Throwing off this Moe-tal coil

I am reminded of the story of how Harpo Marx found his superpower, so to speak.  When the Marx Brothers first started conquering Broadway, they took to heart the criticisms of one or several reviewers who so thoroughly detested the sound of Harpo's voice that he finally stopped talking altogether.  In this next Stooge short, Gents Without Cents... I mean, Rhythm and Weep, the Stooges are presented with a similar line of criticism.  A theater manager throws them out, calls them a "menace to society," and invites them to jump from the tallest building in town... something like that.  Wow!  Even back then, huh?  A prude's work is never done.

ACT ONE

We start much as The Tooth Will Out will start several years later.  While we see only the quiet façade of the Garden Theater, we hear violent scuffling coming from within.  An exasperated voice says "I'm going to get myself a cheap lawyer!"  Someone's civil rights are being violated... oh, wait, it's just Moe and his two idiot friends he's always hanging around with.  The three of them run out of the stage entrance, followed by a hail of their things, mostly tiny drums and musical instruments and stuff.  I got distracted by a shiny metal pail that rolls around in the alley at about 0:42.  Hope the rest of the film's this good!  And so, much like Dick Curtis in Yes, We Have No Bonanza, some guy tells the Stooges that they've got the worst act he's ever seen in his life.  Obviously, he didn't see Yes, We Have No Bonanza.  Moe sets the stage, so to speak, saying "Well, this is the 26th theater we've been thrown out of this month.  What's left for us?"  Larry and Curly take him too literally; Larry says "Four more theaters!" and Curly adds "Except for February, which has 28!"  You just won't believe what Moe does in response.  No time for too much physical abuse, however, because the manager comes back at about 1:02, saying "Are you guys still here?"  Moe tries to lather on the charm, saying "Listen, Mr. Smellington, give us another chance."  Another British expatriate pushing around hard-working American actors, apparently.  Smellington's very resolute in his indignation, however, and he tells the Stooges to go and jump off the tallest building in town.  Moe and Larry try to follow him back through the door, only to get the door slammed on their noses, which makes the sound of walnuts being rubbed together.
And so, much like Ollie in The Flying Deuces, Moe and Lawrence make the executive decision to commit group suicide.  Curly, supposedly the insane one according to David Steinberg, takes this decision not quite as lightly, saying "There's something I gotta do before I die!"  He carefully removes a pie from one of his prop containers.  Moe asks him "Hey!  If ..." I'm sorry, it's "Wait a minute!" So Moe asks Curly "Wait a minute!  If you're gonna bump yourself off, what's the idear a'eatin' pie?"  Curly says "So I can digest right!" and n'yuk-n'yuk laughs.  Moe's a cruel bastard, and mimicks Curly's laugh, and hits Curly in the face with his last meal.  Okay, arguably it's not a mimic of Curly's laugh, but close enough under the circumstances.  Moe grabs some neighboring earlobes and says "C'mon, we got some croakin' to do."  Reflect on how unoften you hear the Stooges say that.
Next scene: stock footage of a very tall building.  Reflect on that for a moment or two, as it's probably the most expensive part of this shoestring number.  Next scene after that: the Stooges emerge from a door at the top of the building.  When suddenly... we hear the dialogue of three lovely dames about to jump ahead of the Stooges.  Great plot device!  The dialogue goes like this: "All right, girls?" "Yes." "Then let's do it."  Great writing.  If these three girls knew what they were in for, returning to life with the Stooges, they might have just jumped and saved themselves a lifetime of grief.  But love conquers all, and films were more hopeful about life back then.  But apparently the domestic prosperity brought about by WWII trickled down to stage performers last.  Or maybe first world economies are always that way.  Anyway, the girls state their case: they're a little better than the Cherry Sisters, but are ne'theless having trouble getting booked.  The one in the middle reminds me of a young Judy Garland!  She gets the privilege of saying "We're gonna jump and end it all."  Moe says "Move over!  You got company!"  Now the Cherry Sisters and Brothers... I mean, all six of them are standing on the ledge.  We find out the girls' names at this point: Hilda, Wilda and Tilda.  You know, just to make it slightly different compared to the girls' names in Gents Without Cents.  Clearly, the names in GWC were far superior, or at least more Stooge-centric.
Now, as often happens in a rare situation like this, when three girls and three guys are about to commit suicide by jumping off the same ledge together... one can't help but fall in love.  Sorry, SPOILER ALERT.  The falling-in-love happens gradually.  Moe, of course, has got a busy day ahead of him so he wants to get this whole suicide thing over with as quickly as possible.  He's got to be at the cleaners at 2 o'clock!  He goes over to ask Larry what time it is.  Larry pulls back his shirt sleeve to reveal three watches............. hoh boy.  Time for a patented Stooge Time Stretcher.  Personally, I think Curly did the three watches bit better in Dutiful but Dumb.  God, what a great Stooge short that is.  If only I could review that one every week... I know, I know, in a way I already am.  And so, Larry goes through a slightly shorter version of the "three watches" bit, and he asks for burnt toast and a rotten egg after that.  And so, the anti-suicide message of the film's made clear at this point, especially when the six of them sing "YES!!!" in three-part harmony.  But back to the love angle.  Curly and his gal fall in love at about 3:30.  Moe and his gal fall in love a few seconds later.  It's about this time when the age disparity between the aging Stooges and their constantly younger lady companions becomes sadly apparent.  Larry gets to address the Fourth Wall directly when he falls in love at about 3:47, lucky bastid.  Curly kisses his gal and ends up with a mouthful of cigarette smoke.  Then, he starts to fall over the side, but Moe grabs him at the last minute.  Lol.  Now, here's where the script gets bad.  Curly bemoans the lack of safety precautions, but has an idea.  He just happens to have a hammer and some nails on his person... must be part of his props... and so he hammers his shoes into place, driving nails into the marble.  While this goes on, Moe says to his gal something like "You know, when your eyes look at me, my Adam's apple goes....."  I hope he was working off-script at that point.  Curly finishes pounding his shoes in place and drops his hammer, hitting Bud Jamison on the head down below.  He's okay, though.  Or at least, far enough off camera so that we don't have to care.  The sextet sings a more somber melody this time, and then they go from counting to three to doing an auction bit.  Well, just Larry anyway.  I'm getting flop sweat on his behalf.  Thankfully, a piano rendition of "Turkey in the Straw" saves the day, and it's time to dance!  Curly can only bob up and down, however... remember, his shoes are nailed into place.  Lol.  Curly steps out of his shoes, and Moe starts kicking Curly and Larry in the ass.  Unintentionally, I hope, but that'd be tough to argue.  Curly calls Moe out, and they have a staredown, but the music's too powerful, and they get back into dancing mode.  Curly starts doing stomach thrusts until he finally hits Moe, shattering the dancing spell that everyone in front of him was under.  They go and look for the source of the music at this point.  Curly, meanwhile, is left all alone again, trying to get his shoes back.  He barks at them, and tugs on them, but to no avail.  He makes sure to have his back to the edge so that he'll fall off the building once he pulls his shoes loose, rather than to the safety of the building's top floor.  Curly gets his shoes and falls.  Cut to everyone else, standing near the entrance to the top floor.  They bemoan the passing of Curly, assuming he jumped without them, only to have Curly re-emerge through that door once again.  The group's grief quickly turns to anger anew, but not before Larry gets scared by "Curly's ghost."  Lol.  Same thing happened to Jeff Goldblum one time on The Colbert Report, if I recall correctly.  Curly gets hit in the stomach by Moe, and is quickly cured by the tincture of loverly piano music coming from somewhere.  They find the source this time: an eccentric played by... let me look him up here.  Why, it's Jack Norton!  You might remember him best as A. Pismo Clam, the drunk film director, from The Bank Dick.  Clearly, he's fallen on hard times, and he's a little more sober here... hence the hard times.

