DJBlackSwan Reviews

Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)

Commentary on Censorship, and "Liberal Hollywood" doesn't quite go far enough

[9/10 · 19 March 2006]

I think GN&GL would be a great double feature to share with friends. here's what i'm thinking of showing at a movie party and why.

GN&GL CBS News. set in the early 50s. Begins in 1958.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) 1957. Story of a ruthless columnist character. Similar stark black and white cinematography, set in NYC.

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GN&GL Commie-baiting, McCarthyism, it's effects on the arts and society, and the courage it takes to combat and overcome it.

CRADLE WILL ROCK (1997) Commie-baiting, HUAC, it's effects on the arts and society, and the courage it takes to combat and overcome it.

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GN&GL "jazz" score, excellent performance by Dianne Reeves.

SHADOWS (1959) John Cassavetes exploration of anti-Black racism during the Beat era. noted for its "jazz" score, and "jazz" themes of individuality, the repressive limitations of society, state and the entertainment industry, and the pursuit of freedom. Set in NYC.

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GN&GL Murrow, who made his mark as a reporter during WWII on "This is London". heavily criticized the collusion of network media, advertising.

IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER (1955) Dark MGM musical. Even though it's a musical, it incorporates some stark commentary on what happened to a lot of soldiers coming back from WWII -- nobody wanted them after a while, and nobody cared. One former soldier finds a career in advertising for a soap company, which sponsors a banal proto-reality show, exemplifying what Murrow referred to in his speech as "evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live".

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GN&GL Conservative/repressive/paranoid/suffocating climate of the 1950s. Corrupt conservative bullies pretending to be blameless martyrs. Liberace on "Person to Person", 'nuff said.

FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002) Douglas Sirk homage/sendup of the conservative/repressive/paranoid/suffocating climate of the 1950s, set in a supposedly "liberal" New England state. Centers on race relations and gays who are forced into the closet using conventional marriage as a cover-up. Will also make a fine double feature with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN when it comes out on DVD.

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GN&GL The attempted silencing effects of conservatism and witchhunting.

SCANDALIZE MY NAME: STORIES FROM THE BLACKLIST (1999) Effects of the Red Scare/conservative witchhunt on Black performers of the 50s who were active in Civil Rights and opening up the entertainment industry to nonwhites.

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GN&GL Conservative bully grandstanding for votes will always be shown up for the transparent tactics and lies they are.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) The woozy search for nonexistent subversives in our midst turns even our most brilliant into insane paranoid schizophrenics.

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GN&GL Dianne Reeves sings "I've Got My Eyes on You", by Cole Porter

Broadway MELODY OF 1940 (1940)Ffor one reason and one reason only: "I've Got My Eyes on You". OK, two reasons: the number is performed twice, once by Fred Astaire solo, and in the final, big production number which also includes the legendary "Begin the Beguine" mirror sequence. The final rendition is performed by Eleanor Powell, Fred Astaire, and George Murphy, who has already been mentioned on these pages as a "friendly witness" to HUAC and notorious conservative ass hole, becoming Republican CA state senator in the 60s, at the same time that that dumb dead f' Ronald Reagan was also governor. the musical number is fantastic, and I happily, ironically admit that out of all of Eleanor Powell's male dance partners, George Murphy is my favorite.

Eleanor Powell would today be targeted as a major, very outspoken "religious progressive" btw, in favor of human rights, as well as civil rights. she got death threats from conservatives in the mid-50s for having Black people as regulars on her local Los Angeles religious TV show, "Faith of our Children". So in that light, "I've Got My Eyes on You" a fun act to watch.

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I love classic Hollywood and the classic entertainment world in general; it's never dull. GN&GL was fantastic, particularly it's overt commentary on our current state of complacency, wealth, comfort and general intellectual laziness.

But I might have ranked it a 10 had it gone into one of the most hated and reviled passions of the 50s and 60s. Allusions were made to Edward R. Murrow's swipes at segregation, exploitation of migrant workers, apartheid |and| J Edgar Hoover", but those could have been more rigorously interrogated, given the reality of the Civil Rights movement (particularly Brown vs Board of Education (1954), which began in earnest the dismantling of legalized segregation).

The inclusion of Mrs. Annie Moss' testimony, IMO, was intended as a substitute for interrogation of the anti-communist's focus on the African American struggle for parity in the US.

And yet, the bright whites and rich blacks of Good Night and Good Luck make it easy on the eyes, and the superb casting of Dianne Reeves as as the moral commentary of the 1950s Columbia Broadcasting System rate it a 9/10 in my book.

Rize (2005)

Krumping for Christ? Well, apparently so.

[9/10 · 9 January 2006]

People Who Hate This Movie have their roots with those puritanicals who looked with scorn upon the CAKEWALK of the late 1800s, JAZZ in the early 1900s, the LINDY HOP in the 20s, GOSPEL and SWING in the 30s, RHYTHM AND BLUES in the 40s, ROCK AND ROLL in the 50s, FUNK in the 70s, and RAP/HIP-HOP in the 80s-present.

All of these inventions/genius of African-Americans are the foundation of all popular culture in the US. These are also the inventions that nonblacks define themselves against, either through dismissal, disapproval and morality-based contempt, or, direct imitation. I predict, krumping and clowning will very soon go the same way.

Speaking of Gospel, this movie is grounded by that tradition. So in order to understand it, you have to understand the continued centrality of this group of institutions called "the Black church". The narrative constantly centers back on the church for this reason. It is framed by two classic Gospel songs, "Seek the Lord" by the influential Caravans, the seminal 1970 crossover hit, "Oh Happy Day" by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, now a Northern California institution; and "Ghetto Gospel" by 2Pac and Elton John.

Why? David LaChapelle makes it crystal clear by his inclusion of the remark from Miss Prissy: "these same movements can be found in church". Dragon's Mom, who apparently "krumps for Christ", also makes this connection. "When they dance they dance from their spirit, when I'm at church, I dance from my spirit." So if you are confused by what's going on in this movie, stop fretting about stereotypical representations of Black folk, or what to think of the African dance montage; put aside your class-inflected value judgments on whatever you think "Black culture" is, and don't pretend it's beyond you. Instead, get yourself to your nearest Black church, this Sunday. The crosscuts of slow-motion clowning and krumping to the soundtrack of "Oh Happy Day" just might make sense to you, if you do.

