(August 22)

——Snakes on a Plane (2006)——

Generations from now, people will look back on Snakes on a Plane as the biggest missed opportunity to ever hit the movie industry. OK, maybe not really. But they should. This is what happens when you have too much outside interference from both the studios and the fans, making a complete mess of what had the potential to be a cult masterpiece. Honestly, I don’t think anyone had any idea what they had on their hands (except for maybe Sam Jackson) when they started making this film. Talk about one of the all-time greatest titles for a movie.

The movie itself is fairly by the numbers though. I mean, this is made for TV Saturday afternoon movie material. Either no one took the movie seriously or they took it way too seriously. What everyone seemed to miss was that with a title like Snakes on a Plane you’ve got to up the schlock to the utmost level. You can’t pussy out on it. The greatest proof of this is the fact that they originally made the film for a PG-13 audience until the fans heard about it and demanded an R rating, so they went back in and shot R material that you can immediately point out when watching the movie because it seems so out of place with the rest of the film. This movie should have been R right out of the gate. It should have been stupider too. For some reason a movie called Snakes on a Plane takes itself seriously. Why? Why in God’s name?

Snakes on a Plane has its moments. Most memorably in the sequence where all of the snakes first get unleashed in force on the people on the plane. Talk about some inspired genius. I had a grin from ear to ear. I mean, that sequence should be what this movie is all about. Unfortunately that’s a rare moment. The rest will bore you to tears. This isn’t a good bad movie. It’s a bad bad movie. Audiences were right to stay away. The director of this obviously didn’t “get” it. What a shame.

(MISS)

(August 25)

——Idlewild (2006)——

Idlewild stars the two excellent members of the rap group Outkast and was directed by music video director, Bryan Barber. Is it any surprise then that when I saw the film I thought that the musical numbers were inspired bits of genius but the plot was cliché and boring? It was a weird feeling. Every time you switched from plot to music or vice versa you were left wondering, am I watching the same movie?

Overall I liked Idlewild. It’s a fun little movie. Some of the dialogue is laughable. But wait until an OutKast song comes on. Genius. I think the sex scene in this movie is one of the best I’ve ever seen edited and put on film. The club numbers instantly make you feel like you are having a good time through osmosis. Pretty much, this is a fantastic set of music videos held up by the framework of an overdone film formula. Shy guy has to get the girl and show the world his music. Tough guy has to give up his tough guy ways and get away from the mob. Yawn.

I enjoyed watching Idlewild. If you aren’t an OutKast fan this probably isn’t the movie for you. If you are, though, this is worth checking out. What was really disappointing, though? This movie has been pushed back and back while Andre 3000 and Big Boi finished the soundtrack. And yet the majority of the soundtrack in the film is from their last album. There is almost no new music in the movie. What’s that all about?

(SEE)

——Little Miss Sunshine (2006)——

I’m a little disturbed by how much attention Little Miss Sunshine has been getting from audiences. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Little Miss Sunshine and I think it is a really good film. But it’s not great. And there is a difference. But not if you listen to the average audience member who gets out of this film. They LOVE it. And I get it. Little Miss Sunshine takes the dysfunctional indie movie family genre formula and does some real fun things with it. But it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. I’ve seen this movie done a thousand times before, and quite a few of them did it better, but perhaps they were too edgy or too dysfunctional to find a large audience. What really bothers me is that nothing is really resolved in this movie. Why? It’s got a feel good punchy ending that helps you forget that nothing really happens in this movie.

Don’t get me wrong. It IS a fun movie. And a really funny one. Basically, the little girl of the film gets into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant on a technicality and because of various outside forces the whole family has to get into their beat up VW bus and take a road trip to California. You have coked up grandpa; the mute, Nietzche reading, I hate everyone brother; the gay, suicidal Proust scholar uncle; the pulled in too many directions mother; and the self-help father who is having trouble self-helping himself. Everyone is very funny and played by very good actors, but unfortunately they are also rather one note. Was I surprised by anyone? No, not really. Did I have a good time despite that? Yes, yes I did. Don’t get me wrong, you should see this if you want to. Just don’t get sucked into the hype machine.

(Also, a warning. This is the kind of movie that attracts a lot of well-meaning people who don’t normally go to the movies. So don’t be surprised if a lot of really annoying people sit around you. Just go with it.)

(SEE)

(August 26)

——Beerfest (2006)——

I was a little surprised to see how many critics panned this film. It was slammed for being juvenile and irresponsible, as if that were a bad thing. This is a movie about a beer drinking competition, after all. What were you expecting, Leaving Las Vegas 2: Electric Boogaloo? If you are one of the many fans of Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers then you will probably love Beerfest.

Despite its infantile nature, Beerfest is actually a pretty smart film. The guys of Broken Lizard are aware of how stupid the premise of the film is and plan to play off of that in any way they can. They’ve done their homework, which you’ll notice in the little details. Like when they first go down into an abandoned factory where Beerfest is held, there are all of these freaky German people there that are obviously inspired by real freaky German iconography, and not just random freaky shit they threw together. The ultimate drinking event at Beerfest is Das Boot, where you have to drink beer from a glass boot, which has a tendency to explode the beer out of the boot via built up pressure. It is funny because Das Boot is a real German movie. It’s made genius by the fact that the lead bad guy in the movie was the star of Das Boot.

I found this movie genuinely funny. Even the death of a major character is handled with an underhanded wit about it. You keep expecting him to come back by some absurd comedy movie logic. What actually happens to him both solves the unsolvable problem and manages to be so absurd as to just work, with a little wink to the audience. You know it’s stupid. So do they. And they roll around in it, like a bad dog. If you love drinking humor you will find no better movie to go check out than Beerfest.

(MUST SEE)

(August 27)

——The Devil’s Sword (1983)——

This Indonesian action/kung fu/fantasy film is 101 minutes long. It’s by no stretch of the imagination something you could call a “great” movie, but I think that by cutting it down to 90 minutes you could have a really fun B movie on your hands. I was surprised by how well it was made. It definitely looked like crap. The production levels are almost zero budget. But still, it’s not that bad. There was a lot of love that went into making this movie. The pacing is just a little off. Scenes go on a little too long. Especially the five-minute “orgy” sequence where no one does anything worse than kissing on the neck and not a single person takes their top off. Little pieces could be snipped off here and there without changing the film one bit. The quicker pacing would, however, show how absurd the movie really is.

Barry Prima stars as the hero who rides into a village, cowboy style, just as the Crocodile Queen has decided that she is going to take the husband getting married that day as her love slave. She’s greedy and constantly looking for new boy toys, but the village this time isn’t willing to give him up for sacrifice (the kung fu bride especially doesn’t like this idea). Prima helps out, but not soon enough to keep the Crocodile Men from getting away with the groom. He agrees to help get him back, but not before helping his crippled master and finding the Devil’s Sword before the villains do. You know, for such a big deal being made over the Devil’s Sword, Prima sure doesn’t use it very much. He uses his regular sword much more, opting instead for hand to hand fighting once he has the better sword. It’s a little perplexing. The action is not that bad though, for a non-Hong Kong made kung fu film.

Most people probably won’t be interested in this film. But if you did get into my description of it, then The Devil’s Sword for you would probably be a

(SEE)

——Alien (1979)——

Sunday, for something fun to do, I decided (as I had nothing better to do) to watch all four Alien movies in the Special Extended Editions that were made for the Quadrilogy boxset release. I’d seen all of these movies before, but with the exception of Aliens I’d never seen these cuts of the films. So that was fun.

This is one of the true Director’s Cut films in this set (to see what I mean, check out the reviews for Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection), although even that is a little up for debate, because I’m getting conflicting information as to whether or not Ridley Scott considers the original theatrical cut of his film to be his favorite version. No matter. This is also one of the films that I noticed probably has the least amount of new material in it. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember the scene where Ripley discovers the rest of the crew cocooned by the alien after she sets the self-destruct device. Aside from a little more dialogue and slightly different editing though, there wasn’t much different. Which is good, because Alien is so good it doesn’t really need to be changed at all.

What I noticed watching it again was how much this is like one of those old Universal horror films, crossed with Texas Chainsaw Massacre (which apparently Ridley Scott became obsessed with before making Alien). The movie takes its time building up to the scares, so that once they actually come they are much more disgusting and scary in your mind than they are in actuality. The design of this film is just fantastic. Mindblowingly fantastic. It is safe to say that people still remember Alien mostly because of its design and because of how different it was to everything that’s come before and since. But getting back to the Universal monster movie thing, the Alien just seems like one of those old fashioned monsters, like Dracula combined with the Creature from the Black Lagoon. See especially the scene where the black guy and girl get it. It’s all about mood and imagery. Almost nothing else is actually on screen. The Alien is backlight by a strobe light. There is almost no sound except for the soundtrack. It’s an old horror movie. A really well done one, at that. Alien shows you how it’s done. Aliens listened. Unfortunately Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection did not.

(MUST SEE)

——Aliens (1986)——

I cheated a little bit when it came to watching all of the Alien movies in their special edition format. See, I’ve already seen the Director’s Cut of Aliens. James Cameron sees it as the definitive version of the film. I totally disagree. Anyone who regularly reads this knows how much I love this movie. And while some interesting scenes hit the cutting room floor, almost none of it warrants a spot in the film. There were some smart editors in the room, decided what needed to be and what needed to go. One scene I kind of like is where they set up sentry guns in the hallway and watch as the cannons run out of ammo greasing the Aliens before the Aliens figure out to use the passageways above the doors. It’s fun, but doesn’t really need to be there. The only scene I really think should have stayed was the one where Ripley finds out that her daughter died of old age. It bookends the film really well, with Ripley taking Newt under her wing as a surrogate daughter. I see why they cut it though. It totally disrupts the rhythm.

As I mentioned before, I cheated a little. I tried to watch it again. But then I got to the sequence I absolutely hate. It’s of the colony before the Aliens are discovered and take over. Newt’s family are the ones that find the first egg. I HATE this sequence. Why, aside from the fact that it is completely unnecessary to the story that is being told? It sucks all the mystery out of the story. I remember way back when I first saw this movie, I hadn’t seen Alien yet. I had no idea what an Alien even looked like. The movie freaked me the fuck out. And part of that was because I had no idea what was going on. In the theatrical version of the film, the Marines get there, a battle has gone on, but no one is there. Newt is this feral animal, not a cute little girl. We pick up the pieces as to what happened as the Marines do. In the Director’s Cut all of that mystery is gone. Ugh. It makes me so angry. At that point I just went back to the main menu and restarted the theatrical version of the film. Much slicker. Much better.

And the movie itself? Fan-freaking-tastic. My favorite movie. I could go on and on and on. I’ll keep it simple, though. This is a movie about mothers. Ripley is a mother who lost a daughter, but gains a new one in Newt. She wants to protect Newt no matter what. What stands in her way are the Aliens, more specifically the Alien Queen. Who is also a mother, just trying to protect her children. It’s mother against mother for survival of the species. How many other action films can you think of with a theme like that? You can’t think of any, can you? Oh man, this movie is so good. I love it. I get a giddy rush every time I see it, which has to be at least a dozen times so far, if not more. I love the Marines. I love the Aliens. I love the Queen. I love the music, the sound effects, the editing, the cinematography, the actors, the direction, the script. I love it all.

(ABSOLUTELY MUST SEE)

——Alien 3 (1992)——

And then it all went horribly, horribly wrong. As good as the first two movies of the series are, the same goes for how much the second two sucked. Which is a shame. This was David Fincher’s first film, and as we all now know, this guy is no slouch. The liner notes explain that the Special Edition of Alien 3 isn’t actually a “Director’s Cut” because for it to be so Fincher would have had to reshoot the whole thing with creative control. What this is, is the original edit of the film, which was then butchered and completely restructured by the studio for the theatrical version. At least thirty minutes have been added to this film. I don’t really remember Alien 3 all that much, as I saw it so long ago and it made such a little impression on me, but I did notice that this version was nothing like the version I saw. First of all, wasn’t the Alien in 3 created in a dog? I’m sure I remember it being that way. In this version it was an Ox, though. Weird. I don’t know why they changed it. Probably because the Alien looked more like a dog than an Ox, I don’t know.

There are many reasons why this movie just doesn’t work. One is that there is no real story here. 1 and 2 had great stories. This one has some lame excuse for one, involving Ripley crash landing on a prison planet. The theme for the first film was rape, the second motherhood, this one…uh…I’m not really sure. Ripley sleeps with the doctor almost immediately. Again, I have no idea why she does that. The pacing is all fast, whiz-bang action. Even the credits are faster. In the first two films it took pretty much the whole credit sequence for the name of the movie to actually appear on screen. Here it is BAM! Alien 3. The Alien for some reason also has taken to killing everyone, which makes no sense. In the other two movies the Alien takes you back to a hive and cocoons you, for the egg to make another Alien. Here he’s just killing everyone. No explanation given. Neither is there one given for why Ripley’s Alien growing inside of her seems to take longer to grow than all the other one’s we’ve seen so far. No one seems to know why they are making this beautiful, but deeply flawed film. I find the longer version of this film much more interesting than the theatrical version, but compared to the heights the first two films reached one wonders why they even bothered here.

(MISS)

——Alien Resurrection (1997)——

No one learned from Alien 3. They decided to make another, even crappier movie in Alien Resurrection. Again, fault doesn’t seem to land with the level of talent involved. Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, City of Lost Children) is a fantastic, visionary director and the writer is none other than Joss Whedon, of Buffy and Firefly fame. The cast is filled sky high with excellent supporting actors that I love to see working. And yet this shall go down as one of the worst movies ever made.

This isn’t a true Director’s Cut either. Jean-Pierre Jeunet is perfectly happy with his theatrical version (God knows why). This version just has a bunch of deleted scenes added in. They don’t hurt the movie any. The problem with this movie is that I think the creators of it spent so much time just trying to figure out how to bring Ripley back after she died in the last movie that they never really had time to work on an interesting movie beyond that. This is all action sequences, having none of the suspense that worked so well in the first two films. None of the characters have any memorable characteristics that help you to remember who they were once the movie ended. I recall them more by what actor played them, than what they did. The movie is merely OK though, that is until the mind-numbing climax. I want to slit my wrists when I see it. The Alien Queen gives birth to an Alien/human hybrid that looks like a grotesque skull with eyes. It snivels like a baby, though. An alien that cries. What the hell has the world come to? And, as if they hate the damn thing as much as I do, they come up with the most disgusting way to get rid of it that they possibly can, perhaps realizing their mistake. It’s horrible. It still makes me sick to watch it, and I’ve seen Cannibal Holocaust. Ew! I feel dirty just thinking about it.

(AVOID!!!)