Dead Alive

1992 zombie funk

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A nuts monkey captured on Skull Island (probably not that Skull Island) winds up in a zoo where it bites a woman and turns her into a zombie. Her son, poor Lionel, has to take care of her while trying to nurture a new relationship with the gal who works at the market. It doesn't get any easier for Lionel as his mom begins to infect other people.

Peter Jackson's best movie? None of those Hobbit movies or the King Kong remake even had a guy using a lawnmower as a weapon. Discuss in the comments below.

If this had been around for me to see in high school, it probably would have been my favorite movie, something I could watch back-to-back with Evil Dead II whenever I needed to fulfill my splatter-comedy needs. This is definitely splattabulous, splatrageous, and splatterific, a lot bloodier than anything Raimi will ever do. It pushes the envelope and then pushes it more, pushing it so that it goes all the way through some guy's skull so that his brains and blood stain the walls. Does it straddle the line between violence and humor? No. It sort of stomps all over the line until the blood and laughs fuse together into this scrambled mess of joke-telling bowels and slapstick viscera. I felt completely silly doing it, but I laughed out loud so much as I watched this in the wee hours while lying in bed that I woke up my poor wife a few times. And I'll admit that it didn't feel right to answer her "What's so funny?" with "Oh, this character is throwing around this zombie baby!" or "Intestines are chasing a guy around his house!" The amount of gore in this thing has to be seen to be believed, and just when I think I've seen a zombie die in the most bizarre or creative way possible, Jackson gives me something even more ridiculous to see. A mind that conceives some of the imagery in this has to be a deranged one. Dead Alive (or Braindead elsewhere) has nothing at all to say about society. It makes no grand statements and really doesn't even tell its story all that well. But from the appearance of the stop-motion (?) monkey to the thrilling and sloppy climax, this doesn't let up, assaulting the senses with the most creative gore you're likely to see and some sick, sick laughs. Recommended to film lovers who haven't grown up yet or anybody who wants to see what Peter Jackson was up to before he started filming endless scenes of Hobbits and elves walking around.

Heavy Traffic

1973 cartoon for adults

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Michael Corleone (why does that name seem familiar?) lives in a too-tiny apartment in New York City with his parents. When he's not working on his pinball wizard skills, he spends his time huddled over a desk sketching the humans he's interacted with on the city streets, including his parents. He's an underground comic, and that's what they do. He befriends an African American prostitute.

I don't know. I definitely felt a little dirty after watching this. Heavy Traffic is the kind of cartoon you have to wash off yourself if you see it. I guess that's an appropriate feeling when you watch an X-rated cartoon though. This is Ralph Bakshi, the guy who did Fritz the Cat, those Lord of the Rings cartoons, and the terribly boring Wizards. It's more similar to the raunchiness of Fritz than the fantasy stuff though unless there's some scene in Lord of the Rings where Frodo exposes himself to a goblin that I'm forgetting about. It really makes Bakshi seem misanthropic. He draws all these oddly-proportioned grotesque exaggerations of pimps, hookers, bums, and con artists. It's those seedy characters you can't really find in a metropolitan area unless you find a rock and flip it over. The animation style's straight from the unsavory 1970s for the most part, characters who move around like they're a member of Fat Albert's posse or are on their way to sing a School House Rocks type song instructing children on how to dispose of a prostitute's corpse, how to know when you're a dope fiend, or where to hide your pornography. There's also a fair amount of experimentation with a mix of live action and the animation. Seeing Bakshi's completely unnatural characters walking against photographs of the city streets does look pretty cool actually, and I liked some of that 70's funkadelica when the animator's shapes and colors go completely nuts. This is a little uneven and wears out its welcome before its seventy-six minutes or so are up, but it's not a bad little cult cartoon flick.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

2002 sequel

Rating: 15/20 (Dylan: 10/20)

Plot: Well, they'd already committed to making three of these things, and although nobody really liked the first one (Star Wars Episode I: Darth Vader Was Once a Little Kid) despite lovable new characters like Wotto, the fish-faced guys, and Jar Jar Binks; two lightsaber fights, including one extended one with three guys, that blow away anything in the original trilogy; Natalie Portman; and a really cool space battle that is only somewhat ruined by a little kid's presence, they couldn't just not make Episode II. So George Lucas and his pals, mostly puppets, had a barbecue at the Star Wars ranch (you haven''t had barbecue until you've had barbecued Gungan, by the way) and figured out ways to fix the franchise. They came up with the following list:

1) Less of the maligned (unfairly?) Jar Jar Binks
2) Replace the comic relief Jar Jar Binks provided with more scenes featuring the lovable robot duo of R2-D2 and C3PO. Everybody loves them! And everybody loves puns!
3) Bring on Boba Fett. Star Wars nerds love that guy, so they will naturally love to see him as a little kid.
4) More romance. The first trilogy had some romance, including a developing love affair between a guy with his own sister. And the characters in that original trilogy have to be conceived at some point, right?
5) A lot of political mumbo-jumbo, and numerous scenes taking place in a big room with outer space senators. After all, people love watching C-SPAN. They'd surely love C-SPAN in space!
6) Christopher Lee. That guy makes everything better.
7) A scene with a scantily-clad Natalie Portman chained to an obese, slimy green thing.
8) Give Obi-Wan a freakin' beard! He's got one in the original Star Wars, and it might confuse people when he doesn't have one in the prequels.

