don't know any better. Well, I am here to tell you that in this case, the movie was just okay. Is that an amazing break in my formula or what? The movie has its moments, and it's entertaing and all, but I can't say that there are any moments that are hysterically funny. Mostly, it's amusing at best.

I guess it's mostly due to the fact that I am not the biggest fan of ramantic comedies, but can be a sucker for them, which makes me sick, but that's the way it is. But this isn't exactly the ramantic comedy that we are used to today. I wonder if I didn't like it more because of the fact that Hope doesn't have Crosby to work against. He has plenty of one liners that he delivers with his own unique style, and I think that his ability to give some of them directly to the camera is only better by the genius of Groucho Marx, but it still wasn't enough to make this movie great.

Oh, there is a cameo by Mr. Crosby himself, and it is quite amusing. Probably the best moment of the movie. I think that speaks volumes when the best part of a movie starring a solo performer from a comedy team is the short cameo with their partner.

#79 - My Neighbors the Yamadas

2006-09-19T22:39:00.000-05:00

"Konichiwa Bitches!" Did you miss me? Haven't been able to watch many DVD's because work has been insane lately. That's right, some of us have to work. We can't all hang out in Kodiak, AK. We can't all go to renaissance fairs on the east coast. We can't all sell candles in St. Louis. We can't all get stuck in a 4/4-12bar-autopilot. I don't even know what the hell that means. But it sounds painful? The point is, I just haven't been able to keep up on this little dog and pony show I have here. I have a couple of DVD's to review, this being one of them, and I hope to watch a couple this week, but I make no guarantees. Also, it doesn't look like work is going to be slowing up any time soon, so you'll just have to deal with it. Oh yeah, football season means no movie watching on Sundays until sometime after January. If you can't deal with it, all I can do is give you the words of a co-worker: "Suck it up and walk it off".

We gots us here some more cartoons. But instead of being another crappy Don Bluth cartoon, it's a Japanese cartoon with dubbed english, much like Princess Mononoke. But that's where the similarities end. This is not anime. As you can see from the picture, it doesn't even look like the anime style. There are some moments where you see it, but for the most part this looks like Family Circus: Japan Edition. The animation style is quite interesting because you have the family members front and center and some of the background, but it doesn't fill up the whole screen. It kind of floats on the screen that in a way that is reminiscent of the way the episodic vignettes flow from one to another. Some are short little jokes, while others have longer story lines. The interesting thing is that there are moments when they break away from this style into a completely different style for that scene. It reminded me of Waking Life, but it was only for a couple of scenes and not the whole movie. Visually it was interesting, but I can't say that I could see any reason for it, but that may be a cultural thing. Think of how Kung Fu Hustle jumped in and out of styles, but not as extreme.

Overall, this movie was amusing. I can't give the best reviews to Jim Belushi and Molly Shannon for the english voices, because they were either annoying or didn't fit the character. But I found myself seeing something different from what I expect to see in this kind of movie. Usually, I expect a movie like this to be more sarcastic or darkly absurd. But there is some bitterness and some really vicious things that go on in this movie, and it's truly bizarre to watch these thing happen in a sunday morning Family Circus type of package. This is where the cultural difference really hit me. I found myself wondering if a Japanese audience and look at some of our things and think that they done in an odd way. In a way, it took me out of the movie because I was focusing on how it was different from what I was used to, and not watching it for what it was.

Usually I hate it when I think too much about a movie as it is going on, unless the movie is asking me to do so. I like to be in the moment and take what they are giving as they give it. In other words, I try my best to go on the journey that the filmmakers are trying to take me on. As you know, it doesn't always work out that way. When it is because I am analyzing the film, I don't like it. It takes away from that journey, and when it's my fault, which in this case it is, I get disgruntled with myself. To make a long story short, I don't think I gave this movie it's full due. I think it's worth another look at some point. I would recommend it if you are an animation buff, but it's not really anything you wanna get a bunch of friend over to watch for a bunch of laughs.

#78 - The Circuit

2006-09-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

How in the hell did this get into my queue? You all can see what has come to me and it doesn't make any damn sense that this should be delivered. Whats even more crazy is that I know whats coming and it doesnt make sense that this would be there. There's random, and then there is this. Normally I wouldn't mind except for this is one of the worst movies I have seen in quite some time. To say that it is a straight to video classic would be giving it too much credit. To say that it is perfect for late nate premium cable channels would be giving it too much credit. I can't believe they even try to make movies like this anymore. Do we need any more low budget movies about underground fighting rings with cutthroat fight promoters and a natural fighter of European descent who doesn't want to fight but does in order to save a loved one? And lets not forget the other really good fighter who is the bad guy fighter and is usually flamboyant and Asian. Yes people, it's that kind of movie.

You know what I was thinking when I was watching this movie? I was thinking, "Get off my dick you fucking snake". Wait...that's not it...that was something else. What I was actually thinking was, "Betty White just Shatner pants". No...no...that wasn't it either. Let's see here...oh yeah, I was really thinking was, "We gave the mighty Thor a rusty trombone". No, that wasn't it. Let me think here. Oh yeah, I was thinking, "If my grandma looked like that, I'd wanna fuck Jack Palance". Alright, that wasn't it either. In all honesty, what was running through my mind was this movie was just like Kickboxer, except it didn't have the same "masterful" script writing...or acting...or directing.

How do you write a review of an obviously bad movie? You could say what was wrong with it, but LOOK AT IT!!! What do you expect from a movie that has the tag line "No rules. No limits. No survivors."? First of all, that shot you see of the fighting arena with the Medeival Times stripe on the wall is the ONLY shot you have for the whole movie. Sure there are close ups and some crowd shots with bad crowd noises dubbed over, but all the shots are from the same direction. And the fights suck. With movies like this you wanna at least some cool moves, or some tricky, cool camera shots that hide your bad choreography. This had neither!!! And see the ripped dude in the picture, he's the main character and he looks like some bad ass fighting dude. WRONG!! He's the former undefeated champion of the circuit and doesn't wanna get sucked back in. What a bunch of played out tripe. It really gets stupid when the old guy with the cane from within the curcuit has to train the old champion because of the intensity it takes to succeed these days. That's all fine and dandy, but looking at those fights you would see nobody fighting to the death or very intense at all. Shite on screen, my friends, shite on screen.

#77 - Bus Stop

2006-08-30T22:49:00.000-05:00

Shhhhhhh......listen.....you might be able to hear it.....even now. What is it you might be hearing? It's the echoes from me beating my skull against the wall while watching this god awful movie. There!! I said it. No build up. No waiting to see if I liked the old movie or not. It's plain. It's simple. It's simple and plain. NO. This had to be one of the most annoying movies I have seen in a while. Usually when I watch an older movie, I am able to recognize what it is that movie watchers from that time enjoyed about it, even though I may not. In this case...I don't see it. It's just lame, and the weirdest part about it is that the writer responsible for this is the same guy responsible for Splendor in the Grass. Talk about two movies that couldn't be more different from each other.

See the cowboy in the picture? His name is Don Murray. I dont know what else he has done but just about everything he does in this movie makes me want to shove pencils into my eyes. It's a sleeper for being the most annoying and ridiculously written character...EVER. And I'm not talking about characters written for movies where the characters are intended to be ridiculous. Apparently this yokel has spent all of his life on a farm in Montana and has absolutely no social skills whatsoever. Are you chuckling yet? So we have ourselves a charming little fish out of water movie when he goes to Phoenix to compete in a rodeo...right? WRONG!! This guy is so bull headed, loud, and obnoxious with his lack of social savvy that in real life he probably would have had the crap beat out of him on day one, which would be nice because then the movie would have gotten over sooner. It's as if the writer took every possible farm hand cliche, amplified it to an unrealistic level, and then expect people to think it's funny. Guess again. I think of the movie Elf. That was funny becuase a lot of the humor dealt with how Will Ferrell interacted in a world that is familiar to us. This was not the case in Bus Stop. Instead I was forced to watch a stubborn loud mouth do whatever he wanted to without any consequences for any of it. I guess I was suppossed to laugh at his lack of knowledge about the ways of the world, but whereas Crocodile Dundee adapted to NYC with his own style, this cowboy just did whatever the hell wanted. Not entertaining at all.

Oh, by the way, is that a "southern" accent you have there Marilyn. Is that really what women from the Ozarks sound like? Cause that didn't sound like any kind of southern accent I have ever heard of. In all honesty, whatever it was Marilyn was trying to do with her accent, it didn't work and sounded awful. The worst part was when she tried to sing Black Magic with that bad accent. It was unbelievable because Marilyn was doing the sultry thing that she is famous for, but with that bad accent and the song was horrible. I wonder if Sammy Davis, Jr. sang this song first because I cant imagine anybody wanting to sing it after watching Marylin hack through it. Seriously, it was bad.

And to bring it back full circle, the most preposterous thing about the whole movie was story itself. A loud mouth from the country goes to Phoenix to compete in a rodeo. On the way there his friend suggests that he use this trip to learn how to interact to women. Good ol' cowboy says he will know his angel when he sees her, and obviously, Marilyn is that angel. From that point on he drags her all over Phoenix against her will, and about every five minutes you get to hear him boldy state, "that woman is gonna murry me". She tries to get away because he is obviously crazy, but he gets her and kidnaps her. On the way back to Montana, they get caught in a snowstorm. They argue and when cowboy Bob is an obnoxious jerk, the bus driver fights him to teach him a lesson. Apparently, when a kidnapper and stalker that you want nothing to do with gets his ass kicked and then apologizes without really learning anything, this is what makes a woman fall madly in love with somebody. Are you freaking kidding me? This idiot who has been absolutely annoying the entire time gets his ass kicked and you feel sorry for him and then fall in love? How the hell does that make sense? Nothing says romantic comedy more than a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome.

#76 - The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

2006-08-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

I'm getting tired of watching these classic movies that either won Oscars, or were nominated for them, and then finding out that they don't really do jack squat for me. It's a crappy little situation cause I know they aren't really bad movies. I can see why the people of the time enjoyed them so much, but I couldn't be less interested. Give me some White Heat, and you can take your Great Ziegfeld. This is just another on that list.

Even though I havent checked it out and seen what else was nominated, or what came out the same year, I don't know how this could be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. I really don't. I can understand why people went to see it, I just don't get the nomination. Here's the main reason why: I don't think Rex Harrison is any good. I didn't like him in Dr. Dolittle and I didn't particularly like him here. He's too stiff. He's too unnatural. It's like watching a 2x4 with a bad sea captains accent. In his first scene with Gene Tierney he's talking with a wierd pirate-like voice that is apparently supposed to be a scary ghost captain voice, but it wasn't. It didn't help that his voice was clearly dubbed in afterwards, and what was dubbed did not match the physical gestures. Think of a stiff, rigid, water logged actor playing a sea captain's ghost and not moving around very much or having any noticable facial gestures talking with a loud "YARRRR" type of voice, and then inexplicably losing it halfway through the scene, never to have it come back again, even when he is trying to scare other people. Call me too critical, but you aren't allowed to be nominated for Best Picture if you have bad sound dubbing.

Seriously though, this is only the second movie I have seen with Rex Harrison in it, and I have been less than impressed both times. How did this guy get famous? He barely sang in a crappy musical, he barely moves his body, and the man has no concept of range or levels. It's like he's on stage and is captured in a bad case of stage fright that has rendered him virtually immovable, yet he can still vocalize, but even that isnt very good. I just don't get his success.

As far as the movie goes, I wasn't really into the story. But, I am aware that this is a personal preference, and not anything to do with bad writing. It also didn't help that the two inexplicably fell in love. Again, it's not inexplicable because of the writing, it's inexplicable because no woman could fall in love with a boat anchor pretending to be a captain. I actually bought her falling in love with the scheister later in the movie more because that guy actually has a personality, even for a sleazeball. And there's something sad about a woman who lives a lonely life waiting for death in order to see her lover again. To some, it may seem hopelessly romantic. I think its kind of sad. Walks on the beach aren't that fulfilling, and nobody could fall that much in love with a small dinghy.

#75 - American Beauty

2006-08-27T14:43:00.000-05:00

Hey!! How about that? I DO watch movies that were made within the last ten years that most of you have heard of. And its an Oscar winner no less. And it stars the best American born manager of a British theatre you have ever heard of...if you've ever heard of anything like that. And it also stars one of the best no-name supporting actors of the last several years. You know the type. They are in a ton of movies and always do good work, but don't exactly have headliner status. All in all, this is a well thought out, well made, and suprisingly intriguing movie. I liked much of it, but for this review, I am going to talk about what I didn't like about it. Actually, it's not so much what I didn't like, it's more of a number of observations about a movie that was quite popular, and apparently, the best one of the year.

Let's talk about Kevin Spacey. In case you were wondering, he's the British theatre manager I was talking about earlier. His whole character in this movie, from narrator to his relationships with everyone else and himself is an absolute enigma to me. It's fascinating because we are drawn to him because of his bitter, dark sarcasm towards the world, but that means we are rooting for a man who falls for an underage girl. And we DO root for him. We want him to tell people where to shove it. We want him to stand up and piss people off, but much of what he does is to attract his daughters friend. It's interesting because he's not a bad person, definately not an anti-hero, but he is a pedophile. To his credit, it's not the pedophilia that we are rooting for in his character. We actually root against that, but still want him to be bold and abrasive. I think much of the reason we are on his side is because we know that all of it will be in vain. We know from the start that he is going to die and we want to see him die in a different state than what he is in at the start of the movie. So we get behind him, even if some of his actions are questionable.

And then there is his lovely wife. To say that the two are estranged would be quite an understatement. She takes on the the largest share of Spacey's ferocity, and deservedly so. She has become detached from her family, and in some cases reality. It's great watching him tell her where to stick it, and how hard. I gotta be honest though, I was not impressed by Anette Bennings performance. Whereas everybody else had a very internal character, she seemed to be more of a caricature that anything else. I understand the idea of her character being a caricature because that is what she presents to the world. The strong, take no prisoners real estate agent and the neat and tidy, clean cut family woman are all an image she wants to show the world, but we know that it is all show. I understand all of that, but Benning's performance is a little too much caricature, and not enough of the internal material that makes that stronger. I instantly think of the dinner scene when Spacey and Benning are fighting and Spacey throws the asparagus against the wall. I didnt think the way Benning played that scene was real or connected. Too much show and not enough feel.

I have to mention the performance of Chris Cooper. He is every bit intense as he is frightening. I dont remember if he got nominated for a supporting Oscar, but he should have, and with great consideration. The pain, the anguish, and the torment are all so strong and overpowering, but it's never overdone or out of place. Great performance.

I found myself wondering what the filmmakers were trying to say with this movie. It's not merely a slam against suburban life or modern living, and I think that breaking it down to just being a message about skeletons in the closet is too easy. But there is a message in there. I think the message lies in Wes Bentley's character. It's his outlook on the world that we are suppossed to take away. While everybody gets caught up in their appearance to others and other insignificant things, Bentley notices the poetic beauty of the world, even if he is looking at a dead animal, or a floating piece of garbage. There is beauty all around you, you just have to look for it.

Unrelated Lollapalooza review #3: So this was the last day of the festival, and the most important thing was that I watch Blues Traveler. Everything else would just be bonus. BT is one of my top three bands I had never seen them play before, and by all accounts they are awesome live. But more on them later. I started off by checking out The Redwalls. Didn't know anything about them, but took a chance and was rewarded. They have some pretty good songs and I was quite pleased. I think its clear that they listened to the Beatles in their youth because a lot of their sound had a strong echo of the lads from Liverpool. I wandered around and checked out the last bit of The Hold Steady. I wanted to see more because they have a lot of energy when they perform. It was clear that they love to play for an audience and are proud of being from Minnesota. After that I watched Ben Kweller, who was okay. Not bad, and not great. Right after that was 30 Seconds to Mars. That was dissappointing. They really aren't that good. I got the feeling that they wouldn't be as popular as they are if Jared Leto wasn't fronting the band. It's also not really my kind of music, so that may have something to do with it. Leto does get credit for throwing popsicles into the crowd and climbing to the top of the stage for a song, but he loses all that for his overuse of the "F" word. I'm all for swearing, but there is such a thing as too much for no particular reason other that you know you can. I left that early in order to get to the other side and check out The Shins. This was a dilemma because The Shins overlapped with The Reverend Horton Heat, and I loves me some Rev. Luckily, and unfortunately, the sound guys helped make that decision for me. I stayed towards the back of the crowd in order to skip out and split my time between the two sets, but the sound was so bad I couldn't hear the lyrics. The yells from the crowd to turn it up were louder than the lyrics. So I left to check out all of the Rev's set, and I was handsomely rewarded. This guy is AWESOME!!! He rocks out from start to finish and does not let up. Its great music played well. And the Rev is the character he sings about. He looks it, he lives it, he is it. The looks he gives when he sings are priceless and punctuated by his extremely expressive, icy blue eyes. Tremendously entertaining. The psychobilly freakout was in full force. After that I had a choice, I could go get relatively close for Wilco and then be relatively close for Blues Traveler, or I could sacrifice getting a good shit at Wilco in order to get really close for BT. I chose the latter since it was going to be my first BT show. I heard some of Wilco, and what I did hear sounded pretty good, but it was far away. I'll have to check them out some other time because I enjoy their work. In the meantime, I was stuck between an obnoxiously loud stoner kid and the guy who was going to be seeing BT for the 64th time in his life. Hey stoner kid, the reason people aren't talking to you is because you are annoying and loud, and this is coming from someone who spent most of his youth being annoying and loud. And #64 over there, you are a loser. You mean to tell me that your fat ass has seen this band 63 times before now since 1995. Thats over six shows a year!!! Now I love BT, have all of their albums, studio and live, but there are other bands out there. Some people may be impressed by the little trivia facts(what the band members drink during the show and why) that you may know from so much exposure, but I am not. I am also not impressed that you know the roadies by their first names. And another thing, you aren't cool when you yell at them before a show trying to get their attention, they are trying to work and dont have time for someone like you. Get a life. But hey, once the music started, it was all good. Unbelievable. They jam and jam and jam. So good. They have a tremendous ability to start a song, transition into another song, transition into yet another song, and then when you have almost forgotten about the original song, they seamlessly go back to it and finish the whole thing up with resounding success. Throughout the festival, people sang along to lyrics, but no crowd sang along as loud and as unified as this crowd. It was great. These guys have something special that may not translate into immediate album sales, but do garner a tremendous following of devoted fans that they clearly appreciate, and even recognize, especially when they have been there 63 times before. By the time the show got over, I was in the front row, up against the rail. As soon as they got done, the Chili Pappers were starting all the way on the other side of the park. In the hour and a half they had for their set, I went from the front row at Blues Traveler, all the way across Grant Park and to about 20 feet from the front row at the Chili Peppers. It was one of the hardest move ups I have ever done. It was hot, sweaty, and crowded from way back. I was almost denied the journey was creamed from behind by a crowd surfer. She was knocked down pretty hard and wouldnt have been able to make it out of the crowd on her own. Luckily, she had friend with her, and I could keep going. And I kept going. The key is to sneak up when people are getting out so you arent just bulling your way through, which is a much needed technique at times. The best is to shift up when a crowd surfer comes by. Everybody groups together and you can sneak right on up. Its even better when they fall. Here's a sidenote: when you are crowd surfing, lay flat so there is more surface area for people to hold you up with. When a crowd surfer comes by, just walk them along with your hands. Dont push them so hard that they fly beyond where people are paying attention, therefore leading the crowd surfer to an untimely death, and people get crushed underneath them. Oh, I guess the Chili Peppers were cool, there was so much going on that it was hard to really pay attention. It was harder to move up when they played their slower songs because people weren't dancing around as much, but they seemed to play pretty well. That's it. That was my three day weekend earlier in the month. I only I didnt need food and water, I could have seen even more stuff, but I saw a TON of great bands, all of which played as hard as they could for the crowd. It was a great experience.

