Mysterious Island

Cy Endfield
1961

Based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, this adventure yarn proves dizzyingly entertaining due to the sheer weirdness of it's content. Things get rolling when a handful of Union POWs break prison and escape in a hot air balloon(!) with a Confederate soldier and a journalist in tow. Somehow the airborne gang travels all the way from the American South to a remote island in the Pacific...a mysterious island. Strange things begin to happen to the balloon-wrecked men as they find the titular isle populated by giant crabs, giant bees, regular sized goats, and British women. The giant animals (including a wicked flightless buzzard) are brought to screen by incomparable effects genius Ray Harryhausen. Unlike other Harryhausen efforts (all the Sinbad pictures come to mind) the stop motion wizardry is supplemental to the film as opposed to being the only attraction, making for a pleasantly well-rounded outing. The mastermind behind the island's mystery is the wily Captain Nemo (played by Herbert Lorn looking like a homosexual Peter Stormare), and if this movie doesn't already seem to be saturated with fantastic elements there's also marauding pirates, seashell-based scuba gear, a lost Atlantis-like civilization, an erupting doomsday volcano, and a malevolent seamonster. It's as if the script came straight from the fevered imagination of a hyperactive 12 year old boy.

Osaka Elegy

Kenji Mizoguchi
1936

The first entry in Criterion Eclipse's four volume DVD box "Kenji Mizoguchi's Fallen Women" is a prewar social issues picture similar to those made in the States by Warner Brothers. In order to prevent her embezzling deadbeat-Dad (fish faced Akira Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura) from being thrown in the clink, prim switchboard operator Ayako gives into her pervy boss's sexual advances, becoming his mistress. Unlike the aforementioned Warner Bros films this one retains a welcome element of subtlety and ambiguous character motivations. Ayako's sugar daddy is proved to be more than a simple manipulative fiend as we witness his badgering wife taunting his sexuality and pushing him towards adultery. Ayako herself seems to genuinely relish the fine apartment, clothes, and theater outings (Bunraku Puppet play!) bestowed upon her by her benefactors. Even Ayako's hunky "true love" interest shows himself to be a cowardly twerp when grilled by police. After saving her father, paying for her brother's schooling, and mending her ways, our heroine remains utterly shunned by a thoroughly hypocritical society, left to walk the nighttime streets alone in a trademark Mizoguchi shot.

Saw II

Darren Lynn Bousman
2005

Splat pack member Bousman takes the helm of this sequel as he would for the next two after it. This outing has little of the original's style and cleverness, though benefits greatly from plenty of face time with Tobin Bell's Jigsaw. The dreary and alienating industrial sets of the original are watered down here, with the majority of the action taking place in an abandoned house set that comes off as woefully artificial. The participants of this game suffer from the old horror flick problem of shallow characterizations and unsympathetic personalities. Once again, the cop drama angle is tired and cliched with Donnie Wahlberg as a central casting detective, and a gaggle of lifeless SWAT members along for the ride. Also, the use of Sarin Gas slowly permeating throughout the house, making it's captives vomit blood, is plain ludicrous. In low doses Sarin causes spasms, drooling, and loss of control of bodily functions, which would frankly have been a far more compelling gross-out than the occasional bloody loogie. I was a little disappointed at how few traps there were this outing, with more than a few of the prisoners/players falling at each other's hands. However, the hypodermic needle pit is handled well and the razor box (your hands can get in but won't come out) is pretty neat as well. For all it's numerous faults, the twist ending is solid and the film remains watchable. I'm definitely willing to give round three a chance.