And from George Lucas's original notes and stick figure drawings, they penned a script in under an hour (Rocky time!), called up John Williams to see if he could compose the exact same music he'd already composed for the other movies, found some random guy working in a deli who really knew how to slice meat and sounded vaguely Jedi-like when he said, "Hello, my name is Hayden. How can I help you today?", and made the magic happen.

This movie loses points every time C3PO has a line. What the hell were they thinking? "I'm beside myself"? "This is such a drag"? Come on. I don't think that idiom is going to survive a long, long time or make any sense in most galaxies that are far, far away. And I don't think a distressed robot would say something like that. It's unbelievably stupid and probably represents what almost all original trilogy fans hate about this next generation of Star Wars movies.

However, this movie is a lot of fun, and I honestly can't understand why it wouldn't appeal to fans of the original trilogy. It's a bridge movie, much like The Empire Strikes Back, so it doesn't complete a story. It's got a saggy middle weighted down with politics and the romantic developments on Naboo between dopey Anakin and his not-very-sandlike love interest. But let's take a look at what it does have:

--my favorite shot from any of the Star Wars movies not featuring Akbar or his fish-faced friend when Portman's scratched by one of those Harryhausen-inspired monsters and the trade federation guy does this little celebration
--those Harryhausen-inspired monsters in that ridiculous arena scene
--a really cool chase scene through the Fifth Element-esque city planet "streets"
--pretty funny rapport between the great Ewan McGregor (and he's nearly as good as the great Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan) and Hayden
--a cool new bounty hunter
--Boba Fett's daddy, who looks like a shinier version of the Boba Fett we all know in love but who does a helluva lot more than his son did in Episodes V and VI
--a terrific and intense fight on the rainy planet between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan
--explanations for things in the original trilogy, like where Stormtroopers come from
--Obi-Wan slinking around like a noir movie detective sans fedora
--Christopher Lee as a Sith bad guy, classy and evil
--parallels between future-Vader and his son Luke
--Yoda yielding a lightsaber, hopping around like a banshee. Are you kidding me? I literally urinated in my movie theater seat when I saw that on the big screen.
--more lightsabers at once than you can count, slicing and dicing robots and those waspy-looking things
--some great new settings (the aforementioned rainy planet and the waspy-looking things planet) along with the beautiful Naboo

If you travelled back in time to before the prequels were made, found a diehard Star Wars fan, and told him that George Lucas was going to make more movies with those things in them, that Star Wars fan's nipple would harden. And it's all presented with the groundbreaking special effects you'd expect from a Star Wars movie. Is the story clunky? Probably. Is some of the acting really bad? Yes, and I'm looking straight at you, Hayden. Should Anthony Daniels have stopped the director and said, "Wait a second, boss. I'm not so sure C3PO would ever say this"? Maybe. But despite the film's flaws, this episode, like the other two in the trilogy, were fun enough to make me feel like a kid again, and I loved being able to experience the Star Wars universe with my own kids.

The Illusionist

2010 French cartoon

Rating: 18/20

Plot: The titular magician's getting old, and with the emerging popularity of rock 'n' roll musicians, so is his act involving a squirrely rabbit and various objects stuffed up his sleeve. He travels to Scotland where he befriends a young maid named Alice. She travels with him to England where he struggles with his art and uses his meager funds to buy her shoes and dresses.

Ventriloquist, by the way, is a "belly talker" as ventri means belly and loqu means talk. Latin roots. Engastrimyth is from the Greek and means "stomach talker." I figured you'd find that interesting.

I love Tati, I love French whimsy, I loved Chomet's The Triplets of Belleville, and I was pretty sure I would love this movie. I might not be right about a lot of things, but I was about that. There's a wonderful texture to Chomet's 2D animation. A scene near the end with a shadow makes me tear up just thinking about it, but there are all kinds of tiny details that I just loved in this--the radiance of a jukebox, shadows over golden grasslands, a twist of a coat in front of a mirror, window reflections, the clown nose of the downtrodden. The style and the settings make me nostalgic, and I'm not even sure why. I've never been to Scotland, France, or England. But there's just something about the way the places and backgrounds are drawn. I loved the way this film looked. And like Triplets, I love the way Chomet has his characters move. Again, he exaggerates the grotesqueness of human beings, putting the needle on the old quirk-meter well into red. The hup-hup-hupping acrobats. The melancholy clown (a scene where he listens to calliope music alone in his room is just beautiful). The little fellows who run the hotel. The ventriloquist and his dummy (loved that first appearance of the dummy!). The way the rock band sashays off the stage. They all interact in a nearly dialogue-free little world because words just aren't that necessary. All you need to do is watch a handful of silent films to find that out. This has that silent film funk but with a slightly more complex range of human emotions. Inferences need to be made, and there's definitely some wiggle room here, allowing for a variety of hunches about what's going on with these characters. I'm definitely the type of movie watcher who's moved more by imagery than words, and it's great how Chomet tells so much story without having to explain things with any superfluous language. And then you've got the Tati influence. It's Tati's story, personal and heartbreaking, and this medium is perfect for capturing the Hulot mannerisms, the Tati-type sight gags, and the overall flavor. Chomet does capture Tati's movements very well, from the way he chases after his rabbit to his careful maneuvering over an extension cord. It felt good seeing Tati again even if it was just an animated version of him. Maybe that's where the feelings of nostalgia come from. This might have a little more sentimentality than Tati's live action films, but it's that sentimentality of the aforementioned silents and therefore feels very comfortable to me. Comfortable is a good word for this maybe. The French have this way of making movies that you inhale instead of just watch. They're movies that are like old shoes, and this is a real old shoe of a movie, one that feels like it's just always been there, more beautiful because of its dust and scratches and the fact that it smells just like my old foot.

