So, when we fell off the Best Picture wagon, we fell hard. Inspired by the looming threat of winter storm and maybe one too many Yuengling Lights, we decided to throw The Da Vinci Code into the DVD player and see if it was bad was we remembered.
Surprise! The answer is yes! It's awful. Jawdroppingly, how-did-this-happen awful?
(Sidenote: We have no idea how we came to own this DVD.)
On paper, this movie looks great. Adapted from Dan Brown's mega-selling page turner, directed with typical workmanlike efficiency by Ron Howard, starring the fantastic Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan (in a role that lets him play in his impish British gentleman wheelhouse), and America's favorite leading man, Tom Hanks. What could go wrong?
For starters, all the weaknesses of Brown's writing are exposed on film. Brown is a master plotter and the book unfolds with relentless urgency; any dead spots brightened up by the puzzle after puzzle for the reader to work through. The wooden prose and silly conspiracy stuff doesn't even matter because we are racing to find out what happens next. But the film viewer doesn't get the satisfaction of seeing and working through the puzzles for themselves - at least not in this script. What we're left with is a lot of watching other people sit around, thinking out loud, and explaining things.
That can work with the right characters (have you seen any Richard Linklater film?). But not here. Robert Langdon was a bland facsimile of Indiana Jones without the whip on paper, and he's even less than that here. Hanks gets almost nothing to work with. It feels like he has less than 25% of the dialogue and mostly then just to express surprise at what he's being told. And he gets told a lot of stuff. And a lot of what he's told thuds as expositorily as an entry level religious studies lecture.
What was a catch-your-breath whodunit on paper thus becomes a when-does-this-thing-end quasi-history lesson on film.
And we really, who in god's name forced Tom Hanks to do that to his head? The man is living icon. FOR SHAME!
OK, so maybe the plan was to watch only Best Picture winners for a while. But then Andy Garcia in Godfather, Part III happened, which can only, inexorably lead to one conclusion: WATCH THE UNTOUCHABLES.
While The Untouchables did take home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Sean Connery), it was not a best picture nominee. Be that as it may, The Untouchables is a classic of the gangster film genre, made all the better for having actual protagonists - Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and his gang of "untouchable" super-cops. Sure, Robert DeNiro chews his share of scenery as Al Capone - and to great effect. But this is the rare modern gangster film with the gumshoes and cheap suits as the stars and not just cannon fodder.
Directed by that underrated auteur Brian DePalma, The Untouchables tells the story of how Eliot Ness handcrafted a delicious amber lager on the shores of Lake Erie. Actually, no, it's about the Treasury Department's full throttle push to take down infamous Chicago ganglord Capone. Ness assembles a crack team: a streetwise Irish beat cop (Connery); a nebbishy accountant (Charles Martin Smith); and a hotheaded rookie (Garcia). Together, they declare all-out war on Capone and see plenty of casualties along the way, all rendered in thrilling and anxiety-producing detail with DePalma's steady hand behind the camera.
Many of the set pieces in this film are so iconic, you may know them already, even if you've never seen it.
Fantastic direction and crackling performances asides, my favorite thing about this film might be the part they couldn't make up. Ultimately, what got Capone? Failure to pay taxes. That's the thing about criminals. No matter how powerful and rich they become, they tend to get caught because they're not smart enough to tend to the little things.
When we decided to focus on some best picture winners, we had to do a bit of work figuring out which we had. Scanning the results, the choice for next in the queue was obvious: The Godfather. Since we own a box set of the trilogy, that meant watching them all. (Ironic "darn" and shake of fist).
The Godfather waltzed to a Best Picture win in 1972, beating out Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants, and Sounder. Of those, only Deliverance has any kind of lasting cultural cache and then mostly as a banjo-sound-effect joke. Marlon Brando also took home a li'l golden guy for his iconic performance as Vito Corleone...er, or he would have, had he not famously refused it to protest the treatment of Native Americans:
The imaginatively titled The Godfather, Part II prevailed in the face of stiffer competition in 1974: classics such as Chinatown, The Conversation, and Lenny (featuring an incredible Dustin Hoffman performance) were in that field, with The Towering Inferno also nominated. In what I think is the only occassion of two actors winning Oscars for the same role, Robert DeNiro also won Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Vito as a young man. DeNiro, 31, and just breaking out after terrific performances im Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, kept his Oscar.
