Mordant Airhead

Arthur Christmas

2012-02-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

You know how a lot of movies, especially animated movies aimed at children, tend to have previews that make you think "Well. That looks awful."? Remember how Arthur Christmas had previews like that? And you know how a small percentage of the time the previews are just terrible and wrong, and completely misrepresenting the actually really good movie they're trying to advertise?
Remember how Arthur Christmas had previews like that?
Arthur Christmas is the story of the Santa Claus family, their sleek, fancy and technologically up-to-date (actually, way-off-in-the-future-date) operations, the Grandsanta who prefers the good old days, the upcoming-Santa older son Steve who's a jerk and younger, stars-in-his-eyes-believes-wholeheartedly-in-Christmas-and-Santa-and-magic Arthur, and a present that accidentally didn't get delivered.
I loved this movie; it was sweet and it made me cry, it had a lot of action and silliness and it was just a whole lot of fun. I'm bummed that the previews made it look so incredibly stupid because it tricked me and a whole lot of other people into not wanting to see it.
Also, the cast is awesome: Bill Nighy, James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent, Michael Palin in a small role and an actress I've never heard of (Ashley Jensen) as my favorite character, an elf named Bryony who is an expert at wrapping presents.
It's such a fun movie. It makes you cry, but not in a horrible way. You love pretty much all the characters (except probably Steve, who is mostly a jerk) and even when it hits all the annoying cliches that you usually hate, they're handled well enough that they don't bother you.
(In that paragraph, "you" means "I.")

End of line.
-Sally

Manhattan

2012-02-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

Not nearly as good as Shadows And Fog, better than Alice, kind of tied with Manhattan Murder Mystery (not quite as good as that one, actually).
And I don't have solid proof, but this movie is evidence that Woody Allen invented the Some Shit That Happened genre that I loathe so much.

As Good As It Gets

2012-02-05T03:12:00.000-08:00

This is a movie that has a bunch of really famous moments and I remember when it came out everyone made a big deal about it 'cause I guess they thought it wasn't like other romantic comedies.
Honestly, I don't see it. It had some funny moments near the beginning, but then it became dull and average and exactly like every other romantic comedy (cute dog, gay friend, chick gets mad at guy for being a jerk, yawn, snore). And it was more than two hours long! Why the hell does any romantic comedy need to be more than two hours long?
I guess it wasn't a bad movie, per se. It was just so incredibly ordinary that I don't understand why everybody made a big deal about it back when it came out. What made people think it was different or new? I'm curious.

End of line.
-Sally

The Woman In Black

2012-02-04T00:36:00.000-08:00

A widowed father named Arthur travels to a gloomy town to do some lawyery job involving papers and a giant, spooky old house that the townspeople have creepy superstitions about.
Superstitions or ghosts?!?
I tried really hard to like The Woman In Black, but I had some issues.
First of all I spent the whole movie wishing it would end, but not because I wasn't enjoying the movie. I just wished it would end so the fucking audience would shut the fuck up. It's fine to react if something scares you, but there's no need to discuss it for the next five minutes. If you talk above a whisper in a movie theater, I hate you.
I guess that problem had nothing to do with the movie itself. But this next one does: the music. Basically, every moment that should have been chilling was ruined by the music. Every time something spooky happened (for instance, a shadow in the background moving because it's not just a shadow), the music let out a sudden, jolting blast. I have mentioned before my distaste for jump scares, but I have no problem saying it again: JUMP SCARES ARE NOT SCARY. They're annoying and they're proof that you think your audience is stupid. The Woman In Black would have been infinitely spookier if the music had been subtle and I had been allowed to notice the scares on my own.
They showed the ghost too often, too, but I'll let that one slide because ... because I will. I'm feeling gracious.
However, in spite of all these issues, the movie was definitely entertaining and well acted. I was involved the whole way through and was genuinely interested in what was going to happen next.

End Of Line.
-Sally

Alice

2012-02-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

I don't know, I'm starting to think I shouldn't have started learning about Woody Allen movies with Shadows And Fog. I loved that one and the ones I've seen since then are merely variations of okay.
Alice is about a Mia Farrow who has been married to faceless, faceless William Hurt for fifteen years, has a crush on Joe Mantegna (who looks nothing like Fat Tony) and takes a lot of magical herbs from a doctor named Doctor Yang, who was by far my favorite character.
The plot description on IMDB was "A spoiled Manhattan housewife re-evaluates her life after visiting a Chinatown healer." And that's pretty accurate, although I don't think her character was really spoiled so much as she was rich. She spent all her time spending money on things, but she never acted like she was entitled to it (which is what I think when I hear "spoiled").
The parts that tried to be kind of magical (being invisible, for instance) were pretty cool, but the movie seemed kinda choppy and I realized halfway through I wasn't really paying attention to it.
I liked the ending, though.

End of line.
-Sally

Killing Zoe

2012-02-03T10:31:00.000-08:00

Killing Zoe is the kind of violent, noisy, oddly funny movie I loved when I was in high school. Which isn't to say I don't like it now, I just think if I had seen it back when I was in high school I would know every damn word to it.
In it, Eric Stoltz plays an American who goes to France to help a group of theives led by a childhood friend rob a bank. That's actually pretty much it as far as plot goes but it sounds pretty dull when you describe it that way.
Whatever happened to Eric Stoltz. He was popular in the '80s and had a brief resurgence in the '90s (basically consisting of Pulp Fiction and Killing Zoe) and I haven't heard anything about him since. I ought to look him up.
But while he's plays the main character in Killing Zoe, he's not the star. No, the star is French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, who plays the greasy, insane, drug addicted, profane, incredibly violent leader of the team. Honestly, his character is so completely over the top I'm surprised Hot Topic doesn't sell t-shirts with his picture on them.
Which I would buy if they did exist. Freakin' awesome, that guy.

End of line.
-Sally

Manhattan Murder Mystery

2012-01-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

This was a movie that I actually had in Movie Lottery for a while and then ended up deciding against it. Which is good, because I think if I had been watching it on my own I would have given up on it halfway through. Watching it with someone else kind of forced me to finish it. And I didn't really start enjoying it 'til after the halfway mark.
Because most of the movie gave me a stomachache. Diane Keaton is so convinced that her neighbor has committed a murder (in spite of their being no evidence) that she starts spying on him and sneaking into his house and jumping to crazy conclusions and getting herself into all kinds of situations that just make me nervous and tense. (I guess I'm more like her cautious, stick in the mud Woody Allen husband. This is the first and most likely last time I will ever compare myself to Woody Allen. Enjoy it kids.)
Overall, though, the movie was pretty funny and when plot points actually started coming together and making sense I spent more time enjoying the movie and less time being made nervous by the movie.

End of line.
-Sally

50/50

2012-01-27T12:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to my friend's house and we ended up watching two movies that, by total coincidence, both had Angelica Huston in them. And, because she wasn't completely failing at playing Morticia Addams in either of them, I didn't hate her. Hooray!
50/50 is about Joseph Gordon-Levitt having unpronounceable back cancer. He has a girlfriend who you can tell from the first scene is a horrible bitch and that the relationship will end spectacularly mid-movie (I guess I should say SPOILER and such, but you really can tell, if not from the first time you see her then from the second scene when he's talking about how "meaningful" their relationship is). His best friend is Seth Rogen who provides pretty much all the humor in the movie (he's very hit or miss for me but I like him a lot in this one) and Angelica Huston is his mom, who I think has the most honest performance in the movie. I actually loved her in this.
The problem with 50/50 is it makes cancer look kind of fun. You get to destroy paintings with your funny best friend, you get a weird looking dog and you get to hang out with bald Matt Frewer and another old guy who curses a lot. (It kind of tries to show a sadder side, but it's sort of glossed over. "Oh, and he's sad and in pain, too, but look how funny Seth Rogen is!")
And (here's another minor spoiler) I realized about midway through that I wasn't going to be happy with a definite ending. If he died it would be too sad, if he lived it would be a total cop out. The only way I would have been happy with 50/50 would have been if it ended before you find out whether he survives. Ambiguity would have been the best way to go. And they didn't do that.
But overall I liked it way more than I had expected to. So that's good.

End of line.
-Sally

Room Service

2012-01-26T00:59:00.000-08:00

The more post-Zeppo Marx Brothers movies I see, the more lousy Marx Brothers movies I see. They're not terrible or anything, they're just not very good. Room Service is one of those.
Groucho is producing a play but he has no money and he (and his entire cast) are mooching off the hotel his brother in law manages. The owner wants to kick them all out. The writer of the play wants to be successful and marry Ann Miller. And it's just a series of zany schemes that aren't zany so much as they are uncomfortable. (And there was a faking-a-suicide sequence that went on a really long time and was supposed to be funny. Ordinarily that wouldn't have bothered me (I still don't think I would have thought it was funny, but I also probably wouldn't have thought much about it) that was just really bad timing.)
So Room Service isn't worth it. It didn't really feel like a Marx Brothers movie. It felt like a mediocre play that happened to star the Marx Brothers. (In fact, it's quite possible that's what it was. I know a few of their movies were adapted from plays they were in.)

End of line.
-Sally

Kill Your Idols

2012-01-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Kill Your Idols is a documentary about no wave music coming out of New York in the 1970s and '80s, as well as some of the more current bands that were in one way or another inspired by it.
The first thirty minutes or so that focused on the '70s and '80s were fascinating. I love learning about modern music history (basically, music from the late 1800s onward) and no wave is not a genre I know a whole lot about. It's full of names I've heard, but I've never heard the music that goes with those names before.
About halfway through the movie they brought in the current musicians and the movie lost a little something for me. (It also gained a beautiful Ukranian something, but I'm doing my best to not be shallow. ... Eugene Hutz is lovely.)
I think the main problem with the current bands was ...
You know, what? No. Most of the bands I had no problem with. They had some really interesting things to say. There were only two people from the 2000s I had a problem with:
The frontman from A.R.E. Weapons whose name I don't remember, who just seemed so arrogant and sleazy that I felt like I needed a chemical shower every time he showed up on screen, and Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs who said "like" and "yaknow" so many times my head would explode if I tried to count them. Neither of them had anything interesting or insightful to say, and I'm sad the movie spent so much time with the two of them. All the other bands seemed to have brains and ideas, and I don't know why more time wasn't spent on some of them. (There was a nice segment where they focused on Gogol Bordello, but it could have been longer. Not that I'm biased or anything. *averted gaze* *nonchalant whistling*)
The only other part of the movie I really didn't like was the part where the musicians from the '70s and '80s that sat around badmouthing the music that's coming out of New York now, saying that they think they're all in it for the parties and adulation and magazine spreads more than the music. I think that may be true of a lot of bands (and has been since pop music and fan magazines became a thing, so what's your point?), but I don't think it's true of the bands that were interviewed for Kill Your Idols. Even the Yeah Yeah Yeahs seemed at least somewhat sincere and I didn't particularly like them. (A.R.E. Weapons didn't seem sincere; I could just pretend all the badmouthing was toward them.)
Also, I just want to say that, while I kind of understand where she's coming from and why she seemed mad, Lydia Lunch needs to get over herself. I'm sorry the music of today bores you, lady, but from some of the things they said about you, it sounds like you got into it for the sex. So how are you any different than the shallow crap you're bitching about?
The movie ends with the question of where the music is going to go from here and a montage of all the interviewees looking blank trying to come up with an answer (how much of that was honest reaction to the "what's next?" question and how much of that was just editing, I do not know). Then, over the end credits of a movie about music that is for the most part noisy and rebellious, they played Through The Roof 'N' Underground by Gogol Bordello, a song that is relatively quiet and beautiful.
I don't know why the filmmakers picked that song, but I'm thrilled they did. Not only because they ended their movie with a band I absolutely love, but because they ended their movie quietly. I don't know why, but I think that's really neat.

End of line.
-Sally

Shadows And Fog

2012-01-23T03:36:00.000-08:00

This is the third Woody Allen movie I've seen. The first was Everyone Says I Love You (which I watched only because Tim Roth was in it; I can tell you he sings at one point and that's all I can tell you about the entire movie. I don't remember who else was in it or what the plot was. I can't even remember what song Tim Roth sang or if he was any good at it) and the second was Scoop (which was okay but I didn't like the ending). Of the three, I definitely liked Shadows And Fog best.
There's a killer on the loose. Mostly he strangles. And all the men in town are forming a vigilante group to catch the killer. They wake up Woody Allen in the middle of the night and drag him into their vigilante group. He has an important job to do, but nobody will tell him the plan or his part in it.
Meanwhile, Mia Farrow and John Malkovich are circus performers. She wants to settle down and have a family and he mostly just wants to have sex with Madonna. So Mia Farrow storms away into the city, not knowing that there's a killer on the loose.
The movie is more talk than plot; there's something about it that really appeals to me. I'm not usually into talky movies that get philosophical, but this one was done in a way that suits my needs. The philosophical talk only got a little bit pretentious in a few scenes. I think having a lot of the talk come from a house full of sassy prostitutes played by actresses I like (Jodie Foster, Kathy Bates and Lily Tomlin) really helps.
The cast in this movie is crazy. My friends and I spent the whole movie recognizing people: Donald Plesance, Wallace Shawn, Kenneth Mars, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, Kurtwood Smith, Julie Kavner and the aforementioned hooker trio. (And Ezster Balint, but she was more of a "she looks really familiar" situation; I didn't know she was her until the end credits.)
So I guess not all Woody Allen movies are as forgettable as the first two I saw. I'd even watch Shadows And Fog again sometime. Maybe I ought to give him more of a chance.

End of line.
-Sally

Just Watched Gigantic For The Second Time: The Tale Of One Sally Who Thinks Two Johns Deserve A Better Documentary

2012-01-22T16:32:00.001-08:00

Due to my self-imposed rules, I have to claim that this is not a review, merely a ... I don't know, a reaction.

As I was rewatching Gigantic: A Tale Of Two Johns today, I remembered why I don't watch it more often. (I've owned it for years and today was only the second time I watched it.)
The only phrase I can think of to describe it is "self-serving" but that could be so easily misconstrued because it's not the band being self-serving. The interviews with the band members are actually quite lovely and interesting, as are the interviews with some of the people who have worked with them.
The people I have a problem with are their famous fans who the filmmakers insisted on including in the movie for some reason. They're the ones being self-serving. I won't name names, except for the fact that I totally will: the two worst offenders are Sarah Vowell and Ira Glass. I despise both of them, but Sarah Vowell especially. Everything about that woman is offensive and if I never hear her voice (see her face, read her name) again, it'll be to goddamn soon.
Anyway, a few of the interviewees are way too pleased with themselves for being They Might Be Giants fans and I feel like they agreed to do this movie so they could rub that in the viewers' faces, not realizing that the people watching the movie are also They Might Be Giants fans, who maybe just love the music and aren't in it for the status symbol and accolades that come with being a TMBG fan (of which there are none).
I feel like a band as talented and well-respected (and who seem to have such good heads on their shoulders) as They Might Be Giants deserve to be the subject of a good documentary, one that spends less time patting itself on the back and more time talking about the band, its history and its music.
Just a thought.

End of line.
-Sally

The Devil Inside

2012-01-21T22:30:00.001-08:00

In 1989 a woman named Maria Rossi killed three people who were trying to exorcize a demon from her. Twenty years later her daughter decided to team up with a documentary filmmaker and investigate the event. They went to visit Maria, who had been moved to an institution in Rome, and got together with a couple of priests who perform exorcisms behind the church's back (justifiably).
Understandably, scary devil shit happens because otherwise there would be no movie.
I really liked The Devil Inside, simply because it was entertaining. I'm kind of tired of the whole "found footage" style of movie, but this isn't exactly that. At least, not a first (in the beginning it really tries to look like a documentary, including interviews with experts and footage of old news reports). It kind of becomes found footagey midway through, but I was already invested in it by then, so I didn't mind.
Yes, it was kind of predictable. Yes, it had its share of jump scares (which tend to annoy me more than anything else). Yes, it had scenes of people just yelling at each other. But unlike Paranormal Activity, that wasn't the entire movie. Just a couple of scenes.
Unless you count the exorcisms. But that screaming is acceptable. It would be weird to not have it.
And what I really liked about The Devil Inside was it kept me interested the whole way through. Even when I could tell what was going to happen, even when people were arguing, even when I thought parts of it (or, really just one thing) didn't make sense, I was still completely involved. It felt shorter than it was, and it's not a long movie to begin with.

End of line.
-Sally

Drive Angry

2012-01-18T23:28:00.000-08:00

Back when Drive Angry came out, I thought it looked pretty fun but I didn't go see it. One night Scott asked me if I had seen it and, when I said no, he told me that it was made specifically for me, and every day I don't watch it, the filmmakers cry.
Tonight, after months and months (possibly more than a year) of Scott saying I need to see Drive Angry, he finally sat me down and showed it to me.
Holy crap, you guys, this movie was made just for me! It is so much fun!
Everything about it is over the top. First of all, it stars Nicholas Cage (when you want over the top, you get Nick Cage). The first shot is of a vintage car driving through a CGI hell, followed by Nicholas Cage smashing into / flipping over a truck full of dudes, who he varously maims and kills with guns. (That hand flying off the guy's arm must have looked pretty impressive in 3-D.)
After that there are explosions, gun battles, ridiculous sex scenes (during gun battles, in a move stolen from Shoot 'Em Up), devil worshippers, stabbing, punching, profanity, ridiculous dialogue, and William Fichtner.
If this movie had been made in the 1990s, William Fichtner's part would have been played by Christopher Walken. And, much as I love Christopher Walken, I think William Fichtner played him better. If this movie had been successful (I guess it flopped) it would have made him a star. Rather than just this generation's "that weird-face guy," more people would actually know his name. He's absolutely great, my favoite character in the movie by far.
I can't necessarily say I highly recommend Drive Angry (to some people, maybe, but not in general) but I can absolutely say that I fucking loved it. Scott was one hundred percent correct.
And now all the people who made it can stop crying.

End of line.
-Sally

Return To Sleepaway Camp and other unfinished movies

2012-01-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

I just watched the first forty or so minutes of Return To Sleepaway Camp. I will not be watching the other forty six. It was wretched. Everything about it was horrible, screechy, unlikeable and, above all else, unnecessarily cruel (which would be fine if I was only talking about the kill scenes, but I was almost to the halfway point and there had been only two kill scenes, neither of which were all that wretched compared to the rest of the movie).
To be honest, I remember having a similar reaction to the original Sleepaway Camp but I'm also pretty sure it had at least one or two likeable and / or kind characters, and the ending was a doozy. Return To Sleepaway Camp had a grand total of zero likeable and / or kind characters. Not one. And I'm one hundred percent certain the ending isn't a doozy.
(POSSIBLE (seeing as I didn't actually finish the movie) SPOILER: I bet you money that in the end it turns out the sheriff is the killer, and that he's also Angela in disguise. I'm 99.999999 percent certain that's the ending.)
Anyway, seeing as I gave up on it, I'd like to take this opportunity to write a post I'd been thinking about doing for a while: Movies I Couldn't Finish.
You see, I kind of see movies as a dare. I have to watch them through to the bitter end, even if I'm not enjoying them, because go to hell, movie, I am the master of you!
Sometimes I cannot follow through on those dares. For instance:

Desire - Also known as The Salt On Our Skin, this is a slow, boring romantic drama starring Vincent D'Onofrio that I tried to watch twice and fell asleep both times. In the middle of the afternoon. Considering how much I hate napping, this must be the most boring movie ever made.
Dragnet - This one actually may have been a matter of me not being in the mood to watch a movie at the time. But a lot of movies can change my mood after I've started watching them. Dragnet could not.
Fear - Something about ghosts, I think? This was an Indian movie about a lady and maybe ghosts. Not only could I not finish it, I can't remember what little I did watch.
Hack - Holy mother of pretension, was this movie a pain in the brain. The first twenty minutes (all I could stand to watch) were nothing but a screenwriter screaming "Look how much I know about popular culture! Please think I'm cool!" Sorry, dude. Not cool.
Hope Floats - I don't think Sandra Bullock has ever been in a movie that remotely interested me. Especially not this one. This is the only movie I ever walked out of in a movie theater (and didn't eventually return to; I did walk out of The Lion King but I did go back in). I'm not entirely sure why I went to see it in the first place. A friend dragged me, I think. It sucked.
My Name Is Bruce - So, it turns out I don't like Bruce Campbell. I hate actors who play "themselves" as complete assholes who you just want to punch in the nuts (or the female equivalent thereof, if they're ladies). Hate them. And from what I watched of My Name Is Bruce, that's all that it was.
Paranormal Entity - I figured since I hated Paranormal Activity so goddamn much, maybe I'd like the crappy ripoff version by The Asylum. I gave up after less than ten minutes. It seemed to be a guaranteed bore, just like the movie whose success it was trying to make money off of.
Raising Arizona - They kidnapped a baby. They motherfucking kidnapped a baby. And they're supposed to be the protagonists. Fuck this movie.
Return To Sleepaway Camp - Cruel, unnecessary, awful, wretched movie.
Swimming With Sharks - One of the many reasons I'm scared of Kevin Spacey. (Okay, I do like the line about the Sweet 'N Low about how "I don't care if there's fucking fairy dust in it," but that wasn't enough to save this.)
The Scarlet Letter - I've actually considered giving this movie a second chance, on the sole virtue of Gary Oldman being beautiful (and drunk off his ass, but we don't have to talk about that). However, I first tried to watch it at the height of my first Gary Oldman phase and him being beautiful didn't save it then (and being drunk off his ass might be part of why he couldn't save it).
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Okay, I have to admit I turned it off so I wouldn't have to see the giant squid. I'm afraid of squids and octopuses. (And, yes, I know those aren't the proper plurals of those words.)
We Think The World Of You - Speaking of movies I couldn't finish featuring beautiful Gary Oldman, here's another. He wasn't in it very much and I got bored.

There was one more I was talking about to Rebekah about a week ago, but cannot for the life of me remember now, and it is driving me up the wall. If it comes to me, I'll let you know.

End of line.
-Sally

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?

2012-01-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

I really love documentaries about the life and work of artists I admire. They're not always movies I can recommend to everybody, though, because I feel like that's sort of a specialized genre. They're intended for people who already care.
This movie, however, I think can and should be seen by everybody. It's simply a biography about Harry Nilsson, but it's so comprehensive, so full of his music, so fascinating and full of ups and downs that I think it could make anybody love him.
I honestly don't know why I don't have more of his music. He was so incredibly talented (the more I think about it, the more I think of him as a sort of precurser to They Might Be Giants) and if I knew anything about writing music, he'd be one of my biggest inspirations. I love people who can write all kinds of music with the connecting thread of great melodies and harmonies, and that's what Nilsson did.
I don't think I realized how much of his music I've known my whole life. I knew I knew The Point, but there were all kinds of songs popping up in this documentary that I had no idea were his. I didn't know he wrote One, for instance, and I'd totally forgotten I knew Good Old Desk until it started playing. I don't know where I heard it before, but I'd heard it and I'm really bummed I don't have a copy of that song.
It's always disappointing to hear that his biggest hit (or so people say) was Everybody's Talkin', because if I had to pick a Harry Nilsson song I just don't like, that would be it. It's boring. And it turns out he didn't write it (which would explain the boring, certainly). I'm also skeptical about it really being his biggest hit, when my whole life I've always heard Coconut and Without You (another song he didn't write) more.
And speaking of Without You: somebody on Facebook a while back posted a link to a story about radio stations retiring Stairway To Heaven or something like that, and posed the question "What songs would you retire?" I said I'm against the idea, regardless of how much I dislike a song (such as Stairway To Heaven) because I am not the boss of music. However, I want to go back and change my answer to "every version of Without You that Harry Nilsson did not sing." It's so beautiful and painful (in the best possible way) when he sings it, and it's disappointing and the absolute worst kind of painful when, for instance, Mariah Carey sings it.
I thought it was really interesting that Movie Lottery bestowed this movie upon me on the anniversary of his death.

End of line.
-Sally

Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?

