DILLWEED
Monday, May 31, 2004
The Day After Tomorrow
(Roland Emmerich, 2004, N/A) To make it clear for Matt: don't go see this movie. It's got big special effects (though, the wolves are terribly done) that look "good" on the big screen. But, so what? It's still not a good movie. OK, OK, if you like seeing things get blowed up read good, then maybe it's for you. While there's no blowed'ing up, there's MEGA-FLOODS! And there's WICKED-ICE! My advice to miss this one aside, it's always a pleasant surprise to find out a film you've watched is based, in part, on a book co-authored by Art Bell.
Art Bell, of course, had that late night radio show called "Art Bell Coast to Coast" where he'd talk about Chupacabras, psychics, UFOs...all that Fox Mulder shit. I listened to it, from time to time, in high school. Ahh, high school: did I ever tell you I drove a Monte Carlo back then? Surely I have.
Our man Roland Emmerich has several "it's good if you don't care about plot, characters, etc." type movies under his belt, like Stargate and Independence Day, where the Whitehouse gets all blowed up real good like! YEEEE-HAAA!
Like I said, In this movie, New York gets all frozed up real good like. The tidal wave that sweeps over it is the high point. You've probably seen that in the preview, so, really, there's no reason to go see this movie, unless either, (a.) you want to see more of New York flood, or, (b.) you like to keep up with the further adventures of Remy McSwain.
The only other interesting point is the obvious allusion to our fearless leader and his Vice President. The first time we see the President, he's in a track suit, no doubt back from one of his Presidential jogs. And the VP is just a spooky side-of-the-mouth scowl short of looking like Old Man Halliburton.
One last thing: what's up with the gratuitous cancer kid? I can just see a studio executive reading the script or looking over the dailies: "Hmmm... ice storms... floods... teen love... Hmmm... Can we work a cancer kid -- you know, without any hair or eyebrows -- into this somehow. Yeah, I think that'd zing! Oh! Gotta go get lunch with Jerry. In this one Guinevere has a bow! I'm trying to convince him that Merlin needs to be a cross dresser: you know, lets him get close to Arthur despite that papal restraining order or something, so he has to dress like a chamber maid. Has that been done? Well.... Remember: get a cancer kid. ...Zing!"Saturday, May 15, 2004
Troy
(Wolfgang Petersen, 2004, 150) Update/Correction: By saying "it's a good summer movie," I mean, "it's a pretty bad movie. That is, It's not good. From now on, perhaps, in addition to the unfathomable rating system, I'll post a simple "good/bad" rating. Did you know Petersen is (going) to direct Ender's Game? I never read that book, but I remember the dice-nerds always talked about it. I think some non-dice nerds really liked it too. The previews shown before Troy were almost more fun to watch than the movie itself. Like Troy, the preview set was very, very, very long. As Jay said as the last 3 were starting, "is there another preview?" There was. Several: - the next Spider Man movie
- Catwoman. This one was fun, someone in the lower row did a "booo" after it and the whole theatre chuckled.
- The Terminal. Tom Hanks is a foreigner stuck in a airport. As someone said when they saw the poster for it outside, "Tom Hanks is always in movies like that."
- some thriller movie.
- that Vin Diesel Chronicles of Riddick thing. His eyes glow! As that food court break-dancer would say, "Vin Diesel 4 Prez!! Rock on."
- Ocean's Twelve: "Twelve is the new eleven."
