Bad Boy Bubby

1993 cringe-fest

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular bad boy lives alone with his portly mother and doesn't leave their humble apartment since the air outside is poisonous and all. He spends his time playing with his kitty and sitting absolutely still until his biological father visits one day. Consequences of that visit force Bubby outside where he makes all kinds of new friends and embarks on a career in the arts.

Challenging, oft-difficult movie featuring incest, fat naked people, cat suffocation, and Bad Boy Bubby's lil bubby--all in the first fifteen minutes. Bubby won't exactly capture your hearts, but parts of his story will make you queasy in your stomach if you're into that sort of thing. I have to give credit for Nicholas Hope's performance of the character. Mentally challenged characters are difficult to pull off, especially when an actor is delicately maneuvering back and forth between tragedy and comedy with the character, and Hope does it very well. This movie is very funny, very very darkly funny, and I always appreciate it when a filmmaker can make me laugh and disturb me at the same time. Bubby's world can't possibly be real, more of an apocalyptic wasteland or the ghost of a third world country than anywhere in wherever the hell this is supposed to take place. Australia? It's a world bathed in gray, drab and dumpy, and there are definitely shots in this movie where it actually does look like the air is poisonous. Bad Boy Bubby doesn't have much depth although I do like the possible satiric jab at rock 'n' roll, but it's a unique and, if you're a little twisted, entertaining character study.

Note: Jen watched a big chunk of this one and really seemed to like it. She missed the aforementioned cat suffocation, incest, naked fat woman, and lil bubby, however.

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.

Cat People

1942 Meow Mix commercial

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A horny guy marries an immigrant who may or may not be a cat. Person. Cat person. He realizes soon after their wedding day that she has no interest in sleeping with him and decides to hook up with his secretary. The wife, already stressed out because she thinks she's a cat, finds out. Cat fight!

Jacques Tourneur's films are stylish but not overtly or extravagantly stylish. This is a quiet Tourneur movie like I Walked with a Zombie, meaning it doesn't have a big goofy demon like or Night of the Beast a big Robert Mitchum like Out of the Past. What it shares with those movies is Tourneur's good eye. The visuals don't pop, and there's nothing in this movie that you could describe as flashy, but I really like how shadows and light (especially shadows) are used to frame the titular Cat Person. The great-named Simone Simon plays her, and I liked her accent in her face, not necessarily in that order, in this. Like the direction, her performance is quiet, and she plays desperate very well. The dialogue's really good for a 1940's semi-horror film, too, but it's the simple style that really makes this a winner. It's a sneaky non-style where the director's making it look so easy, but this is stuffed with some terrific scenes--the pool scene, the pet shop scene, some shots at a museum and in the guy's office. Mysterious and quietly haunting.

Dogtooth

2009 Greek movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A movie that shows why children who are home-schooled end up so weird. A father and mother with three children live in isolation within their walled property. Only the father leaves in order to manage a factory. The children play games for prizes and are educated incorrectly, learning the wrong words for things (a "zombie" is a yellow flower; a woman's sexy parts are called "typewriters") and that cats are deadly. Their naivete and ignorance about the world outside their walls effectively keeps them within the walls, as does the knowledge that their older brother was killed by a cat after leaving the family's property. A parking attendant who the dad brings home to fulfill his son's sexual needs becomes a negative influence as one of the daughters begins wondering just what is going on beyond those walls.

I think this is the first movie from Greece to make it on the blog. If Dogtooth is the typical Greek film, I definitely need to see more. I thought this movie was very, very funny. I shamefully laughed at a scene with a dog, a lot of the very dry humor with the strange dialogue, a dance scene that might rival the one in Napoleon Dynamite, a few allusions to 80's movies, and an announcement about the mother's pregnancy. At the same time, it's very, very creepy, so the laughs come with a feeling of unease. There's very little about the goings-on with this family that resemble anything close to normal, almost like Ionesco and Albee decided to collaborate for a Theater of the Absurd magnum opus and accidentally founded the Theater of the Really Really Absurd. Like that particular brand of drama, there's satire sprinkled in with all the nonsense. Not that I completely get what is being satirized or anything. The story's episodic, bouncing from surreal oddball family video to another. And there's just something about the almost sanitized way this family's story is told that makes it all even more disturbing. I imagine this would be a pretty divisive film. If you picked this out to watch with a hundred of your friends on movie night, I bet 40% would really hate it, 15% would love it, 25% would be intrigued and/or amused, 25% would not even be able to finish the movie, and 10% would stop coming to movie nights at your place. And 100% would agree that I'm really bad at math. Throw me in with the percentage of people who thought this was some good, disturbing fun. And who think I'm bad at math.

