Blood Brothers 1973 Chang Cheh

Here we go, folks - it's Iron Triangle time again!  The holy kung fu movie trinity of Director Chang Cheh and actors Ti Lung and David Chiang are at it once more, and this time they brought along Chen Kuan Tai as their Plus One.  This time around, not only do lucky viewers get a history lesson, but a valuable life lesson as well.

Chang Wen-Hsiang (David Chiang) and Huang Chung (Chen Kuan Tai) are bandits ekeing out an existence sticking up travelers who pass by their stretch of road.  As you might have surmised by their last names (remember kids - last name comes first in China!) they're not brothers, but blood brothers who've taken an oath to stick by each other through thick and thin.  Huang Chung is also married to the lovely Mi-lan ( Li Ching), but the three of them live together happily.

Then one day, the bandit brothers come across Ma Hsin-yi (Ti Lung) on his way somewhere important.  He looks fancy and he's alone, so it's stick-up time!  Not so fast!  Seems like Ma Hsin-yi is quite the martial artist!  He takes on both of them and fights to a draw.  Everyone is mutually impressed with each other - so much so that Ma asks Chang, Hung, and his wife to join him in ridding the countryside of the Long Hairs.  Since this movie is based on real life and the main characters were all really real, it helps to know a little history:


This movie takes place during the Taiping Rebellion.  From 1850 to 1864, a rebellion was led against the ruling Qing Dynasty by a man named Hong Xiuquan.  He had converted to Christianity, and believed himself to be the reincarnated brother of Jesus.  He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at Nanjing in southern China.  He sought to replace Buddhism, Confucianism, and folk religion with a form of Christianity.  At it's height, there were around 30 million people in the Heavenly Kingdom.  They were called Long Hairs, because at that time the only legal way you could wear your hair was in a queue (a single long braind down your back), but the rebels didn't do that, so they were crushed.  Not just for that, but still....


Since this movie opens with David Chiang being led away in chains, and people yelling that Ma Hsin-Yi has just been assasinated, it's not too much of a stretch to figure out just what becomes of these blood brothers and their unbreakable bond.  Most of the movie is in flashback, while David Chiang recounts just why he did what he did.  This is where the valuable life lesson comes into play.  If you must learn only one thing from this movie (but really, you should also look into the Taiping Rebellion - it's really interesting), it's this:  Bro's Before Ho's.  Seriously.  And I do mean Seriously.

I gotta admit, it was a little strange to see a woman with such a big part in a Chang Cheh movie.  He's notorious for hating women, or at least relegating them to extremely minor roles.  I kept wondering when something horrible would happen to her ( Not for any personal reasons, you understand.  It's a Chang Cheh movie.  That stuff always happens in a Chang Cheh movie!) and then I finally had my "OOOH!" moment.  He seems to be saying, "You want me to put a woman in my movies?   And you want me to make her an actual character?  Fine.  See what happens?  Are you happy now?"  Then we get what we asked for....in spades.

It's also worth noting that John Woo was an assistant director on this film.  If you've seen John Woo's movies, it's all there.  Slow motion deaths, slow motion male bonding ( I think his experience on this film greatly influenced his Bullet In the Head.  If you can find that movie, watch it now!) and slow motion rolling down hills for extended periods of time.  Ok, that last one doesn't happen in his movies so much, but it happens here enough to never have to see it again.  There aren't any doves, though.  That's a plus.

Blood Brothers has finally been released on DVD here in the US by Dragon Dynasty.  There's not much to say about the DVD other than, well, it exists.  The picture looks good, but the subtitle translation is horrible - almost as bad as the old VHS bootlegs of Hong Kong movies in the 80's.  There is an English Dub track, but I stay away from those.  Other than that, you get nothing and are forced to like it.  This movie kicks ass, so at least it's a fair trade.

Silent Scream 1980 Denny Harris

Aren't slasher movies great?  Maybe it's because I grew up in the '80's that I have such fond memories of those movies, the Friday the 13ths and Nightmare on Elm Streets that came out every year like clockwork, and then played continuously on HBO and Cinemax for years afterward.  I even love Happy Birthday to Me and April Fool's Day.  I'll watch them all, no matter what.  A few years ago, I saw a trailer for this movie on one of the 42nd Street Forever compilations (love the commentary) and I knew I had to see this.  Thanks to Netflix Instant, now I have.

This slasher movie doesn't have a holiday theme like so many of them do.  It's just about 4 college kids who are renting rooms from a creepy lady and her creepy son.  There's two boys and two girls, and they pair off fairly quickly ( the first night there, in fact).  After a night of drinking and a walk on the beach to their new house, one of them is killed.  That brings in the cops.  Here are the cops:

That's Avery Schreiber in the first photo.  You may remember him from such terrifying things as The Muppet Show and Love, American Style.  Both of these things make him the perfect choice for a hardbitten, no nonsense cop.  Here - look at him again....

