And the best part of Thanksgiving is…
THE BEER!
Arguably the best part of any holiday that doesn’t include getting an XBOX from Santa, and even then it still might be the best part.
Folks, you make me happy.
RESULTS:
– The beer: 6 votes
– The leftovers: 5 votes
– The bird: 3 votes
– The stuffing: 3 votes
– The sweet, sweet gravy: 3 votes
– The fam: 3 votes
– The football: 2 votes
– The food coma: 2 votes
– The pumpkin pie: 2 votes
– The cranberry sauce: 1 vote (not a fan)
– The sides: 1 vote
– Other: 1 vote for Sweet Potatoes (definitely a side, but a mighty fine side indeed), 1 vote for “The Detroit Lions kickin’ A” (maybe next year, homey), 1 vote for The Godfather marathon (word), and 1 vote for “Uncle Jerry getting drunk and tellin’ us how it is” (Amen to that).
Happy Thanksgiving, folks!
In honor of my forefathers who obviously had a fond appreciation for ingesting an entire year’s worth of trytophan in one day, taking a six-hour long catnap, drinking ’til you can’t remember who won the football game and waking up the next morning to hungy pilgrim sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I’m taking the next four days to act like the proud, lazy American bastard that I am. Will see you back Monday with more reviews and a potbelly that would make that pregnant dude jealous. Here’s to the Pats trouncing the Lions into a fine cranberry sauce, and to all you other Yanks out there, I wish you all a most glorious Thanksgiving!
To everyone else, go ahead and sit your ass in front of the TV, fix yourself a turkey dinner and drink a six pack to your face with some old chums. Simple as that, awesome as that. God bless America.
Field of Dreams (1989)
VERDICT:
10/10 American Games
Sorry to all you Major League fans out there, but this here is the best baseball movie ever made.
Field of Dreams is about a life-long baseball fan/corn husker in Iowa with the perfect wife and the cutest damn daughter on the planet who, much to his dismay, sees himself settling into his estranged father’s footsteps with each new comfortable year. Then one day a mysterious voice tells him to build a baseball field, and since he’s now Mr. Spontaneity, he up and does it at the potential cost of losing his farm and livelihood. And whaddaya know, the ghosts of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the seven other disgraced members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox team walk onto the field, start scrimmaging with other dead ballplayers and continue to whisper sweet nothings to this unlikely farmer that sends him across the country to ease pains and go the distance.
Yeah, I’ll admit it, this movie is somewhat all over the place and probably sounds somewhat stupid on paper to the uninitiated. It’s fantasy, it’s sports, it’s a fathers-and-sons story, and while all those things don’t usually turn up in the same two-hour span, it’s a magical mix if there ever was one that does a flat-out marvelous job of not crashing and burning (which it totally could have).
Tough to describe why it all works so well, but an outstanding cast and a stellar script sure help for starters.
Well, first there’s the living crapshoot that is Kevin Costner, and lucky for him, his turn as Ray Kinsella is definitely one of the brighter moments in his pre-Postman career. I love that he’s given all these self-aware lines like “That is so cool,” with a wide grin plastered on his face as he watches the Sox disappear into the cornfield for the umpteenth time, and Costner simply does a solid job of playing the everyman. Kinsella’s a great character and it’s great watching him turn into this messenger of sorts as he slowly pieces everything together and just goes for it anyway even when he’s clueless.
Amy Madigan (who I’ve never seen anywhere else) is so, so awesome as Kinsella’s outrageously supportive wife, Annie; and Gaby Hoffmann really is the cutest damn daughter on the planet, Karin. But as good as these three are, the undisuted heavyweights are James Earl Jones as reclusive ex-revolutionary, Terence Mann, and Burt Lancaster as Archie “Moonlight” Graham who played one inning in the Majors and gave it all up for a distinguished career in medicine.
Impossible for me to choose which of these two I like more ’cause Mann and Graham are equally memorable for all the same reasons. Man, even if 98% of this movie had been cut out and all that remained was James Earl Jones’ speech about how “The one constant through all the years…has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again,” it would probably still be standing at a perfect 10. Can’t imagine any fan putting the sport into better perspective than that and he’s also got some hilarious lines about being pariahed for his writings or being held up with an index finger to boot. No idea why Jones doesn’t do more movies, no one delivers it home like Jones.
And on top of that epic soliloquy is Graham’s response when Kinsella tells him what a tragedy it would be to pass up the chance to fulfil his life-long wish of going up to bat: “Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.”
Damn. Burt Lancaster. Dude’s a legend for a reason.
Bonus points for a young Ray Liotta as “Shoeless” Joe, even though he looks absolutely nothing like the actual “Shoeless” Joe.
But I don’t know. These days, I consider myself lucky to pull myself away from the damn computer screen and go outside with my old mitt, but when I was growing up, baseball was very much my thing. I was one of those kids whose parents suffered aneurysms trying to coordinate carpools that would get me to three different sports all on the same day, and while I loved my days as a soccer goalie and still daydream once in a while about my best day on the basketball court, none if it held a candle to baseball. I worked my way up from Tee Ball in Grade School, upgraded to a pitcher once I got to Middle School, then missed a good deal of my first season in High School because my coach was an a-hole, ’cause I went on vacation to Japan for three weeks and missed my first four games, and ’cause the ratio between fun and competitive started leaning so far towards the latter that the former was getting awfully hard to notice. Anyway, that was my last season on the mound, and even though I still get bored to tears watching regular seasons games on TV, every time Spring rolls around, every time I run those seams across my fingertips while playing catch with my eight-year-old brother, every time I watch this movie, it’s heartbreaking how much I miss the game.
And that’s why Field of Dreams is the best baseball movie of all-time: it’s about why baseball matters, why it’s always mattered and why it will continue to matter even if the game is more about money now than ever. It doesn’t matter if you’ve played in The Big Leagues or still can’t figure out whether you’re a righty or lefty, there’s not a single past-time on the planet that can match the nostalgic or emotional weight of having a catch with your dad or playing nine innings. The smell of the grass, that perfect clap the ball makes when it hits the palm of your glove, just that simple pleasure of throwing a ball back-and-forth for hours on end is something that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s the memories, it’s the experience, and it’s no wonder that kids resent the old men who never gave them the opportunity.
Forgive me for turning this into a mini-memoir of sorts, but I forgot until recently how much I loved this thing and how effing phenomel it is despite the God-awful poster. There aren’t a whole lot of movies out there that can break me down to a bawling mess for 45 minutes straight like this did, and while that kind of emotional connection is something I rarely experience with a movie, that’s not even half of why Field of Dreams earned the verdict I gave it. So funny, so genuine, so well-written and so well-executed to a degree that no other baseball movie can match. Can’t say enough about this American gem, but I guess this’ll have to do.
Now dust off that glove and get the hell outside already.
Morning Glory (2010)
VERDICT:
6/10 Crackberries
The adorable version of Broadcast News.
Morning Glory is about a workaholic executive producer for a small-town morning news show who gets canned one minute and then hired the next at a once-prominent but currently failing station in The Big Apple. Luckily, this gal’s got just the right amount of spunk and complete disregard for sleeping or developing a semblance of a social life to turn this joint around, but thanks to a curmudgeon anchor and a boss who continues to emphasize the fact that she’s going to fail, our girl’s nonetheless got her work cut out for her.
So it’s written by the woman responsible for such testosterone-fueled bloodbaths as The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses, directed by the guy behind Notting Hill (even though his resume does seem to indicate that he branches out every now and again), and you can probably already see where I’m going with this. Yeah, it’s a chick flick, but for a chick flick about a lifestyle that would make my blood boil to the point of spontaneous combustion, it actually ain’t bad.
Not sure how I came to be like this, but I’m one of those guys who starts his morning ritual with the friendly gang over at The Today Show. Don’t ask me why, I can’t provide a legitimate answer outside of the strange way Al Roker manages to crack me up once in a blue moon when he gets to ranting about steak instead of the weather, but you gotta wonder about these news crews, right? To all us loyal viewers who find no shame in shunning those silly fuckers who start their days off with newspapers, these folks in front of the camera sure do seem to get along awfully chummy with one another. I like to think that the truth of the matter is night-and-day after it cuts to those belligerent booze hounds Kathy Lee and Hoda, but all the same, not a bad setting.
It ain’t foreign territory by any means – actually, nothing about this movie feels all too foreign – but it’s still amusing territory.
But, yeah, everything you’ve already predicted that’ll happen from just reading the synopsis up there, chances are you’re right on the money. And that is a big drawback, because up until the final Act, that whole aspect of things didn’t really bother me too much. It’s got some laughs, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and it’s a got an endearing lead you can root for, but when push comes to shove, it gets a little too sappy for my taste.
Also hate it when characters are just so extreme with their shitty bedside manner. Like, every time this girl asks for someone to just back her up and have some kind of faith in her, the usual response tends to be: “YOU WILL FAIL! YOU’RE BREAKING YOUR MOTHER’S HEART! IF YOU EVEN LOOK AT ME, I AM GOING TO SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FACE!” It’s just ridiculous, man. Even though no one actually goes through with giving themselves a lead salad, who the eff would anyone say anything like that to somebody? Ugh, too much eye-rolling for one man to handle.
But that’s just the movie this is, and that’s alright. You probably know what you’re getting into when you buy the ticket and that’s what you’re gonna get.
And as for the cast, don’t have much to complain about. Rachel McAdams does her thing as Becky Fuller; Diane Keaton continues to be a peach as co-lead anchor Colleen Peck; Patrick Wilson is still making my fiancee weak in the knees with his All-American studliness as McAdams’ main squeeze; and it’s so damn good to see Harrison Ford not in an action movie for once. His turn as the crotchetiest mother effer in the biz, lead anchor Mike Pomeroy, is a nice change from him getting nuked in fridges. Dude plays a swell antihero and I’m glad to see him taking on roles that seem less suited for Jack Ryan and more fitting for a 68-year-old veteran actor. The glory days of space smuggling are long gone, but at least he’s got the best character in this whole movie.
Jeff Goldblum is also here as McAdams’ boss, and I don’t know what it is, but I am loving Jeff Goldblum lately. For a long time there I more or less equated him with the funky way he was plugging iMacs back in the day, but I’m now starting to realize that he’s kind of the man. He doesn’t have a huge role here and it doesn’t require a whole lot out of him, but I don’t know why he ever stopped being a leading man. No one delivers lines quite like he does, and it’s just a rip watching him do it. This is Seth Brundle, people. If this guy didn’t download a virus into the alien mothership, Will Smith would probably be six-feet deep next to Data. Someone give this guy the spotlight again!
Anyway, Morning Glory is nice. One of those movies that continues to remind me why I never want to own a Blackberry and why I sincerely cherish the many benefits of working a nine-to-five schedule, and it’s a sweet little cut-and-dry story about following your dreams. It knows what it is, it ain’t an Oscar contender, but it’s a feel-good escape that shouldn’t disappoint if you don’t go in with any wild expectations. Also cool to see a movie that was filmed in a building where I used to work. It’s like it was speaking to me…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
VERDICT:
7/10 Horcrux Hunters
Solid stuff, but the first half of the book doesn’t hold a candle to the second half anyway.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 picks up with Harry and his two best buds dropping out of Hogwarts like the bums they are and hitting the road to locate the final remnants of Voldemort’s soul, smashing those suckers into oblivion and living like bonafide mountain men to avoid being killed by the hordes of Death Eaters that have taken jolly old England by force. Along the way, they catch wind of the fact that The Big V is searching high and low for the Deathly Hallows – a three-piece set of ultimate magic badassery – chances are he’s gonna use ’em on HP faster than that four-eyes can eat a snitch, and so they’ve got that to worry about, too.
And Snape’s the new headmaster at Hogwarts. Sometimes I wonder about the hiring policies at that school.
So, the first half of the final adaptation. Expectations are high, lots of fanboys and girls to please, failure is not an option for director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves. Lucky for them, they kicked ass with Half-Blood Prince, but nevertheless, they’ll be panhandling outside a London KFC for the rest of their days if they screw this up.
And after sitting through all 146 minutes of this, I’m thinking Dave and Steve can look forward to keeping their jobs.
First off: probably a smart idea to split this up into two movies, but it still strikes me as pretty damn odd that anything got left out. It’s nothing big, I guess, but I wasn’t even five minutes in before I turned to the six-year-old next to me and said, “That’s not what happens! What the fuck, man? Now hand over the Raisinets!” Six times out of seven, I can do without the Dursleys, but Harry actually has a great moment with that punk Dudley before his journey really kicks off in the novel, and while I realize it’s not exactly integral to the main storyline and most folks probably won’t care in the least to see them peace out of Little Whinging right off the bat, it’s also a summation of this movie’s biggest fault.
Granted, there are a crap-ton of characters and side plots to account for here and the good thing is that everyone does at least make a five second appearance to chime in with a “Harry, watch out!”, but I also think it’s safe to say that a number of those secondary characters and their side plots are far more memorable than watching Harry, Ron and Hermione hanging out in the woods with their thumbs up their asses. On the one hand, even if an extra forty minutes had been thrown in, this movie probably would have felt nothing short of rushed had it not been split up. On the other, Kloves spends a good deal of time on stuff that could have been trimmed down instead of spreading the love to the rest of the cast. I remember reading the book and coming to the realization that I was only halfway through (halfway being 400 pages) and our heroes had only managed to find and destroy one Horcrux despite there still being four left to take out.
Needless to say, the pacing gets cranked to 11 in the second half and it wasn’t much of a surprise that this is the only movie in the series that feels slow for an extended period of time. But this does wrap up at a later point than I thought it would, and when it does start to pick up, it’s pretty darn wild.
But regardless of all that stuff, Yates continues to do an outstanding job of making these movies look flat-out stunning. Just breathtaking scenery whether it’s in the depths of the Ministry of Magic or on a remote cliffside. Also dug some of his crazy new additions like a demon Katamari ball of sorts that gets unleashed from a Horcrux and forces Ron to watch his two best friends snog in the nude like it’s the goddamn Summer of ’69. That shit definitely wasn’t in the book. The gasps of horror from the parents chaperoning the second grade birthday parties in the room was classic.
Also have to give some bonus points for a pretty sweet animated scene about the history of the Deathly Hallows. Dug that very much.
And since this really is all about Harry, Ron and Hermione, it’s awesome to see how much better Radcliffe, Grint and Watson have become as actors. They’ve got legitimate range now, they don’t come off like the pizza-faced hormonal time-bombs they once were and they absolutely hold their own in the spotlight. Love that they don’t look ridiculous any more when they get pissed off. Grint in particular, he rocks it as Ron and even gets to say “Damn!”
PG-13 is right!
But like I said, everyone else is more or less a footnote. Draco is only around to mope briefly and get his wand jacked by Harry like a muggle bitch, Snape flies around like the Smoke Monster in one scene and then we never see him again, Tonks and Lupin merely allude to their marriage & pregnancy and that’s the last we hear of that, Bill Nighy is around just long enough to establish himself as the new Minister of Magic before getting offed six seconds later, and even Voldemort’s screen time is pretty lacking. The only exceptions are Dobby – the crowd-pleaser that he is – and Bellatrix Lestrange – the psycho bitch that she is. At least Dobby got the royal treatment and redeemed himself from his days as the cute version of Smeagol, but I’m still not down with Helena Bonham Carter’s overacting. Too much screaming. Even the Dark Lord has an inside voice.
And Wormtail gets off easy. No idea why they had to spare his ass, like one more death would have bumped this to an R.
Alright, so The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 might not be on par with Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix, but it definitely isn’t disappointing either. It’s got the best acting yet, it’s the best looking of the bunch, and it’s still one hell of a story even if it’s just building up to something more. Chomping at the bit for everything to start coming full circle, but all good things in due time, I suppose. Well, it’s still nice to be that much more pumped for Part 2.
Can’t believe I have to wait until effing July though. I don’t know if I can hold out getting my lightning bolt facial tattoo for eight months.
And the best wizard is…
GANDALF!
That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Thank the heavens that Boromir wasn’t a wizard. Would have done a triple lindy if Tim the Enchanter had won, but hey, Gandalf is the man, I’m a happy man in turn.
Swell votin’, folks.
RESULTS:
– Gandalf: 24 votes
– Dumbledore: 7 votes
– Tim the Enchanter: 7 votes
– Merlin: 4 votes
– Lo Pan: 3 votes (easily has the best death of any wizard)
– Miracle Max: 3 votes
– The Wizard of Oz: 1 vote
Alright, bonus question: Best wizard in the HP universe?
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
VERDICT:
8/10 Avada Kedavras
The moment when the series officially stopped catering to kids. Awesome.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince picks up with HP’s sixth year at Hogwarts. As luck would totally have it, Snape is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, the Dark Lord is still back with a vengeance, Dumbledore is frequently away on Voldemort-killing business, and Har’s got himself a new Potions book that’s fooling everyone into believing he’s the smartest effing boy who ever lived. And since Harry is pretty much Dumbledizzle’s right-hand man these days, he gets recruited by The Bearded One to help him piece together the last remaining clues that will reveal all of Voldy’s secrets and ultimately aid in turning that bitch into Butterbeer.
And wouldn’t you know, that fuckhead Draco is worse than ever. Word on the street is that he’s the newest inductee to the Death Eaters Club of Freaky Masks and Morphing into Smoke Monsters, he’s paralyzing kids and breaking noses left and right with swift boots to the face, and he’s actually trying to off Dumbledore! That’s right, freakin’ DUMBLEDORE! What a DICK!
Anyway, we’ve got director David Yates on the case once more, and once more he’s totally rockin’ shit. Everything he did so well in Order of the Phoenix has only been improved upon and it totally shows from beginning to end. From a visual standpoint, this thing is just flat-out gorgeous. Whether it’s Harry reflecting that he “never noticed how beautiful this place is” during a sunrise at Hogwarts, Dumbledore whipping up a goddamn firestorm of most epic proportions in the confines of England’s creepiest cave, or even how the ink-blotted memories rain down into clarity whenever Harry dunks his face into the Pensieve (that was such a cool effect), Yates makes this bad boy look sharp. The lighting is so damn brooding, it all looks so damn clean, and it once again completely complements the noticeably darker tone of the story. Really glad they kept Yates on board ’til the end, this guy knows what he’s doing and he is doing it well.
And after a brief hiatus, screenwriter Steve Kloves is back in action after slightly screwing the pooch with Goblet of Fire. Alright, it wasn’t that bad, but the dude left a lot of stuff out. But since a fine human being like Kloves is the type who learns from his past mistakes, he ends up doing a bang-up job adapting Rowling’s source material and I’m surprisingly glad to have him around again. A good deal of Voldemort’s back story gets left out, the Ministry of Magic is nowhere to be seen, and a big ol’ fight scene at the end along with a certain “grieving period” are skipped over, but you know what, I hardly even noticed. Usually I’m nothing short of the head of Harry Potter’s fan club when it comes to scrutinizing the differences between the books and the movies, and while there probably should have been more of a connection established between V. Dizzle’s past and HP’s present, it actually flows really well.
The script is funny again, the cast are delivering their lines better, and all the plot elements that matter most are there in spades. Kloves even throws new stuff into the mix like the Death Eaters leveling a bridge in London and the Death Eaters torching the hell out of the Weasley’s humble tower located conveniently between a swamp and absolutely nothing. Not exactly integral additions, but they work and I ain’t complaining. The romantic plot lines amongst the characters are also pretty legit and amusing now instead of being as grating as High School romances usually are for both muggles and wizarding folk. There’s a good deal of snogging, a good deal of broken hearts and budding emotions, and no one’s putzing around like a douche, talking about snogging instead of just jumpin’ in there and snogging ’til the sun goes down. They go for it now like the pimps they are, and let me tell ya’, they go HARD! Those cheeky monkeys Ron and Ginny know what I’m talking about! HEY NOW!
Oh, and the Dursleys have been dropped again. Swayze.
But the cast really has gotten a good deal better over the course of two years…except for Tom Felton, he’s still the exact same Draco from Sorcerer’s Stone. Rupert Grint is a hell of a lot more entertaining as Ron and is actually starting to seem like a kid worth hanging out with; Emma Watson’s always been solid as Hermione, so there’s not a whole a whole lot to add, but she’s definitely not the same kid she was in Sorcerer’s Stone…on a number of levels; and Daniel Radcliffe is on point as Harry. He’s not a whiny bitch any more, he’s growing a pair and manning up to the situation that is his life and he was an absolute riot after he got all hopped up on that Liquid Luck. It’s a good, new look on him that I hope sticks around for good.
And let’s give it up for Jim Broadbent as Prof. Slughorn – the one new teacher who doesn’t have an evil wizard in the back of his head/a penchant for turning his students into Alzheimer’s patients/an existence as a werewolf/a hideous robot eye and an unfortunate history of patricide/an angry gangbang with a centaur colony. Man, Dumbledore sure knows how to pick ’em. Anywho, the dude’s never really stood out to me as an actor and Slughorn never really stood out to me as much of a character, but he’s just hilarious and does a great job with the role. One of those swell situations where a little flame of giddiness flared up inside every time he was back in the spotlight. Doesn’t hurt that his dialogue with Harry in Hagrid’s cabin during the Liquid Luck high is arguably the best part of this whole movie either.
Michael Gambon is still alright as Dumbledoodles; Alan Rickman still kicks ass as that stone-faced, smarmy sonofabitch Snape; Helena Bonham Carter could still afford to tone it down as the wand-sniffing Bellatrix Lestrange; and Warwick Davis can continue on being the man as Prof. Flitwick.
Judging by the comments from the last HP review, it seems like a lot of folks are pretty divided over this movie. There’s definitely more dialogue than action and Snape’s big moment in the finale felt a bit on the anticlimactic side, but everything else was so damn good that it was pretty hard for me to just wallow in my petty gripes over shit that a 12-year-old bookworm with a Nimbus 5000 on their wall could probably care less about. The Half-Blood Prince is the most mature entry to date, it’s the most visually impressive of the bunch by a long shot, and there’s hardly any of that annoying-ass teen angst crap lingering around. With that being said, I’m thinking this is easily one of the better entries in the series, probably third after Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix.
But that’s just me. Argue away, fellow nerds.
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
VERDICT:
9/10 Near-Death Experiences
I will never understand why Warren Beatty didn’t do more movies.
Heaven Can Wait is about a pro quarterback/all-around stand-up guy who winds up in the middle of car crash right before his gridiron debut. So he goes on up to the pearly gates, causes a scene because one of The Big Guy’s right-hand men must have made a mistake, the matter is looked into since he’s holding up the line, and it turns out he’s in the right because one of the new angels jumped the gun and took him up to heaven in an act of mercy without seeing if he’d actually survive the accident. Horribly embarrassed, the angels make him a deal: we’ll send you back to the land of the living, but until we can find you a suitable body to fit you with, you need to settle for a temporary body of your picking. They pinky swear on it and our guy eventually settles for a greedy bagillionaire who’s been poisoned by his cheating wife and her lover. Why? Because there’s a pretty lady in the picture and he has to make things right in this hoity-toity bastard’s life if he’s gonna steal her heart.
Sorry for the long synopsis, but that’s a pretty awesome premise, huh? It’s a remake of a movie from ’41 called Here Comes Mr. Jordan and it was then remade as Down to Earth in ’01 with Chris Rock as a stand-up comedian instead of a QB, but original or not, it’s still damn inspired and it’s still a classic.
Co-directed, co-written and starring Warren Beatty, this is as good a place as any to discover the guy’s many talents both in front of and behind the camera. He plays Joe Pendleton, the nicest guy you could possibly ask to have reincarnated into your corpse, and Beatty just makes him magical. I mean, there’s nothing all that special about him outside of his ability throw touchdowns like a boss and kinda sorta play the clarinet, he’s just an ordinary guy who has no problem standing up for what’s right and properly prioritizes the relationships that actually matter in life. Frank Capra probably would have been in The Joe Pendleton Fan Club, and even though there’s a real everyman quality about him, that very quality seems to be a surprisingly rare and genuine thing to come across in movies.
And then there’s Jack Warden as Joe’s old coach, and Jack Warden is just awesome. He was always awesome, simple as that. Julie Christie is good as Joe’s love interest, James Mason is awfully fitting as Heaven’s head angel and Buck Henry is solid as the holier-than-thou angel who screwed it all up to begin with, but the real surprise is actually Charles Grodin (yup, the dad from Beethoven) as the back door man who helped kill the guy that Joe’s body originally belonged to. He plays the likable bastard to a tee, he’s got a ton of great one-liners and adds a really amusing element to all the dark humor that goes along with failed assassination attempts. Then again, maybe this isn’t all that surprising for anyone who’s seen Midnight Run.
But the strongest aspect of this whole thing may very well be the script. It’s already got a fantastic idea to work off of, it’s got a good deal of authentic and heartfelt dialogue to drive it along, the comedy is hilarious, and the characters are all a total blast. Just a super quotable movie with some choice running gags
From a directorial standpoint, Beatty and Henry do a fine job, but it’s nothin’ fancy. Love the way we never get to see what Joe looks like in his new body, though. Great little addition right there.
Growing up, I loved this movie. My uncles would go through phases where they would rediscover movies they used to love and then watch them on repeat until the VHS tape wore out to a dust-like consistency. This was one of those movies, and while I’m thinking it’s been a good ten years or so since I’d last seen this, watching it again a couple weeks ago was just as fun and funny as it was back in the day.
I don’t know how many folks actually remember Heaven Can Wait, at least for those of us who grew up on Game Boys and Ninja Turtles, but it’s a great movie worth (re)discovering even without all the nostalgia factor going for it. It’s a riot, it’s very sweet, and it’s up there with Back to the Future as one of the few movies you can rent for any group of people of any age range without having to worry about any “Daddy, I don’t like this” crap when you’re a half-hour in. Beatty just has that effect on folks.
Bottle Rocket (1997)
VERDICT:
7/10 Small-Time Crooks
It’s no Rushmore, but it’s still pretty darn good.
Bottle Rocket is about a guy who “escapes” from a mental hospital after he “went nuts” and meets up with his best friend who’s got their future careers as wannabe gangsters planned out to a tee. Since our ex-mental case is a nice guy and doesn’t want to crush his pal’s dreams of a life in organized crime, he goes along with the idiotic plans of bumping off libraries and how they’re going to live through the 21st Century all while trying to figure out what he wants from life in the process.
So, the debut effort by Wes Anderson – every whitey’s favorite director – and the movie-going world’s first introduction to a group of Wilson brothers who weren’t responsible for Pet Sounds. Cool beans, easily one of the more pivotal moments in world history. Then again, I am white and I do generally dig Wes Anderson.
From a visual standpoint, it’s an Anderson movie through and through. Very meticulous, very stylized, very cracker-friendly stuff that’s a lot harder to explain in text than it is to just watch it. And that’s all good, it’s cool to see where that signature look and feel of his started and it doesn’t feel amateurish even though it’s only improved over the years.
I guess the only difference here from everything else Anderson’s done is the story. My thinking is that Anderson movies is that when you peel back the layers, they’re all about fathers and sons. Take the relationship between Royal and Chas in The Royal Tenenbaums, Steve Zissou’s relationship with his long-lost son in The Life Aquatic (which really just felt like Tenenbaums on a boat, only not as good), that fantastic Mr. Fox’s relationship with his unathletic son, the whole reason Owen Wilson gets his brothers to head out on The Darjeeling Limited is to properly mourn their father’s death, and then there’s the way Herman Blume considers Max Fischer more of a son than his own shithead kids in Rushmore. Just a theory, but I think I’m onto something. Anyway, Bottle Rocket is the only exception to the rule.
It’s about two very different guys who happen to be best friends because one can’t help but sympathize for the other, throw in some armed robbery, and that’s kind of it. No daddy issues, no nothin’, but that’s alright. It’s not a great story by any means and it doesn’t hit a whole lot of emotional notes, what with the Spanish-speaking hotel maid romance angle that goes on for way too long and probably could have been nixed from the get-go, but it’s fun to watch, it’s fun to listen to and it made me laugh more often than not. And that’ll do.
So I’ve always liked Luke Wilson, he seems like an easy-going dude and he rocks his monster jaw like a boss, and while he’s solid as Anthony, this is one’s all about big brother Owen. “The Nose” (no idea why more people don’t call him that) plays Dignan, an individual whose whole life seems to be one big delusion of grandeur and is more enthusiastic about his “badass” existence than you’ve been about anything ever. You can’t really blame folks for raggin’ on him because he does come off as a bit of a joke, but since Dignan is harmless and every guy’s had pipe dreams of being a criminal as their day job, everyone just comes off like a royal dick whenever they give him a hard time. His ideas are ridiculous, so are his mood swimgs that go from ecstatic to versus mode for reasons he can’t really explain, but that’s the appeal. Sure is a hell of a lot more interesting than anyone else he’s involved with.
Plus we get a James Caan cameo, which is always nice. Bonus points for a bit role by oldest brother Andrew Wilson as a guy named Future Man. Awesome. And give yourself a high-five if you knew there was another Wilson brother. You are now officially ready for Jeopardy!
But the script could have been stronger. I’ve seen this movie two or three times now and it’s still hard to pick up on all the deadpan laughs since Dignan’s mind operates at the speed of a cheetah that’s just been force-fed a case of Four Loko. One of those comedies that wish I’d watched with someone else who loves it, who knows it front-to-back and can cue me in as to when I should be laughing along, because chances are I totally would be.
I feel like this has been a pretty blah review about a pretty good movie, but I think Bottle Rocket is just something you need to see with the right crowd. Not to say that it wasn’t funny seeing it by myself, but you know what I mean; had the same problem with The Big Lebowski and now that’s in my Top Ten Comedies. Not the worst thing Anderson’s ever done by a long shot, it’s got a good deal of laughs and the career-launching potential here is hard to miss. “The Nose” really needs to go back to doing more stuff like this.
Sweet soundtrack, too.
Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
VERDICT:
8/10 Castle Crashers
An oft-forgotten and under-appreciated Miyazaki classic. Then again, they’re all classics.
Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro is about a master thief and his right-hand men who bump off a casino, hit the road and quickly thereafter find themselves rescuing a princess from being killed during a high-speed chase. One thing leads to another and the gang winds up at a legendary castle where the princess is set to wed a total dick of a guy against her will while he’s printing counterfeit millions under everyone’s noses. Since he’s one of those thieves with a heart of gold, he sets out to save the girl, take down the main douche and his whole damn empire, and ideally make off with some loot without getting nabbed/killed in the process.
Word on the street is that the Lupin the 3rd franchise is a big freakin’ deal back in good ol’ Japan. It was a long-running manga series, a TV show that even made its way to Adult Swim for a while (back when Adult Swim wasn’t lame), and a whole slew of movies got churned out of it, but The Castle of Cagliostro – the second movie in the series – is about as far as my knowledge goes. Kind of a shame considering how awesome this movie is and how much I dig quality anime, but I’ll hopefully take care of the situation somewhere down the road when I hole up with a lifetime supply of Cheetos and completely geek out to the point of no return.
But whether you’re on the level or are still trying to figure out how the hell to pronounce “Cagliostro”, all you really need to know is that it’s debut directorial effort of living Japanese deity, Hayao Miyazaki. You liked Spirited Away, right? Of course you did! Everyone loved that thing! No, this doesn’t have a whole lot in common with Spirited Away outside of having the same phenomenal storyteller behind the wheel, but if you liked that (which you totally did), give this a chance, I’m thinkin’ you’ll like it, too.
So Miyazaki gained his epic reputation as Japan’s answer to Walt Disney/Abe Lincoln/everyone that Americans hold dear for a lot of reasons, but what arguably stands out most about his movies (aside from the whole “Master Storyteller” thing) is the vivid imagination behind them. Take a look at every last one of his movies and it shouldn’t be hard to realize that this guy is operating on a whole different plane of creative existence…except for this one.
This is the only Miyazaki movie where everyone and everything can feasibly exist without the aid of peyote at Burning Man. And while he also co-wrote the screenplay (which is pretty damn good), Lupin the 3rd was never his creation to begin with. All the same, Miyazaki’s the man and he makes it his own.
From an animation standpoint, it all stands up surprisingly well over three decades later. The characters are very retro and could probably use some more detail outside of their wide gamut of facial expressions, but the sprawling sets and scenery are still darn gorgeous. But there’s something very charming about that retro vibe, something very lively and unique about it that you can’t really find in the last few decades, and I really like that.
And the action scenes are awesome! There’s a certain sense of realism to it all, but since the beauty of animated films is that Sir Isaac Newton and all his cockamamey “physics” mumbo-jumbo can go get effed, a certain kind of Three Stooges element gets thrown into the mix where guys achieve superhuman feats without checking their shoes for traces of Flubber and get knocked around like gangbusters without even having to brush the dirt off their shoulders. It’s not like they’re Highlanders or anything, it’s just fun in a way you rarely see set at a pace that moves along gloriously.
One of those things that would make for a seriously kickass shot-for-shot, live-action remake. Highly doubt that’ll ever happen unless this Cowboy Bebop adaptation with Keanu ends up being an international megahit, but hey, a geek can dream.
Folks, this movie is just a time. No big moral or message, just pure animated escapism. Lupin – our part-Spike Spiegel, part-Robin Hood protagonist – is a riot to watch and the same goes for his demo man, Jigen, and his traveling samurai, Goemon. Fun characters with fun dialogue caught up in a fun story, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. And bonus points for getting David Hayter (Solid Snake himself) to voice Lupin. Minus points for re-dubbing it with unnecessary swearing. Just seems out of place, I guess.
Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg went to a screening of this back in the day and called it “one of the greatest adventure movies of all-time,” or something along those lines. Now, I don’t know if that’s just some internet bullshit fueled by some kid trolling around the Ponyo message boards, but I can’t find any Spielberg quote denying it, so I’ll let draw your own conclusions on that one. But whether or not this does actually have the Spielberg Seal of Approval, The Castle of Cagliostro is a damn fun way to kill some time, it’s even further evidence that Miyazaki has always been at the top of his game, and since the Anime section of Netflix Instant seems to be jam packed with more garbage than I knew existed, you really could do a whole lot worse. Not the best thing Miyazaki’s ever done, but it’s nevertheless a borderline 9.
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