Rubber

2010 killer tire movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An abandoned automobile tire rolls around the desert and uses its telepathic powers to destroy any trash, bunnies, or people who get in its way. A crowd of people is given binoculars to watch the proceedings.

Like Christine or Maximum Overdrive or Duel but with only a tire. Or like your typical 50's monster movie except instead of a guy in a rubber suit causing mayhem, you just get the rubber. From a technical standpoint, I enjoyed trying to figure out how the tire was brought to life. It may be a much easier special effect than I think it is, and it certainly wasn't a special effect you'd describe as flashy. Most of this movie is the tire rolling around, only stopping to quiver and make a loud noise and make something explode, or people sitting around watching the tire, a meta-cular cinematic joke that's the sort of thing Soderbergh might put together in his spare time between Oceans 19 and Oceans 20. We're told at the beginning that this film is an "homage to the most powerful element of style" in movies--a lack of reason. It frequently falls into annoying cutesy-clever territories, turning into the kind of indie production that you want to take out back and slap around a bit. But was I entertained? Heck, yeah! It's a tire rolling around making bunnies explode! How could I not be entertained? Funniest bit involves a cop taking a tire off a car and saying, "This is what our killer looks like." No, the funniest bit is probably where they set a trap with an explosive dummy. I also can appreciate any movie that has a scene implying that a tire has jerked off while watching an exercise video. I'll give director Quentin Dupieux credit for seeing this ridiculous idea to its end, but his message about movies comes across like a film school student trying to impress his professor who rambles on and on about arthouse cinema every class.

I'll probably lose any chance at a Father of the Year Award for admitting this, but I was watching this with a couple of my children until the moment when heads started exploding and I told them to go upstairs. They didn't enjoy the bunny explosions at all and were probably disappointed that their father laughed at it.

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #7: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

1982 high school movie

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Teenagers at the titular high school titillate each other, take some drugs, rebel against their teachers, get their priorities all wrong, knock each other up, make poor decisions, work toward their likely depressing futures, and masturbate.


This episodic look at high school in the eighties barely has Nicolas Cage in it at all. It is filled with a ton of colorful characters and their various misadventures. A few of those misadventures are interesting and/or meaningful, and unfortunately, a few of those characters are annoying. That's right, Sean Penn. I'm talking about you. I did like some of the interactions between his Spicoli and Mr. Hand though. This movie didn't make me laugh, and I didn't hit me on a nostalgic level since it's a bit before my high school time. As an artifact from the 1980s, it's maybe an above-average teen comedy, but if you're watching it only because you're a fan of Nicolas Cage, you're going to be really disappointed.

Black Swan

2010 ballet movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 15/20)

Plot: Man! Ballet competition is cut throat! Nina is an aspiring ballerina with an overprotective mother. She's also an aspiring drug addict/lesbian. And she's got poison ivy or something. She finally lands a coveted role--Donkey Girl in The Fragrant Codpiece--but begins to lose her mind with the pressures that come with the approaching performance, the demands of the oozing director, and the catty remarks of her jealous colleagues.

Wait a second. Darren Aronofsky is just making the same movie over and over again. Isn't this The Wrestler in tights? Or maybe it's a The Wrestler/Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo hybrid. This should get bonus points for making ballet intriguing. I didn't think I was liking this movie much, but I'm a sucker for folks-losing-their-minds movies or these movies about artistic obsessions, and this one just kept getting better and better. And on any given day, the little Aronofsky tricks to make the experience of gracefully losing one's mind might be too much, but on the particular day, this was a thrill ride of emotions, a visceral and downright haunting experience. My movie-watching companion was freaked out, and at times this does grab you the way a classy horror movie might. Aronofsky distracts with lesbian action, writhing Natalie Portmans, some modern effects that seem straight out of a comic book superhero movie, and some difficult-to-watch body scenes. But the themes addressed are universal, and the story is complex enough to keep the mind involved throughout. Natalie Portman can do more than writhe. She can also look happy, look sad, and moan, and she does all that like an Oscar award winner should. And I know there's a bit of controversy about how much ballet dancing she actually did, but whatever amount of this was her was impressive. A lot of times, it's hard to buy the main character as a great musician or great athlete, especially if they're supposed to represent the very best. I was never not convinced that Nina was the best little swan princess around. And, as a bonus, she writhes! The structure of this is like a powerful rock song. It develops slowly and then reaches this amazing crescendo, all crashing emotions and flurries of intense beauty, perfectly aided by the score, mostly (appropriately)from Swan Lake. And it all looks so good. Aronofsky uses so much blacks and whites that it might as well be a black and white movie, and when you do get some other colors thrown in, especially during the climactic moments of both the movie and the ballet, it's almost shocking. Black Swan isn't perfect, but it's the perfect example of a movie that you finish with your mouth wide open and one that you can't quite shake from your head for a few hours afterward.

