Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, dir. The Brothers Strause (2007)

STEVE says:
I don't know what depresses me more: a shitty low-budget Indie flick like Pumpkin Karver, or a shitty big-budget studio flick like AvP:R (oh, how trendy). And to think, I said to Nikki only last month, "Surely it can't be worse than the first one."

I don't know what the hell I was thinking. With the exception of Fincher's Alien 3, which I thought was way-cool, the Alien movies have been getting progressively worse with each installment, and Predator 2 was so bad that it strangled the whole franchise to death, sparing us Robert Rodriguez' Predator 3 (a western, if you can buy that). Why should the AvP series be any better?

No question, AvP:R was bad. But it wasn't even So-Bad-It's-Good bad; It was Uwe Bolle bad. There was no material there to have fun with on any level. It picks up where the last one left off, then it's just carnage, carnage, character we don't care much about, more carnage, more cookie-cutter characters, carnage, explosion, end. Fuck me, man - 83 minutes of this shit.

I will never again underestimate Hollywood's contempt for the movie-going public.

0.5/5

NIKKI says:
About three quarters of the way through this movie, Steve quizzed me: "I'll give you a dollar for every character you can name." I thought I'd win quite a bit -- remembering names is my thing. Turns out I could remember only one, and that was because I thought it was stupid. I can't remember any of the other characters at all. Not then, not now.

This was probably the most insipid film I've seen this year. Pumpkin Karver was bad, but you can tell someone tried. This movie just doesn't even care. It serves absolutely no purpose beyond the quick buck. But, it is possible to make that buck with an okay script. I don't get this at all.

Just beyond bad. The worst of the worst.

0.5/5

[Steve also watched Blade Runner again.]

Once, dir. John Carney (2006)

NIKKI says:
They kept telling me this was the movie to see. I'd heard from all over the place -- reviews, ads, friends, best-of lists -- that I would regret passing this by. I wasn't racing out to find it, only because the words "greatest musical film of this generation", or whatever the poster says, immediately made me think PRETENTIOUS, but when I got a preview tape, I couldn't wait to have a look.

And I wasn't disappointed. By no means the best movie ever made, it was still a beautiful thing. Just two people finding each other and bonding over music. Both are living stagnant lives, and through a series of events over a short period, they end up freeing each other. It's just gorgeous to watch how it all comes together -- quietly, poetically, and utterly without pretension.

It's greatest features are its music and its stars. Outspan from The Commitments is in it, and sings all the songs! Price of admission right there!

I loved this one. I got wrapped fully up in it.

4/5

Pumpkin Karver, dir. Robert Mann (2006)

STEVE says:
With a "k". That should have been our first clue that what started out as a promising low-budget slasher flick would soon turn into yet another shitty movie with annoying teens who you can't wait to see killed off.

We called this one early on - turns out it's just another take on the Fight Club gag of the the protagonist being the antagonist - so we spent pretty much 70% of the movie with a "get on with it" attitude, which didn't help.

And I'm sorry but this is a slasher flick, not The Bells of St. Mary's - is it too much to ask for a little nudity anymore? Especially in a movie with actresses named, no kidding, Minka, Mistie, Rachelle, Briana, Amber and Charity? I mean come on!

1/5

NIKKI says:
They become harder and harder to resist, these krazy slasher flicks that some folks make with no money and no talent. I think it's time we stop telling ourselves "never again" and start saying "bring them on!" It's our own form of self-torture, and it's time we embraced it!

Oh god, this was the height of LAME. As soon as the guy with horns started feeling up the pink-bra-ed sister, I knew we were in for something beyond crappy. Good movies just don't start like that. And then the guy sprays beer on the main kid and burps in his face. Well, you just know he'll die, and you have a sneaking suspicion the kid will do it.

We then head to a party a year later complete with sluts, slags, a creepy old man, stoners, and a shitty band. People get wasted, no-one noticing they're missing until too late, the killer never gets so much as a drop of blood on himself, no one sees him ever setting up his elaborate kills, or going mildly insane, talking and screaming to himself.

It's all so convenient, so thrown together in a day or two. And, as Steve lamented, not a single boob. Failure at every level. Here's hoping there's a sequel.

1/5

Running, dir. Steven Hilliard Stern (1979)

NIKKI says:
If nothing else, this movie will go down in history because it inspired Steve and I to finally collaborate on a full-length script. We're nearly 20 pages in, and so far, it's hilarious. I won't go into detail, it's just too good an idea to share!

Running was okay. One of those '70s family drama deals that I simply cannot resist. In this one, running is a metaphor for freedom and Michael Douglas is the runner, who can't seem to control his life -- he is unemployed, signing divorce papers, laughed at by his oldest kid -- but running keeps him contented. So, he decides to enter the Olympics. He figures winning the Olympic marathon will give bring back that lost control.

So, you see, there are more metaphors there than you can poke numerous sticks at. And, in the end, just like Rocky, Michael Douglas learns that perhaps winning isn't everything.

A decent afternoon flick.

3/5

Christine, dir. John Carpenter (1983)

STEVE says:
There's so much wrong with this movie, and it all starts in the opening scene.

Detroit, 1957. Plymouth Furies are rolling off the assembly line to "Bad to the Bone" - a song that wouldn't be recorded for another 22 years by George Thorogood, who - at this time during the movie - was three months shy of his fifth birthday. Surely there was a song from the 50s that could have been used here to imply Christine's inherent evil, no?

During this, one of the workers steps up to Christine, opens her hood and leans down to inspect the work. The hood slams down on his hand, showing us that Christine isn't just alive, but a mean-spirited bitch as well. Okay, she's established. We can move on. But, no! We're then treated to the sight of another worker climbing inside Christine, flicking the radio on and ashing his cigar on her front seat, where he is later found dead. I'm not sure what the point of this second bit was, apart from setting her up as mean and spiteful as well, but that seems silly in light of the hood-chomping bit. We could have used one or the other here, we didn't need both. So five minutes in and Carpenter has already wasted half that time.

Then there are the "teens". They're meant to be about 17 or 18, and most of them were born in '61 or '62, making them only 20 or 21 when the movie was filmed. Still probably got carded at that stage, so Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Kelly Preston and Alexandra Paul don't stick out. But William Ostrander, who played Buddy Repperton, was closing in on 24 at the time, and not a young-looking 24, either. He could have passed for Stockwell's dad in this. But it's Stuart Charno who tips the scales - born in 1956, he was closing in on 30. There is no excuse - unless they've got the eternal youth of an Emmanuel Lewis or Ellen Page - for casting someone this old to play a high schooler.

It's also rather unclear as to when Arnie became aware that his car was spontaneously regenerating. He's seen fitting her with hubcaps that he'd scavanged from Darnell's junk yard, but Darnell himself points out that Arnie's work is backwards, as he'd fitted the car with new wiper blades, but had yet to repair the windshield. How much of this work was Arnie doing, and how much was due to Christine's regeneration? Halfway through, after she's trashed by Repperton and his pals - why she didn't repair herself before anyone showed up that morning, either, is never explained - she starts to regenerate right before Arnie's eyes. He says, "Show me," and she goes to town, implying that he's just learning of her abilities. But the paint - autumn red - that he apparently used on her hasn't been available for years, implying that she regenerated even that from the beginning. Now he had to know about that, yeah?

