Prequel to Wham Bam Slam

This week's Stooge film is called Grips, Grunts and Groans. A very Stooge-y title, indeed. Co-written by Herman Boxer, the boys team up with a wrestler in this one. We start with iconic stock footage of a train pulling into the station. Then we see some iconic railroad bulls politely asking the iconic Stooges to come out of the boxcar so they can get beaten with iconic clubs. The bulls end up hitting each other over each other's heads. Always gotta love that.
Now, look closely, and you'll see it's three pretend Stooges running towards the camera, then to the left, tripping over a baby carriage. Time for the Speed playbook. Remember in Speed? A baby carriage gets smacked by the bus. Fortunately, it was just, as Keanu made as painfully clear as possible, full of cans. Tragedy averted, the moral pendulum of the universe back firmly in the center. In this case, tragedy is NOT averted. Fortunately, we don't get a close-up of the child in the carriage, and that's probably for the best.
Anyway, as often happens in these things, the initial chase sequence brings them to the set and setting that will occupy the rest of the film. This time it's a very well guarded gym for boxers and wrestlers. Moe and Larry immediately sell Curly out for five bucks. "If I'm gonna get beat up, I wanna get paid for it!" he helpfully offers after being repeatedly hit, choked, and generally humiliated.

We meet a flamboyant wrestler named Bustoff who does a lot of laughing and has a big beard. Now, if one were more cynical, unlike me, one might think the guy kinda looks like Curly, only with that beard. They form a symbiosis of sorts. The wrestler keeps saying "I like you guys!", hits 'em a lot, but takes them out for a big meal. And the promise of seeing pretty girls.
In another ambitious plot development, Curly runs afoul of a bottle of Wild Hyacinth perfume. This drives him crazy much like the mouse in that Western pic, and the anthemic "Pop Goes the Weasel" in Punch Drunks. The antidote in this situation is to tickle Curly's foot. His right foot, more specifically. Bustoff drinks too much, passes out, and the boys drag him back to the ring.

The stakes are raised when the bad guys, Bustoff's manager, gets an offer to double his bet on Bustoff. Bustoff regains consciousness and asks for a drink. Curly manages to inadvertently drop three dumbbells onto Bustoff's head. Larry finally gets some lines, as Moe has gone to look for something. They end up dropping the locker onto Bustoff as well. Larry and Curly lift it back into place, pretending it's heavy.
Moe comes back, and the three of them run around the lockers for way too long. They had to re-dub Curly's voice. Larry tries to escape through the barred window, and screams in pain a little louder than usual.
At around this time, the role-playing idea is bourne. They cut off Bustoff's beard, glue it to Curly, and head out to the ring. Curly gets caught up in the ring ropes, naturally. The stock footage of the audience doesn't allow them to laugh at this. Curly gets thrown out of the ring, and lands head first into a folding chair. As the boys try to lift him out, Curly repeatedly hits his chin on the chair. A classic Stooge moment. Curly makes his way back into the ring. The other guy starts turning his foot 360 degrees. As Curly writhes in agony, he reaches for... no, not wild hyacinth perfume. That comes later. He reaches for a lady's sandwich and sody pop bottle, which he empties and smashes over his opponent's head. Much like today, there are obviously no rules in wrestling. Moe finds wild hyacinth perfume, conveniently at ringside being applied by a demure lady. Moe goes up into the ring to give Curly the wild hyacinth. No rules in wrestling. The stock footage crowd doesn't notice. Moe splashes the other guy in the face accidentally with wild hyacinth. This makes the guy smile, but otherwise he develops no superpowers, fortunately for Curly. Curly then gets a faceful of the stuff, and the deus ex machina is set in motion. Curly beats up his opponent, then Moe and Larry who try in vain to tickle Curly's foot. Curly then grabs the bell and starts beating people in the head with it. The audience seems to rush into the ring only to get beaten unconscious by Curly and his bell. By the time the film's over, there's a rather large mound of unconscious victims in the ring. Fortunately, Curly knocks himself at least half-way out when the bell flies straight up into the air, and back down on his head.
I used to think Bull Durham was the greatest sports movie ever made... even though I never actually saw it. Then I thought it was one of Ben Stiller's seven features from 2004, Dodgeball. Now I think it just might be the Stooges' Grips, Grunts and Groans. For one thing, even the damn title smacks of the Stooge aesthetic. No confusing this for a Ritz brothers comedy, that's for sure! ... and that's all the arguments I can think of at the moment. Actually, in general I don't care much for sports movies. Too predictable.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Jared and Jerusha Hess

