Complaining about the unoriginality of Hollywood is about as useful as complaining about the weather, and using phrases like "raping my childhood" is offensive, cliché, and so cliché it's offensive. But I just watched the trailer for the remake of Clash of the Titans, and I am stunned once again by Hollywood's unoriginality and I feel like my childhood has been raped. Or at least molested.
The 1981 Clash of the Titans is one of the first movies I remember watching, ever. I was 5, and my parents took me to a drive-in to see The Fox and the Hound. It was a double feature with CotT following the forgettable Disney feature, and I guess my parents stayed assuming the kids would fall asleep.
I didn't fall asleep. The movie should have scared the crap out of a 5-year-old, but I fell in love with it. It was and continues to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Technically, it was directed by some guy named Desmond Davis, but anyone who knows it (and I know it very, very well) thinks of it as a Ray Harryhausen film, the last real Harryhausen film made. Yeah, the special effects are dated, but they are still amazing for the time period. It's worth watching the movie just for the creepy Medusa scenes, but there's plenty to admire in terms of the other effects. And it's a fun story. And Laurence Olivier is Zeus! Can the remake have that?
I implore anyone who's never seen this film to watch the original and not the remake. And if they decide to remake Jason and the Argonauts, I may be forced to rant again.
Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is one of my favorite movies to watch on Halloween. It also happens to be the only "scary" movie my wife will watch with me, but that's besides the point. The film, which came out almost exactly 10 years ago, fell between Burton's two fairly unsuccessful forays into sci-fi territory, Mars Attacks! and Planet of the Apes. Sleepy Hollow is the quintessential Tim Burton film, and I dare say it's my favorite of his movies.
I'll just make life easier for myself and make a list of just a few of reasons why this movie is awesome:
Johnny Depp as a brilliant but scaredy-cat Ichabod Crane.
An actual flaming pumpkin head.
Purposely cheesy dialogue delivered perfectly, including this exchange between Depp and Christina Ricci (in her best role since The Addams Family): Katrina Anne Van Tassel: I have shed my tears for Brom... and yet my heart is not broken. Do you think me wicked? Ichabod Crane: No... but perhaps there is a little bit of witch in you, Katrina. Katrina Anne Van Tassel: Why do you say that? Ichabod Crane: Because you have bewitched me.
It has plenty of humor, but also features multiple graphic beheadings, as well as the off-screen slaughter of a cute child (not my wife's favorite part of the movie).
An amazing supporting case, including Miranda Richardson, Jeffrey Jones, Michael Gambon, and Christopher Lee.
The obligatory cameo by Burton's girlfriend-at-the-time, Lisa Marie (it's like looking for Hitchcock in one of his films).
And of course, perhaps most importantly, Christopher friggin' Walken, as the Hessian Horseman himself:
See? Awesome.
If for some reason you've never seen this movie, this is the time of year to do it. It will bewitch you.
So I went to see what will probably be my last movie in a theater for a while since the next little incubus will be arriving soon. There's not a whole lot I can say about Star Trek that hasn't already been said. But I will anyway, because I like to hear myself type:
The Good:
It was fun. It was surprisingly action-heavy and there were lots of fist fights and 'splosions. Sulu even got to whip his sword out (snicker) . Also, that Romulan ship was crazy cool looking.
There were plenty of inside jokes for those of us who actually watched Star Trek. I've never been a Trekkie (and yes, I know they prefer to be called Trekkers...whatever), but I did like the original series. There's also some excellent TWOK references.
The cast, for the most part, was really good. I mean, Simon Pegg elevates pretty much anything he's in. I understand some people were upset that a comic actor was cast to play Scottie and he wouldn't lend much dignity to the role. These people clearly never actually watched Star Trek.
The Bad:
I got a little Spocked out by the end. Not that Spock isn't a cool character, but c'mon. Enough is enough. It's like if a band has someone who plays the ukelele. It's a fun instrument, kind of a novelty. But you certainly don't need two of them, and they don't have to be playing front and center on nearly every song. (I come up with some pretty kick-ass analogies after midnight apparently.)
Eric Bana didn't do much for me as the bad guy. I actually kind of like my Star Trek villians a bit over-the-top, but Bana's Nero was more under-the-bottom. Luckily, for a main antagonist, he's not actually in the movie all that much. And Winona Ryder as Spock's mom? Really?
Plots that involve time travel always annoy me, yet Star Trek is addicted to them. It's a terrible crutch. There's obviously going to be a sequel to this film, possibly several. I'm not asking for anything terribly original plot-wise, just something that does NOT involve paradox-riddled time travel.
The Ugly:
That one nurse with the weird eyes who delivered Kirk at the beginning really freaked me out. OK, I'm grasping here.
All in all, I liked it enough to tell people they should check it out. It's a decent summer movie with plenty of action, a surprising number of laughs, and some scantily clad space ladies. Nerdtastic.
The one and only movie I've seen in theaters recently was Slumdog Millionaire, which was playing at the tiny crap theater down the street from where I live. It's pretty much pointless to review of a film that just won best picture and has had tons of publicity. If you've seen it, you know it's good. I have no idea whether or not it deserved best picture since I didn't see anything else that was nominated. If you haven't seen it, you probably should.
Whether or not you think Slumdog Millionaire deserved the accolades it received, it's hard to deny the skills of Danny Boyle as a director. He's joined the ranks of David Fincher, Wes Anderson, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet as one of my favorite directors of the past decade or so. What sets Boyle apart from some of these other directors, however, is the sheer diversity of his movies. There's the underrated Shallow Grave (a remarkable effort for his first feature), Trainspotting, the turn-the-genre-on-its-ear zombie film 28 Days Later (the last movie I saw in theaters twice), and though I haven't seen it yet, his sci-fi film Sunshine is reportedly excellent. And then there's Millions, a DVD I got for free after sending some cereal box tops in.
Millions is dubbed a "family" film, and I'm assuming it is Boyle's only PG-rated movie. Set in Britain, a little boy finds a huge bag of money--British pounds that will be useless in a few weeks when the currency is converted to the Euro. The film follows our protagonist, Damian, and his brother, showing what they do with the money. There are elements of fantasy (Damian is obsessed with saints and talks to them throughout the movie) and crime--the money turns out to be stolen, and the thief wants it back. It's a bit of a hodge podge, actually. Nevertheless, I loved it. I'd even go so far as to say that I liked it better than Slumdog. It has its semi-cheesy tug-at-the-heartstrings moments, but they really did tug at my heartstrings. I'm not gonna lie. I cried at one point. Shut up! A movie hasn't made me do that for a while, and it actually felt pretty good. If you've been avoiding this film because you thought it was just for kids, I urge you to check it out.
The bottom line is, I knew Boyle was a solid director, but his two "Million" movies have confirmed that he'll be a force in film-making for a long while yet. I hope he continues to experiment with genres--a western or straight-up comedy might be nice--and I hope he can maintain the high standard he's set for himself.
I haven't posted in so long, I almost forgot how to ride this pony. As always, I'll keep it short and leave the in depth analysis to EJP. On the recommendations of some friends I have seen two rather brilliant movies lately that I'd like to pass along as suggestions.
Zombie Love "...Never try to hide Zombie Love...eat flesh." Coming in at about 37 minutes, this musical is worth those minutes of your life (as well as the $15 bucks to purchase the DVD). I find myself wanting to sing these songs at work. Definitely a low budget film. Ha!
Repo! The Genetic Opera I have a feeling this movie will generate a cult following. I'm sure it already has, and as always, I'm just behind the times. Since you can get this movie via NetFlix, I'm guessing that to be the case. Again, the music from the movie will find it's way into your brain and before you know it, you'll be singing about the Repo man.
Truly ahead of its time, its flaws are--in retrospect--endearing. And you'll have to decide which is creepier: Paul Williams as Swan or the music (which he wrote) actually being good.
As long as we're talking horror movies, I happened to watch my first horror movie in a long time last week. The Ruins was in movie theaters last spring very briefly and was barely a blip on the radar for most people, but I'd heard some reasonably good things about it, so I gave it a shot.
