Red Rock West (1993)

What? Nicholas Cage? In a noir set in Texas? What? Dennis Hopper is there too, completely cowboy'd up? WHAT? I can't hear you over HOW MUCH THIS MOVIE HAS EVERYTHING. Back before the New Millennium you might recall that Cage had other modes besides crazy-dialed-to-11-on-the-crazy-meter (which, by the way, I don't mind), and he's at maybe a 3 or 4 in this, which makes him easy to like as the hapless guy who falls into Problems (a noir archetype?). Hopper, on the other hand, has always had his own personal setting on The Meter, and while he's not quite broadcasting at Blue Velvet frequency, he's still rocking pretty hard as "Lyle from Dallas," a character who is always dressed in the most awesome way possible and who is always having fun. Lara Flynn Boyle is also there, remember her from Twin Peaks? Jesus Christ, did David Lynch cast this movie?

It's ok if he did, because he didn't write or direct it. Whoever did though (John Dahl, who directed the forgettable "You Kill Me" and who has apparently directed at least 1 episode of every show worth watching on cable in the last 3 years) probably woke up one morning and thought "Damn, what if someone made a movie like Blood Simple, but with a better cast, and not so serious?" Maybe describing it as not as serious is inaccurate, because a lot of people are in trouble throughout the movie, but Dennis Hopper's mania keeps the movie fun in spite of the body count.

Reasons why this is worth your time:

• Nicholas Cage
• Dwight Yoakam cameo
• Car/Train race/chase
• Dennis Hopper screaming and screaming
• It is on Netflix Instant
  
• I have given you enough reasons!
  

Night of the Ill-Advised Double Feature: Paranormal Activity and Antichrist

I had a pretty good weekend. I saw An Education, which was at worst tolerable, and Where the Wild Things Are, which I loved unequivocally. I figured, obviously, that I probably deserved to do something to balance it out, mental-health-wise. So, like any senseless person might, I decided to really attack the likelihood that I might get a good night’s sleep with the most basic tools at hand: a horror movie the whole internet thinks is scary, and Lars Von Triers Gross-Haus movie. Here’s how it all went down:

I went to a big, frustrating theater to see Paranormal Activity, because it was the most convenient place playing the movie near me. When I walked through the front door I found a massive, backyard-pool-sized tumor of people milling around in line near the ticket-taker. What? Apparently there was a preview screening of The Boondocks Saints II: Can’t Believe It Got a Fucking Sequel - The Movie. Obviously, evil was afoot.

After fighting my way through the throng of people-who-are-stupid-for-wanting-to-see-a-sequel-to-a-shitty-movie I finally made it to my auditorium, which gradually filled up with stupid people who couldn’t get into the stupid Boondock Stupids screening and decided to see a movie anyway. If that weren’t bad enough, I was then subjected to something so terrifying it made The Shining seem tame: ads for George Lopez’s new talk show. At this point I was about ready to leave the theater, go home, put my mom on speakerphone and fall asleep with all the lights on, and the movie hadn’t even started! Needless to say, I was primed for terror.

Luckily, Paranormal Activity is pretty scary. Maybe it’s not. It’s definitely creepy, and there’s probably room for a distinction. A person near me spent parts of the movie hyperventilating or maybe crying (I couldn’t tell and I wasn’t about to help Someone in Need in public), and as a whole it’s definitely got its “jump” moments. The whole fake documentary/found footage thing works for it, and the female lead (Katie Featherston) is fantastic. I will admit that this movie comes at an unfortunate time for me personally, as my house is currently making a number of new and hard-to-place noises due to neighbors’ use of various heating mechanisms. That said, it’s not keeping me up and terrified the way some reviews claim it will, and its ending (which apparently differs from what was seen on the festival circuit) doesn’t live up to the preceding movie. Anyway, read about its production if you want to - it only took a week to shoot, which is nuts.
7 out of 10 (feeling generous)



So, I went home less haunted than I thought I’d be, but that was alright, because Antichrist was waiting for me there, ready to trouble me. I’ll say a few things up front: first, this was my first Von Trier movie. Second, it was maybe my first Dogme95 movie (unless An Education counts? The woman who directed it is part of the movement - which is stupid, by the way, and has a bunch of bullshit rules for assholes - but I don’t know how anyone decides what goes where, since none of them follow their own regulations anyway, and no “true” Dogme movie has ever been made by the group, at least according to their own rules, whichissostupidohmygod). Third, I was extremely prepared: I made a good dinner of red meat, mixed a strong drink, and got comfortable before even approaching Antichrist. Also I was vaguely aware of all the stuff that made people upset when they saw it.

