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Both Season of the Witch and Country Strong were opening at the local cine-plex on Friday the 7th. Should I go see a film about a 14th century witch or a 21st Century country singer? Medieval mayhem or country music? Did I want to feel scared or feel good? Well it wasn’t that difficult of a decision to have to make. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kelly Canter – the country singer. While she does her own crooning – her voice is pretty darned good as is some of the music, the story seems old and familiar. Once you’ve attained stardom in country music, you’re on a road faced with some choices; diminished ability due to drinks or drugs, followed by death or divorce… or rehab and redemption. For sure, this doesn’t happen to everyone in the real world of the music industry, but nearly always happens in the movies about the music industry. Directed by Shania Feste , this is the latest iteration of the genre (the troubled singer/musician) that goes all the way back to the original A Star is Born from the 30′s with the Judy Garlan d remake in the 50′s and the Barbra Streisand remake in the 70′s, The Coal Miner’s Daughter , Sweet Dreams , Tender Mercies , and as recently as last year – Crazy Heart . Someone is always getting knocked down but not out. They go through a rehab, then they go back out on tour to the delirious delight of their fans. But even if these stories have become trite, or a cliché, or just some hackneyed tripe, you can still enjoy the music, and then enjoy the redemption second-hand. If the characters are well written, then you might even have a hit on your hands. But Country Strong is all surface and sheen. Despite the toe-tapping music we can’t quite get our hearts and minds around Gwyneth Paltrow’s Kelly Canter. She goes into rehab after a disastrous and drunken on-stage melt-down that results in a miscarriage. Her husband James Canter is played by real life country music star Tim McGraw who doesn’t sing a note in the whole film. Off to the right and left of these two are Beau Hutton played by Garrett Hedlund , who is also currently playing at your cine-plex in Tron Legacy , and the young songstress Chiles Stanton played by Leighton Meester . Beau is one of the caregivers at the rehab center who also is a singer/songwriter, and Chiles is the young singing protegé and beauty queen discovered by James. You can easily see where this film will go. Romantic complications and their multiple permutations seem to occur in these kind of films just as often as a musician’s tour bus rounds a curve on a highway. The film’s tagline tells all – It doesn’t matter where you’ve been as long as you come back strong. The film’s visual are pretty good – so watching this film is not simply gloom and doom followed by redemption and a successful return to the stage. You can bring your hankies\because you will need them, but you will not be surprised by anything you see in this film except for the fact that some of the situations, meant to be moving and important, are really closer to laughable and ludicrous. The characters as written are just too thin for us to care much about them. Or believe in them. At one point, Kelly says, Don’t be afraid to fall in love. It’s the only thing that matters in life. Sorry, sweetie. You forgot one. Having a good script is what always matters in the film-making biz.
Winner of 10 Oscars, this adaptation of a Broadway musical could have been a complete disaster considering the latest screen adaptations of broadway musicals like Rent . West Side Story has been a succes on the stage and on the screen. Despite its overdramatic themes and conclusion, its story is more than worth the look. The musical parts bring the best of film. The "mise en scene" is steady and strongly achieved by the sometimes over sometimes underapreciated Robert Wise ( The Set-Up , The Day The Earth Stood Still ) and the choreographies by Jerome Robbins are just perfect. Well, it may be one of the things that can tickle, the way the film feels that it is perfect. I tend to like films that are perfect in their imperfections. West Side Story seems like the film has been shot 300 times and the fury and the passion of the moment and of the performances just not feel as real as they really are. Sometimes flaws are a plus, and here, in this very Hollywood feature film it just feels too right. Well, so right it's wrong. Don't get me wrong, I am a defender of Robert Wise's films and I think that West Side Story stands just where it deserves to stand in the History of Cinema it's just that if it was a film from the 1950's it would have had a better time table, but in the same year a little French film Une femme est une femme , a little musical, directed by a young sensation named Jean-Luc Godard feels fresher today by its rawness and human feelings of its crude colors and its revolutionned filmmaking techniques. West Side Story is a near masterpiece achievement in filmmaking that every cinephile out there especially musicals and/or Broadway entusiast should have seen!
