Mini Reviews: 12/28/13

Captain America: The First Avenger:  2011 Marvel superhero film directed by Joe Johnston and starring Chris Evans, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, and Hayley Atwell.  Steve Rogers is a young, sickly New Yorker who desperately wants to join the fight in World War II, but his myriad health problems keep him from the front until he’s recruited by a scientist to undergo a radical “super soldier” experiment.  It makes him taller, more muscular, and perfect for . . . promoting the sale of war bonds in a ridiculous costume as Captain America.  Meanwhile, HYDRA, a terrorist organization affiliated with the Third Reich and bent on world domination, has been using an alien energy source called the Tesseract (like in Thor) to build crazy weaponry.  Rogers finally gets the chance to prove his mettle in a rescue mission, and is then used by the military to sabotage HYDRA operations and thwart their evil commander, Red Skull.

            I watched this to refresh my memory about the Avengers backstory, and ended up really liking it.  The effects are great; it’s a decent, well-paced action movie; and it’s a WWII flick with minimal schmaltz and all the flair of the Marvel movie universe.  If you liked The Avengers, give it a shot.

Night Train to Munich:  1940 British thriller directed by Carol Reed and starring Margaret Lockwood, Paul von Henreid, and Rex Harrison.  A Czech scientist and his daughter Anna are on the run from the Nazis and take refuge in England.  Dickie Randall, a British Intelligence agent, is working with them and when they’re kidnapped by a Gestapo agent he works up a daring rescue plan.

Not to be trivial, but eye candy galore.  Harrison, von Henreid (aka Victor Laszlo of Casablanca), and Lockwood are very nice to look at, as are the costumes.  But also the acting is excellent, if occasionally prone to hysterics – I mean, it was the 1940s.  Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the cricket-obsessed fellow train travelers provide both comic relief and an appropriate amount of tension with their meddling.  It’s somewhat related to The Lady Vanishes, which is also a great movie.  Definitely check it out if you’re a fan of Hitchcock, noir, spy thrillers, or cricket.

This Is the End:  2013 comedy written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and starring Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Emma Watson as fictionalized versions of themselves.  Jay has come to Los Angeles to spend a quiet weekend playing videogames and smoking weed with his good pal Seth.  When Seth announces they’ll be attending a party at James Franco’s new house, Jay reluctantly agrees, and then spends the entire evening feeling out of place.  That quickly passes once the apocalypse hits.  The Rapture is upon them, and the survivors now have to deal with giant sinkholes that lead to hell, demons, looters, unwanted houseguests, possession, exorcism, and a serious lack of water and food.  And Danny McBride just generally being a dick.

            I saw this in the theaters with two friends and I swear, hand to God, we all almost peed our pants from laughing.  It’s really hilarious.  I was a little skeptical, but I was skeptical of the 21 Jump Street remake too, and that totally proved me wrong.  It’s witty and self-deprecating and the dialogue seemed very real, despite the absurdity of the plot.  It’s definitely worth seeing, especially for the last five minutes.  And Michael Cera’s highly disturbing cameo.

Date Night:  2010 romantic crime comedy directed by Shawn Levy and starring Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, and Taraji P. Henson.  When Phil and Claire Foster learn that their good friends are getting a divorce they decide to reexamine their own domestic routine, and find it rather staid.  To spice things up they decide to have their next date night at an uber-trendy Manhattan restaurant.  When they realize they’ll never get a table, they decide to live dangerously and take the reservation of the Tripplehorn’s, another couple that didn’t show up.  What fun!  Turns out the Tripplehorn’s kind of stole a flash drive of blackmail material from a mobster and suddenly some dirty cops are on their trail.  Hilarity abounds.

It’s pretty solid.  It’s not Fey & Carell at their funniest, but they do make an adorable and believable couple.  I also enjoyed the cameos: Ray Liotta, Mark Ruffalo, Kristin Wiig, Nick Kroll, James Franco, Mila Kunis, etc.  Not over the moon about it, but I liked it.

Kick-Ass:  2010 superhero action comedy directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Nicolas Cage.  Dave is a nice, normal teenager who just wants to do something exciting with his life.   So he becomes a superhero.  Kind of.  After getting stabbed and run over during his first foray into crime-fighting, he beefs up, soups up his costume, and gives himself a terrible name: Kick-Ass.  He does pretty well for a while, but is soon jammed up again by a gang of drug dealers.  Thankfully, 11 year-old vigilante Hit-Girl saves his ass.  Hit-Girl and her father, Big Daddy (seriously with these names), are seeking revenge against a local kingpin and recruit Kick-Ass to assist them in their quest.