It wasn't terrible. I'd even go so far as to say it was pretty good. The setup is pretty standard: some attractive people on vacation in Mexico follow a complete stranger to an off-the-map ancient temple so they can have one more adventure before they leave the country. Things go awry quickly when one of the group gets killed by some local villagers the moment they set foot on the pyramid. I'm not really spoiling much when I say that the Big Bad that lurks in the temple has nothing to do with Mayan ghosts or the like. It's the EVIL VINES that grow all over the place. I know, sounds lame, but it's better than it sounds. There's lots o' killin' going on in this movie, but very little of it is actually done by the vines. They're just sort of the grease for the wheels of murder here. Though there is plenty of visceral gore to admire (and I did my fair share of wincing, because the gore effects are pretty convincing), there's a psychological element that makes this flick a bit smarter than your maniac-in-a-mask slasher film. There's also a "real" actress in this--I'll watch Jena Malone in just about anything. Finally, the fact that most of the film takes place in broad daylight and still manages to be scary is exceptional.
Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but worth a gander if you're a fan of the genre and missed it last year.
Schlocky, over-the-top, slasher horror fun. The 3-D was AMAZING, the plot semi-intriguing yet still comfortably formulaic, the actors (some throw-back) stilted, and the obligatory horror elements (teeners drinking where they shouldn't, boobies and crotch [in 3-D no less], red herrings, unbelievable 80's-style blood and guts) all were aggressively covered in what seemed to be a "FUCK YOU!" to the tired 90's self-reflective, minimalist gore horror genre of popular TV actors overstepping old stereotypes for overstepping's sake.
Thus, I loved it: the 3-D effects and the fantastic gore alone are worth every penny. Especially impressive was the miner's hat light shining through the screen (how did they do that?). But the movie could have easily failed as an effects piece and didn't, something rare both to the horror genre and 3-D genre.
I'd even watch it again in 2-D.
It had a preview of Coraline 3-D; we all have to go see that next month.
I used the long weekend to catch up on some movie watching, and I watched TWO movies in two days. Maybe I'll even watch another one tonight, if I'm feeling crazy.
As a big fan of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead, I'd been looking forward to seeing Hot Fuzz for a while. It did not disappoint. Hot Fuzz does for action movies as Shaun of the Dead did for zombie movies, only more so. Besides being everything a satire should be, it was also a virtual who's who of British actors and actresses. As a self-professed Anglophile, I found myself frequently distracted from the movie because I kept thinking, "Hey, there's Tim from The Office. There's Jim Broadbent. There's..." and so on. Even Timothy Dalton, who I generally only think of as my least-favorite Bond, hams it perfectly here. It's honestly pretty rare that I laugh out loud at a comedy, but I did so frequently here. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't done so already.
I won't go into many details about WALL-E, if only because Clyde Squid just posted a review of this movie over on his other blog. I'll just say I agree with his assessment--it's a fun flick, not that I expect anything less from Pixar. This also happens to be the first movie my son ever watched, which is kinda cool. I honestly can't believe he sat still long enough to watch this from beginning to end; his attention span doesn't usually last more than 15 minutes. By the end of the movie, he was yelping "Wall-E! Wall-E!" My little nerdling.
Watched the latest Futurama movie the other day, "Bender's Game." Despite the title, the movie is not a spoof of Ender's Game, which probably would have been a little too nerdy even for Futurama fans. It's really a send-up of Dungeons & Dragons, which is just nerdy enough, apparently.
There is an inherent problem with all of these Futurama movies, but it was never more evident than in this one. These "movies" were written so they could be broken up into 4 distinct episodes and broadcast on TV. That's a less-than-ideal way to create a cohesive story. The other two movies pulled it off reasonably well, but this third installment felt a bit more slapped together. What you get is something closer to the "Family Guy" style of writing--essentially a string of pop culture references held together by thinnest of story lines. I mean, the plot development that dumps the cast into a fantasy (as opposed to sci-fi) dimension makes no sense at all. The ground literally opens up, they fall through the crack, and suddenly they're in a land where Leela's a centaur and Farnsworth's a wizard. They're conveniently in the fantasy dimension for about 22 minutes.