2012-01-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is "based" on the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit but, in case you couldn't tell by the quote marks around the word based, it wasn't really. Several characters had the same names and that was the beginning and the end of it.
Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? is a sort of sequel to both. Author Gary K. Wolf keeps certain elements from his first book (toons speaking in word balloons rather than voices being my favorite) and other elements from the movie (the fact that Jessica actually cares about Roger, for instance), and turns them into a really good mystery novel that's only really good if you haven't read Who Censored Roger Rabbit? or seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (There's no question mark at the end of the movie title. According to Mouse Under Glass, movies with punctuation weren't selling tickets so Touchstone opted out of the question mark.)
It was an interesting story, certainly, but I have both read the first book and seen the movie, and the half-assed disclaimer at the start of the book (something along the lines of "Roger and his friends play it fast and loose with the facts") doesn't cut it for me.
And from here on in, there are spoilers mainly about the first book (and one about the second):
Roger Rabbit dies in the middle of Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. He's murdered, he's dead, and his doppelganger disintegrates on the last page, thus leaving no room for a sequel. Gary K. Wolf makes exactly no attempts to explain how Roger Rabbit un-died. No dice, buddy. The second the book starts I'm against you. How is Roger alive? I don't care how shitty your explanation is, just as long as you give me one.
In fact, now that I think about it, all my problems with this book lie in the fact that he seems to have let the movie influence his writing. Roger's alive in this book because he's alive in the movie. Jessica loves Roger in this book because she loves Roger in the movie (in the first book she only married him because of a genie-granted wish. We're actually supposed to spend all of this book thinking she's cheating on Roger but I could tell it wasn't going to end that way). Heck, I'm sure if I bothered to go back and look it up, I'm pretty sure Roger Rabbit looks different in the first book than he does in the second because Wolf altered his appearance to fit how he's drawn in the movie.
And that really fucking bothers me. This book feels like a bit of a cash-grab in that respect. Rather than staying true to his original ideas, he wrote a book to capitalize on the fact that a movie "based" on his original ideas was incredibly popular.
That being said, if I were to ignore the inconsistencies between Censored and P-P-P-Plugged, or if I had only ever read the latter, I would have really enjoyed it. It's funny, it's got a lot of stereotypical hard-boiled-detective-novel dialogue and metaphors. Unlike Robert Bloch's Psycho novels, Wolf gives you the information you'd need to figure out the mystery yourself if you really wanted to and I was satisfied that the ending used all the information given throughout the book (as opposed to several people's problem with Censored, that the ending had nothing to do with the rest of the book).
So, yeah, it's a good book and it could have been a great book if he hadn't let himself be so heavily influenced by the movie.

End of line.
-Sally

The Masque Of The Red Death

2012-01-14T23:23:00.000-08:00

I've only read two things by Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven and The Cask Of Amantillado), so I can't say whether or not this movie's true to the story. I can say for certain that the movie's Netflix description was not true to the movie.
My favorite celebrity chef, Vincent Price, played Prince Prospero, a Satanist. He's got a bunch of friends who he's corrupted for the devil, a girlfriend (??) who intends to marry the devil and three captives from a nearby village that's been hit by a bad case of the red death.
There are two problems I have with this movie:
1) It has, like, four little plots and no real, actual plot. There are a couple of dramatic conclusions (one that's rather horrible and one that was melodramatic almost to the point of silliness).
2) The female captive from the village bugged me. She seems sort of wishy washy and personalityless, just going along with whatever the people nearest to her seem to say. She (and everyone else in the movie for that matter) claimed she had a very strong Christian faith, but she didn't seem to have a problem with all the Satanism going on around her.
I don't know, I guess I didn't like it. I liked the first twenty minutes or so, then sort of lost interest. I liked the costumes, the colors and Vincent Price's performance. I didn't like the script or anyone else's performances.
Call it a draw.

End of line.
-Sally

Monty Python's Life Of Brian

2012-01-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

Actually, if you want to get technical, a more accurate name would be Monty Python's Few Days Of Brian. But what kind of title is that? You Can't Call A Show Cornflakes.
Anyway, Life Of Brian is about a guy named Brian, who joins the People's Front Of Judea because he really hates the Romans. And that's about it. A lot of stuff happens (stoning, aliens, mistaken messiah-identity, that sort of thing) and most of it is a direct result of Brian joining the PFJ.
It's a Monty Python movie so it's very silly and very funny, and I think it's weird that the most famous thing about the movie seems to be the part where Brian is thought to be the messiah, 'cause that's less than half of the movie. It's just a few funny scenes in the midst of several funny scenes.
Much like Holy Grail, Life Of Brian ends on a down note (maybe not quite as down as Grail, thanks to the song, but still) and, because I am the kind of person I am, that really bugs me. Comedies with unhappy endings don't sit well with me. Which is, I guess, why Eric Idle decided to end it with Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. So it wouldn't be a downer ending.
With everyone Brian knows deliberately leaving him to die and an entire hillside of people being crucified.
Sorry. I know I shouldn't give away endings, but come on. It's Life Of Brian. If you haven't already seen it, you're not going to. I just happen to be the world's laziest Python fan.
And it's not like I'd never seen it before. I just happened to be about six years old at the time and didn't remember much of the movie. I remembered the stoning scene (thought it was hilarious; I remember telling all my friends about it and I don't think they understood what I was talking about), the aliens (because they scared the living bejeezus out of my brother) and the song at the end.
What I didn't have a vivid memory of was Graham Chapman's penis, which is the first thing anybody mentions when I say I haven't seen Life Of Brian since I was six. Apparently this is a big deal. Nobody bothers to point out that there's also a naked woman in that scene.
What I will say is, if that scene left any impression at all, it's the fact that I have always had a crush on Graham Chapman. But to be honest, the only member of Monty Python I don't have a crush on is John Cleese. And as far as I know, I've never seen all the rest of them naked (except the Terrys, but only from the back). So I really don't think that has anything to do with it.
The point is, I think the reason the mistaken messiah-identity part is the most famous part of the movie is because it's probably the funniest (although I could have done with a little less shouting).
Which I say, and then remember the haggling bit, Pontious Pilot's speech impediment, the opening scene with the three wise men, the stoning scene (twenty two years later it still cracks me up) and Brian's anti-Roman graffiti being corrected by a Roman guard. And the jokester guy getting mad about being released.
And Stan wanting to be Loretta from now on.
And the people arguing at the Sermon On The Mount.
And the old man thinking being stabbed is worse than being crucified. ("You're weird.")
And ... You know, the whole movie was good. Why the hell didn't I get around to watching it sooner?

End of line.
-Sally

Five Across The Eyes

2011-12-29T13:39:00.001-08:00

Five Across The Eyes is the story of five vapid, shrieking moron girls (collectively they have maybe, maybe two brain cells) and the horrible screaming shrew who wants to kill them with a shotgun for hit and running her parked car.
The movie succeeds in making the viewer intensely, immediately hate every single character. Within thirty seconds of the opening you desperately want to see all five moron girls have their faces blown off (well before the introduction of Shotgun Lady is even hinted at).
Unfortunately, the Shotgun Lady is just as hateful as the teenagers and you spend the whole movie waiting for someone (preferrably a calm, jovial man (and yes, I mean that in the most mysogynistic way possible; this movie makes me hate women) with a machete and a penchant for torture) to come along and put all of them out of my misery.
The only reason I don't hate this movie more than Paranormal Activity is because this piece of shit didn't make millions of dollars for being boring, shrill and terrible.
Oh, Calm And Jovial Machete Man, where are you?
Die, you screechy bitchwads, die!!!

End of line.
-Sally

The Abomination

2011-12-28T22:20:00.001-08:00

Cody Lee's mom coughed up a "tumor" one night, which came to life and fed itself to Cody while he slept. Then he coughed it up, became possessed by it, put on sunglasses to prove that he's evil now and then went around killing people to feed to his ever-growing "tumor".
The Abomination is low budget, poorly acted, poorly written, full of religious jargle I didn't really understand and long, drawn out boring parts. It was filmed without sound, with dialogue dubbed in later. There are scenes of people just screaming, which is really hard to listen to, and it is in no way a good movie.
However, there is something about this lousy, terrible movie that made me want to watch it all the way to the end. More than that, there's a scene that genuinely creeped me out:
Cody is in the kitchen. The walls and cupboards are spattered with blood and the many giant, slimy, bloody puppet mouths of the abomination are emerging from various cupboards and washing machines. There's a bloody skull and hand on the table, along with a washtub filled with soggy yellow sheets that I guess are supposed to look like guts, which he's stirring and feeding to the monster with a pitchfork.
It felt like a room in a haunted house walk through. Which maybe isn't saying much; a lot of walk through haunted houses are pretty lame. But it was just tableauy and unsettling enough to be a gorgeously horrific moment in an otherwise lousy movie. Much as I may make fun of The Abomination as a whole (I think it would make a good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 if it weren't so damn gory), that one scene will haunt me for all my days. I don't really know why, but it had an intangible creepiness that really got to me.
Back before I used to watch horror movies, my brother used to try a lot to get me to watch The Abomination. He tried to convince me that the special effects were so crummy that it wouldn't scare me. Having seen it now, I can safely say I was right to not watch it back then. It would have scared the crap out of me. I was a coward for a very long time.
I'm not entirely sure what changed that turned me into the gorehound I've become.

End of line.
-Sally

I have a confession to make

2011-12-27T23:42:00.001-08:00

Back in January I wrote a review of The Haunting, wherein I said some mean things about it and some nice things about it.
I lied.
None of the nice things I said, the stuff about it being creepy or any good, were true. I wrote them on the off chance that my friend Amanda would read my blog. She thinks The Haunting is the scariest movie she's ever seen and I didn't want her to feel bad that I think it is a stupid, shrill and wholly disappointing adaptation of one of my favorite books.
I fucking hated every minute of that movie. I wanted to scream at it for being wrong. I wanted to punch every actor in their melodramatic faces and then give them copies of The Haunting Of Hill House, lock them into rooms by themselves, make them read it and think about what they did. It's a terrible movie and I'm pissed off at it for being terrible.
... Okay, there is one thing I said that was true: people who think Paranormal Activity is scary probably would go comatose with fear if they watched The Haunting. It is infinitely scarier than Paranormal Activity. But that's not saying much. The Emperor's New Groove is scarier than Paranormal Activity.
What brought on this sudden bout of honesty and anger? Well, it started bubbling back in October when the Nostalgia Critic reviewed the other movie "based" on The Haunting Of Hill House, also called The Haunting (I don't like to call it a remake when it's based on a book; they're just two movies based on the same source material), which he tore to shreds for being terrible. He compared it a lot to the 1960 The Haunting, a movie he loves and that was why he hated the newer one so much. His review pissed me off because he defends either of the movies. I'm pretty sure he's never read the book.
That isn't what set me off completely, though. No, that was the book I'm reading, Cut! Horror Writers On Horror Film. I just finished an essay where a woman talks about how scary The Haunting is. First of all, the woman's an idiot (she claims Theo's lesbianism is "not present, or barely so, in the book" in spite of the fact that it's way more obvious in the book than it is in the movie. ... Okay, in the book she's bisexual, but still, it's obvious) but, more importantly, the title of her essay is "Why The Haunting Is So Damn Scary." If you have to explain why, it's not scary. Fear is intangible. (Which is why I get so mad when people's reaction to my intense fear of moths is "You know they're harmless, right?" Yes. I know perfectly well a moth cannot hurt me. I also know it's fucking terrifying anyway, you pompous ass.)
But most importantly, The Haunting is not scary. When the actors aren't being stiff and stilited, they're shrieking, melodramatic, shrill, hysterical overactors (or maybe that's just the broad who played Eleanor). It's a stupid movie and a worse than terrible adaptation. And it makes me mad.
So I rescind the second part of the review I wrote back in January, the part that says the movie gave me the heebie jeebies, that I was too afraid to leave my room 'cause it was dark in the hall. I made that up to protect the feelings of a friend who doesn't read this blog anyway.
It is true that my laptop's startup tune set my teeth on edge, but it does that regardless of my mood. I just don't like that sound.

End of line.
-Sally

The 2011 Movie Countdown

2011-12-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

Well, this year is almost over. It started out good but the past couple of months have been crapballs and I'm looking forward to next year, when the last month or so will bring armageddon to the Aztecs or something.
I'd been planning on writing a sort of look back at what this year has been like for me, but I don't remember most of it. Drag queens gave me a makeover, I self-published a book (it's called Sunny Ella, which is a stupid title but you should read it anyway), I didn't go to nearly as many concerts as I would have liked but I did go to a few, I was a counselor at my friends' Unitarian church camp again, two of my best friends got married, my grandpa died and I read more than I think I have in recent years.
I realized last night that television holds almost no interest for me anymore. I used to be one of those people who had to have it on almost all the time but lately I'm happier ignoring it. The only thing I watch with any regularity is The Simpsons. I didn't even watch the second half of season four of Leverage because I just didn't feel like watching television.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
The reason I've really gathered me all here today is to count down the top twenty movies of 2011. Why twenty? Because that's how many new movies I saw this year. (It was nineteen until very late last night; more on that when we get to it.)
Further ado is for suckers:

20) Puss In Boots - Looking back on my initial review, sometimes I think I may have been a bit harsh on Puss In Boots. I mean, as people like to point out to me, it is just a kids movie. Then I remember that's the whole attitude I have a problem with. "It's just a kids movie" shouldn't be a phrase. Why do little kids have to get shafted in the movie selection department? They're not idiots and they deserve better than this.
19) The Bleeding House - I actually only watched this movie last night because it was released in 2011 and I needed a twentieth movie for this list (I wanted it to be even), which I was determined to write today for some reason. It was terrible. I've already pretty much forgotten I saw it.
18) Hanna - The only good things about this movie are the first twenty minutes and the fact that every time I see the title I get the Freelance Whales song Hannah running through my head.
17) Cowboys And Aliens - Cowboys And Aliens was dumb fun the first time, although even then I realized everything involving the token chick was eyerollingly cliched. The problem was seeing it again, which is when I noticed it's impossible to give a damn about any character in this movie that isn't played by Sam Rockwell (which is most of them). And speaking of characters I don't like...
16) Thor - had several of them. Especially Thor. But especially Natalie Portman. But especially Thor. You know what? Call it a draw. I hate them both. Too bad they didn't make a movie called Loki And Thor's Four Warrior Friends Whose Names I Forgot. That movie would have kicked ass.
15) Scream 4 - Okay, I'm going to say this again because I don't think Kevin Williamson heard me the first time: Peeping Tom is not the correct answer to "What was the movie that started the slasher craze?" for several reasons. REASON ONE: The slasher craze didn't really begin until the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, after several other highly influential and far more "slashery" movies had been released. REASON TWO: There is no true answer to that question; the entire subject is debateable. REASON THREE: Peeping Tom and Psycho came out the same year and, while Psycho was a huge hit, Peeping Tom destroyed Michael Powell's career and wasn't given accolades until at least a decade (probably longer) after the damage was done. There are a lot of other reasons why I didn't like Scream 4, but that one damn little trivia question and it's snotty-ass answer makes me want a backalley boxing match with Kevin Williamson, where I will win with the power of nerdgirl rage.
14) Kung Fu Panda 2 - Sure, it was uneven. Sure, it made me cry. Sure, it barely had a plot and sure, I probably should have gotten as mad at this for being insulting to childrens' intelligence as I did at Puss In Boots. But for some reason I can't. I don't know if it's the awesome Gary Oldman villain or the fact that at least it was well made enough to stir up my emotions and make me weepy, but I just don't have that vitriol for Kung Fu Panda 2. It doesn't deserve my anger.
13) A Very Harold And Kumar 3-D Christmas - Wafflebot!!! Everything else in the movie (about half of which is funny and half of which is not) is completely irrelevant because Wafflebot.
12) Arthur - It's amazing how high up on this list this one ended up being, considering I only went to see it 'cause Lauren wanted to go, Russell Brand is by reputation the most irritating man alive (a reputation not helped by the fact that he married the most irritating woman alive) and I generally hate romantic comedies. Arthur was cute, though. Russell Brand was actually charming and very funny (which I was not expecting) and I'd even watch it again if circumstances led me to that point.
11) Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Yes, it is the worst of the Pirates movies. Yes, I want to beat that damn mermaid subplot to death with a shovel for being pointless and grinding the movie to a screeching halt. Yes, I hate Penelope Cruz's character for actually being a screeching halt. However, there is still a lot of good, fun stuff in this movie. Barbossa, obviously, and The Spaniard (or whatever his nonname was). And Blackbeard and Gibbs and Jack Sparrow and Scrum ... basically every part of this movie that doesn't involve any form of woman is awesome. A woman's place is outside of the pirate movie, apparently. ... Look, all I'm saying is quit putting a bunch of boringass romance in my action movies!
10) Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop - I didn't read the thread because I didn't care to read a bunch of other people arguing (which is what I'm sure it was), but the other day on IMDB I saw a message board post titled "Conan seemed like kind of a dick" or something like that. I want to address that here: Yes, he did. However, name me one person who isn't at any point "kind of a dick." Nobody is one hundred percent nice all the time. When you see Conan O'Brien hosting a television show, he's being paid to be nice to people. That's his job. No matter how much of himself he brings to the role, he's still playing the part of talk show host and talk show hosts have to play nice. In this documentary, he's not playing that part. He's simply being himself. And, like all people, he has moments of jerkitude and, like a lot of people, he has kind of a mean sense of humor. So when he's pretending to fire his staff for bringing him fish with butter sauce or when he's complaining that he has to talk to so many strangers when all he wants to do is relax, that's not "being a dick." That's "being a person."
9) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - The fact that I didn't understand this movie and yet still think about it says quite a lot. I think I want to understand it. Maybe I should see it again. (I'd also like to point out that both Kung Fu Panda 2 and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy have Gary Oldman in them.)
8) Everyday Sunshine: The Story Of Fishbone - Okay, I guess technically this one was released in 2010 (at least at movie festivals) but I saw it in the theater in 2011 so it counts. And it singlehandedly made me a Fishbone fan. I only wish Gwen Stefani and Eugene Hutz could have swapped amounts of screentime.
7) X-Men First Class - It's weird, but as I get closer to the number one spot on this list, I have less and less to say about the movies. It's really hard for me to write much of anything at all unless something pisses me off, apparently.
6) Horrible Bosses - I don't actually remember much of Horrible Bosses but I do remember laughing all the way through. And I love Charlie Day.
5) Fright Night - One of the few remakes done right (yeah, there are flaws but compared to A Remake On Elm Street, this movie is brilliant). The moment they release a "double feature" DVD of both the original and this version of Fright Night, I'm buying it. (I'd also like to point out that both Horrible Bosses and Fright Night have Colin Farrell in them.)
4) Hugo - I think the only reason Hugo isn't slightly higher on the list (in other words, in the number three spot 'cause two and one were reserved a while ago) is because it does have those chase scenes where I feel like it falls down and becomes a bore.
3) Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows - On the other hand, I was not bored once by Sherlock Holmes. Of course, I've only seen it once so far. The second time might have some slow bits. On the other hand, I've also seen Hugo once, too and I noticed the slow bits there. (I'd also like to point out that both Hugo and Sherlock Holmes feature Jude Law in rare instances where he doesn't skeeve me out.)
2) Drive - I considered putting Drive in the number one spot. It totally blew me away. I'm a little bit obsessed with it because it was just so enthralling.
1) Insidious - However, I have to be honest with myself: I just enjoyed Insidious more. Rare these days is the horror movie that actually scares me. I got almost no sleep the first time I saw Insidious. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see were those doll people.

End of line.
-Sally

The Bleeding House

2011-12-22T01:36:00.000-08:00

I should have just watched American again.
The Bleeding House is about an on-edge family with a deep dark secret or some crap like that, whose home is invaded by a nutball in a white suit who talks like Foghorn Leghorn.
The movie wastes a lot of time pretending that Foghorn isn't a nutball (trying to make him seem like just some friendly rube) when anybody who's ever seen a movie can tell immediately that the guy's off his rocker. (Unlike the moral at the beginning of Beauty And The Beast, in the movies all strangers looking for help are actually out to kill you.)
I almost felt like I was watching Dee Snyder's Strangeland again, except instead of it being Dee Snyder not shutting up about the spirituality of piercings, it was Foghorn Leghorn not shutting up about some sort of religious redemption stuff that at first went over my head but eventually just turned into white noise. I'm not kidding, it got to the point where my brain wasn't registering what he was saying as words anymore.
And that's the movie's biggest flaw (nevermind the fact that it's boring and the big reveals weren't all that big): it can talk all it wants, but it can't make the audience listen.
I'm not even sure if we were supposed to be listening. Were the scriptwriters trying to make a point? If they were, they didn't do a very good job of it. There was no substance or clear message or anything; it was just a guy talking and I'm pretty sure he understood what he was talking about, but I'll be dipped if I comprehended a syllable of it.

End of line.
-Sally

American: The Bill Hicks Story

2011-12-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

Bill Hicks is possibly the biggest inspiration in my life. I have never known of a more intelligent, honest, funny human being. He lived more in his thirty two years than I may ever live, good times, bad times and both at once. He worked for what he wanted, he was never anything other than what himself and if it's possible to be in love with a person who died well before you knew he existed at all, then I am in love with Bill Hicks.
It's not that I aspire to be just like him; it's that he inspires me to be just like me, but the smarter, harder-working version of me that I know exists but don't let come out much because I'm afraid of her.
American: The Bill Hicks Story is exactly what the name implies: it is the story of Bill Hicks, told in photographs, live footage and interviews with his friends and family. It's beautifully put together. It's a long-ish movie, but I wish it had been longer. I feel like there was more that could have been said.
On the other hand, I can't think of anything else to say, either. I want everyone to watch this movie and maybe feel a shred of that intangible joy (because he was there and will always be there) and frustration (because he is gone and will be gone from now on) that I feel.

End of line.
-Sally

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

2011-12-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

It's hard to know what to say about Conan O'Brien Can't Stop because ... because it is. I don't need to think of a why for everything.
It's pretty common knowledge that Conan O'Brien was the host of The Tonight Show for seven months until NBC decided to give it back to Jay Leno, something I actually saw coming about a month after Conan took over the show when I read part of an interview with Leno where he said he noticed Conan was having a lot of the same problems he'd had when he first took over The Tonight Show, then rather than be a cool guy and say something supportive Leno went on to say "I never wanted to leave and if they offered me the show back, I'd take it." Because Jay Leno is a fuckwad.
Anyway, we all know all about that. Blame whoever you want for what happened. You can even be one of those assholes who say "Oh, they paid Conan all that money when he left so I don't feel sorry for him." 'Cause, you know, money's the most important thing in the world. (Because it's not necessarily always clear in writing, I'd like to point out that the previous sentence was made of sarcasm.)
If you had a lifelong dream given to you for a short while and then taken away, do you really think money would make you feel better? Because if you'd rather have money than your dream, I don't want to know you. Stop reading my blog. Fuck you.
... I keep getting sidetracked.
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is a documentary about the Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour that Conan and his staff embarked upon after The Tonight Show was taken away from them. There's no plot or story or really anything to it other than "this is what Conan O'Brien's life was like for a few months."
He had something, it went away and in his grief and anger he created an amazing live show (which I was lucky enough to attend; there's a review of it somewhere near the back of this blog) that ended up being a pure and uplifting (and exhausting) experience.
It's neat to see Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter just hanging out and being themselves. Because I'm a fan of profanity and have a crush on Conan, it's fun to hear him cursing up a storm. It's neat to see the highs and lows and what it's like to be on that kind of a tour.
The only problem with the movie is it kind of feels like an hour and a half of the same thing over and over. It was only because I'm a fan of the documentary's subject that the movie held my attention. If someone made the same movie about ... I don't know, some band I don't like, I wouldn't have given a fuck. I would have turned it off because it's boring and who cares?
So it's unlikely, if you're not a fan of Conan O'Brien, that this movie would change your mind. I don't necessarily think that this movie was made to change anybody's minds, though. I think the movie was made for his fans, so we can see what he went through.

