Happy Halloween, Part III

On this, the third Halloween since I started this blog, I'm reviewing not one, not two, but THREE totally '80s, cheesy, "atomic" horror, B-movie spoofs. There's also pictures of my son wearing his Lil' Frankie costume for the third year in a row and the Jack O'Lanterns that I freehanded (so don't judge my witch too harshly).

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (one and a half stars total) was my personal favorite of the bunch, despite the fact that I gave it the lowest rating. I don't think I've ever pointed out here that my "scientific method" for reviewing movies may subjectively rate craftsmanship, but it has no bearing on transcendental qualities, or unquantifiable sentimentalities. Just because I consider my favorite movie of all time to be a five star movie doesn't mean that any of my other favorites deserve the same rating. Killer Klowns (1988) doesn't sound like it would be a scary movie, it isn't really meant to be a scary movie, and yet, if watched with a certain state of mind, it becomes scary for fleeting moments. Its creators, the Chiodo brothers, also did the special effects on Elf (2003) and Team America: World Police (2004). It stars John Vernon, the bad guy from such silly classics as Animal House (1978), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980) and Ernest Goes to Camp (1987). The theme song was written and performed by The Dickies, the first California punk band to be signed to a major record label. I'd go on but there's nothing I can say that's going to change anyone's mind about this movie.

The longer I watched Night of the Comet (two stars total), the less I liked it. You know a movie's bad when it has to use a cover version of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" instead of the original. It stars Catherine Mary Stewart, who was also the leading lady on The Last Starfighter (1984) and Weekend at Bernie's (1989). She plays an independently minded 18-year-old that works at L.A.'s historic El Rey theater, loves arcade games, and knows more useless trivia about Superman than her boyfriend, who becomes breakfast for a zombie the morning after a comet that killed the dinosaurs passes by Earth again. For me, the real star of the show was Kelli Maroney, the leading lady from Chopping Mall (1986), as the bubblegum-popping, younger sister. I defy you to name another movie where violence is so casually domesticized as in this one's line that goes "the MAC-10 submachine gun was practically designed for housewives." Ah, the Reagan years. I honestly do miss some '80s styles, not the shoulder pads, but definitely the big hair. Despite the fashion revival that's happening right now, Halloween is my only chance to see the best outfits from yesteryear, the oversize button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up under colorful vests. Wait a minute, maybe I'm thinking of the early '90s.

Tremors (three and a half stars total) The early '90s kinda blend with the late '80s in my mind, hence the reason that Tremors (1990) can be considered totally '80s. I mean, it's got Kevin Bacon, isn't that good enough? He did Flatliners the same year as this movie, but over the last decade he's done almost all thrillers. I was living out of country when Wild Things (1998) and Stir of Echoes (1999) came out and I still haven't seen them, but I thought Bacon definitely brought his dark Everyman thing to Mystic River (2003) and The Woodsman (2004). Anyway, you gotta love him for doing Tremors, because he didn't have to and it appears as though he had fun. Granted, it's beautiful country, he gets to do an accent, cuss up a storm, be the hero and get the girl. The only other familiar faces are the dad from Family Ties (1982-1989), the grandpa from the 3 Ninjas (1991-1997) series, and Reba McEntire as a survivalist gun nut. You gotta love survivalists, (at least you do in this movie, along with the harmonica, because they play a lot of it). The moral to the story happens to be the same as the Boy Scout motto, "be prepared." It got me wondering how many people would be able to handle heavy machinery in a pinch. It's a good skill to have in creature features where characters are cut off from the rest of the world.

Recent Japanese Thriller Versus Classic Japanese Thriller

"CGI running may be faster than real running, but it never seems like anybody is really working at it. We're watching an effect instead of an achievement." (Roger Ebert's review of The Promise, 2006, included in his book, Your Movie Sucks, p. 231)

Casshern (one and a half stars total) As anal retentive as it may be, there is a difference between war and wartime movies. This movie and the other one reviewed below are evidence of that. Avatar (2009) would be a war movie. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) would be a wartime movie. What both of these sci-fi/action movies share in common with Casshern (2004) is that they all were shot with digital backlots (live actors performing in front of a greenscreen) and they all suck. My wife really likes Sky Captain but what bothered me was all the times Gwyneth Paltrow's character put the movie on pause to stare at her camera. There are lots of lingering shots in Casshern too. My complaint isn't about the overall pacing on either movie. My complaint is that some scenes just need to be left on the editing room floor/computer hard drive. They may be redundant within the context of the whole movie (Sky Captain), but more often they are devoid of any meaningful content no matter what their length or position (Casshern). I've already written about movies with video game sensibilities elsewhere on this blog (see my 8/14/10 Scott Pilgrim review), so I'll just close by saying that I have no appreciation for most video game graphics, the world doesn't need another version of Frankenstein (1818), and while I own the original Metropolis (1927), I'm less and less motivated to the see the anime (2001) that it inspired with each Japanese movie I watch.

