Tropic Thunder

Director: Ben Stiller
Writers: Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen
Released: 2008
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Nick Nolte

NIKKI says: So, who knew this was gonna be the most freakin' hilarious thing ever? Okay, so not EVER, but it was damn funny. I'm so over Ben Stiller, which made me shrug this one off as yet another vanity piece for the guy to go around yelling and making stupid faces. Consider -- he's really only got one classic in his comedy list and that's Zoolander. Everything else is just annoying. So, how is it that this works? Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that his character in this movie is very much like Derek Zoolander. A passionate innocent, with a huge ego and a small brain. Welcome back, Ben. I like you again.

So, this new Ben is on the set making a movie in the jungle with rebel drug makers trying to kill him which he thinks is fake movie magic but after certain bizarre circumstances becomes completely real. He fumbles his way through the whole thing as his friends and fellow actors try to save him. Jack Black plays a heroin addict on detox whose only claim to fame is fart-joke movies, and Robert Downey, Jnr plays an Australian actor so immersed in his character of a black man that he can't stop talking like Mr. T.

Their mission to get Ben and go home occurs as Ben's agent, Matthew McCaonaughey, tries to get Tivo to his client trapped in the jungle without entertainment. He has to battle the big studio boss, Tom Cruise, to make this happen. But Tom wants to let Ben die and claim the insurance and buy Matthew a plane. So, Matthew has a moral dilemma on his hands, and Tom Cruise dances around a lot like a sex-monkey FREAK.

It's so ridiculous, I could not stop laughing. Who thinks of these things? I did enjoy the parallels between actors on set and soldiers in the jungle. That was very clever, and the way the whole thing pulled together with Cruise as some crazy President-like guy sacrificing his actors for money -- it was good.

I can see us going back to it every year like we do with Zoolander. Maybe we can double-team the both of the them?

"A little twig-man Oscar. I 'm going to call you Half-Squat, and you can call me ... papa."

Half-squat.

3/5

The Hitcher

Director: Robert Harmon
Writer: Eric Red
Released: 1986
Cast: C. Thomas Howell, Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Lee, Jeffrey DeMunn

NIKKI says: I love going back to these old movies with new eyes. Steve said we should watch this with the idea that Jim Halsey and John Rider are the same guy. Apparently, that's a theory going around -- they are actually one and the same, and it's Jim going around doing these horrible things in some Tyler Durden split-personality freak parade.

So, I considered... and I could see where such confusion might come about. There are times when Jim seems completely nuts and just a paranoid kid. But then there are times when gas stations blow up and women get ripped in half by guys driving trucks that cops have told Jim to go and talk to. So, no -- whoever thought Jim and Rider were the same is a fool. The cops can SEE John Rider -- are you MENTAL?

Still, it was fun to look at in a different way. I still enjoy the movie after all these years. It used to freak me out way more than it does, and I always used to put it up there with Duel as far as the suspense. But I don't so much anymore. The more I see it, the more standard it becomes. That doesn't mean it's any less effective, but looking back, it could be more terrifying, and more freaky, and it could also be a bit more realistic, because at times, and maybe I saw this because I was trying to see Rider as Jim, but sometimes Rider seems supernatural. He can go anywhere, get into anything, do anything and never really get caught until the end. So, maybe that lets me down a bit now? He's not as scary a guy when there's that ghostly element to him.

But a good movie nonetheless. And Robert Harmon is one of the most underrated artists in film. He should be the touchstone for all young up and coming cinematographers. In fact, he should just work more. Where are you Robert Harmon?

3/5

An American Werewolf in London

Director: John Landis
Writer: John Landis
Released: 1981
Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine, Brian Glover

WALL-E

Director: Andrew Stanton
Writers: Andrew Stanton, John Reardon
Released: 2008s
Cast: Ben Burtt, Ellisa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver

NIKKI says: There's just something about that little trash machine that's had me obsessed with seeing this film for a while. I hate the cinema these days, though, so I was happy to wait for DVD much as it was killing me. But, a spur of the moment decision led us to the movies to finally see it. And I absolutely loved every second of it. Which is to say, I loved every second of Wall-E. Is there anything in the universe ever that is cuter than him? I can't think of a single thing. I can't think of a single moment in my entire life -- and I've seen a lot of CUTE -- that rivals the heart-melting two seconds when Wall-E tips his trash can lid hat to mimic Michael Crawford in Hello Dolly. There's nothing cuter in world history. And it makes me want to give this movie five stars.

