People, I've FINALLY joined Letterboxd! I just started using it, so not many friends yet, but add me if you have an account. I love to discover new movies by lurking on other people's profiles.
Today, I was supposed to work on a podcast script, but I procrastinated for probably four hours writing little reviews and ranking horror movie franchises. If you want to see some hot takes on 90s Whoopi Goldberg movies, check me out.
If you like cartoons and Sherlock Holmes, you're much better off watching Disney's 1986 classic The Great Mouse Detective. It's pretty wonderful, and it has (for my money) the best Disney villain in any film. This guy:
If it's been a while, here's a refresher: Basil of Baker Street is a mouse Sherlock who has to solve the mystery of a kidnapped inventor. On the way, he meets sexy saloon mice, a psychotic bat, and the mouse-queen of England. It's a blast.
The long awaited sequel to everyone's second favorite shark movie comes out today. I watched it instantly, because I'm a huge fan of the original. (Also, it's been a slow work day.)
Well, maybe it's just me. I get this crazy blast of nostalgia every time I watch one of these dumb, repetitive, trashy films. (The only one I don't actually enjoy is the original, which is so, so boring.)
Anyway, there's a new one that just came out, and it's pretty good. I did a write-up for it over on Film Table, which will help you decide whether or not this one is up your alley.
If you’ve met me in real life—even for an hour—you probably
know that I love the Leprechaun movies more than virtually anything else in my
life. More than chocolate. More than friends and family. Those six movies
(minus the reboot) have given me literal months of enjoyment. No exaggeration.
Which is why I decided that my inaugural article for FilmTable, the exciting new pop culture site, would be all about Leprechaun. What
better way to introduce myself to its readers than by waxing rhapsodic about
that pogo stick murder scene from the first movie?
Also, in case you haven’t heard, Syfy Channel is taking a
break from Sharknadoes to re-reboot the franchise with a new actor. (I have
very mixed feelings, of course.)
That said, head on over to Film Table for some quality movie
criticism. They sometimes cover movies other than Leprechaun. Sometimes.
Happy holiday, everybody! I hope at least some of you have dug out your old VHS copy of Leprechaun and enjoyed a blast of gory, 90s nostalgia!
(I rewatched Leprechaun 3 and 4, which was a pretty solid double feature.)
I'd also like to take this opportunity to announce that I'll be a regular contributor to Film Table, a pretty awesome pop culture site that somehow allows me to be as random as possible with my movie reviews.
For my first feature, not surprisingly, I wrote an article about my favorite franchise. Check it out.
Have you ever seen Joe Dante's The Howling? It's great, right?
Well, have you ever seen any of its sequels? They are not great. Trust me. From exploding dwarf eyeballs to spooky line-dancing, there's a whole bunch of terrible packed into that franchise. Don't trust me? Then check out my comprehensive guide to The Howling sequels.
Do you love Chucky as much as I do? Probably not. I have this weird obsession with the red-haired killer doll. Maybe he reminds me of my childhood self. Who knows?
The point is, the Child's Play franchise is such a fun time at the movies, and the newest installment (Cult of Chucky) is one of the best. It takes the series in a new direction while paying tribute to the previous six movies. It's a blast. (And the death scenes... really memorable.)
If you're interested in checking the new movie out, I've written a primer for the previous movies in the series. Just read this short article over at Horror Homeroom, and you'll be all caught up and ready to join the Cult.
With Mad Max: Fury Road,
seventy-something director George Miller has enjoyed a well-deserved career
revival. His newest movie, several decades in the making, is the work of a
visionary, a wild blur of visuals and ideas that mixes high art with grindhouse
trash. Unless I’m drastically misremembering Driving Miss Daisy, I’m pretty
sure Fury Road is the only best picture Oscar nominee with robot arms,
post-apocalyptic nightmare-scapes, and guitars that spew fire.
Because
of the critical and commercial success of Fury Road, a lot of people have
revisited Miller’s original Mad Max trilogy. And even if you have a low
tolerance for Tina Turner’s weird lip-acting, you have to admit that those
movies have aged surprisingly well. The effects are good, the acting is strange,
and the plots move along with fury.
It’s a
shame, then, that Miller’s non-Max films haven’t had the same surge in
popularity. Barring Lorenzo’s Oil (which is what it is), the rest of his
directorial output is feverish and awesome. The Happy Feet movies use dancing
penguins to surprisingly subversive ends. The Witches of Eastwick is a cute
diorama of a small town with Jack Nicholson bouncing off of every surface. Even
his segment in the Twilight Zone movie is delightfully batty. (“There’s
something on the wing of the plaaaane!”)
That
leaves one more movie in Miller’s ouevre, and I’d like to argue that it is his
masterpiece. It’s a talking pig movie with senile clowns, balloon pants, and
opera-singing rats. It will also make grown men sob like babies. I’m of course
talking about Babe: Pig in the City.
No
offense to the original Babe, the Oscar-nominated smash hit that Miller wrote,
but Pig in the City is a superior film in every way. Like Fury Road, it offers
a consistently thrilling experience, with some of the most striking visuals in
cinema. A notorious flop (though Siskel and Ebert both loved it), Pig in the
City has grown a small cult of fans, but not nearly as many as it deserves.
Here are the five reasons why Babe: Pig in the City is such a masterpiece:
Five. The animal work
is amazing.
One of the centerpieces of
the film is a chase between the titular pig and two city dogs. The three animals hop over
canals and through alleys. They knock over giant piles of rubbish. When the
chase starts, the dogs are chained to each other. Through the scene, the dogs
get disconnected. One goes free and the other gets hooked to a manual lawn
mover. The whole scene is like a Rube Goldberg machine, but with real animals.
Every time I watch it, I have no idea how any of this was filmed. By the end of
the chase, when one dog is dangling over a bridge and the pig pushes a
boat through the water to save him, I’m a sobbing mess of a person: bowled over
by the emotions and amazed by the logistics.
The
whole movie is like that. Every scene is crammed with animals—dozens of
animals, hundreds of animals—and everything works like clockwork. It never
stops being emotional, but there’s an underlying layer of awe to everything. If
you don’t ask yourself “How did they do that?” at least once during this film,
then you’re not paying attention.
Four. There are
millions of little nuggets.
Speaking of paying
attention, this movie begs for close examination. Rewatch this movie, and
you’ll pick up on more and more of the little stuff. I’ll give you one example.
There’s a woman who illegally runs a hotel for animals. She clearly loves
animals, even though she’s putting herself and her business in jeopardy. She’s
also—judging by her stuffed-up voice and red nose—very allergic to them. Now,
in a lesser children’s film, she would sneeze comically. Characters would talk
about it. In a lesser movie, her allergies would be more obvious. In Pig in the
City, you might not even notice she has them. It’s a wonderful bit of character
development, and a potent metaphor for her potentially damaging relationship
with these pets, and yet it’s never really commented on.
That’s
just one example of the thought and care put into this movie. Every time I see
it (which is often), I notice some other little thing. Like the wild chases and
action scenes, even the quiet moments are designed like clockwork.
Three. The story is a
fairy tale.
Like an great fairy tale,Pig in the City has this potent,
universal appeal. The story isn’t just about one pig going to one city and
experiencing one adventure: it’s about anybody who faces danger and comes out
the other side a better, more developed person.
Let’s
take a look at the city itself. Twice in the film, Babe looks out of his hotel
window at the big, bad city outside. Do you know what he sees? He sees the
Hollywood Sign. And the Sydney Opera House. And the Golden Gate Bridge. And at
least a dozen other famous landmarks all sandwiched together in a beautiful,
ugly hodgepodge. This is not just any city. This is every city. This is the
whole idea of a city, and all the dangers and pleasures and complications that
that entails. Like the city itself, or the “farm” itself, everything is
universal, which makes for a satisfying, emotional experience.
Two. The hero is a
gentle idiot.
