Knocked Up: It's like Funny and Awesome had a baby

With Knocked Up Judd Apatow continues his frightening, almost Pixar-like, string of unmitigated successes. I'd really like to go deeper than that but, to be honest, I saw this movie a while ago and now I'm having trouble remembering it well enough to do it justice. Can I just say that it rules?


I am now convinced that Harold Ramis is the biological father of Seth Rogen.

Mr. Woodcock: Since both "wood" AND "cock" mean penis it's doubly funny!

The main problem with studios creating films is that they tend to be made by committee (I know, you're all impressed by my original insight). This results in movies that try to be everything to everybody but end up as generic works with no clear vision. I can handle a film with terribly misguided vision but one that just wanders from scene to scene with no apparent purpose? That's the worst. I just sit there thinking "Why was this made? There is no reason for this movie to exist. It's just taking up space."

As you've probably guessed, Mr. Woodcock is one such film. There's nothing particularly awful about it, it just seems completely unnecessary. Part of that is that is has no focus. This is the kind of movie that introduces a romantic interest for the lead (Got to draw in the females aged 18-49!) only to get distracted and forget about her.

Other than that? Uh, I like Amy Poehler and Ethan Suplee. I mean, in general. Not so much in this.


Watching this film reminded me that Susan Sarandon is still really attractive. Am I developing a thing for cougars?

The Brave One: Jodi's got a gun, everybody is on the run

Here's something that I find really disconcerting when I see a film in a theater: The main character will perform an act of vengeance that is completely indefensible and then the audience cheers. Now, I don't mean a crappy action film or some other comic-book-come-to-life movie where the characters are cardboard and no one's meant to take their actions seriously. I'm talking a serious film where the lead makes a choice to end someone's life in cold blood at the expense of their soul.

It's a scenario that the filmmakers have clearly created to comment on how violence begets more violence and the only way to break the cycle is to abandon your quest for revenge and learn to cope with your grief in a more constructive way. When the protagonist chooses to kill, not only do they perpetuate this chain of suffering, but they themselves are forever changed. Murder is not something you can commit without sacrificing part of your humanity.

This is a bad thing. A very bad thing. It should not be applauded. Yet, it seems that every time I see it happen the crowd gives an enthusiastic response. I find myself filled with outrage that the audience could be so callous and that they could so completely miss the point of the film.

I don't know, maybe I'm taking things too seriously. Perhaps I should get off my high horse and talk about the picture at hand, The Brave One (Warning: Spoiler Alert).

This is an incredibly well-made film that I absolutely hated. I don't have a whole lot to say other than that I spent the whole movie fuming that my fellow moviegoers "just didn't get what this film is about" while they "inappropriately cheered on a demented killer" only to discover at the very end that I was the one who didn't understand. Apparently, Neil Jordan is totally for vigilantism . . . and not a huge fan of the rule of law. So, I guess I'm the asshole.

Oh, and I know that Jodie Foster is almost 45 and probably not that into penises but she is still smoking hot. As is the dangerously-close-to-my-mother's-age Mary Steenburgen, for that matter. Say, let's see what we can do about getting these two ladies together.


"I am dark, and you are light."
"You are blind as a bat, and I have sight!
Side by side, you are my amigo, Negro, let's not fiiiiiiiight!"

Woman in the Dunes: Dunes in the Woman

Sometimes a movie really catches me off guard and Woman in the Dunes did just that. It's another one that I got from Roger Ebert's Great Movies and I actually thought it was an Antonioni film. So, I was surprised to discover that, instead of a dour Italian movie with subtext about Architecture that I'd never understand, I had rented a Japanese film directed by someone I'd never heard of.

The movie begins with a young man who travels from the city to the shore in order to study insects. He then falls asleep on the beach as the lazy day drags on and ends up missing the last bus back to Tokyo. When he wakes up one of the locals offers to show him to a home where he can spend the night. The young man follows him down a rope ladder where he meets the woman who will host him for the night. The woman is attractive but she seems overly shy, as if she were frightened of something.

At this point the film gradually turns into a nightmare scenario for the young man who soon discovers that the ladder has disappeared and that he is trapped in a pit. He tries to climb out but the walls are made of sand that quickly gives way under his feet. And to make matters worse the pit is slowly collapsing on itself. The young man and the woman must work for hours each day to collect the sand that falls on them so that the other villagers can remove it using a device that functions like the barrel in a well.

This fantastic scenario is used to meditate on issues of freedom, responsibility and justice. I'm not sure that I agree with the filmmakers points (or even, that I have properly understood them) but this movie certainly forces you to confront them head-on seems capable of causing great debate. I'd recommend seeing it with someone who has a sharp mind. I wish I did.


