green apron monkey

international movie exchange

Using Johnny Logic's not very innovative yet functional star system.

The Dust Factory * Painfully whimsical, poorly acted, totally insane and boring to boot. Contains never before seen Life as Hockey with the Devil Tending Goal metaphor.

Crimson Rivers ** Embarassing French action movie. Contains French gong fu.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou ***** "This is probably my son, Ned."

The Graduate *** Decent enough movie. Invokes fond memories of Berkeley. I felt like I'd already seen it because every scene has been parodied. I'm not fucking going to Scarborough fair, though.

Hitch *** Fairly charming and funny. Final act gets dull and silly.

. . then a really big foot squashes everybody

David Edelstein and readers come up with their list of worst "twist" endings ever.

Twist and Shout - Readers nominate the most-idiotic-twist endings. By David Edelstein

1. The Life of David Gale
2. The Game
3. Planet of the Apes (Tim Burton version)
4. Basic
5. The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang)
6. Suspicion (Hitchcock)
7. No Way Out
8. The Village
9. Fight Club
10. The Forgotten
11. Secret Window
12. The Usual Suspects
13. Reindeer Games
14. Never Talk to Strangers
15. Man on Fire
16. I Bury the Living
17. The Contender
18. Swimming Pool
19. The Stepford Wives (remake)
20. The Upside of Anger

The Passion of the Christ
He's not really dead!

Of course part of the fun of making such lists is to argue with them. I'm a big fan of Fight Club and The Usual Suspects, so I would push those off the list. I found Fight Club's twist surprising and true to the feel of the film, which is tough to pull off.

It is a common myth that only the twist endings that you can see coming a mile off are crappy. Far from it, many times the worst are endings you don't see coming, because they make no fucking sense!

For this reason, The Contender deserves to be at the top of the list. It has a plot twist that, aside from just being totally implausible, pulls apart the dramatic rationale of the entire movie. It's a twist that rightfully makes it a story not worth telling.

"There once was a politician who was accused of making a porn video when she was young. She didn't deny it, because she thought it irrelevant to her qualifications. But she didn't do it anyway, so who cares?"

Identity was disqualified from the list for the ending's weird originality. Yeah, well some new territories aren't worth charting. You've never seen a movie with an ending like Identity because it's so ridiculous that not even the most jaded hack would have enough contempt for the audience to try it.

Praising the originality of Identity's ending is like giving props to someone who's built a resort on the slope of a volcano or to the inventor of Rap-Rock. Congratulations, you've done something originally stupid.

Secret Window has a much, much worse ending than The Game. If we are judging movies by the ratio of ending's crappiness to overall content, The Game certainly fares badly. The ledge that Micheal Douglas falls off of is a good metaphor for the let down of that ending. Secret Window was just not all that good to begin with. A bad ending can only make so much difference.

Come to think of it, anything written by Steven King is bound to have a crappy twist ending. He's the M. Night of pulp horror.

don't get on your tiptoes

We watch an awful lot of bad movies here. Most movies that persist in China are slightly bad. This is understandable. I'm sure I don't get nuance when it comes to Chinese films, and I expect that the Cohen brothers are totally lost on the Chinese.

Most bad movies made these days are, if not self-conscious, at least cogniscient that they are making crap. I, for one, don't really see this a great excuse. I've never defended a film by saying, "it's bad, but it knows it's bad." Frankly most films that are too knowing in their badness are lazy, cynical and insulting.

But there is the rare bad film, prized by collectors, that has no idea. For me those films are an education in filmmaking and, a bit, about psychology.

Tiptoes is surely the least self conscious bad movie I have seen in a while. Its foolishness is instructive. It is chalk full of mistakes, bad ideas, good ideas gone awry and both global and local miscalculations.

We'll start with the global miscalculations. This is a movie about midgets. Only they are dwarves. Or little people. They have dwarfism, and midget is no go. So it's either dwarf or little people. No giggling!

The makers of this film wished for you to utter a sentence at the end, "wow. You know I never realized it but little people are people too."

