The Getaway & Unleashed

The Getaway is the first film I've seen on my new fancy Blu-ray player (and video game system, I guess). Even on a standard def TV, it looks better than most DVDs. Or maybe I'm just an idiot, and it's all imaginary. Oh... man, I am confused. As for the movie... it's far better than the remake, but I was hoping for some good car chases, and they were not good. Lots of thing could have made me far more interested in it than I was, but the film didn't go there. Sorry, Steve McQueen, you continue to be a far better idea than an actor. Same thing with Ali MacGraw, but Steve's a much bigger idea than almost anyone else. Well, at least idea over talent, because James Dean is a huge idea, but he had the acting chops to back that up. How do I constantly get off the topic of the film? Probably due to wanting to put something together that wasn't just a short review.

Unleashed had a couple nice fights, and Jet Li can act, and Bob Hoskins is the prototypical London gangster, but Kerry Condon just felt wrong. Maybe it was that I've seen her naked, and she felt too old, even at 22. Maybe she wasn't supposed to be playing a young high-school girl. Either way, she felt off. The original title (or at least alternate one) is Danny the Dog, which, for this movie snob, actually doesn't work as well as the final one. Danny the Dog feels like a children's film about a Saint Bernard that solves crimes by puffing on a bubble pipe with a deerstalker and a bad heroin habit. Unleashed feels like a film about a guy who, when a leash is taken off, goes crazy with his martial arts and beats the crap out of people, but when he has the leash on, plays piano and checks melons for ripeness. Guess which one this movie is?

School of the Holy Beast

School of the Holy Beast. Well, two simple words: Japanese Nunsploitation. If those two words don't make you want to see the film, you are broken. Or, possibly, if those two words make you want to see the film, you're broken. Just a quick rundown of what depravity is in the film: hockey, discos, arcades, insane amounts of nun-sex, more gratuitous attractive-nun-nudity than you could shake a stick at, nun-hay-baling, nun-fights, nun-lesbianism, synchronized-nun-bathing, nun-incest, insinuated-nun-oral-sex (licking between two fingers... real subtle there), nun-bondage, nun-burning-in-acid, pregnant-nun-hanging, nun-pissing-on-a-crucifix (again with that... oh well...), nun-rape, nun-sausage-eating, evil-nun-cat, nun-sado-masochism, nun-porn, nun-masturbation, nun-whippings, nun-rose-whippings, nun-self-flagellation, nun-bell-ringing, and nuns. Oh, and blaming God for both the Holocaust and the atomic bombs being dropped. But the thing that makes the film stand out is the direction and use of crazy camera angles. Who knew that an exploitation film could be quite that visually interesting without naked flesh on the screen? It's utterly ridiculous, and if I were at all religious, I'd probably be extremely offended. As I'm not, I was pretty much just happy that movies like this existed. Because someone out there likes sadomasochistic lesbian pissing nuns. I imagine. Not me. If films like this didn't exist, I imagine the world would be a much, much worse place. Or better, if you're all religious or something. Oh, and it's based on a manga. Yay for comic-based movies. It's quite a bit better than The Punisher. Either version.

Grindhouse

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Major Dundee & a variety of musical notes

Major Dundee was an early Sam Peckinpah Western, set in the New Mexico territory and Mexico. Since it's during the Civil War, you get both racist Confederates and poncy Frenchmen. And a bizarrely Austrian woman. I think she's Austrian, and honestly, I probably just blacked out during that line of dialogue. I was just wondering how they were going to get Heston shirtless with a woman. And then they got him shirtless with a woman who had a bizarre, out of place accent. And then he got hit with an arrow and ended up with some random Mexican woman falling all over him. I guess I will never understand why there was the need to include women in this film. Just have it be the homoerotic masterpiece it should have been. Or change it so that it's more about the boy being deflowered and shaving. Cause that was at least more interesting to me than a lot of this film. I know that there were problems from the beginning when I started to read that the film had been taken away from Peckinpah before he was allowed to film it all. The edited version probably left in the topless Heston though.

