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.

The Screwfly Solution, dir. Joe Dante (2006)

NIKKI says:
The Masters of Horror series has been hit and miss in terms of its quality. Some of the films have been good (The Black Cat), some great (Homecoming), and others have been utter crud (Chocolate). In any case, we anticipate them all in the same way: will we love this film or hate ourselves... it's fun to see which way the dice will fall.

Screwfly wasn't too bad. It was one of those that falls into the "good" category. And this could be because so many of them are so bad, that even if they're remotely decent, they look better than they really are. This one was a Dante entry, and his have been good in the past, so it's no surprise this works. It's about a virus the drives the male population to kill the women (a strange confusion of arousal and aggression), forcing a mother and daughter to seek refuge. Jason Priestley and Elliott Gould play the scientists struggling to find the answers and save the day.

It was enjoyable enough. Though in the past three days, I've seen Priestley getting ridden by a naked babe in bed, and I've seen Luke Perry full-frontal, exiting the shower in Oz. Didn't I dream this at some point back in 1992?

2.5/5

STEVE says:
First, a disclaimer: Although Masters of Horror is a TV show, we've decided to consider the episodes as movies in their own right. With Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe and The Cowboy and the Frenchman (also part of a TV series, "How I See the French", incidentally), we've already allowed short films into this project, and with feature film directors at the helm of each Masters of Horror episode, we reckon they at least fall into the short film category.

Second, The Screwfly Solution was okay, but not great. I loved the idea of religious mania destroying the world, but this didn't quite have a Joe Dante feel to it. And even if it hadn't been Dante, if someone else had directed it and my expectations had been different, I'm not sure it would rate any higher. The story was good, but the ending felt rushed and a bit derivative - of Maximum Overdrive, of all things.

Now that that's out of the way - where do some of these people get off calling themselves Masters?

Okay, you got Carpenter. No argument there. Argento, fine. Stuart Gordon, yes. Hooper... you're getting into shaky territory here (Eaten Alive, The Funhouse and The Toolbox Murders being some of the worst "horror" I've had to endure), but still, he did give us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, so for that alone I hold my tongue. Larry Cohen - again, fine - cheesy, but fine. But Don Coscarelli? Yes, he gave us the Phantasm series, but that's about it, as far as horror goes. I mean, just because you've made some horror movies, doesn't make you a master, you dig? John McNaughton made Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer back in 1986 - this makes him a Master of Horror?

The list also includes Joe Dante and John Landis - both of whom I'm a fan, but "masters" of horror? I'll give Dante points for The Howling and Landis for American Werewolf, but apart from that... What, Gremlins? It's a dark comedy, nothing especially horrific about it.

And who the fuck is Lucky McKee to be among the names Carpenter, Hooper and Argento? Director of May and The Woods? Sorry, pal - not impressed. Same goes for you, Mr. William Malone. Your remake of The House on Haunted Hill was beyond the pale. And Feardotcom? Now you're just fucking with me.

The only thing Mick Garris appears to be a Master of is middle-of-the-road TV adaptations of Stephen King stories. His contribution to the first series, Chocolate, is perhaps the worst because it suffers not only from his direction, but from his screenwriting and being based on his own short story. This guy knows nothing about storytelling - how he continues (indeed, how he even started) getting jobs is beyond me.

There were 13 episodes in the first season. Of the 10 that I saw, there were three good ones: Dante's Homecoming, Landis' Deer Woman, and Gordon's Dreams in the Witch House. The other seven were either incomprehensible or just went straight for the gross-out. Horror never entered into it.

Why I expected anything more from the second season - with "masters" such as Ernest R. Dickerson (Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight), Peter Medak (Species II), and Rob Schmidt (Wrong Turn) - I don't know.

2.5/5

Gone Baby Gone, dir. Ben Affleck (2007)

NIKKI says:
Unprecedented anticipation for this one. I'm a major fan of Ben Affleck, his writing, his direction, his intelligence, his sense of humour, his tattoos... so I really, really wanted this to be good. And it was more than good, it was absolutely superb. It's taken a good book, and made a great film. I'm so happy for Ben.