Jackass 3

2010 high art

Rating: 13/20

Plot: More comic mischief from the Jackasses. This time, they utilize 3-D technology so that it looks like the fecal matter is coming right into your living room! Huzzah!

Well, I felt like showering after watching this one, so that's something. I didn't watch this in 3-D, of course, but I can see where that would have been kind of fun. The colorful and gimmicky opening scene has the boys being pelted with paintball pellets, kicked in the face, and abused with little booby traps that might have been borrowed from Wily E. Coyote's attic. And they're wearing funny costumes. And some times it all happens in this slow motion. Now I don't possess a high-def television, but the images in this were impressively crisp anyway, fantastic news if you want to see every detail of a fat guy wearing some transparent plastic suit designed to make him ooze sweat. Or vomit. Or poop. Or urine. Or hair glued to somebody's palms right after it's been yanked from some other guy's chest. You get the idea. This is definitely not the movie I'd pick to watch with my grandmother if, following some miracle, she was resurrected and really wanted to watch a movie with me. Unless she picked it, of course. I'm not going to deny the dead the right to select a movie for movie night. There's something nice about seeing the jackasses willing to do all this gross or dangerous or gross and dangerous stuff despite their advancing ages. You get the sense that some are doing these things reluctantly though. And the stunts in Jackass 3(D) aren't as consistently hilarious as the ones in part two, the Empire Strikes Back of Jackass movies. I think they peaked (Wait a second. There's no way peaked is the right word here.) with number two. But I had more than a few chuckles, and as with the other stuff, I'm glad I watched it. I laughed most heartily at a scene involving a score or more of little people, one of their set-up/written gags. I'm a grade school kid in a thirty-seven year old's body though, so I, of course, enjoyed the slapstick as well. After all, if you can't appreciate video footage of a guy getting hit in the balls, you're just not a real American. There are people who could argue that the world would be a better place without these movies. I'm not sure I could successfully argue with those people actually, but I'm happy the movies do exist. Long live the Jackasses!

The Incredibles

2004 superhero cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: Bob and Helen Incredible, out-of-work superheroes, try to adjust to normal-person life after saving the world's been outlawed. Helen takes care of their three children while Bob works in a cubicle he barely fits into. On the side, Bob secretly meets with his friend Samuel L. Jackson to park and listen to police scanners and catch some motherfucking criminals. One day, he's contacted by a mysterious woman with a job offer involving the travel to an island and destroy a robot ball. Since Bob just lost his job, he eagerly takes the job but soon discovers that he might be in for more than he bargained for.

See, these are the characters the Pixar folk should be working to bring back to the screen. Those cars and those monsters were fine, but there are so many stories that these characters could be used to tell. Not that this is my favorite Pixar movie. It's not. But it is an exciting story, cool in a James Bond sort of way, and animated with a great attention to detail. The island scenery is realistic, and there's a depth to the animation, especially during scenes where the little fast guy is zipping around where it's impossible to see everything regardless of how much you slow things down. In 2004, it didn't seem like the CGI magicians had quite worked out making people or their movements realistic. Watching this on the big screen, I was impressed with the movements of the human characters, not just because of the semi-realism but because they moved, gesticulated, and grimaced with personality. I especially liked flamboyant Buddy (Jason Lee) and sarcastic and smirking Helen (Holly Hunter). There are still some moments where things just don't look quite right. Helen's butt looks weird in some shots (yeah, I looked), but that might be because I don't understand the physics of an elastic posterior. My favorite two characters are a pair of minor characters, both of diminutive stature. I love every hilarious moment Edna Mode's on the screen, and the fact that director Brad Bird actually does her voice is awesome. And the always-wonderful Wallace Shawn voices Bob's boss, a perfect depiction of Napoleon Complex. The narrative's exciting, tossing you around with some twists and turns, and the music is just as incredible as the titular Incredibles. As with all of Pixar's movies (now they really are all on the blog), there's a lot here for both big people and their kiddies to enjoy. Maybe the big people just a little bit more though.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

1937 cartoon

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A lunatic flees from another lunatic, breaks into the home of some mentally-challenged little people, throws a party with a bunch of filthy animals, and finally attacks the owners of the home with soap. The other lunatic locates her and tricks her into eating a poisoned apple by cleverly saying, "Here, eat this apple." She dies. [Spoiler Alert!] Luckily, the antidote seems to be the saliva of the notorious philanderer Prince Charming, a cat known for his sloppy smooches and wandering hands.

