Review – Anaconda

I have an odd history with this movie. I saw it for the first time back in 1999, but for some strange reason I forgot to review it, which I didn’t discover until I watched another giant snake movie in 2004. Well, my opinion of it is pretty much the same ten years later after a re-screening. The monster snake has far more charm and personality than any of the boatload of B-list actors it squares off against. At least the budget was big enough to keep things vaguely entertaining. Awful hard on the animals, though. Mildly amusing

Review – Reckless Indifference

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the point of this documentary is to make us feel a sense of righteous indignation at the life sentences handed to four teenagers convicted of felony murder. The group tried to bully a couple of pothead acquaintances out of their stash, and when they wouldn’t cough it up without a fight one of the bullies stabbed them. One of the victims died. It was just their dumb luck that the father of the boy they murdered was an L.A. cop, which of course meant that they actually got prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And the only real defense this movie seems prepared to offer is that this doesn’t happen to everyone who kills somebody in the course of a robbery, so it shouldn’t have happened to them. As many problems as our legal system has, and this mess is the “injustice” I’m supposed to be losing sleep over? The thing that galled me the most about this production is the overpowering sense that I’m expected to feel sorry for them because they’re white kids from the burbs and if they were from the inner city they wouldn’t have been treated like this. There are so many things wrong with this theory that I can’t even begin to discuss them. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Burrowers

Impressive. I’ve long thought that horror and the western would make a good combination, though I’m surprised at how seldom I’ve been proven right. But boy does this ever. The thesis here is that the open prairie is inhabited by a strange kind of monster known to the locals as the Burrowers. They paralyze their victims, bury them alive, wait for them to soften up a bit, and then return to eat them. The protagonist’s pursuit of his Burrower-kidnapped fiancée leads through no end of interesting situations as western staples – particularly anti-Indian prejudice – get in the way of efforts to unravel the mystery. The beasts themselves don’t actually put in an appearance until late in the picture, but they’re worth the wait. The story is hard on everyone involved – including horses – and isn’t likely to win any feel-good awards. But that just makes it all the better. Buy the disc

Review – Hot Rod

Let me start by saying something nice. Every once in awhile this production manages a moment that’s so odd it actually manages to provide a little amusement. And overall it may be making some legitimate points about the nature of masculinity in American society. But if anyone here has a brain, they’re all trying hard not to show it. SNL cast member Andy Samberg stars as a Napoleon Dynamite character who aspires to be Evel Knievel. Indeed, the whole thing has the flavor of an especially long “SNL Digital Short.” Can “Lasercats: The Motion Picture” be next? Let us pray. See if desperate

Review – Roswell

Like The Amityville Horror, this is more fun if you can believe it’s true. If the Army really did cover up the crash of an alien spacecraft in the New Mexico desert back in the 50s, that’s a good story. On the other hand, a fictional account of a retired Army officer trying to expose the truth decades later … well, it’s a bit on the boring side. Mildly amusing

Review – Knightriders

This looks like it was more fun to make than it is to watch. Ed Harris heads up a cast of George Romero regulars playing a troop of Renfest-motocross-combo performers who seriously live the whole Camelot thing. Eventually the group breaks up, with some sticking to the old, non-commercial ways while the de-hippified folks pursue bigger deals elsewhere. If the movie had left off there, it might have been emotionally satisfying in an end-of-the-70s way. But then the band gets back together for a half-hour-long tournament, ending the picture on a taking-it-too-seriously note. Still, if you like watching people ride motorcycles and hit each other with sticks, then this is certainly the picture for you. Mildly amusing

Review – The Dark Half

This is a finest hour for neither Stephen King nor George Romero. King’s source story puts a novel spin or two on the old evil twin thing, but in exchange we have to sit through a lot of annoying parallels to the whole Richard Bachman thing. Timothy Hutton does a solid job as the good family man novelist, but he falls flatter than flat as the guy’s sinister alter-ego. And sparrows should probably be added to the list of horror movie elements that are too cute to inspire a lot of fear. Overall this isn’t a terrible movie, but it doesn’t belong on anyone’s trophy shelf either. Mildly amusing

Review – The Deep

In the wake of Jaws, someone with a finger on the green light button must have assumed anything by Peter Benchley would be instant gold. Guess not. Nick Nolte and Jaqueline Bisset star as a young couple on vacation in Bermuda. While diving on a wreck they accidentally uncover both Spanish treasure and a World War Two cache of morphine. Naturally this attracts a local criminal, sending our heroes in search of help from a crusty old professional treasure diver (Robert Shaw in his last screen role). The diving sequences are particularly disappointing. The water is pretty, but particularly on the wreck itself it’s often difficult to tell exactly what’s going on. Still, they’re fascinating stuff compared to the land-based drama. This is sorta fun in a 70s way, but it’s also more than a little boring. Mildly amusing

Review – Changeling

Though the underlying story here has potential, the movie it turns into is a muddled mess. Angelina Jolie stars as a single mom in the late 1920s trying to support herself and her son. One day she comes home from work to find the boy gone. The police prove unhelpful until public pressure forces them to do something. Unfortunately, what they decide to do is haul an abandoned child in from another state and try to convince the poor woman that he’s her kid. Then when she doesn’t buy it, they have her locked up in the loony bin. That’s enough plot for an hour and a half or so, but for some strange reason the picture keeps right on going for an hour after the main conflicts are resolved. A little more attention to plot and pace would have made this a lot better movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell

The body snatcher must come from the same place that produced the movie. This is a bizarre Japanese horror movie from the late 1960s. It blends average cheap horror picture aesthetics with a strange sense of intellectual paranoia (or is it just terrible writing?). After a plane crashes in a strange, deserted landscape, one of the passengers – an assassin, no less – runs off, gets hypnotized into entering a UFO, and is possessed by a big blob of goo. Sadly for everyone else, the goo injection turns the guy into a vampire. For the most part this is one of those closed-environment people-in-an-extreme-survival-situation dramas, but it does have some fun, 60s-era, low-budget special effects. Mildly amusing

Eight dumb things to turn into

Probably for as long as there have been people, we’ve had the notion that people could change shape and become animals. Look to ancient Babylon and Greece. Look to the folk legends of China and Japan. Look to tales from Scandinavia, America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Look anywhere you want and you’ll find stories of shape-shifters.

The animal of choice is usually – though not always – whatever beast the local population happens to fear the most. In Europe and North America – relatively predator-free parts of the world – the most potentially harmful creature tended to be the wolf. Though real wolves aren’t dangerous (unless rabid, starving or threatened), they’re scary enough to become the stuff of legends. Being kin to domesticated dogs also helps with the whole wild-versus-civilized dual nature thing as well.

Thus when Euro-American cultures started making horror movies, they turned naturally enough to werewolves. From the early days of The Wolf Man and Werewolf of London, canis lupus was the species that all the trendy shape-shifters went with.

And in a way that’s a shame. Werewolves have a lot of potential, but there’s no reason to avoid branching out a bit. Were-panthers worked quite well for Val Lewton in Cat People and then again for Paul Schrader’s remake. Several of the Jekyll-and-Hyde screen adaptations have included were-something transformations as well.

But when choosing something to turn into, it’s important to select with care. Some things work better than others. Even if you’re going to stick with the tried-and-true, you’ll want to be familiar with a couple of werewolf guidelines before the full moon catches you unprepared. Fortunately, Hollywood has spent a lot of time and effort exploring what does and doesn’t work.

So when you open up the shapeshifting cookbook, here are some recipes to avoid.

 

Some half-assed excuse for a werewolf – Even budding shapeshifters who want to go with the standard option need to learn some ins and outs first. Make the wrong decision and this can go south on you quickly.

The most important decision you need to make is just how much of a wolf you plan to become. The “old school” (i.e. pre-Hollywood) approach is to go whole dog and change all the way into a real wolf. However, be aware that Hollywood doesn’t favor this approach. For starters, real wolves look too much like dogs to provide a lot of inherent shock value. They’re good choices when the monster is supposed to be attractive in a vampire-ish sort of way (Blood and Chocolate) or if they’re not actually werewolves at all (The Wolfen). But an actor loses screen time when his alter-ego is played by an actual animal.

Far more popular and usually more effective is to go with a hairy-guy-with-a-wolf-head option. This actually strikes a nice balance between human and animal. It also gives the special effects folks something to play with, whether they’re using mechanical (The Howling) or CGI (Underworld) techniques. But be warned: when this doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work. For example, the latex werewolves in Silver Bullet fell well short of Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations for Stephen King’s source novella. And don’t even get me started on low-budget misfires such as The Feeding.

Actors love roles that allow them to show their faces (at least until they have to spend several hours in a makeup chair). Thus they tend to favor the mostly-human werewolf look. If you’ve got a makeup genius like Jack Pierce on staff, you might be able to pull this off. But more likely than not you’ll end up looking like a cross between a terrier and Oliver Reed.

But at all costs avoid the tactic taken by War Wolves. The folks who made this barking dog of a werewolf movie decided all their lycanthropes needed was bad contacts, pointy teeth, big ears and brown noses. They look ridiculous. Moral of the story: if you’re gonna change, change.

Oh, and while we’re at it, don’t talk. The werewolf in Big Bad Wolf retained the power of speech. Big mistake.

If all that’s too complicated for you, then remember that you’ve got plenty of non-wolf options. Just choose with care.

Irish wolfhound – For example, Wolfhound features an entire village full of people who can turn into Irish wolfhounds. And if wolves tend to be too cute to inspire terror, wolfhounds have the same problem and then some. Sure, they’re huge. If one was sicced on you it would probably be an experience you wouldn’t soon forget. Otherwise, however, they’re just big, hairy dogs. Who wants to use the powers of darkness to transform into someone’s pet?

Marsupial thing – Still, the family dog might be a better choice than something nobody’s ever heard of. In Howling 3: The Marsupials, the beast of choice is some kind of extinct marsupial dog thing from Australia. Horror films can legitimately inspire a lot of different reactions without undoing their main purpose, but “huh?” generally isn’t among them.

If you have to change into something weird, at least make sure it’s something scary. Man-sized marsupials don’t ever work (see Tank Girl or Warriors of Virtue if you really need further proof).

Were-chimp – I suppose a chimp might do some damage to you if it wanted to. But over the years they’ve spent too much time dressed in tuxedos and cowboy outfits to suddenly make the jump to terrifying monster. The transformation is especially disturbing in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When talented African-American actor Tony Todd makes the humiliating switch to simian, the producers reveal a bit more of their racism than they may have wished.

