Tuesday, 8-14-7
I knew this one was going to suck before I even rented it. I turned it off just over half way in. The only thing that kept me watching past the first twenty minutes was Teresa and I trying to decipher WTF is going on!? Teresa said it best when she dubbed this thing "trainwreck", you just want to watch them pull the bodies out from the wreckage. I went to work this morning and had the DVD in the truck to mail it off to Netflix so when I had a long wait I popped it in and watched the last of it. I'm glad I did because it actually closed the circle a bit. It was still a huge mess but it closed out nicer than it started.
"Texasville" is the sequel of "The Last Picture Show". I loved TLPS but only recently found out it even had a sequel. Tville is a "what happened 30-years later" type of movie. If you haven't seen TLPS, you should but if you haven't, here's what you missed. Duane and Sonny are best friends living in a dying town, they both love Jacy, she is experimental and non-committal. The patriarch of the town dies leaving Sonny the pool hall. Sonny is sleeping with the football coach's wife and Duane leaves for the Army. It sounds boring but it really is a great watch. There's a lot more to it and it's the only time you'll ever think "Cloris Leechman topless" without tossing your cookies. If nudity is your thing, 21 year old Cybill Shepherd full frontal... Let's move on.
So, on with the show, 30
years later. Duane opened his own oil company, got rich and then got $12M in
debt. He is married and his life is a mess. I won't try to give a detailed
account of who was sleeping with whom, because I lost count after the first five
minutes of the opening title. Lots of affairs and crossed-up relationships.
Everyone in town is sleeping around. Both Duane and his wife run around town on
each other and it's no wonder their children are turning out the same.
Sonny is Mayor and he is
losing his mind. The story takes place in 1984 but I guess Alzheimer's hadn't
been discovered yet because they say they don't know what's wrong with him.
Jacy has just moved back
from Italy after minor success as an actress and a major tragedy involving the
death of her child. She claims to barely remember Duane and has almost no
interaction with Sonny for the entire film.
The town is celebrating a centennial
and the story takes place around these events. What story? Not much really.
General conversations, Jacy and Duane getting reacquainted through Duane's wife
(wonderfully played by Annie Potts). The general screw-ups of your son knocking
up your friend's wife. Small children inciting an egg-fight that must have
involved every egg for thousands of miles. The implied decision that Duane does
love his wife and will try to keep her. Sonny needs to be looked after a lot
closer because he is going to get hurt with all of his delusions and
black-outs. We all need to go to the Dairy Queen for breakfast. The end.
I heard the term "Mid-life crisis" thrown around more than once but I refuse to let that account for the chaos and bedlam in their lives. This has been going on since forever! The movie was a force-feeding of "my life is Hell" instead of letting us discover it for ourselves. It was full of great lines that were probably better off in the book rather than spoken on the screen. You can get away with heavy cheese in print but as soon as you breathe life into the words, the cheese drips off the edge and your previously "cool" line comes out sounding like pretentious crap.
I started out hating this movie, moved into sheer denial and then finally settled into apathy. As much as I loved the characters from the first movie, I felt nothing for them 30 years later.
3 of 11 Skulls
Sunday, 8-12-7
I'll keep this one short as we all know this story so well. This is the 1966 Francois Truffaut version.
It is the near future and
books have been outlawed. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn the
books/house when someone is discovered with one. He meets a young woman who
asks him if he's ever read the books he burns. He dismisses her comment but it
weight heavily on his mind. Especially when he returns home every night to a
boring life with a superficial wife who watches and believes the government
sponsored TV (much like 1984's Big Brother)
He is under scrutiny at work because
of a pending promotion. He starts to think of the strange girl's words and he
secretly rescues a book from the fire and takes it home. Soon he becomes an
avid reader and is questioning his role in life. The strange girl's home is
raided but she escapes with Guy's help. She tells him she is running to the
west, to a place where people appreciate the books. Falling under more pressure
at work, he witnesses a woman who chooses to be burned alive with her books. He
falls deeper into a depression as he tries to balance his new discovery against
the society he knows and serves. He exposes his new passion for books to his
wife who turns him in. He tries to quit his job but the fire chief asks him to
go on one more burn. The fire-truck pulls up in front of Guy's house and Guy is
given a chance to repent if he will burn his own books. He plays along but
tries to save one book by slipping it in his jacket. When he is discovered, he
turns the fire hose on his chief and goes on the run. He runs to the west and
meets up with the "book people". Each of them has committed a book to memory
and will recite for anyone who asks. Guy starts memorizing "David Copperfield",
the end.
I love this book, I have a thing for dystopian cautionary tales. I was supposed to watch this movie back in high school but I was too busy screwing around or sleeping. Not being a Truffaut fan I was never in any hurry to see this movie after I was out of school either. I recently re-read the book (for the billionth time) and with rumor of a new movie version I figured it was time to look in to see how the movie turned out.
I thought it was visually dated. Not enough forethought. No remotes for the TV (although they did get the flat panel widescreen TVs right), rotary dial phones, architecture out of the 60's and clothing to match. This was supposed to be the future and not just next week. They had suspended monorail trains and rocket-flying cops but still, without seeing a date, you knew it was mid 60's.
The movie went a little too far beating you over the head with things that the book left to subtlety. Like at the end when they introduce the "book people" they parade 50-60 people/titles in front of the camera where just a few would have done quite nicely.
Minor issues like that aside, I thought it was done beautifully. Having the same actress play the strange girl and the wife was a nice touch. It displayed Guy's division so vividly. I may be biased because of my love for the book but for all of its visual disappointments I think the movie gave a nice visual to a great story.
6 of 11 Skulls
Saturday, 8-11-7
This is an easy one. I
liked it. I was looking for a movie that Teresa and I would both want to see.
"The Simpsons" looks funny but nothing more than watching the TV show for 90
minutes. "Transformers" is a big effects show, "Rush Hour 3" just looks painful
to have to sit through and I have absolutely NO interest in ever watching "Harry
Potter". I'll vomit and then kill everyone I find if I am ever forced to sit
through "Who's Your Caddy". You know if they insist in remaking classic movies
and doing the race reversal gimmick, they could have at least had enough wit to
call it "CaddyShaq" and put Shaquile O'Neil in it...