The story goes... Kenzie and Gennaro are hired to find a missing girl by the girl's grandmother. The girl's mother is a druggie loser who doesn't seem to want to involve herself in the search for her daughter. Everyone grieves in their own way, her equally messed up best friend tells the investigators, but it doesn't make the women appear any less uninterested. So, the search begins. Where it takes our investigators is just wrenching to watch. The lengths they go to and the decisions they are forced to make ends up having a far greater effect on them than they imagined.

Ben's done several great things here -- he's entirely removed Gennaro's snottiness and made her a sympathetic, interesting character. Michelle Monaghan's performance is delicate and intense, and she's just given the character new life. I hated Gennaro in the book -- just a typical brashy broad, and now, I can see her as a real person. Ben has carved a screenplay out of only the best bits of the book, and I felt, especially during the quarry scene, as though I was watching the very scenes I envisioned when reading the book. He also gives us a great view of Boston, with those amazing shots of really Bostonians going about their business. I am also grateful to the writers for resisting idiot references and letting us come to the necessary conclusions in our own good time.

Casey Affleck was just so good as Kenzie, holding in his emotions, squeezing them tight into himself, making those moments when he does flare up just that much more tense. Everyone was great -- so much so that Steve and I are lamenting no Oscar noms for Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, or the leads. Not to take anything away from Amy Ryan, who was nominated for her role as the mum, but she wasn't the stand-out here. Not for us, anyway. Everyone else, weirdly, was.

Loved it, loved it, loved it. Lived up to every expectation. I'm dropping it .5 for one tiny thing: Some of Kenzie's monologues felt a little bit overdone. I thought Casey did a great job with them, but something felt a bit stage-y at those points. It reminded me of Will's baby seals soliloquy in Good Will Hunting, where it worked. Still, it's a tiny point.

4.5/5.

The Kingdom, dir. Peter Berg (2007)

STEVE says:
Here's why I liked The Kingdom: It didn't pretend to be a serious post 9/11 "issues" movie. I mean, maybe it wanted to be, but if that's the case, it failed miserably. Instead, it was a pretty good thriller with likable characters that kept me interested up to the end credits. No mean feat, let me tell you, 'cos I fuckin' hate Jamie Foxx.

Not hate. I just... I don't know; I don't get the appeal, maybe. He's Denzel-lite. And I don't much care for Denzel, either. But that's another post.

Meanwhile, let me tell you how great Jason Bateman is.

I was all set to not watch The Kingdom. The Jamie Foxx thing, the whole Middle East thing. Let me work it out for you mathematically.

Jamie Foxx + Lots of Shooting = Yawn

And don't even get me started on Jennifer Garner.

But then Nikki told me Bateman was in it... and that he had to improvise all his lines. Now you've got my attention.

Bateman's always been cool in my book, and this was a bit of a departure for him. I mean, when's the last time you saw him in an action movie, right? So that's a plus, but the improv thing... this I had to see. At the same time, I found it to be a huge distraction. Every time he opened his mouth, I was analyzing what he'd said, usually a quip of some kind, instead of listening to how it fit in with the rest of the dialog and the scene in general, and it really drew me out of the movie.

And then I find out it wasn't true.

Not that Bateman didn't improvise his lines: He did. But so did pretty much everyone else. In an interview with About.com, Jennifer Garner talks about improvising; Jamie Foxx sure as hell did some improvising. It's done all the time, playing fast and loose with the script, but here I was under the impression that it was only Bateman, and I was on the lookout for it.

It didn't ruin the movie for me, but it definitely made it a different experience.

3/5

NIKKI says:
I don't really know what to say about this one. I found myself not bored, which I guess is a good thing. I was happy enough with it once it was over, but down the track a bit, I don't think it was really that memorable. I think about a film like Babel, and much as I really didn't like that film, it tended to stay with me more than something like this. Only because, in hindsight, it was a bit like Die Hard Goes to War. Jamie Foxx was very much our hero, and it really was just a matter of time before he saved the day. Of course, no-one wins in war, so his success is questionable, but I do think we were meant to leave this film with something like relief, but it's hard to be satisfied when the war continues.

