Three laughs: A Talking Cat?!

 

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.   

★ or ★★★★★

 

Three laughs case file #33:  
A Talking Cat?! (USA 2013)
Director: David DeCoteau 

A very cheap family movie about a magic cat helping out a family with their problems might sound innocent enough. But when you have a director like David DeCoteau make it, known from his trashy films, you might be onto something odd. Adding to the comedy is main star Eric Roberts, a veteran on hundreds of movies, most of them bad, cashing in a check with a vocal performance that sounds like it was recorded in his car while driving to get some coffee and donuts. Or maybe the trunk of the car. 

The film has some penny-squeezing qualities (many of which we come to in a minute), some of which is that the main house used in the movie looks suspiciously like a set from a porn movie. And in fact the film's set WAS used in a little film called Ass Worship 13. 

As you might know, cats aren't exactly known for being easy actors in movies, and the tabby Duffy with the physical side of the main part does look like he would have none of the bullshit the film keeps feeding us. He is replaced in the film's poster by a younger, cuter kitten. Other stars are made to be some wood-faced models, except the film's dad, played by Johnny Whitaker, who has some very unusual features for a leading man, which makes him of course all the more interesting to watch. One could only wish one of the cinematic Garfield movies was made with a similar who-the-fuck-cares attitude.

Three laughs (SPOILERS): 

1. The movie has two main houses where the action is set in, but it leaves even The Room behind in its obsessive use of establishing shots. Hilariously, also many of these don't seem to fit together. Is the film supposed to be set on a beach, or a forest, or maybe the desert? Is it some tropical country or California? Well, at least the movie crept just above the required 85 minute length.

2. Eric Roberts' lazy-ass dialogue is heard throughout the movie but in fact the titular cat can only talk to people once each. During the first 15 minutes it might be hard to recognize when people are hearing the cat, but once he really talks, you can't help but notice. The reason being that the cat's mouth has been animated by the cheapest possible MS Paint images put into a GIF animation possible.

3.Getting back to the gay porn qualities of the movie, although the film has the most white bread and milquetoast romantic comedy plot possible, we do have an extensive scene where Justin Cone and Daniel Dannas have a conversation by the pool. The film lingers very long on the wet, shirtless and fit young dudes' bodies. The question remains if there's a problem the cat didn't help the boys with or if this is just an obsession of director DeCoteau he couldn't shake even when making a kids' movie.

Three laughs: Roar

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watvh them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case #14:
Roar (1981)
Director: Noel Marshall

Everyone is all about Tiger King these days. But the original morally dubious story of living with large cats is of course Noel Marshall's utterly bonkers Roar. It has the clean-cut outer image of a Disney-like adventure movie for the whole family, and a nice message is living in harmony with animals as well. But somehow, the movie had 48 crew members injured with over 70 injuries over the two-year (!) shooting period. And, boy, it shows!

Film stars Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren used to have a wild cat sancturaty where they spent time with large lions. But there's a difference between having wild animals in safari parks and as housecats. In the film, Marshall himself plays a bit wacked-out hippyish dad in Africa, whose house is overrun by, not only lions, but also tigers and pumas (not native to Africa), leopards, and some rather nasty elephants.

It's one thing to risk one's own, or even your spouse's life in order to have them act in your crazy lion movie, but Marshall also cat his real-life sons and daughter Melanie Griffith to the film. Griffith needed facial reconstructive surgery due to her injuries on set. Photographer Jan DeBont lost his entire scalp. Marshall got the blunt of tooth and claws, and the film actually features footage where he gets wounded. It's a wonder a film like this got made, it's a wonder a film like this got lost in the streams of time, and it's a wonder a film like this can be watched and awed today. Nothing like this will never again get made.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The first laugh comes from the opening credits of the film "Since the choice was made to use untrained animals and since for the most part they chose to do as they wished, it's only fair they share the writing and directing credits". As far as film plots go, this one is so disjointged and hard to grasp, it's no wonder it was co-written and directed by Robbie, Gary and Togar the lion.

2. The lions don't seem too happy to be kept inside a smallish farm, and especially the males keep fighting in rather brutal-looking fashion. Marshall should get a medal from outstanding stuntwork for seeing fights break out between lions and tigers and running to break it up as a referee. I can't make out if he's actually as mad as his character, but he can't be far off.

3. Marshall talks to the lions as if they are children, insisting they are just playing. That's why the film also has plenty of scenes where he's broken off between talking and run to the ground by lions. Most other movies would cut these kind of materials off, but in here, they're the bread and butter of the entire thing.

Terry Jones in Memoriam

 
It's been a tough year for Monty Python fans, and it's still January. We've lost the songwriter and Python friend Neil Innes, and any remaining shreads of respect for Terry Gilliam to boot. And now dementia got the best of one of the remaining Pythons and Terry Jones is no more. He has ceased to be, etc.

Jones might have been the most important glue that kept the Pythons together, arguing for good connective material from one sketch to another in Monty Python's Flying Circus, and for the material to push forward. While he had to do his share of fighting for these artistic ideas, particularly with John Cleese, I think the entire group respected him for it. His ideas made the stuff funnier. That's why it was he who emerged as the main director of their movies instead of Gilliam, who was more gifted as a visualist.

