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The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour (1/1/12) Netflix (1967 **) Written and directed by (according to Imdb.com) The Beatles themselves, featuring the Fab Four, a couple of overzealous character actors and a stripper named Jan Carson. Originally created as a TV special, John, Paul, George and Ringo climb aboard a colorful bus and tour the English countryside. This 1-hour video is notoriously bad, and rightly so. By any standard, it was absolutely dreadful, with the best part of it being the music from the Magical Mystery Tour album itself and the low point being a surreal nightmare sequence in which John Lennon shoveled feces-colored slop onto the table of Ringo's morbidly obese aunt (played by Jessie Robins). When I was in my early teens I had recently discovered The Beatles and I talked my grandparents into taking me to a special showing of this "film" at Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum. Well, let's just say we didn't make it past the "feces shoveling" scene. |
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Help! (1/1/12) Netflix (1965 **1/2) Directed by Richard Lester, starring The Beatles, Leo McKern and Eleanor Bron. Ring-collecting Ringo winds up with an oversized sacrificial ceremonial ring, and the bloodthirsty (and cranky) savages who lost it want it back. This was such an unfortunate followup to the fantastic A Hard Day's Night (1964). The fault for this film's failure lay almost entirely with its horrible screenplay. The Beatles did just fine playing themselves and the cinematography and direction of the individual scenes was superb. The highlight (not surprisingly) were the musical numbers which found The Beatles in a variety of colorful settings and climates. But the film's weak plot, such as it was, made the whole thing virtually unwatchable. |
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My Man Godfrey (1/1/12) TCM (1936 ***) Directed by Gregory La Cava, based on the novel by Eric Hatch, starring William Powell and Carole Lombard. Poor little rich girl Irene Bullock goes on a scavenger hunt and brings home the snootiest, smart-alecky bum you've ever seen. The last time I watched this film (8/25/2005) was via Netflix and the print was one of the worst I've ever seen, with audio so bad I could barely understand a line. This time the print was so pristine I could form a stronger opinion of the film itself. And I did see a few flaws. The biggest one (identified immediately by my wife) was that Carole Lombard's character never really changed, which all but invalidated the film's ending. In addition, while I appreciate that the film was released during the Great Depression, the moralizing about the class warfare was heavy-handed enough to be annoying and the wealthy characters were painted with a particularly mean-spirited brush. |
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Hugo (1/2/12) Glendale Pacific 18 (2011 ***1/2) Directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the book by Brian Selznick, starring Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen and Chloe Grace Moretz. An orphan living in a train station repairs a broken automaton, but instead of unleashing a steampunk-flavored robot holocaust, he inadvertently discovers the lost filmmaking pioneer Georges Melies. I had read in several reviews that this film was slow-paced, so I was prepared for that. I had also read the quasi-graphic novel on which it was based, and so I knew what to expect going in. Scorsese's directing was masterful as always, even when working with material far more family-friendly material than that with which he's usually associated. I imagine some in the audience might feel a twinge of betrayal when they discover that Hugo is in large part a PSA for the importance of film preservation. As I left the film, I wondered with a smile how many of the kids seeing this film over the 2011/2012 holiday season would go on to become film preservationists? |
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Junebug (1/2/12) IFC (2005 **) Directed by Phil Morrison, screenplay by Angus MacLachlan, starring Embeth Davidth, Alessandro Nivola and Amy Adams. The owner of a gallery dealing in "outsider" art visits her husband's family in North Carolina and gets more of a taste for "honest folk" than she bargained for. While I appreciated this film for Amy Adams' breakout performance and the fact that it was a "gentle character study," Junebug -- for me, anyhow -- never really got around to making anything resembling a point in anything resembling a clear fashion. It was, as my wife put so succinctly, "annoying." |
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Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1/3/12) TCM (1948 ***) Directed by H.C. Potter, based on the novel by Eric Hodgins, starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas. A citydweller's dream of a "castle in the country" comes at a steep price... and with a lot of extras. First off, let's address the elephant in the room: In this film, Cary Grant played a Madison Avenue "Ad Man" given SIX MONTHS to come up with an advertising slogan. What. The. Hell? Another thing: I know this film was made in the late 1940s, but from my vantage point in the year 2012, it's damned hard for me to feel bad for anybody who built a home as depicted in the film for a "grand total" of $38,000. Is this a great film? Not really, but any homeowner who's ever hired a contractor for a "minor" remodeling project can probably relate to Mr. Blandings' tribulations. |
