Million Dollar Baby (2004)

  Aw, God, why do I do this to myself?

This is seriously one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen.  I think it beats out Sophie's Choice to be in my top 5.  I would absolutely hate it if it weren't so damn good.

The first time I saw it, I remember going cold at the pivotal moment like it was actually happening before my eyes.  I thought I was going to be sick.  This was my second viewing and it went a little better.  Mostly because I was cleaning and I found excuses to be out of the room when the worst parts were being shown.

I'm not a sports person.  Shocker, right?  I'm not team-oriented or competitive by nature; neither do I feel a particular affinity for a geographical location and thereby that place's team.  I just don't care.  That being said, I do enjoy some sports movies.  A League of Their Own was one of my favorites as a kid, as was Ladybugs (don't judge), I own Seabiscuit, and I've seen Rudy.  I didn't like it, but I saw it.  Based solely on the representative movies, I'd say that I like baseball, horse racing, soccer, and boxing.  No doubt someone will claim that is a shallow and specious determination but fuck 'em.  If somebody makes an awesome lacrosse movie, I'll totally watch it.

I'm not counting martial arts movies as sports movies because I am a HUGE fan of those and I'm pretty sure that would skew the results.

Bad Taste (1988)

  Happy New Year's Eve, everyone!  Here's to 2011!  I was supposed to be in Vegas this weekend with my friend, Bri, but she got pneumonia so I'm here in my apartment cleaning like a madman.  I don't know if this will be my only post for the night, you'll just have to wait and see.

Normally, I get two Netflix movies at a time, but I forgot to drop one of them in the mail so I won't get a replacement til Monday.  Why no post about that one?  It was Billy Jack and not worth the time it takes to write about.  Honestly, I hated it so much I didn't even want to make fun of it.

Bad Taste is indeed directed by Peter "Lord of Middle Earth" Jackson.  Before he was the Hobbit guy, he specialized in gory horror-comedy schlock.  There's Bad Taste, Dead Alive (a personal favorite), and Meet the Feebles (currently unavailable on Netflix).  Those are the only ones I've come across but if you know any others, drop me a comment about it.

This one concerns a secret government cell of operatives against a group of aliens who have come to New Zealand in order to harvest human meat for interstellar fast food.  No, really.  That's the plot.

The whole thing looks very film-school-no-one-is-getting-paid-in-anything-but-experience.  Much like Killer Klowns, the actors are easily the most amateur thing about the movie.  The special effects aren't really that bad, better than some SyFy Originals, and the tone is tongue-in-cheek throughout, saving the movie from the sin of taking itself too seriously.  It was like everybody knew it was going to be crap, but they all decided to do their best and make it entertaining crap.  I have to admit, I'm judging it by Dead Alive standards and it falls pretty short, but not a terrible film.  Better than Billy Jack.

True Grit (2010)

  I probably saw the original True Grit starring John Wayne.  My dad's father is a big fan.  He even has a framed painting of The Duke on the screened-in porch.  So chances are good I saw it at some point during my formative years while visiting them over the summer.  I don't remember anything, but that's probably for the best.  There's nothing worse than seeing a movie and thinking "the original was so much better". 

I want to take a moment and talk to the Coen Brothers.  Joel and Ethan, I was one of the (probably) millions of people who wanted to string you both up by the shoelaces and beat you mercilessly with a cattle prod because of the non-ending to No Country for Old Men.  That movie was a total waste of time; I don't care what the Academy said.  Best Picture, my lily-white ass.  But I digress.  I know people (again, probably) sent you death threats when you told them you guys were remaking True Grit, but you pressed on.  And guess what?  It totally worked this time.  You guys pulled it off!  Good job!  You're not getting an Oscar for it because, let's get fucking real here, you're going up against Toy Story 3, Inception, and Black Swan for this year's Best Picture.  But you both got statues for No Country, right?  Scratch off the name on one of them and have True Grit chiseled on instead.  Any other year, you'd probably have it in the bag.  You've got a plucky little girl, three previous Academy Award-winning/nominated actors, and the best landscape cinematography since Fargo. 