#74 - In Old Chicago

2006-08-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

I gotta be honest. I wasn't in the mood for this kind of movie when I watched it. I probably didn't give it the attention it deserved, but thats the way it goes. It just didn't pull me in right away like Alexander's Ragtime Band did. Why do I bring that movie up? Well, the male and female leads are all the same people. It's a team. It's a blockbuster trio. Honestly, these three people work very well together. The interaction between them is pretty damn similar between the three of them, just a few changes here and there. But leadin man falling in love with leadin lady and Don Ameche as the supporting guy with the mustache. Brothers or bandmates, it really doesnt matter.

I think the reason I was pulled into this movie as much as the other is because there isnt any music by Irving Berlin. Okay, that and the fact that I was seeing the same characters again, but I think I have made that point already.

I'll tell you what, even though I spent the middle of the movie trying to thaw my stupid little freezer enough so that I could close the door, the ending is quite well done. The brothers fight against an angry mob while trying to save Chicago from the big fire. The scenes were well planned out, well shot, and the special effects were quite well done. I was impressed and it was the only part of the movie that had me completely engaged. Of course, I have to deduct points for the origin of the fire. I know it started in a theatre and not in the house of these two guys mother. Thats what you get when you light a wooden building with flammable curtains and paint with candles and oil.

Unrelated Lollapallooza segment 2: Actually, its not that unrelated since both things took place in or near downtown Chicago. Okay thats a stretch. Anyways, on day two I started by watching Nada Surf. They rock. They were very good and have a classic sound. I need to get some of their stuff. I checked out Coheed and Cambria and they were alright. They did a good job at what they were doing, but I just wasnt into it all that much. I will tell you that the lead singer has one hell of a head of hair. Eat your heart out Sideshow Bob. After they got done, Wolfmother started on the other side of the field. They had a great introduction by the man, Perry Ferrell himself, and they were pretty good. Kind of a rocky, somwhat psychadelic, rockin kind of sound. Hard to describe, but it was entertaining. I cut out of there early to check out Sonic Youth on the other side of the park. They were fantastic. Most of what they did was from their new album, but they played great. I need more of their stuff too, but there is a lot to choose from. After they got done, The Dresden Dolls started on the other side of the field. Sound familiar. Bands were going back and forth from stage to stage all day long on two sides of the park. And then there were the side stages going on too. Non-stop music all day long. Now, I have heard some of The Dresden Dolls stuff and I enjoyed the edgy cabaret sound that they created. When they play live, it is very intense, energetic, and quite entertaining. They have classic cabaret makeup on and its a guy on drums and a girl on piano, and she is really good. She slams down on those keys and put everything into her songs. I dont know if it is on any of their albums, but I was shocked when they broke out with War Pigs by Black Sabbath. The highlight was when Amanda Palmer tried to change into a t-shirt becuase her outfit was too hot. She tried to do it without flashing the crowd and failed. After that it was thirty minutes of her in a tshirt and stocking with garters and her sweaty hair in her face, messing up her makeup as she pounded away on her piano and poured out her lyrics. I dont think anyone the entire weekend sang with as much passion and intensity as she did. It was great to watch. It was quickly overshadowed by what was about to take place on the other side of the field. I have never heard about what takes place at a Flaming Lips show, but it is one of the most amazing spectacles I have seen on stage. Wayne Coyne starts off the show by climbing into a clear ball that gets inflated until its like a life sized gerbil ball. He then gets carried out to the audience and crawls over the crowd. When he gets back, half the stage is filled with dancing santas and the other half is filled with chick aliens. In the back they blow up a huge inflated santa, alien, and two astronauts who all start dancing around. And then they toss out about a dozen enormous blue balloons into the crowd that float in the air forever. And in the middle of all this chaos is this madman in a vest and dress pants with a huge head of hair. It's as if he is conducting all of the madness around him as he shoots off a seemingly endless supply of streamer cannons into the crowd. It was absolutely phenomonal, and the best part was that it fit the music they play. It wasn't spectacle that distracted from or covered up the music. Instead, it was a tremendous visual environment that was supported by and emphasized the music. Unbelievable. After that, I made my way back to the other side of the park and got ready for the last show of the night. I kid of heard The New Pornographers from the other side of the field, but now really. I would have liked to have heard them better, but I was getting a good spot for Kanye West. For a while I have been impressed by Kanye's ability to have catchy, popular songs while actually being a good rapper. And let me tell you, he blew the place up. He came out ready to put on a show for his home town and he delivered. He had a full string section, backup singers, and of course, a DJ. Here's a note to audio technicians, dont screw up Kanye's mic when he is in his hometown trying to put on a hell of a show. He will rip you a new one until its fixed, which in this case took about three songs. It was still a hell of a set that had half of Grant Park on their feet and dancing along. It was another good ending to another good day. I wasnt able to check out Gnarls Barkley, Common, or Blackalicious, but like I have said before, I had to make my choices. The final day will be in my next review.

#73 - The Debut

2006-08-19T22:47:00.000-05:00

And here we go with another movie that nobody has ever heard of in their entire life. If you have, you came across it by accident, work at a movie store, or are a complete loser. Actually, there is a fourth option, and that's kind of what this movie is really about. If you are of Fillipino origin, you may have heard about this movie. You see, it was written, directed, mostly acted, and pretty much everything else was done by Filipinos. I can't say that I have ever heard of an endeavor like this before at this level of production. Do be sure, it is a low budget movie, but it is a fully realized film and not a backyard weekend production and I give the production team all the credit in the world for doing something that speaks to themselves as a community. They are saying what they want to say, to whom they want to say it to. Name another movie that does that sort of thing for any Asian-American group, much less Filipino's. You can't do it.

Having said all that(I'm sure you know where this is heading), the movie isnt very good. Its cliche after cliche and obvious, overused plot point after obvious overused plot point. Father can't relate to the son. You realize that the father has a similar relationship with his father. The father isn't just a tyrant, he actually cares to make a better life for his his son. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. But before you begin to think that this was a total waste of time, much like a particular made for the BET network movie I have seen, there is something of value that sets this movie apart. Remember that this is from Filipino's, and for Filipino's. All of the obvious plot points are done from that perspective. So when the main character has to choose between celebrating his sister's birthday and hanging out with his white friends, we see something that a Filipino youth could actually relate to. When that main character is embarassed about his family's culture and tries to hide it and reject it, these are things a Filipino youth could actually relate to. And that is what the movie is all about. Same old story, but told from their point of view, and dealing with issues specific to being a Filipino youth growing up in America. Congratulations for all of that. I was still bored watching it, and couldn't recommend it to anyone.

Unrelated side note: Two weeks ago I attended Lollapalooza in downtown Chicago. I had purchased my three day pass months in advance and was eagerly anticipating the first weekend in August. I was not dissapointed. For three straight days I saw good band after good band. Unfortunately, I wasnt able to see everything I would have liked to see, but it was absolutely impossible to see everything and sometimes I had to make some hard choices. So here is my rundown of what I saw at Lollapalooza. I was going to write this sooner, but work got busy, and I got a little lazy with my spare time. The first band I saw on the first day was The Subways. I had heard of them, but wouldn't have been able to identify one of their songs. This was a common theme with a lot of the bands. I'll tell you what, The Subways rock. For taking a chance and just picking a band to watch, I was quite pleased. Its not bad being ten feet from the front barricade wall either. Oh, and have a chick bassist is pretty sweet too. I made my way to the other side of Grant Park where the other stages were, and I saw The Eels. I love The Eels. have a couple of their albums and was looking forward to their set. They didnt play anything like they did on their albums. It was a lot rougher and more rockin than I expected, but it was still good. The have a bit with a security guard that is quite entertaining and the guys had agood time playing in green fatigues, even though it was at least 85 degrees. I wandered around for a while, hearing stuff here and there. Umphrey's McGee was alright, but I was really waiting for later. The Raconteurs came out and were absolutely phenomenal. Jack White is amazing, even while sporting a neck beard. I had not heard any of The Raconteurs songs but am a huge fan of The White Stripes. I was expecting something similar or something that was a show-off for Jack White. Not the case. They have their own sound and White is just another member of the band. At times he steps back and lets the other band members take the stage. It was awesome. And in what may have been the best, most unexpected cover of the entire festival, The Raconteurs broke out with Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. Unbelievably good. Standing there as the whole crowd realized what they were playing was great. As soon as their set got done, the Violent Femmes started on the other side of the field. I dont think there's anything I need to say about that. The fact that they were playing, and I was watching pretty much says it all. Great set. Gone Daddy Gone and Add It Up were particularly good. It was bonus having the Dresden Dolls performing backup percussion for the whole set, but more on them later. After the Femmes got done, Ween came out back on the other side of the field for the final set of the night. That meant an hour and a half as oppossed to just the hour that everyone else got, and they used their time wisely. They were fantastic. I only have Pure Guava and after about fifteen minutes I was wondering why in the hell I haven't bought more of their stuff. They mixed in old, middle, and newer stuff and were solid throughout. It was a great ending to an awesome day. I would have liked to have seen Sleater-Kinney, Iron & Wine, and The Editors, but you have to eat sometime, and other times you have to make some choices. But the weekend got even better. I'll get to the second day in my next review.

#72 - Honey for Oshun

2006-07-31T23:12:00.000-05:00

You haven't heard of this movie? Could that be because you don't speak Spanish? Or, could that be because you are not of Cuban origin? I told you I would watch everything and if atomic bombs and BET movies weren't evidence enough, this should be. The difference is, this movie has something to offer the world. It's a simple story of a man returning to Cuba thirty years after being seperated from his mother and brought to America. He is on a search to find out who he real is, and reunite with his long lost mother. Not neccessarily brand new stuff, but there are some things about movie that make it unique.

I think the most important thing about this movie is that it was shot on location in Cuba. For someone like me, that means I was seeing images of Cuba that I have never seen before. The search that this man has takes him on a Plains, Trains, and Automobiles type of journey across Cuba...only serious. The camera follows him through the markets of Havana, into the countryside of Cuba, and into remote coastal towns. He does this in broken vehicles, old bicycles, and in the backs of trucks. There is a sense of the environment of Cuba that I haven't ever seen. Usually Cuba is all about Castro and his rule, but this movie doesnt mention it all and sticks with a more personal look at what it means to be in Cuba. Of course, not mentioning Castro is probably how they got this movie made.

I did have problems with this movie. First of all, can we put all subtitles in yellow? Yellow is the best color to use because it is usually in contrast with everything else on the screen. If the subtitles are white, at some point they will be in front of the color white, and then NOBODY can read them. I had the same problem with some of the Italian movies reviewed earlier, but didnt mention it until now.

The second problem that I had with this movie is that it was WAAAAAY too dramatic. The internal struggle of the main character was a little too thick. Make that a LOT too thick. It made it hard to sympathize with the main character because he is ultimately a selfish bastard. He pisses his fellow travelers off which leads to shouting matches where everybody screams out how hard their life has been and why. Too much. There's already a structure there that works and the heavy drama distracts from it too much.

On the whole, for me this movie was just alright. Seeing images of Cuba I have never seen before was really what was the most interesting to me. How the main character got across Cuba was somewhat entertaining, but ultimaately was overshadowed by the heavy drama. About halfway through the movie I realized that this movie would probably have more impact on the people of Cuba or Cuban immigrants who have severed familial relationships. If you look up this movie on imdb.com, you will read a user's comment that slams this movie. Pay attention to the fact that this guy is from Mexico. Sometimes you have to put yourself in the mindset of the target audience to see the true value of a movie. This movie does have its faults, but there is a connection that is being made between the main character and people in a similar situation, and that is what really matters, not production value.

#71 - Smooth Talk

2006-07-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

This one threw me for a loop because the most bizarre thing happens in this movie. And it's not a surreal, weird, or wacky sort of thing that happens. Its not anything gross, unusual, or disgustingly awful. It's basically one scene that stands out head and shoulders above the rest of the movie, and it caught me completely off guard, and floored me. I'll explain...

The premise of this movie is simple, Laura Dern plays a high school teenager who is spending her summer break learning all about male/female companionship. She basically acts like a floozy, not realizing what it is she is doing getting herself into trouble with her mother. Its a pretty typical case of fighting mother and daughter. Nothing new there. They fight. They say things they don't mean, but you know they really love each other, blah, blah, blah, blah. Really, I was not entertained at all watching this movie. I was annoyed by the way the girls acted in the mall. I was annoyed at the mother/daughter fights. I was annoyed by the oblivious father. It was not entertaining at all. I found myself wondering what the deal was with bracelets in the late 80's. I remember the fad, but I was only ten-ish, so the full impact of it was nothing to me. Seriously, how ridiculous of a fad was it to put about 150 metal bracelets on each arm? Or, as a substitute, three or four plastic ones. Thats a 50 to 1 conversion ratio. The plastic ones must be spendy.

Here's another thing in this movie that is one of the silliest things I have ever seen. Treat Williams acting like a tough guy. I know what your saying, Treat Williams acting like an actor is silly enough, but throw in tough guy on top of that, and its out of control. But this brings me to the point of the whole review. You see, early on in the movie, Laura Dern walks by Treat Williams and he singles her out, but then he goes away, never to be seen...until later. He shows up at Dern's house when her parents aren't home. I'm sure you can see where this is going. What follows is one of the most frightening and intense scenes I have seen in a while. I was sucked right in to the interaction between the two, not knowing what would happen, or exactly where it was going. I could not believe it.

That is what was so bizarre about this movie. I couldn't have cared less about the movie until that one scene came around and I was locked in. Then, there is an implication about what happens, the family comes home and everything is resolved quickly and the movie was over. That was it!!! Sixty-five minutes of crap, followed by a dynamic, riveting, and unbelievably intense twenty minute scene, and then five more minutes of crap. Movie over. What the hell is that? I can't recommend the movie because on the whole, it was lame. But that one scene is SO strong I want everybody to see it. But it's probably not as strong without seeing all of the lead-up to it, which is CRAPPY!!!! Paging Joseph Heller!! Paging Joseph Heller!!!

#70 - The Great Ziegfeld

2006-07-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

Is it over yet? Are we done now? Seriously, I watched this movie a week ago, and I'm pretty sure it's only half way through. I'm mean come on!! This thing is THREE HOURS LONG. Emphasis on the word "long". Here's a sign that the movie you are watching is way too long: It's not really a musical(check the previous review), and yet it has an intermission. Hell, it has an overture for chrissakes. Overtures are okay if you are watching a stage production. Or, if the overture is more like an opening song with some sort of animated credit sequence, that would be fine. This just has a graphic that says overture. BOOOO!!! I know, I know, they played it while people were actually getting settled into the movie theatre and all that crap, but it's not a freaking musical. Why is it that Hollywood has to lump any movie that relates to music into the musical category? When stuff like that happens, people like WAH-Keen Phoenix win a musical Golden Globe for Walk the Line. That's just not right.

So this is the point in the review where I begin to explain why I didnt really like an Oscar winning movie or the Oscar winning performance by the leading lady. Just thought I would put it all out on the table right away. You see, I understand why it won an Oscar, but I still just thought it was only okay. I think the best way to describe it is to say that it was a Titanic type of Oscar. I think what they looked at was the fact that the scope of the movie was so massive, and yet the movie was complete and well made. I just don't think it was THAT great. Of course, I dont know what other movies were nominated that year, so it may have been the best movie anyways.

You see, I think it could have been at least forty-five minutes shorter. The production numbers in the middle of the movie were amazing technical achievements. The massive scope of of the two scenes was amazing, even by todays standards. The design, and execution of everything is even more amazing when you realize that they were done with only one or two shots. I also understand that it was probably an accurate recreation of the types of productions that Ziegfeld made, but spectacle only goes so far in my book and since these numbers were in the middle of the marathon, I was almost already out to lunch. I know it may sound odd to have someone recognize all of the achievments of a movie, and still not like it that much, but that is what I am doing.

I tell you what William Powell was AMAZING. His performance should have won an Oscar. I would have been more than fine with that. But the actual Oscar winner was Luise Rainer, and I gotta tell you, I was none too impressed. I think the problem I had was with the way the character was written. I hated the wishy washy, whiny, "you don't really love me", "I can't live without you" nature of the character. I am aware that at the begining it was intended to be humorous, but when it kept happening into the dramatic moments, I was over it, WAY over it.

I also didnt like the episodic nature of the film. I'm not talking about a Mother Courage kind of episodic structure. More like one story about Ziegfeld after the other. It made the life of Ziegfeld seem choppy instead of a sweeping epic that this kind of movie normally is. But hey, if I could dance like Ray Bolger none of this would matter because I would be the coolest person in the world. And if I was as awesomely funny as Fanny Brice, you might just have to close all the stores and put the kids to bed early cause it would be going down TONIGHT!!! What the hell does that mean?

#69 - Alexander's Ragtime Band

2006-07-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

UH-OH!! The Musical Alert System has just risen the warning level from amber to burnt sienna. My teeth were fully grinding as I placed this movie into my DVD player. Most of you may know that I have a pretty healthy dislike for most musical without actually having seen them. Its essentially a dislike for the genre. It makes me want to puke with how cheesy and sappy these things can be. But, like many other movies I have reviewed in this little dog and pony show, I am seeing my first movie from a classic film maker. In this case it happens to be Irving Berlin, and it just so happens that this movie isn't really a musical. I'll explain...

When I think of musicals, I think of possibly bad songs invading sappy dialogue and cheesy overacting. Of course, think isn't the case with all of them. To name a few obvious ones...The Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, Mary Poppins, Guys and Dolls, and of course, the first Broadway show I ever saw, Avenue Q. These are good. I enjoy them. But I want to stab my eyes out at the thought of Damn Yankees. What I have seen of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers is enough to make me want to O.D. on drugs for Restless Leg Syndrome. Oh, and then there is the king of them all: Oklahoma. Haven't seen all of it, but the empty feeling I had where my soul once was somehow went away when I changed the channel. I still haven't come to terms with the fact that Wolverine was in the revival.

Why doesn't this movie fit into what I consider a musical? It's because the music is imperative to the telling of the story, whereas I don't think it usually is in most musicals. This is a movie about a band that makes it big, breaks up, makes it big again, and all that stuff. You couldn't do it without music. Could you do New York, New York without music? Could you do The Commitments without music? Could you do Kazaam without music? I don't think so. Okay, I never saw the last one and its not enough in my queue list, so we are all saved...for now. But to iterate again(reiterate), the music is imperative to the telling of the story. And it helps that Irving Berlin is really, really, really good at what he does. It's very entertaining music to listen to and some of the dance numbers that accompany the music are fun to watch also. YES PEOPLE, I enjoyed this movie.

