Willard

2003 Crispin Glover movie

Rating: 16/20

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

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

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

Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #2: Gone in 60 Seconds

2000 car movie remake

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Master car thief Memphis Raines is pulled out of retirement after his little brother Cleveland Raines gets into a little trouble. He's got three days to get a crew together and steal fifty luxury automobiles to save his brother's life. Oh, snap!

There's only one reason to watch this movie--a scene where Nicolas Cage's character, right before the start of the big car-stealin' action, pops in "Low Rider" ("All my friends know the lowrider. The lowrider is a little higher. The low rider drives a little slower. Low rider is a real goer.") because they've got fifty cars to steal in one night, damn it, and that's the only way Nicolas Cage can get juiced up for this crap. His character goes into this little trance; wiggles and then sticks his fingers up like he's either meditating or flashing gang signs or, as only Nicolas Cage can, simultaneously meditating and flashing gang signs; jerks around a bit; and then says, "Ok, let's ride." That scene is awesome! Trust me. My description of this doesn't do it justice. Take your pants off and Youtube it.

There are multiple reasons to stay away from this movie though. The overuse of the term boosting. Boosting cars, going boosting, hey--I'm boosting in here, boosting this, boosting that, Angelina Jolie's boosting, Robert Duvall knows boosting, boosting boosting, I'm a booster he's a booster wouldn't you like to be a booster too, everybody was kung-fu boosting, check it--I'm boosting, can you keep it quiet because I'm boosting, fifty car boosting--that's absurd, boosting legends, all we are saying is give boosting a chance. It was irritating. I imagined all the actors standing around, going over their lines and arguing about who gets to say boosting. "Why does Robert Duvall get to say 'boosting' twice?" "Hey, Dominic. What do you think about my character saying 'boosting' right here?" All of these characters, including Memphis Raines, are boring. Angelina Jolie brings nothing to the table. Robert Duvall is quickly becoming a movie pet peeve of mine as he just stands around and looks dopey in every movie he's in. Here, he plays a pointless character, the unflappable old-timer veteran booster type, and does his usual stellar job of standing around and looking dopey. And the producers of this really missed an opportunity by not naming his character Booster Cogburn. Giovanni Ribisi, the guy who plays Tallahassee Raines, rubs me the wrong way, too. With an action movie or heist-type movie you need one of two things: 1) Good action or 2) Good heisting. I'd prefer the meticulous planning and creative scheming over the big dumb action scenes any day. Gone in 60 Seconds actually doesn't have either one though. You get a lot of scenes with people turning keys or sneaking around or drawing lines through car names on a list (I wonder, by the way, how these people can be so high-tech and then use chalk and a blackboard for their big fifty car list) and have to wait for the very end of the movie to get a good action scene. It's a car chase with Memphis and some cops. It's so-so but nothing to pump your fist about. The best thing about this Nicolas Cage movie is that it's out of the way. Gone in 60 Seconds? I wish this movie would have been done in 60 seconds. Wakka wakka wakka!

"Keep it real. Think slow. We'll get through this." Thanks, Nicolas Cage. Those are definitely words to live by.

The Legend of Drunken Master

1994 kung-fu movie

Rating: 16/20

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

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

Zontar, the Thing from Venus

1966 remake

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Dr. Taylor befriends what he believes is a friendly alien from Venus and helps him figure out a way to come to earth to solve all of our problems and make us as technologically advanced and wonderful as his planet. But Zontar turns out to be a mean "thing" and actually has other plans, plans involving mind control and mayhem! Arrgh! Zontar!

So somebody at Azealea Pictures decided that it would be a good idea to remake a Roger Corman B-science fiction flick (It Conquered the World) with a worse director. See that poster there with the menacing "thing" that looks like it could be straight from the sketchbook of a possibly schizophrenic child? That's actually a fairly accurate visual. The "thing" doesn't look much better than that. I swear, by the way, that I've seen that exact screaming woman in the exact same pose on a poster for another movie. This is just as bad (just as good if your glass is half full) as Larry Buchanan's other movies (see Attack of the the Eye Creatures [sic] or It's Alive [the proud Manos Award winner for my blog two years ago]) which means it's fun enough to watch at least seven times and has this mystical quality that almost makes it worth basing a religion on. This is stuffed with some juicy dialogue, philosophically insightful stuff about good and evil. There's a lengthy quote at the end about how man needs to find the answers within as opposed to without and about how "war, misery, and strife have always been with us and we shall always strive to overcome them." I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was plagiarized from The Diary of Anne Frank. Oh, and the reason the thing is called Zontar? That explanation is priceless. There's also some really unfortunate attempts at comedy, mostly courtesy of a pair of soldiers. One of them says "I saw a funny-lookin' boid" about six times (because it's funny?) and once, my response (an "Ehhh" like I'd been punched hypogastrically) was the exact same as one of the characters. Zontar, as I mentioned, looks ridiculous, like a greasy owlish swamp thing with pterodactyl wings. When Larry Buchanan makes that thing fly though? That, ladies and gentlemen, is movie magic. Well, assuming seeing funny-lookin' boids is magical. My favorite scene: panic in the streets; a woman stops a policeman to ask a question about manually operating an iron lung. What the hell? The fact that she yells "Stop!" while standing face to face with the policeman adds another level of greatness.

I have to go. I have more Larry Buchanan movies to watch. God bless America!

The Karate Kid

2010 remake

Rating: 12/20 (Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Same as the 1984 version of The Karate Kid except the thirty-five year old "kid" Ralph Macchio has been replaced with Will Smith's daughter. Oh, and it takes place in China and has a Lady Gaga song replacing that Joe Esposito "You're the Best . . . Around" song.

