Coffee and Cigarettes, dir. Jim Jarmusch (2003)

NIKKI says:

I kinda made a joke after watching this that I felt like one of two things... and, you know, coffee's not a forbidden luxury over this way. Man, did I need a cigarette. 

The film is about moments shared over coffee and smokes. Smokes are discussed in good ways and bad, as romantic (Paris in the '20s) and unhealthy (nicotine's use as an insecticide). The movie takes a sharp look at addiction and human impulse. I liked the style, I liked the writing (particularly the Bill Murray segment). And I spent much of the movie thinking about smoking: why I did it, why I'd keep doing it, why it makes a person so happy. It's not about pheromones and brain mutations, I decided, or whatever is supposed to make a smoker addicted. It's about comfort. It's about the singular space you're in when you smoke. The intimacy of it. The power. It's sorta sexual, too: you're mouth's involved, you're sucking, you're blowing, there's fire, you're feeling amazing, you know you shouldn't but you really want to... 

Some of the greatest moments in my life are usually capped by a smoke. When I think about America with Ashley, we always mention the smoking, and she didn't light up once. I think about scouting 7/11 stores for menthols at 2am finding success at the Braddock Rd gas station; and when Ashley and I walked about 25 blocks just for Denny's waffles and she pondered the necessity of the smoking section at the restaurant by saying: "Well, no one comes here to not smoke."

I think about clubs with Deb and Brendan, when in one of our first outings together Brendan taught us how to smoke with the cigarette lit-end in our mouths and how while practising we accidentally smoked about 30 cigs between us. I remember how I gave up smoking in Year 12 for a guy only to start again a year later in order to properly bond with Deb at uni. I remember the first time I ever smoked, at Rowena's farmhouse with Trish when I was 15: Winnie Blues. We were so cool, though I later thought that if I changed to PJ Ones, it would be more healthy.

They're not all good memories, though. I tried to kick the addiction for good pretty much throughout my entire 20s. I had some highs and lows, and, if I think about it, again the significant moments in my life -- this time not too good moments -- were because of cigarettes. I think about my clandestine relationship with the smoke. Running and hiding to have one, relishing moments alone to smoke, carrying Impulse around in my bag to spray in my hair, mints to clear my breath, and knowing it never worked. I would smoke in the shower -- that's how hopeless I was at one point. I'd smoke two or three in quick succession just because I knew I might not get another chance. I smoked more trying not to smoke than I ever did as an actual smoker! And I used my cigarettes as my saviour when I wasted a year's worth of evenings as a delivery girl on a pittance wage. I barely made it out of that job alive, and I credit cigarettes for keeping me somewhat sane. 

But I managed to quit. Or, at least to stop. I'm a bit like Tom Waits in this movie -- I've quit, so it's okay to have one. That's not going to make sense to many people, but I almost cried when he said it, because it's absolutely true. There's a difference between addiction and just feeling like having one. We do so many things every day that are dangerous or unhealthy, but we do them anyway out of convenience, impatience, laziness. We eat terribly, we drive too fast, drink too much. How much consideration do we give to that extra bag of chips, that extra five kms, the extra bourbon? Are we suffering addictions to those things, too? Now, after 14 years, I don't feel the pull of the cigarette. I don't have that drive to smoke. I don't feel like I'll die without them. I don't immediately correlate anger or fear with smoking to calm down. I've reprogrammed, and I feel better, mentally and physically healthier, and less stressed.  

But there are those days, man, when the only thing that will satisfy is that suck and blow, and I've quit, so what would it hurt?

3/5

STEVE says:

Watching a Jim Jarmusch film, to me, is like watching the freshly painted Mona Lisa dry: It's beautiful, but it's still just paint, innit?

Most of the stories here were not stories at all, just people sitting around talking about - say it with me - coffee and cigarettes, and the pros and cons thereof. Some were good; Cousins with Cate Blanchett in a double role was interesting, an investigation of family ties and the perception of class distinction. Coincidentally, Cousins? with Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan was also very good, Molina trying to convince an unimpressed Coogan that they're cousins, only to have Coogan change his tune when he learns that Molina might be able to get him in good with director Spike Jonze. Otherwise, we're just looking at people sit and drink and smoke for five to ten minutes, and how interesting can that really be?

2.5/5

Superman: Doomsday, dir. Lauren Montgomery, Bruce Timm and Brandon Vietti (2007)

STEVE says:

Kevin Smith's whoredom knows no bounds. He shows up in this animated flick to deliver a single line, and hence finally have his name connected with a Superman title (credited as "Grumpy Man"), no matter how pointless.

Remember when Superman Returns came out, and Smith was all, "We don't need anymore Superman movies, Superman II was great, it should have ended there," and so on? Forgetting, apparently, or hoping that we'd forgotten, that'd he'd written a script called Superman Lives, which was rejected. If you listen to Smith, he'll tell you it was Jon Peters who fucked it up by insisting on some cuddly R2-D2 style character that could be marketed toward the kids, but I think it had more to do with trying to import characters from Clerks into the Superman universe: Governor Caitlin Bree, General Rick Derris... What a cock.

