Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/9/14-2/15/14)

    This week started with something of a mini-vacation, and it was kind of awesome.  On Sunday, I saw Monuments Men with Ben and West Side Story with Brad and a group of friends.  Great.  On Monday, though, Brad and I went nuts.  We headed in to DC to visit Lee Marvin and Dashiell Hammett’s graves at Arlington, then walked over to the World War I monument, then the Martin Luther King monument, then on to the Air & Space museum to see the original model of the Enterprise from Star Trek.  The MLK monument was very cool.  And, I'm guessing because of its proximity, they've cleared the area around the WWI monument, so you can actually find it now.  That's a welcome change from the serious effort it took to uncover the right hidden path you used to have to take to find it.  From there, we headed over to Mad Hatter, the bar/restaurant on Connecticut for a delicious meal.  Then it was back to Brad’s for a movie (China Gate), and then off to the AFI Silver to see Point Blank on the big screen.  Awesome.  Feeling pretty darned devastated after such a busy day, I crashed hard and had a good sleep, only to get up Tuesday morning and head over the Cinema Arts to watch all the Oscar Nominated shorts.  Busy, busy couple of days.  My last few vacations have been a touch lackluster, but this one was darned fine right from the start.

The Monuments Men:  To me, the argument that saving art while war is raging was somehow unworthy is a lot like the argument that spending money on space science while people are starving is unworthy; short sighted and missing the point.  Art, literature, architecture; these are the ways in which we as a species achieve culture.  Culture is the only thing that separates us from wild animals, and I think it’s worth remembering, protecting, and sacrificing for.  It doesn’t lessen the cost of war.  It doesn’t cheapen life.  It gives life its meaning and a people their immortality.  We know the Egyptians through the works they left, we understand the struggles of the Renaissance through the art and literature those people left behind.  We have the United States Constitution because men thought to write it down.  All that is just to get out of my head some of my frustration about the ignorant and petty complaints about the movie’s very concept.  Besides that, these weren’t men being taken from the front line; they were guys who would otherwise not have taken an active role in the war, who ended up helping to defeat not just Hitler and the Nazis, but their very idea.  The movie itself feels like something of a throwback to the war/caper films of the 1950s.  I could easily see Gregory Peck, Lee Marvin, Anthony Quayle, Robert Shaw and others of that time stepping into the various roles.  As such, it’s a bit slower paced than many modern films, and perhaps a bit sentimental.  But I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  This is a movie that I’d watch as a companion to a viewing of Band of Brothers, The English Patient, Downfall, and Black Book.

West Side Story:  This is my favorite version of Romeo and Juliet…including the original.  The songs are good, colors are vibrant, and the actors are charming, if not always that great.  I like how it’s a grand, epic musical version of all those 50s ‘youth gone wild’ movies.  ‘Hell cats in hot pants,’ and all that.  Plus, there’s a lot of stuff about life as an immigrant, trying to blend into the established American tapestry, itself already a hodgepodge of various other ethnicities.  One of the better musicals, and one that I find myself enjoying more with each viewing.  Seeing it this time around on the big screen was a special treat.

China Gate:  That’s a whole lot of ugly.  Awful people root around in the bombed out ruins of pre-US involvement Vietnam, while the Chinese funnel weapons from Moscow.  The French Foreign Legion troops who feature in the film are all nasty customers, but the lead is the worst.  A horrible racist and a general scumbag.  And he’s ostensibly the film’s hero.  Though in truth, ‘half-cast’ Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson) is the real hero.  Nasty business, brutal twists, horrible cruelty, and one heck of a climax, followed by one ugly action scene.  Nat King Cole also makes an appearance, and is really good.

Point Blank:  One of my favorite Tough Guy movies, this John Boorman experiment in crazy is so tough, so rough, so relentlessly nasty, I’m sure most viewers couldn’t handle it.  Lee Marvin plays Walker (a name switch for Richard Stark’s venerable badass Parker), a man who wants his money.  And he’s going to take down or out whoever he needs to in order to get his cut.  Filled with wild sequences, weird sound work, visual flourishes, and awesome character actors, it’s a movie you can’t unsee.  It’s not that they don’t make movies like this anymore.  They never made movies like this.

