Short Reviews - February 2012

And NO, I'm not calling it Febru-any...


Vision Quest - PONICSAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

One for the Money - Hey, how about...

Two for the Money - Ernie Kovacs hosting "Three to Get Ready"?

Act of Valor - Might not be an act of cinematic greatness... just saying

Safe House - Finally! The situation that Mr. Manfredjinsinjin talked about during the Cold War!

Night After Night - MARTYN!!!!!!!!!!! You leave Oklahoma alone!

The Lonely Lady - SASDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Vow - SUCSY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

September Eleven 1683 - Go onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn....................................

That's My Boy - Aww. I liked the previous title better: "I Hate You, Dad." I guess it didn't test well. And frankly, in this post 9-11 world, Sandler should've known better. Does he really want to make Giuliani cry?

Anger Management - BOYKEWICH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Movie 43 - The sketch comedy movie is dead! When will people wake up and realize that?

Jackass 3D - I stand corrected.

Some Mother's Son - This came up while searching for Some More of Samoa

Tis Pity She's a Whore - Who comes up with these great, iconic titles?

Some Came Running - Isn't there a film called that?

Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls - HOWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Island (1998) - NOWRASTEH!!!! Just remember, you can't spell 'treason', 'thawers', 'hasten' or 'anthers' without Nowrasteh. Personal story time: I think I once delivered mail to the house of the cinematographer of this movie. He was living in Seattle at the time, and was rather unhappy with the service... am I going to get retroactively fired now?

The Island (2005) - My God! A scene that lasts longer than five seconds! Bay's stretching himself!

The Lonely Lady - Sasdy the director got the job because of all the Dracula pictures he did. I guess Pia Zadora's not much of a stretch in that sense.

Project X (1987) - Shock the monkey tonight... puh-leeze! CLOSED CAPTIONING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Project X (2012) - Superbad + ... Animal House?... no, The Hangover. These movie mixings don't usually turn out that well...

Auteur Watch - Steven and Anne Spielberg

Oh, I'm just pushing it now... but he did get mentioned a couple times at the Oscars a couple days ago! And by Miss Piggy, no less.

Acts 24:5 and Deeds 15:6

Despite the promise of the Oscars, people went to the theatre, plopped good money on the ticket booth countertops, and texted their friends while the purdy pictures floated on by. The Oscar theme this year was about how the movies are nice to go to and see, and their choices of winner reflected that. On the one hand, we have The Artist, kinda like Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, but more gimmicky. On the other, the very very expensive Hugo, a tribute to that French dude who put a rocket in Newt Gingrich's... I mean, the moon's eye over a century ago, I'm assuming. I guess Hollywood likes the Weinsteins better than Graham King, even though the Weinsteins probably never worked with Mel Gibson. Acts of Valor and Tyler Perry's Good Deeds dominated the box office with bad acting and lots of action. Wanderlust and the aptly-titled Gone dominated the lower half of the box office. Man, Jennifer Aniston's fans know when to stay away and when not to! The Switch was another example of one to stay away from.
Oh, right. Gotta find a picture....

About Schoenstein, or See the lonely King there on the corner, what he's waiting for I don't know...

In the documentary feature on the King of the Corner DVD, an interviewer asks actor/director Peter Riegert if he ever doesn't get asked about Animal House. Unfortunately, that about sums up the proceedings here. My viewing companions, however, were a little more positive. They agreed that it wasn't a bad movie, of which I am also in agreement. The writing's there, you can tell. There's a fine plot architecture at work here. I forget who my viewing companion compared it to: probably Robert Altman. Short Cuts lite, perhaps. Me, I couldn't help but think fondly of Grand Canyon. Both ensemble pieces with an ensemble cast to boot, and King partly takes place close to the Grand Canyon.
Of course, I'm a tad pickier about such things. In an interview with Spike Jonze, somebody asked the Coen brothers if No Country for Old Men was all filmed with one lens. After a while into King, I couldn't help but think that. NCFOM at least had one telephoto shot of that wounded dog walking away. King isn't as deft at hiding its lack of lens variety, or rather, has too monotonous a visual schema. Riegert picked the one fish-eye lens and pretty much stuck with it the whole time.
As for the plot, well, I guess Ebert has it nailed down pretty well. To quote the man himself, "It's like life: just one d@mned thing after another." I only mention it because it's on the DVD cover, and Riegert also points to it in the documentary on the DVD. So, why not me, too? Nothing too intolerable happens to the Riegert character during the hour and a half, but he seems to move from one punchline to the next. Oh, God, I just hate that. SPOILER ALERT: I only mention it because one of my viewing companions cringed at this scene. So, Riegert meets the girl he went to high school with. They go to his hotel room and get to know each other in the Biblical sense. Problem one right there. Then, Riegert goes to the girl's house and gets decked by her husband. Problem two. But, then again, in this internet age, maybe the fantasy has indeed gotten that upgrade. It's not enough anymore to do the nasty with the pretty girl you went to high school with. Telling her husband about it and getting decked by him? Priceless. Even Daniel Goleman himself must've gotten a smile out of that scene.
Finally, one last shout out to my friend who just HATES it whenever they make a reference to the movie's title in the movie. Especially that damned Barton Fink, but we'll get to that later. King of the Corner is no exception, but not bad considering that its original title was The Pursuit of Happiness. There's only one The Pursuit of Happyness, and that's the one with Will Smith, DAMN IT! But this did come out 4 years before that one, so we'll let that slide for now. SPOILER ALERT: Where the title does get spoken in the movie is during the funeral, where Riegert remembers that 'King of the Corner' was a game that he and his father would play. Peter gets choked up over it and everything! They snuck it past me, or maybe I'm just getting old and less vigilant as the years march on. Which is what this film's all about, damn it. The years are marching on, youth slips away, and the next generation is out to replace you, so you better make sure you have something you can use to blackmail the boss with. A little more room for American Exceptionalism in there than in, say, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. I mean, "Try to be nice to people; avoid eating fat; read a good book now and again; get some walking in; and try to live in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"? What's the point of that?
...maybe a little Corsican Brothers-type dynamic at work.  See, at first, Riegert's character was indifferent to his father's passing.  But when he saw that Eric Bogosian's hipster priest character ALSO didn't care, Riegert got all choked up.  Sorry... SPOILER ALERT.

Well, this is the only image it's going to give me, apparently, so the FBI warning it is. It's purple! Sorry, no access to the TV, so I can't take a photo of the screen. We can still get away with that.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Halftime in America

Maybe that's the problem. I saw the Clint Eastwood Chrysler ad before I saw The Company Men. Also, knowing that someone who worked on The West Wing wrote and directed this movie kind of spoils it even more after the fact, but that's just me. I guess ultimately I was just expecting a different movie. I've clearly been spoiled on a diet of Coen brothers movies and I expect a Machiavellian fiend behind the plot, pulling the strings and putting people through hell. There is a lot of that here to be sure, just not enough of it. I mention the Coen brothers because longtime Coen cameraman Roger Deakins was the DP on this sweet baby. This is his third film with Tommy Lee Jones; doesn't he get tired of that withered old face?
Anyway, back to the plot. There's three or four central characters here. The one we relate most with, sort of, is Ben Affleck, the youngest of the bunch, even though he's an elder statesman in his own right. Juggling family and career, he plays the part of hotshot businessman by wearing nice suits and driving a silver sports car. He gets fired soon after the movie starts, but has enough of a nest egg to take some time off, feeding on delicious yolk while looking for a new job. Tommy Lee Jones plays Affleck's boss who's much older and much richer, nicer house, and clearly living like a European with a wife and company mistress to boot. Chris Cooper is somewhere in the middle: not as old as Tommy Lee, but perhaps richer than Ben Affleck. If this were a Lebowski triangle, he's clearly the Donny.
There's okay acting here and some above-average writing, but far too many pronouncements about what's wrong with America. Perhaps I've seen too many movies on the subject recently (Inside Job; Casino Jack; The United States of Money... also about Casino Jack, but a documentary; even Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, to an extent), but we should all know by now what's wrong with America. It all started in 1981 with a guy named Ronald Reagan, who cut taxes for the rich and started going after unions. It somehow seemed like an okay thing to do: how much damage could it cause? Kinda like how it seemed okay to some if George W. Bush got elected in 2000 instead of Al Gore: how much damage could THAT cause? But now, here we are in 2010, and we're pretty much all going to Kevin Costner for that job rebuilding the house. Wonder how his oil centrifuge is working in the Gulf of Mexico... it's out there, right? Lord knows there's a lot of sea water yet to be spun.
And then, of course, there's the Craig T. Nelson character. He's the "Have" character, whereas everyone else is the "Soon to Haves." Ah, Mitch Daniels. What a gift. The Republicans are now starting to sound like Stephen Colbert! Go figure. If I were Stephen, I'd try to get some credit for that whole 'Soon to Have' phraseology. The Craig T. Nelson CEO did what he had to do to end the movie with the biggest number: 600 million. And yet, still halfway to the billionaires suite. So much for ship building! Software's where the real big bucks are. Software and lawyers, of course. But in this era of the threat of filibusters, where no one's allowed to incite class warfare, we can't begrudge the Craig T. Nelsons of the world their success. We'll be joining them soon, after all! Maybe not in the afterlife, but here on earth. Of course, what boring stories we'd have to tell them. Going to the laundromat, the middle class grocery stores, the GAS STATION, for God's sake. Perhaps we should take the advice of Amory Lovins, and that is to change the incentive structure of things. In engineering, early in the 20th century, things weren't designed to be energy-efficient, as it was assumed that energy was more than plentiful. If manufacturing can be incentivized to reward environmental stewardship, energy efficiency, and the stimulation of local economies... I know, I know. SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!! REDISTRIBUTIONIST!!!! SODOMITE!!! Ah, God bless America, and its increasingly bland entertainments.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Oh, right! My Oscar picks...

