Rango

2011 animated Western comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Emma: ?/20; Abbey: 13/20)

Plot: A Chameleon with No Name (well, actually he does have a name) is accidentally abandoned by his human family. The desert he winds up in is not the safest of places, and the Wild West style animal town called Dirt he eventually stumbles into is probably even less safe. He exaggerates his prowess, lucks his way through a fight with a troublesome bird, and ends up the new sheriff of Dirt. He tries to get to the bottom of the town's lack of water.

Well, I like quirky animated movies with talking animals and spaghetti Westerns, and I seem to like a lot of what Gore Verbinski does (the underrated Mousehunt, The Weather Man featuring our summer star Nicolas Cage, that first Pirate movie). Previews for this made it look really good, too. So I wasn't entirely surprised that this is actually really good. It's really got the whole spaghetti vibe down with the wonderfully withered town of Dirt and the ugliest collection of characters you're likely to see. Some grizzled voice work (Ned Beatty should be in every animated movie; it should be a new law or something) gives them personality and color, and although there's not really all that much character development with any of them other than the titular chameleon, they work really well to give the setting the texture it needs. I really like the animation in this. There's a great blend of natural and realistic settings with these strange looking cartoonish animals, and the action scenes have this frenetic energy but still somehow make sense. There are lots of nods, predictably, to Western greats, but this also has a Hunter S. Thompson spotting which I thought was an awesome touch. That, and the protagonist is supposedly modeled after Don Knotts, probably meaning that I should go ahead and give this a Don Knotts bonus point. Oh, and similar to the movie Keoma that I just reviewed, there's an owl mariachi band in this that sings a bunch of songs about what's going on with the plot and how Rango is probably going to die. They work a lot better than the drunken pair in Keoma though. This works as an action movie, a kids movie (actually, maybe not), a Western, a comedy. It's not flawless--the plot's a little sloppy--but it's a wonderful hour-and-a-half of entertainment and definitely something I'd not mind watching over and over if any of my kids had actually liked it. My rating would probably go up, too.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

1977 mass murderer animated biopic

Rating: 16/20

Plot: All his neighbors said that he seemed so normal, but young Christopher Robin had more than his share of dark secrets. It all started with an unhealthy attachment to a stuffed bear which he called Pooh. Pooh was purchased with pants, but Christopher Robin, one afternoon when playtime got a little out of hand, removed and set them on fire along with his own. That should have served as the first warning for his parents. Classmates would laugh at Robin and his "silly old bear," and his elementary school teachers would say, "Christopher Robin, I've told you before to keep your Pooh out of here!" His peers would laugh and point, and eventually something inside of young Christopher snapped. He assembled a small army of deadly stuffed animals and embarked on a murderous rampage of revenge during which many of the classmates who ridiculed him would wind up eviscerated. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh chronicles his early life.

Disney does English kiddie lit really well, previously evidenced by their extremely erotic version of Mary Poppins. Now there's a movie that makes me horny just thinking about it. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh fails to make me horny (at least not anymore), but I still think it's an underrated Disney classic. It's obviously animated with a limited budget, but I think that adds to the charm. It's simple and extremely innocent, just like its source material. A.A. Milne's stories are great on their own, so Disney didn't really need to sprinkle too much of its magic all over this and overly complicate things (see the cgi Winnie the Pooh animated television series). The voice work is wonderful, especially Sterling Holloway as the titular bear and Paul Winchell as Tigger. After the feature, there was a little documentary where you get to see Winchell doing the Tigger voice. I'll admit that that footage DID make me a little horny. I really like how Tigger says rubber. "Their legs are made out of rubba!" Oh, and Ron Howard's brother Clint does the voice of Roo in this. I also like Sebastian Cabot's playful narration. The narrator and characters talk to one another which, even as a kid, I thought was kind of neat. This movie also frequently reminds the viewer that it's from a book, using turning animated pages and words cleverly. You get to see Pooh hopping on words or flying on a balloon from one page to the next. There's some music, simple childish music that kind of gets stuck in your head. I'm not sure how I feel about the Pink Huffalumps on Parade sequence that was straight out of drunk Dumbo's subconscious or the added gopher character who just seems extraneous. I asked Jen, "Why's that thing in this? He's not in the book." As if on cue, the character said, "I'm not in the book." I guess that's kind of funny.

Dang it. Why did I have to mention Mary Poppins? Now I won't be able to get anything done all day.

Horrors of Malformed Men

1969 malformed men movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy wakes up in an insane asylum with no idea who he is or how he got there. Clues surface, including a beautiful folk song that he links to an island. He assumes the identity of a dead man and sneaks his way on the island. And what's on the island? [Spoiler Alert!] Malformed men! Oh, snap!

Artistic trash, surface B-grade horror but with arthouse sensibilities that makes it the type of thing you should watch in your basement while stroking either your goatee or your girlfriend's goatee. It's sort of a Dr. Moreau as David Lynch would see it if he watched it through goggles he ordered from a Japanese pornographic comic book. It's also got this surreal noir flavor, a bizarre nightmare mystery that is likely only completely unpredictable because you won't be able to keep the characters straight and be confused anyway. All kinds of psycho-psychological stuff going on here; the characters who survive the experience will need years of counseling. I wonder if any of this malformed man business has to do with the bomb droppings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When this movie eventually gets to the island where the deformity is on full display, things get really interesting. Probably because that's where the mad scientist character played by Tatsumi Hijikata boogies onto the scene with moves that would anticipate the most demented chunks of the disco era. You get the impression that his fingernails could kill you. Haunting and perversely poetic, it's horror that doesn't necessarily scare you as much as it troubles you. Not for everybody--a lot of people would probably just want to wake up from this nightmare by popping it out of the dvd player. I thought it was a treat of grotesque visuals though and enjoyed it despite a clunky story and characters I couldn't keep track of.

