My friend Denise was a little horrified to discover that I’d never seen Event Horizon before. Clearly, we had to correct that.

It’s a fun, gruesome sort of way to spend two hours.

SUMMARY:

Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew are ordered to go retrieve a starship, the Event Horizon, which went missing several years ago and has suddenly sent a distress call. The ship’s designer, Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), tags along on the mission, only to discover that there’s someone or something on board the Event Horizon  . . . and it’s not too terribly friendly.

NOTES:

1. First, I must say that nothing makes me quite as happy as ridiculous taglines. Infinite space . . . infinite terror! Love.

2. Event Horizon isn’t exactly what I’d call scary . . . being made in the 90′s, there’s a certain amount of unavoidable cheese due purely to special effects . . . but it’s gory and enjoyable and a decent action-horror-sci-fi thing with one or two creepy scenes and some fairly interesting concepts. This movie does not need a remake, but when it eventually gets one because it just will . . . I’d be interested to see a film that focuses a tiny bit more on the . . . er . . . more metaphysical aspects of the storyline? Also, the characterization. It’s not horrible in this movie. I just think it could be sharper, that’s all.

3. More importantly, however, Laurence Fishburne is a badass.

You don’t want your captain to be an asshole, I’m sure, but a wishy-washy pansy ass doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, either. Captain Miller is not a wishy-washy pansy ass. Captain Miller is on top of his shit. He makes smart decisions. Dr. Weir tries to bully him into getting what he wants, and Captain Miller’s like, Fuck you and your doctorate, buddy. This is my ship, and we’re playing it safe, got it?

I mean, everything still goes all to hell. But Captain Miller does not help it along, and I highly approve of that.

4. Of course, not everyone makes smart decisions. Some of them are at least understandable . . . it’s all very well and good to say, “Don’t follow the hallucination of your kid/wife/dead friend/” whatever, but I’m sure rational thought is hard to come by when you’re having hallucinations in the first place.

On the other hand.

When you know there’s a bomb somewhere in the near vicinity that’s likely to explode, you have two choices: A, try to find the bomb and deactivate it or B, run like hell. Unless you are actually an explosives expert with a supernaturally heightened sense of smell that will enable you to detect said bomb in a matter of milliseconds . . .  there is only one correct choice. For Christ’s sake. What part of there is a bomb get the fuck out is hard for people to understand?

Also, if you don’t know what something is . . . don’t touch it. Honestly. Even if it looks like a Stargate from, well, Stargate . . .

. . . you just don’t go sticking your hand through the gooey blue liquid. I mean, does this really need to be said? Apparently, it does. Asshats.

5. How many languages do you know? Is one of them Latin? Well, it should be. If you knew how to speak Latin, you could understand all kinds of legal terminology. You would kick ass at Jeopardy all the time. And you could perform exorcisms. See how useful the language is?

Of course, if you are going to be your posse’s Latin Expert (there can only be one per group; there are Rules, understand), you really need to be certain of your skill level. This, “Oh, perhaps I mistranslated” after the shit has hit the fan? Not cool, man. Not cool.

6. Jason Isaacs is in this movie!

I love Jason Isaacs. It’s nice to see him play a good guy, for once. Don’t get me wrong; evil looks great on him—his sneer is legendary—but after several years of watching Lucius Malfoy, it’s cool to see a nicer side to him. (Also, if you’re a fan of Masterpiece: Mysteries,  you should check him out in Case Histories. I love him as Jackson Brodie. He’s awesome.)

7. This is one of those science fiction movies about the potential dangers of science, at least in part. Playing the role of the ethically dubious scientist today is . . . Sam Neill!

Acting-wise, Sam Neill is mostly fine . . . there are a couple of times where I don’t fully believe his reactions, but overall, I enjoy him well enough . . . but his character . . . man, I just wanted to dive into the screen and slap the shit out of his character. You know how there’s always one asshole who makes dumb decision after dumb decision because he’s blinded by something that’s not really that important in the grand scheme of things? Dr. Weir is that asshole.

8. A few quotes—almost all of which aren’t that impressive out of context, unfortunately:

Starck: “How?”
Weir: “Well, that’s . . . that’s difficult to . . . it’s all math.”
Miller: “Try us, doctor.”
Weir: “Right. Well, um, using layman’s terms . . .use a retaining magnetic field to focus a narrow beam of gravitons – these, in turn, fold space-time consistent with Weyl tensor dynamics until the space-time curvature becomes infinitely large, and you produce a singularity. Now, the singularity—”
Miller: “Layman’s terms?”
Cooper: “Fuck layman’s terms! Do you speak English?”

Weir: “Captain, don’t do this.”
Miller: “It’s done.”

Claire: “I have such wonderful things to show you.”

Miller: “Fuck this ship!”

9. Paul W. S. Anderson is not exactly known for making cinematic masterpieces, but I generally enjoy his movies. That being said, I read that after making Mortal Kombat, he had to pass up on a number of projects in order to direct Event Horizon. One of those projects?

I’m not saying X-Men is Shakespeare or something, but I think it’s a pretty good superhero film, and I’m a little horrified by the idea of Paul W.S. Anderson’s version of it. The amount of pure, unadulterated cheese . . . my arteries feel blocked just thinking about it.

10. Finally—and, admittedly, this is my standard note for most science fiction movies— if space travel ever actually becomes a thing in my lifetime? Yeah, I’m not going for it. It’s not that I have no poetry in my soul or anything—it’s just that there are so many truly horrible ways to die in space, and I prefer my star-gazing from a relatively safe distance, thanks.

If you wish to remain unspoiled, go no further . . .

SPOILERS

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So, as it turns out, the Event Horizon is so named because it’s powered by an experimental gravity drive that, in turn, is powered by an artificial black hole. Which . . . is not good. I may not know anything about science, but I feel confident in my assessment that black holes are dangerous and that our propulsion systems should not be powered by them. Am I wrong?

The experimental gravity drive allows the ship to go places no other ship could go, seemingly faster than the speed of light. (My immediate reaction when Dr. Weir is attempting to explain this to the team? “Tesseract!” Admittedly, I have no real understanding of what a tesseract actually is, but you know, I remember the illustration from A Wrinkle In Time. I’m a secret science master, yo.) No one knows exactly where the Event Horizon went for seven years, but the movie strongly implies that it landed firmly in Hell—or, at the very least, some awful hellish dimension that makes people go crazy and want to kill themselves.

Justin (Jack Noseworthy) is the first to go cuckoo when he decides to stick his arm through the blue, glowy gravity drive. He gets sucked inside the portal, and when he eventually gets dragged back out, he’s fairly catatonic. As he should be. I get he’s all young and innocent (as evidenced by his nickname “Baby Bear”) but come on, now. This is Darwin Award time, people. Justin kind of deserves to bite it.

At first, I figured Justin was going to wake up and be all crazy and/or contagious and start killing his unsuspecting crewmates. I quickly realized that I had the wrong end of it, however, as Sam Neill continued to be both a, a pompous schmuck and b, haunted by visions of his dead wife. He’s not the only one seeing things—everyone pretty much is—but he’s the only one who goes all Dark Side. And as we find out, Dark Side (like justice) is very literally blind.

Weir cut his eyes out because, where they’re going, they don’t need eyes to see. But like Denise pointed out, while that might be true . . . you probably don’t need your asshole where you’re going, either, but that’s no fucking reason to tear it out!

Before Weir goes fully nuts/possessed, however, I should mention the part where Justin wakes up and tries to kill himself, if only because it’s easily the creepiest (and cruelest) scene in the whole film.

Baby Bear is having a bad day.

Justin tries to shoot himself out the airlock because . . . I don’t know, because stabbing himself in the throat with a giant knife or something just wasn’t awful enough, I guess. Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) tries to talk him down, but she can’t reach him. He just says that he won’t go back there, that he saw the awful, dark things inside of himself, and if she had seen them too, she wouldn’t be trying to stop him. Peters says that this isn’t Justin talking, and she doesn’t know how right she is.

Immediately after hitting the switch to open the airlock, Justin is all, like, “Wait . . . what’s going on?” There’s really something quite horrible about that. He (very understandably) freaks out and begs the others to help him, but the door won’t open now that the airlock has been released. The good thing is that Captain Miller is already outside the spaceship and has gotten in position to catch him once the outer doors open. The bad news is that, as the doors are opening, Justin is more or less turning inside out.

It’s so creepy. Pressure stuff always gets me.

Miraculously, Justin lives and is put into stasis to keep his body stable. This is about the time where Miller’s had just about enough of this bullshit and is like, “Well, fuck this all to hell. Now that we’ve fixed the Lewis and Clark (it was damaged earlier), we are getting on board, blowing the holy shit out of the Event Horizon, and going home.” It’s a good plan. I mean, it doesn’t quite work, of course, but still. Solid plan.

Smitty and Peters are . . . loading stuff, or something . . . when Peters sees her kid running around again. I want to fault Peters for running after her child who clearly is not on the ship, but parental instincts and whatnot. Fine. I can get that. At some point, though, you’d think Smitty would notice that Peters isn’t catching up to him as he leaves the ship. Seriously, she’s like, “I’m right behind you” . . . only she’s totally not behind him. Way to have your friend’s six, Smitty.

Anyway, Peters runs after her boy and ends up falling to her death. First casualty of the night. Of course, it improves Starck’s chances for survival immensely. Everyone knows if there are two women in a mostly male action-horror movie, one of those women will die. I don’t think I’ve ever seen both women survive, and it’s pretty rare when both women die.

Pressing on. Captain Miller’s one, kind of dumb decision is to tell Dr. Weir what he plans to do to the Event Horizon. Of course, he doesn’t know that Dr. Weir has transformed from Arrogant Asshole Dr. Weir into Possessed, Evil Dr. Weir. In response, PEDW steals one of the crew’s explosives and uses it to blow up the Lewis and Clark. (Can I just mention, I hate Lewis and Clark as a ship name? I mean, I get it, but I really hate it. It’s just too unwieldy.)

Miller figures out Weir’s plans and quickly warns Smitty (Sean Pertwee), who has enough time to spin around for two whole minutes before finally finding the bomb. Of course, when he finds the bomb, there’s about four seconds left before it detonates. On one hand, the expression on Smitty’s face is great because it’s so . . . I don’t know, devastated. You know, it’s not like an “Oh fuck, ha ha, I’m so dead” kind of moment. Smitty honestly looks scared and sad, and it’s nice to see a real reaction to the inevitably of death, for once. On the other hand . . . dude. Why didn’t you fucking run?

The film’s main comic relief, Cooper (Richard T. Jones), is outside in a spacesuit when the explosion happens and he’s knocked into free fall . . . free float? Whatever, he’s spinning through the infinite abyss. He freaks out (quite naturally) but manages to get his panic under control and figures out a way to propel himself back towards the ship. Quick thinking under pressure. I’d be so dead. Then again, as previously established, I wouldn’t be there in the first place.

Miller tries to warn DJ (Jason Isaacs) about Miller, and DJ decides to become suddenly and ludicrously overconfident. I mean, he picks up a giant ass knife, and that’s good, but the second he says something like, “I’ll get him” or whatever, you know he’s about to die. And sure enough, he turns around and there’s Weir, who then proceeds to vivisect DJ like a fucking dead frog. For a guy with no eyes, Weir is surprisingly handy at the whole sadism thing.

Poor Jason Isaacs. Honestly, he lasted ages longer than I thought, though. I will miss you, DJ!

Miller runs into Evil Dr. Weir. Starck (Joely Richardson) is on the ground—oh noes—but thankfully she’s not dead, just unconscious. Because that’s fair. Weir blows Smitty up and fucking vivisects DJ, but Starck, he just taps on the head a little. Sweet Jesus. Well, if I wasn’t sure when Peters bought it, I’m sure now. Starck is our survivor girl. She will make it through this film, no question.

Miller and Weir face off. Weir plans to take the ship back to Hell, but Cooper—poor, lost-in-space Cooper—has impeccable, plot-related timing, and when Weir tries to kill him, he ends up getting sucked into space himself. Unlike Cooper, Weir is not wearing a spacesuit, so it’s bye bye, Weir . . . or is it?

(Spoilers: it’s totally not.)

Miller plans to blow up half the ship and use the rest of it as a lifeboat, or something. He says he has to manually detonate the explosives, and if you hadn’t already figured out that he was going to die, you should probably know by now. The manual detonation of explosives is a popular motif in action films, and it is always immediately preceded by noble self-sacrifice. And maybe you’re thinking, This is the fucking future. Why don’t you get yourself a fucking REMOTE? But you see, it wouldn’t matter regardless. Even if they had a remote, it would have been somehow damaged in the fight with Weir. It is not a climactic battle without someone tragically blowing themselves up for the cause.

So Miller goes to detonate the explosives and is attacked by Weir . . . well, I guess a hallucination of Weir, or the ship’s manifestation of Weir, or however you’d like to describe him. Manifestation Weir isn’t much prettier than Evil, Possessed Weir.

Miller and Weir fight some more, and Miller manages to detonate the explosives, blowing himself—and most of the ship—up. The bad half of the ship is pulled into a wormhole and goes far, far away. Starck, Justin, and Cooper are in the other half of the ship. Starck and Cooper join Justin in stasis in rescue.

The ending is one of those ominous, twisty, are-you-really-free endings that bore me to tears, so I’m just going to ignore it and focus on the positives: while it’s true that Miller’s heroic death is somewhat predictable and Starck’s survival is somewhat inevitable, the fact that comedic relief Cooper and should-be-dead Justin actually survive really surprised me. I had those two pegged for death pretty quickly.

It’s nice when a film can be original, now and again.

CONCLUSIONS:

Fun space-horror movie. Some interesting concepts, cool story, decent acting. Tiny bit cheesy at parts, though, and I wouldn’t have minded a little more characterization.

MVP:

Laurence Fishburne

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Science is bad, folks. Science will literally lead you to Hell.

Well, I guess it’s about time I start watching some westerns.

On IMDB’s Top 250 Movies of all Time, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance currently sits at the #207 spot and, well. I probably wouldn’t place it that high. But it’s not that it’s a bad movie or anything — I just think it could be a better one.

SUMMARY:

Senator Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) comes to a small town for the funeral of an old friend, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), and tells the story of how coming to know both Doniphon and notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) vaulted him into political power.

NOTES:

1. Before we get to the movie itself, let me tell you how much my sister did not want to watch this film with me: SO MUCH. As I’m sure I mentioned in my review for It’s a Wonderful Life, I find Jimmy Stewart’s voice mildly aggravating, but I can usually get past it because I like a lot of his movies. Mek’s the same way, except she probably wouldn’t describe her aggravation as ‘mild’. As such, it’s always something of a hard sell, getting her to watch a Jimmy Stewart movie.

But Mek said she’d do it anyway — because she’s an awesome big sister — if she got to freely snark throughout the film. And if we wore bandanas and cowboy hats.

I think this might be a good idea for all western viewings from here on in.

2. You know one of the best things about this movie? The names. Come on, Ransom Stoddard? That’s, like, the best name ever. That’s the most western name I’ve ever heard since Jesse Hooker in Near Dark.

I also especially like that Ransom is the good guy and Liberty is the bad guy. That makes for a nice change. When was the last time you saw, for instance, a dude named Craven as a good guy? There are probably exceptions — though I can’t think of any right now — but generally, I hate it when characters are named for their allegiance to the Dark Side or the Light Side.

3. Okay, actually about the movie now — I have the urge to remake it. I know. What heresy is this, remaking a John Ford movie that stars John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart? That’s like solid Americana gold right there.

But I do think the overall story could benefit from a remake. One of the biggest changes I’d like to make?

Jimmy Stewart

No, it doesn’t have anything to do with his voice. (Well, not mostly. As Old Senator Ransom Stoddard, Stewart lays it on kind of thick, and it is pretty distracting.) But Stewart has the unenviable task of playing the idealistic, righteous hero who believes in law and order, and when you play that against John Wayne’s cynical, sharp-shooting swagger . . . well, it’s no wonder who the audience gravitates towards.

So, it’s not the easiest role. That being said, Stewart is a little shrieky here for me — every time he disagrees with someone on a moral level, he’s yelling and hollering about it, and it makes it difficult for me to like him. It’s funny, too, because this is usually something I bitch about with female protagonists, but it really is possible to have idealistic, even naive heroes and heroines who aren’t such whiny jackasses.

One of the more interesting things about this movie — at least in theory — is the contrast between Tom and Ransom’s sense of morality, but I think it would be a lot more effective if the film actually gave a more balanced look at both characters and let the audience choose who’s in the right instead of skewing us in favor of Tom’s worldview — which is really what I felt John Ford was trying to do the whole movie.

4. Also in the remake? We would cast age-appropriate actors — because these guys?

They ought to be in their twenties, maybe thirties, not their fifties.

And don’t even get me started on O.Z. Whitehead, who’s supposed to be a teenager in this movie.

Whitehead’s the guy on the left. The one sucking on a lollipop.

People. The act of sucking on a lollipop will not actually convince anyone that a fifty year old man is in his teens. Even if the movie is in black-and-white. I mean, honestly.

5. I really enjoy the hell out of Vera Miles in this movie.

Vera Miles plays Hallie — the love interest for both Ransom and Tom. I groaned out loud when I realized that my very first western of the year also had a love triangle in it, but the fact that I liked Hallie so much helped a lot. (I do have a problem with the conclusion of said love triangle, but I’ll get to that in the Spoiler Section.) She’s something of a spitfire, and I enjoyed watching her on screen. I like sassy women. Not every female character should be sassy, of course, but when your primary role in a film is to bounce back and forth between two men, it helps if you’re, at the very least, not a wilting pushover.

I do feel that her story sort of disintegrates after the first half of the movie, though. I mean, she’s still in there, later on, but she becomes a lot less important as an actual character and ends up more of a pretty afterthought. That’s unfortunate.

Oh, and for any of you out there who think Vera Miles looks familiar but can’t quite place her?

She’s Lila Crane from Psycho. That’s cool. (Although poor Miss Miles. You hear people talk about that movie, and you might be inclined to think Janet Leigh was the only woman in it.)

6. As far as John Wayne goes . . .

. . . overall, I like him. But I really need him to stop calling Jimmy Stewart, “Pilgrim.”

Yes, yes. I’m aware “pilgrim” is something of a trademark with John Wayne, and it’s kind of neat knowing that this was the first instance of him calling another character that. But for Christ’s sake . . . this is a little overkill. It unfortunately didn’t occur to me to start counting until far too late, but most of my Google search results indicate that John Wayne says “pilgrim” 23 times in this movie. That’s . . . that’s just too much.

On the upside, if you’re interested in playing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Drinking Game, well, you probably only need the one rule.

7. John Ford is generally considered one of the greatest American directors, like, ever. This is the first movie I’ve ever seen of his, at least all the way through. (I’ve seen bits and pieces of The Quiet Man — I like Maureen O’Hara — but never from beginning to end.) I think I’ll have to watch more of his movies before I have much to say on him as a director.

I will say that I think the movie could have been trimmed down just a little, maybe ten or fifteen minutes. There are some scenes that run a little long — as much as I like newspaper man Dutton Peabody (Edmond O’Brien), I really don’t need seven minutes of him slurring to his empty bottle of booze. Also I would cut some stuff near the end — like John Carradine’s whole role — because I find it unnecessary and actually a bit distracting from the film’s main takeaway.

8. I also really, utterly despise the town marshall.

I expect I’m supposed to find him funny, but I . . . don’t. At all. I would be perfectly fine with a cowardly marshall, or a not-that-terribly bright marshall, but the village idiot marshall routine drove me up the fucking wall. If this movie did get remade, I’d really like that role to be rewritten so I didn’t feel the need to start chewing on my hair every time he popped up.

9. Also in a remake — I’d probably recast Liberty Valance.

I mean, clearly, I’d have to because Lee Marvin has been dead for about twenty-five years now. But while Marvin is serviceable enough as a black hat, I wish I found him actually menacing. Not every story calls for a nuanced or sympathetic villain — I certainly don’t want Liberty Valance to be all soft and gooey — but mostly Marvin just staggers around, growling at people in a super deep voice that my ears worked frantically to translate into actual words. He seemed to have the whole town at his mercy, so I kind of wanted him to be a ruthless badass, not just a grownup bully that I couldn’t take very seriously.

10. Finally, I wouldn’t object to Pompey (Woody Strode) getting a little more to do, either.

I don’t need him to be a total badass, exactly — I’d just like him to have the opportunity to show a little more personality. I don’t find The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance to be horrifically objectionable, but it’s hard to ignore that Pompey’s whole role in this movie consists mainly of running back and forth doing errands for two white people. (Oh, and being a backup gun — which has got to be a little more interesting than being a backup singer. Oooh, now I want to do a gunslinger musical! God, shut up brain.)

A slightly deeper glimpse of Pompey’s friendship with Tom would probably satisfy me — I like friendship stories. It’s sort of my thing.

Now, for more about the ending and my problems with it, follow below . . .

SPOILERS

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SPOILERS

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SPOILERS

Okay, actually, let’s briefly go back to the beginning of the move. Senator Ransom — because that’s way more fun than calling him Senator Stoddard — comes back to the somewhat-less-little-than-it-once-was town of Shinbone for Tom Doniphon’s funeral. The big cheese at the newspaper actually interrupts Tom’s miniature funeral because, as he puts it, he has the right to know why a Senator has come all the way to Shinbone to mourn some nobody like Tom Doniphon.

And . . . look, you assclown. Freedom of the press doesn’t actually mean that people are legally required to answer your insensitive questions, particularly not at a fucking funeral. (History/Legal types, feel free to correct me if this was different back in western times. As far as I understand it, you have the right to ask, investigate, and report, but the people you’re questioning also have the right to punch you in the face. Or, at the very least, they can say, “No comment.”)

I do actually like that Ransom, himself, feels the need to be open with the press since the news was such a contributing factor in his rise to political power. I just wish that he had slammed that bastard’s head into a wall first. Or just given his exclusive story to the eager beaver reporter instead.

Anyway, so Ransom tells his story, most of which I’m going to skip over because, hey, if you’re reading this, you should already know it, and I’ve got a horror story to work on that I’ve been procrastinating —  because I like to pretend that if I wish real hard, the story and all its brilliance will suddenly appear in my Word document without my having to do something silly, like, write it.

So, near the end — Ransom supposedly kills Liberty, but we later find out that Tom was actually the one who shot him. If this is supposed to be particularly surprising, well, it’s not, but I’m actually okay with that. Tom finds Hallie hanging all over Ransom, grateful that he’s alive, and he leaves to go get drunk and burn down his house because Hallie was his girl, dammit. (More on that in a bit.)

Ransom goes to this big convention deal for statehood and is nominated as a representative. He has a whole crisis of conscience about it because John Carradine argues (in a supremely annoying, overwrought sort of voice) that a cold-blooded murderer shouldn’t be a representative of law and order. Tom pops in and informs Ransom that he didn’t kill anyone and should thus buck up and take the nomination, especially since Hallie’s his girl now. (“You taught her how to read and write. Now give her something to read and write about!”)

So Ransom accepts the nomination, and we go back to the future. The Aggravating Newspaper Man rips up the whole story because legends sell better than facts — so it’s good to see that he disrupted a handful of grieving people for absolutely nothing. Ransom and Hallie take the train back to DC. Ransom is thinking of retiring and moving back to Shinbone for good. Hallie loves the idea. She also admits to Ransom that she put the cactus rose on Tom’s coffin, indicating that she’s never really gotten over him after all.

Finally, the train conductor tells Ransom that, “Nothing’s too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance!” and Ransom stares rather pensively out the window, and that’s about the end of that.

Now, a few more notes:

1. Liberty is playing poker before he’s killed — he wins the pot with aces over eights. This is also known as the dead man’s hand because, supposedly, it was Wild Bill Hickok’s last hand before he was murdered. I’ll have to remember that for the next time I play poker, so I can try and throw my eights away, lest someone just come up and shoot the hell out of me.

2. As I mentioned earlier, if I had it my way, I would entirely cut John Carradine from the movie.

Carradine is the guy on the left, the one who appears to be indicating God. Or aliens. Something up, anyway.

I don’t think he serves much purpose — yes, he’s the impetus for Ransom’s crisis of conscience, but I think Ransom could easily have gotten there on his own with everything we already know about him and his ideals. It would shave at least five minutes off the movie — which, it’s not a ridiculously long film, but the momentum suffers a bit after Liberty Valance is killed, so this could help.

Also, I think Carradine’s big, “He’s a murderer!” speech gets in the way of the whole point of the story. When Carradine’s speechifying, you think Ransom might lose the nomination because he (supposedly) killed Valance, when in actuality, the whole reason he’s nominated is because he (supposedly) killed Valance. The tragedy is that Ransom got where he got because of something Tom did, and Tom will never be acknowledged for it. Carradine’s oratory makes that a little less clear by suggesting a complication that never really comes to fruition.

Although I will admit that the idea of losing a guy named Major Starbuckle does make me sad. Point of interest: when I eventually get a puppy someday, that’s totally what I’m naming it.

Look at that face and tell me it doesn’t scream Major Starbuckle. Or maybe Captain Starbuckle. Colonel Starbuckle?

3. According to Wikipedia, Hallie is still hung up on Tom after all these years because John Ford wanted John Wayne to be the real lead and hero of the movie. This is certainly the impression I got from watching The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and it’s kind of my biggest problem with the whole film.

I do have sympathy for Tom, to an extent, but I don’t know that I ever feel as deeply sorry for him as Ford wants me to. Part of that is the lack of balance between Wayne and Stewart that I mentioned before — as an audience member, I feel like I’ve been guided to pity Tom, that his whole tragic hero is, in a sense, constructed and artificial. And the second something feels artificial to me, my heart hardens up like a stone — which is why that Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercial will never move me to tears and, in all honesty, makes me significantly less interested in donating money than I was before.

Besides, while Tom lets Hallie go — she was never really his to begin with. He thought of her as his, but even though the whole town was basically waiting for them to get married, he never actually proposed. They weren’t even really dating. (No, giving someone a compliment and a cactus rose now and then does not actually constitute dating.) Very early in the movie, Tom actually says, “Don’t rush me,” in a way that indicates it’s never occurred to him that someone else could try and swoop her up first. Later, when that does occur to him, he tells Ransom to back off (even though Ransom hasn’t really done anything — and this I do like, that they aren’t secretly carrying on behind Tom’s back or something), but Tom doesn’t go to Hallie. He doesn’t tell her that he loves her. He never makes his intentions clear. And that means when Hallie chooses someone else, he’s partially to blame, and I feel like the movie sweeps that under the rug a bit.

I don’t mind that Hallie still has feelings for Tom at the end of the movie, but the actual execution of that reveal bothers me. I wish the film would let me make up my own mind if Hallie made the right choice or not — and if Ransom should feel guilty or not.

4. Finally, the ending might have a touch more drama if we didn’t already know that Hallie ended up with Ransom. I actually sometimes like seeing the ending of a story first and figuring out how everyone arrived there, but I do feel like something is lost after Liberty Valance is killed, and since Tom’s secret revelation isn’t exactly stunning, waiting to reveal who Hallie ends up with might be a good way to extend the suspense.

CONCLUSIONS:

Decent story and some good ideas, but some of it felt a little too contrived and forced for my tastes.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MVP:

Vera Miles

MORAL:

In the West, the gun is mightier than the pen.

It’s almost March, so I guess I better get to my second western of the year . . .

Honestly, I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t know that I have a whole hell of a lot to say about it.

SUMMARY:

A stranger blows into San Miguel — a desolate Mexican town controlled by two rival families — and plays those families against each other.

NOTES:

1. It’s nice to watch Clint Eastwood before he was a crazy old man arguing with empty chairs.

He’s a lot of fun here as the Man With No Name. I like that he’s more morally ambiguous than some straight-up cowboys, and surprisingly, he’s funny too — not dropping one-liners every five seconds, mind, but he gets a fair few number of quips that definitely made me smile.

And I know this isn’t at all fair — I haven’t seen most of the movies that John Wayne’s particularly acclaimed for — but when I compare the two Wayne movies I have seen (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Shootist) with the two Eastwood movies I’ve seen (A Fistful of Dollars, Unforgiven) . . . well, Eastwood’s definitely shaping up to be my favorite gunslinger of the two.

2. This was kind of the movie that made spaghetti westerns a big deal, and as a subgenre, I think I’m a fan — although I will say that the dubbing does take some getting used to. Italy! First Suspiria, and now this! I like your movies, but you’re driving me crazy!

3. Still, I’m pretty sure I could get into watching more films like this one– I mean, it’s an enjoyable movie —  but you know what (or I should say who) ISN’T enjoyable? Esteban.

Not actually Esteban.

Okay, so I couldn’t get a good picture of Esteban, but that’s okay because every time this guy laughed — and he laughed a LOT — I was reminded of the hyenas from The Lion King, and it was not actually a pleasant reminder. I wanted to punch Esteban in the face SO MUCH. For the remake — because there will be one, some day — I think I want Esteban to be just slightly less annoying. I don’t care if he’s a villain. There’s absolutely no need for The Lion King flashbacks.

4. You know, it’s funny to watch a movie — say, oh, I don’t know, Django Unchained — and then watch an earlier movie that clearly influenced it. Of course, I know enough about film history to have an idea of what movies and genres Tarantino is referencing in any given project, but it’s somewhat different when you’re actually watching it yourself — it’s like being friends with a kid, then meeting the kid’s mother and saying, “Hey, you’ve got Shelby’s eyes — oh — wait.”

Actually, it’s not Django Unchained I thought of while watching this, so much as Kill Bill, and if you’ve seen both movies, you probably know why. (The video below has spoilers for Kill Bill Vol 2., if you’re the only person in the entire universe who hasn’t seen it yet and actually wants to.)

Quentin Tarantino used Ennio Morricone’s music all over the second Kill Bill movie — including the scene above, which showcases the main theme from A Fistful of Dollars. (The music starts at about 2:07, if you want to skip ahead.) It’s great stuff. I’m enjoying listening to a Morricone playlist on youtube as we speak, actually, and if I was a filmmaker, I’d steal the shit out of it too.

5. Finally, if you’re going up against a whole bunch of bad guys by yourself, and a dude hands you dynamite because you’re low on weapons . . . use it on the bad guys, or just don’t use it. Don’t be the asshole who uses dynamite just to make a flashy entrance.

The Man With No Name? Totally that asshole.

SPOILERS

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More importantly, The Man With No Name? HAS A NAME.

This is just unacceptable.

So, the Man is doing a fine job of making the rival families — who were considering brokering a truce — even more pissed off at each other, but then he has to help this woman and her husband and their kid, and it’s this bit of do-goodery that is his (temporary) downfall. Ramon — who’s clearly the leader of the Rojos, no matter what his brothers might think — has the Man tortured for a while. Of course, the Man escapes. The Rojos search for him and, while they’re at it, massacre the shit out of the Baxters (the other gang), setting their home on fire and killing every single one of them as they run out of the burning house.