And then (well, before the previews) there was the 20 minute pre-show advertisements where you get to see two different commercials per each product: Sex in the City, that Sci Fi movie where the dude knows about his death because he read about it in an iBook, and then something about a reality show where they're going to pick a male and female action hero, or stunt people, or yard boys for The Governor of Cally. Oh yeah, and if you're a really hot chick with a can of Diet Coke, you can get behind any velvet ropes. But, back to Brad Pitt and the Elf guy. First thing, Greek names are confusing: they're all like "Locious" or "Prouiums" or "Agammmeennneronahfuckit." And then, visually, all the guys, except Brad Pitt, look the same -- well, and the guy who played Ajax -- they all have beards and that kind of biker-beer-belly-gonna-beat-you-up-anyway look. Except they're wearing sandals, skirts, and, occasionally, sarongs. But! The battle scene's were OK. And Peter O'Toole was in it: that was nice. There really wasn't any story. Most folks know the Illiad well enough, but it'd sure be nice to see some more drama and development thereof in the movie. Like, why would Paris and Helen be so in love? Was it a golden apple, a pomegranate, or something to do with crows and livers? Maybe all that whiskey and coffee I drank during those mythology lectures jumbled up my memories, but I recall there being more than shield beating and balls of fire. That's really about it. Like Bob Mondello said, it's a good summer movie.
Friday, May 07, 2004
More Herk Harvey
I was looking through the films of Herk Harvey on IMDB, and they seemed kind of weird. After looking at them, I realized that most of them are those PSA-like films of old, e.g., Take a Letter....From A to Z (1967):
The joys of secretarial work as a career for young women are illustrated in this classroom training film. Secretaries (all women) are shown to be the ones who transcribe the ideas of their bosses (all men) into "perfect and permanent form" via the training they get from Gregg Shorthand Books (which just happen to be published by McGraw-Hill, the producers of this film). In addition, this film shows how a good secretary, in addition to her office duties, also knows how to take care of her boss' personal needs, such as getting him coffee and reminding him when to get a haircut. At the end of the film, as a little "bait," the boss is shown with a well-dressed young woman in a mink stole--obviously his wife--who just happened at one time to be his secretary. As the "wife" winks at the secretary, the narrator asks, "Will you be the one that every bright young career man of tomorrow hopes to find?" fronkfobThere are many others such as, Exchanging Greetings and Introductions (1960), Why Study Industrial Arts? (1956), and the oddly titled (and described), To Touch a Child (1962).
In a "review" of A Day of Thanksgiving!, badmovieplanet.com says
A Day of Thanksgiving is one of 400 short subjects directed by Herk Harvey for Centron Productions. Centron was based in Lawrence, Kansas, and specialized in educational, industrial and safety films. They were always highly moralistic, rabidly anti-communist, sort of educational, but always unintentionally hilarious. A quick glance at Harvey's resume and you realize that almost all the short films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 were his responsibility400 films?! Jesus! Apparantly, an hour of these shorts are available on the second disk of the DVD, which I didn't get (having gotten the movie through NetFlix). Anyhow.... Too bad there's not a collection of those shorts, it'd be fun to watch.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Carnival of Souls
(Herk Harvey, 1962, 210)
Interesting side note, it looks like the director, Herk Harvey, died in Burrough's backyard. Not literally, but somewhere in Lawrence, Kansas. I wonder if they knew each other, maybe meeting at the local Shop-n-Save.
Formula for a movie Coté will like:
- Young people crash into lake, over bridge.
- One young person walks out of lake.
- Young person moves to another city to pursue career in organ playing.
- Young person gets transfixed by deserted carnival on the outskirts of town.
- People in black suits and pasty faces with black around their eyes chase young person around.
- Yow! Who saw that twist coming?! Well...who back then.
The Hills Have Eyes, Stranger in Our House
(Wes Craven, 1977 and 1978, 90 and 50) You may be asking, "90? 50? Really?" Yes. Really. Obviously, Wes Craven was sharpening his ax, as it were, with The Hills Have Eyes. Kim had "fond" memories of it, so she'd pumped it up quite a bit. He was still peddling away at that grinding wheel in his next film, the Linda Blair ragin' Cajun witch movie, Stranger in Our House, set on what I envision Rancho del Cielo having looked like at the time. You see, I'm a Texan, and when I hear that someone has a Ranch, my ears can't help put perk up, even though I'm a city-boy to the bone. But then I hear that the "ranch" is in California and I just think, "ahh, shit.... What?" Anyhow, Stranger in Our House has the kind of "ranch" I envision when it's locale is Schwarzenegger-land.
