SPOILER ALERT, in case you haven't caught on yet, it's a rehash of WRATH OF KHAN. Which would be great, if that movie hadn't already been made.
The Star Trek Babies from an alternate universe are at it again, getting into wacky space adventures. It's kinda fun fan service, but because it's a variant on a known story, you can predict everything that will happen in advance. And it says everything you need to know about the modern flashy style that a brief Leonard Nimoy cameo has more soul and pathos than anything else that happens.
The only part that really grabbed my interest was a brief scene confirming that San Francisco will still have their iconic cable cars in the distant future. That was kinda cool.
Running Time: 132 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,709
Monday, June 3, 2013
Jason watches THE HANGOVER PART III
Ummm...SPOILER ALERT, but WTF? There's no actual hangover in THE HANGOVER PART III? At least, not until the end credits, which was better than anything in the movie. Instead, an embarrassed looking John Goodman shows up as a Vegas crime boss forcing them to find Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) and hand him over. Turns out he stole a ton of gold and the Wolf Pack are the last people to know his whereabouts and...oh, who the hell cares. Ken Jeong is funny, and the end credits scene is funny. The rest was just dull. I can't help but think there will be a HANGOVER 3.5 expanding on the end credits hangover. Or there will be a spin-off with Ken Jeong's character. The latter I might welcome. The former I have no interest in...although it would be better than what we actually got.
Running Time: 100 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,577
Running Time: 100 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,577
Friday, May 31, 2013
Jason watches FROM UP ON POPPY HILL
Dang, I'm like a week and a half behind in my blogging. I actually saw this last week Tuesday. Anyway, it's a beautiful little anime from Studio Ghibli about teens in Yokohama banding together to save their building. That is, to save the students' "Latin Quarter" building where all of the most interesting students live or at least hang out. It's set for demolition so that Japan can show a clean, modern look when they host the Olympics (oh yeah, this is in 1964.) One girl leads the fight, but she's really doing it to spend more time with a cute boy who just might be connected to her father who died in the war. Oh yeah, it gets pretty soap-opera for a bit. But overall it shows the gentleness, cuteness, and humor characteristics of Hayao Miyazaki's studio, this time under the direction of his son, Goro.
For more Studio Ghibli fun there's a whole series coming up at the Pacific Film Archives. Info here.
Running Time: 91 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,477
For more Studio Ghibli fun there's a whole series coming up at the Pacific Film Archives. Info here.
Running Time: 91 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,477
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Jason goes to Midnites for Maniacs to see som Dirty Little Munchkins
Last Friday. At the Castro. A triple-bill of movies about kids. Kids doing bad things.
THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976): Man, there's really some wisdom in this very adult movie that just happens to star kids. It's way more than just a "buncha Jews, spics, niggers, pansies, and a booger-eatin' moron!" It's about a big "Fuck you!" to polite society. It's about challenging authority--not just Walter Matthau's Coach Buttermaker saying "Fuck you!" to the league authorities, but the kids saying "Fuck you!" to Buttermaker,...and to the other kids,...and to each other. But it's also about who your friends are. It's about sticking up for a booger-eating moron because dammit, he's your booger-eating moron. And ultimately, it's about that moment when you finally get a grudging but sincere token of respect from polite society...and you tell them to stick it up their ass. There's a lot of fuckin' wisdom in this fuckin' movie.
GUMMO (1997): Harmony Korine's bizarre and disturbing homage to his own middle America upbringing is the only film of the night I had actually seen before. Still don't know what to make of it. Killing cats, selling their corpses and spending the money on glue to sniff. A kid walking around with bunny ears (look! a Bunny Boy!) A midget. Tons more horribly dysfunctional people. And a kid eating spaghetti in a filthy bathtub while his mother washes his hair. Of all of it, that was the scene that creeped me out the most.
I believe--from interviews and anecdotes I've heard--that Harmony Korine has true affection for these characters and isn't making a movie to mock or exploit these people. I want to believe the movie accomplished that, too. I'm just not sure it was successful. If it is, it's the modern equivalent of FREAKS, which is one of my favorite movies ever.
THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987): And finally, a movie I've been curious to see for a while. I wasn't all that into the Garbage Pail Kids cards when I was a kid (I was more of a Madballs kid, which came out a couple of years later.) But back in 2008 I happened to see a movie called CAN HEIRONYMOUS MERKIN EVER FORGET MERCY HUMPPE AND FIND TRUE HAPPINESS? and I learned about Anthony Newley, who was a big star and basically destroyed his marriage and career by making a mockingly semi-autobiographical movie. One of the trailers they showed before the movie--to showcase what became of his later career--was THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE. So our host Jesse Hawthorne Ficks was a bit surprised when so many people showed up for a midnight screening of the movie without ever having seen it before. He was puzzled why anyone would show up. I don't know about anyone else's reason, but for me it was morbid curiosity about Anthony Newley. Newley plays Captain Manzini, the genial and eccentric owner of an antique and curiosity shop. He actually does his best to class up the movie, being the mentor to young Dodger (Mackenzie Austin), who has a crush on Tangerine (Katie Barberi) which gets him into frequent trouble with the gang she rolls with. Some of that trouble results in a magic garbage can in Manzini's shop tipping over, green goo oozing out, and the Garbage Pail Kids appearing. Or, at least, Greaser Greg, Messy Tessie, Windy Winston (recurring fart joke), Valerie Vomit, Ali Gator, Foul Phil, and Nat Nerd (apparently pissing yourself is a common nerd trait according to the filmmakers.) They decide to "help" Dodger. And somehow we learn that the other Garbage Pail Kids were locked up in the Home For the Ugly (or something like that. Incidentally, Santa Claus is locked up there, too, for being too old.) So the plot changes to trying to rescue them, along with the new Garbage Pail Kids who get picked up by the ugly patrol. They rescue the new kids, but at some point they just mention they were too late for the other kids and they had already got trash compacted. I understand if they didn't have the budget to make the other kids, but they just sort of mention they were all killed and...nothing? And that...happened.
This movie fails in many ways. The plot is slapdash and full of bizarre holes. The kids are clunky puppets that aren't very expressive (the original plan was for them to be animated and interacting with live-action humans, like in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, which came out the next year.) And the kids actually aren't gross enough. But the biggest failure is a failure on it's promise. There's a germ of a good (well, not horrible) idea here. There's a moral about beauty coming from within, and about sticking up for your friends (a theme of the night) and a nice closing line slamming the shallow, superficial beauty of Tangerine and her gang. But it's lost in the ineptitude of everything else. This would actually be a prime candidate for a remake (or to use the Hollywood jargon of the moment, a "reboot.") I can't imagine anybody would actually want to do that, but if someone tried to crowdfund that, I'd pitch in.
The next Midnites for Maniacs is coming up on Friday, June 7th. For Johnny Depp's 50th Birthday (Holy crap, no wonder he's hiding his face under tons of makeup these days!) We'll be treated to three of my favorite Johnny Depp movies--BENNY AND JOON, WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE, and John Waters' CRY-BABY (and since John Waters is known to hang around in the Castro, maybe someone can kidnap him and make him show up for it!)
Total Running Time: 291
My Total Minutes: 328,386
THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976): Man, there's really some wisdom in this very adult movie that just happens to star kids. It's way more than just a "buncha Jews, spics, niggers, pansies, and a booger-eatin' moron!" It's about a big "Fuck you!" to polite society. It's about challenging authority--not just Walter Matthau's Coach Buttermaker saying "Fuck you!" to the league authorities, but the kids saying "Fuck you!" to Buttermaker,...and to the other kids,...and to each other. But it's also about who your friends are. It's about sticking up for a booger-eating moron because dammit, he's your booger-eating moron. And ultimately, it's about that moment when you finally get a grudging but sincere token of respect from polite society...and you tell them to stick it up their ass. There's a lot of fuckin' wisdom in this fuckin' movie.
GUMMO (1997): Harmony Korine's bizarre and disturbing homage to his own middle America upbringing is the only film of the night I had actually seen before. Still don't know what to make of it. Killing cats, selling their corpses and spending the money on glue to sniff. A kid walking around with bunny ears (look! a Bunny Boy!) A midget. Tons more horribly dysfunctional people. And a kid eating spaghetti in a filthy bathtub while his mother washes his hair. Of all of it, that was the scene that creeped me out the most.
I believe--from interviews and anecdotes I've heard--that Harmony Korine has true affection for these characters and isn't making a movie to mock or exploit these people. I want to believe the movie accomplished that, too. I'm just not sure it was successful. If it is, it's the modern equivalent of FREAKS, which is one of my favorite movies ever.
THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987): And finally, a movie I've been curious to see for a while. I wasn't all that into the Garbage Pail Kids cards when I was a kid (I was more of a Madballs kid, which came out a couple of years later.) But back in 2008 I happened to see a movie called CAN HEIRONYMOUS MERKIN EVER FORGET MERCY HUMPPE AND FIND TRUE HAPPINESS? and I learned about Anthony Newley, who was a big star and basically destroyed his marriage and career by making a mockingly semi-autobiographical movie. One of the trailers they showed before the movie--to showcase what became of his later career--was THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE. So our host Jesse Hawthorne Ficks was a bit surprised when so many people showed up for a midnight screening of the movie without ever having seen it before. He was puzzled why anyone would show up. I don't know about anyone else's reason, but for me it was morbid curiosity about Anthony Newley. Newley plays Captain Manzini, the genial and eccentric owner of an antique and curiosity shop. He actually does his best to class up the movie, being the mentor to young Dodger (Mackenzie Austin), who has a crush on Tangerine (Katie Barberi) which gets him into frequent trouble with the gang she rolls with. Some of that trouble results in a magic garbage can in Manzini's shop tipping over, green goo oozing out, and the Garbage Pail Kids appearing. Or, at least, Greaser Greg, Messy Tessie, Windy Winston (recurring fart joke), Valerie Vomit, Ali Gator, Foul Phil, and Nat Nerd (apparently pissing yourself is a common nerd trait according to the filmmakers.) They decide to "help" Dodger. And somehow we learn that the other Garbage Pail Kids were locked up in the Home For the Ugly (or something like that. Incidentally, Santa Claus is locked up there, too, for being too old.) So the plot changes to trying to rescue them, along with the new Garbage Pail Kids who get picked up by the ugly patrol. They rescue the new kids, but at some point they just mention they were too late for the other kids and they had already got trash compacted. I understand if they didn't have the budget to make the other kids, but they just sort of mention they were all killed and...nothing? And that...happened.
This movie fails in many ways. The plot is slapdash and full of bizarre holes. The kids are clunky puppets that aren't very expressive (the original plan was for them to be animated and interacting with live-action humans, like in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, which came out the next year.) And the kids actually aren't gross enough. But the biggest failure is a failure on it's promise. There's a germ of a good (well, not horrible) idea here. There's a moral about beauty coming from within, and about sticking up for your friends (a theme of the night) and a nice closing line slamming the shallow, superficial beauty of Tangerine and her gang. But it's lost in the ineptitude of everything else. This would actually be a prime candidate for a remake (or to use the Hollywood jargon of the moment, a "reboot.") I can't imagine anybody would actually want to do that, but if someone tried to crowdfund that, I'd pitch in.
The next Midnites for Maniacs is coming up on Friday, June 7th. For Johnny Depp's 50th Birthday (Holy crap, no wonder he's hiding his face under tons of makeup these days!) We'll be treated to three of my favorite Johnny Depp movies--BENNY AND JOON, WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE, and John Waters' CRY-BABY (and since John Waters is known to hang around in the Castro, maybe someone can kidnap him and make him show up for it!)
Total Running Time: 291
My Total Minutes: 328,386
Monday, May 20, 2013
Jason goes to the Roxie for an Arch Oboler double feature
I've only made it to one night of the Roxie's current Film Noir series: I Wake Up Dreaming 2013. I've just been tired and/or busy elsewhere. But I was up there for a little Arch Oboler weirdness. A few years ago I saw his movie THE TWONKY and so I was interested in seeing more.
BEWITCHED (1945): Definitely a product of its time, and comes off as more than a little cheesy today. Joan Ellis is a good girl, and is celebrating her engagement. But she hears voices. In particular, the voice of a woman named Karen. Karen is a distinct and separate personality from Joan, but the voice is coming from inside her own head. And Karen torments Joan to the point of committing murder. While Joan sits on death row, Dr. Bergson desperately has to try to convince the governor that it's possible for two personalities--two actual, different people--to live in the same body! Yeah, split personality plots are cliche nowadays, but I guess in 1945 it was an unusual enough concept that it had to be explained to an incredulous audience.
FIVE (1951): One of the earliest (possibly the earliest?) movie to explore a post-nuclear apocalypse world. The Five of the title refer to the last five survivors (at least, the last five in that part of California). It opens on a woman walking down the street. She's pregnant and survived the fallout because she was in an x-ray room at the time (um...that's not exactly safe for a pregnant woman, but I guess it was in the 50s.) She's rescued by a poet living in a house in the mountains. In due time, two more people show up in a car--a black man and a banker who was saved because he was in the vault at the time. They begin to make a life, but as her pregnancy starts showing the old banker is starting to show signs of radiation poisoning. They take him to the beach, where they find the fifth survivor. He survived because he was climbing Mt. Everest at the time (or so he says.) He's certainly proud of his survivalist skills and physical prowess. He's just not too thrilled that one of his fellow survivors is black. Lots of tension, fighting, danger. It's not so much plot-driven as character driven, and at that it's pretty engrossing.
Much like BEWITCHED, Oboler is treading on ground that will later be tread to the point of cliche. But while BEWITCHED has become cheesy and naive over time, FIVE shines with the freshness of the dawn of nuclear paranoia.
Total Running Time: 155 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,095
BEWITCHED (1945): Definitely a product of its time, and comes off as more than a little cheesy today. Joan Ellis is a good girl, and is celebrating her engagement. But she hears voices. In particular, the voice of a woman named Karen. Karen is a distinct and separate personality from Joan, but the voice is coming from inside her own head. And Karen torments Joan to the point of committing murder. While Joan sits on death row, Dr. Bergson desperately has to try to convince the governor that it's possible for two personalities--two actual, different people--to live in the same body! Yeah, split personality plots are cliche nowadays, but I guess in 1945 it was an unusual enough concept that it had to be explained to an incredulous audience.
FIVE (1951): One of the earliest (possibly the earliest?) movie to explore a post-nuclear apocalypse world. The Five of the title refer to the last five survivors (at least, the last five in that part of California). It opens on a woman walking down the street. She's pregnant and survived the fallout because she was in an x-ray room at the time (um...that's not exactly safe for a pregnant woman, but I guess it was in the 50s.) She's rescued by a poet living in a house in the mountains. In due time, two more people show up in a car--a black man and a banker who was saved because he was in the vault at the time. They begin to make a life, but as her pregnancy starts showing the old banker is starting to show signs of radiation poisoning. They take him to the beach, where they find the fifth survivor. He survived because he was climbing Mt. Everest at the time (or so he says.) He's certainly proud of his survivalist skills and physical prowess. He's just not too thrilled that one of his fellow survivors is black. Lots of tension, fighting, danger. It's not so much plot-driven as character driven, and at that it's pretty engrossing.
Much like BEWITCHED, Oboler is treading on ground that will later be tread to the point of cliche. But while BEWITCHED has become cheesy and naive over time, FIVE shines with the freshness of the dawn of nuclear paranoia.
Total Running Time: 155 minutes
My Total Minutes: 328,095
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Jason Watches IRON MAN 3 in 3-D
A wacky self-referential meta-comedy about a billionaire playboy superhero who is having a nervous breakdown about the "events" of New York (ostensibly about the fight in THE AVENGERS, but designed to make you think 9/11). Adorable moppet sidekick, remote controlled suits (although he spends the bulk of the movie without a working suit), old girlfriend, old enemy, wacky and inexplicable twists, a flashback voice-over narration that director Shane Black used to much greater effect in KISS KISS BANG BANG.... And a hero who frequently freaks out--is reduced to a quivering lump--by any mention of New York or the events that happened there.
If this sounds schizophrenic, it is. But more than that, it's a movie about schizophrenia. In the opening scene, Tony Stark is at a 1999/2000 New Year's Eve party wearing a name tag that says, "You know who I am." The thing is, he doesn't. Or at least, once he becomes Iron Man the line between Tony Stark and the suit gets blurred. Multiple times the suit is walking (or flying) around for minutes before the big reveal that nobody is actually inside it. And as I've already mentioned, Tony spends a huge chunk of the movie without a working suit. In fact, in the end where he finally says, "I am Iron Man" he's not wearing a suit and (SPOILER, except that it was kinda revealed in the trailer) his entire inventory is destroyed. The only obvious conclusion--the Iron in Iron Man isn't the stuff of the suit, it's the stuff of his heart. Or...he's secretly building new suits so that there can be yet more Iron Man/Avengers sequels.
Oh, and as for the 3-D. I don't care. I've become so inured to it that it neither impresses nor annoys. It just looks like a movie. Of course, 2-D movies look just fine to me, too, so there's a big "what's the point" angle there. Now I've been told by a friend that THE GREAT GATSBY has some of the best 3-D he's seen, so I suppose I'll have to see that.
Running Time: 130 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,940
If this sounds schizophrenic, it is. But more than that, it's a movie about schizophrenia. In the opening scene, Tony Stark is at a 1999/2000 New Year's Eve party wearing a name tag that says, "You know who I am." The thing is, he doesn't. Or at least, once he becomes Iron Man the line between Tony Stark and the suit gets blurred. Multiple times the suit is walking (or flying) around for minutes before the big reveal that nobody is actually inside it. And as I've already mentioned, Tony spends a huge chunk of the movie without a working suit. In fact, in the end where he finally says, "I am Iron Man" he's not wearing a suit and (SPOILER, except that it was kinda revealed in the trailer) his entire inventory is destroyed. The only obvious conclusion--the Iron in Iron Man isn't the stuff of the suit, it's the stuff of his heart. Or...he's secretly building new suits so that there can be yet more Iron Man/Avengers sequels.
Oh, and as for the 3-D. I don't care. I've become so inured to it that it neither impresses nor annoys. It just looks like a movie. Of course, 2-D movies look just fine to me, too, so there's a big "what's the point" angle there. Now I've been told by a friend that THE GREAT GATSBY has some of the best 3-D he's seen, so I suppose I'll have to see that.
Running Time: 130 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,940
Jason goes to the Niles Film Museum for a Laurel and Hardy (and Our Gang) Mother's Day...er...Train Show.
The second Sunday of every month is Laurel and Hardy day at the Niles Film Museum, even if it's Mother's Day. But they didn't actually do a mothers themed show (for one thing, while Our Gang had a lot of motherly influence, Laurel and Hardy almost never referenced their mothers in their movies). Instead, since it's the only time this year (other than the train of lights in December) that the Niles Canyon Railway was running a train on the second Sunday of the month (they've cut back to only the first and third weekends every month), they did a train-based show instead.
CHOO-CHOO (1932): Our Gang wants to take a train ride. So they trade places with a group of orphans. And wacky hijinx ensue as Dell Henderson (the adult in charge of the orphans) tries in vain to regain some control. Very funny.
BERTH MARKS (1929): Laurel and Hardy as traveling musicians attempting to get to a show. They have trouble meeting in the station, lose their sheet music, nearly lose their cello (which Hardy calls a "big fiddle,") barely make the train, and then cause a bit of havoc before attempting to get into their sleeping berth. By the end the entire train is in disarray and they're just about ready for a nap when they pull into their station. Hilarious stuff.
Then, after a brief intermission...
RAILROADIN' (1929): Our Gang learns the dangers of playing around on a train without supervision when Joe Cobb learns how to make the train go but not how to stop. More of a train thrill picture than a real comedy, but it's pretty well done at that (the scene where Farina has a foot stuck in the tracks and the train goes right over him repeatedly is pretty amazing.) Of course, it's all trick photography, no one would put those kids in actual danger just to make a movie...right? (Answer: Yes. Of course, don't be crazy!)
GOING BYE-BYE (1934): So Laurel and Hardy didn't really make any train movie other than BERTH MARKS, so this is kind of a stretch. They're preparing for a trip. They're preparing because they just gave the evidence to put the vicious Butch (Walter Long) away for good. But he escapes (in keeping with the theme, he escapes from the train that is taking him to prison). So they have to be smart, quick, and strong to avoid his vengeance. Spoiler alert: they're not smart, quick, nor strong. But they are funny.
Total Running Time: 78 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,810
CHOO-CHOO (1932): Our Gang wants to take a train ride. So they trade places with a group of orphans. And wacky hijinx ensue as Dell Henderson (the adult in charge of the orphans) tries in vain to regain some control. Very funny.
BERTH MARKS (1929): Laurel and Hardy as traveling musicians attempting to get to a show. They have trouble meeting in the station, lose their sheet music, nearly lose their cello (which Hardy calls a "big fiddle,") barely make the train, and then cause a bit of havoc before attempting to get into their sleeping berth. By the end the entire train is in disarray and they're just about ready for a nap when they pull into their station. Hilarious stuff.
Then, after a brief intermission...
RAILROADIN' (1929): Our Gang learns the dangers of playing around on a train without supervision when Joe Cobb learns how to make the train go but not how to stop. More of a train thrill picture than a real comedy, but it's pretty well done at that (the scene where Farina has a foot stuck in the tracks and the train goes right over him repeatedly is pretty amazing.) Of course, it's all trick photography, no one would put those kids in actual danger just to make a movie...right? (Answer: Yes. Of course, don't be crazy!)
GOING BYE-BYE (1934): So Laurel and Hardy didn't really make any train movie other than BERTH MARKS, so this is kind of a stretch. They're preparing for a trip. They're preparing because they just gave the evidence to put the vicious Butch (Walter Long) away for good. But he escapes (in keeping with the theme, he escapes from the train that is taking him to prison). So they have to be smart, quick, and strong to avoid his vengeance. Spoiler alert: they're not smart, quick, nor strong. But they are funny.
Total Running Time: 78 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,810
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