How far we've come from the days of the Hessian mercenary. Now it's all nerd chic everywhere. Consider the case of Jared and Jerusha Hess, and their muse Jon Heder. It all started with a short film... doesn't it always? In this case, a film called... Peluca? Gotta look it up... Peluca. Not to be confused with De Luca. As you can see from Peluca's plot description, it's Napoleon Dynamite in miniature, after which came the full-length Napoleon Dynamite. Kind of a Paper Moon for the Idaho set, MTV shepherded it to national, possibly international prominence. And more importantly, Heder was immediately launched into stardom, soon finding himself working with Billy Bob Thornton and Will Ferrell... not on the same film, though. As for the Hesses, they managed to get over their sophomore slump with Nacho Libre, a little something they've been working on ever since Napoleon Dynamite became a hit. Either that, or their agent was probably with them at some Mexican restaurant, talking to them about a nice easy gig working on that Cuba Libre rewrite. Needles to say, two and two surely added together on that one, and it did rather well at the box office. N.Lib probably didn't recoup its advertising costs the first week, but it still did quite well. They were also lucky to catch Jack Black just before his star started falling back to earth.
Following their sophomore slump was surely what can be called nothing but a junior slump with Gentlemen Broncos. Critics hated it, the moviegoing public turned up their noses to it... WHAT DO YOU CRUEL BASTARDS WANT?! THIS IS WHAT THEY DO! You call the Hesses and ask them to write and direct a movie, an exposé of nerd culture is what you're going to get! That it's a bit of an homage to the likes of Big Fat Liar is beside the point. I guess their core audience was shocked that the Hesses have already gone Hollywood and made a PG-13 pic, straying out of their audiences' PG comfort zone, clearly.
So, let's talk decades. One would think that the 2000s were a great decade for Jared and Jerusha Hess... but frankly, I don't think the 2000s were a great decade for anybody. The Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina... maybe just Halliburton. The Hesses had to spend most of that decade losing fingernails as they tried crawling their way to the top. Fortunately for them, they managed to get brand recognition, and after the critical and popular drubbing of Gentlemen Broncos, it's already time to go back and revisit the triumph of 2004 that was theirs. Time to do a Napoleon Dynamite television show. And even though Jon Heder is pushing 35, based on his birthdate info on his IMDb page, he knows that some people can play the nerdy teenager forever. Screw the wise old grandpa roles. This isn't Cocoon we're talking about here! It's N.D. for God's sake! But my crystal ball tells me that playing Rod Blagojevich in an HBO movie could be in his future... That Haylie Duff's returning to reprise her role, well... that reflects poorly on all of us somehow. But work is work. We're a long way from the classic era of television when such a demotion was frowned upon. Back then, it would be unheard of for Steve Martin to return to do The Jerk, Too, for example. Note to Tina Fey's agent: idea for The Jerk, Three starring Steve Martin as an aged Navin Johnson, with Alec Baldwin and most of the rest of the cast of 30 Rock... maybe Parks and Recreation. P&R's a better show in some ways... I said SOME ways! I gotta go. I gotta try to stop digging my own grave so fast.

A plunderin' we will go! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Oh right... gotta write something. Well, little to no surprise, the big advertised blockbuster conquers a bewildered box office this week. And to think the pirate genre simply couldn't take off in the 80s and 90s! Roman Polanski's Pirates, Hook, Cutthroat Island... they just needed the backing of a well known cultural icon, apparently, in our increasingly iconocentric culture. And so, it's not a question of if it'll be number one, but by how much. Ninety million's pretty good... but it could always be larger, am I right? Take a page from the Chris Nolan book of blockbusters, whose The Dark Knight had several impressive weeks at the top of the box office. One of those only comes along once every ten years or so.
Welp, since that was the only debut this week, I'm calling it quits. See you next week!

So much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the wrong luggage...

Well, it was either that, or go with "Worst case of lost luggage EVER!" Sometimes you gotta go with the haute couture stuff you learned in high school.
Damn! Has it been almost twenty years since I first saw Frantic? I stumbled upon this in a double-feature DVD with Presumed Innocent, and I thought... why not? I heard that Presumed Innocent was one of the films that M. Night Shyamalan watched before making The Sixth Sense, so maybe there's something to it! I don't want to be deprived of any riches. Anyway, the ending of Frantic isn't as sad as I thought it was. I had forgotten what ultimately becomes of the Emmanuelle Seigner character. There are some critics who say she can't act, but I tell you what... I'll be damned if she doesn't earn some stunt woman credentials on this pic! She falls down, as pictured in the still, some guy practically wrings her neck in one scene... I guess that was about it. And even Maxim magazine has to admit she's a terrific dancer. Why, I'll bet even Harrison Ford was thinking, my wife's gone. It's time to accept it. Oh, but I gave away the premise already. Phooey.
France must've been a nice country to sit out the Cold War in. Why, you barely notice it if not for the blatant espionage-related plot device! Harrison Ford and his wife are in France to attend some conference where he's supposed to give a presentation. With color slides, no less! Boy, those were the days. The cab ride to the hotel is a bad omen. Anyway, for those first 30 minutes or so, you get caught up in the drama of it all, as Ford's wife goes missing. See, she grabbed the wrong suitcase at the airport and...
I hate to say it, but Harrison Ford's probably not the right guy for this kind of material. Well, he does pretty good. If Roman didn't get along with him, that is. Ain't that always the case? Well, he probably wasn't the pain-in-the-ass that Charles Grodin was on the set of Rosemary's Baby. No, in this and The Fugitive, Ford proves his acting chops. Still, he's Indiana Jones and Han Solo! He's got certain modes he can never totally escape. I haven't studied up on it completely... also, his voice seems too deep and measured, when what we need is whiny and urgent. Still, he's the only guy who could do it.
It's an interesting cultural mix if nothing else. You've got the other American actors that make their way into the film. The Big Lebowski co-stars as a loud American waiting to see Ford's presentation. And there's plenty of French actors you've never heard of. Ford experiences culture shock when he tries to speak French without his wife to help him. And there's just something about that Emmanuelle Seigner! Roman saw it, and damn it, so do I. She plays pretty much the same part she does in The Ninth Gate, only a little younger here and more impulsive. Lucky girl.
I dunno. The whole exercise seems pretty slight to me. Apparently, the ending was changed, and 15 minutes cut out of the film. I'd be interested to see a digitally remastered director's cut... just not that interested. If they fail to put one out, I won't be heart-broken over it. And I must say, composer Ennio Morricone... he's got the theme to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly to his credit. Other than that, I'm not terribly impressed. The opening theme seems very very dated now. For a similar opening credit sequence, see David Cronenberg's Crash; as for the rest of Crash, you're on your own on that one.

good double bill with: The Ninth Gate, After Hours?