So what then, go home and
sit through re-runs of the OC and 90210? Oh HELL no! We decided to take a
chance and go see "Stardust". I was hoping for something good because although
it looks like a total chick-flick, it was written by comic-geek Neil Gaiman and
he's one twisted dude.
After twenty minutes into
the movie I'm looking over at Teresa to see if she is still sitting there and
not running from the theatre because it is such a SLOW start! We stuck it out
and were rewarded with one of the most fun movies I've seen in a long time.
The beginning sets up all
the plots that will intertwine with a single catalyst.
A young man lives in a small village of "Wall" because it is near a small gap in a wall that surrounds an enchanted wood. No one is allowed beyond the Wall and there is an old man guarding the gap. The boy evades the gatekeeper and goes into the magical town. He meets a beautiful girl who is a princess held captive. They "fall in love" and get it on in the back of her gypsy wagon. The boy returns home and nine months later the gatekeeper knocks on his door with a basket saying it was left at wall for him. He raises the baby and the story picks up with him as he becomes a young man.
Enter into the magical realm of Stormhold, the king is dying and he is ready to hand over the kingdom to one of his sons. He had seven sons and there are only four left. This family has a history of killing each other off to be the last alive to inherit the kingdom. The seven prince's names are funny as hell. The oldest is "Primus", next is "Secundus", Tertius", "Quartus"... and so on. I thought it was funny... So the last four are given instruction by their father that whoever restores the ruby color to the stone (he pulls his necklace off and the red turns to white) will be king. He throws the necklace out the window where it fires right up into the sky, blows up and falls to Earth. The crater reveals a beautiful woman lying in the center with the necklace at her feet (no one sees this but us yet). Quite quickly the princes are narrowed down to two, the goodly but weak "Primus" and the greedy and evil "Septimus" and they both set out on a journey to find the stone. Following along at all times is the ghosts of their dead brothers as a comical chorus. Every time one more dies he joins his brothers as a ghost.
The young Tristan is madly in love with Victoria. A girl that sees him as beneath her. He is used and humiliated by her and her new fiance but he never gives up hope. One night he gets her alone and as he is professing his undying love for her they see a falling star. He says he would go get that star for her is she would marry him instead. She tells him she will wait one week before getting married if he'll retrieve the star for her. Tristian sets out on his journey to find the fallen star.
Someone else has witnessed the falling star. An evil witch who lives with her two sisters. They are ugly old hags (who look a lot like the Sanderson Sisters from "Hocus Pocus") but fallen stars are what gives them immortality and temporary beauty. Every time they use their magic the beauty wears off a little and they all need a full recharge. They only have enough of the last star to make one of them appear normal so they decide to give it to the one who saw the star fall and the now stunningly beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer sets out to find the new fallen star.
Ok, at this point you all get out a piece of paper and write down what happens. I'll bet you are all close to correct when we get to the end. Not much of a surprise but still a fun journey to get there.
Tristan approaches the wall to find the star that fell beyond it and is greeted by the senile gatekeeper as his father. He tries to trick the gatekeeper and like Yoda in the apocryphal Star Wars movies (Ep 1-3), he has learned a few tricks and kicks the living crap out of the boy. He tells him (still thinking that the boy is his father) that he won't get through that wall again. He returns home and asks his dad what the gatekeeper meant by "again". The father spills the beans about his mother and gives him the magic candle that was in his baby-basket. It will bring you to what you are thinking about. Instructed to think of his mother and light the candle, he is whisked away and lands on top of the beautiful girl in the crater. At the last minute he realized he thought about getting the star for Victoria. In a short conversation, he finds that the girl is the star and he captures her and forces her to march back to his village as a present. She hobbles along (broken leg) with him (magic chain) until a unicorn sets her free.
She gallops away and the witch has laid a trap for her by creating an illusional Inn where she can come in from the rain. She heals the broken leg and soothes Star because a glowing star is more powerful magic than a dull star. Just as the witch is ready to cut out the heart of the star, Primus stumbles onto the inn (also giving the hitchhiking Tristan a ride) and ruins her plans. Primus is killed (Ok, that was the only thing you may have gotten wrong, Primus does not inherit the kingdom. So now we ALL know who does...) and Tristan escapes with Star. Surrounded by fire, Tristan yells to Star, "Think of home" and lights the last of his magic candle. They are stuck in the sky, halfway between his home and her home. In the middle of arguing how/why this happened, they are captured by a fishing net.
Taken aboard a flying ship they are accosted by a very gruff and demanding Captain played by DeNiro. He barks his questions and when he doesn't get satisfactory answers he throws Tristan overboard and takes Star to his quarters giving instructions to his crew that he is not to be disturbed as he is intent on having his way with her. Once inside his quarters we see a whole new side of the Captain. Tristan is in his underwear because what really went overboard was a mannequin dressed in Tristan's clothes. The Captain is giddy with excitement, serves tea to his two guests and asks for news of the outside world. He pampers them and dresses them in fine clothing from his secret wardrobe mostly full of dresses. While on deck, the Captain is subtly reminded by his second in command to be rough and gruff. Below decks he puts on makeup, dresses in women's clothes and sings while fanning himself with a pink feather fan. After dropping off Tristan and Star, Septimus arrives having tracked them to the ship. His men battle the crew while he goes below and surprises the Captain. Just as Septimus disarms the Captain, the ship's crew bursts in to save their captain (who is still in full wardrobe). The evil prince escapes and the crew reassure their captain that they always knew his secret.
Tristan and Star are captured by a fourth witch who is also looking for the star but is under a spell from Michelle Pfeiffer to not see/hear the star. This is the same witch that holds Tristan's mother captive as a bluebird. She captured Tristan and turned him into a mouse. While he is a mouse, Star tells him that she is in love with him. They are released and he tells Star that he heard every word and that he realized that he is in love with her. They spend the night together and in the early morning hours, he cuts a lock of Star's hair and slips out leaving a message with the sleepy innkeeper that he has "gone to Wall to tell Victoria that he has found his true love and will not be returning." When Star wakes, she gets the message that he has "Gone to Wall to be with his true love and he will not be returning."