Captains Courageous

1937 boat movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A spoiled and likely neglected rich kid has his silver spoon yanked right out of his ass when he's expelled from his boarding school, takes a tumble from his daddy's cruise ship, and is put to work by a crew of fishermen. It's comeuppance time for young Harvey as he befriends crusty fisherman Manuel and learns how to not be a complete pain in the ass.

What do I hate more than anything else in movies? Child actors from the 1930s! And Captains Courageous has an annoying kid (Freddie Bartholomew) playing an annoying character. I suppose we're not really supposed to like Harvey (Why do I keep wanting to call him Nathan?) throughout the first half of this movie, but I don't like him so much that I find it impossible to like him during the second half of the movie, too. I actually broke bones in my hand taking punches at my television screen during a scene involving ice cream. The other children at the beginning of the movie are equally bad. They probably all tried out to play Nathan, and director Victor Fleming just threw up his hands and said, "Whatever! They're all annoying. Just pick out the one with the best face and keep him the hell away from me!" I really liked when one of the kids asked, "Did you call me a sissy?" in a voice that makes him sound like a big sissy. I was really surprised that I didn't really hate this movie, a Cory recommendation, and Spencer Tracy gets all the credit for that. I really think all you have to do is give me a movie where Spencer Tracy is on a boat, and I'll be cool with it. His Manuel is funny, almost like a Marx brother with a little of Groucho's bite and a lot of little of Chico's voice. And he reminded me that I really want my own hurdy-gurdy. I really liked his character, and the bond between the annoying little brat and Manuel is realistic and touching. I'm also immature enough to crack up every time he sang, "Yeah ho, little fish." Once little Nathan is on the boat, this movie picks up, probably because bad things start happening to a bad little kid. I liked watching life on the fishing boat, too. This is the type of movie that kind of makes you wish you were doing what the characters were doing, and after a while, I kind of wanted to work on a boat with a bunch of smelly fish and probably smellier fisherman. Basically, I just want a job where I don't have to shower anymore. I'll even take the occasional hook in my arm if it means I don't have to shower. I also really liked the fisherman trash talk, and Lionel Barrymore as the grizzled captain delivers those lines well. All in all, this turned out to be a nice little adventure story on the high seas with believable characters and the right amount of heart. Yeah ho, little fish! Yeah ho!

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #12: Lord of War

2005 character study

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Yuri Orlov didn't have the easiest childhood growing up with Russian (well, one of those pieces of the Soviet Union) immigrants in the big city. As just a little fella, he starts selling weapons to the mob in his town, and uses the experience to move into a very successful career as a gun-runner with his troubled brother Vitaly. He also manages to slide into a marriage with Ava Fontaine, his boyhood crush and hot model. Keeping details about his career secret from his family and evading pesky federal agents is a lot to juggle though.

I didn't really know anything about this movie going in, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed its playfulness. Here's another movie that makes me wonder if I actually do like narration in movies. I've always labeled that a pet peeve. Maybe the narrator just has to be French or Nicolas Cage. Or both, I guess. The narration in this definitely adds flavor to the drama though. Cage's character is one of those who does completely immoral things--the obvious gun-running, lying to his wife--but he's got this charm or flair about him that still makes him likable. It's a solid performance with no real room for him to work his hammy elbows. Jared Leto fits as his brother and foil, and Ethan Hawke, a kind of sickly-looking Ethan Hawke, is good as a somewhat cliched idealistic federal agent. This film has a different style that gives it a unique color and keeps you interested even when there's not much going on. There's also a little dark humor in there, especially in the interactions between Orlov and Liberian president Andre Baptiste, one of those giving us the origin of the film's title in a cute little recurring joke. Eamonn Walker is great as Baptiste, really capturing the funny that's in most of your violent dictators. The not-always-predictable tale of Orlov is consistently entertaining and concludes in a way that I thought was really satisfying. Oh, one more thing: I really dug the opening credits, a really neat series of shots (no pun intended) from the perspective of a bullet. This (and that) hammers a message home. Cool stuff.

The Visitors

1993 time travel comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A knight and his squire are transported by a senile wizard 800 years into the future. They have to simultaneously figure out life in the 20th Century while trying to return home.

This is a very amusing take on the stranger-in-a-strange land premise. leaning on slapstick and ironic situations to get more than a few laughs. It's very nearly whimsical! This film's shot well, and I really like an actor like Jean Reno in the lead role, a guy who is going to play it all so straight that it somehow makes it all even more hilarious. Narratively, this might get a little tiresome by the end, but it's a fun comic adventure and you know I'm a sucker for time travel movies that don't involve Kevin Costner. I wonder how much punnage and other word play I missed by having to read English subtitles for this one. You don't want to dig for depth with this one; it's more like a ninety minute joke peppered with punchlines, some intelligent and some dumb but most pretty funny.