Granted, Josh Brolin probably owed you money and Matt Damon's kind of creepy and stilted but Jeff Bridges worked his ass off for you guys.  Send him a gift basket or something.  And finding Hailee Steinfeld was a stroke of absolute good luck.  Without her, the whole shebang falls apart. 

Again, good job Coen Brothers!  Keep that bar high and try not to make movies that suck.

TRON Legacy (2010)

Lucy's Note:  This was supposed to have been posted yesterday.  Unfortunately, real life intervened.  My apologies for the delay.

  Merry Christmas, everyone!  What better way to celebrate Christmas than with sci-fi?  A digital wonderland, if you will.

**WARNING:  SPOILERS BY ANALOGY**

This is a loose sequel to TRON, so they tell me.  I wouldn't know.  The original movie came out in what?  82?  Seeing as that's the year I was born, I wasn't really interested in the theater experience.  Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I have it saved in my queue so whenever it's released (I'm thinking Disney box set somewhere around Memorial Day) it'll pop right in.

So I walked in cold and I gotta tell you, it did feel like a sequel... but the good kind.  Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it:  This was the Star Wars sequel I'd been waiting for.  Given that just making that analogy tells you everything you need to know about the film, I'm not going to really go into detail.  But seriously.  Star Wars.

** END ANALOGOUS SPOILER**

The movie is pretty good on its own merits.  It hits the uncanny valley at full speed, though, and that's creepy.  The uncanny valley, for all you non-nerd types that found your way here accidentally while searching for pictures of Halle Berry, is the theory that people like robots until they look almost human.  Then a kind of species repulsion kicks in and we reject the simulation.  Also, if they move around it's much worse.

De-aged Jeff Bridges is possibly the creepiest CGI I have seen in a while.  I know that part of it was done on purpose (at least, I hope it was) but the piece at the beginning that's set around 1988 is just unsettling.  Like I said in the spoiler part, I didn't see the original movie, so I don't know the backstory but here's the run-down of the new one:

Sam Flynn is the son of TRON designer Kevin Flynn, who disappears when he is about 5 years old.  He grows up a bit like Bruce Wayne:   rich, bored, and with a chip on his shoulder toward authority figures. Then one day, his dad's old partner shows up and says he got a page (kids, you'll have to Google 'pager') from a number that's been disconnected for 20 years down at Kevin Flynn's arcade (Ditto here).  So Sam goes to the arcade, finds the secret underground lair office, fucks around with the controls, and accidentally beams himself into the digital world.  Ta da!

Once there, he gets picked up for being a rogue program and dumped into a gladiatorial fight with light discs.  After he acquits himself well, mostly through dumb luck, he gets to meet the head honcho Clu...a de-aged digital copy of his father.  Ew.  Bonus:  his faithful crony/henchman is Franklin Mott from TrueBlood!  So Clu orders him to death by lightcycle race and he gets rescued by Qora, a hottie in black latex and taken to see his dad, Old Jeff Bridges, who has been trapped there since the 80's.  Adventures happen.

Visually, the movie is outstanding.  The CGI (with the exception of Clu) is absolutely amazing.  I'm really quite excited by that since I remember the days when you could see every single effect that was added by computer.  To have progressed to the point where it is completely seamless is truly extraordinary.

Extra Secret Bonus Round:  Keep your eyes peeled for an uncredited Cillian Murphy too!

All That Jazz (1979)

Merry Solstice, everyone!  I know I technically missed my post deadline (self-imposed, of course) by about 38 minutes at time of typing but I wanted to wait.  I'm not a very good pagan, but I do so love a holiday.  It's a full moon, in an hour an eclipse will begin, and it's about 17 degrees outside.  But you don't really care for any of that; you're here for the movies.

  This continues my Netflix trend of grittily depressing 70's movies.  This one is a fantastical autobiographical musical co-written and directed by Bob Fosse.