But ... I wished the whole thing had been just Wall-E and Eve running around, because I didn't enjoy myself as much when the humans came into it. I can see the point being made about our fat ass lives and how we're just ruining everything with our need for more, more, more, and easier, easier, easier. But humans on the whole were kinda fat and stupid and I didn't really enjoy that aspect of the movie.

Still, I was distracted from that most of the time by Wall-E and Eve. Ohh, they were just great, and whoever wrote thier little love connection story is a genius, because without words this great love story just came to life. It was fascinating to watch. Two characters who don't really ever say anything, and yet you see every moment, every emotion, every instance that drives them into this relationship. It's adorable.

So, I loved it. If the humans had been made a bit more realistic, I would give it a five.

4/5

Deer Woman

Director: John Landis
Writer: John Landis, Max Landis
Released: 2005
Cast: Brian Benben, Anthony Griffith, Cinthia Moura, Sonja Bennett

NIKKI says: Mmm... did I like Deer Woman? Not really. It's not something I would go back to. It was a bit silly, and though I recognise it had a sense of humour about itself, I still felt that strange Landis sheen over the top of it that draws me away from his other films in the same way. Why do I just dislike Landis so much? I don't know... but this was bearable, which is more than I can say about much of the other Masters of Horror episodes we've endured.

The gist is this: after a string of murders, a burned-out cop suggests the dead men are being killed by a deer-like creature. He discovers, then, a Native American legend that suggests that very thing -- a half-woman, half-deer creature exists that goes around seducing and stomping men.

Yep. And so it's up to the cop to bring it all home. Brian Benben plays the cop, and it was so great watching him after all these years. I don't think I've seen him in anything since Dream On, which counting Thriller and The Blues Brothers is only one of the few Landis thing I've really liked.

It was okay. No Homecoming, but okay.

2/5

Backwoods

Director: Marty Weiss
Writer: Anthony Jaswinski
Released: 2008
Cast: Jonathan Chase, Haylie Duff, Willow Geer, John Hemphill, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Danny Nucci

STEVE says: When I said I wanted to do a Horror Classics month to counter balance all the crap we'd been watching, this was exactly the sort of thing I was talking about counter balancing.

Lifting bits from The Hills Have Eyes II (2007), Lake Dead (2007), Severance (2006), Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), See No Evil (2006) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990), as well as a kill from Southern Comfort (1981), "original" is something Backwoods was never going to be accused of being. But neither is "boring", for that matter, so that's something.

I'm going to have to watch something really good now to counter balance this. Night of the Creeps good. Re-animator good. It didn't exactly suck - it was no Brutal, for example - but I could think of better ways to spend an evening.

2/5

NIKKI says: And once again I'm reminded why it's NOT as fun as it looks to pick random scare-fests off the New Release wall to bring home. Ohh, Backwoods, I said, it's like Severance, and it could be fun.

I should be banned from my own shop. It was shit. I knew it would be shit. And I am ashamed. But, it wasn't as shit as most. So, I might not get banned, just temporarily booted.

Apologies all around.

1.5/5

Roadkill (aka Joy Ride)

Director: John Dahl
Writer: Clay Tarver, JJ Abrahms,
Released: 2001
Cast: Steve Zahn, Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski, Ted Levine

STEVE says: Much like Session 9, I didn't expect much from this one and ended up thoroughly digging it. You'd think I'd learn a lesson.

Walker and Zahn play brothers, driving halfway across the country to pick the friend Sobieski up from college. Just for kicks, Zahn picks up a CB radio to kill time along the way, and ends up pranking a truck driver who goes by the handle Rusty Nail. And then the fun begins.

A mix of road movies like The Hitcher and Duel with some Hitchcock thrown in for good measure, Roadkill is better than my preconceived notions would have had me believe. But isn't that always the way?

3.5/5

NIKKI says: I really like this movie. And it's the kind of movie we should hate -- a derivative, rather tame horror film with super-sexy stars of the day. It's all shiny and glossy. It should be right up there with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. But, somehow, it's not. It has traces of The Hitcher and Duel, and a little bit of I Saw What You Did, but it stands on its own as a decent modern suspense flick. It's a popcorn movie, absolutely, with some great scares, some fun, and a couple of surprisingly awesome performances from Paul Walker and Steve Zahn.

Actually, you know, that's one of the major draws for me about this movie -- I have a feeling Steve Zahn might have adlibbed all his lines. And it's hilarious. If he didn't adlib, then he definitely came up with his own line readings because everyhting is yelled or popped or screamed in places where it so shouldn't be. And it's so great to watch. There were times when Steve and I were sure Paul Walker wasn't acting but reacting to Zahn's bizarreness. It gives the thing an extra dimension having Zahn in there nstead of another pretty boy or a chick, or whatever else could have inserted easily in.

