Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie # 11: The Rock

1996 wrestler biopic

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A disgruntled high-ranking marine steals some Gungun bombs and heads over to Alcatraz, now a tourist attraction. He kidnaps a handful of tourists and threatens to use his new biological weapon if he's not sent a zillion dollars. Chemical weapons expert Nicolas Cage and prison-escape expert Sean Connery, the latter being the only man to ever escape from the titular rock, sneak onto the island with some Navy Seals to try to thwart the terrorist's plans.

OK. Rest assured I really pay attention any time Nicolas Cage is on the screen, and that's doubly true when there's a Nicolas Cage sex scene. Some things I've noted: all the Nic Cage sex scenes I can remember feature The Jackhammer or Cowgirl, woman-on-top for you squares. And Nic always has a look on his face like he doesn't really care what's going on. In The Rock, he gets to be bored by coitus with somebody named Vanessa Marcil after telling her that "Pigtails are naughty, naughty, naughty" in an accent that could have been an audio outtake from Vampire's Kiss, a much better Nicolas Cage movie in which he gets to be bored by The Jackhammer while the Cowgirl devours his neck.

When Cage the actor doesn't know what to do but knows his character is a little ticked off, he reaches for the best tool in his repertoire: the blah blah blah blah blah (dramatic pause) BLAH BLAH, enunciating each blah and screaming each BLAH like he's trying to melt your face off.

"This isn't HAPPENING!"
"What do you say we cut the chit-chat (dramatic pause) A-HOLE?!" I'm not censoring that. He actually said "A-HOLE?!"
"What do you say you cut me some (dramatic pause) FRIGGIN' SLACK?!"
"How in the name of (short dramatic pause) ZEUS'S BUTTHOLE. . ."
"It might help our current situation (big dramatic pause) MAYBE!"

He throws in a few well-goshes like he's Keanu Reeves, and with his older thespian peers, plows through some really predictable and clumsy dialogue and some silly jokes. Speaking of his co-stars, I've got to admit that I don't actually like Sean Connery most of the time or Ed Harris almost all of the time. Ed Harris is a lame bad guy, and the writers of The Rock (an anthropomorphic cash register and an anthropomorphic stick of dynamite) apparently decided that making him and his motivations really inconsistent would help give his character some depth. Sean Connery looks like he's in this just to collect his paycheck as he stumbles through some jerky handheld action sequences and manages to survive, as you know he would since his face is really big on the poster, while improbabilities are piled on more improbabilities. Gigantic action, a gigantic Hans Zimmer score, gigantic sound effects, and gigantic special effects might have some people reaching for their popcorn, but it just makes me wonder how in the name of Zeus's butthole anybody could forgive the predictability and cliches enough to give this action clunker a passing grade.

I apologize for all the Nicolas Cage sex talk. I'll try to control myself as the Summer of Nicolas Cage continues.

Basket Case

1982 horror sleaze

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Duane travels to the big city with a basket containing the lumpy blob of a brother who was formerly attached to him. They're not there to sightsee though. Oh, no. They're on a mission of revenge to kill off all those responsible for separating them. But Duane finds love, and brother Belial isn't happy about it at all.

What percentage of female first-time viewers of Basket Case (to be honest, I can't imagine there are many female fans of this movie) watch and just pray that there will be a Bilial sex scene somewhere in the sleaze? They'll get their wish with what will undoubtedly win my annual "Sex Scene of the Year" award. As a guy who enjoys both puppets and stop-motion, there's no way that I'm not going to enjoy Bilial. This is one of the cheapest movies you'll ever see, but it's got this grimy style and filthy charm that, although not something that will appeal to everybody, puts this a notch above its landfill-dwelling brethren. The most obvious thing you have to overlook is some of the worst acting ever. Kevin Van Hentenryck, the guy who plays Duane, is like a poor man's Bud Cort, and the periphery characters (mannish prostitutes, hotel managers, shady doctors) are played by actors/actresses who are each worse than the one who preceded them. Bad acting can be entertaining, but the stuff in this crosses a line into a new level of bad. I really enjoyed some over-the-top sound effects and a really weird soundtrack. There's a funny "woo-woo-woo" thing during a scene when the camera reveals an empty basket (Woo woo woo!), and the exaggerated squishes, wickery creaks, and audible drooling give this a disgusting edge. Basket Case isn't played 100% straight, and I laughed most during some flashback scenes, including an operation scene with some hilarious dubbing. This has enough sticky violence, creative garbage cinematography, and fun for somebody in just the right mood.