And speaking of New York, New York, I have a greater appreciation of what Scorsese was doing with that film. Knowing the kind of film historian he is, I feel that I have seen the research that directly went into the development of that film. But he puts his own storytelling style into it, thereby making a kind of modernized and raw version of the film I just saw. I will say that I enjoyed Alexander's Ragtime Band more, but that would have more to do with better music than anything else. Plus, I haven't gotten over my unwarranted feelings against Liza Manelli. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

#68 - Born Free

2006-07-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

"BOOOOOOOOORN FREE. As free as the wind blows. As free as the grass grows....okay, I dont know the next line, but who out there really does? If any of you do, and you actually respond to this with the next line, I will delete it. I won't be a part of that kind of activity. I the song won an Oscar. Hell, it's on the freakin picture. And it's nothing like High Hopes was in A Hole in the Head, but with the way the song comes in at the end of this movie and with the type of song it is, its just too much for me to not make fun of. Its the music that we have been hearing throughout the movie and it just swells in and the lyrics swell in with it. It's so dramatical and upliftingish I can barely stand it. So here's a short list of Oscar winning songs: 1. High Hopes 2. Born Free 3. It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp. I think that pretty well sums up the 80ish years of Best Song winners, don't you?

I'm about as ambivalent about this movie as I was towards Ring of Bright Water(check the archives moron). It's one of those things that I watch and I know its good, I know it's well made, I know it's exactly what those two lovebirds wanted to make, and I can even see it's as popular as it is, or was, but I'm ultimately left with a feeling of "eh". It's alright. That's it. Just alright.

I think the reason I feel the way I feel about this movie is because is pretty much the same freakin thing as Ring of Bright Water. Oh sure, animals, characters, continents, and basic plot points are different, but the overall approach and goal by the lovebird film makers is essentially the same. An inimate connection between a human and an animal. Exotic or remote locales. People learning more about themselves through their relationships these animals. Got it? I'm not slamming these things, I'm not even criticizing them. I'm just not blown away by what I saw. I do realize that I saw these two movies out of order, but that just makes me understand why Ring of Bright Water isn't as popular. I get the feeling that most moviegoers felt the way I feel, only in reverse and without as much ambivalence. Here's a question? Have I overused the word ambivalent and its derivatives yet?

Here's something I picked up on while watching this movie. I was sitting there, watching the flick, and I realized that the acting isn't exactly spectactular. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the greatest. And the writing wasn't exactly the greatest either, yet this was a popular movie. How does that work? Then it hit me as I realized that interesting dialogue and extremely dramatic acting wasn't the point of the film. The point was the animals and the relationship that develops. And that is clearly the point that Travers and McKenna were going for. They made exactly what they wanted to make and they did it in exactly the right way to convey their message. I have to give them all the credit in the world for that, even if I am "eh" about it all.

#67 - Splendor in the Grass

2006-07-10T12:13:00.000-05:00

We got us a drama here. No, wait, we gots a Drah-ma. Even better, we actually have a DRAAAAAAAH-muh. It's that classic heavy handed drama from back in the Tennessee Williams/Arthur Miller days. These are the kinds of things that I always found easier to watch than read. Reading these plays was a good way to get my mind to wander or just fall asleep. It doesn't matter if they were well written classics with dynamic characters and hard hitting subject matter for the time they were written, they made me pass out. And boy, talk about still being hard to watch. I have only seen a few performances of plays from this time period and I would say that just one really grabbed me like it should have and thats because the actors in the lead roles were at the top of their game. In other words, these plays were always hard to read, and hard to stage. But we got some heavy hitters here, even if the director was a rat.

So, what do we have here in this draaaaaaaaaaaah-ma? We have a boy. We have a girl. And of course one is rich and the other is not. Remember the time period it was written in. Its practically a given that there would be some economic thing going on. And of course there are meddling parents that make things worse while trying to reassert their traditions in their children. I don't even know if "reassert" is the right word, but I used it cause what really matters is that the parents are stubborn, don't listen and do a good job of making their kids lives miserable because they try to force a tradition of life that the children don't want. Women act a certain way and don't marry because of love, they marry because of duty. Men follow in their fathers footsteps which in this case means Ivy League college and taking over the family business.

Before I go further, I want to say that this is a good movie, with great directing and good acting, but I do have issues with it, which are probably just me and not the movie. First of all, I don't think it was neccessarily adapted from the stage play that well. By that I mean that it had clearly divided scenes and acts that are just fine on stage, but didn't quite translate over to film for me. I think it has to do with the fact that it was filmed like you would film a screenplay, but using a stage play. Look at my Men of Respect review, same kind of problem.

Something occurred to me while I watched this movie. Why do all of the female characters from this period go insane over love or a lack therof? Like I said, I havent seen too many things from this period, but the ladies in the ones I have seen go fucking nuts and I am at a loss to figure out why this is so common. Is this the only way we knew how to let women be dramatic for a change? Sure, this movie brings up issues of women settling for marriages of duty as oppossed to love and then living a life of servitude because those are the traditional feminine roles in society, but I think it's a more damaging thing to have women go apeshit crazy when they don't have either. Oh my god. I just described Ophelia. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In summary, it's well made movie, but if you want to see something about youthful dreams losing their luster as life happens, watch The Last Picture Show.

#66 - The Fox and The Hound

2006-07-09T20:16:00.000-05:00

"My name's Copper. I'm a hound dog." Okay, out of context, it doesn't seem like much of a quote, but the way it is said in the movie is the sweetest thing ever. A little puppy hound dog gruffing up his voice a little bit to let a little fox know who he is. Seriously, the quote doesn't mean squat without the proper pronunciation. If you have seen this movie and know what I am talking about, then do your best to imagine me saying this to myself about a hundred times during the last couple of weeks since that's how long it has been since I have seen this. Of course, I don't do it in front of other people, I do it in the privacy of my own home, so as to make it really odd. But anyways, on to more important business.

This movie made me hate Oliver and Company, Rock-a-Doodle, and A Troll in Central Park even more. This is due to the fact that it is a good cartoon made when Don Bluth worked for Disney. It has it style all over it, especially his classic cartoon sparkles. You know what I am talking about. Every movie Bluth makes has at least one instance where he throws in a shiny, sparkly something or other. Water droplets on a spider web, a fat trolls green thumb, magical sparklies from some magical animals magic... all those things. The titles were in a Bluth style font. The music, story, theme, pacing and action were all in that classic Don Bluth style, and it worked. The animation was well done. The characters were exactly what they needed to be to tell the story. They were well written, drawn, and performed. So, why does this make me hate the other movies more? Because it shows how bad of a cartoonist Bluth became and it shows how lame Disney was at that point trying to recreate the style of somebody who doesn't work there anymore instead of moving on and doing something new. Shame on both of you!!!

You see, in this movie, there is a lesson about friendship vs. identity. It isn't a subtle message, but you aren't beaten over the head with it like you were with the fat ass troll and his love of flowers and pretty things. The Fox and the Hound had also had some action sequences which were well done, well planned out and not too much. Well, maybe the bear with the blood red eyes was a bit much, but it was properly paced for the kind of movie it was and nothing like the overdone action sequences you saw in Rock-a-Doodle. It was simply a nice, charming, little cartoon without any spontaneous and unnneccessary singing from the characters. Do be sure, there are musical montages, but they are just fine and actually serve a purpose.

And here's why Oliver and Company sucks even more...it's like a sequel to a movie that doesn't have anything to do with the original production team, therefore leading to a copying of a style that is just lame as hell. I don't understand why a company with such great tradition as Disney would have felt the need to try to copy someone else's style, and then do a piss poor job of it. And I know in the Oliver and Company review I said that Disney shouldn't have gone away from is style. They shouldn't have gone away from their recipe for success. While I understand that this may lead to stale recreations and you have to try new things to keep the imagination primed, but you gotta go with what you know. I still think that, even though The Fox and The Hound is in no way the traditional Disney style cartoon. It's like an aberration. Nah, it's just a good Disney cartoon that isn't like any of the others.

#65 - River's Edge

2006-07-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

I believe that if all independent films were like this one, then Sundance would have never taken off and independent films wouldn't have been as mainstream as they are now. And I am thankful for that because for all of the artistic value that this movie has...and there is some...I couldn't bear to sit through very many poorly executed movies like this. The concept is very interesting. High school friends are forced to deal with the fallout after one friend kills another. That's great. That's interesting. But there are all of these other odd things that are absolutely befuddling to me. Most importantly, there wasn't a very good explanation as to why the guy killed the girl in the first place. She was saying things about my mother, or something like that. WHAT THINGS!?!?! Why didn't anybody ask these questions? I would think that they might be important questions to ask when you decide to help your murderous friend or not.

This was the kind of thing that plagued the whole movie. Too many times, the reactions of the characters were unexplained, unnatural, and/or unmotivated. This led to a number of scenes that drove me crazy because I couldn't believe that real human beings would react that way. For example, three of the friends were discussing the situation and what they should do about it, while hanging out at the arcade playing video games. I've never had a friend kill another friend, but I damn sure don't think that people would act so nonchalant about everything. SOMEONE GOT MURDERED AND YOU ARE JUST STANDING AROUND DOING NOTHING!!!!! Oh, I know what I should do in the wake of my best friends murder...have sex with Keanu Reeves in the park cause I have a crush on him. Were you two people in the right movie at that time?

I have to admit that even though the writing and directing were questionable, I was still interested in what was going to happen. Partially because of morbid curiosity, and partially because I had to know if there was a point to the decisions that were made for this movie. For example, Keanu Reeves' character had a little side story of a bad family life based around his stupid little brother. I was interested in seeing what happened when the girl faced, mullet haired, sweat pants wearing, stupid ear ringed little shit got a gun and wanted to shoot his brother. I can hear you asking why that would be happening, and I wish I could give you a realistic answer, but alas, I am left with pure speculation because I have no real clue. Sure, he was angry because his brother beat him up for being a punk. Sure, he is a punk because he lives in a broken home. But these sterotypical situations are enough explanation as to why thsi kid is as bad as he is. He's a nasty little fucker and I don't know why. I can surmise why Dennis Hopper hangs out with a blow-up doll, but I really dont know about this kid.

And if we are going to talk about things in this movie with no explanation, we must talk about the performance of Crispin Glover. One question comes to mind. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???? Part stoner and part spazz, Crispin Glover spent most of the movie flinging out ridiculous gestures, and pronouncing his sentences and words with unnatural inflections. It was honestly an interesting juxtaposition. Here, you have a cast full of stiff, stoic characters that don't really do anything, and there, you have the one character who does something, yet it is one of the worst cases of overacting I have ever seen in a movie. Make that a drama. Make that a non-sappy drama. We have all seen bad overacting in comedies, action movies, and sappy ass dramas, but this sticks out in this movie. It is so odd to see this guy twitch his way through this thing. If he wasn't so bad, this movie may have been okay, but he carries the whole thing, and his performance is awful. I dont know how a director would have let this happen.

#64 - Doctor Dolittle

2006-06-28T22:28:00.000-05:00

Nowadays you can go to a big blockbuster Hollywood movie and there are a number of possibilities of what you could get. You could get a really awesome big budget movie, or you could get an extremely crappy big budget movie. Another thing you could get, and this is important for our discussion, is a movie that has aspirations of being great, and by all means could have, and should have been great, but by misguided planning or a complete misunderstanding of what makes the story great, you end up with an disappointingly bad movie. Wait. Am I talking about Doctor Dolittle here? Yes. Yes I am.

So, what wrong with this movie? It's clear that they put a lot of time and effort in to the project, and the art direction reflects that. The visual design is really well done, but the problem is that its not enough. This movie was two and a half hours of mostly boring, underwhelming, and misguided film making. You see, this is a story that is suppossed to be whimsical and magical, but it is rarely any of the two. We have a man that can talk to animals, relate to animals, and sympathize with animals, but he can't relate with human beings. Thats called quirky. Really quirky. But there was nothing quirky about Rex Harrison performance at all. In fact, I don't think his performance was really that good, or at least he was given much to work with. He's stiff, he's kind of flat, he's kind of boring, and worst of all, he barely sings any of his songs. He's the title character and most of his songs are in that rythmic speaking style that isn't singing, but isn't talking. It's a freaking musical, let's act like it. The major problem with this is that most of his songs sound the same, therefore lending to the boring nature of the movie.

I submit two movies, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Both of these movies have a magical world that is part of the real world around us, but essentially is unknown or unseen. As the movies unfold there is a revelation about these worlds that is filled with imagination and wonder. This is what Doctor Dolittle should have done, and it does not. The end of the movie has the guy flying on a a large lunar moth. To which I said, "Wow, thats a great shot", and "Nice to get a lunar moth harness on short notice". The scene when he talks to the whale is great. They are on a island that floats around in the ocean. This is all magical stuff, but it came after too many minutes of boredom. Its as if they spent all of their money trying to make an enormous spectacle and they forgot the essence of the story. I will say this, there are some songs that are well written, well sung, and would have been perfect in the type of movie this should have been. They were all sung by Anthony Newly.

And now, the worst part of the movie. Usually the sign that you are watching a bad movie happens towards the beginning. It let's you know that you are in for a bumpy ride. Well, this movie waited until the very end to show you. You see, the main objective for Doctor Dolittle in this movie is to find the Great Pink Sea Snail. It's a huge mythical pink snail and he goes through numerous adventures to find it. You knew he was going to because it's that type of story. The thing is that when it showed up, IT WASN'T PINK!!!! It was GREEN AND TAN!! The funny thing about it is that throughout the whole thing they used the word "pink", but as soon as the thing showed up, that word dissapeared from their vocabulary. Oh well, we can't all be geniuses with our millions.

#63 - The Serpent's Egg

2006-06-22T00:33:00.000-05:00

Ingmar Bergman does German Expressionism. To be honest, I would have had no clue that this was the case if it wasn't for the bonus features. You see, I have never seen any German Expressionist films. Hell, I've never seen any Bergman films either. So, I guess what we have here isn't the norm for Bergman, but according the bonus features, its a honest recreation of German Expressionism, so I have that to go off of. I will say that I enjoyed the movie on its own, mostly because of the ending, but it was the DVD features that really brought it into perspective, so I am thankful for that.

With no prior experience, I am going to talk about German Expressionism based on what I have seen on this DVD. I know of, and have seen images from Fritz Lang movies, but I don't really know too much. I know some of you out there do.(I'm talking to you Boog!!) There was a tremendously strong sense of a life spinning into chaos while everything was in extreme decay. And this is social and personal decay we are talking about. I found some of it to be disturbing, as it was meant to be, but a lot of it was kind of boring. I only mean boring because I had no idea what the point was. I didn't know why I was watching this movie, or what the point was. I now understand that part of it was my naivete about the film style. I also found that I just had to watch the movie and the point was made quite clear. The ending of this film is truly great filmmaking. It's paranoia. It's fear. It's shock. It's all captured through the lens. I do not want to say anything about the end other than it's a huge "Oh shit!!" moment. It is a moment that absolutely destroys the foundation of the world we thought we were watching.

I have to mention it because it is apparently part of the style, but there are a number of cabaret scenes in this movie, all of which are done in a grotesque style. It's that poor, downtrodden cabaret where the colors aren't bright, the clothes are dingy, and the makeup is gawdy. Its an interesting element of the decayed world that has been created.

I am interested to see more Bergman films, partly because this was a good film, and partly because I am interested in seeing what his films are normally like. Good thing is that this movie is part of a boxed set. Bad thing is that for some reason the whole thing didn't get put into my queue. It doesn't make any damn sense and is another stupid thing about the blockbuster.com membership. Normally when a movie is part of a boxed set it offers to put the whole set into your queue, but it didn't on this one, and it didn't on some others. So while I have a Kurosawa set and an Ed Wood set buried in my queue, I also have random Shirley Temple, Kimstim, and Merchant Ivory films from boxed sets scattered throughout the list. What kind of crap is that? I wanna these other movies, but this ridiculous obsession with keeping things random compels me to now just rent the damn things. Instead I will plague my eyes with crappy Don Bluth cartoons, made for TV movies from the BET network, and military reports on nuclear tests. What the hell is wrong with me?

#62 - National Velvet

2006-06-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

Is there a term for something that is the opposite of a guilty pleasure? Whereas a guilty pleasure is something that is not good, you know its not good, yet you enjoy it anyways(pro wrestling, soap operas, crack), the opposite of that would be something that you know is good, yet you still hate it. Actually, I dont hate this movie, so I guess this isnt the best example. But I do hate the fact that I dont hate it. Let me explain. This movie is well directed and well acted, but it plays up on the sappy and cheesy at such a high level that I began to be torn. The dislike for the cheese was battling with the appreciation of a well made movie. I couldnt understand why so much sappiness was intenionally put into a movie that was created with such care. I got my answer at the end. This movie was made during the war and was sent overseas for the soldiers to watch. Got it. Anything to help soldiers escape the horrors of war. I can get behind that. Of course, I'm not a soldier in WWII, so I can still point out the bad stuff.

First of all, can we get some consistency in the accents? We are in Ireland. These are all Irish people. The dad's Irish. The mom's Irish. In fact, so is Angela Lansbury's character. Same goes for Mickey Rooney. As well as Elizabeth Taylor. Then why in the hell didnt they ALL have Irish accents? Speaking of Mickey Rooney, not a bad job doing a character I'm not used to see him play. I am used to the comedic Mickey Rooney, and you dont see that side of him, except for the scene when he gets drunk, then its a classic Mickey Rooney caricature. And while we are on the subject of short actors, let's talk about the little brother. By now, you should all be aware of my dislike for most child actors. This is not the case here. He actually does a good job playing the character. Problem is, I hated the character so much I still wanted to knock the shit out of him. Especially the scene where he goes into a temper tantrum. I think I ground a layer of enamel of my teeth in that scene. Speaking of teeth, I didnt need that part at the end about the kids tooth. If you have seen this before, you know what I am talking about. I'll spare the rest of you.

To finish up, let's talk about the big star. Of course I mean Elizabeth Taylor. So is so fresh faced an innocent in this movie, and already a very talented actress. Having seen very little of Taylor's work, I was amazed at how good she was at such a young age. The problem is that after about two-thirds of the movie you realiz that the youthful, innocent, far off gazing, dreamy eyed speech she gives is the exact same thing she does in EVERY SCENE!!!! I'm not even kidding. EVERY ONE!! No matter what, she is a little plug of positivity, innocene, and believing in your dreams. And you ask why I think this movie got too sappy? "I should like to ride horses." "I should like to ride horses all day." "I should like to ride horses down by old man Barleycorn's barn." UGH. And the scene that tops it all, is when she and Mickey Rooney show up at the competition. She gets out of the trailer. She starts to walk around with an overwhelmed look on her face. Finally, she gets to a patch of flowers where she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and blissfully cries out, "HOR-SES!!" I almost vomited. Nevermind the fact that she was just in a trailer with her favorite horse in the world for over eight hours. No sir, what brings her more joy than anything in the world is being surround by the smell of other horses. Thats what clams her, the smell. Not seeing all the pretty horses. The smell. I know I get relaxed when I go to a kennel and smell Alpo and wet dog. Ridculous. Cheesy. Sappy. This very scene is why I am torn about this movie.

#61 - The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit

2006-06-05T12:53:00.000-05:00

Time to come clean. I have seen this movie. Well, not really. At least I'm not sure. I know I have seen a lot of it, but it was a LONG time ago when the Disney channel actually showed old Disney movies. You know what I'm talking about, the days of Mouseterpiece Theatre and whatnot. So its been a few years. I don't know if I ever saw the whole thing or not and I sure as hell never knew the title. I believe this is on the cusp of qualifying for this dog and pony show I am doing here. I have made sure that I am only watching movies that I have never seen in their entirety and in one straight shot. This is a very good example of one that I have seen a lot of, but never seen the whole thing. At least I think thats the case. There are many movies out there that fall under this category. Some of them may shock the hell out of you, so I wont say the titles of them. But enough of this shite, we have a movie to talk about here.