Quite a few notes about music I've listened to recently. The new Rosebuds is not nearly as different from the previous albums as I thought upon first listen. It's not as good as the first album (quite punchy pop) or the second one (slightly more melancholy punchy pop about birds), but it's still pretty good. The Talking Heads are one of those bands I'm just going to have to appreciate for what they've done rather than their actual music. I like the first album almost in its entirety, and there's usually at least one song on the rest of them that I love. The idea is far better than the execution. Air is the perfect band for walking down Connecticut Avenue in the dark on a beautiful evening. Air is also quite good. French pop of the Ye-Ye girl variety is far too enjoyable for someone who otherwise claims sophisticated taste. Also, that goes doubly for cheesy J-pop. And Waterloo by ABBA. Can't stand them in general (Dancing Queen should be taken out behind the woodshed and shot), but Waterloo is brilliant.

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was Fritz Lang's last film in Germany before he exited due to being Jewish. As such, the anti-Nazi subtext of the film adds quite a punch to what is, in Lang's typical fashion, an expressionistic masterpiece. And it has some extremely effective set pieces, like the escape from the locked room and the ending car chase. He just knows how to film something. And the use of a master criminal, who is never seen by his associates, but is heard in a ranting tone of voice, ordering them to commit anti-social crimes almost entirely to bring down society, fits quite well with Hitler, but it isn't so much about that, as it is about the ability of people who would otherwise be somewhat, if not entirely, normal to commit heinous crimes because they are ordered to. Which, of course, has not just relevance to the Nazis and the German public in general at the time, but also to today and our inability to actually do anything about, say, the government and its desire to lead us into an unjust and illegal war. That the general public are sheep is not particularly ingenious in its revelation, but that the film itself works so well allows that nice message to work far better than if it were another shrill documentary that can be attacked for its partisanship. It's a blatantly partisan film, with good reason, but it's far harder to condemn a fiction film as that without having to explain the point of it, thus bringing those ideas into the public eye far easier than a Robert Greenwald documentary. Plus, of course, it's not worth even pointing out vast gap in the relative artistic merits of Fritz Lang, one of the greatest directors ever to work during the silent and early sound era, and Robert Greenwald, someone who can't really put together a 78 minute long documentary of how unfair and unbalanced Faux News is without causing the audience to become bored in half an hour. The talent behind the camera allows for far more effective political commentary than if you just put a hack there. It's like a Paul Verhoeven film: you can argue whether his points are valid (e.g. whether the future really is all about communal showers), but his talent allows you to focus on that rather than on shoddy construction (e.g. Robocop 2 & 3, although 3 was far worse than 2). Yes, I did happen to rewatch Robocop this past week. Seriously, TCM is the greatest channel currently on TV. The original AMC was also quite good, before they decided commercials were fine and that Any Which Way You Can was an American Movie Classic, rather than an excuse for more monkey hijinks. Heh, monkeys. I know they renamed the channel just AMC, but that day sucked when they switched.

Foyle's War, The Man in the Iron Mask, & Elizabethtown

Foyle's War is an ITV series about a Detective Chief Superintendent who lives in Hastings during WWII. It's quite good, but certainly just a good detective series. Nothing special or groundbreaking. Does certainly remind me that Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery exists. Which is very nice. Good stuff. Quite a lot of good British TV on that. And I am looking forward to more of that. Starting with Bleak House, and the next season of Foyle's War starting sometime next month. It's interesting from the standpoint of a bunch of well-done detective stories set in a very interesting historical time period. Especially the bits with the fascists and communists. When I started an episode in the third season, I forgot just how much the commies were hated before the Nazis invaded. I just like it.

The Man in the Iron Mask is crap. Really, with that cast, just no. Leo, Jeremy Irons, Malkovich, Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Anne Parillaud, Hugh Laurie, Peter Sarsgaard, and Judith Godreche all look very good, and occasionally act well, but the direction and script were blargh in the extreme. Randall Wallace just gives Duke another embarrassing celebrity. Jesus, it is really full of people who were really, really annoying, and went on to be more so. I'm not entirely excluding myself from that, although I probably was not very annoying to start out with. I wanted something a lot better. Isn't coming from Wallace though. I've met him, and he really didn't impress me. Although I was interested enough to watch the film around five years later. The best thing about that evening was meeting Marc "Riley" Blucas, and the two very tall blonde women with him. Seriously, he was the typical movie star. Speaking of which, I refuse to watch any more of Entourage. I haven't enjoyed it in a long time, if ever, and I don't really like anything about it. And The Tudors also got taken off my DVR. Not as good as Rome, and when the only thing to recommend it is female nudity, that isn't a good sign for your show.