This major complaint aside, I did chuckle out loud a number of times, just as I chuckle through Family Guy sometimes. I'm a sucker for pop culture references, but I've come to expect a little bit more from Futurama. The writers (and there were a lot of them for this movie) seemed to have phoned it in a bit here, which is unfortunate. Apparently there's yet another movie coming out--I believe there were originally supposed to be three--so maybe they'll try a little harder next time.
I have neither the time nor the energy to do a Halloween blog as elaborate as last year's, so instead I'm doing a brief review of a few cannibal movies. We're all very familiar with vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the like. Just to be clear, though zombies eat human brains, they are not cannibals since they are technically dead already. Cannibal movies are their own genre, though my very brief and far-from-complete list should prove that the genre can actually be quite diverse. Also, consider this a warning...I'm on my third glass of wine (the alcohol will counteract all the sugar I've consumed today, right?), so this post may very well make no sense whatsoever.
Ravenous (1999) This movie features Guy Pearce as this army guy who's stationed at some fort in the middle of nowhere in 1847. Robert Carlyle shows up and he's all wanting to eat people and stuff, because he had to at some point and he realized it made him superhuman. David Arquette is in it and (spoiler alert!) he dies, which is awesome. It also features Jeffrey Jones, the principal from Ferris Beuller's Day Off, in one of his better roles, before we found out he was a pervert in real life. I once cooked dinner for Jeffrey Jones when he came to the restaurant I worked at, and it makes me sad that he is a pervert. But I digress. This movie is actually not terrible. But it is not terrible despite having the worst, most inappropriate soundtrack of any horror movie ever. Even though it takes place in rural America in 1847, the soundtrack is very contemporary and it sounds like it was composed by a 12-year-old on his Casio synthesizer. Still, there were some clever surprises and some creepiness, so it gets at least one thumb up from me.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) I already reviewed this movie here. It was a wonderful return to form for Tim Burton, and it was a musical about cannibalism! Who could've thunk of such a thing! Oh wait....
Cannibal! The Musical (1996) Honestly, it's been ages since I saw this movie, but after finding the trailer online to do this post, I think I may have to buy it. I mostly remember it was awesome. Like Sweeney Todd, it's a musical about cannibalism. It's also based on the true story of Alferd Packer, the only man convicted of cannibalism in the state of Colorado. Wait, did I just type Colorado? That makes sense, because this movie was also written, directed, and starred in by famous Colorado person Trey Parker. Is it mere coincidence that "Packer" and "Parker" are such similar names? Yes, I believe so. In any case, as you can probably tell by the trailer below, this movie was made on a shoestring budget, so it looks pretty cheesy. But really, that just adds to the charm. The hilarious songs give you an early glimpse at the genius behind South Park and it's just good fun all around. This is an essential movie for anyone who likes Trey Parker/Colorado history/musicals about cannibalism.
Delicatessen (1991) I've saved this one for last because a) I just watched it last night and b) Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of my favoritist directors. I can't find anything about this movie not to like. Even though it's about a butcher in post-apocalyptic France who lures men into his building in order to eventually slaughter them and sell their flesh to his tenants (who know perfectly well what's going on), it's honestly more of a light-hearted jaunt of a movie. Like nearly all of Jeunet's movies--most notably Amelie and City of Lost Children--it is very, very pretty. From the opening panning shot and the beautifully clever credits to the Wes-Anderson-will-eventually-rip-this-off ending, this film is pure eye candy. Despite its plot (such as it is), it's really a dark comedy, heavy on the comedy. Nothing about this film is particularly scary. If you only watch one movie on this list, make it this one. If you watch it on my recommendation and don't like it, feel free to send a scathing comment or e-mail.
Do YOU have a favorite movie about cannabilism? Tell me about it!!