Were-rat – Wolves, yes. Dogs and apes, maybe. Rats, nope. Mulberry Street proved that you can have an entire legion of zombie were-rat things and they don’t amount to a hill of beans. Something that doesn’t start scary doesn’t turn scary just because New Yorkers turn into it. They were more frightening before they made the switch.

Snowman – Okay, two problems with the psycho in Jack Frost deciding to turn into a killer snowman. First, transforming into an inanimate object poses no end of challenges. But worse, the were-creature here is supposed to be ironic. How can anything as jolly and friendly as a snowman possibly be a menace? What’s next, a were-kitten?

Giant mosquito – Honestly, does this appeal to anyone? Do I even have to explain why changing into a Mansquito is a dumb idea?

Fly – Yeah, I know. The original is a horror classic, as is the Cronenberg remake. Flies are gross, nasty, generally unpleasant. But unless you’re rotting garbage, they aren’t much of a menace to you. Now, if you’re a fly and you’re thinking about changing into a human, go for it. That brief bit of The Fly worked quite well. But don’t go the opposite way.

Review – Carny

Overall this is fairly standard Sci Fi Channel fare. However, it had an element or two that made it more entertaining than most other pictures of a similar ilk. If nothing else, the monster was the Jersey Devil, and it turned out to be a not-too-bad interpretation of the legendary beast. To be sure, this isn’t going to contend for an Oscar anytime soon. The plot is a particularly stale bit of nonsense about a traveling carnival that accidentally lets its dangerous main attraction loose in a small town. The acting and production values are likewise mediocre. But the beast makes up for it. Mildly amusing

Review – I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer

This set enjoys an interesting distinction: it’s the only series I’ve ever reviewed in which none of the entries is next to any of the others in an alphabetical list. And if that’s the most fascinating thing I have to say about a feature-length motion picture is some trivia about its title, you can bet it was a less-than-engaging experience. The Fisherman is after a new crop of guilty-secret-hiding teens, this time straying all the way to Colorado – because what says “fisherman” like a town a thousand miles away from the nearest commercially-fishable body of water – just to get them. Some of the ski-lift-during-the-off-season location shoots were vaguely entertaining, but they emphasized what an awkward graft the Rocky Mountains were for this series. See if desperate

Review – The Rape of Europa

World War Two was hard on the European art world, as documented in this production. The story begins with the Nazi high command’s practice of systematically looting the museums and private collections of conquered nations. And honestly, a more thorough examination of that one aspect of cultural rape would have been enough for one movie. Don’t get me wrong. I was interested in the information presented about the damage done to art treasures caught in war zones. It was just too much for a single, two-hour picture to cover. Nazi thieves, valiant curators hiding collections, and of course the struggles to return the art to its rightful owners (or struggles against return) at the end of the war could have been more thoroughly discussed without digressing into other areas. Overall, however, the movie was a well-assembled consideration of a sadly lingering topic. Mildly amusing

Review – Confessions of a Superhero

This documentary follows four of the “street performers” who dress like superheroes and pose for photos with tourists on Hollywood Boulevard in exchange for “tips.” Two of the performers are sympathetic. One aspiring actor spends his days in the hot California sun perspiring inside a bulky Incredible Hulk costume. And the woman who came from small town Tennessee to pose as Wonder Woman while searching for roles is more than a little sad. The other two, on the other hand, come across as certifiably mentally ill. One of the many Batmen on the boulevard is a guy who bears a faint physical resemblance to George Clooney. He also has a dangerously uneven temper and delusions about having been a hit man for the mob. But the real star of the show is Chris, a guy completely obsessed with Superman. He looks a tiny bit like an emaciated Christopher Reeve, which he manages to milk for enough panhandling income to fill his apartment with Super-abilia of all kinds. Though this isn’t exactly a heartwarming triumph-of-the-human-spirit picture, it is an interesting look at people most of us wouldn’t pay much attention to. Mildly amusing

Review – Monkey Shines

Though it came out years before the relevant fake ad on Saturday Night Live, this still comes across as “Monkey Hate Clean: The Motion Picture.” After an accident leaves him quadriplegic, our hero gets a capuchin monkey to help with his daily upkeep. Unfortunately his helper primate has been “customized” by a friend who happens to be a mad scientist. As a result, man and simian form a psychic bond allowing the cute, furry critter to harm anyone his human master gets mad at. Overall this is a perfect example of why I’m usually comfortable with adult humans who brutalize one another but would prefer that they left animals out of it. The monkey violence is too pervasive for this to have much of a chance with me. I can eke out one star just for writer/director George Romero’s sake, but this is far from his best work. See if desperate

Review – A Scanner Darkly

The main attraction here is the animation, that stuff that looks like Rotoscoping done with Adobe Streamline. It gives the filmmakers the creative freedom to do some things that would have been difficult with live-action or even more traditional animation techniques. However, the stuff causes two problems. First, the computer occasionally makes decisions that don’t work, turning out more like a bad video game than a slickly-produced movie. And second, it gets old after awhile. The story is a semi-sci-fi tale of stoners trying to keep up their recreational habits in a bizarre, tech-heavy, near-future society. Overall it’s hard to say if this is supposed to be pro-drug or anti-drug. Or neither. Or both. This is a considerable distance from the best movie ever made based on a novel by Philip K. Dick. See if desperate

Review – Heckler

This starts out exactly as promised by the title: for the first 15 minutes or so, it’s an interesting documentary about the eternal struggle between stand-up comics and hecklers. But then co-producer Jamie Kennedy yanks the curtain back and reveals the true bane of his existence: movie critics. Almost instantly it set me to wondering why anyone who makes movies such as Malibu’s Most Wanted and Son of the Mask would even bother to read what critics think of his work. Before the end we’re “treated” to Andrew “Dice” Clay’s self-indulgent stunt on CNN, Uwe “Crapslinger” Boll’s boxing matches with critics, and Kennedy himself setting fire to copies of negative reviews. Seriously, guys, if you can’t stand people bagging on your crappy movies, quit making crappy movies. Make something that doesn’t suck. Or better yet, bail on the business and go get an actual job. Wish I’d skipped it

Review - Fahrenheit 451

Francois Truffaut directs this depressing movie version of Ray Bradbury’s depressing novel about a future world in which books are illegal and firemen charged with the duty of hunting them down and incinerating them. If you have no particular affection for books, you’re likely to find this a long, dated bore of a movie. On the other hand, if you do enjoy the company of the printed word then this will be an extended bummer. The production was ahead of its time but now looks more than a little dated. Mildly amusing

Review – A Certain Kind of Death

This is one of those documentaries about something that probably never occurs to most people (including me) but nonetheless turns out to be fascinating stuff. When indigent people die with no surviving kin, the coroner’s office ends up dealing with them. With no relatives or other beneficiaries to object, the film-makers follow along for every step in the process from discovery of the body to mass burial of the cremated remains. Further, the production is put together without the Morris-esque frills that seem to infect so many documentaries. No fancy re-enactments. No Phillip Glass soundtrack. Just straightforward documentation. The result is intensely sad in a quiet way. Worth seeing

Review – Penelope

After watching a depressing documentary, I decided I needed a light comedy to brighten my mood a bit. This met the need nicely. Christina Ricci stars as a woman cursed to have the nose of a pig until she can get a fellow British blue-blood to marry her. High jinks ensue. Occasionally the self-esteem-y stuff gets a bit preachy, especially toward the end. But otherwise it’s cute, occasionally clever, and uniformly undemanding. Mildly amusing

Review – The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Have you ever left food out for too long only to discover that it went bad? Then you think to yourself, “aw, I really wanted to eat that.” Watching this movie is like that. If it had been even a pale reflection of the original, it might have been a mildly entertaining picture. But somehow it seemed to go wrong at just about every turn. Keanu Reeves’s Klaatu is flat and dumb. Gort starts out okay, but then it turns out he can’t do much damage until he transforms himself into a swarm of microscopic bugs. And don’t even get me started on Will Smith’s kid. The first one was a classic because it was stylish and thought-provoking. This one is more expensive than classy, and the only thing it provokes is yawns. See if desperate

Review – The Day of the Triffids (1981)

This BBC miniseries is actually a little better than the original movie. The focus for most of the show is on how the world would go to hell if most of the population were suddenly struck blind. The shambling, death-stinging, carnivorous plants are almost an afterthought. To be sure, the production is far from perfect. It has a very 80s-British feel to it, and it could have – and probably should have – ended an episode earlier than it did. Overall, however, it was an entertaining look at just how fragile civilization is and what might become of us if we didn’t have it anymore. Mildly amusing

Review – Sharp Teeth

The teeth are the only sharp thing in this whole movie. Many times before I’ve complained about movies made with 12-year-olds in mind. But honestly, I think this one really was directed by a pubescent boy. Leading indicator: a fetishistic obsession with boobs that manifests itself with multiple down-shirt shots. And to make matters even more childish, every time someone touches a woman’s chest, we get a loud honking noise. Maybe they thought this was funny. There’s something in here about carp being mutated by radioactive waste, but if it ever had a chance to be entertaining that opportunity was swiftly squandered by the juvenile “humor.” Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Stink of Flesh

I have on occasion accidentally let meat go bad in the fridge. But in my entire life I’ve never smelled anything that reeked like this movie. Imagine the absolute worst possible zombie gore picture mashed up with the most offensive soft-core porn movie imaginable and you’ve got some idea of what to expect here. The production starts off with a zombie killer who defeats his undead opponents by punching them. Either this is a clever innovation or the producers were too cheap to pay for an armorer and a pyrotechnics artist. Hmmm, clever or cheap? What could it be? Still, I think my “favorite” part had to have been the guy who kills a woman and then keeps her zombified corpse chained up in a shed so he can have sex with it at his convenience. Classy. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Solomon and Sheba

It’s hard to say exactly where this goes wrong. They picked a racy story from the Old Testament. They got Yul Brynner (with hair, no less). Extravagant sets and costumes. Epic cast. Sure, King Vidor isn’t Cecil B. DeMille. But that wasn’t the problem. The major failing here is that this is just boring. For starters, the pacing is abysmal. For example, a pagan orgy ceremony dance number toward the end goes on forever without achieving much beyond spectacle that is at best tame by current standards. Further, the plot deals far too extensively with the machinations of two brothers vying for the throne of King David. Sure, that’s the story from the Bible. But on screen it plays like a half-baked blend of The Ten Commandments and C-Span. Snore. Mildly amusing

Review – Arachnophobia

It’s funny how much scarier spiders are when they’re their normal size rather than blown up to the size of houses. A particularly poisonous specimen sneaks aboard a coffin headed out of the Amazon rainforest and off to small-town USA, where the new doctor in town must first detect and then dispose of the rapidly-breeding pests. Though probably not for anyone who suffers from the title affliction, most folks will get a kick out of the picture. It’s a bit hard on the animals, though, especially the spiders. Mildly amusing

Review – Spy Hard

Once again Hollywood proves that merely casting Leslie Nielsen in a dumb parody doesn’t make it as good as Airplane! This is yet another one of those productions that pokes fun at movies that were current when it first came out, which means that unless you have a good memory for action pictures from the mid 90s, this isn’t going to entertain you at all. Even if you do recall what they’re mocking, it’s still not that good. The jokes are stupid and juvenile even by sub-genre standards. And poor Weird Al Yankovic. His opening titles song isn’t any cleverer than the rest of the mess. See if desperate

Review – Red Mercury

Muslim terrorists take hostages in a small restaurant in London, and a really boring stand-off ensues. We get a lot of unnecessary back-story, personal problems vaguely reminiscent of 24. Beyond that, however, this is mostly “Stockholm Syndrome: The Motion Picture.” Mildly amusing

Review – Happily N’Ever After

This is little more than a dumb Shrek rip-off. The balance of goodness in Fairy Tale Land gets upset, and the endings of stories start turning out less than happy (at least for the good guys). It might have been a clever premise if the updated-fairytale thing hadn’t already been done. Further, they must have spent so much on the voice talent that they didn’t have much left for quality animation. With no less than five production companies in the credits, it’s a shame they couldn’t scare up a few more bucks for something that didn’t look quite so straight-to-video. Mildly amusing

Review – It’s Alive (1968)

I expect many folks who end up watching this picture fall into the same category I do: people who thought they were getting the movie of the same title from 1974. Even the description on the listing from DirecTV was wrong. Well, we watched it anyway. Yeesh. Some hillbilly in the Ozarks waylays travelers and feeds them to a guy in a terrible Halloween costume who lives in a cave. At least this was made back in the days before any idiot with a video camera could make a movie. Film doesn’t make crap like this better, but it at least makes it harder to inflict on the world. See if desperate

Review – Doctor Dolittle

Memory is a tricky thing. I distinctly remember enjoying this movie when I was a kid. But after re-watching it, I can’t imagine my pre-teen self voluntarily sitting through two and a half hours of anything this dull. I suppose I must have been entertained by the talking-to-the-animals parts. And the giant pink sea snail was cool in a parade float sort of way. Further, I don’t think I would have noticed the rampant sexism and racism back then (I was a fairly ignorant little kid). But ugh, then there’s the unending parade of musical numbers! With only one or two exceptions, every time a character begins speaking to thin air and the orchestra hits a note, the following minutes could easily have been cut. The result would have been a more entertaining – or at the very least shorter – kids’ movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Twilight

After all the hype, I was hoping for something better than an unpalatable blend of Interview with the Vampire and Barbie Fairytopia. I admit that I am neither 12 years old, excessively moody nor a girl, so I’m clearly not a member of the target audience. Still, I was hoping for at least a little more cool vampire stuff and a lot less disingenuous adolescent sexuality. Frankly, the 30-second bunny version was a lot more entertaining (not to mention somewhere around one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds shorter). See if desperate

Review – Uncivil Liberties

Yeesh, what a boring movie! The premise might have had some potential. In a not-too-distant future, the whole “homeland security” thing has turned our country into a police state. The resistance movement targets one of the government’s top computer security experts for assassination. But when the shooter can’t pull the trigger, folks from both sides of the conflict end up alienated from their groups. The problem here lies in the execution. This is a cheap, shot-on-video picture, which shouldn’t automatically doom it. Bad acting doesn’t help, but again it isn’t automatic death either. What kills it are the long scenes of people standing around in their cubes at work talking standard office nonsense or otherwise engaged in dull, everyday activity. If I want to look at that kind of thing, I can just go to work. Perhaps the director thought this would add a sense of realism to his show, but instead it turns the movie into a five-minute pat of butter spread over a feature-length loaf of bread. See if desperate

Review – The Lost Boys: The Tribe

The producers of this thing assume that their audience is composed of 12-year-old boys who’ve seen the 20-year-old original. I wonder how big the intersection on that Venn diagram really is. The sequel is a typical 21st century reheat: it features more sex and better gore but at the expense of worse acting and an inferior script. Overall it wasn’t the worst vampire movie I’ve ever seen (heck, it wasn’t even the worst vampire movie I saw the day I watched it). Mildly amusing

Review – Stolen

One of the most interesting cases – or at the very least one of the most expensive – in the history of art theft is the loss of several paintings from the Gardner museum. This documentary about the crime is approximately one third about the paintings and the theft, one third about museum founder Isabella Gardner and one third about the search for the paintings and the thieves. Though the whole thing is informative, the best parts are about insurance investigator Harold Smith. Mildly amusing

Review – Cthulhu

This is as close as anyone has come so far to making a Lovecraftian horror movie of a sort that I would make if I made movies. The plot is a reinvention of “The Shadow over Innsmouth” in which a gay man returns to his old hometown for his mother’s funeral only to face his fundamentalist family. But the religion they adhere to is the cult of Dagon, mixing classic Yog Sothery with homosexual “coming out” issues in a way that actually works. And however unseemly the scene may be in which our hero is raped by Tori Spelling, the subtle use of the monsters more than makes up for it. Overall the production’s only disappointing part is that it somehow never quite manages to pull all its elements together. That notwithstanding, this is an excellent 21st-century rework of a 1931 horror story. Worth seeing

Review – I Have Never Forgotten You

The title of this biography of Simon Wiesenthal does double duty. On the one hand, it’s a Hallmark-moment comment about the man himself, but on the other it’s a chilling reminder of his relentless pursuit of Nazi fugitives. The Wiesenthal Center gets production credit, and the documentary makes copious use of photos and video supplied by his family. However, it’s hard to get upset about a one-sided telling of the tale, given that his targets were some of the world’s most loathsome mass murderers. The story of his concentration camp experience is sadly all too familiar, but once he begins his career as a Nazi hunter the plot becomes more interesting. Overall this is a reasonably good portrait of a fascinating subject. Mildly amusing

Review – Sniper

The first time I saw this (I think it was in theaters at the time), I went into it thinking that being a military sniper would actually be an interesting thing to do. Boy, not if this story is any indication. The shooting sequences are fun, but the rest of it is a dreadful mash about an old Marine paired up with a rookie intel bureaucrat for a sniping mission in the jungles of Panama. They’re barely out of the base before they start bickering with each other, which continues for almost all of the rest of the movie. Indeed, the two spend more time sniping at each other – figuratively for most of the way and then literally by the end of the movie – than anything else. What a disappointment. Mildly amusing

Review – Species 4: The Awakening

Oddly inapt title for a snoozefest like this. This time around the half-human, half-alien supermodel is a college professor, at least until she wakes up with a transforming-into-a-monster problem. Her “uncle” (Ben Cross, who seems to have a real taste for roles in movies like this) takes her to Mexico to find a guy who supposedly knows more than they do about the whole alien mess. Unfortunately, the “cure” he employs makes her into the same sex-crazed, clothing-impaired cross-breed from the rest of the pictures in the set. At least it was somewhat better than the third one. See if desperate

Review – Cruising

This movie is a challenge to watch in the 21st century because it’s been so thoroughly robbed of its cultural context. In 1980 mainstream audiences had such a poor understanding of homosexuality that – in response to protests from gay groups – a disclaimer was added to the beginning of the movie. Now homosexuality is “out” enough that most people understand the difference between the average gay guy and the “leather scene” men in this movie. Now that gay men aren’t automatically scary, the production can settle down and become a reasonably routine crime drama. Al Pacino stars as a beat cop trying to earn a place in the detective division by working undercover in the “homosexual underworld” in order to track down a brutal serial killer. One of the murders early in the picture is especially jarring. Worth seeing

Christmas in April

In honor of the start of baseball season, I submit a Christmas-themed parody of a Garth Brooks song.

What’s the connection? In recent years ballparks have been adopting unofficial-official songs to be played between innings at least once during each game. I think the tradition started in Boston with something by Neil Diamond. And from that “auspicious” beginning, the marketing gimmick has spread throughout the leagues.

The Kansas City Royals actually opened the selection process up to the fans, offering several choices that could be voted upon. Every time I’m tempted to whine about the song that was selected, I have to remind myself that one of the other options was “Sweet Home Alabama.” As if the Confederate-flag-waving, racist-governor-loving bullshit song wasn’t bad enough all on its own, it would have been even dumber at Kauffman Stadium because it has no earthly connection to Kansas City. Is KC in Alabama? Not according to the maps I’ve checked. Are people in Alabama legendary for being Royals fans? I doubt it. My guess would be that the Gulf Coast is Braves territory, with an outside chance that teams from Florida and Texas might pick up some followers here and there.

Though it could have been worse, it still ended up pretty bad. We got stuck with Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places.”

According to the giant Garth who appears on the scoreboard and introduces the thing every time it plays, the song is about “good friends and having a good time.” Now, I’ve heard this damn thing dozens of times now, and as near as I can tell it’s about getting plastered, making an ass of yourself at your ex-girlfriend’s wedding reception, and spending your life hanging out with barflies. Of course I must concede that the average “fan” who shows up for a Royals game (especially for promotional give-aways or dollar dog night) probably does regard that sort of thing as a good time, so as the minority perhaps I should just shut up and play along.

That notwithstanding, to those of us who just want to watch the game, this song is pure irritation. I wouldn’t mind it so much if I only had to listen to it – with every drunken yahoo in the stadium singing along – once or twice over the course of the season. But my family and I have a half-season ticket package, which means we’re out there between 30 and 40 times every summer. By September (okay, more like by May) it’s pure nails on a chalkboard.