Anyway, his appearance notwithstanding (distracting though it was), Superman: Doomsday was pretty good. I'd never read the comic, so I can't make a comparison, which is probably just as well, but I did find it kind of violent for a Superman title. Maybe he's trying to compete with Batman these days.

3/5

Nikki did not view.

Five Corners, dir. Tony Bill (1987)

NIKKI says:

Somehow -- I know it's weird considering the era, the stars, and the subject matter -- I had never heard of this film until last night. Apparently, I selected it from BigPond Flicks, but I don't remember doing that either. Still, there's a first time for everything, right? 

I didn't love it. It's like, as Steve suggested, a Bronx version of American Graffiti in which we meet small groups of desperate teenagers and watch them turn their lives upside down over a period of only a night or two. It's supposed to reflect a generation, and perhaps it does that (I'm as far removed from Bronx life in the '64 as I was from Modesto teen-hood in '62 so how would I really know?), but it doesn't offer that much in the way of whys and what-fors. Some strange characters interact, shit hits the fan gruesomely and dramatically, but not all the characters figure in to the main thread of the story which leaves me wondering why they were there in the first place.

John Turturro plays Heinz, a young man released from prison who returns to his old neighbourhood. He's clearly a little odd, and we get the impression that something is boiling in him. Enter Linda and Harry, the girl Heinz tries to rape and the guy who she uses as protection from him now that he's out and about. There's also Jamie in the mix, though, who suffered a permanent limp trying to help Linda during her attack, and loves her very much. The four will end up in a horrible place by the film's end, due mainly to Heinz's sociopathy.

But, while all this is going on, there's a another group of kids we're meeting and getting to know. Two girls, high on glue, are travelling around with the boyfriend of one who gets so sick of their high giggling that he sells them to two random vandals on the street (one of which is played by beautiful and tragic Rodney Harvey). The girls wake up naked and confused the next morning in a strange apartment. The two guys, though, are twisted but really nice, and they take the girls out bowling and playing in elevator shafts. Interesting though they may be, they have very little to do with the Heinz story, so their eventual fading out of the picture really makes no sense. Why were they there?

Still, it was interesting to watch this moody take on life in '64 for these particular people. The whole thing gets uber-gritty at the end and reminded me of Boulevard Nights and Bad Boys. Those two movies were among my favourites growing up. There was nothing, at one time in my life, I didn't eat up more than tragic stories of tragic teens in blue and black-tinged run down backstreets of America. Now, however, I might be expecting more from my teen-sploitation pieces.

2.5/5

STEVE says:

This has to be one of the worst DVD treatments ever. It was like they'd taken a 20 year old vhs tape and transferred it directly to DVD. The movie was so dark, you couldn't see what was going on most of the time - which was a bitch because most of the story took place at night - and the daylight scenes were so faded and muddy, it was like trying to watch it through chocolate milk.

This careless transfer definitely had an effect on my viewing experience, but I argue that it still wouldn't have been a very good movie, anyway, for the same reasons Nikki mentioned. But at least I wouldn't have been so annoyed by it in the end if I could at least have seen what was happening.

2/5

Made of Honour, dir. Paul Weiland (2008)

NIKKI says:

Wow, lame doesn't even begin to describe this one. Lame might not be the word, though... let's try soulless and derivative and everything that's wrong with contemporary American cinema made for the female demographic. That's more than one word, but you get the idea. 

You know, I can do harmless rom-com. I was more than happy to watch James Marsden sweep Katherine Heigl off her feet in 27 Dresses, and I didn't mind at all when Hugh Grant was sweeping varied actresses of their feet all throughout the '90s. If we look at those movies, each succeeded, possibly, because they took the cliches and smartened them up -- added some drama, at least tried to say something about the beauty and, sometimes, banality of love. Four Weddings jumps to mind, and Notting Hill. I'm even thinking of My Best Friend's Wedding, which I kind of hate but have to give props to for the scene in the women's toilets when Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz square off, and later when Julia sits alone comforted only by a cigarette. Amid a standard, cliched romance were these moment of real truth.

This movie, though, takes all available rom-com cliches and wears them like bling. There's the womanising guy with a womanising father who finally decides his best girl friend is the woman he wants to be with and somehow he can just drop his evil ways when he decides to pursue her, but uh-oh she's suddenly engaged. Now, he has to wreck her marriage, prove his love to her, and live happily ever after. So, as expected, her new beau starts out wonderfully -- he's smart, athletic, and super-rich. But when we want Patrick to win her over, he becomes dull, with a lame family who eats haggis and it's apparently okay for us to start not liking him. But never did I not like him. He was far better for the girl than Patrick, who spent a decade sleazing around with every chick he sees.

That guy is supposed to redeem himself, and the girl is supposed to fall for it all so quickly. How does that happen? How is that realistic? Oh wait, it's not. It's a cardboard reality where everything is just so straightforward. Add to the mix a lot of sexist gags, fat jokes, overused and out of place slapstick and you just have a perfect mess.