2014 Academy Award Nominated Animated Short Films:  The animated shorts for 2013 were a nice mix of style and content.  Disney’s retro-inspired Get a Horse is cute, but at the end of the day feels like something Warner Bros. would have done a decade back when trying to recapture old glory.  Room on the Broom took a bit to build, but won me over after I was initially put off by the animation style.  Feral was the most visually impressive and interesting, but I’ll admit, I kind of tuned out near the end.  I wanted to like it more than I did, and I’m not sure just how I’d have done it differently.  Mr. Hublot is cute, and the CGI Steampunk universe sure looks pretty.  It has some fun and clever gags and was a pleasant viewing.  I don’t think it will stay with me in the long run.  Possessions is tough for me.  On the one hand, I found technical aspects of the animation to be very irritating (what appeared to be a lot of separate, CG rendered 3D elements, moving stiffly, like a slightly more advanced version of old flash animations…or like models of people made out of folded card-stock, then stop motioned…only in CG).  But I liked the weird little Japanese mythology based story.  Actually, I liked the story a lot.  There were a couple honorable mentions shown along with the five nominees, and among those I found my favorite.  The Missing Scarf, narrated by George Takei, left me kind of thunderstruck.  It’s so funny, so uplifting and depressing, so simple, yet do darned complex.  It was a highlight of my short film filled day.  Pixar’s The Blue Umbrella felt more like a coffee commercial or something.  It looks good, sure.  But as far as stories go, it’s pretty dull and obvious.  If I just watched it, with no idea that it was a short film, I would assume at some point a product would be put in front of me, and I’d be told that I should buy it, be it the afore mentioned coffee, or a car, or a dating website.  And finally, they played A la Francaise, about a bunch of chickens at Versailles.  It had a couple funny gags, but was mostly just a head scratcher.

2014 Academy Award Nominated Live Action Short Films:  I can’t say I’m surprised, but these films seemed primarily in the vain of ‘we’re gonna make you feel really bad about life’/meaningful films.  One about a kid with a terminal illness, one about child soldiers, one about an abused woman.  In fact, only one of them was at all enjoyable to watch.  Now, I get that some people want to use art to make a point, to make people aware of ills in the world.  And I certainly wouldn’t begrudge them that.  Film is a great medium to discuss things like that.  OK.  But come on.  My favorite of the bunch was Pitaako Mun Kaikki Hoitaa?, if for no other reason than it was uplifting and didn’t make me think about slitting my wrists.  In fact, it was the only one of the films (despite clear attempts to manipulate my emotions in others) that brought tears to my eyes.  They were tears of laughter, but tears none the less.  I also liked The Voorman Problem, which was very well put together and put me in mind of old Outer Limits episodes or Ray Bradbury stories.  Helium feels somewhat cloying, like a Hallmark Channel movie.  Aquel No Era Yo was brutally depressing and goes to exactly the places you expect it to go.  Avant Que De Tout Perdre is very well put together and very tense, and I guess ultimately emotionally satisfying.  But it’s kind of lost among the depression.

    Tuesday night, I finished reading the second volume of Thor: God of Thunder.  Excellent series.  I’m very interested in seeing where they take it in the future.  Love the art, love the story.

Sweetwater:  Not at all the goofy, silly film I expected, this Western isn’t great, but it’s not bad.  A villainous, half-mad preacher is trying to set up his own kingdom, and he’s willing to crush anyone who doesn’t jump in line.  A crotchety old law man and a revenge fueled young wife have something to say about it, though.  I can’t get too excited about the film, but it’s not bad.  And if you’re in the mood for a different Western, it’s worth giving a watch.  January Jones doesn’t suck, too.  That’s kind of a shock.  Ed Harris is doing Jeff Bridges doing Rooster Cogburn.  OK.

The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box:  I enjoyed this little slice of Victorian (?) fantasy adventure, but it’s not particularly good.  The acting is fine.  The production looks fine.  The whole thing is fine.  But it doesn’t pop; it doesn’t capture the imagination.  Passable, but not noteworthy.

How I Live Now:  I had a hard time getting into this movie, in part because the lead character is such a snot, and I’m not fully satisfied with the ending.  However, excepting the very beginning and the very ending, it’s an excellent, beautifully shot film about surviving during a war.  It’s steeped in the all consuming, depressing fear of nuclear war that I grew up with, reminding me of stories and films, and imaginings of that era.  The countryside is beautiful, and it sets the horrors in that much more of a stark contrast.  It’s hard to say you enjoy a movie like this, because it’s pretty dark and depressing.  But this is a good take on the subject.  Not especially original, but well told.