           It was fairly decent.  The action sequences are great, there are some nods to Tarantino, Moretz is hysterical as the tiny little badass, and Nic Cage is tolerable.  I haven’t read the comic books this movie is based on, so I have no idea how it stacks up.

 

Mini Reviews: 11/27/13

The Bad News Bears:  1976 comedy directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Jackie Earle Haley, Chris Barnes, and Erin Blunt.  Morris Buttermaker is an alcoholic former minor-league baseball player who is recruited by a local city councilman to coach his son’s little league team, the worst in the league.  Buttermaker recruits a few ringers to round out his motley crew, they slowly start improving, and set their sights on their archenemies, the Yankees, and the championship game.

It’s an awesome movie, even if you don’t like baseball.  It’s funny and weird; it’s like The Sandlot minus the saccharine nostalgia.  It deals honestly and openly with the competitive drive around parents living vicariously through their children – what happens when you preach the whole it-doesn’t-matter-if-you-win-or-lose trope and the kids get wise? The score suits it perfectly – a bunch of misfit kids fumbling their way through baseball games set to Carmen.  It’s a little offensive at times, and the last half hour is kind of depressing.  But totally worth seeing.  My favorite scene is when a pitcher is fed up with his coach and in retaliation he fields a ball and holds it to let the opposing team score– this goes out to every asshole parent or coach that cared more about winning than about how the game was played.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid:  1982 mystery-comedy directed by Carl Reiner and starring Steve Martin and Rachel Ward.  Here’s the pitch:  it’s a comedic send-up and homage to 1940s noir, complete with costumes by Edith Head, score by Miklos Rozsa, and incorporating footage from 18 different noir movies.  Seems like it would be right in my wheelhouse.

Sounds darb, right?  Eggs in the coffee?  But it was a trip for biscuits.  It took my favorite genre and turned it into screwball – the worrrrst.  Even my love of Steve Martin couldn’t keep me interested.

Thor:  2011 Marvel superhero movie directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, and Stellan Skarsgard.  The alien race of Asgard (think Norse mythology) has existed in an uneasy truce with its enemies the Frost Giants, and they guard the peace of the Nine Realms, which includes Earth.  When Thor, the son of the Asgard king and his presumptive heir, makes a bold retaliatory stroke against the Frost Giants he is sent to Earth as a mortal until he learns humility.  Thor’s chaotic, scheming brother Loki uses this as an opportunity to seize the throne, and sends an automaton to kill Thor, thus catching Earth in the crossfire.  Meanwhile, Thor is attempting to avoid capture by government agents and win his way back to his kingdom, all while making eyes at Natalie Portman.  Those dreamy, dreamy eyes.

It’s fine?  Really I just wanted a refresher on the Avengers backstory.  Hemsworth is awfully pretty, Hiddleston is perfect as Loki, Kat Dennings is funny in her small role; it’s entertaining and light and requires no thought or effort. 

Pet Sematary:  1989 horror adaptation of the Stephen King novel, directed by Mary Lambert and starring Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, and Mike Hughes.  The Creed family – Louis & Rachel, their son Gage and daughter Ellie - has just moved to the small town of Ludlow, Maine.  They immediately befriend their elderly neighbor Jud, who shows them around their property, including a path through the woods to a pet cemetery.  A short time later, Louis is working at a university hospital when a young man is brought in with severe wounds and quickly dies.  That night the man’s ghost visits him and warns him about the dangers lurking in the cemetery.  When the family cat dies over Thanksgiving, Louis is distraught over how to break the news to his kids, and Jud convinces him to bury the cat in a hidden part of the cemetery – and the cat soon returns to the family home, but is somehow different.  Then a horrible tragedy occurs, and Louis is tempted to use the power of the cemetery again – but what will return from the cemetery if he does?

It’s okay.  It’s an interesting idea, and made me want to read the book, but the acting is mostly subpar, it’s not scary, and it went off on weird tangents too frequently.  Some of the side plots may have been left in because they had more significance in the book but seem like unnecessary distractions in the movie. 