Fahrenheit 451

Multiple Viewings
Francois Truffaut
1966

Who better to commit Ray Bradbury's book burnin' dystopia to the screen than lifelong bibliophile Francious Truffaut? The shitty dead-end society of pacified drones that hero Montag becomes increasingly dissatisfied with is excellently illustrated in a "not too distant future" idiom - no rocket cars or robots here, but there are giant televisions, interesting architecture, and jetpacks. Oskar Werner's face subtly and effectively conveys his disillusionment with an inward melancholy, though its Julie Christie who steals the show in the dual role of Montag's living-corpse wife and seductive rebel bookworm. Truffaut liberally indulges in the cinematic allure of fire, meditating on engulfed libraries in closeup, and delights in presenting the ironically manipulative programming Montag's vapid wife views on the idiot box. There's plenty of memorable scenes straight from the book - Montag discovering his OD'd wife cold and blue only to have plumber-like EMT's resurrect her, and my personal favorite, the badass old woman going up in flames alongside her vast library. There's no mistaking the 60's counterculture vibe given off by the forrest-dwelling "book people" either, a timely touch that must have jived great with radical chick Christie. Seeing as how Truffaut was never able to learn English (though not for lack of trying), I'm curious as to how the direction of this English language picture went down on set. I also wonder if the director didn't have at least a twinge of guilt in burning what appears to be actual books, and not blank-paged film props. It's been over 5 years since I've last seen this one and was pleased to find it even better than I remembered.

Saw

James Wan
2004

I didn't catch the original entry of this tentpole franchise when it first hit theaters, since it didn't look all that exceptional to me. However, year after year, each successive installment lands front and center on the cover of my beloved Fangoria's October issue, and as a result my curiosity has steadily percolated over a four year period. Wan's film (his only directorial effort in the series) is loaded to the gills with sequel-friendly tropes. The graphic violence and body based horror echoes great Italian fright fare, and the liberal use of plot twists, while admittedly hit or miss, prevents things from getting dull. Serial killer Jigsaw's central conceit, that the majority of people take their lives for granted, and should therefore be tested, is quite compelling, and while the concept of gruesome "games" is hardly original for a horror flick, the masterfully measured unfolding of narrative sets this one apart. The predicament of Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell being sadistically manipulated while trapped in a grimy industrial bathroom plays out brilliantly, the police investigation angle and endangerment of Elwes's family is trite filler in comparison. In this sense, the film may have been more successful as a short, but of course shorts don't end up as cash cow blockbusters.

Lola Montes

Max Ophuls
1955

I can't say I was particularly impressed with this iconic classic, and left the theater puzzled as to why it retains such a prominent place in cinema history. "Lola Montes" is a would-be epic yarn about a fallen woman, strong willed and libertine, brought down by societal restrictions and emotional caprices. The soft candy colors and tendency towards theatricality is stylistically similar to many of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's productions, particularly "The Red Shoes" (1948), and "The Life and Death of Lolonel Blimp" (1943). While the sickly and broken Lola is left to whore herself out to gawking crowds under the bigtop, her supposedly scandalous and amazing life story isn't all that remarkable. Given, Martine Carol conveys all the stoic grace-under-fire required of the role, and her cigar smoking Lady-Godiva schtick is compelling, but it's unfortunately wasted in the face of unsatisfying dramatic conceits. Oskar Werner's wholesome and virginally youthful presence is all but wasted as Lola discloses to him that her true love is the half-daft near-deaf King of Bavaria that she's been living for as a kept woman. This purported passion is so unconvincingly conveyed as to make her confession comic. As far as Max Ophuls's ultra-genteel classical ouvre goes, I much prefer "The Earrings of Madame de..." (1953) to this.

Secret Ceremony

Joseph Losey
1968

Expat American director Joseph Losey offers this psychodrama with a remarkable and compact cast. Two women with deep seated emotional scars, (sad prostitute Elizabeth Taylor unable to let go of her tragically drowned daughter, and mentally stunted incest victim Mia Farrow as a woman-child in a babydoll dress) discover their neuroses perfectly complement each other. Hard up Taylor moves into Farrow's dusty old mansion and takes up the mantle of mommy, adorning herself in the furs and jewelry of her deceased doppelganger. This "Grey Gardens" idyll is threatened by pervy old Robert Mitchum, stalking the grounds in hopes of getting a little sugar from his former stepdaughter, and uncovering the impostor taking residency in his old home . The picture gets a lot of mileage out of it's atmosphere with the big drafty house providing a stage of expansive drawing rooms chock full of upholstery, and a yesteryear sense of decor perfect for arrested timelessness. Farrow's performance is a treat, if a bit campy, and Mitchum creates an expectedly imposing villain. Taylor's turn is less mannered than her costars,' and comes off as merely adequate. It's a decent picture that's sometimes rewarding, but nothing to get hot and bothered about.