I'm pretty sure most of the budget for this one was spent on the basket, by the way. It's a pretty nice basket.

Ichi the Killer

2001 cartoon yakuza movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Ultra-violent and sadistic killer Kakihara hunts for his missing boss Anjo and the three million dollars that must have gone with him. Along the way, he tortures various people in various ways before running into the titular killer. Showdown! Get me the aspirin!

Every time I see a Takashi Miike movie that I don't really like very much, I feel a little bummed. In fact, most of the time I spent with this sickeningly flashy and nauseatingly violent movie was spent feeling bummed. The characters should be more interesting, the gross violence should have some kind of point, and the movie shouldn't have given me such a headache. It's loud and modern stuff, and instead of getting an actual story with a multi-layered conflict between Ichi and Kakihara, you get excursion after excursion. There's guys hanging by the skin from hooks, hot grease dumped on naked backs, and nipples sliced off. At one point, and in a space of about a minute and a half, you get to see a guy cut in half vertically, blood spewing comically from a staggering woman's neck, and a guy pierce his own face with a metal rod thing. The Japanese love that kind of thing, I've heard. I wish it all added up to something, but Ichi the Killer just felt like a completely empty and very long two hours. [Insert joke about how this movie made me feel like Kakihara was torturing me here.]

I did learn a little something though--not only do the Japanese love watching movies with nipple slicing, they also love Kentucky Fried Chicken. Despite Miike's attempts to shock the puke out of me, the appearance of a grinning Colonel Sanders was the sight that shocked me the most.

Meet Me in St. Louis

1944 piece of technicolor crap

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Attorney Smith lives in St. Louis with his wife and four daughters, one of them who might be the devil. They spend most of their time singing and being carefree, but suddenly, Dad announces that they're going to move to New York City. Oh, snap! This depresses everybody!

Judy Garland is sort of homely and has a terrible voice. Shirley Temple should have played Esther in this movie. There really isn't enough story here to make an entire movie which is why, I guess, they have to stuff in a bunch of songs. This might have been the most excruciating movie experience of the year for me, mostly because of the disturbing and obnoxious performance of child actress Margaret O'Brien as "Tootie," the only character I've watched this year with this almost overwhelming desire to hit repeatedly with a shovel. Seriously, what the hell is going on with Tootie? She's psychologically disturbed! The Halloween scene in which she's burning furniture and throwing flour in people's faces for no good reason is bad enough, but when she talks openly about trying to murder people? Yikes! If I would have watched this movie seventeen years ago, this kid would have inspired me to castrate myself so that I wouldn't accidentally have children. In addition to children, this movie also made me hate the following:

--Music

--St. Louis, a city I've always loved

--Fairs

--Love

--Color

--The Wizard of Oz

--Frills

--My wife

--Snowmen

--Christmas

--Halloween

--Trolleys

--White people

--Square dancing

--Alec Baldwin

--1903

--America

--The Facts of Life

It's been a couple days, but Meet Me in St. Louis seems to have this ability to continue making me suffer long after it's ended. It's like a bad taste in my soul. How this movie didn't lead to murder-suicide must be some kind of Christmas miracle.

Kill it with a shovel:

Stuart Little

1999 creepy CGI-animal movie

Rating: 10/20 (Emma: 13/20 [She watched only the last half.]; Abbey: 18/20; Sophie: ?/20)

Plot: The Little family decide that the annoying son they have isn't enough and that they need another. So they head over to the adoption agency and adopt a talking mouse. Big brother isn't happy, and their cat is even less happy. They plot Stuart's doom which, unfortunately, never happens.