ACT TWO

And so, we get to know this goof a little better.  Inquisitive Larry asks him "Why are you playing up here?"  The dude says he's a millionaire, and that this is where he goes to get away from his music-hating family to play piano in secret.  Try and suspend your disbelief and not jump to the conclusions you know are coming at the end of the Third Act, okay?  The millionaire asks "Are you musicians, by any chance?"  Go figure.  Larry continues to take charge of the situation, saying "I play in five flats, and get thrown out of all of them."  See, it's a musical joke, you see.  Flat, sharp, what have you.  Moe starts to reach over to rein in Larry, when the millionaire explodes with laughter.  Can't argue with success!  Either Moe was too startled to strangle Larry, or he respects it when someone gets a laugh from a joke.  The millionaire asks "Do you play by ear?"  I'm not even going to comment on that one.  The millionaire says that he's just written a play but can't find the right actors for it.  Normally, warning signs couldn't be more numerous, but seeing as how the Stooges and their new girlfriends were just contemplating suicide, this is a welcome opportunity for them to not kill themselves.  The millionaire offers them $1,000 a week, which I'm assuming was a lot back then.  You often hear the stories of someone being hired by MGM or one of the other studios for several hundred a week; of course, from there they go on to make millions in these same stories.  Gotta start somewhere!  As it turns out, the millionaire has standards after all, demanding for a "sample" of the sextet's music.
(On to part 2 on the YouTube.)  The boys play "Swingaroo Joe," apparently.  It seems awful similar to the song played in Disorder in the Court, but with a slightly better arrangement.  Hold on, my Internet Explorer's flashing yellow... hmm!  Never did figure out why.  Anyway, as you'd expect, it wouldn't be a Stooge musical performance if the boys didn't get hit with musical instruments during it.  Curly goes in for the kill at about 1:08, but Larry beats him to the punch.  Meanwhile, the girls engage in a dance shocking for the era.  Must be the dresses.  Take that, Joe Gideon!  Back to the physical abuse.  Moe gets the worst of it, but it's probably for the greater good, as the hits he takes wipes that stupid frozen grin off his face.  He does manage to dodge one hit at 1:57, but he's 1 for about 50.  He's finally had enough at 2:18 and gives Larry a cheekful of accordion, slamming him against the wall at 2:20.  Defending his friend's honor, Curly starts stabbing Moe in the side with his bow.  Moe quickly tires of this and grabs the bow from Curly, knocking off his hat Zorro-style and giving him the works at 2:28.  Maybe I'm crazy, or have too much time on my hands, but they seem to have repeated Curly's audio from G.I. Wanna Home 5:08.  I know, I know, a little of both, really.  Curly falls backward, knocking some black paint into a saxophone.  He seems to notice this, and uses his new-found loaded saxophone on Moe and Larry in one final fortissimo note.  God bless Wikipedia!  Fade to black.

ACT THREE

Next scene: the rehearsal proper.  It's slightly early for an Act Break, but this Third Act is rather significant this time, and all our questions will get answered, so Third Act it is.  The millionaire dude says "We're ready now!" twice.  Why, they didn't recycle the audio again, did they?  That's Cannery Row for ya.
And now... you know how Tootsie and Some Like it Hot once came in second and first respectively in an AFI poll of comedies?  Well, the Stooges are dressed as ballerinas.  Of course, we know they're not.  But they're about to deliver what surely is one of the classiest double-entendres they've ever done.  I know, I know, it's just me and my flithy mind.  Curly walks off stage as butchly as possible at 3:33 to compensate for his previous capering.  And then, the three girls class up the joint for as long as they can in their ballerina outfits.  We get shots of the Stooges admiring them from just off-stage, getting caught up in the artfulness of it all.  Curly hits Moe and Larry twice.  Lol.  Good for him!  Alas, this is a Stooge film, and at 6:04 it's time to return to the Stooge's usual crap.  They do a sketch much like the one in Gents without Cents, except it involves a doctor rather than watching a horse ride through the battlefield.  Personally, I prefer Rodney Dangerfield's approach, but that's just me.  It's all too wonderful; I just can't do it justice with my mere comments.

EPILOGUE

We've got a minute left.  The show's a success and the sextet's salary's have been doubled by the benevolent job creator lording over all.  The rich millionaire says "The way I throw my money around, you probably think I'm crazy! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."  The worrisome laughter starts.  Then the Stooges see the men in white coats coming.  The millionaire gets to go home by train, in a fashion similar to the conga line formed in Gents without Cents.  Too many parallels, I tells ya!  At least the millionaire's quite generous with his insanity.  The Stooges themselves start laughing maniacally.  Larry's dangerously close to tearing his curly hair out in clumps.  Curly goes over to the wall and starts banging his bald head against it.  Then we cut to Moe and Larry who start dropping stage sandbags on their heads, pulling them up a little bit, and dropping them again.  Sadly, it's a short endless loop; they only hit themselves twice on the head.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Lewis Milestone

From 1939's Of Mice and Men to 1960's Ocean's Eleven... is there anything Lewis Milestone hasn't done?

Postcards from the Cloud

Note to self: IOU one post about the box office.  Boy, Charlie Meadows was right.  People can be g.d. cruel.  The headlines have fallen by the wayside, but Yahoo! News was reveling in the poor box office performance of Being Human... I mean, Cloud Atlas.  Frankly, everything's down this week, perhaps why Argo was able to float to #1 with 12 million dollars.  Why can't they focus on the positive, like that?  Sadly, a falling box office tide raises all boats, and Hotel Transylvania rises to #3, insuring a continued assault from Adam Sandler.  That's My Boy 2?  Billy Madison: The Early Years with Nick Swardson as Billy?  Grown-Ups 3, 4 and 5 filmed simultaneously like The Hobbit which has grown into a trilogy?  A 50% bonus?  See, it was originally going to just be the two: An Unexpected Journey, and There and Back Again.  I guess the third one's going to be called A Worn-Out Welcome.  Something like that.  Seriously, though, it's all terribly exciting.  Long live the new underclass of 3D technicians and the extra millions they tack on to films' budgets these days!
Meanwhile, the latest 3D horror flick slashes its way to #5 this week, and it's called Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.  Well, it's got an interesting cast, anyway.  Deborah Kara Unger, Carrie-Anne Moss... the best cast of 1999; something like that.  I couldn't help but notice Malcolm McDowell's IMDb page.  I should probably not like how they highlight the four things a person's most known for.  For Malcolm, it's The Artist (2011), Easy A (2010), Halloween (2007), and of course... Caligula.  I mean, A Clockwork Orange.  Go figure.  Clap your hands if you're working too hard, man!  The last debut this week is Sack Lunch... I mean, Fun Size.  Apparently, it's not the latest series of 12 books to be turned into a major motion picture by Hollywood.  No, it's just what it seems like: Home Alone for Halloween instead of Christmas.  Hard to say where this stands in the oeuvre of Chelsea Handler; just the latest and greatest for her, I suppose.  She usually does TV stuff, right?  I can't handle another IMDb bio at the moment.  As for Ana Gasteyer, well, this must be better than doing opera for a living.  I think she could handle it, though.  You gotta be tough, however, especially in the cutthroat worlds of opera and celluloid comedies.  You're either going to get cut by Reneé Fleming or Amanda Peet.

The Ghost in the Bank Account

As long as I've just finished Ghost Protocol... Funny how some of the blockbusters of the past seem clunky today.  One can't help but wonder to themselves: how on Earth was this such a monster hit?  I had that feeling with 1989's Batman, but you could go farther with British sets back then.  And so, we've got 1990's Ghost, perhaps the only blockbuster to center around a studio apartment.  We've got Whoopi Goldberg as a psychic medium, arguably the only enduring star from the movie.  We've got Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore as the couple engaging in all the pleasures of the flesh that PG-13 and the brink of impending marriage will allow.  Well, Steve Winwood enjoyed a brief stint in the 80s as a spokesman for lust, so anything's possible.  Swayze plays a fine spokesman here for the Guy Philosophy: dragging his feet when it comes to marriage and saying "Ditto" instead of that old cliché "I love you."  Guys always have to put their own spin on that one, don't they?  Tony Goldwyn plays a fine usurper to Swayze's throne whose chest is almost as chiseled, but clearly lacking in the raw animal magnetism that Swayze possesses.
Then of course we've got Demi Moore in what may be her last serious role.  Is she a Scientologist, or does it just seem like she is?  Roland Joffé must've really been impressed with the cast of this one, because Swayze was in his City of Joy (1992), and Demi in his The Scarlet Letter (1995).  Alas, Joffé's box office performance of those two didn't add up somehow compared to Ghost.  The unlikeliness continues with director Jerry Zucker.  Yes, of Airplane! fame.  He's the only one of the threesome that was able to move on to different genres other than Mad! Magazine, apparently.  If you recall, they poked fun at the clay scene in Naked Gun 2.  It's what we call an in-joke.  There's at least one choice of technician that proved correct: in lieu of Dean Cundey on camera, we've got Adam Greenberg who would go on to do Terminator 2.  Need more be said?  Egg-zactly.  There's at least one homage to Ghost in T2, where the T-1000 grabs onto a rail and starts absorbing the color scheme of said rail.  This was edited out of the theatrical version of the film, but they certainly made you think of it.  Was I the only one?  The T2's walking towards this rail... is he going to walk through it?  Or maybe try out its stripes?  In the director's cut, he tries out the stripes, but gets freaked out by it and quickly lets go.  Gotta love that.
One unusual aspect about the movie is that it wasn't filmed at all in Canada!  An almost totally New York movie.  A rare accomplishment; they must've filmed it just on weekends.  Also disappointing because Whoopi has to keep it PG-13 when yelling at construction crew people working near Demi Moore's apartment.  As any New Yorker will tell you, it's inauthentic.
To continue with the theme of 'unusual,' I'll dwell briefly on screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin.  Let me put it this way: my friend wanted to watch Ghost, and so I went over Rubin's credits on IMDb.  I read one after the other out loud and he said "Crap, crap, crap..."  Well, one out of ten ain't bad, especially if the one is Ghost.  I guess I should probably mention the plot.  These days we're awash in movies about ghosts and mediums... take Ghost Town, for example.  Surely this was a novelty back in the day in 1990.  In a way, it still is.  Not many ghosts seem to have once been involved in the sultry New York banking scene and lived to tell the living about it.  Swayze plays such a man who gets lost in between worlds, stuck with that same damn purple shirt.  He gets to see two of his fellow ghosts eaten up by the shadow people, whereas he ascends with the light spheres and joins a rainbow coalition of ghosts at the end.  I hate to backseat drive any more than I already have, but personally I would've ended with a double fade-out: have the rainbow of ghosts fade out, again showing the apartment where it happened, then fading to black from there.  Again, this is why I'm a mere critic.  It's just not blockbuster thinking!