Nope, I don't see it either....

The other guy is Cameron Mitchell.  He was an American actor who was stuck on TV, so he went to Italy and got tons of roles in Spaghetti Westerns and Giallos.  But he came back to America for this movie, and we are all better for it.

Anyway, after I got over having the least cop-like actors ever acting like the least cop-like cops ever, the movie got pretty good.  One of the characters, after the first murder on the beach, even says to another character, "Hey, you wanna go swimming?"

At which point the other character says, "You wanna go swimming?  Even with the murder that just happened?"

Then we get the classic comeback, "Hey, I moved into this house because it was on the beach.  I'm not gonna waste it!"

And then they go swimming....near where their friend was just murdered less than twelve hours earlier.....Awesome.

But then just when you think it's going to become completely predictable and boring, Silent Scream  throws in a few curveballs which totally make it worth your time.  You won't be able to figure it out right away, and it even serves up a little Nazi themed repression out of left field.  Basically, it goes a little batshit crazy towards the end, but in a good way.  You should definitely check it out.

Limitless 2011 Neil Burger

See if you can wrap your head around this premise:  Guy down on his luck starts taking drugs, feels unstoppable and invincible, has a good few months and then starts the downward spiral that always happens in movies about guys (or girls) who take drugs.  Now, instead of a run of the mill drug like cocaine or heroin, imagine for a minute a more science fiction-y drug that allows you to use all of your brain.....and there you have Limitless.

It wasn't marketed as a drug movie - but it definitely is.  That's not a bad thing, though.  Drug movies can be entertaining if done well.  No one's gonna say Requiem for a Dream isn't a great movie.  Now Limitless isn't in the same league as that film, but it's not trying to be.  It really is just a slightly science fiction-y take on your standard American drug drama.

Bradley Cooper is the loser who starts winning thanks to his little pills.  Robert De Niro is the financial tycoon who takes an interest in his theories regarding the stock market.  There's also a Russian loan shark, a disapproving girlfriend, and lots of random good looking people who populate the parts of the movie when Bradley Cooper is successful.

So far, it's pretty average.  Entertaining, but average.  And just when you think it's going to be another moralistic tale, it takes a turn towards an extremely satisfying conclusion the likes of which aren't seen in American drug movies.   It's then that I realized why the trailers for this movie completely downplayed the whole drug angle in favor of the science fiction aspects.  If people knew what this movie advocated, they would be morally outraged.  That outrage would be ridiculous and completely without merit, but this is America, so being uninformed and furious is expected.  Watch it and see for yourself.  Tell me I'm wrong.

Tarkan Versus the Vikings 1971 Mehmet Aslan

I haven't seen too many Turkish movies.  The ones I have seen - Three Monkeys, Distant, and Dry Summer - are all serious dramas.  I knew that wacky Turkish exploitation movies existed, but I never saw one before today.

And what a movie!  It's not a good movie or even well made, but it is something else.  It concerns  Tarkan the Barbarian.  He's a Turk, and he's quite the badass.  He's escorting the Yonca, the daughter of Atilla the Hun, with his two trusty dogs by his side.  His main friend is his older dog, Kurt.  The younger dog is around, but he's learning how to be a good Turkish dog from his father, the aforementioned Kurt.

When Yonca and Tarkan the Barbarian stop at a local Hun (Turk) fortress, they're attacked by Commander Toro of the Vikings.  You can tell their Vikings, because they arrive in a ship that looks exactly like the magic boat tht took Jimmy and Freddy the Magic Flute to Living Island in H.R. Pufnstuf.  That, and they wear cutoffs.  They're Vikings.

The Vikings attack, killing all the men, women, and children.  Well, not all the women....In true Viking style, they snatch up the foxiest ones - Yonca included - and take them back to Viking Land.
They also manage to put Tarkan out of commission with a few well placed arrows and even kill Kurt Sr.  When Tarkan comes to, that's when you find out that the younger dog is named Kurt, also.  Not Kurt, Jr. - just Kurt.  Kurt is dead, long live Kurt.

This is where the movie gets truly weird.  Tarkan is all but forgotten for about twenty minutes while he recuperates from his injuries, and we get to see the inflatable octopus that the Vikings worship, along with secret Chinese torture rituals.  Then Commander Toro becomes king, sacrifices are made to the octopus balloon, and oh yeah, Tarkan feels better.

He's still pretty incompetent, though, so Kurt becomes the Gromit to his Wallace.  Seriously, how many times can the hero of the movie be captured (lots, apparently) and be saved by his wall climbing, throat biting, door opening buddy Kurt (lots, again)?

Just when you start getting into Tarkan and this being a Tarkan movie (there were 7 of them), he gets knocked out and misses the next twenty minutes or so.  So not only has it become a live action Wallace and Gromit cartoon, it's also quite a bit like a barbarian Ronsencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.  It's more fun to wonder if Tarkan really is the star of his own movie or not.  I guess maybe Kurt Versus the Vikings wouldn't have been as popular.  That Kurt is one resourceful dog.....