There were some good things about it. The performances by Gordon, Stockwell and co. fit perfectly to their stereotype (although Arnie was maybe just too much of a geek for me to believe he's taking shop courses), and Ostrander made a great bully - but might have been better suited to a prison movie or something at the time. The soundtrack that comprised Christine's "voice" was classic, as was Carpenter's score, specifically the "love theme" that sounded just a wee bit like the wedding march. And the lens flares that accompanied Christine's rampages were effective as well.

I want to see it remade. I want to see age-appropriate teens. I want to see the plot-holes filled in, sanded down and painted over.

And I want to see Keith Gordon direct it.

2/5

NIKKI says:
Oh Lord. I admit I was a bit shocked when Steve said he wanted to continue our mini-Stephen King marathon with Christine. First, I felt like I'd just seen it, though we last watched it five years ago. And, second, I was fairly sure we picked out its numerous faults back then, too. But, we went ahead anyway, and were (not surprisingly) disappointed.

This is one of those movies I know all too well. I first watched it as a kid, maybe about 10 or 11, and bits of it are seared into my memory...

Top 3 Things From Christine That Haunted 10-Year-Old Me

1. The excessive use of the word, "cunt": This was the first time I'd ever heard the 'c' word in a movie. I remember just being freaked out by it. I've never, ever heard (or read) the name 'Cunningham' without inserting the 't' in my mind.

2. Roberts Blossom: For the longest time, I thought he was wearing a torn-up straight-jacket. He's just so damn creepy in this, even though he's very much the seer, the voice of reason. Still, he sells Arnie the car, so he's actually too blame for pretty much everything here.

3. The lights turning on down the alley!: What's more scary than that? The car just chasing these punks. She stares and she waits. It's so fucking scary. It's such a pity much of the film isn't great, because some of Carpenter's scares are impressive, even all these years later.

...and those things remain scary and weird to me. But I was less discerning then, and had yet to really understand what an ego-maniac John Carpenter could be, and how bad a director he could be, and just how poorly King translates when key elements of his stories are withdrawn from screenplays. Steve's main pet-peeve here is Arnie's lack of real development from nerdy wiener to Jim Stark-like mini-bohunk who gets the girls and snaps at everyone around him. That's a major oversight here. His affair with Christine lacks punch. She needed him as much as he needed her, and apart from a few tiny moments, we never really get that sense. That deep sense that they belong together for their own reasons.

This is more an easy scare-'em-up picture than a true examination of the effects of nerddom on the weak. Or whatever. The movie is more pick-the-plotholes now, though. Why didn't Christine kill the vandals when they started wrecking her up? Exactly when and how did Arnie learn of her powers? And on.

I like this movie for its cheesy goodness, but hate it for so many other things, too. Still, a bad Keith Gordon movie is still a good night in.

2/5

American Psycho, dir. Mary Harron (2000)

STEVE says:
When I saw American Psycho upon its initial release, I hadn't read the book and knew nothing of the twist ending. I wasn't actually looking forward to seeing it, now that I think about it, because the trailer left me with the impression that Christian Bale was overacting to the point of absurdity, and I didn't know if I could sit through an hour and a half of that.

Of course he was overacting, that was the whole point of the Patrick Bateman character, and I realized it immediately in his interactions with his co-workers. And the twist ending was such a stunner to me that I don't think I fully accepted it until I was walking to my car, long after the credits had rolled.

So it came as a great shock that my friend Claudius (with whom I watched American Psycho tonight) said he picked it four minutes in, when Bateman is telling the barmaid, behind her back, that he's going to kill her.

I see it as inevitable - he's totally insane, never killed anyone, so the threats he makes to people, and the murders we see him perpetrate are all interior monologue and fantasy, something you can only pick up in retrospect. Claude saw it as predictable - that one scene in the very beginning gave it away, and all the murder scenes only served to back it up.

Either way, the movie still holds up to subsequent viewings. The indictment of 80s greed and mass consumption is handled better here than in Wall Street, for example, because it's a subtext and not the driving force. It would be a stretch to call the movie subtle, but I think "predictable" is just as wrong. I don't know if Claude will be watching it again any time in the near future, but I could stand to watch it again. If only for Bale's performance, which I now see not as his overacting, but Bateman's overcompensating.

4/5

Nikki did not view.

Children of the Corn, dir. Fritz Kiersch (1984)

NIKKI says:
After watching The Mist, we thought we might have another look at some other Stephen King adaptations in our collection. I think I have already blocked the conversation that led to our selection here. You see, I'm systematically attempting to block the entire experience from my mind. Hopefully, Isaac screaming "They want you, too, Malachai!!!" will be the next thing to go.

What the fuck? I remember watching this movie as kid and thinking it was too cool. I know I've seen it more than once in my life, but I'm shocked at how little of it I actually held on to. Perhaps my brain knew how bad it was and started to erase the film by itself? I'd forgotten about "he who walks behind the rows" actually being real, which is, like, the main part of the movie. I remember bits of it -- the Monopoly game, a few random stabbings, Malachai and his scythe. I'd also forgotten, I guess, about the rampant plot holes, the narration to no-one that abruptly ceases once the story kicks in, and the heinous overacting by everyone involved.

The poster says "the original that started it all". I'm wondering now if that means the Corn series, which is up to about 13 by now. Or the long, growing run of horrible King adaptations?

1/5

STEVE says:
So incredibly bad. Where does one start?

King's short story opened with Burt and Vicky arguing as they drive toward Gatlin, Nebraska, and running down a child when Burt's attention was somewhere other than on the road. As the story progresses, they learn that the kid had been killed before they hit him with the car, and that the town of Gatlin is now a ghost town. Except for the children. They further learn that the children killed their parents, and subsequently offer themselves to He Who Walks Behind The Rows on the last night of their 18th year. Pretty creepy.

This shitefest of a movie opens with the slaying of the parents, removing any mystery or suspense from the story at about the three-minute mark. When Vicky and Burt are introduced, it's in an "aren't they cute together" scene in a motel room, which makes their arguing in the car a bit confounding. During all this, the film is narrated by Jobe, an 8 year old Child of said Corn, but his narration disappears half-way through the movie, and as he and his sister, Sarah, leave town with Burt and Vicky in the end, one is left to wonder just who the hell he's telling this story to in the first place.

Listen, I know it was only a 20 page short story, and that it's bound to take a lot of padding to flesh it out to a feature length movie, but one hopes that such padding would amount to more than just Peter Horton slinking around a barn for 20 minutes, and a prolonged scene at a creepy gas station that does nothing whatsoever to further the plot.

There was no excuse for this, let alone the seven sequels.

1/5

The Mist, dir. Frank Darabont (2008)

NIKKI says:
Our first time in the cinema together for far too long. So, the fact that we were way down the front, metres from the big read curtain was enough to make this experience fun. The fact that the movie was actually pretty good made it even better. I wasn't expecting to dislike the film, but I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. I was worried Thomas Jane might suck, but he was actually very good. Why I thought he'd suck, I don't quite know. Possibly the amount of times I've had to return Stander into the system at work. That just makes him look like a Van Damme wannabe.

So, the movie was good. I got scared heaps. It was really tense in some places. I was disappointed that the creatures all looked way fake, even though Steve tried to explain his view of the bad CG effects, I still don't know if they really meant them to be that bad? The whole movie was so serious, and would they really spend that much money to intentionally be so NOT scary-looking? I don't know -- perhaps he can explain that better. The big ant thing at the end, though, looked good. Why that one? Ugh -- anyway. I let the effects, good or bad, go early on. After I Am Legend, I think I've finally realised that no amount my complaining will make Hollywood see just how HORRIBLE its new technology is. Besides all that, it was a good movie.

