The Brothers Grimm (2005)

  This is still a terrible movie.  You know how sometimes you watch something and it sucks, but then you go back and watch it again and it's at least funny the second time?  Didn't happen here.

I remember seeing this when it came out, not in theaters but on HBO or something, when I was living in Georgia.  I thought it was awful.  Bad CGI, a ridiculous plot, and hammy overacting from everyone involved.  I remember thinking "What the fuck is Monica Belucci doing here?  She's better than this." 

After being suckered by a charlatan over 'magic beans' as children, Will (Matt Damon) and Jake (Heath Ledger) Grimm have grown to become massive charlatans themselves.  Their advance team goes in, sets up a place to appear to be haunted, then the brothers ride in, charge and exorbitant fee, and dispel the evil spirit.  This is quite lucrative until they are caught by General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce).  Facing the gallows for their crimes, the brothers are granted a reprieve if they go to the city of Marbaden and calm the local populace.  Almost a dozen local girls have gone missing and the theory is that a witch is responsible.  But when the brothers arrive, they find that some legends are better left alone.

This movie tried so hard.  It shoehorned in every fairy tale it could think of, bribed actors far above its caliber to be in it, and poured in as much CGI as the frames would hold.  Only to have it flop like a dead fish.  There's no love shown to the fairy tales, no respect to the source material.  They've just been mined ruthlessly for stuff people remember.  A red cloak, a wolf, ravens, children dropping breadcrumbs, a dark forest, a tower.  Without the story, those are just nouns.  I think the real brothers Grimm would be horrified to have their names associated with this.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

  Once you embrace the stupidity, these movies get a lot more enjoyable.  I'm not saying you should live there, but visiting the Land of Ridiculousness every once in a while can be refreshing, like giving your brain a nap.

Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) is no longer a police officer after what happened in The Fast and the Furious.  He now lives in Miami, racing cars and working in a shop owned by Tej (Ludacris).  U.S. Customs pulls him back and threatens to prosecute him unless he helps them with a job:  drug kingpin Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) is looking for a couple of fast drivers to help him move his dirty money.  The feds know this because they have an undercover agent close to Verone, Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes).  O'Connor agrees, but requests that he be able to bring his childhood friend, Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson) along. 

There are more cars and more macho posturing, as well as another sub-plot about what it means to be true friends or something but none of that really matters.  This was much more of an action/heist movie as opposed to just car racing.  I, for one, found that a welcome change.  This series has managed to gain respectability through its franchise, which is the opposite of pretty much every other movie series.  That is impressive and for that, I will continue watching.

Brother Bear (2003)

  Young Inuit tribesman Kenai (Joachim Phoenix) is super-excited to receive his totem animal for his manhood ceremony.  He's hoping for a saber-toothed tiger or something badass, but is instead presented with the Bear of Love.  Coincidentally, because of Kenai's haste and shoddy job of securing the tribe's supply of fish, a bear has made off with most of it.  Kenai and his two brothers Sitka (D. B. Sweeney) and Denahi (Jason Raize) track the bear up the glacier but find that a 900-lb grizzly is a bit more than they can handle.  Sitka shears off part of the ice to save his brothers, taking himself and the bear into the river below.  The bear makes it out.  Blinded by grief and rage, Kenai vows to track down and kill the bear, over Denahi's abjurations that it wasn't really the bear's fault since Kenai antagonized it.  Vengeance rarely has time for doubt, however, and Kenai chases the bear up the tallest mountain, killing it.  This angers the Spirits that live in the Aurora Borealis and they instantly transform Kenai into a bear himself.  Denahi now thinks the bear has killed two of his brothers and swears vengeance.  Kenai goes on the run, accompanied by a motormouth cub (Jeremy Suarez) who has become separated from his mother and hopes to see her at the annual salmon run.  Three guesses to how that turns out.

I don't think this is one of Disney's best works, since they had moved away from outright animated musicals to just letting Phil Collins do the whole soundtrack.  You could see that they were trying but the story didn't really come together as organically as some of their classics.  Everything just feels a little flat.  I will say, this is probably some of Joachim Phoenix's best work since Gladiator. 

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

  I did not enjoy the first one in this series at all.  I thought it was stupid.  There's actually a reboot coming either next year or 2015.  Maybe in a post-Avengers world we can get a decent Fantastic Four movie.

This one wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, even though it was still horribly miscast. Chris Evans is, frankly, too good to just be the Human Torch and Jessica Alba looks awful with blond hair and blue eyes.  I mean, come on. 

Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) are trying to get married but it's hard to have a quiet ceremony when you are Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman.  The U.S. military wants Reed to help them discover what has been causing massive spikes of cosmic radiation all around the world.  When one disturbance happens right over their wedding, Johnny (Chris Evans) goes after it.  He is able to determine that it's actually a naked silver dude on an interstellar surfboard but his recklessness puts him at odds with the rest of the team.  The surfer (Lawrence Fishbourne) eventually tells them that he's really not trying to destroy their planet...he's just prepping it for the Eater of Worlds, Galactus. After Sue uses her hotness (it's a superpower) to convince him that would suck, he decides to help out the Earthlings.  Unfortunately, Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon) wants to try his hand at being the Green Goblin for a minute and steals the surfboard. 

My main problem with this pair of films is that it's skewed way too young.  The humor is juvenile and everything feels dumbed down.  Like a comic strip versus a graphic novel.  It doesn't have to be Oscar-winning, but it needs to have some soul.

Martyrs (2008)

  I just...I don't...What?

I woke up this fine Thanksgiving morning and thought "let's start the day off right with a French horror movie."  Christy came out about forty minutes in, looked at the TV, looked at me, and I had to tell her I had no idea what was actually happening. 

There is an optional introduction by the director, Pascal Laugier, that will do nothing to inspire confidence about what you are going to watch.  He basically apologizes for making something fucked up and is okay if you hate it and him, because sometimes he hates it too.  I had heard that this is so hard to watch that it basically defines the genre of torture porn.  I don't know if I'd go that far.  I've seen way more horrific things. 

Despite all this, for what it is, it totally works as a film.  Once it reveals its central concept, at around the halfway mark, it's pretty straightforward.  No less fucked up, but straightforward.  If I tell you any more I think it might ruin it for you.  I'm already kind of doing a terrible job of describing it.  It definitely wasn't what I was expecting but I found that I kind of enjoyed where I ended up.  Even with the torture.

I just don't know if I could be a party to my own destruction.  As the movie will tell you, martyr comes from Greek martyros, meaning witness.  That is a passive act, an allowance of a state of affairs to come to pass without action.  The movie tests the characters' endurance, so much that they transcend their torment and are transformed by the experience. I don't know that I could allow someone else to determine that course for me.  Call it innate stubbornness but I think I would fight tooth and nail, just from spite if nothing else. 

Broken Arrow (1996)

  Judge me if you want to, but I love this movie.  This was damn near the last time Christian Slater and John Travolta were cool and it was directed by John Woo. 

Air Force B3 bomber pilots Hale (Slater) and Deakins (Travolta) are carrying live nukes for a training exercise when Deakins goes rogue.  He dumps the nukes out over the Utah desert and ejects his partner before intentionally crashing the plane.  As far as the Air Force is concerned, they have a serious problem in that live nukes, one with possibly an exposed core, are just lying around the desert.  They don't know that Deakins has planned to hold the government hostage with the threat of detonation.  Hale and a plucky National Parks ranger named Terri (Samantha Mathis) must put a stop to Deakins' elaborate, well-thought-out plan before he uses the bomb.

Check some logic at the door, people.  If you know anything about nuclear arms, the military, or plan to do a cursory Google search, you will discover that most of what happens here is complete bullshit.  That doesn't mean you can't have a good time watching it.  Lower your expectations and enjoy one of the most underrated films of the 90's.

Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy (2007-2010)

  I'm only putting up the poster for the first one.  This fucking thing was hilarious. 

I am so far behind on my Family Guy watching.  I'm still waiting on season five from Netflix.  That doesn't really bother me, since it's the kind of show you can just pick up at any point because it's so non-linear (except for the most recent one, I know, thank you Internet). 

I was having a bad day last week and I sat down to watch this trilogy.  I haven't laughed so hard in a room by myself in a long time.  Between this and a half bottle of Sweet Ass Shiraz, my bad mood had evaporated. 

If you've watched an episode of Family Guy, you pretty much know exactly what you're getting here, plus slightly more profanity since these went to DVD instead of a network, although Wikipedia tells me that Blue Harvest was actually used as the season 6 premiere.  All three episodes are miles better than I was expecting.

Day Watch (2006)

  This is a Russian fantasy film sequel to Night Watch, and based on a trilogy of books.  Sadly, they ran out of money so Twilight Watch probably will never get made.  That's okay, though, because the end of this one could serve as a series ending.

Anton (Kontantin Khabenskiy) is now a Light mentor to Sveta (Mariya Poroshina).  His son, Yegor (Dimitriy Martynov), is being raised in the Dark by Zavulon (Viktor Verzhbitskiy).  When a member of the Dark is murdered, evidence points toward Anton as the killer, threatening the fragile truce.  He must find a way to clear his name, protect Sveta, and still try and have a relationship with his son.  To do all of this, he must find the Chalk of Fate, a mythic artifact rumored to have been owned by Tamerlane himself.

