MRQ XVII: Great Directors Edition

Well, by now, you should k kw what an MRQ is - and my struggles to keep these entries pretty concise. This time out, if I go on too long, just know that I think I chose the right films to go on about. And all of these, save Aronofsky's Black Swan are available to stream, so you can watch them as soon as you please.

This time out, we're taking a quick stroll through: Black Swan, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Grifters, The Verdict, The French Connection, The Brothers Grimm, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Enjoy, if you please...

Black Swan

It's... somewhat impossible for me to review this movie properly, because I'm not really sure how to approach it in the first place. Since I'm unable to assess the story (e.g., how much of this is hallucination? Does that even matter?), I have to confine myself to its content.

Black Swan was filmed as effectively as anything before it. Seldom have I seen a camera move in a way that really reflects what it's like when you're dancing or running. Everything looks beautiful - the tracking shots in the old-style NYC apartment, the ballet scenes... And the sheer extent of the careful editing, much less the way it's utilized, sets Aronofsky on a special pedestal; I have to think other editors felt like they'd never see such fine work ever again.

The performances are all excellent, from Hershey's work, which is like a toned-down version of Piper Laurie's part in Carrie, to Cassell, who hits the perfect balance of privilege, faux sophistication, and salaciousness. Kunis is so good that I almost wonder if the script does all the heavy lifting. I doubted Portman repeatedly because she resorted to her "small voice" so often, but she really does establish her part, and the unraveling that occurs to her. God, is it even an unraveling, or is it more like a collision between herself and the oppositional elements in her subconscious?

Black Swan was incredible. It did a hell of a lot, not the least of which was crafting a thriller/body horror film out of a ballet story. I also joked to my friend that maybe this movie should've been called Birdman - and it may have actually been an apt comment, as those two pictures have a lot in common. Bonus points go to the director for using the Black Swan for a laugh right near the climax, when a fine bit of humor would have a great impact.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tomas "Let the Right One In" Alfredson may not qualify as a great director, given the others on this list. Yet I have to think this movie is a sign that he might get there, some day soon. TTSS is an incredibly slow, long drama that gets you engaged with the story at the same time that it undermines the importance of the events therein.

Great Moments In... Awful Scripting

Here's the offending segment - what I think is the most comically-stupid, unintentional rhyming dialogue ever. I don't know screenwriting, but I do know that you're supposed to read dialogue out loud at some point to hear if it sounds bad.

Even forgetting what poor, perfunctory, plot-driving lines these are - and please note, none of these words convey anything about the characters saying them - the overuse of "-sion" sounds (especially "-ation") should've stood out to even a semi-attentive writer. The emphases are mine:

INT. NABOO PALACE - THRONE ROOM
...
The hologram of PALPATINE sputters and fades away.

AMIDALA : Senator Palpatine?!? (turns to Panaka) What's happening?

CAPTAIN PANAKA turns to his SARGEANT

CAPT. PANAKA : Check the transmission generators...
BIBBLE : A malfunction?
CAPT. PANAKA : It could be the Federation jamming us. Your Highness.
BIBBLE : A communications disruption can only mean one thing. Invasion.

Great Moments In... Awkward, Bulls--t Lines

Armageddon is one of those action films that miraculously becomes an acceptable guilty pleasure because it's so full of garbage and stupid, senseless, lowest-common-denominator fan-pleasing moments that are completely insane or full of it.

One of the most insane comes at the very end of the film, and if you've been spared the movie experience of watching Armageddon, I want to understand how stupid this film is: Steve Buscemi's character - who, btw, is called "Rockhound" - gets his longtime coworker Max (Ken Hudson Campbell) killed, and the "drama" of watching a guy catch on fire and then be shot out into space is actually played for a joke. Twice.

Long story short, Bruce Willis' character, Harry Stamper, takes a space shuttle to an asteroid and later sacrifices himself to save the world. For, um, I guess sentimental reasons, NASA allows his daughter, Grace (Liv Tyler) to sit in the command room so she can... uh, watch the action and speak to the two passengers who matter most to her: Harry, her dad, and A.J., her boyfriend (Ben Affleck). Well, nearly everyone sent on this mission has known her since she was a kid, but, since this is a movie, those are the only two people that she really cares about.

