Review – Howard the Duck

Treasure this moment. Rare indeed is the universally-reviled movie that’s actually as terrible as it’s supposed to be (if not more so). Lonely boy nerds will no doubt glom onto the pathetic, freakish protagonist, or at the very least derive snickering dateless wonder glee from watching lingerie-clad Lea Thompson come dangerously close to adding literal meaning to the nonsense phrase “fuck a duck.” Even though I’m a strident opponent of animal cruelty, I found myself genuinely hoping for the slow, painful death of this foul fowl. I’d rather watch two hours of AFLAC ads than sit through this stinker again. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Night of the Generals

This movie reminded me of the line in Apocalypse Now about how trying to punish someone for a crime in the middle of a war is sort of like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. Add the Nazis to the equation, and the story becomes still more bizarre. A German officer (Omar Sharif) investigating the murder of a prostitute in Warsaw in 1942 learns that a Wehrmacht general committed the crime. Suspicion falls on three individuals (Charles Gray, Donald Pleasance and Peter O’Toole), but investigating such high-ranking suspects proves difficult. Two years later a similar killing occurs in Paris, but this time the chase is further complicated by the extra layers of secrecy among commanding officers involved in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler and depose the Nazi regime. I was disappointed by the lack of clever twists, about which I can say no more without giving the whole thing away. Mildly amusing

Review – Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country

This is the final entry from the aging crew from the original Star Trek series. From here on out, it’s the next generation. At least for the last gasp from the past they chose something a little more engaging than the previous couple of outings. The dreaded Klingon empire has suffered some setbacks, and the time for peace is at hand (a situation roughly analogous to US/Soviet relations around the time the film was made). Naturally complications arise when the crew of the Enterprise is sent to escort the Klingon ambassador to the peace talks. The action proceeds from there, with plenty of standard series intrigue and starship battles in the offing. Mildly amusing

Review – Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier

And so it ends. Actually despite the title they kept right on making them, one more with the original cast and then segueing into the Next Generation. But this is the only one that until now remained unreviewed on 8sails. And ugh, is it an awful mess. Most of the blame can be heaped on the head of writer / director / star / general a-hole William Shatner, whose monster ego permeates every corner of the picture. A Vulcan religious fanatic takes hostages in an ass-end-of-the-universe spot called Paradise City (insert your own joke about the grass not being green and the girls not being pretty) and blackmails and/or hypnotizes the skeleton crew of a rickety new Enterprise into dragging him to the center of the galaxy so he can meet God. But the real point of the picture is to demonstrate over and over again what great friends we all are, particularly the “big three.” Shatner must not have learned one of the most important lessons of the grade school playground: constantly insisting that everyone like you is a sure-fire way to make sure that nobody will. See if desperate

Review – The Proposal

Just about every grade school class has that one kid who can’t stop himself from eating the Elmer’s Glue. He knows it doesn’t taste good. He knows it’s bad for him. Most of the time he can control it, but every once in awhile the urge overcomes his better judgment. I think I’m that way with romantic comedies. Despite their omnipresence, on most occasions I can deftly avoid them. But every once in awhile – especially at the end of a long week or after watching something particularly heinous that I’m trying to forget – I’ll give in and let one run. So that’s my excuse for watching this. The boss from hell (Sandra Bullock) is in danger of being deported to Canada, so she bullies her hapless assistant (Ryan Reynolds) into marrying her. To get an officious bureaucrat off their backs, they’re forced to fly to Alaska to spend the weekend with his family. Predictability ensues. Indeed, this follows the standard formula so closely that you can pretty much see the whole rest of the movie in your head without spending any time actually watching it. Mildly amusing

Review – The Meaning of Life

Though it has a funny moment or two, this is far from Monty Python’s finest hour. It gets off on the wrong foot by leading with an intensely boring featurette directed by Terry Gilliam, and from there it’s nothing but a string of loosely-connected skits. Some of them are okay, such as the parade ground piece or the Grim Reaper sequence toward the end. Others not so much, such as the long stretch of shots from a moving camera following Eric Idle around the streets and countryside. Sadly, the majority of the picture is simply mediocre. Even the brief glimmers of humor – such as the liver donor gag – peter out or get run into the ground. And the Mr. Creosote bit still makes me shudder; I was sick as a dog (and in a movie theater as well) the first time I saw this, and the endless barfing was sheer agony to watch. Fans will want to give this a look, but all others should consider Holy Grail or Life of Brian instead. Mildly amusing

Review - Female Trouble

Though it has some close competition, this is my favorite John Waters movie. It’s a terrific balance of shock and plot, so while he makes great use of his hallmark gross-outs he also tells a good story. This is also one of his more personal pieces, sneaking in elements from his own obsessions. Ditto for Divine, who seems quite at home as the outrageous Dawn Davenport. Waters’s early-career ensemble unites here for the last time in a hilarious send-up of pop culture’s obsession with crime, a theme that remains eerily relevant even decades later. Buy the disc