I feel a little bad for this lady. She was kind of awesome. I especially liked it when she bartered to save her adult son, and then as soon as he was safe, immediately slapped him for stupidly getting kidnapped in the first place.

I’m trying to decide if I would have liked the movie a little better if the Baxters had been a touch more powerful. They tell you up front that the Rojos have the edge, but I feel like you’d get a little more of that rock in a hard place feeling for Clint Eastwood if the Baxters had felt like a real threat, instead of just being obvious lambs to the slaughter. It’s not a big issue, though, just something I might have done a little differently.

Anyway, so the Man heals up and rides back into town to showdown with the Rojos brothers and save his friend, Silvanito. He tells Ramon, who’s supposed to be the shit when it comes to shooting, to aim for his heart — throwing Ramon’s words back at him — but when Ramon shoots him repeatedly, the Man keeps getting back up.

Now a smart man would think, hey, let’s try maybe aiming somewhere else — like the head — but Ramon doesn’t understand why he can’t make the shot, so he keeps trying over and over until he runs out of bullets. (I’m well aware that a headshot is harder than a chest shot, but like I said, Ramon’s supposed to be freaking amazing with his rifle. He could have made the headshot, and the Man would have been dead, and Ramon could have just kept murdering people and stealing other men’s wives. Everybody wins!)

The Man then reveals that he’s wearing a steel chest plate underneath his poncho –

– which, hey, a lot more likely to save you than a Bible, I suppose — and then kills everyone but Ramon so that they can have a who’s fastest standoff. Quite naturally, the Man wins that. And after Silvanito kills Esteban (YES! FINALLY!), the Man rides out of town with about as much fanfare as he entered it. Before he goes, though, the undertaker calls him, “Joe.”

And — Joe? Joe? What’s the Joe bullshit? HE IS THE MAN WITH NO NAME. You can’t have a Man With No Name trilogy when THE MAN HAS A NAME.

I am greatly saddened by this.

SUMMARY:

Enjoyable. Maybe it’s just been too long since I watched it — I did delay my review a bit to work on other things — or maybe I just have no real deep thoughts about this one. But it’s a fun movie, and I’m definitely looking forward to watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly later this year.

MVP:

Clint Eastwood

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Aim for the head. It’s not just for zombies.

Enough procrastinating. It’s time to get back to the list.

This is the oldest western on my list, and I think my favorite to date. (Okay, I’ve watched three movies thus far. Still. It’s is a good one.)

SUMMARY:

Marshall Will Kane puts his extremely new marriage and retirement on hold in order to stop Frank Miller and his gang from returning to town and wreaking havoc. But when Kane asks the townspeople for help, they abandon him.

NOTES:

1. Despite the fact that it’s not a quote from the actual movie itself, I almost titled this post, “That was Gary Cooper, asshole.” Two life points to the first person who can tell me what movie that’s from.

2. Also, this is my first Gary Cooper film, and I was initially startled by his resemblance to Jimmy Stewart. (Cooper’s on the left, by the way, in case you don’t watch a lot of old movies or aren’t particularly good with faces.)

Mek insists there’s a little Robert Redford around the eyes, too, which I can kind of see. More importantly, Gary Cooper’s pretty awesome in this and, as such, won Best Actor over Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas, José Ferrer, and Alec Guiness in 1952. I like Cooper’s performance — on paper, running around for half a movie asking for help doesn’t sound all that compelling, but in reality, watching Kane’s initial resolve shift and occasionally falter from the multiple betrayals by his friends, coworkers, and the people he’s sworn to protect . . . it’s interesting.

3. I suppose it’s especially interesting because many people consider High Noon to be an allegory for McCarthyism and blacklisting. I tend to be careful about ascribing a certain political motive to any story without hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth — difficult, now, considering that most people involved are certainly dead — but I will say that I can easily see how High Noon COULD be an allegory for such a thing. I would also point out that not only was the screenwriter, Carl Foreman, blacklisted himself very shortly after writing this film, but even at the time it came out, High Noon was considered a political allegory against McCarthyism. Apparently, one of its biggest opponents?

The Duke, himself.

Until yesterday I was unaware of this — look, my film history knowledge is there, but it’s sketchy in some places – but I guess John Wayne was a pretty huge supporter of blacklisting, which makes me think considerably less of John Wayne. He didn’t think High Noon made for a good western, called it “un-American,” and reportedly teamed up with Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo as a response.

I’ve never seen Rio Bravo, and I’m both more AND less interested in watching it now. It’s not on my list, though, so you almost certainly won’t see a review for it this year, which is probably for the best. I like that I can usually separate an actor’s personal, political, or religious beliefs from his work as an artist — although some might not actually consider that much of a virtue — but I suspect I’d have difficulty doing that right now with John Wayne. In related news, I think I’ll put off watching The Searchers until the end of 2013, while I’m at it.

4. But back to the movie itself: Helen Ramirez is pretty much the awesomest.

Helen (Katy Jurado) is Kane’s ex. She’s also the bad guy’s ex, and she’s currently shacked up with Deputy Marshall Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges), which proves that she doesn’t have great taste when it comes to lovers because, seriously, Pell is a spoiled dipshit. Then again, watching her verbally bitchslap the deputy around is pretty awesome. Helen is confident and independent and sensual and strong, and I enjoy the hell out of her.

5. Next to her, Grace Kelly doesn’t really stand a chance.

Actually, Amy Kane (Kelly) gets better for me as the film progresses, but in the beginning . . .  good God, she’s annoying. I swear, there’s a way to object to violence without being such a whiny princess about it. (Although maybe you can’t help but be be a whiny princess when you’re wearing that bonnet. You know I don’t have a bonnet in my hat collection? I should work on that.)

6. I like that there are multiple motivations for people turning against Kane. Mostly, it’s cowardice, but some people (like Amy) are against violence of any kind, while other people are actually friends of our bad boy, Frank, and some are simply nursing a grudge against Kane himself. I also like that there’s a discussion of these motivations and justifications and excuses among the townspeople, particularly in the church scene. It’s helpful to see that Kane has some supporters, even if they ultimately turn away from him.

7. But seriously — Harvey Pell? Such an asshole.

Dude, I get you’re sore about not being the big cheese and all, but if you can’t see how refusing to do your job unless you get something out of it makes you a terrible candidate for town marshall . . . well, you’re just worthless.

8. It’s funny to see Lloyd Bridges so young, but you know who I get an even bigger kick out of? Harry Morgan.

I used to watch a ton of M*A*S*H reruns while I was in high school, so it’s weird to go back and see Colonel Sherman Potter as such a young dude. And with a little mustache, no less.

9. My biggest complaint about this movie is our bad guy, Frank Miller. (And not like it’s an uncommon name by any means, but my inner geek is highly amused that our bad guy’s name is Frank Miller.) In the film, Frank is described as wild and kind of crazy. He may even be called psychotic. Everyone seems to be absolutely terrified of him — women couldn’t walk the streets without fear of being attacked, and anarchy just seems to follow him wherever he goes. It’s clear he’s put this town through the wringer before, so when we finally get to see him, I was expecting something, I don’t know, more.

But Frank Miller is just this dude who hops off a train with a gun in hand, and he’s not particularly menacing or intimidating or anything. And, admittedly, there’s an argument to be made for subverting audience expectations with a weak sauce villain — like how you expect Chaney to be a very different type of bad guy while watching True Grit. (The remake, at least. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t compare.) But Chaney seems to be a clever and very deliberate attempt to throw the audience, whereas here . . . I don’t know; it almost seems lazy, like they couldn’t bother to find an actor who could give Miller some presence, like any old black hat would do. But for a character we’ve been talking about the whole damn movie . . . no, I wanted a little more bang for my buck here.

10. The music in this film definitely stands out, asking to be noticed but not so much that I minded it. “The Ballad of High Noon” (or “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’ “) is the movie’s theme song and won Best Original Song at the Academy Awards. It’s also sung by Tex Ritter, John Ritter’s father.

11. For more High Noon related musical trivia: one of the henchmen, Ben Miller, is played by a guy named Sheb Wooley. You might know him as that guy who sings, “The Purple People Eater.”

12. Finally, before my extremely brief Spoiler Section, High Noon isn’t exactly shot in real time, but it’s pretty close, and for my money, kind of awesome. The “real time” gimmick can sometimes feel just like that . . . a gimmick . . . but I think it works really well here, both to build tension and to keep this story trim.

And now . . .

SPOILERS

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I only created a spoiler section because I’m a very silly person.

Kane goes to face Frank Miller and his three lackeys alone, and watching them chase him through town is pretty cool. When done well, the talk talk talk ACTION model of shooting a movie can be very effective. Kane gets two of them, I believe, before getting wounded. Meanwhile, Amy boards the train with Helen, but when she hears gunshots, she can’t leave her man behind, and damn her principles. Because I like Helen more, I was kind of hoping she would be the one to change her mind . . . but I’ll admit, it makes much more story-sense for Amy to do so.

Amy shoots the third lackey in the back. Frank gets ahold of her, but Amy fights him off and leaves him an open target. Kane shoots Frank dead. This is my second, more minor quibble with the film: I’m just not crazy about how this last bit of staging is done. It’s a little too easy, too abrupt. But whatever, Frank’s a goner. The town comes out to look, and Kane disgustedly throws his marshall star to the dirt. Then he and Amy take off, and that’s the end.

For my money, that’s both a pretty awesome end and the best way I’ve seen someone silently say, “Fuck all y’all,” in a while.

CONCLUSIONS:

Smart, enjoyable western. Whether it was intended as an allegory or not, I really liked it.

MVP:

Gary Cooper . . . but don’t think I didn’t seriously consider Katy Jurado.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Don’t let cowardice prevent you from doing what you know is right.

Also, you want something done? Well, sometimes, you just have to go out there and do it yourself because, ultimately, people suck.

Geek Pride Day — as well as Towel Day — was last weekend. I celebrated by finally going to see Star Trek Into Darkness.

Cause nothing says shit just got REAL like going into a volcano.

I had a good time watching the movie. It was a lot of fun. But . . . I have some pretty serious story problems with it, too.

SUMMARY:

After a devastating terrorist attack, Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew go after the man responsible, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Action ensues.

NOTES:

1. The Non-Spoiler section of this review might be fairly brief, since most of my issues with the film are chock full of spoilers. I can say, though, that for all the things that don’t work for me in this movie, the cast is still pretty spectacular. Chris Pine, in particular, does really good work here, and I’m hopeful he’ll stop starring in films I have no earthly interest in (such as People Like Us) and start appearing in more awesome projects.

2. Sadly, despite their talent, some of the cast is left out in the cold when it comes to screen time. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Scotty (Simon Pegg) probably make out the best, while Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) easily has the least to do. Even Bones (Karl Urban) isn’t around as much as I would have expected. That’s the way of things, I know, when you have such a large cast, but I still feel like the first movie managed a much better balance between characters.

Although. I would totally watch a spinoff movie with John Cho as Captain Sulu.

3. As far as our chief antagonist goes . . .

. . . well, on one hand, he’s Benedict Cumberbatch, so he kind of owns. He’s certainly a much more charismatic and entertaining villain than Eric Bana was in Star Trek, and his voice . . . good Christ, that’s a good voice. Cumberbatch does a decent job with John Harrison . . .

. . . but man, Harrison’s storyline has issues. And by that, I mean kind of the whole plot has issues.

Like I said, I can’t really talk about these issues until the Spoiler Section, but for the first . . . I don’t know, hour? Sure, for the first hour, Star Trek Into Darkness is pretty enjoyable. And then comes the scene where Harrison starts talking about all his secret motivations and whatnot, and that’s about the time when I started struggling with this movie. I mean, I still had fun. It’s definitely a fun movie, but even as I watched, I couldn’t help wishing for a stronger storyline and less clunky cliches.

4. And as far as the new girl goes . . .

This is Carol, and she’s . . . okay. Carol is played by Alice Eve, who’s certainly much better here than she was in The Raven. (Where she hideously mangled, ”Annabel Lee,” much to my horror.) Acting-wise, at least, Eve is totally fine, but her character is just kind of . . . there and feels awkwardly inserted into the whole proceeding. I couldn’t help but feel like she was taking time away from other characters I was more interested in.

Also, there’s one shot of Carol where she’s sort of randomly in her underwear, which has stirred up some minor controversy. Damon Lindelof has since apologized for this, agreeing that it’s gratuitous, and . . . it is gratuitous, and it’s awfully silly, but I have to tell you, I wasn’t particularly offended by it, either. You know, I’m more annoyed as a writer than I am as a woman — there are much smoother ways to insert your gratuitous underwear shots. Maybe next time, just have both your girls and your guys stripping down to get into their radiation suits. There’s nothing wrong with equal opportunity eye candy. At the very least, keep in the Benedict Cumberbatch shower scene. I’m thinking many an audience member wouldn’t have objected to that.

5. Speaking of eye candy . . . at one point, Zoe Saldana speaks Klingon, and you know . . . I think I might have a bit of a girl crush on Zoe Saldana. I feel this is fairly understandable to anybody who’s, you know, seen Zoe Saldana.

6. This:

Kirk: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Spock: “An Arabic proverb attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects.”
Kirk: “Well, it’s still a hell of a quote.

LOVE.

7. This movie has some really interesting nods to the old Trek movies. There are a couple that aren’t quite as effective as I’d like them to be — mostly because of poor placement — but some of the homages are great. One of the things I really enjoy about this particular universe is seeing how the changes in the timeline from Star Trek continues to alter the course of events, so that while some things play out the way you remember, other things are . . . just a little bit different. There’s an interesting essay somewhere in this series about destiny, but maybe I’ll just read some Kirk/Bones fic instead.

(Actually, I’m not really a big shipper in fanfiction at all, slash or otherwise, but I have discovered that if the choice is between Kirk/Spock and Kirk/Bones, I’m actually in favor of the latter. I know. I was kind of surprised too.)

Honestly, that’s about all I got before Spoilers. So — for those of you who’ve seen it — scroll a little further.

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The movie begins with Kirk disregarding everyone’s favorite killjoy rule, the Prime Directive, and leading a mission to save a planet from an evil volcano. Technically, Spock is the one who saves the planet, while Kirk disregards the Prime Directive in order to save Spock’s life. Unfortunately, Starfleet finds out about it . . . because Spock tells them.

Starfleet’s pissed, so somehow Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) is basically demoted into being Captain again, which a, seems unfair, and b, is clearly a death warrant for Father Figure Pike. Seriously, I’m surprised he doesn’t immediately put on a T-shirt that says, “Miss Me When I’m Dead.” On one hand, I was kind of annoyed about this because I was surprised and more than a little impressed that they didn’t kill him in the first movie. On the other hand, his death happens much quicker than I expected it to, which made me happy — I didn’t want to waste the whole film, waiting for something that was clearly inevitable.

Before Pike gets killed, though, we are introduced to our villain, John Harrison, and if you followed any of the news about Into Darkness, you damn well knew that the name “Harrison” was just a smokescreen. And mind you, I’m not talking about looking at reviews I shouldn’t have been looking at or even my penchant for accidentally stumbling into spoilers online while reading about entirely different things – there was speculation about Benedict Cumberbatch EVERYWHERE. Which is only natural, after all, but unfortunately, the media campaign in charge of promoting Into Darkness completely mishandled things. It went kind of like this:

MEDIA CAMPAIGN: Benedict Cumberbatch is playing the villain in the next Star Trek movie.

INTERNET FANDOM: Holy JESUS. That’s the best news EVER! Who is he playing?

MEDIA CAMPAIGN: Uh . . . we’re not telling you. It’s a SECRET.

INTERNET FANDOM: Cool! Forums, let’s speculate!

(months later)

INTERNET FANDOM: Okay, we really want to know now: who is Cumberbatch playing? It’s gotta be Khan, right? Or maybe Gary Mitchell? But probably Khan?

MEDIA CAMPAIGN: Um . . . that’s not important right now. *runs away*

(months later)

INTERNET FANDOM: For the love of God, who the HELL is our villain?!

MEDIA CAMPAIGN: All right . . . prepare yourself. Benedict Cumberbatch is playing . . . John Harrison!

INTERNET FANDOM: . . . who the fuck is THAT?

MEDIA CAMPAIGN: He’s, er, original. He’s an original villain. Yeah.

INTERNET FANDOM: So, you waited, like, eight months just to reveal this BIG SECRET that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing some guy we’ve never heard of with a boring-ass name like John Harrison?

MEDIA CAMPAIGN: . . . yes?

INTERNET FANDOM: Fuck you. He’s totally Khan.

So, anyway. It will be a while until Cumberbatch reveals that he’s actually Khan, but since he’s totally Khan, well, that’s how I’m referring to him henceforth.

Okay, so Khan introduces himself to Poor Schmuck whose daughter is dying from some horrible disease. Khan saves the little girl. In exchange, Poor Schmuck blows a bunch of people up, himself included. The upper-ups of Starfleet gather together to discuss this terrorist attack, and just as Kirk’s realizing IT’S A TRAP, Khan shows up to shoot the shit out of people, namely Pike.

Au revoir, Pike.

Despite being utterly predictable, it’s a pretty good death scene. Bruce Greenwood and Zachary Quinto are both great in it. Chris Pine, too, when he comes back and sees Pike’s dead body. It’s all good stuff — like I said, I have a lot of story qualms with this movie, but the acting . . . the acting is awesome all around.

Okay, so Starfleet figures out that Khan is hiding in Klingon territory. This is bad because the Federation is basically on the verge of war with the Klingons, so they can’t risk anyone going after Khan. Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) tells Kirk to take the Enterprise very close to Klingon space and fire about seventy of these special torpedos at Khan’s location. (It’s supposed to be otherwise abandoned, so you know. No problem there.)

It’s pretty obvious that Weller’s a bad guy, especially since both Spock and Scotty have moral concerns about this plan, but Kirk’s too deep in Vengeance Mode to care. Scotty even resigns because of it — mostly because he can’t condone having these super torpedoes on board if he isn’t allowed to inspect them and secure the safety of the crew. Admittedly, the argument between Scotty and Kirk is a little transparent as a way to keep Scotty off the Enterprise but, you know, weirdly, that doesn’t bother me so much.

Continuing forward: Spock’s continued logic-fueled guilt trips finally convince Kirk that outright assassination via super torpedoes is not the way to go. They fly covertly into Klingon space, attempting to capture Khan and bring him back to Earth for trial. There they briefly run into some Klingons — who, honestly, are pretty stupid looking. I know the makeup of the Klingons changes per generation, but come on now. Klingons are supposed to look like Worf, and that’s all there is to it.

Anyway, Khan rescues the away team from the Klingons and then surrenders himself to the Enterprise when he learns how many super torpedoes they have on board. Then Bones and Carol Marcus — oh yeah, she’s totally the Admiral’s daughter — figure out what’s in those super torpedoes: namely, people. Cryogenically frozen people.

And then we get to The Scene where everything starts going downhill for me.

Here is what we learn from the scene:

A. John Harrison is actually Khan. (Yawn.)

B. Khan is a genetically enhanced evil bastard who’s been in cryogenic sleep for the past 300 years. Admiral Marcus woke him up because the war with the Klingons is basically imminent, so Marcus figured he might as well get the ball rolling and strike first. And to win agains the Klingons, the Federation is going to need men from a different century, savage men like Khan who can create diabolical weapons and be all amoral and shit.

Here are my problems:

A. A bad guy whose Big Motivation is to start a war is basically a time-honored tradition in Hollywood. But . . . we haven’t really even seen the Klingons yet. Sure, I know something about them because I’m a Trekkie. But this series reboot is very clearly supposed to be mass-marketed to everyone, Trekkies and newbies alike, and if you’re going to have a plot where Admiral Asshat wants to start a war with these guys . . . shouldn’t they have been in the movie for more than three minutes? Shouldn’t we know something about them? Instead, we get a very, very brief scene where they shoot at the away team and a bunch of silly exposition from Admiral Asshat about all the bad things they’ve done. It’s not good enough.

B. Also, if you’re going to bring in people from 300 years ago, there ought to be a reason to do it. Oh, I know . . . the Admiral needed “savage men”. Bullshit. Is this fucking Demolition Man? I don’t think so. And even if it is . . . we need to spend some time showing the disparity between the supposed savagery of the past with our current, intellectual utopia. We need to see how our civilized values are getting in our own way. That’s actually not a terrible idea for a couple of reasons: one, Trek has always been a pretty sanitized universe in comparison to, say, the world of Star Wars, and showing the positives and negatives of such a verse could actually be kind of interesting, and two, it’d be an easy way to introduce the Klingons, if we just showed how they were a serious threat because of our own moral code.

But Into Darkness doesn’t bother with any of this because the real reason the Admiral wakes up a 300 year-old man from cryogenic sleep is that Khan is the most infamous bad guy in Trek history, and that’s his backstory, so fuck it, let’s just shove the storyline in there and make it work, right? There’s potential in this plot, but the writing is lazy and full of cliches that are all tied together into one big Convenience Ball.

Anyway, a bunch of action stuff happens here, but I’m tired and I don’t feel like going through it scene by scene. Here are the important things, in no particular order:

A. Kirk is forced to start working with Khan in order to stop Admiral Asshat Marcus.

B. Scotty saves everyone’s lives and gets back on board the Enterprise.

C. Khan kills Marcus by squeezing the guy’s head together with his bare hands, which Carol, legitimately, freaks out about. (By which I mean, she does a full-on, horror movie scream. That scream was in every trailer, and I was wondering if it would play, but surprisingly, I think it does. Whether your dad’s a murderous dick or not, I think you’re allowed a long, drawn-out scream if you watch another dude crush Daddy’s skull in front of you.)

D. In the most awkward, obvious scene EVER, Kirk stops whatever he’s doing and is all, “Yo, Bones, what are you doing with that ridiculously fat tribble?” And Bones is like, “This tribble’s dead, Jim. I’m injecting Khan’s Super Blood into it for shits and giggles. Cause that won’t be important later.”

UGH. It is SO BAD. It is the WORST THING EVER.

E. Spock gets one over on Khan, just like Kirk does in The Wrath of Khan.

F. Kirk is forced to sacrifice himself to save his crew, just like Spock does in The Wrath of Khan.

First, I would be remiss if I did not point out that Mekaela correctly called this twist from watching the trailer and deserves a celebratory woot! dance.

Next: I adore the reversal here, and I love the scene between Spock and Kirk. Really, both Pine and Quinto are fantastic in this moment. It’s extremely well-acted and very moving and totally made me cry . . .

. . . only for it to be promptly ruined by Quinto screaming, “KHAAAAAAAAN!”

Le sigh.

For those of who you are unfamiliar with the original Trek films . . . well, this is a reversal too, of an iconic and ludicrously hammy moment in The Wrath of Khan.

I don’t at all object to Spock screaming, “Khaaaaaan!” instead of Kirk. I like reversals. I find them endlessly intriguing. But it’s such a badly placed moment of rage (and such an obvious transition to cut back to Cumberbatch) that it doesn’t play at all. If Spock had screamed it while chasing after Khan, I bet that would have worked. But here . . . it just abruptly and badly cuts off a really nice scene, and honestly? I giggled a little at it in theater. Not the proper reaction when your lead character has died not ten seconds earlier.

Anyway, so Spock chases after Khan. Meanwhile, Bones sees that his gigantic dead tribble is now a gigantic living tribble and theorizes that he can save Kirk if he can get his hands on some of Khan’s special blood and synthesize some type of magic cure out of it.

Oi.

Look, there aren’t very many ways to keep Magic Blood from being a cheat, and I know we can’t resurrect Kirk the same way we resurrected Spock in The Search for Spock — nor would we want to, because that movie had a whole host of problems itself, and Genesis was at the heart of most of them — but I still think this could have been done better. Cause, seriously, the tribble scene? It’s the WORST. I really can’t stress that enough. Somehow, Bones needs to be studying Khan’s blood for some actual story reason, not just Foreshadow Reasons.

(Also, can I just say? As much as I honestly did love the reversal, I’m just a little bit sad I’ll never see Karl Urban channeling Zachary Quinto as he carries the dead Vulcan’s katra around. They need to make that shit a special feature on the DVD. I can’t even tell you how happy that would make me.)

And really, I think Kirk should have stayed dead at the end of this movie. I mean, we could have teased his return, like with some optimistic ending because, seriously, no one would have believed that he’s actually dead forever. But bringing Kirk back to life through Magic Blood not ten minutes after he dies . . . well, it takes away from his death scene considerably. And godammit, it’s such a good scene.

Anyway, Kirk wakes up on Earth sometime later. Bones jokes about any possible side effects, namely megalomania, but I’m sort of hoping there are some kind of psychological or physical side effects for the third movie, just to make the Magic Blood more relevant and less lame. The Enterprise gets a five year commission with Kirk as captain, and . . . that’s about it.

SUMMARY:

As much as I complained about it, this really is a fun movie. A lot of enjoyable action scenes and some great acting. I’ll definitely own it and watch it, I’m sure. But, man, with some better, less lazy writing, it could have been so much better.

MVP:

Chris Pine

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Blind revenge is bad. Friendship is good. Magic Blood will save you. Take your pick.

Here’s something funny: I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen Guy Pearce use his own accent in a movie. Even in an Australian movie, Guy Pearce has to play the Irish guy. It’s kind of sad, really.

The Proposition is my latest western, and just as a heads up? I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it.

SUMMARY:

It’s the late 1800′s, somewhere in the Australian Outback, and Captain Stanley (Ray Winston) has a proposition for Irish outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce): Stanley will spare Charlie’s younger brother, Mikey (Richard Wilson), if Charlie kills his older, super bad guy brother, Arthur (Danny Houston).

NOTES:

1. This movie actually comes with a disclaimer, warning the audience that some scenes might be offensive to Aboriginals. And with lines like this –

“We are white men, sir, not beasts.”

– you know, I can kind of see why.

2. So, I enjoyed this movie for the most part. It’s a very well made film, and there are a lot of things about it to applaud . . . but there’s also something that’s keeping me from loving it the way other people seem to. I think my problem might be Danny Houston.

I’ve read a decent amount of praise for Danny Houston’s performance as the educated yet utterly sadistic older brother of the Burns clan, but overall I felt kind of underwhelmed by it. I feel like I’ve seen it done before, and really, I’ve seen it done better. To be fair to the actor, though, I’m not entirely certain that the blame entirely lies with him. While I generally like the script and story well enough, I wonder if the writing doesn’t fall down a little when it comes to Arthur’s relationship with Charlie. They don’t have nearly as much screen time together as I would have imagined, and what they do have isn’t bad exactly . . . but I feel like something’s missing.

I won’t spoil the ending of the movie — I don’t think I’m even going to do a Spoiler Section today — but I will say that while The Proposition ends on a high note, it still could have been much more powerful if the earlier scenes between Danny Houston and Guy Pearce had done much for me.

It’s also fair to note that I might feel differently about this on a second viewing. The Proposition seems like the kind of movie I might like more and more each time I watch it, but I’m not sure, which is why I’m being particularly tentative with this review.

3. Here’s what I do like, though: the cinematography in this movie is great.

I would easily sign up to watch more westerns on the Australian Outback because it’s a gorgeous landscape for the genre.

4. I also like how the violence is handled in this movie. It’s all very quick — like a dude is just standing there, and whoops! He’s suddenly impaled. But the violence, graphic as it may be, is also spread nicely throughout the film, so it’s like pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty EXPLODING HEAD pretty pretty pretty . . .

5. Not so pretty: Guy Pearce’s teeth in this movie. Clearly, someone was tired of non-period pearly whites.

6. Considering that Nick Cave was involved — he also wrote the screenplay — it should be of no surprise to anyone that the music in this movie is pretty awesome.

7. And about the script itself — like I said earlier, I mostly enjoy it. The beginning launches you right into the story, which is nice. The plot is simple but effective. I was surprised that there was so much focus on Ray Winstone’s character, but ultimately grateful because I think he does a great job in the film. And I like how the proposition itself plays out by the end.

But I still feel like there’s something not quite right with Charlie and Arthur’s relationship. I don’t know. It’s hard to define, but it’s just nagging at me.

8. One of the most effective scenes in the whole movie, though, is the lashing scene. There’s this character that’s sentenced to get flogged a hundred times, and you watch both his reactions and the reactions of everyone around him. Finally, the guy’s collapsed, not moving, not making a sound, and the dude lashing him just drains some blood from the whip and mechanically begins again, counting, “38.”

And you at home — and all the people on screen watching — are like, “Jesus Christ, they’re not even halfway through yet.” It’s powerful stuff.

9. I haven’t entirely decided how I feel about John Hurt yet.

His character is interesting, in a way, but he also feels a little bit out of place — like I’m not entirely certain he needed to be in the story. Although . . . hmmm . . . I’m torn on that. There are one or two moments I definitely think should be in the movie.

All right, let me amend that: I think the first scene where he shows up feels a bit, I don’t know, indulgent? And it goes on a bit longer than it needs to.

10. Finally, there’s one more thing I’m torn on, and that’s the whispers on the wind, so to speak. Charlie Burns will be walking around the desert, looking at desolation and the like, and we’ll hear a voice speaking this poem — lyrics, as I later found out. The actual words themselves are kind of lovely, but I had a tiny problem taking them seriously, if only because I’ve seen Masterpiece Theater’s Jane Eyre, where Jane inexplicably hears Mr. Rochester’s voice on the wind, and I couldn’t stop myself telling Charlie to go back to Mr. Rochester.

Mr. Rochester needs you, Charlie! Save him from his misery!

CONCLUSIONS:

Lovely, violent, melancholic . . . but something about Arthur, or at least Arthur and Charlie’s scenes together, isn’t quite sitting right with me, at least not on a first viewing.

MVP:

Ray Winstone

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Family is the most important thing. Except when it’s not.

So, my parents? Not real strict about what kind of movies I could watch as a kid. And by “not real strict,” I mean I don’t think there actually were any rules, not of any kind. To be fair to them, though, there probably didn’t need to be. I didn’t like scary things as a child, so if I was frightened by whatever they were watching, I excused myself to go play with my dolls. And honestly, I’m still a tiny bit baffled by parents who absolutely forbid their children from watching any rated R film, no matter what the story is actually about.

Still. This is not the kind of movie most kids probably watch at eight or nine years old.

Because I’m not willing to post a picture of what they do while swimming in that pool.

Besides being wholly inappropriate, Color of Night is just a terrible, terrible movie. Like it won a Razzie for ‘Worst Picture of 1994′ terrible. But the film’s long been a joke between my sister and me because, really, who else has childhood nostalgia for a movie that shows Bruce Willis in all his, uh, resplendent glory? So we decided to rent it from Netflix.

Yeah. You’re welcome.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS here because please. You don’t actually want to watch this movie yourself, right?