The elusive Bison Whisperer stayed with me for a few days last week and this past weekend. Yes, he's real! He may not actually post on this site, but we did talk a lot about music and movies, as we tend to do when we're together. Saturday night we decided to see a movie at the little theater down the street from me, though pickings were a little slim. We decided on Choke, the movie based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel by the same name. Now I love me some Chuck Palahniuk. His books are sick and twisted, but often fairly amusing, too. Choke is the story of a sex-addicted historical re-enactor who deliberately chokes on food in restaurants so people will save him and feel good about themselves (and later, send him money because they feel responsible for him). It's a good read. The problem is, though Palahniuk's books are generally quite entertaining, they've got to be a bear to adapt to film. They generally don't have much of a plot, they often jump around in time or have some complicated narrative device, and I can't recall any of them ending happily. A crazy good director, like, say, David Fincher, can still pull it off. First time director Clark Gregg...not so much.
That isn't to say this was a bad movie. Some individual scenes were pretty good, I laughed out loud a few times, and the acting (particularly by the star, Sam Rockwell, and the always entertaining Angelica Houston) ranged from good to excellent. But the heart of the book--the choking scam the central character practices to "earn" money for his ailing mother--is essentially side-lined in the film while the sex addiction comes to the forefront. The result is a movie that appears to be a bit slapdash. True, the book is pretty slapdash, too, but books can get away with that whereas movies generally can't. By the time we got to the "twist" ending (which I'd honestly completely forgotten since reading the book), instead of shock, there was more of a little shoulder shrug on my part. The ending was also completely different from the book, which ended on a huge downer. I was suprised this purported Sundance winner played it safe with even a marginally happy ending.
It's impossible to say how I would have liked this movie if I hadn't read the book. Bison Whisperer, who hadn't read the book, seemed to like it OK. I'd rent it at some point if you're a Palahniuk fan, just because adaptations of his books are few and far between. If you happen to like Sam Rockwell, who's a fairly underrated actor, you might enjoy him here in one of his few leading roles. If you want to choose between the movie and the book, however, go for the novel.
So the other night, after a long and fairly stressful day, I decided I needed to watch something not-so-serious. I've had a copy of "Barbarella": Queen of the Galaxy sitting around for ages, and I knew it was time for a little Jane Fonda workout, if you know what I mean.
It had been years since I watched Barbarella, and it was every bit as awesome as I remembered. From the opening credits, played over Barbarella doing a strip tease out of her space suit at zero gravity, you know this film is going to be something special. That space suit? Clearly held together by Velcro (or something very much like it...did they have Velcro in 1968?). The entire inside of Barbarella's big pink spaceship? Orange shag carpet. The music? Never will you feel so compelled to run out and buy go-go boots.
Make no mistake, this movie is ridiculous from beginning to end. The plot, such as it is, involves Barbarella fulfilling her mission (as a what, you never really learn) to find Durand-Durand, the missing earth scientist who invented a positronic ray. But really, the movie is about Barbarella cavorting across a planet, conveniently ruining outfits and exploring her newly-discovered sexuality. Barbarella loses outfits the way people lose lives in some horror movies: very creatively. At one point she's attacked by razor-toothed baby dolls. Then there's the parakeet attack...and then of course her clothes are ripped off by the giant sex-torture piano. These are not really spoilers...these scenes really have to be seen to be believed.
Sometimes, the dialogue is clearly supposed to be funny, such as Barbarella's "What's that screaming? A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming..." Sometimes, I'm not so sure, such as when an enraged Durand-Durand yells, "I'll do things to you that are beyond all known philosophies!" But nearly all the dialogue is either hilarious or hilariously delivered. Every word Fonda utters, whether it's space jargon (much of which could rival anything on Star Trek) or sexual advances, is delivered in a dry, dead pan manner that has one marveling at her Oscar win just a few years after this film. The rest of the cast is just as awesomely bad, including John Phillip Law, who made a career out of movies like this (including at least two that became excellent MST3K episodes).
Watch it for the terrible special effects. Watch it for the awful dialogue and acting. Watch it for the crazy late-60s music and freak-out scenes. Watch it for the skin, 'cuz there's plenty of it. Just watch this movie at some point in your life. I've heard rumors of a possible remake of this movie for years now, but I don't think it can be done. Barbarella was paradoxically both ahead of its time and also purely a product of the 60s. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by this, but I think you'll understand if you watch. And remember, the password is "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch"!
