Does anyone know why the hell my AOL IM occasionally makes the sound of an arrow hitting a target. I can’t for the fucking life of me figure out what it’s trying to tell me. Speak up! What do you want from me!!!
There is an inherent flaw in the Monday Movie Review process. First, there is the fact that the more movies I watch, the more interesting the Review is for you (and me). But reviews take time to write. A dilemma develops: When some free time comes into view, do you write the review based on the last movie you saw, or do you watch another movie while you have the time? You can all guess which choice is hardwired into my brain.
I’m sorry to say that I have given up on getting a Review out this week. I do plan on continuing on next Monday. Whether or not all of the reviews will be there or just one week’s has yet to be determined.
Another week, another Monday Movie Review. That’s right. Another one! How long will it last, people? No one knows. And that’s half the fun.
Before we dig into the reviews I’d like to say that I enthusiastically encourage anyone’s comments inspired by the Review. Disagree with a review/have another opinion/just want to chime in? Let me know. If there is a review you want me to expand upon, let me know that too. I have a lot of reviews to write and not a lot of time dedicated to doing so, so if you find something interesting or just want a more thorough opinion before seeing something, let me know. Finally, if you think of anything that might improve the Monday Movie Review, I’d like to know.
With that said, on with the show.
(January 9)
——Hostel (2006)——
Only sick fucks need apply for this one. The story concerns two Americans and an Icelander who are backpacking together through Europe, bouncing from hostel to hostel, looking for drugs, Rock n’ Roll, and fine European tail to shag before getting on with the rest of their lives. Burnt out from their travels, they hear from another hostel wanderer of this magical hostel in Slovakia where the beautiful women are plentiful and the orgies happen often. And at first it seems this story is correct. Unfortunately for them, it is all really a trap for an ex-Soviet bloc torture business. Gorgeous women get you to let down your guard, drug you, and then WHAM! Some crazy guy is cutting off your body parts.
If you don’t feel uncomfortable watching this movie then you have really been desensitized to movie violence. The gore is disturbing and unrelenting. What really impressed me about the film though was how it wrote itself out of the box I thought it had created for itself in the third act. While at times it drifts uncomfortably close to action movie cliché, I found this part of the movie to be the most gripping and impressive.
While the movie wasn’t perfect (unlike the extremely disturbing and well-made Cannibal Holocaust (1980), which I should really review for you people some day), it did its job, and did it well. I’m going to give it a
(SEE)
although anyone with a weak stomach should (AVOID).
——The Bad News Bears (1976)——
Last year I saw Richard Linklater’s loyal remake of this film, but this was the first time I actually sat down and watched the classic original. (It was six bucks. Who was I to argue?) While the remake is very good, it is so loyal to the original, without taking it to the next level of being better, that I ask, why bother? Every note in the original rings so true that you’ll immediately understand why every sports movie since about a team of misfits is referred to as a “Bad News Bears-like team”. Walter Matthau plays his role as the drunk, swearing, pool cleaning, washed-out ex-minor league ball player pitch perfectly. He’s not the only one though. It looks like director Michael Ritchie was smart enough to let the camera roll with his young stars long enough to let real and honest moments shine through. You start to wonder if these kids didn’t come from their own Bad News Bear-type team. Everything in this film just gels together so perfectly that this is definitely one of those originals (like The Italian Job (1969)) that you should treasure over the unneeded remake.
(MUST SEE)
——Syriana (2005)——
Maybe I’ve just been bombarded by too much liberal bullshit lately. I don’t know. I usually eat that shit up though. The issues of Syriana make you want to love it. Big Oil is tearing the world apart, changing global politics, sponsoring terrorism, sponsoring corporate greed, screwing us all over. Too bad the movie can’t live up to its own hype. The problem with Syriana is that it is just too damn complicated. Half of the time when characters are talking you don’t know what the hell it is that they are talking ABOUT. It’s like everyone is speaking in some sort of code and no one handed out the secret decoder ring. The other problem is that the movie starts out like it is going to uncover all of these big conspiracy theories, does uncover them, only to reveal an ever increasing batch of newer, wider reaching conspiracies. It’s all constantly evolving with no end in sight. It’s like the later seasons of the X-Files where it only got more confusing instead of answering more and more questions. You want to like Syriana. You really do. If you could make heads or tails of it, you probably would too. It’s not like it is a poorly made film. Quite the opposite. Which only makes it that much more frustrating to watch.