Ok, all parties now rush toward the gap in the wall. Star wanders there after Tristan. Tristan bolts there after confronting Victoria and realizing that her lock of hair has turned to dust and that if Star crosses the wall she'll turn to rock. Michelle Pfeiffer is chasing after Star. Septimus is chasing after the necklace around Star's neck. And Tristan's mother (the bluebird now back in human form because the fourth witch has died) is chasing after Star and Tristan.
Michelle Pfeiffer gets there first and all the action flows back to the three witch's house. Action sequences and special effects abound and we are left with the seventh prince dead, the three witches dead, a family reunion between mother and son and Tristan receiving the necklace as it turns ruby red, he is the new king of Stormhold. The closing scene is a huge "Happily ever after" closer where Tristan and Star are coronated. The various residents of both sides of the Wall are in attendance. Tristan's mother and father are together, a very unhappy Victoria and her new husband are together, the Captain and his crew are there. The Captain winks over at Victoria's husband and he winks back... The seven princes are released to the afterlife and the narrator (Ian McKellen) announces that they reigned 80 years before moving on to the sky where they still live as stars, happily ever after.
I got into an argument with
someone online because they said that they hate that Robert DeNiro played the
"gay" captain. They said Robin Williams would have been a better cast. I think
DeNiro worked in the role so well because it was such a surprise and atypical of
his tough-guy roles. If I had seen Robin Williams on the screen I would have
immediately started that internal countdown before he does something "wacky or
zany". DeNiro pulled it off well and I thought it was a lot of fun.
Another great thing about
this movie was the trailer. It didn't tell you the story in thirty seconds or
less. It didn't give away any of the cool moments. It told you there was an
interesting fantasy story. That's it. I hate when a trailer has all the best
parts of a movie in it so there are no surprises when you watch the movie.
Nothing overly fantastic
about this movie. It was fun and that's all there is to it. For some reason
this one really worked and others don't. It had everything I would normally
dislike about a movie like predictability and a few continuity errors but I
really, really liked this movie. I would go so far as to say that I liked this
one as much as "The Princess Bride".
9 of 11 Skulls
Friday, 8-10-7
I should have known from the start that this is one would give me incredibly mixed feelings. Was it historically accurate? No.. and yes. Was it captured well? No... and yes. Was it overall entertaining? Yes. If nothing else it certainly exercised my flaw detector.
The Vikings landed in North America hundreds of years before Columbus. They didn't stick around. Why? And the movie's answer is, "Because our hero drove them away".
Open on a young native woman who discovers a wrecked longboat. A ten year-old child emerges dazed, hungry and cold. She takes him to the village and there is debate amongst the men about what to do with the child. "He will grow up to be a monster like his people" some say, other say, "If we throw him back out into the cold, we will become the monsters". So we skip fifteen years and see that the boy stays and is raised in the tribe as one of their own though his pale skin and blue eyes never lets him completely assimilate. He has nightmares about his father and the brutal Viking raid that he witnessed that eventually led to his being stranded. He is falling in love with a young girl but she is also desired by another, one of her own. The tribe elder (the Pathfinder) is retiring and is looking at the young men for his replacement. He singles out our hero (nicknamed "Ghost" because of his white skin) as "Not ready" because there is much turmoil in his soul. So there is romantic tension as well as tribal tension.
Enter the Vikings. They are brutal and inhuman. Their only goal is to cleanse the lands before they make a permanent settlement here. They overwhelm the natives because they are using steel armor, arrowheads and swords while the natives are still using stone and hide. Ghost is able to drive them back for a while. He was ten years old when stranded and taught himself the fine art of sword fighting. He escapes to find his village burned to the ground and all his people killed.
He goes to the next village (the home of his love interest and his rival) where they are split on fighting or fleeing. The elder wins out and forces them realize they can not win this fight and to escape to the coast. Ghost goes off to battle the Vikings and has one stubborn native to help him. He kills off many of the Vikings using guerilla tactics. Most of them are frame by frame faithful recreations of the movie "First Blood". Eventually the love interest shows up to "fight and die at his side". During the battles the Pathfinder elder shows up and advises the young warrior to give up his vengeance and hatred and to follow a new path. Meanwhile the rival native has noticed the absence of the girl and he takes his fellow warriors back to the battle where he leads his warriors directly into a trap Ghost has set for the Vikings. Shortly after, Ghost and the girl are captured and forced to lead the Vikings to their tribesmen.
Ghost employs every tactic he can think of to fool the Vikings but they are not easily fooled. The Vikings loose some men to a few ploys and are just barely tricked into taking a different path from the coast. They travel up the mountain where Ghost kills the rest of the Vikings. He saves the tribe and proves himself a man. He returns to the village where he is welcomed as one of the tribe and the girl is identified as the new Pathfinder. They live happily ever after.
Good story. I understand it was done a few years ago as a Norwegian film having a Viking child grow up to battle the marauders that killed his village but I like the North America expansion take on the whole thing. Flaws? There are a few that come to mind. Every Hollywood movie puts horns on the Viking helmets. The Vikings did NOT wear horns on their helmets. BUT, if they have to have horns, these would be the ones. Damn they looked cool. Instead of the simple cow horns pointing up, these were almost like ram horns facing forward. They looked fierce! The Vikings were the villains and while history does show they were not your friendly neighbor types, there was little to no profit expected in wiping out a people that posed no threat to your superior weaponry. They would have gained more (and would have been more historically prone to) by opening trade routes with them instead of "cleansing the land". Historically they raided French and Spanish monasteries for their silver and gold. The Natives of North America had little to raid.
But, every movie needs a bad guy and the Vikings were a fair target. Another way to make them the evil, inhuman bad guys, the Natives spoke in English, the Vikings were subtitled over a guttural slaughter of Icelandic. It was a simple decision of "you can't have both races speak English and subtitling them both will SUCK!" So, the good guys were easy to understand, the bad guys were growling and barking like demons. A subtle dehumanization of the bad guys.
Another general problem with the movie was the film was dark. It was hard to see a lot of the time. I saw enough that there were green leaves on elm trees while they were talking about winter "finally" breaking and giving way to spring. Back and forth from beautiful greenery to late winter. Maybe that's what the dark camera work was trying to hide? It was so dark I didn't recognize the mail Viking until one of the final scenes. (The helmet and horns helped hide his face too) but it was Clancy Brown of Highlander, "Don't ever speak to me again" fame. Cool, but discovered too late to dig the coolness.
The romance was sweet but standard issue. The type where you actually call out to the screen, "and cut to a two minute nude/love scene in, 10, 9, 8, 7...." and you will be right. Expected but not really forced. The woman was gorgeous. I kept thinking she looked more Asian than Native American but, that's probably just my ignorance creeping through. The guy was given plenty of "Shirtless and running slo-mo through the snow/I really want to be the next Brad Pitt" camera shots but he was boring. It may have been the writing but he was not believable. Actually I'm sure it was the writing. The Vikings arrive and he speaks to them in his native tongue that he hasn't used in fifteen years since he was ten years old? Maybe. It is entirely possible but you have to see that he is not simply answering "yes" or "no" or even asking "where is the library?" He is conversing with them like he has been speaking the language every day of his life. And his memory and speech is so clear that not once do the Vikings have to ask him to repeat what he said and he never has to ask them to slow down so he can understand. Ten years old and now 25, not uttering a word of it in between and he's speaking the language perfectly? Ok, maybe.
But the sword is another story. At ten he can barely swing the damn sword. When the Vikings show up he tells the tribe that they can not be defeated because they use weapons of steel such as this! As demonstration he cuts a thick staff in half and the whole tribe gasps as if they've never seen it before. So if he's been hiding the sword the whole time, when did he learn to wield the weapon. And can I believe that a child of ten knew enough technique to develop into a semi-nude warrior that can back 70-80 fully armored warriors that live and die by the sword every day of their lives? No, I will not believe that.
Just like I do not believe that the Vikings, warriors from the lands of ice and snow, know nothing about thawing ice and avalanches. Ghost's tricks to kill off his captors include leading them out onto thin ice and hollering (a witty and quotable line instead of simply, "AHHHHHHHH") while dangling from a cliff to trigger an avalanche. A cliff on the side of a mountain that I might add didn't look much like the east coast at all. I could be wrong because my Canadian excursions were limited to Ontario and Quebec but Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England are the only places I've ever heard of as possible North American landing sites and the Appalachian Mountains are more rounded and cliffed rather than the distinct jagged crags of the Rockies. Oh sure, it looked pretty but it just glared out as a possible flaw. Like I said, I could be wrong. I've never been to Newfoundland (yet) so it might have these big fuck-all mountains but somehow I doubt it. It looked more like what I imagine Alaska looks like.
Overall, I liked it. If I keep telling myself that this is fantasy and not historical fiction, I really like it. I actually think that this may turn out to be a lot more like "Beowulf slaying Grendel" that the upcoming "Beowulf" movie.
5 of 11 Skulls
Monday, 7-30-7
I don't know how I feel about this one. Maybe by the time I write this up I'll talk myself into an opinion. The premise was ancient with no unexpected plot twists. The animation was crappy to just under acceptable. The voice acting was terrible and the music made me want to kill the first twelve people I saw. But somehow through all of that I still want to like it. I think it's more of my own love of the premise that keeps me from hating this truly mediocre film.
It is one thousand years into the future, mankind has dabbled in space exploration and has been discovered by a race of energy beings that want to eradicate us not because of anything we have done but because of what we are capable of doing in the future. So far I like it.
The energy beings (I can't remember their names so I'll call them Trons because their animations looked like the old Tron movie) have found Earth and have come to destroy it. The guy in charge of the "Titan" project has to leave his son in the care of a friend because he has to get the Titan safely off the planet and hidden because it is the only hope for humankind. He gives his son a ring and says goodbye. The boy watches from a transport ship window as his father flies the Titan out just as the Earth is destroyed.
Ok, I still like the idea but the animation is wearing thin and the voice acting is killing me. The father talks like a 1920's dogfighter pilot. Grandiose and a tad like Jon Lovitz doing the old "Masterpiece Theatre" bits on SNL. The other voices aren't much better.
We break to fifteen years later. The boy has grown up as a salvage worker. Humans are a minority and he constantly being attacked by other workers because of his bad attitude. In one of his fights, he is rescued by another human who we discover was a soldier who served under the boy's father. He takes the boy on to his crew on a quest to find the hidden Titan. The crew consists of a neurotic turtle, a lesbian kangaroo and a co-pilot dog thingy voiced by an evil Timon (Lion King). The hero's ring is a DNA encoded map to the ship. Only he can wear the ring and he must be kept alive for it to work. In the battles that follow, the young kids are captured by the Trons and the boy is held captive while the girl is tossed overboard (in a cocoon so that she's still alive... If you were throwing trash out the window, would you wrap it up all nice so that it could survive? No.) The crew finds the girl and rescues the boy. While doing so, it is revealed that the soldier and his co-pilot, evil Timon, are actually working for the Trons and are going to lead them to the Titan for profit. Ok, officially wearing thin now.
The boy hero and his girl fight to save the Titan. They escape the evil captain and evil Timon to one of the last human outposts. They rebuild a derelict ship to take off and find the Titan. I somehow have to wonder why none of the other humans volunteered to go with them and help... The Kangaroo and Turtle are unaware that their captain has turned to evil until they are set up in an explosion. Turtle realizes what is going on and saves Kanga but dies his own, withering, Yoda-like death. Finale of the movie, the kids find the Titan in an ice field and they have a little "Kal-el, Jor-el" moment when he talks to his dead father about how the Titan works. They need energy to start it up but when it does start, it will create a new planet, a home-world for humans. Bad guy breaks up the reunion and tries to kill the kid. The Trons have arrived just as the bad guy is starting to have a change in heart. He sacrifices himself so the kids can get the Titan started using the Trons as an energy source. Remember, they are energy beings. Convenient huh?
Surprise! Turtle didn't die and now he and Kanga are joining the fight to help the kids. They get Titan started just as the Trons start their main attack. The Trons are absorbed and New Earth (planet Bob) is whirred into existence. That was the cool part, she asks him what he will name the new planet, he says, "Bob". Who says he gets to name it? So just after it was brought into being, (I guess a week later or something?) they are standing on New Earth as Turtle and Kanga give a flyby with a "Whoohohoho" that just made you realize you were watching sub-standard writing the whole time. And the movie ends with the humans coming home.
It is a movie-going courtesy to all sci-fi that the "ship passing noise" and explosions in space are given a pass. But I wish they had used the "noiselessness" of space instead of all the CRAPPY music they used in this. It made the movie almost unwatchable. I liked the "used" space look, I dealt with the predictability of the plot, I even forgave the standard hero-in-peril, "give me the ring" scene. But that music was unforgivable. Overall I'd say it was watchable but just barely. Nothing I'd buy and nothing I'd ever watch a second time.
3 of 11 Skulls
Monday, 7-23-7
In my simple attempts to
transfer VHS/Beta/Hi-8 to DVD, I have acquired the use of a VHS/DVD burner. A
friend has a VHS bootleg copy of this movie and I volunteered to make my first
test run on his copy so he could have it on DVD. It worked out rather well and
I was very happy with the transfer except for possibly the title menu. I didn't
realize I had the option of making one.
Anyway, enough with the
tech crap, on with the movie. "Song of the South" has never been released for
home video/DVD in the US. Just about every year there is a rumor that they will
finally release it in some box set or another but it has not happened yet.
Every time they consider it, someone always decides that "it's not time yet".
Amazing what a little fear of the PC police can do for you.
The movie opens on a man and a woman with a small boy traveling with their nanny. They are traveling to Grandma's house where the mother and boy will be staying while the father goes back to Atlanta. It is obvious that there is tension between the mother and father and when the boy starts to ask too many questions, they change the subject to the parents' childhood memories of Uncle Remus telling stories about Briar Rabbit and Briar Fox. Little Johnny is excited to learn that Uncle Remus is real and looks forward to hearing the same stories as his father heard when he was a boy.
When he arrives he makes new friends but is quickly upset to find that his father is leaving. The boy decided he is going to run away back to Atlanta to find his father. Just as he is leaving he meets Uncle Remus who says that he'll travel with he boy. As he is packing up his gear and cooking food "for the road" he tells the boy a story about Briar Rabbit running away from his troubles. Rabbit sets out on the road because he is unhappy where he is and soon runs into troubles on the road when Briar Fox and Briar Bear try to capture him. He tricks Bear and escapes Fox. He returns home with the lesson that you can't outrun your troubles. The boy decides to stay put and they return to Grandma's house where Uncle Remus covers for the boy telling his mother that he got carried away with his storytelling and says nothing about running away.
In his daily adventures, Johnny and Toby meet up with the Faver family children. The two boys pick on Johnny for being the new rich kid but their little sister likes him and gives him a puppy. His mother says he can't keep it and to return it. Johnny knows the brothers are going to drown it so he asks Uncle Remus to keep it for him. The Faver brothers want the puppy back. Neither wants their mothers involved because the Favers's mother says it was the girl's puppy and she was allowed to give it as she sees fit. Johnny's mother told him to get rid of it. The brothers threaten to tell Johnny's mother about the whole thing to get the puppy back.
Uncle Remus tells Johnny another story. In this one, Briar Fox is setting up to trap Briar Rabbit with a scarecrow made of tar. He sets it by the road and when Briar Rabbit comes along he says hello but there is no response from the stranger sitting on the log. He says hello again and gets upset at the stranger's silence. He threatens the tar-baby that he had better answer "hello" or he was going to get punched. No answer and Rabbit plunges his fist deep into the tar getting stuck. He punches and kicks and soon he is trapped in the tar. Fox and Bear come out and start arguing as to what to do with the rabbit now that they've caught him. Briar Rabbit tells them to go ahead and kill him, grill him and eat him but PLEASE don't throw me in that briar patch. Hearing this, Fox decides to throw Rabbit into the briars since it's the one thing he doesn't want. Of course, Briar Rabbit is at home in the briar patch and he has outsmarted Fox and Bear again.
When the Faver brothers meet up with Johnny again they tell him that they are going to tell his mother. Johnny says to go ahead, just as long as you don't tell YOUR mother. They immediately run home and after telling their mother, they get a beating for starting trouble. They tell Johnny's mother and she is outraged that Uncle Remus would keep the dog for the boy even after she told him to get rid of it. He covers for the boy again and doesn't tell her that he never knew the boy was told to return the dog.
The third story comes after Johnny's birthday party. He invites the Faver girl and when he goes to escort her to the party, her brothers attack and push them in the mud. They run into the woods crying where Uncle Remus finds them and tells them about finding your Laughing Place. Briar Rabbit is captured again and starts laughing after he's been tied up and the cooking fire is started. Bear asks why and Rabbit tells him that he was on his way to his laughing place and no amount of trouble can make him stop laughing. Bear wants to find the laughing place so he forces Rabbit to take him there. Fox senses a trick but Bear really wants to go. They lead Briar Rabbit out on a walk and after a long time, Bear is starting to realize he was tricked again. When confronted, Rabbit finds a hidden bee hive. He shouts that he finally found the laughing place and Bear rushes in and gets a face full of bees. Rabbit runs away laughing, telling Fox and Bear that this was HIS laughing place, they'd have to find their own.
After hearing the story, Johnny's mother finds them and is upset because the party is over and Johnny missed the whole thing. The kids run off and mother tells Uncle Remus to stay away from Johnny because his stories were getting him into too much trouble. Uncle Remus decides to leave for Atlanta because he wasn't wanted around here anymore. Johnny runs into Uncle Remus' cabin telling him that he had found his laughing place and finds Remus getting into a carriage. He runs after him taking a short-cut through the bull pasture. The bull takes after him and clips him just at the far edge of the pasture. He is limp and we fade to black.
Johnny is in bed, gravely injured. He keeps calling for Uncle Remus. Remus has returned and starts to tell Johnny a new story about Briar Rabbit. The boy wakes up to find his father has returned and that everything is going to be okay. The film ends with one last animation/live action scene in which the children, Uncle Remus, Briar Rabbit and a bunch of birds sing and dance off into the horizon.
Now I'll have to review it
again and fill in the colors for you. Color was not important to the story but
it is important to discuss why this movie is so controversial. This movie is
not the horrible specter of slavery it is made out to be. First off, it takes
place during the Reconstruction, after the Civil War and after slavery had
ended. Did life immediately turn to roses for the former slaves? Of course not
but that's not what this movie is about. It completely ignores color lines
except maybe for the fact that the slave-culture was rich in songs and stories.
Something the white culture could learn from. We do see the black farmers
and workers marching back and forth to the fields and singing around the fire
but there are no white men with whips, there are no "Uncle Tom" work bosses,
these people were working for a living. When Remus decides to leave and move to Atlanta. No one stops him. He's not a
runaway slave, he's a man who has decided to pack up his shit and move on.
Now sure enough as
historical fact, the plantation was run by an old white widow and the rest of
the white family is well-to-do and not the working-class farmer type. But the
Favers are a white family of working-class farmer types. Although we never see
much of the parents, it is obvious by their shack and their clothes that not all
white people were wealthy slave owners.
Maybe I'm getting off the
point but what I'm getting at is that while the movie may reflect historical
racial inequalities, it never shows it as right or wrong, just as a setting of a
story. There is no reason why this movie shouldn't be released to the public.
Some will say that the
language is a key reason why this movie has the racial overtones. The black
characters speak with the "Mammy" southern voice while the white characters
speak with a "proper" voice, even without so much as a southern accent. They
claim that this is proof that the black characters were uneducated. Well,
that's true! This was just after the Civil War and up until then, slaves were
not generally educated in the "proper" way of the ruling class (rich white
people). Well, this is a vain issue because the entire story is about the
wisdom of Uncle Remus' stories. How all the "right" things Johnny's parents tried to
raise him in didn't help much but a few of the fables told by the kindly old man
helped the boy relate to other people better. I think those people that are
upset by the voice issues are conflicted. They are ignoring historical fact
while at the same time, placing more emphasis on education over wisdom. I know
plenty of intelligent people that are fucking stupid when it comes to day to day
life and I know plenty of "minimally educated" people that have an incredible
grasp on how the world works. Education is a good thing but not at the expense
of knowing what to DO with that information.
I thought this was a good movie. The story was well told and the characters were likable. The animation was incredible for its time and the inclusion of live action with animation was a fantastic idea. This was 1946 and live/animation had rarely been done before and never on this grand of scale or on this level of skill. Decades later we see another major release of live acting with heavy animation and I'd put "Song of the South" up against "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" any day. Now "Song" would come out the loser on that comparison but not by much and considering the years and technology advances between the two movies, I'd say that is quite a testament to just how well "Song of the South" was made.
7 of 11 Skulls
Saturday, 7-14-7
Tonight was the girl's hang out night. I was going to take off and hang out anywhere else but it just didn't turn out that way. I ended up hanging out alone and finishing the final edit on my latest big project. When the girls got started the house was chaotic and I couldn't concentrate. I decided to see a movie on the Netflix "Watch it now" site. I've had this flick in the queue for a long time, I just couldn't bring myself to actually waste my time watching it. I'm glad I did because it was really funny.
It looked like a really crappy student film and that may be what it was. Shot on equipment that can't be much better than what you or I could buy in Circuit City, this thing reeked of low/no budget. It's exactly what I have had in mind for years now. Actually it is much higher quality that I plan on doing. I want to write a script, film my friends and family as the actors and shoot/edit the film. It would be a lot of fun I think. And that's what this movie looked like they did.
Jesus Christ has finally returned to Earth. He has to defend Ottawa, Canada from a growing hoard of lesbian vampires. The vampires are killing/turning the lesbians because they are deviants and no one will miss them. Along the way, a Jeep pulls up and two people get out and say, "Hello Jesus, you don't know us because we haven't talked to you before. We're the Atheists." Then the greatest farce of a kung-fu fight takes place. In kung-fu flicks, they shout their moves a lot of times. "Dragon palm!" "Ha! Buddha fist!" Jesus pats his chest and shouts, "Body of Christ!" I thought it was hilarious. 50 or 60 Athiests jump out of one Jeep and are all beaten up by kung-fu Jesus. He then goes in and gets a hair cut and his ears pierced. After that, we launch into the musical number. Jesus dances and sings with the people on the street. It was painful to watch but funny and mercifully short.
It is apparent our hero will need help. He meets up with Mary Magnum, a gun toting lesbian bent on saving her sisters. She takes Jesus to a retro-clothes shop and dresses him up. At this point they lost a LOT of cool points. The long hair/robed/sandal wearing Jesus was a lot more fun to watch.
We see the vampire scientists who are harvesting the skin of the dead lesbians to graft on their own so they can walk in the daylight. Hey, at least there's a plot...
In the next fight, Mary
Magnum is turned into a vampire and Jesus gets depressed. He goes in to have
dinner and when the waitress brings him dessert, the bowl of cherry ice cream
starts talking to him. He says, "Are you a talking bowl of cherries?"
"Do bowls of cherries talk
son?"
"Oh hi dad, what's your
advice?"
God the father sends Jesus to search out "Santos", the god of the Mexican wrestling ring. He will help Jesus defeat the vampires. Santos is a huge fat guy with a silver mask over his face. Together they come close to beating the vampires. The big fight takes place at a nightclub where we find out that not only does Jesus sing, he's also a drummer! He turns to get another drumstick and sees the reflection in the mirror where he only sees Santos and his assistant. The packed house is full of vampires. This is the point that the BEST line in the entire movie is delivered. "The power of Christ impales you!" Using the hundreds of drumsticks as stakes, Jesus kills vampires ten at a time but there are too many and he and Santos are finally brought down.
The final showdown happens in an abandoned junk yard where they are going to kill Jesus. Santos escapes from his chains and literally chews through the ropes holding Jesus. Together they defeat the vampires and somehow return Mary Magnum to life.
It was horrible, but probably one of the best "B" flicks I have seen in a long time. If I rated things on a basis of being great cinema, this should get a negative rating. Luckily, I rate them on how much fun it was and how much I enjoyed it at the time.
5 of 11 Skulls
Saturday, 7-14-7
I saw this movie when it first came out on DVD. Well, actually I slept through this when it first came out on DVD. A friend had told me to check it out. I don't remember if he told me he liked it or if he thought would like it. I'll choose to remember that he said it was "interesting". Boy does this movie suck!
It is like a bad night of Saturday Night Live from the recent years. A bunch of loose ideas all thrown together, hoping to be funny but not really working toward that goal.
Pootie Tang is a super-celebrity turned superhero. He is a singer, a movie star, a local hero. His weapon of choice is his father's belt. In one movement he can grab the belt, whip his opponent and have the belt looped back around his waist. That was a funny bit, I liked that part.
Pootie Tang talks in his own version of jive. No one understands the words but everyone understands what he's saying. It was cute for a few seconds. But not for long. Maybe because I was already tired of Snoop Dogg's made up language but it just got old fast.
Dirty Dee is a local drug dealer who is actually dirty, covered in filth. In the opening fight scene Pootie Tang and Dirty Dee are fighting on the hood of DD's car, an old rusted and beat up Caddy. In the course of the fight, the car ends up going through the car wash with Dirty Dee on the hood. It comes out the other side a brand new, sparkling clean Caddy with Dirty Dee dressed in gleaming white, moaning like he's been defeated because he's clean. Funny. I liked that part too.
Pootie Tang's friends are not so funny. They hang around and talk about PT, one repeating the other's comments. This was funny for about two minutes. Then it started to suck.
PT decides to cut a record. He goes in to the studio and doesn't like what he hears. He adjusts all the levels to "off" and goes in to sing. Of course, nothing is recorded and on playback PT says he loves it. The record is a huge hit. Funny bit, been done before but still funny. Until they over do it and show the reactions to the song by every person in the freaking movie. They all love it... but they've killed the already thin bit.
It had potential to be funny. You could tell that there were writers in a room, all laughing at funny ideas they throw out at one another. But that's as far as they went. They never tried to actually write any of these bits into a plot or make them tie together in any way other than through the main character. It had it's funny moments but as a movie it was weak and I felt like I did the right thing by falling asleep on it years ago.
See, my damie, Pootie Tang don't wa-da-tah to the shama cow... 'cause thats a cama cama leepa-chaiii, dig?
2 of 11 Skulls
Friday, 7-13-7
I guess I should have watched some horror flick or something being Friday the 13th and all but it didn't turn out that way. I was working hard on transcribing some old videos into DVDs. It is a long process and I settled in for a lot of long waits with a lot of movies. I had to catch up on my Netflix queue so the next batch can come in for Teresa. I ordered a black metal video compilation and it came in broken. Bummer, I was really in the mood for that. I watched my Bill Hicks DVD and settled in for Lord of War, finishing up with Life of Brian. I finally burned out the DVD at 4am.
This was another recommendation by a friend but this one is a lot better than the last few recommendations I have listened to from other people. Nicholas Cage is from a poor Russian immigrant family. He is tired of living the poor life and looking for a way out. His family runs a restaurant and through street life he learns that people will always need to eat and people will always find ways to kill one another. Selling guns pays significantly more that selling borscht.
He incorporates his little brother into his growing gun-running empire and together they are successful enough to make some big money. His brother ends up discovering the wonders of cocaine and retires from gun running, bouncing in and out of rehab. Using almost all of him new found riches, Cage peruses his dream girl trying to impress her by pretending to be in her class, living the ultra-rich life. He sweeps her off her feet and they marry. Shortly after, the Soviet Union falls and it opens up a flood gate of opportunities for him. Purchasing/stealing military supplies from corrupt officials of broken nations, he no longer has to pretend to be rich, he actually has to hide the fountain of riches pouring in.
A tenacious federal agent has been after him, catching him often but never having the proof to actually bust him. His wife makes the conscious decision to remain ignorant but when the agent approaches her as a way to get to him, she becomes curious. He has seen what his weapons are capable of but when he is forced to fire on of his own weapons to kill arrival gun dealer, the light goes on in his head and he retires, attempting to go legitimate. Six months go by and he is having moderate success at making his talents work in the real business world. He is approached by one of his old clients and is given no choice but to return to his old business. He recruits his brother to help him on the "One last big score".
In the course of making the deal, the brother sees the refugees that the weapons will be used to massacre and makes his moral stand. He commits suicide in an attempt to destroy the weapons, he dies after blowing up half of them, his brother says good bye and continues in selling the remaining half.
Meanwhile, his wife has poked around and found his secret identity. In doing so she leads the federal agent to the evidence he needed to put him away. The feds pick him up and bring him in. During the interrogation, Cage looks calm and collected as he explains to the agent that in just a few minutes there will be a knock at the door and a superior officer will say that he did a good job and recommend him for a medal but he would have to release him. Like a good game of chess, you keep all of your pieces in play, across the entire board. The pawn may appear small and insignificant but they are all important pieces and they all need weapons.
Sure enough, in Hollywood fashion, as soon as he pauses in his speech, there is a knock at the door.
It was a good flick. I liked it. Through all of its simple exposition, it kept me entertained. The ending can't really be described as a surprise because it wasn't even considered throughout the whole movie. I guess in retrospect the agent trying to bring him down could have been seen as a bit of foreshadowing for the ending but I don't think that would be a fair assessment. We only see the agent a couple of times, the entire story is about Cage and his "secret identity versus family" conflict. The federal agent seemed like an afterthought. Even the ending seemed tacked on. So if I had you watching Sesame Street for 90 minutes and then threw two minutes of hardcore gay porn at the end, I can't really jump up and yell, "Ha! Didn't see that coming did you?" It's not that you would never have suspected any kind of twist from me, it's just that it had very little to do with the storyline. And in retrospect you'll look at Bert and Ernie and see that as foreshadowing the ending a bit... In any case, I liked the movie. It kept me entertained.
7 of 11 Skulls
Tuesday, 7-10-7
On recommendation from a friend I finally took a look at "Loose Change". It is very difficult to explain the "hows" and "whys" of why I think these guys are fucking nutbags. Mostly because they do a good job of presenting their case and manipulating the facts. They are nutbags, but they are clever nutbags.
The movie is nothing but 100+ minutes of 9-11 footage and their theory of how our government was responsible for the whole thing. They present their information in such a way that they give the impression of allowing for other interpretations. Facts are piled up on top of one another in such a way that they support one another when in most cases they are unrelated. They rely heavily on conflicting eyewitness reports which is always a favorite of those who wish to cast doubt on a subject. Truth is, if you asked me to describe the guy who just passed me in the hotel hall, I couldn't do it. Now add the hotel being on fire, news cameras in my face, flash, smoke, glare and adrenaline and I probably would tell you it might have even been a woman. The police will tell you that eyewitness reports are unreliable at best. Now add in the power of suggestion and these people will tell you they saw Osama bin Laden waving to them from the cockpit window.
They also use the initial news reports to drive their points home. CNN, FOX, local affiliates; every one of them was scrambling for information. No one had a clue what was happening next but most everyone was waiting for more to happen. When ANYTHING went boom or crack, we all thought it was another attack. Is the real-time "live" announcement on the news EVER accurate?
They use these phantom booms as proof that the building was taken down from below. That our own government set explosives in the building to make sure it collapsed. This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard of. I like watching controlled demolition crews blow up buildings. I've watched hundreds of them on TV and even seen one in the flesh. There is no way these buildings were in free-fall. It is just stupid to even suggest it. I watch the footage and as they are pointing out the glass blowing out from below, they ignore the fact that you can see with the naked eye the building collapsing in on itself from the top down. When they drop a building in a controlled demo, it stays (relatively) intact and collapses on itself at the bottom. You can SEE the thing crumble from the top down! You can see the debris that gets pushed outward (which doesn't happen in a controlled demo) falling faster than the building itself which tells me that the building is meeting resistance on the way down, probably caused by the floors collapsing on each other. The "mysterious" puffs of smoke on the building are windows blowing out from the compression. I'm not a structural engineer but all of this makes sense to me. How desperate for attention are these guys that they are blind to simple facts and common sense?
And these guys have no idea what a simile or metaphor is. They take someone saying "It was as if..." or "It was like..." and use that as evidence that this person believes it to be true. In what has to be some of the worst cases of "quote-mining" ever, these poor firemen were quoted out of context and are portrayed as being conspiracy believers.
I won't go into each and every one of their faults but there's one more that is just glaring enough to discredit the entire conspiracy movement, and they make their own case against themselves.
The Pentagon. They use photo manipulation to make the hole appear smaller, they leave out key infrastructure and they just make shit up. All in the name of proving that it was not a plane that hit the Pentagon but a cruise missile.
They show a section of the photograph which appears to show a small (10'-15') hole in the wall. When they pan back to show the light poles that were hit across the street (more about that in a second) more of the picture can be seen and it is same picture we've all seen of the HUGE gaping crater the plane created. It's kind of like when you are looking at a woman's legs and they look all sexy because they are in fishnet hose and then she turns around and BAM, she's 75 years old! It's kind of like that except they are purposely showing you the shot that only shows the legs. Ok, I don't know why I went with that image but you get the point.
Next they show obvious proof that it was a missile and not a plane. They report (no names, no dates, no footnotes) that the plane "bounced" off of the yard and hit the wall at ground level. Then they show a nice picture showing a pristine yard in front of the crash. Obviously it had to be a missile then. OR that you just made up the "bounce" factor, OR that even if eyewitnesses said they saw it bounce, that they were mistaken, OR, that it did hit the ground, only a short distance from the wall, OR that huge 10 ton planes traveling at top speed don't "bounce" very well. Any of theses are more likely than the missile scenario.
They show the 5 light poles torn down on the traffic lane in front of the Pentagon as proof that it couldn't be a plane because the light poles would have ruptured the wings (where the fuel is held) and there would have been an explosion and/or wreckage out in the street. What these nummies didn't mention is that these were modern light poles with the break-away bases. You can see that in the photographs. They are designed to snap off when a car hits them. Imagine, a 2000 pound car hitting them at 40mph is supposed to break them but they don't accept that a 200,000 pound plane going 350 mph will break them? It was stupid for them to bring up the light poles. Why?
Because it is counter evidence against their cruise missile claim. What missile do you know of that is accurate enough to hit 5 light poles averaging only six inches in diameter, making and then correcting from, at least two 60 degree turns in less than 300 feet to get them all because they were along different sides of the street, glance off a generator the size of a tractor-trailer truck and still have enough power to punch through six walls of reinforced concrete? Not buying the missile concept.
Then the worst part comes, they try to blame the Jews for it all. Isn't that the battle-cry for many of the regular conspiracy nuts? Zionist government and all? They were smart enough to stay away from coming out and saying it but they do include information about the guy who just bought insured the buildings. They mention the "Put Options" and the insider trading. In a very subtle way they put forth the suggestion that the Jews may not have caused it but they were given advance notice of it and benefited financially from it. Where do they get this priceless information? One of the few sources they reference: "The American Free Press". Where many of their headlines mention "Jews, Israel or Zion" and where they refer to "diversity" as "hate-whitey". Biased much?
I could go on for days poking holes in their ideas but in truth I could probably turn around and do the same thing to the 'truth'. It's what I do, I enjoy finding the holes in the theory, the flaws in the ideology. If it was only that, I could have respectfully dismantled the whole thing and walked away but I had a hard time taking these guys seriously because of the way they spoke. Sarcasm, slang and pandering have no place in a "documentary". Their whole gig is creating straw-man arguments. Take the stated facts, restate them in new terms, disprove the new terms and therefore you have disproved the original argument. Didn't we learn this was wrong and illogical in 6th grade?
If you want a good laugh, check it out. Otherwise I wouldn't waste your time. These guys actually put away any doubts I had in my own head because when I see the best they can do, it doesn't even come close to being rational. Their attempts to make me doubt actually made me believe all the more.
Hey... maybe that's the TRUE conspiracy. The government created this video to make the nuts look incompetent and put our doubts to sleep. Hmmm...
0 of 11 Skulls
Last Updated: 08/14/07 11:19 PM