This is just good clean fun here. Nothing too serious, nothing to over the top. It's true wholesome family goodness. The difference between this and what they make now is that this isnt stupid annoying crap. It may not be an intellectually chanllenging movie, but they didn't insult the intelligence of the audience by dumbing things down into a bunch of sight gags, stupid shtick and fart jokes. Don't get me wrong, a well placed fart joke can be hilarious, but those cases are few and far between. Its just a simple, little, entertaining movie about a father who buys a horse for his daughter as an advertsing scheme. Give it a few years and you may have a remake with Lindsay Lohan. Nah...there's other, more popular classic Disney movies that they can remake with her. This one doesnt even have Jodie Foster or Hayley Mills in it, so it doesn't qualify.

There's really not much else to say about this movie, but there is one thing I want to mention. Is there a more likeable character anywhere in all of filmdom than the one played over and over by Dean Jones? Seriously. How can you not like this guy? I couldn't tell you if he is a really good actor because the only thing I have seen him do other than this character is the evil vet in Beethoven, but what he does, he does well. I have seen numerous other Dean Jones movies. They usually involve animals and a young girl. And you can't bring up Herbie cause that car eventually went bananas and I am counting it as a monkey. Just cause I can. But anyways, this Dean jones fellow has good comedic timing and a genuine, sincere, gentle way about him. You can't help but root for him cause he is such a nice guy, and not in a nauseating kind of way. Check some of his stuff out, but go for Herbie first, or the outer space cat one. And I don't want any nasty letters from the Fred MacMurray fan club either. You can save it.

#60 - A Troll in Central Park

2006-06-05T00:02:00.000-05:00

Now that lights are turned on for a new theatre on the shores of Green Bay in Wisconsin, and now that my mosquito bites have begun to stop itching, and now that I have a decent internet connection that I dont have to be in a lobby of a Best Western to use, I can get back to writing reviews of crappy movies. I know you have been waiting, anticipating, and damn near beside yourself for this review. I know you are thinking that Rock a Doodle was such a bad movie that there is no way that Don Bluth could make anything worse. Well my friends, he made something worse. That something is A Troll in Central Park.

I know I have said this before, but I will say it again, it's hard to know where to begin. First of all, the premise of the movie is that in a land filled with ugly, nasty trolls, there is one troll that looks like a cross between a leprechon and Dopey. Where the evil nasty queen troll has a purple thumb that creates nasty stuff, this little tub of goo has a green thumb that has the power to create plant life, but most importantly, beautiful flowers. Kill me already. Please, kill me already. The queen troll hates flowers cause they are pretty and so she banishes him to a nasty place, the nastiest place of them all, New York City. Apparently, this mythical troll community is in the general vicinity of EUROPE and this fat little troll basically immigrated to Central Park. Which he loves at first, but then hates cause its scary and cries himself to sleep in a trememndous cavern that he finds in a crack under a footbridge. THATS RIGHT!!! A tremendous cavern that is under the hills, trees, and lawns of Central Park and is only accesible from a little crack under a footbridge!! Are you freaking kidding me? I know its a cartoon, but its set in a real place. How about a little bit of reality to that world. I know its asking too much of a cartoon with a troll in it, but if you take something from a fantasy world and put it into a real location, try to make that location realistic, unless the fantasy characters change it. Oh, and they change it. This little fatty takes him green thumb and makes this cavern into a lush garden of beautiful flowers and whatnot. It sickening really. The whole love of beatiful flowers was really quite nauseating. What was even more nauseating was the musical number that went along with the flowering of the cavern. As well as the musical number that went along with his proffession of love for flowers that is sung to the girl that stumbles into the cavern. Here is what I don't understand, in Rock a Doodle you have Glen Campbell playing a singing rooster and you cover up his songs with crappy action sequences, yet in this movie you let Dom Deluise, of all people, sing his freaking heart out about the loveliness of flowers. There was no covering up of the songs, just a bunch of pretty flowers blooming all over in a pretty little garden of cavern buried under Central Park and only accessible from a crack under a footbridge. Oh, and the crap about the dreams coming true really gets annoying when a toy boat gets turned into a huge vessel that floats through the air in a huge fantasy sequence that all takes place in a cavern...blah...blah...blah. And of course the queen troll comes to Central Park, tears the place apart into a wasteland which is explained by an amazing tornado and the kids have a happy ending. The cuteness level of this cartoon is vomitous. The cliches of the angry kid, having dreams, and that pretty and nice things win over ugly and mean things is so badly iverdon in this thing that I wonder how these people sleep at night. It's ridiculous. It's bad. It's overdone. It's ill conceived. It's not entertaining. It's poorly written. It has annoyingly sappy songs. The villains are annoying and over the top. The main character is way too sweet and happy to even be remotely palatable. The big sequences are disgustingly fantastical and unrealistic in what is suppossed to be a realistic world. I mean it when I say that no words I put down here can do justice to how bad of a cartoon this was. Hideuosly repulsive. A waste of time for everyone involved. I'd rather vote to make sure that my favorite Big Brother All Star makes it back into the house this summer. I'd rather watch Matt Lauer interview Brittney Spears and mistake it for legitimate journalism. I'd rather watch Jay Leno ask Trace Adkins to elaborate on what he was going for with Honky Tonk Badonkadonk as if there was some sort of hidden meeting or social commentary we may not have been able to pick up on without an explanation...oh wait...I did happen to see that. This review is over.

#59 - Rock a Doodle

2006-06-04T18:29:00.000-05:00

When I said that Disney was trying to copy Don Bluth cartoons when they were making Oliver and Company, this is not what I had in mind. You see, Disney was copying the good and/or successful Bluth cartoons. This is and was neither. This is bad writing, overdone storyboarding, and a series of individually bad ideas that add up to a great big steaming pile of poo.

First, the writing, of which there are two egregious sins. To start off, what the hell kind of a name is Chanticleer? This is the hero of the whole movie. The guy who brings up the sun. The guy they go to the city to find so that they can save the world...or at least the barn. I shouldn't have to get on imdb.com to find out what the hell the hero of the movie is. Try something simple, like Buck, or Clucky, or Big ol' Chicken Guy. Hell, I would have taken Feivel over Chanticleer. And while we are on the topic of this hero, lets talk about his singing. Voiced by Glen Campbell, you would think that there would be a number of songs in the movie that Chanticleer would have, and there were. Problem is, EVERY song was covered up by a crappy action sequence as the rag tag farm animals tried to reach this dipshit. How do you do that? You go out of your way to get a legitimate musician, and then cut him off with crappy, overdone action sequences? Which leads me to the overdone sequences. Just because you have the capacity to draw and create massive, energetic, a hugely sweeping action sequences does not mean that you have to fill the entire movie with them. There had to be at least six or seven of the standard action sequences where animals are flying everywhere, things are breaking all over the place, close calls and narrow escapes are happing and all that usual crap. Maybe one or two beyond the obvious final sequence is neccessary, but COME ON!!! It was muddy. It was confusing. I had sensory overload. It took away from time that could be spent with an actual story. And another thing, can't you draw an owl any other way? The big ol evil owl looked WAY too similar to the Great Owl from Rats of Nimh. I can accept a drawing style that animators have, but when you have a villain from one movie look like a non-villain character from another, that just weak. You know what else is weak? The decision to make the main character a live action child turned into a cartoon cat by a cartoon owl walking on a real tree. What the hell was that? A real life barn is gonna be saved by a fake rooster in a cartoon world? Stupid. Oh yeah....I almost forgot....the main character....played by a little kid....

Whoever is responsible for this little kid needs to be punched in the face. That person needs to be pulled out of their beds in the middle of the night and beaten with reeds. I could not stand the annoying voice of this annoying little kid. It was okay when I thought he was just gonna be a live action kid at the begining and end of the movie. Imagine my dread to find out that he turns into a cartoon cat and is there the whole time. My head hurt and my bones shook every time I heard that kid pronounce his R's in that suppossedly cutesy kid way. It's funny if you are Homestar Runner. It's annoying as hell when you are a stupid little kid/cat thing. You know what else doesn't help? The fact that the writers didn't feel the need to give the kid anything more than a loud "Oh no!!" every time he was near impending doom. This is especially troublesome when he is in the middle of EVERY single overdone action sequence. I am thinking of taking a hammer to my head right nut just thinking about it. DAMMIT!! This movie was painfully bad.

#58 - Oliver & Company

2006-06-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have been reading these reviews every other day for the past few months, you may have noticed that there was no review yesterday. Well, I was north of Green Bay, Wisconsin in a motel with no internet. That's the way it goes. But hey, after this review I only have three more to write before I am caught up with my DVD viewing. That means that a review every other day is soon coming to an end. Maybe its time to ween you off of the teet a little bit. It's not always best to quit cold turkey. But hey, we've got a movie to talk about.

I actually learned something while watching this cartoon. I learned why they used to call the 80's the dark days of Disney. There's a nice laundry list about what is wrong with this movie. First and foremost, I'm just wondering why Disney felt the need to stray from their proven formula for making cartoons and tried to copy what Don Bluth was doing. I know Don Bluth used to work for them and all, but when he left, he went on to do his own thing. Disney should have kept doing their own thing, because it worked. Sure, there were hits like The Rats of Nimh(one of my faves from my youth), An American Tail, and Land Before Time, but that doesn't mean you try to copy it. Once you start copying someone else's style you lose what makes you unique, and you lose me. In no way does the story and style in this movie resemble any other Disney cartoon that I have ever seen. I am confused as to why it was felt this kind of thing was neccessary.

You wanna know what bothered me the most? It was the fact that there were clashing animation styles. The backgrounds of the docks, alleys and streets of NYC were well drawn, well textured, and well colored. But the lines used to draw all of the characters did not match that background. They just didn't. Usually the animated characters stand out a bit from the background, but they fit into their surroundings. Oliver, Dodger, and all the other mutts did not. And then to top it off, they have all of the vehicles. I know that this was one of the first cartoons to use computers in the animation process, but in the middle of a world with a textured background, and mismatched, yet free moving characters, there are stiff, rigid, and angular vehicles. Nothing matches with each other. Sure, you have to start the computer technology somewhere, but man, you could have done better than this.

Here's another thing...where's the memorable characters? There isn't any characters that you could see in a parade down Main Street in Disneyland. The only performance that is even mildly entertaining is Cheech Marin, and it's only just okay. And come on!!! Billy Joel? A dog with shades on? You've got to be kidding me. And hey, Dom Deluise is much better as a bird than he is a warm hearted street urchin. Shame on you Disney. You tried to do something cause you got scared that you didn't rule the cartoon world anymore, and you ended up making a big old pile of steaming crap. Thank god you've gotten it together since then.

#57 - The Yearling

2006-06-03T19:09:00.000-05:00

This was dangerous territory here. The trepidation towards watching this movie was quite high. Why? Take a look at that picture. We are talking about a high potential for annoying child actor here. I flashed back, all the way to A Hole in the Head. I was certain that there wasn't going to be a crappy song in the middle of the movie, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to grind my teeth away listening to an annoying kid in a sappy movie. But that's not what we got. Believe it or not, the kid wasn't completely annoying. There were definitely times when he tried my patience. A few too many uses of the words "Pa" and "Gee", and not necessarily in that order.

This kid undertook an extremely hard task. He had an unbelievable range of emotion that he had to portray throughout the entire movie. I would imagine that going from youthful innocence to the harsh realities of life and death is a hard thing to express for anyone, much less someone so young. And he does it quite well. A little unbelievable at times, but he is committed to what he is doing which is admirable. And since he is the main character of the movie, you might think that he has the daunting task of carrying the whole thing. Oh, no. For that, we turn to the rock. The foundation. Gregory Peck. You probably already know this, but this guy is amazingly good at what he does. You see, I haven't seen to many of his films, so I just don't know. Blown away at his wisdom and stoicism in To Kill A Mockingbird, I was floored to see him be the foundation of a family yet again, but in a completely different way with a completely different character. And no less effective. And Jane Wyman was solid too with a mother dealing with the heartache of lost children and a hard life in general. This ain't Falcon Crest.

Let's talk visuals here. This movie was made in 1946 and the color is absolutely amazing. The lost art of film studio sky cyc's is on full display in this movie and they tremendously well done. And the nature shots are amazing. Particularly the scene with the running deer. It was beautiful and breathtaking. Check it out. You could be pleasantly surprised like I was.

#56 - Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

2006-06-03T12:37:00.000-05:00

I tell you what, don't go into this movie expecting to anything that you have ever seen before. I went into it expecting a Harry Potter type of movie, and that is not what I got. For the first part of it, I was stuck in that mindset and wasn't really enjoying what I was watching. Once I caught on to what was going on in the movie, it blew me away with it's uniqueness and imagination. You see, I haven't read any of the books that this was based on, so I had no idea that it would even be possible to mix a dark comedy and a family movie. That's right. That's what I said. A dark comedy mixes with a family movie. I never even imagined that the two things could be put together, and then work so well together.

I'm not gonna bore you with a plot summary because most of you reading this have probably seen the movie. The fact that the meat of the whole movie is the kids avoiding being killed by their evil uncle Olaf is amazing to me. Most family movies have kids getting captured by the bad guys, but they usually aren't in too much danger. Besides, the bad guys in those movies have something else on their mind other than the kids and they just want to capture them so that they can't ruin their plans. Count Olaf wants to kill them!! That is his objective. Someone tell me of another family movie where the main focus of the bad guy is to kill the kids. And I'm not talking about killing the kids so that they stop interfering with their plans for something else. I am talking about their deaths being THE objective. You can't do it. Especially in a big budget Hollywood movie.

I loved the art direction of this movie. The Victorian style is already unsettling and disturbing, but when you skewer, and twist, and tweak it, you have stepped it up another level. Olaf's mansion and the house on the cliff are especially well designed. It just creates a magically dark world that sets the tone for whole movie. Well done there.

And let talk about one of my favorite subjects: child actors. Well, no problems here. All three of the kids were well cast, and good actors. Maybe the boy was a little stiff, but he's a quiet bookworm, so it's okay. The girl was an interesting balance of sadness and sweetness. And that baby. I know they used a pair of twins, but how in the hell did they get those babies to do all of that stuff. I've never seen a baby that was so much fun to watch. From the smart ass comments translated from baby gibberish to the shot of her hanging off of a table with her choppers, I enjoyed every part of that kid.

As far as the other performers go, everyone did a great job of commiting to the world that was being created. Jim Carrey playing a number of interesting characters, especially the Italian scientist. Glenn Close(Check that - Meryl Streep) playing the ultimate worry wart. Billy Connelly playing...Billy Connelly. And how about Jude Law getting paid to be in shillouette the entire time and never having to learn lines since all of his dialogue was recorded narration. Nice gig there.

Like I said before, most of you reading this have probably already seen it. But in case you haven't, DO IT!!! It's absolutely unique. Like Falling Angels, I wanted to watch it over again right away. I also wanted to watch the DVD extras which I rarely take time to do with these rentals. The fact that I watched any of them is saying something. WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!

#55 - Ring of Bright Water

2006-06-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

From the makers of...and the actor of...and the actress of...Born Free, it's a movie about another animal in another part of the world. Instead of lions in Africa, it's an otter in England. Seriously, you did some happy ass movie about lions in Africa and then follow it up with some happy ass movie about an otter in England? The only thing that could make that more annoying would be if the main actor and the main actress were married. Oh..wait.

Actually, once you get over the sappiness of the married couple making another animal movie, you realize that it's not that bad of a movie. I'm still not sure why anyone would go see this in a movie theatre, but it was made in a time without cable television and you couldn't see anything like this on the TV. I guess it makes some sense.

What doesn't make sense to me is how the main relationship of the movie got started, the main relationshi[p being the one between the man and his otter. You see, the man works in some office in London and isn't happy with his empty desk job. One day he walks by a nearby pet store and is mesmerized by the otter in the window. Over time he decides to purchase the otter as a pet....hold on, let's go back. Did I just say he saw an otter in the window of a pet store in London? Are you kidding me? Was it common to find non-domesticated animals for sale in pet shops in one of the largest cities in Europe? Am I completely off base to think that this situation seems a little out of whack here? It's an OTTER, and it's in a PET SHOP, and it's in the middle of LONDON, ENGLAND!!!! And the way he acts around it is kind of odd too. Trying to take a look at it without the otter knowing he's looking. The begining of this movie didn't sit well with me because I thought the guy was an idiot. Luckily he buys a cabin somewhere in the Highlands or something.

Once we get into the hills, the movie gets okay and we get the usual man/animal relationship movie. Not a Turner & Hooch kind of a relationship, but an Old Yeller kind of relationship. Apparently this movie was based on a book that I can only imagine is in the same vein as a Where the Red Fern Grows kind of book is. In other words, lots of adventures based around someone and their best buddy animal. I don't know, it's not that it's bad, it's just not too terribly exciting. We arent talking about My Side of the Mountain kind of boring, but it's along those lines...just no stupid kid. Oh, and the otter gets whacked, but in these kinds of movies the animal always dies. So I didn't ruin anything.

#54 - Falling Angels

2006-06-01T00:27:00.000-05:00

You may have to bear with me on this one. Not only am I writing this on my birthday, but I went to a Cubs game earlier and then boozed it up a little afterwards. (Reds won, Griffey Jr. got a HR, and Jaque Jones the former Twin hit a HR too, so I was pleased) But it's late, my typing skills are a little rough, but I will do this review dammit.

And let me just say, this is a good movie. It definitely is one of those ones I wouldn't have picked on my own. The DVD was released by this group called The Film Movement. They release monthly DVD's of art house type movies. Kind of in the way Time Life does business. The reason I probably wouldn't have picked it is because I can only go so far with art house movies. Most of them are foreign because apparently, only foreign countries make art movies. And they are independent too, and there is a huge level of pretentiousness surrounding art house and independent movies that I just don't want to be a part of. But this is a good movie, and its from Canada too, ya hoser.

This movie is a bit of a dark comedy that deals with what happens when people don't deal with tagedy and try to ignore it. But it's not so much about the people who are denying the tragedy, it's about the impact it has on those around them, most notably the three daughters in this movie. I can't stress enough how dynamic the relationships in this movie are. There is a level of love overshadowed by a level of disdain in this movie that is really powerful. The three daughters each deal with the unspoken missing truth in their family's life in a different way. The mom is a zombie of regret and the father is overbearing and cold. I really want to talk about it more, but I don't want to say too much about it because the truth unfolds so well that I really don't want to ruin it.

I read something about it on imdb.com that was titled, "Blame it on dad, again." That couldn't be further from the truth. If you just take what you are given at the begining of the movie, then yes, it is a blame it on dad kind of thing, but towards the end there is a level of acceptance, redemption, and repentance that let you know that this is more than just a blame it on dad festival.

Another note about the DVD: WIth each Film Movement DVD they have a short film on the disc. The one on this disc is about three minutes and it is about a guy who breaks each of the ten commandements in about...three minutes. It's quite funny and is a good complement to the film. Rent this movie and come back and tell me what you think, because it is really well done. I wanted to watch it again right after I first watched it, and that's saying a lot.

#53 - The Three Musketeers

2006-05-29T21:52:00.000-05:00

Oh boy. Those of you who read these reviews on a regular basis know that I am no fan of made for TV movies. But there is a category of movie that may actually be worse, and that is direct to video. It's interesting though, made for TV movies, except for those on certain networks, are usually all very crappy, whereas direct to video is either suprisingly okay, or the worst piece of garbage you have ever seen. I think that makes the direct to video movies a much risker undertaking. The odds are against both, but the direct to video movie has more potential to be worse. If you haven't already figured out why I am talking about all of this, it's because this little cartoon is a direct to video movie.