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen 2010 Andrew Lau

Have you seen Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury?  Or, as it's known in it's dubbed American version, The Chinese Connection?  This movie is a sequel to that movie.  I'm not saying that you have to see the original Bruce Lee movie to have fun with this one, but it helps.  If you're too lazy to watch that one, I'll catch you up to speed:  Bruce Lee is a character named Chen Zhen.  Chen Zhen has been away for a while, and when he comes back he finds out that his kung fu master is dead.  He had been killed in a kung fu vs. karate showdown with the Japanese.  That makes Bruce Lee mad.  He goes over to the Japanese karate school, kicks all their asses, and leaves.  The Japanese have never been nice to the Chinese, so of course they retaliate against Bruce Lee and his kung fu school.  The law gets involved and the Japanese quite literally get away with murder.  This makes Bruce Lee so mad he's just gotta kill back.  So he does.  Lots.  The police and Japanese soldiers come to take him away, at which point he fills with Nationalist Pride and charges the armed soldiers.  The screen freezes mid-charge, but you hear the guns firing, so you know that Bruce eats it in the end for his country.

Or does he?

See, that original movie has been remade quite a few times - notably Jet Li's Fist of Legend - so it was up to savvy movie producers to find a new angle for a new generation.  "Maybe he lived!", they thought, and a new movie was born.  To make it classy, they hired the guy who made the Infernal Affairs movies, Andrew Lau ( you know those movies better as The Departed by Marty Scorsese.  That's right - The Departed was a remake), and they got current kung fu golden boy (and member of the previous generation) Donnie Yen to star in it.

It seems Chen Zhen survived and is now helping the French in World War I.  It would all seem kind of silly if the filmmakers didn't pull out all the stops and put in an incredible action set piece to get everything started.  Once the audience (and the Germans) knows who they're dealing with, it's back to Shanghai for Chen Zhen and his buddies, armed only with a false name and Nationalistic Pride.  In another nod to the great Bruce Lee, the costume that Chen Zhen wears when he hands the Japanese their collective asses is the same one Bruce Lee wore as Kato on TV's The Green Hornet.  He's known as The Masked Avenger, and he's a hero to all the downtrodden Chinese everywhere.

 So far, it's pretty entertaining.  Then things take the requisite bad turn in the second act, and the end is all kung fu ass-kicking glory.  Really, you need to see Fist of Fury to appreciate what they've done here.  You don't even need to see all of it.  Watch the fights.  Skip around if you have to (Shame on you.  That movie's awesome!  Watch it all!).  See that suit he's wearing in the poster?  It's a copy of the same one Bruce Lee wore in the original.  They even reference the original in the poster, for god's sakes!  It's like the Great Chinese Story!  Everybody knows it!  Don't be left out!  Watch this movie!

Oh, and for anybody who says that it's all a pean to Communism or Socialism or whatever -ism is the bad -ism for the week, just shut up.  It's a movie.  There's no hidden agenda.  You're not too smart for the Chinese and their sneaky ways.  Hero was a great movie and you missed it.  Legend of the Fist is pretty great and you're gonna miss it, too.  Think about that when you go see Captain America, smart guy.

Horrible Bosses 2011 Seth Gordon

Before I talk about this movie, I'd like to talk about the events leading up to my seeing it.  I wasn't very excited to see this movie.  I thought it would be entertaining but forgettable, so I wasn't expecting much.  My girlfriend and I sat down in the theater, waited through the 10 or so minutes of commercials for Coke, The Smurfs movie, and all the drama that was going on in the lives of the people around us ("And then I said, She's not even my friend!  Why would you believe her? " "What did he say then?"  "Nothing!  He knew he was busted!" etc., etc.).  Then the previews started.

First up - the Fright Night remake.  It looks pretty fun, actually.  Next - the Footloose remake.  It looks horrible.  But it also looks like an extremely faithful remake of the original, which is depressing, because I liked the original at the time.  I was a little kid, but still...  Next up - the one where Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds switch bodies.  Which then reminds me of all the body switching movies I saw as a kid in the '80's.  There's a reason no one's clamoring for a re-release of Vice Versa.

Counting The Smurfs, that makes 4 remakes coming out soon and no hope for originality in the coming weeks at the air-conditioned multiplex.  Between that news, and the impending court dates of my fellow moviegoers, I was not in the best mood to see Horrible Bosses.

But it's hilarious.

Really, I haven't laughed this hard at a movie in a long time.  I know everyone loves The Hangover movies, and they're ok, but this is the movie that I'll be watching and quoting for the next few years.  Jason Bateman does his straight man routine to perfection.  Jason Sudekis from Saturday Night Live is funny as the horndog friend, and Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is fantastic.  I'd never reallly watched that show before, but I will now.  He's that funny.  Watching these three come up with and try to execute a plan to, well, execute their bosses is fantastic.

As the bosses, Kevin Spacey does a funny version of his Swimming With Sharks character, Jennifer Aniston is actually funny as the sexually harrassing dentist boss,  but Colin Farrell is the best boss in the movie.  His Bobby Pettit, a coked-up, kung fu practicing (He's a green belt!  And don't you forget it!) slimeball with the worst comb-over in history, gets a gold star.  He deserves his own movie.

I haven't even gotten to Jaime Foxx as the "murder consultant".  It was when he showed up and explained to the characters that they should all kill each other's bosses, that an old man behind me decided to exclaim to his neighbor in an old man whisper that was 10 times too loud "LIKE STRANGERS ON A TRAIN!  YOU KNOW, HITCHCOCK!!!".  At which point, one of the characters says "Like Hitchcock!  You know, Strangers on a Train!"  This thrilled the old man to no end, because it was like the movie had talked directly to him, so he laughed uproariously.

Even with all that was going on at the theater around me, I enjoyed this movie enormously.  I definitely recommend seeing it in the theater with the biggest crowd you can.  Really, the only thing that could ruin it is a crying baby.  That means you have about a 1 in 3 shot of having a really good time.

Planet of the Vampires 1965 Mario Bava

Quick - what can you do if you have $1.05 and about 6 yards of plastic wrap?  Give up?  You can make one of the most influential science fiction movies of all time - that's what!  Wait - you've never heard of Planet of the Vampires?  Have you heard of Alien?  How about Aliens?  But it's called Planet of the Vampires!  I'm confused.....

Don't be confused.  Planet of the Vampires is an Italian science fiction movie that has influenced countless movies that came after it.  Some of those movies borrowed some of it's themes and ideas, and some of those movies - namely the Alien series - stole designs and sequences outright.

This movie concerns two ships that pick up on some sort of (distress?) beacon and set down to investigate it.  Once they land, the crews are overcome with the desire to kill one another.  If not for the courage of one of the fearless captains, both ships would be lost.  He manages to beat some sense into the remaining crewmembers, and they explore this new planet, encountering many dangerous things along the way - not the least of which is their very own deceased fellow crewmembers, brought back to life by some strange power.  What is causing all of this?  What are those lights?  Are there vampires, or was that just a lame American title? (That's a yes.)

The most interesting things about this movie are the parts that were stolen for Alien & Aliens.    The design of the heroes ship is a nice shiny version of the ship found on LV-426 in Alien.  The Space Jockey from Alien  is here as well.  He looks almost exactly the same.  The team of (Marines) astronauts can't find any living people on the planet, but they keep getting killed off while on (duty) lookout.  They don't find one little girl to take care of, though.  Way to be original, James Cameron.

Mario Bava directed this, before his more celebrated slasher movies like Bay of Blood (Twitch of the Death Nerve for you Tarantino lovers out there) or Lisa and the Devil.  It's violent, I suppose, but in a sort of harmless Sixties way.  It's definitely worth seeing, and it's on Netflix Instant Watch right now, so check it out soon.

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. 1999 Errol Morris

He's called Mr. Death.  He designs and builds better ways to execute someone.  Nothing gets him more excited than finding a more efficent and humane way to execute criminals.  He's the most unassuming, mousy man you'll ever see.  That makes him strangely compelling.  He keeps saying crazier and crazier things regarding his occupation, but he seems completely harmless, so it's almost quaint and likeable.

Then he drops the bomb.

According to him, the Holocaust did not happen.

Well, it happened - but the whole gas chamber thing is a lie.  Since he builds gas chambers, he knows how they work and according to him the "gas chambers" couldn't possibly be used for gassing people.
This is where the movie gets really interesting.  How can someone ignore copious amounts of evidence and witness testimony to come to such a conclusion?

I'll tell you how - he goes to Auschwitz and steals some bricks.  From Auschwitz.  With a cameraman filming the whole thing.  Then he writes a paper denying the Holocaust and becomes a minor celebrity on the Holocaust denying circuit.

The only reason I don't mind telling you about the entire movie is that I'm not ruining it.  You have to see it to believe it.  You'll laugh, your jaw will drop, you won't be able to believe what you're seeing and hearing....You must watch it.

The Warrior's Way 2010 Sngmoo Lee

Have you ever seen a movie that seems like it was made just for you?  It has everything you like in movies - all in the same movie - so it's a lot easier to overlook it's flaws and imperfections.  That's what this movie was like for me.  There's just no way to be objective about it.  That's also another way of saying I'm slightly embarrased that I liked it as much as I did.

First of all, it's a green-screen movie.  It's all hyper-real and super fake.  I don't love all green-screen movies ( I'm looking at you, 300 ) but I do like a fair amount of them.  Sin City, Casshern, Goemon - I love you all.  Now I can add The Warrior's Way to that list.

Secondly, it mixes martial arts (this time it's swordplay) with a western.  And the western town is popluated by members of a derelict circus!  With a half built Ferris Wheel in the background!  Now I know this isn't the first Western with martial arts ( Red Sun and The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe ) or a circus ( Boot Hill ) involved, but c'mon!  How could the fire breather or jugglers not use their combined circus talents to fight the invading ninjas and marauding soldiers?  How can anyone not think this movie is awesome?!

Thirdly, there are some pretty good actors that were roped into making this film.  Korean star Dong-gun Jang ( Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War) is the star, but let's be real.  Nobody in America knows who he is.  Geoffrey Rush ( The King's Speech ) is the town drunk with a secret.  Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns) is the novice knife thrower with a secret.  Tony Cox ( Bad Santa ) is the Ringmaster of the circus.  Danny Huston ( The Bad Guy in Everything) is the bad guy leader of the local band of marauders.  As the man who taught The Warrior everything he knows, the producers got Shaw Brothers legend Ti Lung (Almost Every Shaw Brothers Movie Ever Made). 

So to recap:  Swordfights, gunfights, circuses, Ferris Wheels, ninjas, child endangerment, laundry, sharpshooting, horrible scarring, opera, and incredibly stylized colors and backgrounds all come together in one of the more entertaining movies I've seen all year.  Give it a chance.  I dare you to be bored.

Season of the Witch 2011 Dominic Sena

I'm sort of fascinated by Nicolas Cage and his desperate need to pay off the IRS and not be broke.  He seems to accept any role offered to him, and because he says yes, some really iffy movies get made.  Sometimes they're awesome - Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - sometimes they're awesome trash - Drive Angry - and sometimes they're just trash.  This joins Knowing in the trash pile.

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman play buddies in the Crusades.  Before every battle, they make a bet on who will kill the most infidels.  Whoever comes up short has to pay the bar tab that night.  Sounds fair.  Then Nicolas Cage discovers that -oh my god- they kill women and children too in this Crusade thing!  That's not fair at all, so the two buddies decide to quit this whole Crusade bag and hit the road.

Since the Church is like the mob - once you're out, they pull you back in - Nic and Ron get blackmailed into pulling one last job, and then they're out for good.  This time they have to escort a team of religious folks who are taking a witch to an abbey to be burned at the stake.

Things don't turn out well for most of the people involved, but honestly, I kind of tuned out at this point.  And I didn't miss anything.  I mean, I saw when characters died, and I even correctly guessed how and when certain characters would go, but I just didn't care.  At all.  There's nothing worse than a bad Nicolas Cage movie that's also boring.  It's not even fun bad.  It's just lame.

Pay your bills, buddy.  At least you'll be able to stop making movies like this one.

Ode to Billy Joe 1976 Max Baer Jr.

Welcome to another edition of "Why The Hell Isn't This On DVD?".  The movie in question is Ode to Billy Joe.  It was made in 1976, was a big hit, and promptly disappeared.  Now it's back, thanks to Netflix Instant Watch, and it's pretty fantastic.

The movie follows in the grand tradition of films based on songs.  What's that?  No good movies were ever based on songs?  What about Convoy?  Or Take This Job and Shove It?  This movie's different, though.  I swear.  Yes, it was directed by Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies, but still.  I'm not going to bother with the plot details - listen to the song, it's all there.

The film looks fantastic.  It was shot on location in Mississippi, near the spots mentioned in Bobbie Gentry's song.  I was surprised to see that the cinematographer basically did years and years of TV shows after this, which is a real shame.  It would look spectacular on Blu-ray.  Most of the extras in the movie appear to be locals, which adds to the realism of the film.

Then there's Robby Benson.  When I was a kid, Robby Benson was in everything.  HBO had a habit of running the same 10 movies for what seemed like months at a time, which meant that alongside the Robby Benson-free  Beastmaster and Young Doctors in Love, I saw Ice Castles, One on One, and Running Brave pretty much nonstop.  When I saw Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad, which contains the real Billy Mills running his real gold medal race, I thought "Oh my god, he really does look like Robby Benson!"  And guess what?  Robby Benson totally comes through in this movie, too. 

That's not to say that his love interest, Bobby Lee Hartley (Glynnis O'Connor), is anything special, though.  Billy Joe does jump off the Tallahatchie Bridge, after all.  Bobby Lee does nothing except radiate overwhelming plainness.  Glynnis O'Connor is a good actress - she has a great scene near the end with the sawmill owner (James Best - Roscoe P. Coltrane, himself!) - but she doesn't seem to be worth all the trouble.

But it is a story about young lovers, after all, so maybe Robby Benson's uncontrollable urges are understandable in that light.  They even got Michel Legrand to do some appropriately romantic music for the film.  He did the score for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, one of the most romantic movies of all time, so he knows what he's doing.  In fact, they loaded up talented people on both sides of the camera for this film.  Not bad for a movie based on a hit song.

It's certainly better than Harper Valley P.T.A..

Brannigan 1975 Douglas Hickox

He was supposed to be Dirty Harry, but he turned it down.  Then Dirty Harry became a huge hit, and the old cowboy had to leave the ranch to prove that he could still handle the punks of today (1975).  Because of that, we have Brannigan - in which 68 year old John Wayne plays a tough as nails Chicago cop sent to London to bring back a gangster named Larkin (John Vernon).

Since that would be a boring and short movie, hijinks ensue, and Brannigan, his Scotland Yard boss Sir Charles (Richard Attenborough), and driver Jenny (Judy Geeson) have to find Larkin before other bad guys kill him.  It really doesn't matter, though.  The whole movie is just an excuse to have The Duke amble through London insulting everyone and causing property damage.  I actually think that this movie is a huge reason for the "Ugly American" stereotype.  John Wayne thinks all English people are simple, and goddamn it, he's not giving up his gun!  He's from Chicago!  He needs his gun!  He still speaks like this is a western!  He does what he wants!  USA!  USA!  USA!

Probably the most famous sequence of the movie happens when Brannigan goes into a pub to talk to a suspect.  Through his very special John Wayne powers, he causes a brawl.  Not just any brawl, but a full fledged saloon brawl!  He's punching people and calling them "Pardner".  People are being thrown at the piano player, and one guy even falls through the breakaway railing on the upper level.  The only things missing are cowboy hats.

It's not that bad of a movie - it's just a little sad to see John Wayne look so out of place.  He has the same problem as Kiera Knightley - he just doesn't look like he belongs in the present.  John Wayne should never be in a car.  Or a pub.  Or a bathroom.  It just feels wrong.  But he is still likeable, and through it all, you really want to see him catch the bad guy, even if he is visibly loaded in a few scenes (especially the showdown with Larkin's kidnappers - I could smell the booze through my TV!).  Don't go thinking he's too old for this, though.  Sylvester Stallone's making The Expendables 2, and when that comes out, he'll be a ripe, old 66.  Food for thought, isn't it?

The Tree of Life 2011 Terrence Malick

Remember 8 1/2?  Federico Fellini's movie about how hard it was to be himself?  Whoever hasn't seen 8 1/2, raise your hand.  Have you seen All That Jazz?  Bob Fosse's movie about how hard it was to be Bob Fosse?  Well, now we have Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life.  It might not specifically be about how hard it is grow up Terrence Malick, but it's rreeaallly close to being about that exact thing.

Before he got into making movies, Terrence Malick taught philosophy at MIT.  It's a good thing to keep that in mind while watching this film, because it takes serious cojones to make a semi-autobiographical film about your experiences growing up, and also include the beginnings of life on Earth as part of your story.  That sequence is fantastic, but c'mon - no one is that important.  Look!  There's a lifeless ball of rock in space!  There's the sun!  Now there's life!  OOOOOH, DINOSAURS!!!!!  There's that meteor....so long dinosaurs.....Look!  It's Terrence Malick - I mean, a baby being born! 

Maybe I'm being a little hard on this movie.

It is pretty fantastic, mostly.  I actually loved every second of it for about the first hour.  Then it got a little long.  Then it got a lot longer.  At this point I started watching all the fantastic cinematography and stopped paying attention to the story, such as it is.  It was at this time I realized that you could show this movie, with the score intact, but no dialogue and it would be the greatest movie ever made.  With the dialogue there, it becomes pretentious from time to time, probably moreso if you're not in the mood to watch an introspective, slow film about human life.

The funny thing is - as I'm writing about this movie, I want to see it again.  Pretentiousness aside, it's something everyone should see.

Rubber 2010 Quentin Dupieux

This is a simple story about Robert, a tire.  One day Robert wakes up, learns to roll, and starts to explore his world.  He's also telekenetic.  He uses his powers to blow up his enemies.  If you're a bunny, crow, bottle, or human head - look out!

Now you might be asking yourself "Why would I watch a movie about a homicidal tire?  That's ridiculous!"  Well, it is, but in the best possible way.  It's also got a lot more going on than just your basic homicidal tire movie.  It's definitely a love it or hate it move.  I love it.  I love everything about it.  Just when you think there's nothing else they can do with this movie, it takes a turn into more and more absurd territory.

Everybody should check this out.  Even if you hate it, you've never seen anything quite like it.  That's more than I can say about most movies out today.

Fellini's Casanova 1976 Federico Fellini

Oh, look!  It's another fantastic movie that's not on DVD in the US!  Imagine that!  It's on DVD in Europe, because it's Fellini.  Not here, though. Thanks again to Netflix Instant Watch for streaming this movie for a few months.  Hopefully, there will be a Criterion release of this sometime in the future.  It's that good.

This being Fellini's Casanova - key word being Fellini - it's not exactly a faithful telling of Casanova's life.  There's plenty in there, but it's been jumbled around and compressed to make room for the Fellini-esque parts of the film.  I was wondering how he would work in his love of circuses and clowns into the story of a man who slept his way through Europe.  Never fear - Fellini finds a way.  The sex scenes themselves are fairly acrobatic and circus-like.  Donald Sutherland as Casanova is completely unrecognizable under his wigs and makeup.  He looks like an aristocratic Ichabod Crane.  Since this was the age of overdubbed Italian films, he also speaks Italian.  After a while, you'll forget you're watching a famous American actor and lose yourself in this strange scarecrow's amorous adventures.

The entire film looks and feels like a cross between Baz Luhrmann at his Moulin Rouge-iest and Tarsem Singh's The Fall.  Oh yeah, it was directed by Federico Fellini, so it has the emotional impact of 8 1/2 as well.  You might feel a little silly watching Casanova row his way across acres of black trash bag waves, or have Clash of the Titans flashbacks (the original one) when you see his favorite erotic toy, but you'll be suprised at just how emotionally invested you are in the character at the end.  There are more sequences of cinematic beauty in this film than most filmakers achieve in their entire career.

Prison breaks, phantom carnivals, stuffed whales (Hello, Werckmeister Harmonies!), giant women, man-made women, spectacular chandelier maintenance and more await anyone lucky enough to see this movie.  If you've never seen a Fellini movie before, check this out.  If you have seen a Fellini movie before, get ready for one of his best.  I can't wait to see it again.

The Resident 2011 Antti Jokinen

Looks like I fell into the Straight to DVD trap again.  It's my fault.  I thought, "It's a dollar at Redbox!  It's by the new Hammer Studios!  I love the old Hammer movies!  It can't be that bad!"  When will I learn?  Sigh.....

The world's most famous transexual, Hilary Swank, stars as a woman(!) ER doctor who needs a new place.  She(?) finds one in a building that's owned by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his grandfather, Christopher Lee.  That's right,  Christopher Lee!  In a new Hammer Studios movie!  See?  It can't be that bad!  But it is!

It's not long before Hillary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan start their little neighborly fling.  Then someone gets cold feet, and someone loses it.  Since this movie is called The Resident and not The Landlord, you'd think the nutty one would me Mr/Mrs Swank, but no!  It's the other guy.  He's nuts!  He's a peeper!  He drugs her!  He hides under her bed!  Creepy!

Not really.  Hillary Swank takes her clothes off a lot.  That's creepy.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan does a really good job in this movie being pervy, but it's still not good.  Stupid Straight to DVD curse.  I hate you.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice 2010 Jon Turteltaub

Oh, how I wish I was 8 years old.  Because if I was 8 years old, I would absolutely LOVE this movie.  I'm not 8 anymore, so it wasn't the greatest movie of all time to me ( that would be Jaws).  It's pretty entertaining, though.  The special effects are extremely well done.  Nicolas Cage is phoning it in for the most part.  Jay Baruchel - welcome to character roles for the rest of your life.  Too nerdy for the masses.  And Alfred Molina, you make every movie better, you really do.

So Jay Baruchel plays a guy named Dave.  Dave is a student at NYU, and he's working on an experiiment involving Nikolai Tesla's theories about electricity.  Dave loves this girl, but he's too painfully awkward to ask her out.  She's gorgeous, of course.  Now if only Dave can muster the courage to ask her out, she'll totally say yes, since she'll see how unbelievably awesome Dave is when he wows her with his Dave-ness.

Then Nicolas Cage and Alfred Molina get released from an urn, look up Dave - he's supposed to have a doll with the evil sorceress Morgana Le Fay in it - and fight for the doll.  Nicolas Cage is also trying to release Monica Bellucci from the doll, because she's Monica Bellucci.  Lots of special effects ensue.

It's a Disney movie, so it's pretty lame in parts.  I mean, it is based on the Fantasia Mickey Mouse cartoon, so you can't expect too much.  If you were to compare this movie and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they're pretty much equally entertaining.  Johnny Depp's performance gives Pirates the edge, but if you have young children who need to be entertained, you could do a lot worse than The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  Haunted Mansion, anyone?

The Incredible Melting Man 1977 William Sachs

When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I read Fangoria magazine a lot.  Sometimes they would put fold-out posters on the back of the covers highlighting some monster or other.  It was usually pretty gory and I loved it.  My favorite one was from a movie I'd never even heard of before:  The Incredible Melting Man.  It was the grossest thing I'd ever seen.  My 10 year old brain couldn't comprehend how awesome that movie must be.  I promised myself right then and there that one day I'd watch that movie and my life would never be the same.

Well, now I've watched that movie, and my life's gonna pretty much be the same.  It's too bad, too, because the makeup effects for the Melting Man are pretty fantastic.  They're fantastic because they were done by Rick Baker, way before he made the gorillas in those mists, or Eddie Murphy the only actor in an Eddie Murphy movie.

The plot of the movie goes like this:  Astronauts up in space get bombarded by cosmic rays, one survives, becomes super strong, homicidal, and more than a little bit melty.  It's explained by his doctor, Dr. Ted, "The more he melts, the stronger he gets!"  In scientific terms, Dr. Ted means that Melting Man's strength is inversely proportional to his weight.  Lose weight - get stronger.  Looks like all those anorexics and bulimics are on to something!

It's not that Melting Man is averse to eating.  In fact, he loves to hunt and kill his own food.  It's just that his food consists of people, mostly.  He doesn't eat a lot, but he knows what he likes - old people, fishermen, nurses, old neighbors, kids, pretty much anyone who's not melting will do.



My name's Steve & I like long walks on the
beach, star-gazing, and murder.

 When Steve the Melting Man is out terrorizing the countryside, he comes across an empty house.  Who lives there?  If you said Academy award-winning director Jonathan Demme and the girl who played Ruby in the original Hills Have Eyes movie, you'd be one of the 15 people who'd seen this movie before!  Cheater.  If you've seen The Hills Have Eyes, then you can also guess who gives Melty Steve a taste of his own medicine!

It's off to the power plant for ol' Steve, because that's just what monsters do.  By this point, he's pretty melted, so he's super-strong because of that scientific formula I mentioned earlier.  You'd think that the cops would realize that he's MELTING, so after he MELTS, he's not gonna be a problem anymore, but no!  You know cops.  They can't leave a murdering fugitive alone to drown in his own juices - they've gotta take him in.  Probably for questioning.  Fingerprints are out of the question.

Is it too much to say that things end badly for all concerned?  Steve, Dr, Ted, Dr, Ted's wife, the Chief of Police, anyone who watches this - they all just sorta wished they'd stayed home and watched That's Incredible! instead.  That Fran Tarkenton sure could play football.

Lord of the Flies 1963 Peter Brook

Hey, I've got an idea!  Let's crash a planeload of British schoolboys on a deserted island and watch them devolve into brutish savages!  Awesome!  Wait - I know how to make it even better!  How?  Let's make a movie of it!  Totally!  Who likes books anyway?  Stupid readers! Pictures are better!

Well, this is the original movie.  It was made with nonprofessional actor kids in Puerto Rico.  Unsurprisingly, only one of the kids went on to have a real career as an actor, and it was the kid who plays Ralph, the last bastion of British society.  Everybody else seems to have gone the way of poor Piggy - struck in the head by the cold, hard reality of being a child actor - nobody wants you when you're not cute anymore.

Actually, the other thing I was thinking about while I watched this was how much this story has entered into our everyday consciousness.  Deep, huh?  If you think about it, even Harry Potter is a version of Lord of the Flies.  Look at Harry, dark haired, sensible, kind, civilized like Ralph.  Look at Draco Malfoy.  He's blond, aggressive, and prone to fascistic evil like Jack.  Ron Weasely starts out life as a character like Piggy.  Think about it.  You know I'm right.

The movie looks a lot like Michael Apted's Up series, but in the jungle.  You could replace some of the members of that movie series in here, too.  Look - it's Neil as Simon!  Since everyone knows the story, there's lots of fun games that can be played while watching this movie.

It really is a good movie.  Probably the best movie version of the story we'll ever have.  If you're not tired of the story by now, you should definitely give this version a watch.

The American 2010 Anton Corbijn

I really liked Hanna.  Then I saw this movie.  This is the grown up version of Hanna.  It makes Hanna look like a smart comic book movie.  A smart movie, but still a comic book movie.  The American is a movie for adults, and Hanna is for kids in high school AP classes.

George Clooney is the guy who supplies weapons to assassins.  Sometimes he might assassinate people, too.  At the beginning of the movie, he's in Dalarna, Sweden.  Then some assassins show up and he has to leave.  Before you can say "Get your ass to Mars", he gets his ass to Italy.  There he builds a rifle for a future assassination, meets a gorgeous prostitute, and hides out from the bad guys after him.  His weakness is beautiful women.  Will it be his undoing?  Hmmmm.

If you've seen any of Jean-Pierre Melville's gangster movies from the '60's, you'll definitely see what they were going for in this film.  There's lots of walks down deserted streets and shots of driving in the countryside, waiting for something to happen.  There's not a ton of action in this movie - like I said, it's not a comic book movie.  I can see why it wasn't a big hit.  People have been trained to expect an explosion every few minutes, not a few minutes of conversation.  No one watches scenes of a craftsman practicing his craft.  It's a shame, because the scenes of Clooney building the rifle, making the suppressor, and the explosive bullets are fascinating.

Every single shot in this movie is beautiful.  Every set is immaculate.  Every film reference is cleverly done.  Why didn't people flock to this movie?  Have people really become that simple?  That's a shame.  This movie is fantastic and deserves to be seen by everyone.