    On Wednesday, the expected last day of my vacation, Brad and I headed out to visit Big Planet comics, and generally goof about.  At some point, it was decided that I would join him and mutual friend Darren at the Alamo for the new Robocop, a film I’ll admit, I wasn’t too interested in.  Still, a movie’s a movie.  And since the whole region was flipping out over an approaching snow storm, it was a nice place to get away from the raving panic.

Robocop (2014):  This doesn’t suck.  And that right there isn’t something I expected to be able to say.  Was it great?  No.  Did we need a Robocop remake?  No.  Should it have at least been rated R?  Of course.  But it wasn’t awful.  There were enough new elements to make it not completely pointless, but there wasn’t anything especially ground breaking.  I liked the soundtrack.

    The snow storm hit, and even this jaded Northerner had to admit, it was a lot of snow in a short time.  But, it was also really cold, so if you shoveled it early, it was easy as pie.  Later, it began to rain, and the melting process began.  Whatever the case, I ended up with an unexpected day of vacation, but was pretty groggy, and spent much of my day zoned out on the couch.

The Sentinel:  A horror movie very much of its time, with all the requisite parts.  Morally bankrupt men, an emotionally devastated female lead, uncomfortable sexuality, jarring music, Satan, a-hole cops, and so much more.  If you’re into 70s horror and don’t feel like watching The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror, The Omen, The Devil’s Rain, Susperia, or Rosemary’s Baby, well then, there’s this.  Lead Christina Raines is half way between Brooke Adams and Kate Jackson.  Not a bad actress, and very cute in that fresh-faced 70s starlet kind of way.  The movie?  It's OK, I guess.

The Haunting:  I’m not much of a haunted house fan, but this is one of the better entries in that particular horror staple.  The actors are good, the characters interestingly broken, and the lavish sets impressive.  I like the overall sense of Gothic dread, though it has few actual scares.  I don’t mean jumps, I mean scares.  Any movie can be jumpy, few get to the root of fear, and this one doesn’t.  Still, it’s a pretty good movie.

The Old Fairy Tale: When the Sun Was God (aka: Army of Valhalla):  This is a three part story; I’m assuming it was originally for TV.  It’s a mostly realistic Medieval epic about a corrupt prince stealing the throne, and the struggle of his people to set things right again.  There is a fantasy element, with some magic and occasional acts of gods, but overall, it’s fairly grounded.  The final episode suffers a lot from budgetary constraints.  The finale involves a building being on fire and some other stuff going on, which looks pretty bad and did kind of take me out of things, especially since it had looked pretty good up until then.  I liked the cast and a lot of the story, and think that for a ten year old television production from Poland, it looks pretty good.  Some technical issues and iffy use of music aside, it’s worth tracking down if you’re in the mood something set in pre-Christian Poland.

Flying Down to Rio:  While nowhere near as good as say, Singin’ in the Rain, this movie is a heck of a lot of fun.  And, being made in that magical pre-Code era, it’s delightfully naughty.  The sexual innuendo…if you can even call it innuendo, is wonderful.  Racy talk about fast living and having fun.  None of the prudishness of the 40s and 50s, the so called ‘good old days’ of separate beds, moms in the kitchens, and dads smoking their pipe while the kids watch TV.  These were dashing dandys and brassy dames, dancing, drinking, and getting into all kinds of…well, whatever it was, it was hotsy-totsy.

Ender’s Game:  This was a heck of a lot better than the trailer made out.  But it still wasn’t amazing.  It’s the kind of science fiction film I’d like to see a lot more of, but with more punch and less retread.  I know it’s based off a novel, but that novel was covering some old sci-fi ground when it came out (owing more than a little to Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, among others).  The cast does a pretty good job, again, better than the trailer led me to believe.  And it does deal with some interesting ideas.  One major problem I’ve got with it is that it feels like the pilot episode of a series that I know didn’t get picked up.  It ends at the point I started to really engage.  I know there are the novels, but I’m not an Orson Scott Card fan, so I’m not likely to read them.  And the movie seems to have tanked, so we're not likely to see more.  Still, maybe this movie will pick up a certain cult following among younger viewers.  It’s got the potential.  Who can say?

Rain:  The cold, determined villainy of the religious fanatic, the hypocritical hollowness of the bellowing preacher, and the ill-fated desire to impose spiritual purity on others.  Dang.  This movie, is as relevant today as it was in 1932.  What the prudes would do with the imposition of the Hayes codes, what the prudes had recently done with Prohibition, what the prudes will normally get up to if they’re not fought at every turn.  Ruining joy and happiness for everyone who has it.  Joan Crawford is a fun loving party girl.  Yeah, she’s got troubles.  Her life wasn’t so good.  But now she’s finding pleasure and joy where she can.  She even meets a guy who’s A-OK with her, just as she is.  Well, wild-eyed preacher Alfred Davidson and his sycophantic lady friends can’t let that stand.  He’ll work every angle to break down this free spirit, destroy her life, and ruin her happiness.  I really liked this movie.  Love Joan Crawford and her story arc.  Love the message the movie sends and the middle finger it boldly flips at people who feel they have the right to impose their morality on others.  Also, Guy Kibbee is an especial treat as the bartender/innkeeper Joe Horn.  I’m sure I’ve seen this guy around, but he was so good in the role I’m gonna have to track down more of his work.

    And that’s about it.  But ‘it’ was pretty awesome.  Haven’t had that much fun packed into a week in a while.  I always like a trip in to DC.  Frankly, any trip makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, but walking around DC, even in the frigid cold, is very cool.  None of the claustrophobia I used to get in Boston (not to mention, it’s a hell of a lot cleaner).  Every time I go there, part of me wants to find a way to live there.  But I don’t see that happening any time soon.  Or while I’m single.  So, you know.  Ever.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/17/12-2/23/13)

    I scraped out my penny jar and went out to see a matinee with Ben, Brad, and Paul on Sunday morning.  Five dollars.  Not too bad.  We saw the new Die Hard film (review to follow).  But what I really took away from it was how bloody awful the trailers were.  Scary Movie 6?  Holy crap, it looks terrible.  Like Donovan’s Reef, where you see where you know everyone must have thought they were being funny, but can’t for the life of you figure out why.  And then…the trailer for The Heat.  Good sweet crap.  It’s like looking in to the abyss, and knowing in your very soul that it looks back at you.  Every moment of the trailer was like having my scrotum wound up on a spinning wheel.  Only really unpleasant.  Anyway, I really don’t know how I got so many movies and such in this week.  Because I also did a lot of reading and some writing.  Not to mention some solid music listening time.  Whatever the case, it was a good week.

A Good Day to Die Hard:  Look, I’m gonna say something that will almost certainly earn me some hate, and I know frustrates the crap out of my co-Dork Brad.  I really like the first Die Hard film.  It’s a fun, silly 80s action movie with lots of cool stunts and stuff blowing up (though not even one of my favorites of that time/genre).  But I absolutely HATE Die Hard 2 in every way.  And I think the rest of the sequels are stupid, though mildly entertaining.  This new one is no different.  The script is crap.  The acting (most likely because of the script) is crap.  And yeah, it feels PG-13, because except for one bit of CG blood, the violence is very restrained.  But a lot of stuff blows up, and frankly, that’s all I expect from this series.  They’re not good.  Honestly, they’re not even memorable.  And I never find myself thinking, “I need to watch a Die Hard film.”  I think the only one of the sequels I’ve ever seen a second time was 2, and that was because Brad wanted me to give it another try (still didn’t like it).  Beyond the first one, they’re all pretty meh.  And so it is with this latest entry.  I had fun watching it, but in a week, I won’t remember it. (edit: this latter prediction was brilliantly prescient -Matt of 5 days later).

Destroy All Planets:  Gammera doesn’t think too much of aliens in their striped ball-rings.  Wacky fun ensues when two boy-scouts play havoc with a submarine.  Like some late Godzilla films, this one relies WAY too much on stock footage, showing large chunks of previous films’ Gammera battles in order to pad its run-time.  Clearly, a solid script would have been a bit more helpful.  Once the kids get on the alien ship, it gets a bit better.  Actually, everything that’s not monotonous stock footage is pretty good.  The aliens are freaky.  And it’s kind of horribly violent.  But it also finds a giant turtle riding a giant squid-alien like a jet ski, so all’s fair, I guess.