I can’t
overstate the appeal of Babe, the titular hero. He’s a simple pig who has no
defining characteristic aside from his “kind and steady heart.” Because he’s so
simple, he doesn’t understand why people have to be mean, or why dogs and cats
can’t get along. By virtue of being a normal, nice animal, he makes everyone
else reevaluate their issues.
Babe is
a lot like Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump went from adventure to adventure, making
the world a better place just because he was too dumb to accept any of the
problems around him. It’s a character type that you don’t see a lot, but it’s
one that viewers will instantly sympathize with.
One. There’s a real
sense of danger.
The
best part about Pig in the City is that there’s a real sense of danger
throughout the whole movie. It starts with “the farmer” nearly dying in an
accident that Babe causes. It ends with the almost-death of a baby chimpanzee.
And throughout the movie there’s a senile clown who dies (of a broken heart, presumably), a
dog who nearly drowns, and a handicapped puppy who (temporarily) ascends to Dog
Heaven where he can finally walk again. Clearly, this has some dark moments.
And
honestly, all great children’s movies do. Bambi’s mother dies. The Huntsman
tries to steal Snow White’s heart. Dumbo’s mother sings to him through prison
bars. All the classics of children’s cinema have real darkness and real
dangers. I believe that children can handle much darker themes than we give
them credit for. More than that, I believe that children need to see these
darker themes in their entertainment, so that they will be better prepared for
life. The overly sanitized, DreamWorks version of children’s entertainment
doesn’t allow for real danger and death, and that’s such a shame.
Pig in
the City’s true strength is that it’s unafraid to get dark. Then, when our
simple hero is able to overcome the obstacles, it’s a powerful experience.
Anyone
who loved Fury Road will probably also love Pig in the City. On paper, they
seem like polar opposites, but they share a lot of the same strengths: a real
sense of danger, constantly changing visual poetry, a hero of few words who
gets into increasingly dire situations, a jaw-dropping precision to its action
scenes, and a simple story stripped of any extra fat. The biggest difference is
that Fury Road was embraced by the world, and Pig in the City was promptly
forgotten. Maybe if the pig played a fire-spewing guitar, things would’ve been
different.
Do you remember Hush,
the Gwyneth Paltrow drama about a murderous mother-in-law? What about Hush, the Croatian family
drama? Or Hush, the British rip-off of
Duel? Or Hush!, the Japanese gay
dramedy? Or Hush,
the Lifetime movie where someone steals Tori Spelling’s embryos? All I’m saying is that there’s been
a ton of movies called “Hush,” and the only notable one is probably the silent
episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am happy to announce,
though, that the new thriller Hush not only makes you
forget about Tori Spelling’s purloined embryos, it more-than-earns its place as
one of the most thrilling movies of last year.
I'm already white-knuckling it, and this is just the trailer.
Hush is literally a two-hander,
following a deaf woman who communicates through sign language as she’s
terrorized by a masked man in the middle of the woods. Like the similarly
thrilling Don’t Breathe (which follows a killing machine who happens to be
blind), this movie uses the main character’s disability in clever ways. She
can’t hear the intruder, or people calling for help, or the loud alarm that distracts
the bad guy. Her inability to hear is both a blessing and curse in different
parts of the film, and it’s interesting to see the filmmakers play with this.
Ever seen this movie? It's great.
And Hush seems like a nice
wenty-first century update.
Katie
Siegal plays Maddie, the deaf woman, in a role she co-wrote with her husband,
the film’s director, Mike Flanagan (Ouija: Origin of Evil). She wrote herself
one hell of a part, communicating entirely via facial expressions (and sign
language early on in the film). It’s wonderful to see a main character this
badass, especially a woman, especially a deaf woman. (It should be noted that the
actress isn’t deaf, but I wouldn’t dare suggest that the film dropped the ball
on its casting. She’s just too good.)
The bad
guy is played by wholesome-looking Broadway star John Gallagher Jr., who has
come a long way since playing a German schoolboy in Spring Awakening. He’s
slight and wiry, but can still look and act intimidating. He’s more terrifying
before the unmasking, though, but that’s mainly because blank white masks are
such major sources of nightmare fuel.
Watch out for William Shatner.
My
biggest praise for the film is how well it uses its cabin-in-the-woods
location. Early on, the film sets up every room, and then as the drama unfolds,
the characters dash from location to location in a clear, understandable way.
So many modern movies have a really muddled sense of place. With Hush, there
was never any moment when I was confused about where people were. I understood
the layout of the house, which only emphasized the tension.
Honestly,
Hush doesn’t reinvent the mousetrap. It’s a very basic thriller with one
well-drawn character, another character with zero backstory (obviously
intentional), and a game of cat and mouse. It’s very simple. And I think that’s
why I liked it so much. Hush hit me on a primal level, which is much more than
I can say about Tori Spelling and her damn embryo drama.
Have you ever seen a Turkish film?
Well, considering that Baskin is only the eighth Turkish film officially
released in America, signs point to no. Before writing this review, I asked my
friends if they’d ever seen anything Turkish. All of them said no, except for
the three glorious weirdos who purposely sat through Turkish Star Wars on grainy VHS. That should tell you something
about the state of Turkish cinema, or at least America’s awareness of Turkish
cinema.
My friends sure know how to pick 'em.
When I sat down to watch Baskin (don’t ask me what the title
means), I had no preconceived notions at all. I knew the film was shocking—it
had been recommended on one of my all-time favorite podcasts—and
I knew it was Turkish, but that’s about it. Unlike other countries, Turkey
didn’t have any preset style or viewpoint that I could prepare myself for.
(When it comes to horror films, for example, I knew that Italian ones are
colorful and Japanese ones are intense and Scandinavian ones are off-kilter.)
Having that knowledge beforehand is helpful, which is why my experience
watching this fever dream of a film was so intense.
At no point in this film could I
brace myself for what was about to happen next. Half the time, I didn’t even
know what genre I was watching, or which character I should be paying the most
attention to. In a very real way, it felt like I was walking away from a car
accident. Everything was blurry and off, and I had to focus all my mental
energy trying to decipher my surroundings. If I had read a little bit about
the film, or if I had more of an insight into Turkish culture, prehaps things
would’ve been less jarring. But jeeze, was I jarred. Please don’t assume I didn’t like
this film. I did. I loved it. It was one of the most memorable viewing
experiences of my life. But it absolutely is not for mainstream audiences… or
squeamish people… or overly analytical people… or animal lovers. It’s a tough
pill to swallow, and I think you know if you’re the kind of person interested
in swallowing this brand of pill. Because so much of my enjoyment of
the film comes from my slack-jawed shock, I don’t want to give away too much of
the story. I will say, though, that it often operates on dream logic, that
there are some very memorable special effects, and that conversations from
early in the film get some definite (wince-inducing) pay-offs at the end. It
stars a group of cops wandering into a place they shouldn’t, and the most
effective moments are the inexplicable ones.
Don't watch this trailer.
Other than that… you’re on your
own. If you want to watch this film, don’t read anything about it beforehand.
And if you don’t watch this film, please look up its Wikipedia page to see exactly what
craziness you are (wisely) avoiding. Either way, be careful. And if this is representative of
what Turkish filmmakers have to offer, I sincerely hope that more of them will
release their films in America. That way, I won’t be the only person in my
friend group with recurring nightmares about raw meat.
The 4th of July is about a month in the past, and Labor Day is about a month ahead. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are in the holiday dead zone of August (not counting my birthday and, more importantly, Shark Week). I think it's about time we get a nice boost of patriotism to keep us going through the long, celebration-less summer.
That's right, guys. Now is the perfect time to check out Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies. This historical documentary tells us all about the real secrets behind Lincoln's historic presidency and tragic death. You may have though you already learned the truth when Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer came to theaters, but you were wrong. This mockbuster is 100% truthier.
Of course, just in case the film isn't your cup of tea, head on over to Slickster Magazine to check out my rock-solid review. It's particularly spoilerific (Lincoln gets shot), but hopefully that won't stop you from watching this important historical document on your all-American laptops.
What does Kid n Play, the 80s blackface comedy Soul Man, wormholes, Jesus, and giant glowing balls have in common?
To find the answer, you have to click on my latest mockbuster article for Slickster Magazine. Like the movie itself, it's a real mishmash of random weirdness. Don't say I didn't warn you...
Dead 7 is a strange beast. It's a zombie Western for the Syfy Channel (enough said, right?) that stars a bunch of former boy band members from the late 90s/early 00s, back when the world was a simpler time. Apparently, this is the passion project of writer/producer/star Nick Carter (Backstreet Boys), and he recruited all his past-their-prime peers to join in. Some are zombies. Some are cowboys. Most are... not quite actors. It's all a very strange viewing experience. Check out my review for more details.
There’s something
endearingly blasphemous about a Christian movie whose main characters must
follow an ancient Mayan prophecy to prevent Armageddon. The ancient Mayans, of
course, had no concept of Jesus. In this film’s reality, however, an
archaeologist must return a golden crucifix to a Mayan temple so that he can
stop the End of Days. The plot is like a Mad Libs mash-up of The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto. Thankfully, it’s way less
bloody and unpleasant than those Mel Gibson gore-fests.
Our main
characters are: a missionary, an archaeologist, a pregnant woman, a scientist,
and a paramedic. The world is coming to an end, and they are each drawn to a
Mayan temple, where they may or may not be able to save humanity. (Honestly,
after watching the whole movie, I’m still not sure if they succeeded. But I’m
getting ahead of myself.) The film starts 36
hours before doomsday, when a scientist explains why the world is ending: “The
Earth’s rotation is slowing because of a black hole at the center of the solar
system.” Like most Christian films, 2012
has the utmost respect for the scientific community, and its screenwriter
must’ve taken great pains to research this astronomical disaster. Right away, freak
weather events strike down in unlikely places, killing untold millions. Of
course, the audience is meant to infer this information. We see a few events,
but not enough to really show that the world is ending. At one point, a
character announces, “The president just evacuated the entire West Coast.” In a
bigger budget movie, that would be shown. Instead, we have a single line of
dialogue.
Because this is
one of The Asylum’s Christian films, we lose some of the action set pieces in
favor of long conversations about God. One of the film’s main messages—not surprisingly—is
the importance of believing in God. During the climactic birth scene (more on
that later), a character says, “No matter what happens, we have faith.” It’s
kind of a weird message for this movie to make, because the characters are
faced with all sorts of proof that God exists. If the world is ending in a wild
flurry of disasters, if people disappear
in front of your eyes (more on that later), then isn’t it easier to believe in God? I mean, it’s one thing to believe in God
without any proof whatsoever, but this movie (and a lot of Christian movies
with the exact same message) are full of proof. And that sort of contradicts
what they’re going for. Anyway, we do get
a Cliff Notes version of the Rapture in one inexplicable scene where exactly
two (2!) characters magically disappear. One is a random pilot with about two
minutes of screen time, and the other is an old lady. Are these the only two
people in the world worthy of teleporting up to Heaven? According to the movie,
it looks like it. It’s bizarre how the film treats the Rapture like an
afterthought. Perhaps the director was halfway through shooting his Christian
disaster movie and said, “You know what? People are expecting the Rapture.
Let’s give it to them. I’m sure there are a couple side characters we can get
rid of in the second act!” What the quickie
Rapture scene does, unfortunately, is drive home the film’s unintentional
thesis statement: Just give up. For a movie about people struggling to survive,
most of the characters are weirdly resigned to their fate. The missionary wants
to investigate a village full of sick people, but her friend tells her to give
up. A man gets shot, and he bleeds to death because he’s too busy praying to
get medical attention. A paramedic wants to help her mom evacuate her home
before a flood hits, and the mom basically shrugs it off. And finally, when the
Rapture comes, both of the magically disappearing people make speeches that
boil down to: “Eh. It is what it is.” Then they disappear. It’s profoundly
creepy. There’s a difference between accepting the will of God and sitting
around as the world crashes and burns around you.
That said, the
acting isn’t bad (preachy speeches go down a lot better when the actors can
trick you into making them sound like real conversations), and the special
effects are as good as you can hope for in a movie by The Asylum. I’d like to
give a special shout-out to Tiny Juggernaut, the movie’s effects house, for
making a scene of killer hail seem believable. That must’ve been a tough day at work.
Aside from the
lecturing parts, most of the movie plays like a gleeful mash-up of natural
disasters. People get crushed by rocks, they fall down cracks in the Earth,
they bleed to death in the snow, and (of course) they get jabbed in the heart
by that pesky falling hail. There’s always something happening, and it’s never
quite what you expect.
Much like the rest
of the film, the climax zigs when you expect it to zag. We get a very fast
(less than fifteen seconds) montage of global destruction. (We see the West
Coast flooding, Jerusalem in rubble, and London on fire. No people. Just quick
snapshots of big picture devastation.) And let me repeat, this lasts less than
fifteen seconds. This is a movie with the word “doomsday” in its title, and the
actual destruction of the Earth gets less screen time than a burp.
Instead, the real
climax takes places inside the ruins of a Mayan temple. The archaeologist uses
his golden crucifix to open an Indiana Jones-style secret chamber—a birthing
chamber, actually—where a pregnant Mexican woman will give birth to… Jesus,
perhaps? I was confused. The rest of the main characters show up to fulfill
their God-given assignments. The pregnant lady is there to give birth, the
missionary is there to say a prayer, the paramedic is there is help with the
delivery, and the scientist father is there for… well, it seems like he’s there
for moral support. But good for him. In the end, most
of the world is destroyed (well, the West Coast, London, and Jerusalem are
destroyed, but we’re going to assume that other places are affected, too), and
the Mexican girl gives birth to a glowing baby that the audience never fully
sees. In that way, the Jesus baby is like the briefcase from Pulp Fiction. In one last monologue from
the missionary girl, we learn that “It’s just the beginning.”
And surprisingly,
it was. 2012: Doomsday is the
beginning of a three-part franchise for The Asylum. In the following year, we
got 2012: Supernova and 2012: Ice Age. Neither of them have
anything to do with the Rapture, glowing babies, or Mayans at all. One is a
jokey riff on The Day After Tomorrow
and one is Armageddon for Dummies.
While both those movies have their charms, neither rises to the glorious ridiculousness of
this entry. Then again, if your disaster film has killer hail AND a glowing
baby, that’s a pretty tough act to follow.
***
NOTE: I wrote this article as part of my ongoing mockbusters series for Slickster. Turns out, the topic was a little too religious for their publication. I'm posting it here as a blog exclusive instead.
For the last eighty years, Walt Disney Studios has been the dominant force in animated musicals. Since 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney has churned out cartoons about singing flowers, singing rats, singing fish, singing frogs, and all sorts of other lovable vermin who can’t stop themselves from bursting into song. Sure, there have been other studios who’ve tried to break into Disney’s cartoon musical monopoly, but they typically came off as slightly off-brand variations on the Disney standard—1997’s Anastasia, for example, or 1998’s Quest for Camelot. Both exemplify the uncanny valley of movie musicals that are almost-but-not-quite Disney. These films typically fade from memory in a few years, like the last few notes of a Russian music box from an amnesiac princess. These copycat cartoons aren't particularly interesting, though. The interesting movies are the ones that actively reject the Disney model, the musicals that decide to get a little weirder, a little creepier. These are the movies about plant-magic trolls and mute swans and the distant relatives of Marco Polo. If you want to read my TOP TEN list of weird cartoons, go to Taste of Cinema. This is my first listicle with them, but there will be many more to come!
Did you watch Fifty Shades of Grey and wish it had more long, boring scenes about real estate? Yeah? Well, then you'll love BOUND, the S&M mockbuster that the world absolutely needed. Watch it! Or better yet, check out my article about the film.
R.I.P. Daft Punk
And if that's a little too high-brow for you, then there's always MARTIAN LAND, the mockbuster of Ridley Scott's The Martian. While it may not be as well-received as its Oscar-nominated sister film, it does have a Martian super-storm, so that's that.
