More Film Reviews

Dirty Dancing 7 Stars

I saw this as part of guy film/chick flick exchange program my girlfriend and I set up. She has to watch some films in which things and/or people explode and/or get filleted by sharp metal objects. I, in turn, must endure films in which a good looking bad boy is won over and changes his ways because of the tireless efforts of one strong woman who never lost her faith that, if she tried hard enough, she could change him. This is the quintessential chick flick, and I not only endured it, I enjoyed it. I really did. Next up in the film series: Highlander. Good looking bad boys win over less good-looking, even badder boys by cutting them in half with swords. Oh yeah.

Norma Rae 8.5 Stars

Sally Field gives the performance of a lifetime. I’m pretty sure that’s what the real reviewers said about this movie when it came out over 30 years ago.They weren’t exaggerating. I have the benefit of having witnessed three additional decades of that lifetime, and while Ms. Field has given many fine performances, she’s never topped this. I don’t want to be taken too far afield (no pun intended!) on a political rant, but I have some mixed feelings about unions. When our local SEPTA workers regularly strike, shutting down mass-transportation in our region and terribly inconveniencing me and all the other working folk who utterly depend upon it to get around, it pisses me off. Especially when I know that the lowest paid Septa worker already makes a lot more money than I do. On the other hand, before unions came along, industrial workers were almost uniformly treated like dog shit, except I think dog shit got better health plans.

Discussions of decades-old films often include the line “as relevant today as it was then.” Given the current state of the economy and the pervasive pro-corporate / anti-worker sentiments that have gained an insidious hold upon our culture, I think this may be even more relevant. And given a choice of living in a world where SEPTA ticket-takers make more than I do, and one in which textile workers slave away for next to nothing while factory owners make more money than God’s stock-broker, I’ll take the former any day. And heck, maybe I’ll start drinking a lot of water to pass that stupid drug test and just go apply at SEPTA. I hear they have great benefits.

Salt 6 Stars

It’s a half-decent spy movie, with lots of twists, intrigue, shootouts, and Angelina Jolie kicking vicious, sexy ass. But what’s terribly amusing is that, over two decades after the cold war has ended, the Russians are still the bad guys. Yes, Boris and Natasha are still sipping their vodka as they plot the downfall of western imperialist capitalist dogs. Even though the International Communist Conspiracy has been dead so long, the neighbors have long ago alerted the police about the funky smell, and Karl Marx probably has fewer truly ardent followers than, say, Carrot Top, we should still worry about the dirty reds hiding underneath our beds. And these pinko bastards are sneaky too. Oh sure, they say all they are doing is regulating insurance companies and whatnot, but the next thing you know we’ll all be singing the Internationale while we salute Mother Russia and publicly poop on The Wealth of Nations.

(Spoiler Alert) Megashark vs Crocasaurus (Too Late!) 2 Stars

The title of this film is pretty much the entire plot. There is absolutely nothing to give away. It’s about a shark the size of the QE2 fighting with a crocodile the size of a crocodile-shaped shark the size of the QE2. Seriously. That’s the entire film. No subtlety here. Oh, it’s so bad it is simply breathtaking.

I was going to give this just one star, but then realized that’s what I gave Mama Mia, and it would be unfair to put this in a class with that. At least I was briefly entertained by the sheer absurdity of it. At least this had absolutely terrible special effects going for it. And neither shark nor crocodile attempted to sing, though I’m sure either would have done a better job than Pierce Brosnan.

Where the Buffalo Roam 5 Stars

For years I was told that I should see this film and that I would find it disappointing. I was not disappointed. It was every bit as disappointing as I expected.

Hot Tub Time Machine 8 Stars

This was much funnier than I expected it to be. And much raunchier too. Do not watch it with your mother, unless you and mom routinely make jokes about, oh, let’s just say messy blowjobs. In spite of the appearance of “tub” in the title, this is not good clean fun. It’s good dirty fun, though. Those with a sick, juvenile, sense of humor should enjoy it. I did.

The Manchurian Candidate 7 Stars

This is the newer one, with Denzel Washington, not the older one with Frank Sinatra. That one was great, as I recall, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, so I don’t remember it very clearly. Or maybe there’s a reason it’s hazy in my recollection. Maybe fake memories have been implanted in me so that I won’t recall being programmed to become a“sleeper agent.” I may, at any moment,be called upon to kill at the behest of my nefarious programmers, who might be a secret cabal of corporate conspirators, or extremely optimistic and resilient commies, depending upon which one is a more plausible menace to modern society. You should probably watch both movies. And you should probably routinely have yourself screened for secretly implanted devices. I always do. So far it’s always been from the corporate conspiracy and not the communists. It’s not that they are more diabolically evil, but they are so much better at it.

Thor 6 Stars

High art, it was not. But I saw this with my family, right after we all went out for dinner on Mother’s Day, and that was a lot of fun, so I’m going to give the movie a tepid thumb’s up. I know that’s not fair to the other films that I see by myself on the small screen and rate poorly because I’m alone, depressed and drunk when I see them, but that’s just tough shit.

(I could provide some discussion of the film itself, I suppose. It’s about Thor. Not Thor Heyerdahl. The other one. That should be enough.)

Sucker Punch 4 Stars

The cool parts were amazingly, jaw-droppingly cool.

There weren’t nearly enough cool parts.