This isn't just Black culture, Black culture is the foundation of American culture. I give "American culture" another year until it starts appropriating and watering down clowning/krumping and making it its own, just like it has every other Black cultural form, for the past 500 years. 9/10

They Live (1988)

They Live: the Multidemensional Dominionism of Conservative Dystopia!

[9/10 · 31 December 2005]

Marry and Reproduce. Consume.

Submit. Watch TV. No independent thought, no ideas, buy, obey authority. Sleep. Doubt humanity. Conform.

All typically hierarchical, top-down, cutthroat, conservative, anti-human ideals, as enforced by a riot-gear police state that beats up blind Black men and bulldozes homeless settlements.

Except, conservatives/Reaganites/"free enterprisers" and other reactionaries aren't lizards from spaceships, profiting from the coldness of the conservative heart. That's where "it's only a movie" backfires on us, bearing as it does some accurate reflections of the Reagan Era excesses. Thus, they Live still leaves us with only two choices, complicity or rebellion, and in this movie, both turn out to be radical acts.

Because, as much as political and social conservatives in the United States snivel and whimper about "the media", and "liberal Hollywood", they depend on both for their survival and perpetuity. After all, their beloved union-busting "teflon president" and Governator were spat out onto the American populace by so-called "liberal Hollywood". Conservatives also get to add to their roster successful governors who built their names on pro wrestling, as well as a host of friendly witnesses to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), including a conservative senator from California, a former MGM song-and-dance contemporary of Ronald Reagan named George Murphy. So I don't know what they are continually whining about, seriously.

And anyone who recalls the Reaganite-California 80s, the political and social context that has given us the Bush 90s-00s, remembers the police brutality of the LAPD, the battering ram, gated communities enforced by private police, the rise of homelessness, Reaganomics, and of course, the beginnings of cable and small-screen wrestling. It should go without saying that the camera ready surveillance society that passed for science fiction in '88-'89 -- for which we should suspend disbelief -- is today a routine part of American life.

And speaking of all-seeing eyes, t'was blind, but now I see...access to higher Truth via Black people and 2-D black and white glasses.

It's true: Black American religion is the central redemptive force in They Live. Note the "African Methodist EPISCOPAL Free Church" (a made-up conflagration of the "African Methodist Episcopal" and white-Methodist derived "Evangelical Free" churches), the broadcast site of the Cable 54 hacks. The Psalm 23-quoting blind Black preacher (Raymond St. Jacques) who in fact can "see", and transmits the broadcast hack of the Eeeeeeevil Tee Vee station. And, by extension, handsome Keith David reprising his solid supporting man roles, this time as Frank, the reluctant revolutionary.

Oh yes, and despite the mullet, Roddy looks GREAT shirtless in his snug fitting jeans...wow!

They Live: the heavy-handed Fight Club of the 80s, without the irony and with a different kind of humor?

Or, They Live: the logical sequel to Halloween 3.

Consider and decide, good reader.

House Arrest (1996)

ALL of these characters should be in lockdown, and not in any basement

[2/10 · 16 December 2005]

These people's awful kids included.

Just to be clear on where I'm coming from, I booed when Janet and Ned sucked face at the end. And that stupid, stupidstupidstupid Brooke-Grover cliché, come on.

I hate movies set in the suburbs because I despise the suburbs. I hate movies about screeching, arguing, suburban married people who hate each other, because I hate screeching suburban married conventionalist dumbasses who hate each other. House Arrest was a 90 minute reminder of why I don't understand and ultimately don't care why these types of people marry each other, and hope they ALL get divorced and give the world some much needed peace.

So I guess we're back to Carmenjonze's First Law of Unwatchable Movies...a telling overabundance of violins, flutes and pianos in the score was the first and enduring indicator of just how bad House Arrest is going to get. The fact that it oh-so-self-consciously opens with Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" -- and KEEPS PLAYING IT EVEN AFTER THAT STUPID KEY MODULATION -- is the final straw, and that's only about 4 minutes in.

Happily, I love JLC and Jennifer Tilly (who had the only interesting part in the entire flick), as well as Wallace Shawn. But what was Wallace Shawn doing in this movie?? Bad concept, bad script, bad acting, bad characters, bad, bad, bad people raising more brats to perpetuate the badness of the suburbs.

I wish they would have just f'n gotten divorced already. Then, we all could have sidestepped this exercise in vicarious misery, altogether. The ONLY thing that merited even a "1" was JLC doing a silly hula over the credits. Well, give it perhaps a 1 and a half. The relief brought by seeing the credits alone made this cranky critic very, very happy.

Alright, a very begrudging 2. Jennifer Love Hewitt's singing voice on" It's Good to Know That I'm Alive" sounds sufficiently like the fantastic Maria McKee of Lone Justice to make me look. Who knew? Right on. I guess.

Repulsion (1965)

What sane person can blame her?

[8/10 · 7 December 2005]

The lovely lady's just not into it, fella. And she's got her reasons for flipping out.

Anyone who's lived downstairs from some inconsiderate couple who can't be bothered to muffle their giggling and lovemaking, can relate to Carole's wanting to put a pillow over her head. Or theirs.

It's not "repression" -- where do people get this idea Carole is somehow "repressed" for refusing unsolicited advances -- nor is it maladjustment, it's a normal response towards to people who behave like the world revolves around them and their sexual desires of the moment. Now, running around killing people, that's not a normal reaction. Or perhaps it is, if they are intruders like Colin and the lecherous landlord who physically assaults her, when you live in a society where that kind of abuse is the norm. That would be the point of Repulsion.