I found this one to be a much more accessible story than the first, which just kind of dumped you into this world.  Maybe because there was less shapeshifting going on.  I would still recommend this pair of films to anyone, just because I think it's important to showcase fantasy and myths from other countries without an American filter.  Sometimes things get a little lost in translation. 

Brokedown Palace (1999)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Here's hoping you're not stuck in a Thai prison.    Alice (Claire Danes) and Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) are high school best friends looking for an adventure before life separates them.  They decide to bum around Thailand for a couple of weeks, which is where they meet Nick (Daniel Lapaine), a sexy Australian who throws cash around like it's bug spray.  Darlene is instantly smitten with the guy and when he offers to take them to Hong Kong for the weekend, she immediately accepts.  Alice isn't as keen on the idea, feeling the faintest twinge of jealousy, but she eventually agrees.  Everything seems great, until they are busted by customs at the airport.  A search of their bags reveals canisters of cocaine.  After a kangaroo court and some coerced confessions, the two Americans are thrown in prison with almost no hope of getting out.  They contact Hank Greene (Bill Pullman), an American lawyer practicing in Thailand, as their Hail Mary pass.  Hank immediately notices that something fishy is going on, and starts digging.  

It says it's a movie about friendship, but really it's a cautionary tale about knowing your rights when you travel abroad.  If you are arrested, say nothing, sign nothing, and ask for a lawyer from your consulate.  They have at least one on staff, it's what they're there for. 

The one thing that was very good about this movie was that it never actually resolved the mystery of who put the coke in the bags:  perennial fuck-up Alice or good-girl-falling-for-the-bad-boy Darlene.  Ultimately, it doesn't matter since the girls were going to be punished regardless, but I thought it was interesting that the movie doesn't tell you. 

The World's End (2013)

This was supposed to go up yesterday.  Sorry, guys.    You probably already know if you'll like this film based on how much you enjoyed the other two flavors in the Cornetto Trilogy, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.  Personally, I thought it was more action-oriented and emotionally darker in tone.  Like the other two films, the theme here is friendship and about outgrowing one's childhood.

Everybody knows that one friend, usually in middle or high school, that could convince you to do the stupidest things and yet, somehow, you were the only one who ever got caught.  Now, you would recognize that as sociopathy but then, you just couldn't help falling for their personal charisma.  Gary King (Simon Pegg) is that friend.  On their graduation from high school, Gary convinces teenaged Oliver (Martin Freeman), Andy (Nick Frost), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Peter (Eddie Marsan) to go on an epic pub crawl called the Golden Mile:  twelve pints in twelve bars in one night.  They never completed the crawl, only making it to nine.  The friends move away from their hometown, starting their lives and generally moving on, until Gary shows up twenty years later with one request.  Finish the Golden Mile.  Torn between pity and curiosity for him, as he's clearly not changed in personality or even in taste in clothes, the four agree.  They soon find, however, that their hometown of Newton Haven has changed as well, with sinister doppelgangers impersonating townsfolk, Stepford Wives-style.  They'll have to survive blue goo-filled automatons as well as alcohol poisoning.

There are few things more piteous than seeing someone who peaked too early try and reclaim their glory days.  The only thing worse than witnessing that is wondering whether you have peaked as well and just didn't realize it.  Edgar Wright balances this fairly deftly with the four friends, while Simon Pegg plays his most unlikeable character to date.  Rosamund Pike and Pierce Brosnan support.

Bill Cosby: Himself (1983)

  If you're a child of the 80's like I am, you probably know Bill Cosby best as the genial head of the Huxtable clan in The Cosby Show.  I had never seen his stand up before and it's still pretty timeless.  Obviously, his schtick is about kids and parenting for the most part, but that shouldn't bar you non-breeders out there from giving it a try.  None of his stuff is really dated so even though this came out thirty years ago, it still feels pretty fresh.

Broadway's Lost Treasures II (2004)

  This collection is way better in terms of rare performances.  It has Katherine Hepburn's only turn in a musical in "Coco", a truly amazing dance routine from "Grand Hotel", and a performance by Gregory Hines in "Jelly's Last Roll".  Plus, George Hearne performing "I Am What I Am" from "La Cage aux Folles".

The Initiation (1984)

  Lately, I've been interested in trolling some of the more obscure corners of the film world.  Not Pretentious Obscure, like student films or art house crap that screened once at a film festival, but Random Obscure, like Daphne Zuniga's feature debut.

Kelly (Daphne Zuniga) is an affluent pledge to Delta Rho Chi in Texas.  The girl in charge of pledges, Megan (Frances Peterson) is a total bitch who has decided that the Pledge Prank will be to have the girls break into Kelly's father's department store and coax the security guard out of his uniform.  Kelly is also under the supervision of her hot TA (James Read) to help her analyze her recurring nightmare of witnessing a man burning to death.  When her mother (Vera Miles) finds out, she orders Kelly to stop seeing Peter.  Meanwhile, a killer has escaped from a mental institution and is going after everyone associated with Kelly.  With all this going on, Kelly is totally going to fail this semester.

