C'est Non Un Blog

Has anyone else noticed how much Richard Simmons and Pauli Shore look alike? Ghaahhhh

——Kiss Me Deadly——

(B+)

I’m not really sure what to make of this odd film noir. Do I not like it or am I a cult fanatic of it like so many others are? It definitely has its strong points and lots of things to love about it, but then again it also has its points where it’s not so great. What to make of Kiss Me Deadly?

First, the good. This film has some of my favorite noir elements: a dark mysterious plot, unusual cruelty, an out of left-field ending and some shot compositions that are amazingly beautiful, like using an archway to create a new frame around the main character changing the field of view from a horizontal rectangle to a vertical one. In many ways this film was way ahead of its time. The beginning sequence is quite excellent, moving from the mysterious woman walking down the middle of a road in the middle of the night, to pleading with the man who picks her up to help her, to the two of them getting captured by the bad guys only to suffer unspeakable tortures (mainly because it all takes place off-screen and in our imagination). The ending (as absurd as it seems today) is also pretty engaging. The mysterious box no doubt had a big influence on Pulp Fiction, and I imagine most people watching it for the first time probably had as much fun trying to figure out what the hell was in there as I did. Also the characters are pretty interesting, the main character a private investigator who pretty much pimps out himself and his sometime girlfriend/partner to get information for their bread and butter infidelity investigations.

However it is not all good. A lot of the dialog feels like stereotypical private eye talk. Some of the performances are pretty one-dimensional. The movie is actually kind of boring after the opening sequence until when the bad guys finally reveal themselves as nothing really happens, and our P.I. hero has absolutely no clues to go on leaving us with a rather bland Law & Order type wild goose chase. The movie really picks up in the last third, but the middle third I found kind of dull. The only thing keeping me awake was the beautiful compositions.

That said, the ending was pretty fantastic, if extremely odd. The film really does add a lot to the genre, but whether or not it adds anything to itself I can’t figure out yet.

——Shanghai Knights——

(C)

What a paint by numbers Hollywood blockbuster. Just about everything about this movie felt stale and uninspired. The soundtrack blew, either trying to sound like period music (with the inexplicable electronic sound thrown in every once and a while) that was just plain bad, or by suddenly throwing in modern songs halfway through the film (using the lazy method of uninspired track selection). The plot is barely there and the dialog sucks. Most of the action is horribly directed (do modern action directors even watch Hong Kong action movies?) and again, uninspired.

That said, there is some saving grace in the two main stars. Only Owen Wilson could make some of those lines funny, and he succeeds most of the time brilliantly in pulling laughs out of lines that would normally make you roll your eyes. It’s a shame most of the time he was making predictable jokes about the British or making really obvious jokes about how Sherlock Holmes was a stupid detective name. The intelligence level of the movie is right around that of a twelve-year-old, and it never tries to be smarter than that. Still, Owen Wilson is able to turn coal into diamonds in this movie. If only a better writer tried his hand at this movie it could have been a real classic.

Also, when Jackie Chan is really let loose he can do some amazing things. The fight in the library and especially the great Singin’ in the Rain sequence gave some brief glimpses into how great this movie could have been. As it is, it is just a mediocre buddy action movie that you’ve seen a million times before.

——The Kid Stays in the Picture——

(A-)

Robert Evans tells us all about how he turned Paramount from a ready to collapse last place studio into the number one studio in Hollywood with films like Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story and a little movie called the Godfather, only to lose it all personally. His story is pretty interesting and he makes for a great narrator of it. Evans isn’t shy about saying what he really thinks about his first marriage or about the pain in the ass working environment he had with Francis Ford Coppola. He also isn’t apologetic over how cocaine ruined his life, which I found very interesting.

This is an extremely entertaining and engrossing documentary missing just one thing, the opinion of someone other than Evans. Evans is the only one who tells his story, and you can just tell that sometimes he is over exaggerating something or omitting something that could potentially be very interesting. This is a minor quibble, but the film could have been so much more rich and complete if there had been some interviews with the major characters from Evans life about Evans. As it is we are just going to have to take his word on things.