Again, let's take the salad bar on approach for The Hills (with Stranger, you're best just to skip a meal):
- That funny looking bald dude (John Steadman) always fits into a horror movie nicely.
- Check out the men wearing their socks pulled up to their knees. Yuh!
- All the bad guys keep saying "Papa Jupe!" I had that stuck in my head for days.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Inferno
(Dario Argento, 1980, 120) Wow. What happened here? I thought Dario Argento was the shit? We start out strong with the typical European Connection, throw in some Ye Olde Booke Of Spouky Loore, and end up with some guy talking through a reel-to-reel, sounding like that guy on South Park with the black box to the neck thing. Like I said, what happened? Inferno has it's spookey moments, but not really many horror or thriller moments. Like the NetFlix summary says, there is a good death by mob of cats, but there aren't many other good kill scenes. While I'm on the topic of kill scenes, have you seen Resident Evil? I was just telling some folks at lunch today how that was a great zombie movie, if only for the elevator-cum-guillotine sequence. And, as Matt pointed out, how 'bout that laser? Like The Cube but better! Man, talk about your Skynet gone bad template...that one's a winner. Anyhow, back to the early 80's, the days when it made scene to call a woman's shirt a "blouse"... I still have high hopes for the rest of Argento's movies, but this one is, well, a little 120. One of the IMDB reviews says it best "Despite it's flaws, Inferno is probably the best 'architectural' horror movie ever made." Point being, "architecture" and "horror" don't really go together. Haunted house? Sure, but that's the ghosts, man. Hidden passage ways and sliding doors: brother, you might as well rewind time a 100 odd years, wall up a cat in a wall, and try to scare someone with that. See if you can get some sharp thing swaying back and forth over a naked lady too. Oooooo! Spoooky!
Mephisto
(Istvan Szabo, 1981, 180) I wasn't sure if this was a movie about the worst mime makeup job ever, and the revenge the mime takes on the makeup artist -- traps him in a box or a gush of wind or whatever -- or something to do with Nazis and drama nerds. Turns out it was more the second than the first. Around the time Schindler's List came out, Mason commented to me one day, "I don't want to see Nazi movies anymore. They're too depressing." He really meant serious Nazi movies: Indiana Jones Nazi movies OK; Pianist Nazi movies way too depressing. I tend to follow the same rule. Nonetheless, this Nazi movie was bearable, probably because most of the Nazi'ing happened in fancy galas and wood paneled offices. There's something about their powder blue uniforms that helped diffuse all that nasty Naziness. More importantly, and at the risk of sounding corny, the actor (Klaus Maria Brandauer) playing the main character Hendrik Hoefgen, is fantastic: he can go from a calm theatre director to a raving, socialist, drama nerd in a split second and look good and real doing it. Like most furin' movies I end up seeing, this one just ends all the sudden. I guess we're supposed to "fill in the rest" ourselves or take the time to "think" about the film. Or maybe there's something that makes a film more real if it doesn't have a tight little ending. I have no idea, but it'd be nice to know what happened to the worst mime makeup job ever.
The Devil's Backbone
(Guillermo del Toro, 2001, 175)
To be honest, I had a hankerin' to go see Hellboy. At first, it seemed like it'd be silly just because of the name. Then, I saw a preview and it looked entertaining enough. After it was out awhile, pretty much everyone gave it the "eh <shrug>" review, so I figure I'll just wait 'till I happen to catch it some Thanksgiving when I'm dozing off on the couch.
(It may sound like liminal-sleeping and movie watching go hand-in-hand in Coté land, but that's not always the case.)