End of line.
-Sally

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

2011-12-20T20:24:00.001-08:00

Yes! Fuck yes!! This is so up my alley!
Sherlock Holmes is investigating a series of bombings. John Watson is getting married. A Romani fortune teller named Sim is looking for her brother. Professor James Moriarty is a jerk. Mycroft Holmes is entertaining.
Things explode a lot, Robert Downey Jr. is attractive, the dialogue is quickly paced, there are more explosions, a lot of well-choreographed fight sequences, more action and explosions, some more dialogue, Robert Downey Jr. continues to be attractive, I spend an entire scene wanting to yell at the characters to hurry up and do what I already know they're going to do, the plot twists about, Stephen Fry is hilarious, more explosions, more explosions, dialogue and the end.
Fucking fantastic.

End of line.
-Sally

Made In America

2011-12-20T20:17:00.001-08:00

I actually saw this movie in the theaters back in 1990 or whenever it was it came out, but since then I completely forgot it existed until last night when there was nothing better to watch at my friend's house.
The movie is about a girl who finds out her sperm donor father is a white guy (the girl and her mother are black) and wacky hijinks ensue.
And by "wacky hijinks" I mean "comedy racism." The mom is played by Whoopi Goldberg who seems to hate pretty much all white people; the scene where her daughter tells her "I met my dad and he's white," their reaction is essentially "THIS IS THE WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN IN HISTORY!" It was really weird.
In fact, every single character, at every turn, did and said such weirdly stupid things that I couldn't fathom how this movie got made in the first place. I spent the whole movie sitting there thinking "Well, that was a stupid thing to do. That was a stupid thing to say. Nobody would handle this situation this way." And then it eventually turned from "look at the funny, poorly handled race relations" to "romantic comedy, sort of" and I lost what little interest I had in the movie.
There were a couple scenes where White Dad is filming commercials for his used car dealership with giant animals (a bear and an elephant). I liked those scenes. I'm a big fan of giant animals that can kill you.

End of line.
-Sally

The Human Centipede: First Sequence

2011-12-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Human Centipede is one of those movies that didn't really hold any interest for me (I generally don't go for medical horror), but I felt obligated to watch it because it's become an important and polarizing movie in its genre and, as a horror fan, I need to know where I stand on such issues.
The movie is about a German scientist who kidnaps some people so he can turn them into conjoined triplets, connected at the digestive system. This is a movie that apparently made Eli Roth throw up and made my brother fall asleep from boredom.
As often happens with "either your love it or you hate it" movies, I thought it was okay. It was interesting and it was definitely nothing I'd ever seen before, so kudos to Tom Six for doing something different. It was certainly bleak, the concept was simultaneously disgusting and thought provoking, and they threw in a surgery scene so I'd have a few minutes of watching through my fingers because I can't handle that kind of thing.
That being said, I don't think this one's going to leave much of an impression on me. I kind of feel the same way I felt after watching Martyrs: the movie had my complete attention while I was watching it, it was very interesting, it'll be on my mind for a while and in two days I'm probably going to forget that I saw it.
Maybe the movie couldn't live up to its hype. Maybe I'm just hard to impress. Maybe a third thing. I don't know.
I'm just glad I've seen it because now I know. I have seen The Human Centipede and I can join in conversations about it, should the need arise.

End of line.
-Sally

Top Eleven Christmas Movies

2011-12-16T16:46:00.000-08:00

It's December. Which means it's Christmastime!!! I love Christmas! I'm not a religious person, never have been, but I adore everything about the holidays: the music, the decorations, the cold weather, the spirit of the season, the abundance of delicious foods, all of it.
I also love Christmas movies, which is why I bring you now my Top Eleven Favorite Christmas Movies (And TV Specials). In alphabetical order, because I can't bring myself to rank them.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - I can't explain it, but that's okay. I shouldn't have to. It's a classic.
A Garfield Christmas - Not considered quite as classic as A Charlie Brown Christmas, but to me they go hand in hand (probably because we had them both on tape when I was growing up). It's more sentimental than one would expect from anything Garfield related and it makes me very happy. Bonus points for having simple little get-stuck-in-your-head musical numbers.
Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas - If I were ranking these, it's most likely Emmet Otter would be in the number one spot. I was quite bummed when a friend of mine pointed out that it's basically The Gift Of The Magi, because I hadn't really noticed the similarity, and I happen to hate that story. Emmet Otter is what The Gift Of The Magi would be if it were heartwarming and worth your time (as opposed to depressing and pointless).
How The Grinch Stole Christmas - Boris Karloff, Thurl Ravenscroft and Dr. Seuss (plus, you know, a good story that has a good, solid "meaning of Christmas" moral without being preachy about it). There's no way that can go wrong.
Love Actually - For the most part, I hate romantic comedies. And it's true that I have to really be in the mood for this movie (trying to watch it when I'm not in the mood ends with a strong desire to punch everybody involved. Even Colin Firth). But when I'm in the mood, this is the perfect harmless, plotless piece of Christmas fluff. It's a marshmallow of a movie.
Mickey's Christmas Carol - This is the first version of A Christmas Carol I remember seeing, and it's still so incredibly good. And very, very nostalgic; I can say every word right along with it.
Scrooged - A 1980s Christmas Carol starring Bill Murray back when he was funny and Carol Kane hitting him with a toaster. It's so funny, so dark, so good. They don't make movies like this anymore.
The Bishop's Wife - David Niven is a bishop having a crisis of faith, Cary Grant is an angel sent to help him out. When I was a little kid I went through a phase where I refused to watch movies in black and white. The Bishop's Wife and The Marx Brothers worked in tandem to break me out of that habit.
The Muppet Christmas Carol - Michael Caine is filmdom's best Ebenezer Scrooge, hands down. Yes, this movie contains one of the most heartbreaking songs ever written and no, that doesn't make me hate the movie because the rest of it is good enough to overcome making me cry like a little sissy girl (which is more than I can say for Toy Story 2).
The Nightmare Before Christmas - I honestly forget when I'm not watching it how good this movie really is. I know I like most of the songs in it, but usually I remember Nightmare Before Christmas as being far worse than it actually is (probably because of my adversarial relationship with Tim Burton and his legions of fans).
White Christmas - Last year I was wrapping presents and watching White Christmas. When the movie ended I was about halfway done with my wrapping. I scoured the house's collection of Christmas movies, trying to decide what to watch next, then put on White Christmas again. I think that sums it up.

Honorable Mention:
A Christmas Carol (any version) - As evidenced by the fact that I have three different versions of this story in my top eleven list, I love A Christmas Carol and will watch any variation thereof.
Arthur Christmas - I haven't seen this one yet, but I have it on good authority that it's much, much better than the previews would have you believe. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Carol For Another Christmas - I've never seen this movie and I don't know if I ever will. According to my mom, Rod Serling was involved with it. I don't know the story or anything about it really, other than that its theme music is my favorite Christmas song. And that's all it needs to make the Honorable Mention list.
Desk Set - While not exactly a Christmas movie, Desk Set has a very memorable Christmas scene. And it's a damn good movie. Curfew shall not ring tonight.
Frosty The Snowman - I don't really like this special, but it does hold a special place in my heart for one reason: "Messy, messy, messy." It was hilarious to me as a child (I would watch the special up to that line and then turn it off and if given the opportunity, I'd do it again).
Inside - The most harrowing and brutal horror movie I've ever seen takes place on Christmas Eve. Whether that's good or bad depends on your taste, but it's definitely worth mentioning.
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol - You know how The Muppet Christmas Carol has a heartbreaking song (When Love Is Gone) in it? So does Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (I'm All Alone In The World). And, while this version does have enough good moments that I do enjoy the movie, it's not quite good enough to completely overcome that song.
The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause - I hated this movie, as I hated the first The Santa Clause (never saw the third one). But it does have a scene where Evil Robot Tim Allen Santa Claus drinks hot chocolate for the first time that, for whatver reason, left me in teary eyed hysterics. It was the one bright spot in a terrible pool of mediocrity.
The Twilight Zone: The Night Of The Meek - If you ever want to make my dad cry, ask him about the Art Carney episode of The Twilight Zone. It turns him into a weepy mess every time. And I can't say I blame him.
The Year Without A Santa Claus - I've never been a Rankin Bass fan. I don't even really like Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (I honestly can't remember it after Herbie's song about being a misfit (I do love that song. "You can't fire me, I QUIT!"). It takes a weird turn and starts being about the abominable snowman ... what?!). The Year Without A Santa Claus, despite its depressing title (and a little kid singing Blue Christmas, thus fulfilling its Christmas movie duty of making me cry), has enough bright moments to almost win me over. I love the Snow Miser and Heat Miser songs (obviously) but my favorite song always gets cut from broadcast these days: the song Mrs. Claus sings about how she could be Santa this year.

And a best-of list just wouldn't be complete without its evil counterpart, the worst-of list. Here are my Ten Least Favorite Christmas Movies (And TV Specials):
A Chipmunk Christmas - There's a part where Dave says "I'm very disappointed in you, Alvin" that made me cry so much my mom ended up taping over the special so I wouldn't have to hear it again. I'm not kidding.
A Christmas Story - I will never, ever as long as I live understand why anybody likes this movie on any level. "Here's an hour and a half of people being miserable. Isn't that hilarious?" No. It's not. The very idea of this movie makes me angry. I'd rather watch every single other movie on this least-favorite list back to back than watch A Christmas Story once more. (I've seen it three times, which is five times too many.)
Santa Claws - Awful, stupid straight to video "horror" movie (it's really more of an excuse to get acrtesses naked next to Christmas trees) that was too boring to be scary or unintentionally funny or anything other than boring.
Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out - I love Bill Moseley. Everybody knows I love Bill Moseley. And, terrible as the first two Silent Night Deadly Nights are, at least they're not the third one (Bill Moseley in a brain hat stalking a blind girl with whom he has a psychic connection). Silent Night Deadly Night is disturbing, and the second one has some pretty good terrible dialogue (everybody loves "Garbage day!"). The third one is just stupid, not really related to the first two and I could drive a train through the plot.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Way to try to ruin my favorite Christmas book, made-for-TV-movie-making jerks. I had no idea it was possible to make this story suck.
The Christmas Toy - If you asked me, I couldn't tell you the plot of this movie or anything about it other than reading the title is enough to make me tear up. I saw it a couple times when I was little and it made a strong enough impression of sadness that I refuse to watch it again, even though I'm curious to know what it was that made me cry so. (Not curious enough to find out, but curious.)
The Muppet Family Christmas - First of all, I don't care about Fraggle Rock at all (yes, my niece has the same name as a Fraggle, no that doesn't make me think the show isn't boring) and I'm pretty sure this special was made solely to promote Fraggle Rock. Worse, Camilla leaves Gonzo for a turkey. And at the end of the special, it stays that way. And that is why this special can go to hell and stay there.
The Polar Express - This movie is nothing but two hours of padding, which is really impressive for a movie that's only a hundred minutes long.
The Preacher's Wife - Who decided it would be a good idea to remake The Bishop's Wife by taking out everything that made the original a good movie and turning the angel into an out-and-out asshole?
The Small One - You know all that stuff I said about The Christmas Toy? That.

End of line.
-Sally

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2011-12-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

I'll watch any movie when Gary Oldman is top-billed. That's not to say I have seen every movie in which he is the star, but I would watch them if given the opportunity.
And that is why I went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which stars Gary Oldman as a recently-fired British agent who is now following in his colleague's footsteps to find the Soviet mole "at the top of the Circus."
The biggest problem with the movie is that I'm kind of dumb. While I understood individual scenes and I understood the ending when everything came together, I didn't understand the movie. I couldn't follow each scene from one to the next; it felt like a series of vignettes that eventually had to do with each other but for the most part weren't connected.
I'm blaming that interpretation entirely on myself and my thick skull. The thing is, I really want to understand it and I may end up going to see it again, just in an attempt to figure it all out.

End of line.
-Sally

Saw VII

2011-12-14T21:43:00.001-08:00

The theatrical title of this movie was Saw 3D and the video title is Saw: The Final Chapter. But seeing as I didn't watch it in 3-D and I found out about a week ago that an eighth Saw movie is being planned (more on that later) I've decided Saw VII (or Saw Seven, if you will) is the only proper name for this movie.
Since the first movie, I've been a great defender of the Saw series. The fact that I defend it as a series is saying quite a lot, actually, because usually when a movie gets to the point that it's a series (rather than a single or a duo) I've washed my hands of the whole thing. I'm a big fan of stopping at one sequel, if a sequel has to be made at all.
As far as I'm concerned, the Saw movies go like this:
Saw: Absolutely brilliant.
Saw II: Pretty good. Not great but it has its moments.
Saw III: Best in the series after the first one, in spite of the fact that I can't watch great swatches of it (the traps upset me and I can't handle surgery scenes).
Saw IV: Made me angry the first time but I've liked it better every subsequent viewing.
Saw V: Felt like a damn clip show. It should have been called Previously On Saw.
Saw VI: Back to form. Fifty times better than the fifth one.
Saw VII: Well, I guess I should stop stalling and jump into this review.
As a "Final Chapter" it's kinda ... underwhelming, I guess. Sure there was one pretty great setpiece (which involved a cheating girlfriend, her two boyfriends and three circular saws; it also had one hundred percent nothing to do with the rest of the movie; it existed solely to have a gory beginning and to show a girl wearing essentially just a bra and leggings) and I'll forgive almost any plot twist when they throw this music over it. (I actually didn't mind the twist but I have to wonder if it would hold up to scrutiny, and if it was planned earlier than the seventh film or if it was just thrown in there in order to have a twist.)
But the thing that made the original Saw so brilliant was that it was simple: two dudes trapped in a room with a mini tape player and a couple of saws. (Yeah, there was some other stuff about police investigations and a hostage situation, but those weaved into the guys-in-the-room story really well.) It was more plot driven than most people give it credit for and not nearly as gory as everyone claims. The violence was mainly implied and the blood didn't really start flowing until Saw II.
And that's kind of the problem; the rest of the series emulates Saw II much more than Saw. Much as I enjoy some of these elaborate and ultimately disgusting traps, I feel like the filmmakers lost the point a long time ago. It should be about the story. Sure, they tried to give the Saw movies a good storyline that extends over all the films and they do a good enough job that I haven't tried to find flaws in the story arc. I want the series to succeed in not being stupid.
But I'm mad at Saw Seven. I spent the whole movie missing the first film's simplicity.
Saw Seven is mainly about a self-help author who wrote a book about surviving one of Jigsaw's traps and (SPOILER: his book is nothing but lies, and so) he finds himself in a warehouse, going through a series of rooms wherein people he works with are stuck in traps from which he has to save them. Or not. Either way, he has to go through all these rooms in order to try to save his wife. who is also in a trap. Shades of Saws Three and Six.
Meanwhile, the police are doing their dangedest to track down and bring to justice Jigsaw's accomplice, who has been involving people in games willy nilly (rather than for Jigsaw's original purpose).
It wasn't quite the clip show that Saw Five was, but Saw Seven was weak and shrill and the traps weren't all that great. I couldn't watch the fishhook one or the teeth one and the rest of them, apart from the opening one, were pretty underwhelming. It had moments I liked (the gore was cool) but overall I wasn't happy with it.
What I'm less happy about is the talk of an eighth Saw movie.
Much as I love this series (hit-or-miss though it may be), I was thrilled when I found out the seventh was to be the last. I was proud of them for ending it, for knowing that the series had to end (even if they didn't realize it should have ended much sooner; sure, I enjoyed Saw Six but I do think the series should have stopped, at the latest, with Saw Four). I thought it was brilliant and admirable to have a Final Saw Movie.
I tried valiantly to defend the moviemakers' integrity when people scoffed at the idea of the seventh being the last. I went on and on about how, no, I had read an article in Fangoria about it and they all seem serious about ending it, that they all know it can't go on forever. And, of course, they've all gone on to make me look like a fool for believing in them.
I had forgotten, you see, that almost nobody makes movies because they want to tell a good story or because they have artistic integrity. People make movies to make money, audience members be damned.
"They'll go see what we tell them to go see and we'll make money off of it. They'll go see an eighth Saw movie because they all went to see seven other Saw movies. They're dumb, they'll recognize the title and they'll throw money at us for giving them something they're familiar with."
I don't want there to be a Saw Eight, and I hope very much that I will have the willpower to not see it (I know I'll be tempted by cool previews). I want to make my point (insignificant though it may be in the grand scheme of all the other people who will go see it) that the series should have ended.
Movie series all eventually need to end. Some movies don't warrant sequels at all.
For instance, Insidious was quite possibly the best new movie I saw this year. I heard recently a sequel is in the works and I am pissed. It stands so brilliantly, perfectly on its own. There's nothing more that needs to be said. Why fuck that up with a sequel?
... Actually, I felt the same thing about Saw, now that I think about it. James Wan and Leigh Whannell make great movies that don't need sequels. Dead Silence didn't have a sequel and that's a damn good movie. Saw had a bunch of sequels, but the original is so much better on its own.
Why don't people try and focus on making really good movies and telling really good stories and maybe, just maybe (for horror movies, anyway) trying to scare the fuck out of some audience members? Why not do that instead of making a bunch of sequels?
And who the hell told Diablo Cody she was allowed to write an Evil Dead remake?! Fuck her! Juno sucks and I will never forgive that bitch for writing it.

End of line.
-Sally

Hugo

2011-12-06T22:18:00.000-08:00

There's a certain feeling I get from books I read when I was a child (books like The Phantom Tollbooth, The Diamond In The Window, and those books by Edward Eager), a feeling that can only be described as magical.
Hugo feels like that.
I saw previews for it and thought it looked pretty good, with all the clockworks and all. But the previews don't do a good job of explaining what the movie's about, not even a little. 'Cause the previews make it look like Hugo is a movie about a kid named Hugo who lives in a train station, gets chased by Sacha Baron Cohen and tries to figure out how to fix a mechanical man he got from his father.
Those are all elements of the story, certainly, but that's not what the movie's about. I don't entirely know how to explain what the movie's actually about.
It's about people, I suppose. But that makes it sound boring.
It's about the movies, I suppose, but that makes it sound modern.
It's about finding your purpose, I suppose, but that makes it sound preachy.
I was blown away by this movie. I cried all the way through it, but in a good way. It's a movie that makes me happy, that makes me want to live in that world with those people.
I don't know who this Asa Butterfield kid is, but he's perfect as Hugo, and I wish him the best in his life. He's a talented actor and I hope he doesn't let that go to his head or mess him up in any way.
In fact, everybody in the movie is perfectly cast. I rolled my eyes at the idea of Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector simply because I tend to roll my eyes at the idea of Sacha Baron Cohen. That's unfair of me; just because I don't like Da Ali G Show doesn't mean the man's not talented. He's quite good in this movie.
As is Ben Kingsley, who is sometimes infuriating, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes both at once. Even Jude Law was adorable, and I usually find him skeevy.
If I have a complaint about Hugo, it's that I felt like the scenes that the previews tended to focus on (Hugo being chased by the station inspector) ground the film to a halt. I suppose they were necessary, but they almost felt like they belonged in a different movie; they didn't give the audience anything about the characters to latch on to and they didn't have that sense of magic that the rest of the movie has; they were just there, getting in the way.
Other than that, though, Hugo is pretty much perfect. And don't let anybody call it a "children's" or even a "family" movie. Those terms always feel derogatory. Hugo is an all-ages movie; it has no age-specific target audience, it's simply something that anybody can enjoy.

End of line.
-Sally

Psycho House

2011-12-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

There are minor spoilers in this review, but how many people out there are actually planning on reading Psycho House (or knew it existed at all)?
Robert Bloch, at least when he wrote the Psycho trilogy, has a formula. He sets up a mystery, he spends a very long time following several characters and taking forever to say not much of anything. You can't try to solve the mystery yourself (isn't that the point of mystery novels?) because he deliberately withholds all clues from the reader, making the whol process of reading the book seem futile.
Then at the end he reveals that the murderer was a well-known and trusted character all along, logic be damned, and then spends a chapter or two explaining how the logic isn't being damned, how it all fit together.
It's an obnoxious formula, but a formula nonetheless.
I'm on to you, Robert Bloch.

End of line.
-Sally

Psycho II

2011-12-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

Two decades after Alfred Hitchcock released an incredibly successful film version of Psycho, author Robert Bloch wrote a Scream 3-style (actually, I guess Scream 3 is Psycho II-style) self-referentialish sequel, and it's just as pulpy and pseudo-intellectual as the first book.
At the start of the book, Norman Bates escapes the mental hospital in which he's been incarcerated for twenty years and the psychiatrist who'd been working with him goes off to find him, certain that Norman is headed to Hollywood to stop the movie being made based on his story.
In Hollywood, we meet a self-centered actress who cares more about her own big break than pretty much anything else (which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that I think Bloch was trying to make her a sympathetic character; he failed on all counts. She's awful), a scriptwriter who I think was supposed to have a personality but the author didn't do a very good job of giving him one, a producer who's such a stereotype that he's barely worth mentioning, a sleazy and violence-obsessed director, a washed-up leading man who took the part of Norman to get his career back on track and a washed-up former scriptwriter who runs a motel and puts Norman's doctor in room Number Six, the same room Norman put Mary Crane in at the Bates Motel in the first book (which has nothing to do with anything other than it's something I noticed. The phrase "Number Six" always jumps out at me for some reason. Golly, I can't imagine why).
From then on, a whole lot of nothing happens. I mean, I stuff happens, but none of it is as interesting or suspenseful as it should be. Maybe I'm just jaded but it really did feel like three hundred pages of nothin' goin' on:
The doctor sees Norman at the supermarket, the actress tries to seduce the doctor, the screenwriter tries his damnedest to have a personality, the actor gets a chapter or two from his point of view even though he's pretty much a pointless addition to the book's cast of characters.
That's part of the problem. There are too many characters and the plot is ... not convoluted exactly, but it seems to have a lot of plot threads that, while it's not that they don't go anywhere, they do seem pointless by book's end. I guess they're red herrings. It was just really hard to care about them even when they seemed like they might be important.
Psycho II's resolution is silly and makes no sense (and this is coming from a girl who likes the end of Haute Tension). Just like the first book, Bloch uses the last couple of chapters to explain everything with psychology mumbo jumbo. Unlike the first book (where the ending was spoiled from page one by the fact that I've seen the movie), Psycho II's ending was a surprise; the book kept me guessing the whole way through. I just didn't think the ending (or even the chapters leading up to it, really) was that good.
I'm thinking maybe I'm not a fan of Robert Bloch, which doesn't bode well for the third book in the series, Psycho House, which I will be reading next.
On the other hand, it might bode well for the movie sequel to Psycho, which has absolutely nothing to do with the book, and which I do plan on seeing at some point.

End of line.
-Sally

Nine Lives

2011-11-28T02:39:00.000-08:00

I started reading Rue Morgue a little less than ten years ago. The first issue I ever bought had a quite negative review of a movie called Nine Lives that, for whatever reason, completely intrigued me. I had to see it. A couple days ago I discovered Netflix finally had it available for streaming. Victory is mine!
Victory but not entertainment.
Nine Lives is about a group of nine friends (seven English, one Scottish, one Paris Hilton) gathering at one guy's family's country home. After a night of drinking and talking, most of the group goes to bed. One of the two guys who stays up finds a book and becomes possessed by an angry Scottish ghost named Murray, who wants his land back from the English or something. Also, he has no eyes.
This terrifying and murderous turn of events causes everyone to talk a lot. And cry and be incredibly melodramatic. But mostly, they talk. They talk about all kinds of things: they state the obvious, they make sure to use each others' first names as much as possible, they repeat themselves over and over, they make sure to point out the person who was most recently killed "was my best friend" and, of course, they throw in some half-assed attempts at talking about existentialism so the thirteen-year-olds this movie was obviously made for will feel like they're watching something written by someone who had a brain.
None of the acting is particularly great, but I have to make special mention of Paris Hilton's performance: I'm thrilled she was the first to die because her acting in this movie almost made me regret all the nice things I've said about her since becoming a fan of Repo! The Genetic Opera. (She is really great in Repo. My guess is that she took acting lessons between making these movies. Or maybe she only tries to put in good performances when working with talented people.)
Nine Lives is all around pretty terrible, but in more of a boring way than anything else. It's not quite an hour and a half long and most of that run time feels like padding. Nothing really happens in this movie at all. It's a whole lot of me yawning, occasionally interrupted by somebody getting stabbed (usually offscreen and with very little blood. That's not even my high gore tolerance talking; the blood is just really minimal).

