Brad's Week in Dork! (11/24/13-11/30/13)

Thanksgiving and Black Friday got in the way of some serious movie watching this week.  Can't really complain about that though, can I?  Life is good.  Family is sweet.  And Business is a boomin'.  Started the week with Matt at The Angelika for Alexander Payne's Nebraska.  It's certainly not going to make my Top Ten List this year, but Bruce Dern is a serious contender for the Oscar race.  On Wednesday The Wife and I made it over to The Alamo for Hunger Games 2.  Better than the first film, but the best part about the night was still the Drafthouse pre-show.  SNL skit was actually pretty funny. And we came home from the movie craving real entertainment, so we had ourselves a double feature with the This Is The End & The Word's End blu rays.  Before my Black Friday got on the way, I caught both Philomena & Oldboy on the big screen while my Brother-In-Law tagged along for the adventure.  Probably couldn't pair two films as different as those.  However, the best film I watched this week was Plunder of the Sun.  Glenn Ford doing that mean bastard routine.  I love it.

While at work on Saturday, I got word that Paul Walker had died.  I'm happy to say that I have always been a Walker fan.  The man appeared in a lot of crappy cinema (the first two Fast & Furious flicks, Into The Blue, Bobby Z), but he's also rather amazing in Running Scared.  I've sung that films praises numerous times on this blog, and I'll take the opportunity again to send you running to your TV set.  It is simply an amazing bit of gonzo cinema.  A Grimm's Fairy Tale remake of Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog featuring possibly the greatest tribute to John Wayne this side of Garth Ennis's Preacher comic book series.  Not to mention those terrifying Nosferatu Pedophiles!!!!  If you haven't seen Running Scared than I demand you drop what you're doing right now and check it out.  If you're looking for other great Walker flicks to tribute and you've already exhausted Fast Five, then I also suggest Joy Ride (see below) and the more recent Pawn Shop Chronicles in which Walker plays a buggin' out meth head.  The man knew how to have fun on screen.  I'm gonna miss ya.

Nebraska:  I've been listening to a lot of conversation surrounding Alexander Payne's latest flick.  From one podcast to the next - Slashfilm, Operation Kino, Battleship Pretension - one critic blasts it as a mean-spirited mockery of the midwest, and another calls it a searing character study.  One thing is certain - Bruce Dern delivers a quiet, painful performance as the senile father determined to collect his million dollar sweepstakes.  And as a city slicker kid who occasionally spent his summers in Taylor, North Dakota population 148, I felt a lot of kinship for Will Forte's interloper.  Is it mockery?  At times.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't know.  I was always told by my teachers that it was cruel to laugh at others, and Nebraska certainly gains a lot of its comedy from pointing the finger.  So maybe I'm an asshole.  I enjoyed Nebraska.  Not the kind of film I'll watch over & over again, and I absolutely prefer Payne's The Descendants, Sideways, About Schmidt, & Election, but I'll root for Dern come Oscar time.

Plunder of the Sun:  "How hard can you beg?"  Now here is a beastly little diddy that does not get the praise it so rightfully deserves.  Glenn Ford, very much in the spirit of Gilda's Johnny Farrall, is an insurance investigator ensnared in an archeological heist when Patricia Medina bats her eyes across the barroom.  Ford is an amazing bastard in this movie, delightfully selfish, and cool as ice in the face of danger.  I absolutely love how no jackbooted thug can take this man down, and how heartlessly mean he can be to a beautiful woman when she attempts to play villain.  Imagine Indiana Jones mixed with In The Mouth of Madness's John Trent and a little of Prime Cut's Lee Marvin and you get Glenn Ford's beastly idol robber..  In 2013, having recently discovered or rediscovered flicks like The Big Heat, 310 To Yuma, Gilda, and Plunder of the Sun, Glenn Ford has climbed himself to the top of my favorite "classic" actors list.  He lives proudly next to Burt Lancaster, Henry Fonda, and Lee Marvin.  Now it's time to devour the rest of his back catalogue.

