Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

31 March 2008

My LIfe Without Me, dir. Isabel Coixet (2003)

NIKKI says:
A beautiful little movie about a woman reassessing her life upon finding out she had two months to live. She resists telling those closest to her and lives a sort of fantasy life for a time, experiencing her passions, new and old, in renewed ways.

I loved that the film resisted anything remotely saccharine. It gets quite sad at times, but never does it push us over the edge with long soliloquys or anything like that. Ann deals with her situation matter-of-factly, and just goes about the business of preparing herself for death. She sets herself some goals, and goes about achieving them.

Along the way, she finds hints here and there of what her life might have been like had she not been sick, had she not gotten pregnant at 17 and married her first boyfriend. She finds out that she is a viable, relevant soul, and that she's more than just a trailer-park mum who cleans a local school.

She also learns, as we do, that all roads leads to one place. She sings "God Only Knows" to her kind husband, while we see shots of her with her lover, and we realise, there's no telling what life would be like had we made different choices. Ann gives herself a small amount of time to peak at those laternate roads and the tragedy is that they work for her, too. She loves her husband, but she loves her new friend, too. There are so many choices. But do they all lead to the same place? Maybe, now that I think about it, they don't...

Wow, I took quite a bit away from this movie. In hindsight, I'm seeing so many themes and ideas. It was just another enjoyable story that ranks with Lonesome Jim as one of my faves for the month. Good writing, good humour, great performances.

4/5

STEVE says:
I'd resisted watching this one for quite some time. If anything screams Chick Flick louder than a young mother of two dying of ovarian cancer, it must be in a range so high that only dogs and bats know about it.

But Chick Flick or not, my new-found respect for Sarah Polley eventually won through. All I'll say is, if there were more movies like this one, or Lonesome Jim, maybe Juno wouldn't have been such a stand-out.

4/5

30 March 2008

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, dir. George Clooney (2003)

Nikki did not view.

Psycho Beach Party, dir. Robert Lee King (2000)

NIKKI says:
We're a good audience for this kind of movie. We're fans of crappy old horror films, and I don't think either of us would go past a bit of Beach Blanket Bingo on a Sunday afternoon. This movie pairs those concepts to create an overly satirical comedy that ends up feeling like a funny idea stretched to movie-length with no real purpose apart from reminding us how silly these films were.

We've got a killer, a girl with a split personality, surfers, and babes. Someone is knocking off people who lack in perfection -- a girl in a wheelchair, a guy with one testicle. There's no real development of this murder spree, and for much of the film we're led to believe the split-personality is involved. The reveal about who's doing what and why negates much of the story, and is really kind of boring.

There's lots of file footage and green screen -- stuff that's funny the first time we see it. There's lots of '50s lingo, but that was funnier in The Brady Bunch Movie and other films that understood that this kind of over-the-top satire still requires a decent plot.

I didn't enjoy this one much at all. But, really, how do you send-up something already inherently silly?

1.5/5

STEVE says:
I'm trying to imagine why - apart from the sheer absurdity of it, which I can respect on some level - someone would merge the Beach Movie and the Slasher Flick. Moreover, why make that movie a parody? Both genres have been parodied to death - Beach Movies by stuff like Back to the Beach and endless pop culture references, and Slasher Flicks by the Scary Movie franchise and by the fact that they've so over-stayed their welcome that their sequels have become parodies in themselves - so putting them together to create a hybrid Beach-Slasher parody seems like an exercise in redundancy.

Half a point to Lauren Ambrose for playing a range of characters. She'd get a whole point had any of these characters been more than a stereotype or caricature, but then that's all the movie really called for from anyone.

I maintain that clever, witty satire is not a thing of the past - though movies like Date Movie, Epic Movie, Scary Movie, and Meet the Spartans (all of which feature Carmen Electra - is that a rule, now?) would lead you to believe otherwise. But the material has to be relevant in order to work. Psycho Beach Party might have been clever and witty had it been written in the late 50s, but the material is so out of date now, there's no way it could work. Why do you think South Park doesn't riff on the Truman administration?

1.5/5

29 March 2008

Bone Dry, dir. Brett A. Hart (2007)

NIKKI says:
And still I keep trusting the opinions of my video store public. This, they told me, was great. Actually, it's the lowest-grade kind of schlock out there. It looks terrible, the script is embarrassing, and the director clearly fashioned his brand of suspense off a Rice Bubbles box.

What will the treasure inside be? Oh, look, it's something plastic and lame!

Lance Henriksen plays a man stalking another man in the desert in sort of a Hitcher-esque way. Only Lance drugs his guy (played by the cute twin from Bros, Luke Goss) and puts him in horrible Saw-like situations he must the get out of. He cuffs him to a cactus, buries him up to his neck, makes him drink salt water, that sort thing.

Now, my problem with this movie was that we never knew why Lance was torturing Luke. Turns out, maybe Lance isn't the bad guy. Wow, how long did it take you to guess that? So, why then does Luke shout at one point: "Why are you doing this?!" to the sky like Jennifer Love Hewitt does in I Know What You Did Last Summer? Considering his line of work, he'd pretty much have a fair guess why someone would want revenge. Especially revenge this sticky.

So, the flaws mount up. Luke, who's balding, should have a burned head by about the third hour of his capture. He should be that worn down from dehydration, too. None of it makes sense. Don't try to figure it out, it's impossible. Just rent something else. Like Hot Rod.

1/5

STEVE says:
Bone Dry ("A Brett A. Hart Vision" as we're oh-so-pompously informed in the credits) was infuriating, no question about it. The grab on the packet assured me that it was a cross between Duel and Deliverance, which would have been great if it had been true. Instead, I found it to be yet another take on the Saw/Hostel school of filmmaking where the audience is subjected to various scenes of torture that do nothing to advance the story. Or "story" as is the case here, because it doesn't even come into play until the last act, almost as an afterthought, so let's add "bad screenwriting" to Bone Dry's list of offenses, as well.

We're supposed to believe that Lance Henriksen is the Bad Guy from the beginning, the way we're introduced to him in the diner. Fine. He's already Lance Henriksen, that's the baggage he carries, so I buy him as the Bad Guy. But when he's subsequently shown only in silhouette, from behind, or with binoculars obscuring his face for the next half-hour, the mystery of the character is undercut because He's Already Lance Henriksen.

There's nothing in the way of development for either Henriksen's or Luke Goss's characters, just the stereotypical Good Guy/Bad Guy bullshit - and we only get that because Goss is the one being tortured, he must be the Good Guy and Henriksen the John Ryder-esque psychotic Bad Guy. But when the reveal comes in the third act, we're way ahead of the movie because we've been filling in the blanks on our own for the last hour and fifteen minutes.

Problem here is, the reveal should have been made at midpoint. That's the point of midpoint - it reverses the action ("You thought Henriksen was the bad guy, but no!), and keeps the second act from getting dull. As it is, our midpoint was meeting up with a fella named Marty. The only thing this reverses is the fact that Goss is alone, but when Marty is killed ten minutes later, this negates the reversal - thereby negating the midpoint altogether.

This movie sucked. It will, however, appeal to fans of the Saw and Hostel films - people who don't care much for story and wouldn't know a plot hole if they fell head-first into one. If this was Hart's vision - and one has to assume that it was because he served as Bone Dry's writer, director, producer and editor - it's myopic at best.

1/5

Lonesome Jim, dir. Steve Buscemi (2005)

NIKKI says:
I'm annoyed we waited this long to watch this film. I think we've had it on the shelf about two years. I think the cover always turned us off. It looks quite dreary, even the title makes you feel like it'll be somewhat of a slog.

Turns out, it was an absolute joy. It was sad and tragic in a few places, but it had this absurd kind of humour that just made it so heartwarming. I feel gypped now that Little Miss Sunshine and Juno and these apparently ultra-quirky films get all the praise while these smaller, more deserving films just blend into the background.

This one began as films of this sort do -- man comes home to small town after spending time away and must re-adjust to a world that knows far too much about him. Jim comes to live in his house, where his mum walks in on his bath time, and where guys in bars still know him by name regardless of the years gone by.

Jim struggles to fit in here. He's searching for something beyond this life. We know that New York didn't work out, though we don't know exactly why for much of the film. We know there's trouble in his family, with his relationships. Again, we must wait for some explanation of all this, and it's in this waiting, watching Jim as he skulks about felling sorry for himself, that we find the honesty in this story. It's especially hard-hitting if you've shared Jim's experience of returning to small town after significant time away.

Jim meets a girl and things begin to turn around for him. But it's not quite so easy. Especially when Jim just thrives of on his "chronic despair" and his mum is accused of drug-smuggling.

I enjoyed so much about this movie. The writing, the comedy, the performances. Casey Affleck is fast becoming just my favourite actor. His naturalness is fascinating to watch. He makes every line feel like an ad-lib. Seymour Cassel was subtle and hilarious as always, too.

I'm so glad we watched this. March has been so light on ratings above 2.5.

4/5

28 March 2008

Mike's Murder, dir. James Bridges (1984)

NIKKI says:
I don't really know what I thought of this one. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, though why I was expecting something akin to Missing with Jack Lemmon I just don't know.

It's one of those films from the early '80s that looks suspiciously like a TV movie. I can't imagine this went to cinemas. It's very Movie-of-the-Week.

Basically, Betty reunited with her tennis coach boyfriend after he becomes involved in some drug deals gone bad. Betty wants to rekindle their old flame knowing little about his drug issues. He stands her up and ends up dead. Not content to take his disappearance lying down, she tries to figure out what happened. She ends up mixing with some fairly dangerous dudes.

I guess the intrigue here is wrapped up in this young, naive woman infiltrating big-city drug bosses. There's an element of excitement there, but I found much of this film unrealistic and I really didn't care for Mike all that much in the first place. I wanted to know why Betty was risking so much to solve his murder and yet he did so very little for her. Not fair, perhaps? Well, not entirely. But in order for me to believe she would take such steps, I needed a bit more of a reason to care for Mike.

The film suffered, too, from Over-80s-ness with weird clothes and hair and tennis coaches and cabana boys in tight shorts with absolutely no sense they look ridiculous. But I can handle that. Everything else? Mmm, I don't know. Not great, this one.

2/5

The Big Sleep, dir. Howard Hawkes (1946)

STEVE says:
Every time I watch The Big Sleep, I'm reminded of an episode of The Simpsons: Homer's sitting on the couch, watching Twin Peaks, as Special Agent Cooper opines "That's some damn fine coffee you got here in Twin Peaks... and damn good cherry pie." On TV, The Giant is waltzing with a white horse as a traffic light swings from a nearby tree branch. Homer stares at the TV, transfixed.

"Brilliant!" Homer says. "I have absolutely no idea what’s going on."

Much the same way I feel watching The Big Sleep. I know it's brilliant, the direction is faultless, the writing top-notch. But I can't shake the feeling, when all is said and done, that I've missed something.

It's like Hawkes and screenwriters, Leigh Brackett, William Faulkner and Jules Furthman set out to make the most deliberately obtuse film they could. Based on Chandler, you know the plotting is going to be intricate, and with the machine gun dialog, you want to be paying attention and not wandering off mid-film to make a sandwich. But still, no matter how much attention is paid, you come out wishing for Cliff's Notes.

But when Chandler himself is shocked to find that even he doesn't know who killed the chauffeur Owen Taylor, what the hell chance to I stand?

4/5

Nikki did not view.

27 March 2008

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, dir. Tobe Hooper (1986)

STEVE says:
Here's how it went down: Claude's over to watch a movie. Exactly what movie has yet to be decided, but he's standing there, looking at our collection, tossing titles out, trying them on for size, but nothing seemed to fit. Finally, he goes, "What's something you haven't seen in a while?"

Without even thinking, I go, "Texas Chain Saw Massacre", and Claude goes, "Okay, let's do it."

Now, I've been trying to get him to watch TCM for a year and a half, almost, and he's always vetoed it. He's not that into horror movies, so whether he went with it tonight just to shut me up, or generally wanted to try something out-of-the-ordinary, I don't know. Either way, I saw this sudden reversal as a clear opening for a TCM double-feature.

I gotta say, I have always loved this movie. My feelings about the first one aside, TCM2 has always been kind of a guilty pleasure for me. It's more of a carnival ride than a horror movie, completely unlike its predecessor in both tone and style. Where the original TCM was realistic, grim and near humorless, TCM2 is campy, brightly coloured and just plain frikkin' hilarious - due in large part to Bill Moseley's "Chop Top".

The first movie went over okay. Claude said later that he didn't hate it as much as he expected to, and that's more than I'd expected. But it's always this second movie that I'm nervous about showing people. It's so bizarre, and people usually fail to see the humour in it, that what I get in the end are lots of sideways glances. And it was no different this time, though likely because much of the politically satirical elements (Reaganomics, etc.) got lost in the translation, making it near-impossible for a 20-something Australian to make anything of them. I will say, though, that it warmed my heart to see Claude jump in his seat when Leatherface storms out of the record vault after Stretch. If nothing else, it woke him up.

Look, it's not a great movie, and it's never going to attain anywhere near the level of popularity or importance of the original, but TCM2, though the only direct sequel, isn't necessarily reliant on the first film, and can just as easily be watched by itself as a stand-alone movie. I think it's a classic in its own right, and it definitely deserves more attention than it generally gets.

3/5

Nikki did not view.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Director: Tobe Hooper
Writers: Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Released: 1974
Cast: Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Terri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen


NIKKI says:
It was really by chance that we ended up watching this one. Our month of culling the To-Watch pile is about to come to an end, so we wanted to use these last few days of March to power through whatever we could. Instead, as we had a visitor interested in a bit of horror movie history, we ended up choosing this one.

I was a bit sad as I pretty much silently vowed never to watch this again. Not that I think it's a bad movie, I just find it very hard to watch. I'm fine until Kirk get it, then I just want to hide under the covers until all the screaming stops.

We had some great discussions after the movie about what worked and what didn't, why this was scary, what it all meant. It's a great film to examine because it raises so many issues and feelings and, for me, I never quite know if it's exploitation or genuine social commentary. I think it's after so long at that damn dinner table that I start to go, All right, can we move on? But no, that's when Grampa needs to try and hit Sally over the head, which I think is just the grossest thing ever filmed. What's the social relevance of this!?

I really don't know why this film creeps me out so much. It could be testament to the writing here that I get such a sense of whacked-out reality from the family members. It's as if it's all real, and I don't want to look at it. I get the same vibe from The Hills Have Eyes, and other horror films from the 1970s. I won't watch Last House in the Left again for this same reason. It's just too graphic for me, because it feels so real.

I will say, though, that this viewing of Chain Saw was the easiest yet. I worked out it's maybe the fourth time I've seen the movie, and I found myself hiding a bit less. I was prepared for the hitchhiker cutting himself, then for Kirk getting hit, then for the hook, and then for the hammer. So it wasn't so bad. I still wanted to kick the TV, run away, and never come back during the finger sucking bit, though.

The final moments of this film are still hugely effective. After so much darkness and evil, here we all are, plunged into the light, sun overhead. And this horrible thing still goes on. Sally's insane cry-laugh as she drives away is just incredible, and Leatherface lives on, in his mixture of anger and confusion.

My love-hate relationship with this film continues. I know it's good, but I hate it for all the reason why.

4/5

STEVE says:
I used to hate this movie. I didn't think it was scary at all, just some cheap-looking schlock that skimped on effects (meaning, in those days, Savini-esque blood and gore), and took waaaay too long to get to the first kill. In fact, the first time I attempted to watch it, I fell asleep.

Looking back on it, I'm sure it was a mixture of ignorance and general contrariness that informed my opinion, as well as the fact that I'd been up for 36 hours straight (long story) when I sat down to watch it and subsequently fell asleep because, years later, for whatever reason, I decided to give it another go and I discovered - as I would later with films like Dawn of the Dead and 2001: A Space Odyssey - that it was my fault and not the movie's.

I've since come to see Chain Saw for what it is - a revolutionary film by a maverick filmmaker, without which the landscape of modern horror would be significantly less interesting. But at 15, not so much. I didn't see that the first half was taking its time on purpose, lulling me into a false sense of security until Kirk walks into the house and encounters Leatherface. Didn't know that the quick-as-a-flash kills were meant to startle and shock, unlike the lingering blood and gore kills I was used to from the likes of the Friday the 13th movies. It took me - and I say this with all possible humility - well into my 30s to recognize the genius behind this movie.

4/5

[Steve watched again on 11/5 with film class.]

26 March 2008

I Bury the Living, dir. Albert Band (1958)

NIKKI says:
The artwork for this film makes it look way scarier than it is. All the art I've seen gives me the impression this film could be shelved alongside Attack of the Eye Creatures or something like that -- something with creepy crawly gruesomeness as its drawcard.

This isn't really like that at all. In fact, there are few scares or frights, and nothing drips or glugs. It's basically about a guy who discovers he has the power to kill without ever leaving his office. The local constabulary think he's mental and go about trying to prove just that and end up causing their own deaths. It's all very weird, and, to be honest, it's a great idea that isn't really taken far enough. I expected Boone to start wiping folks out who gave him the shits because the way he kills people leaves absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Instead, he doesn't like this new power and tries to fix it. His killing method involves sticking pins in a map, and you have to wonder why he didn't just tear up the map. But anyway... Turns out something else might be at work, and the one scary moment in the film comes when a creepy guy creeps up on Boone while he's on the phone. That was a bit chilling.

Otherwise, this is really just a fun little movie that's not as serious as it could have been. It's definitely entertaining, though, to watch these archaic police practices that go on and pretty much allow Boone to legally cull his town's population.

2.5/5

25 March 2008

Blast from the Past, dir. Hugh Wilson (1999)

NIKKI says:
How have I never seen this movie? As previously noted, I went to the cinema to see freakin' Legally Blonde. There's no reason this one should pass me by. Weird. Anyway...

All I could think watching this last night was how much I miss the '90s. It's usually the '80s I'm longing for, but my actual teenage, growing-up years were between 1991 and, well, now, and I just found myself reminiscing rather painfully about Everclear and Dishwalla just how much better things were then. Life was less complicated, less shiny and fake. Or, at least it felt that way.

That's kind of what this movie is all about, in a way. Adam is a guy raised with early 1960s values. He's simple, polite, childlike in his approach to everything because he's retained a certain innocence that comes from being locked in a bomb shelter for 35 years. When he emerges, it's 1999, and everything is new. He must adjust to his new setting, while finding himself a girlfriend.

He acclimates rather well, and, as expected, teaches a few people some much-needed lessons in life and love. It's enjoyable bubblegum, this movie. And Brendan Fraser is just way hilarious, and should be in more movies. Alicia Silverstone was like everyone's favourite actress back then -- her and Winona and Drew -- and we were all jealous of her mouth and squeaky voice.

I went back in time watching this movie. Steve playing the Violent Femmes during the afternoon probably sent me down memory lane in the first place. This movie made me want to stay there.

3/5

24 March 2008

Comic Book Confidential, dir. Ron Mann (1988)

NIKKI says:
Did you know comic books cause children to want to beat their friends to death with hefty concrete rocks? There's a PSA-type video excerpt in this movie that will tell you all about it.

That was the most interesting part of this documentary -- reaction to comic books by parents and teachers and even the courts back in the 1950s. Apparently, back then, anything remotely fantastical was an affront to the American way of life. If only they knew what was to come, right?

This movie gave me a great insight into the evolution of an art form, while introducing me to the creators of that art, those instrumental in bringing the art to the masses, and then subverting it. That's really this film's very simple point -- here is the art, and here are the artists.

Each of the artists is interesting in his or her own way. I'm always fascinated by Robert Crumb, who I found more jovial here than I remember seeing him in his film. I also found myself really liking William Gaines, who created Mad magazine and a slew of horror comics that rattled hell out the censors way back when.

Informative, funny, eye-opening. The only thing I didn't need was the uninformative, near-pointless "introduction" by Kevin Smith. As proprietor of a comic shop and modern-day know-it-all about superheroes, I expected something more insightful from Smith than "this film is still relevant, enjoy". Thanks, Kevin. Well done.

3/5

23 March 2008

Punk's Not Dead, dir. Susan Dynner (2007)

STEVE says:
After a fifteen minute primer on the perceived evils of old-school punk music and it's alleged demise, Susan Dynner's Punk's Not Dead quickly moves away from the founders of punk music like Black Flag, Ramones, Minor Threat and TSOL and spends the next 20 minutes focusing on nouveau- and pop-punk bands like The Offspring, Greenday, Pennywise and NOFX, and their corporate sponsors.

And that's about where this doco lost me. "Punk's not dead, see - it's available at Target and Hot Topic!"

Of course it was around this time, also, that I was distracting by a peculiar, high-pitched buzzing sound that I though, at first, was a mosquito, but actually turned out to be Joey Ramone spinning like a gyroscope in his grave.

Punk's Not Dead is a very schizophrenic documentary. It's promoting the idea that punk has evolved into the bubble-gum pop-punk of Good Charlotte, Sum 41 and A Simple Plan. (Any of whom, you throw them in the middle of a Clash concert in '79, they'd never make it out alive.) But if punk has indeed evolved, then by definition it is no more.

The doco finishes up on a low note at The Drunk Tank House in Echo Park, CA. Here, punks of all ages get together to rock, mosh, play dodgeball and puke on the living room table day in and day out. Beautiful. This is punk, now?

What about the punks who hold down jobs? I've always considered myself to be fairly punk rock. Not in a face-pierced, blue-mohawk, safety-pins-holding-my-jeans-together kind of way, because I maintain that punk is an attitude, a way of life that has nothing to do with the music you listen to or the clothes you wear. Sure, I may dress like I've stepped whole-and-breathing from a Gap ad, but under that Classic tattersol oxford shirt ($39.50), I'm sporting a Ramones T. (Or Misfits, or Lenny Bruce, or Day of the Dead, or what have you.) Conversely, among my Misfits, Cramps, Ramones, Clash and Stranglers CDs, you'll find Billy Joel, Huey Lewis and the News and the Moonlighting soundtrack. And you know what? I don't care what you think about it.

That's punk.

2/5

NIKKI says:

I wanted to like this film. I loved seeing the old punks again, hearing what they had to say about Good Charlotte, and the corporatisation of the attitude they turned into music. But, I didn't really care for Dynner's thesis that punk's not dead, it's just turned into Sum 41. And that real punks with their blue mohawks and pierced mouths still exist, living on the edge, sleeping on the floor, and vomiting on the sofa.

That's not punk to me, that's get off your ass and do something with your fucking lives.

I wanted this film to remind us that punk is not a style of dress but an attitude, a feeling, a reaction to oppression. It doesn't always manifest itself in binge drinking and blue hair. But Dynner's punks seemed very much this idea of what punk looks like. It was all fashion over feeling, adoption of a lifestyle based on what it's supposed to represent, not a natural progression away from a norm.

It was no surprise that the guys who remind me of my punk roots (Henry Rollins, Billie Joe Armstrong, Dexter Holland) just look like normal guys you'd see down the street. I prefer my punks sans mohawk these days. Because what is the mohawk, after all? It's becoming the Abercrombie and Fitch of "punk": Punk Dress Code 101.

Someone in this film said that his punk experience occurred during the movement's evolution, now people are just playing with it. That's kind of how I feel. I didn't have Hot Topic to teach me how to dress. I didn't have Emily the Strange giving me slogans to adopt, showing me that attitude was cool, while I bought her hundred dollar shoes. And when I went to my first year uni graduation dinner at Cellar 47 restaurant with my magenta hair and new tattoos and got pointed at and ridiculed by hip clubbers, I didn't have anyone to commiserate with. There just weren't that many of us around.

But that's what we wanted -- to stand out, to make it known we weren't like you. Now everyone dresses like that, and I want to turn my Misfits bag face around when I walk down the street because God forbid you think I'm like you.

What has happened to our punk? This movie did not provide those answers. It simply stirred the punk in me to react to this, too. I wanted to turn my back so far on the seemingly accepted "new punk" of Good Charlotte and My Chemical Romance. I wanted to run away and listen to my Debbie Gibson CDs because that seems like a way bigger fuck you to the modern world than Good fucking Charlotte.

Maybe it's that chip on my shoulder than kids today just have it so much easier. And punk shouldn't be easy. Or maybe that's the punk evolution -- my punk is different to your punk because times are different. I can live with that, I think.

(The movie does lose points for me, though, for all but ignoring girl punk. They had L7, but few others. Where was the discussion of Blondie, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Exene, Plasmatics, Siouxsie? God, even Patti Smith, XRay Spex, Courtney Love? Huge oversight.)

2/5

TV Junkie, dir. Michael Cain, Matt Radecki (2006)

NIKKI says:
About as harsh a portrait of substance abuse as you can get, and not at all what I was expecting. Maybe I didn't read the blurb on the back as closely as I might have. Still, while not a film about a guy obsessed with the TGI Friday Line-Up, this was still hard-hitting, effective, and well worth the all-mighty struggle it takes to get through it.

Not that it's a bad film, it's just the sort of warts and all piece that reminds you of any time in your life you've slowed down to look at a car crash, eavesdropped on a personal argument, read someone's diary... These are moments I never wanted to see, especially in the lives of strangers, and yet they compel, almost daring you to keep looking. Because this is reality.

Rick Kirkham is a guy who loves to record things. He records his entire life, every key moment is on film. He also makes recorded diary entries, talking about his life, his family, stuff in general. And he's a TV star, in a way, reporting for Inside Edition and appearing on third-rate talkies like The Danny Bonaduce Show.

In the beginning, we like the guy. He's adventurous, fun-loving, suave. A bit egocentric, but that's what a live in front of a camera will do. Eventually, though, we discover Rick is a mad crack addict, who records every last detail of his struggle to balance his drug habit with his new-found family life.

His life starts to fall apart when he gets married and has his first child. Being away from his family on assignment for his TV show makes him lonelier and more depressed than ever and, as a result, he hits the crack pipe real hard. It's a downhill spiral from there until he loses his job and starts to lose his family, now with another child added.

The best documentaries take us in one direction, before leading us in so many others, mostly unexpected, always surprising. This one does that magnificently. How much worse can it get than Rick sitting in a hotel room telling us face-to-face that his crack addiction will kill him and yet lighting up anyway only to bottom out the following day in the worst way risking everything he has built through his entire career? Can it get worse than that?

Oh, it can. And not in ways you might suspect -- there's no head in the toilet, no drug score gone wrong, no OD to recover from. What happens in this film, is worse. I don't want to give it away here, as I simply don't want to relive it in my head. It's a hell of an anti-drug message, if you've got any heart at all. I can't believe he's letting the world see it. But apparently people do recover from these sorts of things.

Excellent, hard film.

3.5/5

Under Fire, dir. Roger Spottiswoode (1983)

NIKKI says:
An odd choice for a Sunday afternoon, this one. I liked it, as much as you can like something so horrifying.

The movie is about three journalists with decent motives in Nicaragua to document the Sandinista revolution. (I had to look that up, because I'm dangerously unfamiliar with this moment in history.)

What complicates their story is the love triangle going on between the characters. Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman are friendly colleagues both in love with the same woman, Joanna Cassidy. She has affection for both of them, but only one can support her in the life she wants.

How the whole thing plays out is interesting and brutal. The movie ends up delivering quite a powerful political message that really makes you question how you view war and these kinds of atrocities. We see this war, the destruction and devastation through Nick Nolte's camera lens. People are dying, tyrants are overpowering their people. And then Gene Hackman's character is murdered and we gasp. Oh my god, how horrible.

But, wait a minute -- the whole movie has shown us brutalities. What does that say about how distanced we've become from stuff happening "over there"? A Nicaraguan woman must point out to a weeping Joanna Cassidy, who has just seen Hackman's murder replayed on TV: "Do you know the man who was killed? Fifty thousand Nicaraguans have died and now a Yankee. Perhaps now America will be outraged at what has happened here... Maybe we should have killed an American journalist 50 years ago."

It's heavy-handed, perhaps, but the point is made. Interesting to compare this one to A Mighty Heart. Random killing of American journalists, it turns out, doesn't really change anything, does it?

3.5/5

22 March 2008

Albert Fish, dir. John Borowski (2007)

NIKKI says:
This was a difficult film to watch. Interested as I was in learning about Albert Fish, I was not prepared for the brutality of this film. That I had to hear about little Grace Budd's horrific murder was one thing, (my choice, really, given the subject matter), it was another to witness long scenes of whippings and simulated cannibalism.

Borowski doesn't have much to work with, so I can understand the need for some padding. No one from the Fish family probably wants to be interviewed for such a film. And those involved in the investigation are all surely dead. Instead, Borowksi chooses true crime writer Katherine Ramsland and Oddities Museum curator Joe Coleman to discuss Fish, to give their insights into his psyche. Surely there are other informed minds out there that could have given us deeper insight into Fish. I could have used them over Borowski's recreations of Fish's crimes.

It would appear, though, that Borowski's purpose is not understanding or psychological insight. The website for his film proudly informs us that Albert Fish was an official selection at the Bloodbath UK Horror and Exploitation Festival. That's exactly what this felt like at times -- exploitation. Borowski could have sliced the running time by half if he'd stuck to telling me about Albert Fish. There's a moment in the film when Joe Coleman tries to explain why he hangs Fish's horrendous death-letter, written to Grace Budd's parents, on his wall. It's something that must be confronted, he says, this horror in the world.

That might be true, but Borowski goes that extra step and suddenly we're not confronted by real horror but beaten over the head with an idea of it. The words in that letter are confronting enough without Borowski superimposing frying rump steaks over an image of a boy's behind being whipped over scenes of an old man eating meat.

The history was there, and the research was impeccable. It's Boroswki's execution that does me in. It's not that I can't stomach his style, it's that I don't think I should have to. The purpose is to document not recreate.

2/5

STEVE says:
I didn't know much about the specifics of Albert Fish, only that he had a predilection for eating children and that he'd stuck more than a dozen pins deep into himself over the years. This doco didn't do much to expand that knowledge, as it seemed to want to gloss over the facts to get to the gross-out bits.

It must be said, I'm a big fan of the gross-out. But not at the expense of the story, which is what happened here. Borowsky gave us all the salient facts on Fish, but instead of telling a story, he told us "what happened", and that's not the same thing.

Albert Fish was also heavily reliant on the re-enactment - used here instead of the animation in H. H. Holmes - which, ironically, distanced me from the movie, rather than drawing me in, as would have been Borowsky's intention. Implied horror is always better than shoving it right in your audience's face. And when you're re-enacting fantasy sequences, well... that's just a whole new landscape of the bizarre.

2/5

21 March 2008

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, dir. Seth Gordon (2007)

NIKKI says:
I was not expecting competitive Donkey Kong to be so thrilling. Actually, I kinda was because I've read so many good things about this film. It lives up to those expectations for reasons that have very little to actually do with computer games.

The crux of the story is Steve Wiebe's beating of Bill Mitchell's world record Donkey Kong score. Wiebe beats Mitchell on a machine in his basement, but Mitchell won't take defeat. So Wiebe is investigated, doubted, spurned by the gaming community for apparently working conspiratorially with gaming's greatest enemy, the Missile Command record holder (whose record is not officially recognised), Mr. Awesome.

Wiebe must prove himself by playing live on a specific Donkey Kong machine. Is he as good as his home score suggests? And what's on the tape Bill Mitchell has had secretly stashed away? Why all of a sudden won't Bill Mitchell, the greatest advocate of live gaming, play live against Wiebe?

Oh my God, the tension! It's amazing how gripped you get. And not even about whether or not Steve wins or Bill wins, but just how these characters will react to each other and the mounting suspense and pressure that comes from finding the real Donkey Kong champion.

I adored this film. It was funny, sad, tragic, and exhilarating. And it really made me miss the little arcade we used to have in town, with the Space Invaders and the pinball machines. It's an optometrist office now.

5/5

20 March 2008

Michael Clayton, dir. Tony Gilroy (2007)

NIKKI says:
I found myself enjoying this film as it happened, but in hindsight (all of about eight hours) I don't know how much of it really resonated.

That isn't to say it wasn't a good film, but it was one of those films that felt like it was telling me all the way through that it was good. It came off as way too important for its own good so that the ending felt like such a major let down. What other ending could we really have expected?

I had a slight issue with the end coming first. We're shown what eventually happens to Michael Clayton -- it's one of those wrap around things where you get ten minutes before the end first, come back to that point, and then keep going for ten minutes. I'm not a big fan of that. And here, I don't think it made too much difference whether we saw it or not. I felt that the film twisted and turned so much that knowing exactly where Michael Clayton ended up at this very key point sucked the suspense and just had me wondering what he was going to do to get there rather than sit back and be surprised by what did eventually happen.

If that makes sense... Basically, you can't have a chase scene when you know that chasers don't catch the chasee. Which nearly sums up the whole film for me in terms of our goodies and baddies and where they go and what they do. So, they killed that guy? Yeah, thought they might. So, they tried to kill this guy and missed? Yeah, thought they'd do that, too. And even: So this guy eventually wins? Knew they'd do that.

Or did I miss the point?

What did I enjoy here? Clooney continues to be great. His evolution into the only modern actor to even hint at filmdom's past heroes -- Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant -- continues to thrill me. His acting was superb. I love those fierce Clooney eyes when he starts to get serious.

I also liked the scenes with Tilda Swinton that compared her confident public appearance with her nervy private self, although I didn't see an Oscar winner when I watched her. She didn't make me tremble like Ruby Dee in American Gangster, for instance. I loved the writing -- check out the scene when Michael first goes to the guy's house involved in the hit and run. The dialogue is sensational.

Ultimately, though, I just don't think I really cared.

2.5/5

19 March 2008

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield, dir. Michael Feifer (2007)

NIKKI says:
It's difficult to know where to begin. I think I'm most appalled that this film calls itself Ed Gein, opens with shots of the real Ed Gein and his home, takes itself extremely seriously, and yet it features very few facts.

The filmmakers here ignored documented history, and have taken it upon themselves to alter Gein's story to create a gross-out horror film. Somehow the already gruesome facts of the case weren't enough for writer/director Michael Feifer. Why, Feifer asks, hang a corpse from a butcher's hook when you can spice things up and hang a girl while still alive?

And even better, let's remove Gein's penchant for stout mother-figures and have him wiping off mostly hot babes in white cotton panties.

I cannot understand for the life of me what Feifer hoped for with this film. Then again, when you look at his priors, it's not so surprising that this was shit: The Graveyard, The Seductress, Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh and about a hundred other classics. Lord. He's obviously not serious. He's a dude with money and a typewriter. That's about all I can ascertain. Still, I don't know why he hasn't been stopped. I'm offended by his rewriting of criminal history, but maybe other people realise what a stupid hack he is and simply ignore him?

Soon, we'll be treated to his Boston Strangler: The Untold Story. I'm guessing that's a film featuring Albert DeSalvo with Feifer just making up stuff to fill out the running time. And get this -- it's going to star David Faustino as DeSalvo. Normally, I wouldn't outright bag Bud Bundy, but BUD BUNDY? As DeSalvo? Why do I get the feeling Feifer's taken his money to LA's underground clubs and enticed has-beens with promises of paychecks and renewed fame.

A bit like Jeffrey Dahmer luring men back to his flat to take "modelling shots", perhaps? "Come on, Bud Bundy, wanna make a movie? I'll pay you. And you can being a friend. What about Corky Nemec over there? He looks lonely. And cheap."

Oh god.

Ed Gein was stupid and pointless and disgusting. I think Feifer needs help -- anyone else get the feeling he's living vicariously through America's famous killers in a creepy, "this is how I would have done it"-type way?

.5/5

STEVE says:
Michael Feifer has somehow managed, with the direct-to-video abortion that is Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield, to slander the name of a grave-robber and murderer, best known for his creative cannibalization of corpses. How do you pull that off? And more importantly, why bother?

It's not like Gein's story isn't compelling enough. He has inspired some of the most famous movie madmen of our day in several heavily fictionalized accounts, and their endless sequels and remakes - 12 titles, off the top of my head. And his "true" story has been filmed more than once. Deranged from 1974 tells the story of Ezra Cobb (Roberts Blossom) and his Oedipus-fueled shenanigans. While the names have been changed, this was the most accurate portrayal of Gein and his story until Chuck Parello's Ed Gein in 2000. While not a great film, Ed Gein (also known as In the Light of the Moon) takes an unflinching look at Gein's exploits, while sticking fairly close to the facts, and Steve Railsback simply channels Gein, down to the little smirk constantly playing about his lips, making you think that there’s always something just slightly amusing going on in there… something maybe having to do with meat-hooks.

Feifer decided to take the Homer Simpson approach to the facts in this instance ("Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true."), and pulling something of a Lawnmower Man on us. Yes, there's a guy named Ed Gein in the movie; yes, he kills a tavern owner and a shopkeeper; and, yes, he wears women's skin. Other than that, Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield tells the story of Ed Gein the way Sleepway Camp tells the story of Christine Jorgenson: Not At All.

Ed Gein was convicted of killing two women, but suspected of killing at least six. Butcher decides to take that number and run with it, throwing accuracy to the wind, and having Gein kill - in the first half hour - a high school girl, his friend Jack, and a caretaker at the cemetery. By the time the movie gets around to the Mary Hogan character, it feels like she's been shoehorned in from another story. Which, in a very real sense, she has.

It continues in this vein, dwelling on speculation rather than known facts, and twisting known facts to fit what can loosely be called a story. The Bernice Worden character - here called Vera Mason, played by Priscilla Barnes - is the mother of the films protagonist, Deputy Bobby Mason. No link to reality there, but it's the story's one interesting facet - the cop is as reliant on his mother as Gein was on his own - so I can't necessarily fault it there. But Mrs. Worden was found in Gein's barn "dressed out" like a deer. In Butcher, Mrs. Mason is found in the barn, lying fully clothed on a work table, and the high school girl is the one hanging from the hooks. Am I nit-picking? Maybe. But I'm thinking, "Why?" Did it help the story to not butcher Mrs. Mason? No. So why change it?

And then there's this Jack fella. He may be based on "Gus", who sometimes pops up in Gein mythology. However, research of the facts tend to show that Gus did not exist, which makes sense: when your house is decked out in human remains, you don't want company dropping by. Feifer says "NUTS" to logic and research, and gives us Jack. The only reason I can see for this character's existence is to give Michael Berryman something to do. Jack's there for about three minutes before he and Gein have a fight and Gein beats him to death with a shovel, showcasing Feifer's incompetence as a screenwriter, as the scene does NOTHING to advance the movie or develop the story. It served as a quick paycheck for Berryman, who, frankly, deserves better.

I will have to give props to Kane Hodder as an actor. As bad a match as he is to Gein, he did manage to portray him with a sense of sadness and pain, instead of as a relentless, drooling maniac. It also has to be said that he acted the pants off of everyone else involved here - which is not exactly a high bar. I'm just saying, for a glorified stunt man, he's not a bad actor.

The worst thing about Butcher - apart from its blatant disregard for facts, intro-to-film screenwriting and inspired miscasting of Kane Hodder - is that there are people out there who are going to watch it and take it as gospel. And that's just sad. Eddie Gein dressed in the skins of dead women and danced around in the moonlight; clearly he was a very, very sick man. His story, as horrific as it is, is also a tragic one. But even if history finds no sympathy for Eddie, himself, surely Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden deserve better than this.

.5/5

18 March 2008

Cube 2: Hypercube, dir. Andrzej Sekula (2002)

NIKKI says:
Back to clearing out the "to-watch" pile. I was in the mood for something scary, possibly a bit lame, and short. This one was perfect. Turns out, though, it was wasn't all that stupid. Well, ultimately, I don't know if it made sense, but it was certainly interesting to watch.

I enjoyed the first Cube, because those claustrophobic, how-did-we-get-here films intrigue me and freak me out. I was expecting this one to be a bit a remake. I thought the box would be the same, but that it would do way more gruesome stuff to the trapped people.

Not at all -- the box was stark white, and it was all about altered reality and time and space. The rules of physics did not apply in the box, and time ran in loops and twists, so that the trapped people this time stumbled upon earlier and later version of themselves in ways that really were genuinely creepy.

Example: All the people stuck in the cube are pressuring the old crazy lady because it sounds like she has knowledge of the company they think might be behind the cube. Izon, or whatever it was. So, just when everyone's like "leave the old woman alone" to the guy from Forever Knight, a panel opens with him holding the old lady by the throat, blood pouring from her mouth. "Don't trust her" he says, and then some part of the cube shifts and cuts his head off. Panel closes.

What? Wha? Whee?

Very cool.

I ended up appreciating that this wasn't a horror film, and more a mind-bender. In the end, there were few answers, but, strangely, that didn't bother me as much as perhaps it should have.
Now, I learn, there's another Cube film -- Cube Zero, which looks to take the idea from maths, to reality, to religion. I'm so there.

2.5/5

STEVE says:
I wasn't so much a fan of the first Cube. To me, the intellectual Indie film came off like a student film with too many ideas and not enough resolution. I much preferred Darren Aronofsky's Pi, which had the same kind of high-mindedness with no resolution, but made such good use of the MacGuffin that, either you didn't notice the fact that you didn't know what it was all about until long after it was over, or you just didn't care.

Cube 2: Hypercube does the same. Nearly. This particular Cube behaves differently from the first, in that not every room is a death trap. Instead, every room is seemingly from a different period in time. Sure, there are death traps here and there, but much more fascinating is a room where our protagonist finds the withered bodies of her companions and herself from a different timeline, or the character Simon who continually meets up with different versions of Jerry who dies and dies again, always eventually meeting up with Simon, who's killed Jerry several times himself. The quantum physics here are never explained, and they don't need to be. It's just part of the Cube.

What I didn't like about this one was the ending. It seems the only purpose for this movie was to set up the sequel, and that left me cold. I actually found myself longing for the ambiguous ending of Cube.

2.5/5

17 March 2008

The Girl Next Door, dir. Christine Fugate (1999)

NIKKI says:
Having seen several documentaries about adult film stars or the industry in general, I had certain expectations about this one. I was expecting a tragic tale of a woman scorned by porn, adding Stacy Valentine's name to that growing list of such actresses: Bella Donna, Linda Lovelace, Traci Lords, Annabel Chong, Bambi Woods, etc.

Surprisingly, Stacy's story was different. This was not a desperate woman, or a duped teenage girl, or someone looking for any of revenge or their particular class or culture. Stacy Valentine says she just loved sex, and the industry opened doors for her into a life of comfortability. Never once did she talk about regretting getting into the business, and never does she struggle to get out.

This film is rather clever in that it appears the story of a porn star when it's actually about an everyday woman with the same pressures, worries, and insecurities as anybody else. She just happens to be a porn star. The film resists offering moments of titillation, simply presenting Stacy and her world as Word Play presents its crossword puzzle creators, or Spellbound its child spellers. This is a woman and this is her world, and by the end of it, the big boobs and rampant sex are as workaday for us as they are for Stacy and her colleagues.

Stacy isn't a woman to be pitied for her choice of job. She has a strength about her that really draws you to her. She's got this innocence to her, and never does it come off as forced or fake or pitiable. The film manages to show that her insecurities really have little to do with her work. She wants recognition for her efforts, she wants to be able to trust people, she's never fully satisfied with herself. These are universal women's issues, no matter your line of work. I think this is really the film's major point.

I enjoyed the relationship between Stacy and her parents, who love and respect their very non-wild child daughter. I was also fascinated watching as the relationship between Stacy and her boyfriend built and eventually toppled. Again, the industry the pair belonged to became less and less important as you came to appreciate just how normal they were. The film, really, kind of destroys the image of porn and its people as high-life living sex dolls and their pumped up men.

There's an element of sadness to the whole thing, too You do wish Stacy would give herself a bit more credit. But at the same time, you step away with a sense of this woman as quite strong. She got out of porn when it had given her what she wanted -- money, a foundation, the ability to go anywhere and do anything. And she never turned back. Porn works -- take that feminists. Right?

3/5

STEVE says:
We bought this disc unseen something like four or five years ago, and it's been on our "to watch" shelf ever since. Nikki's suggested watching it a few times, but I've always vetoed it. Just not that interested in watching yet another tragic story of abuse that leads to a life in porn.

But March has been about - with a few exceptions - clearing out that "to watch" shelf, and while there are more movies there than we could possibly watch in a month, even if we watched three a day, I knew we'd get to The Girl Next Door sooner or later. And I gotta say I'm glad we did, because it was nothing like what I'd expected.

That's not to say that it doesn't have its tragic elements. Stacy's relationship with Julian, a fellow adult film star, is the stuff they write ballads about. She can't trust him completely because she can't trust anyone since her divorce, and ends up pushing him away. They get back together and it looks like everything's going fine; they even do a movie together... and that's the beginning of the end.

While not the connoisseur of porn documentaries that Nikki is, apparently, I still feel qualified to say that this one rates higher than most because it's about transformation, not degradation; improvement, not destruction. Stacy Valentine doesn't fit the stereotypical porn star profile: sexual abuse, runaway, hooked on drugs, forced into porn. She got in to it willingly, with her eyes open and a plan to get out in a few years, after she'd made some cash. And that's exactly what she did. She made her last adult movie on Febuary 14, 2000, four years to the day she made her first one, and is now Director of Model Recruitment for Penthouse magazine. Good job, Stacy.

3/5

16 March 2008

The Town that Dreaded Sundown, dir. Charles B. Pierce (1976)

NIKKI says:
Oh, what a difference a bigger budget could have made.

This film has everything going for it -- a great story, a brilliant title, and Ben Johnson doing what he does best: playing a cop. But it suffers very badly from a low budget and a screenplay that thought comic relief was necessary in a film about a serial killer.

Still, something about this movie works. It could be that we've just got a thing for low budget crime dramas with cool titles, but it could also be that these guys, specifically writer/director Charles B. Pierce, really, really tried.

You can see it all the way through the movie. Apart from the dopey cop ripped from the Beverly Hillbillies, the inclusion of whom I cannot rightly explain, I got the impression here that Pierce thought he was making an important picture. I feel like he wanted to tell this story and really show the fear Texarkana residents experienced during the killer's rampage in 1946.

Perhaps some of the murder scenes border on exploitative, and Pierce is not too savvy when it comes to building suspense outside of the murder scenes (like Fincher does with Zodiac -- the more gripping scenes are in the investigation). Some moments do drag, too, such as the Dawn Wells chase. But there is effort here, and it's visible everywhere. It gives this feel a real engine-that-could vibe that makes me want to like it, even though I know it might just be total shlock.

I will say, too, that Pierce's direction of the opening attack scene is some of the most well-timed, well-framed scary stuff I've ever viewed. I was glad I wasn't watching at night.

2.5/5

STEVE says:

I'd heard so much about this, and waited so long to see it, that it really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that it was disappointing.

It wasn't awful, it had more than its share of moments - not the least of which was the opening scene - and it made for a pretty good story. It had kind of a 1940s Zodiac thing going on. But when I realized it was Charles B. Pierce who was behind it, I knew my high expectations were never going to be met, and I should have seen the rest coming; the pointless narration, the comic relief, the "humorous" characters - all things I've seen before from Pierce in Boggy Creek II (the MST3K version, mind you), and none were done particularly well.

I would love to see this remade with an actual budget and a better director, but I guess that's too much to hope for, considering the movie hasn't even been released on DVD yet.

2.5/5

15 March 2008

Stand By Me, dir. Rob Reiner (1986)

STEVE says:
I was 15 going on 16 the first time I saw Stand By Me.

Richard Dreyfuss has a line toward the end of the movie: "Friends come in and out of your life like bus boys in a restaurant." When I heard that, sitting in the theater in 1986 with my friends John Loftus, Chris Becker and Crispin Hildebrand, it didn't even register.

I didn't question it, didn't think, "Yeah, for you maybe." It was so inconceivable that this group may not last forever, my subconscious didn't even bother to stir. Maybe it knew better, didn't want to wake me up just yet to the reality that Nothing Lasts Forever, and that my friendship with these guys wouldn't last much longer than another three or four years.

Becker, two years our senior, left for the Navy just after the beginning of our Junior year. I'd see him when he was home on leave, and more often later, after he got out, but he eventually moved to Delaware and we lost touch.

Loftus went off to Lehigh University after graduation in 1988 and we stayed in contact for a year or two after. Once he transferred to Pitt, the length of time between the letters and the phone calls got longer and longer, until one day I realized, almost as an afterthought, that they'd stopped altogether.

Crispin, my oldest friend in the group, and the one responsible for introducing me to the rest, was the last to fall away. We remained close until the summer of 1991. Then - and looking back, I can't help but think it was inevitable - he moved on as well.

Twenty-two years on, and this movie is as powerful as it was in 1986, but for different reasons. Then it was because I could see our friendship up there on the screen, reflected (or possibly refracted) from another time. Now... As time goes by and memories fade, it becomes more difficult to remember specifics about these guys and the things we did together that summer.

Stand By Me has become the surrogate for those memories, with Chris, Teddy, Vern and Gordie standing in for John, Becker, Crispin and myself. Which is somehow both more and less painful than not having them around to share the real memories.

5/5

14 March 2008

Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D, dir. Steve Miner (1982)

NIKKI says:
So into 3-D right now! But damn it makes your eyes hurt after a while. Or perhaps that was just this movie, that made my brain want to implode on itself after about the first two minutes.

Damn, it was shit. But it's always been shit. I think anyone when asked, Which is the worst Friday film? tends to think of the gang members in this straight away. I know I do.

What's with the gang members? What's with Jason killing the bunnies? Why does he torture the hillbillies? They didn't have sex at camp and let him drown! Isn't there a legend we're working with here?

So, this is when random killing replaced real storytelling for this franchise. And even in 3-D, it's still a pile of junk. I didn't root for the Final Girl, I didn't find Jason particularly menacing, and I didn't think much of the kills. The scariest thing about this movie was the severed head on the table -- and that was a flashback to Part 2.

Although -- the 3-D was freaking me out! The opening is genius, with sheets waving from a clothesline and you can see underneath them and off into the distance. And then a guy walks in from the distance and the sheets wave around him. Man, 3-D is amazing. It's the only reason to ever watch this movie.

1.5/5

STEVE says:
What the hell happened here? It's not like the Friday franchise has ever been known for its great storytelling, but this mess looks like the guys at Paramount just stopped caring.

The first indication is that the opening five minutes are just a recap of the climax from Part 2. And not just the good-parts version, either, but the entire scene from the point where Ginny finds Jason's shrine to his mom. What's more excruciating is that it's just assumed that we know everything that happened to lead us up to this point - which is likely the case, but come on. Watching a payoff with no set up is like somebody only telling you the punchline because they figure you can put the set up about the guy who walks into the bar with a duck under his arm together on your own. This flashback doesn't help at all - doesn't advance the story, doesn't supply any information that might come in useful later on - and only serves to pad the movie out for an extra five minutes.

So Ginny and Jason tussle in his little shack, she sinks a machete into his neck and, presumably, goes on to live better days. Push-in on Mrs. Voorhees head and, after the obnoxious 3-D credit sequence, we're treated to the A Night in the Life of Edna and Harold - think George and Martha without the Albee wit. For ten solid minutes we watch as these two hillbillies exchange barbs until Jason dispatches them. Why? Who cares? Cut to the next scene and we can finally begin our story proper, a full 16 minutes and 15 seconds in.

There had been, up to this point, a certain logic in these movies: Teens Have Sex = Teens Must Die. That no longer seems to apply here. Jason is now killing willy-nillilly anyone who crosses his path, and it's all rather boring. From the stereotypical bikers to Shelly the loser, the stoner couple who are inexplicably friends with our teen cast to the reprehensible boyfriend who becomes more of an asshole every time he opens his mouth - they all have to die simply because they're in this movie. And of course they do, just like clockwork, until our Final Girl sinks an ax into Jason's now-hockey-masked face (the cool Town That Dreaded Sundown get-up from the previous film having been cast aside at some stage). As in the first movie, the Final Girl jumps into a canoe and floats along until morning when - and I defy anyone to make any sense of this whatsoever - Mrs. Voorhees springs from the water and drags her down! Wait, no, hang on - it's only a dream... which explains the sudden and incomprehensible reintroduction of Mrs. Voorhees head to her body, but does nothing to explain why this girl would imagine such a thing, knowing nothing of Jason or the specifics of the last two movies.

Shame on Steve Miner. He directed what I still believe is the best of the series, and a damn good movie to boot, Friday the 13th Part 2. There, Jason was a confused man-child who didn't die in the alleged drowning accident, but has been hiding out in the woods ever since, and is now hellbent on avenging the death of his Mother - and, one assumes, his own near-death-by-drowning years before. He was unstoppable, but not inhuman. In Part 3, which takes place only the next day, Jason has ditched the Sundown look, picked up a hockey mask (maybe from the hillbillies?) and is now not only unstoppable but unkillable. How'd he become immortal? When is that shit ever explained?

This hardly feels like a Friday the 13th movie at all, really. It's like a Die Hard 3 type deal, where there's an existing script and somebody says, "Hey, this could be tweaked for John McClane." I'd put any amount of money on it: Someone had written a movie about a girl who had a bad experience in the woods; two years later, she's back at her parents' summer home, trying to put the incident behind her, only to have the escaped lunatic show up again. Some bright spark at Paramount read this and thought, "Hey..."

1/5

Battlestar Galactica: Razor, dir. Félix Enríquez Alcalá (2007)

STEVE says:
I'm a fan of the new Galactica series, not just because it's a vast improvement over the 70s cheesiness of the original, but because of the development of the characters (though at first put off by the female Starbuck, I've come to dig her) and the direction the Cylons have taken: No longer just armored automatons who seek the destruction of the human race, these Cylons have mastered the science of cloning and are seeking - wait for it - the one true God. You gotta love the irony.

But this movie left me cold. It's filler, actually; a way to keep the fans satisfied between the third and fourth seasons. And it felt like exactly that. One of the reviews I read stated that fans not familiar with the show might find it a good primer, a quick introduction to the cast and the story - but isn't that what the pilot episode was for?

Battlestar Galactica: Razor feels like they took two episodes that didn't quite fill out their alloted 40 minutes, slammed them together, then filmed some extra stuff to make it feature length. The movie zips around from "present" time in the Galactica timeline to ten months ago when the Cylons attacked, and there's a flashback to the first Cylon war some 30 years ago thrown in for good measure. And as much as I loved seeing the old-school Cylons and Cylon Raiders, had I not seen it, I wouldn't have missed a thing.

2/5

Nikki did not view.

13 March 2008

Shade, dir. Damian Nieman (2003)

NIKKI says:
Meh. This is one of those films where you don't know who's pulling a fast one on who until the final minutes, and, by that point, you're not sure you should care. I hated the revelation that So-and-so was working with Such-and-such because it wasn't a natural conclusion, it wasn't alluded to from the beginning. It was simply a full-on bait and switch, and those make movies just so uninteresting.

I was only into this movie for two reasons -- poker and Sylvester Stallone. Ingredients for a perfect night, right? Well, Sly looked fresh from the plastic surgeon, and the cards were boring and unrealistic. This one needed a good plot to drive it, and, sadly, that was a no-go.

The gist? A trio of small-time hustlers decide to rip off poker champ, The Dean. They prep themselves with a couple of smaller hustles (one ridiculous one involving Jamie Foxx), and then get ready to face Sly, who apparently killed a bunch of guys at a poker table back in his younger days.

It's all so familiar, right? I think that show, Tilt, had almost the exact same premise. I just didn't care. I was like, which reprehensible crim do I root for? The cheats or the murderer? Help!

Can we please have a movie now about some honourable poker players? I know they're out there somewhere.

1.5/5

STEVE says:
I've said it before - I don't get poker. Movies about poker, less so. Movies about poker cheats, you've lost me completely.

Why bother with this one then? Well, Stallone for one. Then there's Gabriel Byrne. And, you know, there's always the chance that there's going to be an exception to the rule, that maybe this movie about poker cheats will be the one that holds my interest.

But no.

Did it suck? Not really, not in a Lucky You kind of way. But everything from the cinematography to the script to the performances were just "okay". Everyone involved performed ably, but not exceptionally. I stopped caring early on and just waited it out. As it happens, I needn't have paid much attention to the first 90 minutes, anyway, as the last five came out of nowhere, not bothering with such trivialities as "set-up" or "logic".

That said, we picked the "twist" ending from very early on, which speaks more about this film than I could possibly ever hope to.

2/5

12 March 2008

Kissing Jessica Stein, dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld (2001)

NIKKI says:
This is one of those films I avoided due to massive hype. You remember -- the sassy, New York-based lesbian romantic comedy written by its stars that was supposed to turn them into the Next Big Thing?

Little in that statement appealed to me at all at the time. We eventually rescued the DVD from an ex-rental sale bin, when the hype was way over, and all these years later have finally watched and enjoyed it.

It's light and fluff as any decent romantic comedy should be. It's well-written, funny, and the characters, thankfully, feel like real people rather than the stereotypical cut-outs you might find in a Kate Hudson movie.

My only problem with it had to do with its resisting to really dig deep into its major themes -- neither of these women are lesbians and yet here they are in a lesbian relationship. And if you look at the timeline, they're together for quite a long time. Yet one is resistant, and the other not at all. So what does it mean for straight girls, even those who might be latently gay or bi, to explore these alternative romantic routes?

It's never addressed. Briefly, Helen is chastised by her friend for choosing lesbianism on a whim, but this argument is never really resolved, and the issue is dropped. Much of the lesbianism discussion is about how strange the whole thing is to these women, how fun it is, how they just make each other happy. I felt there were big issues here that were going ignored. Was the lesbianism this film's gimmick, or did these women really have something to say about lesbianism as a genuine alternative to a struggle-filled dating scene?

Still, I enjoyed the movie. Its pluses raise it above. And it passed the Cry Test. If I don't cry in a romantic comedy at least once, it's a failure. I cried twice in this -- during the scene when the mum tells Jessica the play "could have been the best ever", and when Helen walks in on Jessica and her mum getting their dresses fitted and realises Jessica has been lying to her. So much emotion. I just wish they'd given me a bit more to think about.

3/5

STEVE says:
Apart from the high percentage of Zombie movies in our collection, I like to think my taste in movies is varied and diverse. It's movies like this one that back that argument up.

I enjoyed it, I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes the occasional chick-flick is something more than your standard Boy-Meets-Meg Ryan, Boy-Loses-Meg Ryan, Boy-Gets Meg Ryan-Back story. Kissing Jessica Stein was that movie.

I like to think that if Woody Allen was a young lesbian in today's world, this is the movie he'd make.

3/5

Land of the Dead, dir. George A. Romero (2005)

11 March 2008

Interview, dir. Steve Buscemi (2007)

NIKKI says:
So, it seems we've moved away from every one of this month's planned "themes", and have gone back to "let's watch this!" -- be it preview tape, new release, or what.

Our plan for this month was to watch movies from our ever-expanding To-Watch pile. It has something like 200 movies in it, and our Hitchcock event was a way of culling that number. Then we were going to do docos, and pulled out H.H. Holmes. Then we were going to do westerns ... Ugh. Now, we're kinda doing whatever. And it's okay -- I like the randomness, I think. Plans are hard.

Continuing at random: Interview. I got it as a preview screener at work today, and we've both wanted to see it for some time, so we went with it. I did enjoy it, but I don't know if I liked it, if that even makes sense. I was with the story and the characters throughout, but the end threw me for a mad loop. So much so that I'm not entirely sure if anything I thought about these characters or their motives was in any way close to fact.

Ultimately, though, I think that's the point. What do we see when we view people through a lens, or a tape recorder, as the case may be? And what does an interview say about the interviewer? What is truth? How much of the world we inhabit is made up of semi-truths, so-called truths given to us by journalists and based on their moods, their particular ideals? When it was revealed that these characters were feeding on the desperation and barbarity of each other's hidden lives, I discovered I was as culpable as they were. I believed in the lies as much as they did, and for similar reasons.

How easy it was to explain away and excuse the actress's behaviour based on her revelations. How easy it was, as well, to pity the interviewer based on his... But then they run away into the night, and I'm left stunned.

Challenging film, great performances, more great directorial work from Buscemi.

3/5