Dorothy Gale from Hicksville, Kansas gets hit in the head with a window during a twister. The resulting concussion (mixed with an inhalation of ergot spores that were kicked up into the atmosphere by the storm) led to a hallucination in which she meets a gay talking scarecrow, a gay robot, and a gay lion in a magical fairy land. So, I love The Wizard of Oz , and I sat down and watched the Blu Ray disc with the Boy last night. He really liked the gay lion. The BD is gooooorgeous, the colors are so vibrant, and the B&W part is sepia-toned, which really helps the fantastic nature of the whole thing. Unfortunately, I think they digitally edited out the suicide munchkin, because I didn't see him. They go on a magical journey and it's one of those dealies where they find out that they always had what they were looking for and stuff. You know how it goes. Witches, wizards, little people, and flying monkeys. Oh my. I have a large place in the bowels of my cockles for The Wizard of Oz. FRC Ruben was once 10 year-old Ruben, and 10 year-old Ruben played a munchkin, emerald city gentry, and the Gatekeeper in Sunnyvale Community Theater 's production of The Wizard of Oz in 1989. There was singing. There was dancing. There was spirit gum. Growing up, I seem to remember that WOZ was shown like once a year in the Spring or something on CBS and it was this whole event. My mom and I would get some Jiffy Pop and there'd be ice cream sundaes. They don't do TV movie events anymore. Remember when Spielberg chumped some network into showing Saving Private Ryan uncut with no commercials because it was important? I think that was the last one. Three hours with no advertising revenue and a shitload of FCC fines when people can just click "Watch It Now" and stream to their networked flat screen have pretty much put an end to the whole thing. WOZ is still as freaky and fantastic today as when I was a youngling. For different reasons, like, when I was a kid I was all freaked out that there was this witch who lived in a big scary castle and had a bunch of green dudes in her army and a bunch of weird ass flying monkeys in her Air Force. Now, as an adult.......well, I guess the same things still are freaky to me.........only now I see social statements. Here's a question: in a kid's movie, the heroine has to kill the bad guy (or bad gal, as it were)? Not only that, but little old Dorothy Gale from Hicksville , Kansas actually goes through with the murder plot? Wow, that's really harsh. Even Bowie didn't get killed in Labyrinth , and he had those weird balls and henchmen trolls that were 10 times more evil than the flying monkeys. And speaking of flying monkey attacks: when the Simeon minions swarm and attack our heroes in the haunted forest, they totally get after it. They're all pouncy and rippy and flyey and kidnappy -- they take out some of the scarecrow and throw him over there and take out some more and throw it over there. Just very violent and graphic -- if you're made out of straw, but still. And then there's the blatant drug reference of the poppy fields that make everyone sleepy. Still trying to decided if the poppies are meant to be a racist statement against the Chinese laborers in Northern California. My initial suspicion is yes, but I like the movie too much to think too deeply on it. WOZ will always be a classic. Judy Garland is a wonderful murderous bumpkin, and the characters are whimsical to this day, if a bit far-fetched. But children will get hooked and the love of this will remain with them. There's a sense of loss in that these classic movies are no longer going to be the national viewing events that they once were because of DVR and Blu Ray and on-demand and the like (Plus, TBS gets its fingers in something and runs it in perpetuity -- who would've ever thought that we'd see Independence Day and Deep Impact as much as we have over the last 5 years). Nevertheless, the greatest movies of all time are the ones that can withstand the march of time, and the search for the Wizard is the eternal faustian search for contentment. The story is a classic that will be studied in generations to come, and the film will always be a hallmark in cinema and fantasy. Big ups. ---------------------------------
Not to be confused with the sci-fi animation 9 , or 9 , the short film it was based on, Nine is the big screen adaptation of the stage musical of the same name, itself adapted from Fellini's 8½. Confused yet? You should be. Fortunately Nine (the musical) isn't quite as confusing as its origins, although it does sometimes flirt with obscurity. Fellini was always known for his unique blend of the real and the imagined, and Rob Marshall 's film-of-the-musical-of-the-film treads a very similar path as it tells its (rather slight) story. Don't expect anything as straightforward as Chicago . Like 8½, Nine explores the psyche of a fictional movie director - Guido Contini, played with neo-Italian flair by Daniel Day-Lewis - through the various women who have influenced and nurtured him. As Contini struggles with his scriptless new film, and the hazards of juggling his wife Marion Cotillard and his mistress Penelope Cruz (yes, poor him), his mind wanders into flashbacks and fantasy sequences imagined as song-and-dance sequences. And that's about it. There are a few minor revelations regarding Contini's upbringing, but they're so slight that there's every chance you'll miss them entirely. Nine is essentially about the music, and Marshall seems blinkered to almost everything else. The end result is a film that's technically - and artistically - interesting, but which nonetheless fails to engage us where it counts. While the dance numbers are nicely choreographed, they often feel isolated and insignificant, as they've been grafted onto an entirely different script; but the script itself feels equally slight, as if the constant interruptions have stripped everything interesting from it. We end up with a constant tug-of-war between the story and the music, and neither ultimately wins. What saves Nine from outright failure is the cast, who universally manage such a high level of performance that's it's hard to take your eyes from the screen, even when the story itself has collapsed into cliches and thin characterization. Daniel Day-Lewis truly deserves our attention as self-doubting director Contini, and his years spent in Italy clearly paid off in one of American cinema's most convincing chameleon acts. The women who surround him are equal to the challenge too, despite the brief screen time that each of them receives. Cotillard fully deserves the accolades she was awarded, as does Cruz. Judi Dench , Nicole Kidman , Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren all make the most of their short scenes as well, and we mustn't forget the Black Eyed Peas' Fergie, who almost steals the show with one of the movie's most memorable sequences. If you didn't know better, you'd think she used to be an Italian hooker. In fact the only person who falls short of expectations is director Marshall, although given Nine 's subject matter maybe we should assume that he was undergoing his own crisis of faith at the time. His end product falls noticeably short of the high standard set by Chicago , and if it wasn't for the talent of his stars he might have ended up with a true flop on his hands. Oh, and for those who are wondering, the title is a pun on Fellini's original 8½. That was named after the Italian director's previous output (six features, two short movies, and a collaboration: which he counted as 7½ films), and Nine adds an extra half to the score - apparently music accounts for half a movie in its own right. In the case of Marshall's film that's pretty close to the mark, but unfortunately half a script isn't nearly enough. 3/5