You know, I realised I was hating it when Patrick and Michelle Monaghan had about their eighth cutesy conversation in the beginning about muffins. Oh my god, the writing was so fake and unrealistic. "They're laughing about cakes, they are so going to fall in love!" Vomit.

1.5/5

STEVE says:

Reading over Nikki's thoughts here, I'm reminded just how similar this movie is to the equally-abysmal My Best Friend's Wedding.

In both films, the lead characters, Dempsey and Roberts, realize too late that they're in love with their best friend, and each try to ruin said best friend's wedding under the guise of Maid of Honour. The only difference being that Roberts gives up (or grows up) and accepts that Dermot Mulroney will indeed marry Cameron Diaz, whereas Patrick Dempsey keeps up the fight until Michelle Monaghan relents and leaves Kevin McKidd at the altar.

Made of Honour switched the genders and changed the ending. It's Some Kind of Wonderful to My Best Friend's Wedding's Pretty in Pink. Add that to its list of Crimes Against Originality.

1.5/5

Donnie Darko, dir. Richard Kelly (2001)

Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy, dir. Kelly Makin (1996)

The Room, dir. Erik Lieshout and Rutger Hauer (2001)

NIKKI says:

A really interesting meditation on life and death starring Rutger Hauer and Rutger Hauer's twin who's 30 years younger than him. Did they clone Rutger Hauer for this? Couldn't they have cloned another one for the Hitcher remake?

It's about a man, Harry, who talks to us about this room he used to see when he was young. He could only see inside it a little way, he could see books and hear the music playing inside. When he gets older and looks for a place to settle, he ends up in the room, but now it's empty. He talks about his life, his loves, his experiences, always tying them back to the room, and its enticements. How he comes to view the room in the end is poetic and highly moving.

Rutger Hauer and his clone, Mattijn Hartemink:

To see Rutger Hauer, this juggernaut of a man, sit and reservedly discuss the end of his life is just fascinating. The film is beautifully shot, the tale told fully and intensely in less than 10 minutes.

4/5

China Lake, dir. Robert Harmon (1983)

NIKKI says: Oh my holy fucking GOD. Where the hell did this little movie come from? It may just have become my favourite short film. We watched it at about three in the morning, and it was just the perfect atmosphere for the kind of random horror Charles Napier spreads over the countryside.

This opens with Napier's cop character revealed as on holiday. Then we see him in uniform, pulling over a woman and asking her to take a sobriety test. She is clearly sober. And then things just turn weird. There's no real violence, just stuff that happens that will make your skin crawl right off your body.

It's just a tight little movie about a deranged cop going a bit mad while taking some time off. Could be a metaphor for how we all feel crunched up in reality, and needing a bit of free-wheeling now and again. Not that we all go to these extremes, of course.

The other great thing about this movie is the photography. Apparently, it was made to showcase Robert Harmon's abilities as a cinematographer, and man does it do his all kinds of justice. The film is beautiful, and if he made it about something so awful to contradict the calming landscape, then he's even more of a genius than I thought. Weird he didn't go on to do more in this field. Stil, perfect little movie. And Charles Napier should be damn proud of himself for playing one of the most evil men in film history. You rock, Charles Napier!

4.5/5

[Steve also watched The Dark Knight again.]

Vanishing Point, dir. Richard C. Sarafian (2001)

NIKKI says:

So, this is what Death Proof wanted to be? Maybe, something like that? All I remember is the girls in that movie talked about car in this movie like it was some kind of gift from the Gods. Oooh, the white car from that movie no one's heard of! We're so cool that we know that! Unless of course this movie is way more well known than I'm figuring it is. Quite possibly. Anyway, had Quentin modelled his pic a bit more on this pic, it might not sit at the very top of my Most Disappointing Movies of All Time list.

This was a bit like Easy Rider, in that I felt it was very much a comment on the times. Man on a mission through 1970s intolerance, hippie-dom, the techno-boom, the post-Kennedy police state, racism, fascism, sexism, all the good stuff. It's quite a good film, a slow and steady rumble through the jungle and I really found myself enthralled. I wanted the guy to get to San Francisco so damn badly because it meant I could get where I wanted to go too regardless of the roadblocks. But this is not that movie. Still, I'm very pleased to have discovered it.

Well played, Death Proof.

3.5/5

Horton Hears a Who!, dir. Jimmy Hayward & Steve Martino (2008)

NIKKI says:

It was a last minute decision arrived upon after our selected movie (The Alibi) had some sound issues that meant Rebecca Romijn wasn't really speaking her lines but mumbling as though in the middle of a large mouthful. 

I had high hopes for Horton. I read the book as a kid, and have always loved the Seuss-ian Whos. They're pretty much the cutest things ever. It's a sweet story, and deserves to have it's adorable (and ever-timely) message out into the world, and this movie is the perfect vehicle for that. I loved it. Shoot it right to the top of the best-of-2008 list. Finally, there's something there that's not a horror flick.

There's not that much else to say here. Everyone knows the story, everyone knows the big-name actors involved. Everyone is reliable, the story is extremely faithful to its source, and the animation is some of the most realistic I've ever seen. The field of pink clover and the water in Horton bathing pond were especially remarkable. How do they do that? The details in this were amazing, especially in Whoville where every inch of the screen was filled with something interesting. The care taken here shows. I've not been so impressed by an animated film for ages.

(Losing half a point because I still think Kangaroo gets off too easy!) 

4.5/5

The Dark Knight, dir. Christopher Nolan (2008)

STEVE says:

I thought Tim Burton's Batman was dark. I mean, compared to Adam West's camp comedy and Joel Schumacher's neon-loaded glam-fests, of course it was. But Christopher Nolan's new movie makes Burton's look like a little girl.

Even compared to Nolan's own Batman Begins, The Dark Knight has upped the darkness quotient. It's got a whole different feel to it. More realistic. Like it's, for once, not a comic book movie, but a movie set in the real world, of which Batman happens to be a part. Like Heat with a superhero.

But nobody's talking about the production design, or how good Chicago looked doubling for Gotham. It's all the Joker. So let's get this out of the way.

Heath Ledger was good. Very good. Different from the Joker of days past - no César Romero, this guy, and definitely (let's be very clear about this) better than Nicholson's portrayal where he showed up and, basically, gave us Jack Nicholson in white-face. Ledger took the Joker to a whole new level of dark, playing him as an anarchist instead of insane. Deeply psychotic, still, but the anarchist thing was new. So, having said that, let me say this:

Wasn't he really just doing Christian Slater?

Everybody's talking about how he channelled Jack Nicholson, but I just don't see it. First of all, you put those two performances side-by-side, and Nicholson comes off as a try-hard, playing a thug with a grudge - which is all the script really allowed for him, to be fair. But I don't see any Nicholson in Ledger's performance. If anything, it's Slater he's channelling, from Heathers.In that movie, Slater's Jason Dean was a deeply psychotic anarchist who wanted to destroy the school and everyone in it just for the sake of doing it. Ledger's Joker really isn't that far removed. Sure, there were Slater/Nicholson comparisons when Heathers hit the screens, and they weren't inappropriate. But can we please, for the love of God, stop rolling out "Nicholson" every time someone does something brilliant in a movie, huh?

4/5

I Know Who Killed Me, dir. Craig Sivertson (2007)

NIKKI says:

Doesn't that poster look like the cover of a Virginia Andrews novel? That is so Flowers in the Attic over there, and, you know, I probably would have cut this movie some slack had it in fact been based on a Virginia Andrews book. Such heavy-handed imagery, the discovery of -- gasp -- a twin, and some parental mischievery are staples of her books, and thus somewhat enjoyable (okay, maybe when I was 10). And V.C. would never have had Lindsay strip, so we would have been spared that had she been behind this.

Alas, somebody else penned the flick, and his less competent friend directed it. So, instead of being purposefully melodramatic, this is actually just bad. But Lindsay ends up with missing limbs and the reasons behind that have to be seen to be believed. I've been recommending this one at the shop at just that -- it's so bad, you have to watch it. It makes very little sense, it discards characters left and right, it resists explaining anything at all -- like why the piano teacher has limbs hanging from his ceiling -- and it not so much hits you over the head with its red means this and blue means that colour imagery than rapes you with it and then whacks your ravaged body with a blunt shiv.

Oh Lindsay.

1/5

The Deliberate Stranger, dir. Marvin J. Chomsky (1986)

NIKKI says:

You know, I really didn't think Mark Harmon could pull it off. But, even without really showing him being abusive and violent until the end, he was, in this movie, downright freaky. He didn't play it freakily, he didn't channel Ted Bundy in any noticeable way. He just had that look about him, that perfect balance of normal guy and sociopath. He did exactly what he needed to do here -- play it straight, with that edge of terror. Mad props, as the kids say, to Mark Harmon.

Incidentally, my co-worker Steph told me the day we watched this that she planned to go to America and marry Mark Harmon so she could become famous. Yeah, I don't get it either. And, incidentally again, Mark Harmon is married to Pam Dawber and is about to turn 57. What?!

For a three-hour telemovie, this moved surprisingly fast. It steadily crafted the story of this up and coming young politician with a secret life as a mad killer. It resisted exploitation, and genuinely tried to tell the story smartly and interestingly. Granted, there were too many times characters longing wished for Ted's "kind of future" that made us cringe a bit, but for the most part, this was very good. And it was filled with a million and one faces from the '80s that we could sit and point out. That was fun.

Oh, Ted Bundy. Has there ever been a stranger incident of sociopathy? There've been more depraved and weird killers, but did any lead the sort of life Ted did? He's a case unto himself, I reckon. And while Dahmer and Gacy did some horrific things, Ted's the guy who gives me nightmares. I've gone home with cute, smart strangers myself. I've helped them out of jams. Who hasn't? It's because of Ted, too, I think, that I'm convinced everyone has a secret life of crime.

