Red

Starring: Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant Directed by: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Of the Trois Couleurs trilogy, I do believe Krzysztof Kieslowski saved the best for last.

Red is powerful because it is understated and deliberate.  Normally red signifies power, fire, passion…bold forces that impetuously sweep through with sound and fury (such as Dominique from White).   The main storyline in Red actually unfolds very simply.

Valentine (Irène Jacobs) meets an older man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) with a seemingly indifferent outlook on everything after she accidentally hits his dog with her car.   He tells her to keep the dog, but it ends up running away from her in the park and leading her back to him.  The bond that develops between Valentine and this man – a former judge – is very subtle.  It develops over time, like a Polaroid photo, rather than emerging in a flash.

Red explores other types of relationships – shades of romantic, familial – but primarily at a distance. Valentine's boyfriend is traveling abroad, so their only connection is through a phone calls.  The Judge listens in on his neighbors' calls, which contain both conversations with illicit lovers as well as conversations between a young couple who are very important to the storyline as well without even knowing it.

Even more than the other two films in this trilogy, Red really stood out as artistically spectacular, particularly in visual composition:

• Lighting: the sun through a window, the sunrise through a gate, traffic lights blurring against the night, spotlights highlighting models on the catwalk, silhouettes in the dark.
• The storyline of Valentine's neighbor Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit), often in her periphery but an integral part of the overarching tale.
• Valentine herself as both glamorously poised and emotionally vulnerable, bringing a different kind of beauty to both.

I wonder if this movie would have been as good if I hadn't seen the other two.  I certainly wouldn't have found the ending quite as entertaining, but I can't say for sure if the context is really necessary.

Overall, I would like to thank Daniel Ferreiro for insisting that I watch these films.  Even if I did not love Blue, I certainly did like White quite a bit and absolutely loved Red.

If you:

• Like a story within a story
• Like visually striking cinematography
• Like the idea of a non-traditional love story

Put it in the queue!

If you:

• Don't like symbolism
• Need a drama to be REALLY dramatic
• Don't like dogs

Don't put it in the queue.

Written by Jennifer Venson

Netflix is an Unconscionable Monster

Here’s the kind of thing that makes my blood boil. Netflix raising its rates.

Well, not that, in and of itself.  Rather the never ending tirade of assholes airing their grievances in a number of the most asinine ways.  Whenever I read thousands of negative comments, an extraordinary amount of negative backlash, and, worst of all, “writers” questioning the “reason” Netflix would raise prices, I want to stab a baby.  Make that three babies.  And a kitten.  It confuses me when a concept as simple as this one is met with a fury of utter disbelief.

To the population who just can't understand: The “reason” Netflix raised its prices is SIMPLE ECONOMICS.  Seriously, I was taught (and, I suppose, learned) simple economic principle in high school, albeit by one of the three most worthless teachers I have ever had in my life (she was a HOME economics teacher teaching regular economics, and was still number three after Mr. Green who taught my zoology class and based an ENTIRE SEMESTER of grades on one “vocabulary list,” and Mr. Clark, the basketball coach who taught my SENIOR LEVEL history class….and no, this isn’t based on an episode of the Simpsons……you know, the one where the teachers go on strike because Bart pits Mrs. Krabappel against Skinner because he doesn’t want to go to school but then Marge ends up being one of the replacement teachers which, of course, is no better, so then Bart has to trick Krabappel and Skinner again in order to bury the hatchet and get the regular teachers back in to the classroom.  You know, that episode.)

I have yet to find a single article on all of the internet which explains it as such, and if one of the three people who reads this piece can find any such article, please forward it to me so I can immediately amend what I have written here.

Here’s the deal folks.  According to Netflix’s (man, say that possessive out loud.  Sounds terrible.)  website, they have just over 23 million customers in the US and Canada alone (http://ir.netflix.com/).  Let’s just say the number is exactly 23 million.  For the sake of a whole number.

Now, let’s say the most popular Netflix choice is having one DVD out while also being able to have unlimited streaming.  How about 60% of the 23 million, or approximately 14 million, hold this particular option?  I have no idea what the numbers actually are, but for the sake of this exercise it is fair enough.  The price was $10 a month, and now they have raised their rates 60%, to a staggering $16 a month.

First I would say not too long ago we were all renting videos from a video store, where prices were probably somewhere around $4 for new arrivals and $2 for older videos.  If you were renting one new arrival and one old film a week, you were spending $24 a month, and that doesn’t include TV shows, which often had to be rented by the disc, or any late fees you might accrue, or films “rented out,” or movies simply not available in the inventory.  If that seems more efficient to you, I suggest you high tail it to the nearest Blockbuster or simply use movies on demand.

Secondly I would argue $6 a month is $72 a year or, even at the middling sum I am paid, not even a full day’s work.  Stretched over the course of a YEAR.  If you can’t find a way to squirrel away an extra $6 a month, maybe you shouldn’t have Netflix at all.

Here are some other numbers for you to give a little thought.

Using the 14 million customers posited earlier under the $10 a month plan, the amount Netflix would be raking from those customers alone would be $140,000,000.  At an increase to $16 a customer, in order to match that amount, Netflix simply has to retain approximately 63% of its customers.  That means it could afford to lose about 5,250,000.  For those of you who have trouble deciphering numerical characters, that’s over FIVE MILLION CUSTOMERS.  They could completely LOSE that amount and still be exactly where they are right now.

So let’s say ONE MILLION people are so upset about having to pay an additional $6 a month they completely quit the service.  One MILLION people.  Just think about how many that is for a minute, and then let me assure you one million people are not simply going to quit using Netflix over $6 a month.  But, just for the sake of everybody crying in their beers, let’s say a million.  Now they have a lowly 13 million customers at $16 a month.  That’s $208,000,000 a month.  That’s an increase of SIXTY-EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS, and that’s if they LOSE ONE MILLION CUSTOMERS.

For everybody trying to figure out a “reason” or claiming they are slapping their customers in the face just for the sake of it or one of the other ridiculous notions I have read over the course of the last few weeks on the interwebz, I have to simply say that most of you, at least are getting it right; it’s mostly greed.  You are looking for some deeper meaning where there is none.  But please also remember people, this is one of the main downfalls of the economy.  You want Netflix to charge you nothing, but you also want them to be able to pay for streaming rights, movies for the library, AND employ the masses at a liveable wage.  Don’t ask for too much, eh.

Why in the hell are you looking for a deeper reasoning in the rising cost of an entertainment sundry?  It’s a business, it’s Capitalism, it’s the very, very, very, very, very, easiest, simplest idea of economics, the most basic economic principle to comprehend.  It’s supply and demand people.  I assure you, if Netflix raises their prices and lose eight million customers, the price will come down.  If not, then it won’t.  It’s that simple.  They are trying to maximize profit, trying to reach the equilibrium pricing for their product.  That’s what you do, as a business.

They aren’t going to shed a tear at the loss of a handful of customers  who in absolutely no way effect their bottom line.  It’s want vs. need.  It’s a luxury.  Of course you don’t WANT to pay more, but such is Capitalism.  You’re simply fooling yourself in to thinking these pointless diatribes on your favorite social networking site actually mean something to Netflix, or losing a customer….or a couple thousand….impacts them in any meaningful way.  Maybe it makes you feel better to voice your opinion (as it does me) but maybe it should be done in a more respectful, knowledgeable voice.  Also, if you think you are actually effecting anything, dear friend, you are incorrect.

