Black Water

Directors: David Nerlich, Andrew Traucki
Writers: David Nerlich, Andrew Traucki
Released: 2007
Cast: Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermody, Andy Rodereda, Ben Oxenbould, Fiona Press

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Director: Chris Carter
Writers: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Released: 2008
Cast: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner, Callum Keith Rennie

The Signal

Directors: David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry
Writers: David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry
Released: 2007
Cast: Anessa Ramsey, Justin Welborn, AJ Bowen, Scott Poythress, Sahr Ngaujah

Who's That Knocking at My Door?

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Martin Scorsese
Released: 1967
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Zina Bethune

The Hills Have Eyes

Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Wes Craven
Released: 1977
Cast: Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, Dee Wallace, Russ Grieve, John Steadman, Michael Berryman, Virginia Vincent, James Whitworth, Lance Gordon, Janus Blythe, Cordy Clark, Arthur King, Flora and Striker

Boxcar Bertha

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Joyce Hooper Corrington, John William Corrington
Released: 1972
Cast: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus, Bernie Casey, Victor Argo, John Carradine

Troops

Director: Kevin Rubio
Writer: Kevin Rubio
Released: 1998
Cast: Eric Hilleary, Cam Clarke, David Max, Jess Harnell, Kenar Yegyayan, Drew Massey, Dave Myers, Matthew Myers, Steven Melching, Neil Elliot, Susan Hinshaw

STEVE says: Another late night, another short film. Sue me.

Troops is just brilliant. Like an episode of Cops set in the Galactic Empire, it follows the exploits of a handful of Imperial Stormtroopers as they respond to various calls - one concerning Jawas and stolen droids, and another concerning a domestic dispute at the Lars farm.

Like George Lucas in Love, though, it doesn't work on its own. If you don't know Star Wars, you're not going to get why this is so funny. If you're a fan, though, it's going to resonate.

3.5/5

Step Brothers

Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
Released: 2008
Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins

Chinatown

Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Robert Towne
Released: 1974
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Darrell Zwerling, Diane Ladd, James Hong, Burt Young

STEVE says: Every fledgling screenwriter should have a look at this script. It's perfect. Hits every beat with atomic-clock precision, it never lags, and it never telegraphs exactly what's going on, yet makes it all seem inevitable in the end. And of course it is. Right from the beginning.

5/5

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Robert Getchell
Released: 1974
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Alfred Lutter, Kris Kristofferson, Diane Ladd, Harvey Keitel

Dead Set

Director: Yann Demange
Writer: Charlie Brooker
Released: 2008
Cast: Jaime Winstone, Andy Nyman, Liz May Brice, Warren Brown, Kevin Eldon, Adam Deacon, Riz Ahmed, Kathleen McDermott, Davina McCall





[Okay, so it's not a movie, it's a mini-series. We're counting it anyway because we watched it all in one sitting. And at 2hrs 18 minutes, it's longer than most movies we watch, anyway.]

The Killers

Directors: Marika Beiku, Aleksandr Gordon, Adrei Tarkovsky
Writers: Aleksandr Gordon, Adrei Tarkovsky
Released: 1958
Cast: Yuli Fait, Aleksandr Gordon, Valentin Vinogradov, Vadim Novikov, Vasili Shukshin

STEVE says: I had my writing class read Hemingway's short story this week, so this one's been on my mind. Whereas both feature versions of The Killers (1946 and 1964) use the story as an opening, telling the full story in flashback, this Russian student film is the story. And it's not great.

That's nothing against Hemingway's story, and it's not to take anything away from Tarkovsky as a filmmaker - but this just didn't work. Pacing was the big problem for me. When Nick Adams goes to the Swede's room to warn him somebody's out to kill him, one expects him to be gasping, out of breath, maybe urgently delivering the news... Not so much, here. Adams walks in, tells the Swede some guys are out to kill him, and it's all done in a very funereal sort of style, as though they're already lamenting the Swede's passing. It just didn't fly.

It's good to have - Criterion can really put a disc together, yeah? - but not so much to revisit. For that, I've got the Robert Siodmak version.

2/5

The Shining

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubruck, Diane Johnson
Released: 1980
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd

STEVE says: The Shining is a movie I'm not overly fond of, but keep coming back to again and again just to see if I can find something - anything - I like about it.

No luck so far.

And I don't care how great you think Nicholson is, this movie Sucks Out Loud.

But let me tell you why.

King's book was about a haunted man. Jack Torrence is haunted by the student he attacked in Stovington, his careless abuse of his son, his own alcoholic father, his failure as a husband to properly provide for his family, etc. Kubrick decided that none of this was important and just went for the haunted hotel angle. Whereas the book was about the characters and their motivations, Kubrick's movie was about Nicholson going mad.

It's one thing to change a story when adaptation to a new medium demands it; it's another to completely dispense with character development and plot because you want to tell a different story. If you want to tell a different story, Tell A Different Story, don't fuck up a perfectly viable one because you don't understand it.

Kubrick jumped over the character and plot development with the "one month later" title card after Jack and his family arrive at the Overlook. This is important stuff! It's where Jack starts losing it - how can you skip over that?

I know Kubrick was a genius. There's a lot of his stuff I didn't like when I was younger, and I'm perfectly willing now to accept the fact that it was me; I didn't get it. But The Shining is just not good at all. Apart from the lack of character development, there's the Scatman Crothers thing: As a plot device, he's there to give us info on Danny's abilities, which is fine. And at the end, his return to the Overlook acts as a device to pull Jack away from the bathroom door and let Wendy escape. Fine, again. Killing him, however, serves no purpose whatsoever! If you're just going to kill him, Wendy may as well have been able to squeeze through the window after Danny. The thing with the woman in room 237 is the definition of anti-climax. When Danny goes into the room, we never see what he sees. When Jack goes in, he finds a woman who turns into a rotting corpse (after he starts making out with her, which begs some explanation), then comes back and tells Wendy he didn't see a thing. It's so much more effective if we see what Danny sees, and then Jack goes up because we know what's waiting there - whether he actually sees it or not. As, by the way, it was done in the book.

Bottom line is, the guy didn't believe in the material and it shows - but that doesn't stop the idolatry. The poster at the top there isn't from the movie; it's from a Shining convention held in Timberline, Oregon this past Halloween. There's even been an art show dedicated to the movie.


Click the creepy girls to check it out. Even I have to admit, it's kind of cool - even if the movie leaves me cold.

1/5

Assassins

Director: Richard Donner
Writer: The Wachowski Brothers, Brian Helgeland
Released: 1995
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore

Redacted

Director: Brian De Palma
Writer: Brian De Palma
Released: 2007
Cast: Izzy Diaz, Rob Devaney, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Patrick Carroll, Kel O'Neill

STEVE says: More than one reviewer has called Redacted a return to form for De Palma. And that's funny, 'cause I didn't see any Hitchcock ripoffs in it at all.

It's just another in a seemingly endless stream of movies presented as documentaries or lost footage or home movies (and let me be the one to say it: That gimmick has run its course), and it didn't need to be. It switches back and forth between a young soldier's chronicle of the war on his camcorder, and a French documentary about the troops, for no particular reason, apart from allowing us access with the French that the soldier wouldn't have. But even this conceit doesn't work in the scene where documentary footage is shot from inside a car that the crew do not have access to - and we know this because exterior shots of the car show no crew in the back seat. Sloppy, Brian. Real sloppy.

Some day someone's going to make a good movie about this war. Redacted isn't that movie.

1.5/5

Fallen

Director: Gregory Hoblit
Writer: Nicholas Kazan
Released: 1998
Cast: Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz, James Gandolfini, Elias Koteas

The 40 Year-Old Virgin

Director: Judd Apatow
Writers: Judd Apatow, Steve Carrell
Released: 2005
Cast: Steve Carrell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Seth Rogan

STEVE says: So Matt Reedy says to me, "You have to see The 40 Year-Old Virgin. You'll love it." I've known Matt Reedy for maybe eight years at this stage, and I'm wondering what he's seen in me that makes him think I'd find this movie even remotely funny, much less Love It.

Wasn't the biggest fan of Steve Carrell at the time, not the least because of his involvement in the Americanization of The Office, and the less said about Apatow, the better. I decided Matt Reedy either A) didn't have the slightest idea what I'd find funny, or B) was just having a joke, throwing this title out to see if I'd watch it on his recommendation alone. Neither prospect made me want to rush out and see this movie.

I eventually, grudgingly, got around to watching it - this was back in '06 - and I did love it. Score one for Matt Reedy.

3.5/5

Birthday Boy

Director: Sejong Park
Writer: Sejong Park
Release: 2004
Cast: Joshua Ahn

Headspace

Director: Andrew van den Houten
Writer: Steve Klausner, William M. Miller
Released: 2005
Cast: Christopher Denham, William Atherton, Olivia Hussey, Dee Wallace, Sean Young, Udo Kier

Hope Floats

Director: Forrest Whitaker
Writer: Steven Rogers
Released: 1998
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick Jr., Gena Rowlands, Mae Whitman, Michael Paré

Speed Racer

Directors: The Wachowski Brothers
Writers: The Wachowski Brothers
Released: 2008
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox, Paulie Litt, Willy and Kenzie

STEVE says: It's been more than a decade since the rumours started flying about a live-action Speed Racer movie. Johnny Depp was rumoured to be playing Speed (that's how long ago this was) and I think Sherilyn Fenn might have been mentioned as Trixie, but it's possible that part was only in my head. (I have a large catalog of fantasies involving each individually, and it's quite possible that they've merged.) It was on and off for a while, and finally the Wachowski's picked up the ball and ran with it. It looked like my wait for a live-action Speed Racer movie was over.

Not so.

Turns out, this movie is really nothing more than a live-action cartoon. I don't think there was one scene that wasn't shot against a green screen, and that's disheartening. The movie itself can't be distinguished from a cartoon in that 98% of it was CGI.

With all the flashing lights, quick cuts and bright colours, the Speed Racer movie is the cinematic equivalent of an all-syrup Squishee. I'm just trying to decide whether that's a bad thing.

3/5

First Sunday

Director: David E. Talbert
Writer: David E. Talbert
Released: 2008
Cast: Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Katt Williams, Chi McBride, Loretta Devine, Michael Beach, Keith David, Regina Hall, Malinda Williams

They're Among Us

Director: Adam Weismann
Writers: Joshua Hale Fialkov, Christian Ford, Roger Soffer, Mark Wheaton
Released: 2008
Cast: Gil Bellows, Maxim Roy, Carlo Mestroni, Judd Nelson, Isabella Rossellini

Timber Falls

Director: Tony Giglio
Writer: Dan Kay
Released: 2008
Cast: Brianna Brown, Josh Randall, Nick Searcy, Beth Broderick, Sacha Rosemann

Slacker Uprising

Director: Michael Moore
Writer: Michael Moore
Released: 2008
Cast: Michael Moore, Steve Earle, Michael Stipe, Eddie Vedder, Tom Morello

[Steve also watched The Texas Chain Saw Massacre again, with film class.]