Did you ever play the game where you think of which dead celebrities you'd invite to a dinner party if you could?  No?  That's because most people are fucking boring and would only pick Marilyn Monroe or Hitler.  But let's leave that aside and consider:  you're having a party.  Time, space, and language are not an issue.  The doorbell rings.  In walks Bob Fosse, arm in arm with the Earl of Rochester, already drunk, chain-smoking, and singing something that would make you blush.  Now that's a party.

All That Jazz is based around the time Fosse was trying to edit a movie and choreograph a Broadway show at the same time and ended up giving himself a heart attack.  It is very cynical, sometimes funny, and superbly well-acted.  Roy "Jaws" Schneider plays the speed-popping perfectionist, Joe Gideon, with a weary, self-deprecating charm.  He knows his life is shit and that it's mostly his fault, but there's a twinkle in his eye that says "Eh, what am I going to do?  Cry about it?"

Ann Reinking, Fosse's real-life girlfriend, had to audition for the part of Gideon's girlfriend.  That pretty much sums up everything you need to know about the man.

Most of the movie is him trying to explain --justify-- his life to the Angel of Death that's waiting for him. She's played by Jessica Lange.  There are interspersed scenes of the movie he's editing, The Stand-Up, about a failing comedian trying to make a come-back.  Most of the monologue deals with the 5 Stages of Death, which was a bit heavy-handed for me in the foreshadowing department.  That's really the only criticism I have for the movie from a technical stand-point.

Sex and death are threads running through the whole film.  The monologue about death cuts over to a dance number for the airline musical that goes from family-friendly to...not... in about half a minute.  Keep your eyes peeled for Sandahl Bergman, yeah, that's right, "Do you want to live forever?" from Conan the Barbarian.  If you need a little help spotting her, she's the one writhing topless on the scaffolding.

Now you see why I think Fosse and Rochester would be best buddies in the afterlife?

Incidentally, the movie-within-a-movie was based on Lenny, a Dustin Hoffman vehicle that was nominated for 6 Academy Awards and the musical-within-a-movie was based on Chicago, which was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won 6 as a movie, and won 6 Tony Awards as a revival under the choreography of Ann Reinking "in the style of Bob Fosse".

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

  Remember back in 2003 before this movie came out?  Remember that feeling of anticipation?  That sense of barely holding the excitement in check?  Then seeing the movie and feeling that horrible betrayal but not knowing just how bad it was going to get because the third one hadn't come out and punched your hope to death yet?

Yeah.

It's hard for me to separate all that out and just watch the movie on its own merits, few that they might be.  It tried, though.  It added new cool characters like Jada Pinkett-Smith to help the good guys, morally neutral parties like Monica Bellucci to move the plot along, and interesting-looking bad guys like the Ghost Twins for the audience to go "ooooh" over.

But like most sequels, it fell into the trap of too much.  Too much Hugo Weaving, for one thing.  Agent Smith made for an awesome bad guy in the first movie and the thought of him unplugged and ungoverned by protocol was pretty appetizing.  But 600 copies of him running around and trying to body-slam Keanu Reeves?  That's just fucking boring.  Especially since nobody ever got hurt.  Tell me it wouldn't have been better if, when the clones got hit, they took physical damage, even crumpled, littering the ground like discarded newspaper pages.  You can't, can you?

Why do I own the movie if I don't like it?  Well, sometimes it's important to see where things went wrong.  It makes you appreciate when movies are done right.

Easy Rider (1969)

  Well, at least nobody committed suicide this time.  Jesus this movie was depressing.  Not quite City of God depressing, but still.  And I will fully admit, I didn't get it.  I wasn't alive in the 60's (or 70's), so I have no contextual reference.  I've never been interested in the counterculture movement so I don't relate to the drug use.  Everything just seemed pointless and arbitrary.  Maybe Dennis Hopper (may he rest in peace) was going for that in a philosophical nihilistic sense, that life is meaningless except for the relationships formed with the people around you, but I'm just spitballing.

