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Reviews
Michael Moore Hates America (2004)
good idea,bad execution
This could have been a fantastic documentary: the quest for an interview with Michael Moore and an expose of the stonewalling by a corporation that would have incensed Moore if anyone else had done it. But the execution is just poor. It's too long and--despite what the filmmaker claims--the title and thesis of the film is just too polarized. Talking to Horowitz, some guy from the Cato institute...come on. He should have tried to get an interview from someone from the Center for American progress if he wanted an expose on what is right and wrong with Moore's film(s). There's plenty there. The supposed goal--to show that there isn't as much wrong with America as Moore claims--is, I think, close to as disingenuous as Moore's movies.
Critical Condition (2008)
Good Idea, Bad Execution
It's hard to be sympathetic to a good number of Weisberg's subjects for this documentary.
The first gentleman and his wife are both morbidly obese--and I imagine that impacts his liver disease. Certainly it make cirrhosis worse.
The second woman didn't have insurance because she had pulmonary disease and couldn't take the stairs at the apartment complex she managed. So she quit. It's also clear that both she and her husband smoked for years. So she smoked, got pulmonary disease, quit her job because she could climb stairs, and then lost her insurance.
It is only the third man with the back problems that evokes a real sympathetic response to me because all of his problems are beyond his control. Nothing he did invited back problems.
That is the problem with this documentary; there are thousands of people who have medical horror stories that are not of their own making--directly or indirectly. A string of affective stories would make the sort of point the Weisberg seems to try to make.
Beowulf (2007)
Seriously Flawed Retelling
I knew I wasn't going to like this when they showed Hrothgar as a doddering, drunken fool. The poem is pretty clear that he's lost is manhood to the ravages of time, not to the drink. Also, the flyting between Unferth and Beowulf was pretty lame, and there is nothing, NOTHING in the original to suggest that Unferth would try to stab Beowulf in the hall.
Though I can appreciate the well-placed candles, smoke, and sword hilt in the Heorot fight scene. Beowulf's wang is not something I ever wanted to see, and some guy stabbing away at Grendel's junk isn't either. In fact, there are a lot of dick references here (candle, sword hilt, third leg, golden horn, thrusting Hrunting into Grendel's mother...with which he "laid" her in her grave), and I'm not entirely convinced there's a good reason for it.
If Beowulf stands for strength and power as he says in his little tag line, then why is it Beowulf's craft that tears the arm from Grendel (using a chain and the door) rather than his own brute strength is in the poem. You can argue all you want that this is a re-imagining of the poem, and I agree. I actually LIKE the Grendel's mother-as-sexy-dragon plot line because it unifies the movie in a way that the poem never could. But some of the choices I just find ridiculous. The movie tries to tie too much of it together: writing in a past between Hrothgar and Grendel's mother in order to explain away the father figure is too clean. But I have to admit, I did gain an appreciation for what the character of Beowulf must have felt the night that Grendel's mother attacks: "WTF, Hrothgar? Anything else you want to tell me about before I save your ass again? Is she made of rainbows and lollipops and guarded by unicorns? Does she have machine-gun jomblies? Is she really hot? Does she wear high heels and strategically-placed gold lamé?" These are important things to know before fighting Angelina Jolie.
Braindead (1992)
Too Much...or Not Enough?
Apparently, everyone who reviews this movie has to note that Peter Jackson directed it. So there, I said it. Now bugger off.
This movie's status in the elite of the horror-comedies is not going to be threatened anytime soon. From what I have seen, *Evil Dead 2*, *Army of Darkness*, and *Bubba Ho-tep* are the only ones even in the same category. (In fact the "party's over" lawnmower scene is reminiscent of *Evil Dead 2* in the one-liner delivery, use of lawn and garden tools to kill zombies, and even the back-lighting when Lionel opens the door.) In any case, it certainly beats *Motel Hell*. And I am saying this as one who does not care for horror films with overt humor. I don't tend to enjoy them, and I didn't really love this one, but I also didn't hate it. And that is saying something.
From some of the very first shots (camera angles, line delivery, and score), you can tell this is going to be a campy, schlocky horror movie, but you begin to understand what you're in for when the stop-motion Sumatran Rat Monkey kills the other monkey and Lionel rubber cements the skin back on mum's face. At one point, we even have a character who combines the traits of Bruce Lee and the Bishop of Canterbury into one bad mofo--until he turns into a zombie (after which he has sex with a mostly-decapitated nurse).
I like gory movies, but this was almost too much for me. (When Lionel pulls the dog carcass out of his mum's mouth, I almost spewed--even though it was obviously a dummy head.) It did get crappy through the middle of the film. It slows down, and it's just Lionel taking care of four zombies (and an annoying baby zombie) with formaldehyde injections. Big deal. Once the zombies get loose we're back in business, and Uncle Les's repeated nut shots and Lionel doing a Scooby-Doo-esquire running-in-place-while-slipping-on-blood gag balance pretty well against the *Night of the Living Dead*, last-stand feel that seeps in. But for my money, that last-stand feel is the only reason this movie was ranked as highly as it is.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
Decent Enough
So I'm watching this movie, and I'm thinking to myself that if you're ever being stalked by Mike Myers and you happen to be with Jamie Lee Curtis, a point in your favor is that she's been here before: she knows what to do, and she has her stuff together to fight a madman. Of course, what's working against you is that she's the star, and you're not, so odds are that you're going to be killed in a rather unpleasant manner.
Overall, this installment of the Halloween series is okay. I appreciate what they're trying to do with the misdirection (like the garbage disposal scene); most of the interesting plot twists and kills have been explored within the slasher genre, so the only way to manufacture suspense is to subvert expectations by killing the characters in ways the audience doesn't expect. It's an interesting reversal, really. Of course, Mike usually prefers to stay old school and kill with his trusty butcher knife (unlike Freddy or Jason), but this film sets the audience up to think the kills will be done differently and then subverts that expectation via butcher knife. It works for the most part.
There are, of course, new elements to this flick; for instance, the goth girl kill was terrifically shot--the kind of dark, *Hostel*-esque cinematography and set design you don't expect in a slasher flick, especially in the Halloween franchise. There were some great homages to previous films (the goth girl kill is reminiscent of the girl zombie in *Dead Alive* hanging on the light fixture; and when Keri/Laurie is fleeing Mike, opens that door, realizes it's a closet, and screams "oh f#@k!", it's a wonderful inside joke to those familiar with the original *Halloween*.
But lest you get the impression that this film is without flaws, let me point out what made me roll my eyes in disgust. First and most obviously, this film took way too long to get rolling: the action doesn't start until almost an hour into it, and before that it's mostly Keri/Laurie fretting about John or freaking out and John struggling to deal with his mom's neuroses while still being the coolest kid without really trying. That's not fun to watch. Also, the original mask (which was a modified Cpt. Kirk Halloween mask) was scary, but they went and messed with it in this version. It had poofier hair and shadowing on the face: that ain't right. Some plot elements were just stupid: I understand that if you're Keri/Laurie, at this point you don't believe that Mike is dead, but even I know that stealing his body isn't going to end well for anybody. (And what bad luck to steal the only van in the world that has plate glass as the windshield). I really can't believe they made a sequel to this one. At this point, I think we're all in the same boat with Laurie: just let it end.
Child's Play (1988)
This Movie Just Makes me Sad
This movie is, as one user previously commented, a bad movie done well. For example, when the batteries fall out of the box, we can see the wheels start turning in Karen's head and everything starting to fall into place. It's not a bad little scene, but it could have been better. Apparently, the original script called for a period of time in which the audience would be unsure whether Andy or Chuckie were committing the murders, and the battery scene would have been the first real evidence that Chuckie was actually alive and a killer. That would have been a wiser move and made for a better movie. Another example of *Child's Play* as bad-movie-done-well is the car scene in which Chuckie tries to kill Mike; this thing goes from patently ridiculous (he had a chance to stop the car in the time between getting out of Chuckie's choke-hold and when Chuckie pushes the accelerator) to genuinely scary when Chuckie is scrambling around outside the car while Mike is trapped inside. That's good stuff.
But it's just sad that all of the human actors--including Chris Sarandon--get upstaged by a foul-mouthed doll. The sardonic and sharp-tongued best friend Maggie is a tired stereotype (even in 1988). By the time the 9 o'clock news rolls around, I didn't really care if she survived or not, which is not a good thing. And Alex Vincent, the kid who plays Andy, is not good at all. His lines are often delivered with what I can only call bewilderment--as if he has no idea what's going on in the scene or in the story. That's not surprising since he was about six years old at the time, so he can't be faulted for it. The movie, however, can (and should be). In the end, there are a lot of horror movies I'd rather watch than this one, but I'd rather watch this than *Jaws 3-D* or *Hellraiser: Bloodlines*.
The Amityville Horror (1979)
Heybe Ebba Body: Whass'n All De Fussin' 'Bout?
Who knew that Margot Kidder had such a nice rack? Not me. Unfortunately, that's the only good thing I can say about this movie. Yes. Really.
I can't understand what everyone is going on about when it comes to this flick. Ohhhhhh, it's supposedly based on a true story, so it must be scary. Well, color me unimpressed. I've seen a few documentaries on the subject, and I think the real George Lutz was a huckster and self-promoter. In fact, one of the biggest flaws of this movie is that James Brolin's version of George Lutz pales in comparison to the character of the real guy. Lutz is supposed to be a blissful newly-married and love his new wife's kids, but that part of his character is uneven at best. In one scene he's the loving step dad and in another he looks upset that he read for the part. And don't give me that crap about the house supposedly affecting his behavior: he acts aloof and bored the very first time they're in the house, before they even buy it or move in. His acting is just poison in the well as far as I'm concerned.
Perhaps I'm judging it too harshly and need to see it again, but when the only positive that you can think of is that it changed your mind--well actually caused you to think for the very first time--about Margot Kidder's breasts, the movie has some serious problems.
The Shining (1980)
A, um, Shining Example of the Horror Genre
What a terrific film. When you let Kubrick have his way with a story like this one, you can almost guarantee success. The book isif possibleeven scarier than the movie version because there's a frightening topiary scene and a scarier subplot that Kubrick didn't or couldn't explore. But the movie is still one of the best horror flicks ever made. I think it works so well because the Torrence family is so isolated. They are essentially beyond help once the snows come, and if you've ever traveled on mountain roads on which you may run into a forest service gate blocking the roads in the winter, you know what that isolation feels like. Go past that gate, and they may never find you. So I think that's what is effective in the original book, and Kubrick masterfully employs that theme throughout (isolation of the family from society, isolation of the family members from one another, and isolation of the individual). Between Danny on the tricycle, dead twins, bleeding hallways, a creepy dead bartender, one of the scariest still photographs ever, the decaying chick in the bathtub, Jack hacking through the bathroom door, Dick getting axed in the chest, Wendy seeing Jack's "novel," and the final scene with him frozen in the maze, the film has more than its share of scary moments. Wow.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of...Death)
It's impressive just how foundational this film has been for later slasher flicks and later horror filmmakers in general. (Ridley Scott gave it props and cited it as an influence in the filming of *Alien*: now that's a feather in your hat!) Both of Rob Zombie's films, *House of 1000 Corpses* and *Devil's Rejects*, could arguably be considered direct homages to *TCM*. The similarities are interesting. The crazy family with the creepy grandfather and the huge, lumbering brother (Leatherface/Tiny) in the out-of-the-way dilapidated house decorated with creepy junk is half the setting and cast of *House of 1000 Corpses*. The other half of that cast is the group of young people on a road trip (one of whom is annoying (Franklin/Jerry)) who get themselves in trouble with said crazy family--though the latter part of this element might be traced even further back to *2000 Maniacs*. Characters wearing someone else's face on their own (Leatherface/Otis/Wendy) is a connection to both of Zombie's flicks, as is depicting someone getting nailed by a semi (the Hitchhiker/Wendy). Lastly, there's the creepy dinner scene in *House of 1000 Corpses* that is a direct homage to *TCM*.
It's not just Zombie's films that have relied on Hooper's masterwork: elements from this film pop up in many later ones like *Motel Hell*, *Madman*, and *Friday the 13th* just to name the first few off the top of my head. This film, like *Last House on the Left*, does a terrific job of depicting the isolation that is only believable when set in the 70s and early 80s (and this is why I don't think the re-made *TCMs* can ever be successful; it's just no longer believable for characters to be cut off like that or for a family to live in such an isolated way that no one would figure out they're bumping off travelers.
But to return from my little tangent, the whole film is creepy--from the moment they decide to pick up the crazy hitchhiker, to the now-classic scene of Kirk being smacked in the face and Leatherface slamming that metal door (Blaaagh! that still freaks me out), to the scene in which Sally runs upstairs into Grandpa's room (I've always wondered if mummified grandma was an homage to Psycho), to Grandpa sucking the blood off Sally's finger, to that dinner scene when they're all screaming along with Sally. It's all just wrong and messed up, confirming the sneaking suspicion everyone has that someone you'll run across in your life is so screwed up that they are operating by an entirely different set of rules than everyone else--rules that you won't understand.