Anyhow, before that full cycle, I put a couple of del Toro's films on the NetFlix queue. The first one I got was The Devil's Backbone. It's a great film visually, but the story is a bit weak. There's one ghost/zombie who looks pretty awesome, to put it in less than urbane terms. He's got a huge gash on his head and whenever he's walking around, there's blood kind of flowing upwards from it.
The sets, costumes, and lighting are all nice and twilighty, and despite being a fool for any movie set in 1930's Spain -- the film comes complete with an unexploded bomb in the court yard and a few mentions of "The Cause" -- I'd have to say this one wasn't much special. But, for looking good, it gets some extra credit.
A little more nudity, and now we've got a ballgame (Man on Fire)
Man on Fire (Tony Scott, 2004, 150) We were so close to having something worthwhile here. I've always been interested in the Angel of VengeanceTM movie. You know what I'm talking about-- the badass comes in and slaughters the bad guys who done wrong in Act I. Not that they've necessarily done him wrong (though that's often involved), but more importantly they've sinned and must pay. The badass is God's own hand, come to pound 'em into oblivion. Of course there's an element of this in the billions of movies with GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS, right? They're GOOD because they defeat the BAD. But the more complex film will attempt to deconstruct the Angel back into a human and push the Vengeance from the cool into the cold. Is this good guy really that good when his extraordinary talent is for killing other people? What are we doing when we root for these scumbags to get killed? But MOF pulls too many punches. The film is too slick, an action flick. There are too many quips a la Bond (One good one that works in both types of movies goes something like "Forgiveness is between him and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting.") And when it's time for Denzel to dish out the really dark stuff, nada. Whenever a woman is in the path of his violence, he relents, letting her/him/us off the hook. It all turns into the standard redemption story (I like those, too) when it could have been more: a questioning of why we need those stories.
I just saw that it's a remake of a 1987 Scott Glenn movie. I gotta see that one!
Back in black! Brecht! Braque! I killed you, you bastard! Where's my Wild Turkey?!
I've gotten responses from others that DILLWEED should stay up regardless of whether I make it consumer-friendly or not. So I guess posts will resume.
The Legend of Hell House (John Hough, 1973, 107)
The Legend of Hell House is a yawner of a horror film. It's fine if you've just had a large dinner and some heavy ice-cream, and want something soothing to go sleep to.
In fact, it's not much of a horror film at all. It's more like an English film. Except, in this one, they're not all that Hugh Grant character accidentally walking into rooms and going "Oh! Terribly sorry! Excuse me!" and quickly closing the doors, they're the wise-ass, I'm smarter than you British archetype.
In fact, for the first 30 minutes the only talking one of the characters, Fischer, does is along the lines of:
Barrett: I expect to be out of this hour in 4 days. Fischer: Do you really? [Or] Barrett: There is no such thing as life after death! Fischer: Are you so sure?With a movie like this, you have to take the salad bar approach, and just pick out the parts that are good, leaving those nasty looking boiled eggs and potato salad behind. Best scenes:
- As Mrs. Barrett is sleeping, the shadows on the ceiling from a small statue of a satyr and woman (the Barretts have a cracking fire going in their room) begin to move, all moaning and sensual.
- During a "physical disturbance" a wooden board with spikes driven through it, being used, I guess, to serve the pieces of meat stuck on the spikes, flies at Barrett, sticking into the chair. What kind of whacky English dish is that?
- At the end, they find that Belasco has preserved himself in a secret room. He's seen fit to sit himself upright in a chair with smoking jacket and large snifty of brandy forever nestled in his hand. Take that Walt Disney!
- A ghost hides in under the covers of Florence's bed. She nonchalantly starts talking to it, and then pulls off the covers. Of course there's nothing there, but then she just happily goes to sleep with no worries about the ghost.
Well, at least Roddy McDowall gets to take off the ape suit.Since joining NetFlix, I've been seeing a lot of movies recently. I asked Chip to add me to this good old DILLWEED so's I'd have a place to post movie reviews. See DrunkAndRetired.com for more about me if you're dying to know.