Mildly amusing image for the sake that she looks like Barney, which is laughable, or Smoochy, which is an actually funny film. Genre: Comedy Musical (New Zealand) Starring: Donna Akersten, Stuart Devenie Directed By: Peter Jackson ( Dead Alive ; Bad Taste ) Overview: The Feebles, a variety entertainment troupe, is getting ready for the big event. Amidst drug deals, porn shoots, burdgeoning romance and jealous rage, can they get the show ready on time? Definitely rated R. Performance: The displays and portrayals seemed fine The voice acting maintained the characters. That rat was my favorite little guy, the lasciviousness and the lechery about him was really well portrayed. The dirty journalist fly was great too, but I felt something lacking overall. I feel the direction was weak, but Jackson's never been big on making sure his actors excel. Rating: 6 Cinematography: The images were passable, the Muppets were kind of cool but I got over that pretty quick. The final shootout, the toilet-turd eating fly and the gross bits I found rather surprising, though mildly entertaining. Overall, I found the images lacking in quality, (probably due to the laptop I was watching it on) but I still didn't find it to be an exciting experience; sets weren't dynamic or interesting. Seems that they relied too much on the fact that the puppets would carry itself in this category. Rating: 6 Script: This opens up with a song about 'The Feebles', in that Muppet show kind of introduction. Well they show it twice more ,and it wasn't that good the first time. There's two other songs, one about a three legged dog who wonders how does he get around, and some fruity romance-style solo that I found very bland, as though it were filler. The songs were bad, boring and a waste of time. I was rather disappointed. The rest, yeah, not High Art. Rating: 4 Plot: The story itself didn't appeal to me all that much either. I often found myself bored, looking at how much longer was left, contemplating terminating the film for desire at better, greener pastures of activities. I would hear, "Oh check out this part", and though good, I only remember being told 3 or 4 times. The rest of the time, I found myself not really caring if the drug deal went through or if the show went on, or how it ended. I found this story rather boring altogether. Rating: 4 Mood: The puppetry and the entire depth of it seemed rather prevalent, and I'll give it it's due for that, but did it capture me in it's mood? No. The sets were unimaginative, the musical segments weren't good and the feel of the whole thing felt way over the top and too gross for me. I know, Squish grossed out by something? It's context. These are Muppets! There aren't supposed to be aardvarks drooling ejaculate from their noses and using them to fornicate with sex slaves. Search me, but I didn't think it appropriate. Rating: 5 Muppets eating turdlets, yeah that's entertainment, sell me some more. Overall Rating: 46% (Feeble Indeed) Aftertaste: You know, I expected a bit more. In the end it was a good times with some friends, but what the hell?! Too crass, too gross and too non-sequitorial to be validated by my appreciation for what it was worth. I don't think this is anywhere as good as anyone I know made it out to be, and I would never recommend this to anyone. I even debated reviewing it as a film, thinking that it had no movie qualities to it... Then I remembered it was feature length. So here we are... Might as well tell you all how I didn't like it. Those that presented it to me loved it and I gather it's one of those nichey Cult films that you either love or hate. Is comparing it to Liquid Sky in that respect a little too much? Probably...
...Everywhere, Daddy Daddy... Genre: Musical Comedy Drama (USA, West Germany) Starring: John Savage ( Midnight Cowboy ; The Thin Red Line), Treat Williams (The Devil's Own; Once Upon A Time In America) Directed By: Milos Forman (Amadeus; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) Overview: A young man from Oklahoma spends a few days with some New York Hippies before joining the army. Performance: The thing about them is that some are good and some are bad. Well the top three roles in this one are well portrayed, but every other player is just too over the top for my liking. Maybe it's all the singing and dancing, who knows. Whatever, too hammy. Rating: 5 Cinematography: The images are good especially in the end, but nothing ingenious. Some fancy dream sequences, some interesting choreography, but after all is said and done, TOO MUCH SINGING AND DANCING. I know it's a musical, but I just can't get over it. Rating: 6 Script: The thing about movies like this is that they can be set in stone as far as dating is concerned. This is very dated. And I'm not only talking the hippy / Nam thing, I mean there's 2 songs about being black and liking Chocolate black boys and all that sort of thing. Yes I get it, but in this day and age, it's just a touch racist, regardless of the context. The songs too were very mediocre. Only the last song was worth keeping in my head. Very disappointing. It got to the point where I was dreading the next 5 minutes when music started. Ugh. Rating: 4 Plot: The story is a good one, at least the ending is totally awesome. The whole pregnancy thing and the middle seemed really more like filler than anything though. Because so much music was involved, I'll include the progression of songs in the plot. I can tell you that it was way out there contextually. Only about half the songs made sense in the place they were put. It's almost like someone wrote a bunch of songs and tried to make a story out of it. No sir, didn't like it. Rating: 5 Mood: This is a true musical. Fine. It's not fair for me to say that there were too many songs in this. But on the other hand also, Dancer in the Dark was a musical, and I loved that because it wasn't too many songs. Also The Wall was an entire album of music with NO dialogue, if I recall. So that can't be my beef cause I loved The Wall. Uh, fine. I'll just say it. Too much. Also this is way dated, but I said that already. If you like dancing...in a musical style... Then give it an extra point. But even the choreography in the songs suffered from time to time, too much Broadway influence, not enough film style. Rating: 6 That's a bunch of high-ass Hippies. I'm guessing Speed and shoe polish cocktails. Overall Rating: 52% (You'd Better Love Musicals) Aftertaste: Yeah, yeah. If I hate musicals why did I watch this? Well turns out I remember seeing this as a child as well as hearing the soundtrack. Turns out it carried more memorabilia than it ever should have. God, we just suck things up when we're kids eh? Too dated for it to stand the test of time, unfortunately. They should have toned it down a bit. Dirty Hippies.