"The first time I saw the film, I knew hardly a thing about Japanese cinema, and what struck me was the elevated emotional level of the actors. Do all Japanese shout and posture so?" (Roger Ebert's 2002 review of Rashōmon, included in his book, The Great Movies II, p. 362)

Onibaba (three stars total) Would someone please explain what's up with Japanese movies (anime or otherwise) and sex perversion? I haven't seen a lot of Japanese movies, less than a half dozen by director Akira Kurosawa, plus a couple of Cartoon Network imports (the "adult" in Adult Swim should've told me everything I needed to know). I've tried to read a fair share of (non-Shōjo) manga and all of it has included at least a passing reference to either cross-dressing, hermaphrodites, incest, striptease or supernatural rape. Onibaba (1964) literally translates as "demon woman," but the English title could just as easily be Cougar Serial Killer Mother-in-Law. An old widow throws herself at a neighbor who's half her age, but he goes after her young daughter-in-law instead. Nothing about this movie is suitable for network TV, and the funny thing about that is it's almost 50 years old. The setting alone is a horror movie waiting to happen. Two women, not blood relatives, are forced to live together in a rural swamp with no honest way to support themselves. They've taken to killing samurai and stripping them for items to pawn. When the older woman offs a samurai with a demon mask, she steals it to scare the younger woman away from the object of her disgusting desire. If you're familiar with the Goosebumps story, "The Haunted Mask" (either the 1993 book or the 1995 TV episode), you already know what happens next. Supposedly this movie (and probably the one reviewed above) are about the aftermath of atomic warfare, but not in the same way that Godzilla (1954; Casshern marks its 50th anniversary) is about the effects of the bomb. In one way or another, are all Japanese movies about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or just those that find their way to the U.S.?

'50s Psychological Thriller I Just Saw for the First Time

"(The leading foe of horror comics) Fredric Wertham's dishonest, bullying 'science' also had much in common with the increasingly sophisticated and cynical efforts of Madison Avenue to control the attitudes, anxieties, and consumption patterns of American women. And expanding postwar incomes was enabling psychiatry to make vast inroads into outpatient-land. The as yet unnamed category of drugs to be known as tranquilizers was already on the drawing boards, and would soon permit the psychiatric medicalization of a whole class of postwar discontents, many essentially social and economic in origin." (David J. Skal, The Horror Show: A Cultural History of Horror, p. 237)

The Bad Seed (one and a half stars total) My middle brother and the guys we grew up with had an inside joke about the way my dad talks. We used to say that anytime he opened his mouth, he was "gettin' technical." As with most men, my dad's not big on chitchat. If you ask him a question, he'll tell you everything he knows with relation to that question and then that topic will be exhausted. Sometimes I catch myself "gettin' technical." This blog is the perfect example. The dialogue on The Bad Seed (1956) works the same way. It's all exposition. None of it flows naturally. The characters might as well be reading passages from Dr. Spock's book, Baby and Child Care (1946), like newscasters with a teleprompter. For those of us that didn't grow up with the revolution that was the antiwar protester, Dr. Benjamin Spock, he was the first pediatrician to apply psychoanalysis to child-rearing. The Bad Seed might be the first horror movie to apply the word psychoanalysis verbally to a family line of female serial killers. It was definitely the first horror movie to be nominated for (count 'em up) four Oscars, including Best Actress in a Leading Role, two for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the most surprising to me, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. The movie takes place mainly indoors and features people sitting on couches for much of its running time, so I'm not sure what cinematography it was nominated for, unless it's the "grace of God" lightning scene at the end. I've already mentioned the acting, but I must specifically mention Nancy Kelly in the leading role. Her hoarse, smoker's voice is so weak and whiny it's like nails on a chalkboard. While most audiences were probably thinking the bad seed's character just needed a good spanking, I was wishing I could grab the mother's character by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. The daughter's character, played by Patty McCormack, may act like she's been spared the rod and spoiled for sure, but she doesn't look like she's been spared the ugly stick. She has the same wild-eyed unibrow and bad teeth as Ernest Borgnine's title character from Marty (1955), which swept the Oscars the year before. Back to spankings, the moment of triumph on The Children's Hour (1961), another movie based on a play with similar themes, comes when a proud old woman finally disciplines her rotten granddaughter, who is partially responsible for a lesbian schoolteacher committing suicide. Such a scene only comes to those who wait till after the "curtain call" styled closing credits on The Bad Seed, and by then it's too late.