How did this movie stack up with so much going against it? Well, honestly, it was more on the suprisingly okay side. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really saying that it was that good or anything, but it didn't completely suck. First of all, it clocked in at barely over one hour, which is a tremendous benefit to all. It also had some moments of decent humor, some of which was more inspired by Looney Toons that classic Disney, but still humorous. It's really odd. I can't say that I have ever seen anything that I was expecting to be awful, but turned out better than I thought, yet still wasn't that great. Normally when you say something is better than you expected it to be, that means that they like it. But this is not the case. If your expectations are way low, then everything else scales down to meet that expectation.

Don't be confused by the title. This is not another version of the Dumas story. It's an all new story that plays out after the original story. Did someone mention that they didn't need to do write anything new? Dumas has been dead for a little while. It's called public domain. It's why they didn't get sued over the title. The story is different, but it may as well be the same. Seemed like a bit of a pointless exercise to me.

Here's the most shocking thing about it all, the animation isn't that bad. They didn't really cut any corners with the characters animation. It's thought out well, and mixed with writing that isn't as bad as you would expect, they actually pull off a slick looking cartoon. It's not groundbreaking by any means, but definately a capable effort. I'm in a realy quandry about this one, I wanna hate it, but I can't. I don't want to recommend it to anyone, but I can't say that it was a complete waste of time. So don't watch it, but don't not watch it because I said it was bad. Not watch it because there are better things to watch, but always remembering that there are worse things to watch as well. That doesn't make any damn sense. Stupid movie.

#52 - The Spongebob Squarepants Movie

2006-05-24T00:26:00.000-05:00

I'll come clean here. I haven't watched very many episodes of Spongebob Squarepants. It's not that I don't like the cartoon, I just never really went out of my way to watch it. Because of this I wondered if I should go forward with watching the movie, kind of thinking along the lines of my not watching sequels first rule. Well, I obviously watched it, otherwise I wouldn't be writing a review here. (Think about it, dummy) You see, I am of the opinion that movie versions of television shows should stand on their own. For example, South Park and Beavis and Butthead both stood on their own as good movies. I also expect that the overall scope of the movie be WAY amplified from that of the TV show. It is the big screen, time to go big, or go home.

Does this movie stand on its own? Does it go way beyond the scope of the TV show? Well, sort of. If by adding live action elements to a cartoon and placing the animated characters in a live, non-cartoon world you are expanding the scope, then yes, it did do that. But I'm not convinced it was enough to satisfy me. The reason is because other than the live action moments, they didn't really go too far outside of the already established world of the TV series. Sure Patrick and Spongebob go on a long journey, but the shots of them were always the close up shots you have already seen. I want a big sweeping shot from far away that zooms in as it revolves 360 degress around the main character. You're on the big screen, make things BIG.

...you see, they are on a plane, and there are SNAKES ON IT TOO!!!...

Having said all of that garbage about the scope of the movie, I did enjoy it. The animators for Spongebob are very good at making a character look lighthearted and loveable one moment, and then hideously grotesque another. The contrast is very effective, very well done, and very funny. If you liked Ren and Stimpy, you should also enjoy this because it is in the same vein. Oh, and I had no idea that the voice of Patrick was done by Dauber from Coach.(M-O-O-N. That spells moon.) I think Patrick is my favorite character because of how over the top and insane he really is. "I LOVE BEING PURPLE!!!" Almost completely random, and very, very funny. And even though its a cartoon, I want to take this moment to tell you what you may already know: Scarlett Johansson is very, very hot. At times, mind numbingly hot. But I digress.

And the topper of it all. What was quite possibly the best and most entertaining performance of the entire movie was that of acting legend David Hasselhoff. That's right. I said it!! The shit eating grin that he puts on as he plays a caricature of himself is priceless. There's a difference between just knowing you are satirizing yourself and actually playing the part to its full effectiveness. He does the later, and it is a hoot. I guess to summarize the whole thing, it wasn't as much of a breakout from the cartoon as I would have liked to have seen, but it was entertaining and had the same type of humor and animation that you see on the TV show. Which is a good thing.

#51 - Shark Tale

2006-05-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

It's finally happened. The day that I knew would be here has come. What I am speaking of is the day when full length CGI animated features hit the wall. When I first saw Toy Story I was amazed at how good it was. Ever since then I have been shocked that the quality of these films has remained at such a high level. From what I have seen, Pixar would have to work hard to NOT make a good movie. And Dreamworks has done well with their own. Antz wasn't bad, and of course there are the Shrek's. But in the back of my mind I knew that the people making these movies would run out of magic fairy dust and hit the wall. This movie is the wall.

Let me start off by saying that the animation of this movie did not hit the wall. It is top notch and is probably the best part of the whole thing. Where this movie falls short is in the writing department, the same department that was the strong point for all of the CGI toons that I have prior to this. The problem with the writing is that it heavily relies on two major aspects to carry the movie, both of which aren't that great. The first, and most important, is the performance of Will Smith. I know he has made a career on being a fast talking, smooth talking ne'er do well, but but there was so much of it in this movie that it wore out its welcome way too quick. And it never let up. From start to finish it was blabbity blabbity, a million miles a minute, non stop jabbering, and I just wanted him to shut up.

The second aspect of the writing that was annoying was the excessive use of taking common items or scenarios in the human world and transfering them into the fish world. What followed was a movie long series of play on words after play on words and bad fish puns. It was just too much. In the Shrek movies they only really did it when he was out of the woods or the swamp. In Shark Tale it was constantly happening and lost its amusement value around the same time Will Smith did. After that everything else was standard movie stuff, the best firend fish is in love with the main character fish, the super hot fish only loves him cause he is popular, the evil Italian shark mobster with the gay son, you know, all the usual stuff. Which means that all of the interesting writing I had come to expect in these movies was not there. The Rasta jellyfish were pretty funny, even if stoned out rasta's wouldn't make good mobster goons.

Unrelated side note: Is anyone else irritated at the WB's use of the word "fresh" as a substitution for the word "new"? It just reeks of middle aged marketing guys trying too hard to connect with a younger audience. Hopefully it stops with the creation of the CW(UPN + WB = CW????), but let's be honest, I rarely watched either one anyways, and I'm probably not gonna watch this one either.

#50 - Elf

2006-05-21T22:29:00.000-05:00

Finally, a movie that people have actually heard of, and have probably seen. I was looking forward to this movie for a number of reasons. One, I needed something mainstream to break up my lackluster viewing lineup. Two, I really like John Favreau's movies and was interested in seeing how he does directing with larger budgets. (Can we get some new episodes of Dinner for Five PLEASE?!?!) Three, I was completely floored by how absolutely hysterically funny Will Ferrell was in Anchorman and wanted to see if he was able to keep it going in another leading role. And yes, I do realize that this one came first and that technically makes the previous sentence incorrect, but I saw Anchorman first, so bite me.

With all of that build up in mind, I was definately left with a resounding feeling of "not bad". It's amazing to me that it can happen, but this is one of those odd cases of a movie that has so many things in it that I liked, but when the pieces were assembled, the end result was just okay. I have a theory on why that happened here, but we'll get to that later. Bob Newhart!! Good to see Bob Newhart and his usual frantic self. Ed Asner!! How the hell has this guy never been pegged for a Santa until now? Zooey Deschanel!! Actually, the jury is still out on her. I wanna say she's a cutie, cause she kind of is, but I get the feeling she might be a bit of a freak. Not a Selma Blair kind of freak, but freak nonetheless. I didn't even remember she was in Big Trouble and I liked that movie. Of course, Sophia Vergara was in that, and holy crap. Faizon Love!! This guy is freakin hysterical. I wish I could see his stand up sometime cause everything I have seen him do is really funny.

I loved the visuals when Buddy was in the North Pole. I loved the stop motion snowman that lived up there. I think the fantasy is reality world that was created was well done and fun to watch. So why didn't I enjoy this movie more than I did? I think the answer lies at the feet of the man I was interested in watching the most, well at least his writers. I think Will Ferrell's performance as Buddy is great. He is absolutely commited to the role and plays every inch of it to its most extreme intensities. Problem is, as written, the character is dumb. Not ignorant of life in the city of New York, just dumb. For exhibit, I give you Crocodile Dundee. He was ignorant of life in NYC, but over time adapted. Buddy did not, well not completely. I just didn't buy that the 30 year old guy would still act completely like a child and not really pick up on much of anything going on around him, and since Ferrell plays the role so completely as written, it kind of showed flaws in the character development. Or maybe I'm just an idiot for over analyzing a fun little family Christmas movie that I actually did enjoy. I hate critics.

#49 - What About Your Friends: Weekend Getaway

2006-05-20T02:07:00.000-05:00

What's wrong with me? Why do I waste my time with crap like this? I know that I say I wanna watch the bad things in order to make the good things better. And I know that I say I wanna watch what appears to be bad or things I'm not initially interested in because I may be suprised by what I find. But there comes a time when an individual has to realize that when they put a DVD into their DVD player that there is no chance in hell they will even come close to enjoying what they are about to watch. Especially when that DVD is a made for TV movie for the BET network. I don't know that there is anything on BET that I have ever really wanted to watch. The only thing that would even remotely interest me is Comic View, and those comedians suck. So, why would I want to take the time to watch a BET movie about three high school girls on a weekend getaway competing for college scholarships? Oh wait. I DON'T want to spend my time doing that, but dammit, I did it anyways. I'm not very pleased about it.

Let's see, where to begin? It stars Rudy. That's Cosby Rudy, not football Rudy. Last time I saw Rudy she was busy beating Pen & Teller and Greg Brady in Celebrity Fear Factor. I guess she was okay in this movie. Actually, everybody was okay. This may be a case where all of the performers were capable at what they were doing. If they were given something that wasn't completely generic in every way, I think that maybe a couple of them would have still been okay. Oh, by the way, Rudy needs to learn how to speak slang. Here's a hint: You don't enunciate the "Girl, no you didn't" types of phrases. It doesnt help that these phrases are placed in between dialogue of proper english. That's called bad writing. Most of the dialogue isn't in slang, but the writer threw in a phrases here and there. But the performers usually enunciated every word. It was kind of funny.

I'm done talking about that piece of crap. I could rant on it forever, but really, I just wanna forget about it. You'll all be happy to know that the crappy or obscure movies that have plagued most of what I have been reviewing lately is over. That doesn't mean that I've been watching only good movies. Far from it. But the crappy documentaries, the crappy bomb movies, and the crappy cop/mob movies are in the past, for now. I think everyone knows those things are not in short supply. But for some reason, this is the point where the random movie selection takes a drastic shift in another direction. It's actually a relief because this last stretch has been rough to watch. Anyways, I am now only nine movies away from being caught up with my viewing. Hopefully that means that I can be a little more specific with things, or I can rant that much better cause things will be fresh in my mind. We shall see. Tell your friends. Tell your friends friends, but not in a MySpace kind of way. Tell your enemies too.

#48 - Hit Lady

2006-05-19T20:52:00.000-05:00

Wait. What? How did this movie get put into this set? First of all, it's not even about the mafia. Sure, it does involve organized crime, but not the mafia. If you couldn't tell by the title of the movie, this is about a woman assassin. Of course she is a beautiful woman assassin cause why would you hire anything else. But it's not the mafia. On those terms alone, it should be stricken from this collection. Not to mention the fact that the movie stinks.

Another reason this movie should be stricken from this set is the fact that its a made for TV movie. WHAT? How absolutely random is this freakin set anyways? You get an Italian movie, you get a absolute piece of garbage, you get pseudo serious Jersey mobster movie, and to wrap it up, you get a made for TV movie that isnt even about the mafia. What could make it even worse? Well, Hit Lady was produced by Aaron Spelling. That's right the genius responsible for producing such great TV hits as Hotel, Models, Inc., and Tori Spelling. I know, I know, he's made some things that aren't a complete waste of time like those were(are), but I think the ratio of okay to bad is not in his favor.

I can't even describe my befuddlement about the collection I have watched. To say that it was ecclectic would be giving it too fancy a word. And Hit Lady is just the topper. I wanted to change the channel at every commercial break. Hell, I wanted to change the channel while I was watching it. I wanted to scan through the online guide to see what else was on. It doesn't help that I am not a fan of made for TV movie, but this movie is just too simple and safe. There is no tension and no aggression that one would expect from this kind of topic. I guess that's what you get when you make something for mass television consumption and don't want to upset anyone about anything. It's not even targeted at a specific audience, it's just targeted at an audience.

Having said all that, I will say that something happened in this movie that shocked the hell out of me. You see, in this movie the lady assassin wants out but wont be allowed by her employer. She tries to run away after she can't complete a hit on a huge union leader. She seeks solace in her boyfriend, who turns out to also be an assassin sent to follow her in case she ever tried to run. That's not what is shocking and don't say that I ruined the end for you because this dude being an assassin might have been the most obvious plot twist ever and you weren't gonna watch this piece of crap anyway. What is shocking is that he actually kills the chick. WHAT!?!? That's right!! He kills her!! That's how the movie ends. You can understand my emotional confusion to be watching a movie I couldn't care less about, and then be shocked by the result. The damn thing got me at the end. That made me really hate it. Pieces of crap like this shouldn't throw me for a loop at the end. Damn you Aaron Spelling, damn you.

#47 - Family Enforcer

2006-05-16T13:41:00.000-05:00

Here we have Mob Hit number three. Let's review: First movie was from Italy, but fun in a Saturday night on TNT sort of way. Second movie was the worst thing I have ever seen. How does this movie fare? Pretty well actually. I know the picture shows Joe Pesci, and he is in the movie, but he isn't the main character. He just happens to be the only name actor 25+ years after this thing was made. He plays the sidekick(again). But he's not a psycho sidekick, he actually has a level head on his shoulders and shows some compassion at time. Don't worry, he swears at people like you have come to expect, but he's just not the raving lunatic you have seen from him before.

This movie is a low budget mob movie from the 70's that has similar film qualities and textures of a low budget porn movie from the 70's. The main character, played by some dude, is looking to get back into working with the mob running scores. The boss is willing to give him work, but only as a debt collector. So he goes around and roughs some people up, pisses some people off, and basically begins to do things his own way. Of course this pisses of the big boss and things go forth from there. Its honestly a well written movie in terms of plot structure, and the way things play out and develop. Sure the dialouge isn't the best, but there is an entertaining vibe that is going on with this one. It's not the same type of vibe I got from Escape from Death Row or Cop in Blue Jeans because Family Enforcer is a little bit more dramatic.

Don't think this is strictly dramatic. There are humorous and light hearted moments, but they are juxtaposed with some pretty intense moments of violence. The funniest thing in the whole movie is mostly a result of being made in the 70's. There is a guy, a bad guy, who is the epitome of fat 70's sleazeball criminal. He's got the polyester button-up shirt that is stuffed into tight denim blue jeans that just happen to match the denim jacket he is wearing. And wrapped around the hemispherical waist of this tub is a classic white pleather belt. I know your feeling me on this one. I know you know what I'm talking about. From the neck up is the best part. First of all, the guy has no neck. It's just jawline, a little bit of flab, and shoulders. Directly above the somewhat jutting jawline is a classic Ron Jeremy style mustache. And on the top of this dude's dome is a masterpiece of a curly, black, probably permed helmet of hair. I don't think any of my words could give a just description of this guys head. It's almost worth watching just to see this guy. Classic sleazeball.

You can put this one in the same category as Cop in Blue Jeans and Escape from Death Row, even though it has a different mood to it, and isn't Italian. It actually has some really well directed and well created moments. Only one more movie left in this boxed set, which just so happens to be on the other side of this one.

#46 - America's Atomic Bomb Tests: Operation Tumbler Snapper

2006-05-10T23:21:00.000-05:00

At long last, the final installment of this atomic bomb boxed set. Of course, everyone is excited that this day has come. Not because of the eager anticipation to see what happens next. Not because of the eager anticipation to learn more about the history of nuclear testing in the United States and abroad. No, we are all excited that this day has come so that we can finally get through this god awful piece of crap boxed set and move on to more important things, reviewing other crappy DVD's.

I would say that this DVD only 75% sucked. Like the other DVD's in the set, it is broken up into four short films. Three of them are the usual boring crap. This time they blow up different stuff to see how it reacts. Guess what? It blows up. I'm telling you, make stuff out of the materials the cameras are made out of. They don't fail after getting hit by the blast. Anyways, they set up mannequins in some of the houses in family type settings...and then blew em up. They had cameras in the buildings so you could see exactly how bodies are blown around through shattered debris in the event of a nuclear attack. Was this research, or morbid curiosity? I could have told you what would happen to a family playing Scrabble when a nuke hits the ground in the neighbors backyard. Of course I'm talking about neighbors like Dayton, Ohio is a neighbor to Cincinnatti, Ohio.

Why all of this is 25% interesting is because the fourth, and thankfully final film on the DVD was more of a PSA film trying to tell Americans how the government is testing nukes to keep you safe. AND IT SHOWED THE FOOTAGE OF THE JONES FAMILY GETTIN BLOWED UP!!! Everybody plays their part, or else THIS HAPPENS!!!!! Hysterical. It reminded me of when I went to see a preserved reel of Dr. Strangelove and they had a preserved news reel just before America's involvement in WWII. It talked about such things as Nazi families doing their part and saving food scraps to feed Nazi pigs. It was done in classic propaganda style, and this bomb PSA was just as silly and just as rooted in fallacious scare tactics.

If you stayed with me through these three reviews, I appreciate you tolerance. I tried to make them as interesting as they could be, but it was hard to do becuase they were obviously the most boring things to ever be transmitted over a laser. I can't make any guaruntees that something like this will never happen again because there are some more documentries and whatnot in my queue, but not for a while. I think a moment of respite would do us all good. I'm glad this is over. I hope the future is more interesting, but I shall continue to watch the crappy DVD's. If I sat through this shite, I can sit through anything, like Mob War.

#45 - The Big Heat

2006-05-09T00:19:00.000-05:00

I tell you what, these kinds of movies are GOOD movies. They are so intense, raw, and in your face. It is a pleasure to watch something so well crafted and that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. There are two things that happened for me while I was watching this movie. First, I didn't know how some things were going to turn out, so I was completely absorbed in the story and what the results were going to be. Second, there were some things I figured out, but there was a great anticipation to see how it unfolded. I can't remember the last "classic" style cop movie I saw that had those two elements interweaving in such a strong way. This was different then what happened in White Heat because you pretty much knew what the deal was, you just couldnt wait to see it play out. Much more mystery involved in this movie.

The events of this movie get started when Glenn Ford investigates an apparent suicide and discovers mob ties and police corruption. He plays such a cool detective that doesn't back down from anyone and plays his cards right. He knows when to make his moves and who to make them on. Even the scenes that are not high paced or action oriented are so fascinating because of the game that is played between the good guys and the bad guys. And speaking of bad guys, Lee Marvin is so good at what he does. No sir, this isn't Paint Your Wagon Lee Marvin. This isn't even Dirty Dozen Lee Marvin. This is bad ass bad guy from The Big Heat Lee Marvin. He's basically Glenn Ford's equal in terms of unrelenting agression and playing his card right, but he is way more erratic. You can call him a maniac if you would like to.

And yes, we have a no good dirty dame in our midst. Not quite the no good dame as Virginia Mayo was in White Heat, but she starts out playing for the bad guys and when she is suspected of a little transgression, she gets dealt with. I am only saying this cause it was a case of knowing something was going to happen to her, but when it happens, it's an "oh shit" moment. In fact, its not the only "oh shit" moment in the movie. And let me tell you, the anticipation of the other one is even greater, as are the results. This movie does not dissapoint. If I had to compare it with White Heat, I would say that nothing tops the performance of James Cagney, but there is more mystery involved with The Big Heat and the clash between bad guys and good guys is stronger. But thats just me. Two great movies telling two different stories, but both telling them very well.

#44 - Mob War

2006-05-08T19:39:00.000-05:00

This is the worst movie that has ever been made in the history of all cinema. Everything about this movie was poorly planned, created, executed, and performed. The writing was bad. The acting was bad. The directing was bad. The editing was bad. The cinematography was bad. The sound design was bad. The special effects were bad. They had lights.

There are signs that the movie you are about to watch is a flaming pile of crap. One of them could be that the only name actor in the movie is Jake LaMotta. THAT'S RIGHT!! Raging Bull Jake LaMotta. And let me tell you, this guy has the acting range from a quiet Marlon Brando ripoff to unneccessary yelling as an attempt at actual emotion, with nothing in between. This guy has no range. He has two levels, and they both suck.

There are signs that the movie you are in the middle of watching is a flaming pile of crap. One of them is when a rival mobster sends people down to a Central American drug to take over someone else's drug ring. Actually, that's not so bad, its the fact that the ensuing gunfight footage involves a bunch of guys in camo just randomly shooting guns and the gunfire sound effects DONT MATCH THE GUNS THAT ARE SHOOTING!!!!! Oh, and to top it off, there is dialogue that actually sounds like a couple of guys in a recording studio yelling out random gunfight phrases, and then playing that over the random gunfight scene. It might have been the worst combination audio and visual elements I have ever seen.

There are signs that movie you just sat through is a flaming pile of crap. One of them is that before the final mano y mano gunfight, they call attention to the fact that one of the guys has a limited number of bullets, and then he shoots his gun about a HALF A MILLION TIMES!!!! How stupid do you have to be to let that happen in a movie you are making? What compounds the idiocy of it is that after he has shot the damn thing a ton of times, HE ACTUALLY RELOADS THE GUN!!!! I'm sorry, I must have missed all those clips he had in his pockets to reload it throughout the scene. Also, the other guy in the gunfight shoots his gun about eleventy-billion times, with a six shooter type gun, which at ONE time, he also reloads. I'm sorry, I guess I missed all of the loose bullets loading up his pockets so that he could reload every six shots or so.

The only thing that this movie has going for it is that Escape From Death Row is on the other side of the DVD. It was such a waste of time for everyone involved. I don't know why they felt the need to put it on a DVD. I couldn't even find a poster for the damn thing so I ad to use the box cover for the DVD set. Crap on celluloid my friends, crap on celluloid.

#43 - Escape From Death Row

2006-05-06T00:44:00.000-05:00

Like The Cop in Blue Jeans, you shouldn't be confused by the poster. Apparently this movie had a couple of titles and I couldnt find a good picture with the other title. You see, this movie was also made in Italy, except it was made in '73 as oppossed to '76. But the great thing here is that we have two movies from the same era, genre, and country seen close to each other, and I gotta say, you could take most of my review of The Cop in Blue jeans and transplant it into this review. This wasn't the best script, or the best story, but it was just fun to watch. It didn't take itself too seriously, but wasn't completely tounge in cheek. Just fun to watch these older movies with a unique style that has since been replicated or satarized in various ways.

You wanna know what was really great about this movie? Lee Van Cleef. Apparently being a good villain in a couple of spaghetti westerns will get you work in Italy for a few years. He is so smooth and cool as the bad guy who is the good guy. I guess you could call him an anti-hero, but that term is too fancy for a movie like this. This guy goes to an illegal gambling party and calls the police so that he can arrested in order to have an alibi for when he sneaks out and kills somebody. Now thats just cool. Of course he gets set up by the boss of the guy who gets killed and he gets thrown into serious lockdown. But this man is gonna get even, and he does so with the help of Crazy Tony(look back at the poster). Tony is the stubborn comic relief sidekick who admires the work of Frank. Normally this part is completely annoying and a waste of everybody's time. But in this case it's okay because Tony isn't written as an annoying idiot, he's just eager. Fun duo to watch.

The big difference between this movie and The Cop in Blue Jeans is that this one had better editors. Much smoother, much cleaner, and the dubbing is much better. But it was clear that this had a bigger budget so you can understand it a little. One thing I noticed with these Italian movies is that they use the same music over and over and over and over and over again. I think The Cop in Blue Jeans had one, maybe two songs re-playing through the whole thing. I don't remember offhand, but I think Escape From Death Row wasn't much better.

This was the first movie in a boxed set titled Mob Hits. I think that "Hits" is probably the wrong word to describe the movies in this set, but there are four movies on two DVD's. I was tempted to write a review for each DVD, but I wanted to give each movie it's due, so four reviews of four movies on two DVD's. Oh boy, now you have something to look forward to. It must be spring sweeps.

#42 - America's Atomic Bomb Tests: At Ground Zero

2006-05-04T23:53:00.000-05:00

Well, here we are. The second disc of a three DVD set, in which the first disc was quite possibly the most boring thing I have ever seen in almost twenty-nine years of life. Will I be able to sit through another DVD of horribly tedious scientific fact reporting? The very foundation of what I am doing here is at stake. I want to be able to sit through everything, good or bad, old or new. Of course, one of the points for all of that is to find good movies in places I wouldn't normally look. Going in, I knew that this had no chance of having that happen. What was possible was that it was going to be as bad as the first disc, and I just couldn't sit through that again, and the last disc would be totally out of the question.

It turns out, that this one wasn't as bad. Don't go crazy. I'm not saying it was good, but it had a little more going for it than the first one. Think of it as a sharp stick in the eye versus a sharp stick in the eye while riding a small pony. So, what are we dealing with here? Well, looking at the picture, we are obviously dealing with houses blowing up, but its more than that. You may have seen those red/orange colored film clips of various houses and other objects being blown to bits. Those film clips were from the series of bomb tests that this DVD is about. Oh crap. I have to admit I was interested to see some history behind footage I have seen before, but never knew what it was. That's really what made this better than the first one. It was still in the boring educational film style, but it was nowhere near as scientific.

The scientists for these tests were testing everything. They set up planes, buses, tanks, cars, trains, houses, trees, all sorts of different materials at different distances from the blast site. Basically, they wanted to know how all of these things would react to an atomic blast. So they set up cameras to record things getting desrtoyed by the blast waves, and that was absolutely fascinating to watch. As they were testing different types of materials, I found myself thinking, "Why don't they just make everything out of the stuff they build the cameras with?". The cameras never stopped working during the tests, so build things out of the same stuff.

If you read my review of the first DVD in this set, then you know I ranted a little bit about how boring it was. This one, not so much. It wasn't great, but I have to admit, it was interesting to see so many different items getting blown to bits. Also, it was interesting to see the source of the clips I had seen at various times in the past. But don't rush out and get this one, it just ain't worth it. I am sad to say that this one wasn't bad enough to make me not want to watch the third one. Wait a second, I don't want to watch the third one, but this second one wasn't so bad that I won't watch the third one. So get ready, sometime in the future there will be a review about another round of boring atomic bomb tests. YIPPEE!!!!!

#41 - The Cop in Blue Jeans

2006-05-04T00:11:00.000-05:00

Don't be confused by the picture. That's the Spanish poster, but I had to use it cause it fits this type of movie almost perfectly. What we have here is an Italian cop movie where the main character is a bit of an untraditional loose cannon, hence being in blue jeans. He's not quite like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon(holy crap...two Lethal Weapon references in consecutive reviews...sheesh), but he definately has his own thing going on. First of all, he drives a motorcycle all over the place, and I mean ALL OVER THE PLACE. Second, he just does things his own way. Not a rule breaker, just does things in his own style. Really, Tomas Milian is a treat to watch in this.

The movie itself reminds me a lot of the movie Shaft. Richard Roundtree, not Sam Jack. It has that 70's cop movie kind of texture to it, but since it was filmed in Italy the pacing and editing is a different style than we are used to. Of course there is the english dubbing, but when you see the action scenes, you can't help but realize that the kind of 70's movies you see spoofs and satires of, is exactly the movie you are watching. You are watching the source of the spoof, and let me tell you, it is great fun.

This is the kind of movie you used to be able to watch late night weekends on TNT. There are times that I wish I took more advantage of those weekends, and watching this movie was one of them. It was just fun to watch. The motorcycle chase scenes were choppy at best, but it didn't matter. There was one point where a bad guy was hanging off of a roof and about to fall. His face had a look of concern on it, but the vocal dub for him was screaming of sheer terror. The visual and the audio didn't match at all, but at that point it didn't really matter. You know you aren't watching the ultimate cinematic experience, but for this movie, that's okay. For the record, bad editing help make One Good Cop a piece of crap, and bad editing was passable for The Cop in Blue Jeans. I guess its a matter of style. If you watch this movie, watch it with a group of friends so you can all laugh at it, or laugh with it. It is quite enjoyable.

#40 - One Good Cop

2006-04-30T00:09:00.000-05:00

This movie actually came in a two DVD set with Copland. Kind of like those annoying two-pack's you see at Costco that always seem to have one movie you want, but the other movie is one that you already own, or that nobody should ever want to own cause its a flaming piece of crap. As far as blockbuster.com is concerned this two-pack is considered a boxed set, which can be placed in your queue list as a set, or the discs can be placed there individually, which is a process that can be silly and not worth devoting any attention to right now. I bring all this up because I was thinking that this movie might be a good one. If one DVD in a two pack is usually not a very good movie, and Copland was not a very good movie, then this one has potential. Well, I was wrong. There can be two bad movies in a two-pack.

Let's just start off with the first sign that this was going to be a stinker. In the first scene that we see Michael Keaton's partner, played by Anthony Lapaglia, he is waking up in the morning, his daughters come in, you realize that the mother has passed away, its all very touching. What you do notice is that he has a cut on the bride of his nose. Okay, that's fine. Next scene with him is later that morning when he meets Keaton . . . and the cut is gone. Hmm, maybe he just cleaned the blood off is all. Well, they go to an apartment building in a bad neighborhood investigating a shooting or something. While there, they get jumped by three guys and in the ensuing scuffle, HE CUTS THE BRIDGE OF HIS NOSE!!!!! Seriously, how did that get missed? Or if it was noticed, how in the hell do you leave that in? I'm not one of those annoying jackasses who pays attention to the bite patterns on a sandwich in some scenes, but this is a cut RIGHT BETWEEN HIS FREAKING EYES!!! I guess the bad guys just reopened the wound.

So the Austrailian who acts like and Italian ends up getting killed. Don't worry, I'm not ruining anything since his death is the catalyst for much of the rest of the film. But then Mikey and his wife Renee Russo have to look after his kids after they haven't been able to have children. Are you sensing the dramatic tension yet? So we get a good cop/good husband thing, which could be an okay idea for a movie, just not this one. Really, this is the movie for you if you enjoy generic, cliche cop stories interspersed with REALLY sappy dramatic moments. And the two just dont really blend together. There is a cop moment, followed by a husband moment, then a cop moment, etc. Oh, there are generic Hispanic bad guys too. And there is Benjamin Bratt working outside of his normal range and playing a cop, if you can believe that one. And by the way, does Renee Russo do anything different in any of her movies? I have no problems with her as an actress, loved Get Shorty, but she is always the female lead in love or falling in love with the male lead. Think about it. Lethal Weapon. Ransom. Tin Cup. All the same damn thing for her.

In conclusion, this movie is a piece of crap.

#39 - America's Atomic Bomb Tests: Operation Hardtack

2006-04-29T21:57:00.000-05:00

Every once and awhile, something comes along to shake the foundation upon which you stand. Something comes along that makes you question the activities that you once thought were a good idea. You wonder if you are wasting your time with things that were meant to be innocent and fun. I'm not talking about this DVD in these terms because the subject matter is so apalling and devestating. Instead, I am saying this because this DVD is so unbelievably BORING!!! I mean, it was a complete waste of time. It was so dreadful and hard to watch that I questioned the idea of watching just about every DVD that came down the pipe. We are talking about the very foundation of this whole little exercise/journey/thing that I am doing. I wanted to turn it off, I really did. I didnt even get that feeling watching Promised Land or For Keeps, and god knows, if any two movies deserved to be shut off, it was them. So what could be so dreadful to someone who actually recommends that people watch the movie Gigli so they can see what a monumental train wreck of a bad idea it was? What could be so dreadful to someone who actually watches pro wrestling as a guilty pleasure? I'll tel you what. This is a DVD with four 20ish minute films from the Air Force reporting results of atomic bomb tests to the Department of Defense. Are you still awake? Its done in that 50's educational film style that we saw in the FBI moments of A Street With No Name. It was cool at first, but that lasted all of three minutes. That left about 77 minutes of BORING science. I can't even begin to explain some of the crap they were going on about. Shock waves in different types of soil. Air pressure differences from different explosion heights. Shock waves in water explosions and all the scientific mumbo jumbo and explanations to go along with it. I mean COME ON!!! The only people who could possibly be interested by this are extreme military history buffs. But seriously, did these things really need to be put onto a DVD? Did they even need to be released to the public? I'd rather watch Falcon Crest on DVD. I'd rather watch new episodes of So NoTORIous. I'd rather watch Toby Keith being interviewed by Jay Leno. I'd rather watch I Love the 90's cause god knows we need to reminisce about the time waaaay back when the Spice Girls when doing their thing. I'd rather watch Saved By the Bell on Adult Swim.(credit for that one goes to Bubba: http://damommasboyz.com/columns/btrain/bt_06-05-01.html ) The worst part about the entire DVD? There was no sound on the last film. None whatsoever. You would think that that would make it better, like muting Brittney Spears videos. But NO. What was confusing to understand when they were trying to explain it to you was even worse when you had absolutely no clue what the hell was going on except for they blowing stuff up. Whats worse than that? The fact that this is one disc in a three DVD set. My patience will be strongly tested. I will be forced to remember the real reason for watching everything is to be pleasantly suprised by movies I wouldnt have otherwise chosen to watch. From now on, this type of endeavor will be known as Searching For Before Sunrise. If you don't get that, check the archives and read the review.

#38 - The Mysterious Man of the Shroud

2006-04-26T19:48:00.000-05:00

Here we have another made for TV documentary along the lines of In The Grip of Evil, except that this one doesn't completely suck. Analyze that sentence. By saying "doesn't completely suck" I mean its nowhere near as painful to watch as Grip of Evil was, but it ain't the best way I have ever spent an hour.

Honestly, the story surrounding the Shroud of Turin(if you hadn't already guessed the subject matter) is quite interesting. This documentary traces the origins of what the shroud is believed to be, as well as the journey it has taken into modern times. There is a huge debate in religious circles as to the validity of this piece of fabric being the actual shroud of Jesus Christ, and this documentary explains both sides and all of their arguments quite well. There is both scientific and historic evidence that confirms and denies the authenticity of this artifact. Religious beliefs aside, I think its an interesting story about a controversial piece of history.

In what may be the most unneccessary video footage of a documentary narrator, we are graced with the presence of Hector Elizondo. Apparently Gary Marshall wasn't making a movie. I say unneccessary because there is really no reason for us the see Hector in this thing at all. But at least a couple of times in between commercial breaks(remember...made for TV) we get to see Hector standing in some fake historical library saying what could have been said without seeing him. I mainly bring this up to ask the question: Why do all documentary narrators have to hold one of their arms across their midsection poised for an ambiguous gesture? You know the pose I am talking about. One hand in the pocket. The other attached to a forearm oddly gesturing for suppossed emphasis. They all do it and Hector is no exception. News reporters, or "TV journalists" like to do it too.

In conclusion, the big selling point of this whole dog and pony show was that with modern technology, for the first time we were going to see what people could see if they used just a fraction of their imagination. That's right, we were going to see a three dimensional representation of the image on the Shroud of Turin. Could we be looking at what the real Jesus Christ looked like? The anticipation was killing me, especially since they mentioned it going into every commercial break. And then...the big moment. I was completely underwhelmed. It reall wasn't that big of a deal. The interesting thing about it was that when they showed the back of this guy, they DIDN"T GIVE HIM A BUTT CRACK!!!!! What the hell is that all about. Is it going to disrupt someones Christian sensiblities to show Jesus with a butt crack that probably had for most of his life? "Mommy, why doesn't Jesus have a butt crack like we do?" People who would be offended by that are the kinds of people offended by a boob at the Superbowl. What the damn point? It looks weirder with him having a rounded hump back there. And for those of you wondering about the other side, his hands cover the area so they can get away with it. That's it. I have talked about Jesus' nether regions enough for one day.

#37 - The Street With No Name

2006-04-25T12:21:00.000-05:00

Oh boy, another film noir film. Did I just say that? Anyways, even with my limited exposure to true film noir, I can safely say that this was film noir light, or diet film noir, or the Tab of film noir. Shall I go on? You see, the movie isn't bad, it's just not as good as what I have seen before. Of course I am thinking of White Heat since I recently saw it. (and reviewed it...check it out...by now it's in the archives...figure it out) This just didn't have that raw intensity that you saw in White Heat. But there were some good things in it, but also some bad things. Well, not necessarily bad, but things that left you going "huh?".

First of all, the crime story aspect of the movie was entertaining. Like I said before, it didn't have that intensity you got in White Heat, but it was an entertaining story. The main villain, while not completely ruthless and cold blooded, was well played. As was the undercover cop. I guess I just can't say it enough, its not the best film noir, but it is an entertaining story. It's just the other aspect of the movie that's a little bit odd.

Part of the premise of this movie is that it shows how the FBI does it's investigations into criminal activity. But it does it in the style of a 50's educational video. Follow me here...you're watching a crime movie and some commissioner or other high ranking officer says to get that stuff to the lab, or see what the guys in forensics say, or something like that. Then we get the cheesy narrator talking about life in the hallowed halls of the FBI. Your left sitting there wondering what the hell happened. All of a sudden you're watching How To Survive A Nuclear Attack meets CSI. The only thing is that this movie was made in the 50's, so the investigative technology is completely outdated!! There's one part where and FBI officer has a name or something and goes to check the files...IN THE CARD CATALOG!!! It's hard to look past the time gap with something like this because it calls so much attention to the amazing processes the FBI uses to catch criminals and processes used are just so old. Its just a number of weird moments in an otherwise okay movie.

#36 - In the Grip of Evil

2006-04-24T01:03:00.000-05:00

Like the last review, I really don't have any patience setting anything up with this one. This thing blows. It seems that there is a true story that William Peter Blatty based The Exorcist on. This is a little documentary about that story. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? Especially after just seeing the movie, it should be interesting to see. Well . . . it was . . . but the thing sucks so that lasted about five minutes.

Before I get into what exactly sucked about this little thing, I do want to mention some of the things I got out of it, cause there actually were some. I found it interesting that the child who was possesed and exorcised was actually a young boy. That and there were a number of elements from his story that manifested themselves in a number of various ways, at least from what I saw in the movie. Don't know about the book...yet. Was that detailed enough for you? TOO BAD!! Thats as detailed as I wanna get cause that's as detailed as it deserves.