Let's think about what kind of people are going to be watching this film. First, there are midgets themselves. That is probably not a big demographic, and presumably one not in need of being reminded of their own humanity. Another possibility is that people watching this film hate and fear midgets. But construed as a rhetoric device aimed at reforming midget haters, tiptoes must surely Fail. Midget haters, convinced at the inhumanity of their tiny victims, will not allow their consciousness to be raised, certainly not by Gary Oldman wobbling around on his knees. That's even if they can manage to shamble out of their hovels, and then forgo a Steven Seagal movie in favor of Tiptoes.

So that leaves that big ol demographic that might consider watching Tiptoes: normal people who haven't read this weblog yet. These people, I notice, tend to have no special feelings against midgets, but they are immature. They giggle.

This movie casts it's narrowed eyes at this large demographic with a look of stern reproach, like that of an angry teacher or a PMSing sensitivity counselor.

It suspects that you may giggle at lines like "When were you going to tell me that your family was full of midgets?" and "have you ever engaged in sexual intercourse with a . . . . little person." Don't laugh. That's not funny. These are their lives!

Tiptoes also wants you to not snort with incredulity when a character utters the line "a little people circle jerk? I'd like to see that." Perhaps, you think to yourself, I am an evil and bigoted person because, unlike Kate Beckinsale, I do not wish to see a group of dwarves jerking off. Then you realize that Tiptoes is wrong and that, thanks to Tiptoes, you have seen enough little people sex.

Tiptoes is angry, angry with you for giggling. Tiptoes is going to make you sorry. Tiptoes wants you to go to counseling.

Tiptoes is really fucking annoying.

People who will be seeing this movie are immature, giggly and occasionally perverted. But they are good, kindhearted people. They understand that midgets are people too. Very short people of course, but people nonetheless. People with big heads and weird vienna sausage fingers but big, gigantic hearts that sometimes lead to serious medical complications.

These people watching Tiptoes know that it's bad to laugh at midgets. But, much like dwarfism, it's a condition they're born with. They're good people. Tiptoes does not need to treat them like this. Leave them alone, Tiptoes.

Resident Evil II: Apocalypse

Resident Evil II: Apocalypse is a little hard on the self esteem.

Resident Evil II is a Zombie movie. Resident Evil II is a video game movie. How can it negatively affect my self esteem?

Well, have you ever been confused by a zombie movie? Right. Ever been confused by a video game movie? No, I don't mean confused by why someone would make a Super Mario Brothers movie. Okay good.

I didn't get Resident Evil II. Rough, huh?

Let me start by saying that I bear the Resident Evil franchise no ill will. The video game is a fine way to kill some stuff without feeling bad about it. The first movie fulfilled its zombie movie requirements with charm and verve. The zombies appear and attack stuff. A haphazard explanation is put forward but not dwelt on and then an adequately hot chick kicks some ass. What's not to like?

But in Resident Evil II: Apocalypse the 'not to like' piles upward and upward into unscaleable mounds that eventually collapse harming millions of innocents.

I will summarize quickly before the mounting bile taste causes my innards to splash upon the keyboard. There are zombies. They like to eat people; those people don't to want get eaten. The Umbrella Corporation is really, really evil and they probably make really crappy umbrellas too. They make real good zombies, though.

There's a chick who's not Milla Joslavicsoundinglastname and one chick who is. The one who is drives motorcycle through a catholic church as though that were an acceptable way to behave. The one who isn't is an undercover agent who has infiltrated a gang of ninja hookers. She wears a tube top and she has some kung-fu and but then you forget why she's there and so does she.

There's a Zombie with a rocket launcher. The Umbrella Corporation makes him kill SWAT team guys and then you don't care. He's supposed to fight Milla Whatsherface but you don't care even though he's really her boyfriend.

Along with the requisite zombie dogs (seen it . . .) there's also some really grosszombie t & a. I figure that's the only true selling point of this movie. And it's gross. But, you don't see it everyday, that's for sure.

That's enough summary. Any more and I'll start to get sad and confused again.