I don't want to trash a classic, but I really don't like this movie very much at all. When you compare it with other early Disney animated features (Pinocchio, Fantasia, even Dumbo), it just doesn't seem as good. Yeah, I know this was the first, and I know when you compare Snow White to modern cheapo straight-to-video animated crappings, it's way ahead of its time and very impressive for 19-freakin'-37. But with about thirty-five years of Disney animated features under my belt, I think the animation in this is hard to watch. The characters in the foreground (and they're always in the foreground) don't mesh with the backgrounds. The backgrounds look completely flat and lifeless. Snow White has unnatural physical features and almost no chest. I want breasts on my Disney princesses. I do like how the dwarves are animated; they've got character and move in a lively way. The dwarf (Wait a second--do they actually like being called that? Is that as politically incorrect as using the dreaded M-word?) movements combined with their individual personalities are where the Disney creative spirit is most evident. I always like how Disney animates animals, but the good animal stuff in this is merely foreshadowing for better stuff that would come later. I also really don't like some of the voices, especially the titular princess. The witch is fine though. The songs? "Someday My Prince Will Come" is a classic although the randy double entendre is uncalled for. The "Heigh Ho" song (Ho? C'mon, Disney!) has always been one of my favorites. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, for me at least, will always be one of those classics that is more important than it is fun to watch. In my likely blasphemous opinion, I think the Disney people should animate a remake. Snow White could look almost identical (with boobs), the dwarves and witch(es) could look exactly the same, and modern technology and better voice work could help make the story live up to the classic status.

Another idea--Disney should hire me as a creative consultant. I wouldn't even demand an outrageous salary or anything. Walt's head--if you're reading this, give me a call.

Devil Doll

1964 evil ventriloquist movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Loosely based on the life of Edgar Bergen, this one's about The Great Vorelli, a stage hypnotist and ventriloquist with a dummy capable of leaving the lap and walking around before saying one-liners like "Who are you calling a dummy, dummy?" or "Morning wood? It's morning, afternoon, and night wood for Hugo!" Vorelli spots a chance to inherit a fortune and hypnotizes the lovely and wealthy Marianne Horn. Marianne's boyfriend Mark doesn't approve.

Any time Hugo is on screen, this reminded me of The Twilight Zone (in a good way) and was effectively spooky. Whether Hugo's in his cage, "performing," or walking around on his own, he has this ability, like all ventriloquist wooden men probably, to make you a bit uneasy. The problem is that The Twilight Zone is about twenty minutes long while this thing was movie-sized, stretching the plot mighty thin. Bryant Haliday--an actor with only six, mostly B-pictures on his resume (How did I miss The Projected Man during my infamous "man" streak?)--does everything he can with a pretty lousy script and is really pretty good. He's at least good enough to have a career longer than six movies. I liked the scenes with Vorelli on stage, mostly because they seemed nowhere near natural. It seems like a lot of the extras should have walked out during the weird hypnosis stuff--making people think they're being executed or getting women to dance. If not, the stuff with the dummy would have cleared the house. A walking ventriloquist dummy, although a novelty, wouldn't necessarily be entertaining, would it? And the interaction between Hugo and Vorelli was so intense, the latter barking these orders with an odd threatening edge in his voice. This movie really isn't very good, mostly because of a weak story and poor writing, and it's not bad enough to be funny. In fact, it's the type of movie you'd forget about completely if not for the image of Hugo walking around on his own with that goofy smile on his face. It's not the worst way to spend eighty minutes though. Here's Hugo:

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

2009 black comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: This is the story, loosely based on a true story, of Brad, a guy who loses his mind after his mother serves him Jello one too many times and ends up killing her with a sword. He barricades himself in their house with a pair of hostages while a pair of detectives work on piecing together possible motives and look for a way to get to him.

This isn't a true collaboration exactly, but it certainly feels like one. And for this viewer, it's a David Lynch/Werner Herzog collaboration is a collaboration made in heaven. Or in the subconscious of a schizophrenic maybe. Lynch apparently had very little to do with this, but Herzog pays homage to the producer with a few scenes--a random gas mask, a couple really strange scenes where the actors freeze and break the fourth wall by staring into the camera for a long enough time to make me kind of uncomfortable, conversations about coffee, and a little fellow in a tuxedo. Oh, wait. Herzog uses little people, too. The acting reminded me more of Lynch's characters than Herzog's, speaking in those slightly-off cadences, stilted almost, and somewhat unnatural. I'm not sure if this works as a drama, and anybody watching this as a Law and Order type thing might be disappointed. I caught on quickly enough that this is more dark comedy than crime thriller/drama, more a glimpse at the world as seen through the eyes of somebody with a damaged mind than anything realistic. And who better to show us that world than Werner Herzog? Flashbacks, especially anything having to do with Brad Dourif's Uncle Ted, seem so insubstantial and too dopey to be real, but they work to add up to what gets to the heart of the crime--that Brad is one cuckoo mo-fo. Could that have been explained more naturally? Of course, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. At times, I'll admit, this almost seems like a parody of both Herzog and Lynch's work. Those Uncle Ted scenes, the use of animals, the aforementioned unnatural acting, a character losing his mind in South America, chickens doing something crazy, God as a canister of oatmeal, all those conversations that seem so detached from anything that matters, and so on. I suppose folks who enjoy a chunk of either directors' filmographies will find something to dig in this one. It's probably not essential, more like a limerick or some other nonsense verse written about insanity rather than the poetic look at insanity that Aguirre is. But it is very entertaining. The title, a full sentence by the way, still makes me laugh. I don't see how a person can read that title and think that this is a serious attempt to make a crime drama.