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Sing a Song of Six Slippery Silks...

Inheritance... is there any more tried and true staple of comedy? Besides cross-dressing? The Stooges leaned on this comedy crutch many times, but at least here they try to do the right thing and become proper businessmen, of sorts. But first, we find the three knuckleheads working at a cabinetmaker's business. They see a slew of policemen arrive in front of the shop, and out of old, old habit, Moe says "The cops! Quick! Hide!!!" We don't even get the pleasure of seeing them commit an initial act of vagrancy... is it not implied by their very appearance?
And so, Act One begins. Vernon Dent is accompanied by a slew of shotgun-toting cops because he's bringing a very valuable, very tiny Chinese cabinet to this cabinetmaker's shop in order to make an exact duplicate of it. For what reason, we don't know. Probably to sell it on the black market at a high profit. Just like Ripley's Game! Only with Chinese cabinetry instead of phony drawings. Still, one can't help but feel an impending sense of dread, knowing that something valuable is about to be completely destroyed. Even though it's just a Stooge film, that sense is quite palpable, indeed. But, the wheels are put in motion. Vernon Dent does however ask the question: "Are you sure this is in competent hands?" Curly replies "Soitenly! We're all incompetent!" The older I get, the more I appreciate the boss' reaction to this as he whisks Vernon Dent away so the Stooges can set out to destroy the Chinese cabinet in private.
And boy, do they not disappoint. They go about it in a roundabout way, warming up with a falling board gag, which I remember best from A Bird in the Head, and the ol' ass full of nails gag, which I remember most fondly from Corny Casanovas. Spoiler alert: the tiny Chinese cabinet gets placed on the platform of a table saw, the saw gets turned on, Moe sets about trying to discipline Curly, while Curly ever so gently tries to tell Moe that the cabinet is about to be destroyed. The cabinet gets cut in half by the saw. Then the real destruction begins as the Stooges attempt to glue it back together. The glue spills onto some wooden planks on the ground, which Curly proceeds to step on. This must be the strongest, most fast-acting glue in the world, because about five seconds after Curly steps on the boards, Vernon Dent emerges from the boss' office, screams "My cabinet!", and the boys are off. Curly runs away with the two boards on his feet. If only he were in the mountains with a pair of ski poles, and he'd be ready to do some cross-country skiing! Fortunately, Vernon Dent gets sidetracked, but the boys soon have a fresh pursuer: some Missing Persons agents are out looking for the Stooges to inform them about their inheritance: a fancy-shmancy French boutique. Larry starts to pass out from the excitement, and says "Water... give me water." His reaction when his wish comes true, but not in the way he meant: priceless. This single-handedly makes it a four-star Stooge short.
Act Two: the boys become management of Madame de France. It's Hoi Polloi for real, and they proceed to alienate their entire clientele as quickly as possible. Curly discovers a mannequin hand that slaps back when you push on it. How he introduces it to Moe: priceless. This also single-handedly makes this a four-star Stooge short. However, it's not all good: after doing the ol' all-three-of-them-on-the-phone gag, Larry and Curly do an anti-gay slur on Moe. I should probably deduct at least half a star for that... ah, who cares. And when will anyone learn? Never let a Stooge near a pair of scissors! NEVER! Fortunately, they only hurt each other with the scissors... at least, until Act Three. Well, these kinds of rules were meant to be broken, I suppose. Great reward with great risk, something like that.
Meanwhile, Act Three is set up perfectly. Vernon Dent reappears, as his wife requests a fashion show with the latest Madame de France fashions. Oh, if only Vernon Dent could get his hands on those three guys that destroyed his cabinet. So far, his best reaction seems to be in Scrambled Brains, playing the angry tall Texan. The way he takes off his coat in that, saying "Why, I'll murder you...": priceless. Unfortunately, Vernon's revenge falls flat here, as it must make way for a pie fight with French pastry. One more note before we proceed to Act Three: Moe draws a comparison between women's fashion and furniture that would make David Mamet envious: the crazier they look, the more women will pay for them! I smell a new Mamet play!
Act Three: the boys put on a fashion show. It starts out serious, with music that sounds like that 20s era song from Kubrick's The Shining... you know, Midnight, and I think of you... something like that. Anyway, after a couple serious outfits, the boys' crazy amalgam of dresses and cabinetry makes its debut. The wife of Vernon Dent, played by the peerless Symona Boniface (great name, too!), is so impressed with the Stooges' cabinet-dresses... for some reason... that she accepts an offer to have a dress made just for her. The boys immediately whisk her away to the fitting room. Vernon Dent comes looking for her, she gets accidentally stabbed in the ass with a stray pair of scissors and screams. Vernon Dent says "Honey! I heard you scream, is everything all right?...THOSE ARE THE THREE GUYS THAT RUINED MY CABINET!" Well, needless to say, it's the spark that ignites the powder keg, leading to all hell breaking loose. Curly gets punched in rapid succession numerous times, Moe pokes Vernon in the eyes, Larry throws a punch that knocks out Moe... and the pastry fight begins. Moe must've poked Vernon in the eyes pretty hard! He's not around for the big pastry fight. Probably just as well. Incidentally, why do all the pies in a Stooges pie fight sound the same when they hit? Must be a cost-cutting measure. The usual stuff happens. People try to stop the pie fight by calling for sanity, but it's all in vain. It all just starts up again one way or another. Curly gets hit by three pastries in a row. Someone thinks it's funny; probably the director. Moe holds up Larry's head as they all hide behind a counter, and Larry gets hit. But in all fairness, he was asking for it. Three hoity-toity ladies get three mannequin legs, seek out the Stooges hiding behind the counter, and proceed to bring this film to its appropriate ending. One of the ladies says "Boys! Boys! Boys!" I point this out because it's kind of a clunky line reading. Not fast or urgent enough. I blame the director for that.
There's probably a few details I've missed, but I did notice the ending music was slightly different! That was pretty cool. I'll have to check my DVD collection for this one. Slippery Silks isn't one of the ten to twenty Stooge films I seem to always watch, but maybe it's time. Maybe it's time.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Thomas and Charles Guard