I'm not really sure what more it would have taken for Polanski to hit home the point. There are no likable males in this picture. In fact, there are no sympathetic characters except for Carole. Her sister and and sad Briget, her colleague at work, are too enmeshed in their pushy, jerk boyfriends to think of anything or anyone else. Miss Balch tells it like it is and is unfortunately all too right about Briget's heart breaker boyfriend (but the mainstreamers, conventionalist/conformists, traditionalists and other males with an axe to grind will write her off as a woman embittered because she doesn't fit conventional beauty standards). Madame, Carole's boss, only cares about her inasmuch as her behavior affects business.

These four female characters give clues as to what is supposed to be "normal" women's behavior in this film. They begrudginly endure slappy, brusque, unattractive creeps; complain about them to each other but do nothing whatsoever to alter their unhappy situations; impose them on roommates, unannounced and without consultation, as third roommates; it's as if Carole doesn't exist to these "normal" women, except as a go-fer and accessory. Not terribly different from the way the men in the film treat her. Handsome, impatient Colin isn't the red herring he would appear on first glance; he is jokingly advised by his friends to force her to give him what he is "naturally" entitled to, insistently breaking and entering her apartment when she has clearly been avoiding him. He deserved exactly what was coming to him. OK well maybe not outright murder, but let that be a lesson to the overzealous...

Repulsion's only failure (and I consider it massive) is that it is apparently too subtle. Even for contemporary audiences, content to feign ignorance and repeat over and over that it's the sad tale of a "repressed female", complete with rape "fantasies". It isn't. It's a portrayal of a traumatized woman driven murderously crazy by "normalcy" and convention, imposed on her at every turn.

Watch as a double feature with Chinatown (1974) or Fire Walk With Me (1992). 8/10.

Road Games (1981)

The E String Murders? A Playful Psychocomedy

[8/10 · 2 December 2005]

Alright, already! Enough with the Hitchcock, please.

If I read one more review of Road Games with the words "Hitchcockian" or "homage to Hitchcock", I'm going to scream, and it will not be out of Psycho.

Let's start with something else. Road Games is labeled as a Thriller and can be found in the States in the Action section, but it's got a comedic script and Brian May's aloof, campy score. And yes, the early genius of Jamie Lee's comic finesse.

Only problem is, Quid talks entirely too much; to himself, to his dog, to anyone within earshot who will listen to his Chaucer and Bronte quotes, or judgment calls on other motorists. Unfortunately for you, as the captive audience of Road Games, you don't have a choice.

He gets his comeuppance by two female smartasses, both of whom give as well as they take. Keach seems to have fun riffing off of straight shooter Marion Edward ("Sunny" Day -- did they really dress her in a Santa Suit?) and America's Sweetheart of Sarcasm, Jamie Lee Curtis ("Hitch"). Hitch. But of course.

The score also quotes liberally, from the obligatory nods to Bernard Hermann, to Elgar to Holst to Copland to Wagner to John Williams. Oh wait, that's not a very long span, is it? Suffice it to say you'll get lots of military marches and funny malaprop film western pastorales.

One musical element that provides much of the humor, at least to musicians, is the recurring character of the guitar, whose steel strings are used as murder weapons. (As someone already noted, Keach goes to bed with a guitar and walks away at the end with a mandolin.) The Mozart Harmonica Concerto offers a silly and decent lampoon.

Add some swell POV shots, the backdrop of the Australian desert, some raw meat sight gags, a hazardous looking finale, and you've got a fairly watchable movie. 8/10.

Drowning Mona (2000)

Is it a Shag or a Mullet?

[7/10 · 1 December 2005]

From 1986-1989, I was a student at one of the US's more notorious southern Christian colleges. One of my best friends was from Little Rock; she and her sister both attended the school. Their father decided that instead of them getting one car to share between them, he would buy them both Yugos; my friend a white one and her sister a red one. So I spent a lot of time in Yugos in the late 80s.

If you're still laughing at this story at this point, take note of that superior perspective, because that's what made me knock down my rating of Drowning Mona to a 7.

Interesting though morose and bizarre story, absurdist running gags ("wheel of fortune", personalized yugos, dead puppies), nutty script, a town full of reprehensible, dislikeable characters, with Bette Middler playing the Reverse-Diva. Which is still to say, The Diva.

We're supposed to laugh at Verplank, NY because the people there drive ridiculous cars that can't be taken seriously. Thus, they shouldn't be taken seriously. We're supposed to laugh at them because they are working class whites. We're supposed to laugh whenever they cue the banjo music. Personally, I couldn't appreciate the snooty screen presentation of the characters.

But then, I also found fault with the characterization of Chinese-Americans in Freaky Friday, I know, I'm just no fun at all. But after watching the director's commentary track, one can hardly blame certain performers for resenting what was done with their parts. Nick Gomez, you should know better, from start to finish. No wonder he hasn't made any more big-screen films, lol.

So on to the merits. Now, was that a shag or a mullet on Rona, of the chain earcuff. What sort of girls wear chain earcuffs?? Is Bobby no-top-lip Calzone hoarse, or just a husky tenor? Is there such a thing as a husky tenor?? Will Ferrell's character is a leather daddy who embalms people. Alrighty, then. And Rona was sleeping with Jeph? Really? Uh wow, OK.

And they actually kept that unmotivated, predictable lecherous lesbian stereotype scene...remind me, why? Dude.

7/10 for there being no answers to these questions (not necessarily a bad thing). Three points for the trademark JLC sarcastic "nyahhh" face, expertly delivered to that lady who forgot to remember Phil was dead. And two more for Rona's black high top Converse, and Fender basses, and was that really a marching bass drum in her apartment?

Grandview, U.S.A. (1984)

Unmotivated Cilches

[1/10 · 1 December 2005]

This is the first 1 I've ever given a movie at the IMDb. There are some true dogs in the wide world of cinema, and this one is king of the scrap heap.

Unmoving setting, snore-worthy climax, angry married people sleeping around, choreographer Patrick Swayze sporting his usual Labrador retriever look; a sad-eyed Jamie Lee Curtis (believably, must say) reprises another unconventional woman with father issues; a couple of a-romantic love affairs with a heavy scene of pseudo BDSM, and people doing it in moving (!?) cars; and a ceaseless string of unfunny clichés about post-adolescence in the mid-80s, complete with silly spoofs on MTV (back when MTV actually played music videos.)