The Flower of My Secret

Pedro Almodovar
1995

I can't easily think of a director who's had as comparable a string of artistic successes as Almodovar has of late. Since 1999's "All About My Mother," every successive installment in his estrogen drenched ouvre has been a homerun. I don't have much experience with his earlier pictures though I found "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" (1988) to be intolerably campy compared to the mature melodrama's he's been churning out as of late. "The Flower of My Secret" appears to be something of a bridge to his recent work - not quite as accomplished or assured in craft and tone, but on the right track. Marisa Paredes stars as a disillusioned romance novel scribe, scratching away under the pen name Amanda Gris. Struggling with professional dissatisfaction and a crumbling marriage to military man Paco, Paredes takes a gig at a newspaper, slamming the sappy fiction that she has written. This being an Almodovar film there's plenty of performances both theatrical and musical, and plenty of adoration devoted to the pre-menopausal diva under fire. The picture's solid, though some of the plotting feels a tad clinical, not having the emotional weight of "All About My Mother," or the awkward honesty of "Talk to Her" (2002).

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

MIke Nichols
1966

Mike Nichols brings Edward Albee's original Lockhorns from stage to screen expertly in this Hollywood classic. Boozy beefy Elizabeth Taylor and elegantly wasted Richard Burton bring a green young couple into the perpetual bad-trip of their marriage during a hooch-fueled nocturnal crawl towards day. George Segal and Sandy Dennis play the entrapped couple with cocksure blonde swagger, and awkwardly accented naivety (respectively). Haskell Wexler's lighting and photography is a masterpiece in black and white. The DVD I viewed was stunningly beautiful and I can only imagine how this would look on Blu-Ray. On the surface it appears to be an actor's film as the principals chew up the screen with their dizzy dialogue and breathless tension, but the camera moves frequently and with balletic panache to keep up with the grand gestures and proclamations. There's definitely a somewhat shocking quality in the intensity of cruelty employed by all the characters save passively bovine Honey, and a surprisingly risque quality in the flaccidly aborted adultery perpetrated by Taylor and Segal. Nichols picture is quite the accomplishment and transcends the "filmed play" quality suffered by many theater to cinema adaptations.

Night of the Lepus

William F. Claxton
1972

"Psycho" shower victim Janet Leigh and DeForest Kelley (Dr. Bones!) somehow make their way into this drive-in chiller about bloodthirsty cattle-sized rabbits run amok in the American Southwest. Despite the seemingly goofy subject matter the flick's played poker-faced serious and boasts high quality special effects, camerawork, and acting. The carnivorous rodents in question are effectively brought to the screen in a variety of ways, mostly relying on live rabbits with miniature backgrounds(!), and the occasional matte shot. The attacking bunnies usually pounce in puppet form, and there's gloriously grisly quantities of blood used in the assaults, and scenes of grim aftermath. This one reminds me of 1959's "The Killer Shrews," which is also fairly serious in spite of it's seemingly comical titular monsters. Of course the big difference between "Lepus" and "Shrews" is the vast gulf in visual sophistication - these wascally wabbits are head and shoulders above the dressed up dogs (with prosthetic chompers) passed off as shrews.

W.

Oliver Stone
2008

Oliver Stone directs the film he was born to make: one that takes the piss out of a failed unpopular President, and released while said President is still in office. The depiction of Bush Jr. is expectedly snide and glib, hiding under the guise of straight biopic. Josh Brolin does a magnificent job inhabiting a man in constant struggle, whether it be against familial expectations and growing pains, to the loneliness of a personal conviction at odds with common sense and public opinion. While there was plenty of snickering in the theater at Bush's fumblings and reliance on rhetoric, I found the whole affair extremely depressing considering this comedy of errors has cost a butt-load of American lives, and all but ruined the reputation of the United States. The triumph of the picture comes from it's impeccable casting and styling. Nearly all the recognizable public figures are done well, but Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, and Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice are pitch perfect. Unfortunately, James Cromwell's turn as George HW Bush leaves plenty to be desired, as the eminently recognizable actor fails to play the former President beyond the page - a shame considering the dramatic importance thrust upon the role. The film is also flawed in the sense that it plays directly to the national nightmare Americans have suffered the last eight years. "W." relies just as heavily on our contextual experience as it does on it's script's take on history - an interesting cinematic milestone from a cultural standpoint, but one that cannot stand up on it's own weight.

