Joyeux Noël, High Spirits, & Pootie Tang

Joyeux Noël is a weepy melodrama about the Christmas truce between the Germans and the Scottish and French troops in 1914 on the Western Front. It's effective, but clearly there are extensive liberties taken with history. An anti-war film, all I could think about the entire time was about the best way to break through the lines in 1914. How do you get past the best defensive weapon of the time before there's really any corresponding advancement in offensive weaponry? Clearly the current tactics were not working, and it's amazing that they tried the same things over and over again. Working with smaller forces attacking weaker points would have worked, and did, finally, by the end of the war. You would have thought that mass assaults that decimated the forces would have made them realize that wouldn't work. And that's basically everything I was thinking about for most of the movie. Especially anytime that Diane Kruger wasn't on screen. When she was, it was maybe 90% of what I was thinking.

High Spirits is a Neil Jordan film, who directed the supremely awesome Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, and The Butcher Boy, along with the quite good The Company of Wolves, The Good Thief, Breakfast on Pluto, Michael Collins, and Interview with the Vampire. Basically, I like Neil Jordan, so when I was told that there was an 80s comedy with Peter O'Toole, Steve Guttenberg, Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher, Beverly D'Angelo, Daryl Hannah, and Liam Neeson, I had to watch this. And it's just as bad as you'd expect a movie with Steve Guttenberg and a ghostly Daryl Hannah (doing her best Lucky Charms, which brings me to the review on Netflix that includes this: (save for Darryl Hannah as an Irishwoman--doesn't work, but they even purposefully have her lapse out at certain lines for comic effect, which shows they can make fun of themselves), which is so blatantly stupid that it's ridiculous). There are so many things that just don't work in this film that I was amazed that anyone thought it was a good idea. That it was funny in its terribleness is amazing. Just avoid this film unless you are with a lot of people who are very much into watching crap. I do very much want to see Neil Jordan's original cut of the film, especially considering the psychosexual aspects of The Company of Wolves, which this film clearly should have had more of. Also, the special effects were terrible 80s rear projection, models, and some stop motion. And there was the Duke University reference (more info about Duke's importance in Parapsychology here), which always reminds me of Carrie (the novel makes a couple references to Duke University scientists) and the opening of Ghostbusters, with the Zener cards. Of course, Duke no longer has it, but it's still in Durham. Ugh...

Pootie Tang is hilarious. In a good way. Also, what a cast: Bob Costas, Robert Vaughn, Chris Rock, J.B. Smoove, Wanda Sykes, Dave Attell, Laura Kightlinger, J.D. Williams, Jennifer Coolidge, Andy Richter, Kristen Bell (in her first credited performance! and just as hot as she is now), David Cross, Jon Glaser, Rick Shapiro, and Todd Barry. And a gorilla mauling. Plus it's full of good messages for the kids: don't eat sugary cereals, don't drink whiskey, don't smoke, respect women, and watch out for a man with a belt.