Despite its reputation as the redheaded stepchild of the trilogy, The Godfather, Part III, was also nominated for Best Picture. It lost to Dances With Wolves in 1990, which famously upset the far superior and inarguably better GoodFellas. Awakenings (good year for DeNiro!) and Ghost were also nominated that year. Nominated for 7 Oscars, Godfather 3 took home none (ANDY GARCIA WUZ ROBBED!). It did get some accolades: Sofia Coppola won two Razzies for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Newcomer.
But this isn't all about awards...let's get to the movies. Typically, we take these movies one at a time but let's consider this two-part opera, and its underrated denouement, together as a whole below the jump.
Inspired by the announcement of the Academy Award nominees the other day, we decided to peruse our collection for former Best Picture winners. As it turns out, we've already reviewed a few: Casablanca (1943), The Departed (2006), and No Country for Old Men (2007). Each of those keepers were also probably the rightful winner their year. I seem to remember The Departed being a bit of a surprise win at the time, but, in retrospect, its competitors (Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Queen, and Little Miss Sunshine) are fairly weak tea. You could make an argument that There Will Be Blood should have prevailed over No Country in 2007, but we prefer the latter (Juno, Michael Clayton, and Atonement were the other nominees that year). Since we have already covered the 2006 and 2007 winners, why not march on to 2008? Because we don't own the overrated Slumdog Millionaire!
So, fast forward to 2009. The year when the Academy (wisely) expanded the field to as many as 10 films. While that allowed in cliche-ridden stinkers like The Blind Side and Precious and the big-moneyed but little-brained Avatar into the big dance, those questionable choices joined the company of some damn good films: District 9, An Education, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, and the winner...
You could make an argument in favor of several of these films as the Best Pic. Personally, we pulled for Inglourious Basterds in that race - arguably, Tarantino's finest film (we'll get there!). Pixar has yet to match the transcendant Up, which was a classic upon arrival. A Serious Man is seriously underrated in the Coen Brothers ouevre. And District 9 actually reignited a moribund genre (sci-fi), unlike its big brother Avatar, which has inspired far fewer imitators. But it's hard to fault the Academy's choice of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow's searing portrait of an explosive detonation unit in the Iraq War.
It's an odd sort of war film in that the actual running time dedicated to combat qua combat is limited. The bomb squad is called in, typically, after the battle is over or before anything happens - either to clear the way or to clean up the mess. The action for these soldiers instead requires the tortuous patience to cut wires and unbury IEDs while wearing the equivalent of a space suit.
The unbelievable task at hand for this unit makes for fascinating and tense cinema. While, at times, the focus on the detonations can also make the movie feel like nothing more than a series of well-constructed vignettes, Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal are playing a deeper game. Quietly, the film builds into a character study of an inscrutable character, Sergeant First Class William James. (Jeremy Renner, in a career-making performance, has never been better than here.* His co-stars, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty, are also excellent.)
The question the film (and Renner's performance) asks: what kind of man can wear that suit and how can he survive outside of a war? It is really only interested in that question - eschewing much dialogue about the war and its purposes (or lack thereof), the focus remains on James and his men. Cannily, big name actors (Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes) are introduced and quickly dismissed, ratcheting back the focus to the then-unknown Renner - forcing the audience to ask themselves: who is this guy?
In fact, I think the only misstep in the whole film is James' excursion off the base to find the family of an Iraqi boy he believes has been murdered. While it tells us something about James, its more about the boy - and feels tonally askew as a result. But ultimately, devastatingly, the film zooms back on its target.The scene of James standing in the mundane opulence of a stateside supermarket, staring blankly at row after row of hypercolor cereal boxes, says it all without saying a thing. What does war do to a man? And what is that man do without a war?
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER
NEXT UP: THE GODFATHER TRILOGY (2/3 for Best Picture Oscars)
*He may be better (but overlooked due to his showier castmates) in Amercian Hustle.
As legend has it, Roger Avary asked his buddy and fellow video clerk, Quentin Tarantino, to take a look at a script he was writing about two criminals on the run, on the road, and in love. Given free reign to re-work what Avary had put together, Tarantino ended up with a behemoth of a script. Enough in fact for two totally different movies: Natural Born Killers and True Romance. Tarantino sold the rights to both scripts, bought the cherry red convertible that John Travolta would later drive in Pulp Fiction, and went off and made Reservoir Dogs on his own. The rest, they say, is history.