End of line.
-Sally

Hostel II

2011-11-27T23:44:00.000-08:00

Hostel Two tells the magical tale of three American art students (Beth The BlandyDull, Lorna The RatlikeNerd and Whitney The SlutWhore) studying abroad in a mystical, fictional Europe where all natives are in cahoots with all other natives to lure unsuspecting Americans to Slovakia, where they're sold to a murder club. (Honestly, if these movies were remotely true to real life, Americans would have stopped visiting Europe ages ago.)
Hostel Two is a bit more fun than the first one because, in spite of the fact that I didn't like a one of them, the three protagonists are more likeable than the three protagonists in the first movie (yikes; sucks to be the guys in the first movie) and, unlike the first one, I think Hostel Two has a sense of humor. I laughed exactly once during the first movie (in a scene that involved people being hit by cars). I laughed ... well, more than once this time. It wouldn't be accurate to call this movie lighthearted or a laugh riot or anything like that, but it was funnier (the online auction scene was straight up comedy) and more fun and satisfying to watch.
Ordinarily, I'm not a big fan of all that "girl power" nonsense that feminists and the Spice Girls tout left and right, but I do enjoy it when chicks get to kick some ass in movies (Leeloo in The Fifth Element, for instance, or Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare On Elm Street). Beth The BlandyDull turns out to be one tough cookie underneath all the boring, which is pretty freaking cool.
On the other hand, I thought the first movie was a bit grittier and grimier. I like that, too.
Oh, and I guess I should add: Earlier today I was telling Rebekah about how I wasn't as satisfied with the gore in Hostel as I could have been, that I was expecting it to be far grosser than it turned out to be. She pointed out that I have an extremely high gore tolerance, to which my response was "I do?" The more I think about it, the more I realize she's right. So Hostel may actually be as gory as they say and I'm just a difficult-to-please gorehound. (I still think Cabin Fever was gorier, though.)
I'd be hard pressed to say whether I like Hostel or Hostel Two more. Hostel Two has more build up, more character development and, for the most part, more boring stretches. It also has a more satisfying ending. I suppose it wins by a slight margin, but I thoroughly enjoyed both movies.

End of line.
-Sally

Hostel

2011-11-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

I was told by several people that Hostel has no plot; that the first half is nothing but sex and the second half is nothing but gore.
Hostel has more plot and much less sex and gore than I was led to believe. Not that there isn't any. But I was expecting the second half to be so unbelieveably gross that I'd have a hard time watching it, and that wasn't the case. (I did end looking away during one scene, but it was a scene I'd actually seen before on Spike TV's Scream Awards. Once is enough for me.)
So even though it was less disgusting than I had expected (hoped) I ended up liking Hostel for its story as much as its violence. It's a simple story (simple enough to make people claim it isn't even there) but an engrossing one nonetheless. And a tense one. Tense enough to make me yell at the screen a few times (mostly at characters about how they are being stupid) and then unable to sleep afterwards (which caused me to put on The Simpsons and then sleep in 'til eleven thirty, which I hate doing).
Brad and Nikki also loaned me Hostel Two, so I'm sure I'll be reviewing that one soon.

End of line.
-Sally

Psycho

2011-11-24T20:29:00.000-08:00

I never finished reading The Strange Case Of Dr. Jeckyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, because it was obvious the story was building to the dramatic conclusion of "they were the same guy all along!" Also known as "the one thing everybody knows about Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde." And I just didn't have the patience for that.
I did finish reading Psycho by Robert Bloch. I finished it today. It was entertaining in an old pulp novel sort of way, but it didn't have the intended dramatic impact because I have seen the movie Psycho, which was based on this book.
For the two people out there who aren't familiar with Psycho the movie (not that you're reading this blog, but just in case) I'm not going to give away the dramatic conclusion to which the book builds, but those of you who have seen the movie already know it, know it from page one, and knowing it makes entire chapters of the book almost painfully eyerolly.
The shock only works once. And it was effective the first time I saw Psycho. That movie may be a classic (it was groundbreaking in a lot of ways) but, in my opinion, it doesn't really hold up to a second viewing. Once you know, it makes the buildup kinda dull. So that's the problem with the novel.
The guy who loaned me Psycho (the book) also loaned me Psycho II and Psycho House, its sequels. I've read a synopsis of the movie Psycho 2 and I just read the back of the book Psycho II, and they have completely different plots. I think that's pretty cool.
Someday I plan on watching the movie sequels to the movie Psycho. But I have access to the books, so I'll just have to read those first.

End of line.
-Sally

A Very Harold And Kumar 3-D Christmas

2011-11-18T16:04:00.000-08:00

I never saw the first two Harold And Kumar movies. This one was stupid, but fun. I didn't love it. I don't need to see it again. I also didn't hate it. Some parts made me laugh. Some parts were supposed to make me laugh but didn't. There's a brief scene near the end of Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka arguing that was probably my favorite part of the movie, mainly because I understood the joke. And there's a big production number. Those are always fun. I also liked Patton Oswalt's brief appearance at the beginning. And there was probably some other stuff that was funny. I hated Kumar's friend who's trying to get to a party to nail some girl. I totally could have done without that guy. Harold and Kumar are both plenty likeable, though. And I want a Wafflebot.

End of line.
-Sally

They Might Be Giants at the House Of Blues in Anaheim, November 16, 2011

2011-11-17T11:24:00.001-08:00

I'm not the sort of person to let personal drama prevent me from going to conerts. I had tickets to this show and, come hell or high water, I was going to it. (I've had a fairly dramatic week.)
On the way to the concert, Ivy's older daughter was busy getting arrested for Occupying San Francisco. I'm not a protest kind of person; even when I agree with protestors I find them motherfucking annoying. But then I don't get to have experiences like getting arrested by riot cops. (That may sound like sarcasm, but it isn't. I actually think it's pretty cool and I'm a little jealous.)
My point is, that had nothing to do with my own drama, and drama is far more entertaining when you're privy to it but not directly involved.
Anyway, none of that matters. I'm not reviewing my week so far or my friend's kid's arrest record. I'm reviewing a concert.
Jonathan Coulton was the opening act and ... Okay, see, here's the thing. I have this terrible habit of reacting negatively to extreme praise. For years I've had friends going on and on about how wonderful Jonathan Coulton is, so my natural reaction was to never want to hear his music ever. And I pretended to be familiar with him already just so people wouldn't play me any of his stuff. (I do the same thing with certain movies. But I won't say which ones, 'cause then someone'll try to make me watch them and I don't want to.)
I had heard some Jonathan Coulton songs before. I had him among my LastFM favorited artists for a while (I don't mind listening to him on my own terms) but the only song of his they ever played was I'm Having A Party (or some title along those lines) and I wasn't terribly impressed. I heard Still Alive when Ivan showed me Portal, and I liked that one enough to listen to it several times on Youtube. And on the way to the show Ivy played a song he did about the presidents (which I really liked) and some Christmas song about robot overlords (to which I was fairly indifferent).
But now that I have seen him play live, I can say with absolute certainty that he rocks. He rocks big time. I am planning on getting all his albums just as soon as I have the money to do so. And I will buy his newest album first so I can have a copy of Good Morning Tucson, which is the song that absolutely won me over to his side.
As for They Might Be Giants...
They're fantastic.
I don't know why I bother reviewing concerts because I never know what to say. I have never seen a bad They Might Be Giants show. John, John, Dan, Dan and Marty (actually I guess one of those Dans goes by Danny, but it's funnier that way) always fucking bring it.
They played (to the best of my memory) twenty seven songs, they divided the audience into apes and people, they gave away a copy of Join Us on vinyl and a very large Join Us poster, the Avatars Of They showed up and regaled us with the tale of how They Might Be Giants stole songs from their rejected demo tape because puppets don't have lawyers.
I danced, I sang, I bounced, I headbanged, I pumped my fist, I yelled "WOOOOOOO!" a lot. I was right in front, so I could see a good portion of what was going on (some of my view was blocked by Linnell's piano) and a few times John Flansburgh and Danny Weinkauf were so close to me that, if I were more rude (or creepy) I could have touched them.
I was less than six inches from John Flansburgh. It actually made me almost cry. (If I had been alive in the 1960s, I totally would have been a crying Beatle fangirl.)
So, the verdict: They Might Be Giants = wonderful. There's a reason I have a tattoo of their logo.

And, in case anyone cares, here's a list of the songs they played. I don't remember what order they played them, so I've arranged them alphabetically. (Sorry it's not in order, but I didn't get a set list. Marty Beller gave me a drumstick, though, so I can't complain.) Songs with an asterisk were encore songs:
Alphabet Of Nations
Anaheim*
Birdhouse In Your Soul*
Can't Keep Johnny Down (first song played)
Careful What You Pack
Celebration (second song played)
Clap Your Hands*
Cloisonne
Damn Good Times
Fingertips
How Can I Sing Like A Girl*
In The Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle (sung by Robin "Goldie" Goldwasser)
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
Judy Is Your Viet Nam
Marty Beller Mask*
New York City* (last song played)
Particle Man
Piece Of Dirt
Purple Toupee
Spoiler Alert (sung by The Avatars Of They)
The Famous Polka
They'll Need A Crane
We Live In A Dump
When Will You Die (last song of the main set)
Why Does The Sun Shine
Withered Hope
You Probably Get That A Lot

End of line.
-Sally

Vertigo

2011-11-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo since high school. I love it. I'm oddly obsessed with it, even though Jimmy Stewart is a creepy, creepy man and Kim Novak has very severe eyebrows.
So, back in high school, during my obsessing, I discovered Vertigo was based on a French book by French authors Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The French title, translated into English, was From Among The Dead and I spent a decade looking for it, with no luck.
Turns out I should have been looking for a book called Vertigo all that time. Doy.
So I finally found it and I finally read it.
Somehow, the book and the movie are simultaneously exactly the same and completely different. The book is more concise, I guess; the movie has more plot, more characters. Also, the book is about French people in France rather than American people in San Francisco (the only character in the movie who has the same name as their book counterpart is Madeline), and there are fewer characters. And by that I mean Barbara Bel Geddes's character (also known as the best character in the movie) does not exist in the book.
The main character, Smitty (okay, he has a different name in the book, but it's French and I've already forgotten how to spell it), is completely unlikeable in the book, but in a different way than how he's unlikeable in the movie. In the movie he starts out as sort of sad sack Jimmy Stewart and then turns into the creepiest man on the planet. Throughout the book, though, Smitty's just an asshole. The writers don't make any attempt to make you like him. He never even becomes creepy; even when he's (semi-spoiler for those of you who have never seen Vertigo) forcing his new girlfriend to change herself to look exactly like Madeline, he's just a royal asshole about it. You want to punch him.
In fact, you want to punch him constantly. Through the whole book.
So I guess it wasn't worth it. But I'm glad I read it, because otherwise I'd spend the rest of my life wishing I had read it. Now I know that this is one of the rare cases where it's better to stick with the movie.
I'm in the middle of the book Psycho was based on now. We'll see how that goes.

End of line.
-Sally

Drive

2011-11-09T09:42:00.000-08:00

More fuel for my theory that moviegoers don't have any intelligence for filmmakers to respect:
Puss In Boots, an insultingly predictable movie (don't give me any of that "lighten up, it's a kids' movie" bullshit; kids deserve better than mediocre, pandering crap), was the number one movie in the country for two weeks in a row.
On the other end of the spectrum, Drive barely got any attention as an entity and some woman tried to sue because it wasn't like The Fast And The Furious. (And also because there are some racial slurs against Jewish people. Said by Jewish characters. And she doesn't seem to have a problem with the same characters' racial slurs against Asians and Italians.) I cannot begin to fathom how fucking stupid this woman must be.
Now, Drive isn't for everyone, certainly. For instance, I know my mom would hate it. It's tense and stressful and violent. (Oh, the violence. So much violence.) But even if I had hated Drive (I didn't, but if I had) I wouldn't have been able to deny that it's a good movie. A damn good movie. If I had gone into the theater expecting something like The Fast And The Furious and ended up instead with what Drive actually is, I'd be thrilled. When the movie ended and I tried to talk to my friend about it, I couldn't. Drive genuinely rendered me speechless; I couldn't figure out how to say words to express how I felt.
What I liked about Drive was that it understood when to be quiet. It takes its time. It starts slow and even when the action kicks in and the movie goes full tilt violence boogie all over everybody's asses, it still has its fair share of slow, quiet moments.
The acting's fantastic. I'll never understand why my friends think Ryan Gosling is hot but I can't deny the dude's a very talented actor. Bryan Cranston is great, Albert Brooks is frightening (who knew?), Ron Perlman is ... well, he's large and meatheady, which we all already knew he was good at. But still!
I can tell this one's going to stick with me for a good, long while. I just wish I knew how to put into words why Drive is such a great movie. "Great" doesn't really cut it as a descriptor.
You know how sometimes you're watching a movie, but your mind is wandering? You're thinking about other things going on in your life, thinking about what may or may not happen next in the movie, what the characters should have done, what you would have done in their situations, or a million other things? That didn't happen with Drive. It was completely engrossing. I can't exactly say that I wasn't thinking, but I wasn't thinking about anything other than what was going on, on screen, at that moment. It drew me right in and told all other parts of my brain to keep quiet for a little while while it told me this amazing story about a driver who makes friends with his neighbor and winds up in a world of trouble. It's not often a movie can do that.
Films like Drive are rare.
And when they do come along, complete idiots sue them for not being brainless action movies.
And this is why moviemakers don't respect our intelligence.

End of line.
-Sally

Puss In Boots

2011-11-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Mediocre at best.
There wasn't a single plot point that I didn't see coming well before it was revealed. I never realized before now that Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt have the same voice. The cats were adorable, the way they animated Humpty Dumpty made me feel ill, the dance fight was cute (mainly I like the phrase "dance fight"), they played a Lady Gaga song I like over the end sequence and I'm really motherfucking sick of the Sassy Female Love Interest. "Oh, she's a strong woman." No, she's fucking annoying, she's a cliche and she's fucking annoying.
I wanted to like it. I guess my expectations were too high. I was expecting, you know, something that might make me laugh at least once. Or something with a plot that wasn't one hundred percent predictable.
But, oh yeah, it's a kids' movie and moviemakers have even less respect for children's intelligence than they do for adults'. And moviemakers have zero respect for adults' intelligence (not that the majority of the moviegoing public has any intelligence for which to have respect), so the mere suggestion that a kids' movie not be completely bland, unfunny, predictable, condescending and insulting is asking way too fucking much.
I have a headache and apparently I'm in a bad mood.

End of line.
-Sally

Dr. Syn Alias The Scarecrow

2011-11-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

This is one of those old live action Disney movies that most people seem to have forgotten about. In fact, I'm pretty sure more people The Gnome Mobile than this one. And I don't even remember The Gnome Mobile.
It wasn't a bad movie, exactly. It was just ... it felt very, very long. And also it felt like two movies.
Basically, it's a superhero story. Mild mannered vicar Doctor Syn is, in fact, the mysterious Scarecrow, who smuggles alcohol and silk and probably other stuff and redistributes it to the poor. Take that, the British government!
The first half of the movie is about a guy in the Scarecrow's smuggling ring who starts working for the army because they threatened to hang him for smuggling. Of course, now the Scarecrow's gang wants to hang him for being a traitor to their cause. And it seems like all the guy really wants to do is be drunk and not get hung.
The second half of the movie is about a Navy deserter returning home and getting arrested for deserting the Navy. So now the Scarecrow has to rescue him. 'Cause he's a nice guy like that.
I liked certain things about the movie (Patrick McGoohan being the obvious example; there were neat plot points and stuff, too) but overall it was kinda boring and too long.
The Scarecrow / Doctor Syn was a cool character and his schemes to get back at the traitor smuggler and rescue the Navy deserter from jail were by far the most entertaining parts of the movie. It was all the plot exposition leading up to those setpieces I didn't care for so much.

End of line.
-Sally

The Perfect Host

2011-10-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

After robbing a bank, John seeks refuge in the randomly selected home of Warwick, who's about to throw a dinner party. Then shit gets weird.
And that's all I'm telling you.
The Perfect Host is a good, weird movie. It's not a perfect movie (ha) but it's entertaining and bizarre and David Hyde Pierce freaking owns it as Warwick. He's fantastic.
The problem I had with the movie was that it didn't explain certain things I would have liked answered and the very last scene irked me because ... well, I can't tell you why.
Go watch the movie and then we can talk about it.

End of line.
-Sally

Everyday Sunshine: The Story Of Fishbone

2011-10-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not ashamed to admit I went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about Fishbone. Nada. The most information I had about them was "I've read their name in articles about Mr. Bungle," "my mom didn't like them when they opened for Madness," and "Eugene Hutz is in this documentary."
Eugene Hutz is in this documentary for less than a minute, by the way. While he's there, he's super lovely, but if he's the only reason you're watching the movie, you're going to come away disappointed.
Unless you're me, in which case the movie will completely win you over (except for one minor detail, which I will get to shortly) and you will become a budding Fishbone fan. As soon as I get me some spending money, I'm buying some of their albums.
Everyday Sunshine follows Fishbone from the members meeting in junior high school to their making a name for themselves in the punk rock scene, getting signed, almost getting famous, essentially breaking up and, at the same time, keeping the band going.
There's a fascinating and sort of sad part near the middle about their guitar player basically joining a cult (which was sort of the beginning of the end for the band as a whole) and an attempt at an intervention turning into an attempted kidnapping charge. For some reason that story is the part of the movie that sticks with me and stands out most vividly in my mind.
Because the movie is The Story Of Fishbone and not The Music Of Fishbone, I learned more about the people in the band than about their music, sadly, but I get the feeling the movie assumed people in the audience were already familiar with their music. What they did play, however, I really really enjoyed and am looking forward to listening to more of it. And there's nothing wrong with watching a movie about the people in the band. I like the people in the band. They seem like really cool guys.
Now, the one minor detail that did the opposite of winning me over: Occasionally the movie talked to musicians who are fans of and were influenced by Fishbone. Which, as that goes, does not bother me. Those are the parts where Eugene Hutz shows up (however briefly) and there's nothing wrong with testimonials. They're a staple of documentary filmmaking. You kind of need them.
However, if you're trying to show me the positive effects of Fishbone's influence on musicians, don't talk to Gwen Stefani. She is one hundred percent awful, and it's incredibly difficult to listen to her talk about how much she loves and respects and was influenced by this amazing band when her music is terrible, bland, uninteresting dreck. Her presence (and, actually, the presence of two other members of No Doubt) sucks the integrity out of the movie. Not completely, just the scenes where she shows up and is talking (and looking weirdly shiny, like she's made out of plastic or they airbrushed her footage or something). There are little holes in the movie where I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes and resisting the urge to scream at the screen.
Little holes that could have been filled with Eugene Hutz or someone else with talent and integrity. It doesn't matter who, just as long as it's not a member of a shitty pop band whose voice makes me want to commit violent crimes.
Members of No Doubt aside, the movie was fantastic; really interesting, full of good music, full of ups and downs, happiness and sadness with no real ending. This is the sort of movie that inspires me and fills me with the desire to get out and live life. I like that.

End of line.
-Sally

100 Horror Movies "You Must See Before You Die"

2011-10-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was invited to join a Facebook page called 100 Horror Movies You Should See Before You Die. I joined it because I love horror movies and I love lists. Then I couldn't figure out how to post my list to the page (it's too long to be a wall post and I couldn't find any other posting option) so I'm writing my list here and will post a link to it on the Facebook page.
First of all, the reason I put the second part of this entry's title in quotes is because I have a hard time with being told what to do. When I worked at the library I read 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I called it The Bossy Book and spent a lot of time yelling at it for being stupid. (Honestly, they included Meet The Parents. In what way is that movie a requirement? I'd pay good money to have everything I remember about it (except the fact that I hate it, so I won't make the mistake of watching it again) wiped from my mind.)
So, to make a long story short (too late), I've put quotes around "You Must See Before You Die" because I am not the boss of you.
Also, the "You" in the title refers to people who actually watch horror movies. I don't think I'd recommend many (any) of these movies to my mom because she is not a horror fan and I wouldn't want to traumatize her.
One final disclaimer: There are eighteen movies on this list I haven't seen (yet) and six I don't even like. They are included because, regardless of my opinion or so-far-unviewed status, I think they're important pieces of horror film history and should be seen. (I'm not going to tell you which ones I haven't seen but I will point out the ones I don't like).
Anyway, enough with the further ado. Here is my list:

1. Alien (Ridley Scott)
2. A Nightmare On Elm Street (Wes Craven)
3. Babysitter Wanted (Jonas Barnes, Michael Manasseri)
4. Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon (Scott Glosserman)
5. Blood Feast (Herschell Gordon Lewis)
6. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola)
7. Bride Of Frankenstein (James Whale)
8. Cabin Fever (Eli Roth)
9. Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato)
10. Carnival Of Souls (Herk Harvey)
11. Cherry Falls (Geoffrey Wright)
12. City Of The Living Dead (Lucio Fulci)
13. Cloverfield (Matt Reeves)
14. Creepshow (George A. Romero)
15. Cube (Vincenzo Natali)
16. Dawn Of The Dead (George A. Romero)
17. Dawn Of The Dead (Zack Snyder)
18. Day Of The Dead (George A. Romero)
19. Dead Alive (Peter Jackson) -- I really want to like this one, but I don't. I've seen it a few times in the hopes that eventually it'll grow on me (eww) but so far no dice. (Except the line "I kick arse for the lord." That makes me giggle.)
20. Dead And Buried (Gary Sherman)
21. Dead Silence (James Wan)
22. Deep Red (Dario Argento)
23. Dracula (Tod Browning)
24. Evil Dead 2 (Sam Raimi)
25. Feast (John Gulager)
26. Fiend Without A Face (Arthur Crabtree)
27. Frankenstein (James Whale)
28. Friday The 13th (Sean S. Cunningham)
29. Friday The 13th (Marcus Nispel)
30. Fright Night (Tom Holland)
31. Fright Night (Craig Gillespie)
32. Halloween (John Carpenter) -- A lot of people would claim I need to have my horror fan card revoked, but I think the original Halloween is boring. A lot of people see atmosphere and creepiness but all that was lost on me.
33. Halloween (Rob Zombie)
34. Halloween 2 (Rob Zombie)
35. Happy Birthday To Me (J. Lee Thompson)
36. Hatchet (Adam Green)
37. Hellraiser (Clive Barker)
38. Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (John McNaughton) -- This movie didn't bother me when I watched it but it's sat in my brain like a festering blob and the more I think about it the more disturbed by it I am. Once was enough.
39. High Tension (Alexandre Aja)
40. Horror Of Dracula (Terence Fisher)
41. House Of 1000 Corpses (Rob Zombie)
42. House On Haunted Hill (William Castle)
43. House On Haunted Hill (William Malone)
44. I Know What You Did Last Summer (Jim Gillespie)
45. Inside (Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury) -- This is possibly the most disturbing, upsetting movie I've ever seen. I highly recommend it to horror fans but I will never watch it again. The first twenty minutes alone would have left me depressed for a week.
46. Insidious (James Wan)
47. In The Mouth Of Madness (John Carpenter)
48. Ju-On (Takashi Shimizu)
49. Mad Love (Karl Freund)
50. May (Lucky McKee)
51. Night Of The Living Dead (George A. Romero)
52. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau)
53. Parents (Bob Balaban)
54. Phantasm (Don Coscarelli)
55. Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper)
56. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
57. Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon)
58. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski)
59. Saw (James Wan)
60. Scanners (David Cronenberg)
61. Scream (Wes Craven) -- I hate that this has become important enough for me to have to include it on my list. I really want to punch this movie in the mouth and make it apologize for being insipid.
62. Session 9 (Brad Anderson)
63. Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik)
64. Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton)
65. Slither (James Gunn)
66. Suicide Club (Sion Sono)
67. Suspiria (Dario Argento)
68. Tenebrae (Dario Argento)
69. The Beyond (Lucio Fulci)
70. The Blob (Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.)
71. The Blob (Chuck Russell)
72. The Burning (Tony Maylam)
73. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (F.W. Murnau)
74. The Collector (Marcus Dunstan)
75. The Devil’s Rejects (Rob Zombie)
76. The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi)
77. The Exorcist (William Friedkin)
78. The Haunting (Robert Wise) -- I get that it's an excellent example of less-is-more, but it's painfully melodramatic, not as well acted as people would have you believe and (I hate to be this girl, but) absolutely shitty compared to the book.
79. The Last Horror Movie (Julian Richards)
80. The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher)
81. The Manson Family (Jim Van Bebber)
82. The Midnight Meat Train (Ryuhei Kitamura)
83. The New York Ripper (Lucio Fulci)
84. The Old Dark House (James Whale)
85. The Omen (Richard Donner)
86. The People Under The Stairs (Wes Craven)
87. The Phantom Of The Opera (Rupert Julian)
88. The Phantom Of The Opera (Dwight H. Little)
89. The Return Of The Living Dead (Dan O’Bannon)
90. The Serpent And The Rainbow (Wes Craven)
91. The Silence Of The Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
92. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper)
93. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Tobe Hooper)
94. The Thing (John Carpenter)
95. The Toolbox Murders (Tobe Hooper)
96. The Wolf Man (George Waggner)
97. Videodrome (David Cronenberg)
98. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (Wes Craven)
99. Wishmaster (Robert Kurtzman)
100. Zombi 2 (Lucio Fulci)

And now, here are sixteen movies I seriously considered including on my list but decided against because I don't consider them horror movies. They have horrific elements but I would not shelve them in the Horror section:

A Bucket Of Blood (Roger Corman) -- Comedy
American Psycho (Mary Harron) -- ... I don't know what genre this is. But I do know that it isn't a horror movie. I added it and removed it to my must-see list about five times (it must be seen!) before my I-Wouldn't-Call-It-A-Horror-Movie conscience won out.
Army Of Darkness (Sam Raimi) -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy. Just because it's the third movie in the Evil Dead series doesn't make it a horror movie. Even if it did, I still would have eventually removed it from the list. It's definintely the weakest of the three and I don't like it all that much. I really have to be in the mood for it, and I almost never am.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Fran Rubel Kuzui) -- Comedy
Frozen (Adam Green) -- Suspense Drama
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Joe Dante) -- Comedy
Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson) -- Drama
Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (Robert Aldrich) -- Suspense
Killer Tongue (Alberto Sciamma) -- Weirdass What The Fuck Am I Watching Com...ed...y?
Little Shop Of Horrors (Frank Oz) -- Musical Comedy
Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone) -- Experimental Action Drama
Repo! The Genetic Opera (Darren Lynn Bousman) -- Sci Fi Musical
The ‘Burbs (Joe Dante) -- Comedy
The Frighteners (Peter Jackson) -- Comedy
The Little Shop Of Horrors (Roger Corman) -- Comedy Rush Job
The Night Of The Hunter (Charles Laughton) -- Suspense

End of line.
-Sally

Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend

2011-10-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Brontosauruses live in the African jungle. Sean Young wants to study them, Patrick McGoohan wants to be an evil scientist at them and also William Katt is there being kind of a douche.
Let's back up.
Once upon a time, Patrick McGoohan stabbed a guy at a parade and stole his dinosaur photos. Then he went back to work at his archaeological dig, where Sean Young showed him a bone she found that she thinks is from a dinosaur but he claims is from a giraffe. Then he went off to look for the dinosaurs.
Sean Young gets suspicious and ditches William Katt to go find the dinosaurs herself. William Katt, being a possessive husband, follows her ("Damn it, woman, you should be home making babies!") and they meet a native tribe who disappears when asked about the dinosaurs.
Then Sean Young and William Katt find the brontosauruses, which are straight up audioanimatronic adorableness, and try to befriend them.
Meanwhile, Patrick McGoohan is chasing them and doing general evil paleontologist things like scowling and shouting and wearing a hat. (He honestly doesn't seem all that evil compared to his team, who want to kill the dinosaurs; it's his people-killing that makes him seem like a truly bad guy).
There's something to be said for PG-rated family adventure films that are chock full of naked natives and include lines like "If it were my wife, I'd whip the bitch." But William Katt needs to put a damn shirt on (I don't think I like William Katt in anything) and Patrick McGoohan needs more to do. Yeah, he's the villain and all but he's still not in it enough. There are entire scenes where he doesn't show up at all. What's the point of that?
Overall, it's so-so. The plot's good enough and the special effects are charming; not nearly as "realistic" as, say, Jurassic Park (as long as we're talking dinosaur movies) but I like them far better. CGI can bite me. The baby dinosaur in is just so dang cute, I wish I had one of my own.

End of line.
-Sally

Taras Bulba

2011-10-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you've noticed, but I happen to be a fan of a band called Gogol Bordello. They're wonderful and amazing and if you're unfamiliar with their music I recommend you remedy that immediately. I've never heard another band that sounds quite like them. I can't think of enough good things to say about them.
They're named after Nikolai Gogol, a Ukrainian author who I don't really know anything about. I don't know when he lived or died or anything; the little bit I do know about him (he was a history professor and he went crazy) I learned from the introduction in the edition of Taras Bulba that I recently bought. In fact, I bought it mainly for the introduction, which was written by Gogol Bordello founder and frontman (and all-around dreamboat) Eugene Hutz.
I also figured it'd be a good idea to read something by this Gogol fellow, seeing as one of my favorite bands is named after him and all.
Taras Bulba was interesting because I genuinely don't know how I feel about it. It's about a guy named Taras Bulba and his sons Ostap and Andreii, and how they go to a place called Zaporozhe to live with a bunch of guys, and Taras convinces everybody to start a war 'cause he's bored but then some other Cossacks show up and talk about religious injustices going on and so they decide to start their war over that instead. (... I think? I have to admit I had a hard time following the beginning of the book.)
A lot of the book had a very intense "we hate them 'cause they're different" vibe, which very much upsets me and I think part of the reason I can't decide how I feel about the book is because I can't tell if it's merely the characters or the author himself who felt that way. If it was just the characters, I'm cool with it. If it was the author, not so much. (A lot of the casual racism surrounding a Jewish character made me think it might've been the author.)
What I did like for some reason was Gogol's habit of introducing a character, giving him a healthy history, and either killing him immediately or just never mentioning him again. The guy would have a name and almost a page's worth of backstory, he'd say two sentences and then he'd disappear. It's a weird habit and something I've never seen in other books, and I don't know why but I liked it.
That being said, I don't know if I liked any of the characters themselves, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I'm a chick in 2011 reading about characters from hundreds of years ago who had very different lives and viewpoints than I do. For instance, I decided immediately I didn't like Taras Bulba (the hero of the damn story) because the second his sons get home from school he decides to whisk them away again, in spite of the fact that his wife would like a chance to, you know, spend time with her only children. But fuck what she wants, she's a woman. She has no rights.
Well, back then she didn't have any rights and I shouldn't be looking at it with a modern sensibility.
So a lot of the book didn't sit well with me just because I'm so very far removed from the people it's about. That's not really anybody's fault.
Honestly, my favorite part of the book was Eugene Hutz's introduction. It was interesting to read because I'm so used to the things he posts on The Twitter, which tend to be all in capital letters and full of sentences that aren't sentences. But here he probably took a bit of time writing and thinking about it instead of just "I'm posting a quick thing on the internet." That alone made it really neat to read.
Nikolai Gogol isn't really for me but Gogol Bordello seems almost tailor-made to suit my tastes. I can live with that.

End of line.
-Sally

Bolt

2011-10-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

Bolt is a dog. Bolt is a dog who has been scientifically altered to have superpowers. At least, he thinks he is. Bolt is a dog who is a television star, but in a case of enforced method acting, nobody has bothered to tell him that it's all fake. It's sort of like a superpowered doggie The Truman Show.
After a particularly intense battle wherein he doesn't save his person, Penny, Bolt escapes the television studio in an attempt to save her. Because he doesn't realize she's in danger, you see. And, through a series of wacky mishaps, he ends up on the other side of the country. I hate when that happens.
So now Bolt has to team up with a jaded cat named Mittens and an absolutely awesome fanboy hamster named Rhino to get back to California and find Penny.
I spent a good chunk of the movie crying. It just made me sad. I guess it's the kind of story that gets under my skin.
And they included the fucking Misunderstanding Cliche, this time in the form of a "Penny doesn't want me anymore" moment. I'd have claimed that was a spoiler, but I knew it was going to happen as soon as Bolt ended up in New York. That's how predictable and horrible a cliche it is. I hope the Misunderstanding dies a sudden and painful death.
You know what makes up for all of that, though? Rhino. Rhino is so cool! He's enthusiastic, eager, brave and has only the slightest grip on reality. And that is almost a guaranteed successful equation for a great character.

End of line.
-Sally

This Day In Fear

2011-10-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

An inspector from Scotland Yard is investigating James Coogan about the disappearance of his old friend Seamus O'Connor. The picture is kind of dark and hard to see, the sound quality is iffy, it gets quite melodramatic near the end, the plot twists weren't surprising (although I'm not sure "surprise" was what they were going for) and I wouldn't have had the patience for it at all if it hadn't starred Patrick McGoohan.
It wasn't necessarily a bad movie, but it's not one that I was in the mood for. It's talky and British and '50s-y. On any other day I might have more to say but today all I've got is "Patrick McGoohan is lovely."

End of line.
-Sally

From Dusk Till Dawn

2011-10-01T13:07:00.001-07:00

When it came out back in the mid 1990s, the only things I knew about From Dusk Till Dawn were that Quentin Tarantino had something to do with it (turns out he wrote it) and it was about vampires.
The truth is a bit more complicated than that.
From Dusk Till Dawn is about the Gecko brothers, Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Mac Tonight), who have busted Seth out of prison, robbed a bank, taken a hostage and blown up a liquor store. They hole up in a hotel, kidnap a minister with a faith crisis and his two kids, and head for the border.
I really wish I could end my summary there, but I've already mentioned the crazy plot twist, which was the main focus of the movie's marketing campaign.
Once in Mexico, the group takes refuge in a strip club that happens to be owned and operated by vampires. And from there, From Dusk Till Dawn becomes less of a "crime" movie and more of a "gory action comedy."
The thing is, the vampire angle shows up about an hour into the movie and I feel like it was supposed to be a major "what the fuck?!" moment. A moment that is completely ruined by the fact that every preview for From Dusk Till Dawn was basically a video montage of "Look, everybody! Vampires!"
In spite of knowing more about it than I would have liked, I did love the movie. Robert Rodriguez tends to make movies that appeal to me, this was the first time I saw George Clooney as a badass (other than how I usually see him: regular, kind of forgettable guy), Tom Savini was awesome as always (he always plays a biker badass in Robert Rodriguez movies and it's always entertaining) and, interestingly, I was most impressed with Harvey Keitel as the minister. He was playing a part so different than what I'm used to seeing him play, and he probably put in the best performance in the entire movie.
I still can't figure out why they cast an old McDonalds mascot as Richie, though. I would have cast Ted Raimi.

End of line.
-Sally

How To Be A Serial Killer

2011-09-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

Dameon Clarke plays a serial killer named Mike who takes a nervous, awkward video store clerk named Bart on as his protege. They go around killing people and eventually shit happens.
There are two problems with How To Be A Serial Killer:
1) It felt a bit like The Last Horror Movie, which is a British film starring ... Max Howarth is his name I think? Anyway, I love that movie quite a bit, and How To Be A Serial Killer was a little like that movie, but not as well made and less entertaining.
2) The movie starts with a commercial for, and has lessons throughout the movie from, a "How To Be A Serial Killer" seminar hosted by Mike, that is obviously fantasy but damned if it isn't the best part of the movie. I would have liked How To Be A Serial Killer much better if it were just an hour-long taping of the seminar.
So it's not perfect. I liked parts of the movie. The guy who played Bart looked familiar but I'd never heard his name before (Matthew Gray Gubler). Near the end it strays a little into action movie territory.
I will say I was impressed with Dameon Clarke's performance. The movie's pretty much worth it to see him. He does "smarmy motivational speaker," "normal guy hanging out with his girlfriend," "asshole who will shoot you in the face" and "man who thinks he has a message," and he does them all well.
But, damn it, I still wish the whole movie had just been that seminar.

End of line.
-Sally

Dracula: Dead And Loving It

2011-09-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

So Frankenstein isn't my thing. You know what is? Dracula.
I love Dracula. I love the book, I love movies based on the book, I love parodies of movies based on the book.
I also tend to like Mel Brooks movies. I love Spaceballs, I like Young Frankenstein (I like it so much I don't consider it a Frankenstein movie; I also like it so much I tend to forget it stars Gene Wilder, who scares me) and ... actually I can't think of a lot of other Mel Brooks movies I've seen.
I saw Blazing Saddles. I think I like that one.
Anyway, Dracula: Dead And Loving It was the last movie he directed. I think I wanted to see it back when it came out but didn't because I heard there was a lot of blood in it (I was twelve and not into gore yet) and because I was disappointed in Robin Hood: Men In Tights. (I remember two things about that movie: "I have a mole?" which was funny, and "It's an Everlast," which was not.)
Now, the thing about Mel Brooks movies is, a lot of people think he peaked at Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles (whichever came second). I think he peaked at Spaceballs. And I admit that Dracula: Dead And Loving It is not a shining example of cinematic or comedic brilliance. The plot is choppy, the jokes are stupid, the acting is pretty lousy.
However! The acting is deliberately lousy, the plot isn't really important in a movie like this and I happen to love stupid humor. Several of the movie's gags made me laugh out loud. I actually had to pause the movie a couple of times so I could stop laughing enough to pay attention again. That doesn't happen to me a lot anymore.
The only real problem I had with the movie was genuinely a problem I was having; I kept comparing the movie to the book. I wasn't doing it on purpose. Every time the nitpicky part of my brain started to say "That's wrong!" I had to summon another part of my brain to tell her to shut up. "Honestly, you're going to complain that a Mel Brooks movie wasn't entirely true to the source material? What is wrong with you?!"
Luckily, I don't think most people will have that problem, and Dracula: Dead And Loving It is a great example of dumb, fun comedy, a genre I happen to love. I honestly want to give this movie a hug.

End of line.
-Sally

Frankenstein Unbound

2011-09-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

I was out of town for two weeks and, when I got back, I really didn't feel like watching any movies. It's the weirdest feeling in the world to me, to be actively not in the mood to watch a movie, but it happens sometimes.
Today I decided it's finally time to get back on the Movie Lottery horse and ...
I wish I had stayed not in the mood for a movie.
When I was a kid, one of the video stores we went to had a cardboard standup promoting Frankenstein Unbound. It had a picture on it of an eye that was made of three different colored eyes stitched together. First of all, it grossed me out. Second of all, it was a bit of a Fridge Horror for me (how do you sew eyes together?! I don't even want to think about it). Thirdly, I wish I had eyes that were three different colors at once (but just naturally). Fourth, it stuck with me forfuckingever. That cardboard standup was the only reason I watched this stupid movie.
That and Raul Julia.
The movie is about Scientist John Hurt, who creates a weapon that makes things disappear, but has the small side effect of causing wormholes, one of which sucks him back in time, where he meets Victor Frankenstein (who, for the purposes of this movie was a real person. And Raul Julia).
So John Hurt stalks Frankenstein for a while (completely abandoning an entire plate of food, by the way. This guy's got fucked up priorities) and watches him yell at his Monster. The next day, he stalks Frankenstein some more and follows him to the trial of a girl who is accused of killing Frankenstein's brother. He also meets Mary Eventually Shelley (in this movie she's not married yet), and takes up stalking her for a while.
Frankenstein Unbound barely has a plot (actually, it barely has about three plots) and none of the characters are likeable. There are weird, brief dream sequences that don't add up to anything and I think the ending was supposed to mean something but it was either butchered in editing or I'm really stupid, 'cause I sure as hell didn't get what the shocker or deep meaningful message or twist (or whatever) was supposed to be.
What really bothered me ... No, actually, there were two things that bothered me. One was that the movie forced me to remember the book Frankenstein, and I fucking hate that book.
More than that, though, if I've learned nothing else from time travel movies, I know John Hurt was doing everything wrong. He told people he was from the future, he showed them his car and his digital watch, and (probably worst of all) he shows Mary Shelley a copy of Frankenstein and tells her that she will finish writing it and get it published.
And the movie never addresses that these are exactly the sort of things you're not supposed to do if you travel back in time! There are no real consequences for his stupid actions. It's like in this movie, the entire concept of being careful while time traveling is thrown out the window!
I don't really know why I care so much (it's just a stupid movie) but I feel like time travel rules are logical. There's no need to rebel against them.

End of line.
-Sally

Barenaked Ladies at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, September 16 2011

2011-09-17T01:01:00.001-07:00

I've noticed that, especially amongst people around my age, Barenaked Ladies are considered a somewhat "uncool" band. And I will address that shortly.
My mom and I decided kind of at the last second to go to the concert. We bought our tickets at the box office a few hours before the show started and somehow managed, thanks to weird selling practices, to get front row, center seats. Woo hoo!
The opening band was called The Flying Burrito Brothers and they were talented, sure, but really not my cup of tea. Far more country than rock, which is just not my kind of thing. I don't mind a little bit of country (or more if it's older; for instance, I like Jerry Reed and Johnny Cash), but this was just too much.
But they were just the openers. Which is horrible to say, especially because I hate it when people don't respect or pay attention to opening acts. It's rude. No, I don't always like them but I'll still listen to them. Sometimes you hear something new and wonderful in an opening act. (A duo called Guggenheim Grotto opened for They Might Be Giants once and they were pretty wonderful. I tell you this in the hopes that I'll remember their name later.)
Then BNL took to the stage, opening with Who Needs Sleep, one of my favorite songs off of Stunt.
Now, to get back to my first statement: Barenaked Ladies are in no way uncool. Their music is good (most of it flat out rocks) and damn do they put on a good show! They throw about witty banter, Ed makes up raps on the spot, Jim dances with his stand up bass and, most importantly, they make sure the music sounds fantastic.
I wish I could come up with a highlight of the show to report but the evening was so full of highlights it's really hard to single out one moment.
I would like to announce, to someone in the audience who doesn't read this blog but needs to be told anyway, that even though you're in a theater in which plays are usually produced and you have a seat, this is a fucking rock concert and you should not be sitting down. So, instead of whining at the people in front of you to sit down so you can see, maybe you should stand up and dance and have a good time like the rest of us.
Because the rest of us were having a good time. The band did not play a single song that was boring or bad. The entire band worked at full capacity to make sure of that. It was truly a great show.
And I feel bad for the people who think Barenaked Ladies are uncool.

End of line.
-Sally

Midnight Movie

2011-08-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

Before I started reading, I had the following information about Midnight Movie:
This is a book by Tobe Hooper.
It was all I needed to make me want to read it and I deliberately waited to read the synopsis on the back cover until I'd finished the book.
I'd like to keep plot information out of my review because when I walk blindly into a movie or book, I like to believe the two people who read my blog will be able to do the same thing. I love that feeling of not knowing. Being a fan of both books and movies, it's rare to go into one without knowing something (or in some cases, everything) about it.
Midnight Movie is told mainly via personal accounts of the main characters (one of whom is Tobe Hooper), as well as news clippings, blog posts, diaries and that sort of thing.
It is split into three parts. The first part drew me right in, the second part nauseated me but also kept me interested enough to keep going and by the time I got to part three I was so desperate to find out what happened that I refused to put the book down until it was over.
Much like World War Z, Midnight Movie is equal parts fascinating, scary, disgusting and sad.
Much like World War Z, Midnight Movie is well written and on certain levels I loved and enjoyed it.
Much like World War Z, it completely drained and depressed me. I feel empty inside. I don't know if I can read it again.
Unlike World War Z, Midnight Movie has a "special feature": An actual interview with Tobe Hooper in which he discusses, among other things, the difference between the Tobe Hooper in the book and his actual self. It sounds like such a small thing, but that little interview (it was maybe two pages) improved my mood, brought me gently back to the real world, reminded me that what I had just read was fiction and there was no reason to be sad.
I think the main reason I don't read fiction as often as I'd like is because I tend to get emotionally involved and coming back to reality can be difficult, especially after a book like Midnight Movie.

End of line.
-Sally

Thor

2011-08-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

I remember when it was announced that they were making a Thor movie, I planned on seeing it. I actively wanted to see it. Then they made the movie and then they started showing previews for the movie and then I saw those previews and then I said "... Oh. ... That looks boring." and then I didn't want to see Thor anymore.
So I wasn't expecting much when I went to see it with my mom (who has been reading the comics and likes Stellan Skarsgaard) and that's a good thing because then, at least, I wasn't disappointed.
Thor isn't much. I really liked parts of it. Anthony Hopkins was great and, truly, the very best part of the movie is the scene when he tells Thor (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Everything about you is terrible and you don't deserve anything good in life."
Because, especially at the beginning, Thor was just terrible. Every time he talked or smirked or started fights for no reason just made me hate him all the more. And by the end of the movie he grew as a character and I didn't hate him quite so much, but he still wasn't interesting enough to make me care about him.
His brother Loki, though, he was interesting. I'd watch a whole movie about Loki. The only problem is, they made him the villain and it got to a point where I started hating Loki, too. Then he did one or two things that made me like him again (and one thing that made me want to stand up and cheer his royal badassness) and then he backtracked again and I had to go back to not liking him.
Also, I'd like to go on record to say I'm sick to fucking death of Natalie Portman and her stupid goddamn face. Apparently it's a movie fan sin to hate her, but I don't care. Somebody has to tell it like it is.
'Cause, yeah, when she was twelve (or however old she was) in Leon (The Professional), she did a great job. She was the one child actress in the 1990s who didn't just run around going "I'm so adorable." The problem is, since then she's spent her entire life listening to everyone talk about how fucking wonderful she is, and you can tell she believes every word of it. So now that she's an adult she's just running around going "I'm so adorable" and it makes me fucking despise her. She's not twelve anymore, she doesn't make good movies anymore and she needs to quit acting and go away so I don't have to fucking look at her anymore.
You know who I did like, though? Thor's four warrior friends (Token Chick, Token Asian, Bearded Warrior Guy and Guy Who Thinks He's Cary Elwes). They were by far my favorite characters, even though a real warrior woman would not be wearing high heels and my brain can't fully wrap itself around the concept of their wishing Thor was back once he'd been banished, especially since the only Thor they knew was Arrogant Asshole Thor.
I also had a problem with the movie's logic that Thor was an arrogant, violent asshole so he was banished to Earth and spent time with humans, which made him not so arrogant or violent or assholeish. It's like the people who wrote the script have never met humans or something.
My mom claims that's not what made him less of a jerk. And she was probably right, but that wasn't how I interpreted it.
Overall, I think the movie needed more of the four warrior friends, more Loki, more Anthony Hopkins, less disjointedness and no Natalie Portman at all.

End of line.
-Sally

Bronson

2011-08-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

"I am Charlie Bronson, Britain's most violent prisoner."
Before I say anything about the movie, I'd like to direct you to the Wikipedia page about Charles Bronson. They know more about him than I do. And, just to clarify, this is a different Charles Bronson than the actor. Very different.
Bronson is, obviously, a movie about Charlie Bronson (born Michael Peterson) who has spent most of his life in solitary confinement for being more likely to be a prisoner and punch you in the face than Patrick McGoohan. You know how the internet thinks Chuck Norris is a superhero who cannot be stopped? I'm pretty sure Charlie Bronson could kill Chuck Norris just by thinking about it.
Also, he totally looks like an old timey boxer. He should be calling people rough customers and saying he's going to give them what-for. ...Actually, he is a rough customer and does, in fact, give lots of people what-for.
Yes, this is a real guy and yes, I do feel kinda weird (insensitive?) making light of his situation and violent ways but for some reason I can't help it. And the movie, at least at first, sort of does the same thing.
The first half hour or so of Bronson very much appeals to me stylistically. The art direction is fantastic, they intercut scenes of Charlie talking directly to the camera and fantasy scenes of Charlie onstage in a fancy theater putting on a show about himself for hoity toity people with the (for lack of a better word) realistic scenes that tell his story. It was fascinating and I just loved it.
Around the point they started focusing on Charlie's life outside of prison, the movie sort of fell apart for me. It was still full of fantastic art direction but the narrating and theater scenes pretty much disappeared completely and it became a much more straightforward movie, which I didn't like as much. If they had kept the tone from the beginning through the whole film I would have liked it just that much more. I'd be ranting about needing to own a copy right now if they'd done it that way.
Overall, though, it was still brilliant and Tom Hardy is fantastic.

End of line.
-Sally

Fright Night

2011-08-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

Fright Night is a remake of the 1980s vampire movie (also called Fright Night) and I really want to review it on its own merits, which is hard to do because I have both seen and thoroughly enjoy the original. It's obvious where the remake was inspired by the original and where it decided it wanted to do its own thing. Really, every remake aspires to do that but few pull it off the way Fright Night does.
Jerry The Vampire has moved in next door to Charlie Brewster and his mom. Charlie's nerdy friend Evil Ed tries to warn Charlie of the danger but Charlie doesn't believe him. At first. When Jerry starts blatantly being a vampire, though, Charlie takes the situation seriously and tries to enlist the help of glitzy Vegas magician Peter Vincent who claims to be a vampire expert.
Parts of the movie go on a bit too long (the car chase, for instance) and there's a bit of useless "cool kids versus nerds" bullshit near the beginning that doesn't need to be there. ("Cool kids versus nerds" is, in my experience, not a thing that exists in real life. When I was in high school everyone just hung out with their friends and didn't care enough one way or the other about people they didn't hang out with to have conflict with them.)
Colin Farrell makes a very good Jerry The Vampire. I'd be hard pressed to decide whether I like him or Chris Sarandon better, honestly, because they both perfectly nail the thing that makes vampires so fascinating to me.
My brother was saying a few weeks ago that vampires are not scary and that's why Twilight is successful; people like the romance of vampires, nobody is scared of them. I don't feel that's entirely true. At least, I feel like it's a broad generalization.
I agree that vampires are not scary, but romantic vampires are boring, defanged pussies as far as I'm concerned. I fucking hate them. They're dull. I don't care about their damn feelings.
Vampires are only interesting if they're soulless monsters. They can be attractive and all that (movies have guaranteed that vampires will always be the sexy monsters), but the second you give them souls or romantic yearnings, everything that's interesting about them flies out the window and we're stuck in Defanged Pussyville.
That's actually the one thing about the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula I don't like; they got Gary fucking Oldman as Count fucking Dracula and they threw in all that "I have crossed oceans of time to find you" bullshit. Dracula was not in love with Mina, damn it! I just reread the book and there is no romance in it (in spite of all the marriage), especially not between Dracula and ... well, anybody. (Sure, there's sexual symbolism, but that's not romance; it's obvious Dracula wasn't in love with these women. He was just hungry.)
Anyway, sorry, sidebar. Back to the topic at hand.
Christopher Sarandon (who has a cameo in the new version, by the way, which made me applaud) was a fantastic choice for Jerry The Vampire back in the '80s because he was simultaneously repulsive and fascinating. You didn't necessarily want to be looking at him, but you couldn't stop. It's that thrall thing vampires do, it's how they seduce their victims. And Colin Farrell has that same effect in the new version of Fright Night. He pulls it off beautifully. (According to an article in Rue Morgue he was a big fan of the original and it took some convincing to get him to sign on for the remake. I'm glad he did it.)
The entire core cast was great, even though it did seem like David Tennant's Peter Vincent was really just his best Russell Brand impression. I'll accept it, though, because he was thoroughly entertaining.
So, while Fright Night did seem longer than it was, it was quite entertaining and well worth the twelve dollars. It had some problems, sure (the obvious CGI blood, the obvious "we're filmed in 3-D" shots, the line "Welcome to Fright Night ... for real" which made me roll my eyes so far I could see the part of my brain that thought it was corny) but I'll still probably want to own it when it comes out on video.
Especially if they package it with the original.

End of line.
-Sally

Johnny Dangerously

2011-08-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

Yet another reputably bad movie, but this one I really liked. Why have I heard nothing but bad things about this one?
Johnny Dangerously is about a 1930s crime boss whose brother becomes a district attorney determined to stomp out all crime.
And that's about it. There's a lot of slapstick and goofy humor and the occasional running gag. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it, I don't know why it has the reputation for being lousy that it has.
Of course, the movie got on my good side pretty much immediately when the "1935" caption at the bottom of the screen was smashed by a passing car. I'm a sucker for a goofy visual gag.

End of line.
-Sally

Cutthroat Island

2011-08-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Cutthroat Island has a reputation for being terrible, which is the sort of thing I see as a challenge. A challenge to what, I'm not sure; just to watch the darn thing, I guess. I never feel the need to enjoy famously terrible films (although sometimes I do, which is nice) but if I hear nothing for years except how bad a movie is, I'm usually way more interested in watching it than I would be if people said nothing but nice things. Critical acclaim is boring.
So, sadly, is Cutthroat Island.
It wasn't bad, that's the thing. It has a worse reputation than it deserves. It's an action movie, a period piece, a pirate film. Renny Harlin wanted an excuse to show off his hot wife and make things explode, and he did that. Matthew Modine, much like William Hurt and Dennis Quaid, has no face. The plot is needlessly complicated and my mind wandered whenever people started talking.
What was really weird is that I ordinarily like Geena Davis, but she was kind of stiff in this movie. She didn't bring her A game, whatever that means. Her performance was just like the rest of the movie: fine during the action scenes, not so much when dialogue and plot needed to happen.
So Cutthroat Island, overall, is like any other mid-1990s action movie. Fun while it's on, forgotten when it's over. And not nearly as bad as everyone would have you believe.

End of line.
-Sally

Cowboys And Aliens

2011-08-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time James Bond woke up in the old west with no memory and a big ol' honkin' metal thing on his wrist. After kicking the crap out of (and most likely killing) some dudes who wanted to use him for ransom he went to the nearest town, where he saved Zaphod Beeblebrox from Indiana Jones's obnoxious brat of a son. He also met Cora from Tron 2, who wanted to talk to him about his bracelet. Then James Bond found out from the sheriff that he was wanted for stealing gold from Indiana Jones (and most likely killing someone). Indiana Jones insists on taking James Bond with him to torture (and most likely kill) when fucking aliens come out of nowhere and kidnap the shit out of a bunch of townspeople, including Indiana Jones's son and Zaphod Beeblebrox's wife. Now James Bond, Indiana Jones, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Cora all have to work together to save the world from fucking aliens, which they don't know how to do because they're in the old west and science fiction action movies haven't been invented yet.
Cowboys And Aliens was a lot of fun, even if it is way more Cowboys than Aliens. I'm not usually a fan of westerns, but there are a few out there I really enjoy and this one is definitely on that list.
Sam Rockwell is by far the most likeable character in the movie, and I don't know if that's because he's truly sympathetic or because Sam Rockwell is such a good actor (or a bit of both) but he's the one person in the band of cowboys about whom I genuinely cared if he lived.
If you're sensitive to green alien gore you might have some problems. There's a lot of green alien gore. I thought it was pretty cool, but I'm a gorehound and I don't care what color the gore is or out of what it comes.
One thing happened in the movie that I considered a cop out, but I can't say what that thing is without spoiling plot points, so no elaboration will be made. You can go see the movie and try and figure out for yourself what part made me roll my eyes.
Luckily, it really was only the one part. Overall, I liked it a lot. I'm glad we went.

End of line.
-Sally

Kill Your Darlings

2011-08-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

Apparantly (apparently? I need to learn how to spell) there are two movies called Kill Your Darlings: an artsy short film and a full-length movie that has Stellan Skarsgaard in it. I watched the former.
I can't describe the movie, really, because there's no plot to speak of. People talk about love and there are scenes of a pretty woman being in a relationship, not being in a relationship, sloshing around in a river and then shots of an old couple in a park. And there are some end credits.
There's also a brief segment about fairy tales, which is the whole reason I watched the movie: Eugene Hutz plays the prince. He doesn't talk, he's barely on screen and when he is he doesn't stay still long enough for you to get a good look at him (but that's not really any different than seeing him in concert, so I can't complain). But it was him, he was there and that's the whole reason I sat through twenty six minutes of art film.
I don't think I'm smart enough for art films. On the one hand, I respect people who make movies that definitely mean something to them and whether or not the audience gets it or enjoys it is none of their fucking concern because "it means something to me, damn it!" I respect that a lot. Filmmakers should make the movies they want to make.
But I'm one of those audience members who doesn't get it (which is not helped by the fact that the sound was rather quiet). I spent the whole movie singing Experimental Film to myself ("I'm still thinking about your face implodes in my experimental film...") and then my mind started wandering to movies I hate. Specifically When Harry Met Sally and Five Hundred Days Of Summer.
Which maybe is a good thing? Maybe Kill Your Darlings was supposed to make you think about love and romance and romantic comedies that you want to get into fights with. I assume that was at least part of the point. So in that respect, the movie succeeded.
It also succeeded in the "having Eugene Hutz on screen" respect, which is one of my favorite ways for a movie to succeed.
However, if I'm going to watch a movie that succeeds in that area, I'll watch Everything Is Illuminated or Filth And Wisdom, 'cause then he's not just on screen, he's the main character. He even talks. And that's just fantastic.

End of line.
-Sally

My Favorite Brunette

2011-08-06T23:51:00.000-07:00

I never really understood the appeal of Bob Hope, but until now I'd never seen one of his movies before, either, so I had no reason to understand the appeal of Bob Hope. It turns out he has pretty fantastic comedic timing.
My Favorite Brunette was a pretty fun movie. Lon Chaney Jr. was endearing as the big dumb guy and Peter Lorre was gloriously dapper and villainous, wearing a dark suit, throwing knives and studying for the United States citizenship test. Peter Lorre is much funnier than anybody seems to remember him being, and I could listen to him talk all dang day. I love him so.
Overall I don't think this one's going to stick with me (I can barely remember it now and it hasn't even been over five minutes) but it was entertaining while it was on and there were a few moments that made me laugh out loud.

End of line.
-Sally

Hysteria

2011-07-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

Samuel Frye has a schizophrenic (I think?) patient who he has to make leave the hospital he's trying to no longer work at ... or something. You know, the first fifteen or so minutes of this movie aren't really important. Plot devices happen so Doctor Frye and Veronica will end up at Doctor Langston's insane asylum.
What appears to simply be a weirdass asylum where the patients are allowed to run amok turns out to be far weirder and more fucked up than that. You see, Langston has decided the world would be a better place if everybody had one mind and he's setting out to accomplish just that.
Because Doctor Langston was played by Patrick McGoohan, I couldn't help but see Hysteria as a royally screwed up successor to The Prisoner.
I almost began my review like this:
"Hysteria stars Patrick McGoohan and is about a man who seems to be held captive in a bizarre society where everyone thinks alike and tries to bring that man around to their way of thinking."
Except this time McGoohan's the new Number Two (he's also not truly the star of the movie so I couldn't go with that description). He's come up with a crazyass scheme to get all the Villagers conformed and, to be honest, I was pretty disturbed by the whole movie.
Disturbed and intrigued.
Amanda Plummer plays one of the inmates, a bewheelchaired teacher's pet named Myrna who loves to dance. I've always liked Amanda Plummer and, between her and Patrick McGoohan, it was pretty much a guarantee I'd enjoy Hysteria on some very basic level ("The presence of these actors makes me smile"). The subject matter was interesting enough, disturbing enough and handled well enough, though, that I'm pretty sure Hysteria is going to be one of those movies that sticks with me for a very long time.

End of line.
-Sally

Something is wrong (Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island, Hack!)

2011-07-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

It seems that, suddenly, I no longer have the physical ability to watch movies. I can't focus on them. My mind wanders. I don't enjoy them while they're on and I don't remember them once they'r over. I have been trying and trying to get Movie Lottery 3-D back on track and, since I got back from my trip, I think I've watched, at most, two movies all the way through.
One of those movies was Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island, which was sort of a Looney Tunes parody of Fantasy Island, with Daffy Duck as Ricardo Montalban and Speedy Gonzales as Herve Villachaise. Even though it's called "Daffy Duck's Movie," Daffy Duck is barely in it (boo, false advertising!). The premise is: Daffy obtains a wishing well and starts charging people five hundred dollars to make wishes. It is, much like every other Looney Tunes movie, an excuse to string together already existing shorts, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that these are mostly lousy shorts that nobody likes anyway. Like that one about a chicken named Prissy who wants to marry Foghorn Leghorn. I hate that cartoon. It's in this movie and, honestly, almost all of the cartoons in Fantastic Island are about that caliber. Bleah.
So I wasn't into Fantastic Island as much as I would have liked. All Looney Tunes movies can't be great, right? It's not that big a deal.
That doesn't change the fact that my attention span is suddenly shot to shit and anything that lasts longer than fifteen minutes will probably lose me.
Maybe I just haven't been in the mood for what Movie Lottery has given me. It's been a while since I got a slasher movie. And, what do you know, today it bestowed Hack!, which I picked up for four dollars in a grocery store. It'll probably be a fun hour and a half.
It may become fun at some point, but I never finished it. I started turning against it when I discovered the central characters were thirtysomethings playing nineteen-year-olds. Then two of the more obnoxious "kids" quoted Pinky And The Brain (get your annoying characters the hell away from my Animaniacs!). Then they started throwing in "cute" horror references (they're on a boat called Orca, their film teacher is named Mr. Argento) and then, the quickest way to get me to hate your movie, they started talking about horror movies, which killers they liked best and Frankenstein movie trivia ("Who was the best Frankenstein?" "Boris Karloff." "1931. And Peter Boyle?" "Young Frankenstein, 1977." That was actual dialogue. Punch, drink, cry.)
Congratulations, movie. I now not only hate every character you've tried to introduce to me, but I hate your screenwriter, too.
I have said time and again, and will continue to say, that I happen to love movie trivia (especially horror movie trivia) and it's one thing to be sitting around with friends and talking about movies. That's fun. I enjoy that.
It is completely another thing to put scenes of friends (or, in this case, classmates) talking about movie trivia into movies. Scenes like that are not only boring, but irritating. I don't know if it's supposed to be character development, but if it is, it fails. I don't know anything about these people other than that they know factoids about movies. Whoop de doo for them, they're human beings. Most people know factoids about movies.
No, the only purpose these scenes serve is the same purpose the entire script of Juno served: the screenwriter is making pathetic attempts to impress you. They added that scene so you'd know that they know a lot about movies. It's annoying, it's pointless, it's stupid, it causes me to imagine the screenwriter has an incredibly whiny voice and it is an absolute guarantee that a movie is going to be on my bad side. Hack! would have had a lot of work to do in order to have any chance of me not hating it. And I didn't have the patience to sit and watch it try.
I turned it off after that stupid Frankenstein conversation. I just couldn't take it. I knew there was no salvation. I hated the characters well before that conversation started and no amount of watching them die violent, brutal, bloody, horrible deaths was going to make me feel any better about this movie.
So I told it "fuck you" and turned it off.
Leaving me yet again not watching a movie and really not in the mood to start another one.
I don't know what my problem is lately, but I really hope it clears up soon 'cause I'm starting to get sick of it.

End of line.
-Sally

Death Becomes Them

2011-07-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Death Becomes Them is a documentary about the couple that runs the Museum Of Death and I'm starting to think Movie Lottery 3-D is messing with my on purpose: My DVD is screwed up. About half the movie has no sound.
What I can tell you is that the movie appealed to me mainly because it's advertised as a musical documentary. Which it is, it has musical numbers in it. But that aspect of it wasn't what I was expecting. They're not really good musical numbers.
The parts of the movie I could hear were great. The couple come across as incredibly friendly and likeable, and I would like to be friends with them.
I really wish I had a decent copy of this movie.

End of line.
-Sally

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2

2011-07-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. I don't know.
I mean, Voldemort isn't scary. At least, the one in the movies isn't. The one in the book might be. I wouldn't mess with the Voldemort in the book. The one in the movie, though, I'd mock him to his face 'cause, what's he gonna do, shake his jazz hands at me?
Much like in the book, I wish Neville Longbottom were in it more. He's grown up to be a badass and I want to watch a movie about him. Just like I want J.K. Rowling to write the book of what was going on at Hogwarts during most of the seventh book when Harry is wandering the planet being ineffective.
Once again I realize these movies aren't made for people who haven't read the books. If I hadn't know what happens in the last book going in, I would have been royally confused. (My brother's girlfriend left the movie thinking Snape was Harry's real father because the movie did a really poor job of explaining what was actually up with him. I've decided to adopt that as my own personal interpretation. I don't care that it's inaccurate; I like it.)
Most of the movie is a giant battle interspersed with Harry doing whiny Harry stuff. There's a part where he jumps off a cliff with Voldemort (what?), there are orcs (what?), I felt like things were a bit disjointed and presented in a different order than how they happened in the book (although I haven't read the book in a while so I could just be remembering wrong).
And then, in spite of the fact that I wasn't really emotionally invested (seeing as I don't really like the Harry Potter movies), one scene made me cry. It's a scene that completely destroyed me in the book and it didn't get quite that same reaction from me in the movie, but I did cry. It's a sad, sad scene.
I'd also like to point out that, while I don't like Helena Bonham Carter's portrayal of Bellatrix Lestrange (much like the girl who plays Luna, her portrayal is simply incorrect), she did a great job playing Hermione-disguised-as-Bellatrix, all slumpy and wide-eyed and terrified-looking. I always forget that, other than these movies (and Sweeney Todd, but the less said about that, the better), I rather like Helena Bonham Carter.
Also, for the first time in the movies they let Professor McGonagall be the badass she is in the books, and you can tell Maggie Smith was loving it. "Finally! I get to be the kickass character that I signed up to be in the first place!" She was the one adult actor who really brought her A-game. (I guess I should point out it's the grown-up cast I have the problem with.)
Overall, it's pretty much on par with all the Harry Potter movies. It's a great big "meh." If you like the other ones, you'll probably like this one. If you don't, maybe you won't. If you hated the fifth movie so much you just gave up on all the other ones and only went to see them 'cause your best friend kind of made you, you'll probably think it was pretty okayish. I guess.
I wish I'd been given the chance to cast the movies. The adult characters, anyway. All of the kids are fine with me but so many of the adult actors, many of whom I like, did lousy jobs on these movies. It was like they knew they'd sell eleventy bajillion tickets either way so they didn't bother trying, which is really sad. I want to go back, start all over, make the movies right; fix up the cast a bit, explain important plot points a bit better, that kind of thing.

End of line.
-Sally

Full discretion (Exam, Fear, We Think The World Of You)

2011-07-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

After two weeks of travel, I am finally home and having an inordinately difficult time getting Movie Lottery 3-D back into gear. In fact, I have tried and failed to watch three movies from the bucket. Here, then, are mini-reviews of the bits I saw:

Exam:
Honestly, Exam was fucking awesome. At least, the fifteen minutes of it that I saw were awesome. Unfortunately, at the fifteen minute mark Netflix decided the movie was over and told me as much. Nothing I have done will convince Netflix to play any more of the movie. I'm hoping to get ahold of Exam on video so I can see the whole thing; the part I saw had me enthralled.

Fear:
Fear was a Bollywood horror movie that I watched for about half an hour before I realized I wasn't paying attention and didn't care. Something about a woman who lost her memory and was being stalked by a shadow. It could have been interesting but all the acting was pretty flat and I just couldn't keep my mind on the movie.

We Think The World Of You:
I bought this for a dollar because it's an old Gary Oldman movie I'd never seen. It also billed itself as a comedy. In it, Gary Oldman goes to prison and has a friend (ex-boyfriend?) take care of his dog, whom he loves. The friend isn't into the idea at first but he grows to love the dog. Also, he keeps visiting a family with a really ugly baby who's always crying. I actually still have this movie on, but I haven't paid one iota of attention to it. I wanted to but it doesn't interest me. It's not funny, so the box is a liar. Gary Oldman isn't in it very much, so the box is still a liar. And I feel bad saying that baby is ugly, but it really is. Also, I really don't like having to see or hear babies crying. It breaks my heart. But, yeah, I haven't comprehended this movie even a little bit. And I don't like Gary Oldman's haircut.

End of line.
-Sally

The House Of The Devil

2011-07-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

"Are you not the babysitter?"
The House Of The Devil is possibly the most slow-moving horror movie I've ever sat through. I generally have absolutely no patience for movies that move this slowly. If it had been any other movie I might have turned it off after nothing happened for nearly an hour.
(Okay, like, two things happened. Not really enough to hold a person's attention. Usually.)
The thing is, there was something about The House Of The Devil that kept me watching. There was enough in the first half hour or so to grab my attention enough that I wanted to know what happened. The lead character (Samantha) and her best friend were likeable enough and the couple Samantha was 'sitting for were odd enough that I was intrigued.
Most of the movie consists of Samantha wandering alone around the couple's old house and, really, nothing happening at all. And I don't know why, because ordinarily movies like this don't get this kind of reaction out of me, but it was insanely creepy. I spent most of the movie trying to burrow into my mattress, keeping my eyes mainly on the edges of the screen, in case something suddenly jumped out. I never do that! Ordinarily if I think something's going to leap out suddenly, I keep my eyes glued to the screen. Watching the edges of the screen is something that sissies do (albeit sissies who still want to seem brave and therefore don't cover their eyes and watch between their fingers).
Okay, so I'm a sissy.
What was kind of disappointing about The House Of The Devil was when stuff started happening. Eventually the action picks up and at first it's even worse than the slow, creeping dread of nothingness. For about a minute and a half I felt jolty and a little sick to my stomach.
Then I felt nothing.
It's not that the movie didn't live up to the slow, creeping dread of nothingness. It was still a fine and disturbing ending. It just ... wasn't as upsetting as it could have been. All that buildup that doesn't ordinarily work on me for a sufficiently messed up (and messy!) ending, but I guess I was expecting something more.
Oh well, I still highly recommend The House Of The Devil. Any movie that can make me that afraid of nothing must be doing something right.
(Oh, I also have to tip my hat to the fact that the movie looked and felt genuinely like an '80s movie. I never would have known it wasn't if the end credits hadn't said 2008.)

End of line.
-Sally

Love Happy

2011-07-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

Love Happy is the last Marx Brothers movie and I can see why people don't like it. It mostly consists of very flimsy plot (some criminal lady looking for a diamond necklace and a theater troupe trying to put on a show) and the Marxes don't interact all that much. Especially not Groucho. He plays a private eye who spends most of the movie narrating from his office and doesn't actually join the movie until about ten minutes from the end.
What I did like about Love Happy was that it was mostly about Harpo. And the last ten minutes or so of the movie consist of a really entertaining chase scene on rooftops lit by flashing billboards. That was fun.
I guess I should point out that this was Marilyn Monroe's first movie and I've heard people claim that's the only reason to see it. They're wrong. It's not a reason to see it. She's in the movie for maybe thirty seconds, she has two lines, she serves no purpose and the scene isn't funny.
I'm glad I saw Love Happy because I'd like to see all the Marx Brothers' movies. I'm also glad I didn't buy Love Happy 'cause if I paid more than about a dollar for it, I'd have felt like I wasted my money.

End of line.
-Sally

Horrible Bosses

2011-07-14T01:07:00.000-07:00

The previews for Horrible Bosses were pretty bad. They made it look, at best, unfunny and, at worst, upsetting. And, to the previews' credit, parts of the movie were kinda upsetting.
Luckily, the unfunny part was entirely false. I can't remember the last time a movie made me laugh that hard.
Admittedly, I'm biased toward the Charlie Day. Not only is he incredibly pleasant to look at, but he's got great comedic delivery. There's a reason he's my favorite person on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (two reasons, actually: the two I mentioned. Great delivery and extreme good-lookingness). He was, in fact, the only reason I agreed to see the movie at all.
In the end, though, the whole cast was spot on. Even Jennifer Aniston, who I ordinarily do not like, did a great job. I still didn't like her but that was the point. She is a Horrible Boss.
The premise: Three guys have horrible bosses. Jason Bateman's boss is Kevin Spacey, who is ... I believe the onscreen description of him was "Total Fucking Asshole." He psychologically tortures Jason Bateman because he's Kevin Spacey and he's good at playing that kind of character. (In Swimming With Sharks he played pretty much the same character and got paper cut tortured as a result. I never did finish that movie.)
Charlie Day's boss is Jennifer Aniston, who sexually harasses the hell out of him. And, sure, I think the man is beautiful but this bitch crosses, like, every line. Just because he's pretty doesn't make it justifiable.
Jason Sudekis starts out with an awesome Donald Sutherland boss, but he doesn't last and is replaced by a disgusting Colin Farrell with a combover and a cocaine addiction. (Right before the movie they showed a preview for the Fright Night remake (which looks fantastic) wherein Colin Farrell plays a vampire who looks like the opposite of his Horrible Bosses character. It was a nice juxtaposition.)
None of the three protagonists can get out of their jobs for one reason or another (career sabotage, love of the company, criminal record, that kind of thing) and finally decide their bosses need to die.
The rest of the movie is your typical comedy of errors. Except not typical because I ordinarily don't like that kind of movie and I loved this one. I don't know why or how Horrible Bosses succeeded where other movies of the genre fail, but I know it isn't entirely the Charlie Day factor because I was laughing just as hard at moments that didn't concern him at all as I was at his scenes.
I also liked seeing my uncle's name in the end credits. (If you'd like to see it, too, it's the last one listed under Set Dressers. Yay, Uncle Ricky!)

End of line.
-Sally

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011-07-13T16:25:00.000-07:00

Po deals with the fact that he was adopted while he helps the Furious Five save the world and kung fu from an evil peacock.
I liked Kung Fu Panda 2, but it didn't feel entirely cohesive as a movie. I spent most of the movie feeling like it was very close to the beginning. Then, in the last five minutes, it felt like the end. Kung Fu Panda 2 has no middle. At least, that's how it feels.
And it has a lot of really funny moments but overall I remember it as a crying movie. All the scenes with Po's dad, for instance, especially the scene where he explains how he adopted Po. (Thing that didn't help: The filmmakers used actual sounds of a human baby crying for the sound of baby Po crying.)
It was good, though. I liked it. Gary Oldman was, of course, wonderful as the evil peacock and, unlike the first movie, I didn't despise Tigeress this time around, so that's an improvement. And the funny moments were very, very funny.

End of line.
-Sally

X-Men First Class

2011-06-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

I hadn't planned to see X-Men First Class. The previews made it look dull and That Guy With The Glasses was kinda right in the sense that it's about the "boring" X-Men. (Seriously, whose favorite X-Man is Banshee?) But Lauren wanted to go to a movie and the theater to which we were closest only had The Green Lantern (her first choice) in 3-D, so fuck that. Anyway, I wasn't expecting much.
I always forget that I freakin' love the X-Men. (Admittedly, I don't read the comics, but I loved the cartoon show in the '90s and I've thoroughly enjoyed all the movies.) First Class was no exception; the movie's awesome.
Yeah, sure, it has some problems. Kevin Bacon as the villain for instance. Exactly zero people on the planet are intimidated by or afraid of Kevin Bacon. (Except maybe my mom after watching The River Wild, but I just can't be disturbed by him, even in that movie. You know why? 'Cause he's Kevin Bacon. He's not scary and his last name is food.)
I didn't like the way everybody (except Magneto) acted like Mystique in her natural blue form was unattractive and should be ashamed, seeing as they all claimed they wanted mutants to be accepted into society. "Society must accept us as part of them. We should be unashamed and proud of who we are. Except you, uggo." Way to have double standards, you pricks.
I didn't like that the chick with dragonfly wings chose the nickname Angel, seeing as later (I think he shows up in The Last Stand) there's an X-Man with angel wings who goes by Angel. Are the writers really so lazy that a) they couldn't be bothered to think of a more interesting name or b) they couldn't be bothered to check the other X-Men scripts to make sure the name wasn't already taken?
... I guess I should talk about what the movie was about. Let's see...
In the 1960s there were some mutants who tried to help the CIA stop some other mutants from starting World War Three. Also, the origin stories of Professor Xavier and Magneto happened. Did you know they started off as friends? Yeah, so did I. But it was cool to see anyway. Then there were some explosions and some wickedbad action scenes, some obvious CGI that really should have known better (the other X-Men movies have CGI, too, but I feel like it wasn't as obvious) and Michael Ironside plays a boat captain. He's credited as M. Ironside, but we all know it's him.
The story was good, I liked most of the characters (it was true to the other movies in the sense that I was rooting for both Professor Xavier and Magneto) and also Oliver Platt was there.
They didn't show any good previews before the movie and it was hard to not laugh out loud at the Harry Potter trailer they showed. (Okay, actually, I have to admit I did like the preview for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but I hate Rooney Mara and her flat, lifeless acting, so I'll probably watch the original version instead. I'm not going to read the book unless I like the movie, though.)
I'm tired. Goodnight.

End of line.
-Sally

Zarak

2011-06-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Oh, melodrama. Much like The Gypsy And The Gentleman, I think this one might have been better with the sound off. I didn't really bother trying to follow it; something about a sultan's oldest son getting caught making out with the sultan's hoochiest wife. So the son gets kicked out of town, the wife gets hired sexy-dancing in some nightclub, the British army is there for some reason, an awesome sword dance happens at one point and Patrick McGoohan looks a little bit like Graham Chapman. I kept expecting him to do something silly. He never did.

End of line.
-Sally

A Night At The Opera

2011-06-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

So, I'm thinking the people who think this is the best Marx Brothers movie, maybe they've only seen the state room scene.
'Cause, don't get me wrong, it was good and the parts that had the Marxes in them were funny. But then there were all the scenes where a shrill soprano and a voice swallowing tenor sing for, like, an hour.
The scene in Groucho's hotel where they have breakfast and then Chico and Harpo have to hide from the police was probably my favorite.
You know, Marx Brothers movies are pretty much impossible to review. They're all basically the same review: I like the parts where the Marxes do things and the extraneous characters bore me. The end.

End of line.
-Sally

Jamaica Inn

2011-06-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make: I didn't really watch Jamaica Inn. I had it on while I was cleaning my room. When Patrick McGoohan came on I'd stop cleaning and watch him, but that didn't really give me a feel for the movie. What I can tell you was he was the bad guy and he spent the whole movie looking like someone had dumped a bucket of water on his head. But as far as plot or my opinion of it goes, I don't know and I have none. It was pretty long and it reminded me of any number of movies I had to watch in school. If we had read Jamaica Inn in school or had done a history unit on whatever time and place it is that this movie takes place, it's likely we would've watched this. Which is better than doing actual schoolwork.

End of line.
-Sally

The Man In The Iron Mask

2011-06-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, Richard Chamberlain was King Louis XIV of France. Louis' slightly older twin brother died during birth, you see, which is why Louis got to be king. Little did he or Philippe (the twin) realize that Philippe didn't die. So now Dartagnan and Another Guy are trying to replace Louis with Philippe. Louis and Patrick McGoohan thwart their efforts by putting Philippe in an island prison with an iron mask concealing his face.
Or something like that. I've never read The Man In The Iron Mask and only saw a bit of one other movie version of it before (the girls I was sharing a hotel room with on a choir trip were watching it; based on that experience if you asked me what The Man In The Iron Mask was about, I'd say "Apparently the love interest is unattractive and wearing a yellow dress, but I didn't get a good look at her. Also, I think the Three Musketeers are in it."), so I wasn't familiar with the story. And because this is an older British production, most of the dialogue is kinda flowery and quiet, so I had a hard time following what was being said.
Based on what I could follow, it wasn't a bad movie, and I loved the costumes. Any movie that has dudes wearing thigh high boots while swordfighting is guaranteed to be at least a little entertaining. And the montage of Dartagnan teaching Philippe how to dance and fence and be Louis was neat.
There was also a scene where Louis was doing a "ballet," as he called it, wherein he wore a gold skirt and had his face painted gold with diamonds stuck to it. And everyone just takes it in stride, like it happens all the time. "Time for another one of Louis' gold face dances." I love it when movies have one scene of bizzarity that they completely refuse to acknowledge as out of the ordinary.
The man has diamonds stuck to his face!
That is entertainment, my friends.

End of line.
-Sally

Alice In Wonderland

2011-06-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

Tim Burton and I broke up after Sweeney Todd. I tried to be nice about it, even saw it in the theaters four times trying to convince myself I liked it. After the fourth time, though, we had a huge fight and I said some very, very hurtful and insulting things (all of which I still think were justified).
Tim Burton, of course, did not respond because he was a figment of my imagination at the time (the real Tim Burton being unavailable due to the fact that we've never met and he was probably busy that day), but we agreed that I was simply too opinionated and he was simply too stagnant and repetitive (he has, like, three movies that he just makes over and over). I told him I was keeping the Sleepy Hollow and we went our seperate ways.
For years I'd clench my teeth at the mere mention of his name, but we're back on speaking terms of the polite but not necessarily friendly variety. I watched his Alice In Wonderland because I feel I don't have the right to complain about a movie I've never seen.
This is a movie whose previews I loudly, openly and shamelessly booed in theaters. You see, the main reason Tim Burton and I parted ways was that we realized we only got along when he was adapting things I didn't care about. For instance, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow is a story I tried to read on more than one occasion but was never able to finish. Sleepy Hollow is, by far, Tim Burton's best movie. However, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street is one of my top five favorite musicals and Tim Burton (who claims it's the only musical he likes) only got one thing right: the gore. His movie has buckets and buckets of blood (yay!), less than adequate performances from everybody but Pirelli and Toby (as my friend Michelle put it: "It's really sad when the best actors in your movie are Borat and an eleven year old boy.") and twelve tons of missing the point. But I won't get into that. I'm not reviewing that movie.
So I went into Alice In Wonderland expecting to absolutely hate it. Instead I didn't hate it. I didn't like it, exactly. My reaction is complex and confused, and a good chunk of my problem could have been resolved by giving the movie a proper name: Return To Wonderland would have been more accurate.
The movie begins with Alice going to a garden party at which some snooty guy is going to propose to her (Alice is, like, eighteen in this version). The audience is supposed to know Alice is "different" (read "better") than the people around her because she thinks corsets are stupid and she's not interested in fitting into their society. Yawn. Like I've never heard that from every stupid movie ever; let's move on. (We also know Alice is a Tim Burton heroine because she looks as if she just spent the last two hours throwing up.)
Anyway, Alice runs away from her proposal to follow a white rabbit down a hole and she lands in Underland (it turns out "Wonderland" was her childish mispronunciation. You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes right now), where the Red Queen has used her Jabberwocky and her Crispin Glover to take over power from her sister the White Queen. It's been told that on the Frabjous Day, Alice with use the Vorpal Sword to kill the Jabberwocky.
Okay, fuck this! Explaining anything from Jabberwocky takes everything that's magical away from the poem. I don't want to see some dumbass filmmakers' interpretations of what a frumious bandersnatch is. I don't want vorpal blade to mean anything. And I'm motherfucking sick of jabberwockys just being dragons. Quit trying to ruin a brilliant poem by trying to make it mean something. Stop perverting it to suit your needs. Whoever wrote this screenplay can bite me.
Alice spends the whole movie insisting she's not the Alice they're looking for and then bossing them around because it's her dream so she's in charge. (I don't like Alice in this movie.)
And why can't the White Queen kill the Jabberwocky herself? Because "my vows make me unable to hurt any living creature." I'm pretty sure she's related to Glinda from The Wizard Of Oz. "I want this person out of the way without getting my hands dirty; time to get an unsuspecting little girl to do my dirty work for me." They're like mobsters. "Good Witch" my ass.
Anyway, so Alice teams up with the Mad Hatter and all the animals in Wonderland to find the sword and defeat the Red Queen.
And at some point midway through the movie my teeth unclenched, my blood stopped boiling and I managed to just enjoy myself. Something happened at maybe forty five minutes in that made me just stop caring about all the stupid things that were annoying me and just be entertained. I liked that quite a lot.
It didn't last, though. Around the time Alice rode the bandersnactch back to the White Queen's palace, I started getting mad again and stayed mad for the rest of the movie (except for the execution scene; that was pretty good). And I tried. I tried really hard to let go, to not be mad, to just enjoy the movie. "Remember how good you felt fifteen minutes ago when you thought it wasn't bad? Remember?" I pleaded, but it didn't work. Whatever the movie did to offend me was enough for me to declare war on Freedonia. (It called me an upstart?) (In this case "declare war on Freedonia" means "scowl for the rest of the movie.")
I really hated the White Queen, Alice bugged the snot out of me, the Red Queen was awful, the Mad Hatter was trying too hard to be weird (also, he was occasionally Scottish; either be Scottish or don't, dude), the Doormouse was a bitch, the March Hare made me tense (I really didn't like how he was animated) ... I liked most of the other characters, though. The Cheshire Cat was very cool.
So, I don't know. It needed more of whatever was going right in the middle to make me stop being angry about the unlikeable characters and the attempts at de-magic-izing a great poem.

End of line.
-Sally

A Private Man

2011-06-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

It may be completely pointless to write a review of this one. It's a documentary of sorts about Patrick McGoohan. It was made in 1990 and basically it's just "Over this span of time, he worked on some movies" and then they show clips from his movies. Which is awesome if you're me (even if I had already seen most of the movies they showed clips from). But I have no idea if A Private Man is a legitimate anything; it looked like it was made for public access television and I have no idea who the narrator dudes were. Not that it matters, really. It was entertaining, I enjoyed it, but it sort of felt like it was tailor made for me. "Here, stare at Patrick McGoohan for an hour or so." Nice. Love it. Thank you.

End of line.
-Sally

The Bible ... In The Beginning

2011-06-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at Amoeba I talked some guy into buying volume one of The Prisoner. I hope he likes it. He decided he wanted to recommend something to me, too, and The Bible ... In The Beginning was what he came up with (after suggesting a few things I'd already seen).
Holy crap, this movie is long! It's one of those sweeping Dino De Launrentiis epics that is three hours long that I've heard so much about but never actually seen before now.
Parts of it lost me; I only really understood the segments based on Bible stories with which I was already familiar (due mainly to cultural osmosis since I was raised pretty religionless). I took notes while I was watching the movie and I figured the easiest way to review the movie would be simply to share my notes and elaborate if need be. Here goes:

"Guns And Religion: Now More Than Ever" - Oh yeah, on the way to Amoeba yesterday I got cut off by a truck with a bumper sticker that said that. It pissed me off for a multitude of reasons and I'm still trying to figure out what religion the guy is; I can't think of any pro-gun religions. (Also, when he cut me off I yelled "Jesus Christ!" After I read his bumper sticker I added "I oughta shoot you." See, 'cause it's funny 'cause ... meh. Forget it.)
Why do people still believe this but not ancient Roman / Greek gods? - Isn't it all kinda the same thing?
Don't eat from the Tree Of Knowledge "lest you die" - Intelligence kills. I feel like that explains a lot, at least in terms of overly religious politicians.
That apple is gold.
Is that a different Adam? - At a certain point Michael Parks looks totally different and I can't figure out why. He's the only Adam credited, though, so I guess it's still him.
"Be fruitful and multiply" then "your punishment is bearing children." - Wait, how can you punish Eve for eating the apple by making her have kids when you already told her to multiply?
Cain and Abel's offerings = God's a dick - "Abel, your offering is bountiful and made of animals. This pleases me. ... Cain, your offering is just as honest but it's paltry and made of grapes. Therefore I hate you." Fuck you too, God!
Cain invented murder and lying?
Revenge is okay and encouraged = God's a dick - First God hates Cain for making a paltry sacrifice, then God hates Cain for inventing murder, then God says whoever kills Cain will be blessed seven times over or something like that. Way to have double standards, you jerk? Why the hell do you hate Cain so fucking much?
Where did Cain's wife come from? - Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel and eventually went off and got a wife and had some kids. Where'd that wife come from? She wasn't one of Adam and Eve's kids, but Adam and Eve were the only people on Earth. Who's this mystery wife? Where did she come from?
In fact, where did all these scads of people come from? - Suddenly the world is heavily populated. When the crap did that happen?
I like Noah. He seems nice.
God plays favorites a lot.
I've never seen a version where Noah had a whole family before.
Cubits must be huge!
AMINALS! ... I'm having an Elmyra moment.
Great, now I have The Unicorn running through my head.
This animal job is impossible. - So God tells Noah to build an ark and put two of each kind of animal on it so that they'll all survive the flood. First of all, what's going to stop the carnivores from killing all the other animals? Well, the movie kind of cleared that up with Noah saying they have some sort of magic animal wisdom that tells them what the situation is so the're being good and not killing anybody. Okay, fine. That doesn't change the fact that none of these animals' natural habitat is "on a giganamous boat with every other kind of animal in the world." No amount of magical animal wisdom is going to save them from the fact that penguins belong in the antarctic or hippos needing bodies of water to splash about in. And what about fish and aquatic mammals and such? They obviously didn't get brought into the ark since the flooding can't hurt them any. So are they ridiculously overpopulated now since they all got to live, rather than just two of them?
It must've been smelly. Maybe Noah was anosmic?
Why do Bible characters only ever have sons? - Adam and Eve had sons, Noah had a bunch of sons, Jacob had a bunch of sons, Abraham had two sons (even though everyone thinks Ishmael doesn't count for some reason). That doesn't generally happen. And if all anybody ever had were sons, where do all their wives come from?
"The glory of Nimrod shines beyond the sun." Hahaha!
I understood the first two stories but now I'm lost.
George C. Scott! I love that guy!
What is going on now? George C. Scott is leading an expedition and he wants to have a kid? So God told him to kill a bunch of livestock?
George C. Scott gets all the ladies.
First she wanted him to sleep with her maid, now she regrets it.
The maid's name is Hagar? She's an unfunny viking comic strip?
Poor Ishmael. His dad's playing favorites with a kid who doesn't exist.
I'm lost again.
Ooh, smiting!
Smite! Smite! Smite!
How long have I been watching this movie?
Okay, now it's Sodom and Gomorroah? - When I was a kid, I thought Sodom And Gomorrah were people. And I probably thought they solved mysteries on television in the 1980s (along with Jake And The Fat Man, Simon And Simon, Cagney And Lacey, McMillan And Wife and Starsky And Hutch).
Salt! Salt! Salt!
Dude, that was, like, an atomic blast. I didn't know they had atomic blasts in Biblical times.
Abraham just got a sarcastic slow clap for his wife having a baby.
"Hey Abraham, kill your son! ... Just kidding!" = God's a dick - Seriously, what is with this guy? These Bible stories are not putting me on God's side. Did Satan write these stories? "This'll get people worshipping me instead." (Good thing I don't believe in Hell or I'd probably end up there for that one.)
That kid is never going to trust you ever again, George C. Scott.

That was the last note. It was a good enough movie while I was watching it, but I don't think I'll bother sitting through it again. Except maybe the Noah's Ark segment. I like that story (plot holes and all) and I loved seeing all the animals.

End of line.
-Sally

The Cocoanuts

2011-06-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

The Cocoanuts is first Marx Brothers movie (the first one that survived, anyway) and it's pretty obvious they weren't quite sure yet how to make movies. It's stagey, there are awkward song and dance numbers (I guess there always were but for some reason the ones in this movie seem much more out of place than the ones in, say, Duck Soup), Zeppo's barely in it and the plot is convoluted.
So it's not the best Marx Brother's movie in the world, but it's still damn funny. The "I want my shirt" song cracked me up, it was awesome to finally see the "why a duck?" scene (my mom used to have a book called Why A Duck? that I used to look through all the time when I was a kid (it was basically photo comics of a bunch of Marx Brothers movies) but I'd never actually seen the scene before) and there are some brilliant bits.
The only problem is that it really takes a while to get going and I'm still trying to weed through the plot:
Margaret Dumont has a valuable necklace and a pretty daughter, who she wants to marry off to a guy whose name I forget. Pretty Daughter wants to marry a Different Guy, though, and Guy Whose Name I Forget is in cahoots with Another Lady to steal Margaret Dumont's necklace. Groucho owns the hotel they're all staying at and is trying to sell the surrounding land. Zeppo is his assistant and isn't really given anything to do. Chico and Harpo show up because who cares why, we're just glad they're there, and a policeman thinks they're up to something. Pretty Daughter and Different Guy sing high pitched love songs, large groups of girls dance and dance. In between all of that, funny happens.
I don't know if there'll be a Marx Brothers movie I'll love more than Monkney Business, but I have yet to see a bad one.
Yay, The Cocoanuts!

End of line.
-Sally

I Need That Record! The Death (Or Possible Survival) Od Independent Record Stores

2011-06-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Sniffle.
I Need That Record! is a documentary about why record stores are dying and how the music industry has changed over the past several decades. It mainly focuses on people who owned record stores (Electric Records and Trash American Style (both of which were in Connecticut, I believe) in particular) and what they're up to since losing their businesses.
I've always considered the death of record and video stores as the biggest sign that the world is ending, and I have been crying steadily for the past half hour. I don't like the place the world is becoming but I'm trapped in it.
It was a good documentary but it's also quite heartbreaking and I think I may have been better off not watching it. I'm very sad now.
On the other hand, I'm the one who put I Need That Record! in the Movie Lottery bucket, and when that piece of paper came out I said "I am going to cry." So I guess it's my own damn fault.

End of line.
-Sally

Scanners

2011-06-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

Scanners are psychic people who can use their powers for good or for awesome. Or for evil. Or for exploding heads. Cameron Vail has just found out he's a scanner and Doctor Paul Ruth wants to use him to find an evil scanner named Darryl Revok. The doctor (I just can't bring myself to call him Doctor Ruth) thinks Revok is putting together a group of evil scanners hellbent on taking over the world, the jerk. In his quest to find Revok, Cameron meets a good scanner named Kim Oberst and she helps him to solve the mystery of the stuff that's happening. (Ain't I eloquent?)
I don't know how I feel about Scanners. I liked it, I suppose. David Cronenberg is a fine director and his movies tend to have good plots as well as good gore, so I really can't complain there. I guess my problem with the movie is my inability to understand why various characters do what they do. A lot of the movie made me feel like Cameron was about to turn to the dark side, but I also feel like there was never a proper explanation of what and why the dark side is. I understood various characters' alliances for the most part but ... I don't know. The climactic scene conveniently had a villainous monologue that tried to explain things but it came out backwards. I wasn't having trouble following the plot until that scene. Suddenly I'm supposed to think differently of certain characters without much rhyme or reason (I can't explain further than that without giving away a major twist), at least none that was adequate enough for my taste. I think I'd like to watch it again and see if I can figure out some things.
It's kind of too bad that Scanners is best known as "that movie where that guy's head explodes." It's definitely a cool shot and worth the price of admission, but the movie itself is good, too. The head explosion happens within the first fifteen minutes and the movie doesn't have a huge burst of gore like that again, although the climactic scene does get pretty gross. This was actually my second attempt (first successful one) at watching Scanners. The first time I saw it the shock of seeing Patrick McGoohan older and beardy (I'd only ever seen him in The Prisoner at that point) and the fact that the head explosion was over and done with so quickly made me lose interest early on. That and I guess the plot bored me (I think I've grown more patient with slow moving movies since then).
Now, though, I can honestly say I liked Scanners quite a bit. I think. I'll have to try and figure out the plot snarls before I can say for certain.

End of line.
-Sally

TerrorVision

2011-06-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

The planet Pluton sent a beam of garbage (consisting entirely of a disgusting, low-budget monster) into space. It bounced around for a while and eventually found its way into the Puttermans' satellite dish. The monster then comes out through the television and starts eating pretty much everybody it comes across. The only person who understands what's going on is young Sherman Putterman, but since he whines his explanation to everybody, no one believes him.
TerrorVision is very 1980s and very campy (like Earth Girls Are Easy or Killer Tongue type campy) but I lost interest about twenty minutes in and only finished it 'cause I felt obligated. The monster made me feel sick to my stomach and the plot is painfully repetitive ("There's a monster!" "You're lying!" and then the monster eats someone; repeat 'til you're ready to throw something through the screen), taking 'til about an hour in for anything new to happen. Even then it only gets a little better.
So TerrorVision wasn't really my kind of thing. It might have been more fun to watch with friends. Who knows.

End of line.
-Sally

Inside The Marx Brothers

2011-06-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

Inside The Marx Brothers is a short documentary which is, thankfully, about the Marx Brothers' movies and other works (and not about their innards).
It doesn't go particularly in depth into anything and focuses more on Groucho than any of the other brothers (which is kinda frustrating for a girl who's always liked Harpo best) but it's interesting and entertaining.
There are a lot of old clips from various television programs and trailers for their movies and behind the scenes photos.
The part I really geeked out over, though, was near the end when they played a clip of one of the audio tapes Harpo made while he was writing Harpo Speaks.
I heard Harpo speak. For reals. That makes me very happy.
And now I kinda wish I owned every Marx Brothers movie so I could watch them all. Even Humorisk (which doesn't exist anymore because Groucho hated it and had every copy destroyed). Even the ones from after Zeppo left (Zeppo's my second favorite Marx Brother). Even Love Happy (which I've heard is terrible). This is the sort of mood that happens when a compulsive collector feels nostalgic.
I grew up watching Marx Brothers movies. I'm sad there'll never be a comedy team like them again.

End of line.
-Sally

Oscar

2011-06-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

You know what kind of movies give me a good, good feeling? Farcical movies with ensemble casts. Especially if they're murder mysteries or take place in the first half of the twentieth century (bonus points for both!). Oscar isn't a murder mystery, but three out of four is a home run as far as I'm concerned.
Snaps Provolone's dad has passed away and his dying wish was that Snaps give up his mobster life and go straight. The day he begins his life as an honest man, though, everything comes crashing down at once. Without giving too much away the plot involves Snaps' two daughters (only one of whom is his), a pregnancy, three fiances, two tailors, three black leather duffel bags, four bankers, a police officer determined to find out what Snaps is up to, a thieving accountant and an Irish maid.
This is officially my favorite Sylvester Stallone movie. All those Rockys and Rambos can go to hell. I had no idea how funny the guy is; he's got great timing. Everybody in the cast does, really. The cast is mostly made up of every familiar-looking mook guy who was acting in the 1990s. And they're all hilarious.
It's interesting to me that John Landis is considered one of the Masters Of Horror when I can only name one horror movie he directed (An American Werewolf In London). I suppose The Twilight Zone movie kind of counts, but his segment is more horriffic because of what happened during shooting than what's on the screen (and the less said about that, the better). I can name quite a few comedies he's directed, though, and he's great with it. I don't remember much of Animal House but it's considered a classic by many, and I can say without question Oscar is hilarious.
What I really like about it is that a lot of the jokes are played over the top (Marisa Tomei's childish tantrums for instance) but just as much of the comedy is treated completely naturally, like this is just how people talk. The lines would be funny if the actors punched it but it's actually funnier when they almost toss the lines aside as if obviously that's what anyone would say in this situation. It's the same bit of praise I had for Russell Brand in the Arthur remake; it's funnier when you pretend it isn't.
Oscar is a lot of fun and totally worth seeing. I'm not sure why I don't hear about it more often. It deserves more recognition.

End of line.
-Sally

The Prowler

2011-06-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

In 1945 Rosemary broke up with her soldier boyfriend in a letter. Then at her college's graduation dance Rosemary and her new boyfriend were pitchforked to death, which caused the college to not have another graduation dance for thirty five years. The year they bring it back, though, a bunch of people get killed (some by pitchfork).
The Prowler is fast paced, the blood is copious and the plot is simple. I liked it quite a lot. Maybe there were fewer deaths than some slasher movies have, but to include more kills would have made the movie longer than it needed to be. I appreciate its conciseness, if for no other reason than I have to get up at five o'clock in the morning tomorrow and should be getting to bed around now.
The Prowler = good watchin'. Highly recommended. Good night!

End of line.
-Sally

Taboo: The Beginning Of Erotic Cinema

2011-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

I love watching documentaries about the early days of the movies. That stuff fascinates me. So a documentary about porn in the early days of the movies should be pretty interesting, right?
Well, it might have been if it had tried to teach the audience anything or give a real insight into the movies or the people who made them. But this didn't do that. This mostly felt like somebody threw it together pretty quickly as an excuse to show a bunch of clips from decades-old nudie movies. (It probably means something that I can't find an IMDB page for this one.)
The narrator seemed to be tryint to come off as goofy, I didn't learn anything about the early days of movies that I didn't already know and, honestly, a lot of the clips they showed reminded me of Terry Gilliam segments from episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus: here's a naked girl for no real reason. The end.
I guess when you'll watch pretty much any movie about early cinema, regardless of subject matter, not everything is going to be worth it.

End of line.
-Sally

Casino Royale

2011-06-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't watched a James Bond movie in years. The last one I saw was You Only Live Twice and I was maybe ten or eleven at the time, so it's been over a decade. Much like how I feel about Star Wars, I'm glad James Bond movies are a thing and I'm a fan of their existence but not really of the movies themselves. I don't want to watch them but I'm glad they're there.
That being said, the Casino Royale I just watched is likely not the version you're thinking of. Of course I'm not a mind reader and I don't know who you are so it could very well be exactly the one you're thinking of. It's certainly not the new Casino Royale, though, and it's not the comedy starring David Niven.
This was, as far as I know, the first onscreen version of James Bond. It was an episode of the television show Climax! and good ol' Jimmy Bond was played by American actor Barry Nelson (who I'm going to start telling people is my favorite James Bond, just to be contrary).
The reason I watched the movie (the reason I heard of the movie and, according to IMDB, the reason Barry Nelson took the role) is Peter Lorre, who plays the villain. I love Peter Lorre.
The movie's pretty straightforward: a Soviet spy gambled away all of his country's money and now he has to win it back. Jimmy Bond has to play against him and make sure he doesn't get that money. Thrown into the mix is Bond's ex-girlfriend who works for the Soviets (or does she?) and ... actually, that's about it.
There's almost no action (a few poorly-thrown stage punches, a couple offscreen gunshots and it's implied that Peter Lorre pulls out a couple of Bond's toenails with pliers) and a lot of talking. And a rather long scene of Bond and the villain playing baccarat.
It was entertaining enough, a good way to spend about an hour, but it was nothing like what society's general consensus of how James Bond goes. I'm cool with that, though. In fact, it makes me very happy that the first James Bond movie was a poorly-received television episode with a schlumpy American of a Bond (well, maybe not schlumpy but he's definitely not suave nor badass) and almost no action.

End of line.
-Sally

The New York Ripper

2011-06-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is the most straightforward Lucio Fulci movie I've ever seen. It's a lot like any number of "cops chasing serial killers" thrillers, except way bloodier. And, because it's Fulci, there are scenes that come off as creepier than you'd expect them to. The hand gag in the first scene and the phone booth, for instance.
The New York Ripper is about a murderer wandering around New York (clearly), murdering women and quacking. I have seen a lot of movie reference guides and magazine articles that make fun of the duck voice but I found it genuinely unsettling.
I've seen four other Lucio Fulci movies (The Beyond, City Of The Living Dead, Don't Torture A Duckling and Lizard In A Woman's Skin) and this is the first one I had no trouble following. I think it may also have the saddest ending of the five, but it's been so long since I've seen a few of those others (I barely remember Lizard In A Woman's Skin at all) so I could be wrong.
A lot of people hate this movie (and, I guess, all of Fulci's work) because they find it sexist. I don't think that's really true. The killer might be sexist but it's perfectly clear we're not supposed to be taking the killer's side (what with the fact that the killer is, you know, killing people and all).
And blaming the existence of naked ladies and gratuitous sex scenes doesn't work as a valid argument as far as I'm concerned either, if for no other reason than New York Ripper was made in the early '80s. Most movies back then had pointless sex and nudity (and over the top violence) because filmmakers were still on a bit of a "no more Hayes Code" high (not as much as in the '70s, but it's still there). Maybe as an Italian Fulci didn't have Hayes Code problems but he was still making and trying to get people to see his movies in a time where other filmmakers were throwing off their Hayes Code shackles by showing audiences as many naked ladies they could convince to show up on screen.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, I don't know. I'm just saying what it seems like to me. (It could also just be that I'm difficult to offend. Who knows?)
Overall it's a really cool thriller. Good plot twists, lots of creepy moments, a good tenacious cop guy, a quirky villain and a professor who has to explaini the killer's psychosis (which is maybe kinda corny but a lot of thrillers like to do that). And then there are gallons of blood to keep the horror fans happy.
You've done a fine job, Mr. Fulci.

End of line.
-Sally

Dorian Gray

2011-05-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

I've never read The Portrait Of Dorian Gray, but based on what I've gleaned from cultural osmosis it's about a dude who debauches it up without any ill effects because he has a magic painting of himself that takes all the abuse he inflicts upon himself. And that's basically what this movie is.
I watched this one because there was a pretty interesting article about it in Fangoria last year and because it has Colin Firth in it. I'm also fond of period pieces.
Overall, it was an entertaining couple of hours. Nothing to write home about, I guess, but a good way to spend the afternoon.
My only wish was that, when the reveal finally came, the painting would have looked much grosser. Can't win 'em all, I guess.

End of line.
-Sally

Intruder

2011-05-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

Intruder seems to mainly be famous these days because it features Sam Raimi in a small role and Bruce Campbell in a barely existing role. That's how I heard of it, anyway.
It's about the night crew at a supermarket. Cashier Jennifer is being harrassed by her ex boyfriend who was recently released from jail. Then the crew finds out that the store is being sold and they'll all be out of a job by the end of the month.
Then somebody starts killing off members of the night crew one by one. Hilarity ensues. (It's not laugh out loud funny, but there are a couple good gags; a sign that says "1/2 Off" sitting on top of a guy who's been cut in half and shoved into two trash cans, for instance.)
It takes about half an hour to start getting to the gory bits, but at no point was I bored by the set up. It's not as bloody as I expected it to be (I'd heard somewhere the blood was copius but it seemed to me to be pretty average '80s slasher amounts of blood; it's quite likely Netflix only has the R rated cut, in which case I'm just missing out) but I still had a good time watching it.
The killer (once their identity was revealed) was pretty entertaining in all their crazy and the only thing about the movie I didn't like was the very last scene. It was too unnecessarily frustrating and downbeat for my taste. I think it was supposed to come off as funny (maybe?) but it doesn't work and it doesn't really fit the tone of the rest of the movie.
Other than that, though, nothing but compliments. I really enjoyed Intruder. And I would like to point out that one of the jump scares totally got me. Not because I wasn't expecting it but because I was so busy looking at all the old cereal boxes in the background. (The movie was filmed in an actual supermarket during its off hours so the backgrounds are full of glorious old product packaging. If you're as much a sucker for that kind of thing as I am, this movie's got more impressive scenery than Lord Of The Rings.)

End of line.
-Sally

Rob Zombie at The Majestic Ventura Theater, May 25, 2011

2011-05-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

The decision to go see Rob Zombie last night was almost entirely spur of the moment. I didn't even know he was playing until the day before and I bought my ticket the day of the show. I had no one to go with (most of my friends aren't Rob Zombie fans anyway) and technically I didn't have money for a ticket (so I used my credit card, making it a problem for Future Sally. Man, I'd hate to be her), but go I did.
I brought my Walkman with me (I'd generically say it's my MP3 player, but it totally is a Sony Walkman, which I'm quite proud of), which I leave on random just for the fun of it, to listen to while in line before doors opened. I'd like to announce I am one of probably very few people to listen to Britney Spears and Sesame Street while waiting to get into a Rob Zombie concert.
Fireball Ministry was the opening band. I'd never heard of them before and they were quite good. Probably not the best opening band I've ever seen, but they were definitely nowhere near the worst, either. They reminded me of the early nineties for some reason, the brief period when people weren't quite into hair bands anymore but the grunge phenomenon hadn't happened yet. Just good, solid rock with guitar solos, a big gruff looking singer with a flying V guitar and a token cute girl to play rhythm guitar, sing backup and wear a short skirt. (Okay, I can't think of any early nineties rock bands who had a token girl (other than White Zombie, funnily enough) but Fireball Ministry had one). When they walked onstage I heard a girl behind me say "The singer's fat," in a way that implied she expected the music to be bad, which made me want to deck her. Moreso when they started playing; the band was quite enjoyable and the guy's got a good voice.
The Ventura Theater is a relatively small venue, which I like a lot, and I wondered how a Rob Zombie concert (which I've heard are rather large, elaborate affairs) would work there. The answer is: scaled down. There were no go-go dancers or giant setpieces. There were backdrops of old monster movies, though, and the band super rocked, so I don't feel like I missed anything.
Rob Zombie is a showman. You can tell that he puts a lot of thought into what goes on onstage. I love that. I also love that he has a fancypants wardrobe (he was wearing what looked like a military coat paired with red and black zebra striped pants; where do you even get pants like that?) and full-on dances and spins onstage. You don't see enough of that; people rock out onstage, certainly, but outside of pop shows with choreographed moves you don't see a lot of musicians really dancing it up.
And I bet if you approached a bunch of Rob Zombie fans and offered to play them some music by a "twirling, flamboyantly dressed vegetarian man," they'd probably decline to listen. Unless they understand the concept of making things sound like one thing when they're actually something else. 'Cause you use the words "twirling, flamboyantly dressed vegetarian man" and you don't think "hard rock music about cars, monsters and ladies."
Anyway, back to the concert itself.
It ROCKED! As usual, I went from "kinda mopey and debating not going at all" to "screaming, bouncing, headbanging fangirl" the second Zombie and company took to the stage.
I would have loved for them to play Welcome To Planet Motherfucker when they were exploring the White Zombie back catalogue, but you can't win 'em all. (To balance things out they did play Pussy Liquor, my favorite song off of the soundtrack to my favorite movie. That bass riff totally made my day.)
One thing that sucked about the show was the audience. Specifically the audience in the back section, where I was. I found a spot against the railing in the back near the bar, right in the middle where I could see the whole stage perfectly. (There was no way I was getting near the front, for fear the moshier fans might squish or punch me.) But it turns out a lot of people in the back don't want to rock out. They want to lean against the railing acting like they have a headache and give you dirty looks for jumping up and down and singing along. There are a lot of things people do at concerts that piss me off (drunken shouting and dressing up like everyone's there to see you rather than the band are at the top of that list) but I've never gotten angry at people for dancing, bouncing and singing along at a fucking rock concert. We're here to have fun, damn it!
If you have a headache and don't feel like dancing (or putting up with people who do feel like dancing), maybe don't go to the Rob Zombie show is all I'm saying.
So, other than the killjoy to my left, I had a grand time. And I got a keychain and a necklace at the merchandise table which, together, were still cheaper than a t-shirt (which I would have liked to get, but I'm broke).

End of line.
-Sally

The Gypsy And The Gentleman

2011-05-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

This is one of the boringer Patrick McGoohan movies I've had to sit through. It's got a long, confusing plot wherein characters are constantly changing their alliances to each other.
First, there's a gypsy girl named Belle who lives a life prancing about fields and being all cuddly with a guy named Jess (who may or may not also be a gypsy; I'm still not clear on that) until she steals the purse of the titular "gentleman" (who gets his title in quotes because he's an asshole), Sir Paul Deveraux. Sir Paul saves her from the mob of angry people who want to kill her because she stole the man's purse by claiming that she didn't steal his purse. Later that night Belle abandons Jess because it's raining and hitches a ride in Sir Paul's carriage. Belle and Paul start shacking up (at one point Belle runs back to the forest to Jess for a couple days, but she ends up going back to Paul and no mention is ever really made of that again).
Meanwhile, Paul is engaged to a chick named Vanessa and Paul's sister Sarah wants to marry a doctor named John (I think?). Paul insists that Sarah can't marry John because his stature is too lowly. Then he marries Belle. Yeah.
Sarah informs Belle that Paul is broke, most of the staff quits and Jess gets a job taking care of their horses. Then Paul and Sarah's aunt dies and leaves Sarah her entire fortune as long as she marries before she turns twenty one. Belle, the aunt's lawyer, Jess and a somewhat reluctant Paul decide to tell Sarah the will says she'll get the fortune if she marries after she turns twenty one so Paul and Belle will get the fortune (why the lawyer's so gung ho on this deception is never explained, seeing as he wouldn't actually get anything out of it).
And the rest of the plot revolves around keeping Sarah locked up so Belle and Paul can get the aunt's fortune. And it goes on and on. And on. Aaaaand on. Paul has a couple changes of heart, Belle makes out with any guy unfortunate enough to get his face near hers, Jess spends the second half of the movie being a full on villain even though I'm pretty sure he wasn't one at the start of the film (he gets a cape and hat around the time he starts working for Sir Paul; I guess you have to do a heel turn when you get a cape and hat) and Sarah hopes desperately to be saved by her fiance and his friend, the famous actress whose hair never turns gray no matter how old she gets (it's known as "The Legend").
I didn't like the movie while I was watching it but in hindsight it was kind of entertaining, in an "I have no idea what the fuck is going on" kind of way. Nobody enunciates (especially not Belle) and I'm pretty sure every character makes the choices they make depending on what would be most dramatic at any given time. Also, Patrick McGoohan looks like this:

Never before or since was he so swarthy.

End of line.
-Sally

Continuation Of Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I was right. I liked it way better the second time.
However, I disliked the mermaid romance and the Penelope Cruz twice as much the second time around, so that's still a big problem for me.
'Cause the thing is, in both cases, the movie doesn't give the audience a reason to fucking care. At all. "Oh, okay, I guess the religious guy and the mermaid are in love with each other now. Neither of them has really had any character development at all and they've barely said two words to each other, but I guess I'm supposed to give a damn for some reason?"
As for Angelica, we don't really know anything about her or her reasons for doing what she's doing. But some events happen that cause her life to hang in the balance (it's an action movie, after all; the token chick needs to be put in some peril or another) and I genuinely believe the audience is supposed to care whether or not she survives. We don't care because she's shrill and irritating and useless, but I think we're supposed to care and that sucks.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we have The Spaniard (that's how he's credited), commander of the Spanish fleet, who barely has any screentime but by the end of the movie we know exactly what his motives are and how they dictate his actions, we know that he is a royal badass and, I at least, want to see a whole movie about him. He's not shrill or annoying, he's a dude with a job to do. He's barely in the movie at all but he is one of my favorite new characters.
Him, the crew of the Queen Anne's Revenge and all the evil mermaids.
But not Serena. She can bite me.

End of line.
-Sally

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

It was good. I liked it.
It's also the first of the Pirates movies that I left the theater not feeling enthusiastic about at all, so I guess it's the worst of the four. Parts of it were good; overall it was a lot of fun, if a bit disjointed. It doesn't fit together as well as the first three did.
Barbossa was awesome (but not in it nearly enough; same goes for Gibbs) and Jack Sparrow was his usual fun, twitchy self. There was no Will Turner angsting around and getting on my nerves and it was really nice that the three characters I really cared about seeing were the three that came back for this movie.
As for newcomers there's Blackbeard, who's a darn fine villain, a crew member named Scrum who is rather endearing and adorable and, of course, the two factors that damn near ruined the movie for me (both of which I knew about beforehand and should have been more prepared):
1) the half-assed romance subplot between a missionary named Philip and a mermaid who he claims is named Serena even though she never tells him that's what her name is. I guess I didn't officially know about this one, but I did see a poster for the movie of a mermaid clinging to some bland looking man that, honestly, if it hadn't said "Pirates Of The Caribbean" on it, I would have thought was a poster for a particularly corny romance novel. I guess the filmmakers decided since Will and Elizabeth weren't in this one we had to have a dull romantic subplot from someone. 'Cause, you know, audiences go to pirate movies for the romance and not, oh, I don't know, to see some fucking pirates! (Eyeroll.) Oh well. At least this was practically a nonentity in the movie. My next complaint however...
2) Penelope Cruz. Not her character, Angelica, but Penelope Cruz is the biggest problem with this movie. 'Cause if a different actress had played her, I might not have hated her. But I have a serious problem with Penelope Cruz. Sure, she's very pretty and maybe in Spanish language movies she might even be a good actress (in fact, the two times in the movie she's yelling at Jack in Spanish are the two times she doesn't annoy me). But I've never seen her in a Spanish language movie. I've only seen her in English language movies and in those she's sailing by on looks alone and it's not enough. In every movie I've seen her in her performances are flat and the only emotions she ever manages to convey are "I'm sexy" and "I think I'm acting." So, yes, she made a very good looking (if a bit too clean) pirate, but she didn't make an effective or believeable one.
Considering the first three movies have strong female characters (Anamaria, Elizabeth and Tia Dalma) but also got talented actresses to back up the characters (Zoe Saldana, Keira Knightley and Naomie Harris) and make them likeable and believeable, it's disappointing that they'd drop the ball so completely in casting Angelica.
Overall, if you ignore her (or, at least, if I ignore her), it was a good movie. It was fun, if a bit more serious than its prececessors. It had long stretches of not-so-interesting bits. And it needed a whole lot more Barbossa and Gibbs, and infinitely less of Penelope Cruz. I'd even let the stupid mermaid romance slide if they'd recast Angelica.
Oh, I would like to say, though, that it was awesome that they decided to go with evil, violent mermaids. Evil, violent mermaids are so much cooler than how most of modern pop culture interprets mermaids.
So, in spite of the fact that the first three Pirates movies have Will Turner, I did like them better than the fourth one. Which is kinda sad; I was thrilled at the prospect of a Will-less movie.
Much like how I felt about the second one, though, I'll probably like this one better if I see it again. There are some ass kicking action scenes and now that I know what to expect overall, I can just kick back and enjoy it next time around.
I hope.

End of line.
-Sally

Young Sherlock Holmes

2011-05-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

First, I have to admit that I have seen Young Sherlock Holmes before. Usually I reserve my reviews for movies I haven't seen but I figured for this one I'll make an exception because the last time I saw Young Sherlock Holmes was more than twenty years ago and my only memories of the movie were a living stained glass window and a hallucination about pastries that scarred me for life. (Sincerely. When I could tell it was coming my eyes teared up.)
Interesting that it turned up in Movie Lottery 3D now, when I've been watching the recent BBC series Sherlock with Ivy. Coincidentally, Young Sherlock Holmes also features Nigel Stock as Rufus Waxflatter; not twenty minutes before I turned on the movie my mom and I finished watching my least favorite episode of The Prisoner, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, which stars Nigel Stock as Number Six.
Anyway, on to actually reviewing the movie:

I liked it.
The end.

No, no, okay, fine, not the end. I just don't know what to say. I can't say much without giving things away. The movie opens with a pretty awesome and disturbing setpiece about a guy being attacked by his dinner and bedroom. It then moves on to show Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meeting at school and becoming friends. Sherlock has a love interest named Elizabeth whose wacky uncle Rufus is trying to build a flying machine.
And that's all I'm going to tell you. I think Young Sherlock Holmes is really worth seeing and, by golly, I'm not going to give away any plot points. It's got a really cool mystery, exciting action sequences and some truly disturbing hallucination scenes (like the one about the pastries). The plot goes some places I didn't expect it to go and I'd seen the damn thing before! (Nevermind that I was about five years old at the time, I thought I'd have had vague recollections but almost the entire movie was new to me.)
I'd also like to say how much I liked the fact that it didn't seem gimmicky. I feel like the problem with taking famous characters and giving them a "young self" version is that it can easily seem to be trying too hard or ... I don't know the right words for what I want to express. It's just something that can easily be screwed up. But in this case it wasn't. It was a Sherlock Holmes story that just happened to take place when Holmes was a teenager. And it was well written, well acted and incredibly entertaining.
And, as when I was five, the kid who played Holmes still looks like Julien Lennon to me.

End of line.
-Sally