(after the ceremony) - Dang! I suck at this! Well, there's irony somewhere when you consider that this is an awards show celebrating excellence in sound mixing and sound editing, when the whole ceremony sounded like it was played back on an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder. Stumbling backwards into the future we go!!!!
Final score: 84


--------------------
Geez! It's about three days away! I made my picks a while ago. Since everyone else bases their picks on the Golden Globes, and based on who Ricky Gervais picks on, why not join the crowd. I want to get a good score this time. I haven't even summarized last year's results. Actually, I did it in a different forum already, so who cares. Mind you, these are who I THINK is going to win, not who I want to win. I kinda don't have a dog in this fight this year. I'm not even using a picture on this one, that's how out of it I am. Does Clooney need another Oscar? He seems like he wants it. Why not let Brad Pitt have it for once? What's Brad gotta do, wait til he's old like at the beginning of Benjamin Button? Probably...



Awards for 2012
Oscar

Best Motion Picture of the Year

NOMINEES
10 The Artist: Thomas Langmann
9 The Descendants: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
2 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: Scott Rudin
4 The Help: Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan
8 Hugo: Graham King, Martin Scorsese
3 Midnight in Paris: Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum
6 Moneyball: Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, Brad Pitt
7 The Tree of Life
5 War Horse: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

NOMINEES
1 A Better Life: Demián Bichir
5 The Descendants: George Clooney
4 The Artist: Jean Dujardin
3 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Gary Oldman
2 Moneyball: Brad Pitt

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

NOMINEES
3 Albert Nobbs: Glenn Close
4 The Help: Viola Davis
2 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Rooney Mara
5 The Iron Lady: Meryl Streep
1 My Week with Marilyn: Michelle Williams

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

NOMINEES
1 My Week with Marilyn: Kenneth Branagh
3 Moneyball: Jonah Hill
2 Warrior: Nick Nolte
5 Beginners: Christopher Plummer
4 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: Max von Sydow

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

NOMINEES
4 The Artist: Bérénice Bejo
2 The Help: Jessica Chastain
1 Bridesmaids: Melissa McCarthy
3 Albert Nobbs: Janet McTeer
5 The Help: Octavia Spencer

Best Achievement in Directing

NOMINEES
1 Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen
5 The Artist: Michel Hazanavicius
2 The Tree of Life: Terrence Malick
3 The Descendants: Alexander Payne
4 Hugo: Martin Scorsese

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

NOMINEES
5 The Artist: Michel Hazanavicius
3 Bridesmaids: Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo
2 Margin Call: J.C. Chandor
1 Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen
4 A Separation: Asghar Farhadi

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

NOMINEES
4 The Descendants: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
1 Hugo: John Logan
2 The Ides of March: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon
5 Moneyball: Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin
3 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan

Best Achievement in Cinematography

NOMINEES
5 The Artist: Guillaume Schiffman
1 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Jeff Cronenweth
2 Hugo: Robert Richardson
4 The Tree of Life: Emmanuel Lubezki
3 War Horse: Janusz Kaminski

Best Achievement in Art Direction

NOMINEES
5 The Artist: Laurence Bennett, Robert Gould
4 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2: Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
3 Hugo: Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo
1 Midnight in Paris: Anne Seibel, Hélène Dubreuil
2 War Horse: Rick Carter, Lee Sandales

Best Achievement in Costume Design

NOMINEES
2 Anonymous: Lisy Christl
5 The Artist: Mark Bridges
4 Hugo: Sandy Powell
3 Jane Eyre: Michael O'Connor
1 W.E.: Arianne Phillips

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

NOMINEES
5 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Bo Persson
2 Hugo: Tom Fleischman, John Midgley
1 Moneyball: Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, David Giammarco, Ed Novick
3 Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Peter J. Devlin
4 War Horse: Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, Stuart Wilson

Best Achievement in Editing

NOMINEES
4 The Artist: Anne-Sophie Bion, Michel Hazanavicius
2 The Descendants: Kevin Tent
3 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter
5 Hugo: Thelma Schoonmaker
1 Moneyball: Christopher Tellefsen

Best Achievement in Sound Editing

NOMINEES
4 Drive: Lon Bender, Victor Ray Ennis
3 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Ren Klyce
2 Hugo: Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty
1 Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Ethan Van der Ryn, Erik Aadahl
5 War Horse: Richard Hymns, Gary Rydstrom

Best Achievement in Visual Effects

NOMINEES
5 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2: Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, John Richardson
4 Hugo: Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, Alex Henning
2 Real Steel: Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny Gordon Taylor, Swen Gillberg
3 Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, Daniel Barrett
1 Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew E. Butler, John Frazier

Best Achievement in Makeup

NOMINEES
2 Albert Nobbs: Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnson, Matthew W. Mungle
1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2: Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin
3 The Iron Lady: Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

NOMINEES
2 The Muppets: Bret McKenzie
- "Man or Muppet"

1 Rio: Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, Siedah Garrett
- "Real in Rio"

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score

NOMINEES
3 The Adventures of Tintin: John Williams
4 The Artist: Ludovic Bource
2 Hugo: Howard Shore
1 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Alberto Iglesias
5 War Horse: John Williams

Best Short Film, Animated

NOMINEES
1 Dimanche: Patrick Doyon
4 The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore: William Joyce, Brandon Oldenburg
2 La Luna: Enrico Casarosa
5 A Morning Stroll: Grant Orchard, Sue Goffe
3 Wild Life: Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby

Best Short Film, Live Action

NOMINEES
4 Pentecost: Peter McDonald
1 Raju: Max Zähle, Stefan Gieren
2 Time Freak: Andrew Bowler, Gigi Causey
3 Tuba Atlantic: Hallvar Witzø

Best Documentary, Short Subjects

NOMINEES
2 The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement: Robin Fryday, Gail Dolgin
4 Incident in New Baghdad: James Spione
1 Saving Face: Daniel Junge, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
3 The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom: Lucy Walker, Kira Carstensen

Best Documentary, Features

NOMINEES
5 Hell and Back Again: Danfung Dennis, Mike Lerner
4 If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front: Marshall Curry, Sam Cullman
1 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
3 Pina: Wim Wenders, Gian-Piero Ringel
2 Undefeated: Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin, Rich Middlemas

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

NOMINEES
1 Bullhead: Michael R. Roskam
- Belgium
3 Footnote: Joseph Cedar
- Israel
4 In Darkness: Agnieszka Holland
- Poland
2 Monsieur Lazhar: Philippe Falardeau
- Canada
5 A Separation: Asghar Farhadi
- Iran

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

NOMINEES
2 A Cat in Paris: Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Felicioli
1 Chico & Rita: Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal
3 Kung Fu Panda 2: Jennifer Yuh
5 Puss in Boots: Chris Miller
4 Rango: Gore Verbinski

Working backwards from the title

Okay, so we got a great Stooge title to work with: Some More of Samoa. Now, to fashion a plot around it. How do we get the Stooges to go to Samoa? Or will they perhaps go to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ISLAND ALTOGETHER? Stay tuned to find out! The answer may disappoint you...