Cory sort of recommended this. So, what do you think this one's about? Overprotective parents and/or governments? Censorship? Education? Something else?

Night of the Demon

1957 horror movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: American psychologist John Holden travels to London for a conference on the paranormal. Plans to work with Professor Harrington are changed when the professor manages to electrocute himself while trying to flee from a giant funky-looking demon. Skeptical of all things in the realm of the paranormal, Holden doesn't listen to the warnings of Harrington's neice or believe the strange things that occur following his arrival in England are anything more than coincidences. Unfortunately for him, he's been cursed by cult leader and part-time clown Julian Karswell, a guy who tells him he's scheduled to die in just a couple days.

I know, I know. The movie's called Night of the Demon or, in America at least, Curse of the Demon. It's got a B-movie plot about devil worshippers and curses. It starts with B-movie-style narration, a guy rambling about this-and-that over shots of what could be stock footage of Stonehenge. And it's got a demon monster thing that looks exactly like it does on the poster up there. Yeah, on the surface, it smells an awful lot like a B-horror flick, cheap Satanploitation from the 50s. Instead, it's a tense, quickly-paced little thriller with atmosphere galore and some genuinely spooky moments. Plenty to dig here--demon-aided wind storms, cult leader parlor magic tricks, anthropomorphous slips of paper, killer smoke, a hand on a banister, a killer demon-possessed kitty. Speaking of the latter, and giving this even more of a B-movie flavor, there is a fantastic scene where the main character wrestles with a stuffed animal. I love those. This movie shoots its wad early, against Out of the Past director Jacques Tourneur's wishes apparently, by showing the demon in the first five minutes of the movie. And it looks decently menacing from a distance, stumbling through the trees like a clumsy Japanese monster. An unfortunate close-up makes me wonder if it's a borrowed head from a Roger Corman horror movie. The demon pops up again later in a nearly identical way. There are a few nice shots with parts of the demon though. But this movie is much more effective, and easily more suspenseful and mysterious, during the middle bulk of the movie when the demon is nowhere to be seen. Something about the dialogue, and I'm not sure if it's in the writing or the characters' rapport which at times seemed rushed, was a little off. But despite any flaws this movie might have, this little horror movie's got a lot of character and demonic charm, and Tourneur's great directing eye for visual storytelling and mood making keeps it interesting from start to finish.

By the way, I gave this a full bonus point for the performance of Reginald Beckwith as Mr. Meek, a medium. He's on the screen for only a short time but it's a magical short time. I wanted a Mr. Meek spin-off movie! Beckwith walks into the scene a normal guy, becomes completely unhinged, starts doing all these weird voices, and then finishes and leaves the movie. If this was the only job Reginald Beckwith ever had, he still would have deserved a lifetime achievement award for this scene. And don't tell me those weird voices were just some really well-done dubbing job because it will crush my spirit.

The Ref

1994 Christmas comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A jewel thief's partner leaves him behind during a burglary gone wrong, and he's forced to abduct a bickering married couple on Christmas Eve. As he plans his escape, things get even more complicated with the arrival of their mischievous son and some other relatives. Can Gus the jewel thief escape before the family drives him completely insane?

I thought this was more irritating than funny. I don't really like Denis Leary anyway, probably because of the way he spells his first name rather than anything to do with his talents or personality, and it seems that all the other characters were written to be obnoxious. I couldn't find a single laugh anywhere in this thing, making it just dark instead of a dark comedy. The premise is clever but predictably written, and majority of the dialogue sounds like it was penned for the purpose of showing audiences how witty the writers are instead of creating realistic, complete characters. There's a lot of talent involved, but it's going to be hard for me to like a movie where I don't actually like any of the characters. The actors try very very hard (probably too hard), and each gets a chance to deliver these foul-mouthed diatribes that come across as mean-spirited but seldom funny. It's impossible for even the best funnymen and funnywomen to be funny without material. Oh well. At least there was a recurring urine joke.

Cory, jolly old elf, recommended this one.

Alice in Wonderland

2010 movie

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 16/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. Alice, now a young woman who isn't too happy about the pressures she's feeling to marry a goofy redheaded guy, returns to Wonderland and is told that she's the chosen one and will have to slay something called a Jabberwocky with a vorpal blade that goes snicker-snack. She gets help from an assortment of odd characters (a disappearing kitty, a mad hatter, a dormouse, tubby twins, a stoned caterpillar) who she should remember but doesn't. Meanwhile, Wonderland's completely gone to hell with the Red Queen making everybody's life miserable. As the frabjous day approaches, Alice is needed more and more, but she first needs to be convinced that she's the right Alice and get back to her normal size.

Maybe I should have seen this in 3-D. Maybe I should just see everything in 3-D actually. I did really like the look of Tim Burton's Wonderland, as artificial and computer-generated as it was. Even without 3-D, there was a depth to the setting with endless swirling grays in the sky, gnarled trees, cartoonish mushrooms. The computer-animated creatures--the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, et. al--were very well done, even when being ridden on. In fact, the special effects were great all around, working to keep things visually interesting even if they weren't anywhere near realistic. Unfortunately, I don't think Tim Burton adds anything of real value to the Wonderland canon. The dialogue, the characters, and the goings-on seem a bit rehashed, and the story never feels fully realized to me, just an excuse to throw some trippy visuals and nifty special effects on the screen. I really wish there would have been more playfulness in the dialogue. A lot of the whimsy and fun of the Disney cartoon and Lewis Carroll's novels is from the wordplay, and that's pushed aside to focus on a bunch of jerky action sequences and the aforementioned imagery. From the halfway point on, I lost interest more and more. I didn't like Alice very much, not even enough to look up the name of the gal who played her, but Johnny Depp does his usual fine job and Crispin Glover's also got a major part. There's a lot to like in Burton's Wonderland, but it suffers from the same problems as most of his movies, especially the remakes--it's just too much and almost disrespects the originals.

I can't believe I missed the opportunity to see Crispin Glover in 3-D, by the way.

Re-Animator

1985 horror-comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Medical student Dan's new roommate seems a little strange, and after a few weeks, he confirms that he's strange when he kills and re-animates a cat. You know, because he's the titular re-animator. Herbert West ropes Dan and his girlfriend into his devilish experiments, and then things get really bloody. Really really bloody.

This one doesn't completely succeed (like an Evil Dead or Dawn of the Dead) because it's much, much gorier than it is funny. Don't get me wrong. The superfluous blood and guts (second film in a row that involves some form of intestine strangulation, talking severed heads, limbs a-go-go) is enough to make you giggle. The makers of this had to have a bottomless bucket of fake blood, and they weren't afraid to use it. But the jokes are either dated or were just never funny, too often reaching for the sick and raunchy instead of the clever. H.P. Lovecraft's story is fine, and at times, it's thrown on the screen in some very creative ways with some cutesy camera work and gruesome special effects that makes this worth seeing, especially if you've ever wondered what the inside of a person looks like. But I just wish it had that little extra something. Special note: Whoever was in charge of sound effects for this movie sure must have had a good time. Lots of amplified squishing and crunching in this one.

Bucket of Blood

1959 delightful beatnik black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Walter Paisley, an awkward loser, longs to be artsy-fartsy like the beatnik clientele of the Yellow Door Cafe where he works as a busboy. He buys himself some clay, sculpts a gray blob, and stabs his cat. When he's able to turn that feline tragedy into his first artistic masterpiece, he becomes a sensation around the Yellow Door, and the patrons begin to demand more.