Bad Santa

2003 Christmas movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 14/20)

Plot: Billy Bob and his little buddy Marcus love Christmas. It's all about tradition with those two with Billy Bob dressing as Santa and bringing delight to children at malls while Marcus plays his elf helper. And when the Christmas season is ending, they rob the mall and run off. With each passing year, Billy Bob's drinking and sexual exploits get more and more in the way of the duo's plans. But this season, meeting a chubby kid and a new ho ho ho threaten to change him.

This was the perfect movie to wash Meet Me in St. Louis out of my mouth although I must admit that I'm almost ashamed that I like it. It's just funny to watch Santa Claus piss himself, curse, drink, and nail Lauren Graham. It's almost too easy, and I don't want to give the writers any credit. It'd be like crediting the writers of America's Funniest Home Videos for all those shots of people being hit in the groin. Or crediting zookeepers with monkeys being funny. Still, this is a very funny and often unpredictable movie, and Billy Bob's performance as the titular Santa is award worthy. I also thought John Ritter was hilarious in every one of his scenes, and I liked the kid, apparently named The Kid, played by Brett Kelly. I'm envisioning a mash-up between this and Meet Me in St. Louis actually where The Kid eats Tootie. No, there's nothing really sweet about this movie, and I can't see it putting anybody in the Christmas spirit, but it's a ton of fun. As I've always said, the Christmas season would benefit from more cursing.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

1964 holiday classic

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Martian children have become obsessed with earth television, specifically any show that features Santa Claus. Martian parents decide to send a ship to earth to locate and kidnap Santa. But Santa's holly-jolliness and cheer corrupts the Martians because apparently Christmas spirit is communicable. The Martians force Santa and the two American children they also kidnapped to set up a workshop and start making toys for the Martian children. A Scrooge of a Martian named Voldar conspires to do away with the jolly elf once and for all though. Can Santa escape and get back to earth in time for Christmas?

A true holiday classic. I can't figure out why the theme song ("Hoo-ray for Santy Claus") hasn't become a Christmas standard. This movie doesn't exactly look like it had a lot of money dumped into it, but it's not the cheapest production I've ever seen. The sets aren't bad, and heck, they got three little people to play elves (three more than the Mexican Santa Claus [Conquers the Devil] movie had). There's even a bitchin' robot, and the funniest polar bear you're likely to see in a movie! The bitchin' robot isn't around for long because Santa Claus refers to him as a toy which apparently causes him to malfunction. There's also some great Martian gun effects. They make a small popping sound and cause their victims to freeze and slightly wobble. The acting in this isn't awful, and the guy who plays the 800-year-old prophet who sounds like he's whining is terrific. I'd try to figure out his name, but the characters are named Kimar, Voldar, Droppo, Harpo, Momar, Gilmar, Bomar, Rigna, Winky, Stobo, Lomas, and Shim. I think it might be Chochem though, and Carl Don played him. He also played Von Green in this. The Martians are cheesy, green-suited and in green face. My favorite Martian, probably because I'm a bit of a Grinch myself, is Voldar played by Vincent Beck, an actor who did a lot of television work. All his lines are barked out in this grouchy tone, so most of what he says is funny. His reaction to one of Santa Claus's jokes ("Martian Mallow!") was hilarious, and I loved hearing him say things like, "They have a secret device and his name is Billy Foster!" or "Soon all of Mars will be blithering idiots!" This interaction was my favorite though:

Earth Kids: What are those things on your head?
Martian: Antenna.
Earth Kids: Are you a television set?
Most Martians: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Voldar (barking): That's a stupid question! We want our children to be like these nincompoops?

It all leads up to what can only be described as a demented final fight between Santa/children and Voldar. It's a great, uplifting Christmas story, but I wonder if there's something deeper going on here. I wonder if maybe Voldar is the real hero of this story and whether the producers of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians are trying to warn viewers that Christmas may turn us all into blithering idiots or what will happen as people lose touch with the real values of the holiday and things become more automated. In some ways, this movie is eerily prescient.

$9.99

2008 stop-animated feature

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A bunch of clay people living in an apartment building in Sydney contemplate their lives.