Sure, that looks hot but think of all the places that sand is getting into while they're at it.

The Hottest State: Is love or maybe hate, wait-no, it's Texas

Ethan Hawke, apparently, wrote a book. He then adapted said book into a screenplay and directed it while also taking a minor, but significant, role for himself. The result is The Hottest State, a solid film which delves into some pretty well-worn territory without really bringing anything new.

The movie begins on a promising note when a Texas girl decides to get it on with a guy in the back of a car after hearing him tell a version of the "God Damn Fish" joke. The result of their coupling is a suspiciously Ethan Hawkeish young man played by Mark Webber. He eventually meets Catalina Sandino Moreno (the chick from Maria Full of Grace) and what follows is a lot of joy and a lot of sorrow for the two of them.

It's basically a "Life of an Affair" film that gets hijacked at the very end by a "Finding Yourself" film (yeah, I thought that was weird too). It's well acted and provides some charming moments of young love tempered by painfully awkward and occasionally hostile scenes to keep things interesting. I feel like Hawke has proven himself as a competent director with this movie but he needs a more inspired script to really shine.


Love hurts. Hey, somebody should write a song about that.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Aslan, king of the whose?

Watching The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was an odd experience for me. I read the book back when I was in elementary school or, if I recall correctly, my father read it to my sister and I (but I read the rest of the series all by myself!) and I didn't remember much about it. In fact, near the end of the film, I began wondering if the White Witch would be defeated at the end of this movie and, if so, who was the antagonist for the rest of the books? It wasn't until this film was in production that I was introduced to the idea that Aslan=Jesus. Funny, how things that seem so obvious now can go completely over an eight-year-old's head.

This brings me to another thing that I had absolutely no memory of: Santa Claus. Really? The Narnianinians (or whatever you call them) celebrate Christmas? Christmas? The Mass that celebrates Christ's birth? That only works if Aslan totally and completely is Jesus. As in Aslan, lion-god of Narnia, is the word of God, Elohim, made flesh and sent to Second Temple era Jerusalem to be crucified for man's sins. Based on the fact that the Narnianites refer to the humans as "sons of Adam" and "daughters of eve" I think that's what C. S. Lewis is getting at. Well, that and my foggy recollections of the big reveal at the end of "The Last Battle". I guess I should really just read the series again.

As for the film itself, it's a serviceable adaptation but it never really astonishes. The CGI effects are well-done but not excellent, the actors are good to pretty-good but not exceptional, and the big battle scene is impressive but not epic. I couldn't really point out anything that's wrong with it, it's just that there wasn't anything that the filmmakers really nailed either. The real problem with this adaptation is that it makes Lewis's magnum opus look like a second-rate Lord of the Rings.


Are you a good witch or a, uh . . . nevermind.

Head: Hey, hey we're waiting to be taken seriously by people who do lots of drugs

I'm certainly no expert on the subject but as near as I can tell The Monkees were created as a spoof of The Beatles, only once they were assembled the group decided that they actually wanted to be The Beatles. It was this tension which was the undoing of their TV show's second season (at least, that's what it sounds like here) and what motivated the pre-fab four to deconstruct their mythos in the film Head. This movie features Annette Funicello and Frank Zappa which, I think, says everything you need to know about what it tries to achieve. And why it fails.

The film has a circular structure but no plot that I could identify. There seemed to be a theme that involved subverting each of the Monkees studio-defined images (in real life Peter Tork is not, in fact, retarded) but it was a little hard to make out. The whole thing is very psychedelic. And by psychedelic, I mean drug-influenced, somewhat juvenile, boarder-line incoherent and still kinda compelling. Or, at least, interesting in it's uniqueness.

Even if Head is more or less a complete fiasco, it sill has a prominent (or, at least, unique) place in film history. It was directed by Bob Rafelson, written by Jack Nicholson and Rafelson, and produced by Bert Schneider, Nicholson and Rafelson. The next year Nicholson and Schneider went on to do Easy Rider and after that all three of them were involved in the creation of Five Easy Pieces. These men, like the phoenix, rose from the ashes of an ill-conceived musical to begin a decade of challenging, revolutionary films. Also, Dennis Hopper was hanging around the set (he can be seen in the background, briefly, along with Rafelson and Nicholson) so you know he was mixed up in this whole thing, even if he doesn't have any official credits.


The choreography for this film was done by Toni Basil which begs the question: Did she find Micky Dolenz to be so fine?

The Most Beautiful: By beautiful, we mean efficient

Akira Kurosawa may be the greatest director of all-time but everyone has to start somewhere. For Kurosawa that was Judo Saga. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have that so I had to start with his second directorial outing, The Most Beautiful. It's not very good.