SUMMARY:

Psychologist Bill (Bruce Willis) is left emotionally scarred — and colorblind — after a patient commits suicide in front of him. He takes some time to get his head together and visits his fellow shrink buddy, Bob (Scott Bakula). But when Bob is murdered, Bill takes over Bob’s Monday Night Therapy Group, suspecting that someone in the group is the murderer.

NOTES:

1. Man, there’s just so much to talk about in this movie. Let’s begin at the beginning with our soon-to-be-suicide, Michelle (Kathleen Wilhoite).

Michelle is not just crazy; she is cuh-razy. We know this because we see her crying, smearing lipstick all over her teeth, and giving oral pleasure to the barrel of a gun. Because yes. That’s necessary. That is certainly the best way to depict mental illness as quickly as possible.

She then goes to her appointment with Bruce Willis, where she promptly throws herself out the window. Since Bruce’s office is in New York and a bazillion stories high, well. She doesn’t make it. Bruce looks down and sees her body all smeared on the ground with blood everywhere. The trauma of this leaves him incapable of seeing the color red. Like, instantly.

1A. Okay, so the whole traumatic onset colorblindness? Yes, it’s totally silly, but to be honest, I kind of enjoy it, at least conceptually. I’m all about the weird and terrifying things your brain can do under stress, and if worked properly into the plot, I could totally have been into this colorblindness, and ridiculousness be damned. But you know, the plot . . . the plot is not this film’s strong suit because this film has absolutely no strong suits of any kind. Some neat ideas, maybe. Execution, nooooooo.

1B. Still, perhaps Bruce Willis shouldn’t immediately lose the ability to see red. Cause, yeah. That shot is pretty bad. Maybe in a remake — that would never happen in a million years — he should go to bed, wake up, and eventually realize that, huh, something’s not quite right here.

1C. Also, Michelle should probably shoot herself instead of jumping out the window. For one thing, Bruce Willis repeatedly says throughout the film that he doesn’t like guns, as if there’s some specific trauma associated with them. (Even though there’s not.) For another, I’m pretty sure my various creative writing classes taught me this rule . . . I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but it’s something like this:

If a woman gives a blow job to the barrel of a gun in the first act, it should go off sometime in the second or third. Pun intended.

Not to mention, Bruce’s office is stupidly high up in this building. Mind you, it always makes me a little sad whenever Bruce Willis enters a tall building, but more importantly, this is his initial view of the body from the eightieth story, or whatever:

Of course, the camera then zooms in so you can see this:

But the problem is, our eyes? They don’t come with a fucking zoom function. So Bruce’s whole, “It was the reddest blood I ever saw,” and associating trauma? It makes no godamned sense!

2. After Michelle jumps to her death, Bruce goes to talk to some psychologist friend of his. This guy’s only around for exposition, though, and it’s not even exposition we really need, so we’ll skip him to talk about Bruce’s more plot relevant and other psychologist friend, Bob.

I watched Quantum Leap a lot as a kid, so frankly, I’m surprised Little Carlie made it through the whole movie and didn’t beat a hasty Barbie Retreat after Bob’s death scene. But that’s for later. (Oh, we’ll get back to that death scene. Boy, will we.)

Bob and Bruce — I just can’t make myself call him Bill — are vaguely dickish to one another because competition is the basis of their friendship, or something. Bob probably wins the dick-off because he basically forces Bruce into participating in a therapy session with his Monday Night Group.

3. We should probably talk about the various members of the Monday Night Group.

Clark (Brad Douriff)

Clark has OCD and also rage issues. There isn’t really a lot to say about him, but he’s kind of enjoyable, not because he’s a particularly great guy (he’s not), but because he’s played by Brad Douriff, who I very much like and has made a career out of playing strange, quirky, crazy, and/or villainous side characters. I would happily keep Brad Douriff around for my imaginary remake.

Casey (Kevin J. O’Connor)

Actually, I kind of like Kevin J. O’Connor too — I like most of these actors, considering how bad this film is. Casey is the tortured artist who burned down his father’s house and has a sadomasochistic lifestyle . . . cause you know. That S&M be crazy. (Considering this movie was made in 1994, it’s no big surprise that there are a few highly unfortunate choices about what’s considered crazy. Like Richie’s supposed gender identity disorder, for instance . . . but oh, let’s hold off on the myriad of problems that is Richie.)

Anyway, Casey has one or two emotional outbursts that are kind of laughable, but I sort of enjoy his snark. It wouldn’t be much of a therapy group without at least one snarky patient, right? (I’m keeping that in mind  in case I ever end up attending some kind of group therapy, although I suspect I would be exceedingly bad at such a thing, considering my likeliest cause for entering said therapy would be social anxiety.)

Buck (Lance Henriksen)

It’s funny just how different Lance Henriksen looks to me in this movie, even though his physical appearance isn’t really all that changed. Anyway, Buck is a cop whose wife and child were killed in an unsolved shooting. That’s important — well, not really — but we’ll get back to that later.

Honestly, Lance Henriksen doesn’t have a whole lot to do — most of the supporting cast is left out in the cold — but I like his whole gruff, angry persona anyway. I should watch more movies with Mr. Henriksen. I mean, how have I not seen Pumpkinhead yet? That sounds like the kind of movie I need to see.

Sondra (Lesley Ann Warren)

Of course, the one woman in the entire group is a nymphomaniac. (She’s also, apparently, a kleptomaniac. It’s brought up, like, once.) Sondra is, well, not good. Lesley Ann Warren plays her in this bizarre, giggly, almost silly sort of way — I guess to remind us that she’s on the verge of orgasm, like, all the time? It seems like the performance that the director probably wanted, but . . . yeah. It’s not great.

Richie (Jane March)

Oh, Richie.

Richie has some rage issues and drug issues and, most importantly, wants to be a woman. The thing is, though, that Richie already is a woman, not just because he perceives himself as female, and I should be referring him to as ‘she’ and ‘her’ — but because Richie isn’t actually Ritchie. You see, it turns out that Richie is already dead, and the person we think is Richie is actually Rose. Rose is a girl who gets into a fender bender with Bruce and pretty promptly starts screwing him. Rose is also Richie’s sister.

Why, you might ask, is Rose pretending to be Richie? Well. Richie killed himself because he was being molested by his old therapist (not Bob), the same therapist, in fact, who molested Richie and Rose’s older brother, Dale. Dale snapped after Richie died and forced Rose to start wearing her dead brother’s clothes. He started calling her Richie until she snapped and started believing she was Richie. But Richie isn’t her only personality because, oh yes, she has three. She is Richie and Rose and also Bonnie — which doesn’t at all fit with the ‘R’ names but fuck it, right? Anyway, Bonnie is the secret girlfriend to everyone in the Monday Night Group. Seriously, she is having sex with all of them. Well, except Buck because Buck favors an old-fashioned kind of girl who wants to wait until she’s married to have sex . . . so Buck and Bonnie are just courting, or whatever. Oh, and technically Bonnie isn’t banging Bruce Willis, I suppose. See, he gets Rose’s true personality because their never ending sex scene love is more pure, or something.

Honestly, there’s so much wrong with everything I just wrote . . . I don’t even know where to begin. Well, that’s not true. Let’s begin with the fact that it’s stupidly obvious that Jane March is playing Richie, Rose, and Bonnie.

Honestly, maybe I wouldn’t have picked up Richie right away — it’s hard to say. I mean, I knew going in that Richie was also Rose — even after twenty years, I still remembered that particular convoluted nightmare twist. But I don’t remember getting a super good look at Richie’s face when we first meet him, and I might have chalked up the weird voice to bad acting or something.

But this is the thing — Jane March? She has a very distinct mouth. Her teeth are rather large, and she has a pretty big overbite, which, hey. I get it. I’ve got an overbite, too, and I’m not all eager to go out and pay a bazillion dollars to fix it. Your acting career shouldn’t be judged on the size or straightness of your teeth — but it also means that adding a wig, an accent, and some terrible pancake makeup just isn’t going to cut it if you want me to believe Rose and Bonnie are different women. (On the positive side, Bonnie’s British accent is real, and I’ll give Jane March this much: it took me a bit to catch that her American was wrong. Though maybe I was just distracted by all the crazy.)

Honestly, I knew Bonnie was Rose almost the second I saw her, and once I saw that, it was easy to see the same actress was playing Richie too. And for Christ’s sake, I’m not even that good with faces. If we’re going to keep this twist around, we’d probably need to cast an unknown with no terribly distinct facial features as R/R/B. Richie would have to wear a much better disguise. And it’s probably for the best if we just don’t see Bonnie at all.

On the other hand, maybe it’s better if we just scrap the whole Richie/Rose/Bonnie thing entirely and come up with a whole new reason for Bob’s murder. Cause Mek and I have been talking about how you would go about fixing it, and . . . honestly, I don’t know if I can. If I was going to try?

Well, first, I’d probably get rid of the MPD/DID diagnosis entirely. Dale would still force Rose to dress up as her dead brother, but she wouldn’t believe she actually was Richie. See, there’s this line in the movie about how Rose can supposedly become anyone her partner needs her to be — which is a kind of interesting idea that’s, unfortunately, never fully explored. I think I need Rose to have some reason to make all these personal connections with the group. She would try to be the person that each of them needs, but their relationships shouldn’t all (or even mostly) be sexual in nature. For instance, she could be a daughter surrogate for Buck, as he’s lost his child, etc.

Still, the whole thing is so convoluted and ridiculous, it might be better to just get rid of it entirely.

4. But I’ve jumped far, far ahead of the plot. Okay. Shortly after Bruce meets the Monday Night Group, Bob is murdered in his office. His death scene is . . . horrible. Really, I’m not sure I can convey just how bad this scene is. Scott Bakula, who I generally enjoy well enough, overacts like whoa, and that’s not helped by the fact that he’s stabbed a bazillion times in slow motion until he finally busts through a glass pane window and is impaled on the shards. (Actually, we only see him get stabbed maybe six or eight times, I think, but Bruce Willis later tells us that he was stabbed, like, thirty-something times. Because restraint is clearly not this film’s strong suit.) Anyway, it’s one of the most laughable scenes in the whole film, which is really saying something. I don’t know if I’ve giggled quite this hard since Kurt Russell’s, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” in Tombstone. 

5. We then meet the most holy shit unsympathetic cop on the face of the planet.

This is Martinez, and seriously, there is no way this man would have a job working in law enforcement or possibly of any kind. He continually insults Bruce Willis and completely makes fun of his dead friend, but then . . . strikes up a partnership with Bruce? It’s just . . . it’s mind-boggling.

See, Bob was getting these death threats, and he suspected someone in the Monday Night Group was sending them. He, of course, doesn’t tell Bruce Willis this before he drags his friend to meet everyone because . . . he’s an asshole? I don’t know. Bruce supposedly has some super special radar for diagnosing people and picking up on secret shit, but Michelle’s swan dive out of the window broke that radar, so Bruce can’t help Bob. He does tell Martinez about the threats, though, and Martinez decides that Bruce should break the news to the group, then take over the group, and see if he can figure out who killed his friend.

Martinez’s motivations never seem entirely clear to me. His general hostility would seem to indicate that he suspects Bruce of the murder, but his actions don’t really line up with that idea. If he truly wants Bruce to be his inside man, well, he goes about it in a spectacularly terrible fashion. I mean, really. If you want someone on your side, it’s probably best if you don’t crack wise about their recently murdered friend, even if said friend was a bit of an asshole. I just can’t imagine Bruce would actually team up with this guy, like, ever.

What might make sense in a remake: Martinez can’t investigate the case because he has a conflict-of-interest. (Which he, in fact, does. He and Buck used to be partners in Vice. Also, he slept with Buck’s wife shortly before she was killed.) So Martinez enlists Bruce’s help in investigating the group on the DL. And he doesn’t act like a total jackass while doing it because honestly. There’s a guy who’s got a job to do and has little time for feelings, and then there’s a guy who acts more like a coked-up asshole than a cop.

6. Of course, it should also be said that Bruce doesn’t seem to really care very much about Bob’s death. I mean, I’d say for a scene he’s pretty broken up about it. After that, well, you know. He has Rose’s constantly naked body to comfort him. Honestly, Bruce seems way more upset about Michelle’s death than about the brutal murder of a friend he’s had for at least ten years. Again, I know Bob was an asshole, but come on. Living in his house, having sex in his bed, driving his car, and taking over his Monday Night Group without a single tear shed does seem a little callous. Sure, Bill’s from out of town and all, but would you really make yourself cozy in the empty home of your murdered friend? That seems . . . decidedly weird to me.

7. You know what else seems weird? Continuing to have your therapy sessions in the same place where your last therapist was brutally murdered. I don’t understand why no one raises their hand and says, “Wait, Bob was killed, like, right HERE? Dude. Can we just move this down to the park or something? Or a church or a food court or pretty much anywhere else?”

8. My personal experience with therapy is, admittedly, pretty limited, but it seems to me that a group of people with such varied illnesses and disorders wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a joint session like this. Like I could see if they were all committed to an institution of some kind, but since that’s not the case . . . wouldn’t you try to find a group that would address your specific problems? I’ve seen meetings for addicts, classes for anger management, support groups for people who suffer from OCD, but rarely have I seen a flier or advertisement with the header “Casserole of Crazy.”

That being said, this isn’t actually a serious problem I have with the film. Like, I can address that it seems silly and then just move on because, hey. It’s important to the plot, and maybe there are more generic mental illness support groups than I’m aware of.

I refuse to believe, however, that any therapist, even amateur detective therapists, would go alone to each of his clients’ houses to investigate . . . and that the clients themselves would be okay with this.

Uh, what exactly are you doing here, buddy?

If your detective in a story is a therapist, and all his suspects are clients, then the majority of the investigation should probably take place in the actual therapy sessions. The tension of the film should come from these group discussions — suspicions should arise, secrets should be revealed, words should be coded with double or triple meanings. Always, always the audience should be aware that Bruce Willis is sitting right next to a homicidal maniac. (Even if he’s actually not.)

I’m not saying that kind of thing is easy — your writing and acting have to be sharp as hell — but that would have made for an interesting story. I know I sound crazy, but I swear there’s potential in this movie . . .

9. . . . if only it wasn’t so interested in Jane March’s tits.

Color of Night is a so-called “erotic thriller” — less emphasis on the thrilling, obviously, and more focus on the supposedly steamy sex scenes. And admittedly, I’m usually pretty bored by sex scenes myself — that’s been well documented on this blog. But these sex scenes really are pretty awful. For starters, I see far more of Bruce Willis than I ever wanted to. (Not to mention, poor Jane March probably spends half of that movie without clothes on.) But also the sex scenes just . . . keep . . . going. One in particular ran so long that Mek and I actually started fast-forwarding until we got back to plot advancement.

Jesus. It’s like reading Laurell K. Hamilton’s books all over again.

10. And here’s the thing about this film — it doesn’t know what the hell kind of movie it wants to be. Well, erotic. Yes. It wants to be that, although it really lands somewhere just shy of bad porn. But for a while there’s kind of a whole neo-noir thing that I find sort of intriguing, or would, if there was even a small measure of consistency to it. But Rose, see, she rear-ends Bruce Willis, right? (Not a euphemism.) And he gives her Dead Bob’s home address for insurance reasons, which is — well, stupid. Anyway, she comes over, and out of nowhere he starts talking like a private eye in a really terrible hardboiled detective novel. (“There she is like an angel dancing on the head of a pin.” Ugh.)

Anyway, it could be kind of neat, given better dialogue, but we’re nearly fifty minutes into the movie at this point, and this is the first time Bruce has made a reference to noir of any kind. He also only does this whenever he sees Rose, and it doesn’t really go anywhere, so it just doesn’t quite fit. (Imaginary remake: Bruce is watching a detective movie or reading a detective book right before his appointment with Michelle, and for the rest of the movie it’s a consistent character quirk of his. Martinez can even catch him doing it once and appropriately rib him for it.)

Okay, so then Rose and Bruce go on this date, right?

This is the moment I mentioned earlier, where Bruce makes a special point to say that Rose can become anybody she wants to be. It’s awkward dialogue that comes out of nowhere (and is clearly only around to exist as terrible foreshadow), but it also works to help paint Rose as this kind of femme fatale, which interests me a lot more than this MPD sufferer who’s — knowingly or unknowingly — sleeping with everyone in the group. (She knows what she’s done at the end of the film, but it’s still unclear to me if she’s supposed to be aware of what and who her personalities are doing during the film.)

And it certainly doesn’t help that for a woman who supposedly has three distinct personalities, Rose doesn’t really have personality. It’s hard to say why everyone falls in love with her, other than her willingness to cook in an apron and nothing else.

For Christ’s sake, woman. There’s a murderer on the loose. I don’t care if it’s your brother. Put on some godamned pants.

11. It occurs to me that I haven’t directly said this before, but yes, Dale is the real killer here. And he doesn’t just kill Bob. He also kills our tortured artist, Casey.

See, Casey reveals in group that he has paintings of his muse-girlfriend’s face. (This is before we know about the whole Rose/Bonnie thing.) Rose apparently tells her older brother this because Dale kills Casey in his studio. (What’s weird is that Casey seems to recognize his killer, so I’m not sure if the two somehow knew each other, or if Dale brought Rose along with him.)

Shortly before Casey dies, though, he calls Bruce because of . . . reasons. Anyway, Bruce shows up, looking for Casey, and walks through some paint. It’s not until he finds Casey’s body does he realize that it’s not paint he’s walking through. And you know what? I think this could have been a cool scene. I honestly do. I think it’s creative, and I think if it had been shot well, it could have been uber creepy.

Unfortunately, the blood in this movie looks like . . . well, paint.

And all my giggling that followed kind of took something from the creepy factor.

12. Other than this scene, the colorblindness rarely factors into the actual plot of the movie, which is clearly a mistake. The only other time it really ever comes into play is this highway chase scene where Dale calls Bruce and sing-songs that Bruce can’t see him because he’s in the red car! The voice disguiser Dale uses also sounds like a demented child, which only makes the line funnier. Also, this line: “Suck my tinker toy!”

Wow. Just wow.

13. Bruce finds out that Rose is Bonnie long before he figures out that Rose is also Richie. At this point, his brain is telling him that Rose is the bad guy, but his heart is telling him that Rose isn’t a killer. (Magic radar, my foot. It’s totally his heart. Heart knowledge!) With this in mind, Bruce goes to nicer cop Anderson (Eriq LaSalle) and gives him Rose’s license plate number, implying that he wants her address so he can ask her out or something. Anderson agrees, which utterly horrified me at first. I was like, Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You’re just going to abuse your police resources and give this near stranger a girl’s HOME ADDRESS?

But it turns out that Anderson is the smartest person in the whole movie, despite having less than five minutes of screen time. He figures that Bruce is tracking down a lead on the case and gives the info to Martinez. Admittedly, this is partially to appease Martinez, since he’s pissed at Anderson, but whatever. It still makes him good at his job, which is frankly more than I can say about anyone else in this movie.

14. Like Martinez, who takes his eyes off the crazy homicidal maniac with the nail gun pointed at him. Martinez clearly deserves to die for this. Luckily for him, he just gets nailed to a wall or something, so that he can be no help of any kind during the big finale.

15. The big finale, by the way, sucks monkeyballs.

Bruce “reveals” that Ritchie is actually Rose. Dale reveals himself as the bad guy. Martinez is an idiot. A very short fight scene occurs. Dale is about to kill Bruce, but Rose kills him first. This, actually, is okay . . . until Rose runs to the top of the building and prepares to throw herself off. Bruce talks her out of it, but before she can step away, a fucking breeze knocks Rose backwards and Bruce has to swing onto something and save her because he’s the hero and he has to do something useful. And because he saved Rose the way he couldn’t save Michelle, his sense of color is immediately returned to him.

Good Lord.

16. Finally, allow me to blow your mind for a minute. Color of Night was actually nominated for a Golden Globe.

Oh yeah. It happened. For “The Color of Night” — best original song.

Oh my god, you guys. I understand if you don’t want to subject yourself to this whole movie, and in fact I support that decision, but you have to watch this video. You just have to. At least to the part where Scott Bakula bites it because, wow. I just started giggling until tears were in my eyes all over again.

This is just . . . this is a terrible song. Brandon, should you read this — I know you and I have come to the realization that we have wildly different tastes in music, at least when it comes to film scores, but please tell me you don’t approve of this song. Please, or I’m afraid we may have to come to fisticuffs at the next Dragon Con.

CONCLUSIONS:

So bad. So, so bad.

MVP:

Brad Douriff

TENTATIVE GRADE:

D

MORAL:

Um. Completely taking over your dead friend’s life is totally the way to get over his death?

After the news of Harold Ramis passing earlier this week, I — like many people, I’m sure — watched Ghostbusters on Netflix.

I don’t have quite the same nostalgia for the film that a lot of other people do, but I still found myself enjoying the movie an awful lot.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS throughout this whole review because I’m lazy, and because this movie came out before I was born. Also, this is going to be a Baby Review with not a lot of detail. Cause I’ve still got shit to do, dammit.

SUMMARY:

A few parapsychologist dudes — plus this other guy — capture ghosts for a living. Oh, and then they have to save the world from the foolish mistakes of the EPA.

NOTES:

1. I probably haven’t seen Ghostbusters since I was, like, six. A few parts I remembered really well, but the rest of the movie? Pah, just gone.

So, it was fun to watch Ghostbusters again. It is, after all, is ridiculously quotable. But like I said before, I just don’t have the geek-squee-adore feelings that a lot of people have after growing up with this movie. I did like it — a few scenes made me laugh especially hard — but in no way do I think it’s a perfect film that epitomizes the best of all comedy. Which is cool if you do. I’m just letting you know right now that in today’s particularly haphazard list of notes, I am going to lob a few light criticisms its way.

2. Like Winston? He’s kind of random.

It’s interesting because Winston (Ernie Hudson) had me at his very first line: “If there’s a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe anything you say.” I actually pointed at the screen and was all, “I like this guy.” But . . . he comes awfully late into the movie, and he appears to be some kind of Christian everyman who gets no real Ghostbusting training of any kind — like, come on guys, we need training; that is prime montage material, people — and I just . . . don’t really know why he’s there. I mean, other than being a Christian everyman, which I’m just not convinced the film needed.

3. Also, there is a montage . . . and it includes a possible dream sequence of a ghost making some serious moves on Dan Aykroyd. Did anyone else find this bit a little awkward?

4. On the plus side, I think I know who my favorite character is, and no, it’s not Venkman.

I’m not sure exactly why I like Janine so much, just that I do. Maybe it’s the super dry delivery. (“Yes, of course they’re serious.”) Or maybe it’s just envy. After all, while my ultimate career goal is fully supporting myself through writing novels and short stories and screenplays and whatever the hell else I want, my second dream job is totally a receptionist gig at some kind of paranormal activity agency. I wonder if that would have good medical.

5. But speaking of Venkman — well, sort of — he’s kind of an asshole, huh?

I got to like him, actually — I mean, he has most of the best lines in the movie — but he’s a bit more of a dick than I remembered him being, especially in the first ten minutes. I was a little bit concerned in the opening scenes of the film, with that whole experiment and sleazily hitting on the blonde. I was like, Shit, am I going to hate Bill Murray? Am I going to hate the guy that EVERYBODY loves?

Well, I didn’t. He made me laugh. An awful lot, even.

But I totally think Sigourney Weaver’s too good for him. And I kind of wish they hadn’t kissed at the end, since I never bought her wanting to date him in the first place.

Hm. I should see if there’s any Dana/Janine shippers out there.

6. I love how the evil spirit inside Sigourney Weaver makes her all hot and bothered, while the evil spirit inside Rick Moranis just makes him even weirder.

Assholes. If you really wanted this movie to be funny, you would have reversed the gender roles here.

7. This is of no consequence to anyone at all, but I feel like I must point out — one of the lines that has always stuck with me (for no apparent reason) is “there is no Dana, only Zuul.” Like, I have said that — or some variant of that — WAY too many times in my life. Only in my head, it was always Zeul — cause, like, Zeus, but no ‘s’ — and it’s really hard for me to spell it the proper way. Ultimately, I decided against being a spelling rebel in this review, but it was a hard decision. I just wanted you all to appreciate that.

8. Also, I feel a little bad for 80′s Schmuck Bad Guy, William Atherton. Man. Has that dude ever played a nice guy in his entire life? Even when he’s trying to protect the environment, he’s an asshole about it.

9. If I was going to cosplay anybody, I’d probably pick Janine — although, clearly, you’d need the entire group for that, otherwise you’re just some chick with 80′s glasses. Or, if I felt a little more comfortable with my body, I might pick this lady:

Yeah. That would be fun.

10. Finally, the best part of the whole movie, of course, is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

When I tag this review with ‘Awesome Villain Alert,’ he is totally the villain I am referring to.

This is the part I remember most from my childhood, and it still makes me giggle like a fiend. I heart you, Mr. Stay Puft. When the world ends, I truly hope you are the cause.

QUOTES:

Venkman: “Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.”

Venkman: “He slimed me.”
Ray: “That’s great! Actual physical contact!”

Louis: “You will perish in flames!”
Coachman: “What an asshole.”

Ray: “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!”
Spengler: “Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes . . .”
Winston: “The dead rising from the grave!”
Venkman: “Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!”

Ray: “Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities. We didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results.”

Venkman: “You’re right. No human being would stack books like this.”

Ray: “Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.”
Peck: “They caused an explosion!”
Mayor: “Is this true?”
Venkman: “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.”

Venkman: “Generally, you don’t see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.”

Winston: “That’s a big Twinkie.”

Dana/Zuul: “There is no Dana, only Zuul!”
Venkman: “What a lovely singing voice you must have.”

Winston: “Hold it! Now, are we actually gonna go before a federal judge, and tell him that some moldy Babylonian god is going to drop in on Central Park West, and start tearing up the city?
Spengler: “Sumerian, not Babylonian.”
Venkman: “Yeah, big difference.”
Winston: “No offense, guys, but I’ve gotta get my own lawyer.”

Ray: “I think we should split up.”
Spengler: “Good idea.”
Venkman: “Yeah, we can do more damage that way.”

Venkman: “If I’m wrong, nothing happens! We go to jail — peacefully, quietly. We’ll enjoy it! But if I’m right, and we can stop this thing . . . Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.”

Venkman: “You’re gonna endanger us, you’re gonna endanger our client — the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog . . .”
Spengler: “Not necessarily. There’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive.”
Venkman: “. . . I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it! Let’s do it!”

Venkman: “Get her. That was your whole plan, huh? Get her. Very scientific.”

Janine: “Ghostbusters, what do you want?”

Venkman: “Well, that’s something you don’t see everyday.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Fun. Not necessarily in my Most Beloved 80′s Films of All Time pile, but definitely fun. Also, I think I need to watch Zombieland again now.

MVP:

Oh, Bill Murray.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL

Always claim godhood.

Also, the EPA is totally evil. Fuck that environment. Tree huggers will destroy the world!

Obsessively watching Teen Wolf and Sheriff Johnny Cage reminded me of something last week: I have never actually written a review for Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, yes. But Mortal Kombat itself? Nope.

This is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies ever. Keep that in mind while I occasionally and lovingly rip it to shreds.

DISCLAIMER:

SPOILERS abound, people. Just in case you’re actually worried about that.

SUMMARY:

It’s up to a handful of human fighters — but especially Liu Kang (Robin Shou) — to save the realm of Earth by winning a tournament called Mortal Kombat.

NOTES:

1. When I was a kid, all I really wanted were my best friend’s toys — which, come to think of it, is probably what most kids want. Specifically, I wanted a trampoline, one of those bouncy ball things that you sit on, and a Sega Genesis. And I especially wanted that Sega so I could play hours and hours of Mortal Kombat.

I don’t plan to spend much time talking about the differences between the games and the movie — because plot? Who cares about plot? But I feel like I should mention that there is a distinct discrepancy between the level of violence between this movie and the game. Actually, to my great surprise, the movie is PG-13, which kind of makes me laugh because there’s very little about it that does not seem perfectly suited to a ten year old. (And yes, that’s about how old I was when I saw it for the first time.) The games — which I probably started playing around the age of eight — were considerably gorier, even if their graphics are now hideously and laughably outdated. Nobody gets sliced in half with a hat or has their spine ripped out in Mortal Kombat the movie. Unfortunately.

I actually don’t mind that the violence in the film gets severely toned down — I certainly don’t need any scenes where VOMIT comes into play, thanks, Noob Saibot — but it wouldn’t hurt for our fighters to occasionally sport a bruise. Johnny Cage gets the shit kicked out of him by Scorpion in the film, and there is nary a cut or a black eye in sight, which is just silly, really — although hardly the silliest thing about this movie.

2. What is the silliest thing? That’s hard to say. It could be Shang Tsung’s ever-changing hair styles. Seriously, it just ups and shapeshifts mid-scene.

Cause really. The only thing funnier than Shang-Tsung’s little man-bob is Liu Kang’s Fluffy Angst Mane — or Fluffy Mane of Failed Meditation. I can’t decide which name I like better.

You know, my hair just doesn’t get quite that kind of volume. I’m a tiny bit jealous.

3. Oh, okay. Let’s talk about the actual movie. Specifically, let’s talk characters. Here is our Chosen One again:

Liu Kang was trained his whole life to enter the Mortal Kombat tournament, but he had an identity crisis or something and went off to America where everyone watches television and eats junk food and knows that the world can’t be saved by people kicking inter-dimensional ass. So his brother, Chan, tries to step up to the role of Hero and is promptly murdered by Shang Tsung for it. Liu Kang, in his Green Lit Room of Angst, finds out about this in the very worst way possible.

Uh, folks? This is not the nicest way to let a person know their sibling has died. This is kind of like breaking up with someone by text message, only, you know, a thousand times worse.

Anyway, Liu Kang travels back to compete in the tournament so that he can avenge his brother’s death. At this point, even if you know nothing about the video games, it’s pretty clear that Liu Kang is going to be the one to defeat Shang Tsung and save the world. Which is fine, I guess, but when Rayden’s talking to Liu, Sonya, and Johnny Cage, and he’s all like, “One of you three will decide the fate of this tournament,” it’s kind of well, Jesus, I wonder which one it’s going to be, Rayden.

4. For the most part, Liu Kang is kind of boring. His best moments by far are any time he’s making fun of Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby).

I kind of love Johnny Cage, but he is sort of a tool. (Although less in this movie than in other iterations of Mortal Kombat, which is probably why he gets killed off a lot.) After all, he’s not the guy trying to take down his brother’s killer, or even his partner’s killer — he just wants proof to say that he does his own godamned stunts, really. Regardless, I generally enjoy Linden Ashby in this — he’s got some funny lines and amusing reactions, even if those reactions are not nearly as dialed up as they ought to be. (More on that in a bit.)

The real reason to love Johnny, though, is his fight with Goro, which is about as underhanded and unheroic as possible.