I always think it's extra sad when someone iconic ends their career doing schlock.  Vera Miles was in Psycho, for God's sake.  What the fuck is she doing here, in B-movie hell?  In contrast, Daphne Zuniga isn't all that bad here.  She is young, playing a girl who is young, and all she really has to do is run around a lot. Besides, it's her first movie.

It's a standard horror film that plays within the established genre rules.  If you deviate from established social mores, you die.  Philandering husband?  Dead.  Topless co-ed?  Dead.  I suppose it could be a good time if you're in the mood for something kind of shitty, MST3K-style, but otherwise, let this one slink back to the dark where it belongs.

Let Me In (2010)

  This is a completely unnecessary remake of Let the Right One In.  Competent in every way, but wholly extraneous.

Small, bullied Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) meets shy, odd Abby (Chloe Moretz) and starts to develop a friendship.  This is hampered somewhat by Abby's need to feed on the blood of the living.

Let the Right One In was released in 2008 and was an instant success.  That's also about the same time Scandinavian authors like Jo Nesbo, Steig Larsson, and Henning Mankell started flying off the shelves.  That does not justify a remake.  I believe I said as much when they optioned The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, even though there was already a perfectly good contemporary Swedish version.

I don't care if you hate subtitles.  You owe it to yourself to watch the best representation of a story and that is Let the Right One In.  Settle for nothing less than the original.

Broadway's Lost Treasures (2003)

  This does not look like it was made in 2003, even for PBS.  The production values are terrible, and although it's purported to be a treasure trove of rare performance clips, they're of such awful quality that it's almost not worth watching.

That being said, it's a decent primer for some of the best-known Broadway shows and people, if you've been living under a rock and have never seen a musical.

Turbo (2013)

  Christy saw this in the theaters with her friend, Christina.  Since then, she's been waiting eagerly for it to come out on video so I could see it.

It's a cute film, better than I was expecting.  I have to say, Chet (Paul Giamatti) was my absolute favorite character.  He's just so put-upon, the one sane person surrounded by the delusional.

Theo (Ryan Reynolds) nee Turbo, is a garden snail with a big dream:  to race in the Indy 500.  After an accident with some NOS, Turbo gains the ability to move at lightning speed.  Tito (Michael Pina), a taco truck driver, finds Turbo and decides to sponsor him in the race...with a little human help from the owners of strip mall stores, and a little snail help from Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson) and his crew.

The background animation and the snails looked beautiful but something about the animation on the humans just didn't look right in this movie, which kept throwing me off.  It's pretty funny, especially the beginning and end, but the middle starts to drag a little. 

JFK (1991)

  This movie will have you reaching for your tin foil hats.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist in general and definitely not one about JFK, since I wasn't alive until nearly twenty years after the man's death, but even I started to question the status quo after watching this.  To me, that makes it a stellar movie.

Louisiana District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) begins independently investigating the Kennedy assassination in 1966, after reading the Warren Commission's report and finding some questionable practices.  The more he and his team pick at the threads surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) and his connections to an anti-Castro guerrilla (Joe Pesci), an influential trade commissioner (Tommy Lee Jones) and a former member of the Office of Naval Intelligence (Ed Asner), the more threads there seems to be, evolving into a tapestry of conspiracy stretching from the Pentagon to Dallas and all the way to Vietnam. 

Whether or not you believe in the "Lone Gunman" or the "Grassy Knoll" theories, or don't care at all, this film lays it all out in excruciating detail.  Block out an afternoon, though, because the Special Edition (which I watched) is three and a half hours long.  Plus, you're going to want to follow it up with something light-hearted. 

Not much happening

So, it's been kind of a fast week for me, what with the holiday and all, so I'm a little behind on my movie-watching.  I thought I'd take a minute and catch you all up on some of the other stuff I've watched on the small screen.

  Fresh from my shelves, I have The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., a sci-fi Western TV show starring Bruce Campbell that is criminally underappreciated.  This show was years ahead of its time with story arcs of alien artifacts, time travelers, and other anachronisms.  It only ran for 27 episodes in 1993-94 and you can pick up the whole set in one box.  I really do encourage you to see what a great show this was.

  On the server, I've been watching Falling Skies.  I'm only a couple of episodes into the first season but it's a pretty decent show so far.  I like Pope (Colin Cunningham), the psychopathic criminal/chef.  He's the best.  I'm not usually one for straight science fiction but I'll give it a shot and see what the first season brings.

  I am sorry to report that I watched the pilot for NBC's Dracula, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and I hated it.  I think it squandered all of the valuable elements of the book as well as a hundred years of canon, all in 44 minutes.  That's almost impressive in its suckiness, like how a black hole swallows planets.  So far, the only premiere worth a damn this year has been Sleepy Hollow.

  I know!  I'm surprised, too.  It has a very Grimm-like feel, but with the Apocalypse instead of fairy tales.  I don't know how they'll manage to stretch it out over more than one season but it's a very entertaining watch.

I'll be watching more stuff this weekend and hopefully, I'll have a better post for you guys by tomorrow.

Monsters University (2013)

  This was a fun return to the world of Monsters, Inc. even if it didn't live up to its predecessor. 

Mike (Billy Crystal) is a little monster with a big dream:  to become a scarer at Monsters, Inc.  But first, he needs to get into the Scare Program at Monsters University.  Mike has studied and memorized every book on scaring ever written, but he soon finds his dreams disturbed by natural talent Sulley (John Goodman), who comes from a long line of scarers.  After their in-class rivalry ends with them knocking over a priceless souvenir belonging to Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), she kicks them out of the program.  Their only chance to get back in is to win the annual Scare Games.  This means joining a fraternity and competing in team events.  But the only open frat that will take them are the sweethearts at Oozma Kappa.  Mike and Sulley have to learn to work together in order to push their team to win.  But will it be enough?

I heard a number of complaints from critics that this movie heralded the end of Pixar's originality.  Pretty much all of the good coming-of-age college stories have already been told so it's super-easy to look derivative, even though I wouldn't necessarily describe MU as a rip-off.  I think it does well for itself as a prequel and has a lot of great humorous moments.  The animation is absolutely stunning and the voice talent is top-notch as always.  It's definitely worth adding to your Pixar collection and, hey, it's still better than Cars.

Carlito's Way (1993)

  Did you like Scarface?  Did you think it would have been better if Tony Montana was Puerto Rican instead of Cuban?  Did you wish it was set in New York City instead of Miami?  Well, then I have the movie for you.

Smack dealer Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) gets out of jail on a technicality, thanks to his lawyer, Kleinfeld (Sean Penn).  Carlito has seen the light, however, and vows to go straight.  Kleinfeld sets him up as manager of a club he has ownership in and Carlito starts saving up to move to the Bahamas and fulfill his dream of renting cars to tourists. Seriously.  But the street life is hard to walk away from, especially when your friends are out for themselves.

I have to say, I thought this was a better movie than Scarface.  Sacrilege, I know, but Scarface always seemed a little too bleak for me.  Not that this one is sunshine and kittens but it seems more hopeful overall.

And on a random note, I had heard a quote from this movie sampled as part of a song and it was entertaining to me to find where it belonged and who said it.  Now I can't remember what song it is from, which is very frustrating. 

The Faculty (1998)

  This is a fun little alien invasion film from Robert Rodriguez.  I didn't know that until the end credits but it suddenly made Planet Terror make a lot more sense. 

Herrington High School is a typical Midwestern educational institution with a very atypical problem:  its faculty is slowly being replaced by aliens.  Only a handful of students are aware of the growing menace and must find a way to stop their entire town from being taken over.  Bitchy outcast Stokely (Clea Duvall) contributes her knowledge of sci-fi, jock Stan (Shawn Hatosy) provides the muscle, underachieving drug manufacturer Zeke (Josh Hartnett) brings the scientific know-how to kill the alien scum, shy camera bug Casey (Elijah Wood) keeps everyone together, Delilah (Jordana Brewster) is pretty, and new girl Marybeth (Laura Harris) is just trying to survive.

There were so many famous people in this movie.  Pretty much everyone with a speaking role is a known actor.  The story manages to build a decent amount of tension and while it borrows heavily from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing, it manages to feel like an homage, not a rip-off. 

Dark City (1998)

I liked this movie so much I put the Blu-ray Director's Cut in my queue as well.  This is how I know how long it takes for me to get a movie.  Wow.  Since I'd only seen it once before, I'm not entirely certain where the 11 minutes of restored footage fit in but it's still a really good movie.  I don't have anything to add to my original review, which is down there under all the bitching about installing my Blu-ray player.  That was before we moved.  I let Rob fix the one we have now.  Much easier on me.

Sunday, 6/13/11    It may not surprise any of you to know that I tend to wear out DVD players at a rapid rate.  My last one had lasted about four years but earlier in the week it started to enter the Random Pause part of its life cycle.  So I decided to upgrade to Blu-ray, mostly because I read the product description where it said I could stream Netflix directly to my TV. 

Granted, those of you with gaming consoles have been able to do this for quite some time but since I don't play games of any sort, that technology had always been just outside my reach.  Because I'm lazy.  So I bought the blu-ray player, paid less for it than I did for the cables to connect it (which is the dictionary definition of bullshit, in case you're wondering).  Seriously.  $87 for a blu-ray player.  $93 for three cables.  But I'm trying not to be bitter about that.