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Cruise Nukem

Personally, my memories of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible movies are spotty at best.  Call me crazy, but I seem to recall the first one the most fondly.  I mean, he's running from an exploding fish tank, for God's sake!  The helicopter in the chunnel?  The dangling in front of the computer terminal?  Do we not all feel that way in the age of Twitter?... I guess those are the only iconic game-changing epic moments from that one.  Hard to say if the Australian Motorcycle Ballet of the second one is still the odds-on favorite.  Hey!  I can check that out!  According to IMDb, the first one is 7.0, the second one is 5.9, third is 6.8, and the fourth one is highest at 7.4, but arguably the standard deviations make it in a three-way tie for first place.  So it's not just me, then; the numbers bear me out when I trash the John Woo one.  Maybe it's just the poster that makes Tom Cruise look like a balding witch.
That being said, ... and I barely remember the third one.  So far I can only recall the opening with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and one shot where the camera zooms in onto the top of a building, where Cruise is about to dive off.  Something like that.  Well, you know how these first-time directors are.  Expectations are low.  Brad Bird, on the other hand, comes with great expectations.  As a graduate from both the Amazing Stories and The Simpsons schools of film, and having directed three acclaimed feature length animated films, two for Pixar and those same two winning Oscars, well... he's kinda like Joss Whedon, but for guys as well.  Something like that.  And needles to say, as a casual fan of Cruise's M:I series, the fourth just might be my new favourite!  Even though Cruise isn't fooling anyone with that hoodie.  You're still pushing 50, dude!  But you could play the new Superman, arguably.  Superman's getting into hoodies as well, last time I checked.  A little less boring.
Much like Republican candidates for President, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol relies on the Soviet Union as a backdrop for the bad guy.  However, the bad guy in this one is pretty nimble on his feet, and clearly dedicated to his cause up to his demise in the German multi-car elevator.  Again, a smart, fairly wicked script, giving us a justification for detonating a nuclear bomb that we haven't heard outside of strictly theoretical circles.  James Lovelock would've been proud.  Piggybacking on that, this one dude tells Cruise "War is good for business!"  Cruise fires back "Nuclear war?"  Egg-zactly.
SPOILER ALERT: I remember how we start off now!  Cruise is getting broken out of prison by quasi-nerd Simon Pegg.  Cruise has to go back to get this one dude out.  In a normal movie, this would be a set-up for the big final confrontation at the end.  I'll leave it at that.  Speaking of the ending, this movie's a little more hopeful than, say, the mushroom-cloud-happy end of Terminator 3.
What else?  The biggest part of the movie that got publicized was the scene in Dubai, involving the tallest skyscraper in the world.  Again, in a normal movie, this would be the site of the big finale.  Here, it's in the middle of the movie, and is made much more nail-biting than I thought it would be.  Crackerjack filmmaking.
As much as it pains me to say it, the acting is good all around except for Paula Patton.  She's the one who made the mistake of saying to Precious that she loved her.  Here, she seemed to me like she's an Olympic athlete trying to be an actress, but she tries to compensate by exposing some flesh for the sake of the guys, particularly in a scene that might invoke the opening episode of True Lies, except that she's the secret agent and not in the Tia Carrere-ish role.  Jeremy Renner auditioned for the new Bourne pic in this movie and nailed it.  No more flipping houses for you, eh buddy?  If Daniel Craig ever remake GoldenEye, you'd be on my short list to play the new 006.  You'll probably have to do an English accent, though.
I was a little worried at the beginning of the movie, as the First Act didn't have the usual dose of headache-inducing jumpy editing that I've grown accustomed to, but as the film gains momentum they make up for it.  Old-school, as they might say.  Superstar editor Paul Hirsch of Star Wars fame worked on this one.  The movie globetrots almost as much as Jumper, and ends with a thud in Seattle, or Vancouver's closest approximation to it.  No wonder I didn't recognize anything!  All in all, a fine outing at the movies, despite the MoCap scenes I was able to pick out (the big Kremlin explosion that Cruise runs from, for example).

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

G.I. wanna see "G.I. Wanna (Go) Home" again

I could probably review this one in my sleep, but I'll re-watch it anyway.  The busy week's over for the most part.  Next week will be another bi... another long slog to a paycheck.  Well worth every penny, however.  I'm budging!  I'm budging!

ACT ONE

We start in an unusual way: a close-up of Larry's uniformed chest.  Not as trim as Train, probably, but more iconic over the long haul.  Curly misses his line cue, but you can't blame him at this stage of his career.  As you may have learned early on watching the Stooges, they can't do anything the easy way.  Case in point: the simple act of hitching a ride.  This is just after the war, mind you.  The country was unified in victory, helping hands for everyone, morale as high as it's ever been.  So here's the Stooges, three guys in uniform, trying to thumb a ride in a car.  Do they get picked up?  No!  I guess the people knew better or something.
First attempt: they get their pants lightly splashed by a passing car.  Serves them right for standing next to such an epic puddle.  To make matters worse, Larry's the meat of a hit-in-the-head-by-duffel-bags sandwich.  But he quickly recovers as the plot's laid out.  The Stooges have recently married, and are now on their way to their new house.  In Larry's excitement, he lays down a little whoop-ass of his own with his duffel bag.  But where's his parade?  Just this blog post, I suppose.  A sobering thought.  But wait!  Time for their second attempt to hitch a ride.  We see the car roll slowly through the mud, but it ends up making a bigger splash.  Curly gets a muddied face.  Well, all their mugs get muddified, really, but Moe gets the least of it.  Curly must've been nearest to the guy throwing mud off camera.
Thank God for taxis!  The Stooges finally get a lift, but Curly needs some hazing to get into the cab.  Moe says "418 Meshuggenah Ave., down by the Winnegar-Woiks."  I'm pretty sure that's gone by now.  Or was that 024 Bingo Street?  Anyway, Curly worked much harder than he had to, as this seemed to all be done in one take: Curly gets poked in the ass by a pin that that bastard Larry was holding, and he ends up completely out of the taxi in the street.  He grabs his duffel bag and runs after the taxi.  All in one take.  In his condition, no less!
Next scene: the boys arrive at the place of their new abode, when... all their stuff's on the street!  And their brides-to-be are sitting on the street, sobbing... no, not because they're getting married to the Stooges, but because they've been "dispossessed."  "It's the new American custom!" says Tessie.  Perhaps her greatest, most well-known line reading.  Notice the Stooges still have the same mud on their face, only slightly not as much.  Curly's face seems a little cleaner than before, but there's still enough of the mud left.  But the main thing is: where are these six going to live?  Fade to black, then fade in on a car going slowly down the street.  We see why in a second or two.  Curly is towing the car!!  I'm assuming they have someone pushing behind the car to help, even though we can't see him.  Curly takes a well-deserved lunch break.. well, starts to, anyhow.  We don't get a cutaway of Moe and Larry getting out of the car, but out they get, and go over to scold Curly.  Curly says to Moe, "Listen, you!  If I'm going to work like a horse, I'm going to eat like one."  He starts to take a bite of the sandwich, but stops, perhaps sensing that physical abuse is just round the corner.  Moe says "Wait a minute... that's a pretty nice sandwich!"  And then... Moe beats Curly with his own sandwich.  Fortunately, Larry brings things to a halt, as he usually does, by noticing something well off-camera.  He says "Look!"  He's got other lines, don't worry. 
Next scene: a sign saying "Apartment for Rent."  They rush over, and Moe starts knocking on the door.  In his fervor, he doesn't notice that he's knocking on the dude's head.  You  know how it is.  Popeye rings Olive's nose instead of one of those fancy old-timey twist bells in the door.  The guy gives a lackluster "Hey!" in response, but he gives a much more inspired "HEY!!!!" when Moe pokes him in the eyes.  And he deserves it, too, the chiseler.  Renting an apartment by the hour.  The very idea. 
And then... time for a rare montage of various "No vacancy"-esque signs.  I think they recycled a few of them.  Conscientious, but a bit tedious for the stimuli-hungry moviegoer.  Next scene: the Stooges are up against Landlord Symona Boniface.  She gets an all-too-brief role here as the Margaret Dumont-ish type, telling the low-class Stooges off.  Ten times, no less!  She saved herself a lot of grief this time.
Next scene: the offices of ... how to put this gently?  Three Jews and one Irishman, real-estate brokers.  The director dwells on this scene for a good long while.  It was half the budget, for Pete's sake!  The Stooges have to dwell on a second sign: a chalkboard saying, in so many words, there's no land available.  'Tis worse than the 2008 housing bubble, I tells ya.  Larry provides some plot exposition: they sent the girls home to their mothers.  Lucky for us, we get to concentrate on the delightful capering of the boys this way.  Curly puts his foot down and says "I'm not budgin'!"  Moe and Larry tag team him, and they end up carrying Curly away literally by his ears.  Curly's mug comes toward the camera as he screams "AAAH!  I'M BUDGIN'!  I'M BUDGIN'!!!"  Perfect chance for an act break, even though it's a tad too early.  Fade to black.