Get Shorty 6 Stars

A fairly good gangster film rendered only slightly less palatable by the fact that I was not at any point really aware of what was going on. I was confused because a lot of Hollywood bigshots and mobsters appeared to be in a tizzy as to who got the rights to a script for a film. As if there aren’t enough scripts floating around tinsel town. I’m pretty sure Francis Ford Coppola just brings scripts that writers have shoved at him to the bathroom. (And all he’s reading in there is Variety.) From what I understand, writers are at the very bottom of the totem pole of Hollywood, at approximately dog-genital level. But I suppose Hollywood writers do get some measure of sweet revenge, because in the end they actually write the stories that end up on the big screen, and they can present a skewed and glorified image of themselves as respected members of the creative cinematic community. And actors can go along with the ruse. If they are good enough, we can almost believe it.

A Boy and His Dog 2 Stars

So astoundingly misogynistic as to boggle the imagination, and leave me feeling perfectly justified in giving it a shitty review after watching only about ten minutes of it. I’ll throw in spoilers too,because there’s nothing to spoil. The hero of our film is a serial rapist,presented as a rugged likable outlaw, the bit about the raping just a minor character flaw. An endearing little quirk, harmless and charming. But then it gets worse when one of his prospective rapees almost immediately falls in love with him. Yes, because if there is anything Hollywood has taught us, it’s that nothing turns a woman on like pointing a gun at her and demanding that she spread her legs. I’ll bet the women reading this are feeling a little wet down there right now, aren’t they? Oh you pretend you’re offended, but I know you’re all aquiver with excitement at the thought of being violently violated, right? Everyone knows that “no" means “yes.” I’m not sure what that knee to the crotch means, though. Oh, and the un-anesthetized castration, ok I’m pretty sure THAT means no.

Let the Right One In 8.5 Stars

I’ll say what I can without a spoiler alert, but you should stop reading when you get to it. If you’ve heard anything about the film at all, someone else probably already spoiled it, because most people suck.They’ll give away carefully orchestrated plot elements that the filmmakers build up masterfully, providing little bits of information at a time, so that viewers figure out for themselves the characters’ dark secrets and sanguinary motivations. It’s so much better if you just go into it knowing that it’s a dark and twisted tale, rather than if someone says:

(Spoiler Alert!!)

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Best vampire movie ever.

Frankenstein Unbound 7 Stars

Far better than the vast majority of Frankenstein films. I have already expounded at length on these and promised I would give Mary Shelley a rest. (I lied, shamelessly. You should probably not believe me, ever.) But I’ll be much briefer than I usually am with anything associated with Mary Shelley. I consider Mary Shelley the grandmother of science fiction, and Frankenstein the first true science fiction novel. So it strikes me as an appropriate homage to weave in some additional science fiction tropes that have become standards of the genre in the nearly two centuries that have passed since she invented it. And it’s handled well. Shelley’s story itself remains intact, and does not suffer the appallingly barbarous mistreatment it endured in the 1931 “classic”or Kenneth Branaugh’s unspeakably painful butchery. But rather than trying and failing yet again to bring the novel to the screen, which apparently cannot be done unless you make it a satire, like Young Frankenstein, this instead weaves a story around her story. I see that I have failed to be brief in my exegesis, and have once again rambled on. I told you I couldn’t be trusted. Did you think I was lying?

Body Heat 7.5 Stars

Is it hot in here, or is it just Kathleen Turner? The chemistry between her and William Hurt is so steamy, the fan in my computer kicked on and didn’t shut off until the end of the film, at which point it demanded a cigarette. A very sexy thriller. Watch it in your underwear.

Kick Ass 9 Stars

Yeah, that’s right: I gave this 9 fucking stars. You like comic books and superheroes? This is just the movie for you. I consider films featuring “ass-kicking chicks” to be the highest form of cinematic art, and this one incorporates a clever variation on that theme, which I’m not going to tell you about, because it would ruin the surprise. Ooh, it’s done so well, you can almost feel the blood splattering across your face. Genius.

Impromptu 6.5 Stars

Hey, George Sands was a woman; who knew? So was George Elliot! George Orwell was a man though. As was George Burns. And George Washington. And the first George Bush. So now that we’ve gotten our Georges straight*: George Sands was a 19^th century novelist whose works you have almost certainly never read, unless it was assigned to you in the 19^thcentury literature class you took in pursuit of your feminist studies degree. If you already knew that, you’ll probably enjoy this dramatization of her life,or at least that portion of her life in which she fawns over / stalks Frederic Chopin. Because, as those aforementioned feminist studies majors can attest, a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle, unless that man plays a mean piano.

* George Strait: Also a man

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 8.5 Stars

I watched this right after Elizabeth Taylor took her final bow and went to the great cast party in the sky. I can see what the fuss was about. She’s brilliant in this, as is Paul Newman. Overall, it’s a great film, even in spite of the savage Hollywood butcher treatment it received. In the interest of not offending a sensitive and undoubtedly bigoted mainstream American audience, the filmmakers essentially buried one of the most central elements of the plot: the fact that Newman’s character was as gay as Tennessee Williams. But to give them some credit, they didn’t remove it completely, just made it so subtle that you’d never figure it out unless you were very sensitive and, probably, gay. If you are already in on this little secret as you watch the film, it all makes a lot more sense. I didn’t figure it out. My girlfriend told me after we watched it. In retrospect it 's so obvious. The guy is married to Elizabeth Taylor and he’s withholding sex. What could be gayer than that?