ONE WEEK BREAK

Okay, so I've been having some trouble with Netflix mailing me my movies, and have been twiddling my thumb for at least a week now.

They're working on fixing the problem and should be sending me my movies soon, so for right now I'm calling this thing to a halt for about a week. I'd planned this whole activity out with the intention of watching, for the most part, movies I had never seen. The idea of writing for the next week about movies I've already seen didn't really interest me, mostly because it seems like a waste of a week of movie watching.

So, with the holiday coming up and my first week of a new semester of school starting now, I'm just going to put everything on hold unitl Tuesday, September 2nd. From that point on, I've got 310 movies to watch in the 310 days that follow. I know, in "reality" I'm a couple movies behind, but September 2nd will be the reset button.

I blame Netflix. They provide a great service for a great price. But I still blame them.

See you in a week, whoever you are.

#54, #55: GRINDHOUSE (Planet Terror and Death Proof

Planet Terror
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Written by Robert Rodriguez
Released June 21, 2007

Death Proof
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Released June 21, 2007


In the Summer of 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez teamed up to pay homage to 70s B-movies and bring back the midnight movie double-feature experience. The whole package was called Grindhouse, a reference to the name given the brand of cinema shown at grimy old film houses that specialized in fare like kung-fu, horror and exploitation movies.

In my opinion, it was a goddamn shame that this package, which paired Rodriguez's sci-fi/horror Planet Terror with Tarantino's Jaws-via-cars thriller Death Proof, was not a box office hit. It kind of befuddled me... What's not to love about two movies for the price of one? About zombies and car chases? About machine guns and machine-gun mouths? Sex, blood and rock and roll?

Personally, I could sit at a movie theater for hours. In fact, I wish they just charged by the hour ($2 is a suggestion). I kind of hate summer, so when I used to live in Chicago, I would go to some cavernous multi-plex and plan out an afternoon of sneaking around inside. Grindhouse was right up my alley. I saw it three times in its theatrical release, and it was fun every time. Buy a giant soda and sneak in some booze and a few cheeseburgers... good times, good times.

Sadly, the pairing of those two movies pretty much bombed in theaters, and the double feature idea was nixed by the time the films saw release in the U.K.. Same goes for the DVDs: both films we released separately. Maybe I'm a purist, but the idea that these movies were meant as a whole experience, I can't watch one without the other. Tonight, with Netflix leaving me high and dry, I paired the movie, got properly inebriated, grabbed a bunch of sodas and snacks, and watched Grindhouse proper.

Save one exception: the fake movie previews that separated Rodriguez and Tarantino's films are not on either DVD. Rodriguez's awesome Machete preview still comes before Planet Terror, so at least they got it half right. Machete, by the way, looks like it could have been Danny Trejo's best role ever, and the movie doesn't even really exist. "He just fucked with the wrong Mexican!" Supposedly, Rodriguez is talking about actually filming the movie. That makes me happy.

We go from Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin blowing away whitey with double shotguns and a flying motorcycle attack to Rodriguez's almost note perfect tribute to the movies of George Romero and John Carpenter. Planet Terror is like Night of the Living Dead meets a Chuck Norris movie. The dialogue is appropriately keyed to those old movie scripts, with childish yet hilarious dialogue like:

"Where's the shit?"
"The shit's right there. The deal is still good."

and, my favorite:

"I want to eat your brains and gain your knowledge."

Rodriguez's masterstroke is hiring great B-movie actors like Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey and Tom Savini (who is hilarious in his role as an inept police deputy) alongside a restrained Bruce Willis and the never better Freddie Rodriguez (no relation to the director). Rodriguez makes a great, if surprising, heavy, and it's his conviction that sells the movie. Everyone looks like they're having a blast, and playing their roles without once blinking at the audience to make sure we know this is all a tribute.

In addition, you've got pretty much the beginning of the resurrection of Josh Brolin. He looks as he if has stepped right off a classic Carpenter movie and into his role as a somewhat mad, definitely malicious doctor.

Throw in the barrage of nonstop and over-the-top violence (wait until you see what Rodriguez puts his own son through during the handgun scene!), the varied and effective score and special effects that make the movie look like you're watching it on a sketchy projector that could very well melt the entire reel of film at any time, and you've got yourself a damn good time.

This one got great crowd reactions every time I saw it in the theater, especially in the scene where Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas nearly gets run down in the middle of the highway and a driver yells, "Get out of the fuckin' road, bitch!" There's also an incredibly clever device at a key scene where Rodriguez employs a "Missing Reel" joke. A stand-up comic has daydreams about getting the kind of laugh out of a crowd this scene evoked from the audience when it suddenly snaps back to the next reel.

Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof has a tough act to follow, and in some ways, it fails in comparison to Rodriguez's movie. Comparing the two isn't wholly fair, since they are two very different genre films. Planet Terror is the movie of the two that is more capable of standing on its own, outside of the double feature format. Death Proof is, in some ways, about movies (and isn't that the case with almost all of Tarantino's films?). It's kind of the Scream of car chase/suspense movies; it takes time out to essentially deconstruct the genre it is attempting to enlighten you on.

Remember earlier, when I reviewed The Seven Ups, and said it was basically an average movie built around one very awesome car chase? That's what Death Proof is, and it's one of the greatest of its particular genre. These movies were typically low budget, and whatever budget they had was mostly reserved for that one white knuckle car chase. The rest was typically a bunch of random dialogue.

If it's random dialogue you want, Tarantino has never been more your man than in this movie. This is, unfortunately, part of the problem. The first 20 to 25 minutes is non-stop jibber jabber, mostly from an annoying character named "Jungle" Julia. Jungle Julia is basically Tarantino sees himself: as a black woman. Julia spouts off pop culture minutae and is trying so hard to act cool that it's embarassing. If you've ever seen Quentin Tarantino get interviewed on a talk show, this is exactly what he's like.

Of course, when Tarantino himself shows up as a bartender and annoys instantly (he's much better as the military douchebag in Planet Terror), which means for several minutes there are TWO Tarantino characters on screen, trying to out cool each other.

A "director's cut" of a movie can swing both ways. In the case of Death Proof, the added or extended scenes don't really add up to much here, but it is nice to watch Russell chew scenery for a few more minutes. Oh yeah, and there's the matter of that lap dance to The Coasters' "Down in Mexico." It's hard to explain how the lap dance arises, but the scene where Kurt Russell negotiates for it is a perfect level of creepy and seducing. When you see what Russell has planned for this crew of ladies (scored to the scorching garage rock of Dave Dee, Dozy, Mick and Tich), it makes the lap dance seduction that much more evil. Watch the "accident" I'm referring to in slow motion if you happen to rent the movie. You'll see what I mean.

The bulk of the extra scenes come right where brevity is needed. You know the killer, you've seen his m.o., lets get to that wicked awesome car chase. Instead, we're talking about, what, inport issues of ItalianVogue? Tarantino even manages to insert us into a long conversation about car chase movies between the four new targets of Stuntman Mike's attention. It's almost like he's apologizing for the sheer nothingness of the second half of his script: four women attempt to test drive a car. Hey, at least in this movie he's supposed to be stealing from other movies.

Again, the appearance of Russell pulls you out of the doldrums, and the movie explodes into a near 20 minute, three act deadly car chase, and it really is worth the wait. Zoe Bell, a stuntwoman playing herself, does some work on the hood of a car that will scare the shit out of you, and that's before Stuntman Mike shows up.

I won't give away any more, but I will say that revenge has had few better payoffs than the final scene in Death Proof.

Watching these two movies tonight was fun, but I would love to do something like this in a theater. I've been looking around trying to see how much it would cost to rent a theater out for a night. I'd love to screen a couple of movies, maybe even on Halloween night, for friends as a big party. Sneak in some booze, watch a couple of slasher flicks and yell at the screen. That's worth almost any price in my book.

For more on Planet Terror:
- The usual links at IMDB and Wikipedia.

For more on Death Proof:
- IMDB and Wikipedia.


This YouTube video of Eli Roth's fake trailer for a horror movie called Thangsgiving, shot in a crowded theater, is a great example of what seeing these movies with a knowing crowd was like:

#52, #53: Star Wars: The Clone Wars vs. The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Directed by Dave Filoni
Written by Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy (story, characters by George Lucas)
Released August 15, 2008

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Directed by Irvin Kershner
Written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan (story by George Lucas)
Released May 21, 1980


For the second time this summer, George Lucas's complete ineptitude has sent me retreating backwards twenty years into my life in attempt to reassure myself that I'm not a complete idiot.

The first time came after witnessing the cinematic abortion that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The level of anger and betrayal I felt coming out of that movie (fucking aliens, a wedding scene, the goddamn TARZAN SEQUENCE?!) was like nothing I'd ever felt as a moviegoer... and I sat through Lucas's three horrible Star Wars prequels!

The level of inept creativity in that movie made me doubt the entire franchise, and I immediately went home and plopped the Raiders of the Lost Ark DVD into my player to make sure I hadn't misrepresented the quality of that movie in my mind.

I hadn't. Raiders is really a fantastic film that raises the bar on genre filmmaking by treating what would usually be a campy kind of nod to old serial adventure movies with utter seriousness and believability. The same thing goes for Star Wars, and especially the second film in that original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back.

Empire is not just a great Sci-Fi/Fantasy film; it's a great movie, period. Lucas's defense of his ridiculous second trilogy has always included some sort of reliance on his belief that "These movies are for children." Lucas's terrible error with those movies is making the assumption that just because something is for children means it can get away with being stupid. Empire, in a way, defies that notion, or at least allows for the fact that children can and will deal with mature material. It has a love story. It has themes of brutal betrayal, with a father cutting off the hand of his own son and a friend selling out another friend to near fatal results. There's even a training sequence where Luke Skywalker essentially beheads Darth Vader and sees his own face behind the mask. In the first ten minutes alone you have Luke cutting an animal to pieces and Han stuffing Luke into the stinking fresh corpse of an animal to keep him warm.

Kids may like it, but this is not kid's stuff.

After struggling through the most recent Star Wars trilogy, I did not have high hopes for The Clone Wars. Honestly, I had no hope at all; with no intention of ever giving George Lucas another dime of my money, I snuck into a showing after a viewing of Tropic Thunder. The only plus I could see was that, much like Empire's use of a different director (which frankly made all the difference in the world), Lucas had given the reigns to film his ideas over to someone else. Unfortunately, it's his ideas that ain't what they used to be.

The Clone Wars takes place between the second and third of Lucas's new prequels, and tells a story that is completely unnecessary and quite boring. It bores me just to think about typing it out right here, so I'm going to make this short: amidst a series of mind numbing battle scenes, Anakin Skywalker (the young man who will become Darth Vader) and his newly assigned padawan ("trainee") Ahsoka Tano must rescue the kidnapped child of Jabba the Hutt to ensure use of Jabba's trade routes. So, yeah... it's the epic story of getting this asshole's baby back so they can use his interstate.

When I say "mind numbing battle scenes," I don't think you can really appreciate just how pummeling and constant these scenes are in the movie. Plus, these battles are primarily being fought by machines, robots and clones, so there is no dramatic heft to any of them. Since you know there is another movie following this that features almost all of the primary characters presented here, there is virtually no dramatic tension.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit to leaving The Clone Wars a little over an hour into the movie (actually, it was just as one character shouted, "We've got to get out of here!"). To put it bluntly, it was un-fucking-bearable. Put up against Empire, it turns to complete dogshit. There is more emotion in Chewbacca's cries, and so much more at stake, as Han is being frozen in carbonite than there is in the entirety of The Clone Wars. The animation is a mixture of computer animation that looks like scenes taken directly from the new trilogy and wood carvings that look exactly like the action figures I'm sure Lucas is salivating to put into stores.

The voice acting is almost uniformly irritating. Not only that, but there is no dialogue in The Clone Wars that can even come close to this 5 word exchange from Empire, one of the greatest dialogue exchanges in the history of film (Harrison Ford's line was ad-libbed, making it that much cooler):

(Just before Han is to be frozen and handed over to bounty hunter Boba Fett)

Princess Leia: "I love you."
Han Solo: "I know."

Hot damn! That's Casablanca-level Hollywood, baby, and that's the kind of subtlety that Lucas could never duplicate, "clones" or not. If you haven't seen it in a while, check out Empire again and take note of what a classic kind of movie it is, and how different it is from all the other Star Wars flicks. It's so much darker and more dramatic, with really good acting from Ford and Carrie Fischer, and even from Mark Hamill, who wasn't exceptional in the first film. There's virtually no space battles, especially compared to the constant shit you have to put up with in The Clone Wars and Lucas's other prequels. No Jar Jar Binks, no baby Jabbas, nothing cute at all, and it ends on an incredibly depressing couple of notes. Even when I saw it in the theater as a child, I could sense the complexity and appreciated the fact that I wasn't being pandered to.

Pretty remarkable, especially for a kid's movie.

George Lucas, you're a jackass.


For more on The Empire Strikes Back and The Clone Wars:
- TONS of information on the former at IMDB and Wikipedia. Learn more about the latter at the official site and IMDB.com
- Episode V at Star Wars.com

- If you're looking to find Empire on DVD, I higly suggest picking it up used on Ebay or Half.com. George Lucas does not need your cash. Look for the 2 DVD edition that came out for a limited time in 2006, because it's the only way you'll ever get to own the original, un-tinkered with version that came out in theaters. Ironically, it's included as "bonus material" on the second disc of the Special Edition version.


Luke vs. Darth Vader, from The Empire Strikes Bake:

#51: Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder
Directed by Ben Stiller
Written by Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen
Released August 13, 2008


You need no other reason than Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus to see Ben Stiller's hilarious Tropic Thunder. After the success of Iron Man, Downey was on top of the world; this performance, as an actor lost inside of his role as the African American leader of a platoon of a Vietnam-movie-within-a-movie, sends him into the stratosphere.

If his performance was all this comedy had going for it, it would be worth the price of admission. Luckily, there is so much more going on here, from the spot-on fake previews before the opening credits (Jack Black's scatological The Fattys: Fart 2 being the most perfect lambasting of terrible Eddie Murphy-style comedies) to the incredible ensemble cast that brings out two very surprising performances from Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey.

The entire movie is pretty much the ballsiest comedy since... hell, I can't even tell you a movie in recent memory with the audacity and balls that Tropic Thunder has on display. The closest analogy I can draw is that it comes from the same well of bravery that inspired someone like Chris Rock when he wrote his famous "I hate N*****s" routine, or George Carlin's "7 Words You Can't Say on TV." Basically, "Damn your sensibilites, I'm getting laughs here, at any cost." Endangered species are murdered. Crew members explode violently. Cruise spews more curse words than he has in his entire career. Even Nick Nolte's insanity is wrangled and used to great effect.

I'm sure you know the plot by now: four pampered stars (joined by Jay Baruchel as the straight man) are dropped off alone into the jungle to inspire them to new performance heights while filming a Vietnam drama. Little do they know, the war going on around them (they are under attack by a local and very deadly drug cartel) is actually real. Luckily, what could have been just a one-joke movie quickly spins out of control and pretty much devolves -- in a good way -- into near complete insanity.

Tropic Thunder is a movie about crazy people, seemingly made by crazy people. The craziest thing of all is how much money was spent to make it (the budget is rumored to be more than $150 million). While assembling this cast certainly cost a chunk of change, you can really see a lot of that money up there on the screen, with explosive action set pieces and the kind of top notch cinematography (John Toll, director of photography of The Thin Red Line and Gone Baby Gone) that you'd normally find in the kind of films Tropic Thunder lampoons.

Be forewarned, though: this movie is for the kind of people who know the movie industry well enough to understand why things like the controversial use of "retard" and Downey's "never go full retard" acting lesson to Stiller AREN'T MAKING FUN OF THE DISABLED. They are making fun of Hollywood, actors and their pretentious attempts to win awards and accolades by making self-important movies that manage to dehumanize the very afflicted they think they're honoring.

To accuse Stiller and friends of anything otherwise is pretty re--.... ridiculous.


For more on Tropic Thunder:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia
- Check out the official site.


The Tropic Thunder trailer you've probably seen a thousand times:

#50: King Corn

King Corn
Directed by Aaron Woolf
Written by Aaron Woolf, Ian Cheney, Curtis Ellis and Jeffrey K. Miller
Released 2007


Just a little bizarre trivia note before I kick off the synopsis: when you type King Corn into a search on the Internet Movie Database, the first link that comes up is not to this movie, but rather to porn legend Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy. I don't even want to know why.

Unfortunately, that may be the most interesting thing I have to present in this review.

King Corn is a 2007 documentary about farming, the corn industry and the effect that the prevalent use of the little yellow grain has had on our diets, our economy and our landscape. While the premise behind it -- two college friends return to the small Iowa town where both had distant relatives in the corn industry to grow their own acre of corn -- is original, it's a stunt that doesn't completely pay off.

Part of the problem is that the subject matter doesn't exactly lend itself to the kind of homegrown, aw-shucks, wanna-be-funny documentary these guys are trying to make. To be quite honest, I don't give a shit about the acre of corn they're growing. Frankly, I don't give a shit about them, either. If you're going to pick a topic that walks on the borderline of boredom like corn, step it up a little, do your homework, and present me with some more information in a more timely manner. Quit messing around in the frozen field with the wiffle ball bat (these guys are so green they move to Iowa in January to start their crop) and shock me, for Christ's sake!

I know, I'm overreacting a little bit. King Corn was made with the best of intentions. It's just that if you're going to go through all the trouble to make a movie and talk about important issues like the dangers of high fructose corn syrup or the disastrous effect that commercial farming has had on the family farm, I'd rather you didn't waste time wandering around in a field pretending to be completely naive about a topic you obviously care about deeply. Shit, The King of Kong was just a documentary about two nerds battling for a high score in Donkey Kong, and yet it had more dramatic tension in its opening credits than you fit into this entire movie. Seriously, go rent that movie; that is how you make a documentary out of a subject that could have been completely boring.

If I may examine my own project for a moment, I must admit that it is movies like this -- the ones that fill me with neither love nor rage -- that are the hardest to write about. It has taken me HOURS to spit out this horrible review. It proves to me yet again that I'd rather watch a bad movie than a boring one.


For more on King Corn:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia
- Buy the DVD from the official site


The official trailer from YouTube:

#49: If. . .

If. . .
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin and John Howlett
Released December 19, 1968 (UK), March 9, 1969 (USA)

"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."

Maybe I needed to be British to "get" If..... Or maybe I had to be growing up in the late '60s. Maybe I need a more nuanced understanding of the English class system of the era. Maybe I need to be 10 years older, or more likely 10 years younger.

If.... is a really well made (fine acting, great use of color, great set decoration, a stunningly beautiful transfer that probably looks better than it even did on screen) -- yet not exceptionally good -- movie. It wants to be a satire, but it lacks the sense of humor or storytelling focus to pull off making any type of grand statements. At best, the movie is a revenge fantasy, with an emphasis on fantasy.

The story involves three nonconformist boys, including Malcolm McDowell in his first film role, at a strict-to-the-point-of-fascism private school. Gradually, they are given harsher punishments for their behavior, and make a pact to rebel. As the film progresses, things get more surreal and dreamlike, making it harder to follow and even more difficult to understand if any of this is actually happening, or if this has all become McDowell's daydream.

A key scene which really begins the blurring of reality -- and one of the better scenes in the movie -- involves McDowell's Mick Travis stealing a motorcycle and riding off into a nearby town with a friend. They enter a seemingly abandoned cafe, and McDowell has a bizarre sexually charged (and most likely imagined) moment with the girl running the counter. She appears in later scenes, including the violent finale, possibly to signify that what you're seeing is not really happening.

Another confusing aspect of the film is use of black and white and color film. There is seemingly no reason for choosing one over the other in different scenes (and listening to the commentary track proves this theory correct). The effect of switching between the two becomes somewhat annoying once you realize there is no modus operandi behind it.

Thinking of the finale, I must admit that I can see how it was controversial, and would be probably even more controversial if used in an American film today. I'm afraid, however, that a massive school shoot-out would not have the same countercultural relevance in our country, but more of an antisocial, deplorably exploitative vibe. But then, we've been shooting our schools up for years.


For more on If. . .:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia
- Buy the Criterion DVD


The cafe scene from If.... (be forewarned, there is a brief bit of nudity here):

#48: Bad Taste

Bad Taste
Directed by Peter Jackson
Written by Peter Jackson, Tony Hiles and Ken Hammon
Released December 1987 (New Zealand), June 1989 (USA)


There is no way anyone could have ever predicted that Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, could have ever gone from a movie like Bad Taste to behing at the helm of one of the highest grossing, most popular series of films of all time. No way in hell.

Bad Taste is pretty much a bloody mess, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. If you're not into low budget horror movies that look like they were made on a home video camera, you might as well walk away right now. But, if the thought of an insanely gory movie about aliens who have come to a quiet New Zealand town to capture and kill humans to use as meat in their intergalactic fast food chain appeals to your less-than-delicate sensibilities, you might have a little fun with this movie.

Made on a shoestring budget that was apparently used solely on fake blood, brains, vomit and other violent special effects, Bad Taste is like a mixture of Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. Cinephiles be forewarned: this movie looks like shit. While Jackson obviously has an eye for how to frame a shot or how to pace and edit for suspense or action, the grainy 16mm film virtually murders the use of any color or contrast.

The film quality can't, however, destroy the zany spirit of the movie. Let's face it: an exploding sheep is an exploding sheep. You don't need a $100,000 camera or high quality film stock to get a laugh out of that kind of imagery.

While Bad Taste isn't much of a movie (weak plot and acting, very little dialogue), it's a monument to homemade movie making and unstoppable creativity. Not a great movie, but worth a watch for the sick bastards who might be inclined to watch something like this.


For more on Bad Taste:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia
- Buy the DVD


The Bad Taste trailer: