Day 120: Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981)

R, 1 hr. 27 min.  Directed by: Steve Miner.  Release Date: May 1, 1981.  DVD Release Date: May 23, 2006.

Sigh.  I'm starting my day at 5:00AM, which is not my finest time of day.  Today and tomorrow will be busy, I'm doing a project for one of my classes that actually requires me to run a project... in this case, me and seven other people have been working a community service project for a local nonprofit organization.  Between the stress and the last-minute planning, I'm up and watching my daily movie, and I'm not sure which is scarier:  the today's movie or the project.

I seem to have missed that time of my life where it was socially acceptable to be watching these movies.  Unfortunately, my mother is a chicken of epic proportions and came up with the idea somewhere that I would inherit those tendencies.  Generally, I’m not afraid of the boogeyman or the dark, but I got treated as if I was… so none of these movies until I was old enough to make my own decisions.  I saw the original Friday the 13^th at some point in my late twenties, when I went through a bender of 80s horror flicks, catching all the basics so I could finally figure out what everyone was talking about.  I might have gotten it through Netflix, or we may be talking so long ago I actually drove to like a Blockbuster to get the DVD or (gasp) VHS.  I did watch the remake that came out in 2009, which I thought was okay, but with a much higher sex-and-nudity quotient than I’m used to seeing in my horror flicks… mostly because I learned to love the genre post-Scream.

What strikes me about this movie is that they filled this movie with pretty young men and women and how none of them (literally, in one case) managed to survive the 1990s.  I always find it crazy when you have a whole cast from a movie that would have been fairly successful in its day, not have a single cast member be more successful than doing soap work.  Sure, it’s work, but in that regard, so’s hooking, and we mostly look down on that.  Actually, I’m not too sure that I just made such a terrible comparison…

Other than that, this is pretty typical for the genre and decade: a bunch of promiscuous teenagers running amok on hormones, alcohol, and drugs getting cut up by a psycho wielding a mask, who almost always manages to catch his prey in some sense of undress.   Now that I’ve heard Randy’s speech about the rules of horror, I always notice those things when they happen on screen, like “I’ll be right back,” which I counted three times in this movie, the whole good girl phenomenon, which is pretty common throughout.  What I did think of here that I haven’t noticed before is that it seemed like Jason’s victims were counted by picking off a few bad kids, then a few better kids until, well, he’d pretty much slashed his way through the cast.  I could be wrong, but it did feel a little bit as if someone took the plot from And Then There Were None (which is a great read if you haven’t read it yet) and then shook it all up.  But, that could be attributed to similar problems:  you have a group that someone wants to eliminate.  Unless you are wired in to some, um, “freedom fighter” somewhere and have access to either a series of large explosives or a WMD, you’re best off using the one at a time approach.

I won’t go out and recommend this to anyone, because there isn’t much that separates this horror flick from most of the other movies mass-produced in the 80s.  I’d even recommend the 2009 remake over this, and I didn’t think it was fantastic.  If you’re a fan of the genre in general and of this franchise or the 80s slashers in specific, this is worth a peek.  Otherwise, you won't miss much.

Day 119: My Cousin Vinny (1992)

R, 2 hr.  Directed by: Jonathan Lynn.   Release Date:  1992.  DVD Release Date: August 14, 2001. 

If you've been following the national news at all, you know that weather in my neck of the woods has been pretty bleak:  rain, rain, some more rain, and just to shake things up, the powers that be have thrown a couple of tornadoes at the little town I now call home.  Today, the weather looks a bit better, but I thought something funny was in order, because it's hard to shake this feeling of impending doom when the sky's gray for a solid week.  When I spotted My Cousin Vinny in the streaming queue on Netflix, I was sold.  I have had this on my watch list for a few years, but have never gotten around to it.

Normally, I’d restrain myself.  Okay, normally I'd TRY to restrain myself. Unfortunately for the folks responsible for the unadulterated stupidity that was My Cousin Vinny, I’ve been reading my favorite snarky bloggers at www.foodnetworkhumor.com and I’m feeling a bit… well, fired up. 

I’ve said it before.  1992 was a terrible year for movies.  I haven’t sampled them all yet, but it’s fair to say that I have sampled the lion’s share of the explosive diarrhea that was coming out of Hollywood that year from both ends.  Still doubt me?  It was referred to as “The Year of the Visa” because of how many foreign films were taking major award categories that year.  Even worse is the fact that this piece of crap won Oscars.  Marissa Tomei, who goes through the movie looking like a 1980s version of a gun moll with a nasty speech impediment, picked up Best Supporting Actress.  My question is how frequently was she, um, socializing, with the entire panel of deciding judges?  I haven’t seen any of the movies that were in for this award, but I’m thinking that on their worst day, Vanessa Redcliffe and Miranda Richardson should have buried Tomei in a performance that involved gum-chewing and the complete absence of a much-needed dialectics coach.

With the exception of Fred Gwynne, who was great, and who probably SHOULD have gotten a nomination for his performance, the rest of the cast was equally annoying.  Joe Pesci was… well, he was Joe Pesci, just in the lead role.  Ralph Macchio looked like he’d blown his Karate Kid earnings, possibly in the vicinity of his nose, and was desperate for any part who could have him… and what he lacks in acting ability he makes up for with his low-brow, vaguely Jersey accent.  To quote an episode of Robot Chicken: “DANIEL-SAN!  I thought I smelled failure.”  During this movie, I could smell the failure, too.

This self-declared comedy was remarkably short on funny.  Other than the ludicrous and stereotyped efforts at humor directed at people from New York and people from the Deep South, I was vaguely insulted that I went out of my way to watch this movie.  Although, I do have to give them credit.  There’s a scene where Ralph Macchio, in his role as the stereotypical stupid Guido, starts talking about how the folks from Alabama are “unbred” hicks, that makes me laugh.  I still swear he says “unbred” and not “inbred,” and I went back over the scene a few times.  

As unfunny as the movie was, the story was that nonsensical.  None of it added up.  Not the half-assed attempt at investigation done by the Alabama police, not the lawyer showing up to court in a leather jacket and no tie, not that fact that no one was harmed in the making of this movie.  I turned this off, choked down two Tums tablets, and now, I'm going back to bed.

Day 118: Wanted (2008)

R, 1 hr. 20 min.  Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov.  Release Date: June 12, 2008.  DVD Release Date: December 2, 2008.

Don’t get me wrong.  I loved this movie when it first came out, but I’ve always wondered how James McAvoy fell from Atonement in 2007 to this in 2008.  It’s a bit like falling asleep in Manhattan and waking up in downtown Baghdad.  Unlike Atonement, which was absolutely brilliant, Wanted was empty but stylish fun.  I’ve heard actors, even really good actors, say that every once in awhile they feel the need to do a project like this to keep their sanity.  So, in that regard, I suspect James McAvoy used this as a vacation, because at this point in his career, he should have been able to write his own ticket just about anywhere.  As should Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman… but lo and behold, they’re both here, too.

I’ve complained about movies that place style so far over substance before, so I'm not sure why it doesn't bother me here.  Most recently, I made that complaint about Red Riding Hood, which looked very cool, but required the brain power of a toadstool in order comprehend it.  Truth, Wanted isn’t that far off the Hood's bat, but at least there’s a noticeable lack of telepathic werewolves.  What you do have is a vaguely cool, if comicky action flick that really could be the dream of a lot of people.  Life sucks, you’re a total freak, and suddenly you realize that you’re a super-powered assassin?  Sign me up.  Oh, and your bestest assassin buddy is smoking hot.  The whole situation is total win.  

Where Wanted seems to fall apart is in the details (provided you, unlike me, didn’t have a problem with that whole curving bullets thing).  It gets a bit silly.  Between the wax that stimulates white blood cell products and thus creates a rapid healing environment, the super-slo-mo vision, and all the Cyrillic-writing Slavs that seem to be hanging around in “eastern Arabia,” it can be rough to take the movie seriously.  But, I managed to hang on through all the flying car chases and mutant maneuvers to really enjoy this.

Every time I watch this movie, I wish I watched it more often.  Is the movie perfect?  Well, it depends on your qualifications, but to my mind it’s pretty close.  I would have liked it to be a bit longer than 80 minutes, but I see why they went with a less is more approach. 

Day 117: Planet of the Apes (2001)

PG-13, 4 hr. 3 min.  Directed by: Tim Burton.  Release Date: July 27, 2001.  DVD Release Date: November 20, 2001.  

Around this time in 1996, I made the decision to Rush.  I’m not sure why I did at the time (I’m glad I did now); I suspect I wanted to meet more people, because except for a small handful of people, I hadn’t made any good friends yet.  At a fraternity house I’d never been to before I met a guy named Cyprus and the two of us decided we’d Rush together.  We might not end up in the same place, but we’d be friends.  In the middle of Rush week, Cyprus showed up in my dorm room with the original version of this movie.  It was the first time I’d ever watched the movie.  A few days later Cyprus and I decided we’d be joining different fraternities, at least for a few weeks.  After that, Cyprus came to his senses and decided I’d made the best choice.  More than 15 years later, I now associate all of the Planet of the Apes movies with my buddy Cyprus.

I loved this movie when it came out.  Until a few years ago it would have ranked up maybe in my top 20 movies and for sure in my top 50 movies, but for strange reasons.  Ten years later, I’ve decided that I still love this movie, but I’ve seen so many movies in the last decade that I couldn’t say it’s in my top 100 movies now, but it’s still worth breaking out of my collection and watching.  I love the makeup job on the apes and on the posturing done by the actors wearing the ape suits.  This was (I think) made in the days before image-capturing made studies of animal movements relatively easy, but the actors must have spent a lot of time researching the real life primates their characters were based on and that effort shows.

Except for the whole time-space warp thing, I think this is based on good science, a trademark of any sci-fi movie worth its salt.  They managed what might have been a near-future world that was believable and understandable thanks to the similar technologies, but the details were vague enough that I'm always wondering exactly how far into the future this movie was originally set.  Every time I watch this movie, which is at least once a year, I try and look for something that gives me a better idea of when the start of this movie was supposed to have taken place.

Like the original Apes movie, this represents a strong story for a science fiction project, which has typically run with little thought or effort given.  I like that both the humans and apes had their own separate cultures, and neither was a direct reflection of the culture they stemmed from.  But I think that if the plan was to create a whole new franchise (and let’s remember that most of the original franchise was pretty bad), then they didn’t do enough follow through and the ending was not conducive to making additional films, which makes me worry about the prequel that I've seen advertised in trailers over the last few weeks.  Welcome to the wonderful world of Simos' rebellion.  The only other question I have about this is where the horses come from.  It’s not like they would have had horses on the space station, would they?

Day 116: The Fifth Element (1997)

PG-13, 2 hr. 6 min.  Directed by: Luc Besson.  Release Date: May 9, 1997.  DVD Release Date: December 9, 1997.

Once upon a time, I loved this movie.  It’s still fun to watch, but there’s something (now) that feels anachronistic about the whole thing.  In retrospect, it feels a bit like this is a 90s response to 60s sci-fi, most of which (frankly) sucked beyond all measure.  I say 60s sci-fi mostly because of the colors and the costuming, well, particularly what they did to nearly everyone’s hair.  Bruce Willis with day-glo blond hair, Milla Jovovovovovich and her Raggedy Anne mop of screaming orange, and let’s not forget the antagonist, who resembles a groupie at a Flock of Seagulls concert that didn’t QUITE get the look right.  I haven’t seen this in a while, although the DVD has been in my collection since 2000 or 2001, when a friend gave it to me as a birthday present.  It must have been a college friend, because this, along with Starship Troopers was a repeat offender at my fraternity house’s spontaneous “movie nights,” and most of them would have watched this movie with me several times over the years and known that I enjoyed it.  There were other movies that made appearances on those infrequent evenings, but Fifth Element was one of the few flicks that the majority of us could get behind, and about half the house had a copy, so it was easily accessible.

I still like the basic elements of the story, even if half of them seem to be borrowed straight from episodes of The Jetsons, which, I'll admit, wasn't a bad bit of science fiction.  There are some pretty classic elements in the genre, and many of them I find very appealing:  the reluctant hero, the sacrificial lamb, the whole elemental spin.  These are all great story elements.  Literature has been filled with them since the first story was told, and there's a reason for it.

I’m still a little bit bored by Willis’ performance, because well, substitute the taxi for “yippee-kay-ay” and we’re basically rehashing his role in Die Hard, or any of his other action performances.  I still find Chris Tucker’s overacting, cross-dressing, and resultant hyper-sexuality to be both disturbing and confusing.  Not even Ru Paul could pull off that semi-off the shoulder, plush, leopard print, robe-looking number and let’s face it.  Chris Tucker is NO Ru Paul; he's not even an annoying Ru Paul.  I’m still wondering who decided that the opera singer should be the offspring of Papa Smurf and that octopus jedi from Attack of the Clones.  I’m still concerned that in the future, everyone seems to be stupid.  It might be an attempt at humor, but then again, it might just be poor direction and bad acting running rampant across the screen.  I also have to wonder why the keepers of the stones are mechanical duck-elephant hybrids.  

I think my current problems with Fifth Element come from the fact that I watch a lot of sci-fi, and even then there was better quality stuff out there.  Random, half-done storylines involving alien interference in the development of human pre-history and spaceship battles and quests to save the world are EVERYWHERE.  Players in this field should know that rehashing oldies but goodies is a bit like going on one of those cooking competition shows:  if you show up and make something simple or classic, like a hamburger, it better be the best damned burger the judges have ever eaten.  Making something wacky or a bit different is insufficient to the task.

So, there are a lot of stupid things here that bothered me as I watched this today.  But, I still enjoy the overall project.  Like many movies, it seems to be the “total Monet.”  From a distance, and when you aren’t scoping out the details, this isn’t terrible.  It's fun to watch and there are so many well-known and much-loved faces that it's hard not to like the movie.  When you get up close and look critically, you get the shot to realize what a hot mess this was.  For me, this has lots of nostalgia points, which is probably what saves this from being a seriously negative review, but I don’t know that I’ll hurry to watch this again any time soon.

Day 115: Cruel Intentions (1999)

R, 1 hr. 35 min.  Directed by: Roger Kumble.  Release Date: March 5, 1999.  DVD Release Date: August 3, 1999.

It's a little after 2:10 AM, I'm still awake, and I've already watched my movie.  I suppose I need a distraction from the stuff that's going on in my classes and this is serving in that capacity.  I suspect a little Tylenol PM would be just as helpful, which means I have a trip to my medicine in my future.  Nothing rips apart my sleep cycle like frustration and there's been a lot in the last few hours.

I have mixed feelings on remakes and re-imaging a classic story line.  Sometimes, it really works out, Battlestar Gallactica or even Disturbia.  BG had me right up until the last episode, and then they pulled that Star Trek episode that really only had like fifteen minutes of real scenes in it and a bunch of repeats because Data was trying to make them believe that two whole days never happened.  Other times, remakes have proven to be disastrous, such as the Rear Window remake, which lacked all of the charm of the original classic, even though it had the same basic story line.  Disturbia, a re-imaging of the same film was insanely better, even though it featured Shia LeBoeuf.  Side note:  Can we call him Shia “LeBeef” in the wake of True Grit?  Enquiry minds want to know.

On its very basic level, Cruel Intentions works for me as a re-imaged Dangerous Liaisons.  It takes what was hip, sexy, and a bit scandalous for 18^th century France and turns it on its ear so that it works for a modern American audience.  Park Avenue New York is arguably the “same” socio-economic level in this country in the late 90s as the French estates and palaces were back then.  If you look closely, you even notice that the color schemes are similar, although Cruel Intentions leans toward the primary versions of the pastel colors used in Dangerous Liaisons. 

The cast here is good and allows filmmakers to snag as many of the primary moviegoing, 15-25 year olds as they could back when this was in the theaters.  This sets the stage for the train wreck that would become Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon’s marriage.  Sarah Michelle Gellar was still filming Buffy, and thus was still culturally relevant.  Selma Blair was hot back in those days, although she’s kind of fallen into obscurity for reasons I’m not totally clear on.  Even the bit parts went to cast members that I expect to see in hipster films so long as there’s a role that fits with their physical descriptions.  

Did this cast pack the punch that the 1989 Academy Award winning film did?  Sorry, but with the exception of Swoozie Kurtz, who managed to snag a part in both movies, no.  Reese Witherspoon would have fit into the earlier cast; Gellar and Phillipe do not equal Glenn Close and John Malkovitch, but they did get the job done.  And with only a double handful of single entendres and hints that Sarah Michelle Gellar might just be playing a slight slutted up version of herself.  Or maybe that was just my interpretation...

If you enjoy movies about bored rich people doing awful things to each other in the name of entertainment, as I do on occasion, you should check this out.  If you’re a fan of the cast members mentioned above… you might want to pass.  They’ve all done better elsewhere with the arguable exception of Selma Blair.  If you’re looking for some cheap entertainment, this is also a good place to look.  If you're looking to revive your 90s love of this tawdry potboiler, I suspect you'll find it's a little like the Phillipe-Witherspoon marriage.  Over.

Day 114: Licence to Kill (1989)

PG-13, 2 hr. 13 min.  Directed by: John Glen.  Release Date: July 14, 1989. DVD Release Date: October 22, 2002. 

I've been in a funk for a few weeks, but this time it's not (I don't think) caused by any holiday season.  I'm a bit tired and stressed out all the time, and there doesn't seem to be any one particular cause.  Last week, I had a major freak out over a short bio that my school requested I write up on myself as a part of my upcoming MBA graduation ceremony, which is not like me.   Since today is Easter, for those of us who celebrate the holiday, I've been running around like a crazy person, although I didn't have to COOK this year, so I'm not sure why I'm tired.  The point is that I've just been off my game, so I thought I'd revisit my favorite franchise (again) to see if a little WWBD? would get me through this.

A part of me has always wanted to be a little like James Bond.  Not the whole murdering, whoring psychopath who travels around blowing stuff up.  Okay, occasionally I've wanted those traits, too.  I've always wanted to be unflappable under pressure like Bond is and I've wanted his tenacity more than once.  I admire his problem solving skills, even when that solution is as simple as blow something up, because sometimes you have to shake things up to solve a problem.

Licence to Kill isn't my favorite Bond flick.  It's too mired in the late-80s Drug War propaganda to feel like it still applies well in a modern context.  It stars one of (in my opinion) the better Bond performers because he's so close to the literary Bond, which is also probably why he gets so much flack from the movie fans,  most of whom, in my experience, have never read Ian Flemming.  Yes, yes, I know.  Sean Connery, blah blah, made back hair sexy, blah blah;  good movie Bond, but not true to Flemming's vision.  In the 90s, when I started looking for them, the books were completely out of print in the US and were hard to find in public libraries, so I get that, but it seems odd that the movie franchise has so many fans, but is populated by generations of Bond fans have no idea what the character was supposed to be like.

I like the action sequences, which are well spaced throughout what is a pretty long movie.  The ending is a bit rough, and Wayne Newton is TERRIBLE, but other than that, this is pretty middle-of-the-pack for the franchise.  I've never tried to rank the Bond flicks, but this is probably somewhere in the upper-middle tier.  In many ways, its too run of the mill for its own good.  This worked to help me shake off a bit of my funk, but not as much as I would have hoped for.

Day 113: Water For Elephants (2011)

PG-13, 2 hr. 1 min.  Directed by: Francis Lawrence.  Release Date: April 22, 2011.

I got two texts about today’s movie, to which I reply:  “It’s coming, it’s coming!  Hold your horses!”  I'm busy trying not to gush about this movie.

Those folks who know me, know that I love the zoo; love it more than a man of my age should.  So when I say that my love for the circus totally eclipses my love for the zoo with room to go, know that I love the circus.  A lot.  I love the drama of the ringmaster and his five rings of stuff going on.  I love the performers, love the animals, love the cheering crowds.  I don’t love the clowns, but nothing can be entirely positive.  The part of this movie that was circus history and the stuff going on behind the magic in the rings, that was amazing.  By itself, and without the tepid affair between Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, that story was enough to have made for great film.  It’s also made me curious.   

At some point in the next few days, I’ll be Googling “Benzini Brothers Circus” to see if any part of this movie was based on fact.  I also like the way recent immigrants to America were portrayed during the Depression.  Truthfully, we could probably take a few lessons from those people.  They managed to see those harsh economic times as an opportunity, because rough times in America were better than rough times most anywhere else (a fact, that while often forgotten, is still true), and they managed to keep some semblance of their parent culture alive in to the next generation… which doesn’t happen so well in modern America.  

This portion of the story also made me a bit sad.  The traveling circus, as we’ve seen in this movie, is a dying art form.  Sure, there are a few travelers running around:  Ringling Brothers and Circus Vargas both come to mind (both of which I saw countless times as a child).  I can’t even remember the last time I heard about a circus coming to town.  I never got to see the circus arrive and parade through city streets, the performers and animals so close you could possibly reach out and touch them.  And it’s unlikely at this point in my life that I ever will.  In the modern day, we’ve traded in the traditional circus for the far less entertaining performance artistry of stationary circuses such as Cirque du Soleil, which never fails to make me stifle yawns.  The last one I went to didn’t even have an animal act.  Boring.

The circus makes for a sort of romantic tableau, but I’m thrilled that the filmmakers took a pass on the Harlequin-esque tapestry they could have put forth for us.  Water For Elephants is a compound film:  part period drama, part romance, and part tale about how a chance event or encounter can change a life forever.  That being said, it isn’t a complicated movie, and the story depends upon a series of coincidences to move from segment to segment, which is never the sharpest tool in a writer’s arsenal.  I rolled my eyes a bit once they realized what the problem with Rosie (the elephant) was, the circumstances in which they determined the nature of the problem, and the way that they just happened to have the perfect solution.  Around this point in the film, they begin to amp up the negative stuff, the reality, so I’ll forgive them for the contrived method in which the film flows.

The romance was also contrived, and it depended largely on those coincidences I mentioned above.  The evolution of the budding relationship between Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson didn’t feel natural.  Maybe I just don’t believe in love at first sight.  Lust, I could get behind, but that’s not what we were introduced to during the course of the movie.  It was also strange to me that the romance was a bit downplayed.  Did it help drive the story to its ending?  Yeah.  Was Robert Pattinson involved in some murder-suicide pact involving an eternity as the undead here?  Not even close.  It was romance, but with the exception for the initial phases of the romance, most of what we saw felt as if it might be something we could experience in our own lives.

I also enjoyed the cast.  Reese Witherspoon was her normal charming self, although I am getting tired of her playing a young woman who is beautiful and in the process of having her innocence just totally train wrecked by her own bad decisions.  I don’t like Robert Pattinson, and it only has a little to do with Twilight.  I just happen to think that someone paid to act should have more than two facial expressions.  He had both of those in full effect here.  Pattinson wasn’t terrible, but with he could have, you know, smiled from time to time, especially since there were more than a few scenes where a real smile (without those dead eyes) would have been very appropriate.

So, I’m saying that you should check this out.  No matter who you are, because I think there’s something here almost everyone can enjoy.  Elephants is probably a perfect date movie, at least, perfect in comparison with the competition.

Day 112: A View To A Kill (1985)

PG, 2 hr. 11 min.  Directed by: John Glen.  Release Date: May 24, 1985.  DVD Release Date: October 17, 2000.   

When I was nine or ten, my best friend (at the time) Tyson had a sleepover party for his birthday.  His mom got us pizza from Shakey's, a southern California company that no longer exists for lots of reasons, not the least of which is Dominos, and around a dozen nine-year-old boys spent the evening watching movies and getting hopped up on coke sipped through Red Vine licorice straws.  Sherry, his mom, was a friggin’ trooper.  My mom would have had us in bed early and probably wouldn’t have let us watch this or the other two movies we got from a local rental store before we all finally passed out in a heap in the den.  This night is one of the clearest memories I have of my childhood that doesn’t involve actually going anywhere, and it’s probably for this reason that I love A View to a Kill to this day.  If I’d seen this in some other place or time, I might not love the movie like I do.



What went right here?  There are a few things that sets this apart from some of the other films in the Bond franchise.  Christopher Walken as (*gasp) the bad guy was an amazing choice, end sarcasm.  My only complaint about Max Zorin was that he felt a little low key as a Bond bad guy and I had a hard time figuring out why he was doing half the things he did except for what I’ll call a pathological competitive streak.  He had big plans, but there have been bigger plans made and foiled by James Bond.  Even in the 80s, being a sociopath just wasn't enough.  You needed a gimmick, and well, Max Zorin just didn't have that gimmick in a sufficiently well thought out form.  We had bigger, crazier fish to fry.  Like Richard Ramirez. 

In the mid-80s, there were few better choices for a Bond song than Duran Duran, because Tiffany was probably not old enough to sing the lyrics required for a Bond film, and I still totally LOVE this song.  Well, in truth, Duran Duran managed to avoid making a song I hated until 2008 or 2009, and then I hated the whole album.  Grace Jones was great, and I have to wonder what might have happened if the primary antagonist had been a woman instead of a man.  I liked Walken, but Grace Jones might have had the better character.  Of this film's dynamic duo, she almost certainly outdoes Walken's more timid performance, and I don't know what this movie would have been like without Mayday.  Just saying her name, or witnessing a piece of her truly 80s-ridiculous wardrobe makes me smile.

There are a few fun action scenes, and I like how the movie comes to a close.  I even like the sense of fun in this movie that Roger Moore Bond movies seem to have in spades.  I’m going to give them props for dialogue here, although it does lean towards the “so bad it’s funny” school of thought.

What went wrong?  Roger Moore was too old to play Bond a decade before this movie was filmed.  He’d been milking his regular paychecks for these performances for awhile, at this point, and it shows.  Really, really, shows.  Sadly, this is the only movie that keeps me from lumping Roger Moore with the Bond from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as the worst-ever Bond performance.

Let’s talk fishing poles and butterfly lures as deadly weapons.  I’m pretty sure that only works in World of Warcraft and only for like two classes (Rogues and Warriors, if you're interested).  It’s close to 25 years since I first saw this and I’m STILL trying to figure out how the guy dies from the butterfly attacking his cheek.  Can someone explain it to me?  Is there a doctor in the house?  I’m guessing poison, but no one ever really seems to deal with the question, we just seem to accept that this dude gets taken out by what appears to be a serious case of paper cuts.

Tanya Roberts; how I hate thee for thy performance in this movie.  No, seriously.  FORTY minutes screaming “JAMES!” at the top of your lungs?  I’m so glad most of the Bond girls have been tough, because there was nothing attractive about Tanya in her role as Stacey Sutton.  You can be feminine, and she was, but her whiny, weak portrayal of, well, a whiny, weak character must have been a counterpoint to Grace Jones' she-hulkish character.

Some of the gadgetry and special effects felt a bit off… such as the iceberg submarine in the first scenes (although I thought the all-white ski suit and equipment was an awesome way to create a stealth-suit in Siberia).  The submarine was cool when it was still, but as soon as it started hauling itself, at high speed, away from the shoot-out site, you’d think everyone with half a brain would have caught on and the submarine would have taken fire.  But then, maybe I’m giving “crack” troops too much credit. 

This is a fun Bond flick, but there are better out there.  If you only want some 80s-era nostalgia, have two hours to kill, and are willing to spend half of it listening to Tonya Roberts scream, this is your 007.

Day 111: Troll 2 (1990)

PG, 1 hr. 35 min.   Directed by: Claudio Fragasso.  Release Date: October 3, 1990.  DVD Release Date: July 22, 1992.

My day started with me waking up at 6:30, listening to my mother drag my cousin out of the house (at stage-whisper volumes) for another day of school.  I remember 3:00 AM, so this wasn't the best way (or time) to start my day today.  Then, I made a really, really, bad choice of movies. 

With universal critical notoriety as the worst movie ever made, you’d think these guys would have buried their heads in the sand, but the child star of this “film,” a term I’m using loosely because I can’t deny the fact that this steaming pile of crap was put to celluloid, actually decided to make a career of celebrating how bad it was.

You just can’t argue with that logic, so let’s go in to some detail exactly how bad it is.  Normally, I’d throw out (or maybe up would be more appropriate) the cast or technical aspects as examples, but really, that would be starting at the tip of the pyramid when, to find a flaw, you need to start at the base.  If this movie had been made by people who were… literate, their biggest chore should been the suspension of disbelief involving the goblins.  However, these guys failed at nearly every concept tied in with the movie to include the title.

This isn’t really a spoiler, but there’s not a single “troll” even mentioned in passing during the course of the movie.  Actions occur that are so far out of the realm of possibility that I’m reminded of a Robot Chicken episode wherein an Empire Strikes Back-era Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker discussed the impossibility that Darth was Luke’s father (sorry if I’ve totally ruined the Star Wars franchise for you.  Catch up with the 80s.), the improbability that Leia is Luke’s sister, the unlikelihood that Jedis get their powers from parasites, and Luke storms out after Darth professes to have built C3PO.  I felt the same way watching this.

It’s unlikely that parents would basically tell their son to forget his recently deceased grandfather.  It’s improbable that a family with a son having SERIOUS “hallucinations” is going to go on a house-swap vacation which involve the city-dwelling family becoming farmers for the duration of the vacation.  It’s impossible in the days before botox that any human could keep her face so perfectly expressionless (and blinkless. I clocked her at one blink a minute.), as the mother.  I was wondering if she’d had a recent stroke at the time of filming.  I walked out after the conversion of humans to something with “chlorophyll” for blood.  Couldn’t they just eat a friggin’ piece of celery?

95 minutes of my life have been utterly wasted.  Not for the first time, but this time I couldn’t even write up a sonnet about the badness of the “best worst movie ever”.  I might be going back to bed.

Day 110: Dorian Gray (2009)

R, 1 hr. 52 min.  Directed by: Oliver Parker.  Release Date: September 9, 2009.  DVD Release Date: August 24, 2010.

I’m wondering how many of my problems with this movie would be the same if I had ever read the book before.  Strangely, I know quite a bit about Oscar Wilde.  On a trip to Paris, I was touring Pere la Chaise cemetery and got a first-hand look at the author's grave, topped with a HUGE headstone sporting what I think might have been an Empire-style recreation of an angel… or maybe it’s a sphinx.  It’s been like 15 years, and Oscar Wilde wasn’t my big draw.  Despite my knowledge of Wilde, and my tangential thinking, I’ve never read a single of his works, nor seen one adapted as a film until today.  I’ve read that Wilde’s work basically… beats you over the head with his own sexual preferences, which seem to be limited to male and often.  Having seen Dorian Gray, I’m thinking that might be an understatement.

In many ways, Ben Barnes used Dorian Gray in the same way that Anne Hathaway used Havoc.  That is to say, it was his celluloid announcement that he was (1) all grown up and (2) quite capable of performing at least adequately while doing stuff that didn’t involve a fairy tale plot.  The two actors have a similar progression of their careers:  Hathaway saw her star rise thanks to Disney’s The Princess Diaries fiasco.  Barnes is very solidly cast in fantasy fluff films like Stardust and Narnia franchise films like Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Now that the actor’s are rapidly approaching their 30s, they either need to show they can do more that puff pieces or they find their careers dissipating in the mists of time a la most of the Brat Pack.  I think the story is intriguing, well, to be honest, I think the not-so-slow descent into debauchery is very interesting.  Watching Dorian Gray shuck himself of his conscience and soul by degrees is almost fun.  That bit about the painting is less fun, although I thought the special effects used for the painting were very cool.

The problem with this movie is that it seems to have taken the book and attached a warp drive to its spine.  Gray’s descent and spiral into tragedy is rapid, even with the two hour run time of the movie.  The degradation of Dorian’s soul is largely attributed to (unsurprisingly given the Victorian standards this book was written in) all manner of sexual congress:  women, men, I’m sure a farm animal rolls through the scenery, most of it done in montage moments, which is a considerate thing.  A lot of the cast members need to spend some time in the sun.  They must have one of those in England.  There’s only so much pasty flesh I can really tolerate, and Dorian Gray exceeds my daily dosage.  But in reality, half the movie is given to scenes of the seedy underbelly of London’s East End, a world of opium dens, alcohol, and sex on the hoof.  Despite all this, which should have generated SOME interest, I didn’t have any.  The movie is dull and listless, filled with the excess of England’s upper class of the era, as well as many fine actors who seem largely on auto-pilot.  

Maybe this will keep Ben Barnes on Hollywood’s radar once his role as Caspian is at its end.  I can’t remember if that’s The Silver Chair, which should be the next film to be released if they continue with the classic numbering of the series.  I think he has potential that was mostly not visible for the duration of this movie.  I’m not convinced yet that he has leading man potential, and if that’s the case, even with the more grown up roles, he’s going to have a shelf life.  It’ll be interesting to see if the Dorian Gray gambit will pay off for him in the long run.

Day 109: Bread and Tulips (2001)

PG-13, 1 hr. 56 min.  Directed by: Silvio Soldini.  Release Date: August 10, 2001.  DVD Release Date: March 26, 2002.

An old friend and former co-worker of mine from a small town just outside of Marseille who now lives in Florida recommended this movie to me.  She said it had a homespun, but still arsty quality that I would probably like.  She was right on that.  The movie waffles back and forth between something that might have been an art piece and something that might have been filmed alongside The Blair Witch Project seemingly from scene to scene.  The war between subject and cinematography was a problem, and the battles continue pretty much unabated throughout the movie.  My friend was also right that I need to try and work on my American bias (although I should note that some of the movies I've watched this year have been Canadian), so I'll probably be including more foreign films in the mix as time goes on.  I'm considering doing turns by genre except for new releases, but I suspect that won't get the job done as fairly as I would hope for.

I had a hard time not empathizing with the main character, a housewife who is completely taken for granted by her husband and two sons.  But, I didn’t like Rosealba very much.  She made stupid choices, frequently.  It was as if somewhere, deep in the recesses of her mind, some force of nature or deity had switched everything to the off position and she was firing on no thrusters.  I rarely understood her actions or reactions to other characters, and we were frequently treated to dialogue regarding how "she'd put her foot in it again," so I don't think I missed cultural cues; I think I missed why they made her behave so foolishly.  I’m guessing these were the things that were considered funny by its Italian target audience, but it missed its mark with me.

Despite the problems I had with the main character, who is in nearly every scene, I enjoyed this very much.  I liked the idea of someone deciding on a whim that they’d had it with their life and that they were going to do something about it.  The moxie that was shown was stunning, because if I knew this woman in real life, I never would have expected her to do anything other than accept her life for the disaster it had become.  I liked most of the cast of characters, who are a panoply of interesting personality quirks that all become inter-related before the film is out.  I did have a hard time believing that any mother, no matter how put upon, would just up and leave her entire family, but they weren’t exactly nice to her and I guess it has been known to happen… so I’ll go with it.

I should note that this is subtitled, not dubbed.  The subtitle text is yellow, which seems to be a popular choice these days.  Unlike other films that did this, like Pan’s Labyrinth, either by design or sheer dumb luck, there is hardly any yellow in the film to compete with the subtitles, so you won’t have any problems reading them.  

Day 108: For Keeps (1988)

PG-13, 1 hr. 38 min.  Directed by: John G. Avildsen.  Release Date: January 15, 1988.  DVD Release Date: March 23, 2004. 

I remember that I’d seen this before today, but I couldn’t remember all the details.  I was probably in sixth grade, but I didn’t have school that day and for some reason, I couldn’t stay at home.  So, my mom had me spend the day with a family friend, who was very pregnant with (I think) her oldest son.  Whenever I stayed with this couple, as I mentioned when I wrote about True Grit, they always had movies around, although usually the movies were older than this.   

I don’t remember what I thought about the movie then (although I expect that the sexually-related content would have embarrassed me a little in the company), but I was surprised at how the film treats such a serious topic as teen pregnancy.  The frank discussion of abortion would probably have been shocking back in the day, because it wasn’t totally uncomfortable now, and abortion isn’t a hot button issue for me.  The story line is very graphic in romanticizing a large part of it.  I was laughing at the scene in the field in the rain.  It was seriously the stuff that Harlequin novels are made of, every cheesy second.  But, when it comes time to the consequences of the decisions made, they seemed to gloss over them and whenever possible, the aftermath was made as romantic and as unrealistic as they could make it.  

The movie’s cute, but I think that it’s almost completely lacking in social conscience.  It also seems to mark the end of the (American) career of Molly Ringwald… provided you don’t count her current work for ABC Family, where she’s playing in the TV version of this movie, only as the mother instead of the pregnant teenager.  Strangely, the movie also seems to foretell the magnifique decision Ms. Ringwald made to spend like 20 years bumming around France and becoming this generation’s Jerry Lee Lewis.  Another oddity is that while this is an 80s movie, starring actors that didn’t seem to maintain their public image into the 90s, it doesn’t feel like the movies for which Molly Ringwald in particular was famous for.  

I had hoped for a little 80s nostalgia this morning, but it didn’t happen, which is a bit of a bummer.  I guess this means at some point I’m going to be pulling out my copy of The Breakfast Club and running through it for the millionth time, because it never fails.  I think this would have been a better movie if the story line had played to the statistics, rather than the fantasy.   

Day 107: The Other Guys (2010)

PG-13, 1 hr. 47 min.  Directed by: Adam McKay.  Release Date: August 6, 2010.  DVD Release Date: December 14, 2010.  

In the first five minutes of this movie, there was so much that was wrong, I wasn’t sure if the movie was ever going to recover:  Pops may have taught Mark Wahlberg’s character not to talk behind someone’s back, but apparently pops didn’t cover what people call you when you’re constantly sniping at someone in a petty fashion. Collateral damage of the type caused by The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson are why superheroes have secret identities.  SUPERHEROES, not insane cops risking the lives of dozens of innocent bystanders while working on collaring minor criminals.  The um, “humor” might have worked in a third-grade talent competition, but not only was what passes through the movie as funny juvenile, it was delivered with the same painful intensity as the final product of a run with constipation.  I didn’t actually laugh until Jackson and The Rock’s final scene, and then it was a coughing bark of laughter that was over before the scene actually ended.  If you were like me, you wondered why Spider-Man wasn’t appearing to take care of the masked gang of Cirque du Soleil rejects and ninjas going after half the city with a wrecking ball in a rampage of robbery and senseless violence.  A.  Wrecking.  Ball.  That particular scene would have worked better with old Spidey.  It sure didn't work without him.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie try this hard to be funny and fail so abysmally.  I’ve seen movies that tried a little bit and failed abysmally, and I’ve seen movies that didn’t appear to try at all You always knew what parts were intended to be funny, frequently because of the unsubtle pauses (and even less subtle glances at the camera, as if the person speaking was hoping the camera would applaud.  They should have known that tactic only works for Mike Meyers).   Story-wise, this felt like a ludicrous blending of The Hard Way and the demented offspring of the Police Academy movies, but without the charm of either.  Well, without even what passed as charm in the Police Academy movies.

They didn’t miss the mark at every turn.  “It looks like Scarface sneezed on your car,” had me rolling.  But there was an awful lot of C- for effort work in this 90 minutes of embarrassing examples of comedic failure and even less exciting action sequences.  I’m actually surprised that, with a cast of this caliber:  Wahlberg, Ferrell, Michael Keaton, Jackson, Eva Mendes, Anne Heche, and (I say this laughingly), Dwayne Johnson.  This really should have been not only funny, and had parts that were better performed, but I’ve never seen most of these people be funny successfully.  Mark Wahlberg is a great actor, but he has, shall we say, a limited range.  He can’t do lighthearted and I suspect that he doesn’t have the world’s zaniest sense of humor.  I could be wrong, but I’m going to accuse him of stoicism.  That stoicism has sucked the life out of his last two comedic performances.  Sam Jackson may suffer from the same problem, although I have seen him do dark, tongue-in-cheek humor in a way that was entertaining.  Don’t even get me started on The Rock, who rarely even approaches entertaining, regardless of his role.  

Avoid this at all costs.  For your own sake.

Day 106: Tomorrow Never Dies (1999)

PG-13, 1 hr. 59 min.  Directed by: Roger Spottiswoode.  Release Date: December 19, 1997.  DVD Release Date: May 6, 1998.

I’ve been a fan of Bond movies since I was 10, and my best friend got A View to a Kill as part of the evening’s festivities during his sleepover birthday.  Despite the 30 minutes of some blond bimbo screaming “JAMES!” every thirty seconds, I was hooked.  By this point in my life, my love of the series was starting to wane.  GoldenEye had been interesting, and it introduced me to Famke Janssen, but it seemed to me that in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War, that Bond had little to offer a more modern audience.

Tomorrow Never Dies isn’t perfect, but for me it solves that concern of mine that my favorite literary spy would not survive the disappearance of the Cold War rhetoric that had kept him alive and relevant for generations.  It gives us arguably one of his sillier nemeses, but it does open the way for something other than the now defunct Soviets and their listless allies as the bad guy in a Bond movie.  

Pierce Brosnan isn’t my favorite Bond.  I’d put him at a solid third.  I never felt like he really did a good job of delivering that part of Bond that was supposed to be a barely leashed psychopath.  Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton both did a better job at that, as did Sean Connery.  But, Brosnan brings with him a certain… legitimacy; a sort of appeal that takes these movies away from being “just another spy flick.”  I think Brosnan is, in large part, responsible for the slick, savvy edge that modern Bond movies all seem to share, regardless of who is playing the lead role.  In this, Brosnan is just one of what I think is a really great cast; some new players and some who are reprising roles from previous films.   It’s a shame that this is a preface to The World is Not Enough.

This combination of Bond girls was pretty sweet.  In '99, Teri Hatcher was pre-Housewives, but still relevant.  She wasn't great in this role, but the good news is that the role is blissfully short.  As for Michelle Yeoh, she's amazing and is arguably my favorite ninja/geisha/spy EVER.

This is a fun action flick with just enough politics in it to keep the movie from feeling simple-minded.  I saw this in the theaters almost 15 years ago, and strangely, it’s more relevant to today’s politics than it was back then.  It’s been interesting to revisit this film after a few years without watching it. Sorry for the quick review, but I've been working on the text while sitting in class (yes, I have class on Saturdays).

Day 105: Scream 4 (2011)

R, 1 hr. 43 min.  Directed by: Wes Craven.  Release Date: April 15, 2011. 

If you've been reading my Facebook posts, you know that I've been excited for this release.  I've also been a bit worried that the movie wouldn't stand up to the media hype, let alone my hype.  What really gets me is that it's been a decade since the original Scream was released, because it was a game-changer for me.  It changed the way I looked at horror, mostly in that it made it okay that I found myself laughing at some of the most gory parts of the movie I was watching.  In some ways, this genre has ruined me for horror that predates 2000 because it pointed out all the patterns that I hadn't been paying attention to.  In this fourth installment of Scream has done something new.  It redefined itself.

I'm a bit on the fence if I appreciated the number of internal references, although the things I like about the original movie are here, and have been tightened up so there are fewer plot holes (although no one seems to have watched episodes of CSI in the intervening years... because those forensic holes in the story are still problems).  In some ways, the facets of this Scream echo the previous three:  our favorite masked killer is working to not only follow the patterns in the original, but he has the added challenges of not making the mistakes any of his predecessors did and making things a bit more... innovative.  Let's face it, the line "what's your favorite scary movie?" has become cliched over the last few years (and several sequels).  While I was good with them poking fun of their traditions, it felt like they could have stuck to their guns a bit more and created something a bit fresher.

I also missed the humor part of the comedy-horror that Scream spearheaded.  Although, one of the audience members in the theater helped rectify that.  A home for special needs young adults happened to bring about seven of their residents when I was there today, and one of the guys, who was probably in his early 20s was freaking out about what was going on.  It was a bit crazy, but it was also like being in a kid's movie when some kid is totally in to what's going on in the film; it puts a smile on your face.  If you're a fan of the franchise and that guy isn't there to help with the humor factor, you might find that this is a bit grittier than the prior releases.  It's not bad, but it did feel a bit out place.  The obvious early references to Inception's dream within a dream got a bit tired, but it's where about half of the star power of the movie appears.

There are a few good scares, a few laughs, and most of the characteristics that have made (most of) the movies within the franchise fun to watch.  This cast is a bit more star-studded than most, and it was fun to see folks I rarely see, like Hayden Panetierre, back on screen.  Horror fans will have some fun here.  Most others, I think, not so much. 

Day 104: How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

PG, 1 hr. 38 min.  Directed by: Chri Sanders, Dean DeBlois.  Release Date: March 26, 2010.  DVD Release Date: October 15, 2010. 

Since I've had a couple of people ask me to give them a more brief tale than my normal reviews, check out the movie posters.  As of today, all of them will have a green, yellow, or red "lights" on them with my basic thoughts provided I don't forget.  I couldn't, um, "borrow" fandango's slide graphics, which would have worked MUCH better, and I'm limited to PowerPoint.

I had a TON of people tell me to go see this movie.  I expected something, well, just different from what I got.  I was expecting your typical kids’ movie.  Something that was funny, but that had humor targeted at both kids and the adults that were in the audience.  Something light-hearted and free of consequence, which was not what I got.  There are aspects of the coming-of-age film, aspects that remind of a boy-and-his-dog story, although those aspects were a bit off the beaten path.  What surprised me most is that there are consequences for the hero behaving the way he does.  Not as punishment, but because he chose to do the right thing when it wasn’t the easy thing.  I’m not sure I was totally satisfied with this trade-off of comedy for substance, but I didn’t hate it, either.

There’s a children’s book I’ve recommended to people called A Discovery of Dragons, by an author called Graham Baese.  His illustrations are stunning, regardless of which of his books you’re looking at, but the artwork on his great dragon adventure is easily his best work.  How to Train Your Dragon has some of that imagery, and I love that they created an array of different dragon species, that are physically distinguishable from each other and that have different skills and abilities.  I’m excited to see how those different dragons come in to play in the sequel, which is apparently scheduled to be released in 2014.

As I’ve come to expect from the team that brought us Shrek, the animation is beautiful. Strangely, the pattern continues that I often have a problem with the stories these guys develop regardless of what the film looks like or how it flows.  This is my favorite film by this Dreamworks to date, but I still wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again.  I will go to see the sequel, though.  I keep hoping they’ll transition to more traditional fare, but no luck so far.

Day 103: All About Eve (1950)

PG, 2 hr. 18 min.  Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.  Release Date: January 1, 1950.  DVD Release Date: October 5, 1999.

Today was a mess of massive proportions.  After all the rescheduling and uncertainty about what I wanted to see today, I finally asked my Facebook friends for some advice.  The general consensus was frequently titles covered either in this blog or in The Late, Late Show, but the general theme was that folks were suggesting I watch a classic (or at the very least a film starring more seasoned cast members)… although this morning when I woke up at 6:30 thanks to a wrong number, I wasn’t really in the mood for anything like serious melodrama.  I turned this on anyway.  The first scene snagged my attention and made me wish that we could find someone to do voiceovers for all our celebrities.  Someone with a soothing voice who would poke fun at what was sure to be the stupid things being said by someone whose livelihood is based more on a pretty face than actual talent, someone who can acknowledge that the artsy set is totally full of crap.

What surprised me was that I’ve seen this movie before.  Well, not the movie, but the story is common enough.  Almost every stalker movie ever made takes its cue from All About Eve, which is interesting, because I don’t remember the word being a buzzword, much less used until… probably after Rebecca Schaefer was killed by a stalker and California, my home state, started passing and enforcing anti-stalking legislature.  Obviously, the ideal existed long before now and the “heroine” of this film was certainly a stalker of the old grain, but I don’t know that if I saw this in the theaters back in the day, that I would have had a word for it.  I also don’t know if I still would have disliked Eve Herrington as much as I did watching it today.  The performance was good, but there was something about the character that was off-putting, and I’m betting it was how she followed and watched until she could make contact with the object of her fascination.  In fact, I have to say that I found most of the characters to be unseemly somehow, and I have to wonder if this was someone’s way at pointing out the ugly that goes on behind the scenery.  Listening to actresses complain about the their fans (who, of course, allow the actresses to live a spoiled and relatively carefree life), talk down to people, and behave in ways that were surely inappropriate for the times was… strange.  Watching another Bette Davis movie that has to deal with an aging beauty was not so strange.  I like Bette Davis, and think she was talented, but that riff gets tired after you watch a few of her movies with that same theme.

If I have a complaint, it’s that I thought this was unnecessarily complicated.  There were, I thought, a few too many characters who dragged out the story by a few minutes.  Addison DeWitt, who I realized after twenty minutes of his voice sending shivers down my spine was played by the man who did Shere Khan’s voice in The Jungle Book, was completely unnecessary.  He didn’t really stir up any additional drama, he just dragged out the whole process.  What he might have served was punishment, as if he was what Eve got as a reward for all her ill-doings, however; at the end of the day, I could have lived without the part in the film.  I feel the same way about two or three others who seem to appear solely for the purpose of having someone’s name on the cast list, which includes Marilyn Monroe in her typical role, just compressed into about two minutes of screen time.

I’m still on the fence as to how conniving I think Eve really was.  She wanted contact with her idol, sure.  But I’m not really certain that she intended from the beginning or even ever, to replace Margot.  I like that the story is complex enough to make me think, and I’ll probably spend parts of the day considering it.  I also like that how the end plays out.  Pretty slick, which are words that can be used to describe this script in general. 

Day 102: Your Highness (2011)

R, 1 hr. 42 min.  Directed by: David Gordon Green.  Release Date: April 8, 2011. 

It’s yet another gray Ohio spring day and I’m sitting in a theater in Lima (yes, yes, the home of Glee) watching Your Highness. It’s opening week, Lima is Danny McBride’s home town and I’m sitting in what was pretty much an empty theater. I get it. I was expecting a film product that was so stupid that it was funny. In some ways your highness gives me exactly that.  Certainly, this script purported to be written by McBride himself is… juvenile at best, downright rough and sorry at its worst.  McBride didn’t even give himself a decent part.

James Franco is a goofball. After watching this movie I’m totally convinced of that fact, and the revelation of that fact was truly awesome to behold. I’ve followed Franco’s career with enthusiasm since he took on his role in Spider Man... Since then, I’m never sorry to see him at work. The performance was a bit different in this movie because here we get to see him at play, and the man had me smiling at even the dumbest antics.  Natalie portman was her usual incredible but I’m a little worried that her five releases planned for this year won't make her a bit over exposed a la Shia LeBoeuf. Maybe with her baby on the way shell take a break do I don't feel like she’s everywhere I look.  Would I expect more from this year’s Best Actress winner and a Best Actor nominee?  Yeah, but I suspect what we witness was as close to direction as they could get, and in the simplest terms, this powerhouse duo was what carried the whole film.

There’s a lot of stupid material to see during this movie.  A lot.  But there are enough truly funny one-liners to make this worth watching. I’d quote you a few, but the parts that I laughed at were usually the most inappropriate for general audiences, and I suspect that it was the combination of the fantasy setting and modern, um, language, that kept this from being a complete waste of time.  Also...despite the stupid I found myself really enjoying waiting for the story to unfold. Was it predictable? Yes. Did it feel like a cross between men in tights and clash of the titans? Yes. Did that minotaur really need obvious (and functioning) genitalia? Um… no.  That same genitalia also didn't need a lengthy cameo role.  No pun intended, really.

Don't get suckered into taking the kids to see this movie. Like when I watch Archer, I'm not quite sure that I'm old enough to have watched this.

Day 101: Bedknobs & Broomsticks (1971)

G, 1 hr. 57 min.  Directed by: Robert Stevenson.  Release Date: November 11, 1971.  DVD Release Date: March 20, 2001.

I woke up this morning to a gray, rainy spring morning.  I didn't hop out of bed because, well, I don't have anything planned until a class this evening, and I figured the best way to kill some time would be to start my planned movie of the day.  This post is a bit earlier than normal, but I got an earlier than normal start to my day, so it all works out.

I’ve always had a thing for this movie, and I can’t figure out why.  It might be because it’s a mixture of animation and live action.  Mary Poppins and The Incredible Mr. Limpet were both the same way, and I remember seeing those movies long before I saw anything else.  I know I have a soft spot for Don Knotts because of Limpet, so there’s no reason I can’t have one for Angela Landsbury for her participation in this… not totally awesome but certainly entertaining movie.  This is good, but I still think Poppins is Disney’s better effort at this mixed-bag live action/animation type of film.

I like quite a few things about this movie.  I like the World War II era setting, especially the whole impending German invasion aspects of that setting.  I like that they managed to take something so serious and then offset it with something as silly as a correspondence school for witchcraft.  Add in the epic quest and this is the stuff that makes nearly any successful fantasy film what it is.  What would Harry Potter be without the magic and wizardry?  If you answered something like “just another battle between good and evil,” you’re right.  It’s the magic that kicks it up a notch.

The performances are good and it’s a bit disturbing to note that while this was made in 1971, Angela Landsbury still appears to be, well, old.  She’s probably not unlike a few British actresses who seem to hit like 60 and then just molder quietly for a few decades. 

If you haven’t seen this and want something that you can kick back to, something fun and uncomplicated, something that doesn’t involve real violence, or anything else weighty, this isn’t a terrible option.  If you have kids, this should get bumped up a bit on your list of movie priorities.

Day 100: And Then There Were None (1945)

Unrated, 1 hr. 37 min.  Directed by: René Clair.  Release Date: October 31, 1945.  DVD Release Date: July 6, 1999.   

100 movies in 100 days; it was a benchmark for this project of mine because 100 movies was the limit of the number of movies seen by the Fandango blogger, Chuck Walton, who inspired my current effort.  I hope that I’ve managed to snag your attention at least occasionally, and if not, make some suggestions to the types of movies you’d like to see me talk about.  More classics, more sci-fi, more 80s movies, whatever:  I’m open to suggestion.  I'm getting to the theaters as often as I can, so if you guys help me with genre, I'll add that to my selection process when I do make it out.  Since this was such a milestone in my great movie project, I wanted to talk about a movie that in one way or another, has a great impact on me.  When I received And Then There Were None from Netflix the other day, I knew I had my 100^th movie.

My introduction to the novel upon which this film is based was a solitary trip to Hermanus, on the southern coast of South Africa.  I was hoping to see the humpback whales during their breeding season, and most of it happens within full view of the beaches right next to the small town, so that the whales' gymnastics (and by that, I mean the jumping and barrel rolls and such.  Get your mind out of the gutter.) are visible to everyone on the beach.  I got to see a few whales, but missed most of the courtship displays by only a few days.  Disappointed, I stopped in a tiny seaside book store, looking for something to do while I spent the day lounging on the beach.  What I found was Ten Little Indians, which was the original and very un-politically correct title for this story.  I’ve never loved British mysteries because they seem so slow and the characters are described with perfect manners while bodies are hitting the ground in droves, but what I found in Ms. Christie's masterpiece was something different all together.

Surprisingly, I fell in absolute love with this story.  It’s near perfect, although I’m forever wishing that the dialogue and characters get a bit of an updating, but it’s a great mystery with several traits that I see (usually poorly) recreated in other thrillers and horror movies.  Most of that translates through to celluloid, but rabid fans of the book will be disappointed.  Some characters, such as Anthony Marsden, are replaced entirely with a random substitution by some piano-playing, jazz hands-waving, drama queen from Russia.  The lines and accusations are the same, but the character profile is completely changed.  Only about half the characters are exactly as they were portrayed in the book; but the important parts are still there.

Fans of the book who can quote the dialogue are going to be severely disappointed to the point of nerd rage.  Everything’s vaguely the same in the way Michael Bay's movies are all vaguely the same, but in this case, there are some fairly profound differences that were made so the film would be more “Hollywood.”  The ending, in particular, took a serious beating from creative license, and once you’ve watched the ending, you understand why it had to take that beating.

While the film version didn’t entirely live up to the book, this is a great Sunday afternoon movie… one of those old movies for a lazy day.  When I was a kid, old movies like this would run on Sundays between 1 and 3 on channel 13 after the cartoons and reruns of The Munsters, and this would have fit right in with the exception of the theme.  Those leaned heavily to romances and melodramas rather than mass-murder mysteries.