Matt’s Week in Dork! (11/10/13-11/16/13)

    I’m still working on several books, but at least I finished a couple this week.  Otherwise, I’ve been continuing my Criterion kick, with a few others to spice things up.

The Uninvited:  “Dinner will be late.  It’s the lamb being awkward.”  There’s something very strange about this ghost story.  A brother and sister buy a house with a bit too much character.  There’s a long, slow build to strange events, and a most British way of dealing with things.  And there are deeper layers to what’s going on.  An interesting film, if not an amazing one.

Coriolanus:  “Make you a sword of me.”  Ralph Fiennes is an engine of hate that grinds the enemies of Rome beneath his booted feet.  When politicians turn their backs on him, depths of revenge he will descend to will shake the very foundations of the world.  This adaptation of the Shakespeare play takes place in a modern-combat world that resembles the worst of the Balkan fighting.  Vile hate, bloody vengeance, and the passions of angry and proud men.  It’s Shakespeare, man.

Repo Man:  “I blame society.”  Punk rock meets weird in this wild, strange, and totally 80s flick.  A lot of philosophy and surrealism, as strange people of all sorts come together in a search for a mysterious car with a trunk full of…something.  Obviously, not a movie for everyone, this is a must see for those willing to try something unusual.  The music is great, the performances fun, and the whole movie is, uh, special.

Crash and Burn:  In a grim, wind swept desert of a future, conspiracies and danger abound in an outland TV station.  There are hints of The Thing, as tests are done to try to figure out who is a synth and who is human, who might be an shadow agent for the obligatory evil government.  This movie was from the golden age of Full Moon, when the low budget studio seemed like they were still trying, presenting some interesting ideas that were more ambitious than successful.  And when it comes to science fiction movies, I’ll take ambitious failures over lackadaisical successes.

Robot Wars:  I respect the ‘go-for-it’ attitude of this film.  However, the script isn’t good.  And the acting…well, it’s even less good.  I think, when all is said and done, it’s more of a robot tiff, than a robot war.  But it’s OK enough to get through the fairly short runtime.  The lead male feels like a half-assed Rowdy Roddy Piper.  And the two ladies are kinda terrible (including the relatively un-surgeried Lisa Rinna and Re-Animator’s Barbara Crampton).  An OK entry in the Full Moon robot based science fiction file, but not one to stress out about seeing.

Hotel Chevalier:  A short film, and first chapter to the full length film The Darjeeling Limited, this takes place in a hotel room in France, where a lost guy is found by a former love.  The relationship isn’t fully clear, but it’s not good.  There’s not a lot to it, but the music is nice, and it’s full of little Wes Anderson quirks.

The Darjeeling Limited:  “Where’s those nuts at?”  Three cracked brothers meet up on a train in India, for what’s supposed to be a spiritual journey.  But that doesn’t really pan out.  As they travel from one site to another, having little adventures, each one tries to fix their relationship.  But none of the brothers has any idea how to fix themselves, much less a tattered fraternal love.  Outside of a James Bond movie, I don’t think India has ever looked more beautiful, or more like somewhere I’d want to have an adventure.  And while the train, The Darjeeling Limited, feels like a typical Wes Anderson hyper-artificial set, it’s interesting seeming him filming on real locations, taking his odd style to places that aren’t built from the ground up for his purposes.  The movie is cute, sad (very sad), funny, and of course, exceptionally bent.

Godzilla VS Biollante:  The 90s Godzilla films (this 1989 film was the second in the run) were not good.  They’re cheaper looking and sillier, but silly in a not so fun sort of way.  I like that, starting with The Return of Godzilla (aka Godzilla 1985), they tried to bring it back to its monster movie roots, making Godzilla a force of nature, not an ally of humanity.  Sadly, they’re just not good, and this is no exception.  I like the monster design, if not the execution.  A weird plant-Godzilla hybrid is seriously weird, and seeing it shuffle across the countryside makes me wish the movie was better, because that could have been terrifying.

I Declare War:  “I have killing techniques.”  Visualizing the imaginative and violent play of childhood, this film feels like something out of my own youth.  I used to play ‘guns’ with kids in my neighborhood.  Of course, we didn’t have a sociopath playing, so it never got this dark.  In fact, I think we always kept things pretty civilized.  The movie is certainly interesting, and I’m sure will stir up some controversy because of the portrayal of kids and violence.

Prince Avalanche:  “I’m pretty optimistic about next weekend.”  2013 seems to be the year of the lone wo(man).  Being alone, being lonely, or being separate has been a key ingredient of many of the year’s films.  Two guys, working together out in the middle of frickin’ nowhere, deal with various versions of being lone and alone.  Products of the City, they’re finding a slice of something (happiness? peace?) out in the Wild.  The movie isn’t amazing, or especially profound.  But it’s an enjoyable watch, funny in its way, and worth checking out.  It also looks very nice.

Barbara:  I’m still fascinated with the Cold War, likely because of growing up in its shadow, and my odd feelings toward the 50s and 60s that I won’t get into here.  I’m also interested in different perspectives on events, places, or times.  This drama focuses on a woman living under scrutiny in East Germany, while she tries to work at a hospital, and seems to be planning some kind of escape to the West.  She’s a cold figure, beautiful, but unapproachable and reserved.  But as the film progresses, I became more and more curious about just who this woman was.  Seeing a more idyllic, less industrial nightmare version of East Germany makes the ever watchful Big Brother that much more sinister.  What seems ubiquitous in an urban sprawl seems horribly out of place in the green and beautiful countryside.

Thor: The Dark World:  I continue to scratch my head as I watch this massive Marvel comics mythology building on the big screen.  As far as I can figure, it’s unprecedented.   Multiple series, all connecting into a greater whole.  It’s madness, and it’s wonderful.  And I’m not even a Marvel fan.  The second outing for the God of Thunder isn’t quite as cohesive as the first film, and I don’t think it’s overall, quite as good.  However, it’s still a great deal of fun.  I love that the movie spends relatively little time on Earth, cranks up the mad sci-fantasy, yet still keeps those little bits of awkward humor (the scene on the subway cracks me up).  I’m not sold on the style of filmmaking, which feels a bit too shaky, and blurred.  Which in this day and age means kind of generic.  Though that was hardly so extreme as to ruin the film.  It’s hard for me to review the movie, honestly.  I’m just dumbstruck by the fact that this is happening.  There’s a Guardians of the Galaxy film coming.  They’re really doing it.  How has this come to be?

    On Friday night, we met again for the graphic novel book club.  This time around we discussed Boxers & Saints, a historic fiction (with fantasy elements).  The group had a lively discussion, with lots of different opinions considering everyone seemed to like the book.

Summer with Monika:  A young woman trying to find love in the world, and a young boy with his head in the clouds come together for a bit of romance.  Their awkward awakenings to sex and love are charming and melancholic in that Bergman way.  And their adventure on a boat is full childlike wonder on the one hand, and emerging sexuality on the other.  Unlike so many movies of this type, it shows the consequences of actions.  There are several moments when you feel like the movie is going to end, when it reaches the point a movie normally would cut to credits, but then it tortures you with an ‘and then…’  It’s rough when things go from idyllic and pretty to…well…not.

Bad Day at Black Rock:  “I live a quiet, contemplative life.”  A guy gets off a train at a town full of secrets.  Things don’t go too well after that.  Spencer Tracy seems a bit too old for the part he’s playing, but he’s quite good.  And as he and Robert Ryan face off, it gets uncomfortable.  Lots of good character actors play goons of one sort or another.  It gets mean.  Real mean.

Rules of the Game:  They didn’t have to deal with the Hayes Codes in France, I guess.  This funny, but ultimately somewhat tragic examination of upper-class twits is sometimes disconcertingly contemporary.  It’s funny, it’s risqué, and it works well as a time capsule from another time.  The director, Jean Renoir, also has an important supporting role in the film, and is quite good.

    So, over the course of the week, I was able to finish Boxers & Saints, and A Manual for Creating Atheists.  Both were pretty good in their own way.  Not too much else going on.  But by next month’s graphic novel club meeting, I’ve got to come up with my choice.  I’m weighing some options.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (5/26/13-6/1/13)

This week may look deceptively small in the world of Dorkery, but dang, it seriously packed a punch.  Once upon a time, I bitched & moaned about the lack of culture in Washington DC...at least as far as the movie scene was concerned - still lots of killer music venues & events to discover.  But with the recent additions of The Alamo Drafthouse & The Angelika Film Center (along with the old standbys of the AFI Silver, West Side Cinema, & E Street Cinema) Washington DC now has an amazing lineup of movie houses.  You can't go a weekend without a vintage screening of The Wrath of Khan or Rocky Horror Picture Show.  And this week Matt & I finally witnessed Bruce Lee's iconic smasher, Enter The Dragon over at The Alamo, and I crossed off another Cinematic Resolution with Fellini's hipster classic 8 1/2.  And our big screen future sill includes Jaws 3D, Top Gun, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, & The Silence of the Lambs.  This truly is the Silver Screen paradise our Nation's Capital deserves.

However, as fun as those big screen classics were, the film that ruled this week was Rolling Thunder.  Shout Factory finally brought this grindhouse classic to blu ray on Tuesday, and I will be forever grateful.  I remember catching a VHS watch a decade back, enjoyed it a little, but couldn't quite see Quentin Tarantino's obsession.  Now I'm one of the converted, and it's a strong contender for this year's Top DVD Release.  If you're at all interested in exploitation cinema than you have to add this sick puppy to your collection.

Running Scared:  In this neon remake of Kurosawa’s Stray Dog, Paul Walker screams through some sort of New Yorker accent as the criminal goomba charged with stashing his bro’s cop killing revolver. Director Wayne Kramer leaves the slick Vegas cool of The Cooler behind, and attacks his audience with this vile & violent decent down the felonious rabbit hole. Once you get past the accent and the hysterics, Walker ain’t half bad.  The absurdity of the adventures he forces upon his family make Running Scared a must-see for grindhouse fans.  This is certainly not a wannabe exploitation a la Planet Terror, Machete, and The Expendables.  Running Scared is the contemporary "real deal" equivalent to those glory days of Roger Corman kill fests.  This flick relishes the muck of sex & violence; shines a bright red bulb on the gyrating horrors forced upon its characters and smiles at your revulsion or – gulp – perverted entertainment.  Sure, it has its winks too. Karl Roden’s demented admiration for The Duke. The Albino Pimp’s pathetic imitation of Tony Montana. The nosferatu shadows cast by the husband/wife child killing combo.  But there is an honesty to the exploitation that seems lacking from the pale pretenders. With Quentin Tarantino you’re often in on the joke, laughing along with or at his monstrous nods to popcorn past. Wayne Kramer’s Running Scared is sincere filth.  Over the top.  Gross.  Uncomfortable.   Wrong-headed.  But Kramer means it.

What I Did:  Jason’s comics are often painfully funny. He loves to riff on genre, scoring good chuckles from planting Athos on Mars or sending Hitler through the time tunnel.  In this collection of early shorts, there are a couple of good laughs, but mostly it's heartache to be found.  In particular, the coming of age saga “Hey Wait” had me wincing.  I recognize a lot of myself in the fanboy gushing over Neal Adams’ Batman, and their monster squad rules, but then the tale takes that Stand By Me turn, and Jason drops a surreal hiccup in the timeline.  What the cartoonist leaves us with is an event that permanently shapes, if not breaks, a life.  A moment of youth that forever shadows a sad existence. That’s not fun.  But it’s got bite. And Jason excels at bite.

Enter The Dragon:  AKA the film in which Bruce Lee puts all the chips down on the table. Not satisfied with his treatment in Hollywoodland, but riding the wave of a couple of international hits, Lee goes for broke with this Kung Fu Hustle and the result is an action masterpiece with a serious side order of cheese.  His injections of the “Fighting Without Fighting” philosophy add a fanciful flavor to the violence, but when he lands on Mortal Kombat island for a little sibling slaughter revenge, that dime store zen must be ignored.  The production balances out Lee's howling wisdom with the righteous Jim Kelly and the ultra smooth, bad luck sex machine John Saxon.  The trilogy of badasses face off against Jim Henson's evil twin (Bob Wall!) and Mister Han's interchangeable slice & dice hands.  Bruce Lee is a monster of muscle, and it's seriously delightful to watch him storm through their brittle bodies.
 

Repo Man:  "It happens sometimes.  People just explode.  Natural causes."  This is a wicked little comedy.  It's not so much Ha-Ha funny, but Alex Cox obviously understands punk culture and its reactionary anger to 1980s consumerism.  An odd, jokey tone tinged with real bitterness.  In a lot of ways, this is the perfect double bill with John Carpenter's They Live, another film brimming with weird sci-fi anger expertly targeted against the masters of the world - F You Reagan!  Emilio Estevez is a suburban drifter angry at the world for some mysterious reason.  Enter Harry Dean Stanton, a man with purpose, a Repo Man.  Together this dynamic duo snatch back the property of those who dare to live above their means.  And, of course, they're just one wrong repo away from total thermo nuclear warfare!  I'm fascinated that Criterion added this to their collection, but I'm beyond pleased with their Special Edition treatment.  A gorgeous disc, and an essential addition for genre hounds.

Savage Wolverine #5:  Frank Cho's run on this needless Wolverine spin-off comes, thankfully, to a close.  There were some great panels along the way (just look at that bastard snikt his claws into the jolly green giant), but the story left me cold.  Raptors.  Shanna the She-Devil.  Gorillas.  Man-Thing.  Hulk.  Whales.  I love all those things, but the story never brings them together in any kind of satisfying manner.  Maybe it's time to pair Cho with an actual writer, as it's obvious he needed a firmer narrative to hang his big booty action upon.

The Wake #1:  Scott Snyder & Sean Murphy's ten issue mini-series begins like the very best Michael Bay 'splosionfest.  An exiled scientist is recruited into a top secret government project populated with other quirky exiled scientists.  There is an apocalypse coming, but what's it all got to do with a teethy fishman?  Not sure, but I'm happy to find out.  And I'm happy to be enjoying Snyder's writing again.  His last batch of Bat-Books have been tiring; The Wake looks to be a real shot in the arm.

Hangover Part III:  This is a film I saw. I don’t really have much of an opinion. Did I laugh? Yeah. A few times.  But only when the film sinks to its most violently disturbed - Ken Jeong smothering a rooster, that's hilarious right?  Sure, I enjoyed the hangover detective work of the first film, and piecing together their drunken mistakes like a fratboy Sherlock Holmes.  The second films was a sad, pig bursting remake.  But this time the producers actually seem to think we care what happens in the lives of these sophmoric nimrods.  Maybe you care, I certainly don't.  John Goodman steps out of a Coen Brothers flick to scream threats at our trio of dunces, and Bradley Cooper manages to keep his dignity while Zack Galifinakis bulls his way through the china shop.  Attempts at originality just birth character repetition.  Meh.

8 1/2:  Is this the greatest movie about movies?  Some certainly seem to think so, but I must claim ignorance since Federico Fellini's surrealist exploration of craft left me scratching my head.  Although, I certainly see where Woody Allen stole his entire career from.  Marcello Mastroianni holds a certain charm, but as he bashes his ego upon various sexual prey, I found myself growing aggravated with his rich white man problems.  He's an impotent fool, tortured by the gifts that life has mysteriously granted him.  Where is the auteur?  All I see is nerves.  Maybe that's the point?  Maybe I'm just not the creatively haunted soul this film is meant for?  But if we were going to get this mopey, I could have used a bit more of the dreamscape and less of Mastroianni's lifeless reality.  Well, at least I can now check this off the bucket list.

Almost Silent:  The first half is a concoction of brief, repetitive strips mostly circling the monstrous antics of Draculas, Frankensteins, Cave Men, and Zombies.  The second tale is one of love lost, found, and lost again.  Typical sad-funny Jason work.  But with You Can't Get There From Here, the mad cartoonist strikes the heart with a sadsack tale of Frankenstein Love - where Igor might just be the most sympathetic character around.  And for The Living and The Dead, Jason tackles the world of George Romero and discovers his most bittersweet romance yet.  The early work of Jason might not be as strikingly unique as his more recent genre benders, but it also seems like the nutty Norwegian can do no wrong.

Rolling Thunder:  "You learn to love the rope."  In Taxi Driver, screenwriter Paul Schrader delved into the isolation and depression experienced by the returning Vietnam Vet.  It's a masterful exploration of loneliness and obsession helmed with revelatory craft by Martin Scorsese.  Released a year later, Rolling Thunder travels similar themes but under the watch of John Flynn (The Outfit) the result is a much more exploitative and angry vehicle.  After spending years in a POW camp, William Devane returns to Texas only to discover a son that doesn't recognize him, and a wife with a replacement lover.  Hiding behind his mirrored sunglasses, Devane stifles the rage below the surface, refusing to unleash his anger till a roving gang of borderland goons invade his hamlet home.  He's left mutilated on the kitchen floor, but it's just the excuse his temper has been waiting for - on comes the hook hand, then the sawed-ff.  Partnering with Tommy Lee Jones, the two killers cross into Mexico for a bloody whore house showdown.  Rolling Thunder is a shocking beast of a film.  It's success hinges on it's fury, but the heat is only as strong as the undeniable sadness inflicted upon Devane at the very beginning of the film.  The quiet moments between father & son.  His nodding acknowledgement at his wife's infidelity.  And when it's time to Death Wish, the audience is just as thankful for the character to have a mission to let loose biblical terror.  Taxi Driver is for the contemplative cineaste.  Rolling Thunder is for the Old Testament avengers in the audience.

--Brad