Jones' career also was lesser after the group went their own seperate ways. He did direct a number of movies, comedies and kids' films, wrote books and scripts, and actually went back to be a historian and researcher of ancient English texts. I remember from early 2000s how he wrote some beautiful anti-war essays to protest the emerging Iraq war, sadly to no avail. But films are which he's remembered for, so let's take a look at some of his work.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
Director: Terry Jones

This is the last major Python film I haven't reviewed on this blog throughout the years. And it's the third movie directed by Jones. The movie won at Cannes film festival, and has an important place in my heart since it's the first film I ever got as a dvd. One could say I got a dvd player in order to see this movie. Thus, I loved it dearly as a teenager, but since then I've started to notice it has some flaws as well. But Jones himself considered the film to have some of the best material they ever did and was not wrong about that.

Python member Eric Idle's problem with the film was that they retread their steps and went back to just doing sketches without a story or a concrete thoroughline. But if there was, the film couldn't jump back and forth in time and place to the Third World, the Zulu War, the First World War, to the edges of the Galaxy and to Heaven itself. But one can see how the bigger themes such as religion, school and war seem to interest the group members more than actual life phases beyond the middle age. And they didn't actually manage to find any good funny answers to life's biggest questions in the end, with a fake-out which feels quite cheap after they've done something akin to this a couple of times before already. Probably they should have just saved the Galaxy Song music number for last.

In the films he's directing, Jones tends to keep his roles few and minimized. But here, he has the probably most memorable and grotesque character of not only the film, but the entire Python oveure; the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote, a seemingly fabulously wealthy culinarist and bulimic, who goes to eat every possible treat a fine French restaurant has to offer only to shoot vomit over the staff and fellow guests. But John Cleese's maitre d' gets the last laugh with the help of a wafer-thin mint. The film dares to go more into gross-out humour than Pythons ever before, but they did find a way to make everything character-based, and having the butt of jokes be a recognizable type of character rather than just the shock of guts flying or someone getting a bucket of vomit on the head.

★★★★

The Wind in the Willows (1996)
Dir. Jones

I have fond memories of this children's film of Kenneth Grahame's classic book. Besides writing and directing, Jones himself plays the lead role of Mr. Toad, although only gives himself the third billing. The whole cast is wonderful, featuring Steve Coogan, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Bernard Hill and Nicol "Merlin" Williamson. Interestingly, Michael Palin was also involved in another Wind in the Willows released the previous year, being the voice of Rat in an animated film. Fellow Python Eric Idle plays Rat here, with Palin having a cameo as the Sun. I guess Teletubbies is set on the prehistory of this universe.

It is a bit of a film of two halves, the first being more akin to the original book, with Mr. Toad's obsessions with cars and the sunny countriside milieu. The other, then is more of a heist movie with Mr. Toad breaking out of jail and trying to get his house back from rascally weasels who have turned it into a meat-packing factory. Jones can carry the movie very well, being equal parts annoying, silly and a little bit tragic as well. And he sells the groth of the very immature but rich Mr. Toad in the latter half. The film was very much sold as a Python reunion, but other from some fleeting jokes and a general anarchic viewpoint, it is a lot more testament of Jones's singular styles.

★★★

Absolutely Anything (2015)

Dir. Jones

I wasn't expecting much from this film, since a lot of the latter-day Pythonesque works tend to be either forgettable or even terrible. Case in point was the Graham Chapman animated biopic A Liar's Autobiography (that did at least have respect for the late Chapman and some inspired moments). This was not only the last film to feature five Pythons, but also the last role of Robin Williams (as the voice of a dog). And yet, you very rarely hear anything nice being said about it.

Jones started to write the movie in the early 90's, and since then there have been a number of films that have had a similar premise of an ordinary schlub being able to do anything he wants. Most notable were Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty and Adam Sandler's Click. Even though the film feels like a retread of similar ideas, at least it's not cynical American shit like those ones. Most of it is due to it's charming cast, featuring Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale as leads, and nice voice workd from the aforementioned comedy legends. The main problem is that it's just not very funny.

But really, the sort of film like this is hard to follow through, since it gives so few rules on which to work. Every problem the main character comes up with, he could fix easily if he just thought about it longer than a second. And since the possibilities given are so limitless, keeping the film mostly Earthbound feels very unimaginative. The bits with weird aliens are my favorites, but you could say this also about any Star Wars movie. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend this, but it didn't make me mad or anything. Just a bit bittersweet, since we are living in an age where old legends like Jones keep disappearing.

★★1/2

Three Laughs: Surfer - Teen Confronts Fear

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear (USA, 2018)
Director: Douglas Burke

One might think once you have seen The Room, you have reached an absolute nadir of so-bad-its-hard-to-believe quality. You would be wrong. Tommy Wisesau might have been an auteur that sabotaged every part of the film he was involved in (ig. acting, directing, producing, writing), but at least his cameraman managed to shoot sharp shots. Another important thing is the self-importance and deluded belief in the film one is making. You can't copy the sort of enthusiasm.

Well, move over Tommy, since here comes Douglas Burke, auteur and physics professor at USC. He has directed, written, produced and stars in Surfer. As well as the soundtrack is based on tunes hummed by him. The film's main role is played by his son, Sage Burke, who doesn't seem to be quite as enthusiastic about the art they are creating. It would appear that the titular teen looks so antsy for the most of the movie as if would rather be surfing than listening to his old man's inane monologues throughout the movie.

The super-low budget movie is supposed to be a life-affirming lecture with overt Christian overtones. The titular teen has traumas from  surfing in too massive waves and now has a fear of the ocean. He confronts the spectre of his long-lost father (made, according to him, from squid ink and electricity), who gives him mystical advice on how to confront one's fears. The latter half sees the teen exploring what actually happened to his father, along with lots and lots of filler material about surfing, most of which seems to have been shot on a family vacation.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The main thing one gets from this movie is an idea of how much Douglas is trying to act as hard as he can. Never so much than in an endless monologue (10? 15? 20 minutes? Who can tell?) where he laments his own situation and how in the afterlife they didn't tell him how returning to life would also make him FEEL. Burke adapts a sort of Patrick Stewart imitation, I guess in order to appear Shakespearean. With lines like "I AM LIVING IN AN IRON MAIDEN OF PAIN, BOY!", laughter comes often and tears were rolling down my cheeks on both of my viewings of the movie.