(MISS)
(January 10)
——Munich (2005)——
This tale of the Israeli reaction to the massacre of the hostages at the 1972 Munich Olympics is one of Spielberg’s most powerful and well-made films since Schindler’s List (1993). This is a film that dares to ask the big questions about retaliation and vengeance. How much is too much? Even if it is justified, does that make it right? By putting us right on the same level as the Israeli special operatives sent to kill 11 men responsible for the Munich disaster Spielberg asks us to see things through their eyes, to see exactly how you go about killing 11 men, warts and all. No matter your viewpoint on how right their actions are, actually watching it is hard. Spielberg uses Hitchcockian suspense to play with our emotions. We don’t want them to blow up the girl who mistakenly picks up the bomb phone her father is suppose to answer and yet we do, because we want to see what would happen to our heroes next. This job tears these men apart and the beauty of the film comes from watching that progression, from idealist to confused doubter. I dare you to find many more films that have come out recently that ask this much of the audience.
(MUST SEE)
(January 13)
——Wedding Crashers (2005)——
Some may lead you to believe that this was the funniest comedy of 2005. It wasn’t. One needs only to look to The 40-Year-Old Virgin for that honor. That said, this is one of the funniest comedies anywhere in a long time. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn will prove to be one of the great film comic duos of all time. These two just play off of each other perfectly. You’ll be in stitches for the whole film.
That is if you watch the theatrical version of the film. Thankfully, the Uncorked version of the film contains both the “unrated” and theatrical versions of the film, so you can have both without having to buy two copies of the same film. I look at this new trend of “unrated” versions of hit films very dubiously. Every once and a while they actually add something real to the film. The unrated version of 40-Year-Old Virgin actually improves quite a bit on the original by adding a whole lot of new footage that seamlessly integrates with the film. Then there is the unrated version of Dukes of Hazzard, which adds a total of like 30 seconds of new footage, all of it boob shots cut to get a PG-13 rating. Not exactly a completely different version of the film, but hey, if you have to decide which version of the film to get, I hope that information helps.
Have you ever watched the deleted scenes on a DVD and said to yourself, “huh, that was nice, but I see why they cut that out of the final film”? Well, the eight or so deleted scenes added to the Uncorked edition are those scenes. They’re nice. A few are actually kind of funny. But they don’t really add anything to the final film and actually kind of slow it down. They don’t need to be there. And don’t let anyone lead you to believe that this is an “unrated” version of the film. All of that nudity at the beginning of the film: in the R-rated version. All the raunchy dialogue: in the R-rated version. If you watch the R-rated version, you ain’t missing out on anything. So skip the Uncorked version and just get right to the main course.
And what a main course it is! This movie is balls out funny. But where it really sticks to your ribs is in the movie’s “Heart”. Watching two womanizing idiots fall in love with two wonderful leading ladies (Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher, both yummy) gives the film that extra “umph” that both makes you love it while you are watching it and also makes it hard to forget after it is done. Which is why this movie is a
(MUST SEE)
——The Producers (1968)——
Good, but not as good as I was hoping. You ever see a movie that everyone says is so good, but before you actually get to see it you learn a whole lot about what it is like? Then finally you actually see the movie and aren’t impressed, because unfortunately all of the good parts had been spoiled for you? That happened to me with Jaws, where I already knew what all the big scares were and what was left really didn’t impress me much. Same thing happened with me here, where the season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm pretty much ruined any surprise the ending of this one had for me.
This is still a really funny film. The Springtime for Hitler musical number is a classic. Gene Wilder freaking out is fantasic. A lot of the show business gags, while dated to the time period, are still pretty funny. I just wasn’t as blown away as I could have been with this one. It just doesn’t rise to Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein caliber for me.
(SEE)
(January 14)
——Lethal Weapon (1987)——
I wanted to see Shane Black’s new film, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, in Williamstown, but as I got home from work I could see the rain was starting to change to snow and ice and in turn my commute to Images had become that much more dangerous. So I opted out of seeing it. Hopefully there is a review of that film soon to come. Instead I popped in the movie that made Shane Black–the screenwriter, which I hadn’t (surprisingly) ever seen before: Lethal Weapon.