The film is a piece of Japanese wartime propaganda from 1944 (not an especially good year for Imperial Japan). It's about the Japanese equivalents to Rosie the Riveter and it involves a lot of noble suffering while doing one's duty to one's country and concerns about efficiency.

Other than the historical glimpse that the movie offers, the most interesting thing about this was the dreadfully bad subtitles. Clearly, this DVD wasn't made with Western audiences i mind. One special feature offered a Kurosawa bio which noted that the legendary director's "other masterpieces . . . were also frequently awarded in many Film Awards". It also noted the sad story that "at the age of sixty-one, the depressed Kurosawa committed suicide and fortunately was saved". Fortunately indeed, less-than-proficient translator. Fortunately indeed.


This woman's admirable patriotism inspired her to toil long into the night, building something which might have been used to kill your grandfather.

Superbad: More like SuperAWESOME

When Seth Rogen was 13 years old he began writing a movie with his best friend Evan Goldberg. Naturally, they named this project Superbad. Then they spent approximately half their lives punching up the script and their restless effort really shows. This film is filled with great lines that are really sold by the casual style of the cast lead by Michael Cera which gives the movie a spontaneous, improvised feel.

Cera seems to embody the essence of the movie which takes his fresh-faced innocence and adds vulgar wit. It's truly a marvel when someone can make a film so hilariously raunchy while keeping the core sweet without copping out and getting all cheesy (I'm looking at you, American Pie). It's a delicate balancing act and Superbad pulls it off flawlessly.

It's also a great example of what I'm going to call the "All Night" movie (it's sort of a sub-genre of the Coming of Age film). It's a movie that takes place over a roughly 24-hour period, generally from sunrise to sunrise, where a character or characters begins what seems like a typical day but ends up as a voyage into the unknown of the night. By the time daybreak is upon them they've seen things that challenged their beliefs and they are forever changed by the experience. Great examples of this genre include After Hours, Do the Right Thing, Dazed and Confused, Clerks. and Before Sunrise (yeah, I doubled-up on Linklater. So what?).

Wait, I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Did I mention how funny this movie is? Because it is hilarious (I won't spoil anything for the people who haven't seen it but the best joke is totally not a big deal and affects, like, eight percent of the population). The best part is that the comedy springs forth from the characters naturally. It doesn't feel like set-ups and punch-lines. Most of the laughs come from the characters' organic interactions which makes viewing it feel like you're hanging out with your friends. Or at least, it would if your friends were really good at comedic repartee.

Basically, this movie totally and completely rules.


FunFact: Seth Rogen is very funny.

The Matador: In real life only creepy loners get into the cloak & dagger game

After a seven-year stint as the world's coolest spy and five years as Remington Steele (who, I was surprised to find out, is not a razor) Pierce Brosnan lets loose in The Matador. Way loose.

Brosnan riffs on his previous spook work by playing an international assassin. Only instead of playing a worldly and debonair man of mystery he plays a washed-up loser who's reduced to getting drunk alone in his hotel room on his birthday because he can't even get his old pals to take his calls.

Eventually, Brosnan meets up with Greg Kinnear in a hotel bar in Mexico and the two make a natural connection. Kinnear is enamored with Brosnan's top secret, jet-setting lifestyle which provides an escapist fantasy for his dull, suburban existence and Brosnan is able to make a rare human connection and indulge his dreams of a stable life and a loving support system of family and friends. Of course, things are never easy for a hit man and Brosnan attempts to enlist Kinnear's help to pull off (you guessed it) one last job.

I've mostly just described the plot but what really struck me about this film was the tone. Unfortunately, that's also the most difficult thing to describe. The Matador treads a fine line between being a thriller and being a satire. I'd describe it as a character study but I think that's sort of a vague phrase and I'm not sure that it helps. I could say that it's a dark film with bits of comic relief but I'm not sure that it isn't a comedy with a seedy undertone. Can I just say that it has a certain . . . I don't know what.


Yes, Pierce Brosnan is wearing cowboy boots in that picture. You're welcome, ladies.

The Lower Depths: It might have been good

The Lower Depths is a film directed by Renoir. Not the painter, his son. I saw it almost a month ago and I can't remember a thing about it.

Not. A. Thing.

Gay Movies: Spider Lilies

Spider Lilies is a Taiwanese film (Taiwan: The other China) about an uptight young woman being seduced by a younger free-spirited girl. Maybe uptight isn't the best way to describe a tattoo artist but Takeko is definitely reserved and afraid of making an emotional connection, especially with another girl (why yes, that can be linked back to a traumatic event from her youth). On the other hand, Jade is an engaging high-school girl who has a part-time job as a sex worker on the Internet.