So go ahead, punish yourself.  Fool yourself in to thinking Blockbuster streaming is just as good, or the $6 extra a month just “isn’t worth it.”  Complain for the sake of complaining.  That’s fine for you.  Me?  I think it’s still a pretty fair price, so I’m going to go stream the next episode of “Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century” directly to my 42” HD television wirelessly via my Sony Blu-Ray player.  Just because I can.

Biddi biddi biddi biddi  Buck.  Biddi biddi biddi.

Written by Ryan Venson

Sherlock Holmes

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Not having read many of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, I normally picture the eccentric and brilliant sleuth as an introspective, pipe smoking, violin playing guy who doesn't do much else than solve crimes in his deerstalker hat and hang out in his study.

Certainly I was among those who saw trailers of Sherlock Holmes featuring action sequences, including the hero himself using carefully calculated ninja skills, taking out the bad guys, diving out of windows being in near proximity to explosions.  I approached the movie with caution – interested, but unsure it would really deliver.

The most surprising part of the movie was the acting.  Robert Downey Jr. was completely amazing as a Sherlock Holmes who is physically as well as mentally sharp, a complete disaster that can pull himself together to be a charmer in short order, and all with a wonderfully dry sense of humor. Basically, he adapted Sherlock Holmes to be Robert Downey Jr.

Jude Law undergoes a more impressive transformation playing Watson.  This is the first movie I can think of where he hasn't been a womanizing dandy – he's somewhat romantically awkward as Watson, Holmes' partner in crime-solving adventures.

The storyline is a bit mediocre, or at least very typical of ye old late 19^th century/early 20^th century British literature.  (For the record, I have been on quite an Agatha Christie kick lately, and she also uses some similar devices).   Immediately as the movie starts, Holmes and Watson capture a fellow who fancies himself a sorcerer and is about to offer up a female sacrifice.  He is carted off to jail, hanged and buried…and then busts out of his tomb. Literally.

With the seemingly supernatural Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) on the loose and threatening to take over the world, the game is afoot.  The film is stuffed with a secret society, a mysterious and not quite trustworthy former flame (Rachel McAdams) of Sherlock's who returns to both confound the detecting process and offer some clues, and evidence that makes no sense until Sherlock explains it.

Visually, the movie is interesting.  My favorite scenes are those illustrating Sherlock as he is in the middle of an action sequence, and the audience is treated to a snapshot of his thinking through the next four or five hits necessary to knock out or 'neutralize' the target. Similarly, scenes when he analyzes a person – such as Watson's lady friend – are hilarious. The action sequences are believable – Sherlock has some chops, but within reasonable limits.

In short, I am very much looking forward to the sequel.\

If you:

• Like an action film with a brain
• Like a good mystery
• Like Robert Downey Jr.

Put it in the queue!

If you:

• Prefer a more scholarly Sherlock
• Prefer a more seductive Jude Law
• Are unduly irritated when you can't figure out a mystery as the clues are being revealed (i.e. you can't deduce as well as the detective)

Don't put it in the queue.

Written by Jennifer Venson

Rifftrax

Many years ago, my buddy Ash and I went to the video store in an attempt to find something we hadn’t seen yet. What we settled on was Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. Making Comedy Central available was not a big priority in my small town, so I had never watched an episode of the television show, and had no idea what I what to expect. MST3K: The Movie made me laugh harder than I could remember, and it instantly became one of my favorite “go to” movies. For those of you who don’t know what the show is; it is basically a man and two puppet robots that watch terrible movies and make fun of them. Simple and brilliant. Sadly, like most television shows, MST3K had to come to an end. And while there are almost 200 two hour long episodes, I found that after a few years I wanted something new. Luckily I wasn’t the only person who felt this way, and where there is demand, supply usually follows. What was born was Rifftrax. Rifftrax is made up of several of the people who made fun of movies on MST3K, and is essentially the same formula of making fun of movies. What makes Rifftrax different is that they are no longer bound, mostly because of copyrights, to just watch bad older movies. The cast takes on current and classic blockbusters like the Star Wars films and the Harry Potter series. They sidestep copyright laws by just recording a commentary that listeners can download and play along with the film. It is kind of like the whole Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz thing, but much cooler, and fewer velvet black light posters.

On occasion Rifftrax will also do live events that are streamed into theaters around the country. I have been fortunate enough to attend a few of these screenings, and they do not disappoint. Most recently I went to see them make fun of a movie that I used to watch all the time as a child, Jack the Giant Killer. This certainly isn’t as famous as many of the movies used by Rifftrax, but it still holds a special place in my heart. It turns out the movie wasn’t as good as I remember it being when I was 7 years old, but it provided perfect fodder for the Rifftrax crew. Explaining the show would be too difficult, so just watch the clip below, and visit Rifftrax.com when you get a chance. They even show you which movies are available on Netflix streaming in case you don’t own every movie they riff about.

I do appreciate that my last post was about how much I hate people talking during movies, and then follow it up with a post about how much I love certain people talking during certain movies.

The Exterminating Angel

Starring: Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Enrique Rambal

Directed by: Luis Buñuel

What does it take to strip away the trappings of civility and reveal the true nature of people?  The Exterminating Angel (El Ángel Exterminador) attempts to do this by showing just how thick – or maybe how thinly – humans lay on the social graces.  The premise is simple: a wealthy couple invites 10-15 of their friends over for a dinner party.  Before and during the party, most of the servants find excuses to leave the house, ultimately leaving only one butler.

This isn’t really the problem, however.  Once the guests retire to the parlor to chat, play the piano, sing and generally socialize, they can’t seem to make their way out of the room.  Several attempt, but then get sidetracked as soon as they approach the threshold.

What follows over the next week or so is pretty much a sociology experiment. How do the hosts respond to their guests far overstaying their welcome past the respectable social hour?  Will the guests understand forces out of their control are at work, or will they blame their hosts? How will the engaged couple trapped in the room deal with the delay of their wedding?  How will the guests react to the illness of a guest with a heart condition?  How will these pampered socialites deal with hunger, thirst, temptations and the inability to have all their immediate needs met by servants – especially after the one remaining butler gets stuck in the enchanted room as well?

These and other key questions are answered. It’s almost like the Real World of the privileged class – the audience waits for the group to stop being polite and start being real so we can watch the train wreck.  However, the movie also generally questions how ‘civilized’ are we in the first place, especially as it only takes a relatively short period of irritation to blow up at each other and a proper society matron carries around chicken feet in her handbag just because she had the feeling occult talismans might be needed at a dinner party.

If you:

·         Like existential literature/film.

·         Like to ponder symbolism and philosophical elements in film.

·         Like reality shows that stuff a bunch of vaguely associated people together in close quarters just to see them have meltdowns

Put it in the queue!

However, if you:

·         Prefer a more action-packed film

·         Are not interested in watching a sociology experiment because Lord of the Flies was convincing enough for you

·         Are creeped out by people letting unusual pets (i.e. sheep) roam about the house

Don’t put it in the queue.

Written by Jennifer Venson

White

While I was watching White, I tried to pay more attention to the color symbolism, etc. than I did in Blue.  I do not really think this played a strong factor in my enjoyment of the film.  However, I did like White much better because it was a comedy (albeit a dark one at that). Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is having a really bad day.  He has a summons to appear at court, gets splattered by an errant pigeon on his way to the courtroom, and then his wife divorces him for failure to consummate the marriage.  Struggling through the proceedings with a translator because the Polish Karol does not speak strong French, shamed by his ex-wife (who says she doesn’t love him anymore because he couldn’t get it up after they were married) and denied his request for more time, Karol is – no pun intended – screwed.

His ex-wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) has the apartment, the salon they co-own, and the money he had in the bank.  Left only with a moderately-sized trunk of his belongings and completely unrequited love for his ex-wife, Karol starts sleeping in the subway and playing Polish folk tunes via a comb-turned-harmonica for coins.  Mikolaj, (Janusz Gajos) recognizes the tune and approaches Karol with an offer to take him back to Poland as well as a strange job proposition.

Eventually accepting both, Karol gets back to Poland through unusual means, then has another absurd turn of luck ending in his being beaten rather badly by thieves.  His fortune improves as he is able to stagger back to the family salon and begin to re-build his life.

Driven by his enduring love for the seemingly underserving Dominique (richly symbolized by objects he brought back from Paris), Karol builds a new life and fully embodies ‘revolutionary ideals’ as his bad fortune reverses itself in post-Communist Poland.

Karol is likeable (though pathetic at times) and the ending is weird, but at least there is continuous action.  According to Wikipedia, this is considered the weakest of the trilogy, but I thought it was pretty entertaining and still better than Blue.

If you:

• Like dark comedies
• Believe the following statement is true:  “Sometimes you’re the statue; sometimes you’re the pigeon”
• Think revenge is a dish best served slightly ridiculous

Put it in the queue!

If you:

• Prefer all your symbolism serious
• Don’t like the old ‘fake your own death’ ploy
• Are tired of watching movies where guys follow their exes around like lost sheep just begging for a mocking word or a kick to the emotional ribs

Don’t put it in the queue.  (And if you identify with the third reason, you should also probably take a break from watching movies starring Michael Cera.)

Written by Jennifer Venson

Shut the %&#$ Up!

Not long ago, a video clip from the Alamo Drafthouse began making its way around the internet. This PSA, which plays before the feature presentation, played the audio and showed a transcript from an angry voicemail that an irate customer left for the theater. Apparently the moviegoer was more than a little upset about being kicked out of the theater for texting. This film was a hit with almost anyone who watched it, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper spent several minutes praising the clip, while making fun of the woman.  Have things really gotten so bad at the movies as to justify theaters not only kicking out patrons, but ridiculing their complaints nightly? Yes, they have. I go to the movies more than the average American*, so I have more opportunities to have people disrupt my films. But while Ryan and I used to complain about the occasional disturbance, we now find ourselves surprised when the crowd manages to behave.  I don’t remember when things got so turned around, but I do remember some of the better examples of people behaving badly.

1. There is no explaining my buddy David’s man-crush on Tommy Lee Jones. It was his sick infatuation that led us to the Rules of Engagement. David and I noticed early on that things were going to go south in this particular viewing, when the gaggle of preteens came wondering in during the trailers. Certainly when I think of a military legal drama, I think preteens. Much to our surprise they immediately began to start talking, running around, and swapping seats during the movie. This was in my young, non-confrontational days, so I just sat there and tried to continue to watch the movie, but it was easy to find the people who were slowly getting fed up with the constant chatter from the back rows. There was a middle aged man, maybe 50, who was just down the row from David and I. Every few minutes he would turn around and glare at the kids several row back. The older gentlemen did this for the first half of the movie before leaving in search of an usher. Miraculously the kids were asked to leave the theater, and I settled in to enjoy Tommy Lee Jones eating up screen time. Of course the guy who got the kids kicked out decided to fill the void that he created. Anytime Tommy Lee Jones would ask a question in the movie, the older man would yell the answer back at the screen. This continued for the rest of the film. At least being an ass has nothing to do with age.

2. If you listen to the podcast “Coming Off the Reels”, you may have heard this story before. Early on, I was not very excited about X-Men: First Class, but as early reviews were overwhelmingly positive, I figured it was something that needed to be seen. Ryan and I arrived early, so it is was just a roll of the dice as to who would eventually sit around us. Snake Eyes! A couple in their late teens sat behind us, a twentysomething couple in front of us. The couple behind us were talking during the trailers, which while I don’t like, I understand that some people don’t care about previews like I do.  It was when the couple continued to talk well into the movie that I started to lose my patience. About 30 minutes into the movie, I finally turned around and asked them to be quiet. In their defense, the movie was pretty loud, so I suppose they might have thought I said, “Please speak louder than the characters in the movie.” So as I am sitting there thinking about sucker punching a couple of teenagers, the woman in front of me decides that this would be a good time to check her texts and her voicemail.  That was pretty much it for me, and I decided to try and find an employee who could maybe pop their head in and take a look from time to time. Being that it was an afternoon show, the staffing was pretty light, and no help could be found. I begrudgingly returned to my seat, defeated. After the next random outburst from the couple behind us, Ryan asked if we could just move seats. We ended up in the back row, but at least it seemed quieter. A few minutes go by and we hear an odd noise. Ryan and I look at each other and both share a deflated laugh as we realize that the people in front of us have brought their newborn to the theater. I don’t know much about kids, but I am pretty sure that babies who don’t even have the strength to hold up their own heads love crazy loud comic book movies.  At least the mother would take the baby out each time that it started fussing, but that too was a distraction.  Still, X-Men: First Class was pretty good movie and I can’t wait to watch it again…alone.

3. There is so much about this story that still feels weird to me. First, this was at a showing of Mystery Men. Yeah, some people actually paid money to see this one. Secondly, the showing of this movie was packed…Mystery Men! Even then I thought it was odd that so many people showed up, and I ended up having to sit in the back row again. A few rows in front of me was a group of teens, our usual suspects, and in front of them was an older man who kind of reminded me of Santa Clause…if Santa spent most of his life working in a coal mine. The kids talked and carried on, but what was really getting to Santa was that the kids kept putting their feet up on his seat, taking them off, and then putting them back up again. This went on for a while until Santa got up, moved to a seat behind the teenagers and sat there quietly…waiting. The next time the kids started to misbehave, Santa sprang into action. Saint Nick began kicking the back of the teen’s seats so hard that they were falling to the floor. Each time Santa’s foot found its mark he would shout “HOW…DO YOU…LIKE IT? HOW…DO YOU…LIKE IT?” Then Santa stood, kicked the seat one last time for good measure, and left. It was Mystery Men, so he really didn’t miss much.

The thing is, with the exception of the recently watched X-Men movie, I don’t remember much about the other two films mentioned above, and that is unusual for me. However, I vividly remember the people who ruined the movies.

Anyone who knows me, know how much I love going to the movies. In a time when the world seems to be getting worse every day, movies are a beautiful escape. Instead, I am forced to contend with a growing number of people who think you can act the same way at the movies as you do at bars. You pay your $10 cover, and come on in and talk to your friends, try and hook up with someone, make a fool of yourself, without caring if you are destroying the experience for someone else. Hmm, maybe if theaters had the same bouncers who work outside of nightclubs, I could get a little silence.

In the end, I will still pay my money and take my chances that people will shut up when the lights go out. If theaters want to make more of my money they could add a set of shows, maybe on Sunday morning, and tell people that during these shows, silence will be strictly enforced. I promise I will get up and go every week. Until then I would love to hear other stories of terrible trips to the movies. We can start a kind of support group. Together we can overcome, or at least find that Santa guy and have him start some shit.

*According to a survey done by the MPAA in 2007, the average American goes to the movies less than six times a year. I average closer to 35-40 visits to the movies each year.

Written by Drew Martin

Tree of Life

the-tree-of-life-trailer

Blockbuster season is upon us, and we invited Amanda Trice to sit in with us to discuss one of the biggest of the summer.  Stalwart leading man Brad Pitt plays the lead in “Tree of Life.”  Pitt plays O’Brien, an inventor and thrill seeker.  He and his estranged wife, played by Jessica Chastain, get themselves in to a number of ill-advised predicaments in this rom/com/thriller which can only be described as Inspector Gadget meets Mission Impossible.  In the middle there’s some sort of hokeyness about our place in the universe, and how we deal with loss, and the nature of God, but that portion of the film is fleeting.  Mostly it’s about Brad Pitt fighting dinosaurs.

Winnebago Man

Starring: Jack Rebney Directed by: Ben Steinbauer

Some of my reviews have been criticized – and fairly so – for not really analyzing symbolism and such in movies. I don't tend to enjoy artsy films with hidden meanings, metaphorical stories within stories, allegories, allusions.  The main reason I never pursued a graduate degree in comparative literature is that I didn't see the point of re-reading and re-analyzing The Scarlet Letter, Beowulf and select stories from The Canterbury Tales again.

So it may surprise you this review is for a documentary about an Everyman character.  Of course, he's no Young Goodman Brown.  No, this is Jack Rebney.  Far from Puritan in his vocabulary, this proficiently-swearing symbol of frustration became a viral video icon even before YouTube was a glimmer in the Interwebs.

A reel of outtakes from a corporate Winnebego sales video made Rebney a star.  It's a ~5 minute video with clips of Rebney swearing about forgetting his lines, swearing about the heat, swatting at (and swearing at) flies disrupting the shoot.  It is a tapestry of profanity only the truly crabby at heart can weave together, intermingled with sheer irritation stemming from a difficult task.  Most of us have had days like this, and am personally very happy mine have never been caught on tape.

Unfortunately for Rebney, this film made it to the corporate office and led to the end of his career at Winnebego.  Director Ben Steinbauer decided to seek out the man – now an internet celebrity – and see where life has taken him.

Steinbauer approaches the topic with pop-culture laden curiosity.  Citing examples of other Internet celebrities – particularly those who didn't want the notoriety and experienced significant humiliation because of it, such as Star Wars Kid – he wants to know what became of Rebney.  The man himself is difficult to track down, finally discovered as the caretaker living in the mountains in northern California.  At first he is the picture of calm – a far cry from his video persona.   Just a peaceable old man living in the mountains, enjoying the solitude.

It does not seem like Steinbauer will have a very interesting documentary. Then Rebney contacts him and admits he did not give an accurate portrayal of his true character.  As he and Steinbauer build rapport, he reveals his true semi-cranky self.  However, he is not all bluster – he is an intelligent man with a great vocabulary, an affection for his dog, and a firm belief Dick Cheney has really screwed up the economy.

Though Steinbauer continually presses him to talk more about himself and share his views with his internet fans, Rebney hesitates.  He cannot believe he has die-hard fans, and figures they must all be a bunch of buffoons.  For a second time, the documentary nearly grinds to a halt.

Fortunately, Steinbauer invites Rebney to an event where he will meet his fans.  Reluctantly he goes, assuming he will find a bunch of lowbrows who have nothing better to do than watch stupid videos on the internet – and no, he will not stand around signing autographs.

Winnebego Man is both hilarious and heartwarming, annoying (well, mostly Steinbauer is annoying) and inspiring, and most of all – something Everyman (or Everywoman) who has had a really, really bad day at work can enjoy.

If you:

• Are crabby
• Swear a lot
• Are reasonably intelligent but still like watching stupid videos on YouTube from time to time

Put it in the queue!

If you:

• Are offended by profanity
• Are super positive all the time
• Do not believe Dick Cheney is a buffoon

Don't put it in the queue.

Written by Jennifer Venson

Blue

Starring: Juliette Binoche Directed by: Krzysztof Kieslowski

I watched Blue at the recommendation of my friend Daniel Ferreiro, who guaranteed I would love it. Still, I approached this movie with some hesitation as he and I do not always see eye-to-eye on films.

I can say that the movie was artfully made, with nice symbolic devices – the blue tint to the lighting in many scenes, the ‘fugue states’ the main character has throughout. However, I found much of the movie dreadfully boring.  Very little happens throughout the first hour of the film, which made roughly 90 minute feel like so much longer.

Within the first ten minutes, a single-car accident kills the husband and young daughter of Julie (Juliette Binoche) as they travel to an event. Waking up in the hospital, Julie is listless and despondent.  She attempts to distract a nurse and overdose on pills from the pharmacy, but cannot get the pills down.  As she sits staring off into the distance, a female reporter bothers her for an interview, asking if Julie is truly the composer of her late husband’s celebrated pieces – as rumored.

As the servants and family friend Oliver (Benoît Régent) help clear out the house, Oliver finds a file folder with pictures of the composer and an unknown woman in an embrace.  He doesn’t show Julie these photos.

Julie has the house cleared out of furniture and leaves the house behind to be sold as she cuts herself off from the world, destroying the manuscript with her husband’s last composition – designed to be played only once for the European Unification ceremony.  Taking very few belongings – most importantly a chandelier made of blue crystals – she finds an apartment in Paris and attempts to cut herself off from the rest of the world.

And then for an hour, Julie wanders through life – swimming, making friends with an exotic dancer who lives in the same apartment building, visiting her senile mother, sitting in cafes…doing little to nothing.  From time to time, she fades out of the world surrounding her, lost in the composition her husband had been writing.

Finally, everything starts falling into place in the last half hour.  The mystery of the composer, the mistress…all is answered.  In about a span of 15 minutes.

If you:

• Have patience.
• Like hearing French spoken.
• Like art films

Put it in the queue!

However, if you

• Are more interested in the journey of unraveling a mystery than the actual discoveries themselves
• Are creeped out by mice (there are a few scenes revolving around a large mouse that made its nest and gave birth in her closet)
• Have no patience

Don’t put it in the queue.

Written by: Jennifer Venson

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 2

After 10 years and 8 movies, the Harry Potter Saga has finally come to a close. Was the last installment everything we hoped it would be? Were the different arcs resolved as well as they were in the books? What parts of the movie made us cry? Why did Morgan sign on to be in Dolphin Tale? Come on Morgan! You were in The Shawshank Redemption! Now you are giving tailless dolphins prosthetic tails? And...Harry Connick Jr. is in it, and being in a movie with him has never helped anyone's career. Did you lose a bet? Yes, there are a great many questions that are posed in this weeks show. I can't promise that we will answer them all, but we certainly had fun making fun of Dolphin Tale.

Also joining us this week were Courtney Felix and Tyler Johnson.

harry potter

Grindhouse Pt. 2 -- Death Proof

Starring: Kurt Russell, Vanessa Ferlito, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

“Death Proof” starts out quite differently.  Instead of just throwing you in to the scrum, it starts out in a car with three lovely young ladies discussing their plans for the evening.  Sticking close to the “heavily-worn print of a film” theme there are some terrible jumps interrupting large portions of dialogue, grainy footage, and even a little poor audio thrown in.  After they talk about their plans for the evening they talk about their plans some more.  Then a little more.  And after that, a little more.  Then they go to a bar and drink some margaritas.  The film takes a while to get going.

The direction/cinematography incorporates a lot of color, but still distinctly 70s, sticking to the same formula as “Planet Terror.”  Lots of orange/brown/red/with flecks of green.  The sets are made to look like the 70s, with vintage posters everywhere, pinned on bar walls laden with faux-wood paneling.  The clothes the characters are wearing are 70s-ish as well -- daisy dukes and ultra small t-shirts with the colored stripes around the neck and sleeves.  The direction itself is actually very modern with a lot of interesting shots, reminding me something I often forget -- Tarantino is actually quite a good director.

There is, however, one small flaw in the film: Nothing ever happens.  Ever.  When it was released separately of “Planet Terror”, it was re-edited and given a 114 minute playing time.  That’s pretty long, especially for an exploitation film.  And it seems more like 314 minutes.  Waiting for that big action sequence at the end of the “first act?” Well, you’re gonna have to wait 50 minutes, and the scene itself is going to last about a minute and a half.  What a pay-off!

What’s weird is ““Death Proof”” itself plays like two separate films.  The first film, clocking in at about 55 minutes long, is a sly, winking, well directed homage to exploitation, even if it is a little sluggish.  The second film, which is also about 55 minutes long, is an extremely boring, overlong, overstuffed, simply mind-numbingly dull, modern piece of cinema dedicated to stunt people.

The second ““Death Proof”” act starts out the same way as the first, three lovely young ladies in a car, going to pick up a fourth.  However, this is just modern cinema.  It’s a bright, mid 2007 day, and gone are all the bad edits, scratchy film and interesting colors.  The only thing tying this to the first portion of the film is Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell).

There’s a lengthy conversation about picking up a copy of “Italian Vogue” which is utterly and fascinatingly uninteresting.   On the way to wherever they are going, the ladies spend six minutes in a car talking about sex, with the majority of the dialogue based around using the word “fuck” as an adjective, noun, verb, and  pronoun.  It’s kinda’ like when you used to watch “Smurfs” as a kid.  “Hey fuck, could you go fuck me a fuck?”

After this thrilling scene, we are treated to another eight minutes of banal dialogue punctuated with fucks.  No lie. It starts out with a three minute long story about falling in to a ditch, punctuated with eleven f-bombs and topped off with the zinger “I resemble that remark.”

“I resemble that remark?”  Excuse my French, but what the fuck am I watching?!  If I had never heard the joke I wouldn’t think it’s funny, but I have heard it about a thousand times, and this is the big pay-off of the segment.  It was, during this scene, I did something I never do while watching a film.  I fast-forwarded to the next scene.  I’m not proud of it, but I think I am better off for it.

Look, I can’t complain about this portion of the film enough.  This same formula is repeated for the next twenty minutes of film, without a single line of engaging dialogue.  This isn’t an exaggeration.  All of this seems like something Kevin Smith would write.  Forty years from now.  After a stroke-induced coma.  It’s boring, it’s repetitive, it’s uninteresting, and it isn’t even vaguely humorous.

The whole crux of the “second act” is the last 15 minutes of film where an honest-to-god action piece takes place.  Zoe Bell (a real-life stunt person playing herself) convinces Kim (Tracie Thoms) to drive her around at startlingly fast speeds while she hangs out strapped to the hood of a car by a pair of belts.  This movie is so lazy it can’t even invent a reason to have an action scene besides stunt people, even when they aren’t performing stunts, like to do stupid shit that put their lives in danger.

Eventually Stuntman Mike, in his car, attacks the three girls, in their car.  There are actual stunt people hanging off vehicles whilst cars bang violently in to one another.  In a time and place where most action sequences revolve around CGI, this is a breath of fresh air.

For about two minutes.  Then it turns in to an action sequence mirroring the repetitive dialogue sequences from earlier.  The cars crash in to each other repeatedly.  The girls scream ad nauseam.  They finally get Zoe Bell off the hood of the car.  They go after Stuntman Mike.  Stuntman Mike screams ad nauseam.  And the girls, believe it or not, repetitively use the words “fuck” and “motherfucker,” until you want to tear your ears off.

Maybe I would be less critical of this film if it wasn’t part of a “grindhouse” double feature, but when I think of a modern exploitation film I think of tongue-in-cheek violence, ironic humor and, most of all fun.  This film doesn’t satisfy any of those criteria.

Written by Ryan Venson

Lost

Starring: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Jorge Garcia, Terry O'Quinn, Josh Holloway I remember when Lost first aired. My dad faithfully watched at least the first season but when I asked him what was going on in the show, all I remember is him telling me there were polar bears on the island and weird stuff kept happening. Whatever.

So I never really got into the show.  Until a few weeks ago.

Ryan really wanted me to start watching Lost.  I balked for a while, but then sat down one Thursday evening after diinner and watched the pilot.  Then another episode.  Then another.  With the instant gratification of Netflix, I watched the entire first season in eight days.  Possibly with the exception of the first season of Castle, that’s the fastest I’ve ever watched a season of anything.

The premise is simple – after the Ocenania flight 815 crashes on its way from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, a group of survivors wake up and try to figure out what’s going on.  The first one you meet is Jack (Matthew Fox), a doctor who serves as the de facto leader as he tries to sort out the dazed survivors as well or wounded.  Throughout the first season (and at least the first six episodes of the second season) he always walks around looking worried to various degrees – as if he is constantly second-guessing his leadership capability.

Among the roughly 45 survivors, only a handful are truly important to the progression of the plot.  Each one has some sort of personal burden or secret, artfully revealed through flashbacks woven into the episodes.  Your main characters (aside from Jack) are:

• Kate (Evangeline Lilly) – Wherever there is a hike through the jungle, Kate wants to be a part of it.  Whenever Jack wants to go do something dangerous, Kate wants to tag along.  Whenever someone tells her what to do, Kate doesn’t listen.  Torn between Jack and Sawyer (i.e. whoever is most useful to her at the time), Kate has a very interesting past that she’d like to hide.

• Locke (Terry O’Quinn) – The resident philosopher, Locke was traveling home from a Walkabout tour and has suitcases full of knives.  Creepy, yes.  Helpful for survival on an island, also yes.  As an able hunter and tracker, Locke helps keep the survivors surviving – until he gets sidetracked by an interesting find.  He also alienates some by insisting everything is destiny and that the island requires personal sacrifices from time to time to move them toward a resolution.

• Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) – A musician in a formerly-popular band, Charlie has a big problem to deal with and a past that’s nothing to be proud of.  The island is like his chance to start over and do right.  Though his touchiness and temper cause some problems, overall he gets his opportunity to do right with Claire.

• Claire (Emilie de Ravine) –  When then plane crashes, Claire is about eight months pregnant.  She can’t really do much on the island except write in her journal, sort through suitcases and wait to get rescued.  However, she also can’t do much to defend herself should others be interested in something she has…

• Michael and Walt (Harold Perrineau and Malcolm David Kelley) – After basically being shut out of most of his son’s life, Michael now finds himself an instant father to nine-year-old Walt.  Michael’s uncertainty about his role and authority makes him a bit of an angry character in this season.  Walt, often accompanied by his dog Vincent, has his own share of struggles – though befriending Locke makes it a bit easier for him to cope.

• Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim) Kwon – This South Korean couple hangs on the fringes for part of the season as they do not speak English.  Which leads to some misunderstandings due to language barrier.  However, Jin does not endear himself to the other survivors by closely monitoring his wife’s behavior – ensuring men don’t talk to her, making sure she has all her cardigan buttons buttoned even though they are stranded on a tropical island.  Things are not peachy between them either, and they emerge as very distinct and interesting characters as the season progresses.

• Hurley (Jorge Garcia) – Dude.  Hurley seems like a pretty regular guy.  He’s friendly, laid-back, frequently wandering about the beach with his headphones on.  He’s a perceptive guy and notices that all the survivors seem to be a little stressed out, so he builds a golf course with some material salvaged from the wreckage to lighten the mood a bit.  However, his mood is not always the lightest. He has a strange obsession with a set of numbers he believes are extremely unlucky.

• Sayid (Naveen Andrews) – A former soldier in the Iraq Republican Guard – which does not win him instant trust among the largely American survivors – Sayid is also an electronics expert.  He makes an early effort to locate and leverage a radio signal to help them put out a distress call.  His other adventures include an inquisition of Sawyer and being taken prisoner by another island inhabitant.

• Shannon (Maggie Grace) and Boone (Ian Somerhalder) – This brother-sister duo from a wealthy family do not seem to have a lot of survival-style skills in demand at the moment.  Shannon spends much of the first week on the island working on her tan and waiting to be rescued.  When this doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, Boone teams up with Locke to make himself useful.  Shannon continues to struggle with perceptions she’s not useful – though when she’s not having asthma attacks or sulking, she does help translate a map and is really good at tying knots.

• Sawyer (Josh Holloway) – The crown prince of one-liners, Sawyer is the guy everyone loves to hate.  After scavenging through the wreckage for choice items like medicine, single-serving liquor bottles and other niceties, he runs a little trading post in his tent.  Of course this irritates the bejeezus out of self-sacrificing Jack.   When Sawyer is not reading a mysterious letter, reading paperbacks that washed up on shore, selling accoutrements, or making up nicknames for Kate such as “Freckles,” “Sassafras,” and “Cupcake,” he is trying to forget his tragic past.

The characters really make the show – without excellent casting, without interesting back stories this would just be a boring drama about people arguing in the jungle and on the beach.  You have to care about the characters to want to keep watching.  The weird elements in the show (polar bears, the whispering jungle, a strange door with no handle buried in the middle of nowhere) would not be enough to keep me watching – what does is figuring out how the characters are going to act and react to keep surviving. Also, there are a ton of coincidences baked into the plot – the characters are more connected than they know, and it’s fun to notice these links (some less subtle than others) as they emerge.

I highly recommend the first season.  If you:

• Like character-driven drama
• Are ok with the absurd
• Enjoy a story with the acknowledgement things can be more than they appear and that destiny and fate might exist
• Like trying to figure out symbolism and meaning in pop culture

Put it in the queue!

I know this show is probably not for everyone.  So if you:

• Have no patience with a show that ‘peels the onion’ by selectively revealing aspects of the characters’ lives one vignette at a time
• Don’t have time to watch several episodes in a row
• Don’t like to watch sweaty and/or bloody survivors running about in the jungle
• Have a fear of flying that would be made worse by several depictions of the plane breaking apart midair

Don’t put it in the queue.

Written by Jennifer Venson

Grindhouse Pt. 1 -- Planet Terror

Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodríguez Directed by: Robert Rodriguez

When Grindhouse was released way back in 2007 I was intrigued but failed to catch it in theatres.  It turned out not being overtly popular and had a fairly short run.  Plus I always have trouble gearing myself up to sit in a movie theatre for over 3 hours to watch a film.

When it came out on video I was incensed at their decision to release it as two separate films, without the fake trailers everybody raved about (you can see them on youtube, however.)  Lousy.  That’s a George Lucas-type move.

Finally four years later Drew finally talked me in to watching his copies of the films.  Free is free, after all, and I was still intrigued to see how the films stacked up to recent exploitation films, as well as where they fit in to the directors oeuvre.

First up, Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror”.

“Planet Terror” starts out with a stripper, severed testicles, a gun fight and the release of an experimental bio-weapon in to the atmosphere.  I can’t dream of a better way to start a film.  The bio-weapon starts mutating people, making them in to flesh-hungry zombie-like creatures.

By and large that’s the plot of the film.  There’s a bit of an explanation near the end of the film as to why Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis) released the gas on an unsuspecting population, but plot is about the least important aspect of this film.  This is all about visuals and violence.

The film is shot to look like a 70s film, but still taking place in the present day.  The color of the film, in particular, goes a long was to giving it a retro feel.  Lots and lots of orange and green and brown, with dimly lit set pieces.  In post-production the film was given various effects to make it look old.  It’s very grainy, with 35mm scratches and lots of jumps to indicate missing lengths of film.  In one particularly funny gag, the film suddenly stops, replaced by a few frames of apology from management.  Seems as though they have lost an entire reel of film!  When the film start back up you have lost an entire 10-15 minutes of film, and you are thrust back in to the action with little explanation as to what’s going on.

The film relies on a lot of over-the-top violence to both entertain and humor the viewer.  Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) has a leg chewed off by a zombie and replaces it first with a table leg and later with a machine gun.  Sheriff Hague (Michael Biehn) gets his neck nearly torn in two, and they patch him up with a neck tourniquet.  Numb hands, severed limbs, pulsating face pustules and gore geysers galore, all play a part in the film.  Some of it is retread from the films it’s paying homage to, but there is enough inventive here to keep the viewer on board throughout.  In the end, this is exactly what I would expect, and what I wanted, from a film with “grindhouse” roots.

Written by Ryan Venson

Super 8 - Troll 2 - Best Worst Movie

Super 8

troll 2

There is a little something for everyone in this episode. We review a good movie, a bad movie, and a good movie about a bad movie. If only we could find a bad movie about a good movie...like a 6 hour finger puppet retelling of Citizen Kane... and all of the dialogue is written in haiku form...and the camera is always  just slightly out of focus...and it stars Hillary Swank. Gives me chills just thinking about Hillary Swank continuing to star in movies. This episode does run a little long, almost an hour I believe, but when you are talking about Super 8 and Troll 2 it is impossible to be brief. Enjoy the show and please watch the amazing PSA from the Alamo Drafthouse. http://youtu.be/1L3eeC2lJZs

Predator 2...........the comic!!

Written by Ryan Venson The thing about comic book adaptations of movies is they are almost always terrible.  Companies aren’t trying to sell you an ongoing series, just an issue or two, and you are buying the issue based on a name instead of hoping for a quality product.  You might see an adaptation of “Die Hard” or “Under Siege” and think, “Kick-ass!” only to open it and find out Jon Bogdanove did the pencils.

Fuck I hate Jon Bogdanove.

Considering how terrible the actual film “Predator 2” was, I couldn’t imagine the 2-issue comic being anything more than a festering pile of dung.  Hippopotamus dung.  And boy did what I get defy all expectations.  I mean that statement seriously.  No sarcasm intended.  Really.

This is one of the, if not the, best comic book adaptation I have ever seen.

The adaptation sticks close to the root of the film, including all the important scene, dialogue and plot points.  And, most surprisingly, the art doesn’t completely blow.  Hey look, it’s the scene at the beginning of the film I was relentlessly mocking in my film portion of the review!

Although after he sneaks up on the dealers here he yells , “Surprise, Muchachos!” instead of “Hey assholes!”

Published by Dark Horse Comics, the mini-series doesn’t lack on gore and even throws in a couple expletives, but the film was simply expletive LACED.  Let’s not forget this is the movie that gave us one of the finest pieces of dialogue ever to be uttered on the silver screen:  After Harrigan (Danny Glover) is told he has to cooperate with special agent Keyes (Busey) in any further drug trafficking investigating, Harrigan replies, “Which means you’re cutting off my dick and shoving it up my ass.”

Simply elegant.

Here’s an entire page taken from issue one, penciled by Dan Barry with colors by Lurene Haines.  Notice how much Glover actually looks like Glover.  Pretty impressive.  But the guy in the top left panel knocking on the door?  That’s supposed to be GARY BUSEY.  And the guy in the bottom left corner who looks like he’s about to be eaten by a giant Danny Glover head?  That’s supposed to be BILL PAXTON.

Now, I can understand Paxton to some degree.  He’s kind of an everyman.  But Busey?  This is Busey:

I mean, look at that guy!  He’s a walking caricature!  You have got to come harder than that Dan Barry!  This guy looks 100% more like 1990 Corbin Bernsen than he does 1990 Gary Busey.

This reason I make a point to mention the colorist is because it nearly ruins the book.  Seriously.  The art is above average for a movie adaptation, and then the colorist comes in and slops it on.  Look at the above panels.  In panel three, Keyes’ face is pink and white with purple blotches.  Did he just get in a fight?  There are a number of panels throughout where it looks as

though Harrigan is wearing lipstick.  There appears to be some kind of backwards shading.  Look at the coats on these panels.  Keyes’ coat is green, but why is there so much white in it?  Same with all the clothes throughout.  In some places it looks like the colorist had troubles staying “in the lines,” almost like those old paint with water books I was so fond of when I was five.  Why can’t anything just be a solid color?

Paint with Water.......Go-Bots?  I don't remember ANYBODY collecting Go-Bots.  I collected He-Man and GI Joe and Thundercats, and lots of people collected Transformers and Star Wars figures, and maybe even some collected MASK or Sectaurs or something.  But Go-Bots?  NOBODY.

Back on subject.....it all works well enough despite my couple minor complaints and, in a bit of a surprise, a totally different team created the second issue, including Mark Bright pencils and Monika Livingston colors.  Bright penciled a number of comics in the early 90s, including the stretch run of one of my favorite comics, Power Man & Iron Fist, so the art is on point, just different.  The first issue took pains to look and feel realistic, but the second looks and feels much more like a comic.  There’s totally nothing wrong with this shift in tone, especially as the pencils are still above average and the colors are infinitely better.

Here’s half a page, mirroring the scene I captured for the review of the film.  It still looks enough like Glover, but look how much cooler he looks in a nice suit and without a hat.  As a matter of fact, the comic sticks painfully close to the movie, but almost every scene seems better suited to be a comic book  illustration.  For instance, this scene where the

Predator rips out Lambert’s (Paxton) spine.   More colorful, more exciting, more explicit than the film.  I’m not sure if the correct onomatopoeia for spine-yanking is skriiiiich but, then, I have never torn somebody’s spine straight from their back.  Yet.

And this scene, as Harrigan chases down the Predator even makes more sense.  Instead of just falling down a hole in an elevator shaft for a giant wtf, he chases it in to a sewer, which is marginally less nonsensical.  And look at panel six.  The Alien skull!

In the end this adaptation hits all the important parts, large and small, of the film; it’s drawn well and is much more concise, and you don’t have to waste an hour and a half of your life for scenes where Glover yells at Busey or Busey yells at Glover or Maria Conchita Alonso grabs Paxton by the package and threatens to rip off his balls.  A superior product to the film in almost every aspect.

I PAINTED THESE MYSELF!!

X-Men: First Class

xmen

It has been a while since we recorded a show. We desperately wanted to watch Mr. Popper's Penguins, but sadly it hadn't been released yet. We decided to fill the penguin shaped holes in our hearts with the newest X-Men movie. Now the 3rd X-Men film was not very good, and the Wolverine movie was considerably more unwatchable than the worst episode of American Idol. How would the new one stack up? I guess you will just have to listen to the show. We also talk about several other summer movies that I am sure will end up being worse than Mr. Popper's Penguins.

Predator 2

It’s been a long time since I saw Predator 2.  I daresay it has been since I saw it originally in the early 90s.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t caught bits and pieces of it on TV since then, but never have I sat down to watch it, from beginning to end, in the two decades since.  Why watch what I remember as was one of the most disappointing movies ever? Predator cost about $15 million to make, and grossed nearly $100 million at the box office, so 20^th Century Fox green-lit a sequel.  It only made sense.  You remember the cast from the first one?  The special-ops commandos who get dropped out in the middle of BFE to kick ass and take names?  Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, men’s men?  Who did they get to replace those behemoths?

Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Bill Paxton and Danny Glover.

No, really.  Chet Donnelly and Roger Murtaugh are ready to open a can of whoop-ass on the Predator!  Here is a picture, straight from the film, of the guy replacing Schwarzenegger.

The Predator is hunting THIS guy as America’s greatest warrior?  He’s dressed like Kojak!

Sitting down to watch the movie, I was hoping, at the very least, to get a belly full of laughs.  And, in a way, its starts in such a manner.

The scene opens on a gunfight between cops and drug dealers.  There is some reporter from tabloid news show “Hardcore” gesticulating in a wild manner.  Mike Harrigan (Glover) comes careening out of nowhere to interrupt his flagellations and wrecks in to a van.  He opens up the trunk of his car and has at least a dozen guns in the back…..he can’t decide which one to take with him!  Then he purposefully knocks off the door of his car so he can hang his head out the side while he’s driving since the windshield is too bullet-ridden to see through.  He sneaks behind a group of a half dozen Columbians and with a “hey assholes” blasts them all with his shotgun.  Why he sneaked behind them and then alerted them with a tongue-in-cheek salutation I do not know.

After this scene ties up, Glover gets back to the police department and it’s like something out of “Naked Gun.”  There’s probably over 100 people mobbing the front desk, and as we pan to the back there are cops wrestling prostitutes and a criminal head-butting an officer to the ground.  I honestly can’t tell if this stuff is supposed to be taken seriously.

For some reason the main plot of the film revolves around a 3-way war between the cops and two opposing drug dealing factions, the Jamaican contingent and the Colombian contingent.  The first hour of the film plays more like a sequel to “Marked for Death” than “Predator.”  Truth be told, Seagal may have been a better pick for the lead than Danny Glover.

The Predator hunts down and kills key members of each cartel, saving their skulls for his trophy case.  I guess they are supposed represent some sort of “challenge” for the Predator, but he dispatches large groups

of them each time in well under a minute of screen time.  I can’t really speak for the accuracy of the style of Jamaican crime lords in the early 90s, but these guys look like Parliament/Funkadelic.

Of course the Predator eventually kills a cop or two which makes it “personal” for Harrigan.  Yet Glover simply lumbers around the set as only Glover can, wild-eyed and foul-mouthed, with no idea he is to do battle with an alien.  He still doesn’t know what he’s up against until the last 30 minutes of the film when Special Agent Peter Keyes (played by Gary Busey….only the best for Predator 2) lets him in on the secret.  There’s some cockamamie explanation as to why they want to capture the Predator instead of killing him and then an intriguing set-up where they try and capture him.  Of course the entire scene is wasted due to poor direction.

Twenty years later this movie is actually worse then I remember.  The direction is boring beyond all belief.  Most of the action scenes are compromised of people shaking guns around randomly in the most non-realistic fashion possible while the Predator dispatches them.  The action takes place mostly off-screen while the victims scream profanities.  The setting (the slums of Los Angeles) is terrible, everything is dirty and colorless and bland.  The stalking of drug dealers makes little to no sense.  Who gives a damn how many drug dealers the Predator mangles and maims?  NOBODY.

Eventually Harrigan, while chasing the Predator during the “climax” of the film, falls down an elevator shaft where there is, quite inexplicably, a hole under the elevator leading to the Predator’s ship.  I don’t know if we are supposed to believe that is how the Predator comes and goes, but I sure in the hell hope not.  There’s a showdown between Harrigan and the Predator, of course, which takes place on the ship.  It is marginally exciting, made more so by the mind-numbingly low bar set by the rest of the film.

It probably speaks volumes about the film when the most intriguing element isn’t even relevant to the plot.  When Harrigan first walks in to the ship he sees a trophy case filled with skulls collected by the Predator.  And be damned if one of them isn’t an Alien’s skull!  This had me excited way back in the early 90s, too bad the idea of Aliens Vs. Predator took 14 years to incubate, and then turned out being nearly as big a turd as Predator 2.

Written by Ryan Venson

The Red Violin

Starring: Carlo Cecchi, Jean-Luc Bideau, Samuel L. Jackson Directed by: François Girard

A few weeks ago I reviewed I’m Not There, which moved from storyline to storyline with the greatest of ease.  This week I watched another movie that juggles several storylines – The Red Violin.

The story begins at an auction, where Samuel L. Jackson strides in, gives the doorman his coat and says, “Don’t let me forget this.”  Sure, Samuel L. is playing Charles Morritz, but the viewer doesn’t know that yet.  The jewel of the auction is the last violin crafted by Niccolo Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi), a uniquely beautiful piece in an unusual shade of red.

The back story on the violin is simple – Bussotti made the violin for his soon-to-be-born child.  It is a perfectly crafted instrument.  His wife Anna (Irene Grazoli) also anticipates the child, but with some misgivings, fearing she is too old to have a child.  She asks the family servant to tell her future as reassurance – though ultimately she is not strongly reassured.   When neither Anna nor the child survive the birth, the violin moves on to an orphanage in Vienna.

Each change of hands of the violin is bookended by the reveal of one tarot card from Anna’s reading as well as a re-visit to the auction, with another member of the audience linked to the violin’s past.  My main issue with the film is the transition devices used in the movie tend to disrupt the flow of the story rather than helping bridge the episodes – especially the auction scenes.

I can’t say that I really liked or disliked the movie; I found it very polarizing.  Some scenes were exceptionally good – the violin’s adventure with the gypsies, though short, was artistically shot and the music associated with that sequence is probably my favorite piece from the score.  The foreign language film aspect is also interesting – each of the violin’s “homes” is in a different county, thus Italian is spoken at its genesis, German and French in Vienna, English at Oxford and Chinese in Shanghai.

But overall I just didn’t like the auction aspect – the idea behind it was great, but the execution felt forced.  Other than the violin’s time with hedonistic virtuoso Frederick Pope (Jason Flemyng), the episodes depicted a rather sheltered and sometimes ‘lost’ life.  However, the other interwoven device – the reading of the tarot cards – is excellent.  The mystery of the violin’s strange color is also interesting, but perhaps a little forced as well.

If you like:

• A tale tinged with melancholy
• Journeys through history – including some historic periods and situations you don’t normally see (such as Maoist China through the eyes of a conflicted party member)
• Beautiful violin music

Put it in the queue!

If you don’t like:

• A film device for the sake of using a device when the actual tale would suffice
• A tale tinged with melancholy
• Samuel L. Jackson acting the badass in a situation where no badass is needed (does a specialist on identifying and restoring string instruments really need to be a badass?  Really?)

Don’t put it in the queue.

Written by Jennifer Venson

Surveillance

Starring:  Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond Director:  Jennifer Lynch

I can’t resist a tale told from multiple points of view. One of the best books I have ever read is a Star Wars-based book, Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina.  It’s a collection of short stories that all center around Han Solo shooting Greedo at the cantina – but from the points of view of different characters who were in the cantina at that time.  Everyone brings in their own context, their own perspective.

So when I read a description for Surveillance summarizing the movie as three witnesses giving very different accounts of a crime, and two FBI agents have to figure out what really happened, I was interested.

The opening credits are interspersed with images of a murder – which the viewer might presume is the crime central to the plot.  Then, the two FBI agents Hallaway (Bill Pullman) and Anderson (Julia Ormond) roll into town to take over interrogation of the witnesses from the local police with the requisite tension in the air.

When the interrogations begin – all in separate rooms but also on a video feed to agent Hallaway – the viewer learns it’s not really the account of the murder they witnessed that varies from the truth (at least what they believe is true), it’s the events that got them to the scene.  While each witness explains their trajectory toward the murder, viewers see what actually happened…and that two of the three witnesses have crimes of their own to hide.

Nine-year-old Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins) mostly just won’t talk much.  She draws pictures of the events and drinks hot chocolate with marshmallows while Agent Anderson tries to get Stephanie’s account of how her vacationing family ended up murder victims.

Officer Bennett (Kent Harper) is just angry and bitter, especially as his partner Officer Conrad (French Stewart) died during the action.  He’s convinced they were good cops, but their activities leading up to the murder – including incidents with both Bobbi and Stephanie’s family – suggest otherwise.

Bobbi (Pell James) is, as described by one of the officers, ‘high as a kite.’  She and her boyfriend claim to have been in town for a job interview, but really they were visiting a dealer in the area.  But that’s also not the whole truth about their trip either.

At just over an hour and a half long (really only about an hour of thriller and 30 minutes of ‘untangling’), there are only a few spots that Surveillance drags.  The movie was co-written and directed by Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David Lynch), which initially worried me, but the cuts between present time and recollection are done well.  It’s not incomprehensible.

Interestingly, the murder scene is catalyzed by “Add It Up” by the Violent Femmes. And the resolution is pretty twisted, but still makes sense in its own way

If you:

• Watch (or read) thrillers/mysteries or anything else in the crime or puzzle-solving genre because you like to try and figure it out before the end
• Liked Natural Born Killers
• Find it interesting how people can justify themselves and try (with or without success) to cover their asses for bad behavior

Put it in the queue!

If you:

• Don’t like graphic death scenes
• Are not ok with an open-ended resolution
• Are highly offended by ‘bad cops’

Don’t put it in the queue.