I suppose I wanted to like this more than I actually did. The characters and their experiences scratch the surface of philosophical ideas but refuse to penetrate, and I demand penetration in my animated movies. Speaking of penetration, there is a clay figure sex scene and some nudity if that's your bag. Who we kidding? We both know it is! This flashes from character to character pretty rapidly, too quickly for me to really connect with or care about what's going on with any of them. The animation's really good although the characters are at times so unattractive that they don't even look human. They also move funny. But there are some nifty effects with bottlecaps, water, and other movements that make this visually interesting. Some quirky imaginative moments including the angel on the cover and some very tiny people as well as a couple surprises at the end make this narratively interesting as well, but it's not really enough to make me completely thrilled that I spent about ninety minutes with these characters. The philosophical jabs failed to knock me out.

Santo and Blue Demon against the Monsters

1970 masterpiece

Rating: 20/20 (Kairow: 20/20)

Plot/Review: See guest reviewer Kairow's thoughts here: Kairow's Blog


I don't have much to add to what he had to say. The other Santo movies I've seen have had him up against one or two monsters. This one has a ridiculous amount of monsters, making it even wackier than the others. Which likely makes this the wackiest movie I've ever seen. Any Santo movie gets an automatic 20/20. See "Santo Rule" described in the entry for Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter).

Other Santo movies on the blog:

Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy
Santo vs. the Vampire Women

Little Man -- "Man" movie #137

2006 comedy

Rating: 4/20 (Jen watched nearly the entire movie but said "Nuh uh" when I asked for her rating. I think she might have really enjoyed it!)

Plot: Calvin is a diminutive con recently released from the big house. His brother (I forgot his name but he's played by Tracy Morgan so his character's name is probably something like Tracy Corbin) picks him up, and they're immediately up to no good, stealing big ass diamonds and rapping. The diamond somehow winds up in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, and Calvin has to pretend to be a baby in order to get it back. And yes, it's just as stupid as it sounds. I can't figure out Jen liked it so much!

The bottom of the barrel seems like a good enough place to stop. Who knows what the hell you'll find if you managed to break through the bottom of the barrel and start tunneling through the earth. I suppose Jingle All the Way and Clifford with Martin Short and Charles Grodin is down there somewhere, worms maneuvering through the vacant eye sockets. The body of E.T. might be in the late stages of decomposition too, but only because some punk kid stole him, threw him in the back of a pick-up truck, kicked him around in an improvised soccer-like game played without goals and with more tackling, and then dumped him in close proximity to the barrel. The creepy Polar Express is down there, hopefully without a grave marker so nobody will ever find it again. But I definitely don't want to go beyond the bottom of the barrel, so we're stopping this "Man" movie experience at movie one hundred and thirty-seven, what I believe to be blog post (actual movie post and not any of that other perverted nonsense) number one thousand. I am 100% convinced that I now own the record for watching the most movies in a row with "man" in the title, but I'm also 100% that there will only be four and a half people, my faithful readers, who will ever know about it. I've wondered many times about how tedious this might be for my faithful readers and nearly abandoned the "man" movies to watch something like Space Balls or How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but I pressed on and on and on and finally reached what can only be described as a magical moment. No, I take that back. It can also be described as the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. I'm half serious. Come on, Ebert and Maltin! Let's see you pull this off! I don't even think you watch all the movies you review, Leonard, and there's no way you're going to put off watching the latest Werner Herzog movie to continue a "man" streak of this girth, Roger. That's right, bitches, I'm calling you out, throwing down the gauntlet, thrusting the pelvis. I might not be able to write a single meaningful word about a movie that I watch or know even a little bit about what I'm talking about, but let's see you watch even ten "man" movies in a row. Ten! And I watched one hundred and thirty-seven of them, some which I even paid attention to and didn't fast forward over. I won't pretend it was easy, especially with He Was a Quiet Man, Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story, Madman, and The Pumaman, but the really good ones (Man from the West, The Man Between, The Thin Man, Big River Man, Little Big Man, Fred Tuttle: Man with a Plan, Odd Man Out, Batman and Robin, The Elephant Man, Man in the Glass Booth, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Wicker Man, Dead Man Walking, The Invisible Man, The Weather Man, The Man Who Would Be King, The Man Who Came to Dinner, A Man for All Seasons, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Cameraman, and Dead Man) made it all worth it. There are sure a lot of good movies with "man" in the title.

OK, so I didn't finish that Jack Frost movie. We'll go with one hundred and thirty-six and one-third as the official count. Still, I'd like to see Gene Shalit's mustache even come close to that number. And I bet I could kick Gene Shalit's ass in a fight simply because I've watched more kung-fu movies than him.

Thanks again for putting up with this, faithful readers. Now back to movies without "man" in the title.

The Elephant Man

1980 movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Victorian doctor Frederick Treves stumbles across the titular attraction while strolling through a freak show. He makes an arrangement with the elephant man's slimy owner to borrow him for science. He shows off his find in front of a bunch of other scientists, but as he spends more and more time with the freak, he realizes that there's a John Merrick inside, a intelligent and sophisticated man who desires, feels, and deserves dignity.

The memory of watching this, for whatever reason, with my father when I was a kid has always stuck with me. When Merrick was finally unveiled, the image was shocking. It still is. I couldn't believe what my young eyes were seeing on the screen. As an adult, I think this movie is extraordinarily depressing, almost too depressing. As a visual essay on the true nature of man, it's just so pessimistic. A lot of that is probably the result of Lynch's typically cold style. It's actually his second warmest movie and his first "straight" story, but the camera is so often detached from these characters, the audience often being forced to look at Merrick from a distance. Maybe that's the point. I do wonder (now, not while watching) how much of that detachment is intentional, an attempt by the filmmaker put the audience into a situation where we're in the exact same position as the people who used or leered at the real Merrick. There are a lot of uncomfortable scenes in this story, times when you almost want to leave the room so that the elephant man can have some privacy. A lot of this movie is very cold, clinical. An exception is the scene where the doctor first sees Merrick, and the camera slowly zooms to the point where just Anthony Hopkins' face fills the screen just at the time a single tear moves down his cheek. Of course, the next part of the story is Treves moving Merrick from the side show to the laboratory stage, really just another side show, so it's not easy to pin down the doctor at all. This movie came right after Eraserhead, and although The Elephant Man seems like Sleepless in Seattle compared to Lynch's first work, you still have some pretty strange moments. It's difficult to figure out what's going down in the first scene, but it certainly seems like it's showing an elephant raping a woman, and the harsh textures, fuzzy and wobbly camera work, and grating music wouldn't exactly make the typical moviegoer feel like reaching into the popcorn bucket. The opening scene was definitely creepy enough to turn Jen off the film. As with Eraserhead, Lynch shows off an ability to create these amazing textures and moods with nothing more than images. I've never been to Victorian London (yet!), but I like the murky, sickly, melancholy one that Lynch creates for these characters to inhabit. What atmosphere! And the first shot of Merrick's distorted image is striking enough, but the shots of him covered (like in the above poster) stuck with me just as much. Gorgeous black and white cinematography here. Anthony Hopkins is quietly good as the torn Treves, and John Hurt's performance, although hidden beneath tons of make-up, is exceptionally touching. They'll get the most credit, of course, but Anne Bancroft and especially John Gielgud are also great. This is one of those movies that holds a mirror up to society. Unfortunately, humans kind of suck.

Special Note: R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) is in this which reminds me that David Lynch, according to David Lynch, turned down the chance to direct Return of the Jedi. That would have made the second time Lynch worked with Kenny Baker. And looking up Kenny Baker, I see that he played a character named Bruce Foreskin in something called Boobs in the Woods. So it's good to see that his career is going well.

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.

The Man in the Iron Mask

1998 Three Musketeers movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: King Leonardo the XIV isn't a very good king. In fact, he's an asshole, and nobody in France likes him except for one of the four musketeers who is sleeping with the queen mother. When King Leonardo makes a military decision based only on his sexual desires (a move he must have learned from reading about King David and Bathsheba), Musketeer Malcovich's son is killed in battle. The three musketeers who aren't sleeping with the queen mother decide to bust the man in the iron mask, Leonardo's brother Leonardo, out of prison and pull an ol' switcheroo.

If you were magically transported via a magical remote control and a time machine into this movie and asked anybody in France, "Hey, how's King Leonardo XIV working out for ya?" you would fall to sleep before the answer was finished because the Frenchman or Frenchwoman answering your question would deliver a verbose answer so monotonously that you'd think, "Oh, man. Is this answer ever going to get to an endmark?" and then decide to close your eyes for a little bit, just a little bit like you do sometimes when you're driving, but then fall fast asleep. The Man in the Iron Mask needed some of that bumpy pavement they put on the shoulders of highways so that the bumbabra-bumbabra-bumbabra noise wakes you up before you hit a tree, a ditch, or a hobo. I don't know whether to blame the dialogue, the bland music, or the acting, but this was just so stuffy. I normally like John Malcovich, but his uninspired performance here typifies what's wrong with this. He always performs his dialogue in a very deliberate Malcovichian way that ends up making the movie a lot longer, but here, it just seems like his character is struggling to get the words out, almost like he can't believe he used to be a musketeer but now has to say such boring things. He and the other musketeers (Irons, Depardieu, Byrne) each have moments where they shine, but more often than not, they overtheatricize and get all actor-y and make me think I'm watching performances instead of characters. And the biggest problem of all? I might be able to tolerate a single Leonardo Dicaprio in a movie, but this one has two. He plays two characters who not only look identical but act identical even though the story would seem to require that they don't have that much in common. I don't even know if Leonardo Dicaprio is a good actor or not, but I don't like him here one bit. I don't think the part(s) suit him, and I thought his face was tedious. This movie did get better as it went along, but it unfortunately went along a little too much. Or maybe a lot too much.

The Man Who Laughs

1928 drama

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 2/20)

Plot: Based on a Victor Hugo writing, this is the story of the oddly-named Gwynplaine, the son of a lord who pissed off a king. Young Gwynplaine was punished for the sins of his father by having a permanent surgically carved to his face. He's abandoned by gypsies, and while wandering through the snow to look for help, he comes across a baby in the arms of her dead mother. He and the baby eventually arrive at the home of Ursus, a philosopher, and he raises them. Years later, Gwynplaine and blind Dea put on plays as part of a traveling circus. They're in love, but Gwynplaine has low self-esteem because he grins all the time and is apprehensive about marrying his beloved. Meanwhile, an evil jester named Barkilphedro (damn, was Hugo even trying on these names?) is thinking up a plot to get rid of Gwynplaine as part of a ploy to gain favor with the queen.