The Central Park Five:  2012 documentary about the Central Park Jogger case, directed by Ken & Sarah Burns and David McMahon.  In April 1989, Trisha Meili was brutally raped, beaten, and left for dead in New York City’s Central Park.  Despite being only one of 3,254 rapes reported in the city in that year alone, it quickly gained national media attention due to the viciousness of the attack, and because Meili is white and a group of black teenage boys (Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise, and Yusef Salaam) were hastily charged with the crime.  Due to the trauma that Meili suffered she had no memory of the attack and could not identify the assailant(s).  The prosecution’s case against the five juveniles relied almost solely on their taped confessions, since there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime.  During the trial they all recanted their confessions, pointing out that they were held and interrogated for hours, were lied to by police, and did not understand what was happening.  They were all convicted and served out their full sentences.  It wasn’t until 2002 that another man confessed to the crime, which was confirmed with DNA.

           It’s a crushing, maddeningly upsetting documentary, and you should absolutely see it.  It’s understated, focusing mostly on interviews with the five men, all of who speak very openly and candidly about their experiences.  It was hard for me to imagine the tensions of 1980s New York, and I would have appreciated a little more of that historical context in the exposition, but that’s my only minor criticism.  It’s amazing.  Watch it.

 

Mini Reviews: 11/16/13

Six Degrees of Helter Skelter:  2009 documentary directed by Michael Dorsey, about the Manson Family murders.  It’s basically a low-budget filmed tour of the crime scenes.  It’s a little poppish and anecdotal, with a mildly kitschy tourist feel.  I suppose it would be interesting if you want to see the sights without making the trip to Los Angeles, but it couldn’t keep my attention.  Read the book instead.

Strangers on a Train:  1951 psychological crime thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, and Patricia Hitchcock.  Tennis star Guy Hains (Granger) is riding on a train from D.C. to New York to visit his girlfriend, when a stranger approaches him in the lounge car.  Bruno (Walker) is an unpleasantly assertive trust fund brat who wants to hear just everything about what he’s read in the gossip columns – is it true that the great Guy Hains is trying to divorce his awful cheating wife?  Did you know that my dad’s a pain in the neck, too?  Gee, wouldn’t it be swell if we could pull off some kind of criss-cross murder?  I kill your wife, you kill my father, and there’s nothing to connect us because we’re total strangers.  Oh, what a lark!

Guy thinks Bruno’s pulling his leg until his wife is murdered and he’s being blackmailed into holding up his end of the bargain.  The police are closing in, his girlfriend’s aristocratic family is starting to ask questions, and Bruno gets more deranged by the hour.

It’s so brilliant.  An excellent thriller, definitely a must-see.  The acting is phenomenal, especially Robert Walker – the scene where he stalks Guy’s wife through an amusement park and follows her into the Tunnel of Love is amazing.  And Patricia Hitchcock – Alfred’s daughter – is delightful as the girlfriend’s kicky, morbid little sister.

Despicable Me 2:  2013 computer animated action comedy directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, and starring Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Russell Brand, Kristen Schaal, and Steve Coogan.  Spoilers ahead for those of you who haven’t seen the first (you should, it’s totes adorbs).  Former super villain Gru (Carell) has happily settled into fatherhood after adopting three young sisters, and is trying to make a living as a jam and jelly maker since he’s no longer doing the whole world-domination thing.  He’s pulled back into the life as a spy for the good guys, the Anti-Villain League, when a secret laboratory is stolen by a mysterious evildoer.  He’s paired up with undercover agent Lucy Wilde (Wiig), and must find the bad guy, keep his crush on Lucy under wraps, and deal with his oldest daughter’s sudden interest in boys.

            It’s super duper cute.  It’s silly and funny and light but not pandering.  I liked the first movie more, but it’s definitely worth watching.

The Avengers:  2012 Marvel superhero action movie directed by Joss Whedon and starring Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Rennder), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). 

Before I start with the plot summary, let me just say that it helps tremendously if you have a basic knowledge of at least some of the aforementioned characters.  Otherwise this may be lost on you.  I’ll keep it basic: when an alien race threatens Earth with total human enslavement, a government agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. gathers together a group of superheroes to stop them.  The Avengers, as they’re being called, are a band with disparate personalities and motives: a god with a magical hammer, a doctor with some serious anger management issues, a femme fatale assassin, an arrogant rich dude with a weaponized suit of armor, and a clean-cut Strong Man adjusting to life in the modern era after being frozen for 70 years.  They have to figure out how to work together and trust each other and S.H.I.E.L.D., or the human race is doomed.