Taxidermia

2006 family comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Three generations of men who abuse their bodies--a chronic masturbator, a competitive eater, and a taxidermist. A rooster refuses to just be an innocent bystander, a love triangle ensues, and the gaunt guy's grown tired of feeding a bean bag chair with a face.

Need proof that I'm not just a man but a man's man, a man with a golden stomach, and a man with intestinal fortitude? I ate while watching Taxidermia. Had an entire meal, enjoyed a second helping, and munched on a few sunflower seeds. I don't think you could do that. No, that's not an official challenge because I'm not sure you should actually see this movie. Within the first minute of the movie, a guy dabbles in a little foreplay with a candle before pleasuring himself autoerotically, the scene (and the character) climaxing with the ejaculation of fire. Four feet of firey jism! That's in the first minute! It's that type of movie. By the time you get to the competitive eating and subsequent ring of barfing and the Jabba the Hutt doppelganger and the artsy grotesque denouement, your quease organs are overworked and your lobe's been sufficiently stroked. Taxidermia, a film by my new favorite director Gyorgy Palfi (Hukkle), is like gross-out artsy-fartsiness, but it's undeniably shot beautifully. There's an absolutely stunning scene featuring a bathtub and another that starts with a pop-up book about a matchbook girl and ends with astronomical ejaculate. It's beautiful ugliness, and even though the visuals are firmly in the "Not for Very Many People" category, it's impossible to deny that they're artistic. And memorable. I also really liked Taxidermia's score. The movie's also very very funny in very very sick ways, and if that's your bag, then there might be something for you in Taxidermia. Actually, I'm not even sure that's entirely true. I just know that when I think of a scene featuring a hole, lubricant, and a rooster makes me chuckle and then immediately feel dirty. But what's it all about? Or is it about anything at all? Well, add it to the list of Eastern European funk that I don't think I can fully appreciate due to a lack of historical context. I wasn't even sure if Hungary was still a country. However, the more I thought about all this, the more it started to come together. And I read a message board post from a real Hungarian (they do still exist!) that really brought home the genius of this thing. Man, oh, man! I can't wait to see where Palfi goes from here. This guy's a force to be reckoned with!

Note: There were a few poster options I had with this one. One was an image from the fire ejaculation scene which I'm sure made tons of people want to see this movie.

Little Children

2006 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Sarah and Richard are in an unhappy marriage. Brad and Kathy are in their own unhappy marriage. Sarah is double-dog-dared by the other moms (creepy moms) at the park to get Brad's phone number. She does and in subsequent weeks, the two get closer and closer. Finally, on a rainy afternoon following the local pedophile's visit to the public pool, they decide to do the nasty. They do it, several times, sometimes while appliances are watching. Ex-cop Larry (yet another quality Larry in popular culture) has a personal vendetta with the local pedophile and leads a campaign to drive him out of town.