Or is it Charles and Thomas? I always get that wrong. And see? This is how indebted Hollywood is to the Coens: America's next top Coens are now starting to LOOK like them! Guys, you're allowed to have different haircuts! Chill out! Relax! Stay a while. After The Uninvited, you've got green lights forever. Of course, it might've helped if you also worked on the screenplay, but never mind.
But as you can imagine, it was a bumpy road to Hollywood Easy Street. Both brothers tried their own separate paths to the top. Thomas worked as a camera trainee on 1492: Conquest of Paradise, while Charles languished in the camera trainee department on the classic Judge Dredd. So many careers destroyed by those two films alone, but those Guard boys managed to work again. Thomas graduated to no less than THIRD Assistant Director! I've heard of 2nd 2nd Assistant directors; what the hell does a Third Assistant Director do? If it were a Zucker brothers film with wacky credits, his credit would be "Dog that Gets Kicked." Something more hilarious than that, anyway. To make matters worse, it was on a little indie flick called The Avengers... I thought these guys wanted to work in showbiz! Chechik swore he'd never do theatrical again, and so far he's kept to that. Not as much pressure in TV.
And so, those Guard boys decided they'd take some time off to find themselves as well, and finally in 2005, they emerged on the scene with what I can only describe as the best episode of the British The Office no one's ever seen: Round About Five. They can say they worked with the new Bilbo Baggins, at the very least. Sorry, guys, but even Geoff http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifMurphy's not getting on that Hobbit set this time!
And so, we end with the Guard's big triumph: The Uninvited. What a cast. Ed Murrow. Laura Bush. And of course, little miss Sucker Punch herself. I tend to think of The Uninvited as sort of a Sucker Punch prequel myself, but never mind all that. What's next for The Guard Brothers? A story about the Chosen One in a digital age?... no, wait, that's been done. How about a comedy about a couple guys trying to make a movie? It's been a while since that's been done. Who could they get to play Ridley Scott? I suggest going with Don Henley.

Beware the ides of May

So many cool photos, so little time... and to think I was going to go with a still from Tapeheads. Well, Thor takes the top cake again at the box office this week. As for the debuts, Apatow continues his box office dominance as the new king of raunch with Bridesmaids at #2. Damn SNL. It's even got the new SNL font on the poster! This is the kind of film that Tina Fey would like to do, but can't on account of her public image. Not the co-star of Date Night! The other debut this week is America's next top Paul Bettany vehicle, called Priest. It's similar to the character he played in The Da Vinci Code, only now that guy's a good guy. Is it in 3-d? Yes. Does he look off into the distance and say "Something's coming... something bad. I'd get ready if I were you"? Probably. For God's sake! He's a priest on a crotch rocket! What more do you people want? How long must he toil in anonymity under Russell Crowe's shadow? The early 2000s are over!

Curly goes Fishing, Catches Own Ass...