More twisted fun from Roger Corman, this one, with its accidental kittycide and grotesque sculptures, also works as a biting satire of the art world. The production's cheap and, I'm guessing, quick, but they made the most of their limited time and monies. The beatnik stuff really dates this, but almost in a good way. I really liked the cool beatnik poet character Maxwell Brock (played by Julian Burton who was in The Masque of Red Death with Vincent Price), over-the-top and every bit of pretentious as he reads poems about ringing rubber bells and beating cotton gongs or saying profound things like "Life is an obscure hobo, bumming a ride on the omnibus of art." Paisley's sculptures, any which would look great in my living room, are really cool. I'd describe them, but it'd spoil things. Bucket of Blood is well-paced thriller and purposely funny, some of the darkest funny you might ever see. And the fact that it accidentally has something to say about creation and the art world along the way makes it even more worth the time. Oh, and ironically, I'm not sure there's any blood in this movie at all. And I don't remember seeing a bucket either.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

1946 noir

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Drifter Frank Chambers wanders into a Southern California town and takes a job as a handyman in a small restaurant, mostly because of how the proprietor's wife looks in her tiny white shorts. Soon enough, Frank and Cora are pawing at each other. Cora doesn't love Nick, her older husband, and she really wants to own and run the restaurant all by herself. Frank wants to continue sleeping with Cora. They decide to end Nick's life prematurely and live the dream. It doesn't go very well.

OK, I'm going to be in the minority with a lukewarm response to this one. But if somebody in the know told me that The Postman Always Rings Twice is a parody of film noir, I would snap my fingers and say, "Aha! I knew it!" So much about this is color-by-numbers noir. The characters are stock, the dialogue is riddled with cliches, and the couples' ploys and exploits are so unbelievably stupid, that there's no way they're a writer's honest attempt at crime fiction. I mean, just look at this bit of dialogue:

Cop: Cats are poor, dumb things.
Frank (with a goofy grin): Yeah. They don't know anything about electricity.
Cop: Killed her deader than a doornail.
D.A. :Yes, the cat's dead all right. Well, accidents can happen in the weirdest sort of ways.
Cop: Never saw a prettier cat. Killed her deader than a doornail.

On paper, that looks like it could have been penned by Ed Wood, and the actors deliver the lines like they think they're in one of his movies. Lana Turner looks the part, and her legs really steal the show, but her acting is brutal. I will say that the scene in which she's introduced (a rolling lipstick tube, those white shorts, some slyly suggestive banter) is easily the best scene in the movie. John Garfield's performance is definitely weirder and probably worse. He seems completely lost, an actor who doesn't understand where his character's coming from or where he's going, and his dialect comes and goes. From the swiftly blossoming romance between the two leads to the accelerating but stuttering dramatic moments, I didn't buy a single thing that happened in this movie. That didn't necessarily stop me from enjoying the film, but all that enjoyment came from this being comedy rather than straight noir.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

1957 sci-fi flick

Rating: 16/20

Plot: After being spritzed with insecticide and made sparkly by a cloud of radioactive material, poor Scott Carey notices that he's started shrinking. It's incredible! He fights to remain relevant until an accident forces him to also fight for his survival.

First, I should point out that I gave this a bonus point for a Billy Curtis appearance, my "Little Person of the Year" back in 2008 when I still used the M-word. Midget. He had only a small role (pun absolutely intended!), but he's always good to see. On the surface, this is pretty typical 50s sci-fi nonsense with a little action-packed survival story tossed in. But I'm convinced that The Incredible Shrinking Man is so much more than that, a kind of psychological allegory or a philosophical wet nightmare. All that stuff about dualism at the end, the infinitesimal and the infinite, the closing of circles, an existential nightmare transitioning into a heroic standing-up to infinity, a backhand to Nietzche's withered cheek, a dab of theology, a little bit of Zeno's paradox thrown in. What a closing monologue and last line! Sure, it's reaching, but it succeeds in getting the butter from the popcorn to the brain. There's a thick layer of sticky context here--symbolic spiders and their webs, man's eternal struggle to eat a piece of moldy cake, the nightmarish possibility that you could be devoured by a pussycat, fire and water symbolism. Aside from all that, it's a good movie anyway. There's some bad acting and an oppressive score, although the opening music featuring a trumpet and theremin is really good. The special effects are outstanding. The killer cats and spiders look real and menacing beside poor shrinking Scott. The sets and effects used to create a new world for the titular character are great. The guy did have translucent legs at one point, but the fact that this never really looked all that dopey is impressive. This is from a Richard Matheson story, and its themes of loneliness and figuring out your place in the world connect it with his The Last Man on Earth and its various remakes. This was a pleasant surprise, and anybody given a free copy of The Incredible Shrinking Man should probably watch it.