When I was a kid, I was in a book with Grover, the Sesame Street Muppet. My mom or grandmother or somebody had sent away for it. It had my picture in it, and Grover used my name. And you can bet that I felt special as a seventeen-year-old kid, the only boy in my high school who co-starred with Grover in a picture book! I imagine this version of The Karate Kid is a lot like that only Will Smith's daughter's parents have a lot more money to spend on the project. The story is nearly identical, cheesy layer after cheesy layer. I think it might (shockingly) have even more montages though. The incomparable Jackie Chan replaces the incomparable Pat Morita, and the fight scenes are, and this is no compliment, a bit flashier. The big climactic "Crane" thing from the first movie is replaced by something incoherent and goofy, and probably because of the 1984 movie, I knew it was coming and just had to sort of wait for it in agony. "Oh, I bet Will Smith's daughter is going to try to pull that off in the tournament," I groaned. Jaden Smith isn't awful, even with all the bad lines she's forced to read, and the endless training montages looked authentic enough. The kung-fu aficionado in me probably liked those best. That whole jacket thing didn't quite have the impact that "Wax on/Wax off" had though. I also liked the lone fight scene with old man Jackie Chan beating up some children although I wished those children would have been dressed as skeletons. The biggest problem I had with this remake was its length. At five hours and twenty-three minutes, it just seemed a little long. I probably could have done without the couple hours of violin recitals and the montages could have been cut in half from fourteen to seven. I think Will Smith should have his daughter remake Teen Wolf next, by the way. Or maybe the three Back to the Futures! Hell, Jackie Chan could even take Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown in that one, right?

The Eye Creatures

1965 Larry Buchanan sci-fi remake

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Titular eye creatures (see below) invade earth and interrupt necking teens. One of the teens, a thirty-year-old one named Stan, hits one of them with his car because he's driving without his headlights on. He and his girlfriend try desperately to get the police to believe their story, but he's arrested for hitting a drifter instead. They return to the scene of the accident to look for evidence of aliens. Or maybe just to make out again.

Larry Buchanan, director of the Manos Award winning It's Alive, sure knew how to make bad movies. The silliest thing about this Z-movie is the whole night/day continuity error thing. The story takes place during a single night; however, half the scenes are being filmed in obvious daylight. It almost seems like every other scene switches from day to night or back again, and if I didn't know better, I'd think they did it on purpose to be funny. Or maybe the silliest thing about this is the acting. Lots of Torgo contenders here. The guy who plays "Jim" is really great, especially that moment when he spots a wildly spinning UFB (unidentified flying hubcap) and spitting out, "This one was green!" with far too much excitement. The old man who, although he only gets one line (essentially "Get off my lawn, kids!"), gets to say it over a thousand times. The pair of Peeping Tom surveillance dudes were also impressive. I can't find any of these thespians names because the cast list doesn't show that the characters even have names. But I know that guy's name was Jim! The scene where Stan hits one of the aliens with his car should be used as a "how not to" in an editing course in film school. The girl screams, Stan looks over at her, there's a screech, the girl says, "Oh no!" or something, and then there's a thud, all with this comical choppiness. The alien monsters themselves, eye creatures apparently, were obviously dudes in hastily-assembled costumes. Here's what they look like:


Not quite as embarrassing as the monster in It's Alive, of course, but still pretty dopey. Watching one of their severed rubber arms prowl around was about as embarrassing though.

Here's my favorite tidbit about this movie though:

Apparently, this was shown on television and the producers wanted to jazz up the title a bit by adding "attack" in the title. I guess it makes it seem more menacing. Problem is, as you can see above, they didn't bother proofreading their work and ended up with Attack of the the Eye Creatures as the title. That is awesome. And so is Larry Buchanan who, as I examine more of his work, might have a body of work that is more inept than even the great Ed Wood.

Star Wars Uncut

2010 remake

Rating: n/r (but Dylan gave it a 16/20; he gave the original a 14/20, by the way)

Plot: See Star Wars: A New Hope.

Except this is fans from all over the world filming, contorting, or animating fifteen second segments of the sci-fi classic and submitting them to a website where they hopefully will get votes and make it into the final film. And it's completely bizarre and hilarious. This interactive approach to filmmaking is one of those things where you just have to say something like, "This is exactly why Al Gore invented the freakin' Internet!" This might be too jarring for a lot of people. You'll have a fifteen second clip with Star Wars characters colored on paper sacks butting up against people in cheap costumes swinging cheap light sabers at each other in a fenced-in backyard. A lot of these "directors" have a lot of talent. I especially enjoyed the clash of animation styles. Even more of these "directors" have a great sense of humor, taking the proverbial piss, throwing in some Kill Bill or Simpsons references, and really having good creative fun. Star Wars has been parodied and poked at so many times that something like this shouldn't work at all. But this thing works (maybe best in installments; Dylan and I watched it in chunks) on a few levels. It's surprising and hilariously awkward, it's frequently very clever, and it's often pretty dang cool looking. But it's also a weird homage to the movie, its influence and the adoration that people all over the world have for these characters and this timeless story.

You can watch it here: http://www.starwarsuncut.com/
Or watch a trailer (really, a 4 1/2 minute chunk of the movie [all a lot of you will be able to take] as the characters escape from the Death Star) here: http://io9.com/5515343/star-wars-uncut-is-finished-and-headed-to-theaters
Or you can just wait and watch it in a theater since the above article says it's heading to theaters.