A Fistful of Fall Anticipation 2014! (Brad's Picks)

I don't know about you, but I've been having a pretty spectacular year at the movies.  I've already got a solid Top Ten going, and we're only just getting to the quality season.  Yes, it's that time again.  From September to December, we wade through the Oscar Bait mediocrity and nourish ourselves on "The Best" cinema has to offer.  We're all gorged on popcorn, the gut's been fed, and now it's the brain's turn to get squelched.  That means - Another Liam Neeson Revenger! And A Denzel Washington Pretender!

Okay, so maybe not every Fall Film will score gold next February, but I can appreciate a wannabe Death Wish as much as the next guy.  Neeson's A Walk Amongst The Tombstones is based on a Lawrence Block novel, and I've always enjoyed that author's thrill to punish.  Seems like a good match with Neeson's later day bruiser career.  The Equalizer I'm less confident about, but if it pushes the Retail Warrior routine hard enough, I may just have to cave.

We'll also be getting plenty of Blockbusters-Not-Fit-For-Summer, and the usual kiddie fare.  The prospect of a little known Marvel comic getting the big Disney treatment is certainly exciting.  The first Big Hero 6 trailer got The Wife to squeal from her seat, and I'd be lying if I denied its charm.  East Meets West, but hopefully it's a more successful union than Del Toro's Pacific Rim.  I'm even a little keyed up to see The Penguins of Madagascar.  What?  Have I lost my mind?  No.  It's simply the fact that The Penguins' origin story is going to stem out from Werner Herzog's deranged penguin concept last seen in Encounters at the End of the World.  And Herzog himself will be narrating the opening moments of the Madagascar spin-off.  That's some beautiful madness.

But it's the gems we're hankering for in Fall.  Below you'll find the Top Five films I'm the most giddy about, but the dream is that the films I'm less ga-ga for will actually win me over, and find their way to into The Dorkies.  Tommy Lee Jones has a new Western (The Homesman), but the trailer lacked a certain oomph, or dread that I'm always geared to see on the plains.  The Western/Southern I'm the most curious about is Daniel Berber's The Keeping Room.  Set in the South during the Civil War, the film promises some terrifying violence as three women defend their homestead from bushwhackers & Union soldiers.  Berber proved he knew how to handle terror & blood quite well with Harry Brown.

Then you have the films I'm dreading.  I dig the hell outta The Fury trailer.  However, it's directed by David Ayer, and the wretched taste of Sabotage is still fresh on my lips.  That guy makes some bullshitty man movies.  Haven't liked a one, and as much as I'm stoked for a WWII tank film staring the Inglourious Basterd himself, I cannot get pumped for an Ayer movie.  Prove me wrong, sir.  Also, both David Cronenberg & Tim Burton have new films this fall (Map to the Stars & Big Eyes).  But it's been a long time since they've done something I've cared about, and it's going to take a lot to win me back.  Anyway, I've rambled on enough, time for the Fistful...

5. Birdman:  I'm not the type of cinephile who worships at the idol of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.  I've enjoyed all of his films (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful) to one degree or another, but never quite LOVED them.  But have you seen this trailer???  "How did we end up here?"  Good question, but however we got Michael Keaton to play this washed up superhero actor, and however we got Ed Norton to don those speedos - I approve.  Inarritu has always been a visual stylist, but Birdman looks to be fully embracing a Bunuel-esque surrealism.  Rad.

4.  The Box Trolls:  Before Comic Con 2014, I was interested in The Box Trolls.  With Coraline & ParaNorman, Laika proved itself to be a studio with not just a mastery over stop-motion animation, but also one with a bent Roald Dahl style of morality.  Kiddie Movies with real danger, and real lessons to be learned.  During that Hall H Saturday, my original intention was to simply sit through The Box Trolls panel in true anticipation of The Age of Ultron cast.  On stage were Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Travis Knight, Anthony Stacchi, and Graham Annable.  They were charming, sophisticated, adorable, and utterly passionate for the project.  Their enthusiasm ratcheted mine beyond 11, and the footage they showed was gorgeous.  Also - Jared Harris! Nick Frost! Richard Ayoade!

3.  Gone Girl:  I may not have connected with his last two pictures, and I'm more than a little disappointed that he's tackling Bestseller Lit agin, but David Fincher is one of my very favorite filmmakers.  The characters of The Social Network & The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were a bit of a bore (I know, I'm in the minority with that Facebook movie), but it's obvious that the man's craft has been getting better & better.  Ben Affleck, wife-killer?  Ok.  Will Gone Girl be more than a simple Lifetime Movie?  I hope so.  The trailer is great, but Fincher trailers are always great.  Fingers crossed.

2.  Interstellar:  Christopher Nolan science-fiction.  'nuff said.  Add Matthew McConaughey as a father desperate to save his daughter as much as humanity from its own self-destruction, and you've got yourself some serious appointment movie watching.  I don't think we're going to get 2001 here - Nolan is far too literal a director - but it appears to be a film steeped in my own love for star trekking.  "Mankind was born on Earth, it was not meant to die here."  You're god damn right.  If Interstellar gets across that message then I'll be pretty darn happy.

1.  Inherent Vice:  Joaquin Phoenix is a drugged out cop in 1970s LA, on the hunt for a missing ex-girlfriend.  Noir? Neo Noir? Neon Noir?  Doom & gloom, that's all that's important.  Along the way he butts heads with Josh Brolin, Benecio Del Toro, Owen Wilson, Martin Short, and Eric Roberts. Based on a pulpy Thomas Pynchon novel, and directed by the master of the modern epic melodrama, Paul Thomas Anderson.  That photo - it's enough to sell me a ticket.  And I've been waiting for Brolin to knock out another killer role, cuz 2014 has been just brutal on his credibility (Labor Day, Sin City 2).  The man's Thanos, start acting like it!

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (7/6/14-7/12/14)

    Not a lot of movies this week.  But I got some in, and some reading.  I also did a lot of prep work for some stories.  I just haven’t been writing the nitty-gritty of anything (outside of this blog) for some time.  It’s something I feel the desire to get my head back into, but I’ve been out of practice for so long.  It’s tough.

    On Sunday, I read Storm Dogs and Pretty Deadly.  One was good, the other kind of sucked.  Because of another book I’ve been reading, and not enjoying, I think I’ve been finding other things to read.  Probably the reason behind my recent spate of comic trades.

The Last Performance:  There are a few interesting bits in this film, but the story is kinda meh.  The main attraction is Conrad Veidt, and for fans, it’s nice to see him working his mojo.  The man can stare, with the best of ‘em.  Other than Veidt fans, though, this film holds little to recommend it.

The Ballad of Narayama:  Gorgeously produced, this film has the artificiality of a stage play, but the magical wonder of film.  The story looks at the simple life of country villagers who try to scrape out a living from the unforgiving mountains.  And one lone old lady, ready to take a spiritual (and suicidal) pilgrimage to a nearby holy mountain.  It’s also nice to see a film that feels like it’s set during that near-myth era of samurai, that has nothing to do with samurai at all.  Not a sword drawn in the whole film.  Quite good.

Pickup on South Street:  Though the ending is a bit wonky, this movie about a two-bit pick-pocket getting more than he bargained for is some classic Noir fodder.  A dizzy dame, some fist-happy cops, double dealing commies, and a heap of trouble.  Plus, Widmark is on fire as a relentless prick.  It’s wonderful.

Persona:  More the sort of thing I always thought of when I heard the name Ingmar Bergman, this meditation on the masks we present, the versions of ourselves we use when we’re around other people is challenging.  But it’s also captivating.  Typically gorgeous; the location work, the lighting, the whole thing looks amazing.  It’s charged with eroticism, but also with gut level discomfort.  I’ll certainly be revisiting this film, but it’s not one to just pop in on a whim.

The Robe:  The film assumes you already know the story of Jesus.  Probably not a bad assumption, but I always have a bit of a problem with a movie that makes assumptions like that.  It’s interesting, and there are some good performances.  But for a film that is so much about converting to being a follower of Jesus, there is precious little in the way of explanation as to why someone would.  Spiritual quest wise, this film lacked some important content.

Glengarry Glenn Ross:  Another of my cinematic resolutions for 2014 down.  The sad, stressful life of salesmen is presented Mamet style in this punchy little film.  Looking at it, you’d think it was made for TV.  But what it lacks in visual flourish or polish, it makes up for in performance and script.  Alan Arkin and Jack Lemmon are both very good.  But Jonathan Pryce and Al Pacino really had me.  Pacino is such a huckster, and Pryce such a sad-sack mark.

    Friday night, we headed out to The Alamo to check out the new Apes film.  Before the theater, though, we ate at Nando’s Peri Peri.  I’m definitely going to have to go back when there’s more time.  Because that shopping area is starting to open up, there are a lot of people, and the restaurant was pretty full.  I enjoyed the food, but didn’t feel like I had time to really enjoy the place or think about what I wanted to eat, or any of that.  Next time.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:  Humans have mostly died in plagues and wars.  The apes, after having escaped into the woods at the end of the previous film, have set themselves up a new society and are doing pretty well.  Things can’t last, as the human survivors need resources that lay in Ape territory.  Here’s the thing.  This movie is pretty good.  And all the stuff around the apes is quite good.  The problem is that the human characters are kind of ridiculously stock, and at no point did I care about them or their plight.  The apes were interesting, and I’d have liked the film to focus much more on them.  In fact, completely on them.  I could have used way, way less human parts.  Visually impressive and well made, it’s a good film.  Maybe even a really good film.  But it misses the mark on being a great film.

The Last Wave:  I wasn’t in the right headspace to watch this film.  So, while I recognize that there were some interesting aspects, and I liked the performances, I just couldn’t get into it.  I think I’m going to have to revisit it while I’m more focused.  There are some powerful images, for sure.  And I like the Michael Mann movie type soundtrack.  I have a feeling this is a movie I'll really enjoy on second viewing, when my head is on straight.

True Detective: Season 1:  “You are like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.”  This is a beautifully made program, with lots of excellent elements.  The last episode spoils the milk a bit, but the overall show is quite good.  I love the references to Robert W. Chambers and his King in Yellow.  I wish it had gone a bit further.  I wanted to see the mythology of the murders explored.

    Saturday night, I forced myself to push through Aya: Life in Yop City, a book I’d been laboring through.  I had to skim much of the latter half of the book, as nothing seemed to happen, and that was becoming a bit much.  Sad, because the art was interesting and vibrant, and I thought the subject matter and setting could be really interesting.  I still do; but this isn’t.  I was fully planning on writing a review of this book.  But the more I look at it sitting there, the less of a crap I give, and the less I feel the need to revisit it.  We'll be discussing it this coming Friday night, and other than some variation of 'YAWN!' I've got no idea what to say.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Brad's Week in Dork! (11/17/13-11/23/13)

This was simply one of the best weeks I've experienced this year.  Matt & I spent a good chunk of it staring up at The Big Screen, and I would rather be nowhere else than in a darkened theater.   Sure, we missed a good bit of the Fantastic Fest Tour last week, but Matt & I managed to spend an entire day with The Alamo Drafthouse on Sunday.  I am happy to report that two of the films we watched there will land on my Top 10 List by year's end - Journey to the West & Why Don't You Play In Hell? are a couple of mindbendingly entertaining films from the East.  Hopefully the Fest will return next year, and I'll make damn sure to get the whole weekend off.  Midweek we took a peak at Matthew McConaughey's Oscar grabber Dallas Buyers Club, and we finished it all off with an AFI Silver screening of Kiss Me Deadly.  Ralph Meeker...monster...just an unbelievably good movie.

I spent the rest of the week diving into Noirvember.  A bit of too little, too late.  Next year I'll try to knock one out a day cuz it's a blast witnessing dumb dudes fall for diabolical dames.  I saw The Prowler for the first time on Sunday morning.  It's a demented little flick (see below).  And Netflix currently has Raw Deal streaming - I'll join novelist Eddie Muller in calling it one of the genre's best.  Matt's been raving about Gene Tierney's Leave Her To Heaven horror show, and I gotta heap on more praise.  Just a damn fine bit of melodrama.  Plus, Jean Rollin, Black Power, Robert Ryan, Charles Bronson, and Charlie Chaplin filled in the gaps.  A ton of fun.

The Prowler:  "You're a real cop now, aren't you?  You want everything free."  During the special features, author James Ellroy nails it on the head when he labels this whackjob flick as a "Perv Noir."  Van Heflyn's beat cop responds to Evelyn Keyes' distress call, and immediately slithers his way into her life.  This woman just can't say no; ten minutes inside her home, Heflyn's smoking the husband's cigarettes, drinking his booze, and plotting his murder.  Keyes is nearly unbearable in her ignorance, but Van Heflyn's badged monster owns this unlawful entry.  When you compare the bulging glares of his sleazoid cop with the dopey sadsack hero of 3:10 To Yuma, you'll finish the credits a Van Heflyn fan for life.  The Prowler's third act goes off the rails a bit with a ghost town pregnancy, but the surreal law & order showdown certainly delivers on the weirdo vibe.  It's certainly a must for fans of the genre.

Confession of Murder:  Unlike Van Heflyn's deputized pervert, Jae-yeong Jeong's Detective Choi is the type of badass Dirty Harry you love to root for as he bashes, gouges, and spits against the absolute worst of humanity.  Unfortunately, Confession of Murder's structure wanders on too long as it manufactures its inevitable twists.  There are certainly moments in this movie that I enjoyed.  When fists or bullets start to fly, I really appreciated the sloppiness of the action.  Whatever happens to be lying around the set is tossed into the violence; no bucket or frozen fish is safe.  Again, Jae-yeong Jeong is great.  He simmers rage and hate, but the film never really delivers on those emotions, opting for obvious narrative trickery instead.  May I recommend I Saw The Devil, if you are looking for some real-deal Korean serial killer cinema to fuel your nightmares.

Journey to the West - Conquering the Demons: This one surprised me.  I don't know why since I'm a tremendous fan of Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, and I should frickin' know better, but the early trailers for this yet-another-adaptation of the classic Chinese fable never captured my interest.  Dumb ass.  Journey to the West is the best fantasy adventure of 2013 - F YOU UPCOMING HOBBIT!  The story of a young demon hunter struggling to obtain enlightenment as he struggles equally to sack catfish and pig monsters.  And if fumbling about with cg folklore wasn't tough enough, the fool is constantly being shown up by Shu Qi's warrior princess.  The film is incredibly silly and weird, but as one demon hunter fends off the affections of another, and the epic quest marches towards the mischievous Monkey King, I found myself being incredibly moved by the climactic spiritual awakening.  As he had already proven with Shaolin Soccer & Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow drags genuine warmth out of cartoon hijinks.  Journey to the West does all the cliche things you want from the movies - you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc.  High praise.

Why Don't You Play In Hell?:  "It's bullshit, but it's holy."  For me, nearly the second they were uttered, those five unimpressive words struck like a hammer.  Which is impressive considering how distracted I was with splatstick laughter at the time.  A group of teenagers, unable to shake their child-born attraction to the movies, are dragged into a gang war when Boss attempts to satisfy his imprisoned wife by transforming their daughter into a full-fledged starlet.  What does an obsession with Bruce Lee have to offer real life let alone a Yakuza crusade?  Movies are my own great Holy Bullshit, and filmmaker Sion Sono certainly understands this fictional infection.  Why Don't You Play In Hell? builds slowly as it connects film nerds to mob killers, but by the time Samurai Boss Shinichi Tsutsumi cracks his Carey Grant smile and ascends to Mifune Godhood, I was painfully smitten.  I loved Journey to the West, but Why Don't You Play In Hell? feels like an instant personal classic.  Will it speak to everybody?  Absolutely not.  But if you spend as much time as I do fretting over the merits of Crank 2 - High Voltage or the under appreciated kick-assery of Domino Harvey then boy, do I have the movie for you!

Red 2:  I dug the first flick.  I kinda hated this one.  John Malkovich & Helen Mirren are fun enough, but Bruce Willis is painfully checked out from this old foggie spy adventure.  I've seen Moonrise Kingdom.  I've seen Looper.  I know the guy can still deliver a solid performance when he bothers to give a damn.  But if he keeps cranking out the Red 2s, the Good Day To Die Hards, and the GI Joe Retaliations then I am going to leave him smirking across an empty theater.  Of course, I could just be bitter that Red 2 left Karl Urban standing at the alter.  If he had been there instead of Byung-hun Lee, then maybe I could have focused on the shockingly entertaining character work being done by Anthony Hopkins, and not the slackjawed yawn belching from its lead performer.

Dallas Buyers Club:  I am so glad that the rest of the world has finally caught up to my Matthew McConaughey love...or has the Surfer, Dude simply given up the aspirations of Tom Cruisehood and plunged into the splendid world of character actor?  Dallas Buyers Club is just what you think it is, a message movie circling themes of intolerance on both the personal and societal level (resulting in countless unnecessary deaths) and an opportunity for its star to horrifyingly transform himself.  The cynical might dismiss it as Oscar bait, but I appreciated the narrow focus of the Buyers Club money grab.  This is not just the story of a man inflicted with HIV only to magically discover that Life Is Beautiful.  Sure, he gets there.  But McConaughey's sex fiend dope head recognizes an opportunity to make a buck, and through his own greed witnesses the even more catastrophic avarice of Big Pharma.  If you really want to get your dander up then I recommend How To Survive A Plague for further viewing.

The Set-Up:  "Everybody makes book on something."  Here it is.  The granddaddy of all boxing stories.  Pulp Fiction, Snake Eyes, Raging Bull - they all wanna piece of The Set-Up.  Robert Ryan is Stoker, a mid 30s wannabe champion without a chance in hell of scoring the belt.  When his manager & coach make arrangements with his opponent they forget to tell Stoker to throw in the towel.  They've seriously under estimated the dying dog's determination.  The Set-Up is one of the most painful of noirs thanks to the impenetrable cloud of doom circling the hero. Ryan is the very definition of "poor bastard," from nearly the first frame you know he's screwed.    

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman:  Who doesn't want to see Mads Mikkelsen and Til Schweiger beat the stuffing out of Shia Labeouf?  That's what I call a good time out at the movies.  And the kid really does get the snot kicked out of him, but these poundings stem from a series of predictable setups.  Labeouf travels to Romania after his mother's ghost instructs him to strike out on an adventure, a man dies next to him on the plane, and he feels it necessary to deliver a spectral message to his daughter.  It's all very cute.  It's Eastern Europe so of course there are strippers and the mobsters.  Meh.  Not the worst thing I've seen this year, but I certainly won't remember a thing about it come Top Ten time.

The Black Power Mixtape:  From 1967 to 1975, a Swedish television crew shot hours upon hours of footage surrounding the Black Power movement in the United States.   Decades later it's assembled by director Goran Olsson into this masterful documentary.  The film touches upon the battling philosophies of Martin Luthor King, Stokely Carmichael, Malcom X, and Louis Farrakhan.  You've probably encountered much of this content in the past, but the Swedish perspective offers a fascinating angle that's not as condemning of us dumb Americans as you might think...although, it's appropriately harsh on the assholes of history.

Raw Deal:  "What do I care if you're dead?"  Edmund O'Keefe escapes from prison and plunges himself and two love struck dames into a vengeance quest against gangster Raymond Burr.  Like the best noirs, Raw Deal concerns itself with white hot hate, and revels in the resulting emotional torture.  I love how helpless O'Keefe is under the affections of both Claire Trevor & Marsha Hunt.  He just wants his dough, but these girls keep getting in the way!  Raymond Burr also gets an exceptional moment to showcase his villainy as he dumps scalding hot flambe upon a hapless dancing couple.  I can see where Lee Marvin gets his temper from in The Big Heat.

Leave Her To Heaven:  "Sometimes the truth is wicked."  Cornel Wilde stumbles into a diabolical Elektra complex when he locks eyes with Gene Tierney's gorgeous socialite.  The film chronicles a deeply disturbing love affair in which Wilde appears helpless against Tierney's fatherly obsession.  Once again...dames.  No one is safe from Tierney's perverted lust.  Not Wilde, his crippled kid brother, the family ranch hand, or any beast that dare grow in her belly can escape this monster.  Is Leave Her To Heaven the first color Film Noir as some have claimed?  Not sure that such a thing exists, but you can't doubt Gene Tierney's talent as a Femme Fatale.  She's stunningly gorgeous and filled with hate; to look upon her is to look upon the medusa.  Yer done son.

Fascination:  If you've been reading Matt's Week In Dorks then you've seen him slip into Jean Rollin madness.  He's been pestering me to jump on board this train for some time, and I finally broke down with this whackjob flick.  What's it all about?  I really don't know.  Some thief flees into a castle where two mysterious women keep dropping their clothes and ravaging his body.  Lots & lots of surreal imagery - a bloody butcher barn exchange opens the film, and it only gets more nonsensical from there.  Of course I enjoyed it.  Am I ready to go all in like Matt?  Hmmmmm...not yet.  I'll give another Rollin flick a try, but apparently, I need more in my films than dreamscape boobs.

Someone Behind The Door:  Two weeks ago I had never heard of this film, but then I encountered a random Best Of List online (which I currently can't track down) that put Someone Behind The Door at the very top of Charles Bronson's canon.  Better than Death Wish?  Mr. Majestyk?  Once Upon A Time In The West? Certainly not better than Death Wish 3!?!?!?!?  This random troll thought so, and I had to find out.  Well, I wouldn't rank it at the top of my list, but Someone Behind The Door is pretty damn good.  Bronson plays a drifter who stumbles into Anthony Perkins's hospital with some scratches on his arm and absolutely no recollection of who he is.  Amnesia...yeah, it's one of those.  Bronson is solid as this broken man hunting for identity, but it's really Anthony Perkins's show.  The kindly doctor is not so kind; he uses Bronson's blank slate as a means of punishing his adulterous wife, but how far will this revenge go - murder?  The man is Psycho after all.  Someone Behind The Door is certainly worth a look, and you might as well snag the DVD for a couple bucks online.

Just Like Being There:  A simple talking heads documentary detailing the resurgence of illustration in regards to concert and movie posters.  The stuff of internet dreams & nightmares.  I was definitely bit by the Mondo bug a few years back, and I had a streak there in which I desperately haunted ebay and other back channels for the must-have screenprints (Tyler Stout's Wrath of Khan & Assault on Precinct 13 being my favorite gets).  Now it's nearly impossible to score a Mondo on the release date, and I've lost the thrill of the hunt.  Of course, there are other companies out there doing work of equal value, even if it doesn't make Entertainment Weekly's radar.  Anyway, there isn't much to this doc.  It's cool to get some interviews from folks like Daniel Danger, Justin Ishmael, and Drew Struzan, but there is nothing new to be gained here unless you have only the slimmest of surface knowledge.

Kiss Me Deadly:  "You don't taste like anyone I know."  I've seen this flick a half dozen times now (twice this year now), and it has quickly risen to the top of my all time favorites.  Ralph Meeker's private dick picks up a crazy dame on the side of the road, and his life is propelled down a Kafkan spiral to Armageddon.  Full on Film Noir Horror, and Meeker is the blunt instrument of our ultimate doom.  Men don't get much tougher or downright stupid evil than Meeker's Mike Hammer.  Not sure if this is what Mickey Spillane had in mind, but it's the final statement on a genre of deadly stubborn, thick-headed misogynists.  And it's totally badass.  I have no idea why every random lady falls into Meeker's arms, or why he can't seem to give a damn about them in his quest for the Great Whatsit, but it is painfully funny to watch him bounce off these ladies until that final Fatale strikes.  What's in the box?  Something much worse than Gwyneth Paltrow's pretty little head.  Kiss Me Deadly is the strangest chunk of noir, and it climaxes in what is probably cinema's greatest grim climax.

Detour:  "For that kind of dough, I'd cut my leg off."  Film Noir is a genre of sadsacks, but the saddest sack of all is Tom Neal's lovelorn hitch-hiker.  While on the road to reclaim his starstruck lover, Neal thumbs his way into the wrong car.  As they often do, a corpse materializes.  Neal thinks the easiest option is to snatch it's identity and glide into the Golden State.  Naturally a woman appears to ruin his life.  Claudia Drake might not be the finest of actresses, but she nails the shrill vocal venom and that accompanying hateful stare.  Two pieces of scum made for each other, and the entertainment is watching them bring about their own ruin.  Not my favorite Noir, but whenever someone mentions the genre Detour is the first film that pops into mind.

City Lights:  The Wife & I watched this Saturday afternoon, and we had a blast laughing at The Tramp's romantic plight.  Chaplin falls hard for a blind flower girl, and when he becomes chummy with a drunk millionaire, he finds the monetary means to win her heart.  Unfortunately, the millionaire has no recollection of our man when he's sober.  Miscommunication and slapstick hijinks ensue.  As usual, Criterion does a bang-up job with this Chaplin release, and City Lights stands out even amongst other silent classics like Modern Times & The Gold Rush.  Those thinking that the silent era is best left to the historians are missing out on some serious comic gold.  I'd pit Chaplin against any number of generic Vince Vaughn duds.  Do yourself a favor and give The Tramp a try.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (8/25/13-8/31/12)

I caught my last film of the summer this week (You're Next) and I'm thankful that this latest horror gem made its way onto my Fistful of Summer 2013.  But the real big screen treat was catching Razorback at the AFI Silver.  Yeah, you read that right.  The Australian Giant Pig movie played this week at The American Film Institute.  What next?!?!?  Dead End Drive-In!?!?!  Uh...that's next week.  Ha!  We certainly do live in a Brave New World.  I've never been happier as a film fan living in the Washington DC area; this may not be L.A. or New York, but we're on our way.

The rest of the week was filled with blu rays and VOD.  Rewatched a couple of 2013 releases, and both Pain & Gain and Trance have shot to the top of my favorite films of this year.  The Rock and Rosario Dawson certainly deliver fun genre bending turns with their respective roles.  Very different, but bother are equally as demented.  The less said about Nicolas Cage in Frozen Ground the better.  How the mighty have fallen (I know, old news, right?).  Matthew McConaughey is certainly making a play for this year's Actor of the Year...too bad none of his movies are quite as good as his performances.  On two separate nights I fell asleep watching Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 1 & 2 - it's what Netflix was born to do.  And the absolute best movie I watched was A Boy And His Dog.  Holy cow!  It had been a while since my last viewing, and that little beast of a flick floored me.  Truly one of the best blu ray releases of the year.

Razorback:  "Somethin' about blowin' the shit out of a razorback brightens up my day!" This is not simply a Jaws knockoff - it's the ultimate Jaws knockoff! Forget Piranha, forget Orca. They might have the marine life, but Razorback takes the Man vs. Evil Nature plot and uses it to propel its narrative down a music video dreamscape so smokey & cacophonous Tony Scott & Terry Gilliam wake from terror sweats contemplating their failure to capture it's insanity. Bill Kerr is Jake Cullen, a Kangaroo hunter who trades one killing spree for another after a boar the size of a rhino carries off his infant grandson. Partnering with Canadian blank slate Gregory Harrison and wildlife tracker Arkie Whiteley, Kerr navigates an endless display of foreground skulls to rid the outback of the great beast. But is Razorback the real threat, or does the true face of pockmarked evil belong to Dicko Baker and his piggy pleasure squeals?  A lost 80s classic well worth your attention.

You're Next:  This was a deceptive little movie. After years of the internet hype machine, and a batch of mediocre-to-terrible trailers from Lionsgate, I was ready to dismiss You're Next as just another slasher flick in an already redundant genre. And for the first twenty or so minutes, I did not give a good god damn about anything happening on screen. Disgruntled family bickering, killers attack, yawn. But then Sharni Vinson (so bendy and proud in Step Up 3D) reveals herself as one tough cookie, her John Carpenter theme starts thumping, and suddenly I'm cheering for a Final Girl in a way I haven't since Ellen Ripley. You're Next is not a dour, dumb teen slasher. It's a crowd pleaser. A violent, root 'em toot 'em siege film that's got more in common with Assault on Precinct 13 than The Strangers. It's fun! And that's the message that's getting lost in the marketing.

The Frozen Ground:  A couple years back I was really championing the mega acting talents of modern day Nicolas Cage. The man was devastating the silver screen with mountaintop performances in The Bad Lieutenant, Kick Ass, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and Drive Angry. The internet had turned against Cage, but I was right there with him as he sank into Season of the Witch and Ghost Rider 2. Just fun goofy movies elevated by his commitment to absurdity. But then came Trespass. And Seeking Justice. And Stolen. Yeash. Just absolutely boring direct-to-dvd dreck. Sadly, that trend is not broken with The Frozen Ground. It's a far too serious and dull serial killer pursuit picture; it plays like an A&E attempt at The Silence of the Lambs. And haven't we had enough of those already. Cage is mundane and checked out. I'm sure John Cussack is having a ball playing Next Door Evil, but it's a character we've seen a dozen times before and often better. The Frozen Ground is going to be one of those movies I forget fifteen minutes after I write this sentence. Oh yeah, Vanessa Hudgens is a stripper/prostitute damsel. So what? She's abysmal.

Beverly Hills Cop:  The 80s Action Comedy was born with this Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production, and Eddie Murphy has never been better than he was here as the wisecracking fish-outta-water Axel Foley. His black man assault on rich white society is infectious.  Axel Foley is the cross hair on Reagan Era consumption, but Beverly Hills Cop is too damn funny to be a genuine cultural critique. Great music, great one-liners, great violence, great Bronson Pinchot. Anything beyond that is just the cherry on top.

Sweet Tooth Volume 1 - Out of the Deep Woods:  Here's a strange one I've been hearing good things about for quite some time now.  Given the fact that I've recently enjoyed Lemire's Underwater Welder, Trillium, and - *gulp* - Green Arrow, I thought it was high time that I tackled his weirdo post-apocalypse book.  The funny thing is, it's not that weird.  Sure, the world has gone to pot.  Children are born these days with antlers, hooves, and snouts, but so far Sweet Tooth displays some fairly typical world-gone-by tropes.   After his pop slips into the nether, our hybrid hero Gus attempts to break free from his religious fear with the help of sharpshooter woodsman, Mr. Jepperd.  But do friends exist in the Apocalypse?  Volume 1 certainly doesn't leave Gus in a better place than where we met him, and by all accounts life is going to get a whole helluva lot rougher before this series reaches its end.  The rest of the Sweet Tooth volumes are at the top of my shopping list for this year's Baltimore Comic Con.

Pain and Gain:  "When it started, America was just a handful of scrawny colonies. Now it's the most buffed, pumped up country on the planet. That's pretty rad." I've never cared for the Mark Wahlberg tough guy routine. I just don't buy it. At the same time, I'm not sure there are too many other actors out there that can achieve the comic heights of his self deprecation. Boogie Nights, The Other Guys, Pain & Gain. When he's playing dolts with delusions of grandeur, Wahlberg is your guy, and his Daniel Lugo just might be his greatest bonehead creation yet. Too bad he gets completely overshadowed by Dwayne Johnson's coke fiend Jesus freak, El Dad. His weak-link convict earns more laughs out of the depravity displayed on screen than any other Bayified scumbag. And speaking of Michael Bay, Pain & Gain is his crowning achievement as well. Where we've all chastised the fratboy for his homophobic, sophomoric, and misogynistic sight gags in the past, his pretty picture fart joke sensibilities are essential to Pain & Gain's success.  Based on True Events?  Yeah.  Crime for laughs?  Yeah.  Awkward?  Yeah.  But it's damn entertaining.

Mud:  The Matthew McConaughey renaissance continues with this Southern Gothic coming-of-age story. Two boys dealing with their own family melodrama discover McConaughey's cross healed hobo living in a boat in the forest. Jeff Nichols, the director of Shotgun Stories & Take Shelter, certainly knows how to pull great performances from his players, but I've found his screenplays lacking in the climax department. The narrative twists are telegraphed a mile out, and I'm more than a little full of the innocence-lost plots.  McConaughey makes it work, but the story is too rote to be memorable.

Beverly Hills Cop II:  "You can never have too much firepower."  After their successful collaboration on Top Gun, Jerry Bruckheimer, Don Simpson, and Tony Scott reteam for this hit-the-beats sequel.  Eddie Murphy is dragged back into Beverly Hills after Rony Cox's Captain Bogomil is gunned down by a member of the Alphabet Gang.  Again we get the Axel Foley ogling of swimming pools and strip clubs, but the one-liner attacks seem less important than the sunsets and explosions.  The comedy comes from the back & forth banter between Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, & Murhpy but this sequel is an action film first solidifying the Bruckheimer/Simpson formula that would go on to bust blocks with Bad Boys, The Rock, and even Pirates of the Caribbean.   It's a slick flick, and a lot of fun, but it's certainly not as refreshingly humorous as the original.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World:  Edgar Wright's bombastic celebration of all things geek - video games!  comics!  anime!  music!  movies!  manga!  hair dye! - is also our generation's answer to The Graduate.  Michael Cera is another lovelorn misanthrope struggling with his apathy when Mary Elizabeth Winstead's roller blading Amazon literally steps out of his dreams to wreak emotional as well as physical havoc.  If Scott Pilgrim wants to get with this beauty he must battle & defeat her League of Seven Evil Exes.  This brilliant structure centered around Street Fighter kombat allows for one hilarious gonzo encounter after the next; the highlights being Chris Evans's skater stunt team and Brandon Routh's telekinetic, vegan douche bag.  You probably have to be of a certain age to appreciate the surreal landscape, but for those folks in the know, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a biting mockery of our pop culture obsessed lives.  Love & Self Respect may be the answer, but can you achieve such goals while swamped in the imagination of others?  At the very least, Scott Pilgrim proves that Edgar Wright is more than just a Cornetto man, and he's probably the most visually enticing director to land under the umbrella of Marvel Studios.  Forget Avengers 2 and Batman vs Superman, Edgar Wright's Ant-Man is certainly the most fascinating superhero film of 2015.

Trance:  "Bring it to me."  A second viewing of Danny Boyle's latest sealed my appreciation for this neo-noir.  Trance begins as one of those long-con mindbender movies, but as the screenplay works its way to the end, the film reveals itself not as an M Night Shyamalan twister concerned with plot-flipping but a villainous deconstruction of character, proud in the onion its peeled.  The film has heists, gangsters, amnesia, violence, and quite possibly the most interesting Femme Fatale I've experienced (neo or otherwise).  And the fact that this Femme Fatale is played by Rosario Dawson, an actress I've adored for years but who never seems to get the right part, is a real treat unto itself.  This is not Kiss Me Deadly or Chinatown.  Trance is very much a Danny Boyle film, shot with vibrant digital photography and crafting a style decades removed from Sam Spade.  Boyle may have gotten more acolades for his last couple of Oscar baiters, but for my money Trance is the most exciting film he's made since 28 Days Later.

Welcome To The Punch:  I was hoping to follow one dashing James McAvoy scumbag with another, but unfortunately, this Cops & Robbers saga is nothing more than a long snooze.  Mark Strong is a gangland daddy drawn out of the underworld when his son catches a bullet.  It's McAvoy's job to bring him in, but when the boys in blue reveal themselves to be the true villains, the two rivals must team-up John Woo style.  'Course Eran Creevy is no 90s era John Woo, and the action is nothing more than quick cutting and smokescreen i.e. boring.

A Boy and His Dog:  You know how critics (and know-it-all bloggers like myself) will say, "They don't make movies like that anymore?"  And often times you can just simply dismiss that as the bullshit it truly is.  However, with A Boy and His Dog, that annoying sentiment is most certainly the case.  In fact, the real answer is that there is only one A Boy and His Dog.  In the year 2024, World War IV granted the Earth the Nuclear Wasteland it always feared.  It lasted four days and by the end of it all, the only occupations in existence were marauder and rapist.  Unless you're a telepathic dog, then you also have the option of being a female hunter.  That's right, A Boy and His Dog is the story of Don Johnson's rapist and the dog who helps him get his prey.  It's an ugly, mean, angry film.  A movie that could have only come from the mind of science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, and its a miracle that character actor LQ Jones managed to bring it to the silver screen.  Jones had directed only one other film before this, and would only direct an episode of The Incredible Hulk after this.  It is a masterpiece of the genre.  Yes, yes, yes A Boy and His Dog is the precursor to Mad Max and a half dozen other Apocalypse stories.  But this is not anti-hero cinema.  Don Johnson is an evil little shit.  But he's the product of our ignorance, our need for war.  Sure, it's all very hippy dippy, but you gotta respect the rage behind the pen and behind the camera.  Watching the special features on the Shout Factory bluray, you get an understanding of the massive quest it took to get the film adapted, and I am so excited for all the new fanboys this disc will certainly create.

--Brad