What's that guy's name?... Sherman Alexie! That's it. Well, I'm officially turning into my dad now. Thank God the internet always remembers the names of people and titles. But even the lone bard of Wellpinit agrees that this is his favorite Stooge film (Whoops, I'm an Indian!) as it reaffirms what he knows about the White man: the White man is a sarcastic person, to say the least, full of self loathing, finding his faults in other ethnic groups instead of in himself... something like that. Actually, Sherman and I would probably say that this is not the Stooge film we know and love the best, and they'll probably not even show it that often on Spike TV. It's Micro-Phonies, right? Is that still the odds-on fave of all Stooge-dom? Let's look on Curly's IMDb page and see what it says... The top four include Micro-Phonies, Disorder in the Court, A Plumbing We Will Go, and Violent is the Word for Curly. I'm in agreement on A Plumbing We Will Go... what kid wouldn't like that one? Of course, that one is a little bit insulting to African Americans... THAT'S what they call it? Dudley Dickerson is the black dude in A Plumbing We Will Go. Wikipedia calls him a master of "scared reaction" comedy. He gets bug-eyes a lot, in other words. They had a different guy in A Pain in the Pullman for that job.
But back to the racist insult we're currently looking at. We find the boys behaving worse than the worst Pawnee in the Old West. They're running a crooked game of chance in an unnamed saloon. In a bad case of set-up-itis, we see Larry adjust a magnet in his shoe... moccasin. Well, the Stooges were never one to confound an audience with unnecessary surprises like that. Larry's magnet trick is eventually rooted out, and the boys run out of town. Bud Jamison sets himself apart from the angry mob early in the proceedings with some lines of dialogue. He's using the accent that will later serve him so well in Dutiful but Dumb.
The law posts a $333.33 reward for the Stooges: dead or alive, preferably dead. The notice is posted on a tall tree. In the very same tree, we see stunt doubles for Moe and Curly. Moe says to Curly, "What did you do with the money?" Curly cheerfully replies "I threw it away so I could run faster!" Karmic balance has been restored, and is oh so hilarious. They soon find themselves off of the same tree. Back to the grueling business of survival. Moe decrees to Larry: "You get a moose, I'll get an elk." Curly got the following punchline from S.J. Perelman: "I'll get a Knight of Columbus!" There's a slight diversion so that Larry can get hit in the head with a bunch of pine cones, and one last one for good measure.
Following Moe's hunting orders, the two Horowitz brothers set about fishing. Moe sets up a great recurring gag, in which no fish is big enough. They're hard to reel in, though, and this requires the string-reeling sound effect they'll use later on in Dutiful but Dumb, when Curly's trying to reel in an oyster from his bowl of oyster soup using only a cracker and a whole spool of string. They never were much for fishing. Meanwhile, Larry's attending to the domestic duties inherent in tending the camp site. This won't be the last time he chops wood, only to have it fly up into the air, but I think it was the first. Wonder if he came up with that gag?
Let's see what the IMDb says about filming locations for this one, as they seem to be on location for the fishing sequences! Kinda cool... nope, no tab for filming locations. Wonder if they went to Hollenbeck Park on a weekday. It's probably more crowded on weekends. Well, the Stooges don't have too many bravura moments, but one with Curly comes close. Frustrated with catching fish the old-fashioned way, he decides on a 20th century technological approach, and marches straight into the river with a shotgun. We see several water-raising blasts, after which Curly marches triumphantly back out of the water, with a song in his heart, hauling a buncha fish on a line. Larry is unimpressed, but gets hit with said fish. Moe is also unimpressed, but only because he finally got the big fish he was waiting for. It promptly finds its way back into the river. Before he's able to administer a proper beating for this, another higher authority intervenes: that damn local sheriff. Curly pokes him in the eyes and makes a run for it. The three interrupt a picnic being held by three lovely ladies. This is no time for romance. The boys get into a canoe and row away as fast as its engine can carry them. Somehow I get the feeling we'll be seeing this canoe escape later on...
Act Two. Bud Jamison re-enters the picture. He comes home to find a note his wife has left him. His wife has run away with an Indian! Forbidden love! Bud becomes the stuff of Marvel comic super-villains, turning into sort of an Indian-hating Hulk, taking out his rage first on his table, then the world. The Stooges immediately poke their heads out from behind his cabin, and proceed to enter with hilarious consequences. Now, here's what sets this one apart from other Stooge shorts. Moe and Larry are still outside the house, Curly went around the back and went in. Moe knocked on the door, and a piece of wood above his head falls and hits him on the head. No taking it out on Larry! Very unusual.
Now, there comes a point in every Stooge film where a scene is longer than it should be due to budget constraints. You may have thought that the fishing sequence was it, and you'd be right, but the stalling is far from over. Moe looks out the window and sees the sheriff and his buddy approaching. Fortunately, born-again Indian hater Bud Jamison just happens to have three Indian costumes in his house. We don't see the Stooges go through the entire transformation, but damn close, and apparently without a script to work with. But aren't those the best moments of all, really? They manage to fool the sheriff, and they set about once again trying to feed themselves, breaking kashrut once again out of necessity since Jamison only has bacon. Jamison returns home, telling the Stooge Indians that it's one thing to steal his wife, but quite another to steal his food. Fortunately for the Stooges, Jamison's bark is worse than his bite, and the Stooges live to run away some more. And since they're pretending to be Indians, they all are going "Woo woo woo" and not just Curly. What a wasted opportunity that could've been.
Act Three. The boys decide their best course of action is to return to town in their Indian outfits, which makes me appreciate anew the plotting of Way Out West. It may be an overused cliché, but sometimes you need to rescue that stolen deed from the safe. Still, the Stooges have an ace up their sleeve. Bud Jamison RE-enters the picture, deciding to get drunk. He mistakes Curly for an attractive Indian woman. Curly and Bud Jamison get married by the sheriff. Jamison carries Curly upstairs to the honeymoon suite of the saloon. Oh, there's also a chorus line of dancers at the beginning of Act Three. Well, even the Stooges try to reach for that epic brass ring from time to time. Did I mention that somebody actually tries to carry Curly? Good Lord! You gotta be a strong guy to pull that off. Sadly, that's about as good as it gets here. Bud's beer goggles wear off, the boys run away again, and they end up locking themselves in jail. Not the best Stooge short, I'm afraid, despite the incendiary title Whoops I'm an Indian.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan
next week: Slippery Silks!

Auteur Watch - Archie Gottler and Jerome S. Gottler

Mixed N'yuks... the very idea. Well, I coulda sworn they were brothers, but apparently it's a father-son directing team. Frankly, no one could have seen this coming... sorry again. Must've been that 9/11 documentary I saw this weekend. Anyway, father Archie Gottler is the type of person I've often heard about, like Irving Cohen or the two guys in that Stan Freberg special. He's written over 80,000 songs for Ziegfeld, did a brief stint for Gershwin as a piano tuner, you get the idea. Composer of such classic hits as "Don't Forget to take your Comet Pills" and "The Fall of the Irish Boxer", he decided to broaden and expand his horizons into this new invention called "movies." And why not get the progeny involved? Little Jerome S.'s first gig was on the first solo Stooge effort, Woman Haters. Viewed by the effete intellectuals as a nice subtle dig against FDR seemingly turning every aspect of human life into a massive government jobs program, but ultimately viewed by the Gottlers and the public at large as a sorry excuse to see three idiots hitting each other. Frankly, the trail runs cold for both Gottlers after their run-in with the Stooges, young Jerome S. more so than the slightly more resilient father Archie. Jerome didn't work again until the 1950s, for God's sake! And even then, work was kinda intermittent. As for Archie, after working with the Stooges, he knew it was time to retire. He no longer recognized his show business that he thought he was a part of, so he wrapped up his remaining commitments and got on the trolley to home. Everyone's got a story, and now it's time to move on to the next one.