Post #888: Great Moments In... Horrible, Horrible Lines

And the award goes to Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance, as performed by Ryan O'Neal. Although I've never been much of a fan, I can't blame Ryan here at all. I've heard Mailer is supposed to be an amazing writer, yet this writing is just... pure crap:

I'm sorry that I showed that to you. I suppose that was unfair of me. But, hey, let's salvage the moment by seeing if Mailer himself can talk his way out of that writerly s--tstorm:

Nope. Everybody loses.

Helen Mirren vs Old Chauvanism

I hate sexists. It's like every other form of bigotry, but somehow even dumber because it applies to roughly half the global population no matter what side you're against, as well as applying to one's own relatives. I also really have a problem with people who abuse, mistreat, or disrespect women. Anyone like me will find the following display of its close cousin, chauvinism, moderately offensive.

These days, plenty of people know Helen Mirren as the badass old broad from movies like Red (which sounds like it's the least offensive of Mark Millar adaptations) - she's 69 now, so I understand that a lot of the work that made her famous was a while ago.

Guys closer to my age, however, know her as an exceptional actress and a quite beautiful woman. We do this because we remember her rich performance in The Long Good Friday, or how she kicked ass without resorting to machine guns in amazing movies like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover:

World War Z Mini-Review

"Then the origin could have come from anywhere." -Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt)

This incredibly slipshod line sort of encapsulates the movie, right there. Instead of saying that the origin "could be anywhere," or "the virus could have originated anywhere," we get a bit of dialogue that shows a... very poor command of language and grammar.

Then again, we're talking about a zombie movie that's so extreme (cue "edgy" guitar riff) that (a) the zombies are faster and more agile than living people are, (b) we witness total "super-destruction" of the type that would appeal to teens who only listen to metal/punk, yet includes (c) a shocking lack of blood for a... "horror" film? I wasn't gonna write this mini-review, save my noticing it's still on Netflix - I'm amazed anyone even cares...

Max Brooks' WWZ novel is supposed to be really cool (he's the son of Mel!), so it's a shame to get a watered-down action movie instead. And while the novel creates a global picture of many incredible sieges and struggles for survival among large groups of characters... We're stuck with Gerry Lane, a retired Jack Bauer-type, running about, trying to save the world (almost) single-handedly.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I've seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show on a TV two or three times, and in the theater three or four times. I was lucky enough to have a girlfriend and a roommate who were both well-versed in the live show, and shouted most of the audience lines while we watched a copy at home before doing the live version that same night.

The story is simple. Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) have just attended a wedding. Overcome with love - and being enough of an a--hole to write on a church door - Brad proposes, and Janet accepts. Next, the couple is driving on a stormy night, and their car breaks down. The only sanctuary is a spooky castle... the home of Dr. Frank N. Furter (a very young Tim Curry!). The ominous inside of this large manor houses a dangerous and beguiling collection of unusual nutjobs. Will Brad and Janet keep their lives, or their innocence intact? Will they even hold on to their dignity?

(spoilers on that last point: no.)

(but maybe they think they did)

More than most any film before or since, Rocky Horror is perhaps the easiest and best example of a glorious failure. The same elements that make it a cinematic misfire are what endeared it to audiences so strongly that it's still popular - and still in theaters - 29 years after its release. Movie creators may dream that their work's success could inspire such a following, but no one imagines that their work could fail so well.

And fail it must. If the movie had been merely mediocre, it just wouldn't have generated so much interest. Instead, all of those weaknesses became strengths and the profound way that lines and scenes are dumb or fall flat actually engages the audience all the more... But I don't want to discuss much the things tRHPS gets wrong. Those are obvious: script, acting, execution, and sudden, ill-advised changes in tone are just the flaws at the top of the list.

I Know What You Did Last Summer Review

There are all sorts of subtleties when you've seen movies you call "bad." Sometimes you expected it to stink, while sometimes you're surprised it did. Some films are bad from the start, or throughout, or turn so near the end. Certain pictures fail multiple aspects of basic filmmaking, while others are competent but bland, and others still just have one fatal flaw.

Especially in the wake of Scream (god, I loved that movie), there was a strong run on studio-backed, teen-targeted slasher films. ABC, CBS, and NBC shows are usually about 20-some things or older, and the "new" networks, like Fox and The WB (later CW) got big numbers with primetime teen shows. That's why we got Nick Stahl and Katie Holmes in Disturbing Behavior, or Rebecca Gayheart and Tara Reid in Urban Legend. I Know What You Did Last Summer just happened to be the biggest disappointment.