In the Line of Fire

1993 live-action Tom and Jerry cartoon if Jerry was an old man and Tom wanted to kill the president

Rating: 16/20 (Dylan: 12/20)

Plot: Secret Service agent Frank is getting old. It's been almost thirty years since he failed to save President Kennedy, and he probably should have been fired. I know it's not the same thing, but if a bunch of my students die while in my classroom (enough to equal one president), then I'd probably end up losing my job. It's all silly with Frank's situation anyway because everybody knows that Kennedy didn't really actually die, and he lived to see the broadcast of the fake moon landing while hiding out in Italy with Marilyn Monroe, Lee Harvey Oswald, and an alien thirty years before they started planning out the September 11th Twin Tower attacks with their crazy neighbor Osama. But I digress. This movie is all about some really smart nutcase who wants to kill the current president. Frank's too old for this shit, but he really has no choice.

So this maybe wasn't as good as I remembered. Rene Russo's character is distracting, but I guess the girls have to have something to watch in this movie, too. Assassination plots don't appeal to most females, but all gals enjoy watching an old guy putting the moves on some younger broad. Guys will dig the cat-and-mouse game between Eastwood and Malkovich. With the former, you get an intriguing good guy with a meaty background and a tired old pro's attitude that makes him unafraid to stick his middle finger up to bureaucrats who try to stand in his way. Some moments he's funny; others, he's just pissed off. This was the movie that made me a huge Malkovich fan. You got to love those villains who are smarter than everybody else, and it's great hearing him taunting his opponent and cracking-wise. This movie has some action--a short foot-chase, a longer rooftop chase, some shooting--but the real action takes place in the lines between the dialogue, and Eastwood and especially Malkovich are terrific and creating these suspenseful on-the-edge-of-your-seat chilling moments with nothing but conversation. You've got two actors who are at their best when their characters are pissed off, and there's enough going on in their characters' lives to give them plenty to be pissed off about. There's not really anything new in this movie, and I suppose you could point out more than a few cliched moments if you really wanted to. But if you just focus on those two characters and their riveting little chess match, it makes for an engrossing thriller.

Two questions I'll ask any of you have seen this movie: 1) Is Frank really a heroic character? 2) Was anybody else rooting for Malkovich to succeed?

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #10: Vampire's Kiss

1988 vampire comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy who works at a publishing company is bitten by a vampire woman and then gradually turns into a vampire himself. Or does he? Can his psychologist help him in time or is the poor guy doomed?

What's with Nic Cage's inconsistent accent in this movie? Is he supposed to be English? Whose idea was it to have his character talk with an accent? That's your first thought as you watch Vampire's Kiss, a movie that features a Nicolas Cage performance that might be second only to Deadfall in a Wacky Cage Performance competition. If you haven't seen Deadfall yet, by the way, check it out immediately. Vampire's Kiss is stuffed with Nicolas Cage moments. Observe and be aware that there are probably numerous spoilers:

At the 4:04 mark, you get to see Cage put some moves on a floozy while Stevie Wonder looks on.
6:08--He drunkenly removes a coat and throws it as only Nicolas Cage can throw a coat.
7:00--Dress shoes with no socks, Nic? Classy!
7:34--Cage says, "Shoo! Shoo!" followed by one of the greatest man vs. bat scenes you will ever see in a movie. This is the point in the movie when I got my first boner.
8:04--The way Cage flicks his hair back here. Movie magic!
8:19--Cage demonstrates that he can't laugh like a normal person. At 8:28, he repeats the exact same laugh.
10:01--Cage changes his accent three or four times in one monologue. Let's see Jimmy Stewart do that!
13:03--"Holy shit."
13:24--Cage's character admits to his psychologist that he was aroused by the bat that entered his apartment. It makes me feel better about being aroused by the scene.
15:06--Cage checks himself out in a mirror (the first of many mirror scenes) while the soundtrack to every single 80's movie plays in the background.
16:33--Cage puts the moves on another lady, showing off that irresistible Coppola charm. With the accent!
18:38--Some scatting--"Digga digga digga digga duh duh duh." Awesome.
19:37--"I gotta take a piss." It might be all about the context here, but this line made me crack up.
20:32--We hear Cage's character's answering machine message. It reveals that he can't even make something like that sound normal. It's not the answering machine message of a human being. It's one of a god.
21:13--"Yeah, well fuck you too, sister!" This is how I want to end all of my conversations.
21:55-22:48--Possibly the best dialogue in the history of film, mostly about how "drunk and horny" Cage's character was.
23:32--"Tuesday!" Again, it's all about the context. Poor Alva, by the way.
25:09--A big Nicolas Cage point! If you saw it, you'd recognize it from a few other movies. And with it, a classic Nicolas Cage delivered line: "Am I getting through to you. . . Alva?!"
26:05--"Fucking grease hole!"
26:18--Cage's character is in pain. What's the best way to show that? A rapid biting motion.
26:35--Just when you're wondering if this movie can get any better, it adds mimes. Freakin' mimes!
30:36--Cage's character is nervous and frightened. What's the best way to show that? Rapid head nodding and slamming.
31:56--Close your mouth, Nicolas Cage!
32:36--He develops a speech impediment. Alva! Maybe the whole accent thing is actually supposed to be a speech impediment, too.
33:10: A hop on a desk and another point. Two Nicolas Cage points in less than twenty minutes? I'm surprised the world didn't end.
33:34--Old lady in bathroom. "What are you doing in here?" What a cameo! Helen Lloyd Breed, you just might win yourself a shane-movies blog award at the end of the year for that work.
35:09--Weren't sure about whether Nicolas Cage could laugh normally before? Here's more evidence that he can't.
35:55--Another fight scene, this time with paper. Man vs. paper!
36:24--The fight continues with everything else in his apartment. Man vs. stuff in his apartment!
39:46--I know I've said this a lot before, but here is truly the greatest dialogue ever written, ending in Cage's infamous recitation of the ABC's. No other actor in Hollywood, living or dead, could do this. This scene alone is all the proof you need that Nicolas Cage is the greatest actor of all time.
40:06--"I never misfiled anything! Not once! Not one time!" Again, it's all about the context, but the way he crosses his arms and then quickly puts his hands on his hips, it's probably a plot-hole that his character wasn't institutionalized right away. Cage is so good with over-the-top mannerisms.
41:38--Mescaline? Geez.
43:45--Pause the movie here! Gaze into Nicolas Cage's crazy eyes and completely lose your mind! You will never recover. Never! By the time you push play again, you will also be a vampire.
47:00--You get to watch a bit of another vampire classic, Nosferatu. Keep Max Shreck's movements and body language in mind because it'll make Nic's imitation of him later that much sweeter.
48:28--More scatting and an invitation into Cage's shower. It seems like the scatting would scare most females away.
48:59--More mirror action with a great Nicolas Cage expression as he touches the glass.
49:30--Nicolas Cage eats a live cockroach. Ho hum.
51:19--Exaggerated whistling during a search through a Rolodex.
52:00--I required a break and took a long nap. When I woke up, the moon was gone and it was Tuesday! And a tumor on my back had tripled in size! I do not think this was a coincidence!
55:40--Worst fake puking I think I've ever seen, more golden because it follows some unintelligible yelping.
1:00:03--No reflection! Now we know why those other weird mirror shots were there. This movie is genius! "Oh Christ! Oh Christ! Oh, God! Where am I? Where am I?" This piece of brilliance is punctuated with the words of a disgruntled guy trying to take a dump. Movie magic!
1:00:58--Surely this movie can't get better, can it? Now Nic is doing this weird hiccup thing and holding his arms like he's a bunny.
1:03:23--Head bobbin' and the lamest chase scene down a stairwell that I've ever seen.
1:04:30--I'm laughing at a rape threat! This movie has turned me inside-out. But it was a rape threat made with a wagging tongue.
1:04:45--Another big fight scene, this time demonstrating the inner conflict going on with Cage's character. He begins slapping himself. That's right--man vs. his own palm. There will be no winner.
1:06:08--Ba-hoo! And in case you missed the genius of the Ba-hoo! the first time, Cage repeats the Ba-hoo! at 1:06:14. I pause the movie to Ba-hoo! a few times myself. I become one with Nicolas Cage and the cosmos smiles down upon me.
1:06:49--"I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire!" It's hard for me to believe that there are some people who will watch this movie and not realize it's a comedy.
1:07:01--More home destruction.
1:09:30--Nic Cage attempts to eat a pillow.
1:10:38--A phone freak-out. And a Nicolas Cage freak-out is always worth watching, probably twice.
1:11:38--I missed a portion of this scene where Cage's character buys some vampire costume teeth because I had fallen to the floor, drooling. It ends with a classically comic "I will take the plastic" that is hilarious in context. There's a great skipping-alternating-with-jogging thing that makes me giggle.
1:12:35--Now he's talking with inserted plastic teeth and that silly accent? Did this movie just get even more magical? Hell yes, it did!
1:13:49--Bird chase!
1:17:45--And now we have Nosferatu at the discotheque.
1:24:02--Nosferatu freaks out at the discotheque! "I'm a vampire. I can prove it!"
1:24:57--There's a rambling, likely improvised monologue that is mostly about the sun but for whatever reason contains the line "She's just a high school cunt." Then, the sun!
1:26:52--Cage flamboyantly finds himself a stake and tries to have somebody kill him.
1:27:24--I swear to God that I'm not making this line up--"Me vampire!"
1:27:53--Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I am vibrating internally at this point.
1:29:04--He runs into a wall. That's always funny enough, but then Cage's character starts a lengthy conversation with it. Touching stuff.
1:30:57--Another actor laughs at Nicolas Cage's performance.
1:32-59--Channeling Keanu--Whoa! Nosferatu as a skateboard punk?
1:35:09--"Born in Philadelphia"? What?
1:36:00--A "conversation" with Sharon--wow. The mannerisms. The voice. This is tragic, comic, and hallucinatory. I have urinated in my pants at least two times and didn't even realize it.
Last line--Ohhhh! I cry uncontrollably, stuff myself into a mini-fridge for an hour, and emerge again to start the movie all over again.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

2002 biopic

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Based on the memoir of game show innovator Chuck Barris where the author claims that he worked secretly as a CIA assassin while developing such gems as The Newlywed Game, The Dating Game, and The Gong Show.

Well, looky there! It's the ubiquitous Sam Rockwell again. I'd either forgotten or didn't ever know that this is a Charlie Kaufman screenplay. It's his type of tale, but with George Clooney's direction, it's really more Chuck Woolery than Wink Martindale if you know what I mean. The Clooney does a fine job, by the way, not afraid to be a little experimental in approaching Barris's story and creating all kinds of nice moods to show the contrast between his mysterious and dangerous life of intrigue and his zany and hopelessly optimistic life as a television producer. I enjoyed some of the noirish and thrilling scenes in gray European alleyways just as much as the scenes of Barris showing Network suits the unbroadcastable Dating Game clips. Barris isn't exactly a likable character, but both sides of his coin make for some movie fun. And Rockwell can be thrown into that category of actors who are almost too good playing the real-life famous fellow they're playing. George Clooney and Julia Roberts play characters who in no way can be real which is probably the point, and Drew Barrymore once again succeeds in making me wish that somebody other than Drew Barrymore was playing the part. Barris's "life" is perfect for a black comedy, and even though this is fun and satisfying in a kind of dark way, I do like that Clooney plays it all straight. There's no winking in this movie, and I think that makes it a better film. Nostalgically, I enjoyed seeing the Gong Show clips since I remember watching that show as a little squirt.

