POWER

NAME THAT MOVIE!

In terms of movie history and general mise-en-scene aesthetic, this last one presented a really cool anomaly: Dan and Peyton mistook Poltergeist for E.T. - which adds some fuel to the fire re. who actually directed that film...

The more we play these, the 'educated guesses' are proving to be more fun & fascinating than straight up 'correct' answers, as anyone who plays is unknowingly illustrating direct influences, homages, leitmotif, auteur theory, and a bunch of other highbrow hooey pertaining to the idea of similar themes and styles across moviemaking.
This is exciting, because it breathes some new life into this tired premise, taking it beyond a remedial game of memory. At any rate, keep it up!

Here are the answers from the previous set:
EASY
Plains, Trains, and Automobiles
Poltergeist
Barton Fink
Forrest Gump
Ghostbusters

FAIR
Looper
Toys
Wonder Boys
About Schmidt
The Lost Boys

DIFFICULT
Predator
Night of the Creeps
10 Cloverfield Lane
Miller's Crossing
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

And now, leave the bodies, move the headstones, and turn on your heartlights: here come the new ones.

EASY

FAIR

DIFFICULT

Controversial Comedies: Like 'em or Loathe 'em

What makes a 'bad' comedy? Lack of laughs? ...Actually, yeah! Not enough laughs should be right at the top of the list. But if every movie must be measured by one specific metric, we're all in big trouble; in fact, any list of criteria is scheduled to fuck up a good time - especially when it's applied to anything artistic.

Speaking of 'artistic,' there are a handful of lowbrow clunkers from the late 80s/early 90s that have managed to harness a buncha cult momentum over the years - probably due largely to their notoriety with critics mixed with some misguided nostalgia (a formula we don't subscribe to). There are some that are worthy of some genuine, unironic love. And the others - well, if you get a kick outta reliving a waste of 90 mins. because it gets you in touch with your youth, have at it.

All of these flicks are not without their problems, though they're never the problems anyone seems to notice/care about. A lot of them also have some merit - which no one ever seems to notice or care about.
Let's get dirty.

- Paul

Weekend At Bernie's (1989)

The title itself is synonymous with "dumb movies" - which is fair enough, I'll let that slide. But the dumbness I found wasn't in its offbeat premise, or Andrew McCarthy's overacting, or the incessant reggae music - in fact, when I think of the movie, these are the things I find endearing. To be even more specific, anything else in the movie that detracts from that stuff is when I start to roll my eyes -- and the biggest and most painful detraction is some saggy romantic subplot between Jonathan Silverman and Catherine Mary Stewart (playing the female lead in a movie that doesn't have one). Every once in a while I decide to take another look at the movie, and I'm always blindsided by this agonizing attempt at some seriously unnecessary character development. There's a series of scenes between the two of them early on that play out like a promise that we won't have to revisit this nonsense for the duration of the film. But once the plot kicks in and the gags start flying, there's even more of these painful dialogue scenes between the two of them - right when we don't want them, causing any viewer to lament, "Why can't we just get back to the dead guy?!"
What can I say? It coulda been great. B-


Men At Work (1990)

Another example of some forced rom com pieces where they don't fit (all involving Charlie Sheen at his sleaziest, which actually gives them a bit of edge). Though they do attempt to convince us that it's integral to the plot, so we won't deduct too many points. And whatever you may think of Charlie as a human, he's consistently been a competent actor - particularly a comedic one.
At its heart, the setup (the morbid inconvenience of what to do with a dead body and all that that entails) is one I'm usually fond of - with everything from Pulp Fiction to Weekend At Bernie's. But the driving force behind this feature-length hijink is surprisingly the performances. The chemistry between Sheen & Estevez is more satisfying than one woulda thought. John Getz, who always shines most when he's forced to be funny, shines pretty brightly in this one. Even Dean Cameron, who I usually steer clear of, is more than tolerable in the background noise he provides.
But if you're a Keith David fan & you haven't seen Men At Work, you haven't seen his best role (and yes, I'm fully aware of the weight of what I've just written).
So, what's wrong with this little opus of chuckles? If nothing else (and there really isn't anything else), the lazy climax more clearly defines "lazy" than it does "climax." Spoiler: John Getz' bloodthirsty mob villain may be played for laughs, but he's eventually thwarted by our sprawling cast of heroes with an arsenal of garbage and trash cans (because Charlie & Emilio play garbage men, you see) and then pushed down a hill into some more garbage, leaving him stinky and humiliated, and leaving us bored and unfulfilled.
Bummer, they fumbled it so close to the end zone. B+


Nothing But Trouble (1991)

Not every outlandish bit of business here went down easy -- consider this experiment that flat-out shattered the test tubes.
Ensemble A-list casts are hit or miss - this was a big embarrassing "miss" for these comedy veterans and rising stars alike.
It was already branded "historically awful" by the time it hit video - which is when I saw it. Now, a bad movie can be tough sometimes, but when comedy fails, it's so much more painful, because a joke that falls flat is just so uncomfortable to witness - and no one wants to feel that.
So there, now that I've adequately asserted that I really don't care for this turkey, I'm now free of the encumbrances of 'mixed signals' while I talk about what I do like about it.
As a horror movie, it's not a far cry from stuff like Motel Hell or even Texas Chainsaw Massacre (at least in terms of the devices it employs), and going into it as an 8 year old, it actually is kind of effective on that plane. From top to bottom, it's really an achievement in gothic set design and seamless makeup effects, as well as a few plot points that would've probably been effective in a different movie with a different cast and a different script. There's a sequence where a group of teens (?) get fed into some kinda giant meat grinder and their bones shoot out of a tube at the other end -- it's played for laughs, but as we've already established, there aren't any, so it's just a gruesome example of the carnage and gross-out gimmickry this 'comedy' has to offer. D+


Howard The Duck (1986)

When I would watch it as a kid, I didn't really see any problems with it. When I watch it as a grownup, it feels a little juvenile... But still, I don't really have any problems with it.
I know it cost George & the gang a lot to make and it tanked on tickets, but the actual flaws in the quality I find to be pretty superficial.
And I will continue my crusade in applauding films that utilize (and even celebrate) the time period in which they were made, and Howard is refreshingly shameless about that: punk rockers roam the streets like post-apocalyptic bullies, government men in suits show up to create conflict, and lasers had a function that fell in line with the rules of science fiction.
Howard himself is likable enough, Jeffrey Jones is at his most evil, and Tim Robbins is comfortingly consistent within a career of overacting. And, of course, Lea Thompson never gives any reason to complain.
I am aware of the supposed "disgust" over the semi-sexual tension between Beverly and Howard - which is usually the glaring thread that people point to and say, "There! That's why this movie sucks!" To which I say: why, in the comic book movie about an inter-dimensional talking duck who saves the world and plays the guitar, are you combing for good taste and/or realism? Besides, I don't care what planet you're from, you don't turn down Lea Thompson in her underwear - I knew that when I was 4.
We saw a revival of it on the big screen a few years back, and I swear I've rarely seen an audience so quietly engrossed in a movie from beginning to end. What I gather from this is: you may not like Howard The Duck, but you'd be mistaken. B

STATIC SHOTS

Take me to church

The year was 1994, probably a Friday or Saturday in August - it was still summer vacation, so everything was alright.
It was the Summer of Gump - my father & I visited the theater approx. 6 or 7 times to soak up the pop culture pinnacle of 90s Hanks, and when we weren't at the theater, we'd rotate the soundtrack album and Alan Silvestri's score in the car, on cassette.
And on this night - this night in August, which would be the last time I've seen it in a cinema - I committed a bold act of rebellion against my own strict discipline mixed with the comfortable familiarity of having seen it half a dozen times, and I left my seat to go to the bathroom during the third act. And it was on this journey when I stopped - either voluntarily or by some metaphysical force - and stood in the cathedral-like ballroom off of which the multiplex of theaters branch from. Surrounded by huge cardboard and vinyl promotional art for Timecop and Terminal Velocity while the muffled sounds of It Could Happen to You and The Mask permeated the air, I was struck with what alcoholics refer to as 'a moment of clarity.'

I've always been self-aware as "the movie kid": by my own proclamation and in social standing. And much like the way religious folks can become cured (or damned) simply by the power of suggestion, I too, in that moment, was overcome with the capacity of my own 'belief system.'
Standing there in this empty temple of Cinema, I absorbed my surroundings: in this time and place, all movies - past, present, and future - would show me The Way, and they would be housed in this dimly-lit sanctuary of butter and carpeting.

And like any religion, it required a child-like naivete - which any 11 year old still retains a bit of; most of my prejudices and cynicism had yet to blossom and I felt like I'd never be old enough to move out of this house.

This was 25 years ago. Eventually Shakespeare fell in love, the King returned, and God was dead. But it was the seed that was planted - long before that night - that offsets any critical hostility or conservative views that I have today against the medium.
Just about everybody will tell you they like movies, or even love movies, but how deep is your love? I really mean to learn. We take up plenty of space on this site talking about hamburgers, Halloween, and Hyrule, but it always comes back to film. It's that original passion for the art form that sparked this site, and we've always assumed its readers shared that passion beyond "casual distraction" - as movies are often dismissed. Where is the line between hobby & obsession? Between knowledge & wisdom? Subservience & faith? And which side of the line are you on?

I go back there occasionally - in my mind - standing alone in that lobby, age 11, full of Skittles and silence. And I stopped frequenting that particular theater soon thereafter - in the past 25 years, it'd changed management infinity times, resulting in a steady, vile breakdown in the quality of the prints, the sound systems, the staff, the seating, the overall decor and general upkeep. And I only mention this now for a coupla reasons...
One is that this was my theater for the most formative events in my career as a kid; going there and experiencing Batman, Ninja Turtles, Edward Scissorhands, Dracula, A League of Their Own, Tommy Boy, Braveheart, 12 Monkeys, Mrs. Doubtfire, Titanic, and countless, countless other examples of classic cinema forced me to leave my own deep metaphysical footprint prominently on the property.
Secondly, in some bizarre tangible metaphor, the steady deterioration of the multiplex nearly coincided with me distancing myself from mainstream movies as they gradually drifted into directions I'd had no interest in. It was like the barometric connection between E.T. and the flowers.
And lastly - I still go to the movies (a different theater, of course), less for the films themselves & largely for the salt & liquid butter. But wherever I go - big or small, multiplex or underground - I still get that tickle and I can't shake the feeling that everything's gonna be wonderful --even though it's not, and I know it.

- Paul

GROOVE APPROVED