Clarence Worley (Chistian Slater) is lonely, watching a Sonny Chiba kung fu triple feature in a dingy Detroit movie theatre on his birthday. That is, until, a flirty blond bombshell, Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) sidles up next to him. The two spend a dizzy night together, eating pie and talking Nick Fury in the comic book store in which Clarence works. It's love at first sight, so much so, that Alabama is forced to admit that theirs wasn't just a run-of-the-mill meet cute: she's a call girl, sent by Clarence's benevolent boss. But she's soon headed to the Wayne County courthouse for a wedding and, thus, retirement from the world's oldest profession. Spurned by an imagined conversation with his Mentor (i.e., Elvis) (Val Kilmer), Clarence heads to the home of Drexl Spivey (Gary Oldman), Alabama's pimp, to "collect her things." Things escalate, Drexl ends up dead, and the suitcase full of "Alabama's things" turns out to be full of cocaine. What else are our heroes to do but to head off to LA and try to move the cola to movie-types? Of course, the mob (Christopher Walken and James Gandolfini) and soon the feds (Tom Sizemore and Chris Penn) are hot on their trial.
So, yeah, its an early Tarantino script in spades: colorful characters with a deep abiding love of pop culture and a deep lack of self-awareness getting mixed up in events over their heads and which almost certainly must end in a Mexican stand-off. With Tony Scott at the helm, however, things move in a more linear, 80's Hollywood action movie fashion than a typical QT outing. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Aside from a slightly incongruous Badlands-aping score and Christian Slater's strange dialect choices (instead of mimicking Jack Nicholson for once, he oddly sounds like a Tennessee river boat gambler), the movie hums along like high speed rail.
And it's elevated by some insane supporting turns, where all of your favorite actors show up and take over the film for five to ten minutes. Most famously, Dennis Hopper (as Clarence's dad, Clifford) and Christopher Walken go toe to toe in a slightly tense genealogical lesson. (The entire film is worth it for that scene alone, which is perfectly played by Hopper and Walken and a masterful example of using a character's (and the audience's) inherent bigotry as a weapon.) Brad Pitt has a hilarious turn as Michael Rappaport's stoner roommate, Floyd. Bronson Pinchot (yes, Balky) kills it as the sycophantic Elliot Blitzer. But everyone else pales in comparison to the Gary Oldman, disappearing into the role of a white Jamacian pimp with a milky eye:
Due to the #POLBRRVORTEX, we were stuck indoors for three days straight in #SNOLEDO. (I'm auditioning for a job drafting twitter hashtags for the local news). What better time to potentially scar our 4 year old with a creature double feature...
If you thought for one hot minute that I'm referring to the recent Sam "Quit-Trying-To-Make-Me-Happen-Hollywood" Worthington remake, you can show yourself out. NO! This is the original CGI-less version, lovingly handcrafted by Ray Harryhausen.
Clash of the Titans tells the story of Perseus (Harry "Hotlips" Hamlin) and his gods-aided quest for Andromeda's hand, for which he must battle mythical baddies Calibos, Medusa, and, at the BIG BOSS level, the Kraken. Featuring heavyweights of the British stage and screen (Laurence Olivier as Zeus and pre-Dowager Countess Maggie Smith) and an American known for training heavyweights (Burgess Meredith), the real star of the film is Harryhausen - whose effects, while dated, hold up remarkably well or at least hold a nostalgic charm.
After all, if you came of age in the 80's or early 90's, this was your Intro to Greek Mythology 101. Well, for everyone but Ms. ReViewing Habit, who does not share my affection for this classic monster movie. And, really, besides the nostalgia effect and as an artifact of pre-computer effects, there's not much to get excited about as an adult.
So, I'll admit to cheating a bit on this one. Having established an exemption for kid's movies early in this experiment, I recruited our oldest lil' ReViewer to see if I could squeeze this in on the kid's shelf. The effects get a little scary at times and I'll admit she covered her eyes more than once...but, what would you know, 4-year-olds still dig Greek myth! (Side note: she also might be a sociopath, because, while covering her eyes occasionally, she laughed maniacally when Calibos lost his hand and Medusa lost her head...what have we wrought upon this realm?)
So, we can technically classify this as a pitch, though it will find a happy home on the kid's shelf.
The bridge between the practical creature effects of Harryhausen to the modern computer effects that we are besotted with today, Jurassic Park, in our humble opinion, still has the best effects of any blockbuster. I'll never forget the sense of awe-inspired wonder I felt when I first saw this film and it's pretty great watching it with your kid and seeing that same amazement. I'll also admit the heroically manipulative John Williams score still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up during that first big reveal, where Laura Dern and Sam Neil (both never better) stare gape-mouthed at a brachiosaurus.
But, let's be honest, the real awe is inspired by the terrifyingly cool velociraptors (which, be honest, you knew nothing about before this):
Mmm..ice cream.
Okay, sure, the cast is great, with Jeff Goldblum in a very Jeff Goldblum role, Samuel L. Jackson when he didn't stick out like a sore thumb, NEWMAN! (a.k.a. Wayne Knight*), Sir Richard Attenborough (slumming out of the director's chair), game-master extraordinaire Bob Peck, the aforementioned Neil and Dern, and great performances from the child actors as well (Joe Mazello, still acting, and Arianna Richards, not). And, yes, Steven Spielberg is still the reigning king of American blockbuster film-making. But real live DINOSAURS! Running wild in a theme park! Eating people! What else do you need?
Slight diversion: Our first anniversary was raining, crappy day when we lived in New York City. We decided to spend the day at the Museum of Natural History. Riding the train back uptown, we both mentioned how seeing all the dinosaurs made us want to see Jurassic Park. When we arrived back at our apartment and turned on the TV, what was on but the opening credits of Jurassic Park. A wonderful moment of serendipity, in which we enjoyed our cheap champagne and one year old wedding cake. Even if we didn't otherwise love this movie, it's worth keeping for triggering that memory alone.
Once the kiddos were safely (and warmly) in bed, Ma and Pa turned to a movie about real monsters. No Country for Old Men, adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel, is perhaps the bleakest of the Coen Brothers oeuvre (their debut, Blood Simple, maybe comes close). Harsh and unrelenting, while showing the faintest pulse of hope in the tired eyes of Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff, it's simply unforgettable.
Get a haircut and get a real job.
Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), out hunting, happens upon the remains of a botched drug deal in the Texas desert. He makes off with the money and soon finds himself being hunted not just by Jones' sheriff, but by the implacable Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), an ice cold killer with a pageboy haircut. On Chigurh's tail, is Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), an equally mysterious weirdo and the only one who really knows who or what Chigurh is.
To give away much more about the plot would do a disservice to those who haven't yet experienced it. A meditation on what it means to live in country soaked in blood, wondering whether there is a fire out there in the cold and the dark, wrapped in the guise of a tension-soaked, edge-of-your-seat thriller. There's nothing else to say but that it is not to be missed.
Medusa and T-Rex got nothing on American psychos.
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER
*Wayne Knight has had an amazing career when you think about it. In addition to this: Seinfeld, Space Jam, JFK, Basic Instinct, 3rd Rock from the Sun, to name but a few. Also, he apparently plays Micro in Punisher: War Zone, which I now must see, despite my disappointment with the other two Punisher films).
Obviously, we watch a lot of movies at home. But, occassionally (specifically, when someone takes the Jr. ReViewing Habits off our hands for a few hours), we go to the local multiplex. Most recently we saw American Hustle, which is a terrific film, with great performances across the board (especially by Amy Adams' sideboob).
American Hustle is an elaborately dizzy whack-a-mole story of identity and survival. Characters wear bad wigs, cheap make-up, and nail polish that smells of rot. No one is who they say they are and that's exactly what they are. The ABSCAM sting that carries the plot is just one of the many stories these people have and will tell in their life. If we had the DVD, we'd say KEEPER, easily.
It was on the tip of my tongue the whole time, but that movie about double-crosses and false identities reminded me of another film...one which we had in our DVD collection...
That movie was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (review coming soonish!).
But watching The Departed in such close proximity to American Hustle, I was struck with the satisfaction that can be derived from films about false identities, sting operations, and confidence games, especially those which deliver a whammy of a double (or triple) cross at the end - whether the bait and switch is played for hilarious or devastating effect. There's something about puzzles, I guess.
DAMON: "Can we re-enact the Ghost pottery scene?" DiCAPRIO: "We've already begun."
Under the masterful direction of Martin Scorcese, the tension derived from watching the pieces put together in The Departed is gripping. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, going undercover as a crook and a cop, respectively, turn in the performances of their careers and Jack Nicholson goes delirously and unnervingly over-the-top like he hasn't since The Shining. A bonkers supporting cast of Alec Baldwin (in full Jack Donaghy on steroids and disappointment mode), Martin Sheen (street Jeb Bartlett), Vera Farmiga (killing in what could be a nothing role), and, yes, Mark Wahlberg at his Marky Mark Wahlbergiest:
While Wahlberg and Baldwin provide more than a little comic relief, The Departed is, at its core, a well-constructed, well-executed hardboiler. An incisive examination of what it means to be a rat and to run (or be caught in) the maze.
Perfect for being shut in the house during the POLAR VORTEX (RealFeel of -53!!!! right now).
When I was 13 or so, my older brother came home with a couple of rental VHS tapes (ah, the bad ol' days of home entertainment): one was Clerks.; the other was Reservoir Dogs. These were the leading comedy and drama, respectively, of the early '90's independent film boom and we treated ourselves a double feature. Before then, I had never seen a movie that looked like something my friends and I could have put together on our own (could being the operative term). Afterwards, I was buzzed with excitement and never looked at movies the same way.
That night is one of the many, many acts of corruption which led to our gluttonous DVD collection and, consequently, this blog.
On that momentous night (probably because we watched Clerks. first), I didn't realize what a huge influence Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs had on writer/director/Silent Bob Kevin Smith: the interstitial title cards; the highly curated soundtrack; and even a camera-in-the-trunk shot. Of course, the most obvious similarity is that dialogue drives the action (such as it is) - and pop culture references don't just pepper the dialogue, it is the dialogue. Other than that, though, they couldn't be more different movies.
Clerks. is the classic example of writing what you know: famously shot in grainy black and white on a budget of maxed out credit cards, it is filmed in and about the actual convenience store in which Smith worked. Brian O'Halloran plays Smith stand-in Dante Hicks, the carry out employee who isn't supposed to be at work but is and isn't supposed to be pining over his philandering ex-girlfriend (Lisa Spoonhauer as Caitlin Bree) but is. His best friend, Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson), "runs" the video store next to the carry out. Mainly, however, Randal, bothers Dante by debating Star Wars, borrowing his car to rent transgender porn from another video store, and generally antagonizing the idiotic patrons of the Quick Stop ("Do you sell hubcaps for a '68 Pinto hatchback? Oh! Mini-Trucker Magazine!"). Meanwhile, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) sell weed in front of the store...and Russian heavy metal.
I'm not sure any of the actors were professional actors before Clerks. (or, for that matter, after). It's not a master class, by any means. But O'Halloran's shaggy dog self-pity works perfectly against Anderson's aggressively disrespectful sarcasm. The dialogue is delivered with pretty exquisite timing, however, and that's no small thing. And the dialogue is worth the price of admission alone. It's as if Smith had been mentally cataloguing years of indignity and absurdity in the service industry (trust me, I've been there) and let it all gestate internally until it came out of him as one of the funniest scripts ever written. Granted, some of it worked better at 13 than now - but some things even a dead guy on a toilet would get excited about.
A classic comedy we often turn to on days where a laugh is needed.*
Smith followed up Clerks. by largely sticking to the formula in Mallrats; once again it's a movie about two perpetually adolescent friends, their intensive discussions regarding very important topics (i.e., superhero genitalia), and their romantic travails.
The only tell that things had truly changed for Smith is the fanboy Stan Lee cameo rigged into the plot (and that he can now afford to shoot in color).
Before he was that guy in My Name is Earl (I can never remember what they called his character), Jason Lee was a pro-skateboarder. But once he opens his mouth as Brodie, the noncommittal comics-obsessive with a love of malls (both suburban and "dirt"), his fate as a comedic actor was sealed - he's outright hilarious. The film starts when Brodie's girlfriend, Rene (Shannen Doherty), tired of sneaking into Brodie's mom's basement only to watch him play NHL '94 on Sega Genesis, breaks up with him in a letter (which Brodie later frames). Meanwhile, Brodie's straitlaced best friend, T.S. (then-hot Jeremy London) is ditched by Claire Forlani (Brandi) who chooses to appear on her father's game show rather than going on their planned trip to Florida (where T.S. wants to propose on the Universal tour right before Jaws pops out of the water). The two console themselves with a trip to the mall - where it just so happens Brandi's dad's dating game show will be and Jay (Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) are eager to help tear that mother down.
The script for Mallrats is almost as good as that for Clerks. with a number of running jokes that actually run: the indefatigable quest of Willam (Ethan Suplee) to see a sailboat (or a schooner?) in a Magic Eye painting, poor Gwen (Joey Lauren Adams) not being able to try on clothes without Silent Bob crashing the party, and Shannon (Ben Affleck) liking to go somewhere very uncomfortable (like the back of a Volkswagen). Either inspired by the Marvel Universe or Tarantino's similar approach, it also becomes clear in Mallrats that Smith's characters are interconnected across films (the View Askewniverse, per the name of Smith's production company). Brandi has to go on the game show because the girl who died mid-back stroke in Clerks. was supposed to be the contestant. Even an apparent relative of Dante Hicks shows up, with Brian O'Halloran appearing as Gil Hicks, the befuddled Contestant No. 3.
Funny, fast-paced, and littered with comics references; a perfect pick-me-up comedy to pop in the DVD player at any time.
Smith has made some good movies since the two discussed above (Dogma, Chasing Amy, Zack & Miri Make a Porno), some that are for fans only (Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back), some that have one good scene (Jersey Girl's Sweeney Todd sequence), one that is flat out terrible (Cop Out), and one we haven't seen (Red State). But the only other one we have in our collection is Clerks II, the sequel 12 years removed from the original. (Don't ask me where our copy of Dogma ran off to...I was looking forward to watching it for this...)
With the Quick Stop burned down, Dante (O'Halloran) and Randal (Anderson) pick up jobs at Mooby's - a hilariously terrible sounding fast food place which first made its View Askewniverse appearance in Dogma (I think). Joining them in the burger-flipping biz is Rosario Dawson as their boss, Becky, and Trevor Fehrman as the Transformers/LOTR obsessed Jesus freak, Elias. Of course, Jay (Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) have found a new place to deal as well.
Once again, Dante finds himself between two women - Dawson's Becky and his purported fiancee, Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach). Of course, it is ludicrous that these two women would have even a passing interest in a 33 year old assistant manager of a burger joint (which Randal is never slow to point out). But believability isn't the point of this movie. It's a reunion of old friends and all that entails. Its fun to see "where they are now"...even if some of the laughs are evoked by nostalgia for the first more than enjoyment of their retelling in the second. But there's plenty of new stuff that works as well - particularly Randal's mission to "take back" a certain racially charged term involving stoops and primates, which he misunderstood as meaning general laziness. Randal's merciless badgering of Elias for loving Go-Bots and Bilbo feels a bit dated but I'm old now, so who cares?
Smith's penchant for unnecessary broadness gets the better of him here (e.g. a crane shot dance sequence, which is supposed to be cornily charming, I guess). And there is also the extended donkey show sequence...which, almost despite itself, does kind of work, mainly by upending expectations and upping the stakes. But really? Bestiality? Do we need a movie that dedicates 15 minutes of running time to a donkey show in a burger joint? [SCRATCHES CHIN, THINKS HARD].
This is better than 90% of comedy sequels and funny in its own right. But Kinky Kelly is a sticking point for Ms. ReViewing Habit (no pun intended) and I'm happy to live with the original.
FINAL VERDICT: PITCH IT
*Not to be too much of downer, but this is literally what we watched on the night of 9/11, when we couldn't take the news anymore. We still laughed.
Some people watched the entire Orange Bowl tonight. Others (yours truly), watched the first quarter, popped in a DVD, and then caught the fourth to see OSU end a bowl game in their typical fashion: bitter disappointment.
I wrote that solely to make Buckeye fans* think of this:
Jeremy Gray (Vince Vaughan) patters with the best of them. John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) has a rakishly broken nose to go with his hangdog charm. Together, they are terrible people who parasitically feast on the happiness (and vulnerability) of others by crashing weddings and taking bridesmaids home. They are morally indefensible and so is this film.
Well, considered in light of the funeral crashing Chazz Reinhold (Will Ferrell), they don't look so bad.
MEATLOAF!
The whole idea that the vibrant, intelligent Claire Cleary (Rachel McAdams) would even for a second consider an engagement to testosterone addled Sack Lodge (Bradley Cooper) or breaking that engagement for the likes of a serial liar and perpetual adolescent like Wilson's John. Far more likely is the relationship between Gloria Cleary (Isla Fishler) and the equally demented Vaughan's Jeremy. Kathleen Cleary (Jane Seymour) baring her breastseses is buy-able as well (pun intended?).
And I will believe Christopher Walken (as Secretary Cleary) screaming anything, including a line as random as this:
David Dobkin (his directing credits are pretty terrible otherwise) capably steers this fairly stacked cast through what is a really (let's be honest) insipid, borderline misogynist (if not misanthropic) story. The manic-depressive Vaughan/Wilson chemistry works perfectly to keep the whole thing on the rails. Vaughan, particularly, seemingly flop-sweats his way through absolute clunker after clunker until finally force-feeding you to laugh.
It's a stupid movie. But we laugh at it and so will you, if you have a pulse and no sense of shame (or one that is easily overcome).
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER!
NEXT UP: The sophomoric humor continues with a Kevin Smith retrospective.
*Michigan, at least, doesn't have the habit of inspiring false confidence, as Ohio State does. The Wolverines are either clearly good or clearly not good (this year, sadly, the latter).
So what do you do when you start a blog out of some half-cocked NYE resolution, post with a furious clip to begin, and then slowly peter out; falling totally silent for over 6 months? Like every other resolution, you adhere to Einstein's theory of insanity and make the same resolution and try again!
So, let's try this stupid, time-wasting idea again...but, in the spirit of the season, let's ditch our alphabetical order convention and recap all of the holiday movies we've watched since Turkey Day:
Threw you a curve ball out of the gate, eh? Well, we watch this movie every Thanksgiving. Mainly because Garrett Hedlund bastes a mean bird:
(I had hoped to find a Turkey Cup gif, but this is even better)
Four Brothers has a number of things going for it: Mark Wahlberg at his Marky Mark Wahlbergiest (arrogant + hothead + secretly stand-up guy + penchant for one-liners) (see also: Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, The Departed, The Other Guys); DETROIT; Andre3000 as the sane, responsible brother; that dude from Sports Night; pre-Hustle & Flow Terrance Howard; DETROIT; Ben Wallace references; "Y'all better run, these white cops is crazy!"; DETROIT; quietly pro-labor messaging; pre-Modern Family Sofia Vergara; and Turkey Cup!
The premise of the movie is so solid, it had to be greenlit the second it was pitched. A saintly woman (Fionnula Flanagan) adopts four ne'er-do-wells* (two white, two black), and raises them as her own. After she is murdered in a seemingly routine (DETROIT) convenience store stick-up, the Four Brothers return to the Motor City for the funeral. And, of course, revenge (and hockey). Playing with 70's blaxploitation and revenge film conventions, John Singleton's direction strikes the perfect tone; layering a dense (yet followable) mystery on top of the action with a liberal sprinkling of just "hanging out" with the dysfunctional brothers. Like Rio Bravo or Reservoir Dogs, soaking in the dynamic chemistry of the cast talking shit to each other is more than half the fun. Plus, it takes place around Thanksgiving, giving us an excuse to turn it on while the turkey is digested.
An endlessly watchable movie. One of those, "don't change the channel" flicks that you watch from wherever it is whenever it is on TV. (WHICH IT IS RIGHT NOW! SYNCHRONICITY!)
Yes, our list of Thanksgiving movies is shamefully short. (BUY US PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES). So, we soldier on into Xmas territory. Elf is just a perfect marriage of performer to material because no one makes sweet innocence as funny as Will Ferrell. It's also one of the few Christmas movies that manages the trick of being as entertaining to Mom and Dad (i.e., old people) as to the kids (i.e., happy people) and treads the fine line of keeping the wonder of Santa Claus while winking at the ridiculousness of it all.
Given the suburban Chicago mansion you are so fortunate as to be raised in, I would expect your parents have fairly comprehensive homeowner's insurance which would cover any loss incurred in a small-time burglary by the so-called Wet Bandits. (Granted, your parents aren't quite lighting up the Mensa test, what with not realizing you're missing until they arrive in Paris, France, for chrissake, so they may have missed their premiums). I doubt, however, their insurance coverage would extend to the self-inflicted damage you wrought on the house (let alone the injuries inflicted upon the poor shlubs played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, which would almost certainly result in permanent disfigurement). Accordingly, just go to a friend's house and let them rob the place.
By the way, if you had the wherewithal and common sense to go to the store to purchase milk, army men, and fabric softener, couldn't you have asked to use the phone? Or, better yet, buy a phone card to call YOUR FAMILY WHO MUST BE WORRIED SICK IN PARIS?
Also, that Mac and Cheese you made looked really delicious - why didn't you eat any of it? That really bothers Ms. ReViewing Habit, who is a master of Kraftian delight.
Despite your poor choices, we must thank you for all the laughs and the memories.
If this film doesn't melt you into an irreducible puddle of emotion, I envy you your resolve. But go see a therapist.
Poorly received when released, It's a Wonderful Life eventually became an undisputed Christmas classic (if not, the Christmas classic) (largely due to the quirks of copyright law). So much so that it's easy to overlook what a strange movie it is tonally and conceptually. Suffice to say, I doubt this movie would be made today. Pitch: Dude lives ordinary life, fails, and contemplates suicide. Then, an angel convinces him not to do it. Sure, $100 million budget is in the cards!
Everyone's seen this movie, right? There's no need to explain that Donna Reed is perfect? That Jimmy Stewart is film acting at its finest? Everyone understands its singular achievement in capturing how a lifetime of compromise and disappointment is an actual, realized life - one full of hope, possibility, joy, and meaning, right? I mean, you can see that all here, in the greatest moment of discovery (to use a BFA, Acting term) ever captured on film:
I'm sorry, I inexhaustably love this movie and all it represents. It has forever warped me into an unabashed romantic idealist and I'm all the better for it. Would that we all lived in Frank Capra's America and George Bailey's Bedford Falls.
So, for whatever reason, many words were spilled about this movie on the interwebs this year. (See Christopher Orr's massive piece from The Atlantic, responding to criticism of his piece bashing the movie and linking to said criticism). We've had this movie for a few years, though I personally had never seen it.
Watching the movie for the first time, I didn't have the visceral reaction of love or hatred that it seems to invoke in others. It's a romantic comedy and like most of those, I could take it or leave it. Like most rom-coms, it has its moments that giddily sweep you away (i.e., the All You Need is Love wedding scene and that cute li'l bastard dashing through airport security) and its total clunkers (i.e., Liam Neeson trying to be funny, generally).
However, there was serious and vehement debate in the ReViewing Habit homestead over whether secretly kissing your husband's best friend after he confesses his undying love for you constitutes "cheating" or not. I will not betray our positions here (we keep our disagreements private), but I will say that a watchful eye is now kept on Ms. ReViewing Habit in mixed company.
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER (though one of us really doesn't care for Rick from The Walking Dead anymore)
No Christmas movie bingeing would be complete without Die Hard, the best non-Christmas Christmas movie ever made. While it probably ruined action movies forever (we are still seeing the wisecracking loner stuck in impossible situation scenario played out over and over) and its sequels (with the lone exception of the estimable Die Hard With a Vengeance) have somewhat diminished its legacy, Die Hard is just great, simple, brutal action with Bruce Willis at peak Bruce Willis (John McClain as vulnerable everyman, as opposed to John McClain as unstoppable superhuman).
Again, a movie everyone has seen and no need to retread.
Another non-Christmas Christmas movie. (It barely qualifies, the opening flashback sequence takes place on Christmas Eve). This is one of those movies that certain people love and everyone else has never even heard of it.
Which is crazy because the cast is insane: Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, President Roslin (aka Mary McDonnell), David Straithairn, Dan Aykroyd, and the movie-star-that-should-have-been River Phoenix. Not to mention terrific cameos by Donal Logue (more Terriers, please), Stephen Toblowosky, and James Earl Jones.
The plot (for those of you who didn't have a killer Sneakers t-shirt as a kid, like your esteemed author): Redford leads a band of ne'er-do-wells who are hired to break into businesses to expose weaknesses in security systems. The sneakers get hired by the NSA (timely!) to steal a black box codebreaker invented by Logue. OR IS IT THE NSA?
There are too many secrets to unpack here (see what I did there, Sneakers fans?), but the labyrinthine plot unfolds in highly entertaining fashion as we hang out with the team. Like Four Brothers, watching the cast BS each other is 95% of the fun. Funny, light, quick mystery which is endlessly rewatchable. To boot, it provides a reason to watch it every December (kind of)!