'60s Vampire Movie I Just Saw for the First Time

The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (also known as Dance of the Vampires; one and a half stars total)
Contribution to vampire movie mythology - crosses don't work against Jewish vampires

Until I saw the Rob Lowe remake of 'Salem's Lot (2004), I'd never really been confronted with the idea that a cross doesn't work if the user has no faith. Following this logic, a cross shouldn't work against a vampire that has no faith either, but I'd never seen a movie bring this up until I watched The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). Perhaps you've never imagined a religious vampire, but seeing as how all vampires start off as people, and the majority of people in the world are religious, a newfound thirst for blood shouldn't change that. Only a religious person would consider it a curse. At the end of this movie, it's suggested that the curse of vampirism gets spread throughout the world. To a religious person, that might mean something as simple as unbelief. To Polish director Roman Polanski, it could be a metaphor for Russian communists or German Nazis (all Godless). All I know is you have to sit through 45 minutes of slapstick just to get to a place where some fearless vampire killing can begin, and then it just switches from straight sex farce to gay sex farce. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind horror-comedy hybrids. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Monster Squad (1987), and that had its fair share of raunchy humor. It's not that this one's not funny, it's just not funny enough. The Professor character looks and acts just like Mr. Bean, assuming that you find that funny. The professor's assistant, played by the director himself, reminded me personally of Scrat, the "saber-toothed squirrel" from Ice Age (2002), although I'm sure I'm forgetting some well-known, wimpy sidekick. It's sweet that actress Sharon Tate got to know her future husband while working with him on The Fearless Vampire Killers. It's tragic to know that she was murdered exactly two and a half years after its release. I don't want to end on a melancholy note, even though that's what the movie does, so I'll add that it includes animated bats over the opening credits, similar to the ones featured a year earlier on Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966; you've got to see that one to believe it).

Wes Craven Versus Remake

The Last House on the Left (1972; one and a half stars total) claims on its opening credits to be based on a true story: "The names have been changed to protect those still living." The girl at the video store told me it's based on Ingmar Bergman's arthouse cinema classic, The Virgin Spring (1960). Turns out even that movie was based on the 13th century Swedish ballad "Töres dotter i Wänge." So truth or fiction, poetic justice has been and will always be relevant in the collective conscience, and as The Last House on the Left and its remake show (see below), it will continue to get uglier with "evolving standards of decency." If I'm beginning to sound preachy, I'm just mimicking the movie's beginning, when a teenage hippie argues with her mother about foul language and the women's liberation movement. The moral to the story is obviously to listen to your parents and watch who you hang around, but the worst horrors don't happen on the wrong side of the tracks. That's why I think the title should have been changed from The Last House on the Left to Right Outside Your Door. (Another title could have been A Game of Cat and Mouse, suggesting a debate over which characters are cats and which are mice.) I always thought the infamous rape and murder scene in the woods happened at night, but no, it happens in broad daylight, complemented by a goofy but very '70s banjo and kazoo soundtrack. Until one of the girls arrives at a cemetery, there's nothing to let on that you're watching a horror movie. The look and sound is more like Easy Rider (1969) or TV's Dukes of Hazzard (1979). It actually works as a perfect transition between Deliverance (1972), released a month earlier, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), which I believe may have been partly inspired, or at least made possible by The Last House on the Last Left.

The Last House on the Left (2008; three and a half stars total) Newer ain't always better, but in this case it was. The title makes more sense to the story because it's the directions a family uses to get to their vacation home, then later it's the directions the family's daughter, Mari, gives to her kidnappers to get herself that much closer to home. The tone is established right from the opening night scene by a dirty joke between two cops, who are killed minutes later, after a jump scene and some taunting about being one of the them being a family man. That is the last time the bad guys are shown joking around with their victims. From that point on they're strictly business, angrily dealing with being sidetracked by some teenage girls who actually look like teenage girls this time around. You may recognize the actresses playing Mari and Paige from Aquamarine (2006) and Superbad (2007), respectively. The Last House on the Left remake has less exploitation and more tension. The shower scene gets traded for a pool scene. The mom's seduction of one of the bad guys gets traded for garbage disposal entrapment. The dad's chainsaw gets traded for surgical paralysis (oh, and a microwave). The first half of the movie still takes place in broad daylight but it gets darker as things get worse, ending in a rainstorm with thunder for a soundtrack and flashes of lightning to see what's going on. The characters are updated by more than cell phones and political correctness, although it is interesting to note that the lesbian from the original, shown on the same level as ex-cons, is missing from the remake. I couldn't believe that Mari's character would follow a drug dealer into a shady apartment building like before but now it's noble when she gets out of the car to check on a friend. Her update as a swim champ gives her jumping into the lake more meaning. The updated reason the kidnappers look for help is because they're hurt, not because they're stranded, and then Mari's dad being an M.D. becomes more meaningful also. The reason the kidnapper's son gets sick has nothing to do with drug withdrawal (although there are drugs in the movie), but from his realization of who's house he's in. The reason Mari's parents bring her body in on the couch has more meaning because has to do with the best plot twist ever. Finally, the remake has NO BOOBY TRAPS.