Avoid. But if you do indulge, look for the bad cameos of Michael Winslow as Spencer, Grandview's most visible Black man. Let's just say, Winslow made his mark as the um, "vocal talent", in the Police Academy series, wildly popular in the mid-late 80s.

1 deep regret out of 10, but don't take my word for it; Jamie Lee reportedly said so, herself. A screening will leave you with no doubts as to why.

The Happy Ending (1969)

Excellent Simmons fare

[8/10 · 29 November 2005]

I love movies that come down hard against conventional life. And the ones that feature nagging, chronically unhappy, never-satisfied married people go in my "horror" stack, along with Halloween, Videodrome, Suspiria, The Fog, etc. Watching that way of life is enough to fill anyone with ineffable dread.

When you consider that lead actress Jean Simmons and director Richard Brooks (married 1960-1977) were on their way to divorce, that just adds to the terror.

Though it echoes themes in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (1899), The Happy Ending is still seen as a proto-feminist text, which it well may be. I've long held that Jean Simmons (or at least the "Jean Simmons image") is not this quiet, polite, understated "demure beauty" that is somehow constantly breaking out of that particular mold. Ms. Simmons herself can be seen as a "proto-feminist" or strong female lead actress. She demonstrates this in Hamlet, Desiree, Young Bess, The Big Country, and certainly Elmer Gantry; one could actually make this case for many of her films available on video.

Her part in The Happy Ending is really just an expansion of these roles, only this time, the unhappy marriage is brought to the fore instead of subsumed in Hollywood/Happy ending resolve.

It's not just proto-feminist women who feel trapped by marriage; that men get cold feet and then have affairs is almost too cliché to mention or bother to put in quotes. How many movies about extramarital affairs have entertained millions? This film just happens to present the unthinkable horror of when a woman wants out of it. Good for them. 8/10, but be advised, this is coming from someone unable to resist movies about women who don't want to be married.

To this end, see it as a double feature with Baby Doll (1956), or Possession (1981), mess up your mind, a little.

Love Letters (II) (1983)

Cynical Reagan Era commentary on "luvvvv"

[7/10 · 28 November 2005]

One need not watch the movie to know how this story ends: "love" doesn't matter and is totally irrelevant to anything. The cards are always stacked against The Other Person. Always. Happily, we have Love Letters to never let us forget.

If you're going to watch this movie for "!! HOT JLC topless scenes !!", you're missing out. If you're watching it to complete your Roger Corman collection, you're really missing out.

Watch it if you like feeding the geese on the river.

Watch it if you've lived a little and realize that the idea of "true love" is the product of an empty, irreconcilable lack.

But whatever you do, don't watch it for the soundtrack. Synthesized marimbas and glockenspiels, and Ralph Jones's proto-Michael Nyman piano arrangements will ruin any seriousness the movie tries to impart.

Watch it instead for the utterly bleak commentary on male-female relations, whether father/daughter, colleague/colleague, girlfriend/boyfriend and especially husband/wife.

If you're a JLC die-hard -- or at least the kind of JLC die-hard who knows there is more to life than chasing after upper torso shots -- consider also the connections to Blue Steel (1990). Particularly the retribution fantasies against an abusive (and in this case, also anti-Asian racist, and alcoholic) father, as well as the theme of a young intelligent heterosexual woman, as yet completely unable to make any intelligent choices with regards to the males in her life. No doubt, reassuring for the anti-feminist/giggling misogynist crowd. Though, unlike Megan Turner, Anna does have at least one normal relationship, with her close friend Wendy, who seems to have traveled around a few blocks in her life and is truly capable of offering her some advice.

Instead, in Love Letters, Anna's rejection of a conspicuous but understated incestuous desire on the part of a father wracked by inadequacy issues -- that beleaguered slob, fool enough to marry for that eternal game of whack-a-mole called "love" -- is implied by her consistent impatience with his violence, alcoholism, racism, and inappropriate physical proximities. To complete the cycle-to-be-broken, a flashback to her father repeating the same confused admonitions he'd yelled at Anna earlier that night: "What did I do, did I touch you!", "You're just like her!!" in a scene of domestic violence. Was her mother's 15 year long affair the cause of his enraged, repressed wino-nastiness, or a result, or totally unconnected altogether? The audience is rather effectively left to guess.

There are also a couple throwbacks to Halloween (1978) as JLC plays another dorked-out though successful "geek girl" type - what 22 year old in 1983 Los Angeles is going to be a DJ who spins Beethoven and likes electronic drone music?? Right on to that! We're also left to wonder about that 5 inch scar on Anna's left arm, hmm..hey wait, where'd that come from, gee...

Thumbs up also to: the poster for Dance Theater of Harlem in the radio station, the early tablecore from the old Alpha Syntauri Computer Music System, and the quasi-intellectual nods to Walter Benjamin and Peter Berger.

Though Love Letters ends by wrapping itself in conventional wisdom, the moral of this story is actually somewhat progressive, especially for the culturally reactionary Reagan/Bush/Thatcher/Botha mid-80s: While socially-imposed conservative conventionality is not a prerequisite for "love", the chemistry between the two individuals is crucial (I observed very little in the Curtis-Keach mushy-porn screw scenes, in which Anna gets zero on-screen enjoyment or reciprocation, and believe it was intentional.) Reversing the gender roles, as Anna lives out her affair as dictated by love letters written by a man who has experienced such chemistry, won't work, either. If he ever leaves her for you, the cards will always be stacked against The Other Woman.

Oh yes, and don't get involved with clueless, pretentious, suburban Porsche-driving married jerks who claim they are "fans", either. They will only end up consoling you with that ancient "you can do better than me" line.

Don't fall for it, honey. Go out with that dorky, San Francisco-bound colleague with the glasses, instead; the one who really loves you. That's the only type of guy who can keep up with you, anyway. 7.5/10.

A Man in Love (1987)

Unwatchable, in every possible way

[2/10 · 28 November 2005]

Personally, I find movies about abusive, jealous, mistrusting, vindictive married people to fall under "horror". Every generation has them: Gaslight (1944), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), and of course Possession (1981), all horror flicks, as far as i'm concerned.