I will say the scene where Hopper, Fonda, and Nicholson are sitting around the fire smoking a joint and talking about UFOs reminds me of the horrible house parties I attended in high school.  Here's how much of a nerd/square I am:  I would get up and leave the room if someone lit up.  Not because I have a moral objection to marijuana.  I don't.  If you want to do it, knock yourself out.  I would leave because I thought it smelled disgusting and it gave me a headache.

Really, the only thing that kept me going were the cameos.  Phil Spector has no speaking part, but he's the dude in the Rolls buying coke from Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda.  And Toni "Oh Mickey, you're so fine" Basil plays a prostitute named Mary.

And let's not forget that Jack Nicholson won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the alcoholic lawyer.  He is easily the most accessible character.
Oh, and it has a seriously bitchin' soundtrack.

Tango & Cash (1989)

   I saw this movie about a week ago when I was home sick.  It's one of the few from the time period that I had actually seen before, probably as a rerun on cable when I was a kid. 

This is probably one of the first movies to start the 90's trend of favoring witty one-liners over believable effects.  Stallone and Russell both toss off these bons mots with complete aplomb, regardless whether pushing someone into a set of electrical transformers or debating the merits of dating a partner's sister.  Forget the LAPD!  Someone needs to get these two to Laugh-In!

Ray Tango and Gabriel Cash are two super-cops from opposite ends of Los Angeles.  They spend their days catching coke runners and trying to one-up each other in the papers, blissfully unaware that both their major drug kingpins actually work for even bigger kingpin Jack Palance.  It's 1989 so one can only assume that Jack is trying to consolidate his power base before he moves to Gotham City where he will help create The Joker 1.0 out of Jack Nicholson.  Obviously, these two cops are interfering with this dream so instead of having them shot in the face, Palance orchestrates a frame job and sends the Buddy Cop Odd Couple to jail. 

Hijinks ensue, including a weird psuedo-strip dance number by a young, sparkly-Maidenform-clad Teri Hatcher.

You thought I was kidding, didn't you? 

Frankly, the plot is more nonsensical than some drugstore comics I have seen but the quips are still pretty funny which elevates this piece of dreckitude from the rest of the heap.  Plus it's nice to see young Kurt Russell in a white henley and pre-mid-life-crisis-HGH-abuse Stallone in Armani.  Mmm, late-80's man-meat.

Golden Globes Nominations 2010

Ho ho ho!  Tis the Season...for shiny gold statues to be handed out!  The Golden Globe nominations are like the Advent Calendar for the Oscars, a way to count down until the big event.  Of course, awards get handed out year round at various festivals, the Golden Lions for Venice, the Palme d'Or at Cannes, but like foreign holidays, we in the States just don't pay much attention.  Let's get to it, shall we? 

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception 
The King’s Speech
The Social Network

None of these are really a surprise since these are the movies that everyone has been talking about.  The Social Network is probably going to win, but I'm holding out for Inception...since it's the only one I've seen so far.  I seriously debated linking all the posts that I've already seen since I know I'm going to link most of the same damn ones for my Oscar nomination post but fuck it, I want the pageviews.

BEST MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY
Alice in Wonderland
Burlesque
The Kids Are All Right
Red
The Tourist

I'm actually quite pleased that I've seen all of these except for The Kids Are All Right.  I'll probably end up seeing that one as well because it'll end up on the Oscar Noms but I'm not stressing it.

ACTOR, DRAMA
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours 
Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine 
Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter

ACTRESS, DRAMA
Halle Berry, Frankie and Alice 
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole 
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Can you tell I'm not a big Drama fan?  I don't even want to speculate on who's going to win because it'll be boring.  Jesse Eisenberg for Best Actor and probably Halle Berry for whatever the hell she was in that I've never heard of.

ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Johnny Depp, Alice in Wonderland
Johnny Depp, The Tourist
Paul Giamatti, Barney’s Version
 Jake Gyllenhaal, Love and Other Drugs 
Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack

I think Johnny Depp is going to take this one.  He does have twice as much of a shot but I don't think The Tourist will work in his favor.  Apparently no one liked it but me.

ACTRESS, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Anne Hathaway, Love and Other Drugs
Angelina Jolie, The Tourist
Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right
Emma Stone, Easy A

I'd like to see Emma Stone win this but it'll probably go to either Annette Benning or Julianne Moore.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Michael Douglas, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Is it cynical of me to guess Michael Douglas because he almost died this year?

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
Melissa Leo, The Fighter

I didn't see any of these so I have no idea who to root for but I'll say Mila Kunis because I loved her in That 70's Show.

DIRECTOR
Darren Aronovsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russell, The Fighter

Nolan, hands down. 

SCREENPLAY
Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David Seidler, The King’s Speech
Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

I think they'll give this one to Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, probably to make up for something else.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Biuitiful
The Concert
The Edge
I Am Love
In a Better World

No freakin' idea on these.  One's got Tilda Swinton and one's got Javier Bardem and the other three I haven't even heard of.  Based on that:  Biutiful because everyone loves some Javier.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Tangled
Toy Story 3

TS3, no contest. 

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat, The King’s Speech
Danny Elfman, Alice in Wonderland
A.R. Rahman, 127 Hours
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network
Hans Zimmer, Inception

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Bound to You,” Burlesque
“Coming Home,” Country Strong
“I See the Light,” Tangled
“There’s A Place For Us,” Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
“You Haven’t Seen The Last of Me,” Burlesque

Don't ask me about scores, because I never pay attention.  Probably Inception just for the BWAAAAAM noises.  As for original song, "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" was Cher's ballad.  Loved it.

TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA
Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
The Good Wife
Mad Men
The Walking Dead

TV is a bit harder a category for me.  I tend to like the shows I like and I just don't have time (even with a DVR) to watch as much as I apparently need.  The Good Wife started to bore me halfway through the last season so I stopped watching.  Ditto with Boardwalk Empire.  I still have a couple of episodes of Dexter to watch but I'm not holding out hope for a season finale like last year's.  As for the other two, I missed out on the first season/episode so I never started.

ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA
Julianna Marguiles, “The Good Wife”
Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men”
Piper Perabo, “Covert Affairs”
Katey Sagal, “Sons of Anarchy”
Kyra Sedgwick. “Closer”

ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA
Steve Buscemi, “Boardwalk Empire”
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad”
Michael C. Hall, “Dexter”
Jon Hamm, “Mad Men”
Hugh Laurie, “House”

TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
The Big C
Glee
Modern Family
Nurse Jackie

I'm even worse on this one.  The only show I watch here is Glee.  But I hope it wins every award it's up for.

ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Toni Collette, “The United States of Tara”
Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie”
Tina Fey, “30 Rock”
Laura Linney, “The Big C”
Lea Michele, “Glee.”

ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”
Steve Carell, “The Office”
Thomas Jane, “Hung”
Matthew Morrison, “Glee”
Jim Parsons, “Big Bang Theory”

Is Hung still on the air?  I thought that show got cancelled...

MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
“Carlos”
“The Pacific”
“Temple Grandin”
“You Don’t Know Jack”
“Pillars of the Earth”

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Hayley Atwell, “Pillars of the Earth”
Claire Danes, “Temle Grandin”
Judi Dench, “Return to Cranford”
Romola Garai, “Emma”
Jennier Love Hewitt, “The Client List”

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Idris Elba, “Luther”
Ian MacShane, “PIllars of the Earth”
Al Pacino, “You Don’t Know Jack”
Dennis Quaid, “The Special Relationship”
Edgar Ramirez, “Carlos”

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Hope Davis, “The Special Relationship”
Jane Lynch, “Glee”
Kelly MacDonald, “Boardwalk Empire”
Julia Stiles, “Dexter”
Sofia Vergara, “Modern Family”

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Scott Caan, “Hawaii Five-0”
Chris Colfer, “Glee”
Chris Noth, “The Good Wife”
Eric Stonestreet, “Modern Family”
David Straithern, “Temple Grandin”

I do watch Hawaii Five-0 but I don't think Scott Caan should get a Golden Globe for it.  Chris Colfer legitimately deserves this one for his portrayal of a gay kid being bullied.  That's an issue that should have more attention paid to it.