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Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1/3/12) FMC (1962 **1/2) Directed by Henry Koster, based on the novel by Edward Streeter, starring James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara and Fabian. A patriarch spends a less-than-restful month at the beach with his extended brood... solving everybody else's problems. It's no coincidence that I watched Mr. Hobbs the same day I finished watching Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. This film is definitely "of a kind," with its male protagonist dealing with the myriad frustrations of life/work/family in the modern world while longing for peace, quiet and a time machine to return him to a simpler time. Have we really changed so much? As a movie, it was never intended to be anything more than lightweight early-1960s fare, and though my memory is a bit murky, I probably saw it in my youth as a third (or maybe fourth) feature at the drive-in. |
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The Little Book of Mathematical Principles, Theories and Things (1/6/12) Nonfiction (2008 ***1/2) Written by Dr. Bob Solomon. The history of mathematics is the history of problems being proposed, then (A) proven, (B) proven impossible or (C) left unsolved for future generations of mathematicians. On a whim, I picked up this book from the sales table at Barnes & Noble and read it over a series of four lunch hours. I'm so glad I did. Besides tickling parts of my brain that had gone un-tickled for far too long, it brought back fond memories of Mr. Waterman's 11th grade Enrichment Math class. The book is not for everyone: It helped that I had some math and computer science background, even if it had been decades since I'd studied them in a classroom. I found Solomon's text to be clear (even when dealing with difficult-to-understand subject matter) and concise, with each of the topics covered in one or two short pages. |
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How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months (1/7/12) Nonfiction (2011 ***) Written by John Locke. Would you like to sell lots and lots of copies of your eBooks to people you don't know? Entrepreneur and self-proclaimed jerk John Locke reveals his secret system. I learned about this book when I took a 1-day seminar at UCLA Extension taught by Chris Meeks entitled “How to Publish Your Book and Do It Right,” and my wife bought me a copy for Christmas (it was on my Amazon wish list). John Locke (no relation to the philosopher or the character on the TV show Lost) is clearly not the greatest writer in the world, but his writing was quite clear and he is a living example of the degree of entrepreneurship required to be a successful author in today's literary marketplace. On a minor note, I imagine Locke will soon release a revised edition, as one of the key rungs on his ladder of success (prominently featured in the book) was writing what amounted to a “love letter” blog about the recently-disgraced Penn State coach Joe Paterno. |
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The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour Memories (1/9/12) Netflix (2008 *) Directed by David Lambert, featuring narration by Victor Spinetti and interviews with Neil Innis, Keith McCartney (Paul's brother) and others whose lives were touched by The Beatles and their multi-colored bus. While this wasn't the worst documentary I'd ever seen, it was definitely not a professional production: The anecdotes by the interview subjects often seemed to go nowhere and the sound quality was generally miserable. If I had to guess, I'd say this documentary was made primarily to exploit some grainy 8mm home movies and make some cash from aging Beatles fans with disposable income. On a side note, it's an interesting point of multi-layered trivia that Neil Innis, of The Bonzo Dog Do Da Band featured in the Magical Mystery Tour TV special was responsible for the song "Death Cab for Cutie," the inspiration for the contemporary band of the same name. Innis was also the songwriter for the wonderful Beatles' parody band he created with Eric Idle, The Rutles. |
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The Artist (1/9/12) Academy Screener (2011 ***1/2) Written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, starring Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell and John Goodman. When the movies start talking, silent movie star George Valentin steps aside to make room for adorable ingenue Peppy Miller. This film recently won “Best Picture” at The Critics Choice Awards and is certainly in the running at The Oscars. I greatly admired the filmmaking that went into it as well as the chutzpah it took to produce a silent film in 2011. However, as much as I enjoyed it, I didn't think the film was necessarily a slam dunk. Much of the magical effect of The Artist relied on the suspension of disbelief that I was watching a period film, and that effect varied for me throughout, depending largely upon casting. While Dujardin was amazing and perfectly cast, Bérénice Bejo (in my humble opinion) was not, and every time she was on the screen, the rhythms of her body and modern acting style reminded me that I was watching a new film. My wife pointed out that the contrast between acting styles may well have been intentional (old versus new), but I'm not convinced. Is The Artist an accomplishment and a film worth watching, particularly for film buffs like myself? Absolutely! Is it the best film of 2011? I'm not so sure. |