You see, this hour-ish long thing is an okay idea wrapped in a nice package of wasted time. First of all, they didn't really have that many pictures or anything related to the story, so most of what was seen was all dramatic re-enactments. And since it was all in the past, the re-enactments were done with that little bit blurry, not really focusing on any thing style thats okay if you have a quick flashback, but the whole damn thing is a flashback!! It's a story...about something...from the past. Don't plague my eyes with a crappy convention for the whole damn show.

There were interviews of priests and other people related to the story that did give a little bit of legitimacy to the thing. And I forgot about it until just now, but one of them was a priest in the room during many of the boys exorcisms. This was actually quite interesting and captivating, but its like eating a cheeseburger after shoving dog poo into your mouth for an hour. Sure, you're eating a cheeseburger, but you still have the taste of poo on your tongue. The truly good thing about this thing was that it was short. It is definately not what I had in mind by watching everything. But I'll keep watching these damn things because I may actually be suprised by one of them. It has happened. But seriously folks, this is the kind of crap that makes me look forward to watching teen movies about gymnastics. STICK IT!!!

#35 - Mickey

2006-04-18T01:05:00.000-05:00

I'm not even going to set anything up. This movie sucked. Apparently John Grisham grew up playing baseball, so he decided to write a movie that contains baseball. Hey John, stick with the lawyers. Tell a Christmas tale every now and then if you must, but leave baseball alone. This movie is only partly about baseball anyways. You see Harry Connick is a bit of a shady accountant, or lawyer, or something like that. Maybe Grisham did have a laywer in this. I don't remember and it doesn't really matter. He did some questionable things, you might call it cooking the books, and the IRS came a calling. But you can't feel bad for him cause he did it right after his wife's death cause he needed the money. That makes cheating on your taxes okay.

Did you catch the part about baseball? No? Well his kid is a pitcher and was about to play in his little league championships, but good ol' dad had to run away cause the lawman was on his tail. What does he do? Goes to Vegas, lies about his kids age and gets him onto a little league team that does so well it goes to the little league world series, and its not until the kid takes off his fake glasses that people catch on to their whereabouts. So the IRS tracks Harry down and he goes to jail. Right? Well, not so fast. You see Cuba is playing in the series and this kid is their only chance of beating them which would be good for a certain U.S. senator. Are you freaking kidding me? International politics swinging on the outcome of a little league game with an ineligble player brought there by a father evading the IRS, but everything is okay because the father and son love each other. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Am I suppossed to believe that not one person would catch on to this crap because Harry Connick is charming? Am I suppossed to believe that nobody would catch on because a kid has dyed hair and fake glasses on? Am I suppossed to believe that the IRS agent who has been hunting down Harry is going to sit next to him during the game, waiting to arrest him until after its over, and is going to be completely involved in the game, even though he really doesn't like baseball? Bunch of contrived crap told in a family safe environment. Hey, just cause it's a family movie doesn't neccessarily mean its crap, but this one doesn't help the argument.

As I was watching this movie I was thinking about how the kids look great playing baseball, but suck as actors. Turns out, thats what they did. They got real little leaguers to play the little leaguers. Its a good thought, but SOMEBODY has to be better that the main kid. He wasn't just bad. He was obviously not an actor, but got an actor job. I guess he tried his best, but it was no good. Next time, use actors because you can film around bad baseball skills, you can't do the same with bad acting skills. Oh my god. Did I just say "next time"? This time I really threw up.

#34 - The Exorcist

2006-04-17T23:20:00.000-05:00

Mark up another movie on the "How have I never seen this before?" list. Seriously, this is more egregious than not having seen Raging Bull until recently. It just never happened. God knows I have seen enough clips and heard enough about it. Hell, I bought an original copy of the book by William Peter Blatty. Have I read it yet? No. It's on the shelf next to all the other books I have bought and not read yet. It's the curse of the B & N discount. ANYWAYS, this movie is a classic, and for very good reasons.

I actually watched the Director's Cut, otherwise known as "the version you've never seen". How very true. Having never seen the original movie, I am in no place to comment on the additions. I'm not completely sure that it makes a difference when all is said and done, but if any of you have seen both, let me know. There is one scene in the Director's Cut that I know wasn't in the original and it was pretty damn cool. Its when Linda Blairs character runs down the stairs bent over backwards and crawling like a spider. Its really quick, and is a pretty frightening image. I'm glad they put that one in.

So, if you dont already know, this movie is about a demon inhabiting the body of a young girl, and the exorcism that follows. The movie does an excellent job establishing the innocence of the girl which makes the possesion that much more difficult to see. What happens when she is fully possesed is some of the most graphic, brutal, frightening stuff I have ever seen, but it is completely honest to the story and the world that has been created. That honesty is what makes those moments so powerful. Throughout this movie are tremendous images that all lend to the mystery and ahunting nature of the film. I don't want to talk about many of them because I want to keep it a secret if you have waited as long as I have to watch this movie. One of my favorite images is when Max von Sydow is looking at the statue of the demon he has accidentally released. Can you say foreshadowing?

The performances are strong. The writing is strong. The directing is strong. Everybody was at the top of their game with this one. I could write for hours on all of the aspects of what makes this movie good. It is so absorbing, and just as soon as it gets you in, it gets you right between the eyes. Pay attention to the priest questioning his faith. Pay attention to the starkness of the sound design. Pay attention to the quiet uneasiness in the beginning of the movie and compare that with the violent madness that comes afterwards. This is truly good film making.

#33 - Day After Trinity: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb

2006-04-12T22:17:00.000-05:00

Uh oh. It's gonna get all educational in here. Thats right. We got us here a documentary about the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. This is a PBS documentary from the early 80's, and has all the fun and excitement of a PBS documentary from the early 80's. Honestly, it's hard to find something to write about it. It's informative, well researched, and thouroughly presented. It's just kind of boring.

To be honest, I did get interested at certain points. There was a lot of information that I didn't know about. For instance, I didn't know that the atomic bomb went from development, through initial testing, and into actual usage in about two years. That absolutely blows my mind. And the fact that the people working on the project were so unbelievably diligent to the point that they really didn't think ahead towards what it was they were making it for. It just seems bizarre to me to think that there was this undertaking that the people involved had great pride in, but the consequences weren't completely considered. I'm not passing judgement on the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, it's just an amazing thing to try and wrap my head around.

The thing that struck me the most was the response of the scientists and the United States after the bomb was actually used. Most of the scientists were completely shocked when they heard that the bomb was used. There was genuine guilt after the entirety of what the result of their work was finally hit them. The most unfortunate thing was that Oppenheimer became a bit of a celebrity as he went around the country promoting proper testing and regulations, but during the red scare was accused of being a Communist and was eventually disgraced. What kind of of crap is that? Here is a man who devoted his whole being into developing a weapon of tremendous signifcance that eventually led to the end of the war, and he is treated like a traitor. Shameful. Led to his early death. Kind of sad when you think about it.

So, the story that is told in this documentary is quite interesting. Lots of information I didnt know presented in a dry, boring format. I'm sure there is some movie out there that could tell this story in a more intersting way, but then you get the bending of the truth for dramatic purposes and that's not always the best. I guess I would say that if you are really interested in this topic, watch this documentary. If you are only sort of interested, get a book or something. If you arent interested at all, you just wasted two minutes of your time reading this and I am openly mocking you for that. Nice work...sucker.

#32 - Million Dollar Baby

2006-04-12T00:48:00.000-05:00

I don't know how I was able to avoid hearing what this movie was really about. It sure didn't lack press coverage, what with being the best picture of the year and all. But like the Sixth Sense, I was somehow able to avoid hearing everything about the movie when I watched it, and that made such a tremendous difference. So I'm not going to say what happens in this movie. I want to save it if you have never seen this movie. As you may know, my rule on this review page is that I will give out spoilers, unless I think the movie warrants otherwise. I don't want to ruin something for someone if the movie deserves it. This movie deserves it, so I will talk around things.

First off, I found myself wondering why Hillary Swank won an Oscar for this role. She was good as a plucky little white trash girl who just wanted to box and had all the heart and spirit in the world. But I couldn't understand why she even got nominated. Then, what I will refer to as the "Oh shit!" moment occurred. Are you kidding me? I got it then. And yes, I am referring to what I talked about in the first paragraph. I refuse to say what happened. If it kills you not knowing, and that makes you go out and watch this movie, then I have done my job. You should.

What happens after the "Oh shit" moment is truly heart wrenching film making. But it's not sappy and over dramatic. It is played honestly and subtly, knowing that we have been engaged in the characters from the beginning, and that this relationship we have developed is all we need to understand and feel for the struggle in the movie. I feel as though I have said too much already, but I couldn't write this without mentioning how well Harry Callahan crafted this movie from beginning to end, with a little bit of why.

Technical discussion segment begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . now. When you watch this movie, pay a little attention to the lighting. Its all natural lighting, but there is a distinct difference after "Oh shit". All of a sudden there is darkness everywhere except for a lone light source. The shadows, darkness, and stark nature of the lights amplify the tension. And for those of you that may ask, because you have asked, this is not a noir thing going on. Noir is way more stylized and has some fill light and back light. This is not stylized and is one single light. There, I have said my technical stuff with out getting too technical. Now go watch this movie.

#31 - White Heat

2006-04-11T23:55:00.000-05:00

I really need to catch up with my viewing. I'm writing as much as I can, but if you have read the comments from the Raging Bull review, this movie was mentioned. That marks the second time that someone has made a comment on a review and referenced or referred to a movie that I have watched, but not yet reviewed. I don't know about you, but I think that's lame. Rest assured, I am working on it. I am now down to about twenty reviews to catch up to my viewing. But still, I watch!! I watched a real piece of turd tonight, but that's for another time. Right now we talk about White Heat.

I loved this movie!!! It is so intense, so raw, so rough, so in your face, and so unbelievably captivating. James Cagney is built like an insane brick wall. If you ever meet a guy like his character, DON'T PISS HIM OFF!!! Some of the looks he gives are absolutely priceless. The scene in prison when he finds out who tried to kill him and then talk to the guy is great. He gives this guy a smile that says, "Hey, accidents happen. Okay buddy?" But at the same time it says, "Your not gonna live very long." It was mean, it was cold, it was crazy, it was fantastic to see.

Since it was commented on earlier, I feel compelled to discuss the females in this movie. They're no good dirty dames!!! Well, the mother isn't exactly a dame, but she's no good. She is the fuel for Cagney's insanity, but also the only one who can keep him in check. Interesting dynamic. Not quite Oedipal, but still not exactly the same thread as Ozzie and Harriet. Virginia Mayo is the no good, dirty, double crossing dame. She sneaks around behind his back, he treats her like crap, she's no angel, he's pure sinner. Good times. Interesting dynamic here too since she is dating a psycho mamma's boy, but she isn't exactly the kind of girl you'd take home to mother.

It was refreshing to see a movie that wasn't dumbed down for an audience. Throughout this film I was thinking about what they would have done were they to make this movie today. The answer would have been that they would have ruined it. The shining example of this is towards the end of the film. There is the driver of the truck who is the only man who could identify the undercover cop in Cagneys' gang. You know this as soon as you see the guy, they don't beat you over the head with it and make a big deal about all the close calls they have. It plays natural. The tension is already built in. And your right there with them until the end. And what an end. Classic. Watch this movie.

#30 - Men of Respect

2006-04-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

Here we have another Shakespeare adaptation set in modern times. Of course I say another because I have seen a number of them in recent years, but this one was made in 1991, so I guess the other ones I have seen are actually the "another" Shakespeare adaptations. That doesn't make any damn sense. Anyways, this is an adaptation MacBeth and is set in an Italian mobster environment. Not a bad idea. As we all know from watching the movies, mob families have their heirarchies, chains of command, backstabbing, plotting, and the like. My first thought was that this could work. Uh oh. When I say things like that it is usually followed up by some description of the opposite. Well, I'm not one to disappoint.

It's not that the idea doesn't work, in fact it fits very well. The problem is that they stuck to the original play structure WAY to strictly. The characters and dialogue were modernized, but the scenes were essentially the same as in MacBeth. This is a problem because it's just not very fluid on film. There is a rhythym to Shakespeare and the dialogue flows in and out of the structure of the scenes and acts. In my mind, if you change one, you probably need to change the other. Okay, maybe thats not completely true, but in this case, it wouldn't have hurt to try. Instead we get stuck in this limbo area where everybody is playing this natural modern style, but it just feels clunky because one thing doesnt flow well into the next

For comparison, I submit two movies. A Midsummer's Night Dream and Ten Things I Hate About You. In Midsummer's they presented the story in Victorian times, but they used Shakespeare's dialogue AND his play structure. There was a naturally flowing rhythym to the movie and it worked well for me. In Ten Things, they updated the dialogue AND modernized the structure to match. It had its out rhythyms, but the spine of the story was still intact and the movie was surprisingly well done. So there. Either, or. All or nothing.

Having said all that, we have another film with the odd occurence of admirable performances in a bad movie. It really is a good cast with John Turturro, Stanley Tucci, wait...you can read the damn poster yourself. They are commited to the characters and the story they are telling. Its a nice thing to see, but hard to watch when the film doesnt come across very well.

#29 - Cop Land

2006-04-06T23:29:00.000-05:00

I remember when this movie came out, all of the talk was about Sly Stallone putting on thirty pounds for the role. Apparently there is an assumption out there that gaining weight for a role implies extreme dedication to the part. Reality check....gaining weight is the easy part. Plus, thats why they make fat suits. I am way more impressed by people who get into top physical shape, or even lose weight for a role. Also, when the talk of a movie is an actors weight, that tells me that the movie probably isnt so hot cause there is nothing else worth talking about.

You must be asking why he gained all the weight. Well, he plays the sheriff of a town in New Jersey that is populated by policemen from the NYPD. Get it? You see, he is in a "safe" neighborhood with no crime. So he doesnt have much to do and is therefore complacent and weak willed. But did he have to gain why to show this? I would think that a more effective solution for portraying this would have been better acting and better writing. As written, Sly's character is subtle and racked with internal struggle. Both of which do not play towards Sly's strengths as an actore, and yes I thinl there are some. But you have to know this and write in other things that he can do to show his struggle. Don't make him just sit there and contemplate, show me his inability to act even though he wants to and knows he should.

This movie suffers from an unfortune waste of talent. Harvey Keitel was not very effective as a heavy, because he didnt have to be. Sly wasn't much of an obstacle to him, so there was no real clash between the two. Ray Liotta's character was completely transparent. Oh, and the premise for everything was good. I completely forgot to mention the fact that the cops originally secured the land for their neighborhood by working with the mob. There IS conflict here. There IS a struggle. It just does not come across at all.

Techinical sidenote question: What movie was Howard Shore composing the score for? Was it an epic action kind of movie like Backdraft? Or was it what was actually presented on film? I'm thinking it was the former. I know this guy has won awards and all that stuff, but he composed a score for what the movie wanted to be, not what it actually was. Therefore, the musical score was NOT GOOD. You got those snare drums you hear in cop dramas followed by a swelling horn section to get you pumped up to watch a fat, yet still pretty ripped, Sly sit and contemplate. Oh, shame on you Howard Shore. You could have salvaged something out of the movie by helping to give some drama where it wasn't. Instead, you just reminded us that we weren't watching what we should have been watching.

#28 - Dog Day Afternoon

2006-04-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

I was caught completely off guard with this movie, and I'll tell you why. You see, I occasionally watch Spike TV, and if you don't already know, it advertises as the network for men. Therefore, there is a lot of programming along the lines of Ultimate Fighting reality shows and a weekly Van Damme movie. On top of that, they occasionally show unedited and uncut movies, the most frequent being The Godfather. Dog Day Afternoon is on this list of movies. Now, I was expecting a bank robbery movie with a lot of guy oriented, actiony, shoot em uppy type stuff. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Now brace yourself, because this caught me completely off guard. Al Pacino robs the bank because he needs money so that he can get a sex change operation for the man he is having an affair with. Uhm, excuse me? Are you telling me that a movie with a main character that is gay has run unedited on a cable network that shows James Bond Marathons almost every time there is a two day weekend. Seriously, this network shows chicks in jail movies from the late 70's. The though of this subject matter being on that Spike TV never crossed my mind.

All that aside, the movie is great. Pacino bumbles through the early parts of the robbery as every thing that could go wrong, does go wrong. It actually quite funny to watch him try to stay in control while still being the nice guy that he really is. You instantly have sympathy for his character because you know that deep down his motives are pure, you just don't know what they are yet. This movie has moments that are funny, sad, tense, and uplifting, and mixed in throughout is a social commentary about the nature of the press, the police, and the perceptions of what it is these two entities really do.

An aspect of the film that was interesting to me was that after the revelation that Pacino's character was gay, crowds of homosexuals came and rallied in his defense. It made me wonder about people rallying behind a cause regardless of the situation. These people knew nothing about him other than he was gay and robbing a bank, but they disregarded the criminal activity and made him a hero because of his sexual orientation. Its an interesting dynamic to this movie that is filled with situations that make you think. This is a good movie that is honest, raw, and one that everyone should watch. When you do, pay attention to Pacino's eyes, especially in the scene when he is talking to Christopher Sarandon on the phone. His eyes are unbelievably expressive and more than anything else, tell the story of the movie, which is based on true events.

#27 - Boxcar Bertha

2006-04-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

This marks the last movie in the Martin Scorsese boxed set, and its unique from any other Marty S movie I have seen. It's one of his earlier ones and clearly has no budget. But that didn't stop him from making an intriguing and in some ways experimental film. There are a number of shots and angles that were not "traditional" in any way. The nice thing about them is that they don't distract from the story. There isn't any moment in which you see something that looks good, but is unnneccessary. The innovative shots are not done in the usual independent film way of trying to get more story out of less resources. Its pure directorial vision.

The movie is based on the stories of an actual woman who used to ride boxcars around the south during the depression era. Along the way she meets a number of people and sees the honest kindness and the cruel nature of human beings. She becomes somewhat of a Robin Hood of the depression as she and her companions begin to rob trains, banks, and rich old bastards. Its a tale of whimsical innocence in the midst of a social commentary. I think a large budget in the wrong hands would have overdone things. Most of the time in this film is spent in empty places, such as the woods, abandoned houses, and of course, boxcars. This bareness, this emptiness is a reflection of what these people have in terms of worldy possesions, but the vibrancy and movement of the film expresses what the life that exists on the inside. There is your social commentary.

After seeing these four movies by Martin Scorsese, I feel that my theory of intimate epics still has some validity. I came up with this theory after New York, New York and Raging Bull, but I think it pertains to The Last Waltz and Boxcar Bertha as well. The Last Waltz is intimate in its look at The Band, but the film is ultimately about music on a much larger scale. Boxcar Bertha is mainly about Barbara Hershey's character who is shy, soft spoken, and innocent, but her tale is anything but small. I have more of an appreciation of the Martin Scorsese's films I have seen now that I have seen these films because I now see a style of film making. I see a mode of expression, even though the subject matter may be different in each one. I want to see some of his more recent films to see if this is still the case.

#26 - The Last Waltz

2006-03-30T23:41:00.000-06:00

If you claim to love rock and roll...no...if you claim to love, or even enjoy music, then you MUST watch this movie. This is what music is about at its very core. It is an expression of something rich and powerful that comes from within, but is derived from a place in the past and headed towards somewhere in the future. It is enjoyment. It is communal. It is hypnotic. It is social history. It is personal history. It is a celebration. This movie expresses all of that in what might be the best live concert documentary I have ever seen.