It loses me a bit at the end, when everything starts to come together -- it goes a bit over the top for me, but the lead up is sensational. I love it.

3/5

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Director: Kenneth Bowser
Writer: Kenneth Bowser
Released: 2003
Cast: Roger Corman, Peter Bogdanovich, Karen Black, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bart, Peter Fonda, Mickey Dolenz, Richard Dreyfuss

STEVE says: For film class this term I thought we'd watch flicks from the guys who changed the way films were made - at least for a little while. To introduce the class to the type of films we'd be looking at, I decided to show them this doco first.

Good as it is, it's pretty much what you'd expect - Corman, Nicholson, Bogdanovich and Hopper give way to Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas and Scorsese as the doco chronicles Hollywood's brief taking-over by the long-hairs after the demise of the studio system, only to wrest control away from them in the end. Sad, really.

Got me thinking, though - next term we might just watch movies about movies. Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, The Player, State and Main, or some docos like and Hearts of Darkness and Lost in La Mancha.

3.5/5

Nikki did not view.

Session 9

Director: Brad Anderson
Writer: Steven Gevedon, Brad Anderson
Released: 2001
Cast: Peter Mullan, David Caruso, Steven Gevedon, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III

STEVE says: This is one that we originally almost passed by, largely because it stars David Caruso. I have no problem with him, personally, it's just that I was sick of hearing about him and what a Prima Donna he can be. Getting past that, we thought it might be a fun, low-budget haunted house pic to kick back to.

It turned out to be one of the scariest movies ever. Not only that, Session 9 manages to be suspenseful, scary and intelligent all at once, and without resorting to cheap scare tactics. I wish we hadn't watched it in the middle of the afternoon, though, because we may have cheated ourselves out of some of the effect. That said, the movie takes place in broad daylight from beginning to end, and the only dark places are those in the abandoned mental hospital it's set in - and there are many of those.

Watching again, nearly seven years later, I am still completely drawn in by it.

4/5

NIKKI says: This is without doubt one of my favourite movies of all time. I absolutely adore it. It comes so close to perfection -- it's scary, it's smart, it's tense, it's a great story, it's got a wonderful setting, it looks great, it's paced well, the acting is great... come to think of it, what faults are there?

We discovered this movie entirely by chance. Ooh, a horror flick set in an old mental hospital starring David Caurso -- that's the kind of stuff we love to watch and make fun of. Well, "fuck you" didn't the movie just shout in our faces? We were glued, enthralled, terrified all the way through. I couldn't sleep with Mary's voice in my head all night afterwards. And she still creeps me out. I think I looked behind me at least once watching this tonight, and I've seen it a bunch of times. It just does that -- it grows on you, creeps through you. It's an amazing piece of work.

Instead of more raving, I'll do a Top 5 Best Moments in Session 9, the best mental hospital movie with David Caruso EVER:

5. When you realise the phone is broken and Gordon is talking to himself.

4. Hank in the stairwell: "What are you doing here?" (OH MY GOD!)

3. The lights turning off as nyctophobic Warren runs out of the tunnel.

2. The little wobble on the tape player that puts a shake in the recorded voices. Oh god, whoever thought of that... It just makes the recordings seem even more authentic. I was convinced they're pulled a real interview from the '50s or something.

1. Simon. Yes, okay movie -- you win.

Why does it creep me out just thinking about it? A brilliant, amazing, awesome movie. Fuck it, I'm just gonna give it five.

5/5

Fright Night

Director: Tom Holland
Writer: Tom Holland
Released: 1985
Cast: William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall, Chris Sarandon, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys, Jonathan Stark

STEVE says: Score two for Tom Holland on the Guilty Pleasure-o-meter!

No, look - I love Fright Night, always have. I saw it five times in the theatre when it came out because it was Just So Cool. But then the 80s ended.

Fright Night does not hold up well in the new millennium. The soundtrack, the fashions, the hairstyles - it's all pretty embarrassing.

Still, Holland's storytelling techniques again stand out... and are again let down by simple logic. (Charlie Brewster watches movies about vampires constantly, but has to go to his friend Ed to find out how to kill one?) But, you know, guilty pleasure.

And thanks again to Icons of Fright for the TWO Fright Night Pirate Commentaries! You guys rock.

3/5

NIKKI says: Never been the hugest fan of this movie. I think when I was little, I watched the second one more than this. In fact, I think this might only be the second time I've ever seen this movie? Maybe...

Steve is a big fan, so to have him sit there and come to the realisation that it's not really a great film worked double for me. I was quite bored. Maybe it's the cheese? It is a bit cheesy -- the effects and the style and Chris Sarandon's over the top performance.