For whatever reason, we own a VHS copy of this, and Sophie, for whatever reasons, has been carrying it around with her. So I popped it in for her. Here's what she has to say:

l; ,kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk xckmm u ybta,/.d //sl 3.3m .swaaaaEERTRTGGTFFFR 6 6,,,,,,,,M,M,M,MMMMM,

i'M NOT SURE i HAVE A LOT TO ADD TO THAT, BUT i WAS SURPRISED BY A COUPLE THINGS i EITHER DIDN'T REMEMBER OR NEVER KNEW. oNE, dR. hOUSE IS IN THIS MOVIE. hE PLAYS THE DAD AND USES TOO MANY FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. tWO, DO YOU KNOW WHO WROTE THE SCREENPLAY TO sTUART lITTLE? m. nIGHT sHYAMALAN! wHAT THE HECK? sO IT'S GOT A LOUSY SCREENPLAY, NATCH, BUT OTHER THAN THAT, IT SUFFERS FROM A BAD CHILD ACTOR (jONATHAN lIPNICKI WHO LOOKS IDENTICAL TO THE KID IN a cHRISTMAS sTORY) AND THE GENERALLY-INTOLERABLE nATHAN lANE WHO VOICES A CAT THAT LOOKS LIKE A GIRL. mICHAEL j. fOX IS ok IN AS THE TITULAR MOUSE, BUT THE CHARACTER ITSELF IS WAY TOO ANIMATED. i HATE WHEN ANIMATED CHARACTERS OVERACT, AND sTUART lITTLE IS DEFINITELY GUILTY OF THAT. bUT MY MAIN PROBLEM WITH THIS MOVIE IS THE CAR THAT sTUART lITTLE DRIVES AROUND. i CAN DEAL WITH THE MOUSE DRIVING THE CAR AROUND, AND i CAN EVEN ACCEPT THE WORKING HEADLIGHTS. bUT A WORKING RADIO? cOME ON!

aDD THIS TO THE LIST OF m. nIGHT sHYAMALAN SHENANIGANS.

Elf

2003 holiday comedy

Rating: 10/20 (Toby: 5/20; Kasey: 10/20; Tramayne: 7/20; Dakota: 13/20; Tyler: 1/20; Derrick: 10/20; Jacob: 12/20; Kendrick: 15/20; Jazzmin: 3/20; Taylor: 17/20; Brionna: 20/20; Michaela: 16/20; Hailey: 12/20; Damion: 19.9/20; Mikhail: 1.5/20; David: 15/20; Kimberly: 16/20; Yamira: 20/20; Stephen: 4/20; Sebastian: 2/20; Elizabeth: 20/20; Brianna: 15/20; Rahim: 15/20; Austin: 13/20; Krista: 10/20)

This is already on the blog right here.
The movie isn't any better now, but I learned that middle schoolers like when Will Ferrell runs face-first into walls. Well, I guess I knew that already which makes Elf completely useless to me. And look at that poster up there. I don't want to watch a movie that features a guy who can make that face. In fact, no more Will Ferrell movies for me. You have my word that you won't see him on these pages ever again.

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs

1997 acid-washed fantasy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: I don't know. I think it's got something to do with people who can only have sex outdoors with an audience of ostriches.

How can I not like this? It's a Guy Maddin joint, in fact the first Guy Maddin joint that I don't love. It's got the enchanting Shelley Duvall and the even-more-enchanting Frank Gorshin in it. It's a visual feast. It's colorful, although it's got this gauzy thing that, I guess, gives it a weird fairy tale vibe. It's got ostriches. It's got a little of Maddin's typically dry humor. Despite all that, it just never clicks. The acting is about as bad as acting gets. I think Maddin generally goes for awkward and overly-emotive, the latter as an homage to silent cinema, but it just doesn't work in this one. Actually, it works to make the whole thing seem pretentious. The actors just look like they've been drugged, probably loaded with painkillers to endure the lines they're forced to deliver. After watching all the virtually silent Guy Maddin movies, this one's talkiness was bothersome. At one point, a character delivers the line "With a tongue that cuts like yours, Doctor, you hardly need a scalpel to operate" and then looks directly into the camera.
Icky. This is a triumph in set design, beautiful when it's not nauseating, but it's not nearly enough to make this worth anybody's time.

