And the Best Supporting Actress of 2010 is…
HAILEE STEINFELD!
Geez, was not expecting that one, but then again, she did kick major ass. So long as she doesn’t thank Justin Bieber or anything in her acceptance speech, I’d be right as rain if they gave it to her. Not to shabby for the first big screen performance, huh?
Well, way to go Hailee and good votin’, folks.
RESULTS:
– Hailee Steinfeld: 11 votes
– Melissa Leo: 3 votes
– Amy Adams: 3 votes (think she’d be my vote)
– Helena Bonham Carter: 3 votes
– Mila Kunis: 2 votes
– Jacki Weaver: 1 vote
– Other: 1 vote for Marion Cotillard (definitely the high point of Inception‘s acting department).
Anyone else hear that noise about Melissa Leo starting an online petition for her to win this Oscar? Bizarro stuff, man.
Goldfinger (1964)
VERDICT:
8/10 Bullion Bandits
Understandably nabs that top spot in so many Best of Bond lists.
Goldfinger picks up with that handsome bastard James Bond following the trail of a notorious gold smuggler from Miami Beach to the Swiss Alps. What begins as a simple reconnaisance mission with a few dead bodies sprinkled in eventually escalates into JB working to stop this sonofabitch from nuking the USA’s entire gold supply in order to corner the market for his own super greedy ass. What a dick move. But in true Jimmy B. form, he plays it cool, gets laid here and there with multiple random partners, kills off 500 Asian migrant workers in the process and foils one plan after another while avoiding lasers to the groin and bowler hats to the face. TIME TO KICK SOME ASS!
So if Casino Royale had never existed and hadn’t been the cinematic equivalent of getting pure adrenaline shot into your eyeball, I’m thinking that this would probably be my favorite Bond movie of all-time. Granted, I’ve still got a long way to go in this Bond marathon I’m on and it’s been a long since I’ve seen any of these movies, but in comparison to the first two entries and the less than awful ones I vaguely remember, this one’s got ’em beat.
But the weird thing is this doesn’t really kick off that way.
For starters, the opening five minutes where James blows up a Mexican drug silo by snorkeling in with a fake duck on his head (what was that about?) has absolutely nothing do with the rest of the movie. The one perk of the scene is a pretty sweet fistfight between James and an angry Mexican, but then he uses some chick as a human shield against a billy club and the fight is ultimately soiled by a royally cheesy one-liner after he fries that angry, angry Mexican in a bathtub. And then we flash forward to James in Miami Beach where he’s getting rubbed down by a new girl who he dismisses from his sight by informing her that she needs to “Say goodbye, Dink. Man talk,” and then slaps her on the ass on the way out so he can have a convo with his colleague without any of Dink’s hormones and such getting in the way.
My initial impression was that somehow, some way, James Bond will have even more sex in this movie than the last two combined and it’s starting to look like the writers are giving up. But then the movie keeps going, the next two girls that look like they’ll be sticking around a while both get whacked, and the story actually ends up being the best one yet. Go figure, but I guess that’s partly why it rocks.
Man, this is just straight-up fun. I really liked the way James and the audience is kept in the dark about what’s going on and what Goldfinger’s plans are until he’s more or less putting them into action, and even before we’re keen to the big picture, there are a crap load of cool, iconic moments in the leading up. There’s the girl who gets doused in gold paint and dies from skin suffocation (easily one of the most impractical and highly suspect ways to kill someone), the kickass golf match between Bond and Goldfinger, Oddjob decapitating statues and crushing Titleists, a woman named “Pussy Galore”, the fact that James now gets to say “pussy” four dozen times because apparently was cool in the ’30s to name your kids after vaginas, and, of course, the laser beam that almost ruins James’ chances with Pussy entirely because Goldfinger doesn’t expect him to talk, he expects him to die, yo. The script is filled to brim with that kind of stuff, it’s surprisingly well-structured, too, and I only wish it had a better sense of humor to bring it all home. Those damn one-liners…
And, unfortunately, the final throwdowns that Bond has with Oddjob and Goldfinger don’t hold a candle to his final throwdowns with Robert Shaw and that grenade-copter in From Russia with Love, but by the same token, Oddjob and Goldfinger are way better villains. Gert Frobe does a bang-up job as Goldfinger himself, and I really liked that he had some personality to add his reputation as a stone gold killer (see what I did there?). He’s the world’s biggest sore loser, he’s got some pretty ingenious tricks up his sleeve that seem to fool a whole lot of people, and he’s got a fuckin’ six-shooter made out of gold for when you can’t just murder someone by crushing them at the scrapyard. Darn tootin’ and he’s one villain that Mike Myers really did a God-awful impression of. Although I can’t say I was too crazy about Oddjob crowing like a douche every time he needed to get his boss’ attention. A simple wave or gentle hat toss would have done just fine.
And as for the gadgets, they’re starting to walk that fine line between practical and awfully convenient thanks to an ejector seat that Q throws into Bond’s new Aston Martin, but then again, watching one of the Asian migrant workers get launched onto the pavement in all its ragdoll glory was a major highlight. But that’s the extent of the eyebrow-raising ’cause everything else kinda makes sense. If I was a double-O, you bet your ass I’d like to have some handheld tracking devices at my disposal, and if I had a pimped out Aston Martin, I think I could make good use of oil slicks, smoke screens, bulletproof windows, destructo hubcaps and built-in machine guns. The other thing I dig is that Bond ends up using a ton of these all within ten minutes or so and still ends up getting caught by Goldfinger’s cronies. Would have called “bullshit” if it had ended differently and he sure gets put into some tight fixes here.
So I really liked Dr. No a lot more than I thought I would and if it weren’t for that damn gypsy scene in From Russia with Love I’d probably say the same thing, but Goldfinger really is the best of the three. It goes by in a flash and the complaints I’ve got all pale in comparison to the ways it improves everything that already worked. And on top of that, Connery’s looking better than ever. He’s still a total badass, and whenever I think of him as JB, most of the imagery that comes to mind is taken right from here. Goldfinger is why people love James Bond, it’s nice to watch a classic Bond movie for once and not think of Austin Powers every five minutes, and it all comes together to make one hell of a spy thriller.
Killer theme song, too.
Troll 2 (1990)
VERDICT:
0/10 Double-Decker Bologna Sandwiches
As totally awesome as it is totally awful.
Troll 2 is about a happy family that decides they need to go on vacation, and since every other spot on the planet was apparently booked up, they head off to the pleasant town of Nilbog. Long before they arrive, the youngest son starts talking to the ghost of his dead grandpa who continually warns him about the dangers of goblins and the evil tricks they use to turn unsuspecting people into plants, but every time the kid opens his mouth to relay his pappy’s warnings, everyone just thinks he’s just crazy and depressed. So they head off to Nilbog, the ex-grandpa starts going nuts with the warning signs to get his ex-family to turn around, but no one listens and they soon find themselves stranded in a veritable orgy of goblin treachery.
You may be wondering why I keep calling them goblins instead of trolls considering the movie’s title and all, but since absolutely no one in the movie ever refers to these vegetarian man-eaters as trolls either, that’s just the way it’s gonna be. Such is one of the many mysteries of Troll 2, such is one of the many reasons why it deserves a 10 just as much as it deserves a zero.
So after having a total blast with my introduction to Battlefield Earth last week and coming to the realization that I’ve been cheating myself all these years by sticking to movies that aren’t complete shit, it took me all of thirty seconds for me to find this on Netflix Instant and keep the streak alive. I didn’t think it could get any worse than Travolta and his man-animals, but amazingly enough, this here is on a whole ‘nother level. It’s the synth-fueled soundtrack that sounds like a two track compilation from Sonic the Hedgehog: The B-Sides on repeat, it’s those cheap-ass goblin masks, it’s the way each new victim ends up getting turned to green jello for some reason, it’s the acting, it’s the dialogue, it’s the plot, it’s the whole freakin’ package that all comes together to make this masterpiece that can only be described as The Best Worst Movie of All-Time.
This is one of those rare things that I can’t quite wrap my head around because I can’t quite believe it exists. It is so effing bad on so many levels from the very first scene to the very last, it continually one-ups itself in the idiocy department until all we’re left with is a nine-year-old boy warding off a goblin horde with deli meats, and to go down the list of everything that’s made this movie so infamous over the years would not only make zero sense out of context, but it would only be doing you a disservice. You simply have to see it to believe it.
God, I really don’t have much else to say about this movie because, really, what is there to say about a perfectly bad movie? I’m still going back and forth as to whether or not this was actually intended to be a piece of crap or if absolutely no one got the memo and this is what they were left with, but whatever it is, I’m crazy about it.
The only other time I’ve ever had this much fun watching a truly shitty movie was with The Room, and that may very well be the best time I’ve ever had going to the movies, period. I feel bad giving Troll 2 the lowest verdict possible since the day I get to see this in a packed theater at midnight is a day I am very much looking forward to, but since the only reason it’s so great is simply because it’s so abysmal, it wouldn’t be fair to shortchange it with a 1.
Absolutely gotta see it and I can’t wait to see it again.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
VERDICT:
9/10 Bug Charmers
Rivals the best live-action adventure movies out there.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where Earth is divided between civilized man and the monstrous insects protecting the Toxic Jungle whose poisonous spores are slowly wiping out one colony after another. Bridging the gap is a warrior princess who works to maintain a peaceful relationship with the Toxic Jungle by communicating with its inhabitants, but all her efforts start going right to Hell when a tyrannical nation invades her own and fires up a crusade to destroy the forest once and for all. And so begins her quest to prevent another doomsday before the power hungry, ignorant humans or the royally pissed-off insects beat her to punch.
So this here is the sophomore effort by the Japanese deity of all things animated, Hayao Miyazaki, but for all intents and purposes, this is the first movie where he really started letting loose. Nothing against his debut effort, Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro, ’cause I freakin’ love that movie, but that really didn’t have the same kind of imagination or message that have become staples of Miyazaki movies. This, on the other hand, has both in spades and has the guy’s trademarks written all over it. Again, not trying to discount Cagliostro, just saying that the difference is hard to miss.
But for anyone out there who’s seen Princess Mononoke, that synopsis up there should sound awfully familiar. In a nutshell, there are a whole lot of times where the two movies feel like carbon copies of one another. The eco-harmonious story, the hardcore protagonist whose eyes are the only ones unclouded by hate, and the plot in general are just three things that were giving me a serious case of déjà vu within the first 15 minutes and kept on right ’til the end. It’s surprising in the sense that you don’t expect to walk into a Miyazaki movie and go “Oh, this is kind of like so-and-so’s movie,” let alone like another Miyazaki movie, then again, it’s a stupid non-complaint to be making just because I happened to watch Mononoke first even though it was made 13 years after this.
In hindsight, Mononoke is more like Nausicaä: Version 2.0 than anything else as it ultimately gives greater attention and focus to certain aspects that this script occasionally skimps out on, but either way, you’re on the right track if anyone’s comparing your movie to Princess Mononoke. But for those of you haven’t seen Princess Mononoke, forget you even read that last paragraph. See it after you see this and you’ll get the gist.
Animated or otherwise, this movie is as flat-out epic as they come. If Disney didn’t have such a stranglehold on the animation biz back in the ’80s (not that they weren’t putting out great stuff or anything), I think this movie would have been huge, this could have been what Spirited Away was for anime in ’01. It’s a movie and a story that’s impossible not to get swept up in because its scope, its visuals and its story only improve as it goes on and it’s simply operating at a level that most audiences and film makers are nowhere close to. It won’t take long for you to get connected to Nausicaä in terms of what she stands for and what she does, it won’t take long for you to get lost in this world that’s at once strangely familiar and breathtakingly new, and for a movie with a message, it’s wonderfully powerful without being heavy-handed. It’s a thrill ride and a morality play rolled into one, and that’s not an easy medium to find without falling too far on either end.
The biggest obstacle I’ve always found with action/adventure movies is finding a way to develop the story while upping the wow factor without having to throw in some painfully noticeable downtime to do so. Don’t ask me how Miyazaki did it, I don’t have the answers, but this is the first movie I’ve seen in a long time that pulls this feat off with ease and only gets more awesome with each new scene. From Nausicaä flying her badass jet-powered glider through dogfights and swarms of insects the size of Rhode Island to Nausicaä just being her usual badass self and kicking ass with her uber-samurai uncle, it’s something to behold and it’ll make you wish that more directors who have actually made a career out of action movies knew how to reach this plateau of epicness.
And as if the script wasn’t enough, it’s effing gorgeous, too. My one gripe is that the characters look more like extras from Cagliostro than anything else, but when it comes to the insects, the machinery and the landscapes, it’s a stunner the likes of which you’ve never seen before and would almost be worth nuking the planet over just to see it for yourself. And I like that the character models are so simple in comparison to everything else, it doesn’t seem lazy, it seems more like a stylistic choice that ends up achieving a lot with a little.
But like I said, there are some aspects of the scripts that I wish had been fleshed out further. I wish the main antagonist who comes in the form of a hardened military princess hadn’t been such a cut-and-dry, unflinchingly hateful gal from the moment we’re introduced to her to the last time we see her around, the romantic subplot between Nausicaä and a fighter pilot from a neighboring nation is hinted at but never really blossoms into anything worth getting invested over, and it also ends a little bit too abruptly. But in light of everything else that’s just outstanding about Miyazaki as a storyteller and keeps you glued to the screen, these complaints are minor and are only improved upon in Mononoke.
Also pretty impressed by the names who came out to lend their voices here. Not sure when the dubbing was actually done since this was probably straight subtitles when it was first released, but you’ve got Alison Lohman as Nausicaä with Edward James Olmos, Mark Hamill, Patrick Stewart, Shia LaBeoufa and Uma Thurman all backing her up in their respective roles. I like to think that they all got involved because they realized that this movie is so much more than just an easy paycheck, but either way, I dig their involvement.
Now, just to make myself clear, whether you’ve seen Princess Mononoke or not, it’ll have zero effect on the lasting impression that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind will leave. Don’t be fooled by the unfortunate title or unfortunate eye-rolls that come with suggesting an anime movie, this is Indiana Jones stuff, this is Lord of the Rings stuff, this is jaw-dropping entertainment with adventure to spare and a brain to boot. Kicking myself that it took me so long to finally get around to this movie and that I saw it completely out of order, but whatever, yet another reason why Miyazaki is truly one of the greats.
Cedar Rapids (2011)
VERDICT:
8/10 Two-Diamond Awards
The first good movie of the year and a front-runner for Funniest Movie of the Year to boot.
Cedar Rapids is about a naive, goody-two-shoes insurance salesman from a small town in Michigan who winds up getting sent to the biggest insurance conference of the year in, you guessed it, Cedar Rapids where he has to try and win the biggest insurance award for his company back home. Completely out of his comfort zone and neon green behind the ears, our guy winds up rooming with the one insurance salesman he was told to stay away from and his innocent view of the world is gradually stripped away in a flood of booze, sex and corporate greed the likes of which he didn’t even know existed.
Folks, this has been a long month-and-a-half of not being able to go to the movies, ’cause when the options boil down to Justin Bieber’s bowl cut in 3D or lawn gnomes committing ritual suicide (I like to think that’s what happens at the end), there might as well not be an option at all. Yeah, it’s been nice saving money, but that’s about the only perk of a situation that’s been in dire need of fixing. So along comes this movie that I’d never heard of, never saw a trailer for and only went to because it was the first thing since December that wasn’t getting the same kind of reviews as Season of the Witch, and after such a long dry spell, I’m almost tempted to see it again.
As far as comedies go, I think this is a pretty damn good premise to go off of. Sure, it’s not exactly new territory, but watching grown men go from glorified Boy Scouts to fell-fledged deviants over the course of three Acts is something that I’ll always amuse the hell out of me. It’s simple, it’s not Hollywood, and come Spring when mankind is gonna be bombarded with more superhero movies than we’ll know what to do with, it’s nice to find something that set against a backdrop where Cedar Rapids, IA is the equivalent of one man’s Las Vegas. Doesn’t get more naive and goody-two-shoes than that.
And if you’re looking for someone to play a naive, goody-to-shoes insurance salesman, Ed Helms is a pretty safe pick to go with. He’s good as our closer of the hour, Tim Lippe, he’s definitely got his moments and he’s definitely likable, but by the same token, Ed Helms sure is starting to feel like a one-trick pony these days. It’s Andy Bernard, it’s Stu Price, it’s that same super nice, painfully awkward shtick everyone expects from him, and while it’s good for what it is, it just makes it that much easier for John C. Reilly to steal the spotlight. Don’t get me wrong, I watch The Office every week and I’m still not tired of the shtick, but let me tell ya’, that spotlight is all Reilly’s here.
I never thought there would be a day where I’d end up ranting and raving about how bowled over I was by a John C. Reilly performance, but lo and behold, today is that very day. Two things have always stood out to me about Reilly: he’s one of the few guys out there who can actually pull off comedic and dramatic roles without getting pigeonholed, and no matter how good he is, he’s always playing second fiddle. And even though Helms is the lead here, the movie doesn’t start being an 8 until Reilly enters the picture as Dean Ziegler, bear hugs his black friend and asks a horrified Tim Lippe, “Haven’t you ever seen a chocolate and vanilla love sandwich before?” And as soon as he followed that up with, “Just wait ’til we get to the buttfuckin’!” I was done.
Every single time Reilly is on the screen, every time he opens his mouth to let out something as hilarious as it is wrong, I was laughing my ass off like no other. He’s got all the best lines, he makes insurance conventions look like Mardi Gras, and without him around, this movie would have been a dud. One of those double-edged situations where each time he’s not on-screen, you wonder where he is, and each time he’s back, you immediately start grinning like an idiot because you know it’s about to get fun. I know this isn’t exactly a mainstream release or anything, but it’s really great to see Reilly get his due for once. Folks, John C. Reilly is the man, the guy is obviously having a blast in the role and it’s just a blast to watch him do his thing from beginning to end. Not much else to say on the matter.
But as good as Reilly is at delivering his lines, Phil Johnston did one hell of a job writing ’em.
Love how understated everything is, love what an outrageous contrast Dean Ziegler is to everyone else around him, and it’s a great example of comedic writing that manages to be both totally inappropriate and surprisingly endearing. Tim Lippe’s got a swell little character arc, I cared about him and all his small town problems that felt like the weight of the world in this little bubble of his, and it somehow ends up being a genuine feel-good trip by the end. It ain’t often I walk away from a movie feeling good while simultaneously quoting lines that would make my grandmother pass out from shock, but that’s exactly what happened during the half-hour drive home. Not too shabby for a debut script.
Also can’t believe how many noteworthy folks were a part of this, too. Anne Heche finally crawled out from the rock she was hiding under after those alien abduction years and gives a solid, entertaining performance here as Lippe’s main squeeze of sorts; Stephen Root is choice here as Lippe’s boss; Sigourney Weaver is here as Lippe’s former teacher/current back door woman; never seen Isiah Whitlock Jr. before but he’s a rip as Lippe’s less offensive roommate; and I don’t know about you folks, but I for one am always down for a good Kurtwood Smith cameo. Very cool cast all in all, always nice to see heavyweights recognize quality over a fat paycheck.
I think part of it is that it’s just nice to go the theaters again and actually enjoy myself for a change, but good comedies are hard to come by these days and Cedar Rapids is definitely one of the more memorable ones. Can’t go wrong with good characters, a grounded, inspired story and what may very well be the best role of John C. Reilly’s career thus far. It’s not gonna get anywhere near the same kind of press as something like The Hangover 2 will in a few months, but it deserves to and it’s hands-down the only thing worth spending 12 bucks on right now. Definitely funnier than the first Hangover.
That’s right, I went there.
And the best supporting actor of 2010 is…
CHRISTIAN BALE!
Damn right he is! You go ahead and you rock that new Jesus look of yours, Chris. You earned it.
Swell voting, folks. I agree.
RESULTS:
– Christian Bale: 25 votes
– Andrew Garfield: 11 votes
– Geoffrey Rush: 8 votes
– John Hawkes: 4 votes
– Mark Ruffalo: 1 vote
– Armie Hammer: 0 votes
– Jeremy Renner: 0votes
– Other: 1 vote for Denis Lavant (not sure for what movie, but probably just belated props for that “Rabbit in Your Headlights” video he was in).
And in case you’re remotely interested, here’s my take on why Bale had best be getting that Oscar, yo.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
VERDICT:
0/10 Dreadlock Dystopias
The things Scientologists come up with…
Battlefield Earth takes place in the year 3000 AD. The Earth has long since taken over by a race of eight-foot-tall leather daddies called Psychlos and humanity has devolved to a race of glorified apes. After a Psychlo commanding officer is banished to Earth for being a dick, he comes up with an ingenious plan to buy his way back home by enslaving the humans and training them to mine gold. A Swiss watch of a plan in theory, but then the humans decide to hatch a plan of their own that involves them taking back the planet and killing off the whole Psychlo race in one fell swoop, and so begins a true battle of wits the likes of which this world has never seen.
So my buddy Fletch recently pointed out that I’ve been watching and reviewing a lot of good movies as of late and that one scathing breakdown of No Strings Attached just isn’t enough to balance things out. As much as I wish I had some killer comeback for the guy about HOW HE NEEDS TO GET THE EFF OUTTA MY GRILLZ, Fletch is dead right and that very gripe of his is something I’ve been struggling with for a while. I figure since I’ve only got so much time in the week to watch movies and I’ve got hundreds upon hundreds of supposedly great ones lined up in my Netflix queues that I really want to see, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to watch something that I know is gonna be total shit. All the same, when readers demand I start watching total shit, I obey those fucking demands! And, honestly, what better place to start than with the golden child of The Razzies.
Forgive me if this review is a bit all over the place, but I really have no idea where to start with this one and I don’t think any of you out there are looking for a dissertation anyway. Then again, I would totally read that dissertation.
Alright, the costumes here are a goddamn riot. The humans look like extras from the set of Waterworld, like they belong on Cal. Berkley’s Varsity Hacky Sack team or Those Guys who’ve been raving by themselves in the parking lot for two hours before the Phish concert, but in their defense, they look pretty normal in comparison to the Psychlos. It’s like a Goomba got gangbanged by the Gimp, Gary Oldman from True Romance, and everyone from Static-X, then gave birth to a billion children all at the same time. I just don’t get it, I don’t understand how the six-inch platform shoes, the comically fake claw hands and those freakin’ hairdos could have ever sounded good in theory. These are not the kind of guys you run away from, these are not the kind of guys one would imagine as planet-conquerors, these guys are walking punchlines and it must have been an epic struggle to get out of the makeup chair each day and deliver lines without thinking “Fuck my life” every time the cameras started rolling.
And the script here is equally stunning, almost as stunning as the fact that a “legitimate” religion was founded by the same guy who wrote the source material for this. While I’d like to say I gave this movie my full, undivided attention, who am I kidding, I was multitasking like a bastard and I don’t think I’ll be losing any sleep over it. Nonetheless, it’s hard to talk about the writing here without also talking about the acting because the cast gets way too into the stuff that writers J.D. Shapiro and Corey Mandell want them to do. The whole movie really does feel like one long running gag that no one’s in on and is there just to confuse/amuse the audience for two hours.
This is overacting like I’ve never seen before, this stuff makes Nic Cage’s temperament look like that of the Dalai Llama’s. For some reason, the humans are so devolved that they might as be walking on all fours. They scream and whoop like apes every time they’re angry, happy, tired or sneezing, and it doesn’t help that the cast is dead serious the whole time because nothing adds legitimacy to a scene like ending half of them with dozens of people acting like monkeys. Part of it is that, part of it is Travolta having to say the words “man-animal” and “rat brain” every time he’s got a line, part of it is that one of the final scenes culminates with cavemen flying harrier jets, and the list goes on.
Poor Barry Pepper and poor Forest Whitaker, they deserve better than this, but not John Travolta, this is right up his alley and it’s only proper that he plays our evil Psychlo of the hour, Terl. And look at his wife Kelly Preston there with the tongue action going on. She’s only in the movie for maybe two minutes, but she might have the most embarrassing scene of the lot when she starts slobbering all over Travolta’s leather crotch like there’s an ice cream sundae walking for her underneath. For an actress who is universally known as “John Travolta’s wife”, she couldn’t have picked a better way to help people forget her name even further.
And as if all this wasn’t enough, Roger Christian just adds to the embarrassment. Every last shot is filmed at a complete diagonal for some reason, all the decent special effects are completely negated by shootouts that look like they were ripped straight from Laser Cats, none of it actually adds to the experience and it all just seems to be there because Christian said so. Bizarre stuff.
Folks, I could continue to count the ways and ramble on about every last detail, but the long and short of it is that Battlefield Earth makes Dune look like a fucking masterpiece. But the weird thing is that I actually had a total blast watching it. Not even kidding, I was smiling ear-to-ear from beginning to end with this one and I’m still smiling about three days later. No one’s arguing that it’s not a horribly bad movie, but there are far more unlikable movies out there and, surprisingly enough, I don’t regret sitting through this in the least. It doesn’t bear the same kind of “let’s all get together and make the absolute worst movie imaginable” vibe that Troll 2 does, but when people say that movies are “hilariously bad”, this is what they’re talking about. If I ever hear about a midnight screening of this in my area, I’m canceling all my plans, I’m bringing along friends, and we will howl our drunken asses off like no other.
Truly a piece of shit worthy of the reputation it’s garnered over the years, but a highly recommended piece of shit all the same. Effortlessly nabbed its given verdict on so many fronts, but easily gets an 8 or a low 9 for sheer entertainment factor.
Donnie Darko (2001)
VERDICT:
8/10 Mad Worlds
The stuff that cult dreams are made of.
Donnie Darko is about a “troubled” teen in the ’80s who finds himself sleepwalking around town and taking orders from a guy in a demonic rabbit costume who claims that the kid’s got 28 days left to go before the world comes to an end. So as the clock ticks down to Godknowswhat, the kid starts going steady with the new girl at school, starts lashing out against the bullshit his teachers and guest speakers are trying to feed him, and he keeps on following orders that lead him down a path of arson, vandalism and time travel of all things.
Yeah, I’ve seen this one a good three times now, and each new time I go in thinking I’ve got some new piece of the puzzle figured out, I’m always amazed at how much I really have no fucking clue what’s going on. As it sometimes goes when time travel gets involved, Donnie Darko‘s a weird one, it’s a head trip that almost seems to operating on the same brainwaves as Primer at times, but that’s also a big reason people ended up going so ga-ga over it. That and Sparkle Motion, of course.
Folks, it ain’t often that direct-to-DVD movies wind up going from the bottom of the bargain bin to playing in theaters nation-wide, word on the street is that the process is actually more vice-versa. But I love that about this, that it fell through the cracks, that the moviegoing public realized this was something special and rallied behind it until it became a household name. And even though that little spiel doesn’t directly tie into to why I gave this an 8, it’s something worth noting ’cause it’s something that rarely ever happens.
If there’s anything I can say about Donnie Darko, it sure is new. Hard to thumb this as a high school drama, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller or a sci-fi time traveler because somehow it manages to be all four at once without imploding under its own weight. Geez, there are tons of moviesout there that you could pigeonhole into just one of those sub-genres that somehow manage to implode worse than Vulcan. And it works because it’s clear early on that writer/director Richard Kelly is marching to the beat of his own drum, that we’re not supposed to sit through this and be able to explain everything we just saw, that this isn’t your typical Hollywood three-Act offering.
And the more I think about it, the more I’m not really sure what it’s about. I dig the way Donnie stands as a middle finger to the adults in his life who think they’ve got it all figured out and are continually trying to get him to drink the Kool-Aid already, I dig Donnie as this credible embodiment of youth misunderstood, I dig the whole thing about him not wanting to die alone. But then you throw time travel into the mix, it becomes this completely different monster that’s at once out of place and actively tied into every other story line going on, and as much as I don’t understand it, I want to. It is confusing, although time travel’s been executed a whole lot worse.
There’s just so much more to this movie than what Kelly shows us, it’s the kind of thing I can see people buying books on and raiding message boards over for hours just to get the full picture and see what they missed. Like I said, this thing is operating on a different level, but that’s why it’s totally worth watching.
Then again, there are some parts of the script that I’m not so crazy about these days. Back when I first saw this in high school, I thought the dialogues about what a “fuckass” is and why Smurfette isn’t a skank despite what everyone tends to think were awesome. Now, they just seem random and the laughter is gone. Don’t know if it’s me or the movie, but there ya’ have it. Although it is still great when Donnie tells his gym teacher to forcibly insert the lifeline exercise card into her anus and I still get a kick out of Donnie’s dad quietly cheering for George Bush during a televised debate against Michael Dukakis. For the most part, the dialogue is pretty solid and there are some great moments with Donnie going off on people in public, but it’s not on the same level as the story driving it along.
Good cast though. Equally bizarre and hilarious that this came out the same year as the crowning achievement of Jake Gyllenhaal’s career, Bubble Boy, but he really is good as Donnie. Just a really good, surprisingly complicated character to begin with and I really liked the way Gyllenhaal played him down. So well done, Jake. And Maggie Gyllenhaal does her thing as Donnie’s sister; Drew Barrymore is here as the least believable high school English teacher I’ve ever seen; the late, great Patrick Swayze is a rip as a motivational speaker/snake oil salesman; Jena Malone (where the hell did she go?) is good as Donnie’s main squeeze; and Mary McDonnell (who I don’t really recognize from anything else) is also really good as Donnie’s mom. Also really liked the way she played it down. Her and Jake definitely got the memo on that one.
And I’m a big fan of the way Kelly introduces all the characters with two long shots through Donnie’s neighborhood and his school like a music video or something, just that we’re the 0nly ones hearing the tunes. Good songs, cool approach, I liked that.
Bonus points for featuring a young Seth Rogen as one of Donnie’s dickhead classmates whose first profound lines are, “I like your boobs.” A star is born, people.
Donnie Darko‘s one of those movies that I really like every time I see it but tend to forget about in between viewings. Don’t know why that is, maybe it’s because I have some stupid stigma against movies that every single kid I knew in college had a copy of. Whatever the reason, it is indeed very stupid. There’s always something to be said for smart, fresh movies that never seem to shed those qualities and keep you coming for multiple viewings, and while certain aspects of the script might not be as memorable as they once were, this movie deserves the hype that surrounds it.
Sweet soundtrack, too. Tears for Fears, Duran Duran, The Church, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division – all the best highlights of the ’80s without all the spandex and synthesizers. Hell to the yeah.
Igby Goes Down (2002)
VERDICT:
8/10 Phonies
The closest we’ll probably ever get to a Catcher in the Rye adaptation.
Igby Goes Down is about teenage boy from a well-off family who runs away to NYC before his mom sends him to yet another prep school that he will inevitably get himself kicked out of. So he shacks up with his well-off godfather, works under him as a carpenter, but then he quits that noise to sell weed door-to-door, starts knocking boots with his godfather’s mistress and eventually falls for a more realistic, similarly-minded girl amidst his efforts to escape from the mold that his family’s forcing him into.
Sure sounds like the life and times of Holden Caulfield to me…only without all the doobage and that funny business with the godfather’s backdoor woman.
It’s hard to watch or write about this movie without continually going back to Catcher not only due to the similarity in context, but also because of my similar reactions to both at different periods in my life. I was a high school sophomore the first time I read Catcher, and I hated. I didn’t get the hype, I thought Holden was a bum, I wasn’t on the bandwagon that every other 16-year-old classmate in my all-boys prep school seemed to riding high on. Then this movie comes along that very same year, word on the street is that everyone loves it even though I have no idea what it’s about, and I wind up having the exact same adverse reaction. Chances are I probably needed to get out more in high school and could have afforded to get in trouble a little more often instead of working on unlocking all the cheats in GoldenEye every day after school, but either way, these two didn’t gel.
Then again, that’s the great thing about this movie and that might be the greatest thing about Catcher. Flash forward to my sophomore year of college, I give the book one more shot after it gets assigned to me one more time, and everything clicks, I fall in love with it and it remains in my Top Ten to this day. Flash even farther forward to a month or so ago when I picked this up from the library in a wildly belated attempt to pay homage to Salinger’s passing, the same damn thing happens and here I am giving it an 8. It’s probably more true with Catcher than it is with Igby, but they’re both stories worth revisiting at different points in life because the meaning changes with the individual reading or watching them.
So for starters, big props to writer/director Burr Steers on this one. Considering that he’s going off a novel which I hope never gets truly adapted to film since no script, director or cast can do it justice and so generations of impressionable high schoolers will actually have to read the damn book instead of turning to Hollywood’s bastardized version just to pass the midterm, I was surprisingly pleased with the end result. I really dig the way he puts his own little modern spin on Holden’s story by making Igby darker and even more lost – if that’s even the right word – than Salinger’s creation. Nothing against Holden – because Igby never drops the same kind of knowledge, heart or wisdom that Holden does – but Igby fits far more into the image of a 21st Century boy than Holden would.
He’s easy to relate to in a lot of the ways that Holden is. For starters, he’s beyond sarcastic and he’s fucking hilarious. When his mom dies, he breaks the news to by calling up friends of the family, asking with full politeness in his voice if they remember his mom, then following up with, “Yeah, here’s the thing…she’s dead,” before slamming down the receiver and moving on down the list. There’s also a choice little fake story he tells to his former teacher/current weed-purchaser about how his brother (who he despises and the teacher loved) is in critical condition after biking through Central Park, catching sight of his own reflection in his rear-view mirror and being so distracted by his own beauty that he nosedived into the pavement, but Igby does a much better job telling it than I do.
But aside from all the debauchery and wise-assery, there’s a lot of substance to Igby, a lot of which ties into his close yet estranged relationship with his schizophrenic father played by the great and wildly under-appreciated Bill Pullman. There aren’t a whole lot of moments where we get to see Igby’s dad since they’re all flashbacks that go from when he slowly started slipping to the point where he was living in a padded cell, but what make those moments stand out are both Pullman’s memorable performance and his character’s relationship with Igby as the only adult figure he actually cares about and can relate to. He’s like was Phoebe was to Holden in a way, but I might.
From the morbid laughs to those glimmers of sincerity, Steers really does find a swell balance between the two and give his cast a ton of sharp, fresh stuff to work with.
And as for the cast, Kieran Culkin (who will hopefully get on a roll in the wake of Scott Pilgrim) is spot-on as Igby; Ryan Phillipe who has always struck me as painfully ho-hum is surprisingly good as his older brother Oliver; Claire Danes who’s never done much for me either is really good as Igby’s object of desire, Sookie; Susan Sarandon continues her life-long streak of being one of the top actresses in the game as Igby’s bitchtacular mom, Mimi; Amanda Peet does her thing as the godfather’s woman on the side, Rachel; and the immortal Jeff Goldblum is unsurprisingly awesome as Igby’s godfather, D.H. That guy can do no wrong in my book.
Like most every other imitation, tribute or poser out there, Igby Goes Down isn’t in the same league as The Catcher in the Rye and doesn’t nearly bear the same degree of emotional weight or capture the same timeless voice of teen angst, but for what it’s worth, it’s as good as they come as far as movies are concerned. I love characters like Igby, I love his ingrained rebellion from a society that writes you off if you’re not moving with the herd, and, to be honest, it’s those kind of characters that keep me sane some days. Regardless of the obvious comparisons it draws, Igby is a wonderfully dark, funny and unexpectedly genuine trip with a solid cast and a solid script backing it all up. Always helps when you end up liking a movie exponentially more the second time around and almost ten years later, but who knows, just might be whistlin’ a different tune a decade from now.
But come on, how can I possibly resist anything with Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum in it?
The Sixth Sense (1999)
VERDICT:
9/10 Ghost Whisperers
The sole reason Shyamalan is still allowed to make movies.
The Sixth Sense is about an esteemed child psychiatrist who’s sittin’ pretty with his wife in Philly, but then one night he gets shot by one of his former patients who couldn’t help, and his career and marriage subsequently tailspin out of control. As he struggles to pick up the pieces, he starts meeting with a young boy whose patient file rings awfully familiar to that of the trigger-happy kid he once failed. The more they open up to one another, the more the psychiatrist realizes that this kid’s dealing with some major shit. That’s right, the kid sees dead people and they ain’t leavin’ his ass alone.
Bummer.
So back in ’99, you couldn’t escape from this movie. It came out of nowhere, the word of mouth could not be silenced, absolutely everyone went to see it, and if you’re like me, the ending was ruined for you because that’s the only damn thing anyone talked about that year. As a result, I’m not surprised it took me 12 years to give it another watch considering for a long time it’s been the “I see dead people” movie.
But don’t get me wrong, this was a damn good movie back then and it’s still a damn good movie now. In fact, it’s probably better now than it was in theaters. All I really remember about the experience of first seeing this with my dad was getting the poop scared right out of me, and even though I was more getting the fart scared out of me this latest time around, it was a lot easier to appreciate everything else that didn’t involve a young Mischa Barton barfing all over herself in a tent. Not that I really appreciated that back then anyway.
Man, M. Night Shyamalan struck gold with this script. Folks, this is Rod Serling shit, this is just great, surreal, original storytelling that rarely comes around and keeps the same people coming back for more because it’s an entirely different movie the second time you buy the ticket. But aside from the ending (which I’m not gonna mention in case one of the five people left on Earth who’ve never heard of this movie stumbles upon this review), there is so much quality going on here that totally deserves to be recognized.
Yeah, you might need to take some of it with a grain of salt and not wonder so much about what’s going on in these characters’ lives when the camera’s not there capture it, but this plot really is so well structured and carefully thought out from one scene to the next. It’s all in the details, it’s the stuff that comes off as subtle at first glance but ends up making you go “How did I miss that?” when the big picture finally comes together. It’s the bursts of red that stand out like a bloody CAUTION sign every time something ain’t right, it’s the way initially insignificant developments come full circle and turn into cornerstones, it’s the way you don’t even see any dead people until the kid lays it on his shrink.
I love that about this movie. I love the way it keeps us in the dark and only starts to unravel as fast as this kid is ready to open up. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to go into this movie blind, but I probably would have had a heart attack. This is some legitimately scary shit that had me plugging my ears like no other at the horrified age of 13. Granted, it’s pretty cheap when it goes from dead silence to blaring piano chords whenever a silhouette walks across a dark hallway, but there are a couple seriously quiet scares in there and it’s all quite eerie and unsettling regardless of the audio. Also dig that it’s more than just a horror thriller, it also happens to be a nice little meditation on living with death and moving on from it. Definitely missed that the first time around and it’s a major strength that elevates it from the realm of Hollywood blockbuster.
And on top of the story there’s a handful of actors who all rock it, too.
Alright, Bruce Willis only has one facial expression going for him the whole damn time, but it works. I liked his calm and controlled performance as Dr. Malcolm Crowe, it’s a swell complement to the overall mood and in a lot of ways he’s just as interesting as the kid who sees ghosts for Chrissakes. But even if this was BW’s magnum opus, Haley Joel Osment would still steal the show and would still doom himself to a life as That Kid. Unfortunate that he’s now in the same ranks as Jonathan Lipnicki because he holds his own like a pro and this was not an easy role for a ten-year-old to pull off. And Toni Collette is also fantastic as his mom, although she also has to bow down to the HJO when push comes to shove. Geez, what the hell happened to that kid?
But M. Night Shyamalan…
The dude sold this script for a cool $2M, demanded to be the director to boot, and he got his wish like a boss even though the only thing he had under his belt was some shitty Rosie O’Donnell movie that no one saw. That kind of royal treatment doesn’t happen a whole lot to Hollywood newbies and it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the apple has continued to fall farther and farther from the tree with each new failed attempt to reach the bar he set for himself here. But for a movie that’s been a borderline cliche’ for a while now, I was surprised by how awesome The Sixth Sense still is. It’s so bittersweet considering the riotous laughter that broke out in the theater when Shyamalan’s name came up during those Devil trailers, and as much I wish the guy would quit digging his own ditch already, there’s a reason this was such a big hit and there’s a reason so many people actually went to see The Happening. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll be another Sixth Sense.
Hello disappointment.
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