Could be I'm just so much more into I Was a Teenage Vampire, which doesn't suffer from the logic issues this one does.

I can't see myself going back. Sorry Fright Night.

2/5

Child's Play

Director: Tom Holland
Writers: Don Mancini, John Lafia, Tom Holland
Released: 1988
Cast: Alex Vincent, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Brad Dourif

STEVE says: And speaking of guilty pleasures...

I recently listened to a commentary for Child's Play by director Tom Holland. Seems MGM didn't ask him to be part of the 20th anniversary DVD release, so the gang over at Icons of Fright invited him to do what they're calling a Pirate Commentary, a valentine to the fans and a "fuck you" to the studio. Sweet.

Listening to Holland explain the development of the script (the original story, Blood Buddies, bearing only slight resemblance to the finished product), and how he fashioned the story (allowing people one by one to learn that Chucky really is alive, then removing those people until all of Andy's "safe places" are gone) was, frankly, more than I'd expected from what I remembered as a fun-but-kind-of-silly 80s horror flick. I was keen to watch it again and see if it was maybe better than I'd remembered.

It wasn't. I could see what Holland was talking about, and it's really kind of brilliant. I appreciate and respect his mastery of storytelling. But... little things, probably having more to do with Screen Time than Reality, put a heavy strain on my already stretched suspension of disbelief.

In the end, it didn't matter much. I'm not in this to hear realistic dialog, or to have explained to me how Chucky gets himself all the way across Chicago on his own, or to watch realistic police work (although I'm interested to know how the paperwork side of the case was dealt with). I'm in it to see a murderous talking doll stalk a six-year-old kid - because it's fun! And on that score, Holland delivered - which is more than can be said for any of the four miserable sequels.

3/5

Terror Train

Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Writer: TY Drake
Released: 1980
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield, Derek McKinnon,

STEVE says: Oh my. Watching it again, I can think of no earthly reason why I like this movie as much as I do. It follows the Halloween/Friday the 13th template of Evil Returning to Exact Revenge After Many Years, so it doesn't have originality going for it. The murders aren't that inventive, which seemed to be the sole excuse for making these movies after a while, although this one might have got in before they rounded that particular corner - either way, the kills are kinda boring. The editing pretty much excludes the person who turns out to be the killer from actually being the killer, and the red herring (David Copperfield) looks nothing like who we know the killer already to be.

And yet I rate it Good. Why?

I don't know. Might have something to do with it being one of the first slasher movies I saw as a kid, before even Friday the 13th or Halloween. I remember watching it over and over on HBO, this and RoadGames - both starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Coincidence? I think not.

It's a guilty pleasure, and I suspect we'll be viewing more than a couple before the month is out.

3/5

Rawhead Rex

Director: George Pavlou
Writer: Clive Barker
Released: 1986
Cast: David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Declan O'Brien, Niall Toibin, Niall O'Brien

STEVE says: Clive Barker has apparently disowned this movie - and he wrote the screenplay. Nothing I can say will give you a better idea of how bad this movie is.

In truth, though, it tries. It tries too hard. The story - ancient fertility god accidentally released from his subterranean prison wreaks havoc on Irish countryside - isn't the problem. Much of it is the direction, the fact that this is all taken so earnestly - the same problem Sometimes They Come Back suffered from. Everyone is so serious throughout, you'd think they were in an Ibsen play or something, rather than a schlocky monster flick.

And that's the second problem: the monster here, the titular Rawhead Rex, looks ridiculous. He's meant to be eight or nine feet tall (yet is able to walk through standard doorways whenever the plot calls for it without banging his skull), and this is achieved by placing Rawhead's head on top of - not over, mind you, but on top of - the actor's head. This makes his torso look longer in proportion to the rest of his body, and causes his arms to protrude from roughly the middle of his ribcage. It's not pretty. Neither are his crazy, rolling red hypno-eyes, or his mouth which seems to have no movement beyond simple open/close. I really half-expected to see a zipper running up his back.

Come to think of it, that might have made it all worth it.

2/5

NIKKI says: For the longest time I thought Rawhead Rex was a big scary dog who fought against Peter Weller. I would have sworn those two things were central to the film: dog and Peter Weller. I have no idea quite what planet I was on when I decided that. Bizarre.

I had no idea it was a Clive Barker story, either, though I probably read it as a kid. Back when I thought Cabal and Jacqueline Ess were, like, the goriest things ever and I was just so cool and grown up for not vomiting while reading them. I think back on them now, and I probably couldn't stomach them as well as I used to.

Anyway... Rawhead Rex was fairly lame. But I put that down to over-the-top acting and the worst make-up effects ever put on film. What possibly made these filmmakers think the big plastic head with the Mattel-like flashing red eyes could possibly be scary? I realise the film was made in the mid-1980s but there were scarier demons around at that point. It just looked like a big plastic mask. It barely moved. There was nothing real about it at all. Who thought of that? Ugh, terrible.

I had a hard time following the story, possibly because that awful mask was so disstracting. And I didn't feel what I think I should have after the little boy was killed. That seemed very out of place. Perhaps if I'd had more of a sense of just what Rex was up to, it may have come together a bit better. Reading up on the story later, I can see what was going on. I didn't grasp it so well watching the thing.

Peter Weller and a dog... if it's not this, what the hell am I thinking of?

2/5

Dellamorte Dellamore

Director: Michele Soavi
Writer: Gianni Romoli
Released: 1994
Cast: Rupert Everett, Anna Falchi, François Hadji-Lazaro, Mickey Knox

STEVE says: Sorry, did I say things could only go downhill after The Exorcist? My mistake. I didn't anticipate Dellamorte Dellamore being our second film.

Released in the States as Cemetery Man in 1996, I gave it a miss because the ads just made it look silly, and even back then I was sick to death of horror comedies. Five years later, my friend M'ike coerced me into watching his imported copy of the original Dellamorte cut, and I'll never be able to repay him. It was so incredible, so beautiful, so fucking amazing, I sat through the credits, rewound the tape, and watched it again. I watched it again the next day, and again the day after that, never tiring of it, never ceasing to find it enthralling.

And to this day, I still have no idea what it's really all about. To be honest, I don't want to know. It's like a Rorschach test: different people are going to see different things. But Martin Scorsese reckons it's one of the best Italian films of the 1990s, and if Marty likes it, I feel pretty secure in rating it as I do.

4.5/5

The Exorcist

Director: William Friedkin
Writer: William Peter Blatty
Released: 1973
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb.

STEVE says: October is going to be horror month for us. As if we need to set aside a whole month, having watched 120 horror movies already this year, but it's October and it's timely and I like horror movies, so that's reason enough.

I wanted to start it off with a bang, though - something that packs a punch - and all credit to Universal Studios, I didn't think Dracula, Frankenstein, or The Wolf Man were going to quite set the tone. The Exorcist won out over such classics as Rosemary's Baby, The Shining and, yes, Fright Night, and I'm glad we went with it because, even though it's not what I'd class as "scary", it's still - 35 years later - one of the creepiest flicks ever.

What bugs me about it is, there's no wiggle room for those who might be, like myself, Faith-Challenged. There is no question that Regan is possessed. Even though we're given plenty of alternative medical explanations as to what might be wrong with her, including a "lesion" in her brain ("My name is Legion, for we are many."), it's pretty clear that reason loses the battle here and superstitions are put forth as fact. Since Father Karras is having a crisis of faith, and since proof denies faith, I think the story would have been better served had Karras not seen actual proof of Regan's possession, but only inferred whatever proof he needed to confirm his faith in the end, you dig?

Hey, whatever, The Exorcist works, and I'm glad we chose it to kick off the month. Only problem now is, it's pretty much all downhill from here.

4/5

Southern Comfort

Director: Walter Hill
Writers: Michael Kan, Walter Hill, David Giler
Released: 1981
Cast: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, TK Carter, Lewis Smith, Les Lannom, Peter Coyote

NIKKI says: And again I am horrified at the thought there are movies like this out there, in existence for more than 20 years, that I have overlooked, passed by, or not ever even heard of.

I wasn't hugely into this one. I was intrigued by the story -- National Guardsmen head onto a remote bayou for a training exercise and end up hunted by locals -- but something made me think it would be more like a River Kwai-type story than this crazy haunted-woods scenario. And then as it began, I was less than impressed with Peter Coyote assuming the commander role and yelling at his charges. All the standard war-movie stuff came out -- the ball-busters versus the rulebook followers, cheeky gun-toters versus straight soldiers. Here we go, I thought...

And then Peter Coyote gets shot in the head! And it all begins, and it's just sensational. It's tense, realistic, suspenseful, and while those characetrs are all rather standard, they're not exactly cookie-cutter and each was believable and sympathetic in his own way.

I really enjoyed the subtle horrors in this one, the cat-and-mouse goings on, and the film's structure, with tension building and building then exploding at the end. It was just a well made film, with some amazing performances. I haven't been that into Keith Carradine for ages. And Powers Boothe wasn't even really a bad guy, but just had me frightened all the way through. This powder-keg thing he had going on...

Anyway, loved it. Want more like it.

4/5

STEVE says: Never having been the biggest Walter Hill fan, I didn't expect much from this one. The tagline, "Not since Deliverance..." promised nothing much more than a rip-off of another movie I really wasn't the biggest fan of in the first place.

Well. Once again I walk away red-faced. And it wasn't just a matter of exceeding my low expectations, either. Southern Comfort was good. Better even than I remember Deliverance being, but now I want to go back and have another look at that one.

And while I'm at it, maybe I'm wrong about The Warriors, too.

Nah.

"Caaaaan Yooouuu Diiiiig Iiiiit?"

4/5

Smart People

Director: Noam Murro
Writer: Mark Poirier
Released: 2008
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church, Ellen Page

NIKKI says: How does Hollywood let an audience know characters are smart? By having them use big or obscure words. Dennis Quaid knows the meaning of the word "eft" -- he must be a genius.

I'm really starting to hate Hollywood's idea of the "smart person". Seems those of us who might be book-schooled a bit more than the rest of the world also need to be repressed and smart-assy, and entirely unable to have any fun.

Take this movie... Dennis Quaid is the smartest professor in the world and he just snaps at the lower class, and thinks he's just so above everyone. His daughter is the same way -- super-smart, and a super-bitch, mean to people for no reason because life is too short to deal with, well, anyone else. Even Sarah Jessica Parker gets the treatment here -- she's smart, too, and a doctor no less, and you can tell from her limp hair, make-up-less face, and desire to sneak a cigarette when she's upset that she's also horribly repressed.

Who does it take to come into the fold and make everyone's lives happy again? A dope-smoking sponge, without any education whatsoever. If only life were so simple.

I found myself surprised at many turns in the story, which I put down to poor development. I didn't get a sense of why Sarah Jessica and Dennis Quaid even had their affair. I didn't get what prompted Juno to kiss Ned. And just for the life of me I don't understand the drama at the end when Sarah Jessica thinks she's pregnant. Why did she suddenly become a cruel bitch? She went into the affair knowing this man was utterly self-involved. So, why am I shocked when she finds out he's still that way later on?

No, the more I think about it, the less this worked for me. It's another one of those Squid and the Whale type movies where we're supposed to think all involved are on a higher plain but they just go around acting like assholes for no real, deep reasons.

2/5

The Left Handed Gun

Director: Arthur Penn
Writer: Leslie Stevens
Released: 1958
Cast: Paul Newman, Lita Milan, John Dehner, James Best

Silent Running

Director: Douglas Trumbull
Writers: Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco
Released: 1972
Cast: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint

Zoolander

Director: Ben Stiller
Writer: Drake Sather, Ben Stiller, John Hamburg
Released: 2001
Cast: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Christine Taylor, Will Ferrell, Jon Voight, Milla Jovovich, Jerry Stiller, David Duchovny

NIKKI says: Here are my Top 25 Best Lines from Zoolander, the greatest movie ever... (because getting only 10 was impossible).

25. Do you mind if I call you Matil?

24. I'm a hand model, mama. A finger jockey. We think differently than the face and body boys... we're a different breed.

23. Obey my dog!

22. I knew I was a joke Meekus, I just didn't get it right away!

21. Not as much as I'm worried about Gretel.

20. There was a moment last night, when she was sandwiched between the two Finnish dwarves and the Maori tribesmen, where I thought, "Wow, I could really spend the rest of my life with this woman".

19. Put a cork in it, Zane!

18. I'm sorry that good-looking people like us made you throw up and feel bad about yourself.

17. Sting would be another person who's a hero. The music he's created over the years, I don't really listen to it, but the fact that he's making it, I respect that.

16. What's the dealio, yo?

15. So I'm rappelling down Mount Vesuvius when suddenly I slip, and I start to fall. Just falling, ahh ahh, I'll never forget the terror. When suddenly I realize "Holy shit, Hansel, haven't you been smoking Peyote for six straight days, and couldn't some of this maybe be in your head?"

14. Damnit Derek, I'm a coal miner, not a professional film and television actor.

13. Nice comeback!

12. Orange Mocha Frappuccino!

11. How do you live!?

10. They're break-dance fighting!

9. But why male-models?

8. I'm not an ambi-turner.

7. Mer-man! Mer-MAN!

6. Do you understand that the world does not revolve around you and your do whatever it takes, ruin as many people's lives, so long as you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way?

5. Listen to your friend Billy Zane.

4. I can dereLICK my own balls, thank you very much.

3. I'm more interested in what bark is made out of on a tree.

2. What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read... if they can't even fit inside the building?

1. A eugoogalizor, one who speaks at funerals. Or did you think I'd be too stupid to know what a eugoogoly was?

4/5

STEVE says: Zoolander was the first movie I saw after moving to Australia. A friend in the States, JB, had been telling me how funny it was, but I hadn't been sold. Just kind of nodded my head as he was telling me about Jon Voight and the whole male model thing. Really didn't sound like it was my kind of movie.

So I get off the plane, Nikki and I spend a few days in Melbourne, and for whatever reason we decided to see Zoolander. Two minutes in, I could see what JB had been on about.

Tonight marked the 9th time we've seen Zoolander, and it somehow still manages to be exactly as funny as it was then - with an added twist: I found myself laughing even before the jokes occurred, anticipating the humour and not being able to wait. I don't think that's ever happened to me before.

4/5

Tootsie

Director: Sydney Pollack
Writers: Murray Schisgal, Larry Gelbart
Released: 1982
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Bill Murray, Charles Durning

NIKKI says: I need someone to explain to me the infatuation the world seems to have with this movie! I had never seen it -- something about Dustin Hoffman in that horrible outfit just turned me off. I own it on video, but had never actually sat down to watch it. You know, I've seen so many clips from award shows and film retrospective programs that I felt like I'd seen it anyway.

Well, I was in the mood for old school comedy, and I went with this. Oh my god, I cannot believe how bad the film is. Worse, I can't get over how revered it is in the film world. An American Comedy Classic, this is supposed to be. But it's not -- it's a badly plotted, poorly developed, unrealistic, sexist waste of two hours. And what's worse is that is postures itself as the complete opposite.

It might be easy to fall back on, "it was the time", but I just don't see how this movie with a man parading as a woman on a TV set full of sexist males and showing them how to stand up for themselves can rightly call itself female empowerment film in an age where we had Norma Rae and Silkwood. It's offensive that we need this MAN to stand up for women on the set -- and that the man is himself an insufferable jerk. He was a jerk in the beginning and I don't really think he changed all that much at the end. And it was never fully realised as far as why he fell in love with Jessica Lange, other than the shape of her ass. She was sweet, but he was dressed as an old woman the whole time they were together. And then she just goes off with him at the end? She doesn't even know him! And what she does know is that he's a massive liar who took extreme advantage of her.

And the relationship between Lange and Tootsie was so hokey and unrealistic. I've got girlfriends, really close ones that I've shared some fairly intimate moments with -- but never, ever, ever have I licked cake mix off their fingers. Any girl I'd do that to, I'd be fucking later. You know? The movie's idea of female connection is devastatingly misguided.

Oh, so much I hated about this. Hoffman's apparently convincing outfit was probably the most bothersome thing. He looks like man in drag. The voice, the walk -- it's just ridiculous and not at all funny. This is not an American Comedy Classic. It's not a female empowerment film. It probably meant well, but it just went about everything the wrong way. What does Michael learn in the end? What lesson did he really learn? And how was I supposed to feel sympathy for him when the one character he was developed as connecting with (Teri Garr) he treated like stupid child? He just fucked her to get out of an embarrassing situation and then she fell for him and then she was the ditz he had to avoid. Where's the female empowerment there?

That's it -- I'm done with this one. Terrible film. Embarrassing.

1/5

STEVE says: Watching Tootsie again for the first time in decades was like running in to an old high school friend, only to learn that he's a dick - and worse, always has been.

I remembered liking this movie! I hated the implication that Hoffman hooks up with Jessica Lange in the end (I wanted him to get together with Teri Garr), but remembered it fondly as a classic. Looking at it now, I can see just how simplistic and condescending it is.

Tootsie is supposed to be a female-empowerment flick, but using a man dressed as a woman to empower females seems kind of backwards. Reminds me of a quote from Twin Peaks: "Using a stuffed animal to represent an endangered species as an ecological protest constitutes the supreme incongruity." And that's what's going on here. I cannot understand the accolades this film received - indeed, still receives. It's ridiculous and embarrassing.

1/5

100 Feet

Director: Eric Red
Writer: Eric Red
Released: 2008
Cast: Famke Janssen, Bobby Cannavale, Ed Westwick, Michael Paré

NIKKI says: Here's a story... about 14 years ago, I was reading a magazine that featured a large advertisement for Kevin Costner's movie, Wyatt Earp. I looked at the cast list and right after the title, was the name JEFF FAHEY. Now, at this time, I was mildly obsessed with the Lawnmover Man. I know, I know... but I was 15. (Incidentally, Jeff Fahey was 42!)

So, if Jeff's name is right after the title in the poster credits, I felt safe to assume his role would be quite large. I went to this movie in Melbourne on, I believe, opening night. I sat, and waited... and kept waiting... and waited some more. Two hours later, Jeff Fahey shows up for about eight minutes.

I realised later, that his name was only first because the cast was listed on the poster alphabetically.

Why is all of this important? Because 100 Feet promised me some Michael Pare, with whom I am infatuated only slightly less than Jeff Fahey. But Michael Pare was not in this movie. A CGI version of him with cartoon blood all over his face WAS in this movie. Why did they get him to be in this if they weren't going to even have him say anything or do anything? Surely I'm not the only one who who thinks more of Michael Pare than as good for a CGI ghost with no lines. ESPECIALLY when he is credited as "and Michael Pare" -- that's the special credit, for special actors, isn't it? So, clearly Eric Red thought he was worth getting.

Maybe it was some kind of ironic joke? Like getting Val Kilmer to stand in the background in True Romance completely out of focus? Whatever it was, it was LAME.

And so was this movie. Interesting premise, entirely ruined by bad writing, poor direction, and the worst special effects since The Lawnmower Man. At least in that movie, we got to watch Fahey without his shirt on!! Mowing the lawn... with that orange hair... and those pants...

1/5

Dead & Buried

Director: Gary Sherman
Writer: Ron Shusett, Dan O'Bannon
Released: 1981
Cast: James Farentino, Jack Albertson, Melody Anderson, Lisa Blount, Robert Englund, Christopher Allport

American Zombie

Director: Grace Lee
Writers: Grace Lee, Rebecca Sonnenshine
Released: 2007
Cast: Grace Lee, John Solomon, Austin Basis, John Durbin, Suzy Nakamura, Al Vicente, Jane Edith Wilson

NIKKI says: Something made me think I'd hate it. Possibly the bad taste in my mouth left by Brutal Massacre, that other recent horror mockumentary we watched. I expected another one-note movie, with a little joke stretched long.

I was mistaken, thankfully. This was a really good movie, which took it's premise -- that zombies exist in daily American life and here's your chance to see just how they interact and assimilate -- and injected it with intensity and drama. This is not a comedy. It's a dramatic portrayal of fringe communities struggling for recognition. Sure, elements of it are lighthearted, but you'd be fooled to think of this as some kind of throwaway addition to the ZombieFilmRevolution. Interesting minds are at work here. This is a multi-layered piece that looks at the documentarians as much as it does its studied subjects. It questions motives for each, and through this viewer/viewee keyhole, we get to see the zombies from a range of sides. We see them as maligned and desiring respect, we see the potential for their exploitation, and we see changes in them depending on what the filmmakers offer (introspection and compassion vs. the need for discovery and full lifestyle disclosure).

It's very clever how the film sets things up to show us these things. The structure was brilliant, and I am so thankful the filmmakers resisted pop culture pandering and stereotypes and really managed to present new kinds of zombies and zombie life.

Enjoyed it immensely.

3/5

Days of Wine and Roses

Director: Blake Edwards
Writer: JP Miller
Released: 1962
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford, Jack Klugman

NIKKI says: You know, the humour wasn't lost on me that I watched this movie with a hangover. In the beginning, too, I understood the lure of alcohol for these people; the use of it as a means of escape, of obtaining highs, of freeing oneself of inhibitions and fears. Life looks more fun when all of those things come together. And bourbon just tastes so good.

But like all seedy relationships, all is not what it seems. There is a downside. And this movie is about that downside. So much so that it's somewhat of an advertisement for Alcoholics Anonymous, and an absolute smear campaign against alcohol in general. When the film shifts from a story about two people losing control to this other thing involving long monologues about the dangers of alcohol and what it can do to people it loses much of its appeal. Perhaps it's the era, but subtle this film is not.

It's a pity, too, because everything else is right where it needs to be. The acting is especially brilliant. Jack Lemmon just mesmerises me. I don't know how he does it. The transitions here from happy-go-lucky workman to violent drunk to crazed DT-sufferer to sober father are really something to see. He is a fascinating performer. His energy kept me going through the preachier parts of the movie.

I was disappointed in the end, leaving Lee Remick with the scarlet letter firmly stuck to her of woman to drag Jack down. Is the film about the dangers of alcohol, or women? There's even a point in this film where a link is made between women and addictive personalities, and that spun me out a bit. The movie goes all PC, and then just pulls right back and goes, nope, Lee Remick can stay on the downward path -- dirty femme-ale. Well...

So, I'm glad I watched it. It's truly one of the best acted films I've seen. But, really, it's far too preachy and simplistic to really feel like a true comment on alcoholism. The Lost Weekend is the movie for that.

2/5