Like Steve, I really wanted to watch the film for Jason Bateman. But he wasn't all that memorable either. That could have something do with Peter Berg's whippy, CNN-style direction, that was so shaky and stuttery that the camera rarely stayed on an actor longer than half a second for them to really be enjoyable or memorable.

Let me take this opportunity, though, to say just how much Jennifer Garner is growing on me. I thought she was awful in Alias, and carried that into every one of her films I watched, notably Daredevil. But after really liking Catch and Release, enjoying her in Juno, and secretly bawling my head off during 14 Going on 30, (they played "Vienna" -- what was I supposed to do?), I have to admit my first impressions might have been off-track. One more good movie, one more good performance and she'll hit my Love List for sure.

2.5/5.

Sex and Death 101, dir. Daniel Waters (2007)

STEVE says:
Hit and Miss comedy - mostly Miss, though - from Daniel Waters, the guy who brought us Heathers, Batman Returns and Demolition Man. All the enjoyment I got from those movies was counterbalanced by the headache I got from this one.

Sex and Death 101 was about a guy who gets a mysterious email, a list of all the women he's ever slept with... and will ever sleep with. This last stuns him because he's about to get married and wonders why there are 79 women on the list after his fiancee. So, as the laws of film would have it, he breaks off his marriage and starts fucking his way through this list. Meanwhile, there's a serial... er, coma-inducer, I guess you'd say, going about town... inducing comas. These two stories dovetail and they both live happily ever after. Crap.

Nikki said, when the end credits rolled, "I'm sure there was a good movie in there somewhere," and that about summed it up. The movie was too long by about 20 minutes, there were scenes that could have been lifted out whole and never missed because they did nothing to move the story forward, and it was pretty poorly written in general. The midpoint was great - he falls in love with someone on the list. But it's convoluted because she wants to be just friends and won't have sex with him. Then she dies. Midpoint is meant to be a reversal of the action, but by reversing the reversal, you negate everything that came after it, thereby wasting 20 MINUTES OF MY TIME!.

I wanted to like this movie. I wish I could have. But it did have The Facts of Life's Mindy Cohn in a supporting role, so that counts for half a star. Go Natalie!

2/5

NIKKI says:
The devastation of the previous night had us yearning for a comedy. This one started out just the way we like them -- indie, low budget, few big names, interesting story. And then it just burned out. Simon Baker (...Denny! BAKER! Denny! BAKER!) plays a guy who receives an email listing every woman he has ever slept with and will ever sleep with and about 70 of those names appear after his fiance. Such a great premise. Instead of really digging deep, exploring adult relationships and varied meanings of sex for men and women and anything particularly smart and potentially surprising, writer/director Dan Waters chose to give us a smarmy, sleazy sex-comedy with very little hearts and fewer smarts.

I'm at a loss to explain Winona's involvement. Her character went nowhere and had so little do with the goings on that her final scenes meant nothing. Why did we care about her? Who was she? Does one conversation at the end of a two-hour film anywhere near adequate development? Not really. I would have believed Simon getting with Mindy Cohn (playing a lesbian) before Winona's faux serial killer.

So, a disappointment. Nothing at all to rave about. Though Simon Baker is good at funny.

2/5

The Thing Called Love, dir. Peter Bogdanovich (1993)

STEVE says:
Part 2 in our Struck Down In Their Prime double-header.

I gotta say, I never thought much of River Phoenix. I didn't dislike him so much as he just kinda bugged me. Every time I saw him, it was like he was the same character over and over again. Or worse, no character, just River. Little Corey Carrier did a better job of channeling Harrison Ford in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles than River did in Last Crusade. He wasn't convincing as a young Indy - he was just River playing Indy.

But I watch The Thing Called Love and I can see what everyone was talking about. Not in retrospect: I'm not watching Stand by Me or Jimmy Reardon now and going, "Oh, yeah, I get it, he was brilliant!" No, he still annoys me in pretty much everything else.