Anyway... good movie. Great work from Mark Harmon, but no awards. I may need to go start a Facebook petition to get Mark a retrospective Emmy nomination for this. Now, there's a crime.

3.5/5

Spinning Into Butter, dir. Mark Brokaw (2007)

NIKKI says:

Extremely disappointing retread of all the arguments you've heard before. The mystery surrounding racial attacks on a student at a prestigious Vermont school is the centre of numerous arguments and discussions about race in contemporary America. But when Sarah Jessica Parker condemns her black reporter friend with references to him wearing chains, I almost choked. I understand racism exists all over the world, but this movie felt like it should have taken place in the 1950s. These did not feel like modern arguments.

Perhaps it had to do with the executive set at the school all acting like their black students were one dance party away from swinging from the trees and raping their women. I just don't see that as the pervading American attitude anymore. Racism, sure -- out and out fear of black people... still? I don't know what point Miranda Richardson's character was ever trying to make with her hardly contained racism. And Sarah Jessica as this white knight for these kids? And the mystery turning out to be something so predictable -- racial attacks on one student was meant to mean the entire black student body was at risk? No one thought to dig a bit deeper into the one kid's life? Ugh -- it was so frustratingly dated and pointless.

1/5

Shutter, dir. Masayuki Ochiai (2008)

NIKKI says:

Oh man. We knew it was going to suck. So, we have no one to blame. But, you know, it didn't suck as much as it could have. There are so many Asian-horror remakes around that star teen TV stars from the '90s, and for one to stand out as not totally lame is really pretty good. This one wanted to be smarter than The Grudge remakes and The Eye, and it really showed. It's just a pity it didn't come together. The chick in it acted her heart out, and I think her intensity was one of the main reasons I felt it was almost very nearly a sort of okay movie.

The scares were better, as in, not so CGI. But the end was a dead giveaway from the start. Why else is scary-faced kid from Nip/Tuck even in the thing? But ... meh. And who still uses film anyway? So much film-use in this movie ...

2/5

STEVE says:

Yeah, it was lame. But something was different.

This wasn't like The Ring or The Eye or The Grudge or Pulse or Premonition or any of the other myriad remakes of Asian horror flicks in the cineplexes these days. I'd like to say it was because I hadn't seen the original, as we had with The Eye and The Grudge and The Ring, and therefore had nothing to compare it to, but I hadn't seen the original Pulse or Premonition before we watched those remakes, and both bored me up the wall regardless.

Something about Shutter seemed... earnest. Someone was trying their damnedest to make a scary movie here, and - though failing on many, many levels - it shows. The performances by Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor were honest, real. While much of the plot was pretty standard, we could overlook it because these characters weren't just plodding their way through the paint-by-numbers script like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Naomi Watts and Sandra Bullock before them.

I want to shun all Asian horror remakes, but when something like this comes along, something that raises the bar, even slightly, I know I'll end up seeing the remake of A Tale of Two Sisters when it's released next year as The Uninvited. Maybe someday they'll get it right.

2/5

Fight Club, dir. David Fincher (1999)

STEVE says:

Conrad had never heard of Fight Club. Not "never seen" Fight Club, but had never even heard of it.

Some people's kids, I'll tell ya.

So we took care of that tonight and he went home suitably impressed.

I'm not sure the movie has the same impact it did for me when I first saw it, but I'm attributing that to the fact that this was the ninth time I'd viewed it since its release. It's lost its shine over the years, but never its ability to fascinate.

4/5

Nikki did not view.

The Happening, dir. M. Night Shyamalan (2008)

STEVE says:

I'm a sucker for apocalyptic survivor stories, let me say that first. My favorite book is Stephen King's The Stand, I can't seem to stop watching Romero's Dead series, I enjoyed the recent Right at Your Door, and I even have a soft spot for I Am Legend - although I think everyone involved should be dragged through broken glass for not sticking closer to the book.

So I was in from the word go when I heard about The Happening. Shitty title or not. The lesson, here, being that I really need to be more discerning.

People are dying all over New York City. Not just dying, but killing themselves - a woman stabs herself in the neck, people thrown themselves in front of cars, construction workers step off buildings into the open air. Off to a good start. Next, we're in Philadelphia. Mark Wahlberg is talking to his science class about the sudden disappearance of hundreds of thousands of bees. "Science will come up with some reason to put in the books, but in the end it'll be just a theory. I mean, we will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding."

So, now we have the film's thesis, and we can spend the next hour and a half not worrying why this is happening, and just be terrified by the fact that it is.

Not so.

Turns out that the earth is sick of humanity and is trying to shake us like a bad cold. It's literally eco-terrorism.

Now I think that sucks.