If you're in MGM, you have to be an Adonis to get the girl. What arse-heards. Genre: Comedy Musical Starring: Buster Keaton ( Go West ; The Navigator ), Anita Page (The Broadway Melody; Our Modern Maidens) Directed By: Edward Sedgwick ( The Cameraman ; Speak Easily ) Overview: The beauty queen of Gopher City, Kansas, her mother and her manager go to Hollywood to make her famous. When she meets a star, she seems to have found herself a big break, but his intentions may be less than noble. Performance: Before we get into the whole 'why did this movie suck' thing, I thought I'd take a moment and point the evil finger of blame all over Edward Sedgwick, who directed this brilliant man into the ground. Small consolation comes from knowing that he's dead now and can't make any more career-killing films. His record is full of films you've never heard of and overall I don't think he'll be long remembered. Good for that. The worst of the talkies, with musical numbers and morons stumbling about with their exaggerated methods. It's not a Silent, stop over-emphasizing. Rating: 4 Cinematography: The occasional yet rare quirky moments have Keaton's flair in them. Perhaps he was able to add some of his input. I don't think I care enough to find out. Just like Speak Easily , this is a film about a guy who ends up in a show, and though the choreography is good for one part in one scene, the sets are just plain... plain. Nothing HERE for fans either. Rating: 6 Script: Stinks. And on top of that some of the lines were so poorly timed that I wondered if the actors forgot their lines. More likely they were just saving film, thinking that that last scene's delivery was, "uh, good enough". Those are my favorite kinds of movies, where they could do it again and fix it, but choose to finish their day early. Yipee. Oh God, what a rediculous unfolding of this tale. Rating: 4 Plot: Woman goes to the Big city to become a Star. A once super-cool crazy film legend (Keaton) tags along as her manager (more like 'third wheel') while big handsome Hollywood hunk drools all over her. She really doesn't seem all that interested in the career, but the manager and the mother get thrust into roles. Clearly this was before the days of Actor's Unions, when people who managed to sneak onto sets were given jobs lickety-split. The twist is lame, the pervert star realizing that he's a letch after Mother smashes a vase over his head. Then we wait for Buster to finish his retarded musical numbers, seeing where the steady decline of his career began. Rating: 4 Mood: Remember watching Public Television during their marathon when you were a kid, at the point where they showed stupid musicals from the 50s and said things like "only through your contributions can we continue to show you wonderful programming like the film you are watching." Holy Christ, there was nothing else on, and at least that was colourized. This is that bad. Why are early talkies all effin' musicals!? Wait I shouldn't say things like that. I'm sorry about what I said about Public Television films. Colorization is a sin. Rating: 4 If he had any idea what this would do to his career... Overall Rating: 44% (At Least It Was Free... But It Sure Weren't Easy) Aftertaste: Turns out that Buster Keaton's move to MGM studios cost him his entire reputation. In fact I think the quote was "utterly unemployable within five years". The reason why is very simple. They hired him as an actor, nothing more. I suppose they thought they knew best, but they forced him into roles that turned people off of him. No production, managing, direction or concept design, just acting. I guess it ended up being more like amputation than freedom.
Just cause it's dangerous doesn't mean you shouldn't visit Genre: Comedy Fantasy Musical Starring: Hervé Villechaize ("Fantasy Island" • The Man with the Golden Gun), Susan Tyrrell (Big Top Pee-wee • Powder) Directed By: Richard Elfman (Shrunken Heads • Modern Vampires) Overview: The Hercules family's basement contains a portal to the Sixth Dimension. When daughter Frenchy ends up in this Forbidden Zone it's up to her family to venture forth and rescue her from the diminutive King, his larger-than-life Queen and their host of wacky minions. Blatantly False Beards • Living Chandelier • Froggy Style • Pooped To The Next Dimension Hecklefest is a social event I engage in once a week without fail since it became an 'officially recorded' event on October 5th, 2007. Every week we watch two or three films and as of right now, the date of this post, the number of malignant mockables I've seen at this event is 193. Usually on these wonderful nights we heckle and rave as people march across the screen, and on extremely rare occasions (like 3) we become transfixed, unable to comment, leaving the film heckle itself. Honest to God's truth, of these 193 films, my #1 favorite Hecklefest film to date, surpassing even Purple Rain , is Forbidden Zone. That's fucking right, bitches. Praise be to the Sixth Dimension. Hervé Villechaize • Oingo Boing • Hitler As A Student • Gorilla Face Pulp • Man Frog In A Tuxedo Forbidden Zone is a black and white fever dream of adult madness. What could easily have been a children's fantasy musical was gloriously put to death from the first shot to the final breath. With random humping, gratuitous nudity, potty-mouth characters and ever so adult situations Richard Elfman ensures that this musical extravaganza of the strange is rooted in the mature. Random Humping • Totally Topless Princesses • Obese banana eating • WTF Characters It's bogglingly high-art (I didn't say good art) Avant-Garde, that though is relatively plotless, still makes more sense and has more storyline than Lynch or Jodorowski. In short, the Hercules family moves into a house that has a door to the 6th Dimension. When one goes in, the rest of the family slowly trickles in to follow / rescue the others. Toss in some nonsense, some corrupt Machiavellian machinations, some poetic justice, some cloth'd humping and obes'd banana eating and there you have a perfect little adventure into the tastefully obscene. What makes it truly spectacular is that Forbidden Zone doesn't have the blatant faggotry required to be compared to Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's so much ruder, stranger and better that that trite over-rated event (that I've seen 15 times in theaters, I'm not ashamed to say it!) Raygun • Mechanical Intestines • Transvestite ear chewing • Fart boxing Pimps in the back of class Performance: 4 Cinematography: 8 Script: 5 Plot: 4 Mood: 10 Overall Rating: 62% (Dare To Enter!) Aftertaste: Forbidden Zone is like a moebius strip of awkward splendor. The movie is terrible, and in knowing so, choses to immerse itself in its parody without creating the double negative effect that it would normally have on an audience. In it's transcendence, the way Forbidden Zone embraces the medium turns it genuinely magnificent in it's terribleness. To put it simply, Forbidden Zone is bad enough that it knows it's 'so bad it's good' and hence becomes good by being 'good at being so bad', which makes it really really bad... so good! See what other critics had to say about the stinky movies assigned to them for the White Elephant Blog-A-Thon, being held over at Lucid Screening . My submission was Ghoulies. Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to that!