Elizabethtown was over two hours long, and most of it wasn't particularly good, and it was completely ridiculous, and, of course, fits well with the film's theme of a fiasco. Crowe is still worth checking out, but he hasn't made a particularly good film in seven years. What the hell, Crowe? You've written great films and made them before. Is it Tom Cruise? Does he control you? If so, check yes []. There were just so many things that didn't work in the film, and it appears to me to be that it's almost entirely Crowe's fault. And that scrapbook and mix cds, really? That is how someone decides to spend their time? What the hell?

Funny Face, Charley Varrick, & Andy Barker, P.I.

Funny Face would have worked better with a younger Fred Astaire. He is just too old for Audrey. And that scene in the beatnik cafe was just completely bizarre. The movie itself was just sort of a mess, which makes total sense considering the songs came from a variety of different musicals and also most of the songs weren't particularly good. It's Audrey, though, and even an old Fred Astaire is almost as good as Astaire at his peak.

Charley Varrick is notable for the return of Walter Matthau to drama, the plane stunts, and Joe Don Baker. Who was outstanding. Threatening, ruthless, and utterly perfect in the role. Matthau is also quite strong in the role, although there does seem to be some question as to how he gets the girl to start boxing the compass. Was it just the roses? Because he doesn't look that good in the movie. Pretty satisfying ending, too.

Andy Barker, P.I. was another show that was canceled before its time. I do wish it had more than six episodes. Because it wasn't as funny as say 30 Rock, but there were bits of funny in every episode. And both Andy Richter and Tony Hale have both had shows canceled well before their time. I wonder if there is a magical universe where good shows go after being unceremoniously canceled. Man, those TV executives really know how to make a good show and then cancel it. If only they did that to say, American Idol. It's been downhill since the first season. Which was only good for two things: Since U Been Gone (and the possibility of more like it) and this. Well, that and the increasing amount of "famous" people who feel like they need to keep in the public eye so they "release" sex tapes or start starring in Skinemax flicks. Good for them. Wouldn't want to just be a non-famous person. You need to flash your jubblies and hoo-has. Anyway, Andy Barker, P.I. was pretty fun, and really could have been a fun show.

Ridicule, Mr. Death, & The Innocents

Ridicule makes me wonder about what I was thinking getting this right after Dirty Pictures. Who else thought I was going to discuss urolagnia in two straight posts? Well, this wasn't really sexual pleasure derived from urination, but there was on-screen urination in the first scene. That was certainly unexpected. Watching it so soon after Marie Antoinette also wasn't intended. Fanny Ardant, Jean Rochefort, and Charles Berling were good, and the movie had some funny lines, but the main reason to see this film, was Judith Godrèche, who was both a moral center and a luminous presence, but ultimately was just a pretty thing to look at. As a whole, the film just felt a little paint-by-numbers, with the good people being rewarded and the bad ones punished, just like a typical Hollywood film. The touches of quirk the film has (the diving bells especially) just make it seem slightly less hokey. But it is hokey. Admittedly, I enjoyed it while watching, but there's little there. Oh, rich people at court are superficial. What a surprise. Sorry, make better films. At least Patrice Leconte went on to make the excellent The Girl on the Bridge. So he isn't that bad.

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. is another look by Errol Morris at some quirky person who few people would really remember. Unless you're Jewish or a Holocaust denier. If so, then maybe you remember about the guy who builds execution machines (lethal injection, gallows, gas chambers, and electric chairs) who was a complete moron and thought he proved the Holocaust didn't happen. And subsequently lost his job, wife, and all respect from the vast majority of people out there who are not crazy Holocaust deniers. The eventual downfall couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, but man, he deserves everything he gets trying to gain some measure of popularity by doing messed up cyanide detecting tests and then going around to denial conferences to speak about them. The Holocaust happened, and those who don't believe it deserve all the lambasting they get, and a lot more besides. That said, the film did humanize him, and, as an Errol Morris film, was extremely well-made. Even with my distaste, no make that abhorrence, for capital punishment, I couldn't help appreciating his desire to make it more humane, even if it never will be truly so. As much as I hated Fred Leuchter, I felt bad that he was so desperate for attention that he would produce shoddy science that proved nothing and destroyed his life, even as I'm extremely distressed at how far his misinformation was pushed.