There is only one reason to see this film. If you're schooled in Hollywood political history, you'll like the casting of blacklisted director John Berry, as the father of the love-target of the actor playing an Italian communist writer. Nice touch.

OK, make it two. Self-reflexive Hollywood. I found the theme and look to recall Two Weeks in Another Town, Vincente Minelli's 1962 self-reflexive Hollywood followup to his Bad and the Beautiful (1952). My jaw dropped to the ground when I heard the line "bad and beautiful" uttered by Coyote, in response to his giving Affair Girl the new dress. I guess I must really know my classic movies...don't be surprised, either, to find that the entire movie is actually a script by one of the actors in the movie within a movie. Sigh.

Alright, three. This is one of those movies that screams for a widescreen presentation. So if you like getting dizzy, watching between pan-and-scan and subtitles, this is your flick.

Otherwise, be prepared for two hours of angry, embittered, unsympathetic married people thriving on crisis, having affairs, and snapping indignantly at each other. There were a few joke's-on-the-viewer moments, where it's at first unclear whether the affair is "real" or "on-screen". Unfortunately, it's revealed that it's all too "real". Like the unadvised inclusion of that tedious, cardboard "lesbian fantasy", of course as dictated by the impatient voyeur male lover, during some sex scene. Groan.

Blah to all of the above, except John Berry. 2/10.

Freaky Friday (2003)

Shut! Up!

[7/10 · 27 November 2005]

Sorry, friends. There is no such thing as "Asian voodoo"...no audience should be required to suspend disbelief for some such nonsense.

Ooooh scar-ee "Chinatown", where any-thee can happen, woooo. (Rolls eyes) Come on, people.

Gratuitous, cartoonish, caricature of Chinese-Americans mean crappy parts for Asian American performers. Do owners of Chinese restaurants really wear GREEN NAILPOLISH, hello? And before jerking your knees and wailing that I'm being "PC", please consider that these stereotypes date back to the 1920s . In 2003, Disney of all studios, who made bank on Mulan (1998), and garnered plenty criticism for its use of racial stereotypes in Song of the South (1946), they definitely knew better, and apparently thought nobody would notice.

Otherwise, it's a very watchable movie with some genuine LOL moments. Ryan cherub cheeks Malgarini should have gotten some kind of award for Freaky Friday...it takes some talent to steal scenes from Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. 7/10. They could have left that "Asian voodoo" crapola out and made it a 9. Two points for Tess' uncontrolled electronic gadgetry.

Be sure to check out the "Freaky Bloopers" on the DVD. Very funny.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Horror movies for English majors: Halloween 1 and H20

[9/10 · 26 November 2005]

Bigtime spoilers in here.

Ahh, a Halloween sequel even the "Halloween 1978 Only" Taliban can enjoy. Good casting, great stunts, funny lines, great murders (loved the hockey skates in the face) and Michael is ugly and creepy as ever.

There's also plenty self-reflexive humor, from quotations of Halloween 1 most typically surrounding the Reigning Queen of Self-Parody, Jamie Lee; to elements in the score that like so many others recalls Hermann's Psycho. Look especially for the maternal instincts moment between Jamie Lee and Janet Leigh, and the recurring theme of child-parent role reversal. And who doesn't laugh to themselves upon learning that Laurie is now an alcoholic English teacher/headmistress of some school?

That's what happens when screwed up Lit Major dorks grow up, apparently; you go to school, get married, have a kid (or have a kid, get married), get divorced, start your collections of pharmaceuticals and chardonnay, and eke out a living, begging inert students to quack back general-issue answers on universal themes in the works of Mary Shelley. What's this life for, and all that.

Three points for setting the John-gets-busted-out-by-Laurie scene in front of the Christian Bookstore.

Nit picky critiques: Beltrami's orchestral score is actually quite beautiful, nice touch reverting to the original synth score at the end. Too bad they didn't throw us poor neglected Halloween 3 outcasts a bone and have the little girl in the rest area potty hum a few bars of "London Bridge is Falling Down" instead of "Mary Had A Little Lamb". And poor Adam Arkin. Needy loverboy can barely stammer his lines, he's so clearly crushed out on his established leading lady. Very cute, portrying the juvenescent thick-thied dork, who thinks he's about to engage in some kinky roleplay game, but to the extent that he nearly ruins the critical plot point between Will and Laurie (probably as a pretense to do multiple takes), a scene that any survivor of trauma, running from infamy, trying to be normal in an abjectly abnormal world, can relate to.

Finally, happily, what you think you know is going to happen to night shift novelist LL Cool J, actually doesn't, though one wishes Michael would have gotten him back for that "tumultuous melon" mixed metaphor...

Two stars to that, anyway. 9/10.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Haddonfield is the problem that gave them Michael Myers

[6/10 · 25 November 2005]

Hey, at least there are now some Blacks and Asians in 1995 Haddonfield. Progress..yay.

Nature/nurture anxiety comes back to haunt Haddonfield, again. Will they never learn/

Hall6ween reprises the Samhain/evil witch/pagan ritual/blood sacrifice theme from Number 3, and introduces another subtheme of Michael Myers "hearing voices". For the rest of us who exist outside the Halloween 1 Death Cult, it helps explain coincidences and gaps in the series, as well as Michael's fixation on killing blood/natural family members.

Only trouble: it does so without irony and with zero humor, two elements of Halloween 1, which would be successfully re-appropriated in H20, much more so than Halloween 6.

I'm convinced the reason people despise the Halloween series has little to do with the Halloween series, at all.

People hate these films not because they're poorly acted, or don't have Michael or Jamie Lee, or weren't directed by Carpenter; no, those are all superficial ruses. People despise these films because they disrupt the concept of the ideal American natural, adequate/orphans-should-be-grateful foster, selfless adoptive or magical extended family, too many of which depend on secrets and lies to persist. Nobody fills out an application to be an "orphan". To be called a "bastard" is the most disgraceful thing on earth. Yet, adoption fantasies among naturals is, well, a part of their self development. And foster kids and borrowed children, well, they should just be grateful to still be alive.

In such a climate, all it takes is one screwup, one black sheep, one person who deviates from the socially conservative norm and hey kids, let's put on a show!

Or a murderous, sociopathic boogieman with a "contaminated soul", one.

The Halloween series underscores these fears with a super thick Sharpie: discovering one is adopted after everyone else on earth finds out (Laurie Strode, H2); being destroyed in the simulated sancitity of the nuclear home (H3); 2nd hand foster-sister love (H4), the imagined bloody horror of natural childbirth (H6), you get the idea.

What's Michael have to be so angry about, at age 6? That the Halloween series never lets on and we're left to wonder in denial, is what perpetuates the series. In our top-down, instant answer society, people are not comfortable with "i don't know". Not knowing is precisely what makes the Halloween series successful, despite all protests. Hall6ween just continues that cycle.

Note to Haddonfield: As long as you continue to subsume repressive little secrets behind tree-lined sidewalks, picket fences, and pre-fab clapboard houses, the curse of Michael Myers will continue to sell movies and sell movies and sell movies. Until then, the suburbs will continue to breed abusive, alcoholic patricarchs like John Strode and murderous psychotics like Michael Myers, in their studied ignorance and whispered scandals.

RIP Moustapha Akkad...a true genius of our Marketing Age. Halloween Infinity, here we come.

Prom Night (1980)

Disco Rules.

[7/10 · 25 November 2005]

If I could ask Jamie Lee Curtis one question, it would be this: so...who the h-e double toothpicks did the choreography for Prom Night??

Much like Alex Hammond, the only reason I attended my prom was because I was one of the main accompanists in high school, and my singers were performing both years. Just another gig. So, giddy prom night nostalgia was not one of the motivators behind seeing this flick. I've avoided it for years, decades, presuming it was just a Carrie (1976) knockoff. I was both right and wrong and now glad I saw it.

If you enjoy movies that use technology as a character in itself, as I do, be advised that Ma Bell is the channel of choice in Prom Night. I also enjoy movies that belie the shallow creepiness and danger of the suburbs. On these two scores, Prom Night delivers as many of them do.

And speaking of scores, disco fans, both closeted and out, will want to just skip to the prom night set where Nielsen shows off his utter lack of rhythm (they should have put his dancing in Airplane (1980) instead of Prom Night), and Curtis shows what dance lessons, put to such good use in True Lies (1994), can accomplish. Fans of Sylvester will also enjoy the anonymous keyboard work, which recalls the great Patrick Cowley and his analog, arpeggiated wonders.

So now I'm curious as to what the entire thing was supposed to have looked and sounded like and am now willing to go and hunt for that coveted Anchor Bay DVD. That alone bumps it up to 7/10.

Negative 1 for even committing a character like Lou to the screen. Bleh.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Don't Listen to the Halloween 1/Michael Myers Dogmatists

[7/10 · 23 November 2005]

Alright, I'll state it right out: I'm one of those "old people" who remembers watching a fullscreen, analog Halloween III on Tee Vee. So it was with a bit of unavoidable nostalgia that I rewatched it again. The transfer on the Universal Studios DVD was quite lovely. I also enjoyed trying to pick out what synthesizers might have been used for the score (also fun to do with Halloween 1. Oberheim fans will also like the score.)

There is no reason to avoid Halloween 3, just because a few dogmatics say you should, don't let those people intimidate you out of something you might enjoy. No, Michael Myers isn't a part of the plot; no, there's no Jamie Lee; no, it didn't exactly get a ringing endorsement from Carpenter; yes, there is an aggravating "unmotivated romance" (thank you, modelminority dot com for the term).

But this flick actually does have the kitchen sink: Pre-Catholic Irish witches, Stonehenge Implants, the Company-Town-Turned-Surveillance-Society, complete with buzzing cameras and automatons in suit and tie; infernal proto-multinational capitalists complete with hypnotic, brain-disintegrating marketing campaigns; and the scariest premise of all, eeeevil Tee Vee, that vitreous humor of American pop culture!

It'll fry your brain! Don't sit too close! The Government is watching you! You'll ruin your eyes!! You'll get cancer and die in amputation surgery! Your halloween mask will melt and snakes will come out of your nose! Americans been repeating bizarre fantasies about Tee Vee to ourselves since some time in the late 20s. Halloween 3 exploits this fear of Tee Vee.

Recommendation: watch as an eeeevil Tee Vee double feature with child-heroic contemporaneous Poltergeist (1982), the contemporary child-hating Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) or even Videodrome (1981), which takes the idea of eeeevil Tee Vee with a philosophy and method, to its nightmarish limit.

If you want a poorly-acted double feature, go with Halloween 3 and an eeevil Tee Vee Lee Majors flick called Agency (1980).

Too bad Halloween 3 is locked by history into the 3rd circle of Halloween Purgatory, as it might have made a decent remake.

Halloween 17: Season of the Union-busting CEO. Why not? 7/10.

Terror Train (1980)

On the right track, went the wrong way

[6/10 · 23 November 2005]

There are two things worth noting in this movie: super cutie Anthony Sherwood (Jackson) and, as always, super cutie Jamie Lee Curtis.

Somewhere, out there, the idea that slasher flicks are politically reactionary reigns. Apparently, those people didn't go to college at a school where 90% or more people were said to be in fraternities and sororities. Who doesn't get a thrill, watching elitist, cartoonish Greek cult members get their end, one by one, on a one way trip to purgatory? As ambiguous-as-ever Jamie Lee prevails. This makes two Curtis films that have this New Years' Eve Costume Party on a train (see also Trading Places, 1983).

You have to wonder how other actors and actresses in her scenes felt...anyone familiar with JLC movies will recognize even in the early years that mocking, sarcastic face thing she does to lighten the mood and provide the viewer with a more "realistic" feel; typically during intense or serious two-shots. She does it at least twice in this film, once with her "best friend" and the other with hot-tub Uncle Sam guy. While ya gotta wonder if her peers were coached to underact, one may ultimately doubt this; she initiated this trademark on the big screen with Halloween (1978) and she doesn't disappoint the careful viewer in Terror Train.

Also, can't end without addressing the trannie/"homosexual" subtext in this picture, which has been covered on various sites on the web; no need to rehash the obvious here outside the token nod. But I suppose the Copperfield Moody Disco Wig was also puffed up for "effect". Both clichés being terribly dated, unfortunately.

6/10. Two stars for the out of the blue, totally incongruous end credits music!

Halloween (1978)

The suburbs ARE the horror

[9/10 · 19 November 2005]

We who grew up "different" in the suburbs always knew there was something, some ineffable thing, that was dead wrong with our environment. Halloween, like Blue Velvet (1986) vindicates that feeling. While "the city" is typically cast in pop culture as the setting for rampant immorality, murder and general debauchery, "The Suburbs" are the REAL creepy, borderline psychotic, and all too often death-dealing American institution.

The news media is littered with daily stories of ax murderers, serial rapists, gun freak vigilantes, and other barely-human opportunists who are either products of, or thrive in, the suburban environment.

Halloween brings exactly that creepiness to the fore. And made a mint doing it, because as everyone in America knows: the suburbs breed DEATH. Don't believe me? Just put "Dr. Ossian Sweet Detroit" in a search engine, see what I mean. The very thing you're running away from is right in your face. In fact, it's you, because you also thrive in it, and allow it to persist.

Halloween never tells us what made 6 year old Michael snap, we're left to guess whether nature or nurture (or both). My guess: nurture. That is what makes Halloween so disturbing. Halloween, while routinely compared to Psycho and other Hitchcock thrillers can also be viewed as a throwback to The Bad Seed (1956), which no doubt served to reassure middle class white suburban parents that sociopath child murderers are the product of nature, and all the middlebrow breeding in the world can't alter that.

Halloween is also one of those movies like Birth of A Nation or Gone With the Wind, in which it's impossible to approach the movie with any kind of objectivity. Sorry, this is what happens when you grow up in LA suburbs and remember the constant news reports of celebrity sickos at the time Halloween (and its imitators and followups) was released and made it big: the Hillside Strangler, Patty Hearst, Manson family, and Night Stalker Samhain aficionado, Richard Ramirez...incompetent Christian rightwing hysterics about "backward masking" and hidden messages in rock and roll songs by Abba (no joke), (sub)urban legends about razor-laced apples and poisoned mini-Snickers...did art imitate life in late 70s Los Angeles, or not? Nature or nurture or not? Yeah yeah, the sexually active teens get hacked to death, but not even dorked-out asexual babysitters are safe.

They never were. Michael doesn't like them much, either. Or you and your posh lawns, family cars and fancy brand name cookware.

That sad fact is what makes Halloween so effective, still, in 2005.

Virus (1999)

High Tech Sea Yarn

[7/10 · 19 November 2005]

Part outer space movie, part nefarious robots, part sea yarn, I'm assuming the key to Virus is the Dark Horse comic series, which I have yet to read. How else to explain the non-credible, cartoon character appearance of Donald Sutherland in this movie? While Jamie Lee has been quoted as saying, "Virus is a piece of sh..." it's clear that somebody, somewhere had fun making this movie. Fancy CGI, live action puppets, telemetry suits, 10 by 10 foot robot models, plenty of moving parts to keep the gearheads happy, and of course enough obligatory dental drill sound effects to make anyone squirm...somebody's gotta have fun watching that.

Any misanthrope will readily agree with the premise, that human beings are the "virus". Greedy, destructive, out of control reproduction, etc. And the Luddites will also enjoy the flip side of the same coin, that eeeevil computers (with REALLY unsophisticated interfaces!) are somehow in competition with human greed, destruction, etc.

And the documentary "Ghost in the Machine" really should have been entitled "The Body Electric". Rush is better than The Police, any old day.

Speaking of music, I come from a classic musicals background, so film music is extremely important to me. If you enjoy male choruses, be sure to suffer through the credits where composer Joel McNealy's fairly cool take on a Russian march, based on his own orchestral themes, will make it worth your while.

See, something for everybody in this movie. 7/10, three points for letting Jamie Lee Curtis cut loose with a few well-timed yelps.

Fierce Creatures (1997)

Let's just hope there won't be a AFCW series like there was Halloween...

[6/10 · 19 November 2005]

G/d forbid the Fish Called Wanda fundamentalists do like the Halloween 1 absolutists, and go around denying any existence or relevance of any subsequent films.

That doesn't mean this is a great flick or that the inevitable comparisons to AFCW will not or should not happen. But who could hate a movie that features baby ostriches and pocket-sized kangaroos?? Everyone loves a movie that makes fun of marketing people at corporatist companies. Especially me. So yes, I ended up enjoying the portrayal of McZoo as well as the oh-so-ironic product placement sight gags by Absolute, Guiness, Lego, Sunkist, etc.

Fans of the Jamie Lee Smirk and her trademark scene-stealing cleavage gimmicks will find plenty to amuse themselves, too. They could have left out the bonding moment with the gorilla, though. That was entirely too weird.

6/10. A nice letterbox version might have made it a 7.

My Girl 2 (1994)

Listless Movies

[2/10 · 18 November 2005]

If you want to know what kind of music white people listened to in 1974, this is the movie for you. But you'll have to listen to a lot of flutes and violins, too (see my remarks on My Girl 1 for the reference).

Indulgent admission: I approached My Girl 2 with cynicism and annoyance, having just viewed its predecessor. But as an adoptee preparing to finally set upon a search for my birthmother, My Girl 2 made me look, with its theme of searching for mother.

Put another way, anything I liked about My Girl 2 had nothing whatsoever to do with My Girl 2, but relating to a protagonist who asks, like so many adoptees, "who's my mama"? And if there are home movies of my mom in an acting troupe, I'll be sure to make my own movie about it.

People are listless. Movies should not be listless. My Girl 2 (like My Girl 1) is just...listless.

Avoid unless you're a complete sap who's comforted by a series of small annoyances.