After the first Futurama movie proved pretty disappointing, I wasn't getting my hopes up for the second in the series of four, The Beast with a Billion Backs. So I don't know if it's just because I had lower expectations, or if it's because it really was the better "movie", but I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
The plot revolves around the age old story: rift opens in our dimension, giant monster falls in love with and tries to mate with our entire universe, they break up but decide to continue dating...you get the picture. The first movie mucked about in time, whereas this movie mucks about in space. There is at least a bit more of a plot to this one, which was encouraging.
Each character gets about the same amount of face-time, too, which I enjoyed. Like the first movie, there are a lot of references to the TV show, but they weren't quite as distracting this time around. All in all, I found myself laughing and enjoying TBWABB a lot more. But full disclosure: Meine Frau hated it. I doubt I'll be able to get her to watch any of the other movies, and she loved the TV show.
Special features on the DVD are OK. There's a "lost adventure" cobbled together from a defunct video game, a brief featurette with the oft-amusing David Cross (who voices the titular Beast), and a little video of a few of the voice actors. Speaking of which, Billy West, who does most of the voices on Futurama, is quite a character. The Onion A.V. Club interviewed him recently and it's an entertaining look at a very underrated talent.
So I'd certainly recommend this movie for any Futurama fans, but I'd also suggest skipping the first movie and going straight to this one if that's still an option. Or, you could just kiss my shiny metal ass.
Mike Judge, the man who brought us Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill, and Office Space, dropped the cult-classic-to-be Idiocracy about two years ago. Don't remember it being in the theaters? That's because I think the the movie was released in Omaha and Boise for about a week. This movie actually made some minor headlines in pop culture circles because it was probably one of the most poorly distributed films by a relatively well-known (and well-liked) writer/director in recent history.
Which is too bad, because more people should see this movie. I hesitate to call it a "film" because it's not that good. But it was highly entertaining. I laughed out loud several times, and even managed to pour water all over my crotch at one point from laughing...which is kind of ironic considering what I was watching. The story here is pretty simple. Luke Wilson plays Average Joe Army Man who's placed in suspended animation (along with a hooker, for some reason), and pretty much forgotten about for 500 years. When he finally wakes up, the human race has grown so incredibly stupid that they can barely speak in complete sentences and the Oscar winner for best picture of the year is a 90 minute video of someone's ass. Joe has become the smartest man in the world.
Yes, the movie is high concept and low brow, but it's pulled off with aplomb. If there's anything Luke Wilson is good at, it's playing an Every Man. If there's one thing Mike Judge knows how to write, it's stupidity. The people in this future are really, really, really dumb. If I had better taste, I might write this movie off as a very long skit of people doing stupid things, which may get tiring for a lot of people. But I also choose to see it as a biting social satire. I challenge anyone to see this movie and not worry just a tiny bit about how accurate it's portrayal of the future might be.
Below you'll see the clip that introduces the movie (lotsa NSFW language). This was the part of Idiocracy I'd actually seen before. You'll laugh, but you'll also feel a little sick, because you'll know, deep in your heart, that this is really what's happening in the world right now. Smart people: get screwin'.
Iron Man is that good. Best super-hero movie to date, no question. Hulk is great but not as good, and should warrant a better sequel (think the first Superman).
I watched The Inside with my Mallet friends. One left during the middle. It is unrepentant sickness. And that includes fucking brilliant camera tricks that John Carpenter could only dream of. When is the last time you ever jumped out of your seat without realizing you were about to?
The other night, meine Frau decided she wanted to watch something on DVD with me. This happens approximately once every 4 or 5 months, so I told her to pick whatever she wanted. What she wanted was the DVD we got for free from sending in coupons from cereal boxes: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just so we're clear, this is the 1992 movie starring Kristy Swanson as Buffy, not the TV series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. The TV series is awesome--Annette and I bonded over the TV show, and we've watched every episode. The movie...not so much.