Peter Jackson and the Living Dead

Dead Alive (one and a half stars total) I should've known I wouldn't like Dead Alive (Braindead in New Zealand). I didn't like The Frighteners (1996), another horror-comedy directed by Peter Jackson. I may have gone to midnight advance screenings of all three Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) movies, but I had to walk out on the last one because of work and I still haven't caught the ending after all these years. Peter Jackson has what I call diarreah of the eye, and it nearly ruined his remake of King Kong (2005), which surprisingly I was looking forward to. His work LOOKS beautiful, at least his recent work does, and it's properly balanced by ugliness, both human and inhuman, but there's only so much that the senses can take. One T. Rex would've been sufficient, thank you very much. Even action and gore can get boring or tedious. That applies to the second half of Dead Alive (1992). Some jokes are funnier the 3rd time around (the rule of three) but not the 33rd. Because I have a sick sense of humor, I chuckled when the first zombie ate her own ear out of a bowl of tapioca. By the time a zombie baby was born, my funny bone had been broken. At that point I was more fixated on the cheap claymation and the neon green slime, reminiscient of Nickelodeon's Double Dare game show (1986). The actors are great though. Since the U.S. doesn't get a lot imports from Australia and New Zealand, I'm not sure if they're always wacky like in Mad Max (1979), Crocodile Dundee (1986) and Strictly Ballroom (1992), but they seem to be.

'30s Horror Movie I Just Saw for the First Time

White Zombie (one and a half stars total) Did the band formed in 1985 really get its name from this 1932 movie? According to Wikipedia, yes. This shouldn't come as a surprise, since most of the band's song lyrics refer to various horror classics. Should this movie be considered one of those classics? According to my "100 Years of Horror Movies" list, yes. It's the first in a very long line of zombie movies and Bela Lugosi's first villainous follow-up to Dracula (1931). Zombie staples like race relations, class conflict, and a little bit of consumer culture are all present. That last one may be a stretch, but I'm referring to Mr. Beaumont's character, the plantation owner, objectifying another man's bride as if her heart can be bought or stolen. Softcore, another horror movie staple, might have got its start with this movie. There's a scene of the bride in her underwear right before the wedding, and jungle drums can be heard in the distance. Then again, maybe that's just to foreshadow that she's about to be "stripped" of her personality when she's transformed into a zombie. The idea of being drugged and buried alive on your wedding night is definitely creepy, but it probably works better in your imagination than on the big screen. On second thought, this movie would work great as a modern remake, or as a cross between Indecent Proposal (1993) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988). At the very least, the Haitian setting could be instantly improved by some simple stock footage of an actual Caribbean island, which was completely absent here. I realize it's tight for independent productions, but money could have been saved by ditching Bela Lugosi's fake unibrow and then used to hire some real black actors, rather than use white actors in blackface. Oh well, at least Rob Zombie got his name from it.

Guest Movie Review

Obsessed (one and a half stars total) My wife put together the following list of convenient plot points which require far more than suspension of disbelief:

1. Main Dude announces, "I'm going to take a leak, then I'm going home." Who says that? If he hadn't conveniently mentioned he was going to the bathroom, the following scene couldn't have happened.

2. Beyonce conveniently forgets to set the alarm when she leaves the house the second time so that Crazy Girl can break in. Beyonce was so adamant about buying the alarm, would she really forget to set it?

3. Beyonce and Main Dude go to San Diego (or at least plan to) on different days. There is absolutely no reason for this except that it conveniently allows Crazy Girl to be alone with Main Dude (at least that was the plan).

4. Gay Assistant tells Crazy Girl the plan to leave on different days. Instead of just saying, "They're going to San Diego," he tells her exactly when each person is leaving, thus conveniently allowing her to create a Crazy Plan.

5. Naive Babysitter refuses to speak to Beyonce (who is supposedly) on the phone, thus conveniently allowing the baby to be kidnapped. And why doesn't the baby cry? Isn't that what they do best?

OUT TODAY ON DVD: FIGHTING

I Never Liked Bugs Bunny Either

The Spirit (one and a half stars total, even though you can plainly see two and a half stars pictured, because the dialogue was so atrocious I'm subtracting not one but two red stars) How can you make a movie even more violent than Kill Bill and still get a PG-13 rating? Easy, you just do it the Looney Tunes way. Speaking of which, my favorite scene from the Kill Bill double feature comes at the very end of the second movie, when The Bride character thinks she's saved her daughter from a life of violence with father Bill, but Looney Tunes plays in the background and puts a question mark on any such possible rescue. Now I would never dare to compare Kill Bill with The Spirit, but I just wanted to make a point with the former movie before going into my review of the latter. Frank Miller wrote and drew Sin City and 300, and directors Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder did well to stay true to his source material, but he does no such favor for Will Eisner's comic book/strip, The Spirit. I think the actor playing the main character got the facial expressions from the comic page right and Miller included Eisner's trademark rainfall, but that's about it. The cartoon violence (i.e. invulnerability and gore without blood), toilet humor, and repetitive, repetitive, repetitive dialogue is all Miller. This movie adaptation shares more in common with last year's Speed Racer than it does with Sin City, (just for the record, I liked both of those movies just the same but for different reasons). Cheap computer animation looked like even cheaper video game graphics and one of my favorite actresses, Scarlett Johansson, gave her worst performance ever. Avoid any scene with The Spirit running and Scarlett talking and you may have some fun. I think what happened is that the comics veteren/green director got too excited. He didn't think he'd get another chance to direct a movie so he tried to throw in every idea and pop culture reference that he could fit and the movie ended up being more concept and iconography than movie (i.e. lost mythological relics that grant magical powers; mad scientist gangsters that talk like James Bond villains and dress like Nazis; undead hands coming up out of fresh graves). To his credit though, the director gives the most enthusiastic history of the comic book medium in 15 minutes on the DVD special features.

Trick Question

Q: Which movie felt longer?
A: They're almost exactly the same length.

Australia (three stars total - twice as many as Watchmen) I went into Australia (165 minutes, 2008) expecting more of the musical melodrama from director Baz Luhrmann's previous work in Moulin Rouge! (127 minutes, 2001) but hoping for no less of the charm and cartoonish action of Romeo + Juliet (120 minutes, 1996). Although Australia was longer, it wasn't as epic as Nicole Kidman's Far and Away (140 minutes, 1992), neither in years nor in distance covered. It actually shares more in common with one of my father's favorite movies, Quigley Down Under (1990), but without the gunslinging and with a less impressive stampede than The Man from Snowy River (1982). Speaking of the stampede, it should have come 25 minutes earlier, immediately following a standard half hour of character introductions. Every subsequent plot point came 25 minutes too late after that. Which 25 minutes before the stampede would I cut? The ten minutes it takes to get from the bar to the station and the death of Nullah's mother. Call me cold-hearted, but all that came out of those scenes was the connection between Nullah and Lady Ashley (which could have started on the stampede) and the connection between Hollywood's Wizard of Oz and aboriginal gulapa (or magic, which led to most critics' biggest problem with the movie). In order to cut the movie down to the two-hour average, I would have also cut the 20 minute montage between winning the army contract and Nullah's walkabout, however I did appreciate hearing one of my favorite jazz tunes, "Begin the Beguine." and seeing Drover's tuxedo transformation. Carney's daughter could have still become Fletcher's wife without the montage, and the time saved could have been better used to make him a worse villain. As Australian movies go, I don't think this one's more romantic than Strictly Ballroom (94 minutes, 1992) or as thrilling as Crocodile Dundee II (110 minutes, 1988). The most interesting commentary I can make is that two people sacrifice their own lives to save another's and both happen to be aborigines. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" may have been used repetitively, but it wasn't as bad as "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" in WALL-E.

Watchmen (one and a half stars total - felt twice as long as Australia) Director Zack Snyder seems to share the same fault as Baz Luhrmann for getting longer with each successive outing: Dawn of the Dead (101 minutes, 2004), then 300 (117 minutes, 2006), and now Watchmen (163 minutes, 2009). The opening credits by themselves cover 30+ years. That should tell you everything you need to know about how long this movie feels. My boss told me he walked out of the movie after the first 40 minutes and there's a reason for that. The entire first hour of the movie should have been cut, along with all the flashbacks, and the slow motion scenes should have been normal speed. So much time is spent going backward, it never feels like things move forward at all. Not that I would mind being stuck in the '80s, but this isn't the '80s I remember. It's interesting to consider what the '80s may have been like for those who weren't kids at the time. I remember '80s excess and fear of the U.S.S.R., but I remember action figures and gang culture much better. The movie covers all these things, but you wouldn't want to watch a movie about that, would you? I would have been unfaithful to the book and started with Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II getting cornered in the alley by hoods, right before they beat them all down, because that scene sums up the whole movie. It's Matrix-style bullet time meets Revenge of the Nerds, where a geek gets the girl, and average-looking good guys look good fighting without getting so much as a scratch. It's all about B-movies going mainstream, and the corruption in that concept. I watched the movie to see the costumes (the best part), not to listen to funeral dirge soap opera music (the worst part). I should have been honest up front - I'm not a fan of the Watchmen comic book series (I hate when it's referred to as a graphic novel; it was a series before it was collected) and I tried not to hold that against the movie. I was hoping it might have some je ne sais quoi to make me sympathize more with characters that you're supposed to hate. Alas, I'm afraid the movie was TOO faithful in that regard and the narration, which works for comics but not movies, made me hate the characters more than I already did. The question is not whether the movie is better or as good as the book, because that question always gets the same answer. My question is whether any non-comics reader would have watched this movie if not for all the marketing?

Friday the 13th Times Three This Year

There will be another Friday the 13th next month and then again in November. "The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia" (Wikipedia). The Friday the 13th movie remake released today could be considered the 13th in the series, if you count Freddy vs. Jason and a fan film, Cold Heart of Crystal Lake (both from 2003). Below is a list of all the winks and nods in the remake to the '80s movies in the series:

1. Friday the 13th (1980) the "ki ki ki ma ma ma" echo reverberation music is used before the opening and end credits; there's a black and white flashback of Pamela Voorhees' decapitation during the opening credits; Jason jumps up from the lake at the end; people get killed with arrows

2. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) a FAST Jason with a sack on his head hangs around the rundown Camp Crystal Lake with a candlelit shrine to his mother and a Pamela Voorhees look-alike teenage girl shows up; a campfire scary story reveals the origin of Jason; he crashes through a window to grab someone; wheelchair

3. Friday the 13th Part III (in 3D, 1982) a BIG Jason gets the hockey mask; he's unmasked at the end; he's hung by a noose in a red barn

4. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) "Clay comes to Crystal Lake searching for his sister just as Rob did; Jason tilts his head when someone says his name" (IMDb FAQ)

5. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) a silhouette of Jason standing in a barn door; a sheriff comes too late to help

6. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) a motorboat hits someone in the head; Jason pulled down with a chain around his neck; he's buried(?) at the bottom of the lake

7. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) death by sleeping bag

8. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) Jason as a child

Friday the 13th '09 (one and a half stars total) As you can see above, the new remake does a lot to reverence the overall series. It's by the same producers that remade Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hitcher (1986), and are remaking The Last House on the Left (1972). Nothing is taken away, and the only things added are stoner humor (none of it funny) and a "realistic" explanation (unintentionally funny) for how Jason could live half his life in the woods and never be discovered. It turns out that Camp Crystal Lake is built on top of old abandoned mining tunnels and Jason has spent much of time hidden underground. This is unlike me to say, but I wish they would have continued improving upon the realism by having the sheriff turn out to be Jason's (never revealed) father, who has been secretly covering up the crimes and keeping the media at bay. Perhaps that would have been a rip-off of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. What I'm about to say will reveal me for the non-European art critic that I am, but here it goes: The worst part of the movie was the nudity. I know sex sells, but what does it have to do horror?

Original Versus Remake

When I went to the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, I watched Stoked, a documentary exploring the rise and fall of '80s skateboard legend Mark "Gator" Rogowski. Director Helen Stickler did a Q&A after the screening and one audience member asked about the "feminist style" and flow of the movie, clarified to mean that it was structured like cross-chatter, "the way women talk."

The Women '39 (two stars total) from the Broadway smash by Clare Booth, reminded me of that description. There are so many characters and they all talk so fast, I couldn't keep track of them, even after copying their names from the credits. Sylia, the catty gossip, played by Rosalind Russell, reminded me of a cross between Lucille Ball (from I Love Lucy) and Moira Kelly (my favorite actress). She was the only endearing face in the movie. Stars back then could get away with smaller eyes, rounder faces, and bigger noses. The lead character, played by Norma Shearer, was no better-looking than the manicurist with the buck teeth and the annoying accent. The best-looking character was either the maid, Jane (played by Virginia Grey), or the perfume girl, Pat (played by Muriel Hutchison), both small supporting roles that get mere minutes of screen time each. Joan Crawford will always be old to me. The fact that there is an awkwardly inserted fashion show and a manicurist is the story's catalyst lets you know this is a movie about women for women, and yet I don't think it should have been called The Women. It should have been called The Divorcees, because it's more about these idle ex-wives' male-bashing than it is the admittedly cool concept of a movie absent of men. It's hard to believe a movie ALL about divorce was made in 1939, then again, that was the same year as Gone withe the Wind, which director George Cukor was being fired from right before doing The Women. The black and white to color effect from The Wizard of Oz is copied here during the aforementioned fashion show. Women seem to like epic movies that take place over years and this one doesn't disappoint in that regard. The best line may be "there's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used by high society, outside of a kennel," but how many movies nowadays have someone say they want to lay "spread out in bed like a swastika"?

They separated these two movies by genre at the store. They shelved The Women '39 under comedy and The Women '08 (one and a half stars total) under drama, but I would have done the reverse, or just left them together, under which genre I'm not sure. The remake is an intriguing update of the same story but the fast-talking, pre-war style doesn't carry over. What was expert pacing in the original feels like farce on fast-forward now. Just as the Sylvia character was my favorite in the original, Annette Bening's version was my favorite in the new movie. Her Sylvia is almost more important than the main character, Mary, played by Meg Ryan. It seems like everyone has daddy issues this time around, which is tacked on but makes more sense for how Mary could have missed her husband's affair. What doesn't make sense is why the most emotional scenes were not shot as close-ups on faces as they were in the original. My problems with this remake have nothing to do with what was added or left out however, they're merely the things I hate in all mediocre movies, like after-school special music, multiple musical montages, and a token gay couple. I loved the cracks at GPS, teens getting tattoos, and the pot-smoking scene with Bette Midler, who improves on the Countess character. The most interesting change is that the maid, Jane, is a gap-toothed redhead and no longer the best-looking character and neither is the perfume girl Pat. If ever there were two stars that don't have anything to do with each other, it would be Joan Crawford and Eva Mendes. Eva's Crystal is just a drama queen without any of the subtlety of Joan's. As a side note, the fashion show in the original is replaced now by lingerie shopping. This made me realize some things about the diminishing sensuality of clothes over time. The more chaste swimsuits of yesteryear (and featured in the original movie's fashion show) were more revealing than the skimpy bikinis of today, not because of the amount of skin showing, but because of the way they accentuated the figure. Skin distracts from, rather than highlights curves and workout clothes were sexier back then too, and more feminine. If I missed anything from The Women (1939) in The Women (2008), it was the hot, but goofy workout scenes. I know my time is up but I want to leave you with one last thought. These two movies made me realize that old movies weren't just shot in black and white, they were "black and white."

Bad Movie Sequel Versus Worse Movie Sequel

I found my old Transporter 2 movie review while looking for buried Word files after my computer crashed recently. This is one of the first reviews I did after I made up my "Five Star Rating" system. I include it here next to my review of Transporter 3 which I saw on Thanksgiving this year but unfortunately has taken till now to post. More old reviews are on their way this week.

Transporter 2 (two and a half stars total) Jason Statham's Transporter (2002) movies are like Jackie Chan's cop movies, except the hero isn't as little or goofy. For the longest time, the martial arts genre was only getting goofier with the likes of JCVD in Street Fighter (1994) and Wesley Snipes in Blade (1998). That's not to say that The Transporter 2 (2005) is not silly, it just doesn't have any Nazis or magical relics, as in Bulletproof Monk (2003). What it does have is Colombian bio-terrorists. But relevance and absurdity aside, it's written by Luc Besson of the original La Femme Nikita (1990) and The Fifth Element (1997) fame and it plays like European art cinema. The people who complain that this movie is too unrealistic are totally missing the point. My favorite aspect is the comic book action: he does skateboarding tricks with his car (see also 2005's Herbie Fully Loaded) without damaging it, never hurts himself, jumps out of high rise windows and lands on his feet. My qualms are with the oversaturated lighting, most of the costumes, and the old French guy for supposed comic relief. The hybrid classical and techno score is nowhere near The Saint (1997) or The Matrix (1999), but then nobody goes to action flicks for the music. (2 September 2005)

We learn from Scream 3 (2000) that the first movie in a series establishes the rules, the second one breaks them, and in the third there are no rules. This same narrative formula is used in The Transporter 3 (one and a half stars) with the title character's rules for the jobs he takes. As in the first two movies, there is plenty of gorgeous European highway scenery and a crisis taken from international news headlines, but that's all that survives in this steadily worsening series. Gone are the fight scenes where it's obvious that Jason Statham is doing his own stunts, replaced by tiny, chopped-up bits of music video-style editing where it's not obvious who's doing what or how. I still prefer this to the slow-motion fight scenes of Hard Boiled (1992) and Gladiator (2000), unpopular as my opinion may be. If you're looking for action with an international flare and you've already seen Quantum of Solace (2008), may I recommend the French parkour in District B13 (2004)? Anyway, back to The Transporter 3 (2008), there's only way to put this - the girl ruins the movie. Her accent and dialogue is so unbelievable that I had to check if she was overcompensating for not really being Russian. When I saw that her real name is Natalya Rudakova, it made it all the more unbelievable that she was given as many lines as she was during the overlong seduction scene her English being what it was. Finally, somewhere during the series, the music stopped being fun. Go back and take notes on the sounds in the first movie, which was and will continue to be the best.

Metacritc Versus Rotten Tomatoes

I just discovered Metacritic from a side comment in Entertainment Weekly but I've been checking the "Tomatometer" for a few years now. The former color codes with red, yellow, and green like a stop light while the latter separates "ripe tomatoes" from "splats." A "Meta" score of 0-39 is shaded red for "stop and think about what you're doing before you pay to watch this," 40-60 is yellow for "proceed with caution (from mixed reviews)," and 61-100 means green for "go." Both review sites agree that 60+ celebrates generally favorable reviews, however their scores for the same movie are totally different. Rotten Tomatoes seems to have higher highs and lower lows, somehow DVD releases of movies can have different scores than they did in the theater, and at least for me lately, it loads slower than Metacritic. Therefore, I'm switching. As a bonus, I'll also have all-in-one-place access to music and book reviews, but I'll probably just use it for movies. Which do you prefer?

Metacritic on Eagle Eye - 43
Rotten Tomatoes on Eagle Eye - 26
ROYGB Five Star Rating Movie Review System

Either site you go to, those numbers say P.U. and I have to agree. At the end of the movie, some character says the name "Eagle Eye" but it sounds like "evil eye," which you all know is synonymous with "stink eye." My own score (for criteria, see my 9/18/08 post) amounts to a whopping one and a half stars. No believability, no character arcs, plus no good lines equals no red star. Alternating between light and dark settings earns an orange star but stock footage in every establishing shot cancels that out. Cars flipping over earn an orange star, but a car chase full of close-up shots cancels that out. We'll settle for half an orange star. I didn't know Rosario Dawson was starring until ten minutes in. She and Billy Bob should have left this one-dimensional (no yellow star) material to the ugly, freckly son of Michelle Monaghan's character. A green star goes to some really, fast editing (one person finishes the other's profanity) and somewhat cool satellite CGI/grid mapping. However, half that green star goes away due to the annoying, loud whistle everytime an act of "cyberterrorism" is performed. I almost regret giving half a blue star for a single song which plays at the beginning (by Airborne Toxic Event), because the preachy speech at the end is overemphasized with some stock patriotic music that hopefully gets drowned out by groaning audiences. As far as rewatchability (that rare purple star) is concerned, you've already seen it before you even begin. Watching Eagle Eye for the first time is almost like rewatching Live Free or Die Hard, as most of the concepts are repeated (alas, without Bruce Willis), SO, nothing worth seeing again for the third time.

SPOILERS ALERT! Have you ever wondered where your airport baggage goes after you check it? I have, so the most thrilling scene in the movie is a chase that takes place on those conveyor belts as the main characters try to stowaway on a plane. The least thrilling scene surprisingly is NOT the cheesy "liberty" speech at the end. It actually takes place halfway through, and is a product plug for Circuit City. You know those scenes at the end of every James Bond movie, where the villain explains every last detail of his evil scheme, thus giving the hero a chance to escape and defeat him? Yeah, there's one of those, although this time the villain is artificial intelligence gone rogue, and "she" taps into every networked, electronic device in the country (unbelievably calling every person on a subway train at the same time - AND THEY ALL PICK UP; remote controlling a (mechanical?) junkyard crane; and creating the exact surge necessary to snap a power line). Rather than kill Shia Lebouf's character when he gives up like "she" does every other character who stops doing "her" dirty work, this impossible A.I. reveals the "whole truth" to him (including his childhood home video footage which I doubt would be accessible). Remember all the reasoning that they tried to do with the computer in the movie WarGames? There's a lot of that here, but this time they've upped the ante by allowing the computer to INTERPRET THE CONSTITUTION. It's worse than a high school class on U.S. government. If you're wondering why I paid to see this awful movie when its awfulness was foretold by the websites mentioned above, it's because I knew it would give me plenty of material to work with and besides, it had Spielberg's name on it so I had to see for myself. Fair enough? I can credit it for encouraging me to learn Morse code and to seriously consider the possibility of terrorists forcing innocent people to become terrorists themselves. Could YOU hijack an armored truck (without killing anyone) if it meant saving your family?