One Day in September

1999 narrative documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Eight Palestinian terrorists, angry that they had put in so many hours training for a bobsled competition that didn't even exist because it was the summer games, kidnap some Israeli athletes and trainers and demand that an impromptu bobsled competition happen immediately. The media and German security helps them out but can't get the bobsledding set up in time to make them happy. Things end badly.

This is a suspenseful narrative documentary in the same vein as Man on Wire. Michael Douglas narrates, but he's used sparingly. I think he's almost completely unnecessary because when this story really connects, it's utilizing the actual images from the tragedy, the news reports, and the interviews with the family members of the victims and one of the terrorists. That last one there--one of the terrorists, a guy hiding somewhere in Africa--gives this documentary a little more force. Without that guy's perspective, the story would have been incomplete. It doesn't exactly make you sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but it does make the story more well-rounded. The news footage succeeds in supporting the idea that the media is filled with fools who often get in the way and do more harm than good. It's best demonstrated in the scene where the poorly-trained German security men dressed in 70s athlete garb are positioning themselves for a sneak attack-and-rescue mission, a mission that is thwarted because the terrorists are watching it all unfold on television. It's tragically comical. I really liked how this makes the story personal, especially with the interviews with the wife of one of the victims. It also makes it perfectly clear that the terrorists weren't the only bad guys in this story. They were the baddest bad guys maybe, but the ineptitude of the Germans in handling a crisis like this and the lack of sympathy displayed by the Olympic organizers (the decision to continue the games while all of this was happening) puts them in the bad guy camp as well. This succeeds because it manages to create all this suspense even though you know how it all ends. And despite already being given the knowledge that none of these people are going to survive, you still are forced to root for them, optimistic about their chances. I did get really annoyed during a montage of horrifying images set to some rock 'n' roll at the end. Completely unnecessary.

Willard

2003 Crispin Glover movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular character's a delightful young man who works as a clerk in the company that his father started. He lives with his feeble mother in a house that is too large for the two of them and deals with daily harassment from his father's former friend and Willard's boss. He's lonely and frustrated. Luckily, he befriends some gregarious rodents that live in his basement and gets to share all kinds of fun adventures with them.

This might have the best performance from a rat that I'll ever see. No, I'm not talking about Socrates, the white mouse that Willard favors. Big Ben is the one I'm talking about. There are some quietly disturbing scenes of Ben just lingering, brooding, scheming. In a way, Ben's a lot like this movie. It's also quietly disturbing and brooding. The creep sneaks up on you in this one although with Crispin Glover's performance, the beginning isn't exactly cheery. Glover's performance, I should mention, might be the best I'll ever see from a half-man/half-rat. It's the type of performance that makes every other actor in the movie look like he's just not trying hard enough. He's also got such good rapport with his rat co-stars. Dig the gleam in his mousy eyes and the way he commands, "Tear it," as he discovers that he has some influence over the rodents. And the way he tells Socrates, "I hate everyone but you. Let's go to bed." Oh, man. Only an actor of Glover's caliber with his general psyche can appropriately balance the horror and dark comedy in this role, and Glover, just as you'd expect he would, knocks it out of the park. I just love it when he gets really angry and screams like no man should ever scream in a scene at a funeral home. Other favorite Crispin Glover moments: "You think you're funny?" after one of the rats does something really terrible and his response to his mother's "What are you doing in the bathroom?" of "I'm going potty." Speaking of his mother, Jackie Burroughs is brilliantly weird in that role. And hilarious during a conversation where she changes Willard's name to Clark and later during a Three's Company-esque misunderstanding. You've definitely got to suspend your disbelief quite a bit in order to not let some of the plot details get in the way, but this is an often funny and even more often horrifying look at a damaged mind. Great opening credits, too, with a nifty movie theme, some cool animated stuff, and a preview of some of the movie's imagery. It ends even better with Crispin Glover's version of "Ben". For you purists out there, Michael Jackson's version can be heard earlier during a scene with a kitty that is both hilarious and disturbing.

My favorite little joke from the movie is the brand name of the nuts that Willard feeds the rats--Mumm Nuts!

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #6: Matchstick Men

2003 crime dramedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Frank and Roy (Is there some significance to that name combination? I'm too lazy to look it up.) are partners in con (OK, I did look it up. Roy Allen and Frank Wright made root beer. Allen & Wright Root Beer. A&W. There you go.), the older Roy a mentor to his younger partner. Roy's got some psychological problems, however. He's agoraphobic, has numerous tics, and is obsessive-compulsive, especially with cleanliness. It hasn't gotten in the way of him being a successful con man though. But Roy's life is turned upside-down when he finds out that he has a teenage daughter, a girl who a psychologist has helped him contact.