Medium Cool:  "I understand that you have some problems."  Robert Forester is a TV cameraman attempting to navigate the civil unrest of the late 1960s.  The story itself is pretty much what you expect, but Haskel Wexler's in-the-trenches documentary direction perfectly mirrors the era's primetime media assault.  Remember when journalism could make a difference?  Sigh.

Catching Fire:  I really just don't understand the appeal of these movies.  I've seen dozens of dystopian sci-fi hellholes.  Some I idolize - A Boy And His Dog, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, District 9.  Some I hate - No Escape, In Time, Johnny Mnemonic.  But The Hunger Games and this redo sequel are just soooooo booooooring.  Doesn't help that I'm not the biggest fan of Jennifer Lawrence's steely-eyed acting (minus Silver Linings Playbook, which is awesome, and her constant red carpet shit-talking).  Seriously, let's see some real deal emotion lady!  You just butchered a dome full of kids and all you can muster is some scream dreaming?  I dig the gender reversal of asskicker Katniss & Josh Hutcherson's damsel-in-distress, but why rehash the structure of the first film?  How 'bout doing something of note with these old ass tributes?  Geoffrey Wright is in your movie!  Use him!  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in your movie!  Use him!  How can a film be nearly three hours long and have so little plot?  But since this flick just made a butt load of cash at the box office, I must be missing something.

This Is The End: "Call me your Prince of Persia..."  This is not sophisticated satire, it's a ferociously obscene assault on celebrity culture as seen from within.  I've always been a sucker for Seth Rogen's pothead comedy (Pineapple Express & Your Highness), but I don't think it's ever been funnier than it is in the moment when he & Jay Baruchel return from an L.A. Revelation to find all their Hollywood friends Left Behind at James Franco's house party.  One by one, they are either swallowed up by the Earth, impaled on sharp instruments, possessed by Satan, or welcomed into the Donner Party.  Their only option for salvation is to learn & live The Golden Rule.  It does not go well.

The World's End:  "Back to the dark ages."  Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg tackle the apocalypse from a much different, far classier, smarter, and typically British perspective.  I've watched the film three times now, and with each viewing I love it more and more.  I am very comfortable in calling The World's End one of the year's very best films, and even if I rank it at the bottom of the Cornetto Trilogy, it's still one of the finest emotionally wrenching comedies.  It also helps that it so easily Out-Star Trek's this year's abysmal Into Darkness atrocity with Simon Pegg expertly Kirking The Computer.  The World's End also offers the strongest performances yet from both Simon Pegg & Nick Frost.  Pegg's drunkard turned savior, Gary King never quite learns his lesson, but he comes close enough.  The apocalypse is not the awful part, it's how the apocalypse warrants his stagnancy.  The Loser Reigns!  Just what all isolated fanboys dream!  But my favorite delight is watching Frost's sober suit transform into the Pink Hulk of robotic destruction.  We've all seen the slobby brute, but I don't think we've ever been blessed with a prim & proper Frost.  Hard to take at first, but it's all worth it for when the shots hit the table.

The Killers:  Using Ernest Hemingway's short story for the opening scene, the rest of the film traces the actions of Burt Lancaster's punched-out boxer that lead to his inevitable assassination.  This is solid noir.  The flashback structure prevents it from fully capturing my passion, but it's also what gives the overall story its sense of dread.  There's no happy ending here.  Burt Lancaster dies in the first ten minutes and there's no resurrection.  The film has all the genre hallmarks, and Ava Gardner's Femme Fatale is exceptionally venomous with her dialogue.  "You touch me and you won't live till morning."  Don't mess with this lady folks.  She'll drive you to suicide.