Wahlberg and his band of survivors happen upon a model home in a community called Clear Hill (get it?) and see a billboard advertising same, with the slogan "You Deserve This!" (Get It?), but it would have been much more fun if we hadn't been told that it's some new (or primordial) toxins the plants are giving off that's causing all this to happen. It would have been far less heavy-handed if we'd been left in the dark, and allowed to figure it out on our own. Far less patronizing. As it is, it's just sad to watch all this talent - I'm talking about Zooey Deschannel, Mark Wahlberg and John Leguizamo - go to waste.

1.5/5

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, dir. Sam Peckinpah (1974)

STEVE says:

You can't beat that for a title, can you?

I saw this movie first about 15 years ago, and remembered it only in bits and pieces. Since we started up our Peckinpah retrospective last month with Convoy, I've been wanting to watch it again, hoping that it was every bit as good as I remembered it. 

According to IMDb: "An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo." Yeah, but that's only the set-up. Said bartender, Warren Oates, soon learns that his prostitute girlfriend recently spent three days and three nights with Alfredo Garcia, which only serves to make the idea of decapitating him more appealing. When Oates learns that Garcia is already dead, killed in a car accident, it only makes his job easier - but also goes a long way in making him more despicable. For a while, anyway.

It's strangely crafted: I thought the first half dragged, with all the talk about dreams and finding a better life, but come midpoint I realized its purpose, and understood just how necessary all that talk was. The first half of the movie is the calm before the storm...

3.5

Knowing Richard Black, dir. Jon-Marc Sandifer (2001)

NIKKI says:

There were so many things I enjoyed about this film. I loved listening in on calls between Jon-Marc and his friends, I thought the discussion Jon-Marc had with a friend and a female stranger at a bar at the end was fascinating, and I especially enjoyed Jon-Marc's roving-reporter stuff when he interviewed his colleagues about interracial dating. Sadly, these things were asides to the film's main purpose which involved Jon-Marc securing a date for a woman he'd only met once, who was in town for one week, and wanted to "experience" a black man for the first time. 

The catch, if it can be so called, is that the woman wanting the date is also black. And so while Jon-Marc spends most of his time chasing up friends to go out with the woman, Marilyne, I wanted to hear more in the way of discussion about the fact that Marilyne, in her early 40s and living in Africa, has never been romantically involved with a black man. Whenever the film brings this topic up, it becomes extremely compelling. When discussion ends and we go back to Jon-Marc and his pimping (which is essentially what he's doing), tedium sets in.

Still, Jon-Marc is great. He's so charismatic and his friends are so interesting that I was never actually bored, just frustrated at his choice of focus. Chasing the dates was not that interesting. Without rewriting the film, I thing Jon-Marc should have confessed at the start what he was doing. To listen to the men react to dating Marilyne knowing her background surely would have created some great discussions. 

2.5/5

The Big Lebowski, dir. Joel Coen (1998)

Smother, dir. Vince Di Meglio (2007)

NIKKI says:
What is it with Diane Keaton and her new career as a meddling mum? How is it that there's become a "meddling mum" genre at all? The Family Stone, Because I Said So, Mama's Boy ... and now this. I liked Diane when she was funny and vital and used her talents for good instead of banal. Smother is apparently so bad, no one in America wants to release it.

Well, it wasn't that bad. It was pretty bad, but I'd recommend it over Because I Said So. Dax plays a guy who loses his job right when his wife, played by Liv Tyler, wants to start trying for a baby. At the same time, Liv's writer cousin comes to stay, as does Dax's mother, who is convinced Dax's dad is having an affair. Shenanigans ensues and mum ends up getting a job with Dax, ruining his relationship, getting drunk at a bar, and vomiting on the floor all in the space of a few days. And then, of course, she starts to feel sorry for herself and she and Dax begin to see each other's points of view and its all happily families at the end when mum drives off with the writer cousin.

But, it's all so very weak. The jokes are lame, the smothering mother angle has been done to death, as has the baby-wanting wife scenario, and no matter how much effort Dax gives his performance, everyone involved just looks they want to be somewhere else. More over, the final scenes take place at a funeral where Diane and Dax make a mockery of a woman's death with their petty fighting and we're not supposed to care because the dead women was so insufferable. So -- dead old hag jokes, that's about where we're at with this one.

Sorry Diane, but you're losing me.

Had the movie played up its dramatic storyline involving a 60 year old woman losing her husband to infidelity after so many years, maybe we would've had something. But it only briefly touches on that, which is most disappointing.

2/5

Steve did not view.

The Killer Elite, dir. Sam Peckinpah (1975)

NIKKI says:
A few years ago, Steve and I went on this '70s movie kick where we caught up on all the classic '70s movies we'd either not seen or not seen in a really long time. We discovered some brilliant stuff. The Killer Elite would have fit that period perfectly, and may have have come out looking a bit better then -- with our minds and hearts drenched in '70s-ness -- than it did tonight.

I didn't dislike the film, but I felt it was a bit of a mess, unsure of exactly the story it was trying to tell. I don't know if it was a revenge film, an investigation into CIA off-shoot groups, or the story of a man getting back on his feet after intense physical rehabilitation. It may have been all of these things, but issues were raised and dropped throughout as the film moved from one almost-plot to the next.

The film opens on elite agents Caan and Duvall at a party. They go on their way to a stakeout point, and are the best of friends. We ascertained that either one was to die, or betray the other. Steve noted that as big names, death wasn't likely. And so one betrayed the other. Caan gets shot in the knee and the elbow and is left, in the movie's words, "a cripple".

So a great chuck of the movie is then spent on Caan's rehabilitation. There was very little conflict during these scenes. He simply took it like a man and did his stretches. I wonder to what end did we need to see this? Establishment that he was taking it like a man may have taken one scene and a montage. Here we got scenes after scene of hospital bed, walking up steps, walking over bridges, falling down in restaurants... But no outwards intensity seemed to build.

And then he's just back in action, and gets himself a job that will see him go head to head with Duvall. And then it all plays out just as you might expect -- shoot-shoot-chase-chase-someone-ends-up-dead. But to what end? What was my purpose here? To see Caan exact revenge? If so, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as I had hoped. Was it so gain a greater understanding of these off-shoot groups, as suggested by the written introduction to the film? Well, I didn't really gain much knowledge at all, expect that such groups exist and are rather corrupt.

This isn't to say the film wasn't entertaining. Peckinpah's direction was intense at times, and the actors were reliable. But, it didn't shoot fireworks off for me the way The Parallax View did, or The Conversation, or even Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Feels like a miss to me.

2.5/5

Brutal, dir. Ethan Wiley (2007)

STEVE says:
When you're a die-hard 0ld-school horror fan, like me, and you see the names Jeffrey Combs and Michael Berryman in the cast list, there's really no doubt that you're going to watch the movie, no matter what else it has to offer.

And in the case of Brutal, let me tell you, it ain't much.

"Hostel meets The Silence of the Lambs", says Stuart Wilson from Independent Film Quarterly.

Yeah, he's full of shit, that guy. Either that, or he's seen neither Hostel nor Silence, because Brutal was neither as gory as the former nor as well-plotted as the latter. In fact, the words "well-plotted" don't even really apply here, as the film was only on nodding acquaintance with screenplay structure, anyway. Arguably, Berryman's introduction could be viewed as the midpoint, but I think that's more coincidence than anything. There was no discernible turning point between Acts 1 and 2, no character development of any kind, and dialog so laughable as to make Ed Wood cringe.

And y'see that guy in the poster, there? Yeah, I don't know who he is. He's not the killer, that's for sure. The killer looks something like Bun E. Carlos, circa 1975. That guy on the poster, I don't know. Kind of Billy Zaney? Either way, whatever - he's not anywhere in the movie.

As for Combs and Berryman; Combs starts off alright as the likable small town sheriff, but turns quickly into the stereotypical bad guy sheriff usually played by the likes of Joe Don Baker. His transformation is so quick, in fact, it might have been an afterthought. "Hey, you know what? Let's make Combs a bad guy, too!" It was fun to see him play out-of-character (he even has a love interest, here), but turning him into a creep by the end was such an obvious move, it speaks to the ineptitude of Wylie as a screenwriter (he of House, House II and Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror). Berryman, on the other hand, plays a much more interesting character than is usually his lot - he's an autistic bloodhound trainer - but is criminally underused.

We could have spent less time on the boring murder scenes and more with Berryman helping with the investigation; less time on the melodrama between the sheriff and his deputy and more on actual police work; less time trying to be clever and more on research into police procedure and, you know, learning how to write.

1/5

NIKKI says:
Wow, I had a feeling it would be bad. I had no idea it was going to be as bad as it was. Usually, when I project like this has a couple of interesting names attached, it's somewhat above schlock. Not so Brutal. Schlock is too nice a word for what we have here.

So, some animal mutilations are occurring in Black Water and before you know it, bodies are showing up chainsawed to pieces and buried with their hands sticking out of the soil. We may, the sheriff's eager deputy, Zoe, stipulates, have a serial killer on our hands. You know, because they usually start out killing animals (sorry, Wylie, but I don't think these things run quite so concurrently). Sheriff Re-Animator does not believe his cohort, who he is also sleeping with despite being married with a family and up for re-election soon. Even the flower the killer leaves behind on the body and the fact that it directly correlates to the street the victim lives on does not convince the Sherrif that this is the work of a serial killer. "Black Water is full of church-goers!" he argues.

You know, it's one thing that the flowers won't force him to admit he's got a serial killer on the loose, but what about the fact that five grisly murders have occurred in his small, back-end town? He reckons more than one individual is behind this? Isn't that a more frightening prospect?

Anyway, five grisly deaths and someone decides it's time to call in the FBI. Ace reporter, Rick, tells the cops that there's no need. They're better off without the FBI who have nothing but a history of fucking up investigations with their, and I quote, "science". So, instead of launching a proper investigation and getting in the CSI crews, a coroner, or an ME (the local vet does these autopsies), Zoe enlists the help of an autistic bloodhound owner to help her sniff out the crims.