2. The second half has an equally "interesting" take from Douglas, having him break the advice given in Tropic Thunder and attempts to act as a catatonic patient in a wheelchair. The astonishingly tone-deaf and ableist performance is made even sillier with the repetition, with a supervising doctor ordering Sage to repeat that he loves his father over and over again, which makes him go even further catatonic, falling from his wheelchair, and knocking open tha comically huge Coke bottle army underlings had just brought Sage, along with a huge purple plastic straw.

3. There would be plenty of good choices for the 3rd Laugh from Douglas's teachings (like the scene with a beached whale carcass, when he orders Sage to "look at it without me"), but I would like to showcase how brilliant the supporting cast are. Two regular bozos in from lunch are sent to check under cars for hidden bombs by the military, I guess in order to add to the runtime, and to show how secretive the military base really is. And Dr. Burke (Gerald James) meets an old skipper at the pier and gets a few answers out of him by presenting him "really good cognac", ie. Hennessy. The conspiracy thriller plotting went a little over my head since I was staring at the loop of a bird flying a circle across the camera or how the bad green screen effects makes the Skipper's (Mitch Feinstein) glasses disappear every time he turns his head.

Apparently there exists a black-and-white version of the film that tool the filmmakers 20 months to make. It reportedly slowly fades into color by the third act. Whichever version is possible, grab a few drinks and a few friends along and you will have a good time. Especially if you like watching footage of surfing.

Best of 2012

Hoo-hah! What a year, amirite? I hope it's been as good for you as it's been for me. In retrospect, I can see that 2011 in particular was a great movie year, since so much of its best flooded our Finnish cinemas this past year. I've yet to see so many films that were produced this year that I don't really know about 2012, but I got a very good hunch about it. A surprisingly good amount of fine films made my shortlist to make one of these top lists for your pleasure.

Keep in mind that I only include films that got their premieres during 2012 in Finland. That's why the list may include films produced in 2011, or even 2010. Festival and straight-to-dvd -lists will follow later on.

To be seen top 5: Deep Blue Sea, Faust, Magic Mike, Pirates!, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Runners-up

This year, it was so hard to choose which films to raise to the top 12, that I included no fewer than ten runners up. Rather than to have a few words of explanation, for the most part I'm going to allow the reviews of these films speak for themselves. The runners up are:

The Artist
Brave
The Cabin in the Woods
Canned Dreams (Säilöttyjä unelmia)
Call Girl
Cosmopolis - The smartest film of the year by far, but perhaps a tad too analytical to be enjoyable. I wrote a review in Finnish for Elitisti.
Hugo
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Moonrise Kingdom
We Need to Talk About Kevin

The top 12 films released in 2012

12. Skyfall (USA/UK)
Director: Sam Mendes



Sam Mendes balanced the nigh-impossible odds of bringing the fun back to Bond without sacrificing too much of the feet-on-the-ground approach people have enjoyed in Craig's previous outings (well, in Casino Royale at least). Sure, there are several gaping plot-holes and odd character decisions, but keep in mind that this is a film series about a secret agent that tells everyone his real name, and saves the world from domination by being really, really good at poker. Now, while there are komodo dragon-jumping and bazar motocross scenes a-plenty, the threat of violence and death makes the film exciting.

Much of the thanks belongs to DoP Roger Deakins, whose stunning work has created one of the most visually striking blockbusters in a long while.

(few minor spoilers ahead)

A lot of people have problems with the final act of the film, which I can't understand. It's good for the Bond franchise to try something new once in a while. Plus, it has a lot of my favorite parts: Bond's reaction shot when the main villain explodes his car,  the montage of Bond booby-trapping chandeliers and floor-boards with cluster bombs, "Welcome to Scotland", that helicopter explosion...

11. Wuthering Heights (UK)
Director: Andrea Arnold

As you might guess, costume dramas really aren't my cup of tea. but when one is done in such a unique way as Andrea Arnold has here, I'm bound to take notice. A silent, meditative look at inner turmoils, Arnold bases much of the emphasis on nature, how it withers and dies away each year yet comes back the next spring.

The story of Heathcliff (James Howson / Solomon Glave), his thirst for vengeance for those that mocked and punished him as a child, the whole class system, and his doomed love with Catharine Earnshaw (Kaya Scodelario / Shannon Beer) has all the weight and melodrama you'd expect from such a story. The reason this film is ranked so low is the overflow of this super-intense relationship drama into ridiculousness in the final act. But the slow, meditative opening is still mesmerizing.

10. The Descendants (USA)
Director: Alexander Payne



Not the best film in Payne's resumé, but even the least-good Payne is better than the best Wes Anderson film (Moonrise Kingdom). The Descendants is still a funny, tragic and heart-warming film, and earnest in a way very few such high-profile American films can manage to be. Clooney's fake tear nonwithstanding. Back in February, I wrote:

The Descendants is more melancholy-filled than funny. Altough it does offer a few hilarious scenes as well. By first glance the film's characters are clichéd, but Payne has written the film intelligently enough to give each of them some surprising depth, and making them integral to the story he's unfolding. It also allows him to have various different viewpoints into one tragedy, and ways of coping with it. 