I had major issues when it finished regarding the end. I did not think such cruelty was at all necessary. But then Steve and I discussed it a bit and we realised Frank Darabont altered the ending in the only way he could. His desire was to un-Hollywoodise the ending, and he did that. I think my reaction at the end was kind of me wanting the Hollywood ending and when I thought about Darabont's reasons for taking that away from me, I couldn't help but respect him.

So, yeah. Good monster movie that proves King can be done well.

3/5

STEVE says:
What bothered me about The Mist wasn't the much-talked-about ending, but the lack of detail that King paid such attention to in the original story. The build-up to the storm; Drayton's last look at his wife as he and Norton went into town; the old couple slamming into the automatic doors; or the way the creature tore the young kid's red apron off him - "you need that like a hen needs a flag", Drayton thought. These things, though incidental to the plot, helped build the story, and they were sorely missed in Frank Darabont's movie. This is a shame because Darabont has been a stickler for such detail, where possible, in his previous King adaptations.

I understand that a lot of this was probably done in a desire to get right to the action, get us into the supermarket and have the titular mist arrive right on time at the 20 minute mark. Dawdling with Drayton's wife or starting the story much before the storm would have thrown this off. But it didn't make me miss it any less.

I wasn't as bothered as Nikki by the CGI monstrosities. It was damn good CGI, compared to some we've seen recently, and not even Lucas has been able to give us CGI that is 100% convincing. CGI monsters in a movie like this are de riguer - like seeing a zipper run up the monster's back in pre-CG times. Hell, a fake monster is going to look like a fake monster, no matter what is used to bring it to life.

And I have to say, I didn't mind the changed ending, either. In fact, I think it was exactly the ending necessary for the film. The original ending - Drayton writing his story down on Howard Johnson's stationery as he and his group of survivors head to Hartford, CT - would have translated poorly to film, leaving the audience with something of an anti-climax. And, though I don't generally like the idea of bringing the end of the world under control, it worked here in relation to what Drayton felt was the only way out for his son and the rest of the group.

Even with these arguable flaws, this is one of the best, most literal King translations to date, and that bumps it up an extra half-star for me.

3.5/5

Apollo 13, dir. Ron Howard (1995)

The Stepford Wives, dir. Bryan Forbes (1975)

NIKKI says:
This one of those movies I've always been meaning to see. I don't exactly know why I've never gotten around to it. Possibly because I was waiting to read the book, yet never found a copy of the book anywhere to just randomly pick up. Steve mentioned an interest in seeing this one recently, so I decided to just go for it, book or no book.

What an amazing film. This is the exact reason I love this project. Because these little classics are just waiting for us. And there's so many we've overlooked, even with the amount of films we've both seen in our lives. This one hit every note perfectly: its comedy, its satire, its drama, and, you might say, its horror. The writing was stellar (thanks, of course, to William Goldman), as was the acting. We were captivated right from the start. We had characters we cared about, and the creepiest of situations that just kept us fascinated by what was coming next.

Katharine Ross was so good. Her slow realisation that something is wrong in Stepford is thrilling to watch. How can she not look mental when screaming: "When you come back, there will be a woman with my name and my face, she'll cook and clean like crazy, but she won't take pictures and she won't be me!" But her resistance to the townsfolk and their way of life and her dedication to discovering the truth of the Men's Club is so brilliant. Goldman (probably from the book) gives her some great humour, too, so she really does seem like a progressive woman before her time even as a New York artist prior to her move to Crazy Town.

I'm shocked this film didn't win more awards. I've just learned it didn't receive Oscar nominations or anything. That's mental. Underrated and underappreciated, for sure. I'll definitely go back and read the book when I find it. Levin is so great when it comes to cultural and societal satire. This is just all-around great.

4/5

STEVE says:
In the opening scene of The Stepford Wives, Joanne Eberhart and her family are moving out of their Manhattan apartment. Scuttling the children into a waiting taxi, Joanne sees someone crossing the street, carrying a naked female mannequin. She steps out and snaps some pictures of the spectacle, only to be berated by her husband for forgetting to pack something.

This is why William Goldman is a great screenwriter.

Once they've moved into their cozy Stepford home, Joanne's husband asks "Have you ever made it in front of a fireplace?" Joanne's flippant response is, "Not with you."

This is why William Goldman is the greatest screenwriter ever.

After her husband joins the local men's club, Joanne meets some of the other prominent Stepford husbands, among them, Dale "Dis" Coba. He's watching her make coffee for the other husbands, and she catches him staring at her. "I like watching women do menial tasks." Joanne doesn't take kindly to this. She asks him why they call him Dis. "I used to work at Disneyland." Joanne doesn't buy this. "You don't seem like the kind of person who's interested in making people happy." Later, after all the Stepford madness starts happening, Joanne is talking to a therapist, telling her what's been happening to all the women in Stepford, how they're turning into automatons, robots, "like one of those robots in Disneyland".

And this is why William Goldman is a God among men.

4/5

Year of the Dog, dir. Mike White (2007)

NIKKI says:
I was excited to see this movie. The trailer made it look sweet, and, being a dog lover, I figured it held extra promise on a personal level. The Cat Stevens song thrown in was enough for me not even to question that this was the film for me. That it was written by Mike White was no real detraction -- I did love School of Rock after all.

How deceiving trailers can be, right? The movie started out reasonably well, even though a cute puppy died. Still, I figured such heartbreak would lead to something beautiful -- it didn't. Our heroine just became insane and unstable, with no real explanation why. So she was lonely, so she missed her dog -- how, again, did we end up at a chicken slaughterhouse?

About halfway through I was desperate for it all to be over. Suddenly, everything that made it quaint and intriguing in the beginning just became grating and horrible. Peter Sarsgaard's lowly dog-trainer was suddenly an insufferable bore, Laura Dern's over-protective mum was a fucking shrew, Thomas McCarthy as her husband was all but pointless, and Regina King's feisty best friend was stupid and annoying. The worst offender, though, was the main character. Her love of dogs was admirable early on, with her trying to get her little niece to understand why eating meat is bad and such. But then she ends up taking it to levels far too ridiculous when she rescues something like 15 dogs from an animal shelter. Does she realise, as we do, that the dogs couped up and living in their own filth in her apartment is not the best option for them?

But then, she's supposed to be losing her mind. But that's not really something I found all that enjoyable to witness. Especially when it had so little purpose. For instance, she's mental and stealing money from her workplace to send to animal rescue funds, and she gets fired. Oh, wait a minute, she's crazy, so all is forgiven, and she gets her job back. So, what was the point?

I just hated this movie. I hate it more and more. I thought it exploited my own love of animals to wrench emotion from me (the scene in the dog pound, for instance), but without anything nearing a satisfying pay off.

I'm told there is subtle, specific humour to this movie that makes it close to genius filmmaking. I saw no such humour, just stupid moments that might pass for comedy in the minds of people who find Molly Shanon funny in the first place. The scene where she's looking for the poison that killed her dog in John C. Reilly's garage as soon as they return from a date -- oh my god. That was my first instinct that something was wrong here. He was saying, "are you looking for something?" when it's blatantly obvious she is, as is what she's looking for. Then she leans over and White closes in on her butt, and then Reilly goes in for the hug, even though ice-queen Molly Shannon is giving off no vibes whatsoever, and then, ooh, it's awkward! Subtle comedy? Stupid comedy.