Boy was I in for a treat, as is anyone else who hasn’t ever seen this before. While the structure of the film follows the same old buddy movie set-up, Shane Black takes his time introducing us to the characters, giving them backstories and fleshing out their personalities so that when the action movie cliches start a-coming they don’t feel like cliches. Instead we are treated to something more akin to a dramatic character study, abet with lots of shooting, punching, kicking, explosions, etc. etc.
You all know the story: Mel Gibson plays a cop who has recently lost his wife and has become suicidal over it, the only thing keeping him alive being his job. Danny Glover plays the man assigned to be his partner and keep him in check, but after his 50th birthday is too old for this shit. There is something about dead porn stars and heroin shipments in there too, but what really matters are the characters and how well they play off of each other. I’ll leave the rest of it to those of you who haven’t already seen this yet.
(MUST SEE)
(January 16)
——Reefer Madness (2004)——
Things I learned about that dastardly marijuana from Reefer Madness: The effects of the demon weed are a combination of the effects of the maniacal laughter of nitrous, the hallucinations of LSD, and you usually look like you are coming down off of heroin. Don’t confuse marijuana with heroin though, because the reefer is much, much more addictive. You also gain the super strength granted to users of PCP and you tend to hump furniture, like someone on Ecstasy. It’s so dangerous, in fact, that you will eventually turn into a flesh-eating zombie to get rid of those munchies cravings. You see, zombies really love the weed. I did not know that. And if you believe anything otherwise, well, you’re an FDR lovin’ communist.
This movie musical remake of the 1936 film is pretty darn hilarious, the best part being that whatever it is that these crazy kids are doing, it doesn’t even remotely resemble the effects of marijuana (not that I would know or anything). The dance numbers are just classic hallucinatory head trips. My favorite part of the movie has to be Kristen Bell though, who plays the dance crazy, virginal Mary Lane. She is just a pure delight to watch any time that she is on screen. After seeing this movie I am very tempted to go out and buy season one of Veronica Mars. And after seeing her after she puffs on the demon weed and has an S&M fueled fantasy sequence, well, let’s just say that I now have a brand new bedtime story to put me to sleep.
(SEE) (if high, MUST SEE)
What’s up with the weather lately, huh? Saturday: Rain, temperature in the mid-50’s. Sunday: Snow, temperatures bottoming out right around 0. That is still messing with my head. They were completely different days at the store too. Saturday was mass chaos. If someone came running into the store with blood spurting stumps for hands, I don’t think anyone would have noticed. If that wasn’t the busiest day we’ve ever had since I’ve been working there then it was damn close. Because of the rain, all of the skiers were window-shopping, which is very frustrating and exhausting for us. It was so loud in the store. I started shows just to hang out in the quiet back hallway for a couple of minutes. Of course Sunday was the exact opposite. Almost no one showed up that day. It was weird. Eerie.
24 got off to a bang, people! This was definitely the best opening to a season of 24 ever. If it stays this way, we’re looking at greatest season ever.
Every week I say to myself, “Man, no way could next week’s The Office be funnier than tonight’s. This was the funniest episode EVER.”
And you know what? The next week. That’s right. Funnier.
Biggest fucking moron in the world came into today. Asked me a question I thought would take five minutes to help him with. I spent damn near 45 minutes with him. Finally he wants to buy something. As I walk up to the register he tells me that he doesn’t have his card with him, but that it is on file. I ask him if he has a Bose Card. He says yes.
I tell him I can get his card number if he just gives me his last name and social security number. I call up the 800 number for the credit service, type in the social. The phone starts ringing. The phone never rings unless the card has expired, and he says he was in the store only three months ago. I ask him if I read the numbers right. I had.
I start to talk to the woman on the other end of the line. She asks me for more and more information. It seems she can’t find him in the system. I tell her that’s impossible. Suddenly Mr. Forgetful tells me that he has a credit card imprint on file. He never got a Bose card. I apologize to the nice lady for wasting her time.
I go to open the drawer to the register that I am on, but you can’t open it if you already scanned product in. So I try the other register. There is nothing in there. So I cancel the transaction. Open the drawer. Look through all of the imprints. His name isn’t on any of them.