Bring this Jane Foster to me!

Why, it seems like forever ago that Kenneth Branagh was in a small independent movie with a bunch of talented unknowns called Wild Wild West. Oh sure, they didn't have all the latest fancy green-screen technology, or a single Oscar nomination between the cast and crew, and they had to cater their own meals... I mean, look at that cover! They couldn't even get the lighting right! Looks like the girl and the two guys aren't even in the same room together! But if you want to stay successful in showbiz, everything's a learning experience. But Branagh hardly had any learning to do. He was an early bloomer, a usurper to the throne of the great Laurence Olivier. Let's just think of this phase of his career as UN-learning, much like Olivier did in his later years. Marathon Man? A Jazz Singer remake with Neil Diamond? Truly a chance to apply the acronym WTF.
But this time I had the inside track on how Thor was going to do this weekend. On Facebook, all my Farmville ladyfriends were positively gushing over that latest slab of hunk... what's his name. Sam Worthington? Who cares, really? I have a feeling he'll eventually play the lead in the Chris Nolan biopic. I don't want to kiss and tell too much, but basically it was said that they were thinking of seeing Thor again. Boyfriends beware!
Meanwhile, Fast Five's still delivering a strong performance at #2... whew! Did that without a cheesy gas pedal reference. The latest Tyler Perry clone with Angela Bassett debuts at #3. Take that, John Sayles! Debuting at #4 is the latest Kate Hudson romantic comedy without Matthew McConaughey. Take that, Toke Boy! Where you leaning now? Meanwhile, John Krasinski and Brett Erlich got into a fake fist fight in a desperate attempt to promote the movie. No offense, guys, but ultimately the box office performance of the movie will still be "goin' down." And congrats on ousting that damn Conor Knighton, Brett! But watch out for usurpers to your throne: someone else will become the resident InfoMania movie expert now, and eventually will want something more. You can't do BOTH jobs full time... can you? Anyway, I'm already past the point where I brought everything full circle, so I better go.

The Three Stooges Make a Date with Disaster... so what else is new?

Ah... the Three Stooges as firemen. What could possibly go wrong? We find the boys are showering at the fire station, on the verge of getting fired by that mean bastard from that army one I reviewed a couple weeks ago... too tired to go looking for it now. In fact, he says "If this were the Army, I'd have ya shot at sunrise!" Of course, they don't get up that early. They get one last chance, and immediately get to work destroying the Fire Department. Meanwhile, the boss' new car arrives. What could possibly go wrong?
They start slow with a prelude to the damage to be inflicted upon the prized new car. Then, they move on to what would seem like the least necessary work in the Fire Department: washing the fire hoses. So far, my favourite gag has to be when Curly throws a rolled-up fire hose into the giant washpan, thereby splashing Moe with soapy water. The hoses finally get destroyed beyond further usability in what is clearly an "homage" to the big finale of One Week. They speed up their work to get to Maisy's house for pig knuckles smothered in garlic. Well, it was the Great Depression, as good a time as any to throw the ol' kashrut right out the window. The hose-washing operation ends up out on the street, at which point they had to redub. Must've been either too noisy on the street, or the microphones were just too lame.
Meanwhile, the three girls are awaiting the arrival of Curly. Could there be three more thankless token roles in showbiz? The fat chick is named Minnie... get it? Kinda subtle for the Stooges. Usually their comedy names are lawyers named I. Fleecem or presidents of the pest exterminator companies named A. Pest. Poor thing. She's looking for a boyfriend. She's got a good line: "The only way I can get a man is to call a doctor." Moe and Larry are back at the station doing a sink gag they'll do later in the brief interim between Shemp and Joe Besser... but I forget which one. Moe and Larry miss another fire call. This one was called by Curly. There's a complicated gag involving Moe's intent to eye poke, but it'd take too long to explain... ah, who'm I kidding? I've got nothing but time! They leave the sink on the Fire Dept.'s top floor, and crash their way through the bathroom door. The door falls down, and they cling to it, much like Billy Crystal in Throw Momma from the Train. In the Stooges' case, however, there's no decline to justify forward momentum. They slide towards the fire pole, fall down, and two dummies land on the bottom floor. Larry's head has sunk down into his coat. Moe takes Larry's cap off, ready to poke him in the eyes, but he can't! Larry's head has sunk down into his coat! He grabs him by his naturally curly locks and ratchets his head back up into its proper place. The eye poking is called off for the moment. Phew! I'm tired now! Anyway, the fire truck is on its way to Curly's fake call. Moe and Larry try to save their jobs... by taking the boss' new car to the call. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? They take a shortcut, and arrive at Curly's emergency call box well before the fire truck. They didn't get a chance to cause too much damage to the car, but I have a feeling they'll make up for it later. The six of them pile into the car and drive back to the fire station. It's at this point where they seem to have completely run out of script, and have to improvise. Curly seems to use his real voice when he tells one girl to "cut it out."
There's some fancy second unit car stunts before the inevitable giant crash. The car is covered in fake columns. Minnie ends up with a black eye, and finds herself in a slap fight with Curly. Well, it was a different era. The Farrellys definitely won't do that today... will they?
All right. I can't handle any more of the blow-by-blow play-by-play. I won't spoil the ending for you, but the boys end up driving off in a smoldering Bekins truck. I seem to recall that ending in another one... surprise surprise. Maybe I'll keep better track of those kinds of details someday. I guess this one isn't one of my favorites. At least, I haven't seen it a million times like some of them. Still, it's not bad. A typical signature Stooge film.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Kato and his sidekick Billy Madison