Director Jim Gillespie's 1997 slasher/thriller actually had a lot of things going for it, hence my reaction. It was based on a 1970s novel, so it already had a publishable story outline to play with. The $17 Million budget was just fine, considering that the action-packed Aliens made do with $30-40 Mil 10 years earlier.

Was the cast stacked with the day's teen heartthrobs? Yes, but it was probably a best possible outcome situation. Hewitt can give respectable performances. I've seen three films with Prinz Jr., and he did just fine in those. Gellar can be quite solid, and Phillippe is considered a good actor by most everyone.

Question for the Week of Apr 28-May 4: Awful Villain Motives

What's the crummiest villain motive you can think of?

There are lots of different ways to answer this question. And I can think of so many shoddy antagonists, from both B-films and big-budget pix... But I have a place in my heart for a certain Bond film - a place of despise and contempt.

GoldenEye was supposed to be a huge game changer. The Bond franchise sort of petered out with Timothy Dalton. So it was a big deal that the filmmakers finally got their hands on the person who had been the fan-favorite to take over after Roger Moore - Pierce Brosnan. Y'know the guy who would've taken the job if only CBS hadn't held him to his contract for Remington Steele.

I liked a few things about GoldenEye, but it was like getting a shoddy version of a hoped-for birthday present. I had big problems with several parts of it, and I felt no joy when the end credits rolled. The puns were back, which I wasn't thrilled about. So was Bond's knack for screwing everyone he works with and lying about being a decent guy.

Question for the week of Apr 21-27: Worst Song Recital

I could go on and on with set up: an old friend found this track and played it for me; it's insanely bad; I have no idea why anyone wanted, much less recorded, this... I could get into all that and really make a story of it.

But why bother? In this case, we do not come to praise Caesar, but to bury him. And, here, with no honors. Let the carrion eaters and the dogs feast upon this musical abomination!

Long story short, someone got Sean Connery to recite, plain-spoken-style, the lyrics to the Beatles' "In My Life." Aside from the overall sucktitude of the thing, there is the fact that the odd pauses here and there make me want to chime in with snarky lines. Also, the casual rape/murder of a lovely, lovely song. I kinda want to give this post the Sexual Violence tag, because it's earned it.

Question for the Week of Apr 7-13: Worst Eponymous Film Song

So you're watching Lethal Weapon (it's a good review, but I should add more videos or pictures), and it's a funny and exciting movie. You just had a fine time seeing Danny Glover and pre-(public)insanity Mel Gibson nail every gritty action film beat. And then the credits start to roll, and you get this incredible mess:

I can't disrespect the artist, Honeymoon Suite, very much. I've never been paid to do anything for a motion picture, much less one of the biggest hits of the year... Of any year.

But the music is pretty uninspired, and the lyrics are just horrible. I hope the band was just asked to sing this, and didn't create the track from scratch... I'd feel like I'm being a little harsh - but just look at what I've transcribed, below:

When you lose your love
And it makes your life turn cold
When it tears you apart
Your heart and soul just can't go on
When love's alive, it sets you free
When it's gone, it's plain to see
How even love can become a lethal weapon

Join Me in Hating the Daily Breeze, Won't You?

Thanks to Uproxx, I know that this was their headline for the year's triumphant Best Picture, 12 Years a Slave:

Holy f--king c--ks--king m--herfu--ing b--ls--t, how the hell did that headline seem like a reasonable comment in this day and age? I had a whole other post prepped for today - I finished it two weeks ago, no less - but I couldn't sit by and let such random, wanton, foolish fu--ery go by unnoticed.

Hang your heads in shame, dear readers. And then write some hate mail to the Daily Breeze, a special edition of the LA Daily News.

Trolling Tom Cruise Just for Cheap News

So a few weeks ago, I stop in a grocery store on my way to a party, and I look at the newsstand. Sadly, this was the cover that I saw first:

For a long time, I've bent over backwards to not disparage Tom Cruise. I will reserve the better part of my logic for another day, but some of my attitude is based on the idea that I'm a good comedian and Tom represents a soft target in all the worst ways. Tom is good-looking, wealthy, and successful, all of which attract jealousy and a desire to see the guy fail. His public persona may grate on many, but it is largely positive, and I know that's deathly annoying for many people in this messed-up, ever-more cynical time...

More importantly, Mr. Cruise is the high profile face of a religion that's very unpopular. For my part, everything I've heard on the topic, and I really, really don't like what I've heard. At the same time, though, all religions sound kinda crazy and it's wrong to treat people differently for their (non-violent, non-discriminatory, non-abusive) religious beliefs.

Fortunately, none of that has anything to do with today's news. In case you didn't click on the image and read the text in the lower-right corner: Tom Cruise has a defamation case in court right now. That's when one person sues another for making public claims that could damage someone's reputation, livelihood, etc. The suit is against publishers who speculated that the actor has been a bad parent to his daughter, Siri. The suit is for $50 million.

George Clooney Says, "Hollywood, Ignore Hedge Fund Investors"

[It took me almost 3 hours after posting to add some additional material. Apologies to everyone who checked it out early on, but I had made some updates and they didn't save properly] On Friday, August 2nd, I noticed an article about writer/director/actor/heartthrob George Clooney. The guy appears in news articles often enough, but in this case, he was speaking out against a certain person who is exerting influence on Sony film-making studios.

Now, as has happened so often in the past, this article shows us an individual who is smart and opinionated - and, most importantly, deeply-committed to the film industry.

In essence, the article is about an activist investor named Daniel Loeb. In case you don't know much about activist investors, here's the link to the Wikipedia page on the topic. For those of you who don't want to read it (and shame on you for being lazy), I can summarize the idea thusly: they're people with money who buy a lot of shares in a company and then tell all the other shareholders that the business they invested in isn't being managed properly. They then suggest various ideas for making the business more profitable.

MRQ XIII: Guilty Pleasures Edition

It's been ages since the last one, but Movie Review Quickies are back! This time out, my 7 selection span a set of guilty pleasure films. We're looking at Brain Donors, The Man in the Iron Mask, Tango & Cash, Mallrats, The Kingdom, Disorganized Crime, and The Evil Dead.

Brain Donors

Brain Donors is a slapstick, mile-a-minute comedy that makes you believe that John Turturro could've been the next Jim Carrey. John plays a shifty, money-grubbing attorney who brings his pals, played by Mel Smith and Bob Nelson, into his latest scheme: to bilk as much money as possible out of a wealthy woman who wants to start a ballet company in honor of her recently-departed spouse.

This picture is ultra-light on plot, but it keeps the laughs coming hard and fast. Nelson and Smith provide excellent support, and it's entertaining to watch Turturro in pure manic overdrive. Some people really split on this picture, which was critically-panned, but people who enjoyed it still remember this 1992 pic and sing its praises.

The Man in the Iron Mask

In 1998, $35 million dollars went into an update of Alexandre Dumas' famous story of a king whose twin has spent years locked up behind a metal mask. A cast of highly-respected international actors - Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gérard Depardieu, and Gabriel Byrne - were assembled to play the retired Three Musketeers, with Leo DiCaprio in the titular (and thus dual) roles. The scenery was lovely, as were the costume designs. And yet this movie is horrible.

Great Moments in... Film Assassination

I've been happy to make Great Moments in... a biweekly thing, and I'm extra-glad to have found this one in particular. This clip comes from Hard Ticket to Hawaii, a 1987 action/thriller of the kind so often made in the 80's - full of nude scenes and Playboy models. The premise is that a team of government agents deal with some real bad criminal-dudes, encountering both danger and "romance."

I really must thank Clipnation for hosting this vid, though a few weeks after I noticed it, I found that Red Letter Media also covered it as part of their new Best of the Worst series of reviews. Everything old is new again, right? Those hard-working RLM folks probably didn't mention this scene because they wanted viewers to discover it for themselves.

Question for the Week of July 8-14: Hulu Plus Ads?

First, a brief scheduling note: the last two weeks been incredibly busy, full of events I've been happy and honored to attend, as well as a wealth of problems on the home front.

I can hardly finish my indie movie reviews when my fridge shuts down during these sweltering Summer days, much less during an ant infestation. With everything cleared up now, expect the next review (The Startup Kids) to go up over the weekend. As with all my Reviewing with Others entries, I will post a link to the appropriate page on the Man, I Love Films site.

Also, I have a few typos that I have to fix from the last 2-3 enties, but I have to juggle a friend's request to take pictures for her, a few more screeners, and preparing some of those reviews. These minor typos will be gone shortly.

And we're moving on...

Why did Hulu do something as dangerously annoying as putting ads in its pay service?

Before I moved in to my new digs, I hadn't used Hulu Plus since I wrote about testing out the trial 2 & 1/2 years ago. I've had occasion to check it out now - as an Xbox app, of all the things - and I must state that I'm impressed with how the service has grown in that time.

However, like the person who asked this week's Question, I was taken aback that Hulu Plus comes with ads, just like the free service! Now, it's worth noting that the ads seem generally shorter than for the free service, but they are still ads. Who wants their paid-for movies and TV shows getting interrupted so we can learn about all the things that we don't want to buy?

Question for the Week of June 17-23: Won't Watch Ever

I nearly had to declare the weekly Questions over. I haven't received any new requests in a while, and I have three draft entries that are stalled out (read: it'd take a while to finish them). But, as I was thinking about how I don't want to do any more "what's your favorite X" entries for a long time, it came to me:

What movies are on your personal "banned" list? What are you never going to watch?

Well, I think I've made clear a few times that I don't care about genre - romantic comedies, drama, horror, action - are all treated equally by me. I review movies about lifestyles that are not my own. I prefer reading subtitles for foreign works.

Sure, I've taken to claiming that I won't knowingly see depressing fare unless I have someone to hug afterwards (no, really, no Dancer in the Dark or Million Dollar Baby), but that rule actually has an exception. I'm an egalitarian, and so that attitude must extend to the films I see. A good review might even get me to watch movies by people I gave up on like Oliver Stone, Brian DePalma, and Takashi Miike.

All that aside, there are many films which I do not want to watch and will actively avoid seeing. Even for free, my time, patience, and interest is not infinite. Someone wants to pay me to do this? Fine. But if not, then never, because I will have to put my differences aside and be open-minded. Though I recently admitted that my film education is not complete, I have enough experience with movies to feel comfortable with these choices:

Irréversible - This movie is famous for many things: events apparently transpire backwards, so you see the end first, then the scene before the end, all the way up until you reach the ending of the film, which shows the chronological beginning of its events. Nifty as that is, people say that its central rape scene is brutal and awful, and I really, really, really hate those.

There's a reason I have a Sexual Violence tag on this site, to warn people that a movie has the sort of footage that can be extremely difficult to watch. Hell, it's actually happened to so many people in real life, and I don't think seeing it on-screen would be very... edifying for victims of same.

Also, it sounds as if there is a fight in the movie that might be as repugnant as the sex assault. Between the former and the latter, I am left with no compelling reason to watch this pic.

Question for the Week of May 13-19: Sharon Stone's Sexist Skirt

Has anyone else ever pointed out to you a moment of film sexism that really stands out and that you didn't notice?

First, let me note that it's always great when old conversations - little throw-away moments between you and another person - become sort of practically useful in the future. At the time, of course, it's just two people connecting, sharing ideas and entertaining each other; later, it's something that you can reasonably share with others.

In college, I had a friend named Vik, and she and I saw a lot of movies together. Like me, she had the gift of gab and put some thought into her pastimes. One day, she went off on 1985's attempt to put Richard Chamberlain into competition with Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones: King Solomon's Mines.

Now, clearly, Stone had at least one movie with genuinely controversial nudity and sex in it. And KSM did not show her naked body, nor were there intense sex scenes in it. However, it was the soon-to-be-starlet's fourth film role, her second major part, and her first time being a co-star. Ms. Stone is pretty, and the film played it to the hilt.

How? What was the problem that Vik rightly pointed out? Sharon Stone's skirt length:

Question for the Week of April 22-28: Laughably Bad Title

Has a movie title - and the title alone - ever made you just start laughing?

I haven't written about Sequel-itis much lately, but today's quick entry is just to highlight what happened to me when I heard the words: The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia.

Honestly, it's been ages since George Lucas and Steven Spielberg retroactively renamed the first Indiana Jones movie so that it would have the words "Indiana Jones and" at the start of the title. I was upset that such a stupid little change was made in the name of branding and trademarks - at the very least, such marketing choices inspired a post that I'm still quite proud of. Yes, stupidity like this dates back to (at least) 1999.

And it's even clearer today that the desperate push for cash has Hollywood mining anything they can in order to guarantee that audiences snap up the latest product released into theaters. Again, I've covered this before, and it is not a new problem.