“Sir, did you buy anything the last time you were in here?”
He did. So the imprint is with the receipt and I’m back to square one. I sigh. I start to ask questions to find out when exactly he came in, so I can go downstairs and find the receipt.
As I start to ask these questions he pulls out a Discover card out of his wallet, hands it to me, and says, “I think this is the card.”
I wanted to hit him. But I did my best customer service smile and went along as if the last ten minutes never happened. I think he could see the crazy in my eyes though. He didn’t look me in the eye again. I mean, COME ON! Why the hell am I looking for the card you have IN YOUR POCKET!
Stupidest…customer…ever.
He had good competition today, however, from the man who came in with a defective media center complaining that the door didn’t close all of the way. I remembered hearing Rachel on the phone talking to him describing this problem. I played with it for a second, got the door to stick, and said, “Fixed!”
“No it’s not.”
“No, come on, look. The door is down.”
“But it doesn’t play.”
I plug it in and sure enough, the system just skips over every CD.
You’d think he would have led off with that one.
Today Rachel called up from the office to ask me a question.
RACHEL: “I don’t know if you guys are interested, but I just made some hate chocolate. It’s down here if you want some.”
BEN: “Wait, what?”
RACHEL: “It’s downstairs.”
BEN: “HATE Chocolate?”
Of course she meant HOT chocolate. I found the whole thing too hilarious to let go though.
NOTE: If you keep your wallet in your back pocket, do not sit on said wallet all day long. Today I went into work and couldn’t climb any stairs without some shooting pain flairing down my ass to my knee. God that hurt. Nothing says, “hey, Ben, you’re getting old” then not being able to climb some stairs without bitching about it.
Yesterday was probably the best time I’ve had hanging out with Harry. Good times.
A girl came in the store today, totally my type. I tried to get her attention, anything to get her to open up a dialogue with me. But she came in with her father. You could tell she never would have walked in alone. I made small talk with the father for a little while, helplessly hoping for some miracle.
God laughed at my miracle.
I have decided that as a New Year’s Resolution it is time to reinstate the Monday Movie Review. A few people were actually sad to see it go. A few never knew about it but wished I said more about the gazillion movies I see. I kind of miss it. Not the endless time it seems to take to write the reviews, since, yeah, I see a gazillion movies and it takes a gazillion hours to write a gazillion reviews. Still, it is good to get my thoughts out. And if people read them, hell, I’m doing a public service. It’s really more for me though. Sorry.
Anyway, I’ve decided to implement a new ratings system for those people who actually do read these things. My letter grades are entirely subjective, based entirely on my expectations on the movie I’m about to see and whether or not the movie lived up to those expectations. Actual quality of the film is then related to the grade. To simplify this explanation, uh, even I don’t really know what the hell they mean.
I could do the old “thumbs up, thumbs down” thing, but not only will that not say what I want to say, but I think that Ebert has all that copyrighted anyway. So here is my rating system, geared towards the people who are trying to make heads or tails of these maddening reviews:
(AVOID) : Short for Avoid at All Costs. I think this one says it all. If the guy who will see anything says there is a movie out there you should “Avoid at All Costs”, you best be saving your money. Don’t go see it. Don’t rent it. Don’t buy it. Hey, that’s what I’m here for.
(MISS) : The casual movie fan shouldn’t waste their time on this. There are so many good movies out in the world that you’ve got to be able to find something better to spend your time on. On the other hand, hardcore movie fans still might want to check this one out. But only if you still wanted to see it before I said something.
(SEE) : This is slightly different from the next rating. This is a movie I enjoyed, but not enough to heartily berate you for not having seen it yet. If you are into this type of movie, check it out. If not, well, there are other fish in the sea.
(MUST SEE) : I really fricken enjoyed this movie. And you should too. This is a well-made film well worth your time to go see it. So what are you waiting for? Go! Go!
(DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH) : This will be a rare grade I (hopefully) won’t give out much (hopefully in the sense that I hope I won’t go mad with power, not hopefully in that I hope I don’t see a lot of great movies). This is for that rare instance where a movie not only impresses you, but it far outreaches your expectations for it. This is for those, “holy shit, that movie was damn good” moments. As you can guess, these are the movies I talk about the most and the ones I feel you should see most of all.