I'd seen the movie shortly after it first came out many years ago, but I really didn't remember much of it. I was in for some surprises. First, the movie was actually written by Joss Whedon. For some reason I always assumed JW just liked the idea of the Buffy movie and decided he could write a TV show about it, but no. It was all him from the beginning. And the movie definitely has some great Whedonesque lines in it. Second, though the movie's stars, Swanson and Luke Perry, pretty much dropped off the face of the earth in the mid-90s, the supporting cast was surprisingly strong. There's a phoning-it-in Donald Sutherland as Buffy's watcher, Paul Reubens in arguably his best non-Pee Wee role, and Rutger Hauer, who looks like he'd aged 30 years since his role in Blade Runner (which had been filmed 10 years earlier). Hauer, who could be hypnotizing in some of his films, was almost undoubtedly drunk during every scene in this movie. The biggest surprise was two-time best actress winner Hillary Swank in her first feature film role, as a ditsy valley girl with killer lines like "Get out of my facial!" Then there's Ben Affleck's uncredited role as "basketball player #10". Don't blink or you'll miss him.Though technically released in the 90s, this movie has "80s" stamped all over it. From the fashion to the big hair to the often eye-roll inducing dialogue (wow am I glad Joss Whedon improved), this movie had to have been dated before it was even released. Now it's amusing on a whole different level. And the special effects are "special" the way some Olympics are "special". It looks like one episode of the Buffy TV series had a bigger effects budget than this movie. Rough stuff.
So is it worth watching? Or watching again, for those people who haven't seen it for 15 years? Unless you're a huge Joss Whedon fan are have a high tolerance for 80s camp, probably not. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, but I won't be watching it again for at least another 15 years. Or at least I'll watch the whole TV series again first, to remind myself how awesome this character is, and that Joss Whedon is one of the best writers working today. The dude had to start somewhere.
So besides a few TV shows on DVD that I'm trying to catch up on, I also have a small number of movies that have yet to come out of their plastic wrap. Some I've seen, but not for a while. Some I basically purchased on spec. They're from several different decades and several different genres. Over the next few months I'm hoping to catch up on those and write quick reviews if I deem them review-worthy.
I started tonight with Ratcatcher, the 1999 debut feature film by writer/directer Lynne Ramsay. I'd never seen it before tonight, and I basically got it on a whim after reading a bit about the movie and the director.
Though certainly not something that would appeal to mass audiences, the movie is definitely worth watching for anyone who enjoys quality film making. Set in 1973 Glasgow during a garbage strike, the movie follows a young boy through a summer of ups and downs in a poor, urban neighborhood. There's not much of a plot to give away here--as I said, this isn't a mainstream film. A good portion of the film's appeal is the imagery. Some of the images from this movie have been burned into my brain, like young James's first bus ride, or his friend Kenny's pet mouse taking a special trip. Though filmed in color, the palette consists primarily of browns and grays. When we do a see a "real" color, it usually packs a wallop.
I'm assuming most of the cast were and are unknowns--this was the only movie for nearly all of them. I was actually surprised to see that on the IMDb. Considering how little dialog there is (and everything is mercifully subtitled, since the thick Scottish accents are difficult to understand), the sheer breadth and depth of the emotions conveyed is remarkable.
This is, by most standards, and artsy-fartsy film. But it's beautiful, and powerful, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to see some quality before we're bombarded with this summer's watch-it-and-forget-it blockbusters. I'm looking forward to watching Ramsay's short films that are included on my version of the DVD (from the Criterion collection).
I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. --Arthur Dent
First time at R.B.'s L-C?
First, you should probably know that this blog has nothing to do with Ray Bradbury. Sorry if that's what led you here. Also, there's not all that much about camels. Actually, you're far more likely to someday find something on here about Ray Bradbury than camels, but I digress. For an indirect explanation of our name and a mission statement (of sorts), please check out our first post.
The 1981 Clash of the Titans is one of the first movies I remember watching, ever. I was 5, and my parents took me to a drive-in to see The Fox and the Hound. It was a double feature with CotT following the forgettable Disney feature, and I guess my parents stayed assuming the kids would fall asleep.