ACT ONE

Well, the sleeping pill's starting to kick in, which is probably the best way to watch a Stooge short to begin with. Needles to say, I'll have to parse this out over the next couple days. Anyway, we start with Symona Boniface in a rare appearance outside of the fancy party, without a face full of whipped cream and pie crust. I'm just not used to that! She plays the doting wife of a nutty botanist who's nursing some rare tree, a Puckerless Persimmon... a Samoan tree, perhaps? The pieces fall into place slowly, but more quickly once the Stooges arrive. The boys play three tree surgeons with their own shop and everything! We see them washing their hands, much like the Marx brothers did in A Day at the Races, but don't think about that. Funny tool names are thrown about, but for some reason the cotton proves to be the most troublesome. Curly still gets the chance to make a noise like a dog barking... tree bark, dog bark? See the connection? The boys are working on a tree patient, maybe a patient tree, and Curly gives it an injection of Vitamin PDQ. Now, I hate to be the bearer of spoiler alerts, but can you even doubt what's going to happen when the Stooges get near a hypodermic needle? Anyway, after pumping their tree full of Vitamin PDQ, it instantly rises several feet, and fruits on the tree limbs start to grow so fast, you'd swear they were balloons inflating! Curly lets out a different nyuk nyuk at about 2:50 or so... Just then, the big phone call comes in. Larry doesn't usually use his own last name for the purposes of puns, but he does here, saying that he's fine. And my eyelids are starting to droop. Better finish this later.
(later) Why is it every time Curly wears a stethoscope, Moe pulls on it and lets it loose in Curly's face? Anyway, the call comes in, and so begins the episode that will hog the rest of the film. But I must give a shout out to my friend's favourite part of this film. Curly starts packing his bag. He rips the phone off the wall and puts it in the bag. Moe asks why he's bringing the phone. Curly's obviously a futurist, a thinking man, a man ahead of the technological curve... anyway, he says "In case we get a call whilhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife we're gone!" That's why there's a reference to iPhones in the new Farrelly brothers' Stooges movie; that, and it's a blatant product placement. And sure enough, the phone rings in the bag! Curly says hello twice, but the second one's the key one. (Curly 3:42) Curly eventually gets his head out of the bag after what seems like an eternity, gets hit by Moe, and... you guessed it... falls ass first onto the Vitamin PDQ hypodermic. Curly's legs begin to grow. After the initial shock, Curly says "Look! I'm a giant!" Moe retorts "Well, I'm a giant killer and my name ain't Jack." Curly responds, "Well, beat me, Daddy, down to the floor." That's one for the hardcore Stooge fans; must be a reference to red-headed stepchildren or something.

ACT TWO

Back to that guy in the wheelchair. What a pain in the ass. Thank God the Stooges show up. You may think he's outnumbered 3 to 1, but believe me, it's a meeting of equals. The Stooges take some of their tools out before entering the room, mostly saws. Symona looks visibly worried. Either she thinks they're going to operate on the guy or the tree; hard to say which would be worse at this point. They go ahead with the comedic ruse. Surprisingly, the wheelchair guy plays along perfectly! As Curly saws a tree limb, he acts as if it were his leg being sawed off. It's obviously a phony limb, of course; you can tell even on the YouTube.
After the dust settles, saw or otherwise, Professor Moe goes to work on someone other than a Stooge! I guess that makes the wheelchair guy (uncredited) an honorary Stooge. The blind leading the blind. Moe declares that the persimmon tree won't bloom because it has no mate. In Moe's exact words, "This poor thing is pining away for a girlfriend!" Curly helpfully offers "Or maybe a boyfriend!" Maybe some bees could pollinate the tree, but there's no time for that. This is only a two-reeler. We learn that a mate for the tree will be found on the isle of Rhum Boogie. Road trip time. Let the racism begin!

This is probably where Act Two should begin proper, but never mind. It's too late. I've made my choice, and now I'm sleeping in it. We begin this section with Moe and Larry arriving on the island via sailboat. They've clearly spent too long on the boat and have become dizzy from drinking seawater, as they can barely account for the lack of Curly on the boat with them. They find his helmet on the shore of the island, and they assume he's arrived ahead of them. We're clearly in uncharted Stooge territory now. Moe orders Larry to find Curly's footprints and follow them. For once, they're stealing gags from Tex Avery instead of one of their live-action contemporaries. They follow the trail of footprints until it leads them to one of the native Rhum Boogians named Kingfisher, played by stuntman Duke York... Duke York. What a name. Bad schoolyard name. The boys run from the frying pan to the fire, as they get surrounded by a couple dozen Rhum Boogians wielding spears. Moe and Larry get hogtied and taken back to the village. The village king is summoned, and Moe and Larry get hit on the head for not bowing to the king. Curly emerges from the hut, flanked by two rather Anglo-looking babes. Moe and Larry look surprised, then angry. Curly says "Boy, they have rather large monkeys in this part of the country!" Curly apparently won a game of dice against the king. The king himself emerges, and it's another rather Anglo-looking fellow who seems to have also sat upon a Vitamin PDQ hypodermic. Why didn't they think of this before? Casting stuntpersons as villagers of a third world island nation? Maybe they have... probably did that with the Native American-themed films they've done.
They get right down to business. Moe says they want a persimmon tree. The king will give them a tree if one of the Stooges marries his sister. The rather Anglo-looking sister emerges. She wants to marry Curly. Moe and Larry are happy with this proposition; Curly, not so much. Of course, when Moe and Larry find out they're going to be eaten, they're much less happy.

ACT THREE

The soup is being prepared. Curly must've done something to queer the deal because he's got an apple in his mouth and getting covered in sifted flour!! Moe and Larry are tied to a tree. If it's a persimmon tree, there's some salt in the wound to start. Curly laughs at 2:49. Gotta like that. It figures: they get the black dudes to prepare the Stooge stew. Curly somehow manages to escape, not being tied down and all. Moe and Larry must not have been tied down very well, as they make their escape at about the same time. A mighty chase ensues. Curly runs back into the king's hut to get the persimmon tree, after unsticking his pivot foot. Curly runs afoul of a giant comedy Native statue with many arms and dusty nostrils. Curly finally gets satisfaction after hitting the statue once with a giant club, takes the persimmon "tree" from its cradle, and leaves the king's hut. Curly gets his pivot foot stuck in front of the hut, but manages to break free and catch up to Moe and Larry. Curly gets spooked after Moe and Larry emerge from hiding. He runs into a tree and dislodges three irregularly shaped coconuts which all land on his head.
The Stooges make their escape again, but there's still about three and a half minutes to go, so Curly loses the "tree" and starts looking for it on his hands and knees. Curly misses the tree by several yards, and pokes his head into a hollowed out log. Enter the crocodile. It thankfully moves very, very slowly and doesn't eat anybody. Maybe it's an alligator. I can't tell from the head, but the body looks pretty massive so I'm assuming it's a crocodile. It enters the frame while Curly's got his head in the log. The crocodile looks at Curly and sits down. That's a well-trained crocodile! And then, through the magic of film editing, the crocodile's stunt replacement is brought in, acting as the second log for Curly to stick his head into. Curly sees the persimmon "tree" in the crocodile's throat but doesn't reach for it. The stunt crocodile closes its mouth and scares the shoe leather out of Curly. Curly tries to outwit the crocodile but obviously fails. He doesn't think to look around for a stick to pry open the croc's mouth. Thankfully, Moe and Larry show up. Curly calls it an "alligator" (alley-got-tore - his pronunciation). Professor Moe saves the day once again: he and Larry will tickle the alligator's stomach, and it will open his mouth, giving Curly the chance to reach in and get the persimmon tree out of its throat. Let the suspense begin.

EPILOGUE

The boys manage to get the tree out of the alligator's throat, but Larry ends up losing the toes of his shoe. The Stooges escape to their boat, chased by native Rhum Boogians. They start throwing their spears now. Negotiations are now impossible. They get back to the boat, but have failed to fix its leaks. They make the saddest island getaway attempt ever. The ending reminds me of the ending of Laurel and Hardy's Perfect Day. There is no supernatural wind to blow them out to sea; they'd have to have Daniel Boone costumes for that. I guess the moral of the story is don't count your persimmon trees before they're boated out of the country. Too bad they didn't get the H.M.S. Beagle!

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Randy and Jason Sklar

Oh, the Sklars would walk 500 miles and they would walk 500 more to be the identical twin brothers who walked a thousand miles to get a decent movie premiere. Online? Puh-leeze. Mann's Chinese Theater's still the only way to go if you want to make it in Hollywood. But Wild Hogs' Earl Dooble and Wild Hogs' Buck Dooble know this industry inside and out. One minute you're on top of the world, the next you're clinging to the bottom. Sometimes the best way to go is somewhere inside that thick obscure middle, especially when you're slumming with the good folks at Troma. The Gunn family's still trying to break free from that orbit. But back to the Sklars: actors, writers, producers. They've done it all, baby. They're at least quadruple threats apiece, according to the IMDb. But their greatest production of all? Well, one of the brothers has two kids, so whatever decade they were bourne in, that's the Sklar's favourite decade of all. The work comes in a distant second, probably even for the Sklars!

This means House!!