The Innocents was billed (in a terrible trailer that has more shots from the last scene than any other in the film) as an "adult" chiller. Really, it's a ghost story that doesn't insult the audience. This excellent version of The Turn of the Screw will probably never be topped as an adaptation of the script. My only real complaint is how I feel disappointed by The Others as a film, due to its obvious inspiration from this, although it doesn't work nearly as well as this film. Which again proves that explicitness is fine, but it doesn't add to the scariness of a film. A creepy atmosphere, realistic characters just slightly off-kilter, and great performances will always freak me out more. And the more you wonder about whether any of this was really happening, or whether it was a psychotic episode, or whether Miss Giddens was just a sexually-suppressed governess, the more effective the little touches become.

Dirty Pictures, Marie Antoinette, 1776, & The Weather Underground

Dirty Pictures was a movie by Showtime made ten years after the events depicted: the Mapplethorpe/Contemporary Arts Center trial in Cincinnati. Of course I was interested in seeing this, since I actually remember this whole thing. I am pretty sure my parents went to see the exhibit. The pictures themselves are really nothing more than typical porn, with the exception of the urolagnia picture and the two "child porn" ones, of which neither are anything more than a typical picture of a kid in a bathtub, which I'm sure most people have. Just because you see a penis doesn't make it erotic. Just take a look at, say, Ken Davitian in Borat. He's naked, and man is he not attractive. Unless you're into overweight bears. I've gone off topic. The film is quite well done, with real interviews interspersed with reenactments. And I'm, of course, completely sympathetic to the film, with its message of free speech, along with the dangerous threat of the bringing of completely spurious lawsuits that go to trial because of biases. There's also the epilogue of the creepy People for Community Values guy explaining why these lawsuits without merit are brought, along with the threats made against those willing to put up art. Just made me frustrated. I hate me some bigots.

Marie Antoinette has a good soundtrack, but ultimately disappointed me. I get that Marie-Antoinette may have been a young woman who didn't really understand anything outside of her life. Then again, it fits in perfectly with Coppola's other films, with a young woman struggling with her location in life. And this has outstanding costume design, well deserving of its oscar, no matter how stupid that "it's literally a feast for the eyes" line in the telecast was. Really it's just not as good as I was hoping, even if I'm not entirely sure how to make it better. There already was a monkey in it.

1776 was long, the songs were boring or stupid, and beh to it all. Yeah, that's all you get 1776. I'll give you three sentences.

The Weather Underground is an interesting look at a violent leftist organization that bombed many establishment places to protest violence against blacks or Vietnam and the like. I really didn't know very much about them, so it was nice to learn a lot. Also, Ian MacKaye, Jerry Busher, Amy Domingues, and Brendan Canty were involved in the music for it, giving it that added bit of DC indie rock cred. The music is reminiscent of Philip Glass's scores for Errol Morris's films, so I bet it was successful in that plan.

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists 3/29 at 9:30

The Sons of Cain
Dial Up
Me & Mia
Army Bound
Who Do You Love?
Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?
The High Party
Annunciation Day/Born on Christmas Day
Bomb.Repeat.Bomb
Some Beginner's Mind
Counting down the Hours
Little Dawn
A Bottle of Buckie
The Unwanted Things
The Lost Brigade
Biomusicology
------
Timorous Me
Walking To Do
Rappaport's Testament: I Never Gave Up

90 minutes of greatness? Hellz, yeah. A little light on some of the songs I wanted (Ballad of a Sin Eater and Bridges, Squares), but man, it was a good set, and the songs I didn't expect to do well (the new album ones) actually were quite good. Living with the Living is growing on me, and after a second listen, it's not nearly as good as the first two real Ted Leo albums, but it's almost as good as Shake the Sheets. Which, whenever I write it or say it, I immediately have to double check to make sure I didn't write Shake the Streets. Or maybe that I'm convinced it is the actual name for it. Anyway, I still am waiting for Ted Leo to cover Dancing in the Dark live for me, but I guess I just have to deal with that. Like I'm not going to see Eric Bachmann cover Long Black Veil again. Even if I asked his drummer. Damnit. The addition of James Canty actually made the whole thing sound much more together, and strong. Ted Leo still went crazy (and maybe a little too crazy on the guitar solos), but that second guitarist made the songs sound tighter. They always put on a good show, and only my unfamiliarity with the new album kept it from immediately satisfying me as much as previous shows had.