Well, alright. Like other movies that do their best to Really Fuck with the Viewer, Antichrist starts off slowly - really slowly. It stays that way for the first hour at least, maybe more. It’s occasionally gorgeous to look at, kind of, but damn is the better part of it dullsville. Finally, with half an hour left, things started to get interesting. Listen: I watched this movie for the same reason I watched Inland Empire - I wanted to be upset and bothered by something, despite my better judgment. What’s so upsetting or bothersome about Antichrist? [highlight for revealing information, spoiler-weary need not worry] Charlotte Gainsbourg (who’s really good in it, by the way, and who it is weird to think about as being both in this and The Science of Sleep) feels the need to smash Willem Dafoe’s cock with like, a block of wood or something while they’re going at it (for like the zillionth time of the movie). Viewers are then treated to the shortest handjob ever (thankfully?) that culminates in the bloodiest ejaculation I've ever seen. Then she drills a hole into his leg so she can (of course) shove the axle of a grindstone through it and fasten it securely with a rusty nut. Did I mention that earlier Dafoe sees a deer with half of a baby deer hanging out of its take a wild guess? Other stuff also happens, like seeing Willem Dafoe's butt one hundred million times (approximately).

Ultimately, I’m not sure I “got” Antichrist, but maybe that’s just being generous. Parts of it were very interesting, and the whole movie was definitely eerie in a good way. It failed, however, to really shake me up. I don’t know if this is because I’m a terrible person with awful desensitizations, or if being so steeled for what I knew would happen ruined the impact the movie’s violence might have had. Or, you know, maybe it just takes more than a do-it-yourself clitorectomy with a pair of scissors to knock me down.

?? Out of 10. I really don’t know what to do with this.

The Youth of the Beast (1963)

Okay, awesome. The Youth of the Beast is a Yakuza movie from Seijun Suzuki who - according to imdb - has directed 50-some movies to date, and has one in the works right now. That's great, whatever, I haven't seen his other movies, but maybe I'll have to. This movie is also a Yakuza film, a genre I'm also not qualified to talk about as this was (maybe?) my first proper exposure to it. But, I am able to safely say that this movie is pretty rad. Here's why: 1) it's Japanese, 2) despite being Japanese it clocks in at only an hour and a half long, 3) the main character is pretty much of a badass (despite having hella chipmunk cheeks), and 4) it's from the 60's so everyone's dressed like Mad Men. No, seriously:



Anyway, listen: This movie is about an ex-cop who gets wind of an old partner's apparent suicide. He suspects foul play, so he does what any sensible person would: he beats the hell out of some Yakuza until they offer him a job. Once he's in, he can conduct his investigation. This movie's got shooting, double-double-crossing, suits, a car chase, comedy, everything. Ok!

7 out of 10.

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Oh God. What the hell, people? Why is this movie so famous and so popular? This is not a good movie, everyone. I watched this in a theater full of people who had all seen it before, and who thought it was the best thing ever, and boy was that frustrating. Luckily I didn't have to pay for it, since I'm a Brattle Member.


So apparently the premise of Dirty Dancing is that a family goes on a three week long (!) vacation to some resort where the main activities are eating breakfast and seeing Patrick Swayze dance with some woman nobody cares about. The hero (some girl) finances a lousy abortion, which means she also volunteers to dance on stage with Patrick Swayze at a different resort (the movie takes place in the Resort Valley found somewhere along the east coast). Despite having no formal training and only like 3 days to prepare for the performance she still manages to somehow become a professional dancer and fall in love with the Swayz. Too bad that’s a problem or something, because then her dad is mad at her (or whatever). And oh by the way this resort is maybe traveling at the speed of light, because despite this whole ordeal of a plot taking place over the course of 3 weeks standard time, it still manages to feel like forever, and all the characters act as though the events taking place in this little vacation-universe are the Most Significant Ever Ever of Their Lives (HINT: they’re not, except for the abortion lady - that’s usually a Thing).