But this movie, I don't know. I wish he could have done more.

Not that the movie itself is even brilliant - there are plot holes, dropped story lines, and that inconclusive ending to consider - but for some reason, because it's Peter Bogdanovich, maybe, you just kind of let all that go and focus on the rest.

And the rest is well worth it.

3.5/5

NIKKI says:
It's hard to revisit films like this one. This is a film -- like Dogfight, like Stand By Me -- that has been so significant in my life, for so long, that going back to it is sort of like jumping in a time machine to head back to 1993, when you were 14, and every little thing seemed just so big. So bizarre, too, that I should re-watch this the day before I receive an email from my old best friend, Shelley, who adored River Phoenix right along with me. Back then, we actually named each other after River, using his nickname and middle name as our names. His death left a mark on our lives, and it's something I still struggle with. I'm not even going to try to explain what the whole thing meant to us and for us. I don't know if I've ever really even sat down to organise those thoughts. I just stopped watching River's movies. I've seen Stand By Me once or twice since, and have yet to watch Dogfight. This was my second viewing of The Thing Called Love since 1993.

I love it as much as I ever did. It's just beautiful. It speaks to the little lost girl in me then as much as it does now. The impact it had on me growing up remains, in terms of my interests and the sort of person I want to be. Admittedly, I've spent more time in as Linda-Lou, when I know I should be strong like Miranda. Still, between the two hasn't served me too badly in my life. I enjoy the film's wandering spirit. I love its focus on loyalty. I love its poetry. It remains one of my favourite films.

Watching River was difficult. I was happy to hear Steve found his performance so good. I'm not sure his performance here is my favourite. I get a weird sense he's just not into it. I prefer to watch him in other films, though I love hearing him sing here. It is still a sad fucking tragedy that he died.

4/5

Brokeback Mountain, dir. Ang Lee (2005)

STEVE says:
Brokeback Mountain was nothing less than heartbreaking.

But I'll get to that in a minute. Have you heard about this?

A Kansas-based Baptist church - the Westboro Baptist Church, or WBC - says that Heath Ledger is "now in hell" because he played a "gay cowboy".

“WBC will picket this pervert’s funeral in religious protest,” the group said in a statement on its website.

Huh.

“God hates the sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit known as Brokeback Mountain – and He hates all persons having anything to whatsoever to do with it."

"Seasoned with vomit." Seasoned! The laddie fancies himself a poet. What a little fucking Ezra Pound you are.

And "God hates". I thought "God is Love". You're sending out mixed messages, fellas. But this is exactly the same confused bullshit arguments I've come to expect from all y'all. Consistency is a very important factor in life; Thank you, religion, for always being a jerk.

“He got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it’s OK to be gay.”

Well, you got it half-right, but the first part should read "God is a lie".

Fucking Baptists, man. My mom got me tangled up with these kooks back when I was fifteen - well into my atheism, by the way - because she signed my baby brother up to go to their church and I had to accompany him. (How much faith did she have in these guys if she had to send a chaperone, you know?) Dig this: the preacher and one of his pals, trying to get their hooks in me, would come to my house every Saturday to make sure I was coming to church on Sunday. That's like stalking, innit? They used to bring Xeroxed lyrics from songs by Alice Cooper, Heart, and John Denver (!), laden with propaganda about how they were all minions of Satan. During one of these visits the preacher spied my Stephen King calendar on the wall (April 1986, "Children of the Corn") and I had to explain the artwork and the story to him. He goes, no shit, "Stephen King... is that a rock group?"

One track fucking mind, these guys.

How far need one's head be jammed up one's ass for Stephen King to fly under one's radar - pardon the mixed metaphor - in 19 fucking 86?

Know your enemies, guys, jeez.

But that's, whatever, you know. It'll pass. It's a shame they have to picket a guy's memorial service instead of, you know, the theatre playing the movie, but there's more shock value in picketing a dead guy, so points to the WBC for that.

Anyway, the movie: Anyone who's actually seen it knows that the term "gay cowboy movie" truly does it a disservice. Gay or straight, if you've ever loved and lost and felt the pain of your heart cradled gently in loving hands and then squeezed violently between them, you know what I'm talking about.

4/5

NIKKI says:
Gotta say it -- not as great as I was expecting. But then we are watching this two years after its intial release, so years of hype has built up. It's probably not like it was ever going to live up. It tried damn hard, though.

My problem was with certain saccharine moments that took me right out of the picture. I hated the "I don't know how to quit you" bit, and I also hated the discussion Ennis had with Jack's wife about "going up to Brokeback Moutain". Something really cheesy in all that. But I'm not one for overdone romance. Still, the story was good, the performances were excellent, and the heartbreak endured by the characters certainly penetrated. I was especially enthralled with Michelle Williams. What an amazing bit of work that was. And, as we watched this in memory of Heath Ledger, I took notice of his work, and it was excellent, too. Another tragic loss. Weirdly, this is the second movie I've watched in the past few months with Jake Gyllenhaal, and man is he growing on me. He was great.

I will say, though, that Steve and I both took issue with how quickly Ennis succumbed to Jack. it appeared that Jack had a thing for Ennis early on, but for Ennis's early reciprocation seemed underdeveloped to us. I had no sense he really thought about Jack's physical proposal until he was in the tent. From that point, though, the relationship became more real, better developed, and the eventual separation was shattering.

So, it didn't live up to the hype, but it was a great movie nonetheless.

3.5/5

Fido, dir. Andrew Currie (2006)

NIKKI says: I wasn't as excited about this one as everyone else. I thought the trailer made it look really cheap, and kinda lame. I thought the make-up was horrible, and the whole thing just looked ultra-cheesy and try-hard-y.

Thankfully, I was wrong. This was genuinely enjoyable. Well-written, funny, cute, it knew it's audience and it knew its setting. My thing about zombie movies is that there's just so damn many of them, and more coming all the time, that rarely are they original anymore. And I mean truly original. Dead and Deader might have had the zombie as the zombie-hunter, but it was still about zombie hunting. Who really cares anymore? Find 'em, shoot 'em in the head, move on. Same ol'! Shaun of the Dead had been the most original I've seen in ages, and that was really because the zombies weren't the focus. As we all know, in the old school zombie flicks, the zombies were a sociological metaphor, not a beast to be destroyed simply because of its very existence. So many recent zombie movie make killing the zombies what it's all about. Boring.

Fido went back to the Shaun thing. I felt the movie was about tolerance and acceptance of others, and was very much relevant to today's political circumstances. Even though the film was set in the 1950s, many of the themes were pertinent to today -- America living in fear, for example. The zombies just happened to be the thing that made everyone realise their mistakes.

The little kid was great -- he made the film more enjoyable just 'cause he was so darn good. I liked the added twist of having Billy Connolly as the main zombie yet never having him utter more than a grunt. I loved the relationship between Fido and the mum, even though I think her feeling for him came on kind of suddenly. Still, that's a tiny flaw. I enjoyed this immensely. Good black comedy, interesting social exploration.

3.5/5

STEVE says: Modern Zombie movies tend to leave me a bit cold, usually lacking the kind of social commentary that George Romero instilled in them when he created (perhaps re-created) the genre in 1968, and horror comedies are so rarely done well, anyway, that my expectations for Fido were quite low. So it came as a surprise that I liked Fido as much as I did.

The movie is set in the 50s, 30 or so years after a viral outbreak left the world ravaged by Zombies. But no worries, it's all be cleaned up by Zombcorp, the Zombies banished to something like the Forbidden Zone, and America returned to it's apple-pie normalcy. Oh, except that now some Zombies are fitted with neck braces that inhibit their need to feed on human flesh and are used as domestic servants, as America just can't help but take advantage of the weak and underprivileged.

So, social commentary: tick. What about the comedy? I'll just say this - Billy Connolly has the lead, yet never utters a single word. I don't know if it's because you know it's Billy Connolly or what, but you could almost hear his accent in all the grunting and moaning. That's just hilarious to me.

3.5/5

Scrooged, dir. Richard Donner (1988)

NIKKI says:
We were in the mood for a good old comedy. This was my choice night, and damn did I go through hell. I wanted an old favourite, but I couldn't decide if I wanted old Nikki favourite, or old Steve and Nikki favourite. After choosing and rejecting about 10 movies, I finally settled on The Lost Boys, put it in the player and then promptly picked Scrooged instead.

How funny is Scrooged? I think Bill Murray is my all-time favourite comedy actor. He's just funny, even when he's not speaking. I love his eyes, his expressions, his crazy movements. I especially love caustic Bill Murray, which, I suppose back in the day, was all he really did. Someone was on to something. This character is basically the same as Phil Connors from Groundhog Day -- just an insufferable jerk, only out for himself. Then something happens and he's forced to see the good in other people, and himself. Aww. But Bill does this so convincingly, and with very little schmaltz.

God, movies were so much better in '80s! They could be darker, more sarcastic, they didn't have to star the hottest people and look the sharpest. It's just good, silly fun.

My Top Five Favourite Bill Murray Lines from Scrooged
5. "I never liked a girl well enough to give her 12 sharp knives."
4. "Did you try staples?"
3. "I CARE!"
2. "Well, I'm sure Charles Dickens would have wanted to see her nipples."
1. "Blam! Blam! Blam! Blaaaa-hhh-yaaahm!"

4/5 -- Comedy as it should be.

STEVE says:

Right up there with A Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged is one of the better adaptations of Dickens' "immortal classic". Rumour has it, though, that Bill Murray isn't such a fan.

Apparently, he and Donner didn't get along so well on-set. Murray thought the film was getting too dark at times, feels it's uneven in terms of the comedy and the drama. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but I think this contrast is the reason the movie works so well. Takes you from high to low in seconds.

My only issue is that bits of it are severely dated. The Richard Pryor gag. The Solid Gold Dancers, ferchrissakes. Still, Murray's impression of Richard Burton just beats it all.

4/5

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., dir. Errol Morris (1999)

NIKKI says:
I found this in line with the better Morris films we've seen. It was focused and engrossing and really told the story it wanted to tell (or I wanted it to tell) rather than deviating all over the place to include crazy little human tidbits as in Gates of Heaven.

I was not expecting the story I ended up with, however. I knew nothing about Leuchter's trip to Auschwitz and the eventual trials that followed. This aspect of the film was its most compelling; how Leuchter attempted to explain and excuse his actions was fascinating as well. It prompted much discussion afterwards as Steve and I tried to piece together the psyche of such a man.

He is an interesting person to pull apart, and his story is strange and sad.

3/5

STEVE says:
What an odd little man. Fred Leuchter was hired to redesign an electric chair for the state of Tennessee (more, it seems, because his father had worked at the prison than for any expertise in such matters), and because he did such an amazing job, was then hired to design a lethal injection machine for the state of Delaware. He marvels at this: Why would he know anything about lethal injection? But it went on like that, later being hired to design a gas chamber.

Now this is where it gets tricky.

He admits to knowing nothing about these things, although his designs were accepted and carried out. But then he's called in as an "expert witness" for the defense in a case against a man who claims that the Holocaust never happened. Leuchter goes to Auschwitz and inspects the camp to see whether it actually was a concentration camp, used to gas hundreds of thousands to death, or whether it was just a slave labor camp, and he states that there's no one more qualified than himself. From an engineering point of view. Although he's not licensed. Nevermind.

Leuchter turns out to be a rather sad little man, claiming through his findings that the Holocaust never happened, and going around the world to speak out on the subject because he couldn't possibly be wrong about it, could he? That would be unthinkable. Even though all the evidence points to the contrary.

One of the better Morris docos we've watched, right up there with The Thin Blue Line. Another one of those stranger-than-fiction, "If You Saw It In A Movie, You Wouldn't Believe It" scenarios.

3.5/5