ACT TWO

Fade in: we see Moe and Larry sitting on the couch.  Moe's smoking a pipe.  There's a visual joke that I hate to spoil, so I'll try not to.  Needless to say, it's a fine comment on façades, and that even the Stooges rely on them from time to time.  There's a knock at the door to spoil their alternative lifestyle domesticity.  There's a squabble over who will answer the door.  Larry decides "We'll BOTH answer it!"  This scene answers the question: if Moe hits Larry in the head in the forest, does it make a sound?  Damn.  Spoiled the joke.  The camera awkwardly dollies back to show that it's turned into a Lars von Trier film, only not as long, and no words on the floor.  Moe and Larry approach the door, hearing two sets of nine knocks.  Surely the devil-worshippers out there find some significance in this?
Screenwriters: time to pay attention.  Moe and Lawrence have an ugly encounter with a stranger at their door.  Fuming from this, they're ready to take it out on the next schmo that tries some funny business like that.  Unfortunately, it's the innocent Curly who receives their pent-up wrath.  Moe hits Curly on the head with a shovel, and Larry breaks a bottle over Curly's head.  Curly grabs his ankle in response.  Lol.  I know, I shouldn't laugh at that, but it's been a long day.  Curly burns some valuable celluloid time monkeying with his oversize corn-cob pipe.  The episode ends with Larry getting pissed off: "Hey!  What's the idea of spilling dirty ashes on our nice clean floor?"  Moe: "Sweep 'em up!"  Curly exits Stage Left to oblige, but does he have to be happy about it, too?  Time for another time-stretcher.
Party Planner Moe starts ordering Larry around: "You knit some doilies for the girlies!"  Suddenly, Moe's train of thought is interrupted by the loud sound of Curly with a hand-powered lawn mower.  He runs over the spot where the ashes were dumped a few times, saying "That's it.  It's finished!"  Moe says "Finished?  It's worse than it was before!  SWEEP UP that loose grass.  That's an order!"
This gives Curly the perfect opening, and he salutes Moe, hitting him on the side of the head afterward.  Moe's hair shakes from the smackdown.  Moe realigns the Stooge-ic energy of the universe by kicking Curly in the ass as he walks away Stage Left with the lawnmower.  Now, maybe it's me, but doesn't it sound like Larry getting kicked in the ass at 6:05?
Anyway, Party Planner Moe gets back to work telling Larry his big plan for the open space they're living in.  He's interrupted AGAIN by Curly, but Curly's upped the technological stakes considerably.  Now he's got a vacuum cleaner with a horn on it.  Moe and Larry get a nice close-up of their double take.  Curly's just vacuuming right away as happy as a kosher clam, when he does a double take of his own.  Those two other chuckleheads are standing in his way!  Time to activate the horn.  They jump aside, as Curly's bitches often do.
Moe's too confused to strike back.  Plus, he notices it's time for supper.  Larry barks back "Yeah?  Well, all we got is potatoes!"  Moe orders Curly to peel some potatoes.  Curly asks "How do you do dat?"  Moe says "Just PEEL 'em!"  Are you feel the game changing yet?  Curly gets slapped, but he takes it like a man and gently, quietly tiptoes off Stage Left to peel some potatoes.  Moe and Larry leave Stage Right.  The vacuum cleaner stays, sucking away.  We haven't gotten to it yet, but this seems an awful lot like the horn that lasts forever in the Stooges' notorious Pardon my Backfire.
Now, time for the subepisode that'll burn a few minutes and keep Moe and Larry occupied.  Moe says "One of the neighbor's chicken's got a nest up there.  There might be eggs in it.  Go up and see."  Think about that for a second.  For you big city types who've never seen a farm, chickens don't usually lay eggs in nests in trees.  Auracanas, maybe, because they're light; otherwise, not.  But why should that spoil our fun?  Meanwhile, back to Curly, who's preparing to shave some potatoes.  Nice foley work at 7:13.  Excuse me, but I have to run to the bathroom now...................... that's better.  Okay, I'm back.  The memory of An Ache in Every Stake lives on as Curly takes extra care to make sure the potatoes are completely inedible.  Cut back to the vacuum cleaner at 7:32.  Lol.  Back to Curly who just takes it too far.  Curly finally finishes up one potato, drops it in the pot, and says "Next!"
Not time for an Act Break just yet, even though it might seem like it.  Finally we get back to Lawrence, and voilä!  We see the chicken Moe spoke of earlier.  Holy crap!  Chickens really do have nests in trees!  The chicken, having its nest disturbed by Larry, flies away and surely plummets to the ground.  The ASPCA will hear about this!  Larry, an avid indoorsman, has trouble climbing the tree, but has just enough strength to tilt the nest and drop an egg into Moe's hand.  Time for another time stretcher.  So, we're on Moe at 0:28.  There's a skeeter buzzing around Moe's sleeping head.  It takes him six seconds to use his egg-filled hand to try and kill said skeeter.  It stops buzzing after Moe's got egg on his face; can't argue with resluts!  Moe gets mad at Larry, telling him all too late to be careful with the g... the gosh darned eggs.  Larry says "I can't get up any higher!"  Moe says, "Well, tilt the nest and I'll catch the eggs!"  Larry obliges, and Moe tries to catch the eggs.  And "tries" is being too generous.  Moe catches about five eggs with his face.  He seems to have no hand-eye coordination at all!  Good timing for it, anyhow.  Moe says "It's a good thing there wasn't anymore!" and looks up again.  Moe gets hit with another egg at 0:59.  I bother to point this out because he apparently didn't have his eyes shut when this one hit.  Also, the sound guy seems to be chuckling to himself.  When we were younger, my close friend and I noticed this seemingly slight detail, and dwelled upon it for a long time back in the VHS era, damn near wearing the tape down almost as much as old tapes of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  God bless YouTube!
Moe also gets hit by another egg soon after the 0:59 egg.  To cut to the chase, he then gets hit by a falling Larry after Larry steps on the wrong tree branch.  Moe lifts Larry up by his hair and we hear a faint tearing sound.  Cut back to the vacuum cleaner, growing larger with the passage of time.  As we dwell on the vacuum, Moe chews out Larry good, much like he did in Crash goes the Hash while the parrot climbed into the Trojan turkey.  The vacuum cleaner bag damn near gets translucent at about 1:22.  Curly soon joins in on all the fun and, as in Miller's Crossing, Curly asks "What's all the rumpus?"  Moe grabs the pan from Curly's hand, saying "I'll rumpus him (Larry) in a minute," but Moe ends up dumping water on his face.  At least that'll help get the egg off!  Moe deals out physical abuse until the vacuum cleaner finally explodes.  We cut back to the vacuum which now has a bag that will explode on cue.  It fills to bursting, then explodes.  Cut back to the Stooges, who get hit with large amounts of cut grass.  Moe says "I'm in PAIN!  And I'm wet!  AND I'M STILL HYSTERICAL!!!"  No, wait, that's The Producers (1968).  I don't know if Matthew Broderick got to say that or not.  No, Moe says "Now you wrecked the vacuum cleaner! (Curly)  And you ruined the dinner! (Larry) ... NOW WE'RE GONNA GO HUNGRY! (double slap to Curly and Larry) What's the MATTER with you guys?"  Moe hits the highest note he's probably ever hit.  Larry's able to calm everyone down, however, with a clever idea: "How about some roast chicken?"  We hear clucking as a reminder.  Time for Plan L; screw the neighbours.  The Great Depression's not over just yet.
Larry runs back with a shotgun.  An epic battle ensues between Larry and Moe over who will fire the victorious food-bringing shot.  Curly damn near gets the full Whittington!  And then... screenwriters take heed.  The gun fires, giving us a new, unforeseen target.  Misfired bullets in Stooge films often bring ducks; this time, it's a larger goose.  Moe disrespectfully stretches the dead goose's wings in his excitement at about 2:27 or so.  Cross-fade to next scene.
Next scene: Moe takes the goose out of the oven a little too quickly, and doesn't use any oven mitts.  His hands sound like a house on fire.  But Moe's quick on his feet, and he looks for the nearest, most stable flat surface he can place this hot goose on, and picks Larry's back.  God, however, is clearly not on the Stooges' side this time, unlike Crash goes the Hash, as Larry stands up straight and the goose plummets to the ground.  I guess it's because this is the Stooges' own dinner, and not dinner guests they're cooking for.  The goose is quickly salvaged, however, as Moe brushes it off and places it on the table.  Say, that goose isn't made of plastic, is it?  Moe quickly gives Curly and Larry their dinner marching orders, and Moe says "I'll boil some spinach!"  Now, I'm no chef myself.  I can put a few things together, especially if the recipe calls for Costco rotisserie chicken, but this part especially gets under my skin, as Moe grabs tufts of mowed grass and plops them into his pan, grunting with pride as he goes.  He grabs an especially big hunk of grass with the dirt still on, and plunk!  Into the pan it goes.  If they don't have this clip in Hell, then it's clearly not the Hell we read of in the Bible.  And then... cut to the parrot who sets that old gag in motion again.  Sure, it was only in Crash goes the Hash, if memory serves... and it doesn't, but just remember how hard the director and crew members had to work to get this scene right.  Just call that parrot... the fourth Stooge.  Maybe the fifth after Emil Sitka.  Why, we even get some genuine audio at about 3:17!  ...maybe not.
Cross-fade to dinner proper, where Moe dishes out boiling hot grass, calling it "spinach."  He's a great salesman when he wants to be.  Maybe they'll all turn into Popeye and beat the sh... tuffing out of each other.  Meanwhile, Curly's busy sharpening the carving knife.  You don't often see that!  But this isn't a Marx brothers film, and the Stooges don't usually engage in joie de vivre when it comes to food... would that be joie de nouriture?  And so, the ancient Pagan ritual begins in proper, when Curly pokes the main course with his two-tined fork, and a mighty "AWK!" rings out.  Hungry Moe ratchets up the dramatic tension, telling Curly to go ahead and carve that goose!!!  "I can't!  Our goose ain't cooked!" says Curly.  I guess S. J. Perelman was ghost writing for the Stooges or something.  Moe immediately takes matters into his own hands and takes his own stab at the goose.  And at about 3:47, we get a second mighty "AWK!" when Moe takes his turn.  Actually, I think it's the same "AWK!"  Get used to it now, folks, because you're going to hear it again when Shemp joins this ragtag team.  Larry, busy enjoying his steamed lawn trimmings, gets up and takes charge, demanding the goose be carved.  Moe says "I'm afraid to.. touch it!"  Larry's the last to be converted, as he touches the goose, moving his hand in a tickling fashion, and so we hear a mighty laugh.  Now they're all pee-their-pants scared.
Moe quickly, tepidly, takes charge again, saying "I know.  We forgot to stuff it! (the goose)"  Fortunately for time's sake, they've got a plate of crackers to stuff the goose with.  Curly's put in charge of the stuffing.  He holds a cracker up to the opening and the "parrot" grabs the cracker.  Curly wasn't paying attention, so he doesn't know what happened.  Plus, that whole stroke thing.  Poor Curly.  At 4:20 we see dubbing at work; on-screen Curly says "You know,..." but audio-booth Curly says "You know, Moe, something funny happened to me......"  I just love that kinda stuff.  Second cracker disappears.  Curly n'yaah-yaahs in fear.  After much ado about stuffing... not bad, huh?  Anyway, Larry takes charge once again, giving the bird a light taste test, a smell test, and then... the cavity test doesn't pass, for lack of a better word.  Thinking more crackers are coming, the parrot grabs a hold of Larry's giant proboscis with a vengeance.  Moe takes the parrot away, and Larry nurses his nose back to health.  This gives Curly a chance to take a couple bites out of the goose for good measure.  Moe catches him red-handed... or mouthed, and bonks him on the head.  Order is restored to this domestic scene, and Moe's about to serve dinner proper, when the rudest tractor driver in the world comes in and destroys everything.

ACT THREE

Well, it's short, anyway.  After narrowly escaping the tractor, the Stooges arrive with their brides at a genuine house.  It's a bit small, but the six of them are apparently going to share the space.  Cults have been built upon less.  We get the full tour: one room contains the living room, dining room and kitchen, and the other room's the bedroom.  There's a third room as well: the bathroom.  The three brides quickly make their escape and go into the bathroom.  Larry tells them their suitcases are in the bathtub.  Something weird about that...
Well, it's been a long film, and the boys get ready to go to sleep.  They've got two triple bunk beds, and... you'll never guess what happens!  Much the same thing as in I Can Hardly Wait.  Alas, Curly's song is a little more decrepit this time, post-stroke... and yet, I can't stop listening to it.  Is there a moral to all this?  Probably not, but if I had to come up with one, I'd say "Don't count your bruises until they are hatched."  Something like that.  Curly instantly breaks the bunk bed by taking the top bunk, emerges from the Stooge-filled rubble and says "Whaddaya know?  I didn't get hoit!"  Moe respectfully disagrees, saying "Oh, yes you did!" and repeatedly slugs him in the stomach until the final fade out.  Well, it beats running off into the distance, as with all their Stooge cartoons featuring Curly Joe DeRita.  At least, the few that I saw.  Couldn't take too many of those, for some reason.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur watch - ...any suggestions?

Box office activity

Say it isn't the last one!  Paranormal Activity 4 rules the box office, and probably will Halloween weekend as well.  Maybe it'll outlast the Saw franchise, who knows.  Then again, sometimes it's better to quit while you're ahead.  The only other debut this week is Alex Cross, and of course all the haters out there are gonna hate.  Or maybe they'll back off because it debuted so weakly.  Still, it's quite a vocal anti-fan base that director Rob Cohen and star Tyler Perry have... or is it just me?  Probably just me.  Still, I'd hate to see that Venn diagram of the two bases coming together against this film.
In the meantime, Variety.com's all over the performance of Argo.  They went so far to say it's doing great for a true-story drama, something to that effect.  You heard it here tenth!  Ben Affleck's the new Warren Beatty.  When are those two going to get together and do their own Spy Game?

The year of the Gordon-Levitt... or the year of the Goodman?

Another one of these blogger tics I'm trying to cultivate.  Which one person sums up the whole year in terms of movies?  Well, this time I gotta choose between two.
First up: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  You almost have to feel sorry for a guy like this, who can't spend 2012 resting on his laurels.  In addition to four movies this year, he also hosted Saturday Night Live.  That used to be John Goodman's job, but for some reason Goodman apparently insisted on writing all his own sketches, and the last time he hosted he just ran out of ideas.  But Gordon-Levitt!  What a year.  The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, Lincoln, and Premium Rush... well, the first three, anyway.  He continues as part of Christopher Nolan's rolling stock company, and gets in on Spielberg's racket.  Nowhere to go but down from there!  A good impression of Bruce Willis is a good start.
Or is it John Goodman?  He's been gone for a while, at least from my narrow field of vision, but apparently he's cloned himself as well and is appearing everywhere.  A regular role on Community?  He's also got four movies this year: Trouble with the Curve, ParaNorman, Argo out this week, and BoZem's Flight coming out next month.  Maybe he'll host SNL then to help promote it!  Also, he's lost a bunch of weight.  I don't know if he kept it off, though.  Neither could Jeff Garlin.  Maybe a little obscurity is the key ingredient, guys; just ask Stuart Pankin.  Ouch!  But Goodman's not slowing down in the slightest.  He's got the Monsters Inc. sequel coming up, the latest Coen brothers movie, and The Hangover Part III: The Vomit-ening.  It's a tough call, but after several coin flips, I'm going to have to go with my elders, and say yes.  This is indeed the Year of the Goodman.  But don't kid yourselves; Gordon-Levitt will have a hard time topping his 2012, unless he takes up directing or something.

Three loan wolves, see how they pawn

Wow.  What a bad, busy week.  Looks like I might not get to call the play-by-play on a few of these from now on.  But let me assure you that I did sit through Three Loan Wolves in its entirety and... and I can't remember what happened!  Oh, wait... yes.  Me myself, being a Coen brothers freak, I couldn't help but think of Barton Fink's dilemma... Orphan?  Dame?  Here, the Stooges decided to go the Orphan route.  They're three small-time pawnbrokers this time, rather than running from the cops from the git go.  Like all orphans, this cute orphan wants to know who's his real daddy.  Reminds me of Jackie Cooper, but he was an awkward teen by that time, if memory serves.  And so, we get the time-honored tradition of a mother leaving her baby at a doorstep.  This time, however, it's not on a lark, or not to strike back at an inattentive husband.  No, this is the real deal here, as close to it as you'd care to get.  Normally, you wouldn't want to leave your baby in the hands of the Stooges, but what can you do.  These days, they're one of the tamer things on the internets.
Meanwhile, as if that wasn't plot enough... and it isn't... the Stooges are beset by greedy mobsters wanting protection money.  Moe takes care of the scout easy enough, but reinforcements arrive by the end of the pic.  Larry gets his big break somewhere in the middle by putting his own unique spin on the Three Bears story.  Also, he has to kill a bad drink with a cigarette.  Shout out to my friend!!!
Good narrative structure to this one, even if it's not a standout like, say, A Plumbing We Will Go or Dutiful but Dumb.  It must've been your proverbial low-hanging fruit when Columbia was cherry picking shorts to put out on DVD.  This was lumped in with other Stooge shorts with three-word names starting with Three.  Not my favourite one, but not totally terrible.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Peter Berg

Berg's got balls!  He just lost about half his audience, but someone's got to take a stand.  For him, the campaign's personal now.  Mitt Romney stole his phrase!!  Just to be safe, send Michael Mann an extra-large fruit basket.  Maybe one of those Harry and David year-round dealy-bobbers.

My anger translator Looper

I thought Happy Madison's latest Here Comes the Boom was coming out next week!  Anyway, I hardly liked it the first time... when it was called Warrior.  Phil Meheux filmed it on a cellphone, I'm thinking, just like whoever filmed Zookeeper.  Sandler is apparently not listed in the official credits list; go figure.  And neither is Jack Giarraputo!  Perhaps he's been reborn as Gino Falsetto.  Sounds about right.  Stay away from Ezio Greggio!  That's real Nowheresville.
Of course, with the quick backing down of Won't Back Down, Here Comes the Boom is just the latest Dead Poets Society-esque blow to the profession of professor.  No, action rules the day today at this box office.  Taken 2 is #1 for two weeks in a row, and Argo debuts at #2.  Time to run the ads saying it's the #1 new real-life drama in America.  Plus, it's based in the early 80s!  Star Wars, Pac-Man, Iranian hostages.  It's all the same.  Disco turns to punk, punk gets corrupted by MTV, and Reagan deals unions a mortal wound, if not the final death blow.  Meanwhile, as if I needed any more proof of being out of touch with what the kids are down with, something called Sinister debuts at #3.  Just took a look at the IMDb page... the found-footage horror genre lives on long after the Blair Witch.  And who knows?  Maybe Ethan Hawke will get Uma back after all.
And finally, debuting at #9, it's Seven Psychopaths.  Did I mention that Martin McDonagh is a playwright?  Well, he is!  Did I mention that he directed In Bruges, also with Colin Farrell?  Well, he did!  Let's hope McDonagh doesn't suffer a fate similar to Joel Schumacher, another Farrell co-conspirator.  Oh, almost forgot... COWBELL!!!!!

The Road from Stoogeville

Oh, this one's going to be good.  I can tell.

ACT ONE

We start with Fred Kelsey yelling on the phone to a Mr. Jordan.  See?  What did I tell you?  He's a busy businessman but the power's out in his office.  We hear loud noises in the other room, where the Stooges are busy creating chaos.  We hear the pipe-dropping sounds from Micro-Phonies, perhaps because Edward Bernds directed both.  As a sign of the times, Kelsey says "The manpower shortage is supposed to be over!!"  There's my argument: down with the New Deal.  Kelsey hangs up the phone and makes the mistake of going into the next room.
I should probably point out that Kelsey's name in this one is "Smiling Sam" McGann.  While we would normally think he was a gangster in any other film, he's probably just a really savvy businessman, one of those F. Scott Fitzgerald larger-than-life figures.  The Stooges haven't relied too heavily on gangsters for their plots yet... have they?  I haven't been paying attention.

Anyway, next scene: the adjacent room, where Curly's in a heap on the floor, but propped up by the ladder he's stuck in.  He tries to explain: "I only went up seven steps [on the ladder]!"  Moe says "The ladder had SIX!"  Lots of mathematical humor in these lately.  Kelsey makes his presence known, and pipes are dropped anew, landing on Curly's head.  It's going to be a long one.
Screenwriters, take note: it's all in the phrasing.  Ask the legal department.  Take, for example, when W.C. Fields is "helping" the nice older lady and her chauffeur when their car's broke down.  The lady says "Give the gentleman what he asks for, James!"  You can guess what happens next.  In the instant case, Kelsey... I mean, Smiling Sam McGann says, "I want juice and I want it RIGHT AWAY!"  Curly hands him the end of a live wire.  Woo-hoo-hoo!  I mean, the sparks fly, so to speak.  Why does Kelsey get a special close up?  That's twice now!  How does he rate?  As in Micro-Phonies, Kelsey says "Pick up that stuff and get to work." ... okay.  Oh, I do and do for you people.  Micro-Phonies, Monkey Businessmen.  Now I gotta find my way back.  Hard to do without bread crumbs these days.  For good measure, Kelsey gets a head-ful of the pipes just like Curly.  It's at times like this when the Stooges have to make amends, and Moe and Larry help Kelsey back to his office.  Come to think of it, this may be the only time they've done that.  Usually they just take off running.
Back to Curly.  No time to heap physical abuse upon him; Moe lays out the plot, and their precarious predicament, by saying "We better get busy before he finds out we were breaker-uppers at the peanut brittle foundry!"  Moe tells Larry to "trace that wire!"  They can do more damage individually.  Moe tells Curly, "Give me a hand."  Needles to say, it doesn't go as he expects.  I must've commented on that line at least a dozen times by now.
Next scene: Moe and Curly at the fuse box, and the first of many time-stretchers.  Moe tells Curly to watch out, because he might get shocked.  Moe then reaches into the fuse box and gets shocked.  But I should probably point out the clever wordplay beforehand.  Moe says "Be careful.  That's intricate stuff!" but he says intricate with special comedic emphasis on the middle syllables, or the trick part.  As Moe gets shocked, Curly smiles.  After getting shocked, Curly laughs and says "That's pretty trick-ate!"  Moe then uses a pair of pliers to tweak Curly's nose.  Curly screams very operatically.  Doesn't work so well in a comedy.  As the pliers rest in Moe's hands, an idea occurs to him: why not use the pliers to grab the wire?  Why not?  Apparently he's still not properly grounded, because it doesn't work.  Curly forgets to use a wooden broom handle to remove Moe and tries a bear hug instead.  Back to Larry for an all-too-brief aside, as he rocks the warehouse looking for that damn wire, but he does get a shout out from Moe.  Must've been in Larry's contract or something.  Back to Curly, who's busy trying to win the first Darwin Awards by putting his tongue on the wire.  Moe says "Hey, look out!  You'll get a shock!"  He seems like he's not acting there.  Curly assures him that everything's all right.  "Look!  No shock!" says Curly.  Moe tries a wire himself and doesn't get shocked.  Can you guess where all this is going?  Moe and Curly shake hands, completing the circuit, and both get shocked simultaneously.  They also complete the Boolean 2x2 grid: neither Moe nor Curly shocked, Moe alone shocked, both Moe and Curly shocked, and... wait a second!  Just as Stan Laurel doesn't usually suffer the physical abuse himself, Curly wasn't separately shocked!  I guess that wouldn't be as funny as Moe.  Finer minds than ours figured all this stuff out long ago, let's face it.
Meanwhile, back to Larry, who's busy trying to find that wire.  I mean, he's found the wire and pulling it with all his might.  What could go wrong?  Next scene: frowning McGann, who just misses catching his lamp from falling off the desk and breaking.  He follows it like a hawk, while his hairdo is in breakdown mode.  Back to Larry who says "Hey fellas!  Gimme a hand!"  This all seems very familiar... Now the line is connected to the phone, and the phone heads for the wall.  Kelsey says, "The line is busy!"  No small actors.  He pulls the phone back, bringing all three of the Stooges' heads to their side of the wall.  Strong guy!  That settles it.  Time to really give it some muscle.  They get organized, and... actually, Moe just says "Why, you..." and gives the wire a good hard tug.  Not much organizing going on there.  On the other side of the wall, Kelsey's stunt double falls backwards in his chair.  Dat's gotta hoit!  I hope the stuntmen have good health care!  Probably not at Cannery Row.  Having triumphed, Moe says "Once more, boys."  They give the wire another tug and bring the phone through the wall.  Moe gets hit by the phone... well, SPOILER ALERT.  Moe gets hit with the phone base, Curly laughs, then Curly gets hit with the receiver.  Good gag.
We hear a voice over the phone.  "Hello?  HELLO?  Who is this?"  Curly tries answering the phone, but to no avail, but we do hear the same tinny phone part over again.  Moe tries, and we get some fresh dialogue.  Mr. Jordan is pretty pissed.  His voice turns into a chipmunk's voice, and all Moe can do is put the receiver on the floor.  Which he does.  Sparks starts to fly up the wire towards the receiver as though the phone is a stick of dynamite.  And with that, Moe says "Well, pardners, looks like we resigned!"

ACT TWO

We're a little early for the Act break, which should be about 5:20 or so with a 16 minute film, but these Stooge films are not cookie cutters after all!  At least, in terms of time.  Curly gives the plot what I like to call that big creaky left turn towards what the screenwriters have in store for us, now that the establishing episode is over.  Curly declares that they need to go someplace for a long rest.  Moe's got just the brochure on the warehouse crate next to him!  "Rest your cares away.  Mallard's Rest Home and Clinic.  High altitude, low prices.  No matter what you got, you'll lose it at Mallard's!"  They're sold, the boys are going to Mallard's.  But what will they use for money?  Curly saves the day, saying he's got something saved for a rainy day: an umbrella.  Moe slaps Curly on the head, and Larry takes a rather mean swipe at the top of Curly's shaved head.  What an a$$#o!e.  As it turns out, the umbrella's where Curly keeps a fatwa... I mean, a fat wad of bills.  Thank goodness he doesn't have to spend any of it on repairs to McGann's office!  They put their ears to the wall.  McGann puts his fists through the wall, getting in one last hit before the plot whisks him away.
Next scene: Mallard's Rest Home & Clinic, where we see Mr. Grimble in a wheelchair.  Mr. Grimble is played by 'Snub' Pollard... are you sure he's not related to Blackie Whiteford?  I don't know who I'm asking; they just seem very similar to me.  But let's leave that aside for now.  The main thing is the introduction of Kenneth MacDonald to the fold.  When the Shemp years get going, you're going to see a lot more of him, that's for sure.  The guy who turns and looks is here as well.  I hate to spoil it like this, but Kenneth tends to play the smarmy bad guy in these Stooge pics, and he's at his smarmy best as the head of the Mallard clinic.  Great bedside manner, ruthless businessman, as it turns out.  SPOILER ALERT.
He at least waits until the patient's out of the room to get back to business: "Yeah, he'll get out of here when we get the rest of his dough, and not before!"  Cold-blooded.  One of MacDonald's goons asks "Hey, is there anything really wrong with his foot?"  MacDonald's answer says a lot about the current state of our health care system, sadly.  As Cy Shindell rightly says, "What a racket!"
And then... we get a nice close-up of ... hoh boy, Nurse Shapely.  Great character name.  Well, she's not that shapely, but she is indeed a vision.  She enters with messed-up hair, and she brushes it aside.  Kind of like Renee Zellweger, but cuter.  And apparently, she was in Gypsy back in the day!  Very few of the Stooge character players got to mingle among the A-listers of their time.  She gets the dubious honor of announcing that there are three knuckleheads waiting to get their screen time back.  Boy, will MacDonald and company be pissed off when they find out they're a bunch of broke bums!  Aside from Curly's roll of bills, of course.
Next scene: the goons exit, and the Stooges enter.  Curly's hat seems a little taller than usual.  Miss Shapely slaps Curly, and Curly gives her the ol' machine gun hat routine, as only he can.  Well, it doesn't work as well with a full head of hair, apparently.  Like an idiot, Larry gets his nose caught in the door as Miss Shapely closes it, and we hear a loud cracking sound, which puts one in the mind of twigs or lumber.  The boys eventually make their way over to MacDonald, who says "Won't you come in?" as warmly as possible.  The first thing out of his mouth is "Of course, you know our treatments are expensive!"  Good Lourdes.  Curly tries to pretend he's in with the Mellons and Carnegie types, but he can't snap his fingers!  Moe does the snapping gesture for him; maybe Curly's on his way after all. 
Of course, as Fox News isn't crazy all the time, MacDonald does a little actual doctoring... sort of.  "Now, let's start with your diet," he says.  "We'll begin by cutting out starches, sugars, proteins and carbohydrates."  Curly asks "What do we eat?"  MacDonald says "Vitamins and calories."  After that, the time gets stretched by an extensively detailed itinerary.  Makes me wonder what this is based upon.  Maybe one of the screenwriters tried out a place like this on a lark.  But even an itinerary can get a joke inserted into it in certain strategic places.  Apparently, the boys get a meal as part of the deal here, and so far all that's on the menu is milk.  Moe himself starts "n'yaahing" at the word.  That's Curly's job, damn it!  Spoiler alert: the joke is dinner; it's not milk, they drank it all for lunch.
The phony doctor describes a lot of different activities: road work, horseback riding, punching the bag, but that would require many different locations and camera setups, so it's probably not in the cards.  So in the tradition of Tapeheads, it's time to stick with production values.  MacDonald tells the boys that he's going to get some nurses for them.  Like clockwork, they start grooming themselves and getting sufficiently immature to prepare for the beautiful ladies inherent in that promise... Curly starts hitting his head against a giant surgical lampshade.  His head makes a loud dinging sound.  Or maybe it's the lamp.  To waste some more time before the big reveal, Larry takes Curly's temperature, and Curly ends up eating the thermometer.
And finally, the big surprise that the rest of us saw coming.  It takes Larry and Curly a while, but apparently Moe figured it out much earlier.  The two nurses are MacDonald's two goons from earlier.  They do the old "Gentlemen!"  "Who came in?" gag and off the Stooges are whisked on their slow death march away from the buxom nurses of their fantasies.  Fade to black.
Fade in on an alarm clock.  Five o'clock!  Way too early for me.  Just kidding, I'm used to it now.  The three are in bed together.  So gay.  Of course, as usually happens, Moe gets woken up first, this time by the breathing of the other two.  They're so tired, they don't even realize the alarm clock's ringing!  Not good.  But they'll have to be ready for an exercise regimen that includes road work.  What is this, the return of the chain gang?  Moe and Larry remove their nighties to reveal they're wearing their work clothes, while Curly drowns the clock in the water pitcher.  Priceless.  For everything else, there's MasterCard... something like that.  Man, I'm glad I haven't seen one of those ads in a long, long while.  They're probably all over YouTube, though.
The dialogue starts with Lawrence saying "Five o'clock.  That's the time you get up to get shot at sunrise."  This leads to the three of them taking a deep breath, and coughing... no, ALL THREE of them!!!  Cy Schindell and the other guy come in and get the boys on track.  Too much laxity.
Next scene: the gym floor, where the Stooges get treated kindly then roughly alternately by MacDonald's schizophrenic goons.  One goon shows Curly how to use the bungee cord-type exercise thing.  Moe and Larry sit there and watch Curly struggle.  Curly gives that one big final effort, and falls backward into the wall.  Moe says "Too much weight."  He means on the machine.  Moe and Larry start removing the weights, and throwing them behind themselves as hard as they can.  The two goons get hit with the flying weights, about four apiece in total, but they're knocked out after the first couple.  The third weight and beyond is just icing on the cake.  Curly tries again, but now there's not enough weight, and he goes flying at about 6 fps, gently falling on a mat in front of him, and bringing the whole exercise apparatus down off the wall.  Suddenly, we hear Cy Schindell speaking.  In his weight-induced stupor, he blurts out the secret plan.  The boys take off running, pivoting when they see a goon in the hall.  Kenneth MacDonald finds George, played by Wade Crosby, sleeping.  I still say it's Matt McHugh.
The two goons come to, and they and MacDonald "search the grounds" for the Stooges.  Meanwhile, George goes back to sleep.  How to get out of this mess?  Curly's got a good idea.  He's got the other two's attention, anyway.  I'll do it like this:

Curly: I got an idea.  We get some grease...
Moe and Larry: Yes?
Curly: We spill it on the floor...
Moe and Larry: Yes?
Curly: And we slip by!!
Moe and Larry: Yes.
Moe: NO!!!

I think it's a great idea.  Didn't they try that on Electric Company once?  ...close enough.  I'm getting sidetracked again.  The boys see their chance when George falls right back to sleep.  They start to tiptoe by him.  Suddenly... he GRUMBLES in his sleep!  The Stooges stand against the wall next to George.  But then... just as suddenly, Curly has to sneeze.  Moe tries to hold the sneeze in by hitting Curly in the nose, then on the head.  It works for a few seconds, but then Curly lets fly very loudly, knocking a vase off its place high above Curly's head, and breaking on Curly's head.  George wakes up.  Go figure.
And then, the satire begins.  George confuses the Stooges for doctors.  Moe and Larry say that Curly's sick.  Here's where they make their necessary mistake, by saying "We'll have to operate!"  Enter the triumphant return of Mr. ... oh, who cares.  Grimble, I think it was?  Newly minted doctors Moe and Larry diagnose him, telling Grimble he looks terrible.  Then, economic incentive.  The Stooges are suckers for that.  Grimble says "I'll pay £1,000... $1,000 to whomever cures me!"  Moe and Larry quickly change course.  But George gets them back on track: "Wait a minute!  You gotta operate on him!" (Curly)  And they begrudgingly return to Curly, putting himself in mortal danger for the sake of dramatic tension.  Moe says "You had to be sick, didn't ya?" as they go into the surgery room.  Mallard's has everything!
Next scene: the operatin' room proper, where Moe seems to improvise a line at about 2:44.  George asks Curly "Hey, can I stick around while they cut you open?"  Is he selling this premise hard enough?  I kinda don't think so.  At this point, Moe tries to stall with some fancy double talkin', asking for those surgical implements with the funny names.  It doesn't work on George, though.  He starts grabbing things.  This guy could be the fourth Stooge: he's as crazy as the regular three!  George goes to get a second tool, giving the boys time to think.  Larry finds a bottle of ether, and soaks a rag in it.  Perfect!  George comes back and gets a whiff of the rag.  It doesn't do the trick.  George waves the rag in front of Moe and Larry's probosces, and they start yawning.  During all this chaos, Curly managed to grab himself a good ol' fashioned comedy mallet.  Curly conks George on the head, and flicks his nose for good measure.  DOWN GOES GEORGE!!  Curly gets in a good pun: "I gave him either the bottle or the hammer!"  Moe raises the bottle up to smack Curly, when the plot intervenes.  Footprints are heard.  The boys have to think of a plan.  Meanwhile, we go outside to see MacDonald and his two thugs.  MacDonald calls to Miss Shapely... Miss Shapely.  The very idea.  MacDonald asks her what happened to George, and she says that he's in the lab with the three new doctors.  After a double take, the three bad guy Stooges go into the lab.

ACT THREE

We're about due for an act break anyway, so let's have it here.  Next scene: MacDonald and his two goons enter the lab.  The lab looks a lot different now.  Moe and Larry found themselves some surgical clothing, and there's a body on their makeshift operatin' table covered up.  Is it Curly?  Is it George?  Damn.  I'm ruining the illusion.  They ruin it soon enough anyway.  MacDonald for now doesn't seem to be aware that he's hired three new doctors.  He tells his goons to search the grounds for the Stooges, and off they go.  Curly reacts from under his sheet, and keeps having to get bonked back down.  MacDonald doesn't notice.  Larry notices that George is coming to.  George is behind the desk, so Larry gives George a fresh bonk on the head with the mallet.
They milk the threat of surgery for all it's worth.  MacDonald eventually figures out what's going on, apparently after looking at Curly's shoes.  A big chase ensues after the gurney that Curly's on drops, and Curly slides to the ground.  "I'll doctor you!" says MacDonald.  Larry gets him in the face with a fire extinguisher that shoots water and not foam, and Moe cracks him over the head with a pitcher... or something made of glass.  DOWN GOES MACDONALD!  A good thing, too, because MacDonald went for the axe!
They run out of the room.  Next scene: the hallway, where the action is at about 18fps or so, just fast enough to make everyone's voices a little higher-pitched.  The Stooges run around Snub Pollard, spinning him around in his wheelchair, after which Snub totally falls out of it.
Next scene: the three run into a room, and Curly's the only one to notice that they're not alone... oh, right, THIS film!  Time to hit them in the head again, but with black bowling pin-looking things.  Another clean getaway.  Time for some more running.  Curly falls over Snub Pollard, and Snub's got lines this time.  He's still complaining about his foot, at least until Curly hits it with his fist a couple times.  The pain's gone!  Snub's unable to contain neither his excitement nor his Aussie accent.  Meanwhile, back to Moe and Larry, who quickly find themselves in hot water without Curly.  The camera dramatically dollies back to reveal the bad guys.  Good work!  Moe says "I'm gonna get myself a cheap lawyer.  I'm a citizen!..." 
And so, the Steam Room that was mentioned earlier finally comes to pass, as Moe and Lawrence find themselves locked inside it.  Will Curly save them in time?  I give 'em 50-50 odds at this point.  Curly walks past the door and waves at the two of them.  Make that 40-60.  Curly asks "What are you all steamed up about?" 30-70.  Curly sings a song contemporary to his time... wonder if Wikipedia knows about it.  Anyway, Curly starts turning the valve, but the arrow starts drifting from "Normal" to "Danger."  This is back when things used to be labeled, and not made in China.  Curly gets distracted by Miss Shapely again, and abandons his two lifelong pals.  Curly and Shapely go through a door this time, and well off-camera.  Lol.  We hear a scream, and Curly gets socked by Shapely again.  Maybe if he tries again about twenty more times, she'll give in.  For now, a Curly stunt double flies through the door.  And then, there's a surprise at about 7:59.  I dare not spoil it further.

EPILOGUE

Curly starts walking back to save his fellow Stooges, but the door blows off the steam room.  Fate has intervened.  After a few edits, we get the final shot of the movie.  Snub Pollard runs in from the hallway, hands Curly a big stack of money, then kicks him in the shin.  After the pain, the joy of a payday.  Larry says "Wow!  A thousand bucks!  Practically a mil!"  Shyeah, right.  As in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the threesome discuss what to do with the money.  Curly's idea invites the most passion, but personally I think Groucho did it better in Monkey Business, when he pretends to be a doctor, saying "This man needs a long ocean voyage."  It's part of the larger context.  He also says "Can everyone gather around so he won't recover?"  Everyone does, of course. 
I guess this Stooge short's kinda mediocre, but worth it for the moment at 7:59.  That's about all you can hope for these days.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Robert Zemeckis

BoZem returns to real life with his latest, Flight, and he's going up against his old boss Spielberg, whose Lincoln opens the same weekend.  Who will win?  Does Adam Sandler have a movie opening that weekend?  For some reason the commercial caught my eye.  For one, it seems to be a slight departure for Denzel, if you put his career on a spectrum with Training Day on one end and The Preacher's Wife on the other.  Flight seems to be in the middle somewhere.  Too bad there's still no decent roles out there.  The other thing is that this is the first R rated pic from Zemeckis since 1980's Used Cars.  Of course, R-rated pics aren't what they used to be, not that Used Cars would get a PG-13 in its original form today.  Beowulf was skewing a bit R-ish.  Someone send me a free copy of it!! WAAAA

Besson-me Mucho

Oh, right.  Forgot to do this one.  The pod people that replaced Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen long ago crank out yet another #1 American movie from the comfort of their French mansions next door to that damn ketchup heiress that married John Kerry, with Elaine's family on the other side.  Yes, it's Taken 2, and I dare say they're trying to get me to care about Albanian politics!  Well, personally, I've had all the James Belushi I can stand, thank you very much.  The only other debuts this week is the poorly performing Frankenweenie feature length version.  Maybe if Johnny Depp were in it, it would've done a little better.  Will this slow down Tim Burton at all?  Hell no.  Finally, there's something called The Perks of being a Wallflower.  In this internet age, it's a quaint notion, but the key thing is that it's one of those small projects that a Harry Potter star tries to engage in, yet they still yearn to see themselves a little bit higher up in the top 10 for some reason.  Go figure.

Portraits in Sibling Rivalry: "Jeff, who Lives at Home" is an indie film, in case you didn't get it

Ed Helms and Jason Segel, sitting in a tub in a hotel room, legs dangling over the edge.  If that isn't an indie film moment, nothing is.  How did we get to this point?  How?
This is probably a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway.  If a) you're two brothers in today's world, and b) you aspire to make movies, what's stopping you?  How low is the bar?  When a star says that they loved the script, do we need to hold their feet to the fire?  Jason Segel's about as busy these days as Seth Rogen was a few years ago.  Another star from the Judd Apatow Stock Company, he's just ruined the Muppets (according to some) and he's apparently a regular on CBS's hit show How I Met Your Mother.  He made four movies in 2011, one of which is Jeff, Who Lives at Home.  It's different enough, and for me it walked that fine line between comedy and drama well enough, but I don't know.  If my tone up til now hasn't been clear, the movie seems to die the death of a thousand cuts.  Let's begin.
As with Albert Brooks' 1996 movie, Mother, we have the portrait of two brothers: one who's a conventional American success story: job, wife, what have you, and we have the less successful brother who's living in his mom's basement.  We get xylophone-heavy music similar to American Beauty and Paying it Forward.  Then we see the brother in the basement taking some bong hits.  The first movie I remember this happening in proper is Jackie Brown.  It's of course a lot more common now; why, I believe Albert Brooks had it in his last directorial effort Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World!  Jeff's day and worldview are put on tilt when he receives a call from an angry black man who sounds vaguely like J.B. Smoove.  The angry black man asks for "Kevin."  Was I the only one reminded of Arsenio Hall at the beginning of Amazon Women on the Moon who kept getting calls from someone asking for Thelma?  I thought so.  If only the whole movie was that good.  Amazon Women, that is.  Back to the instant case.
Now we turn to Ed Helms and his wife Linda, played by Judy Greer.  Between this and Henry's Crime, she's in mortal danger of being typecast as the indie movie wife who gets left for more attractive fare.  Otherwise, she's the new Anne Heche, perhaps.  You can tell a marriage is in trouble when a gesture is openly called "water for a (dying) plant."  In this case, Helms makes breakfast for the two of them.  Strawberries are called "strawbs."  The monosyllabization of everything continues unabated.  I'm sorry, I mean "shortz."  Then, the big fight breaks out: Ed Helms wants a Porsche.  Linda makes a perfectly reasoned argument about how money's tight, how she's cut back on her expenses, and how it's a bad idea in general.  Ed jangles the keys, and takes her outside to show off the Porsche.  She throws her breakfast onto the Porsche, and hoses it down with ketchup.  That went well!
Even though the two brothers are estranged, their paths cross.  Jeff is tasked with taking the bus to Home Depot to buy wood glue and fixing the blinds in the house, but his obsession quickly turns to all things named "Kevin" instead.  The wood glue might have to wait.  Meanwhile, Pat... I'll call him by his character name now, I promise... Pat is having a business lunch at Hooters with a skeptical co-worker.  Pat takes a "business call" but we all quickly figure out that it's mom (Susan Sarandon).  Pat sees Jeff wandering around outside the Hooters and intervenes.  The co-worker is abandoned, and Pat takes Jeff for a ride in the new Porsche.  Unfortunately, the ride ends up much like an episode that once happened to Homer Simpson.  It's up on YouTube, in fact!  Here's the link... if the copyright lawyers have their way, it might not be for long.
As you may have gathered, the film's not as elitist as a Noah Baumbach project, but there does seem to be a running theme about white people getting to know black people.  The mom has a similar episode at her generic office workplace.  Her subplot: a secret admirer starts communicating with her at work via Yahoo! Instant Messenger.  Who could it be?  I figured it out right away, but I dare not spoil it for the rest of you.  Depending on how jaded you are, the way Sarandon's dreams of standing under a waterfall come to fruition will either be the most tender thing in the world, or just another artifact of indie film.
Then, the film turns into a private eye caper, as the brothers try to spy on Pat's wife Linda as she seemingly tries to have an affair.  They end up seeing the car in a hotel parking lot.  Was I the only one who thought of Alan Arkin's wife in Freebie and the Bean?  I thought so.  It's all played for laughs at first, but when we find out that it's not like a J.J. Abrams show, that it's really what it looks like, then things get dramatic.  That's how things seem to go throughout this movie.
The movie opens with a deep philosophical quote from Jeff.  I couldn't help but think of the quote at the beginning of A Serious Man: "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi.  ...I think that's what it was.  We ultimately didn't finish the movie, but that's probably the best ending of all.  Oh, and the use of zoom lens got really really annoying.  Kubrick liked zoom lenses too, but didn't use them in every freaking scene.  Besides, Tony Scott's Unstoppable was like that!  It's not original!  Okay, I better stop.

**1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan