National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)

  I didn't think I would like this movie, but I was surprised by how funny it really is, especially after the bullshit that is Date Movie. 

Delta House is the worst fraternity at Faber College, but it's the only House pledges Larry (Tom Hulce) and Kenny (Stephen Furst) have a chance of being accepted.  The Dean (John Vernon) wants Delta's charter dismissed and the whole frat thrown out but Otter (Tim Matheson) and Boon (Peter Riegert), the frat's unofficial leaders, have other ideas.

It's not so much the plot here as it is the visuals.  You can't really describe John Belushi's character as important to furthering the story but this movie would not be as good without him in it.  He adds an indefinable star quality that lights up the screen every time he is shown.

This is a classic comedy for a reason and if you've never seen it, you should.  I'm sad it took me so long to get around to it but better late than never.

Date Movie (2006)

  This was just a goddamn mess from start to finish.  I knew it was going to be lame.  The names Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are not synonymous with quality.  But I didn't expect it to be such a Frankenstein's monster of cliched tropes masquerading as a spoof.  This doesn't make fun of date movies, it just throws a bunch of things you recognize into a blender and tries to pass that off as a joke.

Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan) is looking for love, but as a fat waitress in a Greek diner it's a little hard to come by eligible men.  Her prayers are answered, however, when she meets Grant (Adam Campbell), a cute doctor who likes her despite her fat-suit.  Julia isn't satisfied with her appearance so she goes to the date doctor, Hitch (Tony Cox), who takes her to West Coast Customs for a pimped out makeover.  Now looking like Alyson Hannigan, Julia hopes she and Grant will live happily ever after.  If they can survive her parents (Eddie Griffin and Meera Simhan), his parents (Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge), and his man-eating "best man" Andy (Sophie Monk) long enough to get to the altar.

It's lazy, it's stupid, and it scrapes the bottom of the barrel for comedy.  It's not worth your time, even as an endurance test to see how much you can take.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

  This movie is fucking awesome!  If anyone tells you differently, punch them right in the face.

In another world, there lived two distinct races inextricably linked:  the wise Mystics and the evil Skeksis.  The Skeksis use the incredibly powerful Dark Crystal to enslave others and drain their life energy.  But there is a prophecy that states that a Gelfling will heal the Crystal and bring an end to this time of darkness.  Jen is a Gelfling, raised by the Mystics, and set upon a path to find the missing shard sundered from the Crystal and replace it before the three suns converge.

Jim Henson and Frank Oz collaborated on this movie, working the puppets, doing voices, and co-directing.  It is fantastically inventive, amazingly detailed, and wonderful to watch.  I remember seeing it over and over on video as a kid.  This is probably one of the major influences in my push towards sci-fi/fantasy books.  I hope people are still showing it to their children.

Black Death (2010)

  I thought this was going to be a cool, gothic mystery.  Instead, it's Wicker Man without the charm.

In Medieval Europe, the Black Plague is sweeping the land.  People believe that it is God's punishment, a scourge meant to cull the wicked.  Young monk Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) is chosen to go with a group of Church knights, led by the taciturn Ulrich (Sean Bean) to investigate reports that a village has been untouched by pestilence as a result of a pact with the devil.  Osmund has an ulterior motive for the journey, as he hopes to meet and run away with the girl he loves.  First, they must investigate this town which is led by a mysterious woman named Langiva (Carice Van Houten). Could she be a witch?

Frankly, there's no clear good guy here.  The Church is portrayed as brutal and harsh and the pagans are no less bloodthirsty.  Since there's absolutely no one to root for, it's very hard to care about anything that happens.  It's just one awful person doing awful things to another awful person and I have better things to do than watch that.

Waste Land (2010)

  This is the last documentary from my 2011 Oscar nominations.  It lost to Inside Job, which I can't complain about, even though this is really good.  Depressing, but still good.

Brazilian artist Vik Muniz specializes in social commentary via mixed media photography.  For his next project, he wants to visit the Jardim Gramacho landfill outside of Rio and photograph some of the workers who spend hours a day separating the trash and pulling out recyclable material.  They live in some of the poorest favelas in the country and are constantly under threat by turf wars between rival drug dealers.  Vik selects a handful of workers, takes their picture, and then invites them to his workshop to help fill in huge transparencies of the photograph with recycled material.  The resulting photographs are spectacular, like the one on the poster.

Over the course of this process, the workers open up about their lives and are opened in turn to new possibilities outside Jardim Gramacho.  Muniz, his crew, and the film-makers are careful to never exploit the workers by promising more than they can deliver, and all proceeds from the artwork are given back to the workers themselves.

I came away from this movie uplifted by their hope for the future, humbled by their perspective, and fervently determined to recycle more.  Like, seriously, guys.  Recycle.

Dance with Me (1998)

  In case you couldn't tell, we are rolling right into the D's.  There's some good stuff under this letter.  Dance with Me is not one.

Now I love dance movies and I have tried to like this movie but I just can't.

Rafael (Chayanne) is a Cuban immigrant who has come to Texas under the sponsorship of a man who used to work on cruise ships with his mother, John Burnett (Kris Kristofferson).  Burnett runs a dance school that is barely scraping by and agrees to hire Rafael to be the handyman.  Rafael immediately falls for Ruby (Vanessa Williams), a former pro Latin ballroom dancer who is trying to get back in competition.  Ruby is still smarting over her divorce from dance partner Julian (Rick Valenzuela) and doesn't want to date.  But, of course, Rafael wins over Ruby and the entire studio by showing that he can dance just as well as any professional.

Since I watched it now for the second time, I've been trying to figure out what bothers me about it.  1) There are too many side characters each trying to have their own slice of the plot, so I didn't end up caring about any of them.  2) Ruby is a brittle, bitchy, unsympathetic character, to the point where I questioned why Rafael was trying so hard to get with her.  3) The sub-plot about Burnett being Rafael's father and Rafael being afraid to tell him was a drawn-out, desperate plea for love, as well as weak writing.  I think this movie's gravest sin is that it feels too close to Strictly Ballroom, but not as good.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

  This picture doesn't do justice to how creepy this movie really is.  Robert Mitchum played an evil son-of-a-bitch.

Ben Harper (Peter Graves) killed two men while robbing a bank.  Before the cops arrested him, he hid the money and only his two children know where.  Ben is hanged before his cell mate, the self-proclaimed Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), can weasel the location of the money out of him.  But that's okay by Harry.  He likes widows, especially young, pretty ones like Willa Harper (Shelley Winters).  Ben's son, John (Billy Chapin), knows that Harry is up to no good but who will believe a child?  He takes it upon himself to run away with his baby sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) before Harry murders them for the money.  Eventually, the two wash up at the house of Ms. Cooper (Lillian Gish), a no-nonsense woman with a habit of raising abandoned children.  With Harry right on their heels, John and Pearl put their lives in the hands of one little old lady.

Not only is Robert Mitchum horrifying as a murderous preacher, this film has the best use of shadow and silhouette that I have ever seen.  It's amazing what the right pair of hands can do with black-and-white film.  Modern filmmakers that choose B&W over color for their movies would do well to watch this and see how you can create suspense purely out of lighting.  It is amazing.

Charles Laughton directed this the year before he starred in Witness for the Prosecution, and it is his only full-length directorial feature.  If he wasn't such a good actor, I would say it was a damn shame he didn't direct more but I can't really fault his career choices.  It would be hard to top this one.

Dan in Real Life (2007)

  Christy bought this thinking it was going to be a typical Steve Carell comedy, like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and was profoundly disappointed.  I didn't have any preconceptions, so I didn't feel betrayed, but it's not what I would call a hidden gem either.

Dan (Steve Carell) is a widower raising three daughters.  He writes an advice column for parenting in the local newspaper.  His column is in the running for national syndication the same time as his annual family reunion.  This year is also special because his brother, Mitch (Dane Cook) is bringing home a girlfriend who could be The One.  While in the bookstore, Dan meets a lovely woman named Marie (Juliette Binoche) and spends hours talking to her.  He goes back to his parents' house all excited because he's finally ready to move on and, you guessed it, Marie is his brother's girlfriend.

Now these things happen from time to time.  Not to me, because I only have one brother, but in families where there are multiple siblings all around the same age, I can see how that would be a concern.  The way I see it, you have three options:  1) Be a man.  Swallow your stupid feelings and leave your brother's girlfriend alone.  If you have to, make up an excuse and leave early.  2) Confess that you accidentally tried to pick up your brother's girlfriend and play the sympathy card so no one gets mad at you.  Pity burns but it's nothing compared to the wrath of your entire extended family.  3) Act like a juvenile idiot in front of your brother, his girlfriend, and your entire family, broadcasting your stupid immature feelings to the point where everyone, including your children, hates you.

Guess which one Dan chooses.  Of course, everything turns out all right because this is a romantic comedy, not a cautionary tale, more's the pity.

Oh, hey, I didn't realize it until after I posted it but Sin City:  A Dame to Kill for was my 1100th post!

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

  In case you guys were wondering why there has been an embarrassment of riches on my blog this weekend, it's because I had a backlog of around nine drafts through the week.  Normally, I am better at staying on top of them but they just kept piling up on me.  I actually saw this one on Saturday and it's taken me this long just to get it posted.

Timeline is a funny thing in these movies.  Most of the same characters are still here but guessing when is a little more difficult.  There are three main plots.  The first involves Johnny the Gambler (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), in town to play at Senator Roark's (Powers Boothe) poker game.  The senator mentions that his son is dead, so we know that is after the first Sin City.  Concurrently happening is the furthering story of Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), stripper with a heart of gold poisoned by the loss of her beloved Hartigan (Bruce Willis).  The titular plot line actually takes place before Movie #1, when Dwight (Josh Brolin) comes to the aid of his ex-flame Ava (Eva Green) and before he turns into Clive Owen.  The common thread weaving them all together is Marv (Mickey Rourke).  Marv doesn't seem to know or care when anything is, just as long as he gets to bust some heads.

Visually, the same stark black and white elements are at play, with brief highlights of color.  This time it doesn't seem quite so vivid or as poignant as those flashes were in the first film.  I will tell you this, though, you won't care.  The only thing you will walk out of the theater thinking is "Man, Eva Green was naked, like, the whole time."  She is a beautiful woman and God love her for having that kind of body confidence.  If I looked like that, I'd probably walk around naked all the time.  However, when spread across a 20-foot movie screen, her nudity becomes rather daunting.

For that reason, I'd say save it for a rental when you can see her more human-sized on TV in the comfort of your own house.  Also, what you then do with that visual is up to you and not out in public.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

  People talk about this movie like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread but I found it to be very middle-of-the-road.  I do desperately want a plush Totoro, though.  He looks super-soft and cuddly.  The cat-bus was too creepy, though.

Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka) and her little sister Mei (Chika Sakamoto) move to the countryside while their mom is in the hospital.  They find several magical creatures in the surrounding woods, including Totoro, a giant rabbit-kitty-thing that is the spirit of the forest.  When Mei gets lost, Satsuki calls on Totoro to help her find the little girl.

This was adorable, I'm not going to argue that.  My problem was that Mei was written as a toddler and is way too close to actual toddler reactions.  There is a lot of frustrated crying and running away.  I hate children.  I tolerate animated ones because they are usually wise beyond their years as far as reactions and articulations go.  This was too real to be cute to me.  Give me child characters obviously written by adults any day.

As with all Studio Ghibli releases, this one had an option to hear the dubbed track with Disney actors.  I decided to stay with my subtitle kick and watch the original Japanese version.  However, the English one stars real-life sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning as Satsuki and Mei, respectively, so that might actually be worth a view.

The Cutting Edge (1992)

  This shitty movie has three sequels.  How is that even possible?

After a serious injury at the 1988 Olympics, hockey player Doug (D. B. Sweeney) is permanently benched from the sport.  His only chance to get back on the ice and get another shot at a gold medal lies with spoiled brat Kate (Moira Kelly), a champion figure skater who can't keep a partner.  The two are oil and water but must find a way to work together if they want to win.

I'm sure this was based in part on The Taming of the Shrew but it is a godawful adaptation.  Kate is a total bitch who does not grow more sympathetic as the movie progresses.  She starts off an ill-tempered, spoiled rich brat and ends up the exact same way.  The supposed "big moment" for her character is when she realizes that she actually hates skating, which you as the viewer will realize about a third of the way through the opening credits when she's haranguing her partner just before they take to the ice.  At the Olympics.

Now, you don't get to be Olympic-worthy by hating the sport you practice 18 hours a day unless you're so full of self-loathing that it creates a black hole inside you that eats every other emotion.  Most people implode long before they reach that stage.  It just takes too much effort.  But this movie wants you to believe that this girl has been on skates since she could walk, sacrificed years in study and coaching, doing nothing but train in this one event and hate it so much she's willing to sabotage herself because her daddy wants her to get a gold medal.

I think by now you all know how I feel about daddy issues being a narrative crutch.  (Cliff's Notes:  Can't relate to it, don't like it, it's boring.)  For that alone, this movie is a fail.  Then it adds on no less than three training montages, the supposedly humorous misunderstanding when Doug tells his brother he's training to be a figure skater in a sports bar full of people, and the completely unnecessary yuppie boyfriend.

Exam (2009)

  Imagine you are interviewing for a great job.  You are shown to a room with seven other candidates.  Each desk has a piece of paper with your number on it and a pencil.  You have 80 minutes to answer one question.  The clock starts, you flip your paper, and it's completely blank.  What do you do?

This is the situation eight strangers find themselves in while applying for a position in the leading biotech firm.  It starts out all kumbaya and let's-work-together but as the clock ticks down things quickly become more cutthroat.

This is one of those locked-room mysteries that has to be executed just so to work.  The dynamic has to be right between characters and there needs to be a constant escalation of tension without introducing gimmicks or obvious deus ex machina influences.  Exam provides its characters and the audience with very straightforward rules and stays within them, which is refreshing since it lets you try and figure out the mystery question along with them.  If you wish Agatha Christie set more of her stories in the corporate world, you'll probably really enjoy this film.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

  I missed the boat on this one.  This was the movie everyone was talking about in 2008.  If I had been doing my blog back then, I might have seen it for Oscar season since it was nominated for 13 and won three.  But I wasn't and I didn't.  In fact, I might never have seen it at all if Christy didn't own it.  But there it was, sitting on the shelf between season one of CSI and The Curse of the Golden Flower. 

An old woman (Cate Blanchett) lays dying in a New Orleans hospital just before Hurricane Katrina hits.  Her daughter (Julia Ormand) reads to her from a diary written by a man claiming to have been born at eighty years old and growing younger with the years and his great love.  Benjamin (Brad Pitt) was abandoned at a nursing home as an infant and raised by one of the workers, a woman named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson).  He fit right in amongst the old people, and there was the first time he met Daisy (Elle Fanning).  As the years passed and he got younger, he moved out into the world to explore and see what could be seen.  Daisy, too, grew up and became a dancer in New York City.  Being on opposite ends of the time stream, the two struggle with their differing paths in life.  After all, timing is everything.

This film won an Academy Award for Best Make-up and it was well-deserved.  There are a lot of CGI effects but the principal work is practical pieces applied to the actors.  Brad Pitt does an excellent job portraying a bent old man moving all the way back to a man in his prime.  Taking him younger proves to be a little harder since they were trying to soften his jaw and round out his face for his early twenties, but they manage it through the power of suggestion.  Cate Blanchett has such a beautifully strong face and such good bone structure that her features don't have to be loaded up quite so heavily with silicone and latex to convey years.