I really, really liked it.  The tension between the characters kept things interesting, it never dragged, it was funny with some semi-cheesy action movie banter, and I love pretty much everyone involved with it.  If you liked any of the associated movies then definitely see it, it brings all the threads together nicely.  And if you haven’t seen those movies this could be an interesting place to start.

Lawless:  2012 crime drama directed by John Hillcoat and starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, and Mia Wasikowska.  The Bondurant brothers are successful moonshiners in 1930s Virginia, and big changes are afoot: a foxy young woman with a murky past wants a job at their gas station, the youngest Bondurant, Jack, wants a more prominent role in the family business, and a slick, sleazy politician named Rakes wants a cut of their profits.  What’s a family to do but fight the government, fight each other, and fight for survival?  Or whatever.

I really wanted to like this more.  It seemed like a slam-dunk to me.  With the exception of La-Boof, I like all the actors.  And 1930s moonshiners – does that not sound badass?  I did enjoy some things:  Tom Hardy could not be more virile if he tried, Chastain does a great job with what she’s been given, Wasikowska is adorable, the costumes are drool-worthy.  But the things I liked were outweighed by the things that annoyed me: Shia’s accent was almost too thick to understand at times and not even remotely accurate, the sound editing was terrible, the character Banner came and went nonsensically, and Pearce was just way too over the top.

            It’s fine.  It’s okay.  It’s entertaining.  If you keep your expectations low, you may enjoy it.

Mini Reviews: 11/10/13

Maxed Out:  2006 indie documentary written and directed by James Scurlock, about the abusive practices of the credit card industry.  It posits that banks and creditors deliberately target people who are more likely to have issues paying off their debt, which leads to higher fees and profits for their companies, and that lawmakers have turned a blind eye to this issue. 

The interviews are almost unbelievable; for every person who didn’t read the fine print on their dizzying credit card agreement there’s another story of “liar’s loans” and NINJAs, like the disabled woman in a state nursing home who was sent an offer for a card with a $30K credit limit.  A particularly effective scene is the one that flips back and forth between debt collectors bragging and laughing about their tactics and the family of a woman who disappeared under mounting stress of unpaid credit cards and the calls she received.  Nearly everyone they interviewed either had relatives who committed suicide over their debt, or are contemplating it themselves.  Elizabeth Warren was interviewed when she was still a professor at Harvard, and her comments were particularly cutting:  "The best definition I have heard yet — and this is from a Vice President of MasterCard — is an individual who has a 'taste for credit,' i.e., someone 'willing to make minimum monthly payments — forever.' Now I know why, if I fail to pay off my balance in full, my credit limit is increased."

It’s devastating, but very well done.  Since this was released the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill was passed and then mostly trampled on, so there’s sort of been progress.  Kind of.  Not really.  See it, and then order your credit score.  For real.

The Bay:  2012 “found footage” horror movie directed by Barry Levinson and starring Kether Donohue, Kristen Conolly, Anthony Reynolds, and Michael Beasley.  The film opens with reporter Donna Thompson recounting the horrific events of a July 4^th weekend in a cute little town on Chesapeake Bay; events that have since been swept under the rug by the government.  Two researchers had warned the town’s mayor about disturbing levels of toxicity in the water, which he ignored like a good politician would (can you tell I’ve just about had it with the middle-school slapfight that is our Congress?).  What results is a deadly plague of parasites that attack in the water.  Which is, like, everywhere.  Soon people are dying in droves, the town is shut down, the CDC is moving like molasses, and the remaining survivors are on a race to flee the area before being infected.

It’s quick, the pacing is excellent, it’s a nice ensemble horror movie (which I feel like is hard to pull off), and it’s actually scary.  Because something like this could totally happen, right?  I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to watch it again, but it was decent.  Aside from Donohue, that is.  She’s supposed to be the sympathetic survivor reflecting on all this tragedy and she spends most of her time onscreen pouting at the camera and playing with her tongue.

