Review – Bedazzled (1967)

Though Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are cleverer than Kevin Smith, this still comes across as an our-parents’-generation version of Dogma. Moore plays a down-on-his-luck schmuck mooning over a woman he doesn’t have the guts to approach about a date. Enter Cook as a smart-alecky devil tempting our hero with seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Of course all of them go awry as deals with the devil tend to. Along the way, however, we get a lot of stand-up-comedy-style musing about theology. Some of it borders on witty, but a lot of it is just precocious and silly. Mildly amusing

Review – The Giant Spider Invasion

The picture opens with someone entering the office of the sheriff, played by Alan “The Skipper” Hale Jr. “Hey little buddy,” he says. That’s the level of entertainment you can expect from this picture. A meteor crashes in a field, and soon BFE is swarming with tarantulas. At least one of them grows up to become a spider-shaped parade float that’s actually cute enough to provide some entertainment value. It almost makes me miss the days when fake-looking giant spiders had to be built rather than computer animated in post-production. On the other hand, CGI might have helped them avoid awkwardness such as the scene in which the monster appears to “devour” a victim by cramming the guy up its butt (not enough room in the head, I guess). Though I admire low budget film-makers from the 1970s who actually had to work to make a bad movie, unfortunately this is still just a bad movie. See if desperate

See what you missed?

Last Thursday the Macy’s Day Parade once again graced our nation’s airwaves. Though it’s probably the dumbest holiday ritual on my annual list – and one that Amy wisely sleeps through every year – I just can’t make it through Thanksgiving without my yearly dose of the moral equivalent of those perky kids from Up With People astride the Colgate-Palmolive “World of Soap” float.

Once a year I just have an uncontrollable, irrational need for a little bit of New York pizzazz right here in God’s Country. I remember my mom telling me once that when she was a girl she thought the Macy’s in Wichita was the biggest place in the whole world. And of course for awhile the store in NYC actually was the biggest until it was eclipsed by a Soviet store (a competition that's the moral equivalent of “whose toe swells up biggest when hit with a hammer?”).

The parade coverage on both CBS and NBC appeared to be par for the course, the usual combination of floats, balloons, The What Else Could Your High School Have Done with All That Money Marching Band, The Spirit of Horses Who Would Rather Be Somewhere Else Mounted Drill Team, musical numbers, idle chit-chat and shots that linger a moment or two before cutting away to a cheerleader who didn’t get dropped.

I say “appeared to be” because this year for the first time I turned the sound off almost the whole time lest I awaken my spouse in the room across the hall. Overall it was a vast improvement. In fact, I only had to turn the sound up twice: once during a musical number (just because it wasn’t immediately obvious who or what it was) and once for an appearance by the Mach 5 (I had to make sure it didn’t herald the advent of another Speed Racer movie, which thankfully it didn’t).

And as usual, the parade had something for everyone. Indeed, it even catered to people who wouldn’t seem like they’d be a real big audience segment. Such as these folks:

For people who wondered what the “America” number from West Side Story would be like if it was performed by only the female half of the cast: The female half of the cast performing “America” from West Side Story.

For people who make sacrifices to Satan in order to ensure that someone somewhere is still performing Hair: Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in.

For anyone monitoring the progress of women’s ongoing struggle to be treated as anything besides body parts: The continued existence of the Radio City Rockettes.

For fans of George Romero: The non-Muppet cast of Sesame Street, particularly perpetual bachelor Bob.

For fans of both George Romero and Barbie: Cyndi Lauper riding some kind of pink princess nightmare float.

For people who savor the inappropriate combination of sponsor and float: The Hamburger Helper People Trying to Get a Cat Out of a Tree float.

For people for whom the combination of Hamburger Helper and a cat wasn’t sufficiently inappropriate: American Idol veteran Katharine McPhee bleached beyond recognition on the Jimmy Dean Happy Rainbow What Kind of Hallucinogens Are They Putting in That Sausage? float.

For rotten people who savor the humiliation of talented performers: Poor Alan Cummings struttin’ his stuff on the Broadway-show-theme-M&Ms float.

For people still struggling with the distinction between “minimalist” and “cheap”: Soup darlings Yo Gabba Gabba riding a “platforms on a flatbed” float.

For people who just can’t get enough of those wacky old folks: The Purple Pedalers, a team of older women on big tricycles with stuffed animals on the handlebars.

For fans of the “Really? with Seth and Amy” segment on “Weekend Update”: Ziggy Marley? Really?

And finally, for people seeking video that’s begging to be digitized, synced up with inappropriate music and posted on Youtube: The Mike Miller Dance Team giant Slinky (tm) routine.

Review – Sometimes They Come Back

For me the main attraction of this picture is that part of it was shot at Wyandotte High School, which is just down the street from my house and where a good friend used to teach. Beyond that, however, this is yet another mediocre horror movie based on a short story by Stephen King. Our hero (Tim Matheson) returns to his home town to teach only to find the ghosts of a childhood tragedy still very much alive. Some of his students die and are replaced by the vengeful zombies of leather-jacketed bullies from the teacher’s past. If one has to sit through Welcome Back to Hell, Kotter, it works better – or at least faster – as a story than it does as a movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Up

Despite starting off on an extremely depressing note, this turns out to be an okay movie. Suffering the loss of his wife and a court-ordered move to a retirement home, our curmudgeonly hero (voiced by Ed Asner) decides to attach thousands of helium balloons to his house and drift off on an adventure he and his spouse always dreamed of. He ends up with unexpected company on his journey and meets a childhood hero who turns out to be other than heroic. Though a lot of the movie is as full of “inspirational” message as we’ve come to expect from Disney/Pixar – not to mention extra added moodiness – I did like the occasional clever moments supplied by Kevin the bird and Doug the dog. Mildly amusing

Review – The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Director Tony Scott makes a noisy, muddled mess out of a perfectly good movie from the 1970s. Though they kept some of the good parts of the original – such as hijackers motivated by greed rather than politics – and introduced an occasionally clever new twist or two, overall this wasn’t a step in the right direction. Denzel Washington does a fine – though obviously different – job in the Walter Matthau part, but John Travolta is a pale, twitchy shadow in Robert Shaw’s role. See if desperate