I knew this movie wouldn’t be my thing going into it, and I appreciate that these sorts of movies (where a lady and a dude want to get together but stupid reasons act as obstacles to their stupid love until the end of the movie when everything works out SPOILER ALERT) are some people’s thing, but this was just stupid. I also resent it for tearing me away from my main activity of the past 24 hours. Also sorry I didn’t blog for a bunch of days, I was too busy watching Better Movies than this one.

2 out of 10.

Straw Dogs (1971)

Brief Primer

David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), an American mathematician, and his wife Amy (Susan George) move to Amy's childhood village in England so that David can work on his equations or something. Things get weird between the David and Amy, and weirder between the couple and the village's native creepers (one of whom used to be Amy's lover, and all of whom could be cast in an English remake of Deliverance), until numerous terrible things happen.

Yeesh. Synopses and reviews of Straw Dogs all call it a "drama" or a "psychological thriller," and while those descriptors aren't inaccurate, I'm willing to flat out label it a God Damn Horror Story. In an effort to avoid spoilers (unlike Netflix or the back of the DVD's case or my parents), I won't go into details about what happens in the movie. There are two Main Events, and they're both Something Terrible. Watching it from the beginning with a decent working knowledge of the path the movie would take was taxing, partly because I was Completely In a Mood, and partly because - like all decent horror movies - Straw Dogs takes its time, so I watched every scene waiting for one shoe or another to drop. Like Haneke's Cache or Miike's Audition - other more recent movies that have left me climbing the walls - Straw Dogs spends a good forty minutes lulling and boring the viewer into a false sense of security. Hints are dropped, sure, and we get to learn about how unlikeable everyone in the movie is (this is the first time I think I've ever really disliked a character Hoffman plays), but in general it's just the story of a prickish nerd and his pretty young wife in a creepy boring English town.

And then things get so awful. There's a reason this movie made everyone flip out back when it was released. It's got violence, it's got sexual violence, it's got English people, it's got More and More Violence. This came out the same year as A Clockwork Orange, and while some people (me) think that movie sucks and also isn't particularly disturbing (sorry), Straw Dogs had me gritting my teeth and shifting around uncomfortably about halfway through, and left me stunned and vaguely ill when it ended. It's the third Peckinpah movie I've seen (I thought Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia was interesting and The Wild Bunch was engaging, though not spectacular), and if there's one common thread that runs through all three of these movies it's that they are acutely mean-spirited and vicious as hell. Of the three, Dogs is definitely the most like an assault, and I'm both glad and distressed that I watched it alone - on the one hand I didn't have to put anyone else through it, but on the other hand there was no one there to stare blank-faced at afterwards. It's definitely not for the squeamish or the faint of heart, but it is undeniably effective and marvelously directed. I'm still not sure how I feel about Peckinpah, but if he can shake me up as well as he did, he must have been good on at least some level.

8 out of 10 (beause it really fucking got to me).

Rambo III (1988)

Brief Primer:

There is a movie after Rambo: First Blood Part II. Rambo's only friend/father figure/CO Trautman (Richard Crenna, reprising his role from the previous 2 films) is captured (for some reason?) by Soviets in Afghanistan. Rambo has to go rescue him, with the help of some Mujahideen.


Alright, let's talk about the franchise first: Some people are under the misguided impression that the first Rambo movie (First Blood) is anything less than fantastic. Others are on the right track, and like it like people should. The follow up (part II) is not as good, and I don't want to talk about it. Rambo III falls somewhere in between. Part of what made the first Rambo so awesome was its simplicity: a sad guy shows up in town, gets messed with, flips out, and burns everything to the ground. You don't have to have PTSD to relate to that - everyone wants to revenge on stuff. The second movie got caught up in some bullshit about the U.S. Government not wanting to rescue POW's still in Vietnam or something, paired Rambo up with some woman who falls in love with him before getting blown away (spoiler alert, whatever, don't see Rambo 2), and was an all-around disappointment.