I read a review that said Mike White has an "ear for character". I don't think that's quite true. Shrewish wives, whipped husbands, rude neighbours, man-obsessed best friends, uptight bosses? Which one of those is not stock-standard and boring as batshit?

Next time, Mike White...

1/5

Straightheads (aka. Closure), dir. Dan Reed (2007)

NIKKI says:
Yet another revenge-fantasy film -- it's almost an epidemic. We've had the Death Wish films and spin-offs, last year we had The Brave One and the Sean Bean Outlaw movie, and now this. What is it about taking the law into our own hands that thrills us just so much?

This one really wasn't up to par for me. I think in a genre so overdone, much within it quickly become cliched, as it sure did here. Unless there's a twist, which this one attempts then quickly drops.

Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer are attacked (he's near-blinded, she's raped), and when they learn one of the perpetrators lives near Anderson's dead father's shack, they plot their revenge. This far in and Anderson is a changed woman, once carefree and a bit tarty, she's now glare-eyed and intense, not wanting to report her rape, but unable to let the horrors of it go. Her solution, of course, is to torture her attacker as she was tortured. She gets herself a war rifle, and waits to take her best shot.

But it's never that easy, is it? That twist and a few turns later, and Anderson and Dyer are carrying out their torture as plotted. So why the twist at all? For a second, Anderson's character had the chance to really do something interesting, but she didn't, and we were left wanting. These were two main characters delivered to us with a variety of flaws, yet none of these wound up impacting the characters or their decisions at all. The opening could have featured any two people. Why were these guys set up the way they were, which was odd to say the least, especially when the film wants us to root for them? They weren't bad people, they just weren't your stock standard couple-that-gets-attacked. Ultimately, whoever they were pre-attack just didn't matter.

Not a great film, but not awful, and there were some genuinely tense moments. I'm really starting to enjoy this Danny Dyer guy, too.
2.5/5

Scream 3, dir. Wes Craven (2000)

STEVE says:
And we end our Scream-athon with a resounding thud.

Scream 3 is not good; it knows this, and doesn't try to hide it. What it does, instead, is try to distract you from that fact with ridiculous cameos by Carrie Fisher and Jay and Silent Bob, more pop culture references than the first two movies combined, and a general comedic feeling that doesn't balance well with the tenser moments. Fortunately for them, unfortunately for us, the tense moments are few and far between, and tend not to throw off the comedy. The problem is, the comedy isn't that funny in the first place.

I lay this all at the feet of Ehren Kruger, one of the worst screenwriters since Edward D. Wood, Jr. Thanks, Ehren, for ruining a perfectly good trilogy.

1.5/5

NIKKI says:
I'd forgotten just how terrible this movie was. Something made me remember it as silly but good fun. Turns out, it's really just silly. And a disappointing wrap-up for the trilogy.

I think the badness here has much to do with Kevin Williamson stepping aside as writer. As much as I found myself not enjoying Part 2, at least it felt like Scream film. This one feel so unlike a Scream film that sometimes I found myself shocked to see the stars of the original film even in it. It feels like a rip-off, like an attempt to replicate the original films. And perhaps that's what the third-in-series movies do, but this one goes to great lengths to let us know it's not a "third" movie, but the end of a trilogy -- something with rules all its own.

Again, the eventual killer/s are revealed and its all just so standard. "Your mother was my mother, too!" How ridiculous. The killer should have been Randy, or something. We needed to be jolted in this movie -- really have the tables turn on us, as Randy suggests should happen in a movie like this one. Instead, we retread the end of the first film, only with new characters as the boring culprits. BORING.

And the voice-alterer was just the stupidest thing ever.

1.5/5

Scream 2, dir. Wes Craven (1997)

STEVE says:
There are things about Scream 2 that I liked, and there are things that just didn't work at all.

The good bits are the returning characters, Sidney, Dewey, Randy and Gale Weathers. They're not unlikable, and we care about their fate - unlike the characters in most other slasher movies these days.

The pop culture references are still there, but not in the same in-your-face kind of way they were in the first film. We've done that already, Scream 2 seems to say, we don't need to push it.

And even the bits that didn't work out didn't detract from the film. The opening scene, for example, doesn't work. I've never been to a premiere where the point of the evening is not to watch the movie, but to run up and down the aisles screaming like idiots. But I have limited life experience, so I'll let that one pass. The idea that the killer is somehow trying to replay the murders from the first film by killing off characters with similar names in the same order is pointed out, then dropped. There's no point to this, but it's also insane. What are the odds that the killer would find a Maureen and a corresponding Stephen (or in this case a surname, Stephens) who happen to be dating, and who happen to have gone to the premiere of Stab, the movie about the events from the first film? Slim to fucking none, is what. And that his third victim, Casey, happens to be the "sober sister" on the night of a sorority party, hence the only one home alone to be killed is equally as ludicrous.

But I say again, these things don't necessarily detract from the film. Okay, the killer thing doesn't quite work. In Scream we were told pretty much from the word Go that Billy Loomis was the killer, and this point is reiterated several times throughout the film, no matter how much evidence is presented against. When he turns out to be the killer, we're surprised, but we're also kicking ourselves for not seeing it sooner. Watching Scream with the knowledge that Billy and his pal Stu are in on it together, you can see that they don't really ever try to hide it. The scene in the video store where they're both intimidating Randy gives it away - if you know what you're looking for.

But in Scream 2, the killers are just kind of thrown at you in the end. Olyphant's Mickey is introduced early on, listed as a suspect, then dismissed because his being a suspect also makes Randy a suspect. So we just move on, and only see Mickey maybe two or three more times for probably as many minutes before the big reveal. There's no development at all. The same is true of his partner, Mrs. Loomis. She's seen as a reporter throughout the movie, then - Surprise! She's not who we told you she was.

Unlike the first movie, there was no chance of piecing this one together, and that's kind of cheating so it loses points on that score. But I still think it's fun, and that's it's a logical extension of the events from the first, so for me it balances out.

3/5


NIKKI says:
Wow, I thought I liked this movie way more than I apparently do. Watching this time, the first time in quite a few years, I found myself, more and more, picking out just what I dislike about it, from the stupid opening bit in movie theatre with Jada Pinkett, to the unsatisfying ending.

Between viewings, it just all went to crap, I guess.

Basically, where the first film riffed on horror films, this one has a go at their sequels. I now find the sequel-humour really quite twee. In a sequel, Randy tells us, there's more blood, a higher body count, and everyone is, once again, a suspect. Only that's not how I read most sequels. Usually, the cast is all different, the blood and body counts are similar, because sequels are usually replicas just with slightly altered settings and personalities. Wasn't the second Friday still set at the Lake? Wasn't the second Nightmare still about the knife-guy invading people's dreams? I don't know, but the po-mo hilarity of the first movie just does not translate because you just know it wasn't the filmmakers' intent to make a sub-par movie, which, this being a sequel, it has no choice but to be. It was like, let's riff on sequels and then... not.