Stark Trek Into Darkness: 2013 sci fi action film directed by J. J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch and too many other awesome people to list here.  A meeting of senior Starfleet officials is attacked by a mysterious lone gunman, and Captain James T. Kirk convinces his superiors to let him chase after the dingus.  The remarkably strong and savage dingus, with a fake past and shadowy present.  When Kirk suspects some treachery afoot from within Starfleet command, he has to choose whether or not to trust this dangerous new potential ally.

                  Obviously I’m not doing the plot any justice with this summary.  I loved it, like I love most things Abrams.  Sure, it’s a little too hokey at times but I forgive it – the original series was built on hokey and I appreciate that it’s hung on to that a bit.  And it’s perhaps a little saccharine at times, yes.  But it’s a great action movie and I was more than willing to look past my minor quibbles and enjoy it immensely.  So.  If you’re into Star Trek then you’ve likely already seen it and formed your immutable opinion of it.  If you haven’t seen the newest incarnation of Trek, then I urge you to start with the 2009 reboot and go from there.  If you’re not into sci fi then you’ve probably already skipped this review.

Knuckleball!:  2012 documentary directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, following the Major League knuckleball pitchers R. A. Dickey and Tim Wakefield in their 2011 season.  The knuckleball is a pitch beloved by fans of the quirkier aspects of baseball; it is thrown to minimize spin on the ball which makes its movement wildly unpredictable, it is much slower than the typical fastball pitch (60 mph versus 85 mph), and it’s damn near impossible to hit if thrown correctly.  It is a gift and a curse – difficult to control, to catch, and for umps to call.

The documentary starts with how Dickey and Wakefield each used the knuckleball to save their pitching careers.  It covers the history of the pitch, and how managers and catchers have coped with it or not over the years.  There is a little club of current and former knuckleballers, kind of a support group, and they get together and tell war stories, recall the power hitters they’ve frustrated (eat it, Jeter), and give each other tips since pitching coaches typically can’t help them much.

I really liked this, but then I love baseball.  You probably don’t need to know much about the sport to enjoy this movie, but it probably helps if you like it.

House at the End of the Street:  2012 psychological horror/thriller directed by Mark Tonderai and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, Elizabeth Shue, and Gil Bellows.  Sarah (Shue) and her teenage daughter Elissa (Lawrence) have just moved to small town, recovering from a divorce and looking for a fresh start.  They find a huge, gorgeous property in the woods, which they can afford because the nearest house over was the scene of a murder – four years earlier young Carrie Anne brutally killed her parents and then escaped into the woods.  She supposedly drowned in a nearby river but since her body was never found local legend says she still wanders the forest like an evil Nell.

Carrie Anne’s brother Ryan survived the massacre and still lives in the family home, a social pariah who the rebellious Elissa immediately finds herself drawn to.  He’s quiet and shy and secretive, and wait – hold on – who is that young girl he’s clandestinely taking care of in his basement?

           It’s decent, not amazing.  It was a bit meandering at first.  I couldn’t see where it was headed, but not in a fun way.  Ohhhh, but then the twist is interesting!  I probably only like it because I think Shue and Lawrence are awesome.  Give it a go if you’re looking for something lightly scary and not too heavy.

 

Mini Reviews: 9/26/13

Three Stars:  2010 documentary directed by Lutz Hachmeister.  The movie focuses on 10 Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe, the U.S., and Japan.  It shows the differences in how the chefs operate, how much they care about the Michelin system or don’t, the different styles of cuisine, how much they work, the different atmospheres of their restaurants and how they interact with their staff.  Sure, it’s a little slapdash and disjointed at times, but I think it was interesting and a decent effort.  If you like the PBS-style cooking shows rather than the Guy Fieri’s or Paula Deen’s of the world, maybe give it a shot.

Witness:  1985 thriller directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Josef Sommer, Jan Rubes, and Danny Glover.  An eight-year old Amish boy named Samuel witnesses a murder in a Philadelphia train station.  When he identifies a police officer as the shooter, Detective John Book (Ford) knows that serious trouble is afoot.  The murderer makes an attempt on Book’s life and he realizes just how far the corruption extends, so he heads to Amish country to recuperate and hide until he can figure out his next move.  Samuel’s mother, the recently widowed Rachel, nurses him back to health – much to the chagrin of another man trying to work that angle, and to the disdain of the rest of the community.  As Rachel and Book grow closer, the danger to them both grows – it’s only a matter of time until he’s found.  Bum bum bummmmmmm!

So it’s not like I’m an authority on Amish culture, but there were a few things I took exception to.  Like the sponge bath scene.  I really doubt it.  But it’s a decent romance-y thriller, Lukas Haas is totally adorable, and we catch a few glimpses of a young Viggo Mortensen.  It’s worth checking out.

Evil Dead:  2013 horror reboot of the Evil Dead franchise produced by produced by Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert G. Tapert, directed by Fede Alvarez and starring Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, and Elizabeth Blackmore.  Mia, a recovering heroin addict, has holed up in a remote cabin in the woods with her brother David and a few friends to ride out the withdrawal process.  The situation is tense enough with Mia being sick and her family issues with David, and then they notice a nasty smell coming from the basement.  There they discover rotting animal carcasses hanging from the ceiling and a creepy looking book.  Eric (Pucci) can’t resist studying the book and testing out a translation.  Once he’s read the incantations aloud, a demon is summoned and they’re all basically fucked.

                  It seemed a decent idea:  make a classic-horror version of The Evil Dead, plus the addiction twist (is she going through withdrawal or is she possessed?), add the slick, modern cinematography and special effects . . . then it just got stupid.  It tried to bring in the campiness of the original way too late.  I think if they had gone with one or the other, it could have been successful.  Instead it’s just half-formed and lame.

Jig:  2011 documentary directed by Sue Bourne, about the Irish Dancing World Championships.  Think super serious Riverdance-style competition for 10-19 year-olds, with crazy wigs and sparkly outfits.  It follows families from various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, all of whom are crazily hardworking and dedicated to getting that trophy.

Do you know what “foot perfect” means?  Yeah, me neither.  Some of the finer points of the technique may be lost on you, but if you like dance documentaries then give it a try.  I really liked it, especially since not all of my favorite kids won; that made it much more realistic.  Plus OMG little kids with Irish accents!

Evil Dead 2:  1987 horror movie directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie DePaiva, and Ted Raimi.  Young couple Ash & Linda are on a romantic vacation in a remote cabin in the woods, which they assume has been abandoned.  Ash decides to play a cassette tape he finds, which turns out to be a recording of a professor, the cabin’s former inhabitant, reading from the Book of the Dead.  Demon possession ensues, and Ash must escape before he’s taken over by evil forces.  Meanwhile, the professor’s daughter is on her way to the cabin with her boyfriend and some local yokels who are serving as her reluctant guides.  When this party meets up with Ash, they all fight to survive the assault of the wicked spirits.

             It’s crazy that I’d never seen this movie until now.  Maybe I thought it was the first Evil Dead?  Since it’s so similar?  Whatever, I’m so glad I watched this; it’s far superior to the original.  It’s weirdly compelling and hilarious and weird and gory and strange and great.  And weird.

 

Mini Reviews: 8/27/13

Explorers:  1985 sci fi movie written by Eric Luke, directed by Joe Dante, and starring Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix and Jason Presson.  Preteen science-fiction buff Ben has been having vivid dreams about flying over a giant circuit board.  He shares these nightly visions with his best friend Wolfgang, a nerdly engineering genius who turns Ben’s dreams into reality.  With the help of a surly kid named Darren they create a working flying saucer and set out to discover who – or what – has been communicating with Ben in his sleep.

It started out strong but kind of petered out by the end.  I loved the first hour or so when they’re building the spaceship and doing test runs and figuring out their new friendship with Darren; but once they go on their first real flight it really jumps the shark.  Hawke, Phoenix and Presson are adorable and do a great job with what they were given.  I just couldn’t stay into it.  Give it a shot if you run across it on cable, maybe.

Room 237:  2012 documentary directed by Rodney Ascher, about the potential hidden meaning of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.  It interviews fans of the horror movie about their theories regarding it – that it was about the genocide of Native Americans, or the Holocaust, or Kubrick’s alleged involvement with allegedly faking the alleged Apollo 11 moon landing.

Who cares.  Honestly.  Watching this movie was like being trapped in an endless one-sided conversation at a bad college party with someone who is really high.  Yes, I can see that through your obsessive watching of The Shining you’ve picked out a few weird little tidbits and strung them together into a conspiracy theory . . . and?  So what?  The only theory that seemed to have any, like, purpose was the moon landing.  At least that was an indication of an actual conspiracy.  There was one part where some guy laid two copies of the movie directly on top of each other and screened it, first frame to last frame – because of Kubrick’s freakish attention to symmetry it looked really cool.  That was the only redeeming scene for me.  It was way too long, not that interesting, and generally pointless – The Shining is an amazing movie all on its own, why the need to look for more within it?