Conversely, Rambo 3 is awesome in the exact way that LBJ wasn't: it 1) doesn't spend much time in Vietnam, 2) gets Rambo out of Vietnam, and 3) shuts the hell up about Vietnam immediately afterwards. Instead, we're treated to Rambo dropping into sunny and jungle-less Afghanistan to help out the freedom-fighting, Soviet-disliking Afghan people we as a country would, 13 years after the movie's release, spend a lot of time Rambo-ing. Rambo 3 is not as tense and emotional as the first, and it's not as lame and awful as the second one. It is, however, way more violent than either of the preceding movies (if memory serves, and maybe it doesn't). There are some Awesome Kills (key elements: glow sticks, exploding arrows, grenades-on-ropes), a great scene of self-cauterization-by-gunpowder (something that a Scarier Man perfected years before), and a climax that pits a tank against a helicopter in order to answer civilization's age-old question: "what would happen if a tank and a helicopter got into a fight? Like, I mean, really threw down." I don't know what else to tell you. I've told you everything you need to know.

6 out of 10.

Dakota Skye (2008)

Brief Primer:

A high school girl (the eponymous character, played by Eileen Boylan) has the ability to know when people are lying. She spends most of her time trying and failing to be Daria, while also seeing the truth in the form of subtitles anytime a person lies to her. She's dating a guy and wants to date another guy, or something.

Grooooan. Imagine, if you can, an episode of Heroes where a new character is introduced (to those familiar with the show this should be an easy task, as I think I just described every episode of the show - also this isn't the place to bash Heroes, I'd need a whole other blog*, sorry), only this character is even less compelling than anyone already on the show. Her superpower? She knows when people are lying to her, and she knows the truth they're trying to hide. Now, if I hadn't framed this so negatively, it might have seemed like an interesting premise, and it could have been if this movie hadn't sucked so much.

It's a shame, because there is a good movie in this idea, somewhere, but it's not here. The story revolves around the life of a surly southwestern high school girl with a creepy looking boyfriend who is tempted (her, not him) by a back-in-town-after-being-gone-for-awhile-guy. The three mostly just sit around waiting for it to be time for one to drive another home when they get done being at any given boring location. It's as though the movie tried to compensate for its fantastic element by grounding its other characters so hard in reality that it bores its audience to tears. I'll credit it for capturing what high school is really like for a lot of suburban people (high school life is mostly being bored and sad and waiting around for something to happen while occasionally making a mistake), but I don't need to watch that - I went to high school (and before you argue that by that logic I'd only want to watch movies that don't take place in reality, spare me, I just don't want to watch movies that don't do anything engaging with their reality). The movie almost gets interesting when Dakota finds out this out-of-towner appears never to lie (or can she simply not detect it, hmm?), but instead of becoming some kind of actual conflict the pair's relationship just slogs on like anyone else in the universe's might. Sometimes understated, minimalism works (like when this guy makes a movie), but it doesn't work here in Dakota Skye's half-baked magical-realism universe. Fortunately it's on Netflix Instant, so you don't even have to avoid asking for a DVD.

3 out of 10






*Here is how much Heroes Sucks: a Blog - coming December 2009

Capitalism: a Love Story (2009)

Primer: Michael Moore made another movie you guys.


First, before I say anything, let's all get on the same page Michael Moore-wise: the guy is fat, and kind of a prick. Like, not because he makes politically charged documentaries and writes books all the time, but just because (he is also fat just because). He's a prick in the same way Tom Cruise is a prick, or Sean Penn is a prick - maybe you like them or maybe you don't, but regardless of how you feel about their work you definitely don't want to be on an elevator with them, or in an airport, or in a car, - or anywhere - because they're obnoxious pricks.

I was skeptical, as a person who liked Roger and Me, and Bowling for Columbine, but who can't even remember his last two movies. So, ok, how is his new one? It's pretty good, and the best part is that Moore stays off screen for a lot of it. The guy's movies are way divisive because usually he's going after an issue that people feel strongly about one way or another: gun control, the president, healthcare, and also because nobody likes looking at him. But with Capitalism: A Love Story it seems like that's less of an issue (until the very end), because while the main point of the movie is that capitalism sucks and should be done away with (and replaced with "Democracy," which was either a joke about who's really running the country or a lame oversight of the fact that one is an economic system while the other is a political system), what Moore uses to illustrate this is All that Terrible Stuff that Happened to the Economy Lately. Objectively speaking whether or not it's cool for a person to buy a gun at Wal-Mart is harder to agree on than whether or not it sucks that basically everybody in the country is getting fucked by the recession, and the people who aren't can suck it.

Moore does an excellent job of reminding everybody how bad things are (this is maybe what he's best at), but as is often the case with Documentaries-with-Statements he's lean (lol) on solutions. I'm not saying there is some easy solution to This Economy, besides maybe a time machine and also a visa to move to and work in a country that isn't screwed, but it would have been nice to see more of the film devoted to solutions instead of shots of Moore outside various buildings on Wall Street demanding the arrest of the fat cats who screwed everyone.

Anyway, here's the best part of the movie, with which Moore didn't have anything to do.




Anyway, 6 out of 10

What I Watched this Weekend

In Theaters:

Does exactly what anyone who is familiar with the movie's trailers or commercials expects from it. Woody Harrelson gives the people what they want: Woody Harrelson in a cowboy hat hamming it up while killing zombies. Less like the main other zombie comedy anybody cares about in that at no point does Zombieland attempt to make the viewer really worry about anything, its primary objective is to have fun. A little too voiceover heavy, though. 7 out of 10



Premise: Humanity always tells the truth until a guy starts lying. With anyone besides Ricky Gervais it would have been a complete waste. Gervais salvages it into only a semi-waste, since the guy can make anything funny. The movie feels more like something he might have written as part of his standup act, and then decided would work better as a wholly mediocre movie than as a brief series of jokes. Oh well, it's so relentlessly full of cameos it's almost worth recommending. 5 out of 10.


A Home:

Road House (1989)

Everyone's already seen this movie except for me, and there's a reason why: it's awesome. As a guy with basically no expectations and no strong feelings towards Swayze one way or the other (I thought Point Break and Red Dawn were both just ok), it was a very pleasant surprise to finally find out why so many people loved the guy. He's just so cool, you know? Also, watching a younger Sam Elliott destroy people with his hands is a rare treat. 8 out of 10.


Mad Max (1979)

Another one of those movies I feel like a lot of people my age's dad made them watch, but that I never got around to. Its car crashes and chases are awesome, and the fact that it was made for basically no money by a group of people who mostly didn't know what they were doing endears it to me, since usually movies like that are terrible. It's got pacing problems and dialogue problems, but expectations for such things in an Australian movie about people who chase each other around in crazy-awesome cars are low. 6 out of 10.

TRON (1982)

Dissing Tron is like committing nerd sacrilege, and thankfully I don't have to. While its computer-animated segments haven't aged well, they're still neat on a "wow, they did that in 1982" level. The rotoscoped scenes that take place inside the computer world, however, remain impressive, especially since backlit animation-type stuff doesn't happen that often, near as I can tell. The movie's plot isn't particularly compelling, but at least it's mercifully light on the computer/technology puns, despite there obviously being a dangerous potential. Even if it's not your thing, learning about its production is pretty interesting. 7 out of 10.

Road Games (1981)

Brief Primer

Road Games is Rear Window except instead of taking place in an apartment it takes place on the highways of Australia, and instead of starring Jimmy Stewart it stars Stacy Keach. As is historically typical for Australia, someone is kidnapping and chopping up women across the outback. A trucker (Keach) becomes convinced that he's found the killer - the driver of a green van that's travelling along his trucking route. After picking up a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis) and explaining his theory, things go crazy - Rear Window-in-cars-instead-of-wheelchairs-style.

