Shock Treatment.

Review #2582: Shock Treatment.

Cast:  

Jessica Harper (Janet Majors), Cliff DeYoung (Farley Flavors, Brad Majors), Richard O'Brien (Dr. Cosmo McKinley), Patricia Quinn (Dr. Nation McKinley), Ruby Wax (Betty Hapschatt), Charles Gray (Judge Oliver Wright), Barry Humphries (Bert Schnick), Manning Redwood (Harry Weiss), Darlene Johnson (Emily Weiss), Jeremy Newson (Ralph Hapschatt), Wendy Raebeck (Macy Struthers), Betsy Brantley (Neely Pritt), Christopher Malcolm (Vance Parker), Little Nell (Nurse Ansalong), Rik Mayall ("Rest Home" Ricky), Eugene Lipinski (Kirk), Barry Dennen (Irwin Lapsey), and Gary Shail (Oscar Drill) Directed by Jim Sharman (#1449 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

 

Review: 

Sure, why not? You may remember that The Rocky Horror Picture Show (released in 1975 as based on The Rocky Horror Show) was initially a flop, mainly because, well, some people do in fact want a supposed tribute and also parody to the "kitsch" science fiction/horror movies* of the old days to actually...be interesting besides a campy facade that did not sway me beyond the most average moments (even a double-bill campus re-release with Phantom of the Paradise [1974] didn't help). But let's be fair: an idea by a Fox executive to give a midnight run gave the movie lasting cult appeal, with a good chunk of screenings in later years being joined with a live performance by a cast of fans. Returning alongside producers Lou Adler & Michael White, Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien collaborated with each other on the script (with Sharman as director) for what basically would be a spiritual (with most of the folks returning in different roles), although Susan Sarandon did not return due to wanting more money, Bostwick did not return due to being unavailable and Curry, well, he just said no. They wanted to film in Dallas and England but the Screen Actors Guild strike in summer 1980 scuttled those plans to where it ended up being filmed in England in the fall of 1980. Production designer Brian Thomson delivered a reworking of the story that saw the film shot in a giant studio that saw him get credited for "additional ideas" Trying to get in on how Rocky Horror got its cult appeal, Shock Treatment only played in limited engagements with midnight screenings that started around late October 1981...which flopped, but there is a small enough following (even with O'Brien once labeling it as an "abortion"). Sharman hasn't directed a theatrical film since, although he has done numerous productions in the theatre and last year was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia.

I admit to only knowing this movie because it was covered by The Cinema Snob many years ago. So it goes. An odd-looking town is now swallowed up by a TV network studio, complete with a medical facility, that's your starting point. I really did try to go with an open mind for the movie, complete with a 95 minute runtime. I suppose it is an attempt at a compliment to say the movie is roughly around the same level of curiosity of the Rocky Horror film, but I then realize that isn't saying much because good God, I still don't have a real favorite person to watch for either of these movies. For all of the singing and all of its attempts to curtail any idea of horror for straight musical comedy, I can't stand much of these bastard people and its incessant averageness. I will say it is amusing as hell that they really tried to aim at appealing to those who were already big on the Rocky Horror stuff (specifically the ones who know the stuff by heart for a midnight screening), complete with a tagline of not being a sequel or a prequel but instead an "equal"...that basically splatted right on the pavement. Harper tries her best in trying to give something to a role that is gripped in the swaying power of would-be fame, which is sometimes curious and sometimes neat, but I can't help in thinking she just had a better time with a fellow box office failure-turned-cult classic musical comedy horror with Phantom of the Paradise; it's not so much that she can't hold it together for an ensemble, it just feels like she needs a real person to actually bounce off as opposed to being in the bin with the loons. It's entirely possible I just don't have patience for certain musicals (incidentally, you could put the film and The Music Man [1962] on at the same time and have nearly enough time to see the former again). Humphries and DeYoung basically are trying to fill the hole left from no Curry to really hold the screen together in insidious elusiveness that just isn't as pronounced as you wish it was. It's middling spoof material that begs for more than being stuck in a fishbowl setting that might as well make you wish you could drill a hole in your head to escape. Some have said that it had a predictive hand at reality TV. Well, that is pretty silly, mainly because An American Family exists, complete with an eight-year headstart that even had its own spoof with Real Life [1979]; one of the people of the aforementioned Family show even once said "Television ate my family" (at any rate, if we are talking about movies with interesting perspectives on the blurring of reality and TV, The Truman Show [1998] humiliates Shock Treatment many, many, many times over*). "Influencer culture", well, argue that for yourself, and the style for certain moments within its cloying studio is sometimes interesting, but if I don't care for the scenario or the songs beyond "okay", then it doesn't really matter what "prescient" thing has been accomplished. I honestly can't get a grasp on the characters now played by DeYoung and Harper other than wanting to throw dangle them over a pit, or, alternatively, bashing my head in. I don't care about who is supposed to be the "emotional cripple" or who doesn't know what they really are with attention focused on them, but maybe you will. Maybe it becomes the movie you see again to really experience for what it really, really means in the soul. So it goes.

 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*For something that wants to be campy and fun, I found more fun in actually just watching 1950s horror movies. You get more out of something like I Married a Monster from Outer Space than Rocky Horror Picture Show in entertainment value, and I will die on that hill. Besides, the former doesn't go on the "cinematic experience" of catcalls and toilet-paper throwing to get its kicks. Are you fucking kidding me?

*Okay that last film was mentioned because O'Brien apparently argued that The Truman Show certainly had some inspiration from Shock Treatment (as stated here or here). I'm....trying not to laugh.

Incidentally, here's a quote from an LA Times article about An American Family in 2003 upon the airing of a look back on the family from two of the original film crew: 

The Raymonds, whose most recent work is the HBO documentary “Children in War,” find it a “mixed honor” to be credited, as they often are, with the creation of modern-day reality television. “We don’t do shows for MTV. I don’t care to take credit for ‘The Real World,’ ‘The Osbournes,’ or [the] ‘Anna Nicole [Show],’ ” said Alan Raymond. “They’re terrible.”

Or, alternatively, a 2011 New York Times article.

 Mr. Gilbert and the Raymonds do agree on at least one thing: that “An American Family” has been unfairly credited with — or blamed — for starting reality television. The immersive, leisurely rhythms of the series are a stark contrast from the artificial situations (lab-rat housemates, gladiatorial contests) that dominate today’s reality programs. With its grainy look and distanced camerawork, it resembles an art film more than any reality show.

Drive Angry.

Review #2581: Drive Angry.

Cast: 

Nicolas Cage (John Milton), Amber Heard (Piper Lee), William Fichtner (the Accountant), Billy Burke (Jonah King), David Morse (Webster), Katy Mixon (Norma Jean), Charlotte Ross (Candy), Christa Campbell (Mona Elkins), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Roy), Todd Farmer (Frank Raimi), with Tom Atkins (Captain), and Jack McGee (Lou "Fat Lou") Directed by Patrick Lussier (#2114 - Dracula 2000)

Review: 

Sure, let's pick a movie found on one of those movie-packs*. It's not every day that you see a film with a poster that says "Shot in 3D" as if that somehow was going to be a drawing aspect beyond, say, the Avatar movies (I myself saw a movie in 3D about...three times*). But Patrick Lussier did have some success with My Bloody Valentine 3D two years earlier, so it wasn't a complete stretch (incidentally, Todd Farmer co-wrote both films, with this one being done with Lussier). Nicolas Cage was apparently attracted to the film because of the 3D format and also getting his eye shot out, so there's an endorsement for making choices for the sake of doing so. At any rate, folks arising from Hell to go on a crusade against evildoers, well, you probably saw it before in some way with Spawn (incidentally, the 1997 movie had Alan B. McElroy as a writer; he had written a script about a man going on the run from Hell with bounty hunters after him), but I'm sure you can see the appeal. Lussier also co-edited the film with Devin C. Lussier. Released on a budget of over $45 million, the movie was not a hit at the time with audiences.

You get a movie that starts with a dude wearing a chain wallet that has the (stainless banner version) Confederate* flag on it getting his ass beat by our lead character (get it, "John Milton"? what was their rejected other choice - "I. M. Hell"? "Dante S. Inferno"?). It's basically a movie for those who love over-the-top movies of sex and violence that probably would go well with something such as say, Motorpsycho (1965). I have to say: I did actually like this movie in the face of the quirks that come in: seeing it at home when you can't really feel the "3D" that was in theaters, seeing a film that kind of does just blaze the path of revenge with stiff folks rather than a shoehorned romance for 104 minutes, and lastly: a movie that seems dedicated for the sickos that think they know what "camp" or "cult films" mean. Sure, it has a more methodical performance from Cage than what you might expect (particularly with whatever you want to call that blond hairpiece), but he does carry the film pretty well with some sobering charm that makes you go with the comic book-type of ride. It's a movie with a goofy-ass gun that makes you deader than dead, who's to complain? And then there's Heard along for the ride who basically coasts on kicking some ass without dwelling on too many of the consequences that I can appreciate some of the time. Of course, the gem in the rough of the cast besides Cage is Fichtner, who essentially glides along with the creeping power of being a methodical pest on the hell-level of an IRS agent (or, in his words, one where he just had to "fill in the blanks"). I almost wish it was Fichtner and Cage paired together, going around in a cool car (hey, some folks like cars from the 1950s or 1960s) dealing with folks that try to be nerdy for Satan, but I'll accept the conceit provided in such a fun performance played for Fichtner. Burke is mostly trying to do what can only be described as "Spirit Halloween rendition of Jim Jones" and pretty much succeeds in being detestable within his conviction that you could at least see a few suckers getting into an orgy of delusion and nerd-ing out for what they think is the true power*. There are plenty of oddball moments that'll throw the viewer for a loop, ranging from casual fiancé-on-fiancé violence to a gunfight with a naked woman present or the garden variety plan to, I'm not kidding, drink from a man's skull, but I enjoyed this kind of offbeat movie. It's a film that reaches for keeping your attention (even with a middling soundtrack) with car chases and other blunt instruments that will leave some with a chuckle and others running cold. It's a guilty pleasure type of movie possibly worth checking out for the curiosity factor, at least in my mind. So it goes.

 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Same movie pack that includes such Cage movies as Knowing, Joe, and, I shit you not: Deadfall.

*Star Wars: The Force Awakens (second watch), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (second time), and Avatar: The Way of Water, for the record.

*See you know the dude is going to get his ass kicked because he has a thing with the flag of the biggest losers possible.

*Look, isn't Satanism a bit more of a lame larp than actual religious people? At least agnostic people don't inspire as much cringe as the atheists do from time to time.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

Review #2580: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

Cast: 

Michael Sheen (Lucian; Alexander Carroll as Young Lucian), Bill Nighy (Viktor), Rhona Mitra (Sonja; Olivia Taylforth as Young Sonja), Steven Mackintosh (Andreas Tanis), Kevin Grevioux (Raze), David Aston (Coloman), Elizabeth Hawthorne (Orsova), Craig Parker (Sabas), Larry Rew (Kosta), Jared Turner (Xristo), Timothy Raby (Janosh), and Tania Nolan (Luka) Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos.

Review: 

Sure, why not make the third Underworld movie serve as a prequel? You might remember that in Underworld (2003), there was this whole thing about everyday life having a group of folks around that don't like each other with vampires and "Lycans" (who among us shortens a word to make up a name), with one particular hunter getting into the funny business of finding out that vampire elders are, well, not much different from Lycans in what you might call a twist on Romeo & Juliet (okay, one person called it that at the time, but hey*). So, with the realization that Lycans were basically slaves to the vampires until they made their fight for freedom, who better to direct than a first-timer? In fairness to Patrick Tatopoulos, the Greek-Frenchman had directed a few music videos and a short before making this film as his directorial debut, having done, well, plenty of work in effects, such as the previous two Underworld films; as it stands, this is his only feature directorial effort. Here's five credited writers: Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain for the screenplay and Len Wiseman, Robert Orr & McBride for the story. Things returned to normal with Awakening in 2012 (which had Wiseman return to serve as a co-writer).

Remember when the first movie had Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy? Remember when they ended up dead at the end of the movie because, well, they just had to go? It's kind of funny watching a movie with two semi-interesting people in it that can't die here but are trying to make a go of lines such as "You're a credit to your race"* and the ever-developing locale of blue, grey, blue, grey, and maybe a third distinguishable color. So, basically, it's a side-step of quality from Evolution that at least looks like they tried to make you care for the fight of independence (with just a smidge of sex on a cliff*). The cringing of knowing it stinks at least has a smile for what they tried to do in their blue-grey medieval aim. There is a certain type of charm that Sheen brings for a pedestrian type of character that I'm sure had to have been thought of as akin to Moses by at least one filmmaker (you just know someone wanted to say, "let my PEOPLE go!", be honest) that basically keeps the movie afloat with his energy that sells most of what you like to see in acts of defiance that gives some credibility to wanting to see where things are going to go. Sure, you wish there was more time with the dazzling Mitra*, because you want more magnetism to really clear a path for inevitable tragedy, but they are fairly likable to watch in the calamity of forced roles. Nighy makes for a quality adversary in the type of elder arrogance that has both cunning and one-sided vision for what is right within the land of vampires, people, and the ones beneath each (which namely involves money because what else is there to do with castles and horses). I honestly forgot that Mackintosh and Grevioux each appeared in one of the earlier movies and I feel like that indicates the quality of these goofy movies not really rising up to par with the bare minimum presented with the first movie in resembling something cool (vampires, wolves, dark outfits), but I digress. It gives you people getting hit with weapons that aren't just guns and even sees folks hurt by the sun or swords (some of them even live, go figure). You get some decent-looking effects within a fairly efficient runtime of 89 minutes that is sometimes entertaining and may likely give you what you expect in "fill-in things", which I guess is better than nothing. So it goes.

 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day: September 21 edition

*Generally I don't care about gossip and personal lives, but it's kinda funny that Beckinsale met her future husband Len Wiseman when they were doing Underworld (2003)...while in a partnership with Michael Sheen. 

*Not to make a thing about it, but I can't remember if there's even a single black vampire in this film, but the Lycans sure have their guys that decided being one of them is better than being a slave.

*What, too cute of a phrase? Movie Night endorses sex and violence in horror and action movies, naturally.

*Double note: making a reference to The Ten Commandments may or may not sound a bit less cheesy than playing Tony Blair three times. And as for Mitra, hey, I still remember her time on Boston Legal because good golly.

Resident Evil: Extinction.

Review #2579: Resident Evil: Extinction.

Cast:  

Milla Jovovich (Alice), Ali Larter (Claire Redfield), Oded Fehr (Carlos Oliveira), Iain Glen (Dr. Isaacs), Ashanti (Nurse Betty), Mike Epps (L.J.), Spencer Locke (K-Mart), Jason O'Mara (Albert Wesker), Christopher Egan (Mikey), Madeline Carroll (White Queen), Matthew Marsden (Slater), Linden Ashby (Chase), and Joe Hursley (Otto) Directed by Russell Mulcahy (#2575 - The Shadow)

Review: 

“Horror films have always been a great passion of mine, so it’s great to get my hands on such a fantastic script. Visually, Resident Evil: Extinction is different from the previous two films.  The first one was quite claustrophobic; the next one was outside on wet night streets, and now, we take them out into the desert.  It has a very western feel but is futuristic, crazy and creepy.”

You might remember that Resident Evil (2002) was basically a piece of crap from Paul W. S. Anderson where the studio (as originally started by Constantin Film, who had the rights to the series since 1997) decided that rejecting George A. Romero and others was just peachy. And then came Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), which continued the road of going basically nowhere while namedropping a few video game character names that I'm sure fans of the series (as created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara for Capcom) at least had a ball with for a second. I called it "hack spectacle" and don't really regret my assessment of a movie that spends most of its time at night. The third film of the series saw a veteran director with yet another Anderson script with Russell Mulcahy, who Anderson said had a "very distinct visual style" and apparently had storyboarded the film when he had their first meeting with the producers. For fun, enjoy this one quote from Anderson at the time of promoting the movie: "It's all part of trying to deliver a movie-going experience that satisfies the fans of the game but also provides a fun cinematic experience for a broader audience that has never played a Resident Evil game." With primary filming in Mexico (with various sets designed by Eugenio Caballero with special effects covered by Patrick Tatopoulos and his studio), the movie was enough of a hit, to, well, where Anderson ended up directing the next three movies starting with Afterlife in 2010.

If the producers really thought that these films felt like epics that were meant to keep things going for a saga of entertainment (read: money money)...they didn't really get as far as they believed with three straight stinkers in a row. Technically, this movie is the more interesting of the three because it at least simplifies things into the most obvious ways possible: crib from Mad Max (with more sand than brain cells) with the setting of the world going to hell and just hope people just go with killer crows and further "Alice is just doing this thing now because screw it" moments and at least meet it half-way. There is nothing new to really say about Jovovich besides the digital airbrushing done on close-ups because, well, it's the same wooden stuff that can't sell anything besides a few kicks even with the new development of, wait for it, multiple clones (ones seen with and without clothes) and further use of telekinesis because, screw it. There isn't much to connect one with the other besides being an action hero that can't lose and also can't make you think of them as anything other than being a pastiche of a pastiche. Larter plays it basically as the catch-all leader/buddy that makes you yearn for Final Destination (hey, you probably liked it more than me*) in actual conviction of the words spoken. The disposal of returning folks in Fehr and Epps, one in a pointless death and the other in a middling sacrifice, is regrettable because nobody really makes an impression in the film when not focused on, well, Alice (having a character named after Kmart and "I guess he does computers" is about all you get). Glen and his plan of what is basically "well, if you can't domesticate them, make a new type of zombie" is not particularly that interesting, mainly because most of the time in a locale less exciting than a board room (to say nothing of whatever is supposed to be the thing with O'Mara playing someone named Wesker that does even less).  So, yeah, it's a 5/10 in the face of such ridiculous aspects but at least you can see a movie try to break out...and not stick at anything. As a whole, the same lazy spectacle of a few decent zombie effects mixed in with middling action and an even sillier story makes for pretty much more of the same stuff you saw in the other two movies. But so it goes.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Who among us doesn't get mad at a movie being a stinky bag of nothing? 

3000 Miles to Graceland.

Review #2578: 3000 Miles to Graceland.

Cast: 

Kurt Russell (Michael Zane), Kevin Costner (Thomas Jonathan "Murphy" Liebling), Courteney Cox (Cybil Waingrow), Christian Slater (Hanson), Kevin Pollak (U.S. Marshal Damitry), David Arquette (Gus), Jon Lovitz (Jay Peterson), Howie Long (Jack), Thomas Haden Church (U.S. Marshal Quigley), Bokeem Woodbine (Franklin), Ice-T (Hamilton), David A. Kaye (Jesse Waingrow), Louis Lombardi (Otto Sinclair), and Paul Anka (Pit Boss #1) Directed by Demian Lichenstein.

Review:

Believe it or not, I really was thinking of this as a potential "Acknowledged in August" candidate for some time. How could I resist? A Kurt Russell movie where he goes around dressed up like Elvis in an action flick that was a flop? How could it go wrong? Believe it or not, the original script for the film was done by a first-timer: Richard Recco, a New York electrician (as noted in this L.A. Times article of the time, which noted that he liked to paint in addition to being in an electricians union). Inspired by his love of the mystique of Elvis and thinking "hey, I could do that" when seeing an action movie, he studied the scripts of movies such as Dog Day Afternoon and True Romance for what became, well, a Hollywood movie. Demian Lichenstein (known mostly for his work in music videos and obscure movies), interested in a previous Recco script (which had been submitted into a Sundance Film Festival competition), got interested enough in the Elvis thing to where he brought it up to Kevin Costner in a meeting that got him to be interested as well. Lichenstein made enough contributions to the script by this point to where he shares the credit with Recco for the credits. The Franchise Pictures production apparently had enough creative differences to where Russell and Costner each made their own "cut" of the film to screen, with Russell focusing more on the romcom aspects and Costner doing, well, the version you see now. Made on a budget of over $47 million, the film was a substantial flop (yes, people chose Down to Earth and Hannibal on opening week), making less than half of the budget as a whole.

Naturally, the movie is set in Last Vegas during "International Elvis Week" where a bunch of robbers dress up in jumpsuits and glasses to get millions of dollars to get in and get out, and good lord, I swear this is somehow lower on the totem pole for Vegas heists than the 1960 version of Ocean's 11. How could the Costner version have passed? What fresh hell was present in the Russell "version" that things would've been better with a movie that starts with a fight between CG-rendered scorpions? I can't really say it would've been a better movie if it just focused on the heist and these robbers (mainly because it feels designed to short-change Slater, Woodbine, and Arquette*, with the latter not even being depicted getting shot to death), but good lord, this is just a listless movie to slog through, especially for 125 minutes. You could be listening to an entire Elvis album (okay I don't do albums, but even playing six of his songs would give you more of his stuff than what you get here, since they barely do any Elvis songs). Older folks might know that Russell played Elvis in a John Carpenter-directed TV movie in 1979 and also briefly acted in that Presley vehicle It Happened at the World's Fair (as released in 1963, where he kicked him in the shins). This is basically the litmus test for how much you like Russell as a presence in movies because even in crappy fare, he at least gives the idea of a neat conman more than, well, trying to stay on the level of Cox and survive the rest of the mayhem, which naturally rests on the lead surviving not one, but two gunshots because, wait for it, he was ready with a bullet-proof vest (what, never see a zombie movie?).  The most interesting about Costner's character is that he plays someone resentful of not being able to prove that they are the bastard son of Elvis. 

As I tried to shrug my shoulders at the sheer lunacy of taking that into account, I also had to try and play fair with an actor that I don't really find myself that fond of besides, what, Field of Dreams or Bull Durham* (Dances with Wolves lends credence to the theory that you can see a movie as an 8/10 but not actually love it that much)? This performance, resembling the ramblings of a homeless man (well...*), may actually make you appreciate The Postman (1997), because at least he seemed like he wanted to actually have fun with his weird ass fable as opposed to whatever the hell his deal is meant to be here. Aside from basically killing or blowing up anything that walks into his path, it reeks of a parody and yet he plays it so seriously and so joylessly that it doesn't even matter by the time the character finally kicks the bucket. There is very little energy for me to talk about Cox and the varied attempts at comedy (in a confused movie that has moms abandoning their kids to go to Idaho, because screw it), so why even try? Who cares what she tries to give in this movie? (hell, let's throw real questions: did anyone actually like Friends?) Having to spend any time with her or the on-screen son in Kaye (a precocious pickpocket kid - what a twist) probably makes a good tribute to the Elvis movies, specifically the corny parts you skip before hearing a song. So, in the unceremonious cleaning out of Slater, Woodbine, and Arquette in the first 40 minutes, you get a supporting cast (not counting Cox/Kaye because, well, no) of even more people who are given little to really do with Lovitz, Long, Ice-T, Church & Pollak, because good lord, how do you waste that much potential? There's just little zip to the lines given for basically filler (i.e. who cares about the authorities being one step behind in a movie where a robber getting away with crime basically seems certain), as if the array of editing choices (2001 era, woah buddy!) was supposed to be the showstopper. You don't care for the heist (what's to worry?), you don't care for the "romance", and you don't care for the villain, and at a certain point in the array of deaths (such as say, a "draw your weapon" one), you just want to get to the climax because at least it'll just be Russell and Costner trying to one-up each other. Simply put, what you get here is the ultimate take-it-or-leave-it stinker: not terrible but not nearly average enough to slip by for anything other than days of having absolutely nothing better to spend time with for lazy action days.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Still not the best baseball movie. 

*What, who else doesn't drive to Taco Bell?

*Wrestling fans might remember this was the time when Arquette "won" the World Heavyweight Championship by this vignette, as done during the making of 3000 Miles to Graceland - WCW Monday Nitro - 1,000 Miles to Slamboree (Kurt Russell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox)

Stay Hungry.

Review #2577: Stay Hungry.

Cast: 

Jeff Bridges (Craig Blake), Sally Field (Mary Tate Farnsworth), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Joe Santo), R. G. Armstrong (Thor Erickson), Robert Englund (Franklin), Helena Kallianiotes (Anita), Roger E. Mosley (Newton), Woodrow Parfrey (Uncle Albert), Scatman Crothers (William), Kathleen Miller (Dorothy Stephens), Fannie Flagg (Amy), Joanna Cassidy (Zoe), Richard Gilliland (Hal), Mayf Nutter (Richard Packman), Ed Begley Jr (Lester), John David Carson (Halsey), and Joe Spinell (Jabo) Directed by Bob Rafelson (#2159 - Head)

Review: 

"I place a great deal of faith in the collaboration of the entire company, and in the atmosphere in which I am shooting. I try to remain susceptible to what the characters are telling me, what the weather is telling me, what the sounds around me are telling me… While I do enormous amounts of preparation, I go through a strange emptying process before I go to the stage, and try to evaporate all the preconceived notions I have about how the day’s work is going to be. I try to stay vulnerable."

Sure, let's hitchhike our way down to the other other other Bob Rafelson movie. Some might associate him with Head (1968), featuring The Monkees (of which he helped to develop), or perhaps with Five Easy Pieces (1970), or even The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), with the latter two featuring Jack Nicholson. After the release of Gardens, Rafelson found himself hitchhiking across the South. Rather than doing a movie about the slave trade (with countless time spent in libraries and apparently Ghana), he landed upon something suggested to him by a friend: a book by Charles Gaines called Stay Hungry. Sure, he didn't really care about making a straight adaptation of the book, but he felt that the "conclusions of his novel were not unlike the conclusions I had come to in both Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens" (of course, in the book, it ends with a death). Stay Hungry made a bit of money when it came out in April 1976, and you can safely say each of the three leads went on to bigger things. Incidentally, the actual Gaines was an interesting fellow - he was a writer and outdoorsman that could talk about the outdoors just as much as bodybuilding, and he served as one of the driving forces behind Pumping Iron (1977, as inspired on his 1974 book with George Butler), the docudrama featuring Schwarzenegger during the 1975 Mr. Olympia competitions*. Rafelson's next film was to be Brubaker, only to be fired due to having troubles with a certain studio executive (who he apparently socked in the jaw). Instead, he returned to the screen with The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981).

It's not every day you get a movie where someone decides, hey, let's steal a painting from a building for the hell of it, nighttime be damned. It's the kind of movie that makes you feel like you're on the road without actually travelling very far in any one direction. It's a freeform movie with plenty of episodes of things to go around, whether that involves the pursuit of bodybuilding (particularly at the end), bluegrass playing, hookers, women trying to do karate*, and dudes who really chase the hunger of the next thing rather than stay comfortable. That last point, wrapped in the eccentricities of what Rafelson loves to show in the "New" South makes for a movie that will please its admirers and annoy those who can't get into its 102-minute runtime. I thought it was mildly fun, mainly when it actually does find some footing with these people for warm fun, which mostly comes with Schwarzenegger*, who has a sweet sense of charm within his acceptance of being a big man in a world that likes to look (and use) big men like him for as long as they possibly could (not particularly sure what the costume worn for the workouts is supposed to really mean, but, well, that's something else). Bridges and Field have a certain type of casual nature together that sees both just dally around for the sake of dallying, where the former has to realize he needs something in his life, anything that sounds different than the usual hollow times in a big house (or drunk) while the latter can only help but speak her mind. These are folks who think that any type of different thing is better than whatever they have now (even if choosing a fling over barhopping is not particularly that effusive). Granted, this is also a movie that doesn't really paint a wide canvas of characters as you want it to do (I could take more time with whatever Kallianiotes is doing in karate, for example), but there are a handful of amusing little moments if you let the movie wash over. You get bits of wormy Spinell to go with a fairly youthful Englund, a fairly creepy (and timely) Armstrong and a climax that lets things hangout without too many definitive endings. It is a movie firmly wrapped in its time and place of a different type of South with Birmingham that moves on its own terms in ungainly but fascinating entertainment.  It's a movie for folks who want to make their own mark and think shooting the breeze might as well be the way over as long as the hunger burns. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Did I mention that he was a co-creator of the sport of paintball? No, really. Incidentally, Schwarzenegger earned his one acting award for "Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture", mainly because they forgot that it actually wasn't his first film role: others may remember him, billed as "Arnold Strong" playing Hercules (albeit in a dubbed capacity) in Hercules in New York [1970]. He also appeared in a bit role in The Long Goodbye [1973].

*There is a rumor that Rafelson asked for Field to take off her shirt and kiss him (specifically Field said it in her autobiography). He denied this, although he subsequently did get divorced from his wife (and production designer) Toby Carr Rafelson soon after this film. So it goes.

*Orange belt as a kid, folks. Kinda fun.

Coyote vs. Acme.

Review #2576: Coyote vs. Acme.

Cast: 

Will Forte (Kevin Avery), Lana Condor (Paige Avery), John Cena (Buddy Crane), Eric Bauza (Bugs Bunny, Charlie Dog, Daffy Duck, Dr. Peter Lorre, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Gossamer, Porky Pig, The Road Runner, Tweety, Pepé Le Pew), Candi Milo (Granny, Witch Hazel, Miss Prissy), Jim Cummings (the Tasmanian Devil), Tone Bell (Sal Maltese), Martha Kelly (Dottie Jones), Luis Guzmán (Judge Troppogrosso), P. J. Byrne (Bill Pelicanos), John Early (Henry Heslop), Nancy Linehan Charles (Cherry), Kenneth Choi (Oscar Jeon), and Ernie Vigil (Talon) Directed by Dave Green.

Review: 

“You got away with it. You robbed the bank. You made a courtroom drama for kids starring Looney Tunes characters. In so many ways, this movie should not exist."

In 1990, there was a piece in The New Yorker called "Coyote v. Acme" by Ian Frazier that posed Wile E. Coyote (as originally created by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese in 1949) suing the Acme Corporation for all of the defective products that he received from them in his failed pursuit of the Roadrunner (of course, it wasn't the first humor piece on the subject, National Lampoon did a piece in 1982*). As late as the 1990s, producers wanted to adapt it to the screen but it was only in the mid-2010s that Warner Bros. got the ball rolling. Dave Green (director of such films as Earth to Echo [2014] and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows [2016]) was signed on to direct in 2019; he got the job while positing if it could be akin to a true-crime documentary. Various people worked on the script for years: Samy Burch was credited for the screenplay while Burch, Jeremy Slater and James Gunn were given credit from the story (various "off-screen additional literary credits" were given to Alex Cuthbertson and Jacob Fleisher and Matt Fusfeld and Dan Goor and BenDavid Grabinski and Jon Silberman and Josh Silberman and Craig Wright, respectively). The DNEG studio was utilized for visual effects and computer animation while Duncan Studio was utilized specifically for select characters handled entirely in 2D. Initially, the movie was to be released in July 2023. Obviously, it did not meet that date, specifically because Warner Bros. Entertainment decided to take the $30 million tax write-off rather than release it (which also occurred with Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt). Eventually, in 2025, Ketchup Entertainment acquired the rights to the film for roughly $50 million (you might recognize that they previously had acquired the North American theatrical distribution rights for The Day the Earth Blew Up in 2024).

I really wanted to like the movie, honestly. With a 103-minute runtime that references the mythological figure Sisyphus numerous times and handily takes inspiration from "underdog courtroom movies" such as The Insider, Erin Brockovich and A Few Good Men, aa...and it felt only mildly funny to me. Have we raised the bar of "Looney Tunes but in the real world" from Looney Tunes: Back in Action [2003] (I refuse to even try to give "credit" to Space Jam)? Have we really moved so little that the high bar for integrating live action and animation is still Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) from nearly four decades ago? Is the bar so low that a movie daring to posit "the dangers of animal testing but with cartoon characters?" seems funny in the odd times we live in?* There are moments when the animation works pretty well in the live-action environment, and it specifically is when you don't have to look at a close-up cel-shaded animated face. I appreciate the time taken to try and work out gags (as noted here), which probably saves the film from basically being a face in the crowd, mainly since the biggest prominent talking cartoon character is basically Dr. Lorre and Bugs Bunny (this of course does not mean to disrespect Wile E. Coyote, who mainly communicates with signs as the dedicated fanatic of the chase*). It basically goes down to how much you like the time spent with Forte or Cena in the scenario presented of "cartoons just...live here among us", which actually might be funnier for the latter in terms of actual timing (not to take anything from Forte, but there are only so many "underdog" cliches to go around, especially when involves lawyers.). It wants to find the sweet spot between the court room and, well, not in the court room that is basically hit-or-miss (what secrets lie beneath "Project Sisyphus", oh gee). The eventual reveal (get it? cartoon violence can actually seem messed up when presented in a certain way?) bridges the movie from what had been a fairly sluggish middle and at least has the movie close on a high note (if you're making an underdog movie, might as well go with a postscript to patch things up). As a whole, it's the ultimate average movie in ambition versus execution, but with the way that Warner Bros. treated the movie, it is nice to see it around for someone to watch rather than being a tax write-off by idiots. So it goes. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

I apologize, of course, for how long it took to review this movie. I saw it on September 1 (Tuesday afternoon) but honestly wasn't feeling too great by the next day. As it turned out, I needed a tooth extraction, so please excuse the delay.

*And of course Night Court did a little gag with the Coyote in 1990 - Wile E. Coyote On "Night Court"

*What's next, Looney Tunes: Daffy and Bugs re-enacting the Civil War?

*Speaking of voices. Maybe I should see more cartoons, but I really don't care for Tweety. At least the Roadrunner doesn't speak when confronted with their counterpart (as opposed to Tweety vs. Sylvester).