Mini Reviews: 2/18/13

-->

The Innkeepers:  2011 horror film directed by Ti West and starring Sara Paxton, Pat Healy and Kelly McGillis.  Claire and Luke are working the skeleton-crew shift at the Yankee Pedlar Inn the last weekend it will be open.  Claire is a college dropout sort of drifting along, not sure what direction she’ll take when she loses her job, and Luke’s in pretty much the same boat.  According to local legend, a jilted bride committed suicide at the hotel in the 1800s and has been spooking up the place ever since.  They decide to devote their last days attempting to prove that the inn is haunted, roaming the halls with an EVP recorder and spazzing out over every unexplained noise.  McGillis, as the former-daytime-television-actress-turned-psychic does well with what she’s been given, but her character feels like an Also Ran, only there to pop up from time to time and provide expositional details.  It’s not super scary, but worth a few good jumps. 

Contagion:  2011 disaster thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring like a gojillion people:  Paltrow, Cotillard, Winslet, Damon, Fishburne, Bryan Cranston, Jude Law, etc.  A businesswoman returns to the States with a gnarly head cold after her trip abroad, and suddenly there’s a global pandemic.  It’s a fairly decent thriller that shows multiple sides of a global health crisis – the doctors at the CDC who have to deal with federal and local bureaucracies, investigate the origins of the virus and attempt to find a cure, all while dealing with fears about their own loved ones; the families living under military quarantine; the epidemiologist who is kidnapped in China and held for medicinal ransom; and the conspiracy theorist blogger who uses the panic for his own selfish ends under the guise of wanting to speak truth to the masses.  The acting is fairly well done all around, with Winslet and Damon the standouts.  It’s worth giving a shot, for sure.

The Wolf Man:  1941 horror film directed by George Waggner and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers and Maria Ouspenska.  It’s the classic tale you already know:  a dashing young man is bitten by a werewolf, turns into a werewolf himself, struggles with his new lupine identity, and lashes out at his loved ones.  It’s a little campy, but only a little, and definitely a must-see if you’ve haven’t already.  I wouldn’t watch it over and over, but it’ll be nice to revisit around Halloween.

House on Haunted Hill:  1959 horror film directed by William Castle and starring Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Carolyn Craig, Richard Long, and Elisha Cook.  An eccentric millionaire decides to throw a party, seemingly out of boredom, and makes this offer:  stay in this haunted house I’ve rented for a night and receive $10,000.  His grab bag of guests includes a pilot, a journalist, a psychiatrist, a secretary, the terrified owner of the property, and his plotting, money-hungry fourth wife.  The caretakers lock the doors behind them, the guests are given guns for protection, and then it’s up to them to ride out the evening and decide whether the ghosts are real or imaginary.  I know this is terrible, but I have a real soft spot for the horrible 1999 remake with Taye Diggs and Chris Kattan, and I think I liked that version more.  It’s fine and all, but there are far better horror movies from this era that I’d rather watch.

The Exorcist 3:  1990 second sequel in the Exorcist pantheon, directed by William Peter Blatty and starring George C. Scott, Brad Dourif, Ed Flanders and Jason Miller.  Lieutenant Kinderman (Scott) is investigating a strange series of murders in Georgetown that bear striking resemblance to murders committed by The Gemini Killer, who was executed 15 years prior.  He starts to suspect something paranormal is afoot.  It was weird, quirky, and a little off-putting, but intriguing enough to keep my interest.  Mostly I watched it for George C. Scott.  It was just okay, if that.  Apparently far better than the second, but still worse than the first.

Snow White & the Huntsman:  2012 fantasy film directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin and Sam Spruell.  Think Snow White but darker.  Think LOTR treatment of a Grimm fairy tale.  Think modern, slightly less endearing Legend.  Stewart is a dead-eyed cardboard cutout of a heroine, but it kind of doesn’t matter because everyone else around her is so great.  Hemsworth is a lovely, scruffy, heartbroken Hunstman.  Theron is electric as the evil witch queen, and Spruell is delightful as her psychotic brother.  And there are weird CGI cameos by the likes of Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins and Toby Jones!  You guys I loved it STOP JUDGING ME.  The special effects are pretty good, the story is a little more interesting than I expected it to be, it’s mostly predictable and occasionally treacly but I didn’t care.  I really liked it.  It’s perfect Guilty Pleasure fodder.