Philomena:  Who doesn't love Judi Dench?  Who doesn't love Steve Coogan?  Only the soulless.  Dench plays a woman determined to find the son she was forced to abandon when she was barely a child herself.  Coogan is the failed journalist plunging the trenches of the human interest story to regain some hold on his career.  Philomena manages to be a searing look at the hypocrisy of religion while still managing to not make a mockery of faith.  Everybody wins.  It's the cliche "You'll laugh, you'll cry" kind of dramedy.  Well done, Mr Frears.

Oldboy:  A serviceable remake.  There are a few changes to the Korean original, but a lot of the horror of that film is surprisingly maintained in this Spike Lee joint.  Josh Brolin is pretty damn great as the American businessman kidnapped off the streets and mysteriously imprisoned for ten years.  Suddenly released, Brolin beats, bashes, and hammers his way through a variety of thugs until he finds the man responsible for his torture.  Along the way he meets Elisabeth Olsen's attractive social worker and does things he shouldn't.  Besides being totally unnecessary, I have a few other complaints in regards to Newboy - Sharlto Copley is far too James Bond Villainy as the billionaire beast, the film rushes too quickly towards its climax, and never properly establishes the "love" between Brolin & Olsen.  And could we please stop with the CG bloodwork!?!?  I hate it sooo much.  Still, it could have gone down a lot worse.

We Steal Secrets - The Story of Wikileaks:  "I like crushing bastards."  I'd love to tell you I was a socially conscious person.  But I'm a pop culture freak.  I can drone on and on about the merits of Roger Corman, but can barely string a sentence when it comes to the politics of the day.  I'm trying to be a better American.  I probably should venture out further into the real world than the handful of documentaries I watch a year.  I knew very little about Wikileaks before watching We Steal Secrets.  Similar to The Act of Killing, I found it to be a rather disturbing viewing experience.  What is the truth of the Red, White, & Blue?  What can we as Americans accept as collateral damage?  Wikileaks is incredible.  Too bad Julian Assange is such a hypocritical asshole himself.

Joyride:  I love Joy Ride.  Co-written by JJ Abrams and directed by John Dahl, the film is the closest this century has come to crafting the classic noir screenplay.  It's Detour populated with sexy young things.  While on a cross country roadtrip, two brothers punk a trucker using sex as temptation, and unleash a nightmarish Duel on the freeways.  Paul Walker & Steve Zahn are so much fun to hang out with that you forgive their idiotic prank and cheer them on to victory.  Too bad the film doesn't have the grit to adhere to its noir heart, and falters with a too-neat climax.  And Leelee Sobieski should totally Femme Fatale these bozos, but is simply relegated to the damsel-in-distress.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (11/3/13-11/9/13)

Aren't women just the worst?  I spent most of this week wrapped in the shadowy pleasures of Film Noir and what I pulled away from these dark tales of woe is that a woman will most certainly be my undoing.  That's right, I'm watching you Wife!  Is that a revolver behind your back!?!?  Time to hide under the blankets.  Seriously though, I love watching saps get undone by dames.  Why is that?  I have no idea.  Some form of dominance I'm craving?  Gulp.  Don't like to psychoanalyze myself too much.  Whatever the case, Rita Hayworth can ruin my life anytime.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continued this week as well.  Thor - The Dark World didn't take over my heart (RDJ still claims that real estate), but as we get deeper & deeper into the comic book mythos I find myself positively giddy for super heroes.  Since we all know what's coming down the pipe, Thor's mid credit tag was no real surprise, but it left me bewildered at the reality of next year's big summer movie.  Also, October might be over, but I'm plugging away at my Reverse-John-Carpenter-A-Thon with his greatest effort, The Thing.  I've seen it a million billion times, but I'm still wildly in awe of its power.  So yeah, maybe not the most packed Week in Dork, but I had a blast.  Need to get some reading done though.  Darwyn Cook's next Parker adaptation is almost here and I'm a few novels behind.