To defeat this dude, Johnny waits until Goro is distracted before doing his patented ‘I Can Do the Splits and Then Punch You in the Balls’ move — which, to be fair, is pretty impressive — and then totally runs away. He gets to a location he can actually use to his advantage and then basically kicks the bad guy off a cliff (into the Clouds of Insanity). It’s kind of awesome.

It is also the only actual Flawless Victory in this movie. Screw you, Liu Kang: you are wrong.

5. Unfortunately, Johnny also has a love interest in Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras).

Sonya Blade is a super cop who’s participating in the tournament so that she can kill Kano and avenge her partner’s murder. Johnny spends most of the movie hitting on her, and she spends most of the movie being disgusted with him, until they’re suddenly at some scenic spot sharing a Moment in The Worst Scene of All Time.

Actual lines from this scene:

Johnny: “Because I can’t let what happened to Art happen to you. Not to you.”
Sonya: “Oh, don’t you dare do this to protect me, Johnny Cage!”

It’s so much worse than it sounds. It is so bad. It is soul crushing. The lines are terrible, the delivery is terrible . . . it’s all basically terrible. Really, the only way to get through it is to act the scene out as you watch it on the couch with your very best ugly cry face. Not unlike how I watch Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, or how Sandra Bullock watches old beauty pageants in Miss Congeniality.

6. The frustrating thing about Sonya is that she’s treated very much as the Girl in a boy movie. What this means:

A. In group battles, Sonya fights one bad guy while Johnny and Liu fight three to four each.

B. A punch to Sonya’s face will hurt her exponentially more than it will hurt any of the other boy fighters.

C. She will scream. Repeatedly, and even occasionally in slow motion.

D. Both Shang-Tsung and Rayden will get up close and personal and whisper in her ear like creepy pervs, despite the fact that Rayden is a good guy who should probably not being doing that.

E. She’s kidnapped like a damsel in distress (despite the fact that she’s totally a super cop) and forced into this short dress because, you know. GIRL.

Now the thing about this particular bit: it’s kind of an homage to the game, where Sonya is tied up in one of the backgrounds. (Although no one has creepily changed her into some ugly mini dress or pulled out a crimper. Seriously, did Shang Tsung actually do Sonya’s hair before chaining her up? There’s a hair salon AU fanfiction somewhere in this movie; I just know it. Maybe a crossover with Blow Dry. Anyone else ever see that movie?)

And I’d totally be okay with the homage if there weren’t about eighty other examples in this movie about how Sonya is the weakest of the fighters and almost always needs to be saved by the boys. And before we get into the inevitable ‘women aren’t as strong as men argument’ — can we be clear about something? This movie is based on a game where women and men fighting one another as equals. That’s all there is to it. I really don’t want to hear complaints about realism when we have characters who can freeze people or do gravity defying bicycle kicks. Besides, action heroes — whether they’re male or female — are so very rarely realistic in any sense of the word, and yet it often seems like the only time we really complain about this is when the person kicking all kinds of ass is a woman. It get old to listen to.

7. Sonya is not, actually, the only girl in Mortal Kombat. There is also Kitana.

Unfortunately, Kitana (Talisa Soto) has zero personality and almost no character arc of any kind. She’s basically just around to deliver exposition and be Liu Kang’s love interest. She doesn’t even get to kiss anyone until they explode to death! It is hugely disappointing.

8. Luckily, Lord Rayden (Christopher Lambert) is around to make everything better.

Rayden is at his best when he’s making fun of his champions. All gods should be snarky — it makes them more interesting. Possibly my favorite part in this entire movie is when he tells our heroes, “The fate of billions will depend upon you,” then openly laughs at them. And then he’s all like, “Sorry.” It is kind of awesome.

9. Also making everything better? Shang-Tsung.

Shang Tsung (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa) is, admittedly, a total creeper, but he’s also kind of hilarious. It’s not just his hair, either — he’s got this perfect sneer down, like, pat. Hiroyuki-Tagawa is super campy here, and I enjoy the hell out of him.

Here’s what we don’t get about Shang-Tsung, though: why, exactly, is he the one recruiting our heroes for this competition? Like, he basically has to trick everyone on board, but . . . shouldn’t that really be Rayden’s job? What happens if Shang-Tsung doesn’t get our heroes to compete? Does Earth forfeit — because, I think, Shang-Tsung would rather enjoy that. Or does Earth somehow automatically win? Because that seems pretty dumb. And if Shang-Tsung has to trick our heroes into the competition, shouldn’t Rayden have to somehow recruit our villains? I feel like that should be a balance thing.

Also — does Shang Tsung kill Chan in order to get Liu Kang to compete? Because Chan is clearly the weaker fighter, so that seems like a less than winning strategy, really. Or did Chan somehow challenge Shang Tsung before the tournament. Cause . . . that just seems like it should be against the rules. I mean, it was against the rules when Scorpion and Sub-Zero threatened our heroes, right? (Leading to one of my very favorite lines, mostly because of the way it’s hissed: “Your sideshow freaks attacked my fighters.”) Is there a double-standard against evil?

And even if it isn’t against the rules for Chan to challenge Shang Tsung . . . it seems like a dumb play. Why would you even do that? I’m so confused.

10. It should be said – Mortal Kombat totally has the best workout music. Come on. Who listens to this and doesn’t immediately want to start sparring? Crazy people, that’s who. A favorite diversion of mine: copying one of the Cast Your Might poses and then spontaneously attacking my sister.

To probably no one’s surprise at all, I usually go with Shang Tsung’s ‘mighty fist of evil’ pose.

11. In our remake — because of course Mekaela and I immediately started talking about how we’d do a remake — Shang Tsung would do a lot more shapeshifting. Because, seriously, shapeshifting is fun, and it’s a great way to introduce more cameos from the games. (Especially now that there are so many more characters.)

Another way to introduce good cameos? How about Shang Tsung’s 10,000 soul slaves?

Kitana solemnly intones that Liu Kang has to fight the souls of thousands of dead warriors . . . but what she really means is that he has to fight about ten guys who attack him one by one. It is hilariously lame. C’mon, Paul W.S. Anderson. Pull your shit together — this is totally Crazy 88 action time. This could have been so awesome.

12. Of course, the whole final battle is kind of bullshit, but let’s come back to that in a little bit. Actually, let’s briefly go over everyone’s very first battles in the movie.

Liu Kang gets to fight this human dude that I totally remember from WMAC Masters, and whose braids just seem like they’re getting in the way. Sonya Blade fights her nemesis, Kano, whose neck she breaks like a twig — and hilariously, it’s totally NOT self-defense, and there’s never any discussion on whether he’s worth it or the usual stuff you get when a hero flat-out murders somebody.

Johnny Cage, meanwhile, has to fight a dude with a secret skull face, fire breath, and a bite-y thing that comes out of his hand for his first fight. Oh, and he gets sucked into Pirate Hell.

It seems a little unfair. Also, I have honestly no idea how Johnny Cage gets out of Pirate Hell once he miraculously defeats Scorpion. I do kind of love the silly nod to the Friendship, though, even if it doesn’t make any logical sense.

13. While I’m thinking of Johnny, though — and really, of everyone in this tournament — let’s talk about having proper reactions to the absolutely horrifying shit that is happening around you. For instance, when you see some dude completely freeze some other dude, and the frozen dude flies threw the air and smashes into a bazillion pieces? This shouldn’t be your reaction:

Johnny Cage: “Little tournament, he said. Good for the career, he said. Yeah, right.”

I mean, it’s a funny line. I actually like how it’s delivered, but good Christ. A dude was just FROZEN AND DECAPITATED. The only proper reaction to something like that is screaming, thank you.

14. Also, in a remake, maybe Art shouldn’t be an original character? I mean, Art’s okay, and I’m sure they cast him because the actor is actually a martial arts expert in real life, which I suppose is cool for martial arts nerds. But his character is also so clearly and absolutely expendable that when he dies — I mean, I always do feel a little sorry for Art, but it’d be a lot more impressive if they killed an actual character from the games, or at the very least someone our heroes had a real relationship with — that way, when Johnny goes into vengeance mode or Sonya busts out her slow-motion horror movie scream, you know, it might seem real.

(My only problem is figuring out who to bring in and kill off. I would’t mind Jax actually being in the tournament, but I don’t really want him to die. Hm. Kung Lao, maybe? Johnny Cage seems like the obvious choice, but I like Johnny Cage, dammit.)

15. But let’s get back to that bullshit and hilarious final battle.

It starts off pretty good. We go up the awesomely bad CGI tower — mid 90′s CGI is the BEST — and Shang Tsung challenges Johnny Cage to fight. But Liu Kang’s all like, “No! You will fight me!” And Johnny Cage could be like, “Hey, dude, did you see how easily I took down Goro? I can totally take this guy,” but instead he’s like, “Nah, I’ll let you handle this one.” Not unlike how he stands around off screen and does absolutely nothing as Liu Kang fights Reptile for like seven minutes. (I like to think that Johnny Cage was just standing outside, whistling aimlessly to himself, while thinking, You know, I threw a four-armed monstrosity over a cliff earlier this afternoon. I think I’m good for the day.)

Anyway, Shang Tsung and Liu Kang square off in this kind of awesome fight scene that might have been my favorite in the movie if it was longer than forty-five seconds. When Liu Kang makes Shang Tsung bleed his own blood, Shang Tsung summons his ten useless warriors. This is the first of Liu’s three tests: Face Your Enemy, which he easily defeats.

Face Yourself is even worse. It lasts fourteen seconds — oh, I totally counted — and mostly consists of Liu Kang running up to meet Shang Tsung on the second story.

And then we get Face Your Worst Fear, which is apparently Liu facing the ghost of his brother, Chan.

I’m not saying that it wouldn’t hurt to see somebody use my dead sibling’s face to try and taunt me into killing myself, but I am saying that sort of thing is a tiny bit more effective when you don’t actually watch the shapeshifter turn into the dead brother with your own eyes. Oh, I know. Shang Tsung had his back turned. Please. Liu Kang clearly saw the guy transform, so when Shang Tsung/Chan says, “Rayden sent me to help you,” everybody watching should be like, WHAT? Are you kidding me right now? Who would even buy that? Shang Tsung, you’re an asshole. And when Liu Kang has to tell himself, “You’re not really Chan,” I’m like, gee, Liu, what was your first clue?

Then Shang Tsung/Chan is like, “Now I’m here to help you brother.” And immediately we’re given a shot of spikes coming out of the ground on the level below them — which is basically the the best juxtaposition shot I’ve ever seen. It’s like when that one terrorist in Die Hard’s all, “I promise I won’t hurt you,” as he loads a clip into his gun. Makes me laugh every time I watch it.

But Liu Kang says — with the appropriate amount of conviction — that he is not responsible for Chan’s death, that it’s totally Shang Tsung’s fault. So Shang Tsung stops his silly attempt to deceive him, changes back, and just starts kicking the crap out of Liu Kang. But THEN he makes the mistake of taunting Liu for being the Chosen One. Liu knows he IS the Chosen One, though, which he repeats with even more conviction, and this allows him to grab Shang Tsung’s arm all mightily, which is apparently all it takes for Shang Tsung’s soul slaves to start rebelling against him and fly away? I don’t even know.

Shang Tsung refuses to surrender and — after screaming that the souls are his FOREVER like a very spoiled child who refuses to share his toys — runs at Liu Kang in the stupidest manner possible, like I’m not sure what he thought he might accomplish by charging a dude with his arms spread wide at the sides, but whatevs. Liu Kang kicks the crap out of him and finally knocks him over the ledge with a fireball, where Shang Tsung lands on a spike and dies. And Liu Kang has the nerve to call this a flawless victory because he’s also an asshole. I mean, seriously, Liu Kang. Fatality would have been fine, but flawless victory? In the words of Lord Rayden: “I don’t think so.”

Then it’s all happy times back on Earth . . . until the Emperor, who is clearly a cheating cheater who cheats, shows up anyway, kind of negating the whole point of the movie. But our heroes get into fighter pose and prepare us for a sequel, or try.

Cause, really. Nothing could properly prepare us for the sadness that is Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

QUOTES:

Johnny Cage: “We got a guy with things coming out of his hands; we got another guy who freezes stuff, and then there’s a man who, as far as I can tell, appears to be made out of pure electricity. I mean, how did he disappear like that? What is going on here? Who is this guy?”
Sonya Blade: “Let’s just think this through. There is a rational explanation for this.”
Liu Kang: “He’s Rayden. God of Lightning and Protector of the Realm of Earth.”
Johnny Cage: “Oh, great. There’s your rational explanation.”

Sonya Blade: “Where the hell are we?”
Johnny Cage: “Do I look like your travel agent?”

Johnny Cage: “You know, you’ve got to admire her. When she puts her mind to something . . .”
Liu Kang: “It’s not her mind you’re admiring.”
Johnny Cage: “. . . it’s true.”

Johnny Cage: “This is not good. But I’m fine. I can handle this.”

Lord Rayden: “What have you done?”
Johnny Cage: “I made a choice. This is our tournament, remember? Mortal Kombat. We fight it.”

Sonya: “My friends will come for me.”
Shang Tsung: “Hoping against hope? Such an endearing human trait, I’m touched. Really.”

Johnny: “Sonya, you go ahead. Find out what that was. Liu and I will wait right here.”

Liu Kang: “Wait. What about me?”
Rayden: “Oh, you.”

Johnny: “Ha, ha ha ha, no more steps.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Silliness. But super nostalgic silliness.

MVP:

Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B-

MORAL:

The best way to a flawless victory? A big old punch to the balls.

While I was in Reno last weekend, a super-hyped and nerdtacular movie called Godzilla came out. I did not go and see it. I thought about going to see it, but instead went to watch another nerdy movie, albeit one that premiered months and months ago: The Lego Movie.

Honestly, this film wasn’t even on my radar until, like, February when every geek I knew suddenly started gushing about it. I figure I’m too snarky of a person to properly gush, but I’ll admit, I thought it was pretty fantastic too.

DISCLAIMER:

This review will be Spoiler Free UNTIL you get to the Quotes Section. Once you hit the Quotes Section, you’re on your own, buddy. Significant plot points and character resolutions will be revealed. You have been warned.

SUMMARY:

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a construction worker and pretty literal everyman who unexpectedly finds himself stumbling into the role of the Chosen One (or, in this case, the Special). It is up to Emmet and his vastly more qualified allies to save the world from President Business (Will Ferrell) and his Doom Device, the Kragle.

NOTES:

1. This movie initially came out in February. It will actually be on DVD in only a few short weeks. Everyone who wanted to see it should have already seen it — nevertheless, plenty of people stole my great idea of waiting until they came to Reno for a few days so they, too, could watch it in hotel movie theater for only four dollars. And then they all brought their tiny humans with them, too.

I suspect that when I have children of my own, I will become much more tolerant of kids who show up at the cinema ready to wriggle incessantly, continuously ask their parents questions, and, rather inevitably, cry. I’d like to think that, anyway, because I do want to become a mom someday, preferably a good one, and that desire seems a little at odds with my current old-people attitude towards children, some kind of deeply ingrained reflex to raise my shaking fist and scream, “Get off my lawn!” (Only, obviously, a movie theater instead of a lawn. I don’t actually have a lawn, and I would have no idea how to take care of one if I did.)

In the meantime, I suppose I’ll simply have to deal with the fact that if I want to see a children’s movie in theater, there will, in fact, be children in the audience. Unfortunately. (And yes, I should be more understanding of loud and tearful children in general. I know that movie theaters certainly overwhelmed me sometimes when I was a kid, possibly because of the surround sound, and possibly because we just didn’t go very often. Not to mention, I have no room to judge, AT ALL, how often kids cry. Cause, honestly. I was a crying machine as a child. It was the constant trauma of my tiny human life.)

2. Also — while I’m on the subject of me instead of than the actual movie itself — I feel like I should point out that I never really played much with Legos as a kid. I didn’t dislike them or anything; we just didn’t have any, and I don’t remember ever particularly wanting to own them, either. Probably because I was less interested in building shit than I was in setting up elaborate death traps that my dolls had to escape from, and — all in all — normal building blocks and Jenga pieces collapse much more dramatically than Lego pieces, don’t you think?

So, this movie? There’s pretty much zero nostalgia factor here, no man, I used to love my Legos, and that’s why I’m having all kinds of geeky feels over this one.

3. So, why DO I like The Lego Movie so much? Well, I guess primarily because it’s just so damn funny.

Batman might manage to snag the best lines, but the whole movie is chock full of some pretty great dialogue that adults can laugh at as well as their kids. The voice cast for this movie is kind of spectacular. For instance:

Emmet – Chris Pratt
Wyldstyle – Elizabeth Banks
President Business – Will Ferrell
Unikitty – Alison Brie
Benny – Charlie Day
Vitruvius – Morgan Freeman
Bad Cop – Liam Neeson
Batman – Will Arnett

Not to mention Channing Tatum as Superman, Jonah Hill as Green Lantern, Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman, Anthony Daniels as C3po, and Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian. (To no one’s great surprise, Harrison Ford did not appear as Han Solo. I’m almost a little stunned he’s going to be in the next Star Wars movies at all.)

Also, it’s fun trying to figure out where you know a voice from, isn’t it? I knew going in that this movie had Elizabeth Banks and Will Arnett in it, and I remembered Will Ferrell and Liam Neeson’s casting as soon as I heard them speak. The Voice of God is pretty recognizable, so I figured out Morgan Freeman pretty fast, and Alison Brie too, actually, since I love her . . but it took me THE WHOLE MOVIE to finally recognize Benny’s high pitched shriek as Charlie Day. And I never figured out Chris Pratt at all. He really has that everyman voice down, you know?

4. I kind of expected to like this movie. Obviously, I’d hoped to like this movie — otherwise I wouldn’t have wasted my money seeing it – but after hearing such awesome reviews from so many people, I figured I was going to laugh a lot, and I did.

I did not, however, expect that it would also make me tear up.

{Spoilery Picture of Tear-Inducing Material Not Included}

Those complete fuckers. I was absolutely horrified with myself at this point. (Okay, so clearly, the crying machine didn’t entirely go offline once I hit 18. Still. Tears for The Lego Movie? Come on, Carlie. *slaps face twice* Get it together, kid.)

In all seriousness, though, there was a pretty touching undercurrent running through this movie that was kind of unexpected for a film primarily made to sell more toys. Bah. Stop making me have feelings, movie!

5. Since I never actually bothered to watch a trailer or read a plot synopsis for The Lego Movie prior to seeing it, I must say that I was not expecting to sit down and watch the more colorful and little kid version of 1984. Which, dude, it totally is. I mean, I know, man. I finally read that book last year. (Although I am starting to think that 1984 might have been improved with a good theme song.)

6. Obviously “Everything is Awesome” is great — I’d heard about this song numerous times before I even saw the movie because, apparently, it gets stuck in your head and never, ever leaves. (This actually hasn’t happened to me yet. I usually have to hear a song a few times before it will actually stick in my head. I can’t even hear it right now . . . although when I inevitably buy the DVD and watch this movie again once or twice, it will probably burrow into my brain and share the same space as all the Disney songs from childhood that just refuse to leave.)

Anyway, this song is fun — and the accompanying montage is also great — but it’s Batman’s song about being an orphan that really cracked me up. Shit. I might have to actually buy this on iTunes or something.

7. Finally, for the record? I would absolutely go for a double decker couch.

I understand why it’s a deeply awkward idea, but you know what? I want one anyway. Because, come on. It’s hilarious and awesome. And really, I mostly sit with my legs folded under me, anyway, so I could totally hang out on the top bunk without my legs obstructing the vision of everyone sitting on the bottom. Everybody wins!

I will be obscenely rich someday, and I will pay people to make extravagant and weird shit for me. This very well may be one of those things.

And if it’s painted to look like it’s made out of Legos? So much the better.

QUOTES:

Batman: “I only work in black. And sometimes very, very dark gray.”

Vitruvius: “Emmet, you didn’t let me finish. Because I died.”

Batman: “If this relationship is going to work out between us, I need to feel free to party with a bunch of strangers whenever I feel like it.”

Emmet: “I think I just heard a whoosh.”

Superman: “I super hate you.”

Wyldstyle: “Today will not be known as Taco Tuesday! It will be known as Freedom Friday! . . . but still on a Tuesday.”

Batman: “Then I guess we’ll have to wing it . . . that’s a bat pun.”

Vitruvius: “One day, a talented lass or fellow, a Special one with face of yellow, will make the Piece of Resistance found, from its hidden refuge underground. And with a noble army at the helm, this Master Builder will thwart the Kragle and save the realm, and be the greatest, most interesting, most important person of all times. All this is true, because it rhymes.”

Lucy (about Emmet giving up special weapon): “We’d rather he die than give it to you.”
Emmet: “I . . . would rather he not die.”

The Man Upstairs: “You know the rules. This isn’t a toy!”
Finn: “Um . . . it kind of is.”
The Man Upstairs: “No, actually it’s a highly sophisticated interlocking brick system.”
Finn: “But we bought it at the toy store.”
The Man Upstairs: “We did, but the way I’m using it makes it an adult thing.”
Finn: “The box for this one said ages 8 – 14.”
The Man Upstairs: “That’s a suggestion. They have to put that on there.”

Batman: “He’s the hero you deserve.”

Batman: “Who’s Bruce Wayne? He sounds like a cool guy.”

Vitruvius: “You must embrace what is special about you. I know that sounds like a cat poster, but it’s true.”

Benny: “SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP!”

CONCLUSIONS:

Pretty awesome and surprisingly touching.

MVP:

Will Ferrell. But Will Arnett probably gets silver. Triumph for the Wills!

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A

MORAL:

Everyone is special. Also, I think one of the writers might hate Green Lantern. Seriously. Poor guy.

Noir is well-known for private detective protagonists, down-on-their-luck protagonists, and just generally kind of surly protagonists. It’s also, unfortunately, a genre made up almost entirely of white protagonists.

And then we have Easy Rawlins.

I watched Devil in a Blue Dress last week, and it’s definitely one of my favorite noir films of the year.

SUMMARY:

Easy (Denzel Washington) is a recently laid-off WWII war vet desperate to pay the mortgage on his house. But when he accepts money from shady-as-hell Albright (Tom Sizemore) to locate a missing woman, Easy finds himself hounded by both sides of the law as a political scandal unfolds around him and bodies start dropping.

NOTES:

1. Easy Rawlins is a likable and surprisingly sympathetic protagonist.

I say surprising because a lot of noir heroes are pretty much assholes, and most of the trouble they get into is very much their own fault, but I actually feel bad for Easy here. He does do a couple of not-so-nice things in this film, but overall, Easy seems like a decent enough guy who’s just trying to hold onto the life he’s managed to build for himself. And sure, he knew that the guy waving money at him was bad news, but his back was against a wall and he had to do something. It’s refreshing when our heroes have, at least, sufficient motivation for doing totally stupid shit. Also, Easy’s funny. And yeah, the fact that he looks like this doesn’t hurt.

You know, I feel like not enough men currently rock the tight, white tank top or T-shirt and simple pair of pants look. Why is that? Can we bring that back into vogue? Because that is a good look, especially on Denzel Washington. Damn.

2. Though I should say . . . as much as I like Easy, there is one point in this movie where even I’m like, “Man, what the hell are you doing? Do not go meet this person, I repeat, do not go meet this person. You still have a very minimal chance of escaping now before you get in too deep. You don’t have to — you know what? Fine, fine, just go, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, buddy.”

3. Devil in a Blue Dress is decently plotted, and the relatively quick pace keeps things moving along without ever feeling rushed. The mystery itself — well, mysteries, really, as The Case of the Missing Woman quickly becomes The Case of Many Other Things — is nicely complex. The film isn’t super overcomplicated or filled with ludicrous twists, but there are enough players and various motivations to go around to keep everything interesting. I wasn’t entirely surprised by one development, but there’s probably a reason for that, which I’ll discuss in the Spoiler Section. On the other hand, there’s something of a whodunnit that develops in the course of this story, and I didn’t guess whodunnit at all.

4. You know who’s a lot of fun in this movie? Don Cheadle.

Everyone in the supporting cast is fairly good. Jennifer Beals is perfectly decent as the movie’s femme fatale, and I like Lisa Nicole Carson as Coretta quite a bit. (More on her a little later.) Tom Sizemore plays an almost cartoonishly sadistic gangster with apparent ease.

But it’s Don Cheadle who really lights up the screen with his very presence. Cheadle plays Mouse, Easy’s murder-happy friend from Houston, and he just brings an enormous amount of energy to the role. He and Denzel Washington have good chemistry on screen, and I’d happily watch more movies with the two of them playing amateur detectives together. (Well, more like amateur detective and his psycho buddy. Still. Who doesn’t think that sounds like a good time, right? It’s a buddy dynamic that you can apply to every genre! I, for one, would love to see a road trip movie with an amateur detective and his psycho buddy. Ooh, or maybe a romantic comedy with an amateur detective and his psycho buddy. Oh, so many writing ideas, so little time.)

5. I won’t say how the movie ends, exactly, but I will say that the story concludes on a good note. It’s certainly not all sunshine and rainbows — it is a film noir, after all — but in a way, Devil in a Blue Dress might be a little bit more upbeat than other films on my list thus far, despite dealing with weightier social issues like, you know, widespread and horrifying racism.

Unfortunately, everything else I want to say — and I do have quite a bit more to cover — includes Spoilers. But if you haven’t watched the film, I’d recommend checking it out, at least if you like mysteries or period pieces or Denzel Washington’s arms.

Cause, come on. Who doesn’t like that?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, Easy is hired to find Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals). Daphne’s dating Todd Carter (Terry Kinney), or was, but there’s something strange going on there, especially since Carter just dropped out of the race for mayor, despite being the current favorite to win. Supposedly, Carter stopped running because Daphne went missing, so Albright — who just as supposedly — works for Carter wants her found. It’s rumored that Daphne frequents various black clubs in LA, so Easy tries out this illegal bar he knows and runs into his friends, Dupree and Coretta.

I actually thought these two were married, but Wikipedia tells me that they’re just dating, and IMDb is giving Dupree and Coretta different last names, so I will bow to Wiki’s superior knowledge on this one. What’s important is, they’re together. Easy asks them about Daphne, and Coretta obviously knows more than she’s telling. There is much with the drinking, and then Easy helps Coretta get her drunk ass boyfriend back home. And while Dupree’s passed out in the other room, Easy and Coretta, er, pump each other for information.

And while I do actually feel a little bad for Dupree here (who, poor sap, never finds out that Coretta cheated on him), I like this scene a lot because there’s an equality in power dynamics. Easy thinks he’s screwing Coretta to get answers, but it doesn’t even occur to him until the next day that she’s managed to get just as many answers out of him. I like Coretta quite a bit, actually.

This is, of course, why she immediately dies.

Going through my ever-expanding list of various tags, I came across ‘It’s Sure Cold in this Refrigerator,’ and realized I needed to decide if Coretta counted as a woman in a refrigerator or not. She is, after all, a love interest (well, of a sort) who is killed off very quickly after having sex with our hero, and our hero does have some semi plot-driven angst over that. (It’s not exactly shaking fist at the sky, DAMN YOU, SALAZAR, DAMN YOU rage, but it’s in there.) And considering Hollywood has something of a history of killing off sexually confident women in movies, it’s hard not to at least take into consideration the fact that a woman who uses sex as a tool is murdered, while a man who does the exact same thing makes it out alive.

Still, Coretta isn’t killed by a villain looking to make a point or cause our hero the Ultimate Man Pain. Actually, Coretta’s death doesn’t have much to do with Easy at all, nor is she killed by Albright or any of the other obvious bad guys in this movie. She’s actually murdered because she tries to shake someone down, and that person doesn’t respond well to it. I’ll get into the specifics a little later, but what I like about this is the misdirection. You think, of course, that she must have been killed for knowing too much, even when the film has told you time and again that Coretta tries to get more bang for her buck, so to speak, whenever she can with whomever she can. It seems to be sort of her basic philosophy in life. And I never really got the impression that the screenwriter was punishing Coretta for being a Bad, Bad Woman, so that was kind of refreshing too.

The cops bring Easy in for the murder and beat him up some, but they eventually let him go, presumably because no one really cares all that much about a dead black woman. This is about when Easy meets Matthew Terell, the other guy in the mayoral race. Terell is apparently trying to come off as a nice, not terrifying guy, but no one buys that, even if his (supposedly) adopted son is hanging out with him. Easy gets out of the car as soon as humanely possible, and I approve of that.

Then Easy gets a call front the elusive Ms. Daphne Monet.

Daphne asks if Easy wants to meet, and this is the point where I was like, “No, Easy. No, you don’t want to meet. Only bad things can come of getting further embroiled in this. Please don’t go see this woman.”

Obviously, Easy goes to see her. They flirt a little in a hotel room, and I’m like, “No, it’s cool. You’re both supposed to be friends with Dead Coretta, but never mind that. You just keep making eyes at each other.”

They get down to business, though, and Daphne actually does seem upset about her dead friend. (Although we later find out that she’s at least partially responsible for what happened to Coretta.) She’s actually called Easy to give her a ride to some guy’s house. He has some very important letter there, or so she thinks. Because when they actually do get to the house, there is no letter, and the man is quite dead.

Daphne immediately (and hysterically) gets in the car and ditches Easy’s ass, something that I feel like Easy ought to yell about later. Sadly, he doesn’t. I suppose he has a lot on his mind. After all, Albright is going to kill him if he doesn’t track Daphne down again, and the cops — who actually give a shit now that a white man has been killed — are going to arrest Easy for double homicide if he can’t give them the actual killer.

So, Easy goes to Todd Carter to figure out why the hell everyone wants to get their hands on Daphne so bad. And here you’re thinking Todd Carter has to be some kind of Big Time Ominous Dude, right, if he has a psycho like Albright on retainer . . . but Carter’s just a skinny, balding dude in an ugly tie and an old man sweater.

Turns out, Carter doesn’t know anything about Albright. Albright’s actually been working for Terell all along. Carter does want to see Daphne, enough to pay a thousand dollars for it, even — but he refuses to tell Easy why he dropped out of the race or why he broke up with her in the first place. I will, though, because this recap’s running long, and I have shit to read, dammit: Daphne’s father was white but her mother was black, and Terell — who somehow found out — would have made that knowledge public, ensuring Carter lost.

(This is the twist that didn’t particularly surprise me, mostly because I came upon a list maybe two weeks ago of 15 Celebrities Most People Don’t Know Are Black. I didn’t see, or didn’t remember, the note about Devil in a Blue Dress until after the fact, but I did remember Beals that was biracial when I saw her name on the cast list. Also, and in an entirely unrelated note, I think this might be the first movie I’ve ever seen with Jennifer Beals. I haven’t even watched Flashdance yet. Opinions, people. Should this be remedied? Do I need to watch Flashdance in its entirety, or just the One Scene?)