Ed Gein

Chuck Parello
2000

This abysmal throwaway effort is a sad biopic on America's most interesting maniac. Fellow ghouls out there probably know all about Gein, and how he provided partial inspiration for "Silence of the Lambs," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." Parello's film is amateur hour all around, with crappy production values, hammy acting, and unnecessary low-budget CGI effects. The flat/dull cinematography lacks any sort of inspiration (let alone style), and is aesthetically more reminiscent of an episode of "The Gilmore Girls," than a horror flick. I do appreciate the stock footage that bookends the film with Plainfield, Wisconsin residents interviewed about their community monster, and the actual Gein, looking benign as milk, being lead around in handcuffs. Gein's reputation as one of America's most insidious serial killers has always interested me considering he only actually killed two women, and made most of his macabre arts and crafts projects from materials dug out of the local graveyard. The picture does a disappointing job of depicting farmer Gein's chamber of horrors with the matter-of-fact discovery of skullcap soupbowls and salted noses. It's a an emotionless and distant finale, in which the seemingly uninterested tone makes the props look even more like latex flesh and resin bone than the ghastly crimes deserve. I'm a little curious if 2007's "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield," starring Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees!) is any better, though something tells me it's not.

Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs

Peter Avanzino
2008

was happy to hear that Matt Groening's Futurama would live on after it's network cancelation as a string of feature-length direct to video outings, but actually seeing one really highlights this proposed format's shortcomings. The writing is generally solid, though there's a weak reliance on slapstick humor. Due to the extended running time nearly every bit character in the universe gets trotted out for a joke or two, though these efforts would be much better spent in developing the story or making funnier situation based jokes instead of lame character hooks. The semi-amusing title is mostly apocryphal with David Cross providing the voice of an inter-dimensional monster looking for love in our universe. Everything here is passable, but it'll definitely make fans of the series nostalgic for the superior 30 minute broadcast. Still, you could do a hell of a lot worse with an hour and a half

Strait-Jacket

William Castle
1964

It doesn't get much better than schlockmeister William Castle teaming up with a waning "crazy era" Joan Crawford, and turning the former Hollywood heavyweight into a reformed axe murder recently released from the funny farm! As expected, Castle lays the tension on thick with hilariously unsubtle symbolism and jittery Joan's nervous tic of slicing inanimate objects to ribbons. Heads roll with a ballsy amount of onscreen violence, whether it be a silhouette of a recently severed melon, or a direct hatchet job complete with arterial gushing. The garishly basic low-budget lighting provides the perfect B-movie look and ups the pulp ante of Castle's cheapie sensibilities. While Joan Crawford may not have been a tinseltown high-roller at this point of her career, she's definitely still got chops. The most unforgettable scene comes when mommy dearest is introduced to her daughter's beau. The meek and skittish Crawford 180's into a provocatively sexual predator (I loathe to use the term "cougar," but it's kind of unavoidable in this case), swilling whiskey, swiveling her hips, and laying hungry hands on the blonde country boy. The twist ending may be visible a mile off, but works satisfactorily as an expected genre convention. This one is DVD worthy.

Cemetery Man

Second Viewing
Michele Soavi
1994

Definitely one of the weirder horror flicks I've seen in it's unfocused meandering, alternately humorous and melancholic tone, and obsessively self-conscious camera moves/angles. Rupert Everett puts in a chilly performance as the eponymous caretaker of a small town graveyard - a job requiring him to bury the dead twice, once upon arrival, and again after the dead rise and are put down with a bullet to the head. The zombie makeups are only so-so, heavy on the grey pancake look, but Soavi makes up for it with some pleasantly bizarre undead encounters: an entire troupe of boyscouts, the talking/floating severed head of the Mayor's daughter, and a (literally) hellbound biker riding his trashed hog beyond the grave. The visuals are hyper-stylized and owe a lot to the mid 90's music video aesthetic. You could make a very successful drinking game out of this movie by knocking one back every time the camera peers out from inside something: a zombie's jaws, a smashed television, and the many 6-feet-deep holes. The film's unusual indulgences are primarily what make it great, particularly in the three-time resurrection of Everett's love as different women (all played by actress Anna Falchi), and the cemetery man's foray in cold blooded murder. This one's pretty damn unique.

Ballast

Lance Hammer
2008

This much ballyhooed debut feature won the director's prize at this year's Sundance festival, and considering the festival's long suffering decline in quality standards, it's nice to see a worthy picture take a big prize. The film would mainly be a three person chamber drama were Hammer not so taken with the bleak and muddy expanse of winter in the Mississippi Delta. Some dangerous social cliches are skirted here, with an adolescent boy in deep to local drug dealers, a mother with an addict past, and a predictably broken family. However, Hammer succeeds in letting these dramatic moments breathe to at least a quasi-reslolution. The youth is able (if momentarily) to escape drugs, and mother and brother-in-law are able to manage a believably uneasy truce. Michael J. Smith Sr.'s performance is the cornerstone of the film with his unflappable gentleness and soulful sorrow belying a massively imposing frame. The intensity of attempted suicide and drug abuse in the first act gives way to a rockily recuperative second and third - an unorthodox move that provides a vague blueprint for the complex tone and rich atmosphere of the picture's world. Unfortunately, the cinematography's leaves a little to be desired with it's overly blue coloring and murky, low-contrast palette. Still, this is one of 2008's better films.

The Giant Claw

Fred F. Sears
1957

While it fits pretty squarely into the 1950's red-scare communist-anxiety horror genre with it's emphasis on military men, scientists, and an obsessive preoccupation with national security, "The Giant Claw" is one of the more surprisingly unique entries in the trend. The film is nothing if not for it's monster: an invincible and enormous bird from outer space - remarkably ugly with a naked turkey's head, curved beak full of jagged teeth, and mohawk like haircut(!). Thanks to this solid creature design, the dirty bird gets a generous amount of screen-time, and the majority of the effects shots are of a similarly high quality, particularly those in which the cosmic chicken swoops in to chow down on parachuting servicemen. While the puppet may be the star of this show, television vet Jeff Morrow and female lead Mara Corday exchange some genuinely clever dialogue in a romantic back-and-forth that's much better than the usual filler-between-action scenes. While it may not be of the same caliber as films like "Them!" or "The Thing From Another World" It's definitely in the same ballpark.

Amarcord

Multiple Viewings
Federico Fellini
1973

One of the lighter, easier digested films in Fellini's career, this one makes for a good introduction to the director's work. Ostensibly a collection of episodic remembrances from Fellini's childhood during Mussolini's regime, made cohesive by the communal nature of small town life and peppered with the maestro's signature flights of fancy. The best moments tend to come from the sexual hysteria of the male teenage mind: hilarious anti-masturbation lectures from the priest, the horn-dog obsession with ladies butts plopping down on bicycle seats, the fixation on a massive breasted tobacconist, and a puppy love yearning for town beauty Gradisca, clad in red with a frequently wiggling booty. The natural insubordination of the students towards their teachers is a treat as well, and in this respect makes Amarcord the most Truffaut-like of Fellini's films. There's lots of good stuff here, and it's definitely required viewing, but this rewatching made me really appreciate the mastery of some of the director's more complex and challenging pictures. Weirdest moment of the film: when the gargoyle-ugly melon-seed vendor winds up in the harem of a visiting Sheik.

Nobody Knows

Hirokazu Koreeda
2004

Painting an un-sensationalized portrait of child abuse (something rare in the cinema), this Japanese picture presents a neglect that is innocuously un-monstrous and quotidian. While no lashing belts or overt emotional cruelty is inflicted upon the four Fukushima kids, the heart of the mother's crime remains, and director Koreeda's relentless scrounging for beauty in the children's freedom gives way to the painful realities of having to collect rainwater and handouts for sustenance, and burying your little sister in a suitcase coffin on the outskirts of Haneda airport. The child actors are the core of this reverse Lord of the Flies with "breadwinning" oldest child Akira, sullen big sister Kyoko, goofball brother Shigeru, and button-cute 'lil sis Yuki. The film mostly concerns itself with Akira's experience which seems a bit unfair considering he's the only child allowed to leave the house while the other three rot away in forced captivity. However, as the increasingly truant mother (played with disturbing ditziness by the singularly named You) becomes more of a ghost the rules are broken as the children freely leave the apartment, plant an ersatz garden on the balcony, and cover the walls in crayon scrawls. For all the visual poetics and meditative tone, it seems like a missed opportunity that Koreeda mostly glosses over the difficulty of surviving without utilities - no water equals no working toilet after all.

The Godfather: Part II

Multiple Viewings
Francis Ford Coppola
1974

I was always of the opinion that part two of this 70's cinema phenomenon was the best in the trilogy, but after watching the Coppola restorations of both this and the original, I might have to rescind that opinion. Beginning with an ascendant Michael Corleone, things begin to fall apart in a karmic undoing which leaves him utterly isolated in his lonely position of power. To keep this mephistophelian decline from being a total drag Michael's evolution towards sad robot is intercut with his father's exile from Sicily and immigrant experience in New York, leading up to his own criminal blossoming. This father and son dichotomy makes for an almost embarrassingly nostalgic view as Vito's rise is all romanticized morality-in-gangsterism while Michael's modern mafioso life involves dodging assassins' bullets while your understandably freaked out wife walks out on you. It's nice to see Diane Keaton and perennial player of losers John Cazale get meatier roles in this outing, but the real treat is the inclusion of acting genius Lee Strasberg as Jewish gambling scion Hyman Roth. Coppola isn't exactly known for his restraint, and the wildly indulgent 200 minutes of running time hurts the overall impact (also: ending the film on a flashback?), but this still remains one Hollywood's best films of the 70's.

The Man From Laramie

Anthony Mann
1955

A guy whose name rhymes with "Ron Gord" takes the title for my favorite director of westerns, but Anthony Mann comes in at a close second. His frontier America is serious as a heart attack and peppered with complex character motivations and morality. Jimmy Stewart stars here as he does in others (Winchester '73, The Naked Spur) delivering supplies to a town thoroughly under the yoke of bigwig beef baron Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp, making little effort to mask his British accent). Waggoman's a decent sort but his kid's a spoiled brat verging on psychotic, and his seemingly level-headed right hand man Vic proves a scheming back-dealer. Unglamorous revenge and ugly americans abound in the picture - repeated hallmarks of Mann's westerns. Not only does Junior burn down Stewart's wagons for accidentally trespassing on Waggoman ranch land, he takes it upon himself to personally murder the mules as well. I've always thought Stewart was at his best when his avuncular folksiness gives way to seething rage, and seethe he does. There's a great scene early on in which Jimmy fistfights with the bullies who wronged him, kicking up a diaphanous cloud of dust in the Cinemascope frame while the tightly packed cattle bellow away. Of course, it's a little dicey that the Apache Indians are presented as a MacGuffin of mass destruction, and the female lead is tacked on and superfluous, but overall The Man From Laramie remains a solid picture.