——Anything Else——

(A-)

Having seen only one other Woody Allen movie (Annie Hall; don’t worry, I went to the video store and rented some more so that hopefully by the end of the week I won’t be so ignorant) makes it hard for me to review this film, mainly because Anything Else is so much like Annie Hall updated for a new generation. I think that last phrase I used “updated for a new generation” is where Anything Else falls flat. This doesn’t feel at all like it speaks for our generation, but simply for a re-imagining of the 70’s Woody. Jason Biggs’ and Woody Allen’s characters in the movie get along together so well because they are pretty much the same person, and that makes the film feel like Woody is slightly out of touch with what’s going on in the new millennium. Besides the fact that there is a laptop that Biggs works on, I don’t think there is a single other nod to the fact that this film takes place in modern New York. This could pretty much be another 70’s Woody movie, and all of the film’s weaknesses come from that fact.

I could go into everything that doesn’t work but I feel like Lisa Schwarzbaum does a much better job in the new Entertainment Weekly than I ever could, so go read that. However I would like to talk about the one thing that Lisa does omit, which is the fact that the movie is still really funny and well made. Sure a lot of things seem out of date, but at the same time the film has a sort of timeless quality to it since these 70’s values are still funny as hell today. The sequence where Woody gets Biggs the surplus Russian rifle to protect himself is hilarious. I like too the theme of the film, that all of the neuroses don’t distract from the fact that at one point or another in your life you have to move along and not be held back by all of your comfort zones. You can’t be afraid to do what’s best for yourself, which is a message that comes through great I think through the line, “Eh, it’s just like anything else.”

I just got done watching the Emmy’s. I haven’t done that in a long, long time. In fact I think I’ve only done it once before. They Emmy’s are probably one of the most pointless awards, right ahead of the People’s Choice Awards and the most pointless of all awards, the Grammy. Still, this year I decided to watch the Emmy’s (mostly because there was nothing else on TV tonight).

Nothing really surprising with the wins. With the mean age of the Academy voters being right around the Mattlock age bracket, it wasn’t too surprising to see that Everybody Loves Raymond was a big winner, and that good shows that have gone downhill lately, like Will & Grace, The West Wing, and the Sopranos, are getting buckets of awards now to make up for the fact that they were ignored in their ground breaking first seasons (Again, because the voters are so damn OLD). Shows like 24 and Alias were pretty much ignored because they are the new kids on the blocks. Just wait, if you have say three more great seasons maybe the Academy will recognize you right around the time you start sucking!

There was one surprise though, that the Daily Show walked away with some big awards. Wait, what? How the hell did that happen? The Daily Show is edgy and hip (and actually really damn good); where the hell did the voters find it? They must have missed the comedy thing and thought it was a straight news show, that’s the only way I can explain it.

Despite the fact that the awards are pretty much pointless there was a good reason to watch. The 12 different presenters actually offered up some pretty damn funny bits to entertain us through the long, pointless award ceremony. Kudos especially for John Stewart and his salute to the unacknowledged Reality TV: The news. I’ve never laughed so hard, especially not after watching the bombing of Baghdad.

Also, most people seem to know the Emmy’s are pointless, and thus kept their speeches short and funny. Thank you smart people! Edie Falco, thank God you said, “There are so many people I have to thank and so many I’ll forget to thank, so I’m just not going to thank anyone.” Well said, well said.

The other day I get a phone call. An automated voice comes on asking me if I want to take a television survey. I was going to hang up on them because I hate telemarketers, but I am a huge fan of TV and maybe they would ask me stuff about the new Fall Season, something which would very much tickle my entertainment bone (where that is, God only knows.)

So anyway, a different automated voice comes on and I have to take a survey by answering all the questions by pressing one of the numbers on the phone. Every question is about elderly care. How do I plan to take care of my elderly family? How much do I think it costs? Where will I get my information about retirement homes? Etc. Etc. After like twenty of these questions it asks:

“Which TV station do you get most of your entertainment and news from? Channel 6, CBS; Channel 10…” etc.

I answer that question and the next thing I hear is “Thank you!” Click.

Wait…what the hell was that?

——

Also, if anyone has any clues as to who called me up today only to hang up when my dad gave me the phone, that information would be greatly appreciated.

Peanut Butter.