"Don't throw that, it's for long distance." Genre: Comedy Musical Starring: The Marx Brothers - Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo ( Duck Soup ; A Day At The Races) Directed By: Robert Florey (Murders In The Rue Morgue; The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra ), Joseph Santley (Down Mexico Way) Overview: At a poor new beachfront resort during the Florida land boom, we find the Brothers as attempted scapegoats for the robbery of a valuable necklace. Performance: Having seen a couple Marx Brothers films already, I had no idea that they could get even less funny and even more painfully embarrassing. I know silver was expensive in the depression era, but that doesn't mean when someone stumbles over a line, they shouldn't be asked to do it over, does it? Was film that much of a commodity that we are made to suffer in this fashion? Oh and the director didn't know what he was doing, because all the other actors seems like stuffy mannequins too. Ugh! Groucho flubs that should have meant a retake: 3 Rating: 3 Cinematography: Nice sets, too bad about all the people in the way. Whether it's at the beach, in the lobby, at the dining room, while playing the harp or in the bedroom scene, there's no real originality to the filming but hey at least there was this: Random Choreography numbers for no reason whatsoever: 3 Rating: 5 Script: Oh I get it, everything you say is a pun. Remember when you were four years old and you figured out how funny puns were? Remember when you were an uneducated farmer in a dustbowl who saw a movie for the first time in 1929 and it was the Marx Brothers? Seriously, this really does NOT have to be one of the era's best memories. Let the same dumb joke die after 6 times already! "Viaduct!" "Why a duck?" I get it, drop it! Holy infantile, Batman! Rating: 4 Plot: The best this 90 minute film has to offer is the 15 minutes of genuine plot: a conniving couple plan on stealing a valuable necklace and pinning it on some or all the Marx Brothers. Hilarity ensues, or so it's supposed to. Instead we have overrated immature children running around eating phones and cracking gags because when people are throwing themselves out of windows and starving to death (The Great Depression), even this can be considered a 'good time'. ItÂs all relative, I guess. Wasted film for a musical number: 4 (worst of all, three of them were the same bad song, only one was mildly amusing) Rating: 6 Mood: Uh, what the hell was Zeppo even in this one for? He's like the extra guy who cashed in on the fame of the rest. What a waste of space. I guess family went a long way for these four... In all fairness he felt his talents wasted in this one. Just let me add this: apparently this movie was considered so bad by the Marx Brothers that they offered to buy it, so they could burn it. Ouch. Scenes that were gags simply for the sake of filling time: 1 Rating: 5 Not even one bellboy gag, surprising I know. Overall Rating: 46% (I'm-A Nuts For-A Watching This) Aftertaste: This is one of their earliest works, and their Vaudevillian background is still strong in this one. Imagine two decades of people going to see a musical, then finally sound appears on film. What a better way to convert the old musicals lovers than to constantly make movies with musical numbers! What a great day for Squish!The more I watch, the more I think these guys are just a gimmick that don't translate well at all 75 years later. Maybe in 2081, Quentin Tarantino will be considered a bad person for making crime film. Maybe he's be reviled. Maybe in 2081, they'll be able to revive his frozen head and put him in virtual jail...
For a boyish mute, Harpo can get downright creepy, man Genre: Comedy Musical Starring: The Marx Brothers ( Monkey Business ; Duck Soup ) Directed By: Victor Heerman Overview: Captain Spalding returns from his African expedition in time for the great unveiling of the famous Beaugard painting, but sinister plots about when thieves want the painting for themselves. Performance: Hey Groucho, ARE YOU ACTUALLY READING OFF A CARD? Are you serious? What made these actors think they were doing some crappy television show? Harpo's misogyny and purity of annoyance hits an apex in this one too. Not only does he chase after women, but he gropes them, sits on them, wrestles with them, punches them repeatedly in the stomach and shoots at them in the head with a rifle. Ha ha, domestic violence was never so drole... Zeppo has something like 4 lines, again proving that he's a useless member of the team, apparently much to his own chagrin. The other actors are still stuffy, but not as much as I've seen previously. Rating: 5 Cinematography: Alright so we have a nice big fancy house, rote camerawork and a piano number where Chicho does his usual trademark fancy finger work, and Harpo does, you guessed it, a harp solo. I read that the man was self-taught and he learned himself wrong. Either way, at least it was professional. Rating: 7 Script: "You go Uruguay and I'll go mine!" Imagine a movie that is just this kind of joke all the time. You're damn right it gets old, but there's actually less groaners in this one than in any other I've seen so far. Does that mean I'll give it a nicer score because I'm comparing it to itself? No. Rating: 5 Plot: This one opens with four musical numbers in the first seven minutes. Isn't that just grand? And I'm not talking anything good either. I guess the fact that there's just one more musical number is pretty good for a story that was originally a musical play. All those parts were a waste of film if you ask me, but the plot is at least a touch more present in this one, even though the actual story doesn't even get resolved properly...and of course, far too perfectly. Rating: 6 Mood: The best part of this movie was the fact that they repeated the name of Groucho's character about 20 times. His name is Captain Spalding. Those of you who are horror fans will remember the name of the old sicko clown in House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects , played by Sid Haig. That's right, Captain Spalding. Every mention of the name brought me back to a better time than the movie I was watching. If you're into the whole Marx Brothers shtick, this is actually one of the better less musical more comedy kind of films. It's passably fine. Rating: 6 Groucho ain't the only Gropey Guss, sheesh Overall Rating: 58% (Just Plain Cracked) Aftertaste: The first time I ever heard of the Marx Brothers, the person who introduced it to me told me how much bigger these guys were compared to the Three Stooges, how they were considered high-class comedy compared to the slapstick style of Larry, Moe and Curly. Please. The Stooges are so much funnier. Physical comedy is better than terrible puns, no?!
Ease on, ease on... Easy on the Disco, Jesus. Genre: Fantasy Adventure Family Musical Starring: Diana Ross (Lady Sings The Blues; Mahogany), Michael Jackson (Ghosts; Miss Cast Away) Directed By: Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men; Serpico ) Overview: A young girl An African-American kindergarten teacher trapped in a tornado tragic special effect wakes up in Oz, a fantastical land of wonder, a banal ghetto, where she finds that getting home is going to take some real effort, given that the Wicked Witch of The West is out to get her. no one can stop singing long enough to help her. Performance: It was more fun finding out what other things these actors have been in than watching them in this. I don't know if the word 'embrassing' does this film justice. If you compartmentalize everything else and just look at the performances... oh Lord, God no! Is this ever tacky! You might say that there were a couple of good scenes, but all the supporting cast, those dancers, they were tragic. I've seen more talent in glue-huffing junkies . Try doing better in your overdubbing, this isn't a movie about time travelling to catch up with your voice. Oh that ending where everyone's crying for the last 20 minutes? TONE IT DOWN ROSS! You too Richard Pryor (not kidding). Michael? Never mind. Bad director on drugs! Rating: 4 Cinematography: It would have been nice if the director had tried a couple more takes to make the out of sync overdubbing less obvious. The costumes were decent, and I'm in no was saying 'good'. The sets, however, were poorly thought out, very low-budget, including the occasional rickety staircase or cheap afro-head that was the 'great and powerful wizard'. If you were trying to foreshadow a bleak post-apocalyptic world like the one in 12 Monkeys, you did better than trying to recreate Oz. Yeah, even you Lena Horne, Ms. Glenda the Good Witch! Rating: 4 Script: The overdubbing might have been a bit of the problem here, or perhaps it's the fact that this is 30 minutes longer than the original. Let me tell you why. Singing, songs and musical numbers. Picture this: Wicked Witch sings a song, then our quatro-retardo sings a song, and they kill her. Then, a victory song, then they sign another song, as though the first victory song wasn't enough. What in God's name is the purpose of that? Move on, it's supposed to be a story, not a ballet show. So weak, so weak. Rating: 4 Plot: Holy stupid. Remember in The Wizard of Oz how the characters all just so happened to have the very things they were looking for? How they just needed to prove it after being given their quest? This doesn't even pretend to do that. Dorothy says things like "You're so smart" to the scarecrow's ideas, or the lion defeats enemies before even getting to The Wiz. I kind of thought half the story was about how their voices were enslaved to look like they were a second behind their mouths, evil Witch! Turns out it was just BAD OVERDUBBING. They molested the hell out of the original ending. The Wiz didn't hand out any presents, and there wasn't even a reunion with the family when she was done her ordeal. How could you mess up what was already done and written for you?! Rating: 4 Mood: To have happy moments in the streets, passing piles of garbage and graffiti as they merrily sang. OK, look, this is FANTASY, that mean ESCAPING the reality that you live in New Jersey. I'm sorry you don't live in the Hamptons, but you can PRETEND. Wait, wait, there's also the ultra-original sci-fi fantasy moment where they get attacked in the SUBWAY by the pillars. The terrible overdubbing doesn't help the mood either. Rating: 4 Uh, yeah, the great and mystical trek to the Emerald city. "NEXT STOP SCARSBURG STATION!" Overall Rating: 40% (Wiz On this and It'll Smell Better) Aftertaste: Equus, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, even Child's Play for God's sake! This director has made some of American's best and most popular films. Explain to me how he ended up directing this regurgitating toilet?! Besides, he's some middle-class Honky! How can he direct a movie that's an African-American retelling of a classic film? Fine, fine he's from Philly, fine. This was so bad that it corrupted the original, making it stink of a garbage strike in the middle of the summer. This is tragic, and with a 24 million dollar budget, for a film to make 13 million in theaters, hey, the numbers speak for themselves. People didn't like it. I bought this as a joke, and the joke was on me. At least it was a dollar. And HEY! As if! There's not even ONE white person in this, how sexist!
They really don't LOOK like they hate black people... and hey, maybe they don't... just MAYBE. Genre: Musical Starring: Mickey Rooney (Captains Courageous; Erik The Viking ), Judy Garland (A Star Is Born; The Wizard Of Oz ) Directed By: Busby Berkeley (Babes On Broadway) Overview: With the Vaudeville circuit running dry, a gang of showbiz kids try to prove to their folks that it's a career worth dancing for! Performance: There were two characters who I didn't like very much, their singing seemed utterly fake. You know that Mickey and Judy are doing their own voices because you've heard them before, but these overly deep and operatic voices coming out of the overdubbed mouths of the other two made me wonder. Direction was fine, Mickey was a little much, Judy was just great. Rating: 6 Cinematography: Vast stage productions of people dancing all over the place, this is one of those musicals that made musicals famous, no doubt due to the cinematography and choreography. Obviously this is one of the yardsticks, up there with Singin' in the Rain. You had better like musicals, because this is grassroots, my friend. Rating: 8 Script: Ick. Can't say that I liked how they just jumped into "this is the plot, let's do it!" Then the 12 people behind Mickey say, "Yeah!", "He's Right!", "We'll NEVER give up!" Frikken tacky if you ask me. The words of the songs weren't that great either, but the famous "I'm just Wild About Harry" and "Good Morning" are in this, so you know you're getting repertoire. That's worth a point. Rating: 6 Plot: Alright, yeah, ok, fine. It's a musical. This just prove my devotion to this thing called film. It's not my kind of story either, but it's not so bad. Vaudeville is losing out to cinema, and the kids put on a show while the parents are away trying to being back a Vaudevillian Revival. The kids do alright and they get a nice big show at the end. It's predictable, and honestly we all know that it's fluff, but there's a bit of a love story and nothing is too far fetched. The story was fine. Rating: 7 Mood: There's Vaudeville, then there's Blackface. You know, I understand that this tributes the Old South traveling shows, (to use the words grassroots again), but did no one back then even see this as an issue? I mean, 1939 for God's sake! When it started I was a little surprised, then I got over it, then it got to me, not because every white person was black, but because there was a Colonel Sanders cracker-looking white guy sitting on his plantation rocking chair during the whole scene. Mildly disturbing, honestly. The rest is not only standard musical fare, but hardcore classic. Rating: 6 Sweet classic Soda Shop Scene, and you know what the best part is? Fisticuffs in the store! Overall Rating: 66% (Just Slipped Through Our Grasp) Aftertaste: If you're into musicals, this is one not to miss, but you'd know that already, being into musicals as you are, which I, am not. Dancer in the Dark, The Wizard of Oz , I don't even count those, the story's too damn good to think about the fact that half the movie is singing. This, however, is about a show followed by an even bigger show, so your parents will probably like this more than you will.
When you see James Cagney on screen, you'll KNOW he's a natural. He belongs there. Genre: Comedy Musical Romance Starring: James Cagney (Blood On The Sun; Angels With Dirty Faces), Joan Blondell ( The Public Enemy ; Gold Diggers of 1933) Directed By: Lloyd Bacon Overview: The talkies have put Chester Kent out of business, so he moves on to making chorus musical prologues for films. From spies stealing his ideas to showbiz conflict, can he put not one, but THREE shows on on time? Performance: You know as soon as I saw James Cagney, I thought, "Here he is, a legend of his time. A little strange that this man, best known for being a mobster is in a musical. Let's see if he's all that." And you know what? Instant stage presence. So astounding that I added a bunch more of his movies to my list of 'Must See'. Everyone else is fine, but they ain't no Cagney. Rating: 8 Cinematography: You may hate musicals. Typically I do too, but the insane choreography in this is so elaborate that you have to agree a titanic effort went into making this look just so. Wow. Seriously. Rating: 9 Script: The writing is also really well done. What a great job of explaining everything with wit and originality and the characters' interrelationships are pretty elaborate. Musically, this is also the one with that famous song By The Waterfall (you know the one: I'm calling, you, hoo-hoo-hoo). Rating: 8 Plot: The story is deep, really! We have partners defrauding their idea man, an ex-wife trying to milk her husband while he chases someone else. His 'someone else' is trying to stop the wife and throughout the whole thing they're working on a three-day schedule to safeguard their careers. I mentioned that this plot could be reworked into a John Grisham style law / suspense / thriller and it would still work. Pretty cool politics. Rating: 8 Mood: For a musical there's really not all that much singing (only 4 or 5 songs), but when it came to those 'last three shows', those are super great. A massive effort went into making a comedic, hectic and larger than life show that's just bang on. For that I just gotta give 'em props. Rating: 8 I am genuinely predisposed to hating Musicals, but look at all the ladies! Overall Rating: 82% (May Just Knock You Off Your Feet) Aftertaste: Just as it was with Freaks , the score reflects just a little differently than what I thought of it. I watched this only as 'one down' from my list of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die . Sometimes when you do something you enjoy it feels like work. Working makes you feel like a professional. 'Film Professional' is a pretty cool title. I should make up business cards. No I didn't love this, but your Mom might.
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p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Parce-que je suis FRANCAIS!
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Genre: Musical Comedy Romance
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Starring: Maurice Chevalier (Gigi • Love in the Afternoon), Jeanette MacDonald (The Merry Widow • San Francisco)
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Directed By: Rouben Mamoulian (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) • Queen Christina)
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Overview: When a tailor visits a royal chateau to get his payment, he must stay and pose as a Baron until the Viscount can muster up his cash.
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" When I settled in to Footlight Parade (1933) , I knew I was doing it for the sake of 'The Study'. Gee, it's like I just somehow KNEW that a 1930s choreography-intense Musical just wouldn't be my bag, but I watched it because I'm ever a slave to The List . But I was impressed. James Cagney is a Glorious Black and White presence on screen, Busby Berkeley is a name to note what with his truly epic choreography sequences, and the famous song "By A Waterfall" has this film as its source. All these things in one movie add just that bit of historical context that fill a few cultural puzzle pieces in the landscape of my mind as to what mattered once and still trickles down through to this day.
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" In a similar fashion I was pleasantly entertained by with Love Me Tonight.
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Maurice Chevalier is one of those names that tickles the synapses with recognition. The über-popular song "Isn't It Romantic?" is one we all know and to learn that it has its roots in this film gives that 'historical context' joy, and for as much as Love Me Tonight is not my typical fare, it was still enjoyable.
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Love Me Tonight kicks into high gear from the very beginning. We watch as Parisians wake up to a new day. One person appears, sweeping the walk, another comes out, banging dust out of their rug, cobblers sit outside and begin hammering nails into shoe soles. As more people appear, they produce a symphony of sound and rhythm, which immediately served to put my mind at ease as to what the sound quality would be in this early talkie… singy? The story, though standard RomCom fare is not so formulaic as one would expect. Our hero Maurice, a tailor, is looking forward to giving 15 suits to the Viscount Gilbert de Varèze. Sadly the Viscount is nothing more than a royal bum who needs to beg money from the Duke to pay his bills. When Maurice learns this, he decides to head to the chateau as a 'one man revolution' to go get his 65,000 francs back, telling the Viscount "I will not leave without my money". The Viscount replies "then stay until I can get it." From then on Maurice is introduced as a Baron. Turns out there are some regal ladies living at the chateau too, and there's the Romance angle. The film then follows the trend of 'commoner-faking-nobility', but handles it in a far more honest way than the expected bumbling screwball fashion it could easily have led to.
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" By today's standards Love Me Tonight is melodramatic, and maybe even out of touch but it's still entertaining, and certainly not a chore of the 1001 Movies I Need To See Before I Bite It .
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Musical or BUST!
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Performance: 8 Cinematography: 7 Script: 8 Plot: 7 Mood: 7 Overall Rating: 74% (Well, Likeable At Least!) Aftertaste:
p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px;" Looks like my 30s learnin eye is startin to twitch! You might just suffer through a couple more soon enough.
Ah so minimalist it's funny... I think Genre: Musical Comedy (France) Starring: René Lefèvre, Annabella ( Napoléon ) Directed By: René Clair ( À Nous La Liberté ) Overview: When an artist deep in debt finds out he's the winner of a million bucks, he rushes out to settle up with all those he owes money to, except that he can't seem to find the lottery ticket... Performance: Frenchmen from the 30s are just as foppish as the ones from today. The thing about Fops though is that they are proud for a reason. These reasons include: being rich, coming from a long line of nobility (or revolutionaries if you're French), and being good at what you do. These actors are good enough at what they do to be fops, but not so good that they don't deserve a slap. Rating: 6 Cinematography: The running around and the minimal choreography (by Musicals standards) is really all you have to look forward to. The moustaches and top hats aside, the sets aren't that elaborate, the scenes aren't all that special, and there was a bit of the head cropping that I complained about in my last review . In one word: Blah. Rating: 4 Script: If you can't speak French, don't see this on tape. It's got the tragic 'sometimes-subtitling' of a film out of 1930. Some scenes only have the basic gist of what was said, which is perfect for French Canadians who have trouble hearing the language over the frog yammer and the white noise of the terrible recording, but the rest of you will find that reading white words overlaid across a white tablecloth is an exercise in annoyance. If you ARE French, then the story is passably decently told, big woop. Rating: 4 Plot: Allow me to take this opportunity to express how stupid it is for you to start a story knowing that everything ended well. I thought the "It was all a dream" thing was the worst of the bullshit plots but I guess I was wrong. The "It all ends well, just watch" is far worse. WHAT KIND OF MOVIE SPOILS ITSELF?! Utterly stupid! Is it me?! Rating: 3 Mood: I will admit that I laughed from time to time, and not simply because a bunch of French swine were going around begging to be made fun of. Still, having to turn off and get back to this film 4 times was a clear indication that I couldn't quite get into it. The sound quality and the washed-out muddy picture were distracting to the point of discomfort. Rating: 4 One of the better scenes, the crazy Frenchman without pants. How drole. Overall Rating: 42% (Far, Far From a Million) Aftertaste: There very rarely comes a time when I watch a film that I don't want to review. Sometimes I go out of my way to watch some ultra-obscure kitsch, knowing it will be garbage, not only to become ever more elitist to the cinematic beast, but with the solid possibility that the review will be scathing. This was just an amazingly predictable film. It's not an annoying musical, it's just an annoying film. This review was a chore. I much rather would have forgotten this film that for some reason is considered a classic.
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