The Tourist (2010)

  I didn't really know what to expect from this movie.  I didn't see any of the previews, didn't research it, and wasn't going to see it until my mother told me to.  She wants me to see as much of Venice as I can before I go there in February.  For her, preparation involves Casino Royale, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Italian Job.

The Tourist was charming.  I can't think of a more appropriate word.  Angelina Jolie is beautiful and mysterious, Paul Bettany is scowling and intense, and Johnny Depp is, well, he's Johnny.  He has a way of infusing the simplest gestures with disarming humor in very Cary Grant or William Powell-like ways.

This movie had more than a touch of Charade to it, and a little North by Northwest for good measure.   It even put me in mind of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which is one of my all-time favorite books.

Frank Tupelo is a widowed math teacher on holiday in Europe.  He meets a mysterious and beautiful woman on a train to Venice and then his world is turned upside down.  Elise Ward is the paramour of a man wanted by Scotland Yard for tax evasion and by a gangster for embezzlement named Alexander Pierce.  Pierce's face is a mystery after $20 million worth of plastic surgery so everyone is following Elise in the hopes of catching him.  Suddenly, Frank is being shot at, chased across rooftops, and menaced by Russian bodyguards.

I'm not quite sure how it would stand up to repeat viewings but it's definitely worth the price of admission.

Marked Woman (1937)

  Still no Black Swan.

This is another from my Bette Davis box set.  I have to say, it's one of the better ones.  Bette plays a nightclub "hostess" working for a gangster who carves up her face after she turns state's evidence.  Humphrey Bogart is the DA trying to put the gangster away.

I'm pretty sure this was the only movie they made together, which is probably a good thing.  Their acting styles seem really similar to me, and it's hard to decide which of the two to watch when they're on screen together.

At the beginning of the movie, there's a big disclaimer that the story is fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely accidental.  Now that's standard boilerplate for films nowadays; in fact, you can find it buried in the end credits on pretty much everything.  But this was big letters right up front, which always makes me suspicious.

So, sure enough, it's based on the story of Thomas Dewey, the Manhattan DA who convicted Lucky Luciano based on the testimony of several prostitutes and madams.  Boardwalk Empire fans will know Lucky as having kind of a weakness for the fairer sex so it's not too surprising that he was brought down by a couple of skirts.

The movie stands up pretty well, better than I thought it would, and the costumes are gorgeous Orry-Kelly creations.

Crash (2004)

  This movie sucked and not just because it was Christy's pick for December.  Despite her belief that I disparage the movies she loves simply because I have no soul, I do go in hoping that I will like them.  It's just that I generally don't.  Still, it's good for me to be exposed to something other than violent foreign revenge films.  I guess.

I can't believe this movie won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain.  That's just fucking wrong.  I don't go in for dramas in most cases but Brokeback was a powerful moving film.  This was just a collection of racist idiots.  I'm not sure what point they were trying to make, other than "everyone is racist and no one in LA can drive".

See, now this video from Avenue Q says pretty much the exact same thing...and it's hilarious.  Call me insensitive, but I prefer to face issues with humor than with joyless depictions of all the horrible shit people do and say to each other.

Orphan (2009)

  Someone tell me why little girls are inherently creepy?  Example:  Picture yourself somewhere normal, yet still unfamiliar; let's say the hallway of a hotel you've never stayed in before.  You're headed toward your room, bucket of ice in hand, when you turn the corner and see a young girl standing in the hallway.  She appears to be about 8-years-old, her hair is perfectly styled, held back with a wide blue ribbon that matches her slightly old-fashioned, modest dress, atop which is a freshly starched white pinafore.  A doll dangles from her hand.  There are no adults in sight.  What do you do?