Sadly, this one is just poorly written all together. The eventual killer is barely in the thing, and his partner sticks out as a suspect from way early on simply because, at the time, she (like everyone else here) was a famous TV star, only NOT a TV star likely to show up in a film like this for nothing. So, the conclusions led to here are all very ho-hum. The stand-out feature in this one is Jerry O'Connell as the boyfriend. I almost wish he was the killer in the end, instead his niceness and humour add up to nothing as he's laid to waste like some other characters we actually liked (Randy, for instance).

So, no. Does not live up either to it's predecessor, or to my original feelings. It did give the world Timothy Olyphant, and for that we are grateful.

2.5/5

Scream, dir. Wes Craven (1995)

STEVE says:
After the abysmal effort last night, we decided to just go back and watch Scream. While you could argue that there's nothing particularly original about Scream itself, as far as the material goes, the originality of the presentation cannot be faulted.

It's an example of pop culture catching up with itself, but it's as much of a slasher movie in its own right as it is an homage to those that came before it. (Specifically Halloween, which is referenced everywhere in this movie.) What bothers me about it is the way many of those pop culture references are handled.

A conversation between Drew Barrymore's Casey and the killer (though she doesn't yet know it) goes like this:

Killer: What's your favorite scary movie.
Casey: Um... Halloween. You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters?
Killer: Yeah.
Casey: What's yours?
Killer: Guess.
Casey: Um... Nightmare on Elm Street.
Killer: Is that the one where the guy had knives for fingers?
Casey: Yeah, Freddy Krueger.
Killer: Freddy, that's right.

So you're already making a movie for fans of horror movies - I think it's safe to assume that your target audience doesn't need an explanation as to who two of the biggest horror heroes are, especially if your whole movie is predicated on the horror movie as pop culture. A bit sloppy, that.

I still find Scream extremely enjoyable - even nearly 13 years on. And, Kevin Williamson's sometimes-too-clever dialog aside, it proves that these things are better left to professionals.

4/5

NIKKI says:
Somehow, we wound up spending the day watching the Scream movies. It was good for us, I think, to be reminded that there are good teen-horror flicks out there, and that at one point in time, someone cared to get things right. Weird that that person was Kevin Williamson, but all praise to him for his insight and intelligence regarding the horror genre. Now, the poor guy gets blamed for the lame ducks that followed him, self-referencing all over the place, and basically trying to copy good horror movies and failing miserably. I don't blame him, though. He wasn't to know. But then, he did have something to do with I Know What You Did Last Summer, so maybe he is to blame? And maybe that's why we don't see him much anymore. He's hiding his shame.

I still like Scream a lot, all these years later. Can you believe 13 years have passed? That's 13 years of horrible copycats. It's still fresh, it's characters are still cool and likable in the right way. It's scares are still scary, and it's horror still effective. It doesn't take the self-referencing too far (even with Fonzie's combing of the hair), and when it does self-reference, it does it to good effect.

I also really like the style of this one. It has a real individual mood to it, with its big crane shots, and the "Red Right Hand" musical motif. Craven has come along way himself, since Shocker and the like. It's like he went to technique school prior to shooting this. So, that adds to the fun.

All round, a good experience.

4/5

7eventy-5ive, dir. Brian Hooks, Deon Taylor (2007)

STEVE says:
Here's how bafflingly stupid this Scream wannabe is: We're at a college party. Our heroes are playing a phone-prank game called "Seventy-Five". Marcus (director Brian Hooks pulling double-duty) explains the rules: "You have 75 seconds - that's one minute and fifteen seconds - to completely trick the person on the other end of the line into believing what you're pitching is absolutely real. If they hang up, you lose. If they laugh, you lose. Or if they're simply not buying the bullshit that you're pitching, you lose."

Okay, so in a classy montage sequence, we see a couple of these calls play out. Some work, some don't. Then it's Scott's turn. Now Scott somehow manages to dial the same random number that Marcus dialed ten years ago when he and some of these same kids were playing 75 at a sleepover, and - get this - just happens to reach the same psycho who, later that night, came and killed all of their parents who had been partying in the next room. (Why didn't he kill the kids, the perpetrators of the prank? Well, we wouldn't have a movie then, would we?) This whole set-up may seem preposterous, but when Scott is revealed to be the killer (not the original killer, no, presumably he's still roaming free) and we learn that the number he dialed wasn't so random - it was his buddy who was in on the whole plot with him - it becomes less preposterous and more contrived.

So they get freaked out and hang up, but the killer calls back. They hang up, and he rings again, but they just let the phone ring and ring for the rest of the night. Rather than, you know, take it off the hook or something.

Eventually, one of the party girls answers the phone. The voice on the other end asks for directions to the house. Now one might assume Scott had given his buddy the address long before, but then we wouldn't have had the most magnificent bit of direction I've ever seen (which I'll get to in a moment). "Bimbo Barbie" gives the address to the guy, and Kareem, one of the other cookie-cutter characters, starts yelling at her. Marcus rushes in to break up the argument, and Kareem explains, without taking a breath, "Man, she all be answerin' the damn phone, giving out the damn directions to somebody, man, we been watching that phone ring all night!" To which this Bimbo replies, "What is your problem? It was the Pizza Man!"

Now here is where Brian Hooks proves either that he should never direct again, or that he has nothing but the deepest contempt for his audience.

Marcus repeats, "Pizza Man?", then turns to his left - there's a pizza, half eaten, on the table. Indicating that the Pizza Man had already been there, get it? Well, in case you didn't, Marcus looks straight ahead where there's another half-eaten pizza. Okay? Got it? No? Well, fear not because Marcus looks to the sofa where there's yet a third half-eaten pizza!

Fuck you, dude.

I really don't know what else to say about this. It wasn't scary, it wasn't funny, it wasn't worth my time.

1/5

N1KK1 5ay5:
Isn't numbers in title just the lamest thing? I wa going to go to bed after the Vin Diesel movie, but ended up suffering through 7eventy 5ive instead. If ever I wanted the chance to go back in time...

So, to be fair, when this movie first arrived at the shop, I had no intention of renting it. Not because I thought it was crappy horror (Lord knows we can't keep away from those), but because I thought it was an action-cop movie. That's what the jacket art says to me. And because it has numbers in the title. Well, a customer told me it was an excellent film, full of twists and turns, and something really different and new. I took her word for it, because someone else also recommended the film to me. So, I gave it a shot, actually quite intrigued about the whole thing. I thought it could be a Severance -- it looks like shit, but it's actually really cool.

Now, I'm shocked at these people. How anyone could label this movie different and original, let alone even remotely good had to be insane. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen, and man have I seen some shit.

The film is poorly written, poorly acted, full of cliches and plot holes, and, when deconstructed, makes very little sense at all. I can't believe we made it through the whole thing. But then we did watch Thr3e.

I'll never believe another customer.

My T0P T3N 7eventy Five Why-oh-Whys...
1. Why-oh-why did the killer attack the parents in the beginning when it was the kids making the prank calls?

2. Why-oh-why did the kids all get adopted out rather than move in with relatives?

3. Why-oh-why was it important that Haircut cheated on Blondie with a fat girl? It had no relevance at all to anything in the story.

4. Why-oh-why did no one hear the murders going on in other rooms in the house?

5. Why-oh-why did the cops say the kids were spread all over the country, and yet here were so many of them at the party?

6. Why-oh-why did the cops show up at the end? Why did they go missing for about 45 minutes at the end of the film just to show up at the last minute, kill the wrong kid, and then (presumably) die? How did they find the house, why did they go there, why were they going there?