Attack of the Monsters:  “You’re dumb.”  Trouble makers are out looking for a space ship when they get more than they bargained for.  By this point, these Gammera films were pretty much goofy kids films.  None of the seriousness of the first couple is left.  And having the little kids as leads is rough.  The crappy marching music that plays continuously is aggravating.  I like that this one goes to another world, which makes for plenty of weird things to see.  This is another one of those movie from this era where people don’t seem to know the difference between various cosmic bodies.  In this case, stars and planets seem to mean the same thing.  I remember seeing a lot of movies that talk about going to other galaxies, when really they were talking about other star systems.  Seems basic, but I guess looking in books was too hard.  Whatever the case, untrustworthy space babes are always a concern when traveling between worlds.  Keep watch!

Mmm.  Brains!

Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (aka An American Love Story):  Entirely too made-for-TV.  Though the story of Jefferson and Hemings could make for a fascinating movie, this ain’t it.  Sam Neill is dashing (in a sophisticated intellectual sort of way) as Thomas Jefferson, and Carmen Ejogo is ridiculously fetching as Sally Hemings.  This had to have been a complex and fascinating love affair, as Jefferson was a complicated dude, and from what I’ve read, Hemings was quite a woman.  However, here we have Jefferson seeing a beautiful woman and wanting her.  I have to imagine if it was just a beautiful woman he wanted, he could have had his pick.  And while Ejogo is amazingly beautiful and seems to be a talented enough actress, there isn’t enough in the script to make her seem like someone interesting enough to woo Jefferson.  It comes off as, well as what it is, a Hallmark made for TV movie.  It feels a bit like a visit to a theme park, like all the surface is there, but the content missing.  The old age make-up is generally not good, mostly looking like people have lumps of clay splashed on their faces.  In the end, it’s a different look at Jefferson than one might be used to, though again, not a very deep one.  I feel like there was so much more that could have been done here.  Instead, what we get is one of those high school text book renditions of history.  A few dates, a few names, a couple of anecdotes for color, and done.  No heart or passion.  No dirt under the nails.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers:  “I don’t have any friends, Doctor Kibner.”  The original is a classic.  But this is one of those rare-breed, serious, and worthy remakes.  Starting on some distant planet, we see weird alien life launch into space, like plant or fungal spoor.  It eventually descends on our unsuspecting world in a rain storm, and the horror begins.  Right from the start, there is an unsettling, off balance feel to the movie.  Weird angles, suspicious faces, and creepy lighting.  Paranoia is whipped up with gusto.  This is a story archetype that is one of the fundamentals of science fiction.  Who can you trust?  Is the person you know and love really who you think they are?  Or are they something else, something sinister and alien?  On of the more obvious and frequent uses of the concept was in the anti-Communist films so popular in the 50s, but it goes far beyond that, becoming a timeless look at our fears of the Other.  We can never really know who someone is outside of ourselves.  And can we really know even that?  And this is 70s PG, so there is some strong language, some pretty nasty violence, and a bit of nudity.  It really isn’t a kid-friendly film.

Just Before Dawn:  The 70s weren’t quite over for the makers of this film.  Was there some kind of subconscious fear of rural life, or the ‘country’ that had infected city folk?  So many movies about the horrors of leaving the city were being made.  Right off, this has a dash or two of Texas Chainsaw.  But the way it’s shot actually reminds me of early Sam Raimi (remember when he was good?) and early Peter Jackson.  In fact, the very opening, looking down through the hole in the roof of an ancient chapel felt right out of Peter Jackson’s low budget horror days.  Greg Henry leads a group of young people into the mountains for some camping.  George Kennedy is the local ranger who warns ‘em not to go.  Them woods got the giggling fat guys in ‘em, and nobody wants that.  Not to mention all the twins.  And as The Slammin’ Salmon tells us, twins are disgusting, man (not my actually feelings, all you twins out there).  It doesn’t really cover any new territory.  This was all well explored country by 1981.  But, it still has a certain charm.  And while I can’t say I especially liked any of the characters, unlike most modern horror movies, I didn’t dislike them.  Plus, Deborah Benson is cute, especially when she lets her hair down.