Before I say anything, I'd just like to remark on how difficult it was to write the brief primer without relying on the phrase "a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse," which I believe appears in every other written document concerning this movie. The entire time I was watching the movie all I could think was "damn, this is a dangerous game of cat and mouse." That said, Road Games is not remarkable - it's a lot like any number of thrillers from the late 70's/early 80's, but it has a number of things going for it, which I'll enumerate:

1. Stacy "Warden Henry Pope from Prison Break" Keach. This is the second Stacey Keach movie I watched this week (the first being Fat City), and I've decided I like him, officially. He spends a good portion of Road Games talking either to himself or his pet dingo (more on this later), and despite frequently being the only character on screen he's able to carry the (admittedly light) movie largely on his own.
2. Jamie "Lee" Curtis. She makes some pretty good jokes (especially at the end of the movie). She should have been introduced earlier though, so she could have had more screen time.
3. Australia. This movie takes place in Australia.
4. A pet dingo. Stacy Keach's character has one
5. Awesome closing shot. I won't ruin it for you, but it's completely the kind of thing one wants at the end of a movie like this.
6. It was mentioned frequently in this movie.
   

Breakdown

Road Games isn't winning any awards, neither on this site nor anywhere else in the universe, and while its ambitions are modest it succeeds at them entirely. It's not Rear Window, but it's like Rear Window, and if you like Rear Window you probably wouldn't dislike Road Games.

5 out of 10

Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

Brief Primer

Alistair Little (Liam "Fallout 3" Neeson) is a murderer, he shot a guy 3 times when he was a teenager as a member of the UVF. Now he's a counselor who helps people who've done terrible things, or he talks to regular people about how much it sucks to kill a guy. Joe Griffen (James "Doesn't have an IMDB Photo" Nesbitt), the brother of the man Little killed years ago is still tortured by his brother's murder, being as he's felt responsible for it his whole life. As the movie begins we learn that these two men are going to meet one another on a televised special (Little is a minor celebrity, like Dr. Phil but less famous and more likeable despite being a murderer).

What a wacky scenario, right? Wrong. This movie is not wacky, this movie is serious. Directed by Oliver "I did the Oscar-nominated Downfall and followed it up with that Daniel Craig/Nicole Kidman movie disaster nobody saw but everybody hated" Hirschbiegel, Five Minutes of Heaven doesn't waste any time: After a brief narration from Neeson about how sucky the Troubles were, and a flashback to the murder the movie gets going - Nesbitt's character is on his way to meet his brother's killer, and damn if the man isn't agitated to all hell.

Trailers for the movie focused on Neeson, and while he's the Main Name in the movie, Nesbitt is the star, bringing a sweaty, anxious, bad-breathy pitifulness his character's every move. He switches from jittery, angry, terrified, and murderous like anyone with a halfway decent personality disorder might while still coming off as genuine. Neeson, on the other hand, plays it very stoic, which while appropriate given his character's role in the movie, is not particularly interesting. My biggest complaint is that the movie is so short (an hour and a half exactly) that we don't get to know either of these guys very well. We get glimpses of their home lives, and allusions to events that occurred in the decades since the murder, but I feel like knowing more about them and seeing more of them outside the context of their proposed reunion could have shoveled some more emotional weight onto the whole situation. Not to say that this movie wasn't good - it was - the climax is gripping and any moment that Nesbitt is onscreen is an engaging one, it just could have been better.

Breakdown

The Good: well paced, excellent performances, interesting set up, not subtitled (unlike the similarly Irish-y 50 Dead Men Walking).
The Bad: could have spent more time on character development, the murder Neeson committed was far less exciting than any one of the dozens he committed in Taken.

6 out of 10.

Reviews: some thoughts.

Listen: The worst part about reading movie reviews is also the worst thing about writing them - synopses. I don't mean to say that all reviews should assume the reader is already familiar with a movie's premise, but when I have to read any more than 4 sentences describing what happens in a movie then I have already closed the browser window 2 sentences ago. So, here's my promise: I will not waste anyone's (least of all not mine) precious fucking time going over the minutiae of a movie's happenings. Do you want to know what happens in Star Wars? Watch Star Wars, or read some asshole's breakdown on any one of millions (literally) of websites on the Internet. If a movie is good I'll tell you so, and then you can watch it and then you'll know what happens. If a movie is bad (more likely) you will know because I told you so, and you don't have to watch it anymore. If you catch me spending more than one lean paragraph exclusively telling you what a movie is about then either you've got a different idea of what a lean paragraph constitutes, or I've screwed up. No spoilers, either.