Outsourced, dir. John Jeffcoat (2006)

NIKKI says:
This is why I love preview tapes. Buried amid the Death Rows and the Skinwalkers', there's stuff like this.

To be honest, were it not for the inclusion of Josh Hamilton from Kicking and Screaming, I probably would have simply pushed this one to the bottom of the pile. Instead, I wanted to see what he was up to and had a look at the Outsourced trailer, and, like Steve, was immediately into the film.

It's about a guy -- Josh Hamilton -- who gets outsourced to India. He must train his replacement in the telesales business, while overseeing a group of marketers. Among his jobs is to teach the Indian salespeople to fake American accents. Josh is not keen on the idea of going to India, but he warms to the country. It's this culture shock and how he manages to overcome it that makes this film especially good. If you've travelled, you'll appreciate it that much more.

This is just a sweet film that relies purely on good characters and story. It resists stereotypes, and celebrates Indian traditions. Josh winds up in a bit of a romantic triangle, and the film is straightforward about the issues the couple face without denigrating Indian customs. In the end, we want to see the couple together, but we understand if it can't be. What eventuates, though, is better than a big, sappy ending.

I enjoyed this one a lot. It makes me want to check back through the preview discs to see what other gems might be hiding there.

4/5

27 Dresses, dir. Anne Fletcher (2008)

NIKKI says:
I hate movie weddings. I absolutely cannot stand to watch actors fake their way through what are pretty much always overly sugary vows about love and honour and whatever. I'd rather the happy couple just go, "Yep, we love each other, that's all we need." But, no. The dresses and cakes and super-perfect hair-dos all have to come out. My main thought watching this film was, "I hope they don't ruin the end by having Katherine Heigl get married."

But how else could they end it?

But then I guess I can overlook the predictable and somewhat sugary ending because other parts of this movie actually were fairly good. It's set-up is ultra-standard, that always-a-bridesmaid thing with our lead girl torn between the guy she loves who loves someone else and the guy we all know suits her down to the ground but she thinks is lame. Who will she pick?

Meanwhile, she has to plan her own little sister's wedding to that man she actually loves. So that complicates things. By movie's end she will have done some pretty catty things to get back at her sister, who is a big fat liar, and while she'll feel bad for them, we'll be hooting and hollering that she's a Riot Grrl of the highest order who gave only what was deserved. But the movie's a bit nicer than all that, and everyone apologises in time for everyone else's big day.

So, how to lift a standard romantic and ultra-girlie film from becoming another My Best Friend's Wedding, with stupid characters, gimmicky situations and false feeling? I don't really kknow how they did it, because the same things could be said about this movie, but they didn't seem so bad here. I think it has to do with the actors. I'm sorry, but I hated Julia Roberts in that other film. Here, we get Katherine Heigl who is sweet and funny and seems entirely without ego. She plays things purely with her heart here, there's no hatred or anger. And I liked that. We like her. And James Marsden was all funny and charming instead of serious Scott Cyclops and it was just fun watching him robot dance to "Benny and the Jets" -- way better than Julia doing the big-laugh during "Say a Little Prayer".

So, yeah. Good actors = Good time? I'll stick with that. Nothing outstanding, but better than your average. Still hated the end.

3/5

Jumper, dir. Doug Liman (2008)

NIKKI says:
Oh, where to begin? You know, I've got no real issue with the plot -- that a guy who can teleport and lives large because of it finds out there are others like him, and others who don't like him, and so becomes involved in an ancient war to wipe out his kind because only God should be able to teleport.

You have to have a set up, right?

So, that was fine. The problem was with all the damn holes in the story, and how loose ends were never tied. More infuriating is the fact that much of these holes could have been puttied over with just a few script tweaks. I thought there were test audiences for these sorts of things? Did no one at the Jumper screening question how easily David, the jumper, slid back into his hometown bar eight years after he was presumed dead? Not a single old friend (all of whom happened to be at the bar that day, luckily) stopped the guy in his tracks and said, "We thought you were dead." It was all, "He's back!" And the bully who caused David's supposed death had no concerns whatsoever but to go and beat him up again?

Not one solitary person at a screening, during the writing of the script, during the film's entire conceptualisation (if that is a word) even stopped to think, "But wait, he's dead -- that would have caused a sensation, locally."

If that wasn't stupid enough, after five minutes back in town, David's high school sweetheart travels to Rome with him on a whim. Becuase bar chicks in small towns can do that, no problem. Following that, though, she gets arrested by Italian authorities, and spends much of the film saying things like, "What's going on?"

If only someone would tell her, so that perhaps we'd know, too. The basic concept -- got it. But the stuff with David's mum made no sense. Why does she "give him a head start" at the end after helping him to escape in Italy? How could she have simply abandoned her son? Why does Jamie Bell's character go all the way to Japan just to drive a fast car in the middle of the Jumper/Paladin War? Why are we supposed to like David when he has spent his life ripping us off and buying big TVs? Why are we supposed to like David when the day before he reconnected with his old girlfriend, he flew to London for the sole purpose of getting laid? Which he did?

Oh, movie.

Hayden Christensen is not doing himself any favours with schlock like this. He's a good actor. He should choose more roles like the one he had in Shattered Glass. I fear if he keeps doing this sort of thing, no one will give him a chance like that again. Hayden -- save yourself!

1/5

Murder in the Outback: The Joanne Lees Story, dir. Tony Tilse (2007)

STEVE says:
At best Murder in the Outback is a scrapbook, taking the major facts of the case and arranging them in an order that approximates the actual events. At worst, it's an under-written Movie of the Week with top-notch actors playing one-dimensional characters in a 95-minute story that deserved at least that again in order to tell it properly.

Like a scrapbook, all we get here are blurry snapshots that bare further scrutiny or beg explanation. The hair-tie: when he was apprehended, Bradley John Murdoch had Joanne Lees hair-tie on his person. Much is made of this at first; it seems like solid evidence - if not of Peter Falconio's murder, then at least of Joanne's abduction by Murdoch - but we find later, in a throw-away statement by Bryan Brown's Rex Wild (who really needs his own show, by the way) - that it was ruled inadmissible by the court. Why? We never find out. It's never mentioned again. And while it all makes sense when presented in context, much of the detail seems like it's from some kind of checklist - Hair-tie, got it. Secret emails to an ex-lover, that's in there. Joanne's 'Cheeky Monkey' t-shirt, ditto.

I think the movie's biggest flaw, though, is in showing the actual abduction because it gives us the advantage of knowing what's true and what's not when Joanne's story is eventually called into question. While this is handy as far as making us feel Joanne's frustration as the trial descends into a media circus - literally, as Joanne has to "escape" from a pair of handcuffs in court to show how she did it on the night - it's also preposterous because it's a truth drawn from details that are sketchy at best.

2.5/5

NIKKI says:
The opening here was exceptional. It was well-directed, incredibly suspenseful, and really took us deep into the soul of this case. It happened quickly, it was punishingly tense, and if you blinked for a split second, you lost all sense of where you were and how you got there.

In minutes, Joanne Lees' central predicament is highlighted. She experienced these torturesome moments, and how could she possibly know every detail of every quick second that passed? It's no wonder her statements were confused. And it's no wonder she acted as coldly as she did to the Australian media, and to an extent, the population at large, who chose to forget the sorry way they treated Lindy Chamberlain so many years ago. Here's this woman going trhoguh this horrible thing, and all we can do is cast suspicion without knowing the facts.

Joanne Lees was similarly tried by the people before she ever went to court, and that is just one element of the story this film tries to portray. How Lees was fooled by the media and betrayed by the Australian public who denigrated the stupid no-nothing backpackers who apparently deserve what they get for their lack of knowledge about the treacherous Aussie terrain. Or something close to that.

But the problem with this film was that it tried to outline this and so much more about the Falconio case in 90 minutes. It was never going to work. There are great moments -- Joanne Froggatt is really quite something as Lees, for instance, and there was that opening -- but much of it descends into TV-movie stuff and we become bored with the same old points being raised, and so much left out that was pertinent to the case.

It was certainly watchable, and is a good introduction to this case. That's really about it, though.

2.5/5

Balls of Fury, dir. Robert Ben Garant (2007)

NIKKI says:
You just know what to expect, right? It's all that and more. Let's do a checklist.

Stuff to Expect From Balls of Fury

1. The feeling this was possibly written with Will Ferrell in mind. Check.
A bit like Hot Rod, there's definitely a Will Ferrell veneer over this one. But as Ferrell is over taking on bigger sports like basketball, it's left to up-and-coming comedy guys like Dan Fogler to tackle competitive ping pong. Fogler's character is a bit of a dunce, prone to anger, uncoordinated when without ping pong bat in hand, yet somehow a babe-magnet. That's Ferrell all over the place.

2. Random humour that smacks of nostalgia. Check and check.
Need I note more than Randy's obsession with Def Leppard?

3. Bizarre cameo from small comedy greats and big movie stars. Check, check.
Diedrich Bader shows up for a few minutes to make us uncomfortable, and Christopher Walken plays a ping pong Confucius-type in full Chinese traditional wear. The weirdest bit of this was Aisha Tyler hiding in the background as a Grace Jones-type warrior woman.

4. Stereotypes abound for the sake of comedy. Oh, check.
Like the French in Talladega Nights, the East Germans are pummeled here.

5. Comedy is King and so story and character development take a slight backseat to crotch gags. Super check.
But something about this silly film makes that okay. I've just learned this is from one of the writers of the very un-funny Reno 911, so some of the humour makes sense now. In a way, though, it had a bizarre innocence that made me think more of Hot Rod and less of Anchorman -- always a good thing. At 80 minutes, too, it was concise, and took up only the necessary amount of time it should have to tell its ridiculous tale.

So, there you have it. More reasons to love the Anti-Ferrell film.

3/5

Diary of the Dead, dir. George A. Romero (2007)

NIKKI says: How good was this? I don't know what I expected -- I've enjoyed most of George's films, and I still find his zombies the most believable and scary. I was happy with how this one played out, even if the subtext wasn't too sub this time around. It bordered slightly on hitting me over the head, but there was a point to be made and George made it. He just does death like nobody else.

I don't think this one was near as complex and intelligent as Land of the Dead. It had a very precise theme, and so it was less subtle as Land and therefore, for me, less effective. I think it suffered from the hand-held style. I would have preferred to see it happened in glorious widescreen than through Jason's claustrophobic lens.

Still, it was an enjoyable view into George's ever-interesting be-zombied brain.

3.5/5

The Tell-Tale Heart, dir. Jules Dassin (1941)

STEVE says:
This was a disappointing but well-made adaptation of Poe's story that fails only in its departure from the original work.

I lay the blame here, not on Jules Dassin, but on screenwriter Doane R. Hoag, who decided to leave out the narration which made Poe's story so interesting: Here's this guy, clearly insane, trying to justify the murder of an old man for no other reason than the old man's blind eye freaked him out, by calmly and sanely relating the tale. It's given a miss here, and instead we have a guy who's unjustly abused by his boss and decides to kill him. It's just not as interesting, now matter who shoots it.

The murder scene isn't anywhere near as interesting as Poe's, either. Poe had the narrator hide behind the old man's bedroom door and fix a beam of light on his eye ("I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle…") until the old man died of fright. Here, the young man does bring the lantern into the old man's room, then casts it aside and strangles the old man to death! What the hell is this?

The rest of it pans out pretty much the same as in the story, with the police arriving, the young man hearing the beating of the heart, etc., and that's all done brilliantly - but the narrator's cocky nature in the story is undone here by just making the young man crazy, apparently driven over the edge by guilt.

In all, I guess if I hadn't read Poe, I wouldn't have minded this one so much. If Dassin had had a proper screenplay to work with, this would have been a minor classic. As it is, it's kind of forgettable.

2.5/5

Nikki did not view.

Pump Up the Volume, dir. Allan Moyle (1990)

STEVE says:
I'd call this Talk Radio Lite, but there's nothing lite about Pump Up the Volume. I'd say it's Talk Radio for the teen crowd, but I saw Talk Radio when I was in my teens, so that seems slightly redundant. What I can say is that Pump Up the Volume probably had more of an effect on me as far as my personality goes than any other factor I can think of because it introduced me to Lenny Bruce.

In the movie, Slater's character returns a copy of Lenny's How to Talk Dirty and Influence People to the school library. It's ridiculous to think that this book would be stocked in a school library, much less this particular school's library, but we'll let that go in as much as it doesn't affect the plot.

I didn't really know who Lenny Bruce was when I saw Pump Up the Volume. I'd heard the name, mostly in association with George Carlin and Richard Pryor, but had never heard any of his material. Out of curiosity, I ordered the book. I came away from it wanting to be Lenny Bruce, unromantic heroin-induced death not withstanding.

Nikki did not view.

Talk Radio, dir. Oliver Stone (1988)

Death Row, dir. Kevin VanHook (2006)

STEVE says:
We should have watched April Fool's Day. Too predictable? I don't know. We actually did watch it last year on this date and were both kind of surprised to find that it was neither as good nor as fun as we'd remembered from our respective wonder years. Which is just mental because even when I saw it in the theater at age 15, I remember thinking that the only good thing about it was the presence of Amy Steele and the use of Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not To Come" on the soundtrack. But memory is a funny thing. It's like Austin O'Malley says: "Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food." I don't know what that means.

Someone actually remade April Fool's Day just this year. Also shite, I'm guessing, though I haven't seen it. The synopsis on IMDb leads one to believe that it's one of those trendy "re-imaginings" that basically take the title and an element or two from the original story, then turn around and go a whole other way, and you're left going, "What the hell?" Like the Day of the Dead remake. Clearly just an attempt to cash in on the tenuous link to George Romero. Makes me sick.

I guess I'd better say something about Death Row. You see Keach's name there on the poster, second to Jake Busey? Yeah. I'm not sure what's more insulting: the fact that Keach is given such huge billing and is in reality only in the movie for like five minutes, or that he's listed second to Jake Busey. Rounding out the star-power here is Danny Trejo. He's only got one scene so his name's not on the poster. Lucky bastard.

Death Row is about a gaggle of wanna-be documentary filmmakers who get trapped in a haunted prison with a bunch of diamond thieves and they start getting knocked off by the ghosts of past prisoners because Busey's grandfather was a guard at the prison before he got locked up for, I don't know, something, and - oh who gives a fuck, anyway? A haunted prison? Really? Have we learned nothing from Renny Harlin?

I'm going to try to go hoard some colored rags, throw away some food and forget this movie ever happened.

1/5

NIKKI says:
Something made me think this movie might be a kind of In the Line of Duty-type hard-ass thriller with Stacy Keach as a vitriolic prison guard and Jake Busey his small-time crook in need of some rehab. But fantasies are often just that.

Within minutes I knew we'd made a mistake. Twas the acting gave it away, believe it or not. Awesome as Stacy Keach is, even he can't make a reveal of two lopped-off legs anything but comedic. The kids he was talking to were terrible, and you think, not even a Jenna Dewan or a Jonathan Tucker here? It was to be the lowest of low-grade. No plot became remotely discernible in the film's fist act, making it impossible to know who to follow, who's arc to watch for, or basically anything making us care at all about anyone. Except ourselves.

And then it's worse. The ghosts are stupid, the scares are lame, nothing is scary, and Jake Busey plays the whole thing like he's Beavis and/or Butthead, grunting all the way through the thing. And though the horrifying effect of a guy being pushed through a chicken wire fence was gross, it didn't look at all real. I've cut myself numerous times, and I've never found my skin to splurge around like old Spam.

The rest of the effects were just lame. I spent from about 25 minutes in just longing for the end. I was also hoping Steve wouldn't storm out and toss away Between Pictures altogether. He didn't, but, you know, I wouldn't have blamed him.

<--- April Fools! 1/5

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

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

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

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.

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.]

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

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

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

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