Well... you think this is bad, just imagine what Kevin Smith was going to do with this. He never could get beyond the casting problems: who will play Kevin's Green Hornet? Dante or Randal? Dante, of course, is the natural leading man type, so you'd THINK he'd be The Green Hornet, but there's no denying Randal's alpha-male ... charm? Presence? Status? Well, as much as one would like to think so, you can't wear the baseball cap backwards forever. Even George Carlin knows that.
But why am I spending so much time thinking about movies not even made yet? Because I think Michel Gondry would have an appreciation for that, being the experimental film sorta guy that his resumé suggests. But I think with his take on The Green Hornet, well, it's much like the director shock some experienced over Pineapple Express. I haven't actually experienced it myself yet, but I'm told the film's more violent than people were expecting. So too with Hornet. It pushes the profanity boundary as far as PG-13 will allow, and the violence even more so... but that's what happens when a PG-13 film is north of a $100 million budget. Business is business. Which franchise was aligned with this again? Subway? Burger King? I meant to keep track of that. IMDb should! Work on that, IMDb.
I think I know why Green Hornet was stuck in development hell for so long. As a superhero movie, it's pretty much like most other superhero movies of late: gadgets, sidekick, rich kid, villain... and a lot of them are self-aware as well. No longer seems like a new wrinkle. But Rogen and Goldberg DID write that episode of the Simpsons! Turns out it was just a prelude. Rogen gets an upgrade here, if you look at it from the Funny People perspective. He's no longer Ira Wright: he's George Simmons now, by way of Billy Madison. George Simmons lost his joie de vivre; Billy Madison has his head permanently in the clouds, if the clouds were crystal meth vapour.
But the direction is not without its charms. Slightly more fanciful than the mercenary capitalism of Iron Man, there's a sequence where the camera pans around a giant garage full of fancy cars. Seth Rogen and his date stop at each one to kiss, moving on to keep up with the camera. Tom Wilkinson, one of the busiest actors in the biz, plays Rogen's unapproving father. He hasn't aged much in the 20 years the film skips over... I still say Jeff Garlin should've been the father.
Anyway, the direction. Gondry does what he can here. $120 million just doesn't go as far on the screen as it used to, but I did have an appreciation for the relatively restrained cinematography, courtesy of Michael Bay survivor John Schwartzman. I guess between Armageddon and Meet the Fockers, he's got the Hollywood thematic spectrum covered. Frankly, Gondry's restraining himself here as well. I was expecting more stop-motion animation interludes as with The Science of Sleep, but he sticks with pretty standard framing of the car, the mansion, etc. I admired the scene where the screen kept splitting off into separate threads, as the word went out amongst the bad guys in the movie. And I thought everything's already been done!
I would just like to mention one scene in particular. Every good movie... actually, most good movies have enough momentum written into the plot that they don't need a scene like this. The best example I can think of is the scene in They Live! where Roddy Piper does damn near everything he can to get Keith David to put on those damn sunglasses... there you go! A whole picture of it on IMDb and everything. More talented souls than me would say that that fight scene was epic. Some might even go so far as to call it... iconic. I still think it's kinda stupid. The stupid fight in The Green Hornet... SPOILER ALERT... happens between Seth Rogen and Kato, played by Jay Chou. Not John Cho of Harold and Kumar fame, incidentally. Kato knows martial arts, Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) SO doesn't, so naturally you'd think it would be no contest. Rogen starts out the fight strong, scoring a number of hits on Kato, even getting away with a fake ending of the fight, going "Okay, okay, fight's over..." and then throwing another punch... but Kato eventually takes charge of the fight, landing about twenty hits. You think it wouldn't take twenty hits to subdue someone like Rogen, maybe only five at the most, but he has lost a lot of weight, and he did work with Jody Hill on Observe and Report so he MUST know a thing or two about kicking ass. He drops Kato into a glass table which shatters, which slows him down a little bit. The fight somehow ends up as a draw... no, wait, it's coming back to me. The fight ends up in the pool. Kato can't swim, so Rogen ends up saving Kato's life with an inflatable lobster. Only in the movies. Fortunately, Kato is much better against bad guys.
It all just makes me want to watch Mystery Men again. Someday. There's also an homage to the tow-truck subduing of a vehicle from Heat. Dare I say there's an homage to the time Bart Simpson cut the head off the Jebediah Springfield statue? I dare so! Christoph Waltz is clearly enjoying the fruits of his Oscar win. Cameron Diaz... I can't help but think she deserves better, but A-Rod? Really? Hmm... I've heard the baseball player. Either way, I think she's doing fine. As long as she's saving her money. Whether she's 36 or 39, she still looks great. And of course, there's all the humanitarian work she does... she does, right?
Where was I? Might as well wrap this up. I didn't hate it as much as my viewing companions did, but I will say that a single star rating alone just doesn't cover certain movies. Cinematography: four stars, even though some of it might have been blurry digital video. I had a hard time telling. Those slo-mo bits of glass in the first scene looked pretty good. Seth Rogen: two stars. Jay Chou as Kato: three stars. Occasional flashes of ingenuity: three and a half. The ending: one and a half stars, even though I've never seen half of a car do so much since the 60s Disney flicks: Freaky Friday? Love Bug? Of course, they split the cars down the middle... should I have said spoiler alert again? I gotta go...