It also won an Oscar for Art Direction, evidenced by the cohesiveness of each scene.  Benjamin's recollections are shot in warm amber, perfect for evoking the syrupy sweetness of childhood memories.  The present day shots are cold and blue, foreshadowing the storm about to wreak havoc on everyone's lives.  It is beautifully filmed and the supporting cast is excellent, featuring Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas, Jared Harris, and Tilda Swinton.  A solid addition to the Oscar ranks.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

  This is one of those courtroom classics that everyone should see at least once.  I'm shocked it took me this long to watch it myself.

Sir Wilfred (Charles Laughton), one of Great Britain's top barristers finally returns to work after suffering a heart attack.  His nurse (Elsa Lanchester) recommends that he stay away from stressful cases as well as brandy and cigars.  When a colleague brings him the defense case of Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), a man accused of murdering a little old lady for her money, Sir Wilfred is inclined to let someone else handle it.  But the sole of Leonard's defense lies in the testimony of his wife, Christine (Marlene Dietrich) and it is not at all certain which side she is playing.

Based on the Agatha Christie stage play, this is adapted for the screen and directed by Billy Wilder, one of the best directors to ever work in the industry.  Every scene is chock full of dramatic tension.  Even at sixty years old, this film delivers the goods.  The end actually carries a reminder for theatergoers to avoid spoiling the big twist to their friends and families, so I'm sure that when it first came out it was an absolute cracker.

Dororo (2007)

  This was the first foreign film I think I've ever watched streaming.  The placement of the subtitles was in the middle left of the screen, which was disorienting.  They were also in a very tiny white print, which did not contrast well with the background in some scenes.  I don't have any experience with audio or subtitle options while streaming so I don't know if I could have adjusted them.  It made for a frustrating experience and detracted from what turned out to be a very interesting movie.

After facing a crushing defeat from a neighboring clan, warlord Daigo (Kiichi Nakai) promises to sacrifice his infant son to 48 demons in return for power.  The boy is born horribly deformed but somehow still alive.  Daigo's wife (Mieko Harada) prevents him from killing the child outright and puts him in a basket to float down the river.  He is found by a shaman (Yoshio Harada), who crafts the boy fake Frankenstein-esque limbs that enable him to pass as fully human.  Armed with a blade that kills demons, Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki) travels around the country killing evil things and reclaiming his lost parts.  A young thief (Ko Shibasaki) begins following him from town to town hoping that he will assist her in her quest for vengeance against Daigo, who has become a power-hungry madman.

I was curious while watching as to what the title meant, since it's not the name of the main character.  In case you want to know but don't feel like watching it (though you really should) it means "little monster" and it's the name the thief adopts while traveling with Hyakkimaru.

The CGI is a little off but I felt like it actually added to the weird gross qualities of the monsters.  There are a couple that are clearly man-in-suit types but it's forgivable.  The action is good and it's interesting to see other mythologies' fantasy aspects.  A lot of the demons here are clearly inspired by Japanese wildlife, from crabs to cherry blossom trees.  It showcases a lot of creativity.  There's a little too much melodrama for me to buy it outright but it's definitely worth a watch.

Also, remember in my Kamikaze Girls post where I said that Anna Tsuchiya had a really distinctive voice?  She's in this movie as well, playing the wife of a man whose town has been taken over by monsters.  She looks completely different but there's no mistaking that voice.

Kamikaze Girls (2004)

  This movie was delightful, like a Japanese Amelie. 

Momoko (Kyoko Fukada) is a high school girl obsessed with the Rococo period.  She loves Lolita fashions, the frillier the better, and has no problems traveling all the way to Tokyo from her rural town to visit Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, her favorite shop.  But a girl needs money if she's going to wear couture, so Momoko starts selling her father's old Versace knock-offs online.  She is contacted by Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a biker girl, and the two become unlikely friends.  But when Momoko is contacted by the owner of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (Yoshinori Okada) with a job offer the same day Ichiko is challenged to a beat-down by her gang, which will she choose?

Momoko is a completely disaffected, almost amoral, character which only makes her more entertaining.  She is given to flights of fantasy in which she can fly and she gets bored when other people talk, so she illustrates their stories with cartoons.  This makes for several surreal but charming interludes.

The actress, Kyoko Fukada, looks like Emily Browning to me, especially with the blond hair and the bangs.  Anna Tsuchiya is a beautiful girl under all the makeup and has an incredibly distinctive voice.    I don't watch enough contemporary Japanese movies to know more about them than that, so that's what I'm going with.  This is a fun, cute, girly little movie that should be enjoyed by more people.

Super (2010)

  Not a great picture, but it's the best one I could get.

After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, I was very interested in watching James Gunn's other superhero movie.  I love Slither and figured I would probably like this one as well.

And I did.  It is batshit insane and hilariously violent but ends up being utterly sweet and endearing.  Most movies can't pull off even one of those things well.

Mild-mannered Frank (Rainn Wilson) loves his wife, Sarah (Liv Tyler).  After she leaves him for shady drug dealer, Jacques (Kevin Bacon), Frank is inconsolable.  The police are no help, as Detective Felkner (Gregg Henry) points out that Sarah is an adult and they can't exactly arrest Jacques for home-wrecking.  So Frank seeks answers from God and receives a vision starring his television hero, The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillian), telling him to fight evil in all its forms.  Frank takes this information to heart and decides to become a superhero.  He enlists the aid of comic book aficionado Libby (Ellen Page) to help him fine-tune his creation:  the Crimson Bolt, in order to get his wife back.

Bat.
Shit.
Insane.

Gunn brought all of his favorite people in on this, including Michael Rooker, his brother Sean, and Linda Cardellini as the pet shop girl.  I don't know if it's a must buy but it's definitely worth watching.

Cry-Baby (1990)

  You know what's great about John Waters' films?  They are completely distinctive.  You will never confuse a John Waters movie with a John Hughes movie.  Not unless you're completely insane.  Now, whether you prefer Waters or Hughes is up to you.  Waters will never be mainstream, no matter how adorable the Hairspray musical. 

In 1950's Baltimore, the kids are divided into goody-two-shoes Squares and leather-jacket-wearing Drapes.  Allison (Amy Locane) is a Square but longs to be a Drape, especially because of the dreamy leader of the gang, Cry-Baby Walker (Johnny Depp).  He's a badass, with a sensitive side.

Basically, it's Grease, except with Tracy Lords, Iggy Pop, and Ricki Lake.  It's even a musical, though most of it is intentionally lip-synched.  Depp and Locane have a couple of songs each, which is more than enough.  It's not my favorite of Waters' filmography but it's probably a lot more accessible than some of his more risqué stuff.

The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005)

   I give Christy a lot of crap for her shitty taste in movies.  She values sentimentality over substance a lot of times, or owns movies because they were bargain-priced, or because they were the only ones available.  I say that indicates a lack of sophistication but really it's simply a matter of preference.  She likes what she likes because of how it makes her feel when she watches.  But she's my cousin so I get to bust her balls over her pedestrian inclinations towards schmaltz, melodrama, and slapstick.

This, however, is the worst movie I have ever owned.  It's possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. It is trainwreck bad.

Jimmy Cuervo (Edward Furlong) is a parolee living outside the Raven Aztec reservation.  He plans to run away with his girlfriend Lily (Emmanuelle Chirqui), the chief's daughter, but they are killed by a Satanic cult who want to raise the Antichrist.  The Crow brings Jimmy back so he can go after the cultists, led by his childhood friend Luc Crash (David Boreanaz) and Luc's girlfriend Lola (Tara Reid).

According to Wikipedia, this movie got a one-week theatrical release in Seattle, Washington in June of 2005 and then went direct to video.  I don't know what any of the principal actors were thinking.  That's not going to stop me from wildly speculating.  Furlong and Reid were probably doing it to pay for drugs.  Boreanaz was coming off the show Angel and just needed a paycheck to get him through until Bones started airing in September of 2005.  Chirqui is a beautiful woman but her career is not exactly hitting A-list heights.  Danny Trejo is in this as her father and has baldly stated in interviews that if you can meet his fee, he will be in your movie, regardless of quality.  Dennis Hopper is also in this as a pimp named El Nino.

EL NINO.

But Dennis Hopper was an honest-to-God legend and if he wanted to slum and play a pimp (named El Nino) in a godforsaken third sequel to a cult classic then that is what he is going to do.

The dialogue is awful, the special effects are cheesy, the shots of the crow flying are taken directly from footage of the first movie, and the fight choreography is so bad.  So bad, you guys.  You can clearly see that not a single punch is within the same area code as the person being punched, so they just kind of fly backwards for no reason.  The costumes look like someone raided Goodwill (for the guys) and Fredrick's of Hollywood (for the ladies).

I can't even burn the disc like the toxic waste it is because it was a double-feature with City of Angels.  A movie I didn't particularly like, but don't feel it should be punished by sharing disc space with this cinematic wet fart.  So I guess I'm stuck with it.  I just hope the next time I start ragging on Christy for owning the entire National Lampoon collection she won't remember that this is one of mine.

The Crow: City of Angels (1996)

It's my birthday!  Enjoy this extra post!    Monday before last, when I completely whiffed on posting, hereafter referred to as Lucy's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day, I was planning on having a Crow marathon, since I had finally gotten all four movies.  I watched the original on blu-ray for the first time, then when I went to put it back on the shelf I realized that my copy of The Crow:  Salvation was missing.

You guys know how obsessed I am with my movies, right?  So for one to just have vanished is an awful occurrence.  It's why I stopped lending movies back in my teens.  Now, I'm not mad because I had a particular love for that film because it's mostly crap, but I am seriously pissed that it is gone.  I can only assume that it somehow made its way into Rob's boxes of DVDs.  I won't find out for sure until he unpacks in his new apartment at the end of September.

It took a couple of days, but I moved on.

I remember when the sequel came out and I categorically hated it.  Mostly because it didn't have Brandon Lee and I felt that it was a tacky attempt to cash in on the cult-like adoration fans of the original have for it.  Now that I am older and less emotional, I can go back and watch it again with a more objective eye.  It's still awful but I no longer find it personally offensive.

The little girl, Sarah, from the first movie has moved from Detroit to Los Angeles and inexplicably changed from a blonde to a brunette.  We know it is the same girl because she still has Shelley's engagement ring and white cat.  Sarah (Mia Kirshner) now has visions of a man and his son being shot and then drowned.  She goes to the pier and finds a new revenant named Ashe (Vincent Perez) who has been chosen by the Crow to become a spirit of vengeance against the gang of thugs who murdered him and his son.  This gang includes Iggy Pop, Thomas Jane, the yellow Power Ranger and is led by an ADA from Law & Order.

Judah (Richard Brooks) runs the drug trade in LA and wears costumes left over from Stargate.  His blind oracle (Tracey Ellis) tells him that he can take the Crow's power by killing the bird, so he kidnaps Sarah in order to lure Ashe and his winged avatar to his building.

What's really awful about this film is that it was written by the same guy who wrote the Batman Begins trilogy, David S. Goyer.  You can kind of see how they were trying to make something dark and lyrical that evoked the previous movie but it's just a big mess.  There's an attempt to tie it to the Day of the Dead celebrations but it comes across as more of an excuse to show people dressed as devils and skeletons.  Perez is Swiss and mostly does French films, and his accent bleeds through here with no rhyme or reason.  He commits to the part because he is a very good actor, but it wasn't right for him.

Crocodile Dundee II (1988)

  Remember how I said I hadn't seen Crocodile Dundee in forever?  That not only goes for the sequel, I actually mashed the two of them together in my mind to make one movie.  So when I was rewatching the first one, I kept wondering where certain lines were that I remembered.  Turns out, they were in part two.

Sue (Linda Kozlowski) and Mick (Paul Hogan) are living together in New York City.  Mick is adjusting pretty well but is starting to miss the excitement of the Outback.  He doesn't need to miss it for long, however, because Sue's ex-husband, Bob (Dennis Boutsikaris), has mailed them a package of evidence from Colombia.  He is a photojournalist moonlighting as an aide to the DEA and has taken pictures of notorious drug kingpin Luis Rico (Hechter Ubarry) killing a guy.  Rico comes gunning for Sue and Mick to get his evidence back but clearly does not know with whom he is fucking.  Mick whisks Sue off to his property in the Territory, casually reveals that there's a literal gold mine on the land, and then proceeds to go all Aussie-Rambo on the drug dealers, commencing a series of demoralizing psychological and guerrilla attacks, while Sue marvels at his genius.

These may be two of the most perfect films to ever come out of the 80's.  I think that they should be required to be watched consecutively, which is probably why my childhood brain thought they were one movie.  I can't believe it took me so long to revisit these movies.  They're amazing.

Biutiful (2010)

  I don't think I will ever out-and-out love an Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu film.  I hated Babel and none of his other titles have appealed to me enough to watch them.  I probably would never have picked this one up if it hadn't been nominated for Best Actor and Best Foreign Film a couple of years ago.  That doesn't mean I can't recognize them as beautiful pieces of art, just that they are not to my personal tastes.

Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and only has a few months to live.  He is the sole provider for his two children, since their mother (Maricel Alvarez) is bipolar and frequently off her meds.  There's also the little matter of Uxbal's profession as a black marketeer.  Running a group of Senegalese fake purse hawkers and managing a sweatshop of Chinese laborers in Spain isn't the type of thing that comes with a pension plan or health insurance.  Still, Uxbal is determined to atone for the wrongs he has committed before death comes to take him away.

Inarritu infuses his poignant elegy with a dark, lyrical beauty as well as a touch of the supernatural.  Uxbal sees the spirits of the lingering dead and receives messages from them for those they left behind.  This ability to grant closure is contrasted with the sub-plot about his own unresolved issues with a father he never knew who died in Mexico after fleeing Franco's regime.

Like I said, it'll never be one of my favorites but it's an exceptionally well-done film and I can see how other people would enjoy it.

Crocodile Dundee (1986)

  I had forgotten how much I loved this movie, which explains why it's been forever since I've seen it. 

Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) is a New York City reporter on assignment in Sydney when she hears of a man in the Northern Territory who crawled twelve miles to safety after being attacked by a crocodile.  She decides to travel up there to interview him, but soon finds that there's much more to Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan) than just a bite.  Fascinated by his untutored bushman ways, she decides to take him back with her to New York for a companion piece on how he adapts to the big city.  The answer is:  hilariously well.

Despite being firmly entrenched in the 80's for hair, clothes, and cars, there is a timeless quality to this movie.  I think everyone has been a fish-out-of-water at some point in their lives and it's how you overcome that feeling that shapes who you are.  Hogan's character approaches every situation with unbridled optimism that ends up being contagious to everyone around him, including the viewer.  Who didn't want to be Crocodile Dundee the first time they saw this movie?  I know I did.

Critic's Choice (1963)

Monday was a really lousy day.  I had some personal setbacks that resulted in my not being able to post anything that day.  Things are okay now, so please enjoy this make-up post as an apology.

  This is my second viewing of Critic's Choice, and I was disappointed in how poorly it held up.  The quips are still very funny but the plot is badly dated and I couldn't get into it at all.

Parker Ballantine (Bob Hope) is the foremost critic of the New York City theater scene.  His reviews can make or break a production.  So when his wife (Lucille Ball) decides to write a play, Parker is not supportive.  She has him read the first draft and when he doesn't like it and gives her honest feedback, she is furious.  She decides to go ahead and find a producer (John Dehner), who backs her financially, much to Parker's chagrin.  Then she hires the current wunderkind director (Rip Torn) to help her bring it to the stage.  Parker still can't support the idea and furthermore refuses to recuse himself from critiquing it opening night.

I really just didn't get the point of his outright refusal.  I'm sure it's some 60's thing about the woman's place being in the home or some such rubbish but I thought it was dumb.  Also, Lucille Ball's character was a whiny, temperamental shrew.  As an actress, she deserved a better part, though God love her if she didn't play it with everything she had.  The one bright spot is Rip Torn being absolutely unrecognizable as the young director.  He must have only been in his mid-twenties and it is shocking how different he looks and sounds from his later work.

If you're a big Bob Hope or Lucille Ball fan, you might find something worth watching here but casual admirers should probably skip it.

Playing by Heart (1998)

  Holy shit, this movie had so many stars in it I couldn't believe my eyes.  And they're all so young and adorable looking!  Except for Sean Connery.  He was already old by the 90's.  Still, it's amazing to see all these people together in one film.

It follows four couples as they navigate the murky waters of relationships.  Hannah (Gena Rowlands) is still upset about a possible indiscretion her husband Paul (Sean Connery) had forty years ago, especially since they found out he has terminal cancer.  Madeline (Gillian Anderson) is a playwright trying to start a new relationship with Trent (Jon Stewart), but hampered by her past failures.  Gracie (Madeline Stowe) is having an affair with Roger (Anthony Edwards) because she doesn't feel the spark between herself and her husband, Hugh (Dennis Quaid) anymore.  Joan (Angelina Jolie) is a fun-loving club kid who has her eye on Keenan (Ryan Phillipe), despite his many rebuffs.

It's a bit more touchy-feely than I generally care for in my movies, but again, stellar casting.  It was off streaming for a while but it's back on now so give it a shot.  It's worth a Sunday afternoon view, at least.

Coyote Ugly (2000)

  I tried to like this movie, I really did.  It seems like the kind of fun, guilty pleasure, brain fluff that ought to be entertaining.  But it just never comes together.  The jokes fall flatter than a souffle in a paint shaker, the talent of the cast is wasted on one-dimensional characters, and the music is pop-inspired drivel that manages to be neither energetic nor youthful.

Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) is a Jersey girl trying to fulfill her life's dream of becoming a songwriter.  She moves to New York City but finds that the Big Apple is surprisingly hard to peel.  Desperate for cash, she gets a job tending bar at a watering hole called Coyote Ugly, run by hardass maven Lil (Maria Bello).  The Coyotes sling drinks, dance on the bar, talk shit to their customers, and behave like strippers on a power trip.  Violet is initially shocked but soon finds herself loosening up, much to the chagrin of her dad (John Goodman).

Goodman is the only actor to seem genuine in this entire movie.  Melanie Lynskey is criminally underused as Violet's best friend, and it's best to just not even mention Adam Garcia as the love interest.

The Corruptor (1999)

  Hey, remember that time Marky Mark teamed up with the Crouching Tiger guy to fight crime in Chinatown?  Yeah, me neither.

Detective Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) is one of the top cops in the 6th Precinct's Organized Crime division.  Lately, they have been monitoring the rivalry between established crime boss Benny Wong (Kim Chan) and the Fukinese Dragons, led by Bobby Vu (Byron Mann).  Nobody knows it, but Chen has been deep in Benny Wong's pocket for years.  He doesn't like it but sees it as the cost of doing business.  Then Wong's lieutenant, Henry Lee (Ric Young), starts targeting the newest member of Chen's team, newbie cop Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg).  Chen doesn't want to see Wallace go down the same path he did, but is having some trouble trying to find a way to alert him without revealing his own corruption.

I was hoping this would be one of those unfairly maligned gems that people dismissed but should be given a second look, but it's not.  It's not a very good movie at all.  Chow Yun-Fat is a great actor, especially with action, but his accent is so pronounced in this film that it's hard to understand what he's saying.  I almost wish they had just let him speak Chinese the whole time.  This was super-early in Wahlberg's career and it was probably still a big step up for him, but it's a total trainwreck to watch.  Also, you can blame typecasting for this, but Ric Young has never played a good character in any movie I've seen.  He always plays an evil, usually perverted, bastard.

I liked this movie when they remade it as Romeo Must Die.

In more TV news, I just finished all five seasons of Daria, and I have to say that show remains compulsively watchable.  I know I caught random episodes when they originally aired but I don't think I'd ever seen them all.  Every time a disc came in the mail, I found myself watching the entire thing at three hours a pop.  And I was always disappointed that there weren't more when I hit the last episode of each disc.  That is so rare with a 90's show as to be remarked upon.

Stake Land (2010)

  This was a lot like Book of Eli, but with vampires.  Not a bad little film.  Looks a little bit under budgeted. 

In the near future, vampires have wiped out most of the urban centers.  A young boy named Martin (Connor Paolo) survives an attack that kills the rest of his family, thanks to a vampire hunter known only as Mister (Nick Damici).  Mister takes the boy in and trains him to defend himself as they travel north, toward a place of relative safety called New Eden.  Along the way, they rescue a nun (Kelly McGillis), and are joined by a pregnant girl (Danielle Harris), and another guy named Willie (Sean Nelson).  They run afoul of a fanatical religious group called the Brotherhood that believes vampires were sent by God to serve them, and must add humans to the list of things to be on guard against.

Like I said, it's not bad.  It isn't exactly great, though.  Part of that is because the acting feels second-rate.  I only recognized one name from the cast list because I don't watch daytime television.  Paolo and Harris were both series regulars on One Life to Live, as was Kelly McGillis.  I haven't seen her in anything since Top Gun so her appearance came as somewhat of a shock to me.  The most recognizable face in the entire movie is the leader of the Brotherhood, Michael Cerveris.  He played the Observer in Fringe and Mr. Tiny in Cirque du Freak:  The Vampire's Assistant.  Even those aren't exactly household names.

Still, there hasn't exactly been a flood of good vampire movies recently so if you're tired of watching the same three over and over, give Stake Land a shot.

In other news, I watched season 2 of Copper from BBC America.  I really enjoyed the first season but this one didn't grab me at all.  It felt terribly derivative, like I had seen all of these plot points before and on better shows.  Specifically, Elizabeth Morehouse's (Anastasia Griffith) opium addiction reminded me so much of Alma (Molly Parker) from Deadwood that I couldn't see anything else.  I was bored with the Tammany Hall storyline, I actually cheered when Annie (Kiara Glasco) was written out, and I completely tuned out for the "let's hunt down John Wilkes Booth" episode.  I don't honestly know now if I'll even watch the third season.

Cool World (1992)

  I have apparently never seen this movie all the way through.  I had, however, seen bits and pieces from the middle of it from when I was a little girl and it was on TV occasionally.  Now I look back and marvel at the fact that I really didn't have a lot of adult supervision as a child.

Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) is just a typical G.I. home after WWII.  He takes his mother out for a spin on his new motorcycle and they are hit by a drunk driver.  Mom dies but Frank is accidentally transported to an alternate dimension of cartoons called Cool World.  Think Toon Town from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but way seedier.  Cool World only has a few hard and fast rules, but the most unbreakable is that humans don't have sex with cartoons.  Femme fatale Holli Would (Kim Basinger) wants to be a real girl more than anything and she's not about to let a few pesky laws stand in her way.  To this end, she seduces ex-con and cartoonist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne), who thinks he created Cool World, and brings him to the other side.  Now it's up to Frank to keep these two from boinking and disrupting the fabric of space and time as we know it.

I always thought Gabriel Byrne was the main character in this film, based on seeing the preview 900 times throughout my youth.  I guess that's because Brad Pitt wasn't a superstar in the early 90's while Byrne was an established actor.  I also didn't realize that Holli was a self-centered bitch willing to screw over any and everyone as long as she got her way.  That's because I hadn't had a lot of exposure to Ralph Bakshi as an 11-year-old.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Ralph Bakshi is a cartoonist responsible for Heavy Metal, Felix the Cat, and other adult-themed animations.  He's a very influential artist and had a huge hand in elevating cartoons to something beyond what you see in your Sunday paper.  His art is also surreal, crude in humor, and misogynistic.  His female characters look like blow-up dolls and are about half as smart.  You can't deny that the man has skill or style, however, whether or not its to your personal taste.

Bakshi wrote, directed, and did much of the art for Cool World and it's kind of a mixed bag.  Visually, it's interesting but the plot has more holes than Swiss cheese, characters are one-dimensional, and the direction is heavy on jump-cuts and animated establishing shots.  Maybe it's one of those movies that is improved by being on drugs.  I can't say.  It's certainly unforgettable, though.

Lucy (2014)

  Now you know I had to see this film, for good or bad, and I'm happy to report that it's pretty good.

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is an American citizen studying in Taiwan who just likes to party.  She meets some guy at a club who convinces her that she can make some easy money by delivering a briefcase to Korean gangster Jang (Choi Min-Sik).  Jeng has other plans, however, and decides to make Lucy a mule for his newest experimental club drug.  During transport, one of the bags sewn into her abdomen breaks open, flooding her body with the drug.  It boosts her brain function to the point where she can influence matter outside her body, view spectra outside the visible, and influence electric and magnetic fields.  She uses these powers to contact leading neurologist, Professor Norman (Morgan Freeman), and French police Captain Pierre del Rio (Amr Waked) to help her come to grips with her reality and track down the other mules, respectively.

Luc Besson wrote and directed this movie.  Directed, you can clearly tell, by the amount of ass-kicking Johansson does and the fact that she's in almost every scene.  Written, you can see because Besson is not a scientist and does not claim to be.  The idea that humans only use 10% of their brainpower is a fallacy that has been disproven.  Human brains are models of automation and most of its function tends toward autonomic responses, like breathing and regulating the sensory input it receives so the cognitive functions can ignore it in favor of other things.  Like how your nose is always in your field of vision but your brain ignores it so you can focus on shit like the car in front of you slamming on its brakes.

Once you let go of the idea that this movie is in any way an accurate representation of science, it becomes a ridiculously entertaining film.  B-movie?  Yes, but there's no shame in that.  Go with it and have a good time.

Bernie (2011)

  This movie may not appeal to everyone.  It doesn't have a lot of action and the comedy is based more on the absurdity of small town life than sight gags or witty dialogue.

Bernie (Jack Black) is an assistant funeral director in a small East Texas town.  He is well-liked and very active in his community.  In fact, he might be one of the most popular people in town, where funerals are so often sources of entertainment.

Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) is the wealthiest widow in town and possibly one of the most unpopular residents.  Her own granddaughter sued her over money from her husband's estate.  So when Bernie turns his charm on the miserly widow, the town views it as a positive change.  At least, until Marjorie ends up dead.  Then, it's up to District Attorney Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey) to bring the killer to justice.

Based on a true story and featuring interviews with real townspeople, this film is more like an incredibly entertaining episode of Forensic Files with A-list talent doing the re-enactments.  Jack Black is the absolute star here, playing the genial, mincing Bernie.  It is far against type for him and I think very highly of him for his commitment to it.  McConaughey and MacLaine are great, of course, but they aren't the ones carrying the movie.  This whole thing works because you believe in Bernie.