Ok, I haven't seen that many. The Song Remains the Same, some Rage Against The Machine, some Bob Marley, a little Woodstock, a little Metallica, and a little Pink Floyd is what comes directly to mind. But this movie is more than just a showcase for one band. Its more than a filmed documentation of a particular event. Its more than just interviews from musicians. Its all of these things combined to celebrate a band, its legacy, and an era of music that in all intents and purposes is no longer with us.

So what is The Last Waltz you ask? Its the next movie in the Marty S boxed set and is also a concert documentary of the last performance of the musical group The Band. They play their hits, which you may not think you know, but you do. Trust me. You do. But they have a number of music icons come and play with them. We are talking the likes of Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Neil Young and more. What makes this a celebration of music is that they are playing their songs along with The Band. It's their songs, its the songs of their peers, and its the songs of their influences. It was a moment that wasn't intended for them to fulfill some self-gratifying ego. Instead, it was a moment for one last jam with themselves, their friends, and for an audience.

It was tremendous. The music was great. The interviews were great. Even the songs that were done in a studio at another time were good. Now, its not my usual plan to comment on the DVD extras because I'm not doing this for the extras. Sometimes I don't even watch them. But this one had something special. It was an improv jam with guys from The Band coming and going with Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, Neil Young and others jamming along. They just played on. This scene was not in the film because in the middle of this jam the film cameras stopped working. Apparently they had been recording this concert for hours beyond what the cameras were built for. How awesome is that. They just played and played and played. It wasn't about following a set list, having an encore and then leaving. They were there to play, and play they did. Fantastic. What music should be.

#25 - Constantine

2006-03-30T00:04:00.000-06:00

Here we have another high budget, special effects driven vehicle for Ted Theodore Logan. I was looking forward to this because I was wondering if we could once again catch lighting in a bottle. I an of course referring to The Matrix. That was a movie that I didn't have very high expectations for because Ted ain't exactly Steve Guttenberg, if you know what I mean. But it looked interesting, so I went, and the rest is movie history. I had similar feelings about Constantine, but instead of leaving the theater pumped cause I just saw an awesome movie, I turned off the DVD player with a definite feeling of "eh".

In this movie Ted is a man who was sent to hell, but made it out. Because of this he cannot enter heaven and spends his days exorcising demons in an attempt to buy his way into heaven. Stuff happens here and there and a big ol battle between heaven and earth is on the way and he is right in the middle of it. Along with him is Rachel Weisz who plays a cop, but you couldn't tell it by looking at her. I know she just won an Oscar and all, but did anybody believe she was a cop? Did she even need to be a cop for this one? Did she even need a profession?

Visually, this movie was great. The special effects were well crafted, well designed, and well executed. It was everything else that led to the "eh" feeling. The story wasn't very smooth as it led from revelation to revelation and the suspense didn't build very much. the result was an ending that wasn't very exciting. I did however like the representation of Satan. Having him in a completely white suit and walking around with oily, black bare feet was a nice touch. Not a bad performance for a guy who would eventually try to get you to buy a Volkswagen.

Ultimately, I think the problem lies somewhere in between the writing and Ted's inability to pull it off. In The Matrix it didn't matter that he was a bad actor because the script didn't ask too much of him. This required a little more than he had. I found myself wondering if anybody realized that maybe the reason he isn't getting into heaven is because he is doing things for selfish, self-centered reasons. I just couldn't figure out if that was missing because of bad acting, or bad writing.

Oh, and can we STOP with the little one liners and unnecessary comic relief in these movies? I know we have 007 to blame for some of this, but in some movies it actually works because there is a lighthearted tone. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE MOVIES!!!!! I find it a little stupid that there is about to be a major shift of control in the powers that be, and Ted is upset because someone messed up his $100 shirt. Seriously. Did anybody laugh at that? Did anybody even snicker? That's not even worth throwing your Raisinets at the screen. I am sick and tired of those one liners creeping into places that don't need them. HOLLYWOOD...STOP IT!!!!

#24 - Raging Bull

2006-03-28T12:57:00.000-06:00

This movie is not only the next film in the Marty Scorsese box set, but it's one that makes me say, "How have I never seen this movie?" This is more severe that not having seen a Woody Allen movie before Radio Days. This is more severe than going to Vegas, finding some old lady at 2 AM who is trying to look WAY younger than she is, and getting a fresh plate of desert crabs. Okay, maybe not that severe, but it's still kind of hard for me to believe.

As you probably know, or figured out by looking at the picture, this movie stars Bobby D playing...well...the same kind of character as he played in New York, New York. Both are self-centered men with a narrow vision of their own success and the ability to make the leading lady fall for them for no real reason whatsoever. Seriously, both guys persistent pricks who really didn't have as much charm as you would think. But Bobby D's performance of Jake LaMotta is so much more powerful in this movie than his performance in NY, NY. He is darker, more vicious, and way more unrelenting than I have seen from Bobby D in a while. The jealousy he displays in this film is so pervasive and destructive that you know the ultimate downfall is coming, but the only question is just how hard. Its quite the crash when dreams are unrealized and nothing is learned from it.

I know that this has been talked about at length before, but the choice to film this in black and white was so unbelievably good. The sweat, the blood, the crushed noses are all so real, so vivid, and so raw that it adds such a tremendous intangible quality to the fighting scenes that you are almost there taking the punches with Jake. And when when he's not fighting, there is such a stark tone that you get a strong feeling as to how empty a human being he became. Its not quite film noir, but there is a strong contrast that makes the dark scenes darker and the light scenes sad and empty.

I have noticed something watching these last two Scorsese films and thinking about other that I have seen, such as Goodfellas and Casino. His stories follow a pattern of what I want to call "intimate epics". Its intimate because it involves anywhere from one to three characters, but the scale and depth of their stories are tremendously vast. And the thing is, its the evolution of the characters that is so vast and not as much the plot itself. Think about it with his other movies.

#23 - The Commitments

2006-03-26T23:52:00.000-06:00

I want to bring the Blues back to Dublin!!! I'm not sure that Dublin really had the Blues, but if this is how you bring them back, I will be along for the ride the entire time. I remember hearing the soundtrack for this movie and thinking, "this is a really good soundtrack for this movie." Or something like that. But now that I have seen the movie that the soundtrack was for, I enjoy it even more. This was a really fun movie to watch and I think it may have to be a purchase at some time in the future.

What we get here is a young guy living in Dublin who has a dream. A dream to shake up the music scene in his hometown. So he assembles a group of musicians and singers and starts to build a blues band. Of course this band is filled with a mix of people that just don't get along. They come from all walks of life from all around Dublin and they have a special knack for arguing with each other. Its so much fun to watch these people fight because they are so good at it and they do it with that quick Irish banter. You've got sassy Irish lassies and foul mouthed lads going at it over anything and everything.

As you would expect, when they get on stage, the fighting ends and the music begins. They are tremendous on stage together playing classics, standards, and just good ol tunes from blues and rock and roll. With talent and some strategic moves from the manager, it doesnt take long for them to gain a bit of a following in the Dublin club scene. But with the promise of fame seemingly just out of reach, it doesn't take long for the fighting to take over. Oh, what could have been.

If you havent seen this movie, I suggest you do so. The characters are fun to watch as they interact in various ways in and out of rehearsals and performances. The music is good and you can't help but get behind the story and want to see them succeed in spite of the fact that they don't really get along off stage. Its just a treat and most importantly, has music at the core as one man tries to "bring the Blues back to Dublin."

#22 - New York, New York

2006-03-23T00:11:00.000-06:00

Oh boy, a little old school Marty Scorsese and Bobby D. He's the little one with the saxophone. Liza Minelli is the large one. Now follow me here, he is the sax player, and she is the one with the words, otherwise known as lyrics, because she is the singer. Turns out they are the two characters set for fame and fortune in the world of New York showbiz. Its an interesting story about two people with seperate dreams for the big time and what can result when a person sacrifices their dreams in order to fulfill anothers.

Okay, so that's not exactly what this movie is about. Sure, it's part of it, but I think it's just an element of the real point of the movie, which is the interaction and relationship of the two characters. I think it's as much of an element as Bobby D being the band leader and Liza just a singer but wanting some creative input. It's as much an element as who should get top billing, the singer or the band leader. All of these things help to build the tension between these two characters.

Now, I am not the biggest Liza Minelli fan, but I realize that I haven't seen too much of her work so its a preconceived bias without much of anything to back it up. It didnt really help that for the majority of this film she is pretty submissive to DeNiro's dominating character. I wanted her to stand up for herself so damn much that it was frustrating to watch at times. But it did make the scene in the car when she finally lets loose on him that much more powerful. It was a tremendous scene purely for the intensity and strength needed to go where she went. I was impressed. She was submissive no more and from then on was her own woman. Nice to see.

This is the first movie I received from a Martin Scorsese box set, so there are three more of his films to come. If you wanna do research to find out which ones because you are giddy with anticipation and can't wait to see whats coming(I'm talking to you Beth), then by all means, check it out. This wasn't a bad start for what's going to be a look into early Marty S's work. I think that the film was a bit longer than it really needed to be. The stage production towards the end didn't help, but that's only because I am not a big fan of musicals. It actually fits in this movie. Also, these characters could have been placed anywhere with a little script adjustment. I don't think iit really mattered that they were in showbiz. Having said that, they did a good job making showbiz an impetus for much of the action. Enough of this, I'm gonna go watch General Zod fight Superman.

#21 - Radio Days

2006-03-23T00:03:00.000-06:00

I'm gonna be honest here. This was my first Woody Allen film. I don't know why I haven't ever seen any of his films before now, but I suspect its something like the 40 Year Old Virgin. It just never happened, and I gave up trying. Well, not really. I never really tried, but it just didn't happen. So this was my Woody Allen cherry, and I must say that I was entertained, but underwhelmed.

I know this isn't one of his classics like Annie Hall, but there were some high expectations and in the end I found this movie to just be okay. What we have here is a number of stories involving, relating to, or stemming from classic radio broadcasts. The main character is played by a young Seth Green and he is the child version of Woody, who is the narrator. We get stories about his favorite shows, his family's favorite shows, and even stories about the performers on the show. The stories are interwoven with each other and each one is pretty entertaining by itself, but as a whole, I'm not sure that there was much of a point to the film other than Woody being able to tell a bunch of short stories he had rolling around in his head.

I will say that even with all that, the performances were very good and it's clear that everyone had a good time working on this movie. It's quite an ensemble cast and everyone really fit their roles quite well. I wish I could give examples, but since I am still catching up on my reviews and watched this a while ago, I don't remember that many details. I think that speaks for how memorable this movie was. Remember, I didn't hate it, but it wasn't that great.

So there, I have busted my Woody Allen cherry, and I am certain that it has to get better than this. I guess I was a little nervous. Or maybe I was too excited. I didn't finish the movie early, and it certainly wasn't over as soon as I started, but there was an overwhelming feeling of "eh...". I guess I just need more practice watching Woody Allen movies and they'll get better. I swear. I could even watch two in one night. Maybe even three, but I'd have to really be in the right mood. I'm thinking it's not a good sign for the movie when my review is more about me watching the movie, and not the movie itself. Oh well.

#20 - The True Story of Alexander the Great

2006-03-19T00:01:00.000-06:00

This was supposed to come right after Alexander. If I remember correctly, it was the second DVD to go into my queue list. But it got lost in the mail somewhere between point A and B, and for some reason they sent me eighteen DVD's before re-sending this one. And lucky me, Alexander isn't something you forget right away. If you haven't read my review, it's in the archives, figure it out. That big ol' H in the picture means that this was made for the History Channel. Doesn't that sound great? A basic cable documentary that was probably rushed out to be premiered in time with the movie. I smell high quality.

Actually, its not that bad. I'm not saying its that great either, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The crappy thing about it was that it didn't really tell any stories beyond what was told in the movie. A nice long segment on how a young Alexander tamed a wild horse that no one else could. Okaaaaaaaaay.....got that. A nice long segment about the assassination of his father. Alriiiiiiiight.....got that too. The only real thing it did in terms of telling the "truth" was to elaborate in words what was pretty much implied in the movie, and since this was probably made to coincide with the movie, I pulled out my penalty flag and penalized the History Channel ten yards and a loss of down for unnecessary redundancy. I also charged them a time out for losing the challenge. Enough football references? I've got more.

There was an interesting aspect to this little show that I would like to share with you. One of the things they did was that they acted like they did some serious research of some of the original historians in order to get a direct source into the life and times of Alexander. What made this particularly troublesome was that they had actors performing as the historians themselves. Hmmmm. I wonder where they may have gotten the idea to have someone who wrote about Alexander actually play a part. Could it possibly be the fact that Anthony Hopkins plays someone who wrote about Alexander? I think the most research they did was to watch an advance screening of the movie so they knew what to talk about. If I remember correctly, there was a point were the narrator actually threw over to one of the historians as if he was out in the field covering the story as it was happening. Or it was like they were covering a current issue and they were introducing some resident expert on the topic from the Institute of Tweed Jacket Wearer's for Historical Commentary in Documentaries Rushed Out to Coincide With Film Releases. Or the ITJWHCDROCWFR for short. Its a non-profit.

Also, can we not reuse the same footage of soldiers marching into battle over and over and over again? I know you only used five actors for it and zoomed in to give the appearance of a lot of people, but you don't have to show me them EVERY single time you talk about Alexander going into battle.

And hey, there was no mention of his mullet. Sounds like historical inaccuracy to me.

#19 - To Kill A Mockingbird

2006-03-18T15:18:00.000-06:00

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. I remember at one point in high school I had to read the book this movie is adapted from. Which, if any of you know me and my studying habits, means that I didnt really read much of it. I remember enjoying what I did read, but since it was homework, not much got read. Anyways, I was looking forward to watching this movie because it's a classic. Won some Oscars. Probably some Golden Globes, but who cares. Maybe some New York Film Critics awards, but again, who cares unless you're a New York film critic. Needless to say, this movie did not let me down. I have never been so engaged in a movie so quickly and then had my attention held throughout. From beginning to end, I was completely connected.

If you have read any of my earlier reviews you would know that I am not the biggest fan of child actors. It would be better described as a dislike for bad overacting done by cute, annoying little kids. I say that I dont like child actors cause thats easier than the explanation I just gave. Having said all that, the two kids in this movie were very good. They talked like kids. They acted like kids. They played like kids. The got into trouble like kids. None of it was artificial. All of it was honest. I did find it interesting that Scout shares the same haircut as the Incredible Hulk. But thats not a complaint. Just an observation.

Lets not forget Gregory Peck, if that were even possible. His perfomance as Atticus Finch might just be perfect. The stoicism in the midst of controversy and troubled times is strong but not to the point where he doesnt relate to his children. He is so honest in trying to raise them the right way and tell them truth of the world around them, but also protect them from the same harsh realities. The balance of letting people be and not judging them at the same time not giving in when the fight for truth and honesty is not popularly accepted. Even the Scout is the main character, Atticus is the spine of the story. It is his values that we are drawn to and his strength that keeps those values important even when events challenge the foundation of them.

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. If you have not seen it, what are you waiting for? It has such a strong, timeless message about how to be a better human being, but is in no way preachy or in your face. Subtle, understated, and unbelievably well done.

#18 - The Last Picture Show

2006-03-10T20:21:00.000-06:00

Just so there's no confusion, this is the Larry McMurtry adapted film that DOESN'T have gay cowboys in it. Nor does it have an astronaut next door neighbor and all of the doves are popular with tremendous social lives. Having said that, this movie does have a town that is at the beginning of the road to nowhere. The story is centered around a young man who is transitioning from high school into adulthood in a town that is slowly losing its dreams and future. Even though he is the main character, this is truly a wonderful ensemble cast that works well with each other to represent the posibilities for the future, as well as the unrealized potential of the past.

The title of this movie is a sad metaphor for the lives of the people in this town. It refers to the local movie theatre going out of business, but it also represents the last chance for people to escape from the reality of their day to day existence. After this, the question is what do people have left. The spirit of the town has been lost and the only chance there is for a future or any happiness resides elsewhere.

It's hard to know where to start with this movie. There are the older women who have had their dreams but have not been able to see them through and are therefore unfulfilled in their current situations. The wife in the only rich family in town is not fulfilled because she married for money thinking it would make her happy, but she still yearns for the owner of the pool hall, her true love. She doesnt see any other way for her daughter and looks to have the girl go in the same direction she went. This is just a fraction of the layered stories that fill this movie with a sliver of hope and a tremendous amount of sadness. Jeff Bridges has an opportunity for a future in the military, but he doesnt want to leave. Cybil Shepard wants to lead a normal life, but she knows that she is different from everybody because she lives comfortable while everyone else struggles. Cloris Leachman looking for some sort of human connection is devastated when the truth about her situation comes crashing down upon her.

This film is so dynamic, so well structured, and so well crafted. The choice to film in black and white was a good choice because it lends to the stark, lifeless nature of the place. The performances are very well done and eveybody works with each other to create the world they live in. What I want to know is why the actor playing the main character, Tomothy Bottoms, didnt have a larger career. If you look him up on imdb.com, you see that he has done a ton of stuff, but never became a big name. I just find it interesting that nothing major seemed to build off of this performance. Go watch this movie.

Also, young Cybill Shepard is hot.

#17 - The Upside of Anger

2006-03-09T23:37:00.000-06:00

Woohoo!! Four hot chicks...and Kevin Costner and Joan Allen. But don't forget about the four hot chicks!!! But seriously, it's more like three and a half hot chicks cause Alicia Witt isn't in the movie very much. Actually, its like two and a half hot chicks cause I will always think of Evan Rachael Wood as being a cracked out thirteen year old. Honestly, its like two hot chicks because even though Erika Christensen is pretty damn cute in this movie, she gets it on with the sleazy older dude. In all actuality its like five hot chicks because Keri Russell is such a cutie in this movie that she counts for four hot chicks. After crunching the numbers, it is officially five hot chicks...and Kevin Costner and Joan Allen.

Speaking of the two main characters, one of them is actually pretty good, and the other one has a character I just can't wrap my head around. If you guessed that I can't wrap my head around Kevin Costner's character, you would be dead wrong!! You see, he actually plays the kind of character he is good at playing. Its that romantic male lead with a bit of a swagger. But this time, he's not the one in charge of the relationship. I know what you're thinking. You are thinking that in Kevin Costner movies there is suppossed to be a female who falls in love with his pig headed character for no real reason at all. This movie flips it around. He actually falls in love with a pig headed Joan Allen for no real reason at all.

In this movie, Joan Allen plays a woman who has been left by her husband for his young secretary. The problem that I have with her character is that I felt no sympathy for her struggles. She has become an alcoholic and is drastically detached from the lives of her four...I mean FIVE daughters. If this was a dark comedy, some of her actions would be funny because they are in that style. But this movie has the feel to it of one where you are suppossed to sympathize with the main character. Its not quite a chick flick, but it is definately geared towards the female audience, especially the older female audience. But she doesnt start out as a good person. She is too involved in her own self pity and self loathing that she ignores the lives and feeling of her daughters and completely disregards the fact that they may be suffering too.

Overall, I was suprised because I didnt expect to enjoy any of this movie. The performances by the cast were pretty good. Is it possible to not enjoy a character, but enjoy the portrayal of that character? I was basically impressed because this movie wasn't completely filled by the cliches I expect from this kind of movie. The writer and director is also the sleazy guy who Erika Christensen gets it on with. I can't get over a sleazy guy writing something like this, but he did. In the end, don't rush out and get it, but if your not sure about what movie to watch and its there, give it a shot.