2009 movie list

Competent, but nothing special.

Sleuth boggles the mind in many ways. It?s a goofy, mess-with-somebody?s-mind kinda movie in which the two unlikable main characters taunt and trick one another in the midst of a fascinating techno-castle in the British countryside. I haven?t seen the original the film was based on, but the pedigree of everyone involved stands out. Not only do Jude Law and Michael Kane bring a solid tradition of acting (and a shared history of playing Alfie), but Kenneth Branaugh?the consummate actor?s director?directs the Harold Pinter script. That said, Sleuth feels like a movie you can understand should be recongized for being edgy and amazing, but mostly comes across as pretentious. The twisty twisty plot gets moldy fast, and if you?re supposed to be confused or bewildered by the shifts in dominance between the two characters, you haven?t seen this kind of play/movie before. A few other thoughts:

* Branaugh finds a variety of startling and stunning camera angles from which to view the action. It?s hard not to see these as a way to make visually interesting a script that?s essentially a two man play with hardly any need for scenery.
* There?s a theme, in the house, of careful and complex surveillance equipment. I don?t divine what the theme has to do with the play.
* The title makes no sense and I scorn it.

All in all, I didn?t like it very much, and would recommend that any interested folks go back and check out Deathtrap, a similar film with better execution. And Christopher Reeve instead of Jude Law. At the same time, Kane and Law do a creditable job with the acting, so there is something redeemable about it.

Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love startled me. I expected it to be one thing, took its early moments to be something else, and came to see it as a third thing by the time I finished.

1. A titillating stupid zombie movie. The netflix description of the movie used the phrase "sex kitten." It's hard to think this film will be anything but juvenile sex jokes. The decolletage and come-hither smile on the poster doesn't undercut that feeling.

2. Early on, the style of the film is pretty disconcerting. Graveyard Alive is shot in black and white and the entire soundtrack is looped, making the early scenes seem particularly amateurish. The early scenes also have a mysterious monster that eludes the camera--another element that makes the film seem a bit off. The acting style plays into this as well (see below).

3. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that the cinematographic style (lingering, odd angles, crisp shadows) and the dreamy quality of the sound (enhanced by the Caligari-like soundtrack and the looped dialog) are being used intentionally. The effect of the film hypnotizes and mesmerizes, much the same way good silent film does. The relatively small amount of dialog in the film amplifies this effect.

A few more thoughts:

* All the actors overplay their emotions in the ways silent film actors used to. This is somewhat amplified by the studio-perfect sound effects that sound dubbed and give the film a disconnected aesthetic.
* The zombies in this film have an interesting quirk -- they only rot if they aren't eating human flesh. They also have an increased libido, which makes them more inclined to spread the zombie-ness.
* One of the characters, Goody Tueschuze, starts out the film as a jerk whom we hate. As the film progresses, we still don't like her, but more and more of the narrative shifts to her perspective. It's a weird phenomenon you don't see much in American movies (but it seems like I've seen it in Japanese movies a lot).
* Facial cream helps hide the unsightly blemishes of zombiehood.
* This film doesn't have a very positive view of men--the guys at the hospital go ga-ga for nurse Patty when she dons black stockings and unbuttons her nursing uniform. At one point, it shows her emerging from a tryst in a closet with a doctor. He seems happily disheveled and unconcerned about the gaping wounds on her cheeks and neck.
* I have no idea why the film has this title. It should just be Zombie Nurse Falls in Love or something.

In the end, I wasn't amazed by the film, but I'd grown to appreciate it for its scope and shape, in much the same way I felt about Call of Cthulu.

I?m not sure what I expected from Ali G Indahouse, but here are some bullets of what I found:

* There were some genuinely delightful surprises, starting with Martin Freeman and Michael Gambon. Both men always a treat.
* There were several very funny moments, mostly when Ali G is doing the, um, Ali G shtick. Then, as the film progresses, it falls more and more into the conventional fish out of water comedy niche, ala Troop Beverly Hills or Son In Law. I choose those films because the conventional-ness of the plot fits precisely. But there are hundreds of movies that follow this plotline.
* There are lots of jokes that I found myself thinking that I?d seen them before. A quick rundown of a few: 1) a bunch of stiff folks get secretly doped up with marijuana and relax (Dick); 2) Despite having been let down by their hero, a group of rag-tag nogoodnicks are roused to action and save the day (Ernest Goes to Camp); 3) the incurable womanizer finds that he really loves the woman he was with (High Fidelity); 4) the outsider prooves that he?s good at running Britain (King Ralph)
* There are lots and lots of sex jokes. Some are funny, most are not.

Ultimately, I guess I expected a bit more sophisticated social satire. I know that the Ali G sketches were never all that complex, but the goof of having the illiterate wanna-be hip-hop fan interviewing famous people (Boutros Boutros Ghali in one episode) doesn?t come through in the movie.

Ultimately, worth watching when you?re stuck in the basement with the dogs during your wife?s book club, but otherwise worth passing up.

We watched Baby Mama last night and I was pleasantly surprised. Its premise looked very stupid to me, but the film actually had a bit of complicated character development and entertaining interaction between Fey and Poehler. The Tina Fey juggurnaut rolls on.

* As my wife put it at the end of the film: once you have children, movie children look idyllic in a kind-of insulting way.
* Fey?s character showed a great balance of modern womanhood, neither stereotyped nor falling into those stereotypes. I thought, early on, that the pressure of the impending baby would result in her deciding that corporate life wasn?t worth it?not so.
* The only downside of the Greg Kinnear love interest story is that it was so obvious. Because he?s the first other big star to show up in the film (save Steve Martin), it?s telegraphed from a mile away. And of course, he couldn?t just be a guy who opened a juice store, he had to be a former-corporate lawyer who opened a juice store.
* The film?s not very friendly to the uneducated. But should it be? I wonder if there are people who saw this movie and found it insulting, or if everyone sees themselves as not Amy Pohler?s character.
* A great battle of the superstar side characters: Steve Martin vs. Sigourney Weaver. I give it to Steve by a hair. Or rather, a magnificent ponytail reminiscent of Tim Robbins? High Fidelity mane.
* How is it that IVF comes up three times in three different media in 24 hours? First we watch Baby Mama, then I read that A.J. Jacobs and his wife Julie conceived their twins via IVF in The Year of Living Biblically, and then this morning we heard on the news about the mother of six who gave birth to octuplets yesterday via IVF. Jeebus.

All in all, this movie surprised me pleasantly. Much like Mean Girls, which I also didn?t think I would enjoy, the movie starts from the place of a specific genre and then pushes forward into unlikely territory via complicated characters and/or plot development.

A few minutes into our viewing of Smart People, I said to Jenny, "Oh man, this is going to be one of those movies about real people growing and stuff, isn't it?" And it was.

Smart People
Smart People

Smart People is about a misanthropic English professor who never got over his wife's death. His daughter, a robotic Alex P. Keaton played by Ellen Page, has adopted the same life view as her father. Atone point, he says, "I don't think you're happy." She replies, "Well, you're not happy. And you're my role model." As is often the case in stories like this, a shocking life change is needed to jar them loose. Enter the professor's brother, equisitely played with a creepy loser-dude mustache by Thomas Haden Church and the lonely E.R. doctor played by Sarah Jessica Parker. The intermix of these four leads to personal growth and so on.

* I love Thomas Haden Church more for every movie I see him in. He's excellent in this film.
* This movie has a lot in common with Wonder Boys, except that its professor is plagued by misanthropy instead of pot-headedness.
* Ellen Page's character in this movie is the exact opposite of Juno.
* Like Wonder Boys, the professor is having trouble with his book.

Ultimately, I liked this movie because the way the characters evolve rings true. While there is a sense that they have shifted, they don't have the vast change that happens in romantic comedies; it's excellent, and I enjoyed this movie in the same way I enjoyed Station Agent.

Once again, Bulldog Drummond is due to get married and something might get in his way. To prevent the trouble, he and his trusty butler have removed all the guns from the house, cut the telephone line, stayed in for a week and, to be sure they didn?t wander, removed all the pants from the house. These precautions aside, their friend gets kidnapped to Morocco and BD and pals rush in to save the day, which they do to our delight. A creepy spy in a bad goatee captures Bulldog?s friend and tries to get him to talk by treating him civilly and threatening his life. He?s a mix between a bond villain and Erich von Stroheim in The Grand Illusion. All honor and stuff.

* As usual, Bulldog is delightfully scallywaggish, gleefully trying to escape his Moroccan guards by tying sheets together to hang out the window. When the guards want to know where Drummond has gone, his friends say he?s ?having his bath.? It takes them several minutes to remember that his room has no private bathroom.
* Playing Jeeves to Bulldog?s Wooster, the butler saves the day over and over.
* Algy didn?t get as many opportunities to be an ass in this movie as he did in the last one. He was enjoyable nonetheless.
* No severed limbs, though the bomb they planted on the underside of Bulldog?s plane went up quite nicely.
* The landing scene taught me something about old-timey aviation: he had a ?flares? lever to pull that dropped a series of flares on the ground, improvising a runway for himself. Pretty sweet.

It occurs to me that if I spend too much time writing about this short film, I'll spend more time than the movie took to watch. So quickly:

* The premise is promising: two cashier jockeys discover that they have been turned into zombies to work at an all-night bookstore. Like Clerks without the clever dialogue.
* Despite the clearly indie nature of most of the film, the blood and violence effects are excellent.
* The movie has a distinct Tales from the Crypt feel to it -- a short parable in which the evil doer gets undone by their own evilness. Such tales depend on a clever denouement. Alas, no such end arrived here.

Brian Clement?s Exhumed presents three short zombie movies that revolve around a mysterious object (loosely connected to Lovecraftian mythos) that can raise the dead. The three short stories are pretty entertaining and skillfully made, especially given the ultra-low budget background of the film company. Like Call of Cthulu, I appreciate the skill in making movies on low budgets. A few other thoughts:

* ?Shi No Mori? takes place in feudal Japan, following two warriors as they battle zombies in the forest. The film feels very Japanese, with excellent imitation of classic horror style (it felt like one of the segments from Kwaidan). Especially effective were the titles and the choice to use Japanese (rather than English).
* ?Shadow of Tomorrow? brings the film to the 1948s in classic noir style. The lines are delivered at a quick clip, and the mise-en-scene evokes classic B noir.
* ?Last Rumble? takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which vampires and werewolves battle each other and some sinister human faction bent on maintaining their stranglehold on the world. I think. The style of this last film seemed, at first, to evoke the exploitation action movies of the 70s (like Human Tornado), but as the short progressed lost that flavor.
* All three films mix these styles with the expected low-budget practical special effects. In these, Clement makes good use of quick shots and some striking images?particularly in part 3. One sequence in which a soldier?s face gets ripped off is striking and amusing.

All three shorts are amusing and entertaining, though they work better as objects of art and style than as coherent tales. The complicated story weaving between the segments gets a bit confusing, but not so much that the film is hurt by it. The shorts use atmosphere and clever plotting to work well within the limits of the production. As such, they?re pretty satisfying. Overall, Exhumed is worth watching for fans of indie film and horror, but probably not satisfying for people expecting high-budget production values or vast armies of zombies.

I, Zombie makes an early stab at a theme that would be quite popular in the most recent slate of zombie films. It's most clear descendants are movies like American Zombie, Zombie Honeymoon, and Zombies Anonymous. All three films follow I, Zombie's lead in thinking about what it would be like to be a conscious zombie. In some ways, this film explores that issue more intimately than do the later films.

The film follows Brian, a graduate student who gets bitten by a zombie and finds himself turned into one. He has an uncontrollable hunger for people and is slowly rotting as he hides away from the world. It's a grim tale of desperation and sorrow, with lots of lingering shots focused on Brian's painful life hiding in his flat. A few other thoughts:

* While the film contemplates the question of what it would be like to become a zombie quite well, it veers quite far from the recipe necessary for an enjoyable zombie film. There's not much tension as Brian never seems in any sort of danger. A persistant detective (ala Zombie Honeymoon) would have made the story a bit more exciting.
* The gloomy desperation and haunted narrative reminds me a lot of An American Werewolf in London, which also considers the spiritual tragedy of becoming a monster.
* This movie has one of the more horrifying consequences of rotting I've seen in a zombie film, made much worse by the emotional depth of the scene in which it occurs.
* There's not a whole lot of action or excitement in the film. Instead, its matter-of-fact cinematography and shallow narrative arc short circuit most of the horror-pleasure that one finds in these films. In so doing, I could see it being pretty unsatisfying for people looking for more conventional fare. That said, I think it makes a fine companion to those other films I mentioned above.
* The makeup effects and dream sequences are impressive and solid.

Overall, it's worth seeing, but more recent films do the same work in a more entertaining way.

I saw Planet Terror a while ago (zombie movie, natch), but only just got around to seeing Tarentino's half of Grindhouse: Death Proof. I think Peter Travers' review nails much of what I like about the film. While it does play on all the traits you would expect (indeed, DEMAND) from a car-based exploitation flick, it also eludes and overshoots them. The plot structure seemed, to me, to mirror I Spit on Your Grave, turning the "victim" of the attack (the second attack in this film) into the aggressor. And Russel's performance turned at times on a dime, hovering between scuzzy and menacing for a while, dropping into horrible, and then shifting into pathetic. A few more thoughts:

While I thought the film's cultural references were amusing and interesting, there's something about the Tarentino-isms that didn't work for me as much in this film. The conversation around the restaurant table felt like a stale style. To be fair, QT mainstreamed that style, but with a decade's worth of screenwriters imitating and stretching it, there needed to be something new. I also appreciated the feel of the film (the simulacra of wear in the footage worked the best), but not having the nostalgia for the grindhouse movies themselves, something was lost on me, I'm sure.

Tarentino's films usually have a lesson. In Pulp Fiction, we learned to take our gun with us when we go to the bathroom. In Reservoir Dogs, I think it was something about ears. Death Proof shows us, in the most stark terms possible, that we should not ride with our legs or feet out the window. Really.

Jeez. What a downer.

Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate tragedy as a genre. I just don't really want to watch it. This film is billed as a comedy, and there are certainly funny parts in it. But mostly it's just people getting kicked in the teeth by life or one another (metaphorically).

The acting is strong, with Helen Hunt and Colin Firth both displaying remarkable personal vulnerability. Matthew Broderick plays an emotionally stunted asshole brilliantly, especially in that he's a reluctant asshole, unaware of how much damage he's doing by failing to man up and do what needs doing. Hunt's character infuriates me for one of her choices, but I guess that's the point of this movie--that people make bad choices and life goes no anyhow.

But my main complaint with the movie has to do with how it made me feel. When it was done I just felt weighed down. There are grim character development movies that give you a sense of relief at the end (Restoration is a favorite of mine that I'd say fits that genre), but this one just made me happy it was over. Then we watched a Mythbusters rerun.

And I can't really say that I understand the title. It could refer to the Bette Midler subplot (a useful and amusing side-narrative), but why name the movie after a side plot?

I guess my evaluation is this: Then She Found Me is a good movie, but likely not one you'll enjoy.

I really enjoyed Star Trek. Of course.

There are plenty of reviews that it?s great: the pacing zips along, barely giving you time to rest from one moment to the next. The space stuff looks cool, and there are lots of weird moments and cool venues for the action. The acting is solid, funny, and a little emotional without being too much so. The casting works well for me, but I?m only a casual fan of the series, so I can?t speak too strongly about the differences.

A couple more thoughts:

* Eric Bana sure has a lot of badass.
* Simon Pegg already had a lock as my likely favorite, and he hit it out of the park.
* There are a few coincidences that seem, well, a bit extreme. But like the shark blowing up at the end of Jaws, if they have you at this point, you won?t be complaining.
* I appreciate that they manage to work the key catch phrases in for all of the characters. Check that: I don?t know if Uhura (sp?) and Chekhov had catch phrases, so I don?t know if they said them.
* They also worked in a number of other old tropes, including the green skinned woman in a bikini.
* My favorite bit of the script has to do with a clever plot device that gets J.J. Abrams out of any arguments with fans about plot minutiae. He will forever have a ready retort for any fan that asks him about divergences between his film and the original series or films.
* There were a whole bunch of different venues and environments ? not unlike the other juggernaut of SF, Star Wars. The shift from ship to planet to orbital platform to whatever was amusing but a bit contrived. It?s only the sort of thing you?ll notice after the fact, though, because you?ll be trying to keep pace with the film.

Two more thoughts: I insisted to Jenny that I?m not much of a Star Trek fan, but then she pointed out that by knowing Trek fans prefer ?trekkers? to ?trekkies,? I?ve spoiled any attempt at distance I might have made.

I?ve seen some bad movies in my day. The Dead Hate the Living. The Human Tornado. Burn, Hollywood, Burn.

Johnny Sunshine: Maximum Violence made the list.

It?s not that the film is amateurish ? and oh boy is it. I can appreciate low budget filmmaking for what it is. But it still needs to do something interesting. And therein lies the problem. Johnny Sunshine has a killer premise. Tell me this doesn?t sound like a great movie:

In a world overrun by zombies, drugs and violence, entertainment is hard to come by. Enter Johnny Sunshine, the beautiful yet cold-blooded assassin whose zombie-killing exploits are the basis for the world?s most popular reality television show. When she discovers that her double-crossing producer has arranged to have her taken out, Johnny decides it?s time to take her world-famous murdering skills behind the scenes.

It does sound awesome. It would be awesome if this were the movie I?d seen. It isn?t.

Instead, the description should read something like this:

In a dull world overrun by zombies, drugs and violence, entertainment is hard to come by. Enter Johnny Sunshine, the sadist whose zombie-killing snuff films are popular.

That whole plot thing described in the first sequence? That takes place in the last third of the movie, but doesn?t really resolve. The end of the movie is when she decides to take her skills ?behind the scenes.? There?s no rampage of revenge.

The main problem is the pacing. Johnny Sunshine snoozes along so slowly that even I, your intrepid viewer of nearly everything, couldn?t take it. I?ll admit that from about the ten minute mark, I watched the film at 2x. Perhaps this muted some of the ambiance, but it was still too slow, IMO.

The focus of the film was actually the torture scenes, in which JS captures a person (not a zombie, as far as I can tell) and tortures them before having sex with and killing them. It was really classy. So classy I closed the curtains lest my neighbors glance in and think, well, that I was watching Johnny Sunshine.

Most disappointing, there aren?t even very many zombies, and the ones in the film are basically worthless. They could have been ?druggies? just as easily.

I usually suggest that most films have something worth watching them for. I can?t make that claim for Johnny Sunshine. I wouldn?t even show this film to my bad movie club.

A student recommended this film and all in all, I?m happy to have seen it. The premise of the film involves an existential detective agency who helps wayward people dig to the core of their problems and find their way in the world. It?s a strange way to describe the plot of the film (which involves a number of characters engaged in various shenanigans), but the most cogent, I think. A few more thoughts:

* This film feels hip. In this case it made me happy, but it can be a sign of pretentiousness as well. It feels like a movie made to be talked about afterward.
* I liked the visual goofiness throughout the film. Its stylistic chic worked well as it shifted from perspective to perspective, layering the characters? philosophical discussions onto the narrative.
* I enjoy almost all the actors in the film. Jason Schwartzman plays a character who could quite easily be Max Fischer all grown up. Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman are particularly amusing as bickering detectives with conflicting ideas about how to solve their ?cases.?

It?s a strange movie, but one worth seeing.

This commentary will be SPOILERIFIC. Also, a caveat: I haven?t seen House of 1000 Corpses, and didn?t know this was a sequel until I got the Netflix sleeve in the mail.

It?s hard to know what to make of this film. As it began, I oscillated between being intrigued and appalled, and kept with it only because the style of the film, particularly its Texas Chainsaw Massacre / The Hills Have Eyes mise-en-scene. As the movie went on, and the narrative shifted perspective slowly, turning the Sherriff into the monster and the psychopaths into victims, I had a bit more tolerance for it. In the end, I don?t know what to make of the film.

On one hand, there?s a disturbing celebration of sadism that we see in a whole vein of horror films of late, from the gore-porn of Hostel and the SAW sequels (I thought the first SAW was pretty interesting) to the remakes of classic 70s sadist movies. While we?re supposed to empathize and pity the country music rubes killed in the film, I think we?re supposed to be equally enthusiastic about the vicious killers as they strut about being the devil and doing evil.

On the other hand, the sheriff, played greasily by William Forsythe, goes slowly mad, becoming one of the people he?s hunting and ultimately torturing them with as much relish as the Fireflys would have brought to the proceedings had the handcuffs been on the other wrists.

But Zombie works in a strange sub-current as well. There are sibling rivalries (with the nausiating repetition of the same couple swear words and phrases) and parent/child jokes in-between the killing. There are delightful moments of revelry (the sequence at the brothel has a similarity to the ?Raindrops Keep Fallin? On My Head? sequence from Butch Cassidy) and silliness (the argument about getting ice cream, for instance).

And then there?s the end, a Thelma and Louise- John Dillinger outside the Biograph- Butch and Sundance in Bolivia- berzerker sprint with guns blazing toward a police barricade and infamy. With ?Freebird? drowning out the gunshots and images of the Fireflys laughing and hugging in an alpine spring, you almost feel sorry for the murderous trio. Which leads me back to where I started. This movie has few nods, few winks ala Natural Born Killers to tell you that it?s satire. The newscasters are goofy, hillbilly extras walked straight out of Deliverance, and the appearance of 70s horror staples Ken Foree and the baldie from The Hills Have Eyes all imply satire, but the film also enjoys its gore a bit too much.

And perhaps that?s where it?s most artful ? despite my extreme dislike of it ? that it refuses to be in one place. It keeps shifting around and pushing the viewer empathy from one place to another. I?ve pondered before what happens when you?re forced into empathizing with evil people, but this film pushes that to a new level. As such, it?s unsettling and disturbing; exactly what you want from a horror film.

Meh. You?d think a movie involving space vampires, a naked lady, and zombies (er, space zombies?) would be great. You?d be wrong. This movie isn?t terrible, but there are lots of other movies that do what it does better. Here are some comparisons (I freely admit that comparing a movie to others that came later isn?t really fair, but I don?t care):

* Trope: The astronauts find a creepy spaceship that seems mysteriously organic. Inside are creepy aliens.
They did it better in? Alien. The creepy alien isn?t creepy when it?s a naked lady (see below). Also, it?s lame that this is the same screenwriter as Alien. Dan O?Bannon, what were you thinking?
* Trope: Naked alien lady seduces men and kills them to accomplish her alien deeds.
They did it better in?Species. The mid-nineties sex/splatter fest was clearly inspired by this film. One interpretation of LifeForce is that it plays on the vagina dentata, positing a terrifying sexual figure who devours men. Species took this idea and made it much more interesting.
* Trope: London is destroyed by zombies as people try to figure out how to stop the plague.
They did it better in?Every zombie movie. The problem with the zombies in this film is that they never got enough play to become frightening or even interesting. They were a prop to move the plot forward. I wonder if the zombies were just a bleed-over from Dan O?Bannon?s other 1985 project, Return of the Living Dead.
* Trope: Something strange happens out in space and we shouldn?t have brought it back. (The film begins with a visit to Halley?s comet where they find the mysterious ship.)
They did it better in?Event Horizon, which I actually liked much better than most people did.
* Trope: We find impossibly old aliens and it turns out they may have been here before.
They did it better in?2001: A Space Odyssey. ?Nuff said.

For each notable person involved in the film, there?s something better to watch. Patrick Stewart? X-Men or the first TNG movie. Dan O?Bannon? Return of the Living Dead or Alien. Tobe Hooper directed Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Poltergeist. Cinematographer Alan Hume shot A Fish Called Wanda. Composer Henry Mancini wrote The Pink Panther and Peter Gunn. Editor John Grover cut a couple Bond films and Labyrinth. This seems to be one of those movies with lots of skilled people that just didn?t go anywhere.

I just hope Mathilda May got some extra green for each scene she had to do topless or naked, if for no better reason than as a kickback for keeping the costume budget low.

Fanboys amuses. Some thoughts:

* This film excels at the little jokes. The van that has to be punched (and makes a rhythmic winding up sound) to make it start. The nerd who finds his force commands working only to learn that he?s with a hooker. The Trekkies. There are a number of small touches that succeed very well.
* The film?s cast is surprisingly wide. The main characters are mostly people you?ve seen elsewhere (at least in trailers). Then there are the cameos and guest stars. Shooter McGavin, Lando Calrisian, Captain Kirk, Princess Leia, Darth Maul, and Jay & Silent Bob each have small roles, and Seth Rogan plays two different funny villains, Danny Trejo appears as a tripped out van repairman, and even Harry Knowles stops by. We also see Roy and Darryl from The Office. No Beasley sighting, though.
* The plot takes your standard road movie template and maps it onto the nerd universe. It?s a forumla that works just fine.

I feel like I should have more to say, but there really isn?t much more to say. It?s a cute movie, but it won?t make any top-ten lists.

The film tells the story of Charlie, a bipolar dreamer whose daughter has had to fend for herself since he went away to the mental hospital. Now he?s out and he?s on a quest to find a missionary?s lost cache of gold, with his daughter reluctantly in tow. A few thoughts:

* Character development movies are particularly trying to understand when one of the characters is crazy. How much is intentional, and how much is about is craziness? And Michael Douglas plays this crazy to the hilt, with a full Don Quixote beard and some crazy eyes.
* The Netflix description was pretty close, as opposed to other films that it has called wild or comedies that were neither. In this case, their only error was in describing his daughter as ?delinquent,? when really she was amazingly responsible.
* Hollywood has an amusing set of expectations when we meet the mad who are on quests ? do we placate them or try to talk them out of it? And why are treasure hunts so satisfying?
* The film weaves itself into the environment of Southern California brilliantly, with Charlie and Miranda following the trail of 17th century missionaries past Applebees and condo associations, all the way to a CostCo. The film?s clearly cricital of the consumer suburbiscape, but it?s also not dismissive of it. Change is change, not an awful decay.

At the heart of the film, though, are the questions I ask in the first bullet. What does one do with someone like Charlie, who?s clearly got mental issues, but also seems to have a semblance of rationality?

Review opening 1:
Independent filmmaking in the HD, Uber-FX era parallels programming for the Wii. When Nintendo was working on the Wii, they focused nearly all their development money on implementing its innovative control scheme, eschewing the next round of processor and graphics upgrades that Microsoft and Sony pursued in creating their current-gen consoles. As a result, Nintendo?s current crop of games excel in play control but lag behind on graphics. Thus, game designers are forced to come up with innovative design choices to keep players from getting too caught up on this issue. For example, the designers of Mad World created a cartoony, Frank Miller knockoff world in which everything looks like inked black and white comics, reserving color only for blood. As a result, the style takes care of the need for all the graphics kickassery a modern fighting game usually requires. I Was a Zombie for the FBI pulls the same slight of hand, dodging the need for special effects or complex cinematography by hewing closely to the style of 1950s crime thrillers, which use a more direct, less flashy mise-en-scene.

Review opening 2:
Netflix has a column on the queue page titled ?Expected Availability.? Most of the titles in the queue are labeled ?Now.? For example, of the 480 movies in my queue, seventeen are labeled ?Short Wait? and one is labeled ?Long wait.? Contrary to my instinct, short and long waits are much more common for niche movies than for the big blockbusters. I have never had to wait for a big screen, big money movie. By memory, I?ve only had to wait for two movies: Spaced (disc 1) and I, Zombie. I?ve also occasionally had to wait a bit longer as my movie was sent from some far away shipping center; such was the case with I Was a Zombie for the FBI. In retrospect, the wait has much more to do with the coolness of the title or the rarity of the actual disc than with anything like quality of the film.

Originally made in 1982 and punched up for the DVD with some intertitles and establishing shots, the film works pretty well if you enjoy genre thrillers and SF from the 1950s and 1960s. The dialog is corny without being stupid, and the pacing holds together (though the film got a bit slow for me toward the end). The plot generally focuses on a conspiracy by two mysterious human-looking aliens to turn everyone into mind-controlled zombies through a change in the Uni-Cola ?Healthcola? formula. Embroiled in the story are two criminals, two FBI agents, and one plucky reporter who never actually gets to be plucky. A few more thoughts:

* I thought the film had a strange mix of cinematic touches (it feels like it was shot on film) and modern low-budget effects. I read up on the film and learned about the recent re-edit. I?m glad to hear that the movie was trimmed, as the current version gets a bit long for my taste. I bet the original would try my patience.
* Anyone looking for conventional zombie mayhem will be sorely disappointed. The zombies in this film are much more like the ones from I Walked with a Zombie ? mostly harmless. There?s a monster (the glorious stop-motion ZBeast) and an evil Phantasm ball that shoots swirly lines of zombification rather than sharp spikes, but no cannibalistic ghouls.
* Best dialog exchange, from memory so sorry if it?s not exact:

Doctor: Have you ever heard of Zombies? Webster?s dictionary defines them as people without internal motivation who mindlessly follow commands from their masters.
Agent: And what, this magic ball zaps them and? zombies them?
Doctor: The term is zombifies. Or clinically, we would say they are in a zomboid state.

* I loved the clueless way the agents drove around a whole town full of zombies for most of a day before they figured out something was wrong.
* The criminals are the best part of this movie, gleefully killing and robbing, smirking the whole way.
* My biggest disappointment with the film was the lack of infiltration the title implies. The title, of course, refers to an infamous series of columns and a film from the 1950s in which a fictional narrator tells the story of his time spent with the morally corrupt Communists infiltrating our country. Using the parallel title makes sense within the genre conventions the film relies upon, but it ultimately disappoints as the movie does not actually use the plot point implied in the title.

Overall, it?s a film worth seeing for fans of b-movies from the 1950s, but as a standalone movie, there are far better choices out there.

There?s a brilliant moment toward the end of Sacha Baron Cohen?s Brüno in which a rabid crowd of UFC fans suddenly shifts from screaming in glee at the impending beating of a gay man to screaming in anger. As I watched the caricatured homophobes roaring, gasping and, in one particularly amazing shot, looking distinctly crushed ? as if something inside had died ? I couldn?t help but remember Andy Kaufman?s infamous turn as a heel in the professional wrestling circuit.

Brüno complicates the easy relationship we usually have to humor. While many of the jokes in Borat were easier to laugh at directly, Brüno often pulls its humor from making both the audience and its victims uncomfortable. And while Borat was a caricature of a racist homophobe, Brüno becomes the caricature of the flamboyant gay man, provoking his subjects as their target rather than as fellow traveler.

The film also has an over-the-top sexual component that far exceeds what you might expect to see in any mainstream film. Frankly, I?m surprised they were able to get an R rating. But as Owen Gleiberman pointed out in his Entertainment Weekly review, such moments play more to Brüno?s personality; he is who he is.

The funniest moments go back to Baron Cohen?s bread-and-butter, the improv interview. At several points in the film, he follows his old formula of starting with something within the scope of semi-reasonable behavior and then twisting his victims further and further out past the edge of all reason.

As you leave the film, you?ll find yourself arguing with your companions about which parts were real ? there are moments that feel like they must have been staged. Which begs the question, what is this movie? Is it documentary? Is it a prank film? Is it fiction, of a piece with The Bicycle Thief and other Neorealist films shot on location among non-actors?

When I was in college, I went to a high school production of Arsenic and Old Lace in which the boy playing Dr. Einstein did a very creditable Peter Lorre impression in the part. As we watched, I wondered if Lorre was in the film version of the play, or if the boy just thought it would fit the role well. Having now seen the film (via ?Watch Instantly?), I?m interested in the King and I problem ? I wonder if anyone plays that role without a nod to Lorre? (There?s an episode of, um, Seinfeld?, in which a man playing the King of Siam in the stage play of the King and I complains that he?s continually asked why he isn?t bald. ?Yul Brenner was bald, not the King!? he exclaims.

Anyhow, Arsenic and Old Lace works well as a filmed version of a play. It has all the enjoyable elements of that original work, from the exasperated theatre critic to the neglected new bride to the dotty old ladies to the Teddy Roosevelt charging up the stairs. But it also does nothing beyond what the play does. (Scratch that ? I don?t know if the cab driver is in the play.) But it does hardly anything beyond the play, and this is its failing. Forgetting that filmic storytelling needs to be vibrant in a different way than the theatre does, Arsenic comes up short in its staging.

It occurs to me that this could make a great horror film with just a little twist in the presentation of the ladies and the inflection of the nephew. What if Mortimer were the schemer and Jonathan was a misunderstood homebody who loves his aunts? What if the aunts were hateful women hiding behind a mask of civility, and Teddy were disturbingly deranged rather than delightfully deranged? I wonder what that staging might look like. I wonder if the dialogue could survive given just a different inflection and staging.

Of course, you were as excited for this film as I was when you saw the Youtube trailer. Some thoughts:

* I don?t mind my movie science shaky, but I like them to try, at least. My biggest complaint has to do with the classification. The scientists unblinkingly call this shark a Megalodon. Megalodons are the biggest documented predatory fish in history, reaching upwards of 60 feet in length. But this shark is more like 1200 feet. Or more. Look at the picture of the shark holding the sub in its mouth. They mention that this is a Sea Wolf sub (part of a ?Wolf pack?). The sea wolf sub is 350 feet long. By the looks of this image, the shark has to be at least four times as long or more than the sub. That?s fine. I don?t mind the ridiculous size, but give the biologists a line like ?We?ve never seen anything like this!? Also, notice the changing scale: the shark isn?t too much bigger than the plane, but it absolutely dwarfs the submarine.
* Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah(!) Gibson do fine in their roles, as do the other players. I think it would be fun to do a movie so shamelessly entertaining.
* Most of the dialogue is entirely utilitarian. It?s too bad they couldn?t get the script a bit more punch. There were a few good lines though?

Alan Baxter: And now what activity do we see? (Points to the radar screen.)
Emma McNeil: None.
Alan Baxter: Score one for Ms. Fancypants.

Crewman: All five ships destroyed by Octopus, sir.

Alan Baxter (referring to a plan to use pheromones to attract the beasts): How do you know this plan will work?
Lamar Sanders: If you?d been frozen for millions of years, you?d be pretty horny, wouldn?t you?

* The film had a vaguely environmentalist message, ala Godzilla. The low-frequency sonar beacon covertly dropped by a navy pilot in the arctic is what actually breaks the monsters loose. Emma McNeil wonders if we are reaping what we?ve sown.

Probably not worth watching unless you know ahead of time that you like this sort of thing, in which case I look forward to your comments.

We enjoyed this outing from early in the careers of both Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. It?s a strange movie, with a schizophrenic attitude that?s hard to place. Foul Play tells the story of a lonely librarian and a police detective who fall in love as they try to uncover the assassination plot in which the librarian has become entangled. Some thoughts:

* The early parts of the film feel very Hitchcockian, with mysterious corpses turning up and vanishing, evil albinos hiding in libraries, and so on.
* But as the film goes on, it gets this strange injection of humor that seems completely out of character for the earlier film. As the movie ended, we decided that two scripts, one a classic thriller drawn on early spy movies like The 39 Steps or The Man Who Knew Too Much, the other a Zucker brothers parody of the same.
* In the more serious vein, there are some pretty intense chase sequences and some startling moments. In the other, we have a cackling snake, an old-man versus old-woman rumble in the living room, dirty old ladies playing Scrabble, and the senseless beating of a dwarf.
* Given the early banter between Chase and Hawn, I expected the Chase character to be a bit more Fletch than he ended up being. Oh well. There were some amusing bumbles anyhow.
* How come albinos always end up being henchmen in movies? I can only think of three other albinos in movies (offhand): the keeper of the cave of doom in The Princess Bride (henchman), the tall assassin in The Untouchables (henchman, but perhaps not an albino), and the kid in Powder (not a henchman).
* I was trying to decide if a moment in the non-PC 1970s film was racist or not. Two elderly Japanese people ended up in the back of the car being driven crazily through the San Fransisco streets. Once they figured out CC was a cop (?Kojack, bang! bang!?), they thought it was a riot. They laughed uproariously and waved American flags. Admittedly, they caricatured Japanese-ness, but their particular ethnicity fit because the sequence was cross-cut with a production of The Mikado and the extra-digetic chase music drew on that opera for its themes. One could also suggest a diegetic logic for Japanese tourists to be present, as San Francisco (and California in general) are a big draw for Japanese tourists. Finally, I feel like ANY non-English speaking old people could have fit a similar niche for humor. These reasons aside, I still felt a little askew about the scene.
* I need to see some more Burgess Meredith movies.

We enjoyed The Spiderwick Chronicles moderately. The film tells the story of a bummed-out teenage boy who stumbles upon a magical book that gives insight into the world of magical creatures. It is, of course, a very valuable book being sought by a malevolent Nick Nolte ogre monster demon. (He?s almost as scary as his mugshot photo.) Adventures ensue.

One could see the film as a couple things: a parable about the knowledge children are sometimes forced to learn?the divorce at the center of Jared?s trauma seems like a real-world piece of knowledge he?d be happier not knowing about; it can also be read as a discussion of the dangers of discovery and knowledge. Spiderwick?s book was carefully assembled over years of work and, while illuminating the secrets of the magical world, it also exposes that world (and ours) to incredible danger. One can?t help but see the parallels to scientific research. So the decision to defend the book is interesting in this regard (though the plot makes the book impossible to destroy).

A few additional thoughts:

* I haven?t read the book, so I didn?t find myself noticing the distinctions between the film and its source material. I did find myself comparing the creatures in this story to their renderings in Harry Potter. Jenny also found connections to another book series, Fablehaven.
* They do a great job of keeping the kids in real danger all along. From about the first 15 minutes on, the danger to the kids is both real and pretty darn scary. Solid.
* The kid-is-angry-about-the-divorce was a little heavy handed, but it worked okay. Freddie Highmore does an excellent job playing the twin boys at the center of the story. Most remarkably, because of makeup, haircuts, etc that made them look slightly different, I didn?t even realize it was just one person playing both boys until the end of the film.
* The magical creatures looked a bit plastic (as many computer-generated creatures do these days), but the seams were smooth and pretty much invisible. I couldn?t see the wires. At the same time, the menace of the frog-like goblins and the horrible troll are real and well-created. The moment when one of the brothers gets bitten on the leg (and a semi-circle of tooth-marks appears, bloody) made me wince, and the effect of the tomato-sauce bombs on the goblins really works well.
* We couldn?t help but wonder how the next chapter might evolve, given the story?s pretty solid conclusion. Oh, I suppose another menace will arise from the magical world.
* And as for good plot construction, there are a number of clever elements that work very well. Our favorite? The older sister who constantly practices fencing and suddenly has a real use for her swordsmanship. Nice.

Worth watching, but probably not worth going out of your way to see.

The Grand follows a group of poker players at a ?World Series of Poker? type event as they make their way to the final table of a winner-takes-all $10million tournament. Told and shot in mockumentary style, it?s not bad ? in fact there are some moments that are very funny and good ? but it didn?t knock me out. I think the main problem with the film goes to the heart of the narrative. Ultimately, it?s a story about these wacky characters trying to win a poker tournament, so the core conflict often gets resolved in the ?flop.? And I couldn?t really give a rat?s ass about poker.

That said, it?s entertaining at moments here and there, with solid, hilarious bits and some bits that just don?t work. One element that makes it work is its overwhelming recognizable cast: Woody Harrleson, David Cross, Dennis Farina (Get Shorty?s Dennis Farina), Cheryl Hines, Larry Kind (Ira from Mad About You), Chris Parnell (from 30 Rock), and Ray Romano. There are also many bit players I recognized: Werner Herzog, Jason Alexander, Michael McKean, Gabe Kaplan, Judy Greer, Hank Azaria, and Barry Corbin. And most of these people have at least a couple funny moments.

It?s worth a watch if you don?t go out of your way to do it, or if you like poker more than I do.

We saw the Ricky Gervais/ Jennifer Garner movie The Invention of Lying this weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly. The film tells the story of a world in which human beings never evolved the ability to lie. We say what we believe to be the truth. Until R.G.?s character suddenly can say something ?that isn?t.? (Truth, of course, not being a concept until untruth exists.) The film is cute and interesting, with some very compelling acting and a surprising turn toward religion (surprising, that is, if you haven?t read reviews like this one?oops). Some additional thoughts:

* Gervais and Garner both rock this movie. Its exceptional supporting cast works as well, with small parts or cameos from Louis C.K., Christopher Guest, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Tambor, John Hodgman, and more.
* The film makes you ponder what it means to lie: is it more than telling a deliberate untruth? In the film, people seem unable to restrain themselves from saying what they think. It?s what some people have called radical honesty. For example, when Gervais picks up Garner for a date, she tells him that she?s not attracted, and later a waiter comments that she?s out of his league. But the things we generally think of as common courtesy fall by the wayside in this world. People are unable to follow the dictum ?if you don?t have anything nice to say?.? To not say anything would be a lie.
* Advertising and storytelling in the film are very funny, as neither has any artifice of fiction. Ads are prosaic, such as the Coke ad in which the CEO tells us ?We would like you to keep buying Coke. It?s popular.? Stories can only be told about real events, though there?s no acting or dramatic interpretation, just a guy reading to the camera. The literature scholar in me balked at the idea that a summarizing of historical events can be neutral; summarizing events is lying about them, but you have to let it go somewhere.
* This bullet is a mild Spoiler: One of the bigger lies Gervais tells is the story of Heaven. The film takes an interesting track in which it explores how the ?lie? of religion shapes the world. There are lots of funny jokes there, but also some really interesting bits of thinking about what it means to have religious faith and how it shapes our daily interactions with the world.

Overall, an interesting film that?s entertaining and cute. It?s not uncomfortable in the way Gervais? television shows tend to be. A good literary accompaniment is James Morrow?s City of Truth, which plays out a similar thought experiment.

This mockumentary presents itself as a San Fransisco-Area television broadcast of a formerly-banned BBC (renamed the ?BBS?) documentary about the C.S.A. The idea is that the Confederate ambassador to France and England persuaded them to enter the war on behalf of the south and thus the South won. The movie unfolds in a Ken Burns style, with stand-ins for people from the Civil War documentary and a regular update of the events up to today. The film is broken up by commercials from the modern C.S.A. landscape, in which a modern slave state still exists (or did well into the late 20th century).

The film is an interesting challenge, as it?s both funny and apt, with strong critique of our culture and our tendencies. The timeline is mostly believable, and the racist commercials really challenge the viewer. I?m reminded quite a bit of Bamboozled, which also takes on modern racism, but even more shockingly. The layer of mockumentary makes the film less gut-churning and discomfiting, though it still raises some interesting questions.

A few other thoughts:

* The production values are really great. The bits of traditional Americana worked into the film succeed marvelously. For instance, the film re-uses a JFK speech from 1960 in which he characterizes our struggle with USSR as one about ?freedom and slavery,? to suggest that JFK was an abolitionist. Also a gem: the clip of the 1940s movie ?I Married an Abolitionist.?
* I thought the plotline about the prominent American family whose sons regularly have a role in the government was a bit contrived ? it doesn?t really have an analogue.
* The bit at the end detailing some of the key imagery that resided in modern American consumer culture is particularly shocking. The two most shocking products to me: Niggerhair tobacco (a real brand that existed until the 1950s) and Darkie toothpaste (which was eventually changed to ?Darlie? but was still sold over seas as ?Black Man Toothpaste?). Good lord. The film also mentions Coon Chicken, which we all remember from Ghost World.
* One downside to this alternate history approach is that it varies things enough that it would be hard to bring this film back to talk about the actual plight of systemic racism and racial inequality still in play in our culture, particularly now that we have a black president and are suddenly ?post-racial.?

I didn?t expect much of this movie, since it made very little money and it has Brendan Frasier, an actor I like but who inexplicably dooms any movie he signs on to act in. It?s also hard to watch a movie like this without scoffing a lot. A. LOT. Some thoughts:

* I think the movie yielded too much initiative to the 3D. There are several moments where these weird choices in cinematography suddenly remind me that, oh yeah, this movie was produced in 3D and they had to have some pop-out moments. But these were always gimmicky. Who needs em?
* The scientific ideas in the film were pretty preposterous, of course. But I also found a number of smaller serious concerns: if the ?air pocket? regularly heats up to 200 degrees F, how does it sustain a large biosphere of diverse organisms? And where are all the other mid-size prey animals for the giant carnivorous plants and T-Rexes to feed on?
* Vernians are people who believe that Jules Verne wasn?t writing Science Fiction, but science fact. These are not a fictional group concocted for the sake of the movie, but real people, with a website. Delusional people, but real, apparently.
* Stupidest moment? When they find an old abandoned mine with creaky, rusty old mine cars that they happily hop into and careen nearly to their deaths. Really? Sigh.
* And at the end of the movie they imply that there?s some serious writing being done based on the journey, but they brought back, um, ZERO pieces of evidence. Yeah, they?re gonna get published on that.
* Oh, and did I mention that these giant underground caves are well lit by, um, they don?t say. But they?re well lit. Sunny, even.

Not worth watching. Just watch Indiana Jones or National Treasure (which at least has a goofy charm this movie misses).

Imagine that you found the excised bits of an early American Pie script. Then, having recently enjoyed such teen zombedies as Idle Hands or My Boyfriend?s Back, you would make Night of the Living Dorks, or perhaps Boy Eats Girl. As I said, this film reminds me a lot of other teen zombie comedies, particularly in that its ?heroes? find zombie-hood to be a mixed bag, taking moments to enjoy their newfound strength (ala Spider-man in the wrestling ring), but they also find themselves driven to, well, eat people. Some other thoughts:

* If you decide to watch this movie, hold on to at least the 30 minute mark. The beginning is absolutely terrible. I nearly turned it off. The sex jokes are really awful, not only in their stupidity, but in their ham-handedness.
* I like the idea that people react differently to being zombified ? some give in to it more easily than others. The three characters continue their own paths: the uber-nerd who nurses his grudges manages to play out that insecurity, while the normal guy gets to be more normal and the stoner/sex fiend becomes more stonery/sex fiend-y.
* The goths are pretty funny in the movie, especially the part where Phillip chastises them for their crappy skills: they use frozen chicken and one of their mother?s hair for the mystical rites. And they draw a six-point star of David instead of a pentagram on the ground.
* It?s amusing that the bully in the film wears a sweater over his shoulders like Troy from The Goonies.
* The recurring theme of using a staple-gun to reattach body parts that have fallen off is pretty funny.
* I watched this streaming on Netflix, which was okay except that it was dubbed instead of subtitled. The goofy performances in the dubbing were pretty distracting, frankly. I would have preferred subtitles.

Overall, pretty mediocre. Not better or worse than Boy Eats Girl, but definitely not the best zombie comedy out there.