The Great Dictator:  1940 dramedy written, starring and directed by Charlie Chaplin, with Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie and Reginald Gardiner.  After The Barber was injured during World War I he spent many years convalescing in a hospital with amnesia.  When he returns to his shop in the Jewish ghetto of the fictional country Tomainia he is unaware that the country has come under the control of ruthless fascist dictator Adenoid Hynkel.  Hynkel is masterminding a vast plot to persecute the Jewish citizens of Tomania, form an alliance with the dictator of Bacteria, and eventually to conquer the world.  After some hilarious missteps and hijinks The Barber joins the Resistance, and is aided by his striking resemblance to Hynkel in gaining access to the ruler’s inner circle.

I absolutely loved this movie.  It’s viciously witty, a brilliant combination of sight gags and spoken humor, of silly and serious, of lighthearted and devastating.  This is Chaplin’s first true “talkie,” after the release of the still mostly silent Modern Times in 1936.  Apparently his inspiration came from studying Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, and it shows.  Even if you have only a basic knowledge of World War II history, you will be blown away by how perfectly Chaplin skewers the Third Reich:  Hynkel’s mannerisms and the German-inspired gibberish language, the buffoonery of supporting characters (Garbitsch = Goebbels, Herring = Goring, Benzino Napaloni = Benito Mussolini) – it’s all so spot-on.  At the time this was filmed little of the world at large knew the full extent of the Nazi atrocities against Jews and other minorities, and Chaplin later wrote that had he known he never would have made this movie.  Modern audiences know what he didn’t, and so viewed now it has even more bite, and it’s easy to see why it was so popular, and so successfully used as propaganda.

It’s spectacular, and worth watching for the globe scene and the ending scene alone.

Bachelorette:  2012 dark comedy directed by Leslye Headland and starring Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, Adam Scott, James Marsden, and Kyle Bornheimer.  A trio of women in their early thirties reunites for the wedding of a friend.  To clarify:  Regan the Bitter & Miserable, Gena the Angry & Cruel, and Katie the High & Stupid reunite for the wedding of Becky the “Fat.”  The night of the rehearsal dinner quickly turns sour after Gena publicly reveals the bride’s bulimic past, the stripper they hired for Becky calls her “pigface,” and the wedding dress gets ripped and bled on.  Awesome.  Redemption time.

You will hate the first 30 minutes or so if you’re not a sociopath.  Like I HATED these women.  It made me so angry that I stopped watching it, but then I forced myself to go back to it.  I just couldn’t believe that so many actors I like would involve themselves in something so irredeemably awful.  I picked up where I’d left off and by the end I actually loved it?  All of these horrible people slowly start acting more human and decent, they begin to redeem themselves and suddenly it’s a quirky, fucked-up rom-com.  You learn why these bitches so cray.  You see that Becky needs Dunst to be awful.  It all works out.

Approach it with caution, know that you will hate the first half-hour.  Stay with it.  Maybe watch it twice.  It’s worth it once you come around.

Doomsday:  2008 sci fi thriller written and directed by Neil Marshall and starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, David O’Hara, and Craig Conway.  In 2008 the Reaper Virus rapidly spreads across Scotland, turning its victims into savage, zombified killers.  With no cure in sight, the British government decides to wall off Scotland – essentially brick in the entire population and leave them to die.  Over the next few decades the rest of the world cuts ties with the U.K. in response to this atrocity, and the island degenerates under massive social unrest.  When evidence of the Reaper Virus is discovered in London, the brutal new regime orders a team into Scotland to find a cure – because somehow there are still survivors.

           Hahahaha what is this movie even?  So, they cross the border because some guy who had been developing a cure was left in the hot zone because why?  And then all of a sudden it’s like Warriors Beyond Thunderdome?  But then it’s like Medieval Times and also Malcolm McDowell is there?  It’s idiotic, the music is hilarious, the action is super gory and over the top and the plot has holes so large you could drive your Mad Max off-road vehicle right through them, but whatever.  I doubt I’d watch it again, but it was mildly entertaining.  Didn’t totally hate it.

Did you take my hairspray?