My Girl (1991)

Violns and Flutes, groan

[2/10 · 18 November 2005]

Carmenjonze's First Law of Unwatchable Movies: the movie becomes more unwatchable in proportion to the number of flutes and violins in the score. The Law reaches its peak in My Girl.

Stupid first kiss scene.

REALLY stupid, cloying "romance" between Curtis and Ackroyd, how appropriate that a mortuary was the backdrop for such a non-starter, dead-on-arrival relationship. Vada is not the only disturbed individual here; what kind of person takes a job to ingratiate herself with a family??

The only thing that could have livened up My Girl was more showtunes from Grandma.

2 snores out of 10.

Christmas with the Kranks (2004)

Frosty Fascism, or, I blame the suburbs for this atrocity

[2/10 · 17 November 2005]

If Luther Krank really wanted some tips on how to boycott Xmas, he should have just called me.

What in blazes is wrong with suburbia? Total conformity, price gouging, black market hickory ham, compulsory happiness, decoration vigilantism, ogling priests, the ubiquitous SAME OLD 40 SONGS repeated over loudspeaker in every store beginning sometime around November 1; and the money-motivated misery of the season of brotherly shove.

See, this is why I live in the city.

But don't get me wrong: just because I've been a professional scrooge for the past 15 years doesn't mean I liked this logical match to Bill O'Reilly's idiotic forced Christmas campaign in 2004. ONLY merit: I have a weakness for silliness, and nobody does silliness (and self-parody) like Jamie Lee Curtis. Miraculously, she remains able to offer the usual appeal even in this unnatural disaster caught on camera. Crappiest soundtrack EVER, and can somebody please help me digest that syrupy, sickening, sappy couple? Director Roth as well the conformist culture CWTK ham-handedly tries to satire, should be ashamed.

Recommendation: if you want a good laugh, skip the movie, read the IMDb reviews, instead. They are much funnier.

2 groans out of 10. Blah.

Daddy and Them (2001)

Makes you glad to be single

[3/10 · 16 November 2005]

Interesting thing about this movie is the responses from Southerners. That should be an indication that Southerners (the white ones at least) are very desperate for any authentic representation from Hollywood. Personally, I found the stereotypes offensive. I'm not white, but I have roots and went to college in the South (one of my best friends was from Little Rock, the accents were indeed well done) and personally can't stand the "white trash" stereotype. No person is "trash" or should be looked down on because of their accent or perceived class. Unfortunately, Daddy and Them fails to rise above these characterizations.

There are some "Southern" gags that are pretty funny, like jokes about Pet Milk, Methodists, and conspicuous use of matches while taking a dump. The old evangelical Doris Akers tune, "There's A Sweet, Sweet Spirit in This Place" as picked out on a mandolin at the end was a nice touch. And if you don't have roots in the South, the title itself "Daddy and Them" won't, well, make a lick of sense. I wish they would have included more southern phrases. The "musician" angle also completely disappears into nowhere.

But if you want to watch chronically dissatisfied married people yell and scream at each other for 2 hours straight over ancient history, or believe jealousy to be a virtue, or enjoy adoring XCUs of Laura Dern's big ol' head, this is the film for you. I really got what I deserved with this movie. Can't stand Laura Dern, can't stand BBT, only bought it because Jamie Lee Curtis is in it, reasons why still to be determined. After viewing, the first two conditions still stand. That's what I get, I suppose.

Recommendation: avoid unless you are a BBT completist.

Blue Steel (1990)

Beautiful women CAN be cops!! No, Really!!

[6/10 · 13 November 2005]

This comment definitely contains spoilers.

Has Hollywood ever known what to do with Jamie Lee Curtis, whose calling card seems to be making unwatchable movies watchable? Blue Steel might reveal the answer: no.

Everything happens between the opening sequence and the titles that follow. You can turn off the movie after that, unless you want to skip to the furtive sex scene between Megan and Nick (zzzz, snore).

Too bad Ron Silver's absurd Nebauchadnezzar imitation is completely non-credible, even as a late 80s yuppie skank. Too bad they have to go out of their way to reassure us that the rather androgynous Megan sleeps with guys by having her fall in love with the same stalker-sociopath who will eventually rape her, and inadvisedly (if predictably) bedding her gap-toothed boss. Too bad males are still instructed to be intimidated by the very ideal of female equality that excites them. But then, that would be the appeal of Jamie Lee Curtis in the first place, right?

Reams have been written on the feminist, misogynist or post-feminist implications of Blue Steel: the vulnerable naive (i.e. innocent) female with "father" and "poor judgment" issues; the self-realized, Laurie Strode post-victim, no longer hampered by incompetent adult and authority figures, etc.

But those analyses almost purposely seem to avoid the blindingly obvious, even as betrayed by the film: Megan in her snappy uniform is, well..."dapper", and Megan knows it, and smiles at it. Why else to keep the strut sequence with the punk chicks giving her the once over and vice-versa, or the black socks and patent leather oxfords montaged in with that showstopping bust line being buttoned up into a shirt and tie. Megan can barely relate to her "best friend's" brainless, conventional lifestyle, and is unable to tell the supposed "best friend" matters of life and death. Not so distant film history seems lost on these analyses; other female cop movies, most notably 70s films starring Pam Grier (Sheba, Baby) Teresa Graves (Christie Love), Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones), and Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) opened the door for something like Blue Steel.

Updating the genre, Blue Steel addresses the troublesome idea of a female with a hard-on ("blue steel" being a colloquialism for "erection"), without caricature or camp those 70s movies counted on to get produced and watched, and also with masculine clothes on some of Hollywood's most notable curves. It is through the "Jamie Lee Curtis" star persona that Blue Steel is able to even broach the topic of "is Megan, or isn't she" and resolve it with a decidedly Hollywood ending. Megan even consciously cross dresses on the way to the climax.

In 1989-90, this, I suppose, was "progress". (shrug) So be it...all I can say is, thank heaven it's 2005.

Though this is not an enjoyable film, it might get you to thinking, even when you'd prefer to write it off as over stylized Hollywood crapola. I can't tell if that's a good thing or not; perhaps that in itself is one merit of Blue Steel. 6/10.