Prince Valliant:  “Don’t bring in religion to confound me!”  The venerable comic gets a 50s Technicolor treatment, staring a young Robert Wagner.  Throw in Janet Leigh (good golly, but she’s lovely in this, and Debora Paget is nothing to sneeze at, either) and James Mason, and you’ve got something.  It’s Christian Viking VS. Pagan Viking in a duel for the hearts and souls of Scandia.  The locations are beautiful, enhanced occasionally with some pretty good mat paintings.  One thing that old adventure films have taught me is that I need to do more wandering/adventuring.  Because that seems to be the surest way to stumble upon beautiful women bathing, who will quickly fall in love with you.  It’s weird seeing King Arthur portrayed as an old man.  I just don’t think of Arthur as old.  He should have died in the prime of his life.  Whatever the case, this is very much in the style and spirit of those other vibrant and somewhat cartoony medieval adventure films, like the Errol Flynn Robin Hood.  It reminds me a bit of that sequence in Time Bandits when they meet John Cleese, and he’s in that ridiculous costume.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance:  “He’s mocked my dirks.” This is one of those films that explores the oft repeated cinematic mistake of screwing with your hired killer.  If movies have taught me anything, it’s that you should always treat your exceptionally competent and deadly help with respect.  If you have a great hitman (or woman) in your employ, and he or she chooses to retire, you give them a care package, a nice bonus, and send them a Christmas card every year for what you hope is a long life.  If your executioner does a fine job of taking some princeling’s head off, but it becomes politically embarrassing at a later date, you don’t take it out on him, you simply accept that these things happen, be honest, and move on (maybe take the executioner out to dinner at a nice place…nothing too fancy…just to show that everything is A-OK).  But don’t kill his wife, or threaten his kid, or sick assassins on him.  Don’t go to some mountain village and kill his master or have his brother shot in the street.  These things may seem like good ideas in the heat of the moment.  But they are not.  Anyway, the movie is pretty cool.  Very stylized, with extreme sound design and buckets of blood.  The violence is pretty extreme.  The duel in the sun drenched field is a nasty highlight.  There are some crazy dismemberments in this movie.  If Akira Kurosawa’s work was inspired by John Ford, I think these movies were inspired by Sergio Leone.

The Island:  “It is no fun in an airplane with a 400lb sow gone ape-shit.”  This movie is crazy.  Crazy.  Michael Caine is a stressed out reporter on a quest to find out what’s up with a bunch of missing boats.  He hires the greatest pilot ever to take him and his boy to the Caribbean.  In the meantime, some sort of nutty killer is roving the waters with a burning crown.  Oh, yeah.  Then things get weird.  I would actually avoid reading up on this movie before you see it.  Not knowing where it’s gonna end up is probably a lot more fun.  Overall, it doesn’t live up to the madness of its first 15 or 20 minutes.  But it’s oddly enjoyable anyway.  The violence in the opening is pretty extreme.  The rest of the movie tones it down several notches.  And the music?  That’s crazy and seemingly inappropriate.

El Condor:  Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef are a dirty pair, out for loads of gold in this odd Western.  Van Cleef is ultra-goofy and spastic, which is odd to see.  And Brown isn’t playing suave, as he normally would.  Lots of killing and shooting.  Some very odd bits.  A bunch of good twists and turns and back stabbings.  Frankly, this was a far better movie than it seemed to be, and much more than I was expecting.  It was nice seeing Van Cleef in such a different role.  And though he gets more serious and more ‘smooth’ as the film goes on, Brown is a bit goofy in the beginning, too.  The women are lovely, and there’s a surprising amount of nudity for a movie of its time.  The violence is pretty nuts, too.

Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord- Terror of the Veroids:  The first story to feature Mel (gah!) finds the Doctor and his companion on a space ship loaded with mystery.  Mel is this perky nightmare of frizzy 80s vacuousness.  I think I had tuned out of the show at this point when it was on PBS in the 80s, because my first memory of her was with Sylvester McCoy.  Dang, she’s aggravating.  Still, when the pod people start a rampage, things got rolling.  The overall story is not too bad.  It’s very Agatha Christi.  The whole season, with its trial frame story is kind of blah.

"I look like a what!?"

Branded:  This satire about advertising, politics, image, and business takes on a bedtime story feel, with a calm, mellow narrator.  Setting it in Russia helps capture all that crazy Cold War history, and the Orwellian boogieman of the State as God.  The speech about how Lenin created marketing with his propaganda to sell Soviet Communism, and how everyone else learned from that is pretty spot on.  There are elements of Brazil, and as one comes to expect in films like this, Kafka, and for some reason, I kept thinking about The Hudsucker Proxy, and by the end, Videodrome.  Like a good bedtime story, it features a weird, transformative quest of a hero who must find himself in order to battle great evil.  Will or can anyone understand the transformed man and the message he brings?  While this movie is kind of a smorgasbord of previously used ideas, it manages to take those ideas in some interesting ways.  Certainly non-standard ways.  Does the ending ring a bit false?  Yeah.  But again, it’s like a fairy tale, and fairy tales often wrap up in less than believable ways.  I can’t say that the film is any kind of genius, but for what it is, it’s pretty good.  In a way, it feels like all the things Cosmopolis wasn’t.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession:  A documentary about the ground breaking L.A. channel that helped bring movies of all kinds to viewers, presaging HBO, Showtime, and the rest.  Wrapped in that is the tragic story of one of the channel’s driving forces, Jerry Harvey, a mad genius.  The wide breadth of what the channel showed made it like a televised version of The AFI theater, or Criterion collection.  From trash to art, from foreign to simply unusual, it showed movies many would never otherwise see or even be able to see.  Sometimes giving movies that bombed a second shot at life, showing what would eventually be known as ‘directors’ cuts.’  Seeing this makes the movie lover in me so  hungry for a taste of all these great movies, and reminds me of the pleasure I receive in sharing my love of film with others.  Obviously, there’s though, as you know from the start that it ends in death, both for the Z Channel and for its tempestuous champion.  Jerry’s life is a depressing spiral that ended where all too many spirals end.  His passion for film and for sharing it was impressive.  But the man suffered from severe mental illness.  Interviews with actors and directors who had their work shown, as well as co-workers and personal friends of Harvey give a human side to the story, both on the part of those involved and those who were effected.  It was an emotional film, and you can see it raw in faces of his friends, who still can not fully reconcile the good times with his violent and ugly exit.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx:  “Gyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”  Our strange heroes are back, eating dumplings and taking names.  This series of films features an especially bleak vision of feudal Japan, where danger lurks in every glance, life is cheap (if it costs anything at all), and everyone is unhappy like it’s their job.  Samurai films in general owed a lot to Westerns, but this series feels like it’s got more than a dash of Film Noir, not in visual style, but ugly human action.  Like the first film, this one features extremely disturbing use of sound design, and for that matter, its own visual language.  The film certainly reiterates that classic advice, I think it was from Aristotle, ‘watch out for crazy bitches.’  The cackling lady and her deadly maidens are not a group to run afoul of (or work for), ninja or no.  If I ever have a kid, I’m getting that stroller.  You can see pieces of this film in many other later movies.  What’s really weird though, is that this movie (trippy as it is) is much less trippy than the first one.  And as I sit her watching what I’m watching (the Three Storms just killed the Wolverines!), that mere fact speaks volumes.

    Started watching season two of Game of Thrones.  So far, so good.  Maybe a bit much on the sex.  I mean, it’s not the later books of Niven’s Ringworld we’re watching, right?  Still, I’m digging it.  And I like a lot of the new cast.  Hope they fare better than some of last season’s.

    I finally got back into Fraggle Rock.  Seriously, one of the best television shows for kids ever.  It’s the perfect blend of thoughtful, ethical, creative, funny, and stamped with that intangible Jim Henson genius.  And it’s not condescending.  I think that’s why I can watch it as an adult and still feel that wistful sense of childhood wonder.  If the stars shifted, water changed course, and the pressures of evolution ever let up, allowing me to have children, this is the kind of thing I’d want them to see.

    On Sunday afternoon I finished God is Not Great.  A solid read, if not my favorite Hitchens book.  Still, gets the blood pumping.

-Matt

A Fistful of Spies! (Matt’s Picks)

    With the release of Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, we at In the Mouth of Dorkness figured it would be a good time to talk about some of our favorite cinematic spies.  Spies have been sneaking around on screen since before sound.  And I’m sure they won’t be going away anytime soon. 

5.  Gary Johnston (Team America: World Police):  Gary has a specific set of skills.  Skills that will help him save the world from whatever evils it might face (no matter how much collateral damage it takes).  He’s an actor.  No.  He’s a great actor.  And he’s willing to do whatever it takes (whatEVER it takes) to get the job done.

Master of disguise!

4.  Lyn Cassady (Men Who Stare at Goats):  He isn’t just a spy.  He isn’t just a super-secret psychic agent for the US government.  He’s a Jedi.  

3.  A man of many faces, Felix Leiter is there when a friend is in need.  At least, he is if that friend is James Bond.  Leiter is always willing to go the distance, break the rules, and do the right thing.  A good man to have in your corner when the chips are down and the Reds are in the shadows.

2.  Sidney Reilly (Reilly: Ace of Spies):  There are few protagonists so ruthless.  Reilly is quite simply a cold hearted bastard.  Yet, watching him do his thing, screw over whoever he can, fight the good fight, and the bad fight while he’s at it, is fascinating journey.  James Bond wishes he could be this tough.

1.  Der Mann (Woman in the Moon):  That sneaky two faced member of the first rocket ship to land on the Moon.  You just can’t trust him.  He’s working for…the Other Side!  Fritz Rasp had this ophidian charm that made him somehow jarringly repulsive on a gut level, and frightfully friendly at the same time.

-Matt

A Fistful of Hest! (Brad's Picks)

Hest Fest XII has come to a close.  To celebrate ITMOD is giving you their Top Five moments of Charlton Heston manliness.  Look at that photo above, tell me you're not gonna let his people go after he comes at ya with that badass axe.  Listen up Pharaohs!  (But I must warn that there is at least one major spoiler below).

5.  The Many Early 90s Cameos:  My introduction to the manliness of Heston did not come with Planet of the Apes or Ben Hur.  No, it came with a string of memorable cameos in a batch of quintessential 90s films from my youth.  From Arnold's one-eyed boss in True Lies, to the Good Actor in Wayne's World 2, to the kindly rancher Henry Hooker in Tombstone, and to the greedy publisher that sends Sam Neil In The Mouth of Madness.  It's with these tiny moments of oddball character that led young Brad to the badass smackdowns found within Soylent Green and The Omega Man...

4.  Heston Finds A Real War (Major Dundee):  Charton Heston's disgraced Union Warden marches his men and his prisoners into Hellish Mexico to hunt and slaughter Apache savages.  But he finds his real war when he not-so-accidentally embarrasses a regiment of French soldiers.  Real War is discovered, and dozens of men must pay for Heston's wounded machismo.  Not as great as Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch or Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia but Major Dundee is well worth your attention.

3.  Heston's Christ Blood Will Save Humanity (The Omega Man):  This might not be Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, but The Omega Man is an incredibly entertaining bit of 70s schlock in which Heston's Last Man must battle hooded plague mutants night after night.  Lots of fire and lots of machine gun rat-a-tat-tat.  The film's only hope rests inside the DNA of Heston's own blood, and his legend will be the new messiah...or the nightmares of the hooded plague mutants' children.

2.  Heston Smashes, Bashes, and Airlifts Chuck Connors & Paula Kelly (Soylent Green):  This film is not just about the revelatory climax.  Really, it's just a simple police procedural that leads to global conspiracy...and one monstrous fight between Heston, Chuck Connors, and the vicious Paula Kelly.  Heston smashes, bashes, and eventually airlifts Chuck Connors with one straight kick to the groin.  It's an epic beatdown worthy of similar cinematic beatdowns like the ones found in They Live or The Scalphunters.

1.  Heston Climaxes With A Monkey--er, Chimp Kiss (Planet of the Apes):  And here's another film that's not just about it's "twist ending."  Planet of the Apes is one of my all time favorite films.  But what's my favorite moment from the flick?  The "Madhouse?"  The "Damned Dirty Apes?"  No, it's the moment after Heston has lead a revolution of science and guns against Dr. Zaius' wicked religion and he gives Zira a nice kiss of thanks. She's disgusted by his ugliness...or is she?

--Brad