I prefer to write about older movies rather than new releases, primarily because movie reviews are more undiluted after all the hype and hoopla have died off and the movies have aged a little. Nonetheless, I get lots of questions about new releases all the time, like I'm some kind of authority on movies or something. So, by popular demand (well, plain old regular demand), and since I have some ground to make up for taking some time off, here are my thoughts on some movies that I've been asked about lately. Roll on, flicks of June. . .
X-Men: First Class
The first two "X-People" movies were great, the third one average, and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", well, was stinky ass butter. You can quote me on that. This new entry, directed by "Kick-Ass" helmer Matthew Vaughn, is on par with the original two. A prequel, it tells the story of how young Professor X/Charles and Magneto/Erik met up in the 1960's and fought Kevin Bacon during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It still has some of the problems that all the "X-Men" movies have - too many mutants, causing a certain degree of undeveloped character work and some shaky special effects, but it recaptures some of the feel of the original movies and adds a dash of 60's-era James Bond coolness into the mix. Plus it features one of the most amusing cameo appearances you're likely to see all year. I liked it. Now please stop with all the prequels.
-Spoiler Alert-
Lots of people seem to think that events in "First Class" contradict the backstory that was revealed in the other movies, but I'm not so sure. Also: -Geek Alert- At the end of "First Class", Prof. X is paralyzed from the waist down by an ill-placed bullet, and Magneto firmly establishes himself as X's antagonist. Yet in the third movie, in a flashback scene to the 1970's, we see the Professor walking, and he's still friends with Erik, and we also see X walking around Three Mile Island in 1979 in "Wolverine". What gives? Well, 10-15 years have passed in the movie timeline, and in the comics Professor X is constantly gaining/losing the ability to walk through various means, and his friendship with Erik also changes, so can't the same thing be true in the movies? There are many years of history we aren't seeing. Which means we'll be getting at least 30 more prequels. Urk.
Super 8
J.J. Abrams strikes back. A bunch of kids in 1979 are making a zombie movie when, suddenly, a government train crashes nearby, unleashing Something Sinister upon their small suburban town. Alright, it's an alien. Produced by Steven Spielberg, this movie is meant to evoke nostalgic feelings for 1980's "kids on a wondrous and dangerous, but not whimsical" adventure movies like "E.T" and "The Goonies" (personally, I preferred "Explorers" or "The Monster Squad", myself), and "Super 8" accomplishes that mission. But it ends up doing a little too much homaging, never quite carving out its own identity. And when it comes to all the secrecy surrounding the plot, well, there's nothing here that hasn't been done before and there's no major plot twist at the end or anything. Basically, it's just juicing up the hype machine. Don't misunderstand, though. I really liked this movie. Didn't love it, but really liked it. The kid actors all did fantastic jobs, especially the two leads. And the adults weren't bad, either (the actor who played the ill-fated teacher from "Gremlins" is in this movie - playing another ill-fated teacher). There are plenty of scares, laughs, and good drama to be had here, but it didn't quite come together 100% for me. Hey, at least it's not a sequel, prequel, remake, or sequel to a prequel of a remake! I recommend it.
Green Lantern
Purple Flashlight? I know nothing of this comic book character, so I am not as pissed off as some fanboys seem to be about this movie. It's a silly space-opera with superhero guys in ridiculous outfits fighting nasty aliens and secret betrayers with wacky space jewelry. This movie has a lot in common with "Thor", but that movie managed to get it right and this one, well . . . not quite. Hot shot fighter pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) gets recruited by the Green Lantern Corps (space police) and must overcome self-doubt and relationship problems in order to save Earth from a giant space cloud with a scary alien head called Parallax. Yup, there's nothing more exciting than fighting a cloud. "Green Lantern" has all the origin story cliches/problems that all other superhero stories must overcome, only this time it just ends up being kind of boring. I'm getting tired of origin stories, really, but you gotta put up with 'em I guess (some of my favorite superhero movies - "Spider-Man 2", 'The Dark Knight", "X2: X-Men United", "Superman 2" - not origin stories, all 2's). The cast is pretty good - Ryan Reynolds is decent (depends on your Reynolds tolerance threshold), Peter Sarsgaard is an unnervingly creepy villain, Blake Lively is "The Girl", and Mark Strong is great as Green Lantern honcho Sinestro, even though a few of his scenes were cut from the film, making his post-credits transformation seem very unmotivated. There's too much time spent on Earth. The 3-D was adequate. Some cool special effects. So-so musical score. In the end, it's average. Could have been better.
Cars 2
In the year 2XXX, intelligent vehicles take over the world, brutally killing their human masters and wiping all trace of them from the face of the Earth. The Present Day: these living vehicles have modified the world to fit their artificial needs. This is the backstory of Disney/Pixar's "Cars", the worst movie in the Pixar library. Which means it's still a decent, okay movie. Now comes "Cars 2", a decent, okay sequel. Actually, I enjoyed it slightly more than the first one. Still "okay", though. The original movie was a fish-out-of-water yarn about a big city car (Lightning McQueen) in small town U.S.A. - this one is an international spy thriller about a small town dude (Mater) getting mistaken for an American agent and falling wheels-deep into the fight against a massive conspiracy. You need to have a high tolerance for Larry the Cable Guy (Mater) to be able to enjoy this movie. Mater annoys me, but he's still a slightly more interesting character than McQueen. There's lots of great action, some humor, lots of car deaths, and a great 1960's James Bond vibe (like "X-men: First Class"), and some great voice work (including Gods of Cool like Michael Caine, Bruce Campbell, Franco Nero). And the 3-D was pretty well done. Still, it registers as an average moviegoing experience for me. Let me put it this way - the "Cars" movies are good kids movies, whereas most Pixar movies are good Movies, period. There's also a cute "Toy Story" short film that plays before "Cars 2" - it's better than the main attraction.
Bad Teacher
Let me put it this way - I have owned three Cameron Diaz wall calendars over the course of my life, so there's clearly some crushin' going on here. "The Mask", "There's Something About Mary", "Charlie's Angels", "Being John Malkovich", "Gangs of New York", "Vanilla Sky", and more - I guess I'm a fan. Over the past couple of years, her movies haven't been all that great (although I quite liked her performance in "The Box" - no jokes please), but I'm adding "Bad Teacher" to the list of goodness. It's her best movie in a long time and the funniest movie I've seen so far this year, and it's been a great year for comedies! Here she plays a mean, shallow bitch with only one goal in mind - marry a rich guy. For now she's working as a teacher (her own personal hell), but when a new, rich faculty member arrives (Justin Timberlake) she hatches plans to snag him - including raising enough money to buy some fake boobs with which to lure him in. It's a tough role to pull off, and Ms. Diaz does it remarkably well. She's morally reprehensible, yet fun to watch, and by the time the movie ends, you like and even understand her. She's also surrounded by some great comic talent like Jason Segal, Lucy Punch (as her chipper/psychotic rival), and Justin Timberlake. Jake Kasdan does a great directing job, and while the movie can be quite predictable now and then, it's some funny shit. Welcome back, Cam! Shame about that last name, though. How about "Cameron Bastard"? Sounds great to me!
So here's the Summer Movie Roundup as it stands right now, presented in three categories:
The Good:
Fast Five
Thor
Kung Fu Panda 2
13 Assassins
Bridesmaids
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Extended Edition
X-Men: First Class
The Tree of Life
Super 8
Bad Teacher
The 'Meh':
Green Lantern
The Hangover 2
Cars 2
The Bad
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Priest
I have no idea where "Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer" would fall on that list. Nor do I have any pressing need to find out.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Sometimes when you apply thought to a movie and analyze it head-on, its own contradictory nature, lack of logic and inclination to break all known laws of reality may cause it to crumble into dust and blow away in the mental wind (ahem "Pirates 4" ahem). Other times, however, these same faults only help the movie to thrive. Case in point : "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", starring Vincent Price.
Travel back with me to the early 1990's. I was in junior high school at the time, and I would often saunter down to one of the many local video rental stores (what are those?) and pick up a couple of VHS tapes, which came in large plastic snapcases. Sometimes those snapcases wouldn't snap shut, and when you'd return the tapes by dropping them down the return slot, they would hit the bottom and pop open. Tapes would fly everywhere and the poor video store goober would be furious, shaking their fist at the sky, cursing the name of Shifty Bastard while I, riding my Shifty Huffy, would be tearing down the sidewalk, laughing maniacally. Ah, those were the days. . .
I digress. One day I rented "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". I was a big time reader of Fangoria Magazine back then, and the magazine's chief editor at the time was a major Vincent Price fan, always going on and on about what a cool dude he was, so I decided to check out one of his movies. I watched it four times before I returned it the next day. The night after I returned it, I had a dream. I still to this day remember it, and I rarely remember my dreams - it was almost exactly the same as the movie itself. Some of the scenes were slightly longer, though, almost as if I was dreaming of the director's cut or something. I've always thought this was very strange, but then I'm a strange cat.
Vincent Price plays Dr. Anton Phibes, musician, theologist, showman, engineer, spiffy dresser, and nutjob. After appearing to die in a fiery car wreck, he returns to kill the nine doctors whom he feels murdered his wife (Caroline Munro, cameoing as a dead body) while she was on the operating table. With the aid of his mute supermodel assistant Vulnavia (the super cute Virginia North), Dr. Phibes attempts to murder his targets in the style of the 10 plagues of Egypt (frogs, boils, locusts, etc). After making a small mistake at one of the crime scenes, it's not long before Scotland Yard is on his trail, led by big-nosed Inspector Trout (Peter Jeffrey).
It's a crazy movie. Phibes wears a black garbage bag robe and has a band made up of clockwork musicians with whom he conducts private concerts within his evil lair. Due to his massive injuries, he speaks through a phonograph machine he designed himself. He murders his targets in wacky and sometimes icky ways - rats on a plane, bats in a bedroom, a frog mask that crushes it's wearer's head, faces eaten by locusts, and an elaborate final death involving a doctor, a confined patient, falling acid, and a key to the patient's shackles implanted within his chest - ladies and gentlemen, we have one of the early inspirations for the "Saw" franchise. And, naturally, the movie ends with a version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which plays over the credits.
Actually, it's more of a twisted comedy than a horror movie. There are a couple of icky parts, but still. . .
It's a different kind of role for Vincent Price. Well known for his hammy style of overacting, here he must rely only on his eyes and his body language, due to the fact that his character's injuries prevent him from making any facial expressions. It's a fun performance from him, and my personal favorite out of all of the movies he's made.
Director Robert Fuest brings plenty of visual flair to the screen, stretching the film's meager budget to the limit. It's visually interesting to look at, and it's no surprise to me that Tim Burton was heavily influenced by this movie. It's strange, it's preposterous, it makes no logical sense and yet feels utterly natural on it's own terms - it's almost like, well, a DREAM. And there you have it. They don't call Hollywood "The Dream Factory" for nothing. Sometimes movies "click" on that intangible level of your mind that exists only during sleep. It's rare, but for me "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" lives on that level.
There was a sequel - "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" (1972). Robert Fuest and Vincent Price returned for this follow-up, which has the good doctor traveling to Egypt to perform a ritual that will revive his dead wife (Caroline Munro, again returning as a dead body). The poor man's Christopher Lee, Robert Quarry (from the "Count Yorga" films) plays Phibes' competition to find the secret revival chamber. Lots more people die in crazy and elaborately icky ways. While this movie has a larger budget, allowing for more scenes on location and bigger, more showy sets, this sequel doesn't quite have the magic that the original had. It's not nearly as funny, either. Quality-wise, it falls squarely into the "okay" category, but I suggest that you not bother watching it - the mere fact that this movie exists at all invalidates the poetic ending of the original, and that's a shame to me. So ignore it.
There was another sequel proposed, which would have had Phibes going up against a revived Adolph Hitler, but Vincent Price purportedly backed out because of a quarrel he had with the producers over "Rises Again". Huh.
Despite all that sequel nonsense, the original remains a classic. I love that crazy shit! I feel I should end this review by quoting the tagline from the poster of the original movie, because it's a great line -
"Love means never having to say you're ugly."
Travel back with me to the early 1990's. I was in junior high school at the time, and I would often saunter down to one of the many local video rental stores (what are those?) and pick up a couple of VHS tapes, which came in large plastic snapcases. Sometimes those snapcases wouldn't snap shut, and when you'd return the tapes by dropping them down the return slot, they would hit the bottom and pop open. Tapes would fly everywhere and the poor video store goober would be furious, shaking their fist at the sky, cursing the name of Shifty Bastard while I, riding my Shifty Huffy, would be tearing down the sidewalk, laughing maniacally. Ah, those were the days. . .
I digress. One day I rented "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". I was a big time reader of Fangoria Magazine back then, and the magazine's chief editor at the time was a major Vincent Price fan, always going on and on about what a cool dude he was, so I decided to check out one of his movies. I watched it four times before I returned it the next day. The night after I returned it, I had a dream. I still to this day remember it, and I rarely remember my dreams - it was almost exactly the same as the movie itself. Some of the scenes were slightly longer, though, almost as if I was dreaming of the director's cut or something. I've always thought this was very strange, but then I'm a strange cat.
Vincent Price plays Dr. Anton Phibes, musician, theologist, showman, engineer, spiffy dresser, and nutjob. After appearing to die in a fiery car wreck, he returns to kill the nine doctors whom he feels murdered his wife (Caroline Munro, cameoing as a dead body) while she was on the operating table. With the aid of his mute supermodel assistant Vulnavia (the super cute Virginia North), Dr. Phibes attempts to murder his targets in the style of the 10 plagues of Egypt (frogs, boils, locusts, etc). After making a small mistake at one of the crime scenes, it's not long before Scotland Yard is on his trail, led by big-nosed Inspector Trout (Peter Jeffrey).
It's a crazy movie. Phibes wears a black garbage bag robe and has a band made up of clockwork musicians with whom he conducts private concerts within his evil lair. Due to his massive injuries, he speaks through a phonograph machine he designed himself. He murders his targets in wacky and sometimes icky ways - rats on a plane, bats in a bedroom, a frog mask that crushes it's wearer's head, faces eaten by locusts, and an elaborate final death involving a doctor, a confined patient, falling acid, and a key to the patient's shackles implanted within his chest - ladies and gentlemen, we have one of the early inspirations for the "Saw" franchise. And, naturally, the movie ends with a version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which plays over the credits.
Actually, it's more of a twisted comedy than a horror movie. There are a couple of icky parts, but still. . .
It's a different kind of role for Vincent Price. Well known for his hammy style of overacting, here he must rely only on his eyes and his body language, due to the fact that his character's injuries prevent him from making any facial expressions. It's a fun performance from him, and my personal favorite out of all of the movies he's made.
Director Robert Fuest brings plenty of visual flair to the screen, stretching the film's meager budget to the limit. It's visually interesting to look at, and it's no surprise to me that Tim Burton was heavily influenced by this movie. It's strange, it's preposterous, it makes no logical sense and yet feels utterly natural on it's own terms - it's almost like, well, a DREAM. And there you have it. They don't call Hollywood "The Dream Factory" for nothing. Sometimes movies "click" on that intangible level of your mind that exists only during sleep. It's rare, but for me "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" lives on that level.
There was a sequel - "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" (1972). Robert Fuest and Vincent Price returned for this follow-up, which has the good doctor traveling to Egypt to perform a ritual that will revive his dead wife (Caroline Munro, again returning as a dead body). The poor man's Christopher Lee, Robert Quarry (from the "Count Yorga" films) plays Phibes' competition to find the secret revival chamber. Lots more people die in crazy and elaborately icky ways. While this movie has a larger budget, allowing for more scenes on location and bigger, more showy sets, this sequel doesn't quite have the magic that the original had. It's not nearly as funny, either. Quality-wise, it falls squarely into the "okay" category, but I suggest that you not bother watching it - the mere fact that this movie exists at all invalidates the poetic ending of the original, and that's a shame to me. So ignore it.
There was another sequel proposed, which would have had Phibes going up against a revived Adolph Hitler, but Vincent Price purportedly backed out because of a quarrel he had with the producers over "Rises Again". Huh.
Despite all that sequel nonsense, the original remains a classic. I love that crazy shit! I feel I should end this review by quoting the tagline from the poster of the original movie, because it's a great line -
"Love means never having to say you're ugly."
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