To preserve my sanity, after awhile I started making up new lyrics. Most of them are hate-filled ditties about beer-swilling rednecks, and they don’t bear repeating here. But one time last summer the Royals ran a Christmas-themed promotion. The give-away was Santa hats with the KC logo stitched onto them, and the between-inning music had a Yuletide flavor. Except, of course, for Garth.

That got me to thinking. The product of my bemused musing was “Friends in Low Places” rewritten from the perspective of Hermie, the misfit elf in the Rankin-Bass production of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Enjoy!

Me and the boys
Work hard making toys
To get ready for Christmas Eve
But I hate making trucks
And elf practice sucks
That’s why I decided to leave.
Well I saw the surprise
In the big boss elf’s eyes
When I tried to fix dolly’s teeth,
So tell Mister Claus
That I’m quittin’ because
This misfit needs some relief!

Oh I’ve got elves in low places
Where the eggnog flows and the reindeer race
To pull Santa’s sleigh
On Christmas Day.
I guess we’ll go where nobody’s needin’ us
Just me, the deer and Yu-KON Cornelius
Cause I’ve got elves in low places.

Review – I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I hate it when that happens. You think you’re set for years of wedded bliss, and then it turns out your new hubby has been possessed by a monster from outer space. This is a mix of the cliché “Mars needs women” procreation plot and 50s-era “my neighbor is up to no good” paranoia. And boy, do these things hate house pets. Of course that’s understandable, as it turns out dogs are the only things that know how to kill them. The effects are interesting in a low-budget sort of way, but otherwise this is remarkable only for the starring role played by Thomas Tryon back in his pre-novel-writing days. See if desperate

Review – War Wolves

This is one of those movies in which all the elements compete with one another to see which can be the worst. The acting is terrible. The werewolf makeup consists of bad contacts, fake teeth, fake ears and oversized, brown noses, so you can imagine for yourself how well that worked. But the champion of awfulness in this crap parade has to be the script. All the characters talk in that snarky, pseudo-witty banter style of dialogue that infects the writing of many second-year college students. It’s always a shame when they don’t grow out of it before someone gives them a budget for an actual movie. After all, it’s called “sophomoric” for a reason. See if desperate

Review – Warriors of Virtue

If you’re going to take this one on, it’ll help a lot if you can arrange to be about eight years old. That’ll give you two big advantages. First, you’ll be somewhere around the age this is clearly intended for. And second, you’ll be too young to remember the last time Hollywood tried making a fantasy movie with humanoid kangaroos in it. I mean really, what’s the excuse here? It might work if Ice T doesn’t play any of them? Kung fu marsupials notwithstanding, this is a fairly standard boy-transported-to-a-fantasy-kingdom tale with plenty of bad acting and stuntmen flying around on wires. Mildly amusing

Review – Going to Pieces

The sub-title here is “The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Movie,” which is a reasonably apt description. If you genuinely don’t know anything about slasher movies, you might learn a bit from this. On the other hand, you’ll get a slightly skewed version. The emphasis is on movies created by the people who agreed to be interviewed, which means that some genre classics are mentioned only briefly (or even completely ignored) while some relatively minor moments get way more screen time. And if you do happen to have seen a fair number of these pictures, this documentary isn’t going to add much to your understanding. Mildly amusing

Review – Stardust

Imagine something around halfway between The Princess Bride and The Golden Compass. Now imagine that it isn’t as heavy-handed as the latter but not as endearing as the former. This forcefully quirky tale takes its hero into a fantasy realm just over the wall from his boring little English village. Four homicidal princes, three wicked witches, a beautiful love interest, a closeted transvestite sky pirate (Robert DeNiro no less) and a couple of hours later, and we’ve all had a reasonably entertaining time. Kinda hard on the animals, though. Mildly amusing

Review – American Scary

Many of us have childhood memories of late night horror movies hosted by people dressed up as vampires. Mine are of Crematia Mortem, who hosted fright night on one of the Kansas City U’s back when I was a teenager in the early 80s. Usually KC doesn’t get much of a mention in national documentaries, so I was surprised to see some old Crematia clips show up in this, along with some talking head footage of Roberta Solomon, the actress who played her. Of course KC wasn’t alone. This is a fairly comprehensive documentary about fright night hosts, featuring some of the better-known personalities (Vampira, Elvira, Joe Bob Briggs and John Stanley) as well as more obscure acts from smaller media markets. This would have been a better movie if it had devoted more screen time to vintage video from the shows themselves and spent less time dwelling on interviews going on at length about boring anecdotes. The music (a constant stream of low-level retro lounge noise) was also unwelcome. Otherwise this was an entertaining account of a now largely bygone venue for bad movies bracketed by improv character acting. Mildly amusing

Review – BloodRayne 2: Deliverance

If you ever wondered what happened to the guy who played Scut Farcas in A Christmas Story, he shows up here as a bloodsucking Billy the Kid. Actually, I IMDB’d the guy, and apparently he’s been in a lot of stuff since he was a kid. Well, his agent should have steered him clear of this one. Our heroine from the first one (here played by fresh meat) takes to the Wild West to save a town from marauding vampires. Uwe Boll once again makes a movie as cheap and dreadful as he can (and that’s saying something, as the man has a prodigious talent for sucking). The only “deliverance” we get comes 90 minutes later when the credits finally roll. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – To Die For

I was actually impressed by Gus Van Sant’s use of subtle touches in this production. The basic plot is a true-crime retelling of a woman (Nicole Kidman) who uses sex to lure three high school students into killing her husband (Matt Dillon). The twist here is that our anti-heroine is obsessed with becoming a TV newscaster and frustrated that the closest she’s able to come is a nightly stint as a weather girl on a local cable service. Overall the story is dumb and predictable, but it takes an interesting twist now and then. I particularly enjoyed David Cronenberg’s cameo. Worth seeing

Review – BloodRayne

It’s all in what letter you capitalize. If they’d called this movie BlooDrayne, it would have been a much funnier outing. As it was, this is purely a case of Uwe Boll grabbing another video game and making another craptacular horror movie out of it. This time it’s about some kind of half-human, half-vampire midriff who joins a band of medieval commandos in a war against bloodsuckers everywhere. The result is something that’s merely time filler for the Sci Fi Channel (once a couple of extraneous boob shots are cut out, of course). See if desperate

Review – Night of the Living Dead (1990)

I didn’t hate this as much as I thought I would. That’s at least in part because George Romero wrote the script and Tom Savini directed. So with folks connected to the original in control of the remake, it at least stood a chance. The zombie makeup was a lot better, and of course the film stock was considerably less grainy. Technical improvements notwithstanding, the remake still isn’t anywhere near as good as the first one. Mildly amusing

Review – Billy Jack

This classic from the early 70s is a bizarre blend of peace-loving hippiedom and standard revenge-intensive action flick. The kids at a ranch school for flower children keep coming to town and getting into trouble with the squares. One solution to this problem might be for the two groups to concentrate on separating. Another might be for both to practice more tolerance of one another. But more often than not we end up going with what’s behind door number three: every time a townie does something mean, up pops Billy Jack, a half-white half-Indian Vietnam veteran Green Beret with one hell of a bad temper. So what could have been a movie about peaceful co-existence instead becomes an often-tedious parade of escalating violence. The weak script – frequently giving way to Altman-esque improv sequences – doesn’t help matters. Ultimately the moral here appears to be if you’re going to make a revenge movie, just make one. Don’t try to toss a lot of peaceful protest and fake Native American baggage on top of it. Mildly amusing

Review – Equinox

The folks who made this way back in 1970 seem to have had ambitions to be Ray Harryhausen but had neither the talent nor the budget to pull it off. The result is a muddled mess about two couples who find a strange book in an isolated valley, making them the target of an oddly-eyebrowed, shape-shifting sheriff named Mr. Asmodeus. This is the sort of movie that’s probably a lot more fun to watch if you’re stoned. That way things like terrible split screens, giant green cavemen and observations like “Hey, isn’t that the dude who played Herb on WKRP?” seem a lot more profound than they are when you’re straight. Mildly amusing

Review – The Tale of Sweeney Todd

In the wake of the Broadway musical (but several years in advance of the movie version), Showtime served up this “Sweeney Todd: The True Story” telling of the tale. Ben Kingsley stars as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Amazingly enough, without all the elaborate Sondheim song and dance it isn’t all that interesting a story. Mildly amusing

Review – Blue Demon

I cast you out, Blue Demon! Seriously, how can anyone make a movie chock full o’ sharks without a single scary moment in the whole thing? Realizing that they were going to fall way short of decently aping Deep Blue Sea, the folks who made this stinker decided it needed to be a tongue-in-cheek horror comedy. And as usual with such efforts, it wavers between dull and offensive without ever approaching entertaining. For example, a government-funded project to create super-smart killer sharks is being run by the Air Force (most likely because the production company already had Air Force uniforms on hand). Then there are the “midget” jokes. Then there are … well, you see what we’re dealing with here. See if desperate

Review – Chapter 27

This appears to be somebody’s vanity project, the sort of thing that gets made not because it’s important or commercially viable but simply because someone is desperate to make it. And that naturally enough leads to the question “Why would anyone care enough about the guy who shot John Lennon to become obsessed with making a movie about him?” The obsession may belong to lead actor Jared Leto, who appears to have gained some weight in order to play Chapman. Well, at least they didn’t glamorize the guy. The whole tale of the killer’s activities in the days prior to the shooting is dreary and dull. Mildly amusing

Review – The Magnificent Seven

I found it difficult to watch this picture without making comparisons to The Seven Samurai, which detracted from the experience. If this stood alone it would probably be pretty good, especially for a western. But I just couldn’t stop thinking things like “that guy isn’t as good as Mifune” or “that worked better when Kurosawa did it.” That last criticism applied with particular strength to the ending of this production, which was extremely weak. Still, it’s a fun movie for the most part. If nothing else, Yul Brynner does his usual way-too-cool job as the lead gunslinger defending a small village from marauding bandits. Mildly amusing

Review – Saint Ange

Though Netflix listed this as “House of Voices,” the title in the opening credits was definitely “Saint Ange.” But hey, a turd by any other name would smell just like this. Many times I’ve written about movies that are generally boring but manage a good shock or two here and there. This one doesn’t even muster that much. It’s laconic, nonsensical and very French (despite appearing to have been shot in English). Toward the end it drummed up a mess of ghost children and appeared to be trying to make some kind of point, possibly about abortion. But by then I’d lost pretty much all interest in it. See if desperate