A Nightmare On Elm Street

Wes Craven
1984

When I was growing up the two biggest screen baddies on my radar were Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees. Years later I'd come to find that many (if not most) of the the franchise entries for these two horror heavyweights are bigger on schlock than they are on scares. Craven's dream-haunting child killer lends himself more to expressionistic psychological terror, and benefits from surreal touches like a phone receiver turning into Kruger's flicking tongue. On the surface it's scarier than Friday The 13th with it's free form lack of rules and unpredictability, yet once the film's atmospheric nightmare fantasy ends (this time with one of those cop-out "no resolution" endings) a more traditional hack and slash teen killer seems closer to home - it's plausibility far more unsettling. Johnny Depp makes his debut here as the quintessentially vacuous 80's teen male, a far cry from the eccentric wizard he's become, and his character definitely seems to set the template for the window crashing best bud Sam of Clarissa Explains it All. In addition to the nocturnal frights Craven injects some real-life social bummers as the heroine suffers a distant workaholic father (John Saxon!) and a vacant souse mother. With folks like these its a surprise that Nancy's prematurely grey hair didn't develop before Freddy came calling.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Raja Gosnell
2008

I saw this one on a lark expecting little more than a bananas amount of camp and some uncomfortable inadvertent racism, but amazingly this talking-dog flick is a million times better than it has any right to be. Being mostly canine-centric, and wisely keeping the humans, particularly shrill enormous-mouthed Piper Perabo, out of the majority of the action, the doggie drama delves into such lengths of endearing absurdity as including an evil assassin Doberman, police film cliches, Cheech Marin as a CGI rat, and an encounter with an ancient society of warrior chihuahuas. There's more than enough here to make a stoner's head explode, yet Beverly Hills Chihuahua succeeds beyond it's tacky ironic pleasures and sticking to a weirdly ambitious script in which all the hoary Hollywood cliches seem distinctly fresher and more genuine when played out by a ragtag group of pooches. The computerized chicanery of moving mutt mouths looks great, but there's a weird disconnect with the dogs calmly chatting while their bodies heave like a bellows because they're panting. Cheech Marin's rat is disappointingly cartoonish looking, but his iguana pal is rendered remarkably well. CGI animals have come a long way since Cats & Dogs. This is honestly the most fun I've had in a theater all year. I am completely serious about this.

Supervixens

Russ Meyer
1975

While it doesn't have the hell-bent hard edge of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! or the trash-epic sweep of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls this Russ Meyer classic is plenty watchable considering it concerns itself mainly with glorifying and exhibiting large breasts. The throwaway plot is a bit dull, but maintains an episodic structure in which framed fugitive good-guy Clint (Charles Pitts) is forced to fend off horny buxom women at every turn in the road. Unsurprisingly, the starlets in question are gorgeous and the cheesecake good-times breeziness of the picture's tone makes it perfect for any beer-soaked lazy-Saturday viewing. It's particularly strange that while violence against women tends to be a corner stone of much of exploitation and horror cinema (The Gore Gore Girls anyone?), the ills inflicted upon gals in this schlocky outing, which amounts to one prolonged murder and one quasi-torture scene, are presented in a genuinely disapproving fashion. After all , sex can bee all fun and games, but murder is a serious bummer. The wanton lust of the supervixens in question is heavy on male fantasy, but also gives credence to the revisionist feminist view that Meyer is something more than a scumbag, by flaunting a bevy of willfully sexual women oppressed or manipulated by a lineup of goofy and uptight males.

Total Recall

Paul Verhoeven
1990

Nobody treats a firearm quite like Paul Verhoeven. His depiction of guns, particularly machineguns, is an action-centric cinema of well-oiled industrial menace, and thanks to effects genius Rob Bottin (The Thing!), when the bullets hit the gruesomely messy impact squibs bear ample witness to the consequences. Total Recall offers an excellent story inspired by a Philip K. Dick short, but is sadly bogged down by the cheesy inevitabilities of big budget Hollywood filmmaking. Meathead hero Arnie Schwarzenegger fails in the charisma department while the overblown futuristic production design feels like a Miami lawyer's cocaine hangover. It's a hoot to see Sharon Stone decked out in an early 90's frizz 'do, and Michael Ironside achieves his metier in the role dickhead henchman, but there's far too much convention - business as usual - to make the picture memorable. Of course Rob Bottin's prosthetics are above reproach, particularly with mutant parasitic twin come rebel underground leader Kuato, and there's a fair amount of color in touches like the inclusion of a dwarf prostitute and plenty of futuristic carnage. My reading of the film favors an interpretation in which Schwarzenegger is stuck in a medical chair with his brain fried, living in his dreams as a vegetable. In retrospect this looks more like a warmup for Verhoeven's brilliant return to the sci-fi genre with Starship Troopers, a movie where his glorious machineguns chatter freely.