With that said, let us see if I can actually keep up with the workload I’ve put upon myself. I’m hoping it won’t be that bad.
(January 1)
——Grizzly Man (2005)——
The first movie I decided to watch in 2006 was a doozy. I had heard great things about it during the year, but wasn’t all that into seeing it. I’m still not the biggest fan of the documentary. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love to learn new things, but how many times can you rewatch a documentary for entertainment? I saw a couple documentaries in 2005, a couple good ones at that, but I’m really not in a hurry to see them again any time soon. I only got this one because a friend really liked it and I needed something to put into my Amazon shopping cart the last week of December to qualify for free shipping (you starting to figure out my madness yet?)
I shouldn’t have doubted such a great filmmaker as Werner Herzog. Here’s the story: Timothy Treadwell spends 13 summers living unarmed with grizzly bears as their “protector”, getting closer to them than any human being should and taking footage of almost all of it, which he uses to make documentaries he shows at schools to teach kids about what grizzly bears are really like. Unsurprisingly, Timothy and his then girlfriend are eaten by a bear. Herzog takes an interest in the story, watches the hundreds of hours of footage, revisists the place where Timothy died, interviews the people who knew him and tells an amazing story not just about how he died, but on how how he lived might have led up to this death.
One of the really interesting things I loved about how Herzog directed the film was in how he presented the facts he uncovered. Most documentary films tend to have agendas, which the filmmaker then bends the story to. Herzog does all of the voice-overs, and at times gives us rather personal opinions on what he thinks of the story thus far. But what he skillfully then does is to spin the story right back to Timothy. Herzog may think one thing, but Timothy thinks another. The truth seems to lie somewhere in between. This technique forces us to come up with our own judgments and opinions. Was Timothy crazy for loving these bears so much? By the end of the movie I didn’t really know.
What’s truly startling about this film, though, is the footage Timothy shot himself. There is a certain cinema magic to some of it, while the other half will knot up your belly with tension. The foreshadowing of what is going to happen to him is evident throughout the whole movie, and even though Herzog opts to not actually play for us the audio recording of the bear attack, every time a bear comes close to Timothy or we see what one of them can do you see in your mind the worst for Timothy. It’s hypnotic. It’s mesmerizing. It’s great filmmaking.
(DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH)
——A Day at the Races (1937)——
This isn’t my favorite Marx Brothers movie by a long shot. Maybe I’m just tainted by the brilliance of the last Marx Brothers movie I saw before this, A Night at the Opera (1935), which I’m just about ready to name as the greatest of their films. But I didn’t think they were really at their peak with this one. The laughs were too few and far between. Which is not to say that there weren’t some great gags, because there were. My favorite involved Groucho repeating “Thank you” to a blonde he is wooing after every time she politely thanks him, mocking her high society manners. Harpo also had a really funny part where he breaks a piano through his poor skill at playing it after Chico has finished playing his piece, only for the main section of the piano fall apart and turn into a harp, which he then magnificently plays.
No, really the highlight of this film for me was actually Sam Wood’s direction (he, it also should be noted, directed a Night at the Opera). There are some great shots in the film, my two favorite sequences actually barely even involving the brothers. The first is the beautiful representation of the ballet midway through the film that the main characters are watching. The other is towards the end, where the black folk in a mildly racist sequence sing “colored” music outside of where the brothers are hiding. Hollywood might have given a slightly racist tint to the sequence, but that doesn’t mar Sam Wood’s magnificent handling of scene that seems to venerate the culture much more than it demeans it.
(SEE)
(January 2)
——The Innocents (1961)——
I had a hard time getting into this movie. The opening was pretty great. Black screen. Child singing a song. Singing continues over 20th Century Fox logo. Then we hear prayers from our main character, played by Deborah Kerr, over the main credits. The movie then went to shit for me for a while, because of some poor overacting by Kerr and the child actors. It isn’t until the last half-hour that the scares catch up with the camp and actually put us into a state of terror. That last half-hour really kicks some booty too. Definitely some great scares, great especially for fans of the creepy children possessed by dead people genre.
It was a little too little, too late for me though, unfortunately. Deborah Kerr really does ham it up. And after seeing Capote (2005) in the theater I had a little more hope for the script after I saw that he had a hand in writing it. The movie is competent, but not good enough for me, at least.
(MISS)
——Shoot the Piano Player (1960)——
Francois Truffaut’s follow-up to The 400 Blows (1959) wasn’t very well received when it first came out, probably because it was such a different experiment in cinema compared to his freshman triumph. 400 Blows is a very French film, whereas Shoot the Piano Player was Truffaut’s homage to American cinema, specifically the film noir genre, but also incorporating all sorts of different things. It’s actually quite good.
It might put you off at first, with its weird rambling narrative, but there comes a point in the story when you just get sucked in. No matter what point of the film that is, it almost definitely will be a scene that revolves around our interesting main character. Charlie the mild-mannered piano player is quite the different kind of noir hero. There are many times in the story where he wants to act and do the hero kind of thing, but more often than not he turns away from this opportunity for very human, if unromantic, reasons. He seems like a very realistic character, someone that is afraid of his own potential, much like most of us. The dimensions of his character come to us over time, most notably when his new girlfriend finds a poster from his previous life, where he had a wife and a career as a famous concert pianist, and we discover all sorts of things that completely change our opinion of him through this very extended flashback. And the ending, well, the ending is as tragic as it is beautiful as it is comic. A great film.
(MUST SEE)
(January 3)
——Brokeback Mountain (2005)——
This is that little gay cowboy movie that has been getting all of the hype lately. Indeed, when my sister and I saw it at the theater in Crossgates on a Tuesday matinee there was probably the biggest crowd there I have ever seen for the first showing of something in the middle of the week. The film didn’t disappoint. Ang Lee keeps the story tight and intimate, focusing on the quiet moments of this blossoming relationship between two men who insist they aren’t gay. And while it is hard to argue that their relationship isn’t of a gay nature, there is also something to be said about how things seem to lean more towards a kind of relationships the most intimate of two male friends can have, much like the homosexuality of the Ancient Greek. They love each other in ways their wives can’t understand. It’s a kind of male bonding (aside from the sex) most men worth their weight in testosterone won’t admit they’ve ever had. Ang Lee helps us understand it, but also keeps tragedy less than an arm’s length away. You’re drawn in, one with the story. And man, does it all look pretty while you wait for that inevitability to happen.
(SEE)
(January 4)
——Naked (1993)——
Criterion’s new amazing transfer of this film only improves on my impression of Naked, after first seeing it on crap VHS as part of my screenwriting class in college. Of course then we were focusing on the amazing writing of the film (we had read the screenplay before seeing the film), which still stands up as an incredible use of language, rhythm and wit to paint for the viewer an inspired and insightful study of each character. No matter how small the part, you feel like you’ve known that person for years. What wasn’t really known to me until I saw the new Criterion transfer was how impressive the direction was. The camera work does as much to tell the story as the writing does.
The story is about Johnny, a quick-witted, well read charmer alienated by his place in the England of the 1990’s. He builds relationships only to tear them apart through cruelty, usually towards women. While he is forced to accept the charity and kindness of others, something inside him won’t let others be above him, so he abuses or belittles them with a desperate need to be both a part of something, and against it. You are charmed by Johnny’s wit, but you never really love him as a protagonist. What follows though is an excellent film, which while uncomfortable to watch, ends up being extremely rewarding.
(MUST SEE)
(January 5)
——My Little Chickadee (1940)——
This W.C. Fields western/comedy starts out promising but is soon torpedoed by Mae West’s not-so-funny storyline. When she walks on the screen she definitely commands a presence (this was my first Mae West picture) but soon her lady of the world routine becomes just that, routine. I would have loved to have seen her pluck more comedy gold out of that persona, like in the first section of the film where she watches with bemusement as Indians attack the train and arrows fly right by her head, only to pick up the six-shooters of the fallen sheriff to kill every last Indian. The latter half of the movie revolves around a tepid love triangle she is caught in the middle of (she appears to be somewhere between aroused and bored during the whole thing) while it takes all Fields can do to act funny somewhere in the background. He gets in a few good laughs, but they are few and far between.