Are they serious? The FBI was called in to find out who leaked song on the 'net from Guns 'n Roses' Chinese Democracy record, I think they might get a call when girls show up mutilated one after the other in the span of about a week. (That, of course, being how your average serial killer does things.)

By the way -- it is only after the autopsies that the cops find out each body was missing a heart, which goes nowhere. And the killer is a teacher involved in a flower-planting project at school -- something a quick canvas of the neighbourhood might have revealed. The Sheriff's own son was involved in the flower project, but he failed to make any connection.

Okay, so investigative techniques and intelligence were left on the cutting room floor. This is still is a silly movie with one redeeming factor in Michael Berryman. I was also forced to high-five Steve when his prediction dor the end of the film -- that while the killer slays every girl he meets within moments, he will capture Zoe, torture her for a bit, explain his system to her, his motives, taunt her a bit more, before raising the axe and getting shoved aside at the very last crucial moment -- came true to the very last detail.

So, the writer knows something about convention, I guess.

1/5 (for Berryman)

Good Will Hunting, dir. Gus Van Sant (1997)

NIKKI says:
Steve rings me at work: "What time do you finish?"

I say: "Six, but I'll likely be home about 5.30."

And then he says: "Claude and I will wait for you then -- we're watching Good Will Hunting."

And it's not even my birthday!

Claude, who is somewhat of a piece of young, innocent clay that Steve and I are moulding into the next David Mamet-slash-Martin Amis, comes over to our house to get schooled on all things books and movies. It's great to have him around, to share stuff with him, and have him respond so well. Apparently, I told him to watch Good Will, that I thought he would like it, and so it was his selection for this night.

I was thrilled, needless to say, as it's one of my favourite movies. A life-changing kind of film that made me cry like a baby that anything so perfect could exist purely for the purposes of entertaining me. It's the way I feel when I hear Bruce Springsteen's "Independence Day" or Don McLean's "Empty Chairs". I always think -- what if this talent went unrecognised? And we didn't even know we were missing out?

Ah, but Good Will always gets me pondering in big, melodramatic strokes. I just love this film. I love the story, I love its intent, I love the grand statements, the tiny details, the writing, the music, the direction, the big speeches, the little interludes. It's just a great piece of work. It builds so well to an inevitable and fitting conclusion. It's funny and tragic, and it gives us Ben Affleck pre-dental work -- and isn't that what the film's all about? That flawed men are worth putting some effort into?

Still brilliant after 10 years.

5/5

Dario Argento's World of Horror, dir. Michele Soavi (1985)

NIKKI says: What a weird choice for a Saturday afternoon movie. To be honest, after watching it, I didn't even feel like I'd watched a movie. It's more snippets of Dario's best scenes interspersed with some dialogue and melodramatic narration. An Eye for Horror is much better, more informative, structured documentary. I'm not entirely sure what Soavi was going for with this one? Perhaps it's a promotional film? Still, I learned a lot about Dario's genius for in-camera effects, and I won't soon forget the bee who had the big operation to get his stinger removed and was then tied to some fishing wire to swarm about Jennifer Connelly's head in Phenomena.

A big operation! They put it under with ether and everything.

Dario's mind is a scary one. But he talks a lot here about how his movies are visual reflections of and reactions to his dreams and nightmares. He says at the end that he doesn't really know himself all that well, and would love to tunnel into his own mind and live there for a while just to get to know himself better. Something about living in Dario Argento's mind for any length of time is pretty scary, but the fact that the man himself longs to do it is sort of scarier.

It is indisputable that the man is a brilliant artist. This movie demonstrates that. It's just a pity it didn't focus more on Dario and the why and hows of his dreams and visions. There's lots of behind the scenes stuff, lots about the effects, and the music, and the enthusiastic Dario running about bringing everything together. But there are too many drawn out scenes from movies like Zombi that one figures the audience watching the documentary would no doubt be familiar with.

Ether!

2.5/5

STEVE says: This documentary is 23 years old, which may go a long way in explaining why it seemed to offer so little - I was already familiar with most of it.

While it was interesting to learn about the insects and other effects in Phenomena, the huge crane shot in Trauma, and the film stock used in Suspiria, that's not really what I signed up for. From a doco called Dario Argento's World of Horror, I expected to learn a little more about, you know, Dario Argento's World of Horror.

There were some interesting points, glimpses into Argento's childhood, and confessions that he doesn't really know himself and how murder is beautiful, but these last come off as someone who's trying to sound creepy, rather than a true artist discussing his creativity. Like that interview with Stephen King where he says, "I have killed a few people, but they haven't found the bodies, so I think I'm alright." Way to fuel the stereotype there, bud.

As an Intro to Argento sort of thing, World of Horror might be alright, but I'd still recommend the more recent An Eye for Horror to get a comprehensive view of the guy.

2/5