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The Walking Dead, Vol. 15: We Find Ourselves (1/12/12) Comics (2011 ***) Written by Robert Kirkman, illustrated by Charlie Adlard. While Rick Grimes waits to see if his comatose son Carl will wake up, he begins to feel hopeful that society be rebuilt and thrive, even in a zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic world. Part of the frustration of reading Kirkman's Walking Dead series in serial form is that his narrative approach for this long-running story is to present lengthy stretches where nothing much happens, punctuated with extreme action and intensity. Unfortunately, in this volume (which followed the far more exciting Vol. 14: No Way Out), things were generally pretty dull, with a lot of talking and pages devoted to digging ditches. While there was the suggestion of conflict and a teasing that things might happen, that conflict never truly materialized in physical form. Am I looking for melodrama? No. All I'm saying, Robert Kirkman, is that if you take the metaphorical pot off the burner before it boils... Well, it's not particularly satisfying. |
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Moneyball (1/13/12) Blu-Ray (2011 ****) Directed by Bennett Miller, screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, based on the book by Michael Lewis, starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane risks all when he fights an unfair system... with mathematics. If you tell me Aaron Sorkin has written (or even co-written) a film's screenplay, count my wife and I in. Moneyball recently won the Critics Choice Award for best adapted screenplay and deservedly so. Man, I love good writing! Who would have thought a true-life story about baseball would be so interesting? And the performances were terrific as well, with Brad Pitt onscreen nearly 95% of the time, delivering possibly the best performance of his career. In addition, Jonah Hill showed that he could share the screen with Pitt, and he seems to have grown nicely out of the “Seth Rogen Junior” roles that marked his early career. Is he aiming to be cast in Paul Giamatti roles? I wonder. |
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The Descendants (1/14/12) DVD (2011 ***1/2) Directed by Alexander Payne, based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller and Beau Bridges. Set in Hawaii, Real estate attorney and “understudy parent” Matt King's world is turned upside down when he learns his comatose wife was cheating on him. I'm a big fan of my fellow Omaha native Alexander Payne (About Schmidt, Sideways), and the two elements I particularly love about his films are: (1) He offers us fresh physical and emotional situations, ones that don't feel like an echo of something I've seen before; and (2) All his characters, even the minor ones, are well-drawn and interesting. The Descendants offered us both of the above. However, the central premise (a man pulling the plug on his wife) and the continual stream of characters in various stages of grief was so downbeat it made it hard to enjoy the film's quirky and comic moments. |
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The Apartment (1/17/12) TCM (1960 ****) Directed by Billy Wilder, screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. Manhattan insurance man C.C. Baxter has found a clever -- albeit morally slippery -- route up the corporate ladder: Lending his upper west side apartment to executives so they can cheat on their wives. This is a great movie with brilliant dialogue, and it mixes suicidal depression with comedy like no other. For people of my generation who grew up watching Fred MacMurray as the Absent-Minded Professor and the dad on My Three Sons, it was especially delightful to see him play the sleeziest slime-ball executive of all time. On a personal note, young Shirley MacLaine looked so much like my wife in this film, including many of the same mannerisms. The irony is that when I first saw this wonderful movie as a young man I identified with Jack Lemmon and prayed that God would someday send me an adorable woman like MacLaine's Fran Kubelik (but without the "sleeping with a married man" business). It took awhile, but He or She finally did. |
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Young Frankenstein (1/19/12) FMC (1974 ****) Directed by Mel Brooks, screenplay by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman and Teri Garr. Legitimate medical practitioner Froderick Fronkensteen discovers his grandfather's lost journal and creates... A MONSTER! I know a lot of people love Blazing Saddles, what with the beans and the farting and all, but in my opinion Young Frankenstein is the best movie Mel Brooks ever made. It was somehow respectful to the original Frankenstein (1931) and the other classic Universal monster films while being very quirky and funny at the same time. And to top it all off, Teri Garr played one hell of an adorable sexpot... er, lab assistant. Woof! What knockers, indeed! |