(MISS)
(January 6)
——Seven Men from Now (1956)——
This is a good (bordering awfully close on great) Western by John Wayne’s production company, about an ex-sheriff hunting down the seven men who robbed $20,000 from the freight station and in the process killed the teller. The teller just happened to be his wife, who got the job as teller after he lost his job as sheriff and wouldn’t humble himself to become deputy. During his quest he meets a pioneer couple, consisting of a softy husband and hottie wife, and a man he jailed as sheriff, played deliciously by Lee Marvin. Great acting and cinematography is hampered only by a script that doesn’t push itself hard enough (it reminded me of the very similar and much more fantastic The Bravados (1958), staring Gregory Peck). Still, it’s a fun ride, worth seeing for Western fans.
(SEE)
——Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)——
A very young Henry Ford stars with an older Claudette Colbert in this John Ford Technicolor take on surviving on the frontier during the Revolutionary War. Newlyweds Ford and Colbert just want to grow their crops and raise a family, but those darned Indians, led by the Torries and British, keep fucking things up. First Ford is off to war, then the whole community, as the Indians press their attack on the local fort. The movie was surprisingly dull with only a few brighter moments, the only great one being Ford’s monologue after coming back wounded from his first battle, a victory and massacre all at the same time. Ford’s dead eyes stare straight ahead as he pushes onward with his story, unfazed by Colbert hustling back and forth all around him trying to dress his wounds. After that, seeing the priest martial the troops just lacks punch.
(MISS)
(January 7)
——Big Bad Mama (1974)——
If you love tits and Depression era Bonnie and Clyde type violence, then this movie might be for you. A very hot Angie Dickinson plays Mama, the mother of two teenage girls who are so dumb and horny that Mama has to be constantly pulling them out of trouble, like when they both join a burlesque show, or when they both have group sex with one of Mama’s ex-boyfriends, only to have one of them get pregnant. Mama pulls more and more elaborate holdups to help out her girls so that, like in Gone with the Wind, “We’ll never be poor again.” It’s in those holdups that she meets Tom Skerritt and girly man William Shatner, sleeps with them, and all sorts of craziness unfolds. This is pure Roger Corman exploitation cinema, entertaining, but doesn’t really pull out all the punches that something like, say, Death Race 2000 does. There is no depth to this film, which is why I have to give it a:
(MISS)
Today after we opened the store Jeremy started that famous sentence that you know means something big is going to be said. “Since I have all of you all together right now, I have something to tell you…” Well, I already knew Sara was pregnant, so this had to be bad news. Jeremy would be leaving us on March 4th to become a stay at home dad. Of course this is good for him, but man, I’m going to miss him. Besides Rachel, he’s the only one that has been at the store longer than me and since I started he’s been my best friend there. With the baby and everything, who knows how much we’ll see of each other. Plus that means ANOTHER person is leaving. I hate it when people leave. You have to find someone new to hire. Never a fun task. Vacations disappear. If anyone wants to hang out, let me know NOW so I can make some plans.
On the plus side, I let Rachel know that I am going to throw my hat into the ring for the Assistant Manager job. I didn’t get the most enthusiastic response to that from her. That didn’t really throw me too much though, since the last time a promotion came up and she gave me the Lead job her tone when offering me the job went something like, “Well, you can have it, but DON’T FUCK UP.” I’m going to decide to just take this as her asking me to step up to the plate on this one.
There are definite advantages to getting promoted. More money, for one. Also more responsibility. A better job description. It’s much cooler to say, “yeah, I’m the Assistant Manager,” then to try and explain what the hell a Lead Demonstration Specialist actually does, and why it is cooler than it sounds. It’s good for the resume, and especially good if I ever want to make a big move. Going into a manager position at another store is a lot easier if you already have the experience.
This is going to be a little trickier than getting the Lead job though. Not only do I have to talk to Rachel, like I did to get Lead, but I also have to talk to the District and Regional manager and interview with them. That’s a little scary. I interview well though, so I’m not too worried. I just got to show some initiative and the rest should fall into place.
It’s weird. Life decisions for me just kind of…happen. When things are suppose to happen, all just falls into place. This could be that next thing. Of course I could have also just fucking jinxed myself. Dumbass.
Someone has got to help me think of something to write about this year. So far it has been a bust, no? What the hell can I write about? Help!
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