Netflix User Reviews Rock

Thank you 'Tycerium' for your insightful commentary on Women's Prison Massacre: Uncut.

"Womens Prison Massacre: Uncut" is not a good women in prison film. "Fugitive Girls" and "Reform School Girls" are much better, for example. "Womens Prison Massacre" has some nudity and a little soft core sex, but not very much, and it's not very erotic. The story, acting, and dialogue are bad, and not in an amusing way. The soundtrack is extremely annoying, playing loudly, repetitively, and needlessly. There's more violence than sex, and it's grosser and bloodier than it needs to be. For an amusingly campy women in prison B-movie, I recommend "Fugitive Girls". For a more sexy one, I recommend "Reform School Girls".

My only complaint is that Tycerium fails to comment on whether the bonus second feature, Caged Women, is a worthwhile addition to the women in prison canon.

Mozart of Madras

Who is A.R. Rahman?

According to his very modestly designed and unpretentious official website, he "is the pride of the Indian nation and a role model for millions around the world." Further perusal of the biography section (which is accessed through a flash-animated marble-arched doorway and flanked by Pegasi and seagulls) also reveals that he is a prolific film composer with scores of Bollywood and western studio films to his credit.

Most recently, he did the music for Danny Boyle's thrilling and awesomely sentimental Slumdog Millionaire.

Here's one of his older and more popular songs, "Chaiyya Chaiyya," (I believe Spike Lee appropriated it for Inside Man) from the film Dil Se:

Milk Mustache

James Franco tells a great story about a fake penis.



If I threw a party, I would invite James Franco to come and tell stories like this one.

Pocket Poem: For Lauren Bacall

Vampire Romance

I think this looks creepy/lovely.

"We're gonna do a MONTAAAAAAGEyah"

This is the "number 2" training montage in my book.


"Number 1"? Must you ask...

you don't need a reason

I Smell Oscars.........

Doubt

Frost/Nixon

Newman's Own Epitaph

Here lies Paul Newman
Who died a failure
Because his eyes
Turned brown.
-Newman's own epitaph

Great article on Paul Newman and the transition from Old to New Hollywood. Check it HERE.

Paul Newman is dead, still great.

My favorite Newman's Own product is Newman's Own Creamy Caesar Dressing and my favorite Paul Newman movie is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

You?

"Movies that I DIDN'T see"

Thoughts and opinions on the movies that I DIDN'T see this summer, based on assumptions I made while watching the trailers and (occasionally) reading actual reviews.

Speed Racer: I never liked/watched this cartoon growing up and my interest in the movie never really extended beyond vague plans to cash in on a free Cheerios Speed Racer cereal bowl offer; at some point I switched from Cheerios to Life and never got the box tops together. Too many bright colors, quick cuts, and closeups of Matthew Fox wearing a costume that made him look like Mega-Man. Emile Hirsch's post-Girl Next Door career has been a disappointment and Fox's hands-on-hips-taking-a-deep-breath-while-I-squint schtick really only works on Lost.

Sex and the City: Based on her stellar work in Hocus Pocus, I've always been a Sarah Jessica Parker apologist; however, this movie was garbage. Like any good television show turned movie, they would have been better off just showing the three best episodes back to back on the big screen. The only three Sex and the City episodes I've seen (long story) involved the pretty-brunette-woman-whose-name-I-can-never-remember divorcing her husband and having sex with her bald, paunchy, very hairy divorce lawyer.

Kung Fu Panda: Jack Black is an ass. Only real pandas are entertaining.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan: I wish Adam Sandler would just recycle jokes and plots from his old movies instead of trying to come up with new ideas. I would gladly fork over $8 for Happy Gilmore II. Also, goatees are neither fashionable nor funny. Ever.

The Happening: I got off the M. Night Shyamalan ride years ago when a friend told me how the Sixth Sense ended before I saw it. Since then, I've never seen any of his movies but strongly believe that all of them have been complete and utter crap.

The Incredible Hulk: I finally saw the Ang Lee version this summer on cable when the beautiful and talented Jennifer Connelly (The Rocketeer!) stopped me cold mid-channel surf. I don't imagine that I'll ever actually see this new one; Edward Norton is only half-alright part of the time and Liv Tyler isn't nearly pretty enough (maybe in Empire Records?) to slow me down when I'm power surfing through the USA/TBS/TNT/FX block of channels.

Get Smart: I have nothing against this movie. Maybe I'll see it on a plane one day.

Hancock: Oh, Will Smith, you made Independence Day and I could never hate you, but this movie was tedious, uninspired, and probably neutered by the MPAA.

Step Brothers: On the one hand, a grown man getting crushed by a poorly constructed bunk bed is hilarious, on the other hand, neither Will Ferrell nor John C. Reilly are very funny anymore. Jury's still out on this one, but I strongly suspect that it's mediocre. If we were ever at the video store together and you said "hey, let's rent this one," I wouldn't say no but I certainly wouldn't split the rental fee with you.

The X Files: I feel the same way about this as I do Sex and the City minus the weird, pre-pubescent crush on SJP (sorry David Duchovny). The only X Files episode I remember seeing involved a family of incestuous mutants living in an isolated farmhouse and I have to believe that the movie fails to deliver on that episode's creepy promise.

Pineapple Express: I have no plans to ever see this movie. If I find out that Jonah Hill was in it then I have definite plans NOT to see it. In another year or so this whole Apatow/Rogen thing will have run its course and only James Franco (maybe) and that guy who plays Darryl on The Office will have careers.

The Mummy 3/The Rocker/Mamma Mia!: I will neither remember nor regret.

Tropic Thunder: Part of me wanted to see this but an even bigger part of me thought that there was a reason that they waited until the end of August when no other decent movies were playing to release it. That said, I can only assume that Robert Downey Jr. was nothing short of wonderful.

"It's lonely at the top"

Vicky Christina Barcelona. Slow motion? Zooming fade outs? Voiceover narration of semi-obvious plot details? Threesomes? Bicycle rides through the European countryside? Woody Allen is Julesing you Jim.

And it's delightful.

Read his behind the scenes production diary HERE. He dishes on giving an Oscar winner acting tips and his own ability to satisfy three randy and insatiable actresses simultaneously.

Vicky Christina Barcelona Right Now

FYI, Vicky Christina Barcelona is out in wide release this weekend. Woody Allen's latest features Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Rebecca Hall. It's like a love triangle with four sides; a love square if you will.

Who's Afraid of Ingmar Bergman?

I'm afraid of Ingmar Bergman.

The last three episodes of the Scenes From a Marriage miniseries have been sitting on my coffee table for almost a week now and I just can't bring myself to watch them. I've seen some unsettling films over the years; gruesome crimes; wanton animal slaughter and rape; pregnant women forcibly Caesarianed; Marlon Brando whispering sick-sweet nothings; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.


But Marianne and Johan make me shiver.

I finished the first three episodes (over an uneasy five day span) and had to open all the windows and watch half a dozen mid-period Woody Allen movies (same themes and questions but mostly happy endings) just to feel right again.

Over two hours of gorgeously lit close-ups of Liv Ullman (most expressive face in cinema?) and Erland Josephson in their suddenly cruel relationship and I don't have any idea just when it started to go wrong but I do know that I'm not sure if I want to find out how it ends.

Two nights ago I opted to watch a Holocaust film instead. I thought it would be less emotionally jarring.

Holy Ground

Badassery, thy name is Peckinpah.



The ante has been upped.

Sally Who?

Best performance by an actress in a supporting role in a film I watched recently: Sally Hawkins.


Despite being given little to do in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream but provide a sweet and unwordly counterpoint to Hayley Atwell's sexpot classassin, Ms. Hawkins turns in a lovely, quietly memorable performance.

"Satan laughing spreads his wings..."

"Angels are partisans not of Good, but of divine creation. The Devil, on the other hand, denies all rational meaning in God's world. World domination, as everyone knows, is divided between demons and angels. But the good of the world does not require the latter to gain precedence over the former; all it needs is a certain equilibrium of power. If there is too much uncontested meaning on earth (the reign of the angels), man collapses under the burden; if the world loses all its meaning (the reign of the demons), life is every bit as impossible." - Milan Kundera

In Milan Kundera's novel The Book of Laughter & Forgetting, he not surprisingly deals much with the idea of laughter and its meaning. According to Kundera, the Devil invented laughter: "Laughter is the province of the Devil. It has a certain malice to it (things have turned out differently from the way they tried to seem), but a certain beneficent relief as well (things are looser than they seemed, we have greater latitude in living with them, their gravity does not oppress us)." In light of this, the Devil is thus both a liberator and a tempter. He is a singularity of abyssal irony, something we all find in ourselves but could never become completely. He both repels and attracts; he is a she and she is an it. As Max Von Sydow reminds us in The Exorcist, "Satan is a liar and a cheat." But does he ever lie about that?


In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, The Joker, so superbly played by the late Heath Ledger*, is none other than a modern take on this Devil character, i.e. humanity's absolute Other. Unabashedly unified in his chaotic whimsy, he is also lacking the strength of restraint and the power of compassion, the stuff angels are made of. The choice to have The Joker tell two completely different stories about how he got his scars shows how completely inhuman he is; for him, there is no past and no future. His seductive qualities lie in his complete immersion in the moment, in the act of orgasm, of complete and singular fulfillment of desire above all.


Batman, on the other hand, is very human. He needs the rich, kung-fu-chopping Bruce Wayne to exist (as all the imitators make painfully obvious). Furthermore, if Bruce Wayne ceased to exist, Batman would surely descend into the world of The Joker. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Alfred burning Rachel's note, ensuring that Bruce will never know the truth about himself, has secured Batman's reality as a role and nothing more. While Bruce Wayne's reserves about being Batman are deeply human, his choice to persist as Batman is divine. The twist is his status as an anti-hero, but even this is no more than par for the saviour course; after all, Jesus being crucified was part of God's plan, and his being part-God was just as critical.

To withdraw from Theology and move over to Idealism: Gotham City is nothing less than the jumbled mind of Man**, disconnected from its destructive instincts and irrationally but ignorantly bound to a superficial order of things. In Gotham, you basically have The Joker as Chaos, Batman as Jesus, and People as People in all their near-sighted, vain, but ultimately endearingly graceful glory. Chance is the absolute reality these people must face, and it is their attitudes towards it that define them: The Joker laughs at it and does what he can to master it for his own amusement, Batman gravely looks it in the eye and does what he can to combat its destructive downswings, and People are largely trapped in its ebb and flow. Indeed, The Joker and Batman are apart from Chance while People are caught in its gears, perhaps even constitute it. Within the sphere of Chance, The Joker's anarchic machinations create the necessity*** for Batman, and without either, Gotham wouldn't be Gotham and humans wouldn't be humans.


Bullshite analysis aside, I loved this movie. The performances were explosive and the plot sizzled with relentless excitement. I think Harvey Dent was an extremely interesting sub-plot and I think his necessity to the story is fascinating. In reality, he saves Batman and is the hero Gotham needed, albeit thanks to a white lie. Harvey Dent "falls" because he cannot fathom The Joker; he cannot account for his existence. He naively believes that evil is evil and evil is not him, thus with blind good conscience he makes it his goal to eradicate it. One devastating twist of fate, however, leaves him a shell of a human who, like Anton Chigurh, begins tragically to worship the amorality of Chance in order to quench the often seemingly unquenchable thirst for justice in a world where The Joker not only exists, but thrives. Also, it is probably his cleft chin, but he continually reminded of the Father in Troll 2 (!).

A question for other people who have seen The Dark Knight: Does The Joker intentionally mix up the addresses of where Dent and Rachel are being held or is he mistaken? If it's totally his show as it seems, how did Ramirez enter the fold? Was it a mob set-up that The Joker happened to privy to, or did he author it?

* - SO FUCKING SUPERBLY.
** - I apologize for this sexist lapse. I only use it for rhetorical effect as well as appropriateness. Come on, those German assholes were straight-up misogynists.
*** - I say necessity in terms of Freedom being the ultimate goal of human endeavor. The Joker seems free, but of course he is not, being slave to his whim and endless desire.

I Forgive You

Fuck due process. In lieu of an investigation, the groundswell of critical acclaim and public goodwill attached to anything Dark Knight has effectively absolved Christian Bale of any wrongdoing in his maternal assault case and even subtly shifted blame to the alleged victim. Mr. Bale has-been-through-a-lot and how dare his mother and sister not only demand money from him but also badmouth his dear sweet wife. Appalling. Only Mr. Bale's heroic sense of honor and self-control kept him from righteously murdering the pair right on the spot.

This whole sad story reminded me of an incident in my own life involving Christian Bale, a mother (my own), and assault (imagined). As a child I was always an outspoken critic of any and all musicals and would confidently denounce any musical (unseen) as complete trash. One day as I sat watching a VHS copy of Newsies for the fiftieth or so time, my mother walked in and casually remarked that it was odd that I enjoyed THAT musical so much. She left me alone and there, on the living room floor, I felt for the first time in my young life the embarrassed shame of the hypocrite exposed. Things have never been the same between us.

Newsies? I finished the movie and though it's probably been more than a decade since I've seen it, I still regard it with the same nostalgic fondness as I do The Rocketeer (check the Richmond Public Library slip - #122 monopolized their copy in the early '90s). In retrospect, Newsies is not only a musical but also a not especially good musical. Even the film's star, Christian Bale, is wryly embarrassed by his role; apparently he signed on to the project before it was a musical and 17 year old actors yearning to be taken seriously aren't proud of singing and dancing in period costume. For all of these flaws, what made Newsies great?

1. Gang violence - turn of the century newsboys were a violent lot. Who doesn't like a good dance off ending in a throw down street brawl? My first cinematic exposure to brass knuckles being put to use. Disney!
   
2. That girl who kinda looks like Jennifer Connelly - lead newsie Jack Kelly runs his game on his best friend's smoking hot sister. Admirable stuff.
   
3. Burlesque shows - newsies barely older than me spent their evenings hanging out backstage at racy variety shows where hookers swung around on giant swings over the audience. I sat on the living room floor watching live action musicals.
   
4. Cool nicknames - Spot, Crutchy, Boots, Mush, Specs, Dutchy. At the time I was going by "Josh."
5. Disgustingly catchy tunes - a YouTube comment that fails to cite a source claims that Christian Bale says he still has "Santa Fe" (below) stuck in his head sixteen years later. I feel the same way.

Crazy Love

***Major Dark Knight plot spoilers in this post - fair warning***

Some quick thoughts on The Dark Knight:

A morbid pall has settled over Gotham City. Death, both literal and figurative, is everywhere in The Dark Knight and in a twisted bit of irony, the man who emerges as the city's most ruthless killer is also its most vibrant citizen. Heath Ledger's Joker, in juxtaposition to Bale's ascetic vigilante, is relentlessly, breathtakingly, unapologetically alive.

Whereas Bruce Wayne hides his humanity behind Batman's cowl and hoarse whisper, the Joker gleefully accentuates his hideous Chelsea grin with garish make-up, and enthusiastically re-imagines the origin of his scars at every opportunity. In a city where both heroes and villains are studiously discreet, the Joker wears his heart on his sleeve and wonders aloud why no one else has the courage to do the same.

"It's simple - kill the Batman," the Joker advises Gotham's criminal elite when they complain. Remove the obstacle that stands between you and your goal. Advance confidently in the direction of your dreams. Be all you can be. He not busy being born is busy dying....

And poor Bruce Wayne, more than any mobster, he wants Batman gone forever.

Gotham does not need Bruce Wayne the man, only Batman the hero and when the rise of Harvey Dent offers him a way out, Wayne tries to shift the burden of incorruptibly onto Dent's shoulders. As long as Dent is acting as Gotham's white knight, Wayne thinks he is free to make the choice that Batman never could: he can choose his happiness over that of others. It is a completely selfish, wonderfully human act. But after Rachel's murder leaves Dent shattered, Wayne dons his costume and Batman retakes his place as Gotham's savior. This time, freed of his hopes for normalcy, he is - like the Joker - wholly himself.

Absolutes of any kind are kindred spirits and from the other end of the moral spectrum the Joker recognizes the Batman as his match. Both are incorruptible in their own way. Alone with Batman, the Joker earnestly reveals himself to his rival. "I don't want to kill you," and almost tenderly, "you complete me." Coming from Gotham's louche jester this should be another taunting joke, but instead it resonates as an admission of vulnerability and desire - something that Bruce Wayne, burdened by the demands of his alter ego, was never able to sincerely make to anyone.

In the end, it isn't honor or justice that prevents Batman from killing the Joker, but the private admission that in the Joker he sees what he always wished he could have been himself: an idealist who doesn't need a mask.

Watching the World Burn

By this point anything you read about The Dark Knight is bound to be full of spoilers, but if you haven't seen Christopher Nolan's beautiful thriller yet and are looking for some solid, spoiler free previews to whet your appetite, I recommend David M. Halbfinger's March 9 article "Batman's Burden."



A few hours removed from my first viewing, I think that a second viewing might be in order before I write a full review. Suffice to say that Nolan's film is an impressive and ambitious addition to not only the comic book film pantheon but to the crime genre in general - a tightly woven, scarily realistic morality play about the role of chaos in our fair play obsessed culture.

Go see it and we can all talk about it....