7. Why-oh-why did everyone in the film say the original murders took place "10 years ago" and yet Marcus says it was 12?

8. Why-oh-why was Marcus still playing this game after the carnage 10 or 12 years before? If these kids were in the circle during the original game, why did none of them go, hey, no, this was that game that got our parents slashed up and us all adopted out!

9. Why-oh-why did Haircut bag out those cops so severely? That went nowhere.

10. Why-oh-why were there two Scotts in the bathroom scene? Here is an explanation for the ending by someone on the Database who you just know is one of the writers:

"Scott" isn't actually Scott, he's William - one of the kids at the beginning who survived. He's the geeky kid with the glasses who picked up the phone in the middle of the night. The real Scott, was the other brother at the beginning, who was leaning over his mothers body and staring at geeky William (fake Scott).

The fake Scott whose at the party and is one of the killers, is - in short, taking his brothers name as they look exactly the same. The guy in the hoodie in the bathroom was the REAL Scott, that's why Marcus stared at him as he hadn't seen him since the incident when they were kids.

I have nothing else to say. Except: Rutger Hauer, you are disowned.

No stars.

Find Me Guilty, dir. Sidney Lumet (2006)

STEVE says:
Something about Find Me Guilty felt less than cinematic to me. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were watching an HBO movie. Not that that's a bad thing, but I was surprised in the end to find that it had a cinematic release.

It was interesting to see Vin Diesel in something that didn't have explosions in it every ten minutes, but I still don't see any acting awards in his future. He was likable enough as Jackie DiNorscio, the gangster with a heart, defending himself on a conspiracy charge in what would become the longest mafia trial in US history, and of course you want to see him beat the wrap.

But whether he's guilty of this charge or not, he is - by his own admission - guilty of many others. He's not a good guy, and we shouldn't be in his corner. As prosecuting attorney Sean Kierney says upon hearing one of the female jurors thinks Jakie is cute:

"Does she have any idea how much money these bastards cost her? If a hammer and a nail are used - her house, her daughter's apartment - every fucking thing is costing her more because of these 'cute' guys. She sees a truck carrying concrete? She's paying for it. Garbage being picked up at a restaurant? She's paying for it. She buys perfume from France, gloves from Italy? She's paying more because it came off a fucking boat! Not to mention that they fucking kill people from time to time!"

A compelling argument. But wait, Kierney wants to put our guy in prison. So what do we do? Well, let's make him a weasely schmuck. I hate when movies do this. It's a short cut that bypasses character development altogether. And casting Linus Roache just seals the deal. It's less than I would have expected from Sidney Lumet.

Worth noting, though, is Peter Dinklage as Ben Klandis, one of the defense attorneys. Apart from his standing on a riser to speak to the jury - and even this is done without making a joke out of it - nothing is made of his stature. He plays the role as a guy who's a lawyer, not a dwarf who's a lawyer. I'd love to see him get more work of this kind.

2.5/5

NIKKI says:
I enjoyed this movie really for the history lesson more than anything else. I was definitely intrigued by how the whole thing played out, knowing nothing at all about the story. The biggest mob trial in history is won seemingly because one mob man chose to act as his own attorney, revealing a blue-collar character with skewed moral decency to the jury who just ate it up.

Vin Diesel was convincing as Jackie DiNoscio, and kept the entertainment level high. Steve was on to something, though, when he said the thing felt like a TV movie. It did, and, as we discussed after the movie, it balanced poorly it's comedy and it's drama. Linus Roach as the prosecuting attorney pointed out so many reasons why this mob group deserved to go to jail, and yet we were rooting for Jackie, so suave and funny and likable.

So, yeah, not a hit, not nearly a miss. Just somewhere in between.

2.5/5

The Nines, dir. John August (2007)

STEVE says:
I hate nothing more than a movie I need a director's commentary to understand.

Case in point, Donnie Darko: I'm one of two people I know who think it's less than genius, but I maintain that if I need Richard Kelly to explain what his movie is all about, it is he who failed, not I.

I feel the same way about John August's The Nines. It started off shakily, became interesting, then ended on a pseudo-spiritual note that I'm still trying to figure out.

Not that I didn't understand the movie - God (or close enough) gets too involved with his work down here on Earth and starts role-playing certain characters, all creative people, all involved in entertainment, and his god-buddies from back home, cleverly disguised as mere mortals, try and snap him out of it. That was plain enough. But it begged too much explanation in other areas.

Why, for example, did the Margaret character - a human - seem to know all about "the nines"? It's she who explains to Ryan Reynolds' "Gary" about the number system.

GARY: Are you saying I’m God?
MARGARET: Technically, no. If God is a ten, a theoretical ultimate, you’re more of a nine.
GARY: So what are you?
MARGARET: Humans are sevens. Monkeys are sixes.
GARY: What are the eights?
MARGARET: Koalas. They’re telepathic. Plus, they control the weather.

Where's she getting this information? Nines, sixes, eights? On what scale? What the hell?

Other things bothered me, too. Reynolds is playing three characters: Gary, an actor; Gavin, a TV writer; and Gabriel, a character in the show Gavin has written.

Whoa, there.

A character. Not the actor who plays the character, but the character. Within the story that Gavin has written. Make that make sense for me.

Make any of this make sense for me.

Whether the answers lie in the director's commentary or not, I shouldn't have to leave a movie asking, "What does any of it mean?" But perhaps that's the joke - an existentialist movie that leaves the viewer asking the same questions as about life itself.

If so, it's a cruel joke.

2.5/5

NIKKI says:
I just found out John August's The Nines is semi-autobiographical. In the film, Ryan Reynolds plays three parts -- an actor too close to his work, a writer too close to his work, and a game designer to close to his work. This too-closeness is supposedly unhealthy, and causes nothing but devastation for these characters. Apparently, August suffered a bit of a similar meltdown when trying to keep his personal life in order while trying to steer his WB show, DC to success. Add to this a four-month addiction to the role-paying Internet game, World of WarCraft and you can see how August might have reinvented himself in the guise of Ryan Reynolds' Gary/Gavin/Gabriel character.

With that in mind, the existential elements of this film make sense. It's all about the artist as God and the repercussions of blurring the lines between what is real and what the artist creates. Still upon closer examination, the big questions asked here have few satisfying answers. The art/artist debate seems to fall by the wayside at the film's end, and to say why gives too much away. I will say, though, that I couldn't decide if the film was about parallel lives, roads not taken, the artist as God, or any other of the alluded to stuff. Gary was hearing things upstairs, for instance -- is it Gavin, and if it is, why doesn't Gabriel ever hear noises beyond his realm? Too much left un- (or under) explained.

Little bits and pieces throughout pointed towards the film's eventual failure. There was much steering from the tracks, such as Hope Davis's cabaret moment singing "Is That All There Is." What was that about? I get the feeling August was trying to create a Charlie Kaufman or David Lynch script, full of weird and wonderful asides and images. Those writers, though, seem to know how everything interconnects. And even if it doesn't, it's not entirely out of place. Like when Ben sings in Blue Velvet -- it might not relate directly to the plot, but it builds character and atmosphere. In The Nines, it makes us laugh at its silliness as it in no way furthers the plot or characters.

The more I consider it, the less I like The Nines. I did enjoy Ryan Reynolds -- it's hard not to. And I won't give up on John August just yet. I liked Go too much to do that.

2/5

The Funhouse, dir. Tobe Hooper (1981)

STEVE says:
Surprisingly, this is the first time I'd seen The Funhouse. It was released when I was 10, and I may have seen bits of it on HBO because I remembered the shower scene in the beginning, but I know I never got to see the whole movie until tonight.

Sadly, it leaves me questioning Tobe Hooper's contribution to the horror genre.

The Funhouse was slow-moving, nearly bloodless, had nothing in the way of scares, and only two scenes with anything approaching tension. This from the Texas Chain Saw guy? Shameful.

Chain Saw is a milestone, there's no argument there. But how much shite like Eaten Alive, The Funhouse, Invaders from Mars and The Mangler do we have to endure before we realize TCM was a fluke that fell into the right-place/right-time category? He's surely not getting any better with age, as his more recent contributions, Mortuary and Toolbox Murders, attest. And, in keeping true to form, he's apparently directing From a Buick 8, which was a shitty Stephen King novel that will no doubt translate into a shitty movie no matter who the director is. It's sad, really.

The only thing The Funhouse had going for it was its lead, Elizabeth Berridge (Stanzi from Amadeus) who was just cute as a button and not nearly nude enough for a teen-horror flick from this period.

1.5/5

NIKKI says:
Oh my god, this was shit. And I was so looking forward to it.

I don't know why I was so excited about this movie. Probably because I'd read the book as a teen, and remembered really liking it. That and I've had a thing about carnivals and circuses for a long time. A horror movie set at a carnival? Shouldn't they ALL be? But, man, this was terrible. I can't believe Tobe Hooper sees fit to rave about it, as he does in an interview on the DVD. How could you be proud of this? It was terrible. I found it exploitative, senseless, and, worst of all, boring. I don't remember a single jolt, a tiny thrill. Nothing. Just me sitting there waiting 'til the end.

And I don't even know why we waited -- we turned off Eaten Alive, another Tobe Hooper "masterpiece". I say masterpiece because this is the body of work that is supposed to put Hooper in the same league as Romero and Argento. But is he? With one good movie under his very questionable director's belt?

Steve said the other day that he wanted to watch some good movies that weren't depressing like Away From Her and The Bridge and Brokeback Mountain. Where are they? I'm starting to hate our project and movies in general.

1/5

Pelts, dir. Dario Argento (2006)

STEVE says:
Dario, you're better than this.

Pelts didn't suck. It was no Chocolate, not by a long shot, and it was better than your first entry, Jenifer. But it wasn't great. It wasn't Homecoming great, or Black Cat great. With those, Dante and Gordon (respectively) managed to make an hour of TV feel like a cinematic experience. The Black Cat is the reason we've taken to including the Masters of Horror segments in this project. But Pelts just felt like TV.

And you're no stranger to TV. We've seen Do You Like Hitchcock? and quite liked it - actually liked it a lot more than your cinematic offerings of late. So what went wrong? There were bits that looked like Argento - the kid with the trap, for example, and the woman sewing her face up - but they felt like they were done by someone else entirely. Like you didn't have your game face on.

What's the story, Dario? Do you need the money? Was this just a paycheck to you?

Don't get me wrong, I'll still be there for La Terza Madre - finishing off your Three Mothers trilogy after nearly 30 years, how could I not be? - but a little part of me wonders if it'll be worth it...

2/5

NIKKI says:
All together now... "meh".

I think we both said it when this ended. Not a horrible entry in the series, but nothing to rave about. The film was graphic and gross as far as the effects, but just not as gripping and hair-tearing-out tense as Dario often is. Still, even at his shittiest, Dario is a cut above most horror directors, which is probably why this didn't wholly suck.

And, imagine, a Masters of Horror episode by an actual Master of Horror. It had to happen eventually.

Meat Loaf is a guy who collects and sells "pelts" -- I'd never heard that word before, and prior to finding out thought this was a film about heavy rain. Meat then sells the pelts for good money. The better the pelt, the more cash he gets. So, when crazy John Saxon interrupts Meat mid-lapdance to offer him the best pelts ever, Meat is intrigued. He goes to get them and finds Saxon and his protege dead. Not just dead, really dead -- Saxon with his head beaten crudgy via baseball bat, and the kid with his head chopped in half longways in a bear trap (watch this movie for that scene -- it's foul).

So, we learn the pelts are from a mysterious raccoon tribe and their spirits are making those who come in contact with the soft fur do horrible things to themselves.

What Meat ends up doing has to be seen to be believed. Now, that's horror.

Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Didn't ever need to see Meat getting rubbed up by strippers.

2/5

The Brothers Solomon, dir. Bob Odenkirk (2007)

STEVE says:
This hurt. This hurt bad.

In The Brothers Solomon, two socially inept brothers try to fulfill their father's wish for a grandchild in the hopes of bringing him out of a coma. No, it's not high art. But with Will Arnett starring, Bob Odenkirk directing, and Lee Majors as the comatose dad, it had a shot at being funny. At least until the opening credits, where Odenkirk proves within seconds that he knows how to take a joke too far. And he keeps proving it for the duration of the movie.

Not that I didn't laugh. There was a lot of funny stuff in here - funny, wrong stuff (popcorn and dead bird, I'll say no more) - but it was too idiotic to be any good.

It was only after watching the movie that I noticed the blurb on the DVD packet - "Dumb & Dumber meets Knocked Up..." Whatever recumbent asshole came up with that comparison is absolutely spot on. This movie has all the "charm" of a Farrelly Brothers movie (you know, where they take a fat girl, a schizophrenic or conjoined twins and, through an hour and a half of "hilarious" humiliation, prove that she's/he's/they're just as human as we are), and the "structure" of a Judd Apatow movie (thinly strung-together sketches that pass for scenes, one after another, until we reach the end). All that was missing to round out the Not-As-Funny-As-They-Think-They-Are triumvirate was Kevin Smith. Or maybe Ben Stiller...

Having said that, I will allow that The Brothers Solomon, while shaky, at least hit all the standard plot points - which makes it Citizen Fucking Kane compared to Anchorman, Superbad or Talladega Nights.

1/5

NIKKI says:
I said to Steve when this was over -- how did we get from considering watching this movie to actually watching it? It is so far from anything resembling our interest or taste. I think it had to do with me seeing the box art at work and thinking it might be okay. You cannot resist Will Arnett's dumb face on the cover, I swear. Or maybe, as we movie snobs sometimes do, we just decided to go slumming... We did a similar thing with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. And we ended up laughing our butts off. That didn't really happen here, not as much anyway. We laughed, but we both knew the movie was just lame.

It's the same set-up as Dumb and Dumber and movies like it. Two guys who are untrained in the ways of the modern world go on a quest. Women get involved. They win out in the end because, gosh, stupid people are just so charming and cute. Ugh. Everything that could happen does -- the guys fail in their attempts to woo women, they prove themselves inept dads, they say racist things to a black man. But they're just so cute and we shake our heads and tsk-tsk at the race gags because these guys just don't know any better.

Nor do the writers, who really need some new story lines.

I'm imagining the round-table: "Now, what can we do with stupid people that hasn't already been done...?" Is there anything left, thanks to the Farrellys?

It was stupid humour and dumb story, but it wasn't crude humour, which is good. I laughed at the leads more than I should have. And, seriously, we don't watch enough comedies.

Next up: Pucked! Because if we can get through this, dammit, we can do anything!

1.5/5 (for Will Arnett's face)

Away From Her, dir. Sarah Polley (2006)

NIKKI says:
I've been looking forward to this movie, mainly because it's by Sarah Polley. She's about my age, intensely political, and proves in every movie she does that girls with crooked teeth are hot. I was a bit surprised at her subject matter here, knowing how political she is, and considering her age. But, that's her thing -- she's always different, always surprising.

This is a story about a man coming to terms with his wife's Alzheimer's. It's based on a short story by Canadian author, Alice Munro. I've not read the short story, and perhaps it's set up similarly, but the thing that struck Steve and I the most about the film is its structure. It's steadily told, slowly building its characters, before entirely altering our perceptions of them to enormous effect. In this way, Polley gives what is really a quiet, slow-moving film incredible suspense and rising tension.

I've made no secret of how pissed off I am that Ben Affleck didn't get an Adapted Screenplay nomination for his film -- but Sarah Polley did and that kinda makes up for it. Because she should get it.

Her direction was good, too. She did that thing we love so much where the setting became a real part of the film's story. Lots of lingering shots on the snowy Canadian landscape. Great use of flashbacks, obvious adoration of her actors who are given so much room to just be brilliant.

We were also taken by the performances in the movie. Julie Christie is receiving all the buzz, and she was great, but Gordon Pinsent, who plays her husband, is even better. He never loses this stoic facade, and it's mesmerising.

My memorable moment in the film, and I'll have to find out if it's in the short story, comes when the husband is finally forced to relent and send his wife to "the second floor", where patients entering dementia live out their days. He stands at the elevator. A patient, a former sports broadcaster, who narrates everything he sees as though it's a hockey game, walks by. His summation of the husband's moment is wrenching.

I can't fault this film. It was superb.

5/5.

Unknown White Male, dir. Rupert Murray (2005)

NIKKI says:
So, after this finished, I thought we'd watched an interesting movie about a guy, Doug Bruce, suffering a rare form of memory loss that eradicates his entire history in an instant. It was rather compelling. He had to entirely relearn everything about his life, meet his old friends, his family, and reacquaint himself with basic, everyday things like old rock bands and eating chocolate mousse. His filmmaker friend documents Doug's first year or so in his new mind and body.

The film, at first glance, is quite good. It's interesting and thought-provoking, and really does make you wonder what you would do in Doug's situation. There are pros and cons to losing one's memory, and we learn, through Doug, that perhaps the clean slate is not such a bad thing. He gets to start over. And from the images of Doug's life before losing his memory, he was nice, but a bit of a prat. Now, he's super nice, and relaxed. Doug himself says he likes the idea he can strip his friend group back to those he really wants to spend time with, and says he's not too concerned if he never gets his memory back. He's afraid of what he might remember.

So, all well and good. Who are we anyway? A product of our memories? And what if we didn't have those memories? Look at the doors that open... And then I start to read all these comments from viewers on IMDb. Normally, I hate each and every person who has every expressed an opinion over there, but some compelling arguments were arising that Doug's story was false.

A few examples: Doug says he walked into the Coney Island street in the rain, he later says another time was the first time he'd seen the rain. Why did Doug not know what cricket was, but apparently had no trouble recognising a police station to turn himself in when he first became lost? Why could he speak and write and know how to use a telephone, yet he didn't know, again what cricket was, or how to take photos? The doctors tell us procedural and episodic memory are different. So, isn't it strange to think a guy can remember certain things falling under the category of procedural memory and not others? How did he know how to use a video camera? If he knew a cricket could be an insect why didn't he know it could be a sport? HOw did he know what a dog was? How was he not afraid of cars in the street? Why can he know one thing and not another?

There are quite a few articles out there disputing the truth of this film. The cynic in me finds them rather startling. Apparently, Michel Gondry thinks it's all fake, inspired by his film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And Doug once had a friend experience severe amnesia and leave his old life for a fresh start in Bali.

Here are some statements from a Washington Post article on the film:

"I remember meeting him at a bar with some mutual friends and he started telling this bartender the whole thing," recalls Kishu Chand, a wardrobe stylist who works with photographers and film directors. "It was like he was searching for any excuse to go into it, which just seemed weird to me. I remember asking a friend of mine afterward, 'Are you buying this?' " Her doubts grew later that night, when Bruce handed over his e-mail address, which he told friends he'd registered just days after the incident: unknownwhitemale@yahoo.com."

Hmm. And this:

But eventually, there were doubters. "At first, Doug was very believable and fascinating to be around, but at the same time, there were apparent inconsistencies," says Brown, who quit videotaping Bruce. "On one hand, he had to ask who George Bush was, but on the other, he could hold nuanced conversations about Middle Eastern politics. He would always preface such conversations with the disclaimer, 'I don't know but I've been told,' yet he had an incredible command of the facts and an extremely perceptive insight, and after a few weeks I started to have doubts about the veracity of his story."

Of course, this is all secondhand, but it certainly adds a mystery to the film. Did he lose his memory, or did he want to forget, start new? Who could blame him for wanting a chance to have another go? If he is faking, he's very convincing. I don't really know what I think, but the movie was good, and raised some interesting questions about the human mind and what makes us who we are, or supposedly are.

3/5

The Bridge, dir. Eric Steel (2006)

NIKKI says:
This is a film that will haunt me for a long, long time. The images within of people jumping to their deaths from San Fransisco's Golden Gate bridge were, at times, almost too difficult to bear. Early in the film, we saw the bridge from a far and tiny splashes hitting the water. Then we saw people, in close-up, leaping to their deaths. It was horrible, compelling, amazing. At the end of the film, I wondered what right these filmmakers had to film these people in their final moments, without their knowledge or permission. But deep down I know such a picture, painting as starkly and beautifully as this is not exploitation or invasion, it's about documenting something so incredible in our world. Like pictures from war, maybe.

The film shows us a side of life we might not often consider. We might be well aware of suicide and its many forms, but you realise you know very little until you see Gene Sprague leap onto the railing at the end of this film and just fly, with confidence, grace, and urgency. It's perhaps the most brilliant image I think I've seen on film. There's tragedy in the moment, but there's nobility as well. And that's what this film does -- challenges us and out thoughts on suicide and death in general. Are these people tragic, desperate souls? Or are they brave people desiring spectacular entry into the next realm?

I can't remember the last time I saw a film that challenged me in this way. I was torn between so many viewpoints here. The filmmakers sat at different points around the bridge and filmed 24 hours a day and seven days a week for an entire year. They could many jumpers on tape and entered into the lives of some of those people for some background. Are all jumpers alike? Do they all share the same reasons? Who are the people behind the images? When they saw a potential jumper, they could call the coast guard and send rescuers onto the bridge, essentially interfering with people's lives. I wondered if they should do that? Of course, it's phenomenal to save a life, bu -- ugh -- I don't know... There's a scene in the film where a photographer pulls a potential jumper back over the bridge railing. I thought it was amazing, but I couldn't help but wonder if it was the right thing to do. I mean, of course it was the right thing to do, but is it prolonging the inevitable? Is it interference? I know the photographer was right, and I think he's a fucking hero. But there's this piece of me that wonders, on some other level, about the fallout from his choice. I would have loved to have heard from that rescued girl.

My being torn about all these things, though, made the film even more of an experience. Like I said, I can't remember ever going through so many emotions in film.

4.5/5.