You fucking run, that's what.  But make sure you don't do it blindly because you don't know how fast that little snake can move or if she has a twin or something that has snuck up behind you.

As a matter of fact, if you didn't have a flashback to The Shining from that scenario, congratulations, you have just failed Horror Movie Survival 101.

"Come play with us!"

"Not on your fucking life, pipsqueak."

Little overdressed girls should be treated with the same kind of caution as a rabid wolverine.  Take Esther, the eponymous girl from today's movie.

Little girl?  Check.
Tragic past that inspires sympathy instead of healthy paranoia?  Check.
Weird unsettling habits?  Check.
Sudden bursts of violence?  Check.

As a character, Esther is everything you could want in a horror movie.  Sure, it's been done before with The Good Son and even much earlier with The Bad Seed but this one has a cute little twist near the end that's good and disturbing.  The acting is really quite good from all concerned.  The only thing that really sinks this movie is the editing.  Even in the beginning of the film, there are way too many shots done from close in.  This is a cheap horror trick to limit the field of vision so you can then pop out a character and make it look like they appeared from nowhere.  It's extremely heavy-handed here and the movie would have been much more fluid without it.

So, overall, a decent film if you're just in a pro-choice kind of mood but definitely watch it on cable.

Vanishing Point (1971)

  This is not the movie I wanted to be reviewing today.  I was all geared up for Black Swan and have been since I first heard of it this summer.  It was going to be my real kick-off for the holiday movie season.  There are only three theaters carrying it in the DC area as of yesterday and the closest one to me is Georgetown.  Georgetown!  It might as well be on the other side of the moon.

I take that back.  There's ample parking on the other side of the moon.

Why didn't I discover the Black Swan thing on Friday, like a true fan?  Well, kiddies, Friday I was drunk.  I came home from a busy day at work to discover that my internet had been shut off.  Since I was relatively certain I had paid that bill, I called the cable company to find out what was up.  Some unscrupulous person had used my wireless network to illegally download Knight and Day.  True story. I then spent an hour on the phone with some poor bastard in India (again, also true) to try and figure out how to fix the security on my router.  Then I remembered that the only reason I even had the wireless network set up was for my TiVo in the living room.  But I gave away my TiVo like three years ago when my cable company threw in a DVR as an upgrade.
So I unhooked the router, hung up on the Indian, and plugged the cable directly into the computer.  After all that, I needed a drink.

Anyway, Vanishing Point.

**Probable Spoilers**

I don't know why Netflix thinks I'm suicidal or I enjoy seeing other people commit suicide, but it apparently does.

For those of you who didn't pay attention during the talking parts of Death Proof, Vanishing Point is one of the great car-chase movies of the 70's.  The star of the movie is a white 1970 Dodge Challenger.  The guy driving the car is named Kowalski.  Kowalski delivers cars for a living and is scheduled to deliver the Challenger to San Francisco from Denver.  According to Google Maps, that's over 1200 miles and about 20 hours.  For no apparent reason, Kowalski makes a bet with his drug connection that he can make it in 15 hours.  Which drug, you ask?  Speed, of course.

So Kowalski sets off under his self-imposed deadline.  From little vignettes, we learn that he is a former professional racer (motorcycles and cars) and before that, he was a police officer.  This is supposed to engender sympathy in the watcher, that here is a tortured soul who has taken to the open road in an attempt to expurgate his sins with speed.  What it said to me was that here was a deeply troubled man coked to the gills behind the wheel of a super-charged car speeding toward oblivion as fast as it will take him.

I'd draw comparisons to Cool Hand Luke but there's no way Barry Newman could ever be as charismatic as Paul Newman.  Not in a million years.

I guess if you like car chases or if you like the 70s this would be a good film.  Maybe.  I don't know.

It was a nice car, though.