Opening Night

John Cassavetes
1977

You know it's a Cassavetes film when the majority of the camera's intimate affections are dedicated to a boozy Gena Rowlands flitting about on the verge of hysteria. So goes Opening Night, another sweetly sadistic and painfully human installment in the working relationship between John Cassavetes (who also appears in front of the camera in this outing) and wife Gena. The "last straw" opening of an adoring fan, accidentally slain by an automobile, sets up Rowlands's mid-career crisis in heavy-handed cornball fashion, though thankfully this device transmutes into an eerily complex and menacing doppelganger - Gena at 17. This portrait of a slapped actress manages to be even more hackle raising than Rowlands's previous turn as a mentally ill housewife (A Woman Under the Influence) due to the suspenseful live performances that can so easily go to hell based on the whims of the unbalanced leading lady. The majority of the picture is a distressed potboiler leading up to the titular event where a late Rowlands shows up completely blotto - barely able to speak or walk let alone perform. Once onstage this trainwreck of trainwrecks evolves into a black coffee infused passion play complete with epic apotheosis.

Burn After Reading

Coen Brothers
2008

The usual criticism leveled at the brothers Coen is that their slick cinema lacks "heart." Yet even at their most insect-unfeeling they manage to keep things interesting by lacing their pictures with masterful filmmaking gestures and cartoonishly exaggerated characters. This time around the Coens neglect their usually colorful characterizations with an unconvincingly alcoholic John Malkovich ranting ceaselessly in his distinctive diction, Tilda Swinton scowling about as a British ice queen, and Brad Pitt hamming it up as a one-note gym rat boob. Also, the conceit that Frances McDormand's lovelorn character is willing to risk life and limb for fake tits and a tummy tuck is preposterous. The only characters that really get the royal (read proper) treatment are George Clooney's philandering internet Cassanova and puppy-dog-eyed saddie Richard Jenkins. The biggest disappointment comes from the impression that a sendup of the flourishing National Security/CIA genre seems like the ripest of plums - something Carter Burwell's over the top score taps into nicely. The D.C. milieu makes a great backdrop for the action with its crowded urban parks and gorgeous townhouses, and suggests a high stakes game of power and wealth even if its a mirage. The only part of this generally unremarkable film the Coens nail are the two briefings (one of which acts as a coda) to a CIA bigwig (played perfectly by J.K. Simmons). These absurdist meetings are examples of the brothers at the top of their game - its a shame it couldn't carry over to the rest of the picture.

Mr. Freedom

William Klein
1969

This is the product of inputting politics into the category 5 hurricane that is William Klein's brain. The manic, meth injected, satire is low on any sort of nuance, subtlety, cogent message, or political thoughtfulness, and it's clear that Klein couldn't care less, instead putting all his OCD meticulousness into an expressionistic explosion of superhero jingoism, frothing cheerleaders, and bullets a-go-go. Klein must have pulled a decent amount of water in Paris as the impressive cast features an over-the-hill yet still sexed up Delphine Seyrig, big brother Donald Pleasance, and inflatable evildoer Philippe Noiret, amongst other wacky cameos and bit parts. The film comes off as a synthesized outputting of Klein's new found political convictions, and takes its distinctly lynch mob/carnivalesque pep rally form from his essence - the guy isn't Chris Marker, Ken Loach, or Sergei Eisenstein - he's the director of Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? Considering how gloriously elaborate and powerful Mr. Freedom's costume is (it makes the Power Rangers look like pussies) it's a little disappointing that his nemeses are so underdeveloped: Moujik Man is little more than a red foam blob while Red China Man (clever name) is nothing more than a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade mylar balloon. There is something distinctly late 60's about the ubber-shrill gatherings with their (not so) latent violence and sexuality, which is made all the more heady with liberal dollops of bodypaint and skimpy athletic costumes.