I can't with you basic bitches.

Team America: World Police:  2004 satirical comedy by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.  An American Intelligence unit recruits a Broadway actor to infiltrate a terrorist cell and help them bring down Kim Jong-il.  And they’re all puppets.  Because of course.  If you like South Park, you’ll probably like this.  If not, then skip it.  It’s gleefully and universally offensive.  I feel I should warn you that it involves hilarious but really messed up puppet sex and perhaps the grossest vomit-related scene ever.

 

Mini Reviews: 2/5/13

-->

Slither:  2006 sci-fi-horror-comedy directed by James Gunn and starring Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, and Michael Rooker.  A parasitic alien species crash lands in a small South Carolina town and takes over the body of Grant (Rooker), an older man who had been cavorting in the woods, on the verge of cheating on his foxy younger wife, Starling (Banks).  A horde of slug-like alien babies soon infect the townsfolk, who then develop kind of a hive mind thing.  As the dwindling still-human population fights for survival, they must also deal with Grant-Parasite’s love for Starling, and its effect on his plans for Earth domination.  It’s funny and cute-scary.  The main cast is great – can’t go wrong with The Fillion, in my opinion – and Jenna Fisher and Rob Zombie also have hilarious small roles.  Give it a shot if you like Joss Whedon or the humorous variety of scary movies. 

Kathy Griffin: Pants Off:  2011 Kathy Griffin stand-up special.  Look, you either like her brand of celebitchy humor or you don’t.  This is much like the others – she discusses her friendship with Anderson Cooper, dinner with Gloria Steinem, the Kardashian clan, and so forth.  I enjoyed it!  But you might not.

Behind the Burly Q:  2010 documentary directed by Leslie Zemeckis, about the Golden Age of Burlesque.  Like many of today’s quasi-hipster adults, I know more than a handful of burlesque performers and enjoy the retro aspects of it.  So I had high hopes for this movie.  It provides some interesting stories and tidbits, nothing too tawdry or salacious, and the interviews with the burlesque veterans and random other folks like Alan Alda were delightful.  But put all together it was merely a disjointed series of anecdotes which are interesting but all over the place.  It just hops from performer to performer and back again with seemingly no purpose.  I’d skip it.

Tamara:  2005 horror film directed by Jeremy Haft and starring Matthew Marsden, Jenna Dewan and Chad Faust.  It’s like Carrie except terrible.

I can't even hold an ax properly.

His Girl Friday:  1940 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and John Qualen.  Grant plays Walter Burns, a ruthless newspaperman who is about to lose his ex-wife/hardboiled partner in crime Hildy to a rather vanilla insurance salesman.  Fortunately for him, a convicted murderer is on the loose and it’s too juicy for Hildy to pass up.  If Burns can keep her on the story long enough, he just might win her back.

I’d avoided this movie for years.  I don’t like Grant and I don’t like screwball comedies.  There, I said it.  But I was totally wrong; it was quick and light, the physical comedy was subtle enough, the chemistry between Russell and Grant is somehow both outrageous and believable.  I ended up really liking it.  If you’ve never seen it, be forewarned:  there are a few mildly 1940s-racist jokes thrown in.

Margaret Cho: Beautiful:  2009 Margaret Cho stand-up special.  I will always have a soft spot for Ms. Cho.  I saw her live a few times in the early ‘00s, and I can recite I’m the One That I Want verbatim.  That being said, this was almost sad.  It was just the same regurgitated fag-hag jokes she was doing a decade ago.  I didn’t laugh once, just waited patiently for it to turn around.  And it never did.

Hit So Hard:  2011 documentary directed by P. David Ebersole, about the life of Patty Schemel, founding member of Hole.  The film includes Patty’s own home movies, showing life on the road and while on break from tour, and features interviews with Nina Gordon, Gina Schock, Sarah Vowell, and her Hole band mates, including a seriously cracked-looking Courtney Love.  The chronological jumping around is annoying at first, but I got past it.  It’s just so freaking good.  It’s funny and interesting and speaks so clearly and frankly about addiction; I was immediately riveted.  See it if you like documentaries in general or grew up in the ‘90s or are, like, human.  It’s that good.