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Strangers On a Train (1/22/12) TCM (1951 ***1/2) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, screenplay by Ramond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde, starring Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman and Leo G. Carroll. "You do my murder and I'll do yours. Criss-cross!" When a tennis player meets a weirdo on a train who offers to kill his estranged, bespeckled wife, he never imagines the lunatic will actually go through with it. Even in 1951, Hitchcock was one weird mama-jamma, and this great film is the proof. In it, the act of murder was presented from beginning to end as though it were a sexual fetish. It was pretty daring stuff for the early 1950s, and I'll bet it made audiences squirm in their seats in equal parts discomfort and delight. Robert Walker's portrayal of Bruno Anthony, the guy you least want to meet on a train in your life, was funny, creepy, terrifying and altogether thoroughly intoxicating. |
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The People vs. George Lucas (1/22/12) Netflix (2010 ***) Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe and Michael Ramova, featuring interviews with Mark. A. Altman and many, many other George Lucas fans, detractors and both. Love him or hate him, George Lucas has touched a lot of childhoods. While I respected the production values and research that went into this documentary, and I was never bored, I can't say I actually learned anything new from it. Was I (like a lot of people) disappointed by Star Wars Episodes I-III? Of course. Do I feel that George Lucas raped my childhood? Not really. I simply don't feel as passionately about Star Wars as the "superfans" featured in this documentary, though part of me can identify with them. There but for the grace of God, go I. Or something. |
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The Thin Man (1/22/12) DVD (1934 ****) Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, screenplay by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan and Cesar Romero. Nora Charles nudges her high-functioning alcoholic husband Nick out of retirement to solve a Manhattan murder or two. (Previously reviewed 4/21/06) The Thin Man films are high on my wife's list of cinematic favorites, which is why I bought her the boxed set of the first 4 films for Christmas. Nearly 70 years after this first film provided escapist entertainment for Depression-era audiences, the antics of Nick and Nora (and Asta too) still provide welcome joy. The plot of this first film in the series (based on Hammett's book, which I reviewed back on 10/22/05) may have been overly-convoluted and its resolution less than stellar, but that was never what made this movie popular enough to inspire five witty banter-filled sequels, was it? |
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Portrait of Jennie (1/23/12) TCM (1948 ***1/4) Directed by William Dieterle, based on the novel by Robert Nathan, starring Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore and Lillian Gish. A depressed painter with an empty belly yet otherwise full of ennui, finds inspiration in an attractive time-traveling ghost. This is one of my father's favorite films and knowing him I can understand why. The tortured quest of an artist, not only for inspiration but for his very soul, has rarely been presented in such a romantic fashion. I certainly enjoyed Portrait of Jennie; it was kind of the Somewhere in Time of its day, I suppose. But there was something clunky in the presentation that kept pulling me out of the story, annoying me, and the movie could have been far stronger had it been less lyrical and heavy-handed. |
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Susan Slept Here (1/23/12) TCM (1954 **1/2) Directed by Frank Tashlin, starring Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis and Alvy Moore. 49-year-old Dick Powell plays a 35-year-old Hollywood screenwriter who gets mixed up with a 17-year-old delinquent played by 21-year-old Debbie Reynolds. (Whew!) This was a pretty twisted film (Powell's last in front of the camera) that sort of turned Lolita on its head. The entire driving force of its story was whether or not Powell and just-below-the-age-of-consent Reynolds were going to have sex, sex, sex! And you know what? As flimsy as that premise was, it kept my interest all the way to the end, and that's all due to Debbie Reynolds' performance. I'm more than a little embarrassed to admit that I've never seen her sexier than she was in this film, playing a 17-year-old. Talk about messed up, Daddy-o. |
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Sylvia Scarlett (1/24/12) TCM (1935 **) Directed by George Cukor, based on the novel by Compton MacKenzie, starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Edmund Gwenn. A young woman disguises herself as a boy and through a series of misadventures discovers a lot about life, love and herself. I guess the plot of Sylvia Scarlett is what my high school English teacher would have called a "picaresque," like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Don Quixote. The only problem was that while I watched it, it just felt like the writer (Compton MacKenzie, I suppose) had just made the story up as he went along, and it never really added up to a satisfying whole. To make matters worse, Cary Grant played a grade-A asshole, even though he was presented as an asshole with a few redeeming qualities, he was still pretty much an asshole. And I hated watching him in that role. It was especially ironic, considering he played such a lovable character when he was re-teamed with Hepburn 5 years later for my wife's favorite film, The Philadelphia Story (1940). As for Hepburn's gender-swapping lead performance, the less said the better. Let's just say it wasn't hard to see why she was considered "box office poison" at this point in her career. |
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The Front (1/25/12) TCM (1976 ***) Directed by Martin Ritt, screenplay by Walter Bernstein, starring Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Michael Murphy and Herschel Barnardi. Set during the height of McCarthyism, An apolitical cashier / bookmaker named Howard Prince agrees to help out a blacklisted TV writer friend... at a cost. The Front, which featured formerly-blacklisted talent in front of the camera as well as behind it, told a shameful chapter in entertainment history that had happened a mere 20 years before it was made. Though it wasn't really intended as a full-on comedy, there were certainly some funny moments. Woody Allen has acted in very few movies that he didn't direct, with The Front being probably the best of the lot. I can't help but think that Allen was influenced by director Martin Ritt, since Allen seemed to have incorporated some of Ritt's directing touches (such as staging with speaking characters offscreen) in his later films. |
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Best Worst Movie (1/26/12) Netflix (2009 ***) Written and directed by Michael Stephenson, featuring George Hardy, Michael Stephenson and Darren Ewing. Nearly 20 years after its release in 1990, Troll 2 is the gift that kept on giving. The heart and focus of this documentary was George Hardy, a practicing dentist whose "claim to fame" is that he played the Dad in Troll 2. The documentary was written and directed by the grown-up child actor who starred in the original film, and Stephenson did a commendable job with material that was obviously very close to his heart. I wasn't entirely comfortable, however, with his editorial choices related to the obviously mentally-troubled actress Margo Prey, who had played Diana Waits, the mother in Troll 2. That criticism aside, Best Worst Movie was an interesting look at the making of (and the limits of) a cult phenomenon, and I was intrigued just enough to put Troll 2 next on my Netflix queue. Still, the best part of this film by far was the effusive, upbeat dentist George Hardy himself, though toward the end of the documentary even he seemed to be running a bit low on gas. |
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Salt and Pepper (1/27/12) TCM (1968 **1/2) Directed by Richard Donner, screenplay by Michael Pertwee, starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. A dead call girl / government agent named Mai Ling is just the beginning of this high spy adventure set in swinging, shagadelic London, baby! Obviously conceived as a potential franchise that actually had a sequel (One More Time, directed by Jerry Lewis!), this upbeat film was undoubtedly on the list of films that inspired Mike Meyers to create Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery. Even though Salt and Pepper would make wonderful MST3K fodder, it wasn't a terrible film, but it didn't quite work, either. "Rat pack" members Sammy D ("Charles Salt") and Peter L ("Christopher Pepper") were fun to watch punching, kicking, shooting and generally cavorting, and they had a pretty good onscreen chemistry. Unfortunately quite a lot of the scripted humor fell flat and the plot (which involved nuclear missiles and an overthrow of the British government) was sometimes confusing. I also can't help but wonder if the sex and drug references were a little too overt for 1968 audiences. Either that or they weren't overt enough. |
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Lover Come Back (1/28/12) TCM (1961 **) Directed by Delbert Mann, starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall. In this misnamed, supposed light-hearted comedy, a smarmy ad executive named Jerry Webster deliberately assumes a false identity to get frigid Madison Avenue competitor Carol Templeton into the sack. It's been decades since I last watched a light-hearted Doris Day / Rock Hudson (or James Garner) rom-com romp. I was flabbergasted by how offensive this one was from a feminist perspective, and I don't even really consider myself that enlightened! I can can only imagine Gloria Steinem's head exploding while watching it in its initial release. Not only that, but Doris Day's acting range in the film was limited to the narrow band of the emotional spectrum between "consternation" and "fuming." Though I hate everything this film stood for, I'm generously giving it 2 stars because... well, it was slightly more watchable than Manos: The Hands of Fate and it also featured very representative early-1960s interior design. |
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Burn After Reading (1/28/12) FXM (2008 **) Written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, starring Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. Embittered ex-secret agent Osborne Cox writes his tell-all memoir, which subsequently falls into the hands of a couple of gym employees. Let me be frank: I expected much, much more from the Coen Brothers. A star-studded cast couldn't help this movie's story, which included a conclusion (don't worry, no spoilers ahead) that was as unsatisfying as they come. The film's only saving grace was -- and this wasn't enough for me to recommend it -- interesting performances by Clooney, Malkovich and especially Brad Pitt. |
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After the Thin Man (1/29/12) DVD (1936 ****) Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, James Stewart and Sam Levene. Nick and Nora barely get back to their San Francisco home following their New York "Thin Man" adventure when Nora's overacting cousin asks for help finding her missing Lothario husband. It's such a delight to watch the "Thin Man" films all over again, and this, the second in the series, is possibly the best of the lot. I think the filmmakers learned a big lesson from the overly-plotted first film: While there were still plenty of "whodunnit" twists and turns, the spotlight remained focused brightly on Depression-era America's favorite high-functioning alcoholic couple, Nick and Nora Charles. And their dog Asta, too, of course. By the way, if you're a fan of Jimmy Stewart (and who isn't?), After the Thin Man features one of his more amusing early performances. |
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Gone Baby Gone (1/30/12) Netflix (2007 ***1/2) Directed by Ben Affleck, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris. When a 3-year-old is taken in the middle of the night, missing persons investigator Patrick Kenzie promises her drugged-out, white-trash mama he'll bring her home. My first reaction to this film was probably the same as most people: "Holy shit! Ben Affleck is a pretty good director!" He certainly demonstrated his directing chops with this film. From a storytelling standpoint, I particularly appreciated how awesome Casey Affleck's main character was: Patrick Kenzie's fearlessness, even in the face of "crapping-your-pants" danger, was a breath of fresh air. Uh... so to speak. He was also a guy with a resolute moral code worthy of the old West, something you don't often find in modern films. |
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Eye of the Gods (1/30/12) Graphic Novel (2009 ***) Written and illustrated by Gerimi Burleigh. Set in the near future, comic book artist Sean Black (who is coincidentally both black and bald...) goes under the knife for the new NuEyz procedure and ends up with crazy mad remote viewing skillz. A little background: I met this book's artist/writer Gerimi Burleigh in Karl Gnass' Draped Figure and Costume drawing class at the Animation Guild in North Hollywood. I'd overheard him talking with another student about the graphic novel he'd self-published. And so I bought a copy, which he graciously autographed, and gave it a read. I was impressed. Thought not quite on par with the polished graphic novels produced by the big publishers, the characters and story were quite engaging. The book had plenty of paranoia-fueled action, with space left over for a little sex too. I have little doubt (especially after seeing his artwork in class) that Gerimi's next project will be even stronger, and I very much look forward to watching for his future projects. |
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Troll 2 (1/31/12) Netflix (1990 **) Directed by Claudio Fragasso, written by Rossella Drudi and Fragasso, starring Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey and Robert Ormsby. Young Joshua Waits and his family (and Joshua's dead grandpa) do a house-swap in Nilbog, and faster than you can say "Hi, I'm Gene Freak," they run into inhuman bloodthirsty vegetarians! Not exactly a cinematic masterpiece, Troll 2 was the focus of the documentary Best Worst Film (2009), which I watched and reviewed recently. And so you can understand why I immediately bumped this film -- which got a jaw-dropping 0% on Rotten Tomatoes -- to the top of my Netflix queue. Don't worry, no Trolls were harmed in the making of this film, nor did any actually appear. (If you're confused, just spell the name of the town backwards, if you haven't already.) The dialogue was, I'm guessing, largely first draft, "placeholder" dialogue, meaning it was so exposition-laden and on-the-nose I nearly got a nosebleed. The best way I could describe it would be as what a beginning screenwriter would get if he or she asked the internet to translate his script from English into Italian... and then back again. Something was clearly lost in the translation. Look, I get why this is a cult classic. But while I can see why some (especially teens and young adults) might find this film fascinating, it never quite got under my skin. Maybe it's a generational thing. Sure I laughed out loud a few times at the atrocious writing and acting, but I remained generally under-impressed, even as kitsch. In other words, if I need a "midnight movie" fix, I'll stick with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and reruns of MST3K. |