I borrowed a drill and spent nearly two hours putting a hole in my drywall, threading the cable, hooking it up, resetting the modem, losing my temper, storming around my apartment, making angry phone calls, cursing the world, everyone in it, and especially whoever built stupid motherfucking blu-ray players but finally, victory was mine.

Dark City was my inaugural movie and it looked pretty good for being up-converted.  The sound was great and except for a tiny scratch which prevented me from seeing one chapter, it played beautifully.  I had seen part of it before, but barely remembered it.

Rufus Sewell (Dangerous Beauty) wakes up in a bath tub with no memory of who he is or how he got there, but seeing as there's a dead hooker on the floor, he needs to figure it out quickly.  William Hurt is a police detective whose last partner went completely insane while hookers are turning up dead all over town.  Jennifer Connelly is Rufus' wife, who hasn't seen him in three weeks after she told him about an affair she'd had.

Except that none of that actually happened.  See, the world as they know it is under control of The Strangers, a group of aliens who have their pet doctor (Keifer Sutherland) mix and match memories to try and figure out what makes humans human.  Every midnight, this telepathic race puts the whole town to sleep and then rearranges them all, imprinting completely new memories.   Until something goes wrong and Rufus' imprint fails.  Now he has to beat a murder wrap and avoid the stick-thin corpse-pale Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien aka RiffRaff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and his cronies.

I very much enjoyed this film, especially the end.  I don't think Rufus Sewell is an attractive man (his eyes are weird) but I find him to be a compelling actor.  He's enigmatic and has a way of emoting very subtly.  I like that.

Brigadoon (1954)

Happy Veteran's Day!    This is one of those great, classic MGM musicals about an American named Tommy(Gene Kelly) out on a hunting trip with his buddy (Van Johnson) in Scotland.  They get lost looking for grouse and come upon a tiny hamlet in the mists called Brigadoon.  Everyone in the village is excited and a little nervous to meet them since strangers don't come their way very often.  Tommy forgets to think that's weird the moment he lays eyes on Fiona (Cyd Charisse), out gathering heather for her sister's wedding.  As the day goes on, Tommy can no longer put off the fact that the whole town is harboring a secret:  it only stays in existence for one day out of every hundred years.  Their previous minister, fearing Brigadoon would become ruined by the ways of the world, performed a "miracle" and unmoored it from time.  Every morning when the residents awake, a century has passed.  The miracle will last only until a resident leaves the town, whereupon time will reassert itself and Brigadoon will disappear forever. 

Watching this as a kid, I was captivated by the thought of a pocket of time that just appeared and disappeared according to the pull of one's heart.  Now, I can only see how the 50's just were not a good time for mysticism.  Even as they're promoting the idea that here is this fairyland place that you can only get to by wishing with all your heart, they do everything they can to say that magic isn't real, there are no such things as witches, and only children believe such things.  But a minister can petition God to remove your entire town from a linear timestream and that's completely feasible.  It's not until the 1970's that paganism and related ideas makes a comeback, and then the 80's when fantasy films finally start garnering an audience. 

This is the stuff I think about during the day.  Anyway, Brigadoon.  May we all discover a place where time stands still.

Silverado (1985)

  This has pretty much everything you could want in a Western.  I have no idea why I've never seen it before.  

After foiling an assassination attempt, Emmett (Scott Glenn) comes across a man abandoned in the desert.  He soon finds Paden (Kevin Kline) to be an affable gentleman, as long as you don't steal his horse, guns or hat.  Emmett is on his way to pick up his younger brother, Jake (Kevin Costner), from a town called Turly and then continue on to Silverado to visit their sister, Kate (Patricia Gaul), before heading to California to make their fortune.  Along the way, they meet Mal (Danny Glover), also traveling to Silverado to join the family farm.  The four strike up an easy friendship and things seem to be going well.  Paden dreams of working in a real saloon and finds everything at The Midnight Star, run by Stella (Linda Hunt) and her "partner" Kelly (Richard Jenkins).  Stella tells him the joint is actually owned by the Sheriff and that Kelly was appointed, but she doesn't really like him.  Paden is shocked to realize that the Sheriff is a man he used to run with as an outlaw, Cobb (Brian Dennehy), and that he and his men have basically turned the town into their personal goldmine.  Emmett soon finds his own past has come back to haunt him when he realizes that the son of a man he shot in self-defense, McKendrick (Ray Baker), is still holding a grudge.  Jake can't seem to stay out of trouble if there's a pretty girl involved, and Mal discovers that his family has been run off their land by McKendrick's cattle hands.

At over two hours, this is definitely an epic but it doesn't ever feel as though it's worn out its welcome.  Maybe that was due to the delight of seeing some actors back when they were baby-faced youngsters (Jeff Fahey!) or to the stunning Blu-ray transfer.  The only thing that counts against it is that it's not very quotable.  It's still an excellent movie and I've added it to my "Buy Eventually" list.

Blue Valentine (2010)

  Nominated for:  Best Actress (Michelle Williams)

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may have figured by now that I am not a terribly emotional person.  Netflix has also discovered this and, when I added Blue Valentine to my queue back in 2011, it told me I wouldn't like it.  But you can't know a person completely through math.  Sometimes a movie that seems completely wrong can be relatable. 

This is the best depiction of the implosion of a relationship I have ever seen.  Its tragedy lies in its honesty.

Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) have been together for a while, raising their daughter Frankie (Faith Wladyka), but lately Cindy has felt more and more trapped.  Dean is a house painter with no ambition other than to be a husband and father.  Cindy has a good job as a nurse but is feeling the bite of her own thwarted plans.  We are shown in flashbacks their infatuated beginning, the rush of destiny they each felt when they met.  Obstacles like Cindy's asshole ex (Mike Vogel) and even their unexpected pregnancy were considered minor setbacks at most, easily overcome by their love.  But as the bloom fades on the rose, so does Cindy's interest in this marriage and instead of being a shelter, Dean's love has become a prison.  Compounding this are Cindy's inability to share her feelings and Dean's oblivion.

Anybody who has been in a long-term relationship knows love isn't enough to keep it going.  It has to be there, but so does a foundation of respect and mutual goals.  There is no fairy tale ending when you get married.  It's more like auditioning for a job.  A job that comes with constantly changing objectives and sometimes uncooperative team members.  It's exhausting and there are really no hopes of promotion.  Occasionally, there are bonuses and rewards from being able to share your work with another person but you can't demand them, any more than you can go into your boss' office and demand  a raise.  You have to sacrifice a part of your individuality and be subsumed by the relationship.  There is no more I, there is only We.  But you cannot do so in totality or risk losing yourself.  It's a fine line to walk.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

  This is the second film from that Oscar winners collection I mentioned before. In 1957, this film won seven Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Lead Actor (Alec Guinness), Best Director (David Lean), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Score, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Sessue Hayakawa) but lost to Red Buttons for Sayanora.  I can't even be mad about that, since Buttons was fucking devastating in that part.

British prisoners of war, led by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), are forced to build a bridge over the Kwai in order to link Burma and Siam by train.  Initially, Nicholson and the camp commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) disagree over the applicability of the Geneva Conventions with respect to the officer corps doing manual labor.  Eventually, Nicholson just decides to take over the bridge project as a way to show British ingenuity and superiority.  Veteran prisoner Shears (William Holden) manages to escape through the jungle to Ceylon, where he is most interested in pursuing Love, not War.  Major Warden (Jack Hawkins), a British Special Forces team lead, wants Shears to lead a small group back to the prison camp in order to destroy the bridge.  But Nicholson has become dangerously obsessed with his project, pushing his men to build the best possible bridge, heedless of the admonition to not aid or comfort the enemy.

This is what happens when you put Principle ahead of Practical. Principles are all well and good, especially if they are all that is left to you, but if they should start to come between you and rescue, it's time to re-evaluate your priorities.  The graveyards are full of the noble. 

I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

  Christy wanted to watch this, since she heard it wasn't really a "horror" movie, per se.  I would add that it's not exactly a "good" movie, per se, either.

Young, pretty author Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) has rented a cabin in the middle of nowhere in order to work on her next novel.  Before she can even get to the cabin, she runs into local lothario Johnny (Jeff Branson) and his buddies/henchmen Andy (Rodney Eastman) and Stanley (Daniel Franzese).  Jennifer blows off the encounter, but Johnny doesn't take rejection well.  Especially when Jennifer shows favor towards simple handyman Matthew (Chad Lindberg).  The four men break into the cabin and proceed to harass Jennifer in various violent ways.  She escapes and runs to find the Sheriff (Andrew Howard), thinking that will end the nightmare.  But, apparently, no one in this town has seen a woman not related to them in so long they just can't help themselves.

Frankly, I was disappointed.  Jennifer stays a victim for far too much of the running time, leaving her eventual bloody revenge to feel a little rushed, not to mention poorly thought out.  There's not a single indication that the character gave any thought to what would happen after her vengeance was enacted.  That's the first rule, man.  There were a lot of loose ends flapping around.  I will give her points for creativity, she is a writer, but you have to cover your tracks. 

The original 1978 version is available for streaming on Netflix, but this one is not.  We did find it On Demand for a rental fee and that worked out pretty well.

Escape from Planet Earth (2013)

  This was a fun little animated movie.  I wasn't expecting much but I have to say I wasn't bored at any point.

Gary (Rob Corddry) runs mission control for his brother Scorch (Brendan Fraser).  Together, they have performed dozens of explorative and rescue missions.  But while Scorch gets the acclaim, the sponsorships, and the good press, Gary is starting to feel a little unappreciated.  Especially when his son, Kip (Jonathan Morgan Heit), would rather be like Uncle Scorch than his boring dad.  When Scorch preps for a search and rescue mission to the notoriously dangerous Dark Planet behind Gary's back, things come to a head between the two.  Gary quits mission control and Scorch decides to go it alone.  But when the mission turns out to be a trap by evil General Shanker (William Shatner), Gary must travel to Area 51 in order to rescue him.

This almost reminded me of Battle for Terra in that it's told from the aliens' point of view but far more accessible.  The animation is lovely to look at, which helps distract from some of the more threadbare plot points and the side characters manage to be more entertaining than annoying.  I don't know that it would stand up to repeat viewings but it was a fun watch.

It was nice to see Jessica Alba and William Shatner getting to play the villains, even if they were still cuddly cartoons. 

V/H/S (2012)

  This is an anthology put together by some of the best up-and-coming horror directors working today.  That being said, it's an interesting but ultimately unrewarding experiment. 

Four assholes who make money by assaulting women for "found porn" sites get an offer for more money than they could make in a month by just doing one job:  breaking into the house of an old man and stealing a particular VHS tape.  However, what they find is a dead old guy and a bunch of VHS tapes.  Not knowing which is the right one for their payday, they decide to watch the movies, finding 1) some college boys trying to film a score that goes horribly wrong, 2) a young couple on a roadtrip anniversary that goes horribly wrong, 3) a couple of Skypers concerned that the girl's house might be haunted, and 4) a group of guys trying to find a haunted house party that goes horribly wrong.

Aside from the first and the fourth vignettes, the movie really only highlights that young men with videocameras are assholes.  The first one is definitely the best of the batch, but the shaky "found footage" aspect is nauseating.  It is not that hard to hold a camera still, even if you're an amateur.   This and it's sequel are both available through Netflix streaming but I would recommend you use the fast-forward button pretty liberally.

The Bride with White Hair (1993)

  This is one of my favorite wuxia films.  It doesn't make a lot of sense and it's patently bizarre but I enjoy it.

Cho Yi-Hang (Leslie Cheung) is the finest pupil of the Wu Tang school, but he has no ambition for leadership.  He meets mysterious assassin Wolf Girl (Brigitte Lin) while saving some peasants and immediately falls for her.  Unfortunately, she is in the employ of an evil cult, lead by conjoined twins.  The male twin (Francis Ng) is in love with Wolf Girl as well, even though his sister (Elaine Lui) thinks it's stupid to be so involved.  Can these two star-crossed lovers overcome their pasts to make a life with each other?  No, of course not.  They have to wade through scores of their enemies first.

There are so many fucked up, weird things going on with this movie.  Let's not even go there.  Instead, let's focus on how awesome and fucked up and weird everything is.  If you can turn off the rational part of your brain and just go with the flow, this is a ridiculously entertaining movie.

Braveheart (1995)

  Remember Braveheart, you guys?  I hadn't seen this movie in forever!  This came out just as I was about to go into high school and my friend Kristen and I were in loooooove with Sophie Marceau's costumes.  Ah, nostalgia.

Having been orphaned at a young age and raised by his uncle Argyle (Brian Cox), William Wallace (Mel Gibson) wants nothing more than to marry his childhood sweetheart Murron (Catherine McCormack) and be a farmer.  Unfortunately, he lives in 13th Century Scotland, which is oppressively ruled by the King of England, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan).  After Murron is killed, Wallace becomes an outlaw and a rallying point for all the other frustrated Scots.  The Scottish nobles are much more reluctant, but they follow Robert the Bruce's (Angus Macfayden) lead.  Faced with mounting problems abroad, an ineffectual heir (Peter Hanly), and a full-blown insurrection in Scotland, Longshanks dispatches his son's beautiful French wife (Sophie Marceau) to try and negotiate.

This is a historical epic if there ever was one:  hugely dramatic monologues, crashing battle scenes, sweeping bagpipe score, not one but two tragic love stories, dastardly villains, and a tortured hero with his loveable sidekicks (Brendan Gleeson and David O'Hara).  At least one of those things should interest you.  If not, then you're probably an alien and you should pretend to be interested or you'll blow your cover.

You should probably have seen this already.  It's good to dust it off every once and a while, though, and remind yourself of a time when Mel Gibson wasn't just a crazy drunk anti-Semite misogynist.