Jade's career as a webcam girl sparks an odd and completely irrelevant sub-plot. The film keeps cutting away from the would-be couple to a woefully inept police officer who is assigned to monitor these sights. His entire job appears to be watching Internet porn and he doesn't seem that good at it. He's more interested in chatting with underage girls than he is with ending their exploitation. This goes nowhere and has nothing to do with anything.

The girls are cute and you want them to get together. Actually, you really want them to hook-up just to see something happen. It's a really slow movie. I'd say that more girl-on-girl action would help but really, when isn't that the case?


On IMDb there's a message board thread called "Any Similar, Better, films?" I think that sums up my feelings on this movie.

Gay Movies: Each Time I Kill

Seeing Each Time I Kill confused me because the only gay thing about it is a very brief cameo by John Waters (Full disclosure: I don't know that Waters is gay, I just assume). Maybe Doris Wishman, the cult director behind this movie, was a lezzie. I say "was" because the guy who introduced the film told us she had died shortly after filming this and that the editing was done after her death. Looking her up on IMDb, I noticed that she shuffled off this mortal coil in 2002. So they certainly took their sweet time getting this thing together.

The film is about Ellie, an awkward and unfortunate-looking girl, who discovers a magic doodad that allows her to switch one of her physical features with someone else. However, in order to achieve this she must first murder the person whose feature she wishes to steal. She makes a couple of good kills giving herself a great complexion and ridding herself of her frightening buck-teeth but she looses the audience's sympathy when she murders a fellow high-schooler for her hair. I mean, I can understand bumping a couple people off to get glowing skin and a winning smile but slaying someone to get rid of your lady-mullet? Why not try treating yourself to a fancy salon first and only fall back on murder if absolutely necessary? However, I was glad to see that she did refrain from homicide when it came to her tits. She just did some bizarre thing with duct tape to make the twins pop out a little more. Girlfriend's not completely heartless.

Gay Movies: Nina's Heavenly Delights

Nina's Heavenly Delights is just like Bend It Like Beckham, only with food instead of soccer. And Scotland instead of England. And Parminder Nagra ends up with Keira Knightley.

It might not be great but it's a thoroughly enjoyable trifle.

Before the film started, the director came out and warned us that there weren't any sex scenes and jokingly commented that her film contained "food porn". She was right. A lot of the plot involves Nina teaching a Scottish girl how to make Indian food, and the cooking scenes were hot. Watching two cute girls flirtatiously prepare ethnic food combines too many of my favorite things to ignore. There was also some stuff about a ghost dad, saving the family restaurant, winning a cooking competition, and old flames being rekindled. But, honestly, who cares about that when there's good food and chicks making out?


I bet you're wondering if this film contains a big Bollywood-inspired musical number. But do you really have to ask?

Gay Movies: Love Sick

If you want to portray a lesbian relationship in a positive light, what should you contrast it with? Love Sick answers with heterosexual incest. I think the director felt that he had to frame his argument in that way because the relationship between the two young Romanian ladies isn't a particularly healthy one. That's not to say that it's an unhealthy relationship. It's just troublesome (read: real).

Alex (the girl on the left in the above picture) is a sweet but shy girl who is seduced by the more outgoing, and out of control, Kiki (the one on the right). From the start we see why these two opposites are attracted to each other. Alex seems inexperienced and ready for a more worldly girl to lead her through her sexual awakening, while Kiki needs a more grounded person to help her work through her family issues (like, the fact that she's sleeping with her brother). The beginning of the film follows their charming courtship that involves a lot of "sleepovers" in Alex's room under the nose of her clueless landlady.

However, the cracks in their relationship are readily apparent and everything goes downhill once Alex decides to go back to her parents' house in the country during the school break. Kiki feels abandoned and begins dropping really strong, really passive-aggressive hints that she wants to go with her. Alex allows Kiki to come along but it is understood that their love affair must be hidden from Alex's old-fashioned parents.

In the country things get off to an awkward start. Then Kiki's brother/former lover shows up in a jealous rage, having been driven by the older woman he's having an affair with.

Things get pretty ugly pretty quick.


Chicks. Can't live with 'em, can't have hot lesbian sex without 'em.

Gay Movies: Rope

This year I decided to experiment with the 13th Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (yeah, it ended a while ago but I got a little behind with these posts). I volunteered for advanced ticket sales and box office. This allowed me to see some movies for free and I can use my leftover comps for what the staff and volunteers at this festival kept referring to as "the straight film festival". However, I think it would be more accurately described as "the bi-curious film festival", they've got a little bit of everything.