What a fun movie! And what a great freak-out performance by Shane-movies hero Nicolas Cage. By the way, has anybody else noticed that I have his name spelled wrong in the blog label? I've known about that for a while and could have fixed it, but it would take away time that I have for researching the history of root beer. Cage's performance in this is wild and wonderful though. The panic grunts and yelps, the tics, the way he yells "Pygmies!" whenever he feels that he's losing control, the contortions. And Matchstick Men might have my favorite Nicolas Cage line ever, a line that is delivered in a way that only Nicolas Cage could deliver it. Responding to a guy in a pharmacy who asks him if he's ever heard of lines, Roy replies, "Have you ever been taken to the sidewalk and beaten until you PISSED BLOOD?!" It's something you have to rewind and watch at least twelve times. He has another great Nicolas Cage moment when he freaks out about an ashtray and another when he is picking out a suit to wear. The ubiquitous Sam Rockwell and Alison "I'm not Ellen Page" Lohman are both great. I really like that Sam Rockwell every single time I see him. And amazingly, Lohman pulls off fourteen-year-old when she's only five years younger than me. Hans Zimmer provides a playful score with some Frank Sinatra cuts mixed in. This isn't a typical Ridley Scott movie, but I like a lot of what is going on with the direction and general storytelling. At times, to help the audience get into the mind of the protagonist, you get a Nic Cage cam with some jerky camera movements, animated Sam Rockwells, and close-ups or extended shots of the minutia that his character focuses on. As a character study, it's got some genuinely touching moments, and as a con man drama, it's consistently surprising and a lot of fun.

Oh, and guess what song it uses? If you guessed "Beyond the Freakin' Sea," you are correct.

I Love You Phillip Morris

2009 gay romantic comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Stephen Russell,, an on-the-surface happily married police officer , is involved in a car crash. Immediately afterward, he turns gay, proving once and for all (since this is a true story) that people aren't born gay and that the conservatives have been correct all along. He also turns to a life of white-collar crime, conning his way into very comfortable life style with his boyfriend, Jimmy. Until he's arrested. But life really begins for Stephen in prison when he meets the Phillip Morris in the title, a shy gay man who he eventually gets to bunk with. And yes, "bunk" is a euphemism there. Once they're released, Stephen tries to create a happy life for Phillip and him the only way he knows how--illegally.

I could have used a few different posters for I Love You Phillip Morris, but they were all, for whatever reason, pretty gay. This is a good comedy, and it's great for a romantic comedy, aided by two likable leads. Jim Carrey gets some good material to work, and although that side of him that people have been sick of for ten years occasionally rears its ugly head, his flamboyance never really goes over the top and the tender moments are believable. Ewan McGregor's just as good as Phillip. You really feel his vulnerability, and for whatever reason (probably because he's English), he wears gay pretty well. It's a fabulous performance, and I'm not just using the word fabulous because this is a movie about homosexuals. It's shocking to me that he's in a movie where he engages in gay sex and doesn't show his penis on screen though. I believed the two as a couple for most of this and thought they had good chemistry, and the make-out scenes were hot. This feels like too much, too exaggerated to have actually happened, and I wonder how much they stretched things for Hollywood. Comparisons to Catch Me if You Can are probably obvious, but this one is a lot livelier and has this radiance that feels refreshing. It's not all bright, however, as it approaches subject matter nearly taboo for comedy. There's what I thought was a twist that I saw coming, but it was really well done and led to one of the most touching scenes Jim Carrey will ever be involved in. It's all a hell of a lot funnier than Brokeback Mountain though.

Vernon, Florida

1981 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Errol Morris visits the eccentric inhabitants of the titular rural community. They wax poetic about turkey hunting, worms, the human brains, gophers/turtles, God, crime, and sand.

I popped this delicious slice of life in because it was at the tail end of a list of somebody's favorite movies. I'd seen and loved everything else on the list, and I've enjoyed all the other Errol Morris documentaries I've seen. This one is just under and hour, but it's an hour jam-packed with comedy gold. Like a folklorist, Morris just turns the camera on these folks and lets 'em have the floor. There's no polish, no explanation, no real organization that I could see, just interwoven snippets of these (almost all) men sharing their odd obsessions with the camera. Interestingly, Morris actually was drawn to Vernon because in the late 50s/early 60s, two-thirds of self-amputation accident insurance claims came from there. The documentary doesn't address amputation at all though. You get a wild turkey hunter sharing stories of his greatest triumphs; an old man who seems to be an expert on the brain ("You ever see a man's brains? I've seen them. I've picked them up, scooped them out, put them in, do them up like brains."); a "wiggler" farmer who at one point is just showing off when he says the words "regular wiggler;" the Steve Irwin of Vernon who shows the camera a turtle and says, "Now this here is a gopher" and later claims that he could get 1,200 or 1,500 dollars for a possum in an auction; a cop whose biggest concern might be people stealing clothes pins; a guy with a jewel; and a woman with a jar full of "growing sand." Yeah, sand that grows. In a couple years, that sand will fill the jar. The style and pace and pointless subject matter will try the patience of some of my readers (looking at you here, Barry), but I thought it was fascinating and very very funny. The most bewildering moment for me: a guy tells a story about a 65-year-old mule with a hole in his throat. I had trouble understanding the guy, but I think he was describing pulling the mule out of the river and finding that a whole bunch of fish were swimming around the inside of it. Or something. Other things to look out for: At the 32 minute mark, a guy picks his nose with his thumb. And at the 36 minute mark, you get to see Michael Cera singing in the back row of a choir. I don't know exactly what Errol Morris's real intentions were, but if it had something to do with filling Shane with joy, it's a success.