Apologies to Anonymous who I believe watched this one after I recommended Guy Maddin to him and then told me, "I don't like Guy Maddin."

Our Man Flint

1966 spy spoof

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Controversial super-agent Flint is called upon to save the world from super-terrorists who want to use an earthquake machine to wreak havoc.

Shane, of shane-movies, really has nothing to say about this movie. He apologizes for the inconvenience.

Hitman

2007 video game movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A bald hitman with a bar code on the back of his head to kill a guy and ends up in the middle of a political conspiracy. He meets a whore.

I guess I'd rather play the video game. For an action flick, this was really dull, so dull that I lost focus and had trouble figuring out what was even going on. The established pattern definitely grew tiresome quickly as loud and violent action scenes played leapfrog with quiet scenes that advanced the plot. The titular hitman played uninspiringly by Timothy Olyphant was as flat as flat can be, a pancake hitman. Of course, he was supposed to be a genetically-engineered assassin, more robot than guy, so I suppose he's not suppose to have a lot of color. But he's not the type of character I want to follow around for an hour and a half. Hitman's really got nothing that makes it stand out from any other movie like it, an almost offensively average movie, so it not only forces you to turn your brain off, but it isn't even much fun. At least the girl was cute, and I enjoyed watching Robert Knepper play a Russian.

The Family Man

2000 Nicolas Cage movie

Rating: 10/20

Jack Campbell's got it all! He's a hotshot businessman with a high rise apartment, a Ferrari, and sleek underpants. On Christmas Eve, on the verge of a gazillion dollar merger, he decides to buy eggnog on the way home and has a run-in with a punk trying to rob the eggnog store. He tells the punk that he has no regrets in life, and the punk looks at him knowingly, so knowingly that you realize he's not a punk at all but actor Don Cheadle. When Jack wakes up the next day, his apartment's turned into a home in the suburbs, his Ferrari has become a mini-van, and his bikini briefs have transformed into boxers. He's married to his former sweetheart, has a pair of kids, and sells tires for his father-in-law's business. Oh, snap! He tries his best to figure out what the hell's going on so that he can return to his normal life.

What if. . .

I had decided to watch a different movie, say The Projected Man or Little Big Man or maybe Encino Man?

it was discovered that Nicolas Cage was not only the nephew of Martin Scorsese but the son of the guy he looks exactly like on the above poster, Jimmy Stewart?

Frank Capra had come up with this idea, the idea of a character seeing how his life would be different if different choices would be made, and filmed this sixty years ago?

Jack Campbell's skull would have suddenly caught fire and he hopped on a motorcycle and started hunting down bad guys?

I got a second chance to watch this movie for the first time?

Tea Leoni's shower scene would have been over an hour long?

this movie didn't have big chunks that made absolutely no sense?

Jack Campbell's really odd behavior in his new life wouldn't have been so awkward that his wife and friends would have had him committed?

this wouldn't have been so episodic, so chunky?

this movie wouldn't have had "man" in the title?

I had a heart and not groaned audibly when, after playing a ten second game of chase in an area no bigger than ten square feet, Jack Campbell's daughter, who previously thought that aliens had taken her real daddy, said, "I knew you'd come back"?

I fell asleep halfway through this and missed the ending, therefore never ever figuring out what happened to Jack Campbell, a character I had trouble caring about anyway?

the above poster wouldn't have been so silly and never inspired me to make fun of it in this blog entry?

I told you that, similar to how his father Jimmy Stewart is best in movies when he's really angry, Nicolas Cage is at his best when his character is frustrated by confusion?

Nicolas Cage's line "Is this like a Christmas [big pause] JOKE?" had been answered with a gigantic "Yes!" by a narrator and followed immediately by the sudden appearance of an accordion quintet whose playing inspired the characters and two dozen elves to dance for the remaining hour of the movie?

this idea would have been handled by a writer, director, and actors who were far more competent?

Jack Campbell would have been allergic to bees?

Man of the Year

2006 dramedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Comedic talk show host Tom Dobbs (side note: Isn't there a real talk show host named Tom Dobbs?) decides to run for president. He's got no chance although with his hilarious speeches and shooting-from-the-hip approach, his popularity grows and he even gets an invite to a presidential candidate debate. Election day arrives, and to the surprise of everybody, Dobbs wins. However, the computer people running the vote just might be hiding details of a malfunction that gave Dobbs the victory.

Ah, Barry Levinson's movie almost tricked me. I anticipated more of a dumb comedy, but more than half of Man of the Year has more elements of a political thriller or drama than your typical comedy. So I was almost tricked into liking this thing, but the longer it went on and the more I thought about things, the more I realized how empty it was. As satire, it's incomplete. As a drama, it's color-by-numbers. And as I expected before popping it in, the comedy doesn't work either. The comedy comes mostly from conversations with Dobbs and his cohorts or from Dobbs speeches, sound bite after sound bite that I think are supposed to sound politically profound but mostly sound like stuff I've already heard before. There's dialogue where it seems like Robin Williams was given room to improvise, and those are the moments that failed most obviously. I will give credit to Man of the Year for using three of the most distracting actors working today (Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Walken) and somehow keeping the whole thing coherent and tolerable. Watching scene after scene with Robin Williams giving speeches or debating with quick flashes to Walken saying, "Yes!" or "Bring it home!" got pretty old though. The most irritating character is actually played by Laura Linney. Her performance is also irritating, but the biggest problem is that almost everything that happens to her character Eleanor Green is something that could only happen in movies. Even her name is a movie name. I just didn't believe in any of these characters, so I couldn't believe in their stories. This is a film that probably could have said something. But it doesn't and ends up incomplete and unsatisfying.

Superman Returns

2006 sequel

Rating: 10/20 (Dylan: 2/20; Emma: 12/20; Caden: 20/20)

Plot: Superman's been away a while, five years specifically. So has Clark Kent actually, but nobody's able to make that connection. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor somehow wins he appeal, is released from prison, and concocts a complicated plot to use crystals to make a big island because, just like in the first movie, he's obsessed with the idea of beach front property. Superman takes care of bad guys while dealing with the fact that Lois Lane has moved on.

I don't like this Superman. There's nothing wrong with this Brandon Routh kid, the guy who plays the Man of Steel, but just like the above poster presents him, he at times seems more like a magician in this movie than he does a superhero. Plus, this version of Superman is both a Peeping Tom and a wife stealer, and I felt bad for Lois Lane's new guy (Richard) who really did nothing to deserve having a guy in tights trying to move in on his girl. I didn't realize that this movie was a sequel. I thought "reboot" had more to do with starting from scratch, so I was surprised to see Marlon Brando and hear the recognizable music. Unfortunately, a lot of ideas are recycled, too, if not from previous Superman movies than from other contemporary comic book superhero flicks. This movie is uglier and darker though and the fun from those first two Superman movies (probably the other two, too) is replaced with a sinister seriousness, mostly because of a different Lex Luthor character. Kevin Spacey is awful here in what would have been called an attempt to Heath-Ledgerize his bad guy if The Dark Knight had come out a couple years before Superman Returns. Spacey looks more like Graf Orlok than a criminal mastermind, and I actually thought he was going to try to bite Superman at one point. At least he's about the right age, unlike Superman and Lois Lane who, despite being in a movie that takes place five years after the others, looks a lot younger than Chris and Margot. This movie's got some clean, crisp visuals, but the special effects aren't consistent, sometimes even within the same scenes. There's an early scene with involving a plane, easily more exciting than anything that happens later in the movie, that looks pretty cool, completely ridiculous, and all the adjectives in between. And don't get me started on how Lois Lane survives without a scratch despite being bounced around that plane like she is. There's also a scene with a young Clark Kent running through a cornfield that reminded me of the rubber-legged Clark Kent in the first Superman movie. Perhaps it's an homage to that scene? Ironically, my favorite effects were when Lex Luthor destroys a model train set. I liked that scene, and I also liked a completely unnecessary shot of Jimmy awkwardly eating a sandwich and a scene with a poorly-tattooed henchman and Lois Lane's son playing a piano duet. But when the best scene in an action movie is less than two seconds of a guy eating a sandwich, you've got a problem.

Note: I only saw the first fourth of this movie with Dylan, Emma, and Caden. They finished without me, and I had to finish watching later.

The Man with Two Brains

1983 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Neurosurgeon Dr. Hfuhruhurr, still mourning the loss of his wife, falls in love with a woman he runs over while giving an egotistical interview. He saves her life thanks to his screw-top technique and marries her. Unfortunately, Dolores Benedict is incapable of love and is more than likely planning on murdering Hfuhruhurr for his money. Now I'm not sayin' she's a gold digger, but she ain't messin' with any broke neurosurgeons. And she won't consummate the marriage, leaving Hfuhruhurr frustrated and unable to focus on his work. They honeymoon in Europe where the doctor falls in love with a brain in a glass jar that he can communicate with telepathically. If only there was a body in which he could put this beloved brain! Oh, snap!

Moderately funny movie with jokes ranging from nearly clever to far too obvious. At times, it seems like a middle schooler wrote this which is only good for the gratuitous nudity or partial nudity, mostly involving the sultry Kathleen Turner or, more accurately, Kathleen Turner's body double. This wears out its welcome kind of quickly and turns into nothing more than an excuse for Steve Martin to wave his arms around in an exaggerated way like he does in every movie or television show he's in. Don't get me wrong. Steve Martin waving his arms around in an exaggerated way is hilarious! This is dumb comedy, patched together and flailing and predictable, and although there's definitely a place for dumb comedy, this is nowhere near a classic of the genre. Paul Benedict plays a butler.

Yes Man

2008 comedy

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Carl's struggling. His wife Stephanie has left him after less than a year, and he's bored with his job. He spends most of his time avoiding phone calls from his best friends and watching movies like some loser. But that all changes after he meets self-help guru Terence Stamp and decides to force himself to say "Yes" to every offer, every opportunity, every situation, every request, and every plea for help, thus becoming a "Yes Man" and giving the movie its stupid title.

There are times when I think Jim Carrey is a really good actor, and I'm glad I'm watching a Jim Carrey movie. This wasn't one of those times. See the poster? When I try to remember this movie in a month (I won't, by the way), I'm going to remember it as nearly two hours of watching Jim Carrey do exactly what he's doing on the poster. My memory of this movie will then by more gayer than my memories of The Sound of Music and The Music Man combined, and that is an enormous amount of gay. A staggering amount of gay! There are some good moments. Terence Stamp (Zod!) is in this playing a guy named Terrence. And I like almost all of the scenes that Rhys Darby (Flight of the Concords manager, a series of commercials that are obviously very effective since I can almost remember what they're for) is in. That guy's a hoot, and luckily, he's in this quite a bit. My guess is that his role was supposed to be a minor one, but the filmmakers sensed comedy gold and decided to give him more to do. There are just too many unfortunate moments in this. Carl is a really inconsistent character and Carrey plays him awkwardly, and a scene involving an elderly woman and fellatio is more disturbing than it is humorous. I did think Zooey Deschanel's band was humorous, and Jen had to explain to me what the great band name, Munchausen by Proxy, even meant. I'm a sucker for bands that wear sea creatures for hats.

Space Master X-7

1958 sci-fi

Rating: 10/20

Plot: "Satellite terror strikes the earth" when a deadly space fungus is brought back to our planet. A scientist investigates the fungus, dubs it "blood rust," and then dies. Suddenly, a woman hunt is on as the authorities search for the scientist's ex-wife Laura who was visiting so that this movie could have a plot.

A couple sidebars:

1) Moe Howard is in this. He plays a taxi driver. I couldn't find any other Stooges.

2) Paul Frees plays the scientist. He was Dr. Vorhees in The Thing from Another World, but is mostly known for a ton of voice work including a bunch of things I watched as a child. He was Burgermeister Meisterburger! And the Ghost Host in Disneyworld's Haunted Mansion ride! And he did voice work for The Abominable Dr. Phibes. He also did "various voices" for the Jackson Five cartoon. From the credits, it actually seems like he did every voice on the show that wasn't a Jackson brother.

The worst thing about this movie is something that is quickly turning into a movie pet peeve for me--unnecessary or oppressive narration. This story is told by a senator, and his all-too-frequent narration just gets in the way. It's lazy storytelling. There's really not much to the weirdly named Space Master X-7 although it's actually got a pretty cool story. I like the noirish hunt for Laura. She thinks she's wanted in a murder investigation, and there's a nifty race against the clock as they try to find her before "Blood Rust" kills everybody. Unfortunately, there's not really a movie to go along with that story. There's not anything blatantly awful about the movie. This isn't bad enough to be an entertaining bad movie. The acting's fine, the writing's fine, the minimal use of special effects (the expanding fungus thing) is fine, the camera work is fine. In fact, Space Master X-7 just might be the most fine movie I've seen all year. But it's the same kind of "fine" that I am whenever somebody asks me how I'm doing. "How are you today, Shane?" I'll always answer "Fine" even when I'm smart enough to know that times are dark and getting darker and I'm more depressed than I was the last time the same person asked me how I was doing when I was really depressed. So, if a person I barely know and probably wouldn't want to see asked me, "Hey, Shane, how's Space Master X-7?" I would answer "Fine" but really not mean it. Recommended only to Three Stooges completists.

Mars Attacks!

1996 spoof

Rating: 10/20

Plot: See title.

I really wanted to like this movie when I watched it back in '96 or '97. And I really wanted to like it now since I've seen lots of the sorts of movies this pays homage to since I first saw it. There are things I like about it. The impressive cast (pretty much everybody but Ricardo Montalban) enthusiastically works with really really bad material. The aliens look really cool, and there are some other nifty visual effects that brought to mind a whole lot of those B-movies that Burton is emulating. The problem is that the film just isn't funny at all, and Burton's tendency to go a little (or a lot) overboard is on full display here. The Sarah Jessica Parker/Pierce Brosnan subplot is especially stupid, and there are other characters who are introduced, developed somewhat, and then discarded for apparently no reason. Other than President Jack, I just didn't find a character in this mess to cling to, and by the time Burton decided to completely abandon all attempts at a coherent plot and go for a half an hour of mindless explosions instead, I just lost interest in the whole thing. And why wasn't Johnny Depp in this? That guy's dreamy!

Where the Wild Things Are

2009 piece of garbage

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 5/20; Emma: 5/20; Abbey: 1/20)
[Original "6" rating traded for a "10" with my brother.]

Plot: Max is youngster suffering from schizophrenia and endangering the lives of those around him. Where the Wild Things Are is a glimpse at his battered mind, a trip to his world inhabited by CGI-furballs. If there is ever a Where the Wild Things Are II, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that there is either no God at all or that He has abandoned us, it would most likely be about Max's experiences in an asylum.

This might be one of the most joyless film experiences I've ever had. There wasn't a single moment in this movie where I was glad I was watching it. In fact, I wouldn't have finished this if I had been watching it alone. And I had high hopes for this one, curious to see how Spike Jonze would be able to stretch a fairly thin picture book into a full-length movie. Turns out, he doesn't. This has virtually no plot, existing only as jumbled symbolism or half-assed allegory. The people part of the movie is depressing. The wild things part of the movie, a part I eagerly awaited as I figured it would be filled with fantastical imagery and whimsy, was somehow even more depressing. And the imagery? It just looks stupid. The monsters don't always move fluently, especially when they leap, and there's never enough background to make this look like a finished movie. All attempts to attach any of Max's fantasy to his real-world problems--childhood fears of things like war, the eventual demise of the sun, global warming, etc.; alienation; growing up fatherless--come across as offensive. There is absolutely no reason for children to see this movie, absolutely no reason for adults to see this movie, and absolutely no reason why this movie should have been gotten the greenlight in the first place. See that monster behind the tree in the poster? I can only imagine that he's trying to hide from embarrassment at his involvement in this movie. I sincerely hope this is the least enjoyable experience I have with a movie this year.

My brother tried to warn me about this one. I didn't dream it would be this abysmal.