There is no joy in McG-ville, for the once mighty McG has struck out. But as long as he didn't a-hole his way out of the biz yet, he can always a-hole his way back in. The biz seems to be more flexible that way these days. Frankly, all the debuts this week are having a rough go of it. Ghost Rider 2 came in third. They couldn't call it Ghost Rider 2, of course. It's "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance." I think they should've brought back Eva Mendes as the Hispanic Pam Grier... I mean, as Roxanne Simpson, but no! They had to go for Selena Gomez or Sofia Vergara... at this point, I think I'll go for Sofia Vergara! She's young, seems pretty enough, just won a bunch of awards... you can always tell a celebrity couple's in trouble when they show a clip of them after getting married and the alpha one says "What more could I ask for? Great smile, glowing skin, pretty eyes... we'll be married forever." Two weeks later, the bad friction begins. The other debut this week is Disney's latest animé acquisition called The Secret World of Arrietty. The very picky The Onion gave it an "A" grade if memory serves. Disney's appealing to the hipster d-bag crowd now! Walt's cryogenically frozen head must be terribly confused right about now. What a world you'll be coming back into once they re-attach you to a new donor body. It'll be like the movie Freejack, but I think you should stage an accident at either a bodybuilder contest or a marathon. Walt wants a HEALTHY body this time!

The perfectly ironic title

Alfred Hitchcock gets another overhaul with 1998's A Perfect Murder. Aragorn was clearly slumming til Lord of the Rings came along, but he knows he's lucky because a part like that doesn't usually fall into the lap of someone his age when he got it. He does what he can here as the middle class part of a 1% love triangle. With all due respect to director Andrew Davis, there's many, many things wrong with this film. Happens every time he sets foot outside his native Chicago. (Looks great in HD, though!) Take the initial scene with Suchet, for example. I want to see justice prevail as much as the next guy, but Michael Douglas should've been able to handle this guy... never mind. Suchet doesn't have much of a part, anyhow; clearly, not as juicy as Poirot. The film dies the death of a thousand cuts, but for me, the big, clarifying flaw is the casting of Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow... they're father and daughter, right? NO! Husband and wife! Dude, marry someone your own age! I know, I know, the rules are different for the super-rich, or those who appear to be for purposes of this film. Still, there's just something inherently wrong about it. Then, there's the question of the whole pre-nup situation. Apparently, Paltrow's beset on all sides by not-so-rich men trying to get at her. Douglas at least dabbles in white-collar crime, much like Gordon Gekko did. This film provides a nice mid-point marker in that regard, as the Steven Taylors of the world were on their way to turning the world economy inside out. A mere ten years later, they would destroy it completely, then blame it all on Obama. If nothing else, it's a nice love letter to all those rich would-be murderers out there: this is what happens when you don't plan it right.

**
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

The Three Stoogettes

That's what I get for procrastinating again. Well, I might not be able to give you the full blow-by-blow, but I'm just now figuring out that these Stooge shorts seem to be better if the stakes are higher, but you probably already knew that. So did they, as they wound up behind bars so many times. This one's special because it's a stretch for actor Richard Fiske. He disguises his voice until the very end, but his hair stays the same. Symona Boniface also seems to have more fun than usual here. I just don't know why we don't watch this one more often? Perhaps that will change.

ACT ONE

Here's a plot twist for you! We focus on three DIFFERENT people who need to get married in a big hurry, otherwise they lose their fortune. Ah, the sanctity of marriage. Nothing's changed. This time, the Stooges are the collateral damage. The crafty lawyer of the three rich Jones sisters provides them with an alternative, as their current boyfriends have skipped out on them. They will instead marry the Stooges who are on Movie Death Row. Cut to the Stooges in jail via the newspaper picture, just like in Hudsucker Proxy, the only other movie I can think of off the top that does that. Not as common as you'd think! Normally, this would be the part of the film that gets stretched, but if it's half-ass enjoyable, the rule is suspended. Moe reminds the Stooges and the rest of us that they're indeed going to be hanged, despite their vigorous protestations. Curly is overcome, declaring he's too young and handsome. Unfortunately, there's a mirror in the cell, so he's forced to admit "Well, I'm too young!" He has a chuckle over it, and of course Moe hits him. Moe tells Curly to think, so Curly hits his head against the prison wall six times, then four more for good measure. "I got it!" says Curly. Moe and Larry ask what, and Curly says "A terrific headache." I only point it out this explicitly because I think it's the first time they use this gag... and of course, definitely not the last. The Stooges are conscientious to a fault in that way: always recycling a good joke, even if it means bodily harm. I had my eyes closed; puh-leeeeeeze. Larry has a good chuckle at 1:42.
Okay, I better move this along a little faster. Curly turns out to have a bunch of tools on his person, including three large wood saws. The boys get to work trying to use wood saws to cut through iron bars. Fortunately, the plot prevents the boys from escaping jail. They meet the three goils, get married right there in the jail cell, then are promptly left alone again. When you get right down to it, aren't all marriages like this? Moe and Curly share a rather intimate wedding kiss at 3:20 or so. I thought these were guy pictures! Moe doesn't even say "I'm poisoned!" for God's sake!!! Check out Larry flying backwards at 3:36. Oh, dude!

Act 1.5: the hanging proper. We find out the comedy name of the prison the Stooges are staying at, and there's a delightful comedy setpiece showing the audience of the hanging. As it happens, fate intervenes, but the boys go through with the hanging anyway. Unfortunately for us, the ropes break, and the Stooges end up in a pile under the gallows with another fellow in tow! A guy broadcasting the hanging to a radio audience goes up to the Stooges with his microphone... why do I get the feeling that Woody Allen's seen this part as well? Suddenly, a piece of paper is brought in that says the Stooges are free! The real gang has been caught... Michael Finn. The very idea. If Disney hadn't copyrighted Mickey Mouse, gangsters would be called that in these pics. I like the part at about 5:06 where Moe takes the microphone, acts scary, then promptly gets scared by Larry and breaks out into tears worse than Stan Laurel.

ACT TWO

We see the three Jones sisters toasting their lawyers' success. At that precise moment, we hear "Shave and a Haircut" knocked out on the door. The girls do a triple spit take when they see the Stooges enter their posh house. The Stooges run towards the girls, the girls step out of the way, and the Stooges hit the fireplace mantle. They're invited by the girls for a kiss, but get punched instead. The lead Jones sister says "That's just to let you know who's going to be boss around here!" In a rare act of misogyny, the boys strike back, making the same declaration. The two threesomes go to their separate corners. The sisters decide that they'll get rid of the Stooges by forcing them to become gentlemen. Usually this happens on a bet by two Ivy-leaguers betting on heredity versus environment, so that's a twist.
And so, we come to a sequence to stretch out the time, but it has some good lines. Moe declares that he'll be a skinless frankfurter as he puts on some white face cream. Curly drinks some tasty perfume, declaring he'll smell good on the inside as well! Professor Moe reaffirms their commitment: they MUST act like gentlemen so the girls won't have an excuse for throwing them out. Say, this is serious! Usually they don't care when the two rich dudes try to win their stupid bet! Anyway, come to find out all this prep work with perfume and facial cream is just for going to bed. They fix their separate beds up so that they have a triple bunk bed. Curly takes the top bunk, of course. Curly makes an interesting noise at 8:21. The mistakes in editing and staging made here are not made later on in G.I. Wanna Home a mere five years later. Curly actually says "That's what you get for putting me on top!"
The old phone vs. alarm clock dilemma raises its ugly head again. Moe gets a phone call, informing him that the dancing instructor's here. Cue the riotous Hoi Polloi footage, culminating in a quadruple dive out the window of blatant stuntpersons into the fancy fountain. Do exactly as I do: Jerry Lewis used that routine in The Patsy, for what that's worth.

ACT THREE

The lawyer gets called in again. A new strategy is hatched: the girls will throw a big party. When the Stooges humiliate them, they've got grounds for divorce! Boy, the rich really are different! The boys of course are off to a crackerjack start. They're only half dressed, and make a grand entrance in their suit coats and pajama bottoms. Time to start over. The lawyer gets the butler to help out his little scheme. Cut to the Stooges taking some food. Moe asks Larry if he's going to have that chicken alone. I only point it out because Moe will be asking Larry that question at least once more later on in a different short. Enter the wonderful Symona Boniface, who asks if the Stooges have traveled to the Great Wall of China. Curly says "No, but I know a big fence in Chicago!" Another great Curly line: his tapeworm took the blue ribbon at Madison Square Garden.
And now, the pastry-based fun begins. Moe gets hit with a giant cake by the butler, and Symona vouches for Moe, even though she gets hit second. Symona goes over, picks up a pie, and hits the butler with it! She hits him again with some of the cake she's still wearing. Vernon Dent plays a Senator here, and of course he's just asking for it when he says he knows he's going to get a "bang" out of this party. Symona starts cracking up. She steals the show in this one. Eddie "Another Lion" Laughton also has a good part in the pie fight. Larry gets hit with a pie while in a knight suit of armor at 6:48. Curly does his bit where he keeps winding up to throw his pie, but gets hit in the face with a different pie. He uses his own pie for the third pie, but there's a fourth yet to come. Sorry, SPOILER ALERT. An epic pie fight to be sure, and I hate to toss that word around like some sort of circular pastry. And they looked like real genuine pies, too! Not some shaving-cream-in-a-tin job.

EPILOGUE

The lawyer reemerges from a different part of the house to find that all hell's broken loose. He's so enraged that he slaps the Stooges, especially since they're all standing in a line together. Fiske uses the voice he usually uses in Stooge films here. He officially declares that the Stooges have disgraced their wives and will promptly seek a divorce. The wives, however, changed their minds about the lawyer and hit him with pies of their own. Well, as in Glengarry Glen Ross, you never open your mouth til you know what the shot is. The Stooges also hit the dude with a couple pies for good measure as the scene fades out. A good lesson for all filmmakers: don't skimp on the pie part of the budget.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Nevada Smith and the Trifecta of Revenge... of Doom

I believe it was Danny Aiello in Dinner Rush who once said that revenge is a dish best served cold. We also learned that employees should also wash their hands after making out, but this isn't Europe, and we don't have those signs. Anyway, here's another Western with another revenge story. It starts out innocently enough, much in the same way that In Cold Blood did... until things got a little bit ugly, as with the rest of In Cold Blood. Steve McQueen's horse gets spooked, and his parents get killed, in that order. Soon, Max Sand is on the road to revenge, and on the way to getting his catchier alias.
It's basically a revenge movie in three Acts: one for each bad guy. It's also apparently a prequel, so you can probably guess, as with Temple of Doom, that the character's going to survive his ordeal, but not without a few bumps and bruises along the way. Each Act involves Max Sand taking an internship of sorts: first, with gun salesman Jonas Cord who acts as a Western Miyagi, training the impudent young Larusso/Sand for his combat to come; second, well... I hate to spoil it, but it's similar to the plot of this one; and third, a near conversion on the road to Damascus, as a priest nurses him back to health after some horse-drawn water skiing. There's a couple dames along the way, except for the third act. If nothing else, the third act offers an interesting mental game of cat and mouse, where the bad guy deliberately and blatantly tries to get McQueen's goat. The usual approach: demean his race, and show him some of Sand's familial keepsakes that he kept from that initial horrible incident... kinda creepy, even for a bad guy! His associates sorta think so. Perhaps that explains the lack of loyalty... oh, but there I go again. The film seems a tad overlong at about 128 minutes, but I was with it until things fell apart during the Third Act. Why didn't Tom Fitch just kill Steve McQueen sooner? Why not that night in his sleep when he infiltrated Fitch's Large Proboscis Gang? I guess because it comes down to heroism. Either heroism or procrastination. Waiting til the big finish. Hard to say if the final bad guy got his due the way he should have, as did Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill Vol. 2. All in all, a fine and dandy Western with some good locations, especially the Louisiana ones.

Good Karl Malden double bill with: One-Eyed Jacks

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Clooney as Brickley Paiste

Dayamn! Too many fresh movies on the queue lately. Well, I can't remember which movie my viewing companions compared this one to, but it isn't entirely without precedent. While Clooney's 2011 is probably not going as well as his 2005 went, it's still up there. Every three years or so he has a good year, and with the Oscars fast approaching it appears he's got the Oscar for Best Actor sewn up. Shame, really. Usually a Brit takes it. Anyway, here he plays a dude running for President, one of the seven actor roles or seven plots, something like that. For those of you who are partisans, the film does have a liberal slant, so perhaps this will be a peek behind the curtain for you. As for me, I feel right at home when they talk about how Democrats always lose, but that could be starting to change.
For whatever reason, Clooney's not the main guy here. I guess he was busy with other projects or something, but Ryan Gosling stars as the main guy, the head honcho of Clooney's presidential campaign. One of them, anyway. The smartest one, I guess. Well, Max Minghella already had his moment in the sun. All is right in Gosling's universe until he SPOILER ALERT answers the wrong phone at the wrong time. Things spiral out of control until he unspirals them back into his favor at the small cost of a part of his immortal soul. At times before the big tragedy he seems to be channeling the spirit of Happy Clooney, but things get really Oscar-worthy when the pressure's on. Something in his eyes seemed fresh to me. My God! Acting in the era of reality television! Alas, he didn't get nominated this year, but it'll happen again. Might I suggest a road movie with Peter Stormare. Sweep the Indie Awards first to go for the big gold. Marisa Tomei doesn't have much to do here, but she does what she can. Everyone's good, of course. But Phedon Papamichael? Seriously? Was Sideways that influential? I guess so.
As for the content of Clooney's stump speech, well, I couldn't help but be reminded of Damon's meltdown at the beginning of The Adjustment Bureau. Ah, actors and their political aspirations in movies. In Ides, there's plenty of red meat for liberals like me: the rich should pay their fair share, probably more; less oil, more green energy... I think that was about it. Marriage equality? Women's rights? Goes without saying, I guess. It's back at the video store already, I can't go back and check. Keep up the good work, Clooney, and get cracking on Suburbicon or whatever else Joel and Ethan have in store for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Pollack does Lumet: The CIA Vaginalyst

Sorry about the banner headline, but I have been watching a lot of The Daily Show lately and got inspired, and also because there is a rather blatant/obligatory love scene in this otherwise fine spy caper in the tradition of Charlie Varrick... I don't know! For some reason it made me think of Charlie Varrick. Well, it was the 70s, baby. Cheesy Dave Grusin disco music. Computers printing stuff out on paper! Hand-held rotary phones for tapping into the phone system. Redford plays a mild-mannered smart guy working for the CIA when suddenly... I hate to give too much away. That's how good this 1975 movie is, damn it! Let's just say his life is upended, and turned completely totally upside down. He doesn't have a specific time in which to clear his name, either! How do you like that? Most movies give you 48 hours or less to fix everything. On top of it all, he originally had six condor days! Realizing he can't do this by himself, he grabs an unlucky Faye Dunaway, ski enthusiast and amateur photographer. According to Robert Osborne, however, the idea of being tied up and ravaged by a kidnapper as handsome as Redford was actually quite seductive. Love scene explained. Hmm! The Daily Show covered similar turf tonight regarding men and women in the army together. Ah, Conservatives. We'll turn you into peaceniks yet.
For some reason, the train station made me think that it was the location used for Pollack's earlier film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? According to the IMDb, not the case. Twas mostly a New York film, which made me think Sidney Lumet got screwed out of another Oscar nomination again. Fine film. I must've seen it when I was too young or something. The only thing I really remembered about it was that it was intense. Not quite as intense anymore, aside from the short bursts of machine gun fire. Those held up pretty well! Bullets can only be sprayed so quickly, I suppose.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Neil and Danny Simon

A lot of times in this biz, there's not equanimity between working brothers. Neil and Danny Simon is arguably another case of this, but it's a little more equitable than, say, Mark and Lawrence Kasdan or William Goldman and his brother. I know, I gotta stop harping on those examples. But Neil and Danny went a little bit farther than the average one-sided flameout story. Danny got stuck in the TV ghetto for good, but Neil stepped on his neck and clawed his way out with Danny's help. Apparently, it was Danny who came up with the idea for The Odd Couple! But Danny was unable to bring it to fruition like Neil, and so full credit to Neil it was. The film bug bit Neil pretty hard and he wasn't able to give it up, no matter how many movies about suites got to be too old. I have yet to see one of them, but I hear they're quite witty and urbane. You know, the kinds of movies they used to make in the good old Hays Code days.
And then, in the go-go 80s, time to cash in on the more personal stuff, and another trilogy was borne: Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and... something else. Frankly, everything after that's kind of a blur for Neil, especially Odd Couple II and the Heartbreak Kid remake, I'm assuming.

Why do they always do that?

They always switch the names so that they're over the wrong persons' head! I guess it's a good marketing strategy or something. Anyway, the latest Nicholas Sparks wannabe comes in at #1, a remake of While You Were Sleeping. Close enough for Valentines Day, I guess. Coming in second, the best movie Tony Scott and Denzel Washington never made makes a mere $2 million dollars less than #1! Close enough for Valentines Day, I guess. What does this say about our movie demographics? The hopeless romantics and the fanboys rule the day for the most part, dumping off the kids at #3's highest box office entry, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Finally! A sequel that wasn't good enough for Brendan Fraser. This one wasn't good enough for Rachel Weisz. But the biggest sign of the times is that one of the biggest movies of 1999 comes in fourth: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

An early celluloid due for the Djavil

Last seen on: Turner Classic Movies. I didn't think Robert Osborne was going to talk about this one, but it's got a fascinating history to it. This isn't my usual cup of tea, which is part of its charm, I suppose. From the sound of it, the writer/director Benjamin Christensen a-holed his way out of the biz after getting bounced out of MGM and Warner Bros. after going Hollywood. Now, MGM I can understand, but Warner Bros.? He must've pissed off the wrong person, and bad. Maybe he couldn't bridge the language gap. Take heed, jungherr!
Still, there is Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. I hate to carelessly toss around phrases like 'one-of-a-kind masterpiece,' but I suppose this qualifies. It's part documentary, part docudrama, and the two go together pretty well, and even though there's a heavy reliance on text, the film finds its own rhythm. Osborne said it seems tame by today's standards, but it has its moments. The Hays Code would probably have trimmed this down to a two-reeler. There's certainly lots of interesting tidbits you learn, especially about the Devil and certain body parts of his that people would kiss... Good Lourdes.
The film kinda breaks down into three parts, even though it's officially in seven parts. The first lays the historical groundwork for witchcraft, going back to the 15th Century. There's an episode involving a woman looking for an aphrodisiac to seduce this wicked fat man of God. The witch has three different potions... oh, the whole thing is terribly bawdy and tawdry, but doesn't run off the rails like the time George Costanza combined food and sex... which episode was that?
The second part is a highly effective drama, involving the actual processing of a witch by an evil, righteous inquisition. So righteous and scared, they torture a poverty-stricken older woman who's accused of being a witch, because a dude looks at a hunk of lead in the shape of a turd and declares that a man is sick with dizziness due to witchcraft. The man's plight will eventually look a bit like the man who keeps hearing about how his dog ate some burnt horse flesh. Okay, I'll spoil the plot for you: the old woman accused of witchcraft eventually leads to the most of the rest of the family getting accused of witchcraft and similarly processed by the Inquisition. The sequence ends with narration informing us that about 8 million people during this time were accused of witchcraft and killed. A sad, unfortunate chapter in human history that makes me glad that science has advanced us a little further down the right roads.
A long time ago I took a drama class in college. Unfortunately, no one told me that I was a handsome guy and that I oughta become an actor, so it wasn't meant to be for me. But I did learn that, once upon a time, acting was considered to be a kind of witchcraft. That always stuck with me. But now, in this age of internet memes and internet thinking, the constant shortening of thoughts and drawing of conclusions, I can't help but equate witchcraft and sex. After all, both do require a certain trance-like state, and you probably shouldn't do either one out in public. But according to the film, witchcraft has always been with us, for even cavemen were looking for some sort of advantage. A great food-for-thought film if you're interested in its topics.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

An ache in every stake, and a finger for every eye

Or, the headline should probably reference The Music Box, but I'm still kind of a sucker for this one. Again, those repressed childhood memories. This was another one of those that the Columbia boys wisely put on VHS tape first before the less good ones. So let's dive right in.

ACT ONE

Scene: a California summer, it's safe to assume. A man and his wife stare at the raging thermometer. The man will later go on to get mashed potatoes and a can of peas dumped on his head. And then, we see the boys, valiant stewards of capitalism, delivering ice to needy customers. Their horse pulling the carriage seems to be smarter than them, though. The horse rudely disturbs their sleep, causing Moe and Larry to tumble out of the back onto the pavement. Curly follows a little bit later, but with a block of ice on his head. They wisely put a giant plastic ice cube on the stuntman's head as they pull him out by his legs. Probably not good for a young person to see that. Now, normally this is the part where the boys stall for time dealing with something, but it seems more legitimate than the epic struggle with Curly's tight sweater a few episode back. Curly's mugging while his head's surrounded by ice makes me think that this is where Jerry Lewis was born. Curly eventually gets his head out of the ice, so Moe can hit it with heavy metal objects again. Curly has to actually do some work as well, which is almost worse than being hit in the head, but he uses the opportunity to play some milk bottle bowling. Curly has a scoreboard on the side of the ice wagon. A crucial exchange he has with Moe at this point leads to Moe taking a swipe at Curly with an actual ax. Moe ends up putting a dent in the wooden ice wagon. Probably not good for a young person to see that part either.
And now, the episode that will guide the rest of the film: Spoiler Alert. Curly, still running away from an axe-wielding Moe, runs into a cake-holding Vernon Dent. Vernon falls to the ground cake first, and damn near earns membership in the stuntpersons' union.
The boys make a fast getaway in their slow horse-drawn wagon. Next episode: we see a staircase similar to the one in The Music Box, but you can see clear sky at the top of this hill, and the hillside doesn't seem to be decked with other houses. A customer waves and asks for ten cents worth of ice. Was her line dubbed? Gee, I wonder. Curly tries to make a fast getaway but the horse refuses. Duty to the customer calls once again; lousy good-for-nothing customers. Now, this part could also be considered stalling for time, but not by me. For one, the scene required multiple camera set-ups, so it's not just a one-take number. This involves the seemingly simple act of taking a block of ice up all those damn steps. They try several times, but to no avail. It is much faster-paced than The Music Box, you gotta give 'em that. Vernon Dent once again becomes collateral damage to the Stooges, laying waste to a second cake. Curly seems to run out of things to do before reacting to the ice box falling down the stairs, but I guess it's a minor point.

ACT TWO

Having abandoned the ice business altogether, the Stooges run into a kitchen and into a stereotypical Italian chef, played by Italian export Gino Corrado, best known for his work in Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Micro-Phonies. He proves himself the equal of the Stooges in taking physical abuse, as he lands against the wall, falls and lands on his ass, and gets hit in the head with eight progressively larger metal cans. The Stooges find him generally amusing at about 7:10 in the proceedings. It serves as a nice break in the editing, and as a reminder of ethnic stereotyping in movies back then. And then, the knife in Curly's hat, followed by the ketchup bottle. For me, personally, after the first two instances in this one, it seemed tame in comparison, or maybe they just wore down my resistance. There's still some more capering to be had with the Italian chef, though. Curly gets the better of him; does Curly hoist the chef onto his own petard, perhaps? What's a food word that sounds close to petard or hoist, for that matter? How about moist custard... anyway, the lady of the house comes in, demands to know what's going on, causing the Italian chef to quit. The lady of the house bursts into tears, as there is now no one to make the big birthday dinner for her husband. With the Stooges already in the kitchen, this saves her the trouble of calling the employment agency and asking for a cook and two butlers, which of course happens later on in Crash Goes the Hash. There I go again, preaching to the choir. The boys volunteer to help the lady out. And then... SPOILER ALERT. As sure as eggs is eggs, guess who the lady's husband is? Yup, you guessed it! Vernon Dent... his character's name is Poindexter Lawrence? I never knew that.
And so, the Stooges go to work ruining yet another meal. Curly's on turkey duty, Moe seems to be making a cake, and Larry's tasting the punch. Larry orders Curly to shave some ice, which is DEFINITELY the part of the film that is stretched out to make it a complete 16 minute short. At least with the turkey there's some sense of plot momentum, and it does pay off later when everyone's eating, arguably. Somehow, the "Say, did you have a pink tie on?" joke doesn't hold up, but what do I know.

ACT THREE

For once, the Stooges are actually serving a meal, instead of running to one. Curly's giving everyone just the right amount of water; he's doing this by sticking a ruler in each glass. Larry's tonging ice cubes into the glasses, and Moe's putting plates in front of everyone. Moe doesn't recognize Vernon Dent, but Vernon says to the missus, "I've seen these men someplace before, but I just can't place them." And like The Sixth Sense, this will force you to go back and check to see if that's true. Arguably, the second meeting on the flight of stairs was fleeting, but getting hit with all that ice must've caused temporary amnesia.
And so, the party guests start chewing their food, running into bits of oyster shell and the like. Classy dame Symona Boniface is a bit luckier and finds Curly's jewelry in her turkey dressing. She's not grossed out by it, anyhow.
Cut to: everyone dancing. The plotting's a little better this time, but yup, you guessed it, time for Curly to get another spring on his ass. Symona makes a good dancing partner for Curly. Meanwhile, Moe and Larry are working on the birthday cake. Larry pokes it with a meat fork and it instantly deflates. Retribution is swift. They get the idea to fill it back up again with gas, which leads to Moe's classic line: "Pump in four more slices." I'd call it iconic, but somehow it doesn't quite rise to that level, but perhaps 'game changer' is apt, seeing as how it was used later on with Shemp. We'll get to it soon enough. Curly comes back in to put frosting on the cake; Moe gets to be collateral damage once again.

EPILOGUE

More spoilers. The boys bring in the cake with their unique Birthday Cake song. Vernon blows out the candles, causing the cake to explode. The filmmakers went to a little bit of trouble to line up the explosion so that it looks like it emanates from the cake. Having been assaulted by a third cake, Vernon gets his memory back, and takes off after the boys as immediately as he can. The Stooges end the flick by sliding down the steps on a flat piece of lumber.
I dunno. Even though this is one of my childhood favourites, I still don't feel like giving it four stars. Three and a half, maybe. Maybe if it took place in a fictitious foreign dictatorship, I could give it four stars.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Ridley and Tony Scott

And here they are. Daniel Benzali, the creepy bald dude from Murder One, standing next to Don Henley of the Eagles... I'm sorry, it's the mighty Brothers Scott: Tony and Ridley. I don't know if they're the exact opposite of the Coens, but close: they're British, they definitely work separately, and it's been YEARS since they wrote a script. That's all I can think of at the moment.
But let's take our usual sip of this grand drink that is their collective histories. Ridley's the older trailblazing brother, doing short films and British TV in the 60s when everyone else was tuning in, turning on and dropping out. Hard to say what his 70s were like, but he eventually cleaned up his act and got full bore into the silver screen game, first with the stylish Duellists, then with the box office smash Alien. The 80s started out promisingly enough with the now cinematic touchstone Blade Runner, but the 80s would prove to be a little tough for Ridley. During the 80s, it was the fall of Ridley and the rise of younger brother Tony, who was a little more willing to play the Hollywood game, eventually helping Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer start to become household names with such guy fare as Beverly Hills Cop II and Top Gun.
Then came the sensitive 90s. Ridley would set the tone yet again with Thelma & Louise. He always seems to start a new decade with a big hit, then putter along with a bunch of flops. Tony kept with the teenage boy-geared flicks: Days of Thunder, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide... Comet Quentin rubbed off on him as well as Oliver Stone! But then, Tony started to mature a bit with The Fan, betting on black with Wesley Snipes, and finally ending his directorial decade with what I can only assume many consider Tony's masterpiece, Enemy of the State. Lord help us if satellite technology ever gets that good, because apparently 20-something kids will be using it, treating the whole world like their own private video game.
In the 2000s, tensions between Ridley and Tony would still run high, but by the end of the decade they finally buried the hatchet, as one of their parents must've told them on their deathbed that they should do more projects together. Like The A-Team movie! Crap they themselves wouldn't touch with a 30 foot director's pole, but on the other hand, it better not suck too bad, either. What do the 2010s look like for this dynamic duo whose films cumulatively have generated over... 700 trillion dollars... I'm sorry, that's probably a little high, but given the rate of inflation these days, especially in Zimbabwe, or wherever that was. God bless you, Ridley and Tony Scott, and may your movies entertain people until the end of time, or until global warming turns the Earth into a second Venus, whichever comes first. Dick Cheney will have the last laugh then, of course, safely tucked away 5000 feet beneath the earth's surface in a bunker full of oxygen, Glenn Beck endorsed meals, and with his own private harem of young gymnasts.

See http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifyou next Sunday!

The Slow March of the Hollywood Nepotists continues, much as it has since Reagan first crippled the unions in 1981. John Landis' kids are now responsible for big hits, just like their dad in the 80s. (Insert tasteless Jennifer Jason Leigh joke here) But I can't help but wonder: where does Chronicle succeed where I Am Number Four so spectacularly failed? I'm not brave enough to find out, nor do I have the time and or money to do so. Meanwhile, the post-Harry Potter vehicle for Daniel Radcliffe, The Woman in Red... I mean, The Woman in Black, comes in at number two. Welp, so far he's got a more loyal fan base than the Twilight stars when he goes on his quasi-indie film adventures like this. The last debut this week is the non-Participant Productions-related Big Miracle. Surprising, seeing as how Drew Barrymore worked with George Clooney in that Chuck Barris movie and everything.

p.s. WOW! Just saw the "http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" that has managed to http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif worm its way into the headline! Think I'll just leave it like that, see if anyone notices. Anyone at all?

Bronson, Missouri

I plum forgot! My friend and I, we watched the original Mechanic a while ago, and seeing as how I relish the opportunity to trash a bad movie, I'm surprised that I skipped this one. It fell below the radar, a little like the two main characters strive to do in this movie.
Well, you gotta hand it to Charles Bronson. You'll see things in a Bronson movie you won't see anywhere else. In Death Wish, you'll see a girl's bare bottom get spraypainted. In The Evil That Men Do, some of you might get your jollies watching the opening sequence, where a very learned man teaches an audience how to torture someone to death when they're strapped down in a swing. In one of the later Death Wish movies, you'll see Bronson re-enact a scene from Throw Momma From The Train where Billy Crystal dreams that he's strangling himself. And in The Mechanic, we will sit around and wait after a girl has slit her wrists with a razor blade, to see if Bronson's estimate is correct that it will take her about 2.5 to 3 hours to die. Personally, I think it's less, but I won't question that too much, as I don't care to find out in a rigorous, scientific fashion.
The opening episode is okay enough. Bronson has to whack a dude, and does it in a rather creative way, and it looks like they used actual buildings instead of models and miniatures when a large explosion occurs. In a slight break from formula, we get another episode in which he has to kill another dude whom he knows personally, and leave his troubled son without a father. Keenan Wynn plays the dude that Bronson has to whack, pretty much reprising his role from... SPOILER ALERT... Point Blank.
From there, Bronson and eternally handsome man boy Jan-Michael Vincent, form an uneasy alliance. For some reason, I still get Jan-Michael Vincent and Philip Michael Thomas confused. I think the reason is either 1) I don't care that much about either man, or 2) am a racist. Maybe both! Anyway, it was at about this point where the film began to fall apart for my friend, so I might as well wrap this review up. I hate to do it, but you gotta hand it to today's Hollywood screenwriters: they know what parts to leave out when they're remaking a movie these days. Of course, the original Mechanic is also a bit of a cultural time capsule. We're no longer at war with the hippie counterculture, as this film clearly was. Also, this film pushes its 'PG' rating about as far as it will go, especially with all the nudity in the paintings that are shown. Why, I wouldn't let any kid of mine NEAR this filth!

**
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Tennessee Williams' Sunset Boulevard

SPOILER ALERT - Up past my bedtime again. Before I go, I do want to mention that I did finally see Sweet Bird of Youth, not that it was on the to-do list or anything. I did see it over two days, so maybe that dulled its impact slightly, I don't know. It's always strange to me to see a movie like this, and how they had to delicately tiptoe around certain subjects. Lots of taboos in this one, mostly marijuana and abortion, I guess. It takes a while for Geraldine Page to get going, but it's safe to say she ends up owning the movie, as we like to say these days. Rip Torn's a hoot in this. As the careless bad seed, he laughs at everything, and I couldn't help but laugh to see how young and different he looked! People like that have a great second act in their careers because they look better when they get older. Defending Your Life and Larry Sanders sustained him through many a time, and I couldn't help but think it genius to pick Hank Azaria to play the young Rip Torn in Dodgeball, probably the only touch of genius in that movie.
So, in terms of plot, we've got a lot to work with here. We've got a trifecta of ruined characters. Paul Newman plays CHANCE WAYNE, (good name!) the hotshot kid who's trying to make it in Hollywood, California, but can't seem to get past Hollywood, Florida on his way there. If I remember correctly, Chance describes Hollywood as "a land of dreams with a wall a mile high around it, if only I could get in." Chance breezes into St. Cloud, his hometown, driving Miss Alexandra Del Lago, a movie star in the throes of self despair after a disastrous screening of her new movie. And she was only 38 when this movie came out! How does Jennifer Aniston at 43 cope? (Don't email me! She'll be 43 in SIX DAYS!!!) Everyone in town keeps warning Paul Newman that he has to leave, because of 'Boss' Finley, the proverbial Tom Wolfe Man in Full whose empire of political strength is crumbling around him, and certainly not helped by a recent prank on his political opponent gone horribly, horribly wrong, perpetrated by Finley Jr. Ah, the pains of competitive democracy. Geraldine Page was apparently committed to the craft of acting, and you can tell when she has to act opposite real life husband Rip, as he not-so-politely asks her to leave her hotel suite, as it was not hers to take in the first place. You can hear some of the Artie inflections to come much later in his speech.
Director Richard Brooks is and was a first rate director, but somehow the grandiosity of Tennessee Williams is too much for me to take too seriously. But it is nice to see that a girl can still love a guy even though he got beat in the face once really hard with a cane. It's the thought that counts, I guess. It takes more than one hit in the face to hurt Paul Newman's looks. Love triumphs in the end, but maybe not financially in the long run. And, and here's the part with the SPOILER ALERT: if you're a rich father that lords over some small town somewhere, and you have a daughter whose life you find yourself micromanaging, some marriage advice: NEVER set your daughter up with the doctor that performed an abortion for her! Never. No matter how nice of a boy he is.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Danny Rose: Neither didactic nor facetious

For some reason, I always get that backwards, but even Konigsberg has to admit that "neither facetious nor didactic" sounds better. Welp, as with most things in life, there's always a tradeoff. You can either watch Broadway Danny Rose on MGM-HD and get a little less of the picture, but very bright and better to look at, or you can look at the DVD and get slightly more of the picture, but much darker and, to my way of thinking, not as good. Ever since 1982's "A Midnight Summer's Sex Comedy" or whatever the hell it's called, it's been one film a year from Woody, not counting 1987's September and Radio Days. But he had assembled a good crew, and got Gordon freakin' Willis as cameraman, for God's sake! I guess that makes Sven Nykvist chopped liver, especially after working with Nora Ephron.
But this is without a doubt the closest Woody will get to acknowledging his Borscht belt counterparts in the joke-telling business. Woody himself plays Danny Rose, a very low level talent booking agent with very high moral principles, mostly involving wise truisms said unto him by close relatives. I guess this is probably considered a slight shaggy dog story by Allen-o-philes in the grand scheme of things, but he got the damn thing made, right? Now it's just a matter of getting it out of the evil clutches of MGM's fallen empire, and maybe get it on the Warner Bros. side of things where it'll get a DECENT video re-release, perhaps a nice Blu-Ray package. Also, there's a prominent star-making performance by a certain actor/songwriter named Nick Apollo Forte. Apparently, this was the role of a lifetime for him, at least in terms of the silver screen. You've got to hand it to Woody and Danny Rose: they know showmanship when they see it.
I haven't seen Melinda and Melinda, but the overall structure apparently involves a bunch of guys sitting around telling stories. In M&M, it involves telling the same story, but tweaked in two ways: one towards comedy, one towards drama. Here, Seinfeld's Jack Klompus tells the ultimate Danny Rose story, and it is indeed a rolling epic involving the aforementioned Lou Canova, and the many, many complications that Danny Rose goes through to get to Canova's big show one day. And when it's all said and done, not ONE of the wise-ass comedians seated at the table says "You know, that story might make a hell of a movie!"
If I remember correctly, Manhattan ends in a similar way, with the camera following Woody as he runs down the street after the girl. Woody will always make a beautiful dollar in this business, but he might want to save as much money as he can at this point. Somehow, I don't think his new films will be as profitable.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Stooges: Back to the Front

It's apparently a sequel to You Nazty Spy, even though the ending of that one was a little more than final, to put it mildly. But they were at least five months prescient, given that this was released to theaters in July 1941, and that the U.S. officially got involved that December... I forget why. Then, of course, there's The Great Dictator, but we'll review that soon enough. It's a four star classic, of course.

ACT ONE

We start with a nice crane shot down from a sign saying "Moronica uber alles" onto a wacky trumpeteer and two guards. Again, as with Duck Soup, it's all about a fictional Germany-esque country called Moronica (good name! Fitting for the Stooges). Soon enough, we're knee deep in the plot. The Stooges have a thing about the number six and seven eighths, but I don't think they ever did the joke about why the number six was concerned about the number seven, thankfully. Abbott and Costello might have, though, when they went through their "mathemagician" phase. In this case, the deposed leader of Moronica, King Herman the Sixth (and seven/eights) still enjoys a certain degree of regality. Just then, the king's daughter shows up with the three non-Stooge knuckleheads who put the three Stooges in charge of Moronica. I prefer the setup in You Nazty Spy, where it's a cabal of wealthy industrialists that give the Stooges a job, but what the hell. You gotta do things differently. The king gets to steal Larry's shtick of hitting lumber with an ax, and causing the lumber to fly very high into the air. I like Vernon Dent's line reading of "What's the matter? Can't you take a joke?"
Cut to the Stooges in the halls of power. Moe (Hailstone) is shaving, while Curly (Herring) and Larry are playing cards. Duty calls, and Larry and Curly go to work. Moe gets carried away by "good news" and hits himself in the face with his own dabber, getting shaving cream in his eye. Curly's laugh is so nice, they repeat it twice. (Curly 3:20) The beating is delayed until a corny Seabiscuit joke. More capering until Wikipedia says the fourth wall gets broken by Curly, a rare instance. They're just trying to keep up with the Marx brothers. (Curly 4:17)

ACT TWO

Might as well start it here, when the camera spends about 50 seconds focused on a comedy map. A shame to waste such good puns. Larry gets some screen time when he complains that Moe hasn't attacked Great Mitten sooner, but this is soon interrupted by the ritual that every Stooge film seems to have: LUNCHEON IS SERVED! There's no one to run down on the way to the table this time, but Curly gets a chance to flirt with the pretty girl. Moe always has to interrupt Curly's flirtations, but why does he always have to stand where the girl was standing? That's kinda gay! The luncheon table's a little threadbare, but there's a giant turkey to fight over. the fight escalates into a game of touch football, culminating in a Kovacs-worthy sight gag they'll use again for Loose Loot, or whichever film that was cut out of. For me, it'll always be Loose Loot.
Apparently, Act Two starts for good with the fade out, leaving Moe Hailstone crying for the lost turkey of yesterday, and fading in on King Herman's daughter sent off on her quest to infiltrate Hailstone's headquarters. She's disguised as an attractive fortune teller. There's gotta be a few! As a backup, she's given an exploding pool ball, the "orange" 13 ball. Just like Sherlock Jr.! Well, it's all Bruckman could think of. I should probably point out that the three non-Stooge knuckleheads have wacky Pig Latin names, another Stooge comedy crutch to lean too often on. Cut to the Stooges playing pool, just to drive the point home. The fortune teller arrives, and there's some delightful wordplay based on Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. Then, the deception game begins, starting with a comedy telescope that can see into the vision of the Stooges strapped to a spit, rotating slowly over a fiery pit. It represents what the other Axis powers want to do to Hailstone and his two assistants. Moe orders a conference immediately... but while they're waiting, how about a little more pool? The fortune teller immediately takes the chance to plant the lucky 13 pool ball while Moe and Curly fight over who's going to break. It never fails. The ball has been planted, the game starts, and the "fortune teller" runs off at 12fps. The Stooges don't seem to notice.
And now, the trick pool ball stuff starts. I hate to spoil it with a play by play, but it's pretty cool, I hate to admit.

ACT THREE

The Axis partners show up for the big meeting. Curly runs afoul of a prank phone call, and then the man's man shows up: the Bay of Rum. I'll never fully understand that pun, but we gotta press on anyway. Now, this is the part you young kids shouldn't watch, but the Bay of Rum has an early version of a bong. Don't worry, kids, you have the whole rest of your lives to ruin with addictive drugs, so maybe it's worth it to wait a few years while the rest of your friends have fun and bond through their use of illegal drugs, shutting you out of their social circle forever. Why not? Curly starts off with the bong as such a square but eventually gets the hang of it. Curly has the nerve to call the Bay of Rum "blubber", and the meeting begins in earnest, when Moe Hailstone passes around his manifesto to everyone at the table. Curly drops the smoking end of the bong and manages to pick up a disastrous comedy substitute: a pipe connected to some sort of portable gas stove. After sucking in a chestful of hydrogen gas, Curly ends up turning himself into a human blowtorch when he goes back to good ol' reliable cigarettes. He burns off the Bay of Rum's beard. Soon after, Moe declares that the world belongs to him. This causes an uproar. One guy in particular protests, but I can't tell if he's supposed to be Japanese; he looks kinda Mexican to me. Needles to say, a giant fight breaks out. Curly yells "SHUT UP!" at 5:31, which I found kind of interesting. Didn't seem to be in the script. As with the turkey, the fight over the world turns into a mini game of tackle football, and then briefly into two conga lines. I hate to think it was country line dancing. The struggle continues, and Larry takes a rather nasty fall on his ass. The globe breaks over Moe's head in a poof of white powder much like the pool cue broke over Curly's head, only with a great deal more powder. Before that, Moe flips the guy who turns and looks, who plays the Mussolini surrogate here. Dude, I didn't know Moe knew judo! The exploding pool ball is eventually used, but rather unexpectedly...

EPILOGUE

You know, a wise man once said "Only fools are positive." Actually, it was Moe, but the three non-Stooge knuckleheads, having returned the King to the throne, are more than just positive that the three dictator Stooges won't be returning to power, and the final shot of this one attests to that in a rather somber way. It would make a fitting end to most Stooge shorts, or an even more fitting picture to have on another one of these damn Stooge collections that prominently feature Disorder in the Court, Malice in the Palace and Sing a Song of Six Pants... you know, the public domain Stooge shorts.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan