11 years ago
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Gladiator
Gladiator, 2000, Russell Crowe, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Roman general Russell Crowe slaughters some Picts and Celts, gets named heir-apparent by the dying Ceasar, which pisses off Ceasar's son, Joaquin Phoenix. Son orders Crowe executed, along with his family. Crowe improbably dodges the Grim Reaper but ends up enslaved and sold into the gladiator biz, where he totally hauls ass. Date with destiny awaits. Won a sh!tload of hardware, including Best Picture - though not a quarter the move Traffic was , and approximately half the movie Erin Brokovich was - and for some reason Best Actor for Crowe.
Of Note: Oliver Reed died with three weeks left in shooting. He was engaged in a hardcore drinking game with some sailors on shore leave, suffered a massive heart attack, fell off his bar stool and died. That. Is Awesome.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Cartoon violence-porn features SF/X swordplay but no real humans were involved in the making of this movie. If you want gladiators you care about, watch Spartacus. If you want Roman politics, watch the silent-screen or Technicolor epic versions of Ben Hur.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Reds
Reds, 1981, starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, et al.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Restless American progressive wants to write about important stuff. Ends up in revolutionary Russia. There's some suggestion that neither Americans nor Ruskies would understand freedom (of speech, particularly) if it bit them in the ass. And a mediocre love story. And some dubious reminiscing by people who knew Reed. Beatty won a golden trinket as Best Director, but the film lost to Chariots of Fire as Best Picture.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: A wannabe epic with pretenses of Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and, hell, every David Lean movie ever made, written by, directed by, and starring a big-time Hollywood star who had the clout to get a movie made about a glorified labour organizer who got tangled up with the Bolsheviks.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Departed
The Departed: 2006 Crime Drama directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Marky Mark, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and Anthony Anderson.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Leo goes undercover for the cops. Damon goes undercover for the Irish mob. A bunch of guys in horrible Boston accents yell insults at each other for being from various sides of the track. Nicholson runs the mob; he smells a rat. Mayhem ensues, with plenty of double-crosses along the way.
Like No Country for Old Men, it's slick, pointlessly violent and empty. But Hollywood ate it up, awarding Scorsese the Best Picture Oscar more or less as a lifetime Achievement Award in case he drops dead before he makes another worthy film and as an apology for stiffing him for genuine works of genius such as The King of Comedy.
By the time you get to the "surprise" ending you're exhausted and don't care.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: The Departed should have stayed away.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Leo goes undercover for the cops. Damon goes undercover for the Irish mob. A bunch of guys in horrible Boston accents yell insults at each other for being from various sides of the track. Nicholson runs the mob; he smells a rat. Mayhem ensues, with plenty of double-crosses along the way.
Like No Country for Old Men, it's slick, pointlessly violent and empty. But Hollywood ate it up, awarding Scorsese the Best Picture Oscar more or less as a lifetime Achievement Award in case he drops dead before he makes another worthy film and as an apology for stiffing him for genuine works of genius such as The King of Comedy.
By the time you get to the "surprise" ending you're exhausted and don't care.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: The Departed should have stayed away.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Way We Were
The Way We Were: 1973 Romantic Drama starring Robert Redford, Barbara Streisand. Directed by Sidney Pollack.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: A good-looking, popular, athletic Yalie falls in love with an ugly, humorless, Commie sympathizer who tries to rally her fellow students to the Kremlin's efforts in Civil War Spain.
He's a pragmatic WASP with friends named "Muffy" and "Charles Emerson Winchester III." She's an idealistic Jewish political agitator whose only friend is fellow Trotskyite James Woods. Implausibly, Redford's drawn to her. Even more implausibly, his friends don't organize an intervention.
Years go by. Redford's in the Navy. Streisand irons her hair straight (honest, they make a big deal out of it). They run into each other at a pish-posh party and make an accidental hook-up. She becomes desperately clingy. He fails to get a restraining order.
Another chance encounter on the street months later leads to romance. This time he stays around despite the fact that she is incapable of getting along with other humans. They move to Hollywood so Redford can pursue his writing career. He wants to make movies; Streisand wants him to write novels. He compromises to get his movie made; she marches off to Washington to defend her First Amendment rights at the HUAC hearings. Still, he stands by her.
The only thing the characters even superficially address is their cultural differences. She says her mother insists that the baby be named after her grandmother, "Shlemackel" or something. He laughs and they both fall to the sandy beach. Aaaah.
After all that, he bolts because - I dunno - because Hollywood producers in the 70s wanted a tear-jerker ending.
Money Quote:
Streisand: "Is it because I'm not attractive?"
Redford: (blank stare)
Re-write: "In a word: 'Yes.' "
Political Incorrect Movie Review: Streisand strains to prove her Marxist bona fides, but brings Redford along for box-office ballast.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: A good-looking, popular, athletic Yalie falls in love with an ugly, humorless, Commie sympathizer who tries to rally her fellow students to the Kremlin's efforts in Civil War Spain.
He's a pragmatic WASP with friends named "Muffy" and "Charles Emerson Winchester III." She's an idealistic Jewish political agitator whose only friend is fellow Trotskyite James Woods. Implausibly, Redford's drawn to her. Even more implausibly, his friends don't organize an intervention.
Years go by. Redford's in the Navy. Streisand irons her hair straight (honest, they make a big deal out of it). They run into each other at a pish-posh party and make an accidental hook-up. She becomes desperately clingy. He fails to get a restraining order.
Another chance encounter on the street months later leads to romance. This time he stays around despite the fact that she is incapable of getting along with other humans. They move to Hollywood so Redford can pursue his writing career. He wants to make movies; Streisand wants him to write novels. He compromises to get his movie made; she marches off to Washington to defend her First Amendment rights at the HUAC hearings. Still, he stands by her.
The only thing the characters even superficially address is their cultural differences. She says her mother insists that the baby be named after her grandmother, "Shlemackel" or something. He laughs and they both fall to the sandy beach. Aaaah.
After all that, he bolts because - I dunno - because Hollywood producers in the 70s wanted a tear-jerker ending.
Money Quote:
Streisand: "Is it because I'm not attractive?"
Redford: (blank stare)
Re-write: "In a word: 'Yes.' "
Political Incorrect Movie Review: Streisand strains to prove her Marxist bona fides, but brings Redford along for box-office ballast.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Gone With the Wind
Gone With the Wind: 1939 Drama starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard and a cast of thousands.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Scarlett (Leigh) loves, coincidentally, The Scarlett Pimpernel (Howard) but Ashley (as his character is actually named) marries Melanie (de Havilland). Scarlett then gets swept off her feet by Rhett Butler (Gable), who later goes on to hit .300 for the hometown Braves and co-star in the ensemble drama ER.
Scarlett cries. A lot. She cries when the war starts. She cries when Ashley goes off to war. She cries when Melanie has a baby. She cries when the Union Army burns down Atlanta. She cries when she goes back to the plantation, which has been reduced to ashes.
After the house slave informs Scarlett the only thing left to eat are last year's radishes, Scarlett goes into the garden and eats an un-ripe root vegetable and cries some more. She vows to rebuild.
Intermission.
Scarlett cries on Ashley's shoulder. She cries on Rhett's shoulder. She cries and cries some more. All beautifully filmed in glorious colour and all so bloody pointless. After a while it's just a long blur of tears, mercifully concluding after nearly four painful hours with Butler telling Scarlett, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The hype: Based on a monumentally successful door-stopper that centres on, if Her Indoors is to be believed, a no-nonsense heroine who doesn't take no shit from no body. The producers spent a widely publicized year casting for Scarlett. It was like "American Idol: In Search of the Next Luke Skywalker."
The film made enough money to float the entire 1939 issue of War Bonds. Adjusted for inflation, it works out to $4.3 trillion.
Won a truckload of Oscars: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography (I'll go along with that one), Actress (Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel). Ranks 4th on the AFI Top 100 (1988).
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Scarlett cries so much you'll hope she dies in the fire.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Scarlett (Leigh) loves, coincidentally, The Scarlett Pimpernel (Howard) but Ashley (as his character is actually named) marries Melanie (de Havilland). Scarlett then gets swept off her feet by Rhett Butler (Gable), who later goes on to hit .300 for the hometown Braves and co-star in the ensemble drama ER.
Scarlett cries. A lot. She cries when the war starts. She cries when Ashley goes off to war. She cries when Melanie has a baby. She cries when the Union Army burns down Atlanta. She cries when she goes back to the plantation, which has been reduced to ashes.
After the house slave informs Scarlett the only thing left to eat are last year's radishes, Scarlett goes into the garden and eats an un-ripe root vegetable and cries some more. She vows to rebuild.
Intermission.
Scarlett cries on Ashley's shoulder. She cries on Rhett's shoulder. She cries and cries some more. All beautifully filmed in glorious colour and all so bloody pointless. After a while it's just a long blur of tears, mercifully concluding after nearly four painful hours with Butler telling Scarlett, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The hype: Based on a monumentally successful door-stopper that centres on, if Her Indoors is to be believed, a no-nonsense heroine who doesn't take no shit from no body. The producers spent a widely publicized year casting for Scarlett. It was like "American Idol: In Search of the Next Luke Skywalker."
The film made enough money to float the entire 1939 issue of War Bonds. Adjusted for inflation, it works out to $4.3 trillion.
Won a truckload of Oscars: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography (I'll go along with that one), Actress (Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel). Ranks 4th on the AFI Top 100 (1988).
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Scarlett cries so much you'll hope she dies in the fire.
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity: 1953 Drama, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift. Directed by Fred Zinnerman.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Army misfits in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbour. One's a trouble-making pisani (Sinatra), another's a reluctant boxer (Clift); both have a habit of leaving the base without a pass. They get drunk and fight a lot. Then you've got your career sergeant (Lancaster) and the repressed wife (Kerr) of the unit's captain; they have an affair. The Japanese attack. Another guy meets with a bad end. The end.
The hype: Won a bagful of Oscars in '53, including Picture, Director and Supporting Actor (Sinatra). The scene on the beach where Lancaster and Kerr make out is one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history. If you believe The Godfather, a washed-up Sinatra got the role because the mob made the Bigshot Hollywood Producer "an offer he couldn't refuse."
The reality: Turgid army soap opera. That beach scene goes by faster than a dog chasing a frisbee. Sinatra gives a Neil Diamond-level performance and Clift is at his Method peak. Kerr is frostier than an Alaskan weather station and Lancaster is stuck interpreting the sorriest character in his illustrious film career.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It only feels like an Eternity.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Army misfits in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbour. One's a trouble-making pisani (Sinatra), another's a reluctant boxer (Clift); both have a habit of leaving the base without a pass. They get drunk and fight a lot. Then you've got your career sergeant (Lancaster) and the repressed wife (Kerr) of the unit's captain; they have an affair. The Japanese attack. Another guy meets with a bad end. The end.
The hype: Won a bagful of Oscars in '53, including Picture, Director and Supporting Actor (Sinatra). The scene on the beach where Lancaster and Kerr make out is one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history. If you believe The Godfather, a washed-up Sinatra got the role because the mob made the Bigshot Hollywood Producer "an offer he couldn't refuse."
The reality: Turgid army soap opera. That beach scene goes by faster than a dog chasing a frisbee. Sinatra gives a Neil Diamond-level performance and Clift is at his Method peak. Kerr is frostier than an Alaskan weather station and Lancaster is stuck interpreting the sorriest character in his illustrious film career.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It only feels like an Eternity.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane: 1941 drama, Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, among others.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Here's a real silver-screen heavyweight — and I'm not just talking about Orson Welles. He plays media heavyweight Charles Foster Kane, who treats everyone in his family and his newspaper as a servant and exiles anyone who doesn't play the toady. In that way, it's very much a 21st-century tale. Anyway, he croaks in the beginning, gasps Rosebud, and the hapless reporters are sent about the country to find the missing piece of the puzzle.
Early in the film, he's a happy-go-lucky billionaire happy to blow his fortune on a crappy rag. He turns it into an empire, natch, marries a socialite, dances, sings and runs for governor. But politics isn't any good without some action on the side, just ask these guys, strikes up an affair with some half-assed singer and loses the election. Kane ditches the old lady, marries the singer, and moves into Xanadu — where the film loses its vitality and becomes a bore — kinda like Kane himself. The singer's bored, the servants are bored, his old toadies at the paper are long gone, probably bored to tears, so is his ex-wife and eventually the second wife decides to pack it in and get the hell out. At the end, Kane croaks and the reporters, sans Wikipedia, are still no closer to the Rosebud mystery than they were at the beginning. Only in the final sequence does the viewer find out the missing Rosebud link, kicking off decades of joyful symbolizing merriment and hours of inside-of-eyelids-gazing pleasure at Film Studies courses around the land.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It has its moments, the first half of the movie is fast-paced, but then it drags. The greatest film of all time? You can toss those opinions in the same furnace as Rosebud.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Here's a real silver-screen heavyweight — and I'm not just talking about Orson Welles. He plays media heavyweight Charles Foster Kane, who treats everyone in his family and his newspaper as a servant and exiles anyone who doesn't play the toady. In that way, it's very much a 21st-century tale. Anyway, he croaks in the beginning, gasps Rosebud, and the hapless reporters are sent about the country to find the missing piece of the puzzle.
Early in the film, he's a happy-go-lucky billionaire happy to blow his fortune on a crappy rag. He turns it into an empire, natch, marries a socialite, dances, sings and runs for governor. But politics isn't any good without some action on the side, just ask these guys, strikes up an affair with some half-assed singer and loses the election. Kane ditches the old lady, marries the singer, and moves into Xanadu — where the film loses its vitality and becomes a bore — kinda like Kane himself. The singer's bored, the servants are bored, his old toadies at the paper are long gone, probably bored to tears, so is his ex-wife and eventually the second wife decides to pack it in and get the hell out. At the end, Kane croaks and the reporters, sans Wikipedia, are still no closer to the Rosebud mystery than they were at the beginning. Only in the final sequence does the viewer find out the missing Rosebud link, kicking off decades of joyful symbolizing merriment and hours of inside-of-eyelids-gazing pleasure at Film Studies courses around the land.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It has its moments, the first half of the movie is fast-paced, but then it drags. The greatest film of all time? You can toss those opinions in the same furnace as Rosebud.
Monday, February 2, 2009
It's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: 1963 comedy, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, et al.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: A bunch of borscht-belt comedians and faded movie stars go in search of buried treasure. Mad-cap hijinks ensue. Ethel Merman shrieks a lot. Celebrities make cameos. Spencer Tracy loses his last shred of dignity after a distinguished career in the picture shows. Buster Keaton rolls over in his grave - and he wasn't even dead yet.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: A bunch of borscht-belt comedians and faded movie stars go in search of buried treasure. Mad-cap hijinks ensue. Ethel Merman shrieks a lot. Celebrities make cameos. Spencer Tracy loses his last shred of dignity after a distinguished career in the picture shows. Buster Keaton rolls over in his grave - and he wasn't even dead yet.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Manhattan
Manhattan: 1979 Dramedy?
Starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Mariel Hemingway. Written and directed by Woody Allen.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Following his divorce from Streep, Woody the writer has a bunch of affairs - all irritatingly boring - including one with a "woman" who is still in high school (Hemingway). I mean, in the final scene, Hemingway's character actually says she just turned 18: "I'm finally legal."
The hype: Hailed for its gorgeous B&W cinematography of land the Indians sold to the Dutch for a few guilders worth of crap, Manhattan is also hailed for its use of Gershwin music as its musical bed. Putting the two together in this film made me wonder whether the better way to go would be to carve my eyes out with broken bottles or fill my ears with muriatic acid, because one day I'd like to listen to Gershwin again without having to think about this cinematrocity.
Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever 2001 calls the movie a "scathingly serious and comic view of modern relationships in urban America and of the modern intellectual neuroses." I'd bet $10 that "review" was ripped directly from the movie's VCR tape box that doubtlessly sat, unwatched, on the shelf of the local Crazy Mike's Video from 1979 through 1984, until Beta was officially declared dead and all the tapes were landfilled.
The Fat Man's review includes the understatement: "This is a variation on a familiar theme."
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: At what point do we start classifying Woody Allen's oeuvre as kiddy porn?
Starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Mariel Hemingway. Written and directed by Woody Allen.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Following his divorce from Streep, Woody the writer has a bunch of affairs - all irritatingly boring - including one with a "woman" who is still in high school (Hemingway). I mean, in the final scene, Hemingway's character actually says she just turned 18: "I'm finally legal."
The hype: Hailed for its gorgeous B&W cinematography of land the Indians sold to the Dutch for a few guilders worth of crap, Manhattan is also hailed for its use of Gershwin music as its musical bed. Putting the two together in this film made me wonder whether the better way to go would be to carve my eyes out with broken bottles or fill my ears with muriatic acid, because one day I'd like to listen to Gershwin again without having to think about this cinematrocity.
Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever 2001 calls the movie a "scathingly serious and comic view of modern relationships in urban America and of the modern intellectual neuroses." I'd bet $10 that "review" was ripped directly from the movie's VCR tape box that doubtlessly sat, unwatched, on the shelf of the local Crazy Mike's Video from 1979 through 1984, until Beta was officially declared dead and all the tapes were landfilled.
The Fat Man's review includes the understatement: "This is a variation on a familiar theme."
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: At what point do we start classifying Woody Allen's oeuvre as kiddy porn?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Western Comedy Buddy Pic directed by George Roy Hill, starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katherine Ross, 1969.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Outlaws team up to rob a train, things go sour, they end up in Bolivia. But not before riding "the girl" around on the handlebars of a bicycle. Spend a lot of time getting chased by Pinkerton men. They get shot at a lot. They famously jump off a cliff. And they go out in a blaze of glory.
The hype: Teaming up with superstar Newman made a star out of Redford. Nominated for a bagful of Oscars, including Director and Picture. Won for Cinematrography and Song (Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head).
The reality: Starting from the time Ross gets paraded around on the handlebars and that stupid song played, I was so bored I kept looking at the clock, hoping it would end.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Acid Rain Keeps Falling In My Eyes.
Marc Horton plot synopsis: Outlaws team up to rob a train, things go sour, they end up in Bolivia. But not before riding "the girl" around on the handlebars of a bicycle. Spend a lot of time getting chased by Pinkerton men. They get shot at a lot. They famously jump off a cliff. And they go out in a blaze of glory.
The hype: Teaming up with superstar Newman made a star out of Redford. Nominated for a bagful of Oscars, including Director and Picture. Won for Cinematrography and Song (Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head).
The reality: Starting from the time Ross gets paraded around on the handlebars and that stupid song played, I was so bored I kept looking at the clock, hoping it would end.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Acid Rain Keeps Falling In My Eyes.
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939): Historical Romance, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: Asswipe falls in love with red-haired, green-eyed Irish-American "gypsy." Kills rival suitor. Inexplicably blames murder on gypsy. Inquisition-type court delivers "witch" verdict. Deformed bell-ringer hides gypsy in Notre Dame Cathedral. State over-rides Church's Sanctuary and vows to burn her, or hang her, or give her a stern scolding or something.
The Hype: Hugo wrote Notre-Dame de Paris as a clarion call to restore the cathedral, which had fallen into a state of disrepair after several centuries. There's a silent movie version, but this Hollywood talkie of Victor Hugo's door-stopper won Laughton praise for his portrayal of Quasimodo, the bell-ringer who tries to save O'Hara the gypsy.
The Reality: Aside from Laughton, everybody in this movie sounds like they dropped in from 20th-century Stockton rather than 15th-century Paris. Maureen O'Hara as a gypsy? I half-expected Keanu Reeves (or maybe his father) to pop up as a street urchin. The biggest travesty, however, is the happy ending. Mon dieu.
The Politically Incorrect Movie Review: The only people needing Sanctuary! are the movie-viewers who get sucked into watching Hollywood take a 20th-century hatchet to a 19th-century classic.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: Asswipe falls in love with red-haired, green-eyed Irish-American "gypsy." Kills rival suitor. Inexplicably blames murder on gypsy. Inquisition-type court delivers "witch" verdict. Deformed bell-ringer hides gypsy in Notre Dame Cathedral. State over-rides Church's Sanctuary and vows to burn her, or hang her, or give her a stern scolding or something.
The Hype: Hugo wrote Notre-Dame de Paris as a clarion call to restore the cathedral, which had fallen into a state of disrepair after several centuries. There's a silent movie version, but this Hollywood talkie of Victor Hugo's door-stopper won Laughton praise for his portrayal of Quasimodo, the bell-ringer who tries to save O'Hara the gypsy.
The Reality: Aside from Laughton, everybody in this movie sounds like they dropped in from 20th-century Stockton rather than 15th-century Paris. Maureen O'Hara as a gypsy? I half-expected Keanu Reeves (or maybe his father) to pop up as a street urchin. The biggest travesty, however, is the happy ending. Mon dieu.
The Politically Incorrect Movie Review: The only people needing Sanctuary! are the movie-viewers who get sucked into watching Hollywood take a 20th-century hatchet to a 19th-century classic.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Amityville Horror (1979)
Amityville Horror (1979): Horror, starring James Brolin, Margot Kidder.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: Young couple buys drafty old house that had been the scene of a mass murder. Husband starts acting a little kooky. Priest and nun make visits, suffer convulsions. Couple and their friends make a late-night visit to the library to get to the bottom of things. etc.
The hype: Hyped as a true story but pretty much all of it has been debunked or refuted over the years, except for the fact that the house was the site where some discontented kid shot his parents and siblings. Took in $86 million at the box office.
The reality: Brolin and Kidder aren't going to win any Academy Awards for their acting at the best of time, but Rod Steiger did, for "In the Heat of the Night". Maybe it was the director's fault.
Roger Ebert called it, "dreary and terminally depressing." That sounds more like an Ingmar Bergman film. This is just derivative (mostly of The Exorcist) and dull.
The Political Incorrect Movie Review: If you thought this was scary in 1979, you were probably watching too much Carol Burnett Show.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: Young couple buys drafty old house that had been the scene of a mass murder. Husband starts acting a little kooky. Priest and nun make visits, suffer convulsions. Couple and their friends make a late-night visit to the library to get to the bottom of things. etc.
The hype: Hyped as a true story but pretty much all of it has been debunked or refuted over the years, except for the fact that the house was the site where some discontented kid shot his parents and siblings. Took in $86 million at the box office.
The reality: Brolin and Kidder aren't going to win any Academy Awards for their acting at the best of time, but Rod Steiger did, for "In the Heat of the Night". Maybe it was the director's fault.
Roger Ebert called it, "dreary and terminally depressing." That sounds more like an Ingmar Bergman film. This is just derivative (mostly of The Exorcist) and dull.
The Political Incorrect Movie Review: If you thought this was scary in 1979, you were probably watching too much Carol Burnett Show.
Monday, December 29, 2008
WALL-E
The hype: It's on a LOT of Top 10 lists, so curiosity got the best of Her Indoors.
The caveat: I don't hate animated movies per se, but I can't think of one off the top of my head where I just had to see it twice. I also don't have kids, so I don't have that "kids love it" sensibility when watching animated movies.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Humans and/or large corporations and/or rampant consumerism have killed Earth. There's a robot that eats piles of garbage and shits it back out in cubes that can be used as, I dunno, building blocks. A space shuttle comes and drops off a more advanced robot. They get friendly. They end up back on the Mother Ship, which is a bunch of fat humans floating around in space thousands of years after abandoning Earth.
When the space humans attempt to return to Earth, the ship's auto-pilot, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, tries to over-ride the mission. The cute robots and the fat humans co-operate, prevail over "HAL" and return to Earth.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: To paraphrase Cartman on South Park: I don't hate robots, I fuckin' hate hippies.
The caveat: I don't hate animated movies per se, but I can't think of one off the top of my head where I just had to see it twice. I also don't have kids, so I don't have that "kids love it" sensibility when watching animated movies.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Humans and/or large corporations and/or rampant consumerism have killed Earth. There's a robot that eats piles of garbage and shits it back out in cubes that can be used as, I dunno, building blocks. A space shuttle comes and drops off a more advanced robot. They get friendly. They end up back on the Mother Ship, which is a bunch of fat humans floating around in space thousands of years after abandoning Earth.
When the space humans attempt to return to Earth, the ship's auto-pilot, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, tries to over-ride the mission. The cute robots and the fat humans co-operate, prevail over "HAL" and return to Earth.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: To paraphrase Cartman on South Park: I don't hate robots, I fuckin' hate hippies.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Annie Hall - The Live Blog
Annie Hall: 1997 Romantic Comedy written, starring and directed by Woody Allen. Also stars Diane Keaton.
Movie opens with Woody, in quintessential Nerd mode, on the screen telling a Catskills joke. Then repeats a well-worn Groucho Marx quote: "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." Neither would anyone else.
Into the movie. The "Woody" character as a kid, with his mom, at the shrink. Later on the bumper cars at Cony Island with Pops. This is intentional foreshadowing, as we'll see later.
Now in school. He's the adult Woody sitting in a Grade 3 class talking about dreaming about girls. Yuck. Inadvertent foreshadowing.
On The Dick Cavett Show. Tells an incomprehensible joke about dodging the draft. Guaranteed his own unit woulda fragged him.
Here's his mom, scolding him.
Adult Woody talking to his buddy about being sensitive about anti-Jewish sentiment. Painful. Less than 5 minutes in and it's already self-parody.
Woody meets a Teamster-type on the Manhattan street. The guy has seen him on the Tonight Show. Woody drops a Godfather joke. Hilarious. I spit up gabagoo through my nose.
Out of a cab pops Diane Keaton. They're bickering. I'm already praying for the terrorists to advance their plans by 26 years.
Famous scene at movie theatre:
Droll.
Woody gets into bed with Keaton discussing the Gestapo. Woody wants some, but there are no under-aged Asians so Keaton will have to do.
Flashback to when he met his first wife, Carol Kane, backstage at a dinner where he does his routine. The film wants us to believe he's charming her with his nebbishness. I'm surprised she doesn't have the FBI kill him. He makes another joke that is so inside, only the rabbi at Temple Ben Gurion would understand it.
Now he's in bed with Kane discussing the Kennedy assassination. "The Magic Lugie" episode of Seinfeld with Keith Hernandez was funny. This, not funny. Woody drops a "child molester" reference. Again, spookily prescient. Woody repeats that stupid Groucho Marx joke.
Back to the present with Diane Keaton wearing a hairdo reminiscent of Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo.
Keaton flashes back to her youthful love life. Doesn't prove anything except that the cost of film must have been relatively cheap in 1975.
Back to the present, Woody with a woman who's uglier than The Nanny. Now he's hiding in a bedroom watching a Knicks game, which gives him a chance to riff on the superiority of physical talent over intellectual talent. It's not funny and totally unnecessary to the plot. The Nanny's ragging on him. Woody wants to make out with her. They end up on a futon together talking about the Manson Family while she reaches for Valium.
Woody with his buddy at the tennis club discussing anti-Semitism. Foreskin reference. It appears this is the first time he's met Diane Keaton. There have already been more time-shifts than in the entire run of The English Patient.
After the match, Diane's wearing a Charlie Chaplin getup. They nervously work out whether they should drive home together. This is the point where I bailed last time. It was either that or suffer the fatal aneurysm.
But I'm nothing if not dedicated to my craft.
Diane drops off Woody. Drops a "Cossacks raped my grandmother" joke. Start talking about seeing shrinks. Up in the apartment, he discovers Keaton's sylvia plath book of poems. The Iron Man breaks through the roof of the apartment and crushes them both*
*not really.
Keaton relates a story about her grandfather dying in The Great War because he suffered from narcolepsy during the Battle of The Somme. Not sure whether it was a WWI punchline or a narcolepsy punchline.
Up on the rooftop drinking wine or bottled water. Keaton's giggling a lot. She must have been pounding a lot of colourful pills.
They make small talk. Subtitles show what they're really thinking. I know what I'm thinking: Would someone please murder the other so this movie could end.
Keaton invites Woody to the nightclub where she's onstage singing. She worries she sucks. Woody reassures her she doesn't.
Afterward, at the coffee shop. She orders a meal so boring that Woody raises his eyebrows. We all get what he means. She's a gentile. What a side-splitter.
They hop into bed, make out and smoke dope. Cutting edge stuff.
At the bookshop. He's focused on death. Shoulda focused on comedy.
In Central Park. Another mafia joke.
Under the lights of the Tri-Borough Bridge. They're in love. A guy wearing concrete galoshes floats by*
*not really.
Some time later they're in Woody's apartment. He's nervous because she's moving in. They bicker.
Now out in the countryside. Pointless. Back to the apartment. She's thinking about taking a college course. Woody drops a Beowulf reference. Francis Bacon is laughing his ass off at that reference. Keaton wants to smoke dope. Woody offers to give her a shot of sodium pentathol. No mention of Absinthe.
They try to make out. Keaton has an out-of-body experience.
In an office, some unknown Catskills comedian is hoping to hire a writer. He's pantomiming a horrible French cliche of a joke and asking Woody to write him some jokes along that line.
Now Woody's on stage telling more egghead jokes in front of a large auditorium. Existentialism. Mah-Jong. Suicide. He hits all the funny notes.
Dinner with Keaton's parents. Grandma looks Woody up and down and sees Fiddler on the Roof. OK, that was funny.
Woody breaks the barrier again, talking to the audience and then flashing back to his own family. Oy vey.
Back at Keaton's parents' house. Christopher Walken is Keaton's brother. He shows Woody his room. Holy shit, is he the creepiest/funniest man in show business, or what.
Walken stole the movie right there.
Daytime scene. Keaton and Woody are bickering. Biblical reference.
Keaton's talking about dreaming about Sinatra. I'm hoping the dream ends with Sinatra's friends making Keaton an offer she can't refuse.
Back to the street scene. Keaton jumps angrily into a cab. Woody starts talking to people on the street about their sex lives. Old man drops vibrator reference. Good-looking couple admits to being happily shallow.
Cut to cartoon where Woody's making moves on the Evil Queen in Snow White.
Back to the past where he's met Shelly Duval. They're at a Maharishi Yogi concert at MSG. Duval drops a Dylan and Stones reference. God she's ugly.
In bed with Duval. She uses the word, "Kafkaesque." I used to work with a guy and our running joke was to find a "Kafkaesque" reference in the media. Credit was also earned for finding "Dickensian" and bonus points for "Dickensian in scope." Reviews of John Irving novels were gold mines.
Woody and Keaton bickering again. Something about spiders. Woody grabs a tennis racket to kill it. Here comes some physical comedy. Buster Keaton is rolling over in his grave. He goes back to the bedroom and she's bawling. They promise never to break up. Movie goers all across America promise to never go see another Woody Allen movie.
Back to Woody's family in 1944. Pointless.
Keaton's birthday. Woody gives her lingerie. She hates it. Then he gives her a watch. Pointless.
Nightclub. Keaton singing again. Musical interlude. Let's me catch up on my spell-checking.
Oh, look who's here: Paul Simon. What a shmoe. Simon tries to "discover" Keaton. He introduces a couple of leggy broads, perhaps trying to establish his heterosexuality. Enormous credibility gap.
Spliced-in Nazi propaganda film. I don't get it.
Split screen, like The Thomas Crowne Affair, showing Keaton and Allen at their respective shrinks. This must have rung true with the Valium-popping 1975 crowd.
At a dinner party talking about snorting coke. Their pal cuts it on the mirror. Woody sneezes. HI-LARIOUS!
They go to California and drive around Beverly Hills. Because, everybody does that. Woody drops a "wheat germ" joke. I don't get it.
In post-production for a sitcom where they're adding the laugh track. Woody is dismissive. Now he's sick. Back at the hotel, he's still sick. Gordon Jump is the doctor. Turns out, Woody's faking so he can avoid having to tape the TV show.
They go to a swinging Hollywood bash, S.O.B.-style. Woody tells an energy-crisis joke. Gags ripped straight from the headlines.
Paul Simon's at the party. Or maybe it's his party. Are we supposed to believe that chick is his girlfriend? Come on.
Jeff Goldbloom's a guest at the party, talking on the phone. His walk-on line is, "I forgot my mantra."
Seinfeld These Pretzels Are Makin Me Thirsty via Noolmusic.com
The flight home. They aren't talking, but the audience hears their voices.
Back at the apartment. They're splitting up their shit.
On the street. He's talking to street people again. Kissinger joke. Shoulda bombed Manhattan instead of Cambodia.
Scene at a holiday house. Woody's wrestling with a lobster. The chick he's with doesn't get his joke, which is actually the only funny one so far: "I'm not myself since I quit smoking." "When did you quit smoking?" "Fifteen years ago."
Woody flies to L.A. to get Keaton, who moved there to spark her recording career. Woody trying to drive a 34-foot Cadillac. They meet for lunch at a vegetarian cafe. Keaton hits the mother lode: "You're like this island unto yourself." Full marks to Woody for writing such a self-aware line.
Keaton refuses to get back together with Woody. It's Grammy night. Woody drops an Adolph Hitler joke. Tries driving away. Bumper-cars a bunch of parked vehicles. Fumbles his license trying to hand it off to Ponch of the California Highway Patrol. Tasering would have been good right there.
His pal picks him up. He was in bed with 16-year-old twins. Another flashing red light.
Pal takes Woody to a rehearsal. Or maybe it's Woody flashing back. I dunno.
Flash forward. Woody runs into Keaton back in Manhattan. Bunch of cut-together scenes of their life together. I think we're supposed to look at them fondly. Romantic-like.
Woody tells another Catskills joke to explain his approach to relationships.
The end.
Proof that Oscar Doesn't Know Shit: Won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film. By my count: 1 1/2 funny gags. That's either a 1 joke/hour rate, or 2.67 Oscars per funny gag. Considering some of the painfully unfunny lines, Mia Farrow should have used the script in her custody battle with Woody. I'm surprised he was ever allowed to make another film.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Too "New York Jewish intellectual" and self-indulgent to amuse anybody outside of Manhattan.
You want insecure Jewish comedian humour (I can't watch this clip enough):
Seinfeld Rips Larry King - The funniest movie is here. Find it
You want a movie gag where gentiles don't understand a word but it's funny anyway:
You want funny Nazi references:
Movie opens with Woody, in quintessential Nerd mode, on the screen telling a Catskills joke. Then repeats a well-worn Groucho Marx quote: "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." Neither would anyone else.
Into the movie. The "Woody" character as a kid, with his mom, at the shrink. Later on the bumper cars at Cony Island with Pops. This is intentional foreshadowing, as we'll see later.
Now in school. He's the adult Woody sitting in a Grade 3 class talking about dreaming about girls. Yuck. Inadvertent foreshadowing.
On The Dick Cavett Show. Tells an incomprehensible joke about dodging the draft. Guaranteed his own unit woulda fragged him.
Here's his mom, scolding him.
Adult Woody talking to his buddy about being sensitive about anti-Jewish sentiment. Painful. Less than 5 minutes in and it's already self-parody.
Woody meets a Teamster-type on the Manhattan street. The guy has seen him on the Tonight Show. Woody drops a Godfather joke. Hilarious. I spit up gabagoo through my nose.
Out of a cab pops Diane Keaton. They're bickering. I'm already praying for the terrorists to advance their plans by 26 years.
Famous scene at movie theatre:
Droll.
Woody gets into bed with Keaton discussing the Gestapo. Woody wants some, but there are no under-aged Asians so Keaton will have to do.
Flashback to when he met his first wife, Carol Kane, backstage at a dinner where he does his routine. The film wants us to believe he's charming her with his nebbishness. I'm surprised she doesn't have the FBI kill him. He makes another joke that is so inside, only the rabbi at Temple Ben Gurion would understand it.
Now he's in bed with Kane discussing the Kennedy assassination. "The Magic Lugie" episode of Seinfeld with Keith Hernandez was funny. This, not funny. Woody drops a "child molester" reference. Again, spookily prescient. Woody repeats that stupid Groucho Marx joke.
Back to the present with Diane Keaton wearing a hairdo reminiscent of Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo.
Keaton flashes back to her youthful love life. Doesn't prove anything except that the cost of film must have been relatively cheap in 1975.
Back to the present, Woody with a woman who's uglier than The Nanny. Now he's hiding in a bedroom watching a Knicks game, which gives him a chance to riff on the superiority of physical talent over intellectual talent. It's not funny and totally unnecessary to the plot. The Nanny's ragging on him. Woody wants to make out with her. They end up on a futon together talking about the Manson Family while she reaches for Valium.
Woody with his buddy at the tennis club discussing anti-Semitism. Foreskin reference. It appears this is the first time he's met Diane Keaton. There have already been more time-shifts than in the entire run of The English Patient.
After the match, Diane's wearing a Charlie Chaplin getup. They nervously work out whether they should drive home together. This is the point where I bailed last time. It was either that or suffer the fatal aneurysm.
But I'm nothing if not dedicated to my craft.
Diane drops off Woody. Drops a "Cossacks raped my grandmother" joke. Start talking about seeing shrinks. Up in the apartment, he discovers Keaton's sylvia plath book of poems. The Iron Man breaks through the roof of the apartment and crushes them both*
*not really.
Keaton relates a story about her grandfather dying in The Great War because he suffered from narcolepsy during the Battle of The Somme. Not sure whether it was a WWI punchline or a narcolepsy punchline.
Up on the rooftop drinking wine or bottled water. Keaton's giggling a lot. She must have been pounding a lot of colourful pills.
They make small talk. Subtitles show what they're really thinking. I know what I'm thinking: Would someone please murder the other so this movie could end.
Keaton invites Woody to the nightclub where she's onstage singing. She worries she sucks. Woody reassures her she doesn't.
Afterward, at the coffee shop. She orders a meal so boring that Woody raises his eyebrows. We all get what he means. She's a gentile. What a side-splitter.
They hop into bed, make out and smoke dope. Cutting edge stuff.
At the bookshop. He's focused on death. Shoulda focused on comedy.
In Central Park. Another mafia joke.
Under the lights of the Tri-Borough Bridge. They're in love. A guy wearing concrete galoshes floats by*
*not really.
Some time later they're in Woody's apartment. He's nervous because she's moving in. They bicker.
Now out in the countryside. Pointless. Back to the apartment. She's thinking about taking a college course. Woody drops a Beowulf reference. Francis Bacon is laughing his ass off at that reference. Keaton wants to smoke dope. Woody offers to give her a shot of sodium pentathol. No mention of Absinthe.
They try to make out. Keaton has an out-of-body experience.
In an office, some unknown Catskills comedian is hoping to hire a writer. He's pantomiming a horrible French cliche of a joke and asking Woody to write him some jokes along that line.
Now Woody's on stage telling more egghead jokes in front of a large auditorium. Existentialism. Mah-Jong. Suicide. He hits all the funny notes.
Dinner with Keaton's parents. Grandma looks Woody up and down and sees Fiddler on the Roof. OK, that was funny.
Woody breaks the barrier again, talking to the audience and then flashing back to his own family. Oy vey.
Back at Keaton's parents' house. Christopher Walken is Keaton's brother. He shows Woody his room. Holy shit, is he the creepiest/funniest man in show business, or what.
Walken stole the movie right there.
Daytime scene. Keaton and Woody are bickering. Biblical reference.
Keaton's talking about dreaming about Sinatra. I'm hoping the dream ends with Sinatra's friends making Keaton an offer she can't refuse.
Back to the street scene. Keaton jumps angrily into a cab. Woody starts talking to people on the street about their sex lives. Old man drops vibrator reference. Good-looking couple admits to being happily shallow.
Cut to cartoon where Woody's making moves on the Evil Queen in Snow White.
Back to the past where he's met Shelly Duval. They're at a Maharishi Yogi concert at MSG. Duval drops a Dylan and Stones reference. God she's ugly.
In bed with Duval. She uses the word, "Kafkaesque." I used to work with a guy and our running joke was to find a "Kafkaesque" reference in the media. Credit was also earned for finding "Dickensian" and bonus points for "Dickensian in scope." Reviews of John Irving novels were gold mines.
Woody and Keaton bickering again. Something about spiders. Woody grabs a tennis racket to kill it. Here comes some physical comedy. Buster Keaton is rolling over in his grave. He goes back to the bedroom and she's bawling. They promise never to break up. Movie goers all across America promise to never go see another Woody Allen movie.
Back to Woody's family in 1944. Pointless.
Keaton's birthday. Woody gives her lingerie. She hates it. Then he gives her a watch. Pointless.
Nightclub. Keaton singing again. Musical interlude. Let's me catch up on my spell-checking.
Oh, look who's here: Paul Simon. What a shmoe. Simon tries to "discover" Keaton. He introduces a couple of leggy broads, perhaps trying to establish his heterosexuality. Enormous credibility gap.
Spliced-in Nazi propaganda film. I don't get it.
Split screen, like The Thomas Crowne Affair, showing Keaton and Allen at their respective shrinks. This must have rung true with the Valium-popping 1975 crowd.
At a dinner party talking about snorting coke. Their pal cuts it on the mirror. Woody sneezes. HI-LARIOUS!
They go to California and drive around Beverly Hills. Because, everybody does that. Woody drops a "wheat germ" joke. I don't get it.
In post-production for a sitcom where they're adding the laugh track. Woody is dismissive. Now he's sick. Back at the hotel, he's still sick. Gordon Jump is the doctor. Turns out, Woody's faking so he can avoid having to tape the TV show.
They go to a swinging Hollywood bash, S.O.B.-style. Woody tells an energy-crisis joke. Gags ripped straight from the headlines.
Paul Simon's at the party. Or maybe it's his party. Are we supposed to believe that chick is his girlfriend? Come on.
Jeff Goldbloom's a guest at the party, talking on the phone. His walk-on line is, "I forgot my mantra."
Seinfeld These Pretzels Are Makin Me Thirsty via Noolmusic.com
The flight home. They aren't talking, but the audience hears their voices.
Back at the apartment. They're splitting up their shit.
On the street. He's talking to street people again. Kissinger joke. Shoulda bombed Manhattan instead of Cambodia.
Scene at a holiday house. Woody's wrestling with a lobster. The chick he's with doesn't get his joke, which is actually the only funny one so far: "I'm not myself since I quit smoking." "When did you quit smoking?" "Fifteen years ago."
Woody flies to L.A. to get Keaton, who moved there to spark her recording career. Woody trying to drive a 34-foot Cadillac. They meet for lunch at a vegetarian cafe. Keaton hits the mother lode: "You're like this island unto yourself." Full marks to Woody for writing such a self-aware line.
Keaton refuses to get back together with Woody. It's Grammy night. Woody drops an Adolph Hitler joke. Tries driving away. Bumper-cars a bunch of parked vehicles. Fumbles his license trying to hand it off to Ponch of the California Highway Patrol. Tasering would have been good right there.
His pal picks him up. He was in bed with 16-year-old twins. Another flashing red light.
Pal takes Woody to a rehearsal. Or maybe it's Woody flashing back. I dunno.
Flash forward. Woody runs into Keaton back in Manhattan. Bunch of cut-together scenes of their life together. I think we're supposed to look at them fondly. Romantic-like.
Woody tells another Catskills joke to explain his approach to relationships.
The end.
Proof that Oscar Doesn't Know Shit: Won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film. By my count: 1 1/2 funny gags. That's either a 1 joke/hour rate, or 2.67 Oscars per funny gag. Considering some of the painfully unfunny lines, Mia Farrow should have used the script in her custody battle with Woody. I'm surprised he was ever allowed to make another film.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Too "New York Jewish intellectual" and self-indulgent to amuse anybody outside of Manhattan.
You want insecure Jewish comedian humour (I can't watch this clip enough):
Seinfeld Rips Larry King - The funniest movie is here. Find it
You want a movie gag where gentiles don't understand a word but it's funny anyway:
You want funny Nazi references:
Woman of the Year
Woman Of The Year: 1942 Comedy, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Tracy's a sports reporter. Hepburn's a political columnist. "Different worlds; unlikely match." Yah, like two people at a newspaper never get together. Eventually, they get married and, naturally, get bored with each other. They bicker. They adopt some refugee kid. They bicker some more. They reconcile.
The hype: This feminist manifesto was Tracy and Hepburn's first screen pairing. They made another 8 films together and knocked knees for nearly three decades in real life.
They "burn up the screen" with their chemistry; at least, as much chemistry as they could put on film in the days of the puritanical Hays Code. They not only sleep in separate beds, which was still a part of movies and TV well into the 60s, but they sleep in separate rooms.
Read this load of critic's tripe in the NYT and you'll look at Entertainment Tonight as hard-hitting journalism.
The Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Newlyweds. Separate rooms. Did people actually buy into this in the 40s or were they too scared by WWII to worry about being bored to death at the Bijou?
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Tracy's a sports reporter. Hepburn's a political columnist. "Different worlds; unlikely match." Yah, like two people at a newspaper never get together. Eventually, they get married and, naturally, get bored with each other. They bicker. They adopt some refugee kid. They bicker some more. They reconcile.
The hype: This feminist manifesto was Tracy and Hepburn's first screen pairing. They made another 8 films together and knocked knees for nearly three decades in real life.
They "burn up the screen" with their chemistry; at least, as much chemistry as they could put on film in the days of the puritanical Hays Code. They not only sleep in separate beds, which was still a part of movies and TV well into the 60s, but they sleep in separate rooms.
Read this load of critic's tripe in the NYT and you'll look at Entertainment Tonight as hard-hitting journalism.
The Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Newlyweds. Separate rooms. Did people actually buy into this in the 40s or were they too scared by WWII to worry about being bored to death at the Bijou?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Guy Named Joe
A Guy Named Joe: 1943 War Romance, Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Tracy is a WWII flyboy. Improbably, Dunne is also a pilot. They're in love. Tracy dies on a bombing raid. Dunne feels bad. Johnson's a fresh recruit. Dunne falls in love. Tracy's ghost hovers over her.
Notables: Breakthrough film for Van Johnson, who became one of the Top 5 box office draws in the '40s. Production was interrupted by Johnson's car accident that left him with a plate in his head. Steven Spielberg remade it as Always in 1989. The original filmed ending had Dunne dying on her own bombing raid, but the Production Code said that implied she committed suicide, so a happier ending was shot.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: If Van Johnson, who died Dec. 12, was a top box office draw, a lot of grandmas must have been going to the movies in the 40s.
Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: Tracy is a WWII flyboy. Improbably, Dunne is also a pilot. They're in love. Tracy dies on a bombing raid. Dunne feels bad. Johnson's a fresh recruit. Dunne falls in love. Tracy's ghost hovers over her.
Notables: Breakthrough film for Van Johnson, who became one of the Top 5 box office draws in the '40s. Production was interrupted by Johnson's car accident that left him with a plate in his head. Steven Spielberg remade it as Always in 1989. The original filmed ending had Dunne dying on her own bombing raid, but the Production Code said that implied she committed suicide, so a happier ending was shot.
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: If Van Johnson, who died Dec. 12, was a top box office draw, a lot of grandmas must have been going to the movies in the 40s.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Soldier
The Soldier: 1998 Sci-Fi Action starring Kurt Russell.
The Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: All you'll ever need to know is in this trailer:
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Every bit as bad as Kevin Costner's The Postman - released the previous year - except more starin', less preachin'.
Disturbing Element: Gary Busey actually looks embalmed.
The Marc Horton Plot Synopsis: All you'll ever need to know is in this trailer:
Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Every bit as bad as Kevin Costner's The Postman - released the previous year - except more starin', less preachin'.
Disturbing Element: Gary Busey actually looks embalmed.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Rebel Without A Cause
Rebel Without A Cause: 1955 Drama, starring James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, directed by Nicholas Ray.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: A high-school age Jim Stark (Dean) is drunk and picked up by the cops. At the police station, he meets his dumb parents who wonder why Jimmy got drunk when they've gone out and partied. Jimmy meets Judy (Wood) and Plato (Mineo), who are also young offenders, at the precinct. He meets them again later at school (surprise) where he's the new kid on the block. All the hoods (including a real young Dennis Hopper) are hot for Judy and naturally try to bully Jimmy and Plato. A game of eight-cylinder chicken ensues, tragedy strikes and let the melodrama begin. Jimmy, Judy and Plato wind up at some abandoned mansion (obviously after another one of those inconvenient financial meltdowns), where they try to create some sort of new-age family unit. Since they are a threat to their Republican neighborhood, the police are called. I'll spare you the ending.
The hype: Well, there's Jimmy Dean, who didn't get to see his career really take off after he pulled a Pelle Lindbergh. The film's also got a great title — what headline writer hasn't used "(blank) Without A (blank)." The film was nominated for three Oscars, picks up a nifty 7.9 stars out of 10 from imdb.com , is one of the top 100 movies of all-time according to the American Film Institute and is must-see viewing if you've ever had to endure an intro film studies course at university. I was so lucky that I had to suffer through it twice. Here's the trailer...:
and a tiny taste of one of the more famous scenes, with a couple of legendary sitcom supporting actors co-starring:
The Politically Incorrect Review: If you enjoy overacting and wish to find woeful 1950s solutions to age-old family problems and teen angst, this one's for you.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: A high-school age Jim Stark (Dean) is drunk and picked up by the cops. At the police station, he meets his dumb parents who wonder why Jimmy got drunk when they've gone out and partied. Jimmy meets Judy (Wood) and Plato (Mineo), who are also young offenders, at the precinct. He meets them again later at school (surprise) where he's the new kid on the block. All the hoods (including a real young Dennis Hopper) are hot for Judy and naturally try to bully Jimmy and Plato. A game of eight-cylinder chicken ensues, tragedy strikes and let the melodrama begin. Jimmy, Judy and Plato wind up at some abandoned mansion (obviously after another one of those inconvenient financial meltdowns), where they try to create some sort of new-age family unit. Since they are a threat to their Republican neighborhood, the police are called. I'll spare you the ending.
The hype: Well, there's Jimmy Dean, who didn't get to see his career really take off after he pulled a Pelle Lindbergh. The film's also got a great title — what headline writer hasn't used "(blank) Without A (blank)." The film was nominated for three Oscars, picks up a nifty 7.9 stars out of 10 from imdb.com , is one of the top 100 movies of all-time according to the American Film Institute and is must-see viewing if you've ever had to endure an intro film studies course at university. I was so lucky that I had to suffer through it twice. Here's the trailer...:
and a tiny taste of one of the more famous scenes, with a couple of legendary sitcom supporting actors co-starring:
The Politically Incorrect Review: If you enjoy overacting and wish to find woeful 1950s solutions to age-old family problems and teen angst, this one's for you.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Index
Woman of the Year: Did people actually buy into this in the 40s or were they too scared by WWII to worry about being bored to death at the Bijou?
A Guy Named Joe: If Van Johnson was a top box office draw, a lot of grandmas must have been going to the movies in the 40s.
The Soldier (1998): Every bit as bad as Kevin Costner's The Postman - released the previous year - except more starin', less preachin'.
Rebel Without a Cause: If you enjoy overacting and wish to find woeful 1950s solutions to age-old family problems and teen angst, this one's for you.
Shadow of a Doubt: Said to be Hitchcock's favorite, perhaps in the same way a mother refers to her ugliest kid as "her favorite." It's called over-compensating.
Casablanca: A bunch of people standin' around doin' a lot of talkin'.
A Guy Named Joe: If Van Johnson was a top box office draw, a lot of grandmas must have been going to the movies in the 40s.
The Soldier (1998): Every bit as bad as Kevin Costner's The Postman - released the previous year - except more starin', less preachin'.
Rebel Without a Cause: If you enjoy overacting and wish to find woeful 1950s solutions to age-old family problems and teen angst, this one's for you.
Shadow of a Doubt: Said to be Hitchcock's favorite, perhaps in the same way a mother refers to her ugliest kid as "her favorite." It's called over-compensating.
Casablanca: A bunch of people standin' around doin' a lot of talkin'.
Shadow of a Doubt
Shadow of a Doubt: 1943 Suspense, starring Joseph Cotten, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: We learn in the opening scene that Joseph Cotten's on the lam. He ditches Capital City for his sister's family in The Sticks. Shows up at the bank with $40K cash and the banker barely bats an eye. Niece reads the local rag and our Nancy Drew wannabe figures out Uncle Charlie's a murderer. Homeland Security-style gumshoes show up, poking around, asking a lot of questions. And the family just gives them the run of the place. This is a world where the bad guy practically has blood on his hands, strangers wearing fancy suits pop up in town, and yet nobody ever puts 2 and 2 together.
The hype: The Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever suggests it was Hitchcock's personal favorite. According to an entry in IMDb, Patrick McGilligan's book "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" (2003) notes: "...(Hitchcock) liked to call Shadow of a Doubt a 'most satifying picture'; more than once, he called it his favorite. But 'favorite' wasn't quite the same as best; and speaking for posterity, he pointedly told Francois Truffaunt it wasn't his favorite, and told Peter Bogdanovich it was merely "one of his favorites".
The Politically Incorrect Review: I think I understand. In the same way a mother refers to her ugliest kid as "her favorite." It's called over-compensating.
The Marc Horton plot synopsis: We learn in the opening scene that Joseph Cotten's on the lam. He ditches Capital City for his sister's family in The Sticks. Shows up at the bank with $40K cash and the banker barely bats an eye. Niece reads the local rag and our Nancy Drew wannabe figures out Uncle Charlie's a murderer. Homeland Security-style gumshoes show up, poking around, asking a lot of questions. And the family just gives them the run of the place. This is a world where the bad guy practically has blood on his hands, strangers wearing fancy suits pop up in town, and yet nobody ever puts 2 and 2 together.
The hype: The Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever suggests it was Hitchcock's personal favorite. According to an entry in IMDb, Patrick McGilligan's book "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" (2003) notes: "...(Hitchcock) liked to call Shadow of a Doubt a 'most satifying picture'; more than once, he called it his favorite. But 'favorite' wasn't quite the same as best; and speaking for posterity, he pointedly told Francois Truffaunt it wasn't his favorite, and told Peter Bogdanovich it was merely "one of his favorites".
The Politically Incorrect Review: I think I understand. In the same way a mother refers to her ugliest kid as "her favorite." It's called over-compensating.
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