This movie really could have been cut by thirty minutes without losing anything at all. It's a Paul Leni joint, and there's some of the expressionist set design (especially in a scene where young Gwynplaine wanders past a series of gallows), and a lot of experimental shots and unusual perspectives (most memorably a shot from a Ferris wheel) that he's known for. The Man Who Laughs has also got editing that surprised, reminding me of Battleship Potemkin. I guess that makes sense since Potemkin came out three years before this one, but I was still surprised by the quick cuts, jarring in comparison to most silent movies. There's also a nice texture to Leni's 17th Century England. The old and ominous castle walls, some torture paraphernalia, and statues concealing secret passageways added a moodiness at the beginning of the movie. There are a lot of scenes that go on way too long, but this one has more than its share of great scenes, ones that connect emotionally in a way that doesn't seem typical of 1920's melodramas. I really liked one lingering scene where a clown removes his make-up while Gwynplaine, with his permanent preposterous and grotesque grin, watches. There are a lot of good performances here, especially for the silent era, but Conrad Veidt's performance as the laughing man himself is really impressive. Think about it. You have to portray hurt, despair, fear, happiness, and a variety of other emotions without the benefit of a variety of facial expressions. To look sad with a big goofy grin on your face? It's not easy. And I should know because I spent about two hours in front of my bathroom mirror trying to do just that. I thought it was a great performance.

Admission: I had to give this movie a bonus point because of Homo the wolf, played, according to the opening credits, by "Zimbo." He's blind Dea's dog. I just love that there were title cards that said nothing but "Be quiet, Homo!" or "Where are you taking me, Homo?" There are also some ridiculous "special-ed" effects used with Homo at the end of the movie where it looks like a guy's attacking himself with a really stiff stuffed animal. I often add my own dialogue to silent movies, so of course I spat out a "Get him, Homo!" at that point.

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.

Dead Man

1995 metaphysical Western masterpiece

Rating: 18/20

Plot: William Blake arrives via Crispin Glover-driven train to the Wild West town of Machine where he's been promised a job as an accountant. He's too late, and the job's been given to somebody else. His life is threatened. He meets a woman, and because he looks just like Johnny Depp, she sleeps with him. Unfortunately, her fiance strolls in after the deed is done and shoots them both. Blake kills the man, steals a horse, and flees into the wilderness. An Indian named Nobody, thinking he's the reincarnation of English Romantic poet William Blake, guides him on his journey as a trio of bounty hunters--the vile Cole Wilson, the verbose Conway Twill, and young Johnny "The Kid" Pickett--sent by his victim's father track him down.

On certain days, usually Thursdays when the sun's hitting me just right and I've added just the right amount of sugar to my tea, my answer to the question "What is your favorite Western featuring Iggy Pop wearing a dress?" would probably be this peyote-induced nightmare of a travelogue, Dead Man. Man, does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie or does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie? Following a quote about how it's preferable to not travel with a dead man, you get the incoherent ramblings of Crispin Glover and the senseless shooting of buffalo from a train. Then, Depp's character enters Machine. William Blake walks the dusty street, passes a coffin shop a la Hang 'Em High, a bunch of animal skulls fastened to a wall, a wagon filled with antlers, a urinating horse, a grunting hog in the middle of the road, Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes on the receiving end of a blow job, and a creepy-looking fellow with troll ears and a troll nose, all with Neil Young's plaintive guitar. They're visuals that let you know what's what in Machine, reminiscent of one of my favorite film images--Kurosawa's dog with a human hand in its mouth at the beginning of Yojimbo. The tone is set, and then you get a ceaselessly surprising man-on-the-run Western with more great Neil Young, lovely shots of great American Western landscapes shot in crisp black and white, an odd assortment of characters and cameos, faux-philosophies, and the best comedy this side of Dante's Inferno. This might be the funniest movie I've seen all year, and it's definitely the funniest Western ever made. Sorry, Mel Brooks. At the center of that is William Farmer's Nobody, the embodiment of a stereotype, spouting Native American-ish riddles and non sequiturs. My favorite scene might be where Nobody tries on William Blake's hat. No, my favorite scene is probably where Nobody and Blake are watching three mysterious men, one being Iggy Pop as "Sally" and another being Billy Bob Thornton, and barely being able to hear snippets of Iggy's retelling of the "Three Little Bears" story. Or maybe my favorite scenes are the ones with Robert Mitchum. No, wait, Crispin Glover's in the movie, so my favorite scene probably has him in it. Or maybe they're all my favorite scenes. It's definitely unique, a riddle of a film that grows every time you watch it and one of those movies you almost want to watch again as soon as it's over. It might be an acquired taste. It's dreamy Johnny Depp as a straight man in an askew Wild West philosophical comedy, mysteriously poetic and absurdly fascinating, and if you've got a high tolerance for the offbeat, this just might be your cup of poisoned tea.

Now, do you have any tobacco?