The main problem is the Umbrella Corporation. They're really, really evil and therefore relieved of the burdon of plausible motives. My poor little brain searches for motivations and rationales and fails. Then the plot doesn't make sense seeing as how the Umbrella Corporation was moving it forward with its acts of random malevolence. Then I don't get a zombie/video game movie. Then it is the time for sadness.

That's how Resident Evil II destroyed my self confidence.

Now I can not feed myself nor operate the DVD player. I shall soon perish from starvation. Way to go, Resident Evil II: Apocalypse.

provocation

I'm not a huge fan of Michael Moore. His documentary style is argumentative, but his grasp of his opponents' arguments is generally so weak that even when he is funny I feel guilty about laughing. Everything the man says taints me with like-minded self-indulgence.

Still it isn't true that one can't make a good documentary while still failing to make a good argument. Roger and Me is a fantastic documentary about Flint's struggles, but I think utterly fails as an argument. It fails so much so that in the end, it loses its nerve and becomes an argumentative tone without an argument. You come away from that movie wanting to hurt the bastards responsible for this . . . and then what? Is there a policy, a rule that we should follow? How are we going to protect the poor Flint workers from rapacious capitalists? And what about those Mexicans should be protected from working for the vile and bestial General Motors?

Personally, after watching that movie I came away with one lesson, possibly intended by the filmmaker. Thank God the American economy is diverse enough that one almost never hears the words "company town" any more.

So I think that where Moore value lies is in provocation. People come away from his movies fired up and combative. They argue in a way that American seldom do. What's more some of those people write movie reviews and they are inspired to brilliance.

Josh flagged Roger Ebert on Moore and impartiality. Christopher Hitchens, another agent provocateur has a long and passionate attack on Moore's new movie.

I'll keep my eye out for more. So far, Moore's movie has already provided me with enough entertainment, that I should probably fork over the money.

scary, random crap

Being a fan of MST3k means that you have to accept certain social limitations.
You think that doing a Torgo impression is good idea, no matter when. You delight in calling everything with a trunk "trumpy". You are at risk for watching bad movies, and occasionally reinacting said movies with home-made props.

These things, I have noticed, will cause people to like you less.

You get used to it.

The latest social handicap I have acquired from MST3k is a compulsion to stare lovingly at this terrifying visage:

It has a theme song!

perpetual sunshine of the spineless mind

parameters:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind = ESSM

ESSM is an intricate, ambiguous story. It loses much of its punch when it does not surprise so I shall not divulge details. But I will give you a single point by which to navigate through the movie.

Memories can be painful, but without that pain we will not learn from them.

ESSM is a movie hung on two nails, Nietzche and Cognitive Psychology. The Nietzche is there in a background via a quote from Bartlett's. Throughout the movie there is a faint suggestion that that people have been running around, doing the same things and then having their memories erased, only to fall into the same pattern again.

Nietzche thought that the whole world might be like that, disintegrating and then falling into the same deterministic grooves and repeating the same things over and over again. Nietzche found this terrifying and thought that if he could get used to the idea then he would be able to overcome anything.

I think most people do find this terrifying. The worst thing about a series of bad relationships is that you can pick out a broad pattern to the mistakes you keep making. You find a tropism in you behavior and it is the most terrifying thing in the world. It reveals you as a an animal and not at your best moments as a dumb animal.

The other nail is not so pessimistic. Despite all the dystopic undertones, Kaufman's script finds hope in the connection between emotion and memory. He uses the Orwellian/Stalinesque ways that your brain reconstructs memories from the hard drive to suspenseful ends, but does not give in to any sort of vision of self as passive victim of its memories.

I think that as the cold war, and cold war era psychology both fade away there will be less call for dystopic fiction. Our stories about memories will be less like 1984 and The Manchurian Candidate and more like Memento and ESSM.

Yes, and I should drop a link to the great Slate article about the science of ESSM.

what this movie needs is a vulture with three tits

The Last Unciorn is a really, really bizarre movie.

Mia Farrow's voice is scary as all hell.

The soundtrack is by "America."

"The quotation marks are so you don't think the entire nation wrote the soundtrack."

The funny part is when Thalisha gets up to fast forward through one song because it's too bad to listen to. That's only funny when you've endured three songs by "America" already. Then Mia Farrow starts singng. Then Jeff Bridges does.

Jeff Bridges sounds like an adolescent yelping for his supervisor to come help him.

The diaolgue is weird and random, and there's an insane butterfly and a creepy pirate cat. It's an entertaingly creepy way to spend an hour and overall it compares rather well with being groped by Vincent Price.

I think maybe after seeing that, I am ready to see Gigli.

Certain people have been trying to get me to watch it for a while. I'm warming up to it. One toe in at a time.

I'm almost ready to face the Bennifer.

death race 2000

Everyone occasionally succumbs to the 'everything is getting worse' disease. It's the conviction that everything is in decay and that it does not live up to the high standards of your youth.

There are several treatments. One of them is to watch RogerCormen movies.

Death Race 2000 is a Roger Cormen movie.

I just watched it.

It seems like it would be easy to write a review of that movie.

Here we go. Think about the movie. Wait until a word pops into your head.

"Psychotic."

There we go. Here's another word, "coked-up."

"Potato."

Yeah. That actually belongs there. You can watch the movie and find out why it happened. You might really hate me afterword.

David Carradine is in it. He's pretty loathesome, as always.

A very youmg Sylvester Stallone is in it. He sucks, as always.

There's some pretty good nudity, some pretty terrifying nudity and some really retarded special effects.

Oh yeah and it will make you hate and loathe your fellow man. But hey, some of you are already there, might as well watch the movie.

Hasty And Bigoted Movie Reviews

These are movies I watched while packing up my books. Unfair judgements and total inattention for periods of time are about what you should expect.

Cecil B. Demented
This movie expresses strong rage at "bad" movies. Then it employs many a device found in "bad" movies. Does that, in and of itself, make it one of those "bad" movies?

Yes.

Or rather "yes."

I really liked the idea of this movie, because I've seen some awful movies in my time, and silly as it sounds, a few have incited me into something like a rage. The problem here is that my idea of a good movie and John Waters's idea of a good movie differ greatly. We can both agree that good movies should make more than the crap that does make teh bank. We can agree that Patch Adams was awful, but that is where our harmony ends. His rage inspires him to make a movie with a puzzling number of bad movie homages. Mine inspires me to not want to watch that movie. Everything is fine here.

There were a few good lines in the script, however.

Jawbreaker
Jawbeaker is a purported satire on bitchocracy in our high schools. Invariably, hollywood satires taking place in Ronald Reagan High Schools leave me feeling alienated. Like many, many others I found high school to be a rather miserable affair, worthy of satire. Unlike many hollywood script writers I did not go to High School in a top secret military base 5000 leagues below the Pacific Ocean. My earthy, rural hell was probably very different from their freakishly talented and beautiful suburban hell.

This chasm is not insurmountable, and I'm pretty sure in the cinema library of Babel there is a smart alecky satire on rich kid high schools that will allow me to understand what all the fuss was about. I have not seen it, yet though and movies like Jawbreaker will continue to make me grouchy in the meantime.

Let Me Get This Straight

So, The Oracle creates Agent Smith to be threat to both humans and machines, so that Neo will have a bargaining chip when he sues for peace.

How many movies did that take?

Category: Most Misnamed Movie

Category: Most Misnamed Movie of Recent Memory
Winner: Levity

Best Wise Ass Comment Upon Seeing Stringy Haired Billy Bob Thornton Being Caressed By Stringy Haired Holly Hunter: "This is why there isn't a lot of Willie Nelson porn floating around."

Male Weakness Revealed: Kirsten Dunst

Odd (Pleasant) Surprise: Soundtrack by Mr. E?

Odd (Unpleasant) Surprise: Ending

At the Movies

At the Movies
Ianthus: notice the production company's name is 'focus'?
Us: yup.
Ianthus: it's pretty blurry, their logo.
silence pervades
Ianthus: that's funny.
Me: You're using the word 'funny' to mean 'stupid' again, aren't you?
Ianthus: yes.