Daphne, in turn, has found out that Terell has quite the secret of his own: he’s a creepy pedophile fuck. There are pictures of him with naked boys, pictures that Daphne plans to use to out-scandal Terell. She thinks that once Terell’s out of the race, Carter will welcome her back with open arms. Easy and the audience know better, but that’s for later. (Also, I’m vaguely annoyed with basically everyone in this movie for not really seeming to give a damn about the kids in these pictures. Daphne and Carter only value the pics for their effect on the mayoral race, and Coretta is only using them as a means to make more money. I know it’s noir, but come on now. You people all suck.)

Easy discovers that Coretta hid the pictures in her Bible. Unfortunately, Albright and his goon squad abduct Daphne, so Easy and psycho buddy Mouse (who he called in earlier as backup) interrogate Joppy, Easy’s bartender friend. Joppy is the very same schmo who recommended Easy to Albright in the first place. Joppy is also Daphne’s friend (which, is to say, he’s totally in love with her), and it turns out that he’s the one who killed Coretta. See, she wanted more money for those pictures, so he went there on Daphne’s request to scare her . . . and ended up killing her instead. (Which probably did scare her but didn’t exactly get him the pictures, so we can’t really call that a win on his part.)

Easy’s not particularly happy with Joppy, but he needs to keep him alive in order to serve him up to the cops. Joppy helpfully directs Easy and Mouse to Albright’s cabin in the middle of the woods. Easy specifically tells Mouse not to shoot Joppy while he goes ahead and checks out the house. This is a terrible idea, of course, for a couple of reasons: one, what’s the point of bringing backup if you’re not going to wait for them, and two, Mouse just predictably strangles Joppy instead because, hey, it’s not shooting him, and do you know how long it takes to tie up a guy? Way too long. Even Mouse is like, dude, if you didn’t want him dead, why the hell would you leave him with me? You know how I am.

What Easy should have done was throw Joppy’s ass into the trunk — no ties required –and then snuck up on the cabin with Mouse, but oh well. What’s done is done.

Mouse and Easy manage to kill Albright and all his goons. I was sure Mouse was going to bite the big one, but shockingly, he makes it out alive. The two men save Daphne and bring her back to Todd Carter, who predictably breaks her heart. Carter pays Easy and tells him that he’ll square things with the cops. He also tells Easy that he really does love Daphne, and Easy — being a better person than me — doesn’t say, “Not enough, apparently,” and/or punch him in the face. He just stares at Carter a little and then walks away.

Daphne and her half-brother Frank (who Mouse hilariously shot earlier in the film) take off without a word. Mouse goes back to Texas. And Easy, who can now pay his mortgage, decides to go into business for himself as a private detective. Because — unbeknownst to me when I started watching this movie – Devil in a Blue Dress is based on the first novel in a detective series by Walter Mosley, which I’m seriously considering picking up at some point. I certainly would have watched more Easy Rawlins movies, had they made any sequels to this film.

Too bad. I’d like to find more Denzel Washington films that I actually have interest in.

QUOTES:

Easy: “A man once told me that you step out your door in the morning, and you’re already in trouble. The only question is are you on top of that trouble or not?”

Easy: “What kind of work you do?”
Albright: “I do favors. Favors for friends.”

Easy: “This one’s mine.”
Dupree: “Are you sure? You’re the one who’s got no job.”
Coretta: “And you’re the one who’s got no money.”

Easy (trying to get Frank to tell him where Daphne is): “A rich man is willing to pay one thousand dollars just to talk to this guy. A thousand dollars. That’s a hell of a lot of money, man. Frank.”
Mouse: “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me try. (puts his gun away) Now look here, Frank — it’s Frank, right?”
Easy: “Yeah.”
Mouse: “Frank.” (He pulls his gun out again and shoots Frank in the arm.)

Mouse: “You got blood on my coat, Easy. It’s a damn expensive coat.”

Easy: “You ain’t even in been in my house five minutes, and you already damn shot somebody, Mouse.”

(Easy desperately needs to find Daphne. Meanwhile, Mouse has just told somebody on the phone that Easy will have to call them back.)
Easy: “Who was that on the phone?”
Mouse: “Oh, I don’t know. Sounded like some white girl.”

Dude: “Not very smart, talking about Mr. Carter’s business to a secretary.”
Easy: “I don’t want to hear it, man. There’s too much going on for me to give a damn about what you think is smart.”

Joppy: “Stop that shit! Boy, that’s my marble. My uncle left me that after he died!”
Easy: “Well, godammit, he’s about to get it back!”

Joppy: “Ain’t nothing to worry about.”
Easy (VO): “Now, when somebody tells me, ‘Ain’t nothing to worry about,’ I usually look down to see if my fly is open.”

Easy: “What happened?”
Mouse: “I had no time to be tying him up, Easy.”
Easy: “What?”
Mouse: “You just said don’t shoot him, right?”
Easy: “That’s right.”
Mouse: “Well, I didn’t, I just — I choked him.”
Easy: “What?”
Mouse: “Well, how am I gonna help you out if I’m back here fooling around with him now? Easy, look, if you ain’t want him killed, why did you leave him with me?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Overall, I really liked it. This movie deals with heavier social issues than the other noir films I’ve watched so far, but they’re handled well, and none of it takes away from the action or enjoyment of the mystery itself. I’m sincerely kind of bummed there isn’t a sequel.

MVP:

Denzel Washington

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Get on top of your shit, man. Do what you need to do, cause you’re gonna have to fight for what’s yours, even if you shouldn’t have to.

Well, I finally watched Touch of Evil.

It’s easily my least favorite noir to date. Blasphemy!

SUMMARY:

After witnessing an explosion across the Mexican-American border, narcotics detective Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) struggles to work with a corrupt police captain (Orson Welles). Things go badly.

NOTES:

1. There are, apparently, a few different versions of Touch of Evil floating around out there, as Orson Welles was none too pleased with the studio interference he encountered. I know this because my Netflix DVD came with a disclaimer.

I have two things to say about this. One, it’s possible that I would have enjoyed another cut of this film better, but I find it unlikely due to the nature of my complaints. Two, I’m sure definitions vary, but for me, anything that is 58 pages long is no longer a memo. That’s well on it’s way to being a freaking thesis.

2. One of my problems with the movie is probably likable characters. Which is funny, actually, because Ramon Miguel “Mike” Vargas isn’t such a terrible guy, and yet I had an extremely hard time rooting for him. See, thing is, I didn’t do much research into this film before I started watching it, so I was wholly and woefully unprepared to see that our Mexican protagonist was played by Charlton Heston.

Holy. Jesus. I suppose it should be said that Charlton Heston was originally hired to play a white guy, that it was Orson Welles’s decision to change the character’s ethnicity, and of course this was all pretty par for the course back in the day. I don’t care. The makeup is so awful, so awful. He is so obviously, absurdly white that it hurts my eyes and my soul a little to look at him. It’s always frustrating and embarrassing and awful when you watch white actors play non-white roles, but I found myself even more appalled by this one than normal, either because Charlton Heston makes a spectacularly bad Latino, or because I’m (possibly ridiculously) taking it personally. (Ridiculous because I’m the whitest quarter-Mexican you’ll ever see, and though being Mexican has always mattered to me, I feel this whole ongoing guilt thing about, like, trying to claim it. I will forever and always detest any survey that makes me choose only one ethnicity.)

Charlton Heston also doesn’t attempt any kind of an accent at all, and I can’t decide if this is even more annoying or possibly a small mercy. According to IMDb trivia, Heston considered skipping the accent one of the worst acting mistakes he ever made, and I’m like, Yup. American accent. That’s ABSOLUTELY the only thing wrong with this casting.

3. I’m not exactly a big fan of Susie (Janet Leigh), either.

I do actually feel sorry for Susie during Touch of Evil because she faces some harrowing, traumatic shit, but that is hell and gone from saying that I like her. Because no. Susie is an entitled, whiny racist for most of this film. She’s not the kind of Racist, capital R, that we all agree is bad. There are no master race speeches, obviously — she’s not like a Nazi weirdly married to a supposed Mexican. But she is generally obnoxious to any Mexican character who isn’t her husband – and if they’re going for spunky, boy, did they miss the mark — and when she calls this one guy Pancho just “for laughs”? Ugh. Yeah, Susie. You’re fucking hysterical. I dream of the day I can possess a wit as clever and original as yours.

Also, the motel scene where she’s upset that the incredibly weird desk clerk won’t come inside and make her bed? No. Just no. First, Susie? You don’t want this man in your room. Second, unless he’s both the desk clerk and the maid, it’s not his job to make the bed. (It could be his job. It is an awfully small motel.) Third and finally, is it really that hard to make the bed yourself? Keep in mind, I’m saying this as a person who profoundly hates making beds, but you know. I can still do it, if the occasion calls for it. I have, like, HANDS AND EVERYTHING. It won’t look as nice as someone who does it professionally, of course, but it’ll be functional. Honestly, Susie.

4. And as far as Orson Welles goes . . . well, some of his deliveries land for me, and some of them do not.

I mean, he’s the bad guy, so I don’t have to find him super likable, and he is rocking this sinister sort of leer that is effectively creepsome. But he also reminds me of a duck half the time he opens his mouth, like he’s more quacking than speaking his dialogue, and I find that sort of thing distracting. Plus, Quinlan’s whole backstory . . . I don’t know. It could be interesting, but there’s something about how it’s given to us that doesn’t entirely work for me.

5. The whole movie’s kind of like that, actually. I enjoy certain scenes in the film and the general arc of the story, but the movie itself is troublesome. The casting is atrocious, the performances are uneven, and I really feel like the pacing is off. Because the material itself is, or at least could be, pretty exciting — we have border politics, divided loyalties, dirty cops, explicit vs implicit racism, etc. And yet, despite that breadth of material, I found myself awfully bored throughout.

As such — and take a deep breath for the continued blasphemy, cinephiles — I would actually be pretty interested in seeing a modern remake of Touch of Evil. It might be a decent story to revisit with a post-1950′s mindset and morality. At the very least, we could probably avoid the brownface.

6. We should also entirely rewrite everything that happens at the motel because those are easily the weakest and/or most troubling scenes in the whole movie. And seriously — what the hell is up with the desk clerk?

I don’t even understand the reasoning behind this guy. Is he just supposed to be odd? Crazy? Mentally challenged? I think I’m supposed to find him funny, but yeah. No.

7. Finally, speaking of characters I don’t entirely understand the point of . . .

Charlton Heston isn’t actually the only non-Latino playing a Latino character. Bad Guy Grandi is played by Russian/Armenian actor Akim Tamiroff, and Tanya, our Mexican fortuneteller pictured above, is played by German actress Marlene Dietrich.

Surprisingly, I like Tanya well enough . . . I just don’t know why she’s in there at all. She doesn’t really contribute anything to the plot, and I don’t feel like I get a much better understanding of Quinlan because of her. She has a few good lines, but mostly she’s just sort of there.

I do actually have a few positive things (and a few more negative things) to say about this movie, but if you want to read them, you’ll have to brave the Spoilers.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

The opening scene in Touch of Evil is actually pretty cool.

We see a dude planting a bomb in a car. Then we see people get in the car and slowly drive through the Mexican border. We’re also watching happy newlyweds Mike and Suzie walk around town, often passing by the doomed car until, of course, it eventually blows up. What’s cool about this scene is that it’s all done in one long three-minute take. Also, this is not the first time I’ve seen this opener. I actually watched it years ago in one of my film classes back at SF State, but I’d since forgotten what movie it came from. So there I was, sitting on my couch, watching this car slowly roll through traffic, and thinking, Wait . . . haven’t I seen this? Holy shit, I’ve seen this!

Unfortunately, the rest of the film is kind of a disappointment. Mike goes to investigate the explosion and gets invited (more or less) to act as a consultant since he (correctly) believes the bomb was placed on Mexican soil, even if it blew up on American territory. Vargas and Quinlan don’t particularly like one another, but things don’t truly escalate into a serious problem until they’re questioning a suspect at his home. See, Vargas happens to (conveniently) knock over this empty box in the bathroom, right? Afterwards, Quinlan goes in the bathroom himself. A few minutes later, he orders his men to search the place, and what do you know? One of the policeman finds a damning piece of evidence in what was previously the empty  box.

So Vargas goes out to prove that Quinlan has a history of planting evidence. Quinlan, meanwhile, becomes pretty desperate, starts drinking again, and ends up conspiring with Grandi on a plan to discredit Vargas by framing Susie as a junkie. Grandi’s people screw around with Susie for a lot longer than necessary before finally shooting her up with drugs and kidnapping her from the world’s worst motel. (She is also possibly gang-raped. It’s hard to tell exactly what happens because while the scene itself seems to imply that she’s about to get raped, one of the policeman later seems to suggest that it didn’t happen. And since no one ever addresses it again, least of all Susie, I am going to assume that she wasn’t raped for my sanity. Regardless, there are so many problems with this part of the movie. It will all have to be fixed for the remake that no one besides me actually wants.

So, yes. The plan is to frame Susie as a junkie, but Quinlan decides to kick it up a notch, either because he wants Susie brought up on stronger charges or because he doesn’t want Grandi around as a potential blackmailer/witness. Quinlan then kills Grandi and tries to make it look like Susie did it, which is both disturbing and kind of dumb. Disturbing because we find out that Quinlan kills Grandi the way his own wife was murdered. (To be clear, Quinlan didn’t kill her. His wife’s murder is, in all likelihood, what caused him to become a dirty cop in the first place.) Stupid because one, while possible, it seems somewhat unlikely to me that a woman would kill a man who’s considerably larger than her by strangling him whilst still totally fucked up on what I assume is heroin. And two, Quinlan’s drunk at the time and makes the not entirely insignificant mistake of leaving his own cane behind. Like, this isn’t accidentally leaving a partial shoe print or something. The dude forgets his CANE. Unacceptable.

Up until this point, Pete (Joseph Calleia) has been Quinlan’s BFF and right hand man, refusing to see the evidence that Vargas puts in front of him because he doesn’t want to. But even Pete can’t ignore the Cane of Stupidity, so he puts on a wire and talks to Quinlan about all the bad, bad stuff the Captain’s been up to.

This is actually kind of a neat scene for a couple of reasons. One, I’m always intrigued by loyal right hand man types, and watching Pete’s obvious heartbreak as he confronts Quinlan is a little sad. Two, this is the rare scene in Touch of Evil that might not update particularly well because of the technology. See, Vargas isn’t just sitting out in an unmarked van, listening in — he’s running around after Quinlan and Pete with his Total Fail Surveillance Device which keeps dropping the voices and providing noisy feedback on Pete’s end. Not that we don’t have all kinds of technology fails today, too, but the fact that Vargas has to chase after Pete and Quinlan on foot to keep in range gives the scene a little more tension.

Eventually, Quinlan catches on to what’s happening and shoots Pete. (With Vargas’s gun — I don’t remember why he has it, but he does.) Before he can kill Vargas, though, Pete recovers for One Last Moment to shoot Quinlan before dying himself. (Proving, yet again, that it doesn’t pay to be the right hand man to a villain. Half the time, they’re the ones who kill you, either for not keeping the faith or just because they’re crazy and don’t care.)

We then find out Sanchez — the guy who Quinlan framed for the explosion back forever ago — was guilty all along. Tanya pops up to look vaguely unhappy for a few minutes, and Vargas and recently recovered Susie drive out of town for their happy ever after. (She’s not traumatized or anything. She still has her man, after all. Everything’s fine!)

QUOTES:

Quinlan: “Come on, read my future for me.”
Tanya: “You haven’t got any.”
Quinlan: “Hmm? What do you mean?”
Tanya: “Your future’s all used up.”

Tanya: “What does it matter what you say about people?”

Vargas: “All border towns bring out the worst in a country.”

CONCLUSIONS:

The ideas are there, but the execution is faulty. I don’t care if this is Orson Welles. I think Touch of Evil could have been a lot better than it was, and the 1950′s mentality towards race and gender isn’t helping anything.

MVP:

Joseph Calleia

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C

MORALS:

If you’re going all in for premeditated murder, probably best to do it sober.

Being abducted, forced to take mind-altering substances, and possibly getting raped by multiple people probably doesn’t have any lasting effects worth recognizing.

And of course . . .

That’s right, people who steal from the blind. You have been publicly shamed by Orson Welles.

A few weeks ago, my friends and I were faced with a hard choice. We had all gathered to watch a movie together, and the final nominees were this: Frozen, a highly beloved Academy Award winning Disney film, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer, the fourth movie in a mostly terrible franchise (saving the original, obviously), featuring the varied talents of David Boreanaz, Edward Furlong, Dennis Hopper, Danny Trejo, and Tara Reid.

I think you all know which one I watched.

It’s at least vaguely possible that we didn’t make the right call.

DISCLAIMER:

This review will contain SPOILERS because I’m begging you not to watch this movie. Save yourselves. SAVE YOURSELVES.

SUMMARY:

Jesus. Um. Okay, so ex-convict Jimmy Cuervo (Edward Furlong) and his GF Lily are murdered by a group of Satanists called, quite sadly, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Thankfully, the titular Crow temporarily brings Jimmy back to life so he can not only take revenge on the Satanists, but also stop leader Luc Crash (David Boreanaz), also known as Death, from becoming the Devil. Or possibly the Antichrist. Whatever, he’s EVIL.

NOTES:

1. There are an awful lot of places to start this review, but I think I’d like to begin with this particularly egregious Netflix Summary Fail.

Ex-con Cuervo and his girlfriend are murdered by a Satanic biker gang, but Cuervo rises from the dead with the power of the Crow to exact revenge.

I know that sounds a lot like my summary, but you’ll notice that mine never refers to the Four Horsemen as a biker gang because you know what these guys don’t have? Yes, exactly. Never once in the whole film do any of our Satanists ride a motorcycle. They do have tricked out Satanist cars, but those are slightly different things.

2. Now, to the movie itself — well, it’s basically incomprehensible. Wikipedia gives a film synopsis here which seems reasonable enough (well, terrible, obviously, but at least it sounds intelligible), but that’s only because they cut out all the utter lunacy that this film wraps itself up in. Without bothering to give you any kind true plot synopsis myself, here is a list of some questions I had after finishing the film.

A: How, exactly, does marrying a woman call forth Satan (or the Antichrist) into your body?

And again, is it Satan or the Antichrist, cause seriously, guys, those are two entirely different dudes.

B: Why is Satan expelled from your body and back to Hell if you don’t screw your Satanist bride before the sun comes up? Also, who makes up these rules?

C: Why did Lo (Tara Reid) try to kill Luc that one time, and why doesn’t Luc seem particularly upset about this? Because, you know, I feel like I would be.

D. How does ripping out someone’s heart cause ’666′ to appear on your chest? Also, who thought this mesh shirt was a good idea? There might be people who can rock this shirt, but David Boreanaz, handsome as he is, is not one of them.

E: What’s up with the whole mine vs casino thing, anyway? I mean, I can see how miners would be pretty pissed about the mine closing, since that’s sort of their whole source of income. (Although I also feel obligated to point out that a casino would provide about a gazillion more job opportunities with less hazardous work conditions — other that secondhand smoke — than a mine would.) That’s not really important, though, because my real question is why is this shit even in the movie? It isn’t at all relevant to the actual plot — such as it is — and I’m still not entirely sure if the bad guys were for or against the mine, anyway.

F: Why is the Crow randomly invisible at one point?

G: Why does Jimmy Cuervo put on makeup after he comes back from the dead? I mean, other than the fact that ALL the Crow heroes do this — it made, at least, a little bit of sense when Brandon Lee did it in the original, since he regularly wore that makeup performing, but Jimmy . . . not so much. I’m confused by his choice of war paint.

H: Why did Luc take the time out of his busy schedule of becoming Satan to try and kill that one priest dude?

I feel like these people are all judging me for sitting through this entire movie.

Was that the guy who killed Luc’s dad way back when? If so, why did he kill Luc’s dad way back when? Did it have anything to do with Jimmy Cuervo killing the priest dude’s son?

3. Speaking of which, here is a question that deserves its own note — why the hell is Lily’s family so mad at Jimmy?

We actually do get the answer to this question — it just doesn’t make any sense. See, Lily and Jimmy dated all the way back in high school. When some asshole tried to rape her, Jimmy intervened — and by intervened, I mean he accidentally killed the asshole while kicking the shit out of him. Now, I’m not saying that we should be flat out murdering all attempted rapists, but I am saying that if someone killed a guy before he could rape someone I loved, you know, I probably wouldn’t be all that broken up about it. Apparently, Daddy Danny Trejo and Police Cop Brother think differently, though, because they treat Jimmy as if he was some lowlife who used to knock over gas stations and/or ate puppies. And I’m like, Really? THIS is why you disapprove, because the dude your daughter and sister is dating once over-enthusiastically protected her from a horrific attack? Yeah, okay, guys. That seems legitimate.

4. Actually, I’m starting to think this whole review should just be a series of unanswered questions. Like, what the hell is David Boreanaz even doing in this movie?

Like, Edward Furlong, I get. Dennis Hopper, I get. Tara Reid, I really get. But seriously — David Boreanaz has had a pretty successful and consistent television career since 1996 and, as far as I know, no drug or financial problems to explain why he’d agree to be in this movie. Sure, it’s not unusual for TV stars to make bad decisions while trying to make the leap to film, and it’s certainly common for actors in genre television to appear in terrible horror movies, especially remakes. Tom Welling (of Smallville fame) was in the remake of The Fog. Jared Padalecki (of Supernatural) was in the remake of House of Wax. Jensen Ackles (also of Supernatural) was in the remake of My Bloody Valentine, not to mention the truly, TRULY abysmal horror film Devour. I don’t have a problem with any of that. (Well. I will always have at least a little bit of a problem with Devour.) You can’t always predict what’s going to turn out to be a total crapfest. David Boreanaz himself starred in the relatively shitty Valentine, and I understood that just fine.

But nobody, nobody, could have approached the fourth movie in a series that hasn’t been critically or commercially successful since 1994 and thought this was a good career move. So, seriously, Boreanaz. Were you really that strapped for cash between BTVS and Bones? Do you have secret gambling debts? Did you lose a bet? Inquiring minds want to know!

I suppose I should also throw out there that, acting-wise, Boreanaz is possibly the campiest in the whole bunch. (Well, him or Hopper, anyway. Oh, Hopper. Every line he has in this movie is so fucking crazy. I am sincerely relieved that this wasn’t his last movie, like one of my friends actually looked it up for me while we were watching because I was that worried. No one wants something like this to be your last statement in a lifelong career.)

But I’ll say this much for the guy: Boreanaz really commits to the sheer awfulness of this script. He overacts like no one’s business. I mean, he chews scenery like whoa, especially after he becomes the Devil/Antichrist. It’s, well. It’s entertaining, in a horrifying sort of way.

5. Here’s another question for you — why is it never a woman who comes back to exact vengeance for her dead lover?

WHAT?! A comic book movie starring anyone other than a straight white man? YOU JEST, MADAM!

I know that’s not really a problem with this movie, specifically, more with the franchise itself — because the entire plot of this series is really about Refrigerated Women – but I’m just saying, I’m ready for the Crow to bring back someone without a penis. There’s been talk off and on for a few years now about a Crow reboot — IMDb currently has Luke Evans attached, so yeah, that bodes well — but I don’t really see much point in it unless they actually do something interesting, like, casting a woman or, hey, what about a gay character? I don’t think gothy supernatural revenge romances need to be limited to heterosexuality, do you?

(I should say, it’s not actually that I dislike Luke Evans so much — he seems like a perfectly fine actor — as that he only seems to show up in the worst cheesy and/or boring genre crap. Other movies with Luke Evans: The Raven, The Three Musketeers, Immortals, Clash of the Titans, and the upcoming Dracula Untold.)

Also on a Feminist Fail note — I actually was mildly interested in the very beginning of the movie because it looked like, for half a second, that Tara Reid was going to be the leader of the Four Horsemen. Mind you, it’s not like Tara Reid would have been any better at being a Big Bad than David Boreanaz, but it was a surprising choice, and I was like, Hey, at least that’s interesting. You know, we have a woman in this movie who’s actually significant in some way to the story.

And then we quickly reveal that Tara Reid is just there to be David Boreanaz’s psychic love interest in a weird mask.

Sigh.

6. I don’t know if I have any more questions, exactly, but I do have a few more brief notes, in case you aren’t yet fully convinced on just how awful this movie is.

6A: In one scene, a dude’s mask keeps disappearing and reappearing every time you cut back to him. In another scene, a dead guy is visibly breathing.

6B: The sole black character in this movie is the not-so-funny comic relief, who abruptly turns out to be a virgin, who is then unceremoniously killed off.

6C: Luc hangs Jimmy Cuervo and then cuts out his heart for good measure. Jimmy’s blood, and I shit you not, falls to the floor in the shape of a heart.

6D. If you’re not up on your Spanish, ‘cuervo’ means crow.

For Christ’s sake, movie.

7. Finally — just because I thought this was funny — I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago, right? I jotted down some notes to work from, but sometimes my notes are not as detailed as they ought to be, not if I’m only getting to the actual review a few weeks later. I’m not willing to rewatch this movie just for your amusement — sorry, people — but this is easily one of my favorite things I’ve ever written down:

Furlong and eyes. Boreanaz and speech. Everyone and hair.

Let that be what you take with you when you think of The Crow: Wicked Prayer.

A SMALL REPRESENTATION OF HORRIFYING QUOTES:

El Niño: “I now pronounce you Devil, and his shorty.”
Lo: “I love you, Lucifer!”
El Niño: “Kiss the bride, motherfucker!”

El Niño: “He’ll be your homey now and forever more.”

El Niño: “Well, wicked-ass props to you, Mr. O.G., and thanks for representing all of the homeboys.”

Lo: “Luc? Luc?”
Luc: “Call me Lucifer.”

Jimmy Cuervo: “Quoth the raven, nevermore, motherfucker!”

CONCLUSIONS:

Even worse than I could have imagined. And I wasn’t imagining anything good.

MVP:

Nope

TENTATIVE GRADE:

F+

MORAL:

Er. Chop up people after you murder them? Because even if the Crow resurrects these dead dudes, they’ll find it a lot harder to seek revenge when they’re in seven pieces.

Whoops, looks like I’m perilously close to falling behind schedule again. Guess I better watch another film noir.

Today’s movie: Double Indemnity. It’s, well. Let’s just say it’s unlikely to snag the top prize this year.

SUMMARY:

Walter (Fred MacMurray), an insurance salesman, begins an affair with Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck). Together, they come up with a plan to murder her husband for the insurance money, but it doesn’t quite go off without a hitch — because, really, that’s just not how stories work.

NOTES:

1. If this plot sounds familiar to you, well, maybe you’ve just seen it before. Or maybe you’ve seen Body Heat, which has a very similar setup and which I reviewed earlier this year. I liked parts of that movie but struggled with others; Double Indemnity, too, is sometimes enjoyable but often incredibly frustrating. Here, I primarily took issue with Walter and Phyllis’s relationship.

I think they spend all of three or four scenes together before one of them drops the  ‘L’ word. And while money is, of course, a powerful motivator, planning a murder is a seriously big step in any relationship, like, you thought getting a puppy was a big deal, HA. These two have known each other, what? A whole 48 hours before they wade straight into the technicalities of murder and insurance fraud? I don’t buy it. I feel like maybe I could have bought it, had they approached their relationship in a different way, but as is, I’m just kind of annoyed by all the melodrama. It doesn’t really help, either, that these two have some of the worst stage kissing ever. I mean, I know it’s 1944 and all, but still. Any sexual chemistry that these two managed to build with all their traffic-related banter died a quick and ugly death when they pretended to suck face.

2. Also, if Walter had called Phyllis, “baby,” one more time, I think I might have screamed. I won’t pretend that this objection comes from anything near moral grounds — as a general rule, the language of film noir doesn’t particularly bother me, and in fact, I have used the words “baby,” “doll,” and “sweetheart” to address both men and women. But the word never once sounded natural coming from Fred MacMurray’s lips, and he must have said it at least thirty times. Possibly more like fifty. Drove. Me. CRAZY.

3. I do like Edward G. Robinson a lot, though.

Robinson plays Keyes, Walter’s friend and coworker. And Keyes isn’t just any insurance claims investigator, either; he is a super clever claims investigator, second perhaps only to mastermind Nathan Ford in terms of ridiculous genius. I was pretty sure I knew Robinson’s name from somewhere, but I had to actually look him up to place him as Sol in Soylent Green. He has a whole monologue on the various ways he’s seen people commit suicide that I particularly enjoyed.

Of course, sometimes even your favorite characters have serious and unfortunate Moments of Dickishness. I really liked Keyes throughout the film, all except the troubling scene where he recounts breaking up with his fiancee because he discovered things like she’s been dying her hair since she was sixteen (read: whore?) and, also, has a “manic depressive in the family.” Like, Jesus Christ, those are the signs of not being marriage material in the 1940’s? Keyes, you’re an ass. I mean, I still surprisingly like you and all, but seriously. ASS.)

4. I also really liked the opening credits.

They’re very simple — just a shadowy dude limping on crutches — but they’re also effective. I like that we get to see just this one piece of the puzzle, that we know crutches will somehow be important to the plot of the film, even if we don’t know how or why yet. It’s a very easy, very neat way to generate intrigue in the mystery before the story even really begins.

5. Still, there’s a fair bit about this movie that bothers me, all of which I’ll discuss shortly in more detail. And it’s sad, too, because I’m generally a fan of Billy Wilder’s work (Some Like it Hot, especially, although I also enjoy Sunset Blvd and The Apartment) and I really love Raymond Chandler’s prose (The Big Sleep may be problematic and frustratingly homophobic, but the prose — the prose is crisp perfection) and this! This movie is a mashup of both their talents, and I’m like, Eh. I’m not loving it. Of course, by all accounts, the two absolutely despised working together, so who knows? Maybe some of that bleeds through into the film.

Probably not, though. Per usual, this is one of those beloved films where I’m the asshole who’s like, Look, I get how this, this, and this is cool, but really? You’re calling this the BEST NOIR EVER? I’ve gotta say, I’m not seeing it.

6. Finally, I’d like to mention that Billy Wilder appears to be another great director who, like Alfred Hitchcock, was a complete and utter dick. Apparently, he was so pissy that Double Indemnity didn’t win Best Picture at the Academy Awards that he intentionally TRIPPED the director who did win on his way to the stage. And . . . seriously? Are we adults here? Is professionalism that foreign of a concept in Hollywood? Billy, you immature shit.

Everything else I want to say includes spoilers, so if that doesn’t bother you . . .

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, the movie begins near the end of the story, where Walter — who’s been shot — goes back to his office building and starts recording/narrating a confession for Keyes.

We find out quickly that he did successfully murder Phyllis’s husband, although clearly things have taken a turn for the worse as he’s slowly bleeding out all over the office floor.

We then proceed to Flashback, where we watch Walter and Phyllis meet for the first time. To his credit, Walter doesn’t immediately trust Phyllis, which I like. As soon as she starts asking suspicious questions, he’s out of there, all, what do you take me for, I know what you’re really looking for here, and getting arrested for murder sounds like bullshit, thanks. I like that the guy’s actually smart. I also like that they at least throw in a line about Walter feeling tempted to pull one over on his own insurance company, just because he’s spent countless hours seeing where others have gone wrong in their own various insurance fraud schemes. He has this secret, niggling desire to see if he could commit the perfect murder and succeed where so many others have failed. It’s nice that the movie bothers to at least create a sense that Walter’s considered doing something like this before, even if it’s never been a serious consideration.

Still. I feel like Walter needs a bigger tipping point than Phyllis coming over later that night and flirting for forty seconds before he pulls her into his arms and starts attacking her with his lips. Walter tells us he can’t get Phyllis out of his mind, but I don’t buy it. He’s seen her a mighty two times, spent less than fifteen minutes with her total, and suddenly he’s like, “I’m crazy about you, baby. Let’s go kill your husband like young lovers do?” No. Plus, it seems pretty obvious that she’s playing him all along, and he just seems too smart to go along with it.

For this story to really work for me, I think I need this relationship to play out in one of two ways: one, I need to believe that Walter actually loves Phyllis, which is problematic because that means they either need to spend a lot more time developing their relationship or they’re already having an affair by the time the movie’s started, or two, we take out all this yucky love talk and make it ALL about the money, while still somehow keeping Walter and Phyllis likable enough that you aren’t rooting for them to die the entire time. Also problematic, but not impossible — you basically need them to be fun-loving, charming sociopaths. Like Hannibal Lecter. Or Bonnie and Clyde.

Anyway, Walter and Phyllis kill the husband.

Yet another example of ‘Danger Takes a Backseat.’

Which was weird at first because it initially looked like Walter was just going to asphyxiate him and then dump his body on the train tracks and pretend he fell to his death. To which I was like, Look, I’m sure forensics were different in the 40’s, but I’m pretty sure even back then the cops could see bruises around the neck and go, “Huh. That seems peculiar.” But then we find out that Walter actually broke his neck, and I’m like, Okay, so this is prior to everyone in Hollywood using this sound to simulate the horrific snapping of bone. Got it.

At first, Walter and Phyllis seem like they’re in the clear, as Keyes appears to accept the accident at face value. But then he has second thoughts and starts investigating further, and eventually, Walter and Phyllis turn on each other. There’s a whole thing with Phyllis’s stepdaughter, too, but I’m just going to ignore most of that because I didn’t like Lola and never found the actress particularly convincing in the role. I get why she’s there, but honestly, I wish Lola hadn’t been in the movie at all. Or at least had a different ending. (More on that in a minute.)

Walter finds out that Phyllis has not only been using him, she’s been using Lola’s surly and hot-tempered boyfriend too. And by using, yes, I totally mean screwing. So Walter goes to kill Phyllis, and she shoots him.

It’s not a fatal shot, but when he gives her the opportunity to try again, she can’t because . . . she loves him? Excuse me? What horseshit is this? Seriously, Phyllis says, “No, I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That’s all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn’t fire that second shot.” And I’m like, “That’s just the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard. That makes no sense of any kind, none. Why do you suddenly need him to hold you? Why?”

Am I honestly supposed to believe this? Am I really supposed to believe that at the eleventh hour — nay, the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute — Phyllis suddenly looked at the man she’s been stringing along for however long, the man she’s manipulated into killing her own husband, the man she just shot four seconds ago, and realized that she was suddenly in love with him and couldn’t actually kill him? And even if I’m not supposed to believe her — because Walter sure doesn’t — I can’t really see what lying gets her here. Maybe she doesn’t think Walter will actually kill her? That seems kind of dumb, but I guess Phyllis might believe she still has her man wrapped up all around her finger . . . except she has to know this isn’t going to end well, right? There is absolutely no reason, none, to shoot this guy and then not finish him off unless she’s had some kind of crisis of the heart because, you know, she’s a woman, and we all know what weak-willed, emotional creatures they are. Ugh.

This is, I suppose, all better than the ending in the original book (which in turn was based on real events) where the two lovers committed double suicide together. Because, yeah. That would have been pretty idiotic. Idiocy wasn’t the primary reason they changed it, though; the Hays Code, per usual, reared up its ugly little head. Suicide was a big no-no, I guess, even by bad guys, but Phyllis and Walter still had to die (or face serious punishment) because they did naughty, naughty things. Man. Whenever I think of whoever created the Hays Code, I remember what President Josiah Bartlett said about President George Washington: “What a tight ass little priss he must have been.”

Anyway, Phyllis (stupidly) doesn’t kill Walter, and Walter (predictably) kills Phyllis. When he leaves, he spies Lola’s dickish boyfriend and advises him to leave Phyllis, who’s been lying to him (not to mention, you know, dead), and go back to Lola. Which sounds nice until you remember that this dude is a possessive, jealous jerk who was being set up to murder Lola — and it didn’t seem like it took much effort on Phyllis’s part to turn him homicidal. But that’s okay, Walter. You just encourage him to start dating that nice young woman you like again. I’m sure those crazy kids will make it. I’m sure Lola will be fine.

Then we circle back to Walter recording his confession, and Keyes listening in. He shows up at the office after the janitor happened to notice the trail of blood Walter helpfully left behind. There is a nice moment where Walter asks for the big lecture, the big, angry speech, and Keyes doesn’t give him one, just a line full of weary, disheartened disappointment.

Actually, the last five minutes are probably my favorite in the whole movie. Walter tries to leave but, as Keyes predicted, is wounded too badly to make it very far. He lights a cigarette for Walter (a nice reversal, as Walter has been lighting cigarettes for Keyes throughout the film) as they wait for the ambulance, and it’s all just very simple and matter of fact. I’m much more interested in Walter’s relationship with Keyes than I am with Phyllis, and this is a pretty stellar ending, maybe even one of my favorites of the year.

I just wished I liked more of what came before, that’s all.

LEAST FAVORITE QUOTE:

“How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”

Ugh. You’re killing me, Chandler.

QUOTES:

Walter: “Know why you couldn’t figure this one out, Keyes? I’ll tell ya: cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from you.”
Keyes: “Closer than that, Walter.”
Walter: “Love you, too.”

Phyllis: “I think you’re rotten.”
Walter: “I think you’re swell, as long as I’m not your husband.”

Norton: “That witness from the train, what was his name?”
Keyes: “His name was Jackson. Probably still is.”

Keyes: “Have you made up your mind?”
Jackson: “Mr. Keyes, I’m a Medford man. Medford, Oregon, In Medford, we take our time making up our minds.”
Keyes: “Well, we’re not in Medford now. We’re in a hurry.”

Keyes: “Come now, you’ve never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they’ve got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by types of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth; suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from steamboats. But, Mr. Norton, of all the cases on record, there’s not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No. No soap, Mr. Norton. We’re sunk, and we’ll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Some good dialogue, good ideas, great ending . . . but once again, my inability to believe or invest in the central romantic relationship becomes a serious hurdle for me.

MVP:

Edward G. Robinson

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Don’t fuck with insurance guys. They know their shit.

Here’s one thing you can say about Wes Anderson: he has a very specific aesthetic. You will never, ever catch one of his movies on HBO and think to yourself, Huh, I wonder who directed that.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is no exception, and yet the movie still feels like a bit of a departure for Anderson. The screwball comedy I expected, the cast of eccentric characters engaged in various shenanigans . . . I anticipated the wacky hijinks that did, indeed, ensue. But the darker tones? The comically abrupt violence? The actual ending?

It’s fair to say that Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel took me by surprise.

SUMMARY:

The owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), tells the story of how, as Young Zero (Tony Revolori), he came to work as a lobby boy under the concierge, M. Gustav (Ralph Fiennes), becoming his trusted companion and accomplice even as Gustav ends up stealing a painting, getting accused of murder, and staging a prison break.

NOTES:

1. This won’t be a terribly long review because, despite liking the film, I don’t know how much I really have to say about it. (And what I do want to say includes Spoilers, which frustrates me. I hate creating a Spoiler Section for something this short. It’s just annoying.) But let’s begin with acknowledging that while this is not necessarily an easy to film to summarize, and while the the brief attempt above certainly has flaws, it’s still better than Netflix’s summary, which goes like this: “Between the world wars, Gustave H, the concierge at a prestigious European hotel, takes a bellboy named Zero as a trusted protégé. Meanwhile, the upscale guests are involved in an art theft and a dispute over a vast family fortune.”

If you haven’t seen the movie, let me tell you that the upscale guests aren’t involved in shit. Gustave and Zero are involved in an art theft, but they’re employees, not guests. Dmitri (Adrien Brody) is certainly a part of the family fortune dispute, but he’s a guest at the Grand Budapest Hotel for like a second (and only near the very end of the movie) and never steals any art at all. For a movie about a hotel, there really isn’t very much attention paid to the actual guests.

2. Also, I desperately want a lobby boy cap now to add to my Random Hat Collection.

My birthday is at the end of November. In case you were curious about that totally unrelated bit of trivia.

3. My biggest problem with The Grand Budapest Hotel is with the female characters. Specifically, the near total lack of them.

Agatha (Saoirse Ronan) is Zero’s love interest . . . and that’s about it. The actress is fine in the role, but she is supremely unimportant to the plot and could easily be written out of the story by only changing one or two very simple details. Meanwhile, Madame D (Tilda Swinton) is important to the plot, but only in regards to instigating it. She has, perhaps, a grand total of four minutes screen time.

On the other hand, there are tons of male characters. We have a concierge, a lobby boy, a writer, a hitman, a lawyer, an inspector, a butler, and a rich son who expects to inherit, not to mention several convicts and a whole group of other hotel concierges who just as easily could’ve been female. That’s like eight important male characters to two semi-important female characters, and there’s not really any pressing reason that the majority of those eight need to be male. The inequality here doesn’t make this film bad, of course, but it is awfully frustrating.

4. About those convicts . . . one of them looked pretty familiar to me, and I was like, Wait, is that Alan Arkin? No, no, that’s Harvey Keitel. Wait, IS it Harvey Keitel?

The answer is yes, yes, it’s Harvey Keitel. But if you’d asked me last week if I thought I could tell the two actors apart, I would have laughed and said something snotty like, “Yeah, I think I can manage.” Well, Last Week Me is an asshole because I honestly wasn’t sure until I checked IMDb.

5. Most of the things I really want to talk about can’t be discussed without Spoilers. So let me just tell you a few, quick random things before I make my (godamn) Spoiler Section:

5A. The music, like in most Wes Anderson movies, is perfect. Quirky and bouncy and fits the film beautifully.

5B. I’m amused by the fact that almost no one in the cast bothers to change their natural accents. Like, I think there were a couple of actors who said a few words or names with a vague hint of an accent, but for the most part, everyone just goes with what God and their hometown gave them. In all honesty, I kind of enjoyed it. There was a delightful assortment of various accents to listen to, and it was nice, not hearing people try to strangle their vowels into a chokehold.

A small list of actors who I’d like to hear use their natural accents in a movie, since they rarely, if ever, seem to: Guy Pearce, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Anna Paquin, Karl Urban, Colin Farrell, and Melanie Lynskey.

5C. Despite the fact that I don’t have much to offer all my (imaginary) heirs, sometimes I think about creating a will. But now I know I need to create two wills: a normal will, and a will that should be opened “only in the event of my death by murder.” Maybe I’ll get to work on that later tonight.

5D. And finally, another unequivocal truth: there is just something inherently funny about Ralph Fiennes saying the words “candy ass.” I mean, we can all agree on that, right?

With that, let’s talk about all the violence.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Okay, seriously, with the darkness in this film. This movie is easily the darkest comedy I’ve ever seen by Wes Anderson. First, Willem Dafoe just up and tosses Jeff Goldblum’s cat out the fucking window. Even Jeff Goldblum can’t believe it. This was Inappropriate Giggling Fit # 1, and I LIKE cats, you know? I still giggled like a fiend. (And then reassured Nygma that I would not let Willem Dafoe or anyone else toss him out of a window. He gently bit my finger, clearly a sign of relief.)

So then Jeff Goldblum — poor Goldblum, man —  finds himself in a museum that’s actually creepier than half the haunted houses you see in horror movies, like, if this is an indication of Wes Anderson’s ability to shoot scary scenes, I would seriously like to see a horror movie by him post haste. (Come on, how amazing would a horror movie by Wes Anderson be? I can’t even imagine. The possibilities, you guys, the possibilities. I thought I couldn’t want anything more than a Wes Anderson remake of The Breakfast Club, but apparently I was wrong.)

Anyway, just as Jeff Goldblum seems home free, Willem Dafoe appears out of the darkness and slams a heavy door shut on Goldblum’s hand, instantly severing four of his fingers. It’s not particularly gory, but it’s so shockingly abrupt. We don’t even need to see Goldblum’s demise because nothing could top those four little fingers suddenly falling into the snow.

Except for maybe this:

Oh my god, you guys. Inappropriate Giggling Fit # 2. I laughed SO HARD. I even laughed posting this picture.

It can’t all be giggles and amputated fingers, though. While I was more or less expecting Ralph Fiennes to die at the end of the movie, I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting for him to be murdered by a death squad. (Not that we see the scene itself, but again, we don’t need to.) And while you know the Grand Budapest Hotel is going to get destroyed, I wasn’t expecting the very last lines of the movie to be this: “The next week I sailed for a cure in South America and began a long, wandering journey abroad. I did not return to Europe for many years. It was an enchanting old ruin, but I never managed to see it again.” I mean, shit. Things got depressing fast in the last few minutes of this movie.

But despite my initial surprise, I don’t feel like the downer ending was a hard left turn into What-the-Fuckville. I felt there was just enough hints at foreshadow throughout the film to support this bleak end. My only problem with the Gloomy Ending of Doom is, once again, Agatha. We find out that she died in childbirth only a few short years after her marriage to Zero, and that just seemed like an unnecessary and annoying kick to the jewels, so to speak. Her death doesn’t play into the plot and isn’t cleverly foreshadowed like Gustave’s and clearly only happens to make things more depressing for Zero, as if losing his mentor and eventually his hotel aren’t depressing enough. Also, while women did and still do die in childbirth, there’s something frustrating about how often it’s used in stories, like, we need to get rid of a woman? Well, let’s just kill her off in childbirth! That way, we can kill the woman AND the baby and double dose on the tragedy! Wee!

Other than that, though, I really liked this movie, unusual tonal shifts and all.

QUOTES:

Gustave: “Keep your hands off my lobby boy!”

Gustave: “You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that’s what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant . . . oh, fuck it.”

Gustave: “You’re looking so well, darling, you really are. They’ve done a marvelous job. I don’t know what sort of cream they’ve put on you down at the morgue, but I want some. Honestly, you look better than you have in years. You look like you’re alive.”

Gustave: “Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the penny dreadfuls, it’s that when you find yourself in a place like this, you must never be a candy ass.”

Gustave: “She’s been murdered, and you think I did it.” (beat, then Gustave turns and runs)

Pinky: “Me and the boys talked it over. We think you’re a really straight fellow.”
Gustave: “Well, I’ve never been accused of that before, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

Gustave: “You’re the first of the official death squads that we’ve been formally introduced to. How do you do?”

Gustave: “I’ll never part with it. It reminded her of me. It will remind me of her, always. I’ll die with this picture above my bed. See the resemblance?”
Zero: “Oh . . . oh, yes.”
(cut to moments later)
Gustave: “Actually, we should sell it.”

Gustave: “Take extra-special care of every little bit of it, as if I were watching over you like a hawk with a horsewhip in its talons, because I am.”

Serge: “I was the official witness in Madame D’s presence to the creation of a second will to be executed only in the event of her death by murder.”

Gustave: “How’s our dear Agatha?”
Zero: “Twas first light, when I saw her face upon the heath, and hence did I return, day by day, entranced, though vinegar did brine my heart, never w — “
Gustave: “Very good! I’m going to stop you there because the alarm has sounded, but remember where we left off, because I insist you finish later.”

Kovacs: “I’m an attorney, Dmitri, obligated to proceed according to the rule of law. Not agreed.”

Kovacs: “Something’s missing. A crucial document, either misplaced or conceivably destroyed. I don’t know what it contains; I don’t know what it represents; I don’t know what it is. But there are traces and shadows of it everywhere.”

CONCLUSIONS:

I liked this one. How much probably remains to be determined because most Wes Anderson movies grow on me over time, but overall, I think it’s one of my favorites I’ve seen so far. I just wish his next movie would have more interesting opportunities for women.

MVP:

Ralph Fiennes

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Civility is an uncommon virtue, but it will also get you killed.

I’ve never had a real firm opinion of the Coen brothers. Some stuff I really like (O Brother Where Art Thou), some stuff I mostly like (True Grit), and some stuff I don’t particularly like at all (Fargo). And then, of course, there are also the films I could never quite make up my mind about (No Country for Old Men). So I kind of figured well, anything goes when I sat down to watch the Coens’ big screen film debut, Blood Simple.

It’s not without its problems, but for the most part, I enjoyed this film.

SUMMARY:

A jealous piece of shit (Dan Hedaya) hires a sleazy private eye (M. Emmett Walsh) to kill his wife (Frances McDormand) and her lover (John Getz). Things don’t quite go according to plan.

NOTES:

1. For once, I’m not going to critique Netflix’s summary. (Well, not too much, anyway. Maybe just a little bit — but that’s for later.) This time, I’m actually complaining about IMDb’s: “A rich but jealous man hires a private investigator to kill his cheating wife and her new man. But, when blood is involved, nothing is simple.”

Okay, first off, that last line? C’mon, son. I’ll ignore the unnecessary comma after ‘but’ because let’s face it: I am the Queen of the Unnecessary Comma. But seriously — ‘when blood is involved, nothing is simple’? Really, writer? Really? Be honest: you were involved in that whole  ‘Titans . . . Will . . . Clash’ fiasco, weren’t you? (No, I will never let that go.) This is unacceptable.

Also, I’m confused by the ‘rich but jealous,’ as if jealousy is a deeply unusual thing to find in a rich person, like the wealthy are somehow less inclined to care if their spouses are schtupping semi-attractive bartenders. (And if I may, a side note? I just googled ‘schtupping’ to make sure I was spelling it correctly — I was — and it seems that the verb is generally spelled ‘shtup,’ but add an ‘ing’ to it, and it suddenly requires a ‘c’? I am deeply perplexed by this. Would someone with a more thorough understanding of Yiddish or just grammar in general care to comment?)

Oh, and while we’re on the deeply relevant subject of grammar: apparently, Blood Simple is properly Blood Simple. because that’s how it appears on the screen. However, I will continue referring to it without the punctuation mark in this review for the simple reason that I think the period looks stupid.

2. All right, so, movie. Yes. Structurally, I think this is a very interesting film. There were some fairly clever subversions of a lot of noir tropes, and many plot developments continually surprised me. (Always a nice treat.) I can’t discuss these in much detail now, unfortunately, but I was fairly impressed with how the story unfolded.

3. I was considerably less impressed with the Magic Blood That Never Dries.

I’m going to lightly spoil this movie for you: someone dies. Yes, a character in a noir movie dies. Stop the presses. I won’t tell you who dies, but I will tell you that they get blood over the backseat of somebody’s car, and that blood continues to thoroughly soak through towels several hours (if not days) later. (I was not fully clear on the time frame.) It drives me CRAZY. I can take all kinds of artsy transitions, like, where a person standing in one room appears to fall backwards into her bed in a completely other room later that night, but for fuck’s sake: blood dries. This is not up for debate. Unless a ghost is literally haunting the back of that car, I do not want to see bleeding car seats.

4. My biggest problem with the film, though, has to do with Abby and Ray’s relationship.

I feel like this is a problem I’ve had with several noir films this year, where the plot relies and/or centers heavily around a romance that I just don’t buy. Like, these two aren’t complete strangers to one another when we meet them — Ray (Getz) tells Abby (McDormand) that he likes her, in an ‘I’ve always liked you, whenever you’ve hung around the bar, even though your husband is my boss and also an asshole’ kind of way. But they clearly don’t actually know each other all that well, and only the next day Ray’s acting weird and kind of jerk-ish around her because inciting jealousy in Ray turns out to be remarkably easy. It’s kind of a weird scene, actually, like I think I know why it’s there but I also don’t know if it’s entirely successful — mostly because it turned me against Ray very early in the film, and I feel like this probably wasn’t intentional.

Regardless, at this point in the movie, I would not say these two are In Love, and I don’t feel like they would say it, either. Except that shortly afterwards, Ray makes some rather startling (and stupid) decisions for someone who isn’t in love. And not too long after that, he actually drops the ‘L’ word, which seems like an all-around bad call. Maybe if this affair had been going on for a long, long time — but that’s not really the impression I got from the beginning of this movie.

5. Overall, I’d say the acting in this film is pretty good. Dan Hedaya and M. Emmett Walsh are both solid, although I think the battle for MVP is between Frances McDormand and John Getz. It’s kind of a trip to see McDormand because she’s so young here. (I think the first thing I saw her in was Fargo, which came out twelve years later.) Her performance isn’t particularly showy, but it’s strong and I really like that Abby isn’t useless. And actually, seeing Getz here is kind of funny too because I primarily know him from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, where he plays Gus, the Skeevy Schmuck. I did struggle with Ray’s likability at several points, but I also really enjoyed a lot of his reactions as things went from bad to worse. They seemed very believable to me.

6. Finally, the ominous music in this film is not subtle, but it is effective. However, the song I really wanted in this movie is this one:

Uh, don’t watch if you haven’t seen Donnie Darko. BIG TIME SPOILERS there. But seriously, there’s this one scene in Blood Simple where all the main players are sitting alone in the dark, looking appropriately angsty, and I’m like, “Dude, this is one Gary Jules cover away from belonging in a Richard Kelly film. If Frank the Bunny walks in, I am OUT.”

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, some of the things I liked about this movie:

1. The PI is the bad guy.

Now, not every film noir is about a private investigator. And whether they’re PI’s or or cops or writers or insurance salesmen, the protagonists in any film noir tends to have, shall we say, a certain moral flexibility. In some cases, they’re willing to bend the rules in order to solve the case. In others, they’re just straight up doing naughty shit, usually for a woman or money or both. (We’ll skip how women are always luring men into doing Very Bad Things for now, although at some point, maybe I’ll make a list of every story I can think of with this not-at-all tired ‘Eve Tempting Adam’ thread running through it. Or you guys could just do this in the comments section for me.)

Still, even when they’re dislikable, greedy SOBs, the private detective in a film noir is rarely ever the actual antagonist and/or villain of the piece. But that’s exactly what Visser (Walsh) is in this movie, and unequivocally so. It’d be one thing if he just tried to kill Marty (Hedaya) because, dude, that guy is an asshole of the first order. But Visser actually does kill our main protagonist and tries to murder our leading lady, too. His Bad-Guy-Ness is not really a point of contention. (Or if it is, I don’t see how.) Interestingly, I knew Visser was going to double-cross Marty (because Netflix, unfortunately, told me so), but I’ll admit, I figured he was just going to steal the money, or maybe tell Abby and Ray what Marty hired him to do. I didn’t figure Visser was going to shoot the bastard 41 minutes into the movie.

Unfortunately, Visser is not as clever as he thinks he is because not only does he accidentally leave his trusty lighter behind at the crime scene, he never checks to make sure Marty is dead. Of course, Ray doesn’t either because Ray seems bound and determined to make as many terrible decisions as he can in the course of one night.

A. Upon discovering that he is in the room with a dead body, Ray doesn’t immediately leave or call 911. I would have understood either. Instead . . .

B. . . Ray PICKS UP THE GUN lying on the floor, the gun that is very clearly the murder weapon. It’s not like he trips and, oh no, his fingers accidentally landed on the handle or something. No, he actually has to get on his knees and fish the gun out from underneath this big thing — because that is absolutely what you should be doing at a crime scene, particularly when the corpse just happens to be the dead body of the guy whose wife you are currently screwing on your off hours.

C. Ray tries to clean up the crime scene.

Now, admittedly, he’s doing this because the gun is Abby’s and he thinks she’s the one who murdered Marty. Which is sweet, I guess, although since I don’t really buy their love connection at this point, I have a hard time believing that he’d do this for her. Because I’ll tell you, I like a lot of people in my life, but there are very few I’d actually be willing to bury bodies for. (If you’re wondering, it’s probably not you.) Self-preservation would be much more understandable, except if self-preservation was really the driving motivation, you think Ray wouldn’t have picked up the fucking gun in the first place. I’m sorry, I’m not getting over that any time soon. When will people stop doing this in movies? WHEN?

D. Ray doesn’t check Marty’s pulse before dragging him back to his car and driving far, far away. Which is particularly unfortunate because Marty is not quite dead yet, and Ray now has a choice: does he suspiciously take Marty to the hospital like that’s where he was going all along, or does he finish Marty off himself? The latter is obviously morally wrong, but all things considered, it’s probably the smarter call if he wants to avoid jail. Surprisingly, Ray makes the smarter call for once . . .

E. . . in the most inhumane fashion ever. Does Ray let Marty get hit by a semi? No, he rescues him from that fate. Does Ray end it quickly with a shovel to the head? No, he can’t quite make himself do something as shockingly violent as that.

What he can do, it turns out, is bury Marty alive.

That’s right. Ray digs (a stupidly shallow) grave and then buries Marty in it because that’s somehow less troubling for him. Even I felt a little bad for Marty, and Marty’s a possessive, psychotic jackass who the world is certainly better off without.

Although this does lead to another thing I liked about the film:

2. Without ever stopping to actually say, “Oh, God, what have I done?” Ray basically spends the rest of the movie freaking the hell out.

Burying a guy alive was way more traumatic than I thought it would be.

Here’s what I find interesting about Ray: at the beginning of the film, he’s got that kind of ‘laconic, I-don’t-give-two-shits-what-anyone-thinks-of-me’ persona that you expect from a protagonist in a film noir — in fact, he’d fit right in with plenty of private and police detectives from the genre. But the actual private detective in Blood Simple is an obnoxious, opportunistic sleazeball who murders people. Meanwhile, Ray — who you almost expect to be all, “Hey, baby, it’s chill cause I did it for you” — can barely eat or sleep for the guilt of what he’s done and becomes immediately paranoid when Abby acts like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Which, of course, she doesn’t because Ray never comes right out and says, “Abby, I found your husband’s body, and I buried it because I didn’t want the cops to realize you had killed him. Also, he wasn’t quite dead when I buried him because I’m a terrible person, and for this reason alone, I’d understand if you wanted to stop sleeping with me.”

One of the clever things about this movie is how it’s set up so that nobody knows all the facts. Marty’s duped into believing Visser killed Ray and Abby, but Visser doesn’t realize that Marty’s secretly kept one of the photos of the staged crime. (Not to mention he loses that lighter.) Ray doesn’t know that Visser planted Abby’s gun, and Abby doesn’t know about Visser at all, not even at the very end of the film. (We’ll get to that.)

And Abby, too, is not quite who you think she is when the movie begins.

At the beginning of the film, Abby is set up to be the usual femme fatale, particularly when Asshole Marty tells Stupid Ray that, basically, she’s a ho who’s going to abandon him the second she feels like it. Specifically, Marty says that Abby will pretend she isn’t sleeping around by saying, “I ain’t done nothing funny.”

Now, this scene pays off nicely when Abby does indeed say that exact same thing, only Ray doesn’t think she’s lying about sleeping around. He thinks she’s lying about killing Marty and is, essentially, leaving him to hang for it. Which is pretty clever, actually, switching up the context like that — my problem is, even before all this murder nonsense happens, Ray does get super jealous after Marty winds him up, and he starts acting all rude and standoffish to Abby, which made me immediately dislike him. Like, really, guy? Some total schmuck says a few words about your girlfriend’s possible future infidelity, and you’re like, Yup, he’s definitely got a point. Better go home and be an asshole to my woman. I mean, what is this, Othello?

Not to mention, Ray’s kind of a serious dick about sleeping with Abby in general. Mind you, this is before anyone’s hired to kill anyone else. It’s even before Marty sneaks into Ray’s house and attacks Abby like the fucking psychotic creeper that he is — I wouldn’t give a shit what Ray said to him then. But at THIS point, all Ray knows is that he’s sleeping with the boss’s wife, and while I wouldn’t expect him to apologize, I’m not entirely convinced he has to be such a complete tool about it, either.

So, yeah. I kind of immediately hated Ray. On the other hand . . .

3. I liked Abby quite a bit.

For one thing, we discover pretty quickly that she’s not some manipulative, boyfriend-hopping, ‘I-seduce-men-to-the-Dark-Side’ trope of a woman fairly fast. All the rambling about Marty’s anal retentiveness made that fairly clear. (Although, I will admit the dialogue in that scene seemed a little off to me, like, I kind of felt Abby and Ray were having two different conversations there.) I wouldn’t say she’s a particularly well-developed character, but she’s not the cliche I assumed she would be, and that means a lot. Plus, when Marty does sneak in and attack her like the fucking psychotic creeper that he is, Abby breaks his finger, not to mention kicks him in the nuts so hard that he vomits.

Fuck yeah, Abby. Good for you.

Abby continues her awesomeness at the end of the movie — but let’s come back to that in a minute. First, Ray freaks Abby out by saying that he buried Marty alive. Abby tells Meurice (another one of Marty’s employees) this, and Meurice (quite rightly) says that she should stay away from Ray, although he also says (quite incorrectly) that Marty can’t be dead. (I’m a little sad that Meurice and his new friend Debbie didn’t end up having bigger roles, although frankly I’m just happy Meurice didn’t die, considering he’s the only non-white character in the whole movie.) I definitely assumed that the movie was setting Abby up to murder Ray — which, yawn — but luckily, I was wrong about that.

Actually, Ray is waiting for Abby in their loft, standing in the dark like another fucking psychotic creeper. Only he actually has a legitimate reason to be standing alone in the dark: he thinks someone (i.e., Visser) is outside, watching him. Abby doesn’t believe him (in her defense, she doesn’t have much reason to) and turns on the light. Ray, for some reason, continues to stand as he tries to explain to her that he’s not a psychotic murderer instead of immediately getting low to the ground. For this, he is promptly murdered.

This reminded me so strongly of a scene from Veronica Mars that I couldn’t help but wonder if Rob Thomas had been inspired by Blood Simple. (He might not have been. Getting killed for standing in front of large windows is a time-honored tradition, as seen in movies such as Dog Soldiers, Feast, and Lethal Weapon.) Anyway, Ray is super toast. We know that he’s super toast because Visser takes the time to hit him over the head with what I think is some kind of small statue. (But I swear to God, initially I thought it was one of Marty’s frozen dead fish. I was like, Wow, that is a particularly odd weapon to carry around with you from crime scene to crime scene.)

Meanwhile, Abby has little choice but to lock herself in the bathroom when Visser comes for her. She manages to climb out the window and crawl into the next apartment. When Visser tries to do this as well, Abby awesomely stabs his hand through the windowsill, pinning him down. Then she circles around back to the apartment, walking unnecessarily slowly. There’s actually a cool reversal here where Visser is suddenly playing the victim trapped in the bathroom, usually a woman’s role. (In fact, it just was.) And Abby’s playing the bad guy and person with power, so the Slow Stroll of Doom works thematically — she’s gone from being Laurie Strode to Michael Myers in about five minutes. Still. Practically, it just drives me nuts. For the love of God, woman. Walk faster before he manages to free himself and come at you.

Abby (finally) circles back to her own apartment and picks up her gun. (Which only has one bullet left it in it — I like how this particular gun is used dramatically throughout the film). And before Visser can, in fact, come at her, she shoots him through the door.

I was worried that she was going to hit something non-vital and have no ammunition left, but she doesn’t. Instead, it’s a much more interesting reveal/twist: Abby says, “I’m not afraid of you, Marty.” Because, see, she automatically assumes it’s Marty who’s come to kill her, which from her perspective completely makes sense, since he’s already attacked her once, and she never actually saw Visser’s face. Meurice has told her that Marty’s still alive, and Abby doesn’t have any way to know her husband hired a private detective in the first place. I think all that works really well.

I will admit to not quite getting the last shot, though. Visser laughs hysterically and gets his last line in, but then looks like he’s freaking out about . . . a drop of water soon to drip on his head? If there’s some bigger meaning in that, I didn’t get it at all, because all I could think was, Dude, you’ve got a bullet in your belly. I feel like there are more pressing issues at hand. It just seems like a really weird shot to end the film on.

But end, it did. And that’s about that.

QUOTES:

Marty: “You know, in Greece, they would cut off the head of the messenger that brought the bad news.”
Visser: “Now that don’t make much sense.”
Marty: “No. It made them feel better.”
Visser: “Well, first off, Julian, I don’t know what the story is in Greece, but in this state, we got very definite laws about that.”

Visser: “Well, give me a call when you wanna cut off my head. I can always crawl around without it.”

Ray: “Liked to have seen his face when he found the dead end.”

Marty: “So, what’re you doing tonight?”
Debra: “Going out with Meurice.”
Marty: “Tell him you have a headache.”
Debra: “It’ll pass.”
Marty: “We don’t seem to be communicating — “
Debra: “You want to hustle me. I don’t want to be hustled. It’s as simple as that. Now that I’ve communicated, why don’t you leave?”

Ray: “Is Marty here tonight?”
Meurice: “Not here tonight. Wasn’t here last night. He’s especially not back in his office.”

Abby: “I’m not afraid of you, Marty.”
Visser (laughing): “Well, ma’am, if I see him, I’ll sure give him the message.”

Marty: “I got a job for you.”
Visser: “Well, if the pay’s right and it’s legal, I’ll do it.”
Marty: “It’s not strictly legal.”
Visser: “Well, if the pay’s right, I’ll do it.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Not bad. Not perfect — it’s got a few rough edges — but it’s interesting and, at points, extremely clever.

MVP:

Frances McDormand

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Use your words. If you were a better communicator, Ray, you might not be dead right now. At the very least, stop standing in front of giant windows when you think someone might want you dead. I mean, that’s just common sense, right? Haven’t you seen Lethal Weapon?

Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. You get to dress up in fun costumes, have an excuse to eat junk food that you were going to eat anyway, and watch a bunch of scary movies. Also, it’s not a traditionally Family Gathering kind of holiday, so it comes with a lot less drama than, say, Thanskgiving or Christmas.

Also, in my house, Halloween is a time to savor truly terrible horror movies.

We will begin Splatterfest 2014 with our first film: Nine Dead.

SUMMARY:

Nine strangers are kidnapped and locked in a room together. Their abductor explains that he’ll kill one of them every ten minutes until they can figure out how they’re all connected and why they’re all here.

NOTES:

1. This is exactly the kind of mystery that I get all nerdy and excited about. A group of strangers having to figure out who they are or how they’re connected is just such a great setup for a story. The amount of potential is staggering. And yet, these mysteries are rarely — if ever — executed well, and not surprisingly, Nine Dead is no exception.

One of the biggest problems for me? Racist and homophobic stereotypes. I won’t go into details until the Spoiler Section, but wow. There are some serious problems here. I’m talking issues like whoa.

2. Another serious problem?

Melissa Joan Hart is hideously miscast as Kelley. Like, it’s bad. It’s also inevitable because Hartbreak Films, her own production company, is the one producing this shit. And, admittedly, a lot of the writing doesn’t do Hart any favors. Kelley was never going to be a great character, and no actress could have fully saved her. Regardless, she is deeply unconvincing in the role.

I also take considerable issue with some of her backstory . . . but we’ll have to discuss  that later, too.

3. Actually, due to the nature of this story, I’m not sure how much I can really say without Spoilers. I can tell you that while this film introduces a fair number of red herrings that lead absolutely nowhere, I’m surprisingly okay with it. After all, it’d be silly if each character immediately knew what they did to warrant abduction and potential execution. They have to talk it out, go through all the shit they’ve ever done, and some of them have done some naughty shit. It make sense that a few characters bring up Big Sins that end up having nothing to do with why they’re there.

4. I also like some of the reactions to the general insanity that’s going on around them.

Okay, some of them are just overacting. William Lee Scott is kind of hilarious, though not always (or even mostly) intentionally. But while few of the characters are particularly likable, most of them have at least a couple of funny moments or completely believable reactions that makes them, if not fully sympathetic, then at least watchable.

And then there’s Kelley.

5. Unfortunately, just too much goes wrong with this story. In fact, one mistake is made immediately: for some reason, we have to watch about half of the characters get abducted instead of just beginning in the Room of Doom. The abductions don’t take long, at least, but they’re pretty repetitive and don’t serve much purpose. Most of the information we can glean from these short scenes is later fed to us, anyway, so I don’t think there’s anything here that provides a crucial clue to solving the mystery.

Similarly, we keep cutting away from the Room of Doom to watch cars — quite possibly the same car — drive by the warehouse they’re stuck in, and I have no idea why. I assumed that this car had to be important by the end, but for the life of me, I don’t see how. And the ending, like the very last shot? It’s pretty terrible. I’ve disliked abrupt endings before, but the way this movie cuts out, it’s like someone completely forgot to put in the last scene, like the camera stopped recording and no one realized before they sent the movie off. It’s hideously bad.

If you’re not going to watch Nine Dead — and be honest, you’re totally not — feel free to continue onward.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

All right, let’s see if I can remember how all these people are connected.

Christian, a bartender, aspiring actor, and very first to die, gets a loan from mob moneylender, strip joint owner, and all-around-asshat Sully. Christian plans to use this money for some big drug deal thing. Alas, he is caught and goes to jail. When he gets out, he has no money to pay Sully back, and fearing for his life — or at the very least, his kneecaps — buys a gun from Leon and robs Mrs. Chan’s store. Fortunately for Christian and deeply unfortunately for Mrs. Chan, she mistakenly picks Wade Greeley out of the police lineup. ADA Kelley knows that Mrs. Chan isn’t a reliable witness, though, since she suffered a concussion and is, like, old and stuff. And Kelley desperately needs a win, or she’s on her way out, so she uses her unwitting, married boyfriend, Officer Jackson, to plant evidence. And even though Christian confesses his crime to Father Francis, the priest refuses to break his vows and tell the police what he knows. Thus, Wade Greeley goes to jail, where he is raped by child-molester/murderer Coogan. As if this wasn’t enough, Wade also contracts AIDS from Coogan. When he gets out of prison, Wade applies for an experimental AIDS treatment that’s his only chance of survival, but Eddie denies the claim based on his felony conviction. Thus the miserable existence of Wade Greeley comes to an end, and Wade’s father (John Terry) is seriously pissed.

Okay, now that you know all that . . . man. There are just so many things to discuss. Let’s begin with those stereotypes I mentioned before, and the deeply problematic characters that are Leon and Coogan.

Leon is the only black character in the cast, and of course, he’s this thug guy who runs guns and robs people, not to mention killed his own brother. (And dumped his corpse during a Cinco de Mayo festival because his brother never liked Mexicans. All sorts of fun racism in this movie. Another example: Leon is mocking Mrs. Chan by pulling at the corners of his eyes and making some vaguely Chinese-sounding babble. Mrs. Chan, in turn, lets out a spew of pissed off Chinese, which she chooses to punctuate with the one English word everyone in the room understands. Hint: it starts with ‘n.’) Admittedly, the majority of characters in this film are hardly paragons of decency and compassion, but not everyone is a total waste of a human being, and Leon’s casting wouldn’t have bothered me nearly so much if, say, Insurance Dude Eddie or Kindly Father Francis were also black.

Still, it’s Coogan that bothers me the most.

To remind you, Coogan is a man who both molests and murders children. (He is, apparently, not particular when it comes to girls or boys.) He isn’t the least bit ashamed of this. In fact, he seems rather satisfied with himself. Dare I say sassy. I take no issue with the fact that Coogan is a remorseless, murdering pedophile, or even that he’s occasionally funny. (Because, honestly, he is. I hate how the character’s portrayed, but the actor is clearly one of the stronger talents in the room.) I do, however, take issue with the fact that his every line delivery is just dripping with Saucy Gay Evil — to the point where he’s near-lisping some of his lines. Again, it’s particularly bad when there are, so far as I can tell, no other gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters in this film. Yes, folks, there is only one non-hetero character in Nine Dead, and he’s a pedophile rapist with AIDS.

For fuck’s sake.

On the upside, Mek and I took a few bets throughout the movie (like who was first to die, that sort of thing) and we both kept losing them. It’s impressive when a movie can surprise you, and this one did, a number of times, even. I think the only thing I twigged to super early was that Jackson was a cop, partially because when he’s abducted next to Daniel Baldwin, Baldwin pulls out a gun, and my immediate instinct was, Oh, cop. Even without that scene, though, it’s pretty obvious Jackson is LAPD, what with his repeated insistence that this isn’t some cop ploy to trick convicts into incriminating themselves, and the fact that ADA Kelley, who clearly knows who Jackson is, pointedly asks if he wants to reveal something else about himself. (I would also like to add that these people are morons. Yeah, guys. The cops kidnapped each of you with stun guns and set up this whole elaborate operation. I mean, come on, dudes. This is going a little beyond, “Your buddy’s in the next room, so you better talk fast if you wanna make a deal.”)

Also, Daniel Baldwin is, admittedly, the least well-known of the Baldwin brothers, but he’s still sort of name, particularly in a movie where the biggest stars are Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the second-to-least useful kid from the remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds, and Christian Shepherd from Lost. So, you’d expect him to appear for more than 35 seconds, right? Yes, well, you’d be wrong. I checked. I was sure Baldwin would come in at the end of the film, but apparently he was only cast to say a couple of lines and get tased. It is remarkably bizarre.

Other incorrect guesses:

In a twist, Mrs. Chan secretly speaks English all along!

Nope. Evil Christian Shepherd — as I will now be referring to him — actually gives her a note written in Chinese to explain why she’s here just before he kills her. As I’m pretty sure Google Translate would have failed him (like it fails us all), I can only assume that he had to actually ask somebody, “Hey, can you write this in Chinese for me: ‘You falsely identified my son as a criminal, and he went to prison, was raped, and died from AIDS because of it.’ Thanks a bunch!”)

The black guy would die first.

Nope. It’s Christian, er, Bartender Christian. (Evil Christian Shepherd says the death order is random, but later suggests that it isn’t. This becomes problematic later.) Regardless, Mek said that Sweater Vest Guy (Eddie) would die first, but while neither of us were right and thus have failed to become a dime richer, her guy didn’t die until the very end of the movie. So I clearly won this round.

Kelley had Jackson’s Affair Baby and didn’t tell him she had an abortion.

Not quite. Mek and I were both right about the baby, but Kelley actually kept the kid and just said it was someone else’s.

The priest isn’t a priest because when two different people can’t remember how a prayer goes, he can’t or fails to help them finish it.

Nope. The first time around, it’s Christian who can’t remember the prayer, and the priest is flustered because he thinks he recognizes Christian’s voice from confession. (Kid couldn’t remember the prayer then, either.) The second time, it’s Eddie, and it flusters the priest some more because it reminds him of Now Dead Christian, whose crime is certainly the reason that they’re there, only the priest can’t tell anyone that without breaking his vows.

Once we knew there was a Secret Confession — but before we linked it to the forgotten prayers — I figured it was Kelley telling Father Francis about the abortion, since Kelley seems the most ridiculously desperate to keep her secrets hidden. (Kelley has priority issues, although admittedly, Christian has more, as he laments that he’s going to miss his audition a few minutes before his demise.) She very obviously keeps trying to change the subject from ‘Talking About Our Deepest, Darkest Sins’ to ‘Let’s Kill That Motherfucker, Even Though We Have No Way Out of Here, and The One Guy Who Came Closest to Escaping is Now Dead.’)

I make mention of these failed guesses because there are actually some pretty clever misdirects and red herrings in this movie. The thing with the prayer, for instance, or bringing up Sully’s dead brother, or the fact that Jackson once helped beat and blind a kid because he was a rookie cop too scared to stand up to his superiors . . . these are all pretty effective in keeping the audience guessing. I’m not kidding when I say that there’s potential in this story.

Unfortunately, there are also some plot holes like you would not believe. Let’s go back to Evil Christian Shepherd, who we will now be referring to as Evil Omniscient Christian Shepherd.

The only way this plot makes any sense is if our killer is omniscient. Because, logically, there’s no way he can know how everyone is involved. Sure, he knows that Mrs. Chan identified the wrong man, even if was an honest mistake. He knows that it was Eddie’s signature on the letter that says, ‘Nope, no treatment for you.’ And his son could easily have told him who raped him in prison. Everyone else, though, is a bit sketchy.

I suppose it’s at least possible that Evil Omniscient Christian Sheperd could’ve guessed Kelley was framing his son, and that the cop she was having an affair with was helping her, intentionally or otherwise. But I fail to see how he figured out that Bartender Christian was the real thief in the first place, or that he got a loan from Sully, or bought a gun from Leon. (Especially Leon, since that purchase happened in the middle of the night with no apparent witnesses.) But it’s really Father Francis who seals the deal. Father Francis won’t even tell these fuckers what he knows to save his own life, or theirs. So, how in holy hell did EOCS know that Bartender Christian went to confession, OR what he confessed there?

Other problems arise, too, when EOCS tries to kill poor, sweater-vest wearing Eddie.

EOCS has the gun pointed at Sully, who’s taunting the shit out of him. (I actually sort of love that Sully never feels remorse for what he’s done, that he refuses to die angry or scared, and that he’s mostly just incredulous that he’s gonna die for loaning some asshole five grand instead of any the hugely terrible shit that he’s done.) Sully says, “C’mon, asshole, pull the trigger!”and EOCS is like, “Yeah, one prob. It’s Eddie’s turn to die next.” Understandably, Eddie is a lot less eager to accept death with open arms, but when EOCS fires his gun, Father Francis jumps in the way and dies instead. EOCS is about to kill Eddie anyway, but Jackson reminds him of his own rules: one person dies every ten minutes. So EOCS stomps away petulantly and waits for the clock to rundown.

Here are my problems:

A. If EOCS is now killing based on some order that only he understands, Eddie should be the next person to die after Father Francis. Instead, Mrs. Chan is killed. Why? Well, because we need to keep Eddie alive to learn what his role in the mystery is. Mrs. Chan, on the other hand, has already revealed all of her secrets, so she goes next instead. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough for me. I need an actual story reason Eddie doesn’t die next, even if it’s just seeing EOCS pulling names out of a hat before he enters the room every time.

B. More importantly — and I didn’t actually catch this until after the movie was over — EOCS has whispered (or delivered a note) to every character he kills right before he kills them. Watching how they react is part of the mystery. Bartender Christian’s last words are: “How could I have known that?” Whereas, Coogan’s last words were: “Yeah. That’s a good reason.” Once we know why they’re here, those reactions make more sense. However, EOCS doesn’t tell Eddie why he’s been condemned to die. Why? Well, because Eddie doesn’t die. If Eddie died, then he’d know and be able to share a huge part of the mystery with the others. Basically, the movie would end in the next two minutes. But again, I need an actual story reason EOCS doesn’t tell Eddie why he’s here, and there isn’t one.

The only way Father Francis’s sacrifice play works, I think, is this: someone need to piss EOCS off so much that he forgets his whole whisper ritual thing and just tries to shoot them, only the good Catholic priest gets in the way. In which case, the person shouldn’t be Eddie — who just can’t inspire that kind of rage — but Kelley. I’m not really crazy about the idea of a guy nobly sacrificing himself for the one white woman in the room, but story-wise, it makes much more sense. Kelly is the only other person close enough to Father Francis, and she’s also the one that pisses off EOCS the most.

Because let’s be clear about this: Kelley inspires so much rage for so many reasons.

A good part of it, as I said earlier, has to do with performance. I haven’t seen a less convincing assistant district attorney since Katie Holmes in Batman Begins, and I’ll be honest with you guys: in the battle for realism between Katie Holmes and Melissa Joan Hart, Katie Holmes wins hands-down. Kelley is also deeply unlikable because her first and foremost character trait is that she’s an uber bitch, presumably because she’s a strong-minded, career-first kind of woman, and that unfortunately tends to translate to One-Note Shrew in Hollywood. Of course, that makes no sense to me, because I feel like a character whose primary goal is to preserve her reputation would not be bitching about something every time she opens her mouth, but that’s basically what she does here. And since we don’t learn much about the only other woman in the movie — as she doesn’t speak English and none of the other abductees speak Chinese — well, ladies, Kelley is pretty much our only representation in this movie. Yay, girl power?

And I haven’t even gotten to the Last Minute Rape Subplot yet.

Yup. In the last ten to twelve minutes of the movie, Kelley abruptly decides to tell Eddie and Jackson — the only guys left — about how she was abducted off the street one day and raped in the back of a van, only she managed to get the upper hand and killed the shit out of that guy. Then she went back to work the next day like nothing happened. And maybe you’re wondering if this rape has something to do with Wade Greeley and why she’s here; well, it doesn’t, not at all. As far as I can tell, there are only three possible reasons for this monologue:

A: To garner some last-minute sympathy for Kelley, who survived such a horrific ordeal. (This is probably the least likely reason, considering what happens at the end, but I bring it up because I’ve seen too many TV shows and movies have an unsympathetic or generally disliked character raped in hopes that it will make people feel sorry for her and like her more. I cannot possibly express to you how much I hate this trope.)

B. So that Eddie could hear her story about rape, think to himself, ‘Hey, you know where rape happens a lot? Prison. And Wade Greeley ended up in prison — what if he got raped by one of the many people here who have been to jail, like Coogan. And what if Coogan was HIV+, since he’s the most likely to be, obviously, as a bisexual child predator and all, and shit, remember how I had to tell people once that they couldn’t have our nifty new AIDS medicine if they were convicted of a felony? Holy shit, I solved the puzzle.’

No, really, that’s pretty much how it goes. Two seconds after Kelley has told her story, Eddie makes the rape connection. It is the dumbest thing in all existence.

C. To show that Kelley is a fighter and will survive at all costs. We know this because Kelley wraps up her story by saying, “I will survive at all costs.” This is incredibly last-minute and wholly unnecessary foreshadow for what happens next: EOCS lets the three of them go as promised, but Kelley doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s done, so she kills everyone. (It’s EOCS, you see, that makes up the titular nine dead, not Kelley.) I really don’t believe you need to lay in the groundwork that Kelley has murder “in her” because honestly, don’t we all have murder in us? Are we trying to say that if Kelley hadn’t been raped, she wouldn’t have been able to kill these people, that the rape is the one and only thing that broke her humanity or something? Because that’s some bullshit. That’s another trope I’m not a particularly huge fan of.

But if you feel it’s absolutely essential to add in this whole backstory (and it’s not), then guys, you cannot just shove it in there ten minutes before the end of the movie. That’s ridiculous. If Kelley is going to tell this story at all, it needs to happen much, much earlier, maybe back when people are confessing if they killed anyone or not.

As a side note: I’m trying to decide who got screwed over the most. Jackson had absolutely no reason to suspect the evidence Kelley gave him, so he really didn’t do anything wrong here. Although he’s also the guy that helped blind a dude that one time. Mrs. Chan picking Wade out of the lineup certainly turned out bad for him, but she’s an old lady with a concussion, and there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest she did this maliciously. (Not to mention, it wouldn’t have been enough to convict Wade anyway without Kelley framing him.) And Eddie couldn’t have known that Wade was innocent of his felony conviction, and his company probably wouldn’t have care if they did. (Technically, the priest didn’t do anything wrong, either, but my sympathy for him depends on how much he knew and when he knew it. If he didn’t realize that someone else had been arrested, that’s one thing. If he did know and chose not to speak, I’d actually have a little less sympathy for him than, say, Sully, who’s a total scumbag and yet only related incidentally to the crime itself.)

I bring all this up because — before he dies — EOCS says something like, ‘If you people had only tried to help him,’ and ‘Any of you could’ve saved his life,’ and I think we’re all supposed to feel sorry for EOCS, like he’s not such a bad guy after all. (Especially now that Kelley’s in the picture). But I’m like, “Ehhhhh . . . I think we’re stretching this a bit. For one thing, I don’t actually think that’s true, that any of these people could have saved Wade’s life. For another, while I feel for this guy, let’s not kid ourselves here: this dude is a psychotic murderer. I have way more sympathy for Mrs. Chan than EOCS.”

Anyway, EOCS tells Kelley that it doesn’t matter if she kills him, that the police are already at the building and he’s been recording all of this. I assume this is true, although we never see the police look at any of these recordings. (Or, for that matter, find out if the police tracked the kidnapper down themselves, or if EOCS called them there.) Kelley decides to ignore this, kills everyone, and runs. Well, lightly jogs, anyway, the way you do when cops are chasing you.

This is how the movie ends: Kelley goes down one corridor and appears to be looking down another. The cops run by the same corridor, but nobody is there. And then the movie just cuts out. I think it’s supposed to imply that Kelley escapes the warehouse (because she’s a survivor, she’s gonna make it), but I can’t quite come up with the words to explain just how bad this last shot is. In fact, Mek and I rewound the movie to see if we blinked and missed something, or if something went wrong with the DVD, because it really feels like the last scene was accidentally chopped off and no one noticed. But there was nothing.

I know it’s a low-budget movie and all, but man. That may have been one of the worst film endings I’ve ever seen.

QUOTES:

Killer: “Don’t use your son as an excuse. It really pisses me off.”

Jackson: “You put me in a room with you and no windows and no doors, and you’re gonna wish that you were never born.”
Coogan: “Sweetie, we are in a room with no windows or doors, and the only thing you’re gonna do is try to survive, just like me.”

Sully: “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of me being all pissed off while I die. Of all the shit you could have killed me for. Five grand? Fuck you!”

Eddie: “My name is Eddie Vigoda.”
Sully: “Hi, Eddie!”
Eddie: “Maybe that helps somebody.”
Jackson: “No, Eddie. No. It doesn’t.”

Eddie: “You put yourself up on a pedestal, but you’re here just like the rest of us. So, why don’t you stop talking about why you shouldn’t be here and let’s figure out why you are.”

CONCLUSIONS:

So much wasted potential. Yet another Bottle Episode Mystery Movie I’d love to rewrite.

MVP:

Um. I’ll go with James C. Victor, I guess. (Eddie) But the actors who played Sully and, surprisingly, Coogan were also possibilities.

LVP:

Melissa Joan Hart, no question

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C

MORAL:

Don’t be a dirty rotten moneylender. Or sell illegal guns. Or rob people. Or rape people. Or frame people. Or sleep with people who might conceivably plant evidence. Or take your priestly vows seriously. Or do your job. Or try to identify a guy who stole all your money and gave you a concussion.

Basically, just stay home and watch television. Everyone’s better off that way.

I watched my last modern noir of the year.

I like Drive – it’s stylish and well-crafted — but I don’t love it the way I might have hoped.

SUMMARY:

A mechanic, stunt car driver, and getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) falls for his married neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and finds himself in a mess of trouble because of it.

NOTES:

1. Drive has an interesting sort of structure to it. The first ten minutes or so work really well, with a nice action sequence that draws us into the movie and a brief glimpse at our unnamed protagonist under pressure. We never learn a lot about the Driver, not where he comes from, not what he’s done, but I think you get a decent glimpse at what kind of man you’re dealing with fairly early on, and then again through several small moments throughout the film.

After the teaser, though, the pace of the film slows down considerably. If you came upon Drive maybe twenty minutes into the movie with no prior knowledge of the film, you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching an indie romantic drama. The second half of the story is considerably more action packed and violent than the first. Obviously, I’m a bigger fan of the second half, but overall, I think the pacing of the film works fairly well. In particular, I like when the movie chooses not to show you things, like when we watch Irene apply makeup as the phone rings, but we don’t actually see her pick it up. It’s all small stuff, but it helps give the movie a sort of quiet, sparse quality that I enjoy.

2. As always, though, I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on Irene and the Driver’s romance, mostly because Irene has absolutely no character.

Carey Mulligan is perfectly fine as Irene, but unfortunately, Irene herself is such an archetype that it’s impossible to give a damn about her one way or the other. She has next to no personality and is really only around to be in danger and thus give our male characters motivation; that is her one and only function in the entire plot. For bonus cliche points, she’s also a mother, making her doubly necessary to protect. If she at least said something funny or profound or interesting in any way, I might be able to look past this, but Irene doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue in this movie, as her romance with the Driver is entirely based on gazing into each other’s eyes for uncomfortably long periods of time.

(In fairness, the silence between their characters does evoke a certain romantic mood and fits the general tone of the film. But in real life, it would be awkward as hell, all . . . what? Do I have something on my face? Hello? Seriously, man. The HELL is wrong with you?)

3. The movie has a stellar cast; other than Gosling and Mulligan, we also have Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, and Christina Hendricks. (Although I feel the need to point out here that some of these people don’t get nearly as much screen time as I’d like.) I think Brooks is probably the standout of the supporting cast, although I like Bryan Cranston quite a bit too. He brings a certain energy to the screen, even when his character doesn’t actually have that much to do.

4. Certain scenes in this movie are also creepy as fuck.

Okay, well, this scene anyway. Part of it’s the spooky ass mask pictured above, and part of it’s the music that’s playing the entire time. The soundtrack here is very interesting: the majority of it has a super retro 80’s feel, despite the fact that none of it’s actually 80’s music, and definitely helps give the movie a certain singular voice. Drive is an entirely different movie with a different soundtrack behind it. (I guess you can say that for any movie, but it feels especially true in this case.)

Other noteworthy moments: any of the car chase sequences, everything that happens at the motel, the big showdown, and the Suddenly-Less-Romantic Elevator scene.

5. I wish I had more to tell you, but I actually don’t know if I have much to say about this one. I’ll talk a little more about the plot and certain things I liked in the Spoiler Section, but I don’t have a particularly deep analysis for you guys because I just don’t feel super passionate about it one way or the other. It’s an interesting piece of filmmaking, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more work by Nicolas Winding Refn, but the story itself leaves me a little cold, and I think my problems with Irene (and probably the lack of interesting women in general) are a big part of that.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

First: I don’t know if it’s a Fail, exactly, but there is certainly a Netflix Misdirect here: His [the Driver’s] newfound peace is shattered, however, when her [Irene’s] violent husband is released from prison.

It’s not entirely untrue, but the word that’s tripping me up is ‘violent.’ Standard (Oscar Isaac) is an ex-con, but while one scene implies that violence could be in the near future if the Driver and Irene carry on with their ‘special friendship’, Isaac never hurts anybody that we see in the film, seems remorseful about his past criminal activities, and only commits the pawn shop robbery in order to protect his wife and son. (Because again, that’s all they’re there for.) The way this summary is worded, you’d think Standard was the chief antagonist, which is just not true.

The basic story goes like this: Driver falls in wuv with Irene and bonds with her cute, shark-prejudiced son, Benicio. Unfortunately, Standard is released from prison, putting a stop to their near silent romance. Worse, he owes money, and if he doesn’t pay back, his family will be hurt. So the Driver negotiates on his behalf and agrees to help with one last job in order to free Standard from his debt. Along for the ride is Blanche (Christina Hendricks), whose only real job in this movie is to wear high heels and look scared.

The job goes bad fast. Blanche and the Driver get away with the money, but Standard is killed at the scene. Also, they end up stealing about $960,000 more than expected, but the news reports that the robbery was unsuccessful. The Driver gets intimidating and rough with Blanche fast, reminding the audience that no matter how helpful he is when his attractive neighbors have car trouble, this is an unrepentantly violent man. Blanche confesses that she and some goon were in on a double-cross, although she didn’t think anyone was supposed to die. Shortly thereafter, Blanche gets her head blown off.

It’s a good, shocking scene, and I don’t mind that Blanche dies, but I was hopeful that Christina Hendricks would have a little more to do, especially because she and the entirely boring Irene are the only female characters in this whole movie. If you read my reviews with any regularity, it’s possible that you’re tired of hearing me complain about this, but I’ve got to tell you, you’re probably not as tired as I am of writing about it. I’m exhausted of this bullshit male-to-female ratio in action, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and horror stories. These are my favorite genres. It would be neat to find some representation in them. (And if that’s how I feel as a white woman, that must go, like, quadruple for women of color.)

Okay. The Driver is wounded but escapes and eventually finds out that Nino (Ron Perlman) is behind the setup. He tries to return the money to Nino, but Nino would rather just kill him, given the opportunity. And after the Driver’s buddy, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), makes the well-meaning but ultimately pretty stupid decision to tell Nino who the Driver is, Nino hires a guy to do just do that. Of course, the Driver kills the guy, but now everybody is in danger, including Shannon. Nino’s partner, Bernie (Albert Brooks), is the one who kills him.

This isn’t particularly surprising because Shannon had “Dead Meat” written on his forehead from pretty much the second he showed up on screen, but it’s also especially not nice because Shannon and Bernie go back a ways, could even be considered friends. They’re shaking hands when Bernie slices deep up Shannon’s arm, severing the hell out of his arteries. “Don’t worry,” Bernie says immediately after doing this. “Don’t worry. That’s it. It’s done. There’s no pain. It’s over, it’s over.” Like most of the violent moments in this movie, it’s a pretty great scene.

The Suddenly-Less-Romantic Elevator scene is another good one.

Sometimes, I’m critical of female characters who are like, “Oh noes, my man killed someone for totally justifiable reasons, IT’S LIKE I NEVER EVEN KNEW HIM,” but here, I feel that stepping out of the elevator was a pretty appropriate reaction. In fact, this is probably the closest I come to actually liking Irene.

After finding Shannon dead, The Driver kills Nino by ramming his car off a cliff and shortly thereafter drowning him in the ocean. (I still maintain that the scene right before, where the Driver’s standing outside Nino’s restaurant watching him, is one of the creepiest things I’ve seen all year.) He then calls up Bertie and alludes to the story of the scorpion and the frog, which immediately made me groan because I’m so tired of hearing people recite that story. I mean, it’s a decent fable and all, and I understand why it’s popular, but I’m so damn tired of hearing it.

So I was deeply and pleasantly surprised when the Driver didn’t proceed to tell the entire story for the audience members who haven’t heard it before. (Sorry, dudes. But Google will help you out.) The one-line allusion quickly became my favorite quote in the whole movie. (The fact that the Driver is wearing a jacket with a scorpion on his back is also a nice touch.)

The Driver and Bertie set up a dinner meeting, and I really like how the scene plays out. It’s like a less sexy, more violent version of That One Scene Everyone Remembers from Out of Sight. Their negotiation of sorts is intercut with scenes of the Driver handing Bertie the money outside the restaurant. Bertie immediately stabs the Driver with one of his carefully cleaned knives, but doesn’t do a good enough job of it because the Driver stabs Bertie right back. The Driver has better aim, and he leaves Bertie dead on the ground, next to his money.

The movie ends with Irene knocking on the Driver’s door to no answer, and the Driver (presumably still bleeding) driving away to destinations unknown. It’s a fine ending as far as endings go — I think I’m glad the two don’t get together — but once the movie was over, my immediate reaction was, Okay, so, what’s next?

It’s possible I might like this movie more on repeat viewings, especially because the more I think about the film, the more I like specific moments and scenes, but as a whole, I can’t shake the thought that the story is lacking something, and as of right now, I continue to feel a little disappointed with it.

QUOTES:

Driver: “You know the story about the scorpion and the frog? Your friend Nino didn’t make it across the river.”

Shannon: “A lot of guys mess around with married women, but you’re the only one I know who robs a joint just to pay back the husband.”

Standard: “Do you want to hear about how Mommy and me met?”
Benicio: “Yeah.”
Standard: “Yeah? Okay. We were at a party, and she was nineteen years old.”
Irene: “Seventeen.”
Standard: “You weren’t seventeen.”
Irene: “I was.”
Standard: “Wow. So it was illegal. All right. So I illegally walked over to a seventeen-year-old girl.”

(Bernie sticks his hand out to shake. Driver does not shake it — in a nice bit of foreshadow I forgot to mention before)
Driver: “My hands are a little dirty.”
Bernie: “So are mine.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Stylistic and enjoyable, but not quite as Fist Pump Awesome as I’d hoped it would be.

MVP:

Ryan Gosling

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Never try to explain to the bad guys that your friend has their money, particularly if the bad guys didn’t even know that you or your friend were involved. You’re trying to sell them on your buddy’s good intentions, which is all very noble, but bad guys don’t care about good intentions, and such a call can only lead to your demise.

When I completed my 2013 Western Challenge, I was pretty burnt out on the genre. Basically, I didn’t want to look John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in the face for months. I couldn’t say the same for film noir, though, because — bullshit romances aside — I generally enjoy private detectives more than cowboys. And when Mek pitched the idea of renting Dark Passage, a Bogart/Bacall noir where Bogie’s face is obscured for at least half the movie, I was intrigued enough to give it a try. “Sure,” I said naively. “I’m working on a bunch of stuff right now, so I probably won’t get around to reviewing it, but yeah, let’s check it out.”

But people, I had to review it. Because Dark Passage has problems. Serious problems.

DISCLAIMER:

It’s a SPOILER kind of day, people. Sorry. Not only am I going to ruin this movie for you, I’m also going to briefly discuss the ending of The Shawshank Redemption. If you somehow did not see The Shawshank Redemption on TNT, where they used to air it roughly 87 times a year, you should probably fix that instead of reading this review.

SUMMARY:

Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) escapes from prison with a big assist from passing motorist, Irene (Lauren Bacall). After getting a new face via back alley plastic surgery, Vincent decides to clear his name by finding out who really killed his wife.

NOTES:

1. The setup of this film is interesting, particularly for 1947. You’ve got a lead character who you hear but can’t see for the first, say, 35 minutes or so. Then he gets his plastic surgery, and you can sorta see him (his face is all wrapped up in bandages) but can’t hear him at all. That lasts for another 30 minutes. Finally, about halfway through the film, you’re allowed to both watch and listen to your protagonist. In theory, there’s something intriguing about that.

In execution, unfortunately, it’s more than a little gimmicky. Parts of the first hour are all first person shooter, but often we can see Vincent’s back as he walks away or his distant outline from a balcony view. This is okay, I guess (although I feel like the film would be better off if it fully committed to the first person perspective), but I find the long taxi ride scene frustrating.

Actually, this scene is annoying for many, many reasons, but for now we’ll focus on Vincent having a good five minute conversation whilst encased in the Shadows of Darkness. This is just silly. You’d need super artful lighting and cinematography to make such a scene not gimmicky in the extreme, and Dark Passage just doesn’t have it. For that matter, the whole idea of an unseen protagonist would work a lot better if the story actually had some kind of theme about identity, which, yeah. It doesn’t have. This is the extremely rare case where I’m actually advocating for an unreliable narrator — Vincent wouldn’t necessarily have had to murder his wife, but maybe he ought to be keeping something from both the other characters and the audience. (Also, don’t expect such a recommendation to ever happen again. I rarely champion unreliable narrators because — with a few exceptions aside — I generally hate how they’re handled.)

2. I wish I could say that the lighting or the lack of thematic resonance were my biggest problems with the movie. Unfortunately, that would be a downright, dirty lie. Dark Passage is full of so many plot conveniences and examples of Heart Knowledge that it’s hard to know where to begin. We could just dive into the Worst of the Worst — but no, let’s try going through the story chronologically, shall we? We’ll begin with Vincent busting out of prison and catching a ride with this inquisitive asshole.

As we’ll see throughout the movie, Vincent has simultaneously the best and worst luck imaginable. Every single person he encounters will either immediately become suspicious of him or will help him out in some huge and highly convenient way. In this case, Baker — our inquisitive asshole — instantly starts pestering Vincent about where he’s going and where he found his unusual looking trousers and so on and so forth until, mercifully, a Helpful News Report explains that Vincent is an escaped prisoner. Vincent immediately knocks Baker out and steals his clothes. He’s probably planning to steal the car, too, when who should come along but the lovely Irene.

3. The best thing about Irene is that she’s played by Lauren Bacall.

Irene isn’t absolutely terrible — she’s just not great. Her entire function in this movie is to help out/fall in love with Vincent because . . . honestly, I don’t even know why she falls in love with him. Vincent’s okay, I guess, but this is not Humphrey Bogart’s most charismatic role. He’s just kind of there, a warm body and a bandaged face. Bacall, on the other hand, is sharp and funny and makes Irene a lot more likable than she has any right to be.

Irene smuggles Vincent across the police blockade on the Golden Gate Bridge. Later, we’ll find out that Irene’s father was wrongly convicted of murder and died in prison, so at least she has some motivation for the crazy ass thing she’s doing for a man she’s never met before. (I know she studied his case and all, but let’s be clear: watching a trial and thinking the accused is probably innocent is hell and gone from breaking all kinds of laws by allowing him to chill in the backseat of your car and later your apartment, with not much to defend yourself if you turn out to have been wrong all along.)

Of course, it’s still wildly convenient that Vincent managed to run into his secret admirer on the exact same day he escaped from prison, but at least the movie tries to address it (in a half-assed discussion about fate), and honestly, there are worse plot conveniences in this film. Meanwhile, the Golden Gate scene is probably supposed to be tense — WILL the cops discover Vincent when they check the backseat — but all I could really think was Holy God, policemen. You’re gonna back up traffic on the bridge SO BAD. I was having flashbacks to my SFSU days and shuddering.

4. Irene leaves Vincent alone at her place while she buys him some upscale clothes. Unfortunately, that’s when Madge (Agnes Moorehead) decides to drop by for a visit. And admittedly, Madge is pretty annoying as she insistently knocks at the door and demands to be let in. That being said, I’m relatively sure that she would have left eventually if Vincent, that ass, didn’t yell at her through the door. (And what does he yell? Basically, that Irene’s busy with a man.)

Two problems here: one, Irene might not want people to think that she’s with some random gentleman caller. (She doesn’t end up being particularly bothered by this, but it’s still not particularly considerate on Vincent’s part.) Two, holy shit, Vincent, you are a FUGITIVE FROM THE LAW. You should not be announcing your presence to anyone ever. Unless Madge is actually going to kick the door down — and yeah, she wasn’t — what in the name of Baby Jesus are you doing? There is no excuse for this, none.

Inconceivably, it gets worse: Vincent recognizes Madge’s voice through the door before he yells at her to go away. It doesn’t seem to occur to him, however, that Madge might also be able to recognize his voice. Vincent, you’re an asshole. And by not keeping your trap shut, you basically got your best buddy, George, killed.

5. So, this is George.

Before we even found out that Vincent had a best friend, Mekaela arbitrarily decided that Vincent’s BFF would end up being the bad guy. Upon his introduction, I was inclined to agree with her, mostly because it seemed like George himself was in love with Vincent. And sure, that seemed unlikely, considering that this movie was made under the Hays Code, but I still didn’t quite trust the guy. Then again, there’s nothing quite like proving your innocence by being murdered with your own trumpet.

George, I’m sorry I doubted you, buddy. And I guess I’m sorry your prayers went unanswered too. See, before George bites the big one, he’s talking to Vincent about that evil wench Madge. Their conversation goes like this:

Vincent: “Maybe someday she’ll get run over or something.”
George: “That’s what I pray for every night.”

Now, Madge isn’t a particularly nice woman. For one — spoilers — she’s the bad guy! (Seriously, how mean do you have to be to kill someone with their own musical instrument? That just seems rude.) For another, as we hear about, repeatedly, Madge is SO IN LUV with Vincent, but since he never loved her back, she lied at his trial, framing him for his wife’s murder out of pure spite. And there is certainly no reason that Vincent or his best friend should feel compassion for such a woman because that’s a totally fucked up thing to do, even if she hadn’t been personally responsible for Vincent’s wife’s death. Still, there’s something about the way George says it, that he prays for this woman’s demise every night. There’s a note of such brimming sincerity that it’s a little creepsome and weird. This is only compounded when you take the movie’s casual attitude towards violence against women into account, something we’ll get back to in just a few minutes.

6. Later, Vincent gets a ride with Asshole Taxi Driver, also known as the Cab Driver of Incredible Plot Convenience. Asshole Taxi Driver — it’s shorter — starts talking to Vincent, even though Vincent is very clear about the fact that he doesn’t want to talk. I can relate — I actually prefer quiet cab drivers, myself, although I’ve never straight up said, “I don’t feel chatty,” and “It’s funny you can’t take a hint,” to one before. Apparently it wouldn’t do any good if I did, though, because Vincent’s rudeness in no ways stops Asshole Taxi Driver from starting up a pointless story about a dude with a goldfish, like he’ll get a better tip or something from doing the exact opposite of what his fare wants.

It turns out that Asshole Taxi Driver is spectacularly good with faces. It’s not just that he remembers them; it’s that he can look at somebody and figure out what kind of person they really are. Case in point: he both recognizes Vincent from the papers (despite the Shadows of Darkness wrapped around him in the backseat) and also realizes that Vincent couldn’t have murdered his wife. Vincent just doesn’t have the face of a killer, see. And Face Knowledge, like Eye Knowledge, is really just another subset of Heart Knowledge.

This particular bit of Heart Knowledge is extra special, though:

Asshole Taxi Driver: “Did you really bump your wife off?”
Vincent: “No, I didn’t.”
Asshole Taxi Driver: “I don’t figure it that way. I figure you slugged her with that ashtray because she made life miserable for you. I know how it is. I live with my sister and her husband, and they get along fine, so fine that one day he threw a bread knife at her. She ducked. That’s the way it goes. Maybe if your wife had ducked, there’d be no trial, no Quentin, no on the lam. That’s life.”

So, yes. It’s not that Vincent couldn’t have been smacking his wife around. That’s okay. That’s totally understandable. After all, domestic violence isn’t really violence at all, right? And if Vincent’s wife just hadn’t been smart enough to get out of the way, well, that’s on her, right? That’s not the same as Vincent actually killing her or anything.

I know this was 1947 and all, but Jesus Christ.

7. As the Asshole Taxi Driver implicitly trusts Vincent and his non-murderous face, he offers to hook him up with this back alley plastic surgeon guy he just happens to know. That way, Vincent can purchase another non-murderous face that the police aren’t so familiar with!

I would not trust this consultation.

Gosh. I’ve ridden in a fair number of cabs in my life, and none of the drivers have ever offered me an illegal face change before. The only thing I’ve ever gotten out of a cab driver is a business card. I feel vaguely cheated.

Despite his terrible and utter convenience, I do actually like the plastic surgeon guy, mostly because he’s weird and kind of funny. Also weird and funny: the time we spend in Vincent’s anesthetized brain.

It’s all very Hitchcock/Twilight Zone/that one bizarre 60’s remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari that I caught part of on TV one day. I wonder if anyone’s ever written a paper on the various ways that filmmakers have chosen to capture scenes that take place Inside Your Brain over the decades, like, who influenced who, which special effects changed the game, etc. It might be interesting to read.

8. After the surgery, Vincent (currently cosplaying as a mummy) goes back to his Buddy’s George’s apartment, but oh noes! George has been killed. So Vincent makes his way back to Irene’s, and they have about two minutes a week to fall in love. This is, admittedly, longer than Hollywood couples usually spend together before realizing their Feelings for one another, but as it passes super quick in real time, their supposed romance just feels silly. Maybe especially because Irene always believes Vincent’s innocent, no matter how many people keep dying around him. Also because of the ending — but we’ll get to the ending.

9. All the heart knowledge in this movie centers around one thing: everyone knowing that Vincent is innocent. The Asshole Taxi Driver knows. Irene knows. And interestingly, Irene’s Wannabe Boyfriend and Madge’s Ex, Bob, also knows. How does he know? Psychologically.

Yes, Bob is the guy in the movie who says — with a perfectly straight face — that while he never met Vincent Parry, he knows “psychologically” that Parry isn’t a killer. Holy shit, guys. That’s — that’s AMAZING. That’s my new go-to line for everything. Of course, we do have a lot of go-to lines in this house, things that we say (and occasionally alter) for our own purposes. Don’t want to do something, like, put up the silverware? “I’m too old to begin the training.” Somebody guesses something incorrectly? “You LOSE! GOOD DAY, MADAM!” Your sister doesn’t get you the chocolate chip cookie you asked for? “YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY!”

This, however, will have to be something I say when I have no actual way of knowing what I’m talking about. Like, “I never met Jesus, but I know psychologically that he’d be Team Peeta.” That’s how I’m going to win all my arguments from now on.

Actually, this is even worse than I initially realized. I was so busy laughing at the line that I didn’t even realize what Bob was actually arguing until I went back to watch the scene again — Bob absolutely believes that Vincent killed both his wife and George. That just doesn’t make him a killer, somehow. Vincent’s dumb, see. Madge pestered him into killing his wife, and he panicked and killed George, and yet Vincent won’t come after Madge because, after all, he’s just not a killer.

This movie, you guys. I don’t even know what to do with it.

10. At some point, Vincent gets to take his bandages off, and lo and behold! There is Humphrey Bogart. Newly Made Man Vincent considers fucking off to Peru, but instead decides to clear his name. Unfortunately, he’s foiled in that by our spectacularly underwhelming villain, Madge.

Madge is a bad villain for several reasons. (Although it should be said that none of them have to do with acting.) One: she’s incredibly obvious. There aren’t very many viable suspects in this movie, and her motive (“If I can’t have him, no one can!”) is only mentioned about a half dozen times. She’s so obviously the bad guy that I said she wasn’t — because I just didn’t want this movie to be that predictably dumb.

Madge’s obsession with Vincent is also sort of frustrating. For one thing, I have no idea what’s so special about this guy. Like I said before, this is not Bogey’s most exciting role. He has virtually nothing in the way of personality, nor does he exactly exude wild sexual charisma. Vincent Parry is the Bella Swan of Noir.

And it doesn’t help that Madge apparently thinks of nothing but Vincent. Even though Irene ends up leaving her whole life behind for this fucker, we at least know a few things about her. Like she enjoys painting, and she had that Dead Daddy backstory, and she called Vincent out on being stupid, which, THANK GOD. Irene’s certainly not a great female character, but at least I can somewhat imagine her existing before Vincent came into her life. Meanwhile, all I know about Madge is that she’s obsessed with this dude. I can’t think of a single other thing about her. She’s not only an obvious villain; she’s a boring one.

Surprisingly, Madge never tries to kill Irene, even though she correctly guesses that Irene and Vincent have improbably fallen in love. To be honest, I’m still a little unclear on why she bothered to kill George in the first place. If I understand the movie right, it’s because his death will make Vincent look really, REALLY guilty. But I’m like, Dude, he’s already an escaped felon convicted of murdering his wife. I don’t feel like you accomplished much here.

11. None of this is the worst, though. The very worst thing about Madge is how she dies. And how does she die, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you: by FALLING OUT OF A FUCKING CLOSED WINDOW.

Wait . . .what?

It’s bad. It’s so unbelievably bad.

Here’s how it goes: Vincent confronts Madge on all the terrible things she’s done. Madge does her whole spiel on how no one will ever believe him and he can’t do anything to change it when, suddenly, she stumbles and falls through the window. Since her apartment’s on the fiftieth story or whatever, she of course dies. Meanwhile, Mek and I are looking at each other, like, “What the fuck just happened? Did she actually just trip out the window and DIE?”

Because unless you’re making an absurd comedy, your villains probably shouldn’t trip to their doom, and if they are going to trip to their doom, they certainly shouldn’t do it through a closed window. Cause let me clear: it’s not like she’s standing several feet from the window, trips on a marble, and goes headfirst into the glass. No. She runs behind the gigantic curtain (that will protect her from Vincent, somehow?) and manages to fall with such momentum and force that she completely shatters the pane. And hey, maybe glass windows were a lot thinner than they are now, but I’m still pretty sure that physics has something to say about this, and what it has to say is, “Bullshit.”

This is a hideously, ludicrously stupid death. Soap operas kill off people with more dignity and realism. This is . . . you know what this is?

WRITER JOE: Okay, so we’re going to end this happily but not too happily, right? I mean, this is noir. Vincent can’t just get everything he wants.

WRITER SUSAN: Right. So Madge will die before she can confess to the police.

WRITER JOE: Absolutely. So, how does Madge die? Maybe Vincent can push her out of the window?

WRITER SUSAN: Absolutely not, Writer Joe! That would be murder, and Vincent doesn’t have the face of a killer!

WRITER JOE: Yeah, but . . . he’s got a new face now, right?

WRITER SUSAN: I’m ashamed of you, Writer Joe. That’s not how this works at all. You have failed this city. Obviously, Madge will have to cause her own death in some way.

WRITER JOE: I guess she could kill herself, then. Like as a special little “fuck you” to Vincent. Now you’ll never clear your name, that sort of thing.

WRITER SUSAN: Hmm . . . no, no, I think it would be better if she manages to accidentally kill herself in some way.

WRITER JOE: Um, okay, but how? She slips on a banana peel, goes through a window, and splats on the ground a bazillion feet below?

WRITER SUSAN: That’s genius, Writer Joe! Only let’s cut the banana peel — we don’t want this to be cartoonish — and just have her trip over nothing. Oh, I’m so glad we figured this out!

In fairness, I trip over nothing pretty much all the time. Just not quite this spectacularly. Also, I’ve noticed that some people seem to think that Madge did jump to her death. Mek and I wondered that too, at first, if only because Death By Tripping seemed so incredibly lame — but it doesn’t seem to track. For one thing, Madge’s smug speech sounds like it’s coming from someone who expects to still be alive when the police come a’calling. For another, who doesn’t OPEN the window before they jump out of it? And possibly the most damning piece of evidence: Vincent specifically tells Irene that Madge “stumbled” to her death. That cleared up any ambiguity for me: Madge accidentally tumbled to her doom because this movie is absolutely ridiculous.

12. So, Vincent flees to Zihuatanejo Peru, temporarily leaving Irene behind but telling her to join him later. And, of course, she does so, leaving her entire life behind, and giving them a happily ever after that I much preferred when it popped up again fifty years later in The Shawshank Redemption.

I don’t ship Andy and Red — I like them as friends, and I wish there were more movies that prioritized friendship over romantic love — but at least theirs would’ve been a love story that I could have believed in.

CONCLUSIONS:

Some neat ideas but a bungled execution, even for 1947.

MVP:

Lauren Bacall

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C

MORAL:

If you’re a fugitive on the run, don’t announce your presence by speaking to people you don’t need to speak to, especially when those people know who you are, hate you, and/or are completely obsessed with you.

Also, don’t stand near windows. Usually, that’s because a masked murderer or a sniper is about to kill your ass dead, but tripping is apparently a real possibility too.

I fully intended to watch Edge of Tomorrow when it came out last year, but somehow never quite made it to the theater. Thankfully, Netflix has allowed me to correct this oversight.

There were a few problems here or there, but overall I had a pretty good time watching this.

DISCLAIMER:

Minor SPOILERS for things that happen in the first ten minutes of the movie. These things really shouldn’t ruin the film for you, but I am going to detail how our hero ends up in battle in the first place. If you don’t want to know that, best skip over Note 2 entirely.

SUMMARY:

Aliens attack! Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) dies in battle and starts reliving the same day, Bill Murray style. When he eventually teams up with the best soldier in the fleet, Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), Cage realizes that this ability is humanity’s only chance to win the war.

NOTES:

1. We should probably just address the whitewashing up front. Edge of Tomorrow is based off the Japanese novel All You Need is Kill, and the main character is not a white American. This is undeniably lame. Stronger adjectives are probably required, but I’m too tired to come up with a more eloquent or persuasive argument than y’all suck and I’m sick of your bullshit, so. Here we are.

2. We will now discuss our very, very white cast.

It’s fairly fashionable to hate Tom Cruise these days, but I like plenty of his movies, and I think he does a pretty decent job here. Actually, if you don’t like Tom Cruise, this might be the movie for you because you get to see his character get beat up and/or killed a lot.

It’s interesting. At the beginning of the movie, William Cage is kind of an unlikable schmuck, and yet I feel sorta bad for him. See, Cage isn’t really much of a solider. He’s got an officer’s rank, but he’s actually a PR guy. Only General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) decides to send him to the front lines anyway, to better sell the war. (I’m not entirely convinced that footage from the front lines is a particularly great recruitment method, but I suppose it’s not my area of expertise.)

Cage is wildly unenthusiastic about such a prospect and, yes, makes some deeply poor strategic decisions on how he tries to wiggle his way out of it. Still, the guy is arrested, knocked out, slandered, treated as a deserter, and sent to die. I feel like my reaction is supposed to be something like “ha ha, look who got what was coming to him,” but this seems like ridiculously harsh punishment for being a cowardly putz.

And while we’re on the subject . . . I think cowardice sometimes gets a bad rap in action and war movies. Like I’m supposed to shake my head in disgust at the thought of a man trying to get out of combat duty, when in actuality I would probably do the exact same thing in his position. (Well, not the exact same. I’d like to think I can read people a little better than Cage can.) If Cage had, I don’t know, switched his dog tags or something, intentionally putting someone else in danger so he could be safe, then I could get behind this whole “just desserts” thing. As is, I don’t feel like there’s any particular shame for jumping onto a PR job that keeps you out of the field. Bravery is respectable and deserves to be honored accordingly, but I’m just not convinced that Cage deserves what he got here.

3. Well, that went off-topic fast. Let’s get back to the cast.

Rita Vrataski

Emily Blunt’s pretty awesome. She was actually the main reason I wanted to see this movie in the first place — I watched her in the trailers and was like, Yes. YES. More of THIS, please. I really like that her tiny bit of emotional backstory is basically just one scene, and she never ends up crying in the shower or weeping into Tom Cruise’s arms or something. (It’s not that you can’t be a badass and cry at the same time. That’s absolutely possible — one of the most recent examples I can think of is Agent Carter. Peggy cries in the first or second episode but is still the biggest badass EVER. Still, it would have been wildly out of character for Rita Vrataski in this story.)

I do have one problem with Rita’s character, but unfortunately I cannot tell you about it now. It will be revealed to you at the proper time. (Man, I haven’t seen Spaceballs in a while. I should watch that again.)

Master Sergeant Farell

Oh, how I adore Bill Paxton. Really, I just love this guy. His character isn’t particularly well-developed or anything, but Paxton just brings such energy and zeal to whatever he does that his character shines regardless. I honestly don’t have a problem with Tom Cruise as an actor (his inclusion neither increases nor decreases my interest in any given project) but anytime these two are on screen together, Paxton inevitably steals the scene.

General Brigham

Brendan Gleeson doesn’t have very much to do here — you know, he’s gruff and he gives absolutely zero fucks about Cage — but he’s still Brendan Gleeson, so, yeah. It works for me. (Also, he gets to keep his natural accent for the role! Yay!)

4. The action is all pretty great in this movie. I’m afraid I have no real technical notes on that score — the battle scenes are just awesome and a lot of fun to watch. I regret not seeing Edge of Tomorrow in theater because I bet it would have looked fantastic on the big screen.

5. I also really like that the story isn’t afraid to jump forward occasionally, that we don’t always need to see the first time Cage encounters something new. Everyone likes a Groundhog Day premise, but one of the problems inherit in the setup is that it doesn’t take much for the story to get a little too repetitive for the audience. You hear the same dialogue or see the same shot one too many times, and it’s just like, Come on, come ON, I get it already. Let’s just skip this part, okay?

But Edge of Tomorrow makes some pretty clever choices in terms of structure and storytelling, I think. It likes to leap forward when you don’t always expect it, which makes for a more exciting watch.

6. The title is still stupid, though. Let’s just make that clear. All You Need is Kill is an unusual title and fairly striking because of it. Edge of Tomorrow, on the other hand, is generic bullshit. Amusingly, whoever makes these decisions came to the exact same conclusion, but only after the movie underperformed at the box office. Their solution? Write “Edge of Tomorrow” in teeny-tiny letters on the bottom of the Blu-Ray/DVD with the words “Live Die Repeat” in GIANT letters so that you’re fooled into thinking the tagline is the title. While Live Die Repeat would, in fact, be a better name than Edge of Tomorrow — cause really, almost anything would — it’s still not the actual title. Stop lying to me, marketing team!

7. Finally, I don’t hate the ending exactly, but it does feel like a bit of a cop-out to me. If you’d like to know why . . .

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

. . . then you have to hold on an additional minute.

I’m not going to go over everything that happens in this movie, but I do want to briefly discuss a few things, like the fact that Edge of Tomorrow is an early contender for Best Death of 2015.

Cage has to sneak away from his squad to meet up with Rita, but that’s easier said than done when you’ve got Master Sergeant Bill Paxton watching your every move. Cage finds his chance when a jeep drives by as he’s doing pushups; daringly, he rolls under the car like any proper action hero would and dashes off. Only because he’s emphatically not a proper action hero yet, he does it wrong and rolls right under the tires. Laughed my ass off.

Also LMAO: the moment when Cage is injured saving Rita’s life on the battlefield, and she thanks him by stealing the battery in his suit and leaving him to die. LOVED IT.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t so crazy about the ending of this movie, though, starting with the moment when Rita decides to lock lips with Cage.

It’s particularly covert lip-locking. Stupid lighting department.

I don’t mind a small amount of romantic subtext between the two characters, I suppose, but the kiss felt artificial and unnecessary, particularly because Rita is the one who kisses him. It would make much more sense if Cage kissed her, considering he’s known for her approximately a bazillion days. Rita, meanwhile, has only known him for about 24 hours, and I know these are like potentially End Times and all, but I just didn’t buy it from her character. According to IMDb trivia, the kiss was an improv on Emily Blunt’s part, and sometimes, improvs are great, but I wish they had cut this one. Because, to me, that kiss felt like a forced love story on a movie that didn’t at all require one.

As far as the rest of the ending goes, well. Rita dies. The J-Squad dies. (The J-Squad always dies. They are the ultimate redshirts.) And Cage destroys the Omega and gets bathed in its blood again as he dies, so this time he wakes up hours earlier than normal and discovers that all the Mimic activity has stopped after a power surge in Paris. Because of this, Cage never gets arrested. He goes to meet Rita, this time as a major. Awesomely, she appears to be unimpressed with him no matter what rank he is. He laughs, and the movie ends.

Admittedly, the whole setup of the story is a little screwy — I have some trouble taking a blood transfusion as the cure for Alien Groundhog’s Day Disease seriously — but the ending really does feel like a bit of a cheat. Jumping to an earlier time and allowing everyone to live seems  awfully convenient. Mind you, I don’t know that I wanted every character to die, but this feels just a little too Happily Ever After for my taste. Too bad, too, because otherwise this is a pretty enjoyable SF movie.

QUOTES:

Rita: “Why does it matter what happens to me?”
Cage: “I wish I didn’t know you, but I do.”

Cage: “Wait a second, wait a second! I’ve been thinking . . . I mean, this thing is in my blood. So maybe there’s some way I can transfer it to you.”
Rita: “I’ve tried everything. It doesn’t work.”
Cage: “I mean, have you tried . . . you know . . . ALL the options?”
Rita: “Oh, you mean sex? Yeah, I tried it.”
Cage: “. . . how many times?”
Rita: “All right.”
(Rita hits Cage with a giant robot)

Cage: “Listen, man, I’ve never been in one of these things.”
Griff: “Yeah, well, I’ve never been with two girls at the same time before. But you can bet, when that day comes, I’ll make it work.”

Cage: “Master Sergeant Farrell, you’re an American.”
Farrell: “No, sir! I’m from Kentucky.”

Dr. Carter: “Have you seen anything strange?”
Cage: “Is he shitting me?”

Rita: “Ten minutes.”
Cage: “Okay.”
Rita: “And then I’m killing you.”
Cage: “Fine.”

CONCLUSIONS:

The ending is something of a letdown and I still kind of hate The Kiss, but none of that ruins the film for me. I’d definitely watch it again — I just don’t know that I’d ever need to own it. (Oh, and because I forgot to mention it before — I wish they hadn’t revealed Rita’s own stint with turning back time in the promos. On one hand, those promos did their job and made me more interested in the film. On the other hand, that would have been a really neat surprise to see in the movie itself.)

MVP:

Emily Blunt

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Death is only the end if you don’t have the foresight to bathe in alien goop first.