9. Argo (USA)
Director: Ben Affleck

A surprise final-minute addition to the list, but Argo managed to be one of the year's most exciting films. The super-intense thriller about rescuing American ambassadors from the Ayatollah's Iran in 1980 reaches almost Hitchcock-levels in building up tensions and letting the viewer worry about the outcome. Ben Affleck has grown better and better with each of his directing duties. This nails-to-the seats thriller pines for the days America solved international conflicts creatively, instead of resorting to violence, arrogance and civilian casualities. It's also a tribute to the hands-on approach to filmmaking, craftsmanship and B-movies of old. Really, how could you dislike a movie, where Michael Parks cameos as comics master Jack Kirby?

The film does depict iranians as straight-up villains (although it lays the groundwork on why they are so upset of America's policies, what with all the hated Shah's protection and spying). As such, it probably won't do any favors for the already icy relationship between USA and Iran. But Affleck does offer as apolitical approach to the historical subject as is possible in such a real-life situation. The final scenes have little to do with reality, but as a climax to the tension, as well as a tribute to the little-cheesy American blockbusting filmmaking the movie celebrates, it works.

8. Rust & Bone (De Rouille et d'Os; France/Belgium)
Director: Jacques Audiard



Again, not the director's best work, but dang if this very physical love story couldn't touch the viewer like few other films could. Just in November, I wrote:

(The film is) shot at times as naturally as to be almost like a nature documentary about the hard knock lives of these people. Audiard is as masterful in compressing everything that needs to be said in just a few sentences as Aki Kaurismäki. One also has to give due to the magnificent actors. Cotillard and Schoenaerts are at career-best form here, taking their abilities for emotional performances and imposing physicality (respectively) to whole new heights.

For those awaiting a clear love story, the film might be too distant, even cold. For those awaiting for the brutally violent boxing matches, they are quite sidelined and only featured in two bigger scenes. But for anyone looking for a good drama that makes one ponder about the human vunerability, and how it affects our own humanity, this is a bullseye.

7. Take This Waltz (Canada/Spain/Japan)
Director: Sarah Polley

Another devastating "romance" film, although much in a different way. It is also a comedy of sorts, with a lot of jokes opening up only in symbolism and perhaps opens even better at subsequent viewings. The film isn't afraid to position some very difficult questions like how far do we have the right to pursue our own love and happiness. Blinded by her emotions as she is by the light in the very first scene, Michelle Williams's Margot ends up peeing in the pool of all of her closest friends and new family. And at first tormented, she ends up enjoying doing it for a while. But the rudest awakening is in store for her.

The script is expertly crafted, with call-backs and payoffs to short scenes we almost forgot about in this rollercoaster ride of emotions. The lighting, the music choices, the acting... it all works. The film's symbolism is quite telegraphed, and easy to follow (as with the runners-up list's We Need To Talk About Kevin), but in these cases it's not an entirely bad thing. The year's feel-bad relationship movie.

6. The Raid: Redemption (Serbuan maut, Indonesia/USA)
Director: Gareth Evans

Aw, c'mon. You really didn't think I was going soft on you, did you? For all the well-crafted romance movies I liked, I enjoy a good ass-kicking action movie even more. And for a long time we haven't had as thoroughly enjoyable, kick-punchingly brutal, explosion- and body-count heavy and crucially, totally non-ironic, earnest action film as The Raid. It figures it couldn't have been made straight-out in Hollywood, but rather in Indonesia. Going to South-East Asia to shoot the wildest action scenes imaginable has been an industry haystay from Corman's glory days onwards.

Dredd delivered another tough building-raid movie this year, but this one has a clear advantage on that. The geography and floor plan of the movie are more carefully thought-out, making the rise to the top advance more steadily and logically. At the same time different floors don't feel just like different stages of a video game, but people get thrown from windows and switch floors by quick thinking. The whole thing is crowned with some truly brutal fighting choreography that utilizes the environment in an inventive way. And with the thin, bearded fellow Mad Dog, one of the year's best movie villains as well.

5. Killer Joe (USA)
Director: William Friedkin



Director William Friedkin didn't really make a comeback with this film since he hasn't really been anywhere. Viewing 2006's Bug recently, also based on Tracy Letts's play, made me realize how good his films have still been but no one has taken notice. Well, Friedkin now forced people to take notice, by having Matthew McCounaghey deliver the iciest, evilest, but at the same time oddly logical and twisted morale-following character. Who would've thought that guy could deliver one of the performances of the year! Friedkin's film is wickedly mean, totally brutal, and very unforgiving for the stupidity of its central characters. It's truly devastating, and as a black comedy, not even too funny. It's a lot more complex than that. It could reasonably be called a satire on the American vanishing morales and takeover of greed. And it's a lot more sharp in this aspect than the disappointing Killing them Softly.

Back in August, I wrote:

The film has a down-to-earth aspect, yet some bizarrely delirious ideas, such as a pizza cook being the most notorious gangster boss of the town, or Juno Temple doing nude kung fu moves in the middle of the night for the hell of it. (...) Friedkin stages most of the conflict inside an extended trailer. The movie is at parts laugh-out-loud hilarious, at parts gut-wrenchingly vile and unrelenting. Friedkin hasn't eased his standards one bit while all these years have passed from his magnum opuses.

4. The Punk Syndrome (Kovasikajuttu, Finland)
Directors: Jukka Kärkkäinen, Jani-Petteri Passi



The year's Finnish film, bar none, is this optimistic documentary that follows Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, The Name Day, one of the top punk rock acts of our country. It just so happens that all the band members suffer from developmental disabilities. But they won't let their Syndromes slow them down. The band members quarrel, rebel and go on their daily lives openly in front of the camera. Never apologising, feeling inferior or pandered, the film teaches new ways on how to view the disabled. And it rocks, too!

Back in March, I wrote:

The film raises some questions about how the society treats the handicapped, but it isn't preachy and doesn't rub the viewer's face with them. One also gets a few good laughs at the silly stuff the punk rockers are up to, such as the race Kari loses when he drops his pants, or when the group gets a little too excited with the strip club windows in Hamburg's Reeperbahn. (...) The spotlight is kept promptly on the band, and rightfully so. They are people to easily identify with, to laugh and cry with. The biggest strength of the film is the same as with the band: it feels very real, as opposed to staged. It's a real slice of life with its ups and downs, highs and lows.

3. Carnage (France/Germany/Poland/Spain)
Director: Roman Polanski

For my money, the funniest film of the year. It's another play-based film, and another that takes place solely in a closed environment. Just like the bourgeois in Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel, the rich couple of Cowans (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) seem unable to leave the apartment of The Longstreets (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly). They have to come to terms with a schoolyard incident of their children, when one child has hit another with a stick. Turns out, the adults are a lot more savage than to just settle in using sticks as weapons. Closed inside, even the similar-minded people come at each other's throats. At the same time their carefully-constructed images begin to fall apart, so they form unions against each others in an attempt to win moral superiority against each other. The nasty, assholish personalities on display here are perfectly acted.

It's not too far-fetched to see the film as Polanski's own comment on his recent house arrest in Switzerland, waiting for trial. As tensions build and no one is willing to take responsibility, the worst in people comes out. The film's cynical look at human nature married to the fact that it has the most hilarious vomiting scene I've seen in a long while had me howling with laughter. A true gem, and the best Polanski in a long while.

2. The Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (Tropa de Elite 2: O InimigoAgora É Outro, Brazil)
Director: José Padilha



The best sequel of the year bar none, the follow-up to the toughest brazilian action film is the Godfather II for violent, political thrillers. It's cynical view sees Rio caught in a maelstrom of violence, with armed police strikes at the homes of the poor drug dealers solving little. The corruption that begins from the top has twisted the system so far, that it takes huge feats to be fixed ever again. During which a lot of innocent people are in the firing line. It's a huge, sprawling epic on the many forms corruption can take in a truly rotten society. Back in January, I wrote:

As it is, the film follows a large number of characters, each representing a layer of the society and/or a level of corruption. Although all of their approaches to corruption are cynically viewed as unfunctional, the characters aren't all clearly set to be only right or wrong. Some of their ideas don't work in practice but some do. Most of the film's characters are three-dimensional, with also ulterior motives regardless of their political alignment.  The main focus is in Nascimento, who while still maintaining some of his moral complexity, also comes into his own terms as a character here. Nascimento starts to feel old and weary by the end of the film, and loses some of his will to fight wrongs. Surprisingly, he has a strong end speech about the human values, and he also sees some error on his own ways. He sees that weeding out upper-level corruption would have helped his cause a lot more than shooting poor people in slums, but by now it is already too late. 

1. Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (UK/France/Germany)
Director: Thomas Alfredson



Another epic that depicts the tentacles of corruption tighten up their grip on the pillars of society. It took me two viewings to truly get into the film's carefully-constructed web of lies and the number of elements in its vast storytelling. After that I read the novel, which was even more complicated. But each viewing or reading rewarded me handsomely with some new layers in this story. It is, by far the most rewarding film of the year.

The spies, depicted here as clerks, pencil-pushers and grey officials, are so far up their own game that they can't function without playing the cat-and-mouse game at all times. The mixture of family life and high-espionage blinds George Smiley (Gary Oldman) so much he is having trouble doing his daily work. Even the tiniest shred of trust has to be built and built for years on end. When even that comes shatteringly down, it feels devastating. Back in February, I wrote:

The film's aesthetic is such that it's easy to find oneself lost on its world. Even the smallest details are made important, and the film's rainy cinematography and 70's design aesthetics are well-realized enough to get the viewer easily lost among them. The real treat here are the performances. As good as Gary Oldman is (and he's really, really good.), the whole film is an ensemble piece, starring a cast of the best British talent to die for. With Oldman and Hurt, there's also great performances Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Kathy Burke, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds. One feels that these actors actually inhabit the jobs of their characters and have actually been spying on us with their other film roles. One does get a paranoid feeling from out of all this, but I would've still wanted to see the film again as soon as I walked out of the theatre.

I'm looking forward in seeing the upcoming follow-up, based on another John Le Carré novel. That's the first recap of the year, next up is a look at the films of 2013.

The Arnold Project, Part X: Mas

I haven't done anything to advance the Arnold Project for more than a year now. As a penance (gift-hungry children must do penance to get out of the Naughty list by Christmas, right?), it's more than fitting to take a look at the one movie often held as the very worst Arnold ever did: 1996's holiday classic Jingle All The Way!



Jingle All The Way, directed by Brian Levant, comes from the notorious period in Arnold Schwarzenegger's career when he tried his hand in playing the everyman in several family movies and comedies. And since Arnold isn't as much an actor as a presence, this was a horrible idea to begin with. He is as ordinary as a purple hippo dressed as Batman using the subway.

In this one, Arnold "plays" Howard Langston, a career dad who's never there for his son Jamie (Jake Lloyd, the worst actor ever to play Darth Vader). When Howard misses his son's important karate practice, he has to resort to making thin promises to win him back. In this case, he promises to get Jamie an action figure based on his favorite television super hero, Turbo Man, for Christmas.

The Finnish title for this film translates as "My Father is Turbo Man". FYI.

But as it happens, he doesn't remember the whole thing until Christmas Eve. He rushes to get the doll, even though he had promised his family to take them to the annual Christmas Parade. While Howard is gone, his sleazy next-door neighbor Ted (Phil Hartman) moves in to woo his wife Liz (Rita Wilson). Howard finds almost every departement store cleared out, since the action figure has been a major hit. Along with another desperate dad, Myron Larabee (Sinbad), they find a drastic measure after another to get their claws on the figure. But their quarreling and fighting over it foils the plan for the both of them again and again.

This is a very zaccharine-coated, plastic Hollywood dreck at its worse. But even though it's constantly annoying, it is also quite entertaining. Phil Hartman (RIP) could do funny in his sleep, and his considerable talents keep any scenes with Ted afloat, even if he hams it up. At least hartman seems like he's having fun. Arnold grunts and moans his way through. It is always fun to see Arnold in pain, and there's plenty of comical violence to go around here.

This is a film where there's two scenes where Arnold punches a midget so hard he flies all across the room. Arnold also fights mall santas, super villains, and punches Sinbad plenty of times. If he'd also kick Jake Lloyd's ass in some point then this parade of Arnold vs. considerably weaker opponents would be perfect. (He also fights a giant Super Santa played by WWE wrestler Big Show) The money shot is when he knocks out a reindeer. In the next scene he's feeding his neighbor's hot-tempered, certainly dangerous reindeer some beer. Y'know, because alcohol certainly soothes the wild soul.

At some point during the writing process of the movie the point must have been satirizing the commercialization of Christmas. The most astonishing thing, and simultaneously the most interesting thing about the film in general, is how the final product totally dismisses this idea. So while the film features adults fighting tooth-and-nail over the possession of a mass-produced, branded toy, the film doesn't give any alternative as to why they shouldn't be doing this. Instead, Howard feels remorse as to not have been a well enough father to spend his money on corporate Christmas presents earlier.

The measure of a good father in the movie is how good one keeps his promise. So, when one promises to give a certain branded, mass-produced action figure for Christmas, nothing else will suffice. So, in other words, if the child doesn't get exactly what he wants, it's the fault of the parents and they should feel guilty. I have a feeling Howard's kid will grow up to be kind of an asshole.

I detest many American Christmas movies, because they give such a plastic, saccharine, disgustingly commercial coating to a holiday that should be about love. The message of love is always ham-fistedly put to the film in the most obvious way possible, when it's clear that the shiny lights and wacky, easily sellable hijinks are what's the emphasis.

The oddity of the film makes it certainly watchable, and ironically funny as well. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it for anyone, but it's certainly in the same league as Batman & Robin as Arnold movies so terrible you have to see them to understand how tasteless film entertainment can be.

★ or ★★★★★

Merry Christmas from The Last Movieblog! Stay Classy!

Xmas Special: Grey Christmas

Yay, Christmas! Last year, I raised holiday spirits throughout the world with my classic Killer Santas post, which took a look at murderous Kris Kringles. With this year, of course there was no comeptition as to what to write abou. Why, take a page from Dangermouse's playbook and mix up the darkest Beatles and lightest Jay-Z's of Christmas movies. It looks as though this Christmas will be very white here in Christmas, so we'll go through this chronologically.

White Christmas (1954)
Director: Michael Curtiz

This is a classic Christmas tale by none other than by the director of Casablanca! It's one of those musicals that is based on a pre-existing song everyone knows and tells the story as to why there's special power and meaning within it. In this case it's of course the titular Yuletime clambake (the movie's exact phrase) that's rather touchingly covered by Crosby in the beginning, and again rather cheesily in the final scene by the whole cast.

Captain Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) is a WWII soldier that aims to boost the morales of their fellow brothers-in-arms by arranging a Christmas song concert. This act is soon shot down by his commanding officer. Soon after, private Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) saves his life at the expense of a broken arm. Wallace asks if there's anything he could do for Davis. As it happens, Davis saw his concert and has written a number of songs for a duo to sing. When V Day comes, and the war ends, the duo becomes a successful song and dance -act, touring the United States.

The entertainers meet a sister act, Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy Haynes (Vera-Ellen). Davis wants to play the match-maker, but Wallace is a bit wary of their charms. The both pairs are booked into the same hotel for a Christmas show, Vermont Inn. The lodge is about to be demolished, and since their old war General is the current owner, they all agree to raise the money to keep the hotel opened.

This film certainly has some of that old-time charm that's hard to imitate. The colors, sets and acting talents are very old-fashined but still quite stylish. That being said, the romantic comedy angle runs along quite familiar tracks and raise few smiles any more. Most of the songs are also pretty forgettable. The film is salvaged by the charisma and talent of the leading actors, and the charms and talent of the leading ladies. It's not one of the most obvious Christmas classics, since it has plenty of un-Christmas related material thrown in, but it's well worth a look anyhow.

★★★

Black Christmas (1974)
Director: Bob Clarke

Bob Clarke's original Christmas horror movie is a clear inspiration to John Carpenter's Halloween, from the killer's POW shots to the ominous holiday set-up. It has plenty of innovative ideas and good scenes, but the problem is that they don't really band together to be a tight enough whole.

It should be tight enough to not be able to breathe.

A sorority house is emptying up as the girl students leave off for the holidays. Only a few young women stay to spend Christmas there. Shown to the audience, a deranged murderer is staying at the attic of the house, spying on its occupants. While lounging around in the sorority house, the girls start to get ominous phone calls that sound a bit weird to come from a sheer pervert.

Unknown to most, Jess (Olivia Hussey) is pregnant to her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea). She wants to get an abortion, yet he is adamantly against the idea. Meanwhile, the local police Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) investigates the death of a 13-year-old runaway and starts to get more and more worried that the sorority girls might be the next victims.

The film is very patchy. Especially the extended comedy segments are very dated just dire. The film dwells so long on a rookie cop spelling the name of a captured hooker F-E-L-L-A-T-I-O, that the audience dies of boredom before the punchline. Even Carry On films would be ashamed of that scene.

No! No! No Fellatio jokes!

Clarke forgets tension building to extended periods, but doesn't offer much in place, and can't pick up on where he left off.The opening is very effective an puts the audience into the right mood, but waiting for the next thing to happen is direly long. The killer lurks the whole movie in the attic, while tensions build between characters downstairs. At the risk of spoiling a little, in the end, he still kind of lingers on. The idea of evil remaining is nice, but in this case the missing out on any closure doesn't help when it feels like nothing much had happened anyway.  At least several characters resolve their differences.  

You better not fight, you'd better watch out...

★★ 1/2

Black Christmas (2006)
Director: Glen Morgan

Horror remakes with minimum effort are a plague nowadays, and usually not even worth a glance, let alone 90 minutes of precious time. Since the original Black Christmas is so dull seen by modern eyes, it would be at last one where an update potentially has the chance for improvement. Well, the modern version certainly isn't better, but it isn't completely worthless, either. That is, if one happens to like Friday the 13th sequels where there is little interest in characters or plot, but heavily on how gorily people can be offed.

The modern Black Christmas has a very similar story in that it also features a killer preying on girl students spending their Christmas at the sorority house. But this time, the murdered has a more detailed history, not to mention a skin condition that makes him look like That Yellow Bastard segment from Sin City. He is Billy Lentz, a maniac that killed his whole family in the early 80's. Now, he's escaped from the local lunatic asylum and arriving back home to Christmas. While he doesn't like the girls inhabiting his beloved house, at the same time he has an obsession on family, and wants to make the girls parts of his new family.

Writer-director Glen Morgan can't build tension worth shit. The first half of the movie is simply horrendous, giving a needlessly detailed back-story to the serial killer on the loose, and having seemingly endless discussions between its bland main characters. All the charisma and interesting characteristics of the original BC have been surgically removed from the girls, but this time around there are plenty of more of them, and no focus on the police.

Things take a turn for the better when a deranged killer starts baking Christmas cookies made from human flesh. From there on, the film takes a firm tongue-in scene twist. The paper-thin characters turn into paper maché, since otherwise the kills would make absolutely no sense. Thus, an icicle falling from the roof can pierce an adult's head, a skate thrown at a close range can split a head into two, and people can be impaled on a Christmas tree. This stupidity carries the rest of the movie somewhat funnily, even if there are no signs of any originality at any point of this thing. All in all this really contains little anything that wouldn't be available elsewhere more entertainingly. Best stick to your old-school slashers for the holidays then, kiddies.

★★

New Disney

 
Being a fan of animation does have its darker days. Recently, I realized that I hadn't seen any of the films produced by the Disney Animated Classics series in years. That branch had some new life breathed into its rotting corpse when Disney purchased Pixar, and subsequently gave John Lasseter the helm of the animation studio back in 2006. He, if anyone should be the man up to the task. So let's take a look at how Uncle Walt's legacy is being kept alive today.

Wreck-It-Ralph (2012)
Director: Rich Moore

Disney panders to fans of old-school video games with this epic tale that takes place in various old arcade games. While the film's marketing and opening scenes offer mouth-watering cameos from classic game characters and tropes, sadly the film is quite not the Roger Rabbit of video games. When it works, it's super effective! When not, well, it's princess is another castle.

Wreck-It-Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is the Donkey Kong-alike villain in the 30-year-old arcade classic Fix-It-Felix Jr. The game is housed in a huge arcade that houses everyone's favorite games from all decades and has a steady influx of young customers every day (did I mention that this is clearly a fantasy movie?). While the gamers play their games, the characters in the game act accordingly. Yet when the arcade is closed, they can go and mingle at each other's worlds just so they are back home at work in the morning.

Ralph is tired of his part in life. He wrecks a building day in, day out, while Felix Jr. (Zach McBrayer) comes and fixes his damage and gets an award for it. Ralph is then dropped face down to the mud and t the end of the day, has to go and live in a dump. So, one day Ralph leaves his home game and ventures to other games for awards and glory. But this puts the entire Fix-It-Felix Jr. game system and its occupants in jeopardy, so Felix has to go fetch the big guy back.

 For all the video games in the world, the film's opening seems like it's filled with opportunities on where to go next. The awe of seeing game grand central and plenty of blink-and-you'll-miss-it geeky in-jokes make the opening pure bliss. All game worlds and characters are not licensed. The FPS space marine parody world is about as funny and accurate as it should be. Jane Lynch as a tough-as-nails female soldier, who has a tragic past, is one of the best characters in the film.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the film gets stuck in a single video game world. It probably won't be spoiling too much if I reveal that it's one of those cutesy 90's mini carting games, this one set in a candy land. So geeky jokes turn into candy jokes which wear out their welcome way too quickly. Ralph's trophy works as a deus ex machina, which I suppose is another tribute to classic gaming. Gaining it requires Ralph to (among other things) build a race cart, save the world and learn the power of friendship.

With the racing world, the plot goes to auto-pilot and starts to resemble other Disney movies way too closely. The whole latter part of the movie seems like unnecessary pandering to girl audiences. There's a secret princess and a tacked-on romance that are way too textbook Disney, and certainly don't serve the whole. Alan Tudyk's (Wash!) delightfully bonkers main villain does get a few scenes to shine, but he can't salvage the movie crumbling beneath him.

 
Director Rich Moore comes from the Simpsons, and it shows. The balance between funny stuff and relationship stuff is done well enough, even if either side is underwritten at times. And at least the script tries hard enough to fill its quota of jokes at every given time. For the first 15 minutes alone, the film is recommendable for any fan of old-school gaming. All-in-all this is one of those rare movies that don't quite meet their expectations, yet you would gladly watch a sequel with the same characters. Let's hope they'll finally go to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat world in that one.

★★★

Tangled (2010)
Directors: Nathan Greno, Byron Howard

The modern way of conceiving Disney animation seems to be to take a classic fairy tale and to give it a thoroughly post-modern, comical, cutesy twist. Case in point is this piece of work that attempts to update the story of Rapunzel for new audiences. The Princess Bride is a clear inspiration in the tale of dashing rogues and lost royalty. For what I've heard, this was quite successful at the box office as well.

The witch Gothel (voiced by Donna Murphy) discovers a magical fire flower at the woods. She uses it to help nurse the king's ill newborn daughter back to health, which also grants the baby long hair that has magic abilities. But the greedy old witch doesn't return the child, but to takes her into her tower and raises her as her own. The magic granted by the hair also restores the crone's youthful looks and beauty.

When Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), the missing princess, is 18, she is somewhat a shut-in in a tall tower. Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) is a notorious thief who figures that the locked up, super-high tower must have something valuable worth stealing. Once he scales the tower, he's taken captive by Rapunzel. She makes a deal with the thief for him to work as a guide for her in the outside world so she can see all the wonders it has in store for her in one day. But when Gothel realized her step-daughter is missing, she calls an all-out initiative to capture her before Rapunzel realizes the truth about her lineage.

This film has plenty of ingredients that would make for a good fairy tale movie. The computer animation blends the classic Disney style and more modern stylization quite comfortably together. The movie has a solid, classic story line with the usual parts of princess, evil stepmother, dashing rogue and animal friend filled out quite easily. Some cutesy barbarian warriors are also featured, although their joke does feel kind of old already, since it's been done in other animations before.

The film also has a scene-stealing sidekick, with the sarcastic-looking and tempered Maximus the horse. For once they didn't give the animal the voice of a famous motormouth comedian, but left his comedy silent, him being kind of like Gromit's grumpy cousin. But while many of the ingredients do work, there are plenty of stumbles along the way. Much of the story is brought forward by musical scenes, and they are, in a word, horrendous. They sound like parodies of typical Disney tunes, but done with people with no talent for scoring musicals. As with Wreck-It-Ralph, this one also gets more and more familiar as it passes, hitting every one of your basic Disney princess story etaps along the way. A valiant effort, then, but not quite cigar.

★★ 1/2

The Princess and The Frog (2009)
Directors: Ron Clements, John Musker

So far, the last traditionally hand-drawn effort from Disney is this New Orleans-set fairy tale. It fares a lot better than Tangled into breathing new life into page-long classic fairy tales, but suffers somewhat from the same problems, although less noticeably.

Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) is a feisty waitress, wishing hard upon a star to be someday able to own a restaurant. She has no time for romance, even though her best friend fawns over the dashing Prince Naveen of Maldonia (Bruno Campos), who has come for a state visit (read: to party at Mardi Gras). Unfortunately, a wicked voodoo priest Dr. Facilier (Keith David) has plotted a foul plot against the prince, and casts a spell that turns his manservant in the prince's image, and the royalty himself as a frog.

Naveen knows his fairy tales and that he must find a princess that would kiss him back to being human. He finds Tiana, dressed as a princess for the Mardi Gras festivities and convinces her to kiss him. Tiana does so in the condition of getting a loan for her new restaurant. But since she's not an actual princess, the spell backfires and turns her into a frog as well. The pair must escape the wrath of Facilier and his army of Shadow Demons into the swamp and find the help of the mystical voodoo lady called Mama Odie.

The hand-drawn animation is a marvel to behold, developing the style of films like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid confidently into the 21st century. Painted backgrounds look astonishing, the characters vivid and expression-filled. Randy Newman's jazzy dixieland score works quite well and the songs have that Lion King quality of while not exactly advancing the plot that much, they don't at least stop it altogether, either.

The film's cast is mostly likable. The main couple have enough quirks to be called personalities. Dr. Facilier is a worthy Disney villain, conceived to be the love child between lively old-schoolers Captain Hook and Cruella De Vil, but having a lot of voodoo god (and Bond villain) Baron Samedi thrown into the mix as well. While the villain controls fearsome powers, he is at core a coward, and both these sides are featured as well. Louis the jazz alligator and Mama Odie are good characters as well, but a cast so well always has to have a weak link.

I hate you, please die.

In this case it is the buck-toothed cajun hillbilly firefly, Ray. I could die happy if I never have to witness another hillbilly joke in a cartoon ever again. The fly is constantly making butt jokes, acting disgustingly and never, ever, shutting the hell up. Jim Cummings is a wonderful voice actor, but this time he really worn out his welcome. It's strange how the film so well managed to avoid any racial stereotyping in its black main characters, yet threw them all together for this sorry excuse for a joke. The screen time that such a disgusting insect has in the film is also baffling. He has little relevance to the plot, bringing everything screechingly down whenever he's featured. Without him, the film would be a lot better. Now, he's just a Jar Jar Binks thrown into Disney Animation's New Hope.

★★★