The Big Combo:  "Shoot yourself in the head, you'll make everything a lot simpler."  When Cornel Wilde's investigation into Richard Conte's numbers racket goes cold, he sets his sights on Conte's terrified girlfriend for some sleazy backstory evidence.  Wilde is a bit of a bore as the lead, but Conte's diabolical gangster is deliciously hateful and certainly makes this a must-see noir.  It doesn't hurt that Lee Van Cleef & Earl Holliman chew the scenery from the sidelines as a pair of hitman lovers quick to machine gun dames as they are to choke down salami sandwiches.  The climax apparently apes Casablanca, but it manages to strike a nerve all on its own.  Bullets, bastards, and fog.  Just what you've been craving.

Gilda:  "Women are funny little creatures."  I loved this movie.  Sure, it's a classic - you have to love it. It's one of those films that has lived in the pop culture consciousness for decades, but while the iconography of Rita Hayworth's hair flip appears over and over in critic's top ten lists, the details of the story are left unknown to the mass audience.  Gilda is a brutal, angry film that gleefully depicts the rage of a romance gone sour.  Glenn Ford finds a new life in George Macready's South American casino, but whatever happiness he has, is shattered when Macready's new bride reigns down some serious sexual terror.  I've loved a lot of Femme Fatales in my time (Gloria Graham, Barbara Stanwyck), but none are hotter or as mean-spirited as Rita Hayworth's dance hall moll.  I don't think I will ever really think of Gilda as a noir (the emotionally out-of-place climax stricken it from the genre), but the film has all the hallmark rat-a-tat dialog you come to expect, and it's delivered exceptionally between the battling sexes.

The Asphalt Jungle:  A solid heist flick directed by master filmmaker John Huston.  But if you compare this to The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or even The Man Who Would Be King than The Asphalt Jungle certainly feels like a lesser entry.  Sterling Hayden is a street level hood looking to make some extra scratch by falling in with a group of thugs committing crimes above their intellect.  It's your typical collection of baddies populated by character gems like Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore, Anthony Caruso, and even Special Guest Star Marilyn Monroe.  The scheme would have gone swimmingly if not for the typical double crosses and downright bad luck.  Good, not great.

Thor - The Dark World:  It seems like I'm one of the few folks out there in Internetland that really loved the hell out of the first Thor film - in fact, pre Avengers, I'd say Thor is my favorite of the Marvel Movies.  I love how small it is.  Chris Hemsworth's Asgardian navigating the absurdity of Middle America and falling in love with Natalie Portman's dogooder scientist.  I really appreciate the low stakes of the story.  The world does not necessarily hang in the balance like it does it most tentpole pictures.   But Marvel listens to its audience.  You want more Asgard, you get more Asgard.  Not enough Loki, here's a whole lotta Loki.  The Thor sequel is a lot of fun, but it's also fairly ordinary is this comic book landscape.  The villain is certainly the weakest aspect of the story - The Dark Elves want to bring about absolute darkness using something called The Aether & what ties does it have with The Infinity Gems????  None of that really matters, it's a rather weak McGuffin that puts the God of Thunder back on Earth and in the arms of Portman.  The Dark World offers more of the Nine Realms and hints at the goofier science-fiction that will hopefully dazzle us in next year's Guardians of the Galaxy.  This is a fun sci-fi fantasy adventure in the spirit of Krull.  Is it a Marvel Masterwork? No, but the beauty of their cinematic universe is that not every film has to be The Avengers.  Bring on the talking trees and rocket raccoons.

The Thing:  "It's weird and pissed off, whatever it is."  I watch this film at least once a year, and will mostly likely do so until the day I die.  It is absolutely my favorite monster movie, and still ranks as my third favorite film of all time.  A shapeshifting E.T. is awoken from a centuries long slumber by a group of half-baked & totally cracked pirate scientists morally led by Kurt Russell's helicopter badass.  Half the film's fun certainly comes from Rob Bottin's still stunning makeup effects, but this film deserves its place among the All Time Greats because of the terrifying paranoia carefully cooked by filmmaker John Carpenter.  I can forgive a thousand Ghosts of Mars thanks to to power evoked by this not-so-simple monster mash.

The Visitor:  "Aren't you a cripple molester?"  Yep.  This is a weird flick.  And in that weird way only the Italians can produce.  I dare you to watch the Alamo Drafthouse trailer and tell me differently.  The film has something to do with an evil alien child, her mother, an evil cult led by Mel Ferar, and a good cult led by Franco Nero.  John Huston's Jerzy is the heroic babysitter of the piece while Lance Henriksen is the demonic stepfather commanding a murder of pigeons.  Glenn Ford stops by for a couple of scenes as a doomed detective, and Sam Peckinpah lends his face, but not his voice as the abortionist ex-husband.  The plot is secondary, but that's what you want when the visuals are so beautifully absurd.  What's it all about?  Who cares?  The style is the substance.  And I need this on blu ray now.

The Misfits:  "If it wasn't for all the nervous people in the world, we'd still all be eating each other."  The final film for both Clark Gable & Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller's The Misfits as realized by John Huston is Film Noir smashed into the dying Western that's preparing for the modern morality of the 1960s.  Monroe is a seemingly naive divorcee but reveals that Femme Fatale heart as she storms through the lives of Gable, Eli Wallach, and Montgomery Clift.  This trilogy of man is a real sorry lot, a group of studs desperately trying to stay outta wages and hold on to their irrelevant cowboy lifestyle.  At times, Monroe's performance borders on the shrill (please stop screaming), but more often than not she proves an actual talent and not just that pretty face from The Seven Year Itch.  I imagine, if given the opportunity, Monroe could have matured into a bevy of meaty roles.  Again, similar to Gilda, The Misfits feels like a story that wanted to take you down a much darker path than its actual conclusion allows.  The venom being fired from the characters is just too dang heated to result in a "happy" ending.

The Central Park Five:  I don't even know where to begin.  This doc will set your blood to boil.  In 1989 five black youths were arrested, bullied into five separate & wildly different confessions, and convicted of the rape of a young New York jogger.  It took 13 years for the truth to finally be revealed, but by that time lives had already been ruined.  Who do you blame?  The cops?  Certainly.  The Media?  Yeah, them too.  Mayor Ed Koch?  Yep, F that guy.  To hear Koch openly dismiss the concept of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" on the air is mind numbingly enraging.  I'd love to think that something like this couldn't happen today, but you know that's a falsity.  The Central Park Five is a great reminder of the casual evil committed by us all every time we nod our heads to the nightly news.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (11/3/13-11/9/13)

    As the year draws to a close, I’m trying to see some of the various movies I missed for whatever reason.  But, as each one kind of sucks, I’ve also been descending more and more into my obsession with old films.

The Big Combo:  Rough, tough, and mean.  The Big Combo has the requisite cracking Noir dialog, ugly brutality, and dripping (though obscured) sexuality.  It even features gay hitmen (though it never comes out and says as much, it’s quite clear) played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman.  Cornell Wilde is the sucker.  Richard Conte is the smarmy villain.  Great stuff.

    On Sunday night, as I was recovering from HestFest, Brad and I went out to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Gilda.

Gilda:  My second viewing of Gilda, no doubt effected by seeing it on the big screen, made me enjoy it much more than my first time ‘round.  The dialog is awesome, with Glenn Ford so amazingly hateful and cruel.  Rita Hayworth is obviously gorgeous, but she’s also delightfully nasty.  And their constant war of words, looks, and implications is a joy to watch.  Unfortunately, the last third of the film, though it features some cool scenes, goes way off the reservation, dropping the overall quality of the film.  It feels like studio interference.  Still, a good movie.

Doctor Who: Survival:  And I’m done.  Gah.  The final story of the classic Doctor Who series is one of the better of the Sylvester McCoy era (even though it features The Master).  But that still only puts it up there as a mid-level arc.  I completely understand why the show was cancelled, and why its popularity had slumped.  From the last season of Colin Baker to the end, there are few rays of light.  This one features horse mounted cat people and some listless British youth.  It’s also quite short, being only three episodes long.  So, it doesn’t outstay its welcome.  For the last couple years, I’ve been on a quest to rewatch Doctor Who from beginning to end, in as close to order as I could do (what with the gaps and with stories being released after I’d passed that point), and it’s been fun.  But I’ll admit, the last four years of the show are, for the most part, really awful.  And I’m more and more convinced that many of the worst aspects of the new series were birthed during this time.

The Virgin Spring:  Stark, beautiful, haunting, disturbing, and maybe a bit challenging.  The Virgin Spring deals with Paganism, Christianity, savagery, and the sublime.  It features one of the most horrendous and squirm-inducing rapes ever put to film.  The cast is excellent.  The cinematography is gorgeous.  A fine film, but not an easy one.

The Purge:  When I talk about ‘what’s wrong with modern horror’ I’m talking about this film.  Or, this film is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.  Here’s a pretty solid idea for a movie (if 30 years too late to feel relevant); society was on the verge of collapse, due to rampant crime, so a radical change was made, creating a once a year suspension of the law.  For one twelve hour period each year, people can do whatever they want, kill whoever they want.  Reveling in this violence isn’t just accepted, it’s considered a person’s patriotic duty.  OK.  Cool.  This could be the basis of something really good (and was, in a classic Trek episode).  Unfortunately, the script feels like it didn’t get much beyond the rough draft phase.  The characters aren’t even nuanced enough to be one dimensional.  And every time anything is about to happen, you’ll find yourself saying, ‘ah, here’s is the scene where they do this thing.’  Everyone is exceptionally stupid, doing the dumbest thing at the worst time in order to move the plot along.  And that right there is the key problem with most horror films made since the end of the 80s.  Lazy writing has created an industry standard that allows for characters to do whatever the writer needs to get the action going.  X person is perfectly safe, with no danger of ever being hurt whatsoever, as long as they just don’t turn that knob…so, what’s the first thing they do?  Yup.  Turn the knob.  EVERY TIME.  I’m so sick of this bad writing.  So sick of it.  And if that wasn’t enough, the whole film is shot…say it with me…hand held.  Yes, that’s right.  Everyone’s favorite; the shaky cam.  Are you tired of being able to tell what’s going on?  Are you sick of having some frame of reference?  Well, worry no longer, this movie jitters and shakes, while someone having a seizure waves a flashlight, so you’ll have no friggin clue what’s happening.  Yay!

Here comes the suck.

The Magician:  I need to watch this movie again, as I was half passed out during much of it, but the film is certainly odd.  I’m still fairly new to Bergman, having only seen three of his films to date.  And this one feels more like The Seventh Seal than like The Virgin Spring, a bit more surreal and ‘theatric.’  There were some things I liked, and it warrants a second look.  So in a year or so, I think I’ll try watching it again, and see if I like it more then.

World War Z:  I would absolutely hate to think that the collection of morons and twits they assembled in this film might be in some way responsible for saving civilization.  Every stupid-ass choice, dumb decision, and foolish move seems to be the first done.  Bloody idiots.  Getting past the obvious moronic choice of the producers to abandon the book (which probably could have made a compelling basis for a film), and the appalling CGI zombie ant-swarm effects, and the crappy PG-13 pseudo-violence, I can not get past how idiotic everyone is, and how kinda boring the whole thing ends up being.

Renoir:  “He always makes me look like a girl.”  The Great War is raging, and old painter Renoir is hold up in his beautiful rural home, painting and torturing himself over his two sons who are off at war.  It is strange to see the idyllic setting and the sad, out of touch old man, knowing the horrors that were raging.  Family conflicts and old wounds are observed by a new model who arrives at the direction of Renoir’s recently dead wife.  The movie is quiet and quite beautiful, the gorgeous countryside and the stately old home make me wish I’d stuck with painting.

Summer Interlude:  “Nothing means anything in the long run.”  A successful, but aging dancer (they get ‘old’ while still quite young) is haunted by the wonderful and sad memories of a Summer spent on an idyllic island.  Her fickle, petulant younger self had a sweet, but also brutal love affair with a serious young man.  The scenery is amazing, the wistful look back at vacationing drips with nostalgia, the mistakes we make when we’re young, and the regrets we have when we get older.  It’s tragic, sad, and beautiful.

I Married a Witch:  “Did you ever have one of those days when just…nothing seems to go right?”  An odd, madcap comedy.  I can’t say it’s great, but it’s sure weird.  A goofy old warlock and his daughter who were stuck in a tree for a couple centuries get unleashed on the modern world, and hijinks ensue.  Not sure that it deserves a place as a great classic, but it’s a fun, light entertainment.

    Other than doing some more general reading of this and that, that was my week.  Not especially exciting, but not completely unpleasant.  The biggest thing was when I finished the run of classic Doctor Who.  Though the end of the series was pretty bad, thinking back over the whole run reminded me of a lot of the great stuff.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (10/6/13-10/12/13)

    Not a whole heck of a lot going on.  I did read Godzilla: The Half-Century War.  Otherwise, just having my spirit crushed.

Jesse James:  Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda are fine in this perfectly OK film version of the classic American outlaw tale.  Pushed too far by railroad men, two brothers fight back…then keep fighting until they become full fledged bandits.  A nice supporting cast helps, but at the end of the day, it’s only an OK movie.  Not bad, but not amazing.

The Return of Frank James:  Henry Fonda reprises his role as Frank James in this sequel to the previous year’s Jesse James.  It too is fine, but nothing special.  If anything, this revenge movie is far too nice, too much of what TV would become.  And the Clem character?  Holy crap does he suck.  Gene Tierney made her big screen debut as a plucky girl-reporter.  Sadly, she’s not very good.  She’s cute enough, and it’s not like she’s terrible or anything.  Just not memorable.  Sort of like rest of the film.  Director Fritz Lang seems to have brought none of his visual flare along with him.

Dinosaur Valley Girls:  You may not expect it, but this movie is garbage.  Sadly, it’s not all that fun either.  I like dinosaurs.  I like dames.  Dinosaurs and dames have made a great combination many times before.  But cavegirls and fake boobs don’t work.  Also, writing is always a plus.  Good writing even more so.

My Young Auntie:  I’m generally not a fan of Hong Kong comedy (or any non-English language comedy).  I find there tends to be too much cultural specific stuff for me to engage in the humor.  And humor is such a monumentally subjective thing, that is very, very difficult to translate.  So, imagine my shock when I found myself enjoying the heck out of this story of a pretty young woman battling expectations and greedy relatives.  The fighting is top notch Shaw Bros. stuff, too.  I’d recommend watching it with the dubbing, as that adds to the amusement.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home:  The first Star Trek film I saw on the big screen is still one of my favorites.  It’s goofy fun, with lots of great lines.  And it’s probably the best film where it comes to giving all the characters moments to shine, especially McCoy and Scotty.  Considering this is one of the most successful films in the series, it’s frustrating that no other movie has imitated it, instead opting for rehashing Wrath of Khan’s formula.  Where are the dilemmas that need solving?  Where is the fun?  No, it’s darkness, war, and the villain that needs to be punched into submission.  Cut it out, Star Trek producers/writers.  It’s time to recapture some of the lighthearted and hopeful spirit of Star Trek IV.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric:  One of the best Sylvester McCoy stories, this one has some good bits, and some interesting ideas.  But it’s still only OK.  As I near the end of McCoy’s run, and of the original Doctor Who series in general, I can absolutely see what it was canceled.  From the last season of Colin Baker on, the writing seems to have gone down the toilet.  Occasional bright spots serve to highlight the overall drop in quality.  And unfortunately, a lot of the worst aspects of this era seem to have been held over into the new series, especially the Stephen Moffat era.

Frankenstein The True Story:  This 3 hour, made for TV adaptation of the classic novel is pretty good.  It’s not as ‘faithful’ to the source material as I’d been led to believe, but it’s still probably the best adaptation of the book.  I have yet to see a film that treats the monster right, but this one seems to have done a better job of capturing the irresponsibility of Victor.  The thing about the original Shelley novel that I always liked is it didn’t actually condemn the science, so much as the lack of responsibility on the part of the scientist.  Adam was not evil, but was driven to do evil by circumstances created and exacerbated by his creator, Victor Frankenstein.  He is an immensely powerful child, given no direction or love by his parent.  This movie does not really get into that aspect of things as much as I’d have liked.  Still, it’s pretty good, and it’s worth seeking out.

    I tried a new wine that I ended up really enjoying.  Dearly Beloved: I Thee Red.  It’s mellow and went with the seared chicken and spicy rice I had for dinner.  I’m not much of a wine guy, so I’m trying out some various types to see if I can develop some kind of appreciation of it.

Human Desire:  Director Fritz Lang, stars Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame reunite a year after making the amazing film The Big Heat to craft another twisted Noir tale of love and betrayal.  Unfortunately, lightening did not strike twice, and this film is nowhere near as tense, brutal, or compelling as The Big Heat.  It’s not bad, but it’s not especially good, either.  Ford is fine, though he seems a bit out of place as a blue-collar rail worker.  Grahame is fine, too, if a bit shrill.

    So, I’ve had access to cable TV for a few months; the first time since moving to Virginia six years ago.  And generally speaking, it sucks total ass.  But TCM is a pretty cool channel, and on Saturday it gave me a chance to see a couple science fiction films I’d never seen, It Came from Outer Space and The World, The Flesh and the Devil.  TCM, the AFI Silver and to a lesser degree the Alamo Drafthouse have all combined create a kind of ambient noise of classic cinema that has me feeling pretty good about movies, even as I suffer through a dreadful year of film.  Plus, I’ve been catching a bunch of other older films through various other means recently.  It’s been quite nice.

It Came from Outer Space:  In tune with a lot of 50s sci-fi films, this has plenty of heavy-handed moralizing.  The acting is fine and the film looks good.  But the story is meh.  The creature is kind of cool, and I like the way seeing it seems to drive people temporarily mad, like something out of Lovecraft.  The ending is pretty cool; and somewhat unusual for its time.

The World, The Flesh and the Devil:  Harry Belafonte is working underground when something really bad happens.  Finally climbing up into the sun again, he finds himself alone in a desolate New York City.  The first half hour or so is carried completely by Belafonte, and there are moments that remind me of the early part of The Omega Man, making me wonder if this served as something of an inspiration (beyond the novel I Am Legend, obviously).  This certainly covers some similar ground, though without any supernatural/plague element.  When he meets a woman, things become more complicated, and suddenly the racial tensions ramp up.  This becomes even more intense when another man, a white man, arrives on the scene.  How much of their pre-nuke baggage will they hold on to, how much can they cast off?  Once the conflict becomes a three-way, it becomes quite odd, building to a rather strange ending that can’t be accused of being typical.  Good use of early morning New York to create a lifeless world.

Thunder Birds:  On the home front, some young men need to learn the ins and outs of flying.  And of course, along the way, catch the eye of a lovely young lady.  Gene Tierney is that lady, and by Odin’s beard, she’s gorgeous.  From her extremely sexy reveal through her search for love.  Goodness.  The movie is an interesting look into the Wartime attitudes about various things, including people from other countries, romance, and stockings.  By no means a great classic, it’s still quite entertaining.

    That’s about it.  I’ve spent a lot of time staring at the wall this week.  It’s been a rough go.

Get it done!

-Matt