This was a really difficult movie to watch with a myriad of difficult and/or creepy scenes. I actually felt a little uncomfortable watching the dynamics between these characters. That was probably the point, so I guess director Todd Field was very successful. For whatever reason, by the way, I would have guessed that this was directed by a woman, but I've never known any women named Todd. The tone's consistently pessimistic, and there's not really a good guy in sight. The relationships between the sets of spouses are troubling. Brad and Sarah's adulterous relationship always seems a bit off (and is creepy with their kids always in close proximity), more cheap thrills or convenience territory than anything resembling love. Everything the ex-cop does is disturbing. And creepy pedophiles are really no good. This movie seems to be exploring the hypocrisy of suburbia and white middle class folk, and like a lot of contemporary movies that this sort of reminded me of that I didn't really like as much (Crash), it succeeds in making you point your finger at the characters and their dubious actions while simultaneously thinking about the shape of your own soul. And you get to see Kate Winslet naked again! I liked Jackie Earle Haley in his comeback role as the creepy pedophile although it's one of those characters that almost seems too easy. 1) Be thin. 2) Be balding. 3) Move awkwardly. 4) Win critical acclaim! That scene at the pool was especially chilling, as was a shocking finale, even though I saw it coming from a mile away with the (repeated?) mention of a key word early on. Strangely, a scene in which Winslet's character shows up surprisingly at one of Brad's late-night football games creeped me out even more though. Perhaps I'm missing something, but a lot of the dialogue and interactions with the characters didn't feel all that realistic, and I was left unfulfilled by the ending. Still, this troubling drama does a great job at holding a cracked mirror up to a fractured society. And, in case I didn't mention it, Kate Winslet's naked again.

I realize I used some variation of "creepy" in this a lot, but I'm not sure it can be overused in describing a movie like this. Cory recommended it. He's not really all that creepy.

The Right Stuff

1983 airplane and spaceship movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Traces the advances of flight and the U.S. space program from the time Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier to the training and travels of the Mercury 7 astronauts.

Der Stoff Aus Dem Die Helden Sind is a thoroughly engaging, light-hearted breath of fresh air. There were a lot of ways this material could have been approached. This movie almost fictionalizes the events and characters, and never steers away from an opportunity for a little humor. Instead of inflating the hero aspect, the script makes these pilots and astronauts very very human, and I really liked all the scenes with the bumbling politicians. Their scenes aren't far off from Abbott and Costello routines or an Ionesco play. The scenes with the flights are very realistic without being overly special-effecty, and even though anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of this period of history knows what happens with the characters, they still manage to hold the tension. At six hours and forty-three minutes, this movie is very long, but it's never boring. The music was a bit much a lot of the time, and the sudden narration at the end is weird. Overall, I really enjoyed this very warm look at the Cold War, a movie that puts a human face on the wacky and wild world of space travel. If nothing else, this movie may have inspired me to incorporate horses into my sex life.

Cory always wanted to be an astronaut as a little boy. Or a shark. Watching movies about them was the next best thing. He recommended The Right Stuff.

Big Fan

2009 sports movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Paul's sort of a loser. He lives with mom who wishes he could be more like his seemingly better-adjusted brother and sister. He's content with a dead-end job at a parking garage. He lives for one thing and one thing only--his New York Giants and their potentially bright future with star quarterback Quantrell Bishop. With pal Sal, he tailgates every Sunday before watching the game on a television in the parking lot of the stadium. On weeknights, he carefully pens some words for a local sports talk radio show, trading trash talk with an Eagles fan called Philadelphia Phil. But a violent encounter with the star quarterback threatens to disrupt his routine and ruin the team's chances of winning the division, and Paul is left to sort it all out.

I certainly wanted to like this movie more than I did. I almost laughed once--at a 50 Cent birthday cake with a "7" candle--but found the majority of what was supposed to be a dark comedy fairly discomforting. Writer/director Robert Siegel and Patton Oswalt take this character to some dark places, crush his bones, spit on him when he's down, and expect us to laugh, but there's not nearly enough of a payoff. Big Fan gets some things right. You could hear a lot of talk show callers (I'm looking at you, Clones) in Paul's scripted phone calls, and I thought Oswalt was excellent in portraying this guy. But too much of this was just difficult to watch--the interactions between Paul and his mother, the building tension as Paul sat watching his idol live it up with his entourage at a club, pretty much every conversation Paul had with anybody not named Sal. Pitiful characters can be funny, I guess, when it feels like they're somehow in on the joke, but with Big Fan, it just didn't feel right to laugh at this guy's pain. Or maybe it just wasn't funny enough. I would have liked some evolution with the character, something to make me think that it was all going to be all right eventually, some glimmer of light that would make it OK to crack a smile. I didn't get it.

This movie also loses a point because of Michael Rapaport. I don't like that guy.