I started off slow by seeing Rope, an excellent film by Alfred Hitchcock that I'd seen before. I love that it begins with the murder and then all of the suspense is generated from whether or not the two murderers will get away with it. All of the action is confined to one apartment (Hume Cronyn adapted the script from a play) and Hitchcock films it with long takes that are seamlessly connected to give illusion that the entire movie consists of two or three extremely long tracking shots. All of this adds an immediacy with a claustrophobic edge that ratchets up the tension.

The plot itself is loosely inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case. Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. and Richard A. Loeb were University of Chicago students who murdered a 14-year-old boy, believing themselves to be Nietzschean supermen capable of committing "the perfect crime" without fear of capture. They were wrong.

Leopold and Loeb also had a homosexual relationship which the film implies without ever dealing with directly. For example, at one point their maid, commenting on the students foul post-strangulation moods, says "They must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning" gently implying that a single bed was involved.

To be honest, I was a little surprised that PIGLFF decided to show this film. It plays on outdated stereotypes and clearly associates homosexuality with deviant behavior. I guess they were just happy to get any screen-time in 1948. But I suppose the main reason they decided to show it is because they were giving the Artistic Achievement Award to Farley Granger and they were like, "Hey, let's show that really good gay-Hitchcock movie. You know, while we're at it."


Jimmy Stewart's in this too but he's not gay. Or is he?

Sicko: Does Moore know what he's trying to accomplish?

Disclaimer:
For this post I'm just recycling a paper that I had to write for class. I apologize for it being dry and unnecessarily verbose (I had to fill two entire pages).

Michael Moore has devoted his life to altering American society through his film and television work. One can argue with his complaints or his suggested solutions but these criticisms are not particularly relevant. Moore’s work attempts to influence opinions and it should be judged by how effective it is at achieving that goal. Whether that goal is worthwhile should be a matter of politics.

The primary hurdle that Moore needs to overcome in Sicko is his image as a member of the radical left. In order to have his message generally accepted he must be perceived as the populist he wishes to be rather than the extremist his detractors accuse him of being.

Moore seems aware of this issue and begins his film with a fake-out. He introduces us to a couple of characters who have suffered from a lack of insurance. Although there are many Americans who are uninsured, they still constitute a minority and the middle-class demographic that Moore must play to in order to get his message across may not be able to relate to their situation. It is at this point in which Moore, rather ingeniously, stops the film and informs the viewers that the movie will not be about these people.

At this point Moore informs us that Sicko will be about people who are insured but find that their coverage is inadequate to deal with medical emergencies that they have encountered. This is a constituency that Moore’s audience can relate to. It immediately raises the question in their minds about whether or not their own insurance would cover all of their expenses in the wake of a catastrophic disease or other dire medical need.

This is the films greatest strength. It exposes the risks that face regular Americans who never know how extensive their insurance is until they are faced with doctor’s bills. It also allows Moore to explore the corporate policies that have victimized sick people and their stories make for very emotional sequences. Even someone who is completely opposed to Moore’s proposed solution of socialized medicine would be hard-pressed to watch this film without feeling that these patients have been treated unfairly.

For this reason, it is such a shame that Moore looses his way during the second half of the film. By incorporating the 9/11 rescue workers into his narrative Moore conjures up memories of his previous film Fahrenheit 9/11. That was a very divisive film and since Moore’s call to change is directed at all Americans he would be wise to avoid dredging those issues up. Although the President’s approval rating has dropped to around 30%, one must remember that approximately half of voters chose to vote for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

If Moore wants to create a consensus on health care he must court the roughly 15-20% of the voters who helped to elect Bush but now think that his performance is unsatisfactory. By dredging up allegations about faulty pre-war intelligence, election stealing, and other controversial issues Moore polarizes his audience just when he needs to bring them together.

Moore’s greatest gift as a filmmaker is his ability to make movies that deal with complicated issues in an entertaining and easy to understand way. Although this leads his opponents to accuse him of oversimplification, is provides him with a powerful tool for changing people’s perceptions. However, his ability to convince those on the other side of the aisle is dramatically weakened when he plays into the popular caricature of himself as a radical troublemaker.

In this way, Sicko is a mixed success for Moore. He has created an intelligent movie about a complex dilemma that is appealing to many people because of its sentimentality and humor. Unfortunately, this film also serves as a slap in the face to a significant portion of Americans who supported Bush in the past but who may regret that decision now. In order to become the genuine populist that he presents himself as, Moore must learn to stop taking cheap shots at the moderate Republicans he needs to create a force large enough to truly affect national policy.


Now you know what it feels like to be one of my professors. Exciting, no?

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe: The title is surprisingly literal

One day future documentarian Errol Morris told famed documentarian (and feature film director) Werner Herzog about a movie he'd like to make. Herzog told Morris to stop talking about it and actually make the project happen, promising to eat his shoe if Morris followed through. This challenge resulted in two things: First, Morris produced the wonderfully bizarre documentary Gates of Heaven. Second, Herzog ate his shoe. An act that was documented in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe by Les Blank who had previously filmed Herzog as his subject in Burden of Dreams.

I know this is starting to sound like a documentary circle-jerk but there was some impressive work done here. Morris got his career off to a great start with Gates of Heaven which chronicled the lives of pet cemetery proprietors and their clients. But I'm not here to review that film, so I'll just say that it's fascinating and well worth checking out. Oh, and Morris went on win an Oscar for directing The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, which is also great.

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a lesser work but at a brief 20 minutes I don't think it was meant to be a great piece of art. It plays more like a home video. That doesn't mean that it's boring or amateurish, far from it. This doc has a light conversational tone, as if you were friends with those involved and along for the ride. Herzog discusses the meaning of the stunt and how he plans on cooking his shoe to a semi-edible state but he also takes time to discuss art and the importance of following your dreams.

It's not the kind of movie I'd recommend to just anyone. But if you're interested enough in filmmaking (and Herzog in particular) to rent the Burden of Dreams DVD, which includes it as a special feature, it's worth checking out this little film.

Burden of Dreams: Don't take Klaus Kinski into the jungle with you. Just don't.

Werner Herzog made a film called Fitzcarraldo about a deranged man who moves an entire boat over a mountain in the middle of the jungle by using indigenous people. In order to achieve this effect Herzog moved a boat over a mountain in the middle of the Amazon by hiring Indians. Burden of Dreams documents this remarkable event.

Herzog spends a lot of time on the commentary track for Fitzcarraldo trying to convince the listeners that he's not actually insane. After seeing this, I can see why he felt that was necessary. This film has scenes where Herzog delivers creepy monologues about the jungle, like this:

Nature here is vile and base . . . The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain. It's an unfinished country . . . It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape . . . It's a land that God, if he exists has created in anger . . . Taking a close look at what's around us there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder . . . But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it . . . But I love it against my better judgment.

Yikes,! When you start channeling Colonel Kurtz, it's time to get out of the jungle.

Also, this doc gives intriguing lines but doesn't always put them in context. For instance at one point when Herzog is talking about how important this project is to him he mentions that people have been killed while working on the film. Herzog is careful to point out in the commentaries for Fitzcarraldo and this documentary that the deaths were through no fault of his own (a couple of the extras attempted to steal a canoe in the middle of the night and drowned and there was also a crash involving a private plane). These claims come off as credible but they also sound a lot like someone who's trying to convince future investors that he actually is responsible.

Of course, we all know that the real lunatic in the jungle is temperamental actor Klaus Kinski. Kinski's outbursts were so upsetting to the indigenous actors that their chief approached Herzog and offered to have the actor killed. I've heard that Kinski also plotted to have Herzog murdered but I don't remember if that was in the documentary, one of the commentaries or just something I read online. Oddly, the only Kinski tantrum caught on film wasn't used it the final project. However, Herzog did use the footage when he made his own documentary about Kinski, My Best Fiend (no, that's not a typo).

Fitzcarraldo is a good film but it is a movie that's backstory is more interesting than the final film. Fortunately, Les Blank was there to film the behind-the-scenes drama and Herzog is still around to defend himself. Kinski died in '91, so there's nobody around to stick-up for him but that's probably just as well. He'd only make himself look worse.


A documentary about Werner Herzog? That's so Meta.

Champion: Who said there are no second acts in American lives? Oh, it was F. Scott Fitzgerald? Well, fuck that guy.

Champion is a documentary about Danny Trejo, my favorite Hispanic character actor (sorry, Luis Guzmán). His fascinating life and oversized personality make for a thoroughly watchable film and are great at showcasing Trejo's awesomeness. But what surprised me the most is how it also serves as a critique of the American penal system. There are a lot of intimate moments where Trejo confesses what kind of a person he had to become in order to survive prison. Even more interesting are the moments when he talks about his struggle to escape from his jail persona once he was released.

Even if you don't have a fixation for Chicano bit-players I still think you can really enjoy this movie. It's the story of one man's journey from an, admittedly, insane criminal to a minor celebrity who uses his down-time between filming to serve as a motivational speaker for troubled youths. You'd have to be pretty heartless not to be moved by that.


This guy was a drug counselor . . . after he got out of prison.

Fitzcarraldo: Why do things the easy way?

Fitzcarraldo is the second Werner Herzog film I've seen about an ill-fated voyage on the Amazon led by Klaus Kinski. The first one, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, reminded me of the beautiful insanity of Apocalypse Now, which it undoubtedly helped to inspire. The production difficulties of this film are also reminiscent of Apocalypse Now and they are documented in the film Burden of Dreams, expect to see a post on that in the near future.

Although it was truly marvelous to see a three-story tall boat dragged over a mountain (or a hill, if you want to be all accurate about it), I don't think that this film is as strong as Aguirre. That was about a man loosing himself to mad ambition while this one is about a man finding himself through his mad ambition. Maybe you disagree but for me it's much more fascinating to watch a man gradually self-destruct. It seems more honest.

Also, it takes a really long time for this film to get going. It's frustrating to watch a movie that's famous for moving a boat up a 40 degree slope and have to wait until halfway through before that feat is even suggested. It wouldn't bee so bad if the film jumped straight into Kinski in the jungle dealing with the mysterious Indians (Native-Peruvians?) but I think the first 45 minutes were about Kinski trying to build an opera house in a city. Not what I signed up for.

Although I can loose my patience with him and get a little bored, I must admit that Herzog is a daring filmmaker. He makes bold choices and is willing to go through hell to capture his vision on celluloid. Even if his films don't always entertain me, I'm always left with a few images that I just can't shake.


I still can't believe that Klaus Kinski is Nastassja Kinski's father. She is super hot (at least she was in 1984) and he resembles the undead.

Shaw Legends Double Feature - Iron Fist Adventures/The Thundering Ninja: I think this title is long enough without my pithy remarks

First of all, I just want to say that Shaw Brothers Studio, founded by brothers Run Run Shaw and Run Me Shaw, is awesome. I was lucky enough to catch Vengeance!, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan at the Film Festival a few years ago and they were some of the coolest movies I have ever seen. Ever. In my life.

I was super-excited when I saw that five double features labeled as "Shaw Legends" were on Netflix even if their release date was "unknown". After about a year of sitting in my "Saved" section release dates were finally assigned and I did a little more research. I discovered that these films were not actually produced by the Shaw Brothers but were only films that featured actors who became "legendary" by working with the Shaw Brothers. That's sort of like seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian then buying a "Monty Python Legends" set containing Yellowbeard and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Basically, this was a huge let down.

The first film, Iron Fist Adventures had something to do with politics, family, revenge and, I don't know, some other crap. It was really shitty in a boring way, not shitty in a fun way like a low-budget martial arts epic should be.

I think I would have liked The Thundering Ninja, the second film a lot more if the life hadn't been drained out of me by the previous movie. It's actually a remake of The Criminal (not that you've ever heard of that) if you count taking the majority of footage from one movie and adding white guys dressed as ninjas as "remaking". The plot involved a white ninja gang trying to steal missile plans from the US Government while being pursued by the CIA. What were a group of ninjas going to do with missile plans? I couldn't tell you.

Slither: Evolution is evil (not the teaching of it, rather the process that allows other species to become superior to us)

Horror-Comedy is one of my favorite genres, it's right up there with Film Noir, German Expressionism and Spaghetti Westerns. Slither is a great example of this genre, it might not be Shaun of the Dead-great or Severance-great but it's still pretty awesome. I love how these films reference/parody other horror movies. This one owes a lot to Rabid but it also draws heavily from The Blob, Alien, The Thing, Tremors and, possibly, Squirm.

My biggest criticism is that it focuses too much on goofiness and not enough on the scary. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I'm used to seeing Nathan Fillion on "Firefly" and if anyone can balance comedy with darker elements, it's Joss Whedon. Either way, it was good to see Elizabeth Banks. I think she's great and I'm glad that she's getting steady work without becoming a star. Sometimes fame can ruin people. Oh, and how can you put Jenna Fischer in a movie and not let her do anything? I mean, come on, she was sleeping with the director. What's a girl got to do to get a decent role?

A lot of comedies and spoofy movies come apart at the end, so I was really impressed that this one managed to culminate with an incredibly creepy and funny scene that also managed to be kinda sweet. They also did a great job of sidestepping expectations and delivering some real surprises.


Veteran character-actor Michael Rooker turns into a giant squid-type monster. What more do you want out of a movie?

Once: Pretty music

I really liked Once, even if it's not much of a movie. It mainly serves as a platform for Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová to make beautiful music together (for the record, that's a single entendre). The plot almost seems like an afterthought. I mean, the main characters don't even have names, for Christ's sake. If you don't fall in love with these performers you will hate this movie. Fortunately, they're pretty hard to resist.


Ah Ireland, how I long for your beautiful scenery and your homely people.

Unbreakable: Spoiler alert!

I try not to talk about the endings of movies that people might see but I figure that since Unbreakable came out seven years ago it's probably safe. But, before I get to that, I'd like to say that I disagree with, what appears to be, the common consensus on M. Night Shyamalan. Namely that The Sixth Sense is awesome, Unbreakable was a let-down, Signs sucked, The Village was awful and Lady in the Water warranted a lynching. I think he's mainly been criticized for repeating himself but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's not a lot of variety in Hitchcock's oeuvre but he's still one of the greatest directors ever. I think there's a lot to say about a craftsman who find his niche and produces elegant variations on a theme. Shyamalan has consistently made films that are thrilling, funny and just generally entertaining. Yeah, he can go a little overboard and take his audience in bizarre directions but I admire a guy with that much audacity and imagination.

Anyway, on to the film and, more specifically, the ending. I like how Shyamalan basically gives away the ending right before it happens. It softens the blow and doesn't make it seem like he's trying to pull a fast one on you. I mean, when Bruce Willis is told that there are two kinds of villains, the lesser ones that fight with their hands and the real villain who fights with his mind, we know that we know that Willis has yet to face the mastermind. Also, we know that the film is almost over so there isn't enough time to introduce a new character. That narrows the search down to pretty much Willis' wife, son and the slightly deranged character played by Samuel L. Jackson. The choice is clear, especially if we recall Jackson's line "However unreal it may seem, we are connected, you and I. We're on the same curve, just on opposite ends."

However, I didn't really buy Jackson's motivation. His whole reason for being evil was an existential crisis. I mean, if he was trying to locate Willis so that he could lock him up in his lab and perform experiments on him until he could figure out how to steal Willis' unbreakability, reducing his own breakableness, that would make sense. But believing that "the scariest thing is . . . (t)o not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here" to the point of killing lots of innocent people? That's kinda silly.


I can't believe that Samuel L. Jackson was really Bruce Willis' father . . . and a sled! Oh Manoj, you've done it to us again.

She's All That: And a bag of potato chips

I've always been confused by how I made it through high school without seeing She's All That until I realized that it was released during my freshman year of college. It's a solid teen flick but I wasn't crazy about the leads. That made me a little sad because I used to have a huge crush on Rachael Leigh Cook. I loved her in Josie and the Pussycats (one of the most underrated films of all-time), All I Wanna Do (an awesome movie, even if Joe Hofman and I are the only ones who have ever seen it), and Antitrust (she managed to make that one bearable) but I guess she just doesn't do it for me anymore. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that Freddie Prinze, Jr. is just famous because his dad was a shitty actor.

I would have liked to see more of the supporting cast. It's almost a crime to have Anna Paquin, Dulé Hill, Clea DuVall, Gabrielle Union and Kevin Pollak in your movie and not really give them anything to do. I mean, Sarah Michelle Gellar wasn't allowed to talk for Christ's sake! However, in a film that also features The Sherminator and that guy from the Twix commercial I was glad that they found time to give Matthew Lillard a decent part. He was truly awesome as a reality show reject, I kinda wish the whole movie was about his Brock Hudson. See, even his name is the coolest!


"I wanted Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" ugly, not Cornelius on Planet of the Apes ugly. TV ugly, not . . . ugly-ugly."

Crumb: Who's Robert Crumb?

R. Crumb is probably best known for his "Keep on Truckin' . . ." illustration (above), a Big Brother & The Holding Company (Janis Joplin's band) album cover or Fritz the Cat (which he is none too proud of). He's also been accused of being a misogynist and a racist. I'm not really familiar enough with his work to say whether he's commenting on misogynism and racism or just being them. However, I do get the impression that he's the kind of artist who just takes whatever messed up thoughts are in his head and puts them on paper. That probably doesn't make for the most enlightened work but it's certainly honest.

There's a fine line between genius and madness and Crumb shows us how that line runs through one family. You know things are bad when the successful and happily-married brother is the one who was sexually attracted to Bugs Bunny as a child. And I'm not talking about Bugs dressed as a woman (hey, we've all been there) I mean regular old Bugs.

It's fascinating to see how similar Robert is to his oldest brother, Charles, and how differently their lives turned out. They're both talented artists who are also giant freaks. Yet, Robert was able to venture out into the world and carve out a niche for himself while Charles became a shut-in, living with his mother in a house with comforters hung up to block the windows. Even Max, Robert's youngest brother, escaped from home. If only to become a beggar who sits on a bed of nails on the streets of San Francisco.

Basically, this is a great documentary. Even if it did loose me for a little bit while that art critic was comparing Crumb to Goya, Brueghel and Daumier.


R. Crumb is on the far right, his relatively well-adjusted brother is in the middle and his, surprisingly, somewhat-normal son is on the left.