Review – Doubt

Here’s unnecessary proof that you can take advantage of film’s ability to move easily between times and locations and still produce something as stiffly theatrical as the play upon which the picture is based. A cranky, self-righteous nun (Meryl Streep) squares off against a progressive priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) whom she suspects of molesting boys. Though I thought the plot and most of the dialogue would have played better on the stage than it did on the screen, I did like the gloomy visual sense of the picture. And though normally I’d applaud anyone with the guts to make a morally-ambiguous movie, here I wasn’t sure if this was genuinely ambiguous or merely inept. Mildly amusing

Review – The Mad

Which is what I would be if I’d actually paid money to see this stinker. Once again horror and comedy fail to mix in this tale of tainted-meat-spawned zombies besieging a father (Billy Zane) and daughter (probably nobody you’re ever going to hear from again). If watching a hick simultaneously assaulted by his arm-chewing zombie father and flying clods of monster-fied hamburger is your idea of a good time, write to the Chiller network (assuming you’re able to write, that is) and demand that they show it again as soon as possible. Otherwise something like Motel Hell would be a better choice, exploring the same meat phobias without being quite so stupid. See if desperate

Review – Star Trek (2009)

I’m having a hard time reviewing this movie because I’m a fan of the TV series from the 60s, and this picture seems to exist for no other reason than to mess with the original. I don’t mind a little clever re-invention – such as back story for familiar characters, the sort of thing that’s been done with Batman to good effect – but this just presses the reset button and starts over. For example, whole planets that were crucial to the story in the series are here obliterated without a second thought. I kept expecting some kind of J.J. Abrams Lost trick, where it turns out the destruction of Vulcan was a Dharma Initiative mind game. But no, apparently they’re serious about screwing everything up. And while normally I’d be tempted to toss in an “at least the effects were impressive,” here I can’t even go that far. For example, the new Enterprise bridge set is much fancier than the original, but now it looks less like the utilitarian command center of a starship and more like a noisy food court in the Mall of Tomorrow. I understand the need for some deviation from the certainly-flawed Star Trek of my youth. But this isn’t the Joker re-imagined as a violent psychopath. This is the Joker re-imagined as a giant octopus who’s pissed off about a botched sex change operation. The only reason I can eke out a single star for this mess is the chance that I’m being meaner to it than it deserves because it disappointed me. See if desperate

Review – The Pursuit of the Graf Spee

The title card on the print that ran on TCM identified this as “The Battle of the River Plate,” but it’s the same moment in history no matter what name it goes by. And wow is it ever boring. The picture is loosely divided into three acts: interaction between the captain of the Graf Spee (a very young Peter Finch) and the captain of a British vessel sunk by the German ship, the sea battle that damaged the Graf Spee and the ship’s fiery demise in the harbor at Montevideo. Oddly enough, the second part is the dullest of all. It includes extensive footage of guys standing around on the bridges of the English warships waiting for their enemy to turn up. While I’m sure this is a reasonably accurate representation of the long stretches between engagements in war at sea, it didn’t make for especially compelling cinema. However, the ships were interesting to look at for anyone who’s into ships. The opening credits even listed the actual names of the vessels playing the ships in the movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Dead of Night (1945)

What eerie ability does this movie have to possess the minds of otherwise intelligent film people? It picked up ringing endorsements both from Martin Scorcese and one of my respected professors from my undergrad days. And yet it’s an insanely boring parade of un-scary scares. Almost every segment in this anthology piece is the sort of thing that might be unnerving if it actually happened to you but doesn’t make much of an impression when it happens to someone in a movie. The final sequence – a schizophrenic and his dummy bit starring Michael Redgrave – is the best of the lot, but even that one’s a cliché fest. I particularly dislike bad anthology pictures because they stand more of a chance than single-story movies; if one segment is weak, another might make up for it. But here everything is uniformly awful. See if desperate

Review – SS Doomtrooper

Every once in awhile it’s nice to have a reminder of how fortunate we all are that the Nazis didn’t develop Doomtrooper technology earlier in the war. Things might have come out much differently if they had. Seriously, though, this is The Dirty Dozen versus a Nazi version of The Incredible Hulk with all the production quality we’ve come to associate with the words “The Sci Fi Channel presents.” The action sequences are like watching someone play a boss level from Wolfenstein over and over again. And those are the good parts. See if desperate

Review – Angels and Demons

Just as The Da Vinci Code was almost exactly what I expected, so this one was as well. It’s full of the usual Dan Brown nonsense that oddly enough was done to better effect in National Treasure, a movie that isn’t even directly based on Brown’s writing. They spent a lot of money on it, though apparently not as much as the first one because the female lead wasn’t a big star like last time. And as with the book, I appreciated the religious dynamic; it was less atheists vs. the Roman Catholic church and more good Catholics (aided by atheists) vs. bad Catholics. However, in place of the direct assault we get a lot of sermonizing about the false dichotomy between science and religion. Preachiness aside, it’s a reasonably good big budget thriller. Mildly amusing

Review – Phantom Racer

Imagine Christine redone with a NASCAR twist and … well, if that isn’t a vivid picture of Hell for you, then for all I know you might actually like this turd. Before sitting through this, I wouldn’t have thought that dialogue could ever be dreadful enough to make me grateful for the next attack by an evil-spirit-possessed stock car. See if desperate

Review – G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I watched this movie on Thanksgiving, which turned out to be appropriate for a couple of reasons. First, I was thankful I wasn’t in a theater next door to this at a multiplex. Even in a world full of noisy movies, this one stood out. Occasionally plot developments briefly intrude, but for the most part this is just one elaborate battle sequence after another, a relentless parade of action movie clichés. I was also thankful that I’d been a Joe fan when I was a kid, because it helped me get the inside jokes that were the cleverest this picture ever got. Oh, and I was thankful when it ended. Mildly amusing

Review – Dolls

Normally I’m not a big fan of either Stuart Gordon or killer doll movies, but oddly enough this one kinda works. It isn’t a great horror movie by any stretch of the imagination. But there’s a little emotional satisfaction to be gained in the horrible ends of parents who begin the movie by being deliberately mean to a child. Some of the effects are also sorta fun in a mid-80s way as well. Mildly amusing

Review – Land of the Lost

When I was a kid I liked the old Krofft series upon which this was based. Thus I was extra disappointed by the dreadfulness of the movie version. Will Ferrell follows the infamous SNL tradition of running jokes completely into the ground, only here he adds an extra layer of offensiveness. For example, he does a string of gags that involve drenching himself in dinosaur urine, a scene that felt like it went on for at least 20 minutes. That kind of thing might be acceptable – or at least easily avoided – if he reserved it for movies about frat boys on drinking binges. But in a movie based on a children’s TV show? This is just stupid and disgusting beyond any excuse. Wish I’d skipped it.

Review – Hero

On the surface this looks like yet another Crouching Tiger production, a flying-swords-of-kung-fu-death picture with good production values and extra added prettiness. But this one also packs a modern moral under the choreography and cinematography. An expert swordsman (Jet Li) gains an audience with the Emperor after slaying three assassins who posed a threat to the throne. As soldier and statesman talk, different versions of events unfold. I can’t get too far into the conclusion without at least partially spoiling the picture, so suffice it to say that this seems better geared for Chinese audiences than for the potential North American market. Mildly amusing

Review – Cuba

Though the concept had potential, the execution leaves a great deal to be desired. A British mercenary (Sean Connery) is hired by the Cuban government to help fight rebels in the waning days of 1958, when it was of course far too late to do anything about them. So he fights rebels. He gets tangled up in politics. He gets tangled up with an old flame (Brooke Adams) who’s married to a factory owner (Chris Sarandon). As I said, this could have worked. The problem is director Richard Lester. This guy had a couple of Beatles movies under his belt when he took the helm for this project, and unfortunately he brings the same brand of quirky humor to epic action movies that he employed when making pictures about pop stars. In Lester’s defense, many action movies are far too deadly serious and would benefit greatly from at least a small dose of humor. So it would have been nice if this had worked. Too bad it didn’t. I could have done without the unnecessary cockfighting sequence as well. See if desperate

Review – 2012

The most fun I had with this movie was watching it with a friend who was familiar with the Los Angeles area and could point out the inconsistencies between locations as they perished onscreen. Oh, and Woody Harrelson turns in a briefly entertaining performance as a conspiracy nut with his own radio show. Otherwise this is little more than a relentless parade of epic action movie clichés. For example, we’re treated to not one, not two, but three extended sequences of airplanes taking off from unstable runways. Sure, the effects are impressive. But without a good story to string everything together, this is nothing more than an elaborate fireworks show. At least if the movie’s central thesis is correct we’ll only have to put up with crap like this for another two or three years. See if desperate

Review – 88 Minutes

So a serial killer wants Al Pacino dead? Can’t say I find much fault in the intention. In this stinker Pacino plays a forensic psychologist being framed in a series of brutal killings by a copycat trying to get a brutal killer off death row. So brilliant investigator that he is, our hero decides to solve the mystery by walking up to every other character in the movie and asking point-blank questions that might as well be “did you do it?” Real mystery writers must be turning over in their graves (even the ones who aren’t dead yet). The story is too stupid and the killer’s crimes too repulsive to even vaguely justify any entertainment value that might otherwise be found here. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Lost Command

Imagine The Green Berets only slightly less simple-minded and you’ve got some idea what’s in store for you here. After being held responsible for the defeat at Dien Bien Phu, a French colonel (Anthony Quinn) and his paratroopers are reassigned to quell civil unrest in Algeria. They end up pitted against a former Algerian comrade (George Segal, in an unlikely bit of casting). Though this comes across as an endorsement of brutal “counterterrorism” tactics, it at least has the decency to acknowledge that the anti-French forces are human beings with a legitimate beef against the occupation. Mildly amusing

Review – The Good German

Steven Soderbergh sets himself about the largely-unnecessary task of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he isn’t Carol Reed. Though this is clearly intended to have the same flavor of postwar intrigue as Reed’s classic The Third Man, it turns out to be at best a cheap, plastic reproduction that only vaguely resembles the real thing. George Clooney plays a journalist who swiftly finds himself in too deep while trying to unravel a murder mystery set against the backdrop of the Pottsdam conference. Mildly amusing

Review – Leprechaun 2

Though Warwick Davis repeats his role as the title character, this must be a different leprechaun. The bad guy in the original was only 600 years old, while this one is at least 2000. Further … ohmygod, am I really nit-picking the inconsistencies between the first two Leprechaun movies? This time around he’s after a bride as well as his gold, but otherwise it’s second verse same as the first. See if desperate

Review – Leprechaun

Sure this is a stupid, vulgar waste of celluloid. But it answers one big, burning question about leprechauns: if you follow the rainbow to their gold and steal it, wouldn’t that piss them off? Apparently yes, it does indeed. The title character comes across as a miniature Freddy Krueger, spouting witless Irish jokes as he slaughters everyone who stands between him and his lost treasure. Jennifer Aniston’s fans may get a kick out of her early-career appearance here, but everyone else can safely avoid it. See if desperate

Review – Thunder Rock

What a weird movie. A disillusioned former journalist (Michael Redgrave) escapes from humanity by taking a job as a lighthouse keeper in Lake Michigan. In his isolation he finds his mind haunted by the made-up ghosts of the captain and passengers of a boat that crashed on nearby rocks nearly a century before. At first his companions are stiff and one-dimensional. But after he contemplates his fruitless struggles to get the world to wake up to growing threats to global peace in the late 1930s, he finds himself able to journey back into the pasts of his ghosts as well. The odd, disconnected nature of the separate stories gets tied up a bit at the end, but even then this comes across as a strange way to make a point about perseverance in the face of adversity. Mildly amusing

Review – Gaslight

This is the great granddaddy of all “messin’ with yer mind” movies. A shady character (Charles Boyer) marries a nervous woman (Ingrid Bergman), and they move into the London townhome she inherited from a wealthy relative who hid some expensive jewels somewhere in the house. He proceeds to conduct a campaign of tricks and lies designed both to cover his tracks and to convince her that she’s going insane. Unfortunately for him, a member of the local constabulary (Joseph Cotten) notices that something is amiss. Sympathy for Bergman’s long-suffering character makes this a hard movie to watch, but the film-makers do a solid job of managing the suspense to keep things interesting. And it’s certainly a delight to watch when the screw finally turns. Worth seeing

Review – The Alphabet Killer

Anytime you get a movie based on the true story of a serial killer who was never caught, you can bet the picture is going to take some liberties with the facts. And this production is no exception. Eliza Dushku plays a detective trying to track down a predator who kidnaps and murders preadolescent girls. Her obsession with the case pushes her off the deep end, and she ends up in a mental hospital where she makes friends with a guy in a wheelchair (Tim Hutton). After she recovers and returns to desk duty at the police department, the killer resumes his habits. She persuades her ex-boyfriend (Cary Elwes) to let her work on the case. But the closer she gets to solving it the more she deteriorates mentally, seeing the ghosts of the dead kids and the like. The story is okay and the production values reasonably good. My only big gripe with the picture is that despite efforts at subterfuge the casting decisions tended to give away the surprise ending well in advance. Mildly amusing

Review – Valentino

I was curious about this Ken Russell biography of famous silent movie actor Rudolph Valentino because I’d heard it was visually stunning but otherwise dreadful. Unfortunately, the rumors were only half correct. The cinematography is pretty, but it isn’t exactly breathtaking. The imagery isn’t even on par with having Ann-Margaret roll around in beans and syrup. And of course the part about the rest of the picture being dreadful was absolutely correct. Lead “actor” Rudolf Nureyev was clearly hired for his considerable – yet featured only briefly – dancing skills, because he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. And the rest of the cast turns in performances on par with the star. Even the script is strictly talentless-high-school-drama-student-high-on-bad-acid. See if desperate

Review – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

This picture combines two things I like: Hammer productions and Sherlock Holmes. This is my favorite Holmes story. It even includes key Hammer personalities: Peter Cushing (Holmes) and Christopher Lee (Henry Baskerville) directed by Terence Fisher. Though overall this isn’t on par with either the studio’s horror pictures or the Rathbone/Bruce version of this story, it was still a fun viewing experience. Mildly amusing

Review – Hell House: The Book of Samiel

Shame on whomever came up with the title for this picture. Any hint that this dog is related in any way to either Richard Matheson’s novel or the film version thereof is strictly misleading. And if there’s a “Book of Samiel” – or any other book, for that matter – anywhere in this picture, it must have cropped up after I lost interest. And the reason my attention drifted away was that this was nothing but a witless parade of slasher movie clichés and poorly-assembled softcore porn. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Deadgirl

I went back and forth for some time before deciding on a rating for this picture. On one hand, it features a genuinely excessive dose of disturbing sexual violence. On the other hand, it’s intended to make a point, not to titillate. A question I first pondered while watching The Stink of Flesh comes to the forefront here: is sex with an unwilling zombie merely an elaborate form of necrophilia, or is it actually rape? The circumstances here suggest the latter. A couple of slacker boys poking around in the basement of an abandoned asylum discover a naked woman wrapped up in a bag. Closer examination shows that she’s a member of the walking dead (except of course she isn’t walking around because she’s chained to the table). The miserable little dateless wonders decide to turn the zombie into their own personal sex slave, and things go downhill from there. I waffled between being thoroughly grossed out and mildly intrigued by the contrast between the hapless corpse and the living women in the picture. Overall I thought the drama made some good statements about adolescent male attitudes about women. Still, it wasn’t easy viewing. Mildly amusing

Review – Chariots of the Gods

They practically own South America. They taught the Incas everything they knew. It's been decades since I saw this great grandfather of all ancient astronaut documentaries, so I was surprised by three things I’d forgotten. First, it was really, really long. Though the running time is a standard 90 minutes or so, the narrative is so repetitive that it seems to drag on for far longer than that. Second, the soundtrack is an experiment in endurance. It sounds like it was composed by a trio made up of John Williams, Miles Davis in one of his free-form jazz odyssey moods, and a three year old attacking a Moog synthesizer like it stole his milk and cookies. Third, I’d forgotten the racism. Erich von Daniken’s thesis is that civilizations in Africa, South America and the Pacific were all created – or at least greatly influenced – by white people from outer space. The first two issues might have worked in a campy mock-fest way, but the third proved to be a deal breaker. See if desperate

Review – The Lodger (1944)

This remake of an old Alfred Hitchcock silent thriller adds sound but not much more. A Jack-the-Ripper-esque killer haunts the gaslit streets of London, and suspicion falls on the creepy new lodger taken in by a down-on-his-luck businessman and his family. Laird Cregar does a delightfully twitchy turn or two as the title character, but for the most part this is dull stuff. Mildly amusing

Great moments in theology #3

 

Review – The Changeling

I never thought I’d type these words, but I honestly didn’t like George C. Scott in this role. For starters, he comes across as too old to have a daughter the age of the kid who gets killed at the beginning of this production. But more than his age, it’s the indifference he brings to the part. I was surprised that a guy who could breathe such life into just about everything from generals to cops to lawyers and back to generals again couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for his part in this picture. Mourning the loss of his wife and child, a music professor rents a mansion in Seattle that’s closer to his new job and affords him the space to work (and don’t bother asking where a college professor gets the money for a mansion). He soon discovers that his new digs are haunted by the restless ghost of a wheelchair-bound child. Saying more than that would spoil the plot developments that form the only reason to see this movie. Suffice it to say that this is a ghost story largely in the Shirley Jackson / Henry James mode, though at least it has a few spooky moments. Mildly amusing

Review – Anatomy of a Murder

I’m fond of this movie for one reason: the second half of the picture is devoted to one of the most realistic depictions of a criminal trial ever included in a studio release. Of course it’s still a far cry from the real thing. But at least it sorta follows proper procedure. Objections are usually used correctly, and so on. Oddly enough, the de-Hollywood-ization of the courtroom actually makes this a more interesting picture to watch, as home-spun defense lawyer Jimmy Stewart squares off against slick state prosecutor George C. Scott using the actual law rather than some made-up nonsense. Unfortunately, the rest of the picture isn’t as good. Many of the out-of-court shenanigans are much more standard lawyers-never-really-do-this silliness. Further, the end was both predictable and inferior to To Kill a Mockingbird, a movie that makes the same point but with greater emotional depth and less cynicism. Even the Duke Ellington soundtrack is a mixed blessing. Musically it’s brilliant stuff, but it’s intrusive in places. Still, the trial scenes make the rest of it worthwhile. Worth seeing

Review – Kingdom of the Spiders

Wow, is this ever hard on the animals. Cows. A dog. And of course the spiders. The plot is a half-baked reheat of Jaws with less shark and more spiders. So the whole thing hinges on the production’s ability to establish the moral superiority of William Shatner over a pack of venomous arachnids. Fail. Though I got a small smile from the ending, it was nowhere near worth the journey it took to get there. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Flesh Eaters

This relic got off to a good start. Or to be more precise, it got off to a start similar to the beginning of Piranha, odd given that this picture predated the Sayles-Dante collaboration by more than a decade. But it started to stink shortly thereafter. I thought the title monsters would be something at least vaguely piranha-esque, but instead they’re microorganisms played by dry ice chucked in the water, pinholes poked in the film and other cheap effects. Somehow they’re able to strand a group of annoying travelers on an island with a mad scientist who’s studying the things. And when they’re joined by a brain-dead beatnik on a raft … well, suffice it to say that the dialogue was bad enough to peel paint off a fence, and the acting, direction and every other element of the production was of like quality. See if desperate

Review – Compulsion

After watching Inherit the Wind, I thought I’d keep my fictionalized Clarence Darrow streak alive with this drama based on the Leopold and Loeb case. This time around Orson Welles takes on the role. Of course he doesn’t show up until midway through. The first half of the picture is devoted to the criminals themselves, played by Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. The circumstances surrounding the murder make them look like a pair of arrogant, cold-blooded killers. Thus when Welles finally gets around to delivering his lengthy, mumbling, rambling remarks in their defense, the outcome of the story becomes as implausible as it is inevitable. Though the last line of the picture helps redeem it a smidge, overall you’re going to need to bring some sympathy for the devil into the experience before you’re going to appreciate the labors of his advocate. Mildly amusing

Review – Banshee!!!

For the most part this is yet another low-budget tale of young folk unwisely straying into the woods, where they become chow for a youngster-chomping, CGI gargoyle. However, this picture went an extra couple of yards to earn a spot in the “total garbage” category. For starters, the monster kills a dog in the first ten minutes, which automatically required the movie to do something to redeem itself (which of course it never did). But worse was the squandering of the “banshee” thing. A banshee that followed the actual folk legends would have been one of the cooler denizens of the ghost pantheon. This thing didn’t even vaguely merit the title. And seriously guys, all those exclamation points? Is this a tale from a bad horror comic from the 1970s? Again, no. Even those were better than this mess. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Haunting of Molly Hartley

I don’t know exactly what to make of this movie. For starters, whoever came up with the title has a different understanding of the meaning of “haunting” than I do. I was expecting a ghost or possibly an Amityville-esque evil presence. What I got was distinctly more Omen-flavored. Just prior to her 18th birthday, a girl’s mom tries to kill her. Then she has to move to a new school, make a new set of friends, and no end of other teenage bummers. Sometimes it seemed like it was going to turn into a Chick Tract. At other times it looked like a Chick Tract written by Satan, especially during the tangles between our heroine and her Bible-thumping classmate (with the last name of White, no less). Usually I end reviews of pictures like this by making a remark about how they had a spooky moment or two, but this one didn’t even have that much. See if desperate

Review – Dahmer

How can a movie about a serial-killing cannibal possibly be this dull? Well, for starters it features almost none of his murders and nary a bite of human flesh. Instead it focuses on Jeffrey Dahmer’s sexual orientation. Though I was relieved that this wasn’t just another stupid “true crime” exploitation flick, I didn’t think an undergraduate-screenwriting-class-quality exploration of homosexuality and murder was a tremendous step in the right direction. If nothing else, the ties were too tight between coming to grips with natural sexuality and coming to grips with a compulsion to rape and kill. It made me wonder if this was stealthily one of those “homosexuality is a disease” pictures, though proponents of that position generally aren’t the masters of stealth. See if desperate

Review – Sweeney Todd (2005)

So just how many screen versions of this story are there? At least this one isn’t the usual Sondheim line. Instead Ray Winstone plays the Demon Barber of Fleet Street as a garden-variety psychopath, a man who cuts throats mostly because he isn’t able to prevent himself from doing so. Mrs. Lovett is also somewhat different, with her own back story and everything. We even get to find out what happened to Mr. Lovett. This is a lot easier to believe than the elaborate Broadway version, but it also isn’t as much fun. Mildly amusing

Review – The Player

Robert Altman reaches fever pitch with this production. Almost everyone in the entire movie is famous. Indeed, the main fun of the picture is trying to tell the celebrities playing characters in the story from celebrities playing themselves. Tim Robbins stars as a self-centered studio executive being stalked by a disgruntled screenwriter. The twists and turns come across as a bit inside joke about the notorious antipathy between Altman and his writers based on the director’s tendency to let stars improvise their dialogue and actions. And boy is this ever not an exception to his usual style. Despite a vaguely Hitchcockian flavor and a clever moment or two, this one is little more than a celebrity culture buff’s wet dream. See if desperate

Review – The Producers (2005)

I went in prepared for this to be nowhere near as good as the original – if nothing else, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick stood zero chance of matching Mostel and Wilder – but I wasn’t ready for it to stink as bad as it did. This is the theme park musical version of a great comedy, with most of the fun sucked out of it and ill-conceived song and dance numbers crammed in to replace the humor. See if desperate

Review – Fingerprints

This picture gets rolling with the old urban legend about a railroad crossing haunted by the ghosts of a school bus full of kids squashed there years before. Stop your car on the tracks, kill the engine, and small, spectral hands will slowly shove your vehicle to safety. If you put flour on the trunk and bumper, they’ll leave handprints behind. It might have been a decent enough start even after it was combined with a bunch of Afterschool Special moralizing about teens and substance abuse. But then out comes the railroad-themed serial killer, and the whole thing takes an abrupt turn for the mediocre from which it never recovers. Mildly amusing

My eight favorite conspiracy movies

One of my personal email accounts starts with “northwoods63.” When I get questions about it (which is infrequent, because it’s used mostly by friends and family who know me fairly well), people usually want to know if it’s an indication that I’m into backpacking, off-roading or similar “woodsy” activities.

No. “Northwoods” was the code name for one of the Pentagon’s little we’re-just-thinking-about-it-we-aren’t-actually-going-to-do-it schemes. If the plan had been implemented, a prominent American politician would have been assassinated and the crime pinned on pro-Castro operatives in order to provoke a war with Cuba. Given that summary description, the meaning of the “63” at the end of the address becomes obvious.

Next question, then: am I a big conspiracy-head? Again, no. If you backed me into a corner and forced me to reveal my best guess about the truth behind the Kennedy assassination, I’d have to admit that I think it was the work of a conspiracy. But I’d be using the term “conspiracy” in its legal sense: an agreement by two or more people to commit a crime. The ties between Lee Harvey Oswald and Guy Bannister (not to mention the ties between Oswald and George de Mohrenschildt) … well, we don’t need to get into the minute details here. Suffice it to say that my chief suspects are a loose-knit cabal of mid-level intel operatives, right-wing paramilitary fanatics, the Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans. The cover-up might have gone higher, but the best evidence suggests that the crime itself was considerably more mundane.

The whole conspiracy-head thing brings me mindful of “Oswald’s Ghost,” an essay on the subject by Ron Rosenbaum. He leads the piece by recounting an encounter in Dealey Plaza with Kennedy assassination buff Penn Jones Jr., a man obsessed with – among other things – the shooter-in-the-sewer theory. Jones pries up a manhole and climbs down into a storm drain, inviting Rosenbaum to follow him. However, when Jones instructs a fellow buff to pull the cover back into place over them, Rosenbaum calls a halt. “I’ll go down into the manhole with them,” he writes, “but I won’t pull the cover over my head.”

I prefer one step even further back. I enjoy peering down into the manhole, but something keeps me from actually climbing down into it. I even like to limit my peering. If you stare too long into the manhole, the manhole stares also into you.

Further, most conspiracy theories fall quick victim to Whitehead’s Corollary to Occam’s Razor: if “conspiracy” and “stupidity” are equally plausible explanations for a phenomenon, the latter is most likely correct. Low-level bungling trumps high-level scheming in just about every case I’ve ever personally encountered, and that shapes my opinions of the machinations of government, industry, organized crime and the like.

Fortunately, that doesn’t prevent us from having some fun with the whole conspiracy thing. The following eight movies do an excellent job of supplying both food for thought and solid entertainment.

 

JFK – Just as the Kennedy assassination is the king of the conspiracies, this movie is the king of the Kennedy assassination conspiracy pictures. However, I wish writer/director Oliver Stone hadn’t sucked a lot of the fun out of it. The picture’s protagonist – New Orleans DA Jim Garrison – in reality was the perfect conspiracy buff: obsessed, diligent, but with a little panache, a touch of Big Easy bon vivant, a character more at home in the pages of John Kennedy Toole than The Boy Scout Handbook. Kevin Costner plays Garrison as the aw-shucks, Capra-corn Ray Kinsella of the JFK assassination.

Costner’s miscasting is symptomatic of how Hollywood gloss interferes with a proper appreciation of the story. Another example: Tommy Lee Jones and Ed Asner are both excellent actors, and they both settle easily into the characters they play (defendant Clay Shaw and spooky fanatic Guy Bannister respectively). However, in real life Shaw and Bannister resembled each other. Thus some of the witnesses who said they saw Oswald with eventually-acquitted Shaw may actually have seen him with known associate Bannister. In Stone’s production, nobody would ever get Jones and Asner mixed up.

Defective vision notwithstanding, the movie does an excellent job of outlining the realm of the Kennedy conspiracy theories and adding some dimension to its dramatis personae. Pay attention only when the picture goes to black and white flashbacks, and the production is both educational and entertaining.

Ruby – I’d choose this picture over the last entry any day of the week. Danny Aiello plays Jack Ruby as a human being with depth and emotion, a welcome break from the cardboard cutout conspirators from Stone’s picture. But what really endears this version to me is the handling of the conspiratorial machinations. We never get the pretense that the whole thing is being spelled out for us. Instead we experience the protagonist’s struggle to keep up with the forces at play. And just like many of us who’ve stood on the rim of the manhole, he meets with only limited success. Thus he’s a lot easier to sympathize with.

Interview with the Assassin – This too is the Kennedy assassination, but from a much different perspective. It’s a pseudo-documentary about a guy with a camcorder who discovers that his next-door neighbor is the Grassy Knoll shooter. Though it turns a little weird in the last act – as if they were having trouble figuring out how to end it – for the most part the production is realistic enough to be downright chilling. If nothing else, I enjoyed the portrayal of a key conspirator as an actual human being rather than a godlike myth.

Seven Days in May – One more Kennedy picture, and then I swear we’ll move on to other conspiracies. In the immediate wake of the assassination, a lot of folks must have longed for a story with a happier ending. Here some big Hollywood names on both sides of the camera cooperate to supply just that: a thinly-disguised version of actual events in which the crime is thwarted at the last minute. Further, the conspiracy here is much larger than in most other iterations. The forces of darkness are out to take over the whole country and put a stop to democracy itself, not just provoke a war with Castro or put a sympathetic President in the White House. Though it’s as preachy as one would expect a Rod Serling script to be, it is sort of comforting to have an everything’s-going-to-be-okay assurance from Hollywood.

The Godfather Part 2 – I love all the organized-crime-loses-Cuba stuff in this picture. Nonetheless, I almost left it off this list. Though most of the movie is good, only a fraction of it is actually about the mob controlling Havana. However, it’s possible to view the picture as an extended conspiracy back-story, a tale of the Corleone family’s rise from petty street crime to a seat of power high enough to influence the fate of nations. From this perspective Michael’s personal woes almost become intrusive, particularly when the classic “I know it was you, Fredo” scene occurs right in the middle of the collapse of the Batista regime. Still, it’s fun to watch the criminal cabals function as any other corporate enterprise would.

The Conversation – This Francis Ford Coppola offering is many things that the Godfather series isn’t: quiet, subtle, intelligent and life-size. Though he’s an odd little man, it’s hard not to sympathize with the audio surveillance expert protagonist as he tries to unravel the plot in which he’s become entangled. Gene Hackman, who plays the lead here, also played a paranoid wiretap specialist in Enemy of the State, another conspiracy movie that might have made this list if it had been a little less Will-Smithy.

Telefon – Most of the movies on this list are downright deadly serious, so I thought I’d throw in something a little lighter. This isn’t a comedy by any standards. But it is a Charles Bronson picture, typical of the actor’s work except that his character isn’t trying to get revenge for anything. Instead, he’s a KGB operative trying to track down and kill a Soviet mind control expert who’s gone mad and is triggering sleeper agents across America in an attempt to spark World War Three.

The Manchurian Candidate – I’ve saved the best for last. John Frankenheimer (who also directed Seven Days in May) serves up a masterpiece. It’s entertaining. It’s visually stunning (particularly the nightmare sequences in which Korean War vets brainwashed by the Chinese relive their “programming” sessions). It’s even thought provoking. And best of all, it features a great conspiracy with a few genuinely surprising surprise twists. If you’re only going to watch two conspiracy movies, then JFK has a lot more of the traditional conspiracy theory elements. But if you watch only one, this should be your choice.

Review – The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Awhile back I considered reviewing this one despite not having seen it recently. I figured all the times I saw it back when I was in high school should have permanently etched it into my brain. I’m glad I waited until I watched it again on my own. Without the theater and the audience response, it’s a much different experience: a mediocre musical send-up of vintage horror movies. It’s still considerably better than Shock Treatment, but it isn’t anywhere near as much fun without the full experience. So if you’re going to watch this ultimate cult movie, go see it with the cult. Or at least see it with someone who knows the response lines. Otherwise you’ll miss the best part of the show. Mildly amusing

Review – Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing, you make my butt sting. Ugh, I’ve gotta quit doing that same joke for every bad movie with the word “thing” in the title. I remember liking the Swamp Thing comics when I was a kid, but then I remember them having a sort of a Southern gothic grimness to them. This is strictly juvenile stuff. A scientist makes an amazing breakthrough in genetics just in time to have it stolen by the bad guys. In the ensuing scuffle, an accident transforms our hero into the title monster. Before director Wes Craven runs out of film, we’re “treated” to no end of terrible rubber suit work. The final fight is astonishingly bad, as the chief evil-doer ends up transformed into some kind of half-assed were-possum who scoops up a sword and goes after the protagonist and the love interest. Whatever miracle allowed Craven’s career to survive this fiasco at least allowed him to go on and make better movies. See if desperate

Review – The Way of War

I honestly would not have thought that The Art of War could have been any more brain-dead than it already was. Well, the talentless clowns that made this sure proved me wrong on that one. Cuba Gooding Jr. stars as an uber-commando out for revenge against the sinister government officials who betrayed him and tried to have him killed. The closest this production ever comes to smart occurs toward the end when one of the bad guys quotes Shakespeare apropos of nothing. See if desperate

Review – Witch Hunt

Is it possible to make a documentary about the justice system in the United States in which justice actually prevails in the end? The truly sad part is that this picture comes closer than most. Several people who are falsely convicted of child molestation are eventually exonerated and released from prison. Sure, they lost years (in one case two decades) of their lives, and nothing ever happened to the social worker, law enforcement agents and prosecuting attorneys involved in the terrible mishandling of their cases. But at least they got to go free, except for the two who died in prison. Hooray. Mildly amusing

Review – Lifeboat

Anything set entirely in a single, confined location is inevitably going to scream “stage play,” and there’s nothing even a director as good as Alfred Hitchcock can do to stop it. Theatricality notwithstanding, this is a mildly intriguing production. After an Allied ship is sunk by a U-boat, a handful of survivors (including an officer from the sub, which also went down in the battle) end up stranded together in the title location. A brassy writer played by Tallulah Bankhead is clearly the star of the show, but otherwise it’s a nice ensemble piece. I was particularly impressed by the effort to give Walter Slezak some room for subtlety as the German. Although his character development is predictable enough, at least they maintain a small mystery for awhile. That’s more than many other movies from the same era would have done. Overall this is an entertaining portrait of forced egalitarianism transforming the personalities of characters from different classes. Mildly amusing

Review – Smilla’s Sense of Snow

Despite the vaguely intriguing title, this rapidly became Bryan’s Sense of Boredom. A woman (Julia Ormond) smells a rat when a small boy from her apartment building dies under mysterious circumstances. Her investigation uncovers an elaborate corporate plot, which might have been interesting if the picture hadn’t worn out its welcome long before it got to the point. The trouble is that the movie was Hollywood expensive without being Hollywood fun and art movie stuffy without being art movie interesting. Some of the cinematography was pretty in a snowy Denmark sort of way, but the rest of it fell flat. Mildly amusing

Review – Inherit the Wind

I should start by disclosing the bias I bring to this issue: I don’t think religion should be taught in science classes. That said, however, I thought this was an uncomfortably one-sided fictionalization of the Scopes trial. The pro-creationism forces are portrayed as a pack of country bumpkins led by a fanatical preacher and a silver-tongued, fundamentalist orator. The champions of the pro-Darwin side, on the other hand, are all smart, even-tempered folk from big cities. The “bad guys” are always up to something creepy or self-serving, while the “good guys” are just trying to do their best to see that right prevails. Because I’m naturally distrustful of propaganda, the only character I got a kick out of was the cynical journalist (ably played by Gene Kelly in a rare non-musical role). And that’s a shame, because the rest of the cast – particularly Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow’s fictional counterpart – did a solid job with what they were given. Overall the picture’s heart was in the right place. I just didn’t like how it went about telling the story. Mildly amusing

Review – Tarzan the Ape Man

I loved these things when I was a kid. One of the local U’s showed Tarzan movies every Sunday morning. My favorite was the one where he fights the Nazis. But of course this is the one that started it all. Johnny Weissmuller puts in his first appearance in the title role that made him famous (at least among people who weren’t Olympic swimming fans), and Maureen O’Sullivan backs him up as Jane. Or to be more accurate he backs her up, as the first half of the movie is almost entirely about her. When I was younger I wondered why they no longer made Tarzan movies, but by the end of this one I had a pretty good understanding of what happened. Though one expects a certain amount of animal cruelty and racial insensitivity in pictures like this, in this one the treatment of wildlife and indigenous peoples is excessive beyond any excuse. I tried my best of accept the picture on its own terms and take the mores of the 1930s into account, but by the time they got to the tribe of short actors in blackface I had to knock the rating down a notch. See if desperate

Review – The Vampire’s Assistant

I suspect this picture will do a reasonably good job of appealing to vampire-obsessed tweens. It’s an even blend of R.L. Stine and Anne Rice, neither as simple-minded as the former nor as graphic as the latter. And I enjoyed seeing vampire movie veterans Salma Hayek and Willem DaFoe show up in the supporting cast. However, two things bugged me about this movie. First, it was painfully obviously set up for a sequel. That’s a fair gamble with a franchise like Twilight, but this picture’s chances of spawning new chapters are considerably more limited. I suspect the Cirque du Freak books upon which this was based served as the impetus for the gamble. And that brings me to the second big problem: though I’ve never read any of the books, I’m willing to bet that this one was actually two or three volumes mashed into one. The plot (goody-goody teen is transformed into the title character, joins a colony of circus freaks and battles evil “vampinese”) and characters have the feel of a flat stone skipping from point to point across the surface without ever acquiring any depth. This picture’s creators should have learned some lessons from Lemony Snicket. Mildly amusing

Great moments in theology #2

 

What’s wrong with your radio, Mr. Clelia?

Here’s a question asked in honor of All Souls’ Day: why are dead people trying to sell me things?

Asked point blank, the question sounds insane. It reminds me of Mrs. Clelia in Exorcist 3, the crazy old woman who hears dead people talking on her invisible radio. And yet more and more I notice that actors are showing up in ads despite their deaths years – even decades – earlier.

At first I was prepared not to object too much to the continued presence of Billy Mays in mini-infomercials. I admit I’m a trifle disturbed that new ones (or at least ones I’ve never seen before) are emerging and that they have far too many lines that are far too easy to make jokes about.

More disturbing, however, is the willingness of advertisers to deliberately use dead celebrities to plug their products.

This started several years ago when a dance number from an old Fred Astaire musical got re-cut to look like he was dancing with a vacuum cleaner. Steve McQueen made a similar appearance in a Ford Mustang ad, and John Wayne had a dialogue with R. Lee Ermey about soda (or maybe it was beer). If I were suffocating I still wouldn’t buy oxygen from The Duke even if it was half price, so that last one didn’t particularly bother me.

But now DirecTV, a company I actually do regular business with, is using dead people in ads. The overall concept of the campaign isn’t all that bad: scenes from movies are suddenly interrupted by one of the characters delivering a sales pitch directly to the audience. At least it doesn’t offend me when Naomi Watts takes a moment or two away from giant monkey clinging to extol the virtues of direct-from-satellite multichannel distribution systems.

However, the early days of the campaign featured a segment from Poltergeist. Craig T. Nelson as pitchman wasn’t a problem; there’s a difference between actually being dead and merely having a dead career. But Heather O’Rourke is also in the ad. She doesn’t say anything, not even her famous “They’re here” line. Still, it was creepy.

I objected at the time, but only within the confines of my own living room. Some critics were more vocal, which should have put DirecTV on notice that the dead celebrity element was at least potentially a source of bad publicity.

Lesson not learned. Recenty the company has been running another ad in the series featuring a clip from Tommy Boy. Sure, David Spade’s doing most of the talking. But Chris Farley’s in it too. This was a dumb thing for DirecTV to do. But what really floored me was that Spade would go along with it. He and Farley were by all appearances friends. Seriously, David, how badly do you need money? Maybe we could take up a collection. Or better yet, why don’t you go back to doing your talk show? It was actually entertaining. And considerably lighter on the dead folks.

Review – The Three Faces of Eve

How can multiple personality disorder possibly be this dull? Joanne Woodward’s break-through performance as poor, mentally ill Eve/Eve/Jane was critically acclaimed at the time, but frankly I thought it was cartoonish. She comes across as a woman with no personality, let alone three. Further, Scientologists must really love this picture. The art, craft and science of psychiatry are reduced to a dull battle of wits between shrinks and a woman who can pop back and forth between personalities with the alacrity of a Simpsons voice actor being interviewed on a talk show. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the musical numbers. If nothing else, I was hoping for some horrible childhood trauma on par with the vastly superior MPD production Sybil. Even on this point the movie disappoints. See if desperate

Review – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Okay, I admit it. Monty Python is an acquired taste. If you don’t think these guys are funny – or even if you don’t happen to be in the mood for their brand of humor – you’re gonna hate this movie. However, I’m in the camp of folks who find this kind of sarcastic absurdism hysterical. Though I like Life of Brian just a little bit better, this satire of Arthurian legend is a close second. Of course it’s full of classic Python moments – the Black Knight, the Knights Who Say Ni, and so on – I also enjoyed some of the smaller moments. In particular the argument between Arthur and the anarcho-syndicalist serfs is a bit of brilliant fun with both the ridiculousness of monarchical myth and the heartlessness of the rationalism that later replaced it. Lest it sound too high-brow, however, the picture is also packed with comedy that’s just plain silly. Worth seeing

Review – The Public Enemy

If you’re working on a history of the gangster movie, this is a must-see. I’m not, so I found it more of a historical curiosity than a gripping drama. As with many movies from the early years of the “talkie” era, the production is rough. The acting is theatrical (as in “play it for the back row”), the editing is downright experimental in spots, and the script is a ham-handed indictment/celebration of organized crime. Jimmy Cagney turns in his breakthrough performance as a young street hood sinking deeper and deeper into a life of crime. Mildly amusing

Review – Thirteen Ghosts (2001)

I’m not sure exactly how I ended up not reviewing this the first time I saw it back in 2002. But perhaps the omission was for the best, because upon second viewing I ended up liking it better than I’d remembered. That might have been in part because the first time this remake of an old William Castle movie failed to live up to the standards set by previous Dark Castle production The House on Haunted Hill, while this time around it came at the end of a string of mostly-dreadful horror movies watched in the second half of October, so it was better by comparison. In any event, I got at least some entertainment out of it. Tony Shalhoub stars as a father trying to hold his family together in the wake of his wife’s tragic death. When his eccentric uncle leaves them his mansion out in the woods, they think all their troubles are over. Unfortunately the curious glass edifice turns out to be an ectoplasmic Habitrail, and once the clockwork in the basement gets triggered the place swiftly ends up crawling with dangerous haints. Even though the ghost makeup effects were cheap, I liked the decision to give the spirits distinct “gimmicks” without bogging the plot down with a mess of back story. At best it’s a pale reflection of the themes and art direction of Hellraiser, but even so it’s reasonably entertaining. Mildly amusing

Review – High Plains Invasion

Here we have yet another ribeye cream pie, a blend of two things that might have been great on their own but don’t come together particularly well. The characters and setting are a watered-down version of Deadwood. The monsters’ appearance and their mining operation strongly resemble H.P. Lovecraft’s Mi-go. The two genres could have worked together (as they did in The Burrowers), but here they don’t. The characters are cartoonish, so it’s hard to care about them when the monsters start chewing them up. And though I suspect this was part of the point, the aliens themselves are just a little too weird. This might get an A for “Attempt,” but not for “Achievement.” Mildly amusing