…here is a quote from Roger Ebert’s Underworld review:

“This is a movie so paltry in its characters and shallow in its story that the war seems to exist primarily to provide graphic visuals. Two of those visuals are Kate Beckinsale, who plays Selene, a vampire with (apparently) an unlimited line of credit at North Beach Leather, and Scott Speedman as Michael, a young intern who is human, at least until he is bitten by a werewolf — and maybe even after, since although you become a vampire after one bites you, I am uncertain about the rules regarding werewolves,

“Hold on, I just Googled it. A werewolf bite does indeed turn you into a werewolf, according to a Web site about the computer game Castlevania, which helpfully goes on to answer the very question I was going to ask next: ‘What would be the result if a werewolf bites a vampire? It is called a were-pire or wolf zombie…’”

How cool would a were-zombie be?

——

Did anyone else watch Survivor last night? That was probably the coolest first episode of Survivor I’ve ever seen. Hopefully it will stay that way. For those who missed it, the contestants were thrown off of the boat with only the clothes on their backs, their tennis shoes and a bag full of coins for buying supplies. Otherwise they have depend on piracy to survive, which the big, bearded guy who already kind of looked like a pirate proved by stealing the other team’s shoes to barter for more goods. Awesome. I’m disappointed the first person kicked off was the hot girl only wearing a strapless dress, no bra and, apparently, a thong, since there was a real good chance her outfit would fall to pieces before the end of the show, but alas it was not meant to be. Instead the Scout Leader proved she was a survivor by turning everyone’s attention on someone else when she figured out they wanted to kick her out first. She might last a while; she’s a smart one.

This survivor had a lot of firsts, like for three guys from one team stripping down naked during the middle of an immunity challenge so that their teammate who was only wearing loose boxers wouldn’t feel embarrassed. (One question: This isn’t meant to be racist, but why don’t black people like the water? It seems every Survivor has had one really athletic black guy who for some reason or another hated the water and couldn’t swim well at all. Is it a genetic thing or do they just not have pools where they grow up?) So far this is shaping up to be a great Survivor. I hope it stays that way. (And I love that the two teams are named after famous pirates. I think I made five separate rum jokes last night in response to team Morgan.)

One idea I just had: Wouldn’t it be cool if there was like a post-apocalyptic Survivor where the contestants came out of bomb shelters after a nuclear war and had to compete for food and supplies in a bombed out city? I think that would be awesome.

Melanie Griffith Says She Can’t Get Hired in Hollywood

Melanie Griffith has acknowledged that she took a role in the Broadway production of Chicago (as Roxie Hart) because she is no longer able to find work in Hollywood. “I wish that I could make more movies,” she told today’s (Thursday) New York Times. “The fact that I have some lines on my face, that’s it. It’s not because I lost my talent or I became deformed. It’s only because I’m older. And that’s really sad. It’s something that I do feel a passion to fight.” Due to leave the Chicago cast on Oct. 5, Griffith indicated that it might mark the end of her showbiz career. “I might do a TV show, I might quit,” she said. “I was thinking this would be a great way to go out.”

——

What about the fact that no one likes her and she’s box office poison?

——Umberto D.——

(A)

Quite possibly one of the saddest movies ever made. And also one of the best. I never cry watching a movie, but I was almost in tears when Umberto’s dog Flike refused to come to him at the end of the movie after becoming frightened by the train Umberto tried to throw himself under. I usually groan when a dog is in a sentimental movie, but this has to be the only film in memory where the dog actually adds to the story, rather than detracts from it. Umberto as an old pensioned man has nothing to live for. The post World War II economic boom has left him behind. Society pretty much says it doesn’t want him anymore. He doesn’t want to live in this society anymore. And yet there is the dog…

Flike is the one thing that matters in this old man’s life. He’s got no other responsibilities, no way of supporting himself, and the world wants him to leave. But this dog depends on him and Umberto can’t stand to see the dog not live a full and healthy life. Unfortunately he has no way to provide for the dog, even after he dies. Thus he is stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to go on living after his cruel landlady kicks him out, and unable to die for fear of what might happen to Flike. Flike becomes the symbol of this poor man’s crushed humanity, and makes the story of Umberto D. that much more poignant.

Well, I took my driver’s test today…and flunked it. By ten measly points. All because I couldn’t parallel park. Not that I hit the curb or a car or a telephone pole or anything important like that. I was too far away from the curb. Is that really a major deal? So I didn’t hit it the first time, I’ll just pull in a little more. I blame it on the dickhead inspector I had. Not that he did anything mean, but the whole time he talked down to me like I was sixteen, getting me all worked up and nervous almost immediately after I pulled out. After that I was all jumpy. Jerk. My major thing was not making my parallel park. I had been practicing on some boards and a bush though, can you blame me for not knowing where the fuck my car was? I made a few more little mistakes, nothing big. Although it says on the slip that he gave me that I “Fail to anticipate potential hazards.” Wait, what? He never said anything to me about that. How does he know what I’m anticipating anyway? It’s not like I had to swerve out of the way for anything. What, can they read minds now? Damn it all to hell. And now, because I didn’t get close enough to the curb, I have to put my life on hold for a whole other month while I wait until the next chance I get to be a nervous wreck. Thanks jerk DMV guy. It’s not like I wanted to get on with my life or anything like that.

What the hell? Now I’m all depressed. I never fail anything. I might not do well, but I never fail.

As an added bonus for you loyal readers I’ll actually give you something else that isn’t a movie review for you to read. I wrote this a while back as a kind of first draft to my profile on Friendster. Then I realized Friendster sucked and never actually put it up. I put up the first draft here for everyone’s amusement.

(September 6, 2003)

I was born just after noon on one late August day, 1981. Because of that fact my father wanted to name me Gary (after Gary Cooper in one of my dad’s favorite movies, High Noon), but luckily my mother had a little more common sense than to name me after a Hollywood Cowboy. I’d like to think of myself as a combination of Gentle Ben (the giant grizzly bear) and Ben (the giant rat with an inferiority complex that killed people, as heard in the song Rats by Pearl Jam and the weird love ballad Ben by Michael Jackson, and most recently seen in the movie Willard), although I would like to avoid comparisons with Benji (the cute shaggy dog) and Benny (whose Jets I never really got. Are they the airplanes? The football team? Temptations-like backup singers?) It’s funny, I’ve never really gone by the name Benjamin with anyone, that is unless I’m getting yelled at. (If ever you forget your full name, just do something really wrong and your parents will gladly remind you.) We moved around a lot (which I think explains a lot) before settling down in Hoosick Falls when I was in the fourth grade. We’ve been out in the middle of nowhere ever since.

We live right down the road from a cult (who’s constantly growing compound and 40 foot tall Cross I can see from my bed room window) which always provides us with some fun. One day a crazy woman they knew from Israel (whom I think was over here illegally) stopped her car outside of our house in order yell at her daughter, only to drive away with her wallet still on the roof. The police constantly try to get them for not following zoning regulations, but they must have an inside source because ever time the cops go up, they clear out. We also think they are smuggling drugs, which would explain for the fact that the same three cars drive up and down the road fifty times a day. Need further proof? One day we heard on the news that there was a big pot bust at another one of the houses they inhabit a couple miles down the road. Next thing we know the largest cloud of pot smoke is blowing down to our house. I guess they were trying to get rid of the evidence before the cops got there too.

I’ve always had an overactive imagination. When I was little I used to tell long, complex, drawn out stories (and this was before I even knew English. Imagine having to listen to mini-Me babble on for hours without ever using an actual word). I’ve always been a tad bit stubborn too. I never had a first step; I had a first walk. I never had a first word; I had a first sentence. I tend to be a tad bit of a perfectionist, never doing anything unless I know I can do it right. I once brought in a dictionary to prove to my typing teacher that a word he marked wrong on my final exam was indeed hyphenated. I think I already had a ninety-nine on the test, so my teacher (selfishly) didn’t want to change the grade (I don’t think he thought the dictionary proved anything. You don’t prove that man wrong!) But in the interest of fairness, and my raging ego, I made him change the grade. You don’t fuck me over, dammit!

I think my extreme sense of humor compensates for all of that though. I’ve never found a good joke I never laughed at, and I prefer to live on the funny side of life (for my own sanity). I’m amazed at how many people don’t laugh. In my freshman year film class when we got to the section on silent film comedies (Keaton, Chaplin, etc.) I was quick to notice I was the only one laughing (they are silent, so you can hear EVERYTHING). I couldn’t believe that. Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin are some of the funniest comedians I’ve ever seen, and no one was laughing. Why? I understand that it was a class, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave you sense of humor at the door. My friend Mike once asked me to come to a screening of his, because he knew that if I started laughing I might get others to join in (the laugh track principle). I prefer to think of humor as an all encompassing thing, and I’ll laugh at any joke no matter how un-PC (as long as it is actually funny and clever).

You need to have a good sense of humor when you live in the middle of nowhere. There isn’t a whole lot to do around here so most times you have to make your own entertainment. I can honestly say that I can stare at a wall for hours and keep myself entertained, without seeming in the least bit crazy! (Well, maybe a little bit crazy.) Of course this over active imagination of mine allows for some wacked out dreams, things I couldn’t even begin to start explaining to people without making out a road map first.

I’m an artist who doesn’t draw, a writer who doesn’t write, and a reviewer who only does his own publishing. Where I go from here is unknown. I love to learn new things, and I love to create, but there aren’t many jobs for crazy wild men like me. And still I can’t help feeling like everything is going to work out in the end for me, like it always does with my crazy life luck. The future just seems to unravel itself to me at the right moment, leaving me in a constant state of anxiety the rest of the time, but ultimately working everything out in the end. At least here’s hoping.

——Versus——

(A-)

Are you a fan of one or more of the following: samurai sword fighting, Hong Kong gunplay, Kung fu action, anime style film making, zombies and/or sweet stylish cinematography? Then you’ll love Versus. This is probably one of the coolest action movies I’ve ever seen, and that is still considering the fact that the screenplay is almost incomprehensible. The story consists of a inmate breaking out of prison only to be double crossed by the mob that is suppose to pick him up, so he escapes into the woods with a girl he doesn’t know only to find out that it is the Resurrection Forest, one of 666 portals to the Other Realm. Apparently the inmate has to fight another man in a battle that has been waged between good and evil for centuries only he can’t remember which side he is on, and the girl has something to do with opening the portal to the Other Realm. Besides that I really can’t tell you what the hell the movie is about because at times it seems like the characters don’t even remember what the movie is about. Everyone seems to have collective amnesia as to what their lives were like before the movie starts, and only remember key details when it is important to the story. But who cares about that? If you are watching this movie you’re not watching it for the story, you’re watching it for the action, which, frankly, kicks ass.

The director manages to film each fight (of which there are many; this movie is called Versus) with its own unique style so that the movie never becomes boring as we go into yet another fight sequence. The variety of weapons adds some extra flair to the action sequences too, since it seems more like you are watching five movies in one. The director is quite talented though, using moving cameras, odd angles and quick cutting to film some amazing fight sequences. He uses lots of gimmicks without ever making the film feel gimmicky or clichéd, making most of his shots more often than not jaw-droppingly cool.

The zombies aren’t really in much of the movie (only about 20 minutes is dedicated to the zombies we are all used to) but zombie-like people are all over the movie, since the main bad character decides to kill and then resurrect the gang to fight for him. The regular zombies are a lot like Romero zombies in that they are slow, lumbering and kind of stupid, but there is one main difference, which is that these zombies can use guns (although not very well because they are so slow. They mostly just shoot each other when someone living moves out of the way). Still, there is plenty of good gore scenes including not one, but TWO scenes where someone blows a giant hole in a zombie and the camera then zooms through the hole to show us how big it is.

The movie is a lot like Evil Dead combined with the Matrix, and when the movie isn’t trying to be serious it can be quite funny. There’s one sequence where this cop (who appears in the movie for no reason, but I won’t get into THAT) thinks that he is such a great fighter that he can dodge bullets because he is so fast. The main character shoots at him with this giant rifle (probably used to kill tanks or something like that) and the cop falls back like Neo dodging the bullets on the roof in the Matrix, only to at the last minute say “too slow” and blow up. That may not sound funny the way I described it, but it is hilarious in the film.

One thing that is bound to cause arguments between fans for years to come is the completely unnecessary and yet kind of interesting epilogue to the film. I myself am divided on whether or not I like it. On one hand the movie really doesn’t need it and could have ended just fine without the epilogue. Also the sets are pretty shitty, showing most obviously how low budget the movie really was. But then again the epilogue has a pretty cool idea in it (which I won’t ruin for you here) that actually makes the movie cooler. I don’t know, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it belongs or not.

Anyway, even though this is a slightly flawed film I totally recommend you go out and rent the director’s cut of it right away. This movie is so damn cool. The final fight alone is worth the price of admission. I really want to see where this director goes from here. With a little more money and a better screenwriter he could go a long way. I really think this director is one to watch.