The Docks of New York

1928 silent drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Career stoker Bill Roberts enjoys a night away from the bowels the boat, engaging in a bit of thuggery and floozy hunting and general nincompoopery. He's kind of like the 1920s white equivalent to our modern-day 50 Cent. I think his friends even call him Fitty. While strolling along the docks, he spots a beautiful gal attempting to end her life by jumping into the bay. He dives in and saves her.

I did not like Bill Roberts as a character nor George Bancroft's portrayal of a tough guy, silent acting that didn't go beyond standing over there and looking tough followed by a bit of standing over there and looking tough, lots of hands-on-hips muscle flexin'. He's a flat thug. I thought Betty Compson was great as Mae though, just the right amounts of vulnerability mixed in with this surprising control and charm. Cute as a goddamn button, too, that classical silent movie way where the beauty radiates from big gray-lit eyes and pours into my living room. You root for her not only because she's easy on the eyes but because she's fragile and you just know that Bill's going to screw everything up somehow because he's a big bastard. The narrative is typical silent drama, forcing a pair of misfits to fall hopelessly in love in less than fifteen minutes. Still, there's something kind of sweet about their romance, one that my cynical mind figured would end more tragically than it did. Their romance is a little brightness in a dreary world. Never before has the bleak blacks and greasy grays and wilted whites of 1920's cinema seemed more appropriate then it does in Bill and Mae's world. von Sternberg knows how to tell a story with a camera, too. Its movements are fluid and graceful even when the action on the screen is raucous and packed. And there are relatively very few title cards; they're used not to explain the action of the characters but to add some humor or nuance. You don't need them to explain the feelings of the characters when you've got scenes like the pocket-sewing one to delicately show what the characters' relationship is really about. The Docks of New York, despite being a traditional melodrama, has a look and feel of a movie from a later decade.

Cory recommended this. If there's a movie you'd like to see on this blog, just let me know!

The Legend of Drunken Master

1994 kung-fu movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Posters have invaded China, and folks are panicking. They call on Jackie Chan to save the day, and [Spoiler Alert! Although the poster to the left actually spoils it all anyway.] he uses his drunken fighter style to punch holes in the evil posters. Comically.

I didn't think much of Jackie Chan before I saw this movie. I had seen a couple fistfuls of kung-fu flicks and liked the genre, and everything I knew about Jackie Chan--his general reputation, the small sampling of his work that I'd seen--made me assume that he was like a kung-fu sell-out or something, too popular or new school to be worth my time. The Legend of Drunken Master floored me when I first saw it, and the terrifically creative and acrobatic fight scenes still floor me today. The plot of this one, along with some embarrassing dubbing and some less-than-stellar acting, isn't anything to write home about. Luckily, the bulk of this is made up of those action sequences. The first, mostly taking place beneath a train, shows off rapid movements and some choreography that utilizes every square inch of that confined space. But the fight scenes just get better and better. A lengthy climax in a factory is fast and furious and eye-popping, featuring a guy with legs that moved so quickly and rubbery that I thought for sure they were computer-generated legs. But I think I like the two fight scenes in the middle--one where the character first demonstrates his drunken style to beat down a collective of goons and another where he and a partner take on a ton of dudes with axes--even better. Jackie Chan's known for his stunts, his fluid movements, and his use of humor and props. Here, at nearly forty, Chan's at the top of his game, and if you're a fan of kung-fu movies at all, there are several action sequences that will have you reaching for the rewind button so that you can see them again. They're good enough to help you forgive all the attempts at humor that fall completely flat. The original Drunken Master movie from 1978 is also worth watching, by the way. Compared to this version, it's more traditional and not nearly as flashy, but it's still a solid martial arts flick with that white-haired old guy Siu Tien Yuen who I really like.

Waste Land

2010 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Popular Brazilian artist Vik Muniz befriends catadores who rummage through Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill and collaborates with them to use some of the recycled materials they save to make works of art.

The emotional impact of this caught me off guard, probably because I wasn't initially sure that I liked Vik Muniz's art or understood his motivations. The shots of the landfill and the catadores doing their jobs are pretty bleak, but you soon realize that this isn't about the location or a job that could easily be featured on one of those "Most Terrible Jobs Ever" television programs. At least it's not entirely about that. No, this is more about the individuals who work there, and the way this documentary (and Muniz) treats them as individuals is what makes this special. I enjoyed meeting these people, hearing about their pasts and problems and hopes and dreams, and most importantly, seeing the expressions on their faces that showed how much Muniz's work meant to them. More than any other documentary about art, you get to appreciate the impact that artwork can have on people, and that's a truly beautiful thing. This is a documentary that made me feel good.

My brother recommended this one.

Oprah Movie Club Selection for May: House (Hausu)

1977 Japanese coming-of-age story

Rating: 16/20 (Mark: 16/20)

Plot: Gorgeous isn't too happy about her father remarrying following the death of her mother. She writes a letter to her mom's sister and invites herself and some friends over to her house (the titular house) for the summer. On the way [Spoiler Alert!] they purchase a watermelon. Soon after their arrival, one of the girls disappears. More and more bizarre and possibly supernatural things start happening to the girls. A suspicious kitty lingers.

Some Hausu trivia: The Japanese studio Toho asked director Nobuhiko Obayashi to make a film like Jaws. As George W. Bush would say--"Mission accomplished!"

The second half of this film is likely exactly what Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel had in mind when they invented movies way back in 1929. It starts off like an after-school special though, albeit an artsy-fartsy after-school special directed by a guy who really wants to be an Artist with a capital A and isn't shy about using every stylistic trick in his bulging back of tricks. Before the manic free-for-all Evil Dead-like horror/comedy that everybody who watches this movie will remember (the part with homophagous pianos, demented kitties, killer chandeliers, disembodied heads, dancing skeletons, mouthy eye sockets, menstruation symbolism, inexplicable bananas, aunts retreating into refrigerators, etc.), you get a gaggingly-colored "dull" melodramatic coming-of-age story, but even with that, there's a sense of foreboding and enough wackiness that you know, even if you weren't warned beforehand, that somebody would be eaten by a piano later in the movie. The dvd special features told us that Obayashi started with commercials, and with Hausu, it seems like he wanted to regurgitate every single stylistic trick he'd learned, presumably because that's what American Steven Spielberg does. It reminds me of when I took Vernon to Palestine, Illinois, for their Labor Day weekend rodeo events and we decided to raid the cabinets and refrigerator and dump every ingredient we could find into a cup so that we could dare each other to drink it, probably because that's what we imagined our hero Steven Spielberg did during his spare time. We drank it, and it was disgusting. A majority of people partaking in Hausu might also think it's disgusting, mostly because the images, although the aforementioned tricks used to create those images are familiar, aren't anything the typical viewer is used to. This is weird even by Japanese standards, and you never have any idea what to expect next. I mean both of those as compliments, by the way.

I'm still wrapping my head around what it all means. You've got some pretty obvious symbolism throughout (ripe watermelons, blood, bananas [I guess?]), and the horror, even though it's too comically over-the-top to actually be horrifying, seems to represent the horrors in a young girl's life as she has to deal with changes. My theory: The girls (intellectual Prof, creative Melody, athletic Kung-Fu, hedonistic Mac, sweet Sweet, imaginative Fantasy, and pretty Gorgeous herself) are all chunks of the same young girl, a young girl who discards of various aspects of her personality as she blossoms into womanhood. So what do you think, Oprah Movie Clubbers?

My prediction, by the way: This will be a bit more devisive than Do the Right Thing.

Girl Shy

1924 silent romantic comedy (with horses)

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Because of a speech impediment and a less-than-impressive status as a poor tailor's assistant, some character probably named Harold has trouble meeting women. He's girl shy. But that doesn't stop him from writing a piece of nonfiction with the ambiguous title How to Make Love to Women and attempting to find a publisher for the tome. He eventually does meet a girl on a train and engages in the lengthiest and most awkward sex scene in silent cinema history. A horse is involved.

Question: If a stutterer stutters in a silent movie, and there's no sound enabling you to hear it, does it make a sound? Another solid Harold Lloyd movie with his typically likable protagonist, some very sweet romantic moments, and an explosion of craziness at the end where the actor does something wildy funny (i.e. climbing up the side of a building [Safety Last] or clang-clang-clanging on a trolley through New York streets [Speedy]). In Girl Shy, he's racing against the clock, stealing cars and endangering the lives of everybody around him. I bought the sweetness of his character a little more than in some of his other movies, but I also enjoyed how he had no issues with misbehaving like a four-eyed gangster rapper. And I'm really impressed with the amount of vehicles they managed to throw into that wild chase scene at the end. I think it was a zeppelin away from breaking some sort of vehicular record. This also may have gotten a bonus point for a Harold Lloyd spanking scene. Hot! No way any warm-blooded male could watch that without becoming aroused. Which reminds me--a baseball coach at my school was telling me today that one of his players couldn't make it to practice because he injured himself by "diving onto his bed with a hard-on," hurting the member. It's doubtful, but I wondered if he was watching Girl Shy when that happened.

Another really gay movie poster, by the way. It might not deliver the gay that Feet First delivers, but it's still really gay.

Sherman's March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South during an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

1986 self-indulgent documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy's given some funds to make a historical documentary about General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea that devastated the South during the Civil War. He gets sidetracked and ends up making a documentary about his failed attempts to find love. Tracing Sherman's path, Ross McElwee meets various women, falls for them, and then watches his chances at a lasting relationship with them fall to pieces. Meanwhile, nightmares about nuclear war keep him up at night.

Full disclosure: I had to give this a bonus point once I found out the title was much longer than Sherman's March. At 2 1/2 hours, this is a little too long, and I'm not really sure who the audience would be for this sort of thing. People like me, I guess. It's got a Woody Allen vibe (or maybe a Michael-Moore-without-a-Point vibe), philosophically self-conscious, and folks annoyed by Woody's filmed dissertations on romantic love would likely be just as annoyed with this but for a lot longer. And it's essentially a guy making his own reality show in a time that predates reality television. But I like how McElwee's inner conflicts revolving around art as well as love become universal, and the freeform approach is as revealing as it is humorous. The film tackles a trio of discursive topics--love, nuclear bombs, Sherman--but they somehow come together as a cohesive whole. It's also a series of nice portraits of random people from America's South, almost working as an ethnological study on the side. You've got militia men, a woman who thinks slavery should be allowed for blacks who want to be slaves, and island-dwelling hippie chicks. The episodic, meandering structure makes this a very watchable, entertaining 150 or so minutes, and chances are, if you don't mind the guy, you'll probably enjoy this movie just fine.