**1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Josh Gordon and Will Speck

Well, I hate to be so judgmental, but they're sure more handsome than the Coens, right? Although the one guy looks more like a car salesman than part of a dynamic duo directing team. Clearly the 90s were a time for doing everything they could just to get out of Cal-Arts. Isn't life hard enough, for God's sake? And, as so often happens, when they actually DO break out of the obscure middle with the other millions and millions of wannabes, you have a year like 1999 for John McTiernan, except for Josh Gordon and Will Speck they had one success and one failure. The success was the Will Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite comedy Blades of Glory. An all-too perfect opportunity to use all their green-screen mastery they learned in film school. The failure was the ABC sitcom version of the Geico cavemen. When I used to be a DVD-burning madman I actually TiVo'd some of the episodes! Fabrice Fabrice was one of the cavemen? I gotta go back!
But Gordon and Speck weren't going to end up like Kent Alterman, a one-hit wonder. Will Ferrell goes through directors like you and I discard soda cans, but not Gordon. Not Speck. And so, Untitled Jennifer Aniston 2010 Project was bourne. Retitled The Switch, it announced to the world that Jennifer Aniston was ready to have a baby. But which Jennifer Aniston is it? The real-life flesh + blood Jennifer Aniston? Or the matinee idol Jennifer Aniston? Oh, but that's like asking every character Meryl Streep's ever played one unifying question. Can you really handle such a multitude and variety of answers? Egg-zactly. Alas, the world in general and the movie-going public in particular, just couldn't handle Aniston's awesomeness... at least, not until Just Go For It. Then it was back on board. Of course, when Aniston goes through directors, they tend to stay gone. Okay, I didn't double check that one, but it SEEMS true, and it's more of a basis than on which we went to war in Iraq. And so far, I don't see an upcoming project for G-eck! Guys, I think it's time you each took a long, long Ringo walk and thought about where it is exactly you stand at this point... okay, gotta explain the reference. You see, in A Hard Day's Night there's the...

Pimp my Quintet

Well, there's just no denying it any longer. Director Justin Lin is the new Spielberg. Or close enough to it. Or maybe we should look at it from a potentially racially-charged ethnocentric perspective. Antoine Fuqua was once shaping up to be the black Spielberg, Christopher Nolan's the British Spielberg, and now Justin Lin is the Taiwanese Spielberg. I mean, just like Fast 4, Fast 5 kicks some serious ass at the box office this weekend! I had a feeling it might; then again, I'm no boxofficeguru.com! That dude knows his sh...stuff. Peter Jackson, take note: you're in a similar situation right now yourself. You're basically rebooting the Lord of the Rings trilogy into a leaner, meaner duet, with all the same people 10 years later. This is how you git 'er done.
Coming in a very distant second is the Pixar wannabe, Rio. Somebody's already made the comparison, but Pixar is definitely Broadway, and PDI Dreamworks, and to a lesser extent, the Ice Age bastards. So if Pixar is Broadway, the way WAY off-Broadway entry this week is Hoodwinked Too debuting at #6. Brave title choice, following in the footsteps of Teen Wolf Too and The Jerk, Too. And Splash, Too. It's all Two Much, man.
At #5, it's Prom. Of course! The mistake that High School Musical made. Why water it down by making it about high school in general, and just focus on the prom? Makes me wonder. I thought MY high school prom was bad... what must it be like in Beverly Hills? So many beautiful people competing for so few prom king and queen slots... I smell an Adam Sandler comedy! The omega teen girl of Beverly Hills moves to Podunk, Kansas to be their prom queen. But after a bloody, brutal campaign against the local hick chick, she finally learns the meaning of life, moves back to Beverly Hills and drowns her competition in the pool... I mean, respectfully hits her with a pitchfork... nah, not comedy enough. Hooks her up to an automatic milking machine? Yeah, that's more like Sandler. To the Underwood!

Short Reviews - April 2011

Holy crap! My taxes...


Rio - First Hop, now this. I blame it on Rio!

Arthur - Remake fever is still sweeping through Hollywood, like a plague. It's a good thing the movies themselves can't go on strike.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory - With Morris Chestnut as the black guy.

Half Past Dead - Finally! Under Siege 2 paid off...

Jerry Weintraub: His Way - Being rich is nice!

African Cats - Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, so... I've had it with these m/f-ing cats!

White Nights - I'll tell you how we won the Cold War... BALLET!

The Bang Bang Club - Not as great a title as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but what can one say? Originality is hard.

Niagara Niagara - Classic!

Europa Europa - A tearjerker.

Rochelle Rochelle - No, that was a fictional movie on Seinfeld.

Boeing Boeing - Got another one!

Gerald McBoing Boing - Does that count?

Dibbuk Box - Oh, Sam Raimi... where on earth did you get THAT idea? Oh right...

Burke and Hare - A film NOT of epic proportions

Burke & Wills - That's what I get for listening to the damn critics

Kate and Allie - Oh, Jane Curtin. You shed your sordid SNL past so thoroughly and completely.

Ollie & The Baked Halibut - A fish NOT in the bathtub! Just as long as it's not Lars and the Real Fish...

Eat the Peach - What's up with titles not explaining what the film is? It's about a dude riding a motorcycle... why not call it Ride the Bike?

Jumping the Broom - Oh, Angela Bassett... the things I got to go through to see you. Now you're doing Tyler Perry-lite!

I Am - Well, if I just had a box office debacle like Evan Almighty, I guess I'd be looking for answers too!