Pin (1988)

OCTOBER 31, 2010

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, PUPPET (SORT OF)

SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Happy Halloween! I did a good job picking a movie today I guess; while most of the movie-watching world was subjecting themselves to time honored favorites or maybe finally checking out a classic they've heard about from their friends ("Hey, it's Halloween, maybe I'll finally watch The Exorcist..."), I of course have to watch something I've never seen before, and at this point, there aren't a lot of classics I've missed. But Pin turned out to be an original and fairly creepy movie, improving my "HMAD on Halloween" record after the previous two duds (last year's barely horror Elsewhere and 2008's awful Teenage Zombies).

If you liked Magic you'll probably dig this "younger" version. It's similar in that they try to hide whether or not Pin actually has a life of his own for a while, and eventually Pin and his owner are dressed alike, but there's one key difference - Leon (our "hero") is not trying to hook up with an old flame. Instead, he has really creepy and overprotective tendencies toward his sister (Hey-O!), nor does he use Pin to get revenge or anything. Pretty much the entire movie takes place in the family home, and you get the idea that if Leon's sister moved away, he'd just sit around talking to Pin for an eternity. Having a life, apparently, doesn't seem to be high on his list of priorities.

And damn if that thing ain't creepy. It starts off as a medical dummy of sorts, with the insides visible due to translucent "skin" (their father is a doctor - they don't just have this thing for the hell of it). And it's anatomically correct, something we learn in two rather icky ways. In the first, the father (Terry O'Quinn!) is telling them about the birds and the bees, something the little sister takes a keen interest in (she says something to the effect of "I'm going to be good at it!", and later becomes a bit of a slut in high school, though this plot point is largely forgotten). And Leon spies his father's assistant using the damn thing as a dildo, which freaks him (us) out. For a while I thought this would be some Cronenberg-ian dummy horror movie, but thankfully (or not, depends on your tastes) Pin's "sex life" is phased out of the movie after the first 20 minutes or so.

But it gets even creepier-looking later, when Leon dresses it in their father's clothes and molds a clay face over it. I mean, Christ, look at this thing!

And he's always got it propped up on chairs and shit - imagine coming home and seeing that goddamn thing sitting there! He also gives it a wheelchair, which he controls himself (by this point we know it's just Leon making it do stuff). In one of the film's few horror-terror scenes, he has it chase around a would-be girlfriend, and it's the stuff of nightmares. I kept thinking of “the uncanny valley”, a theory that the Japanese devised a while back that posits that the closer a robot looks to human, the less an actual human is likely to "trust" it. Same thing goes for cartoons (which is why Final Fantasy's humans are less identifiable than say, Goofy, even though we can't even identify what the hell he is). And with this movie, we can add full sized medical dummies to the list. And it was creepy even in its "invisible skin" mode.

Back to O'Quinn, since I have Lost on the brain, I was tickled with him being a father to a kid with an unhealthy obsession with his sister, since he was very much a father figure to Boone on that show, and Boone, of course, totally boinked his sister (OK, step-sister, but from the time they were like 8!) right before they got on the plane. The man has a niche.

Creepy dolls and the looming threat of incest aside, it's a very subtle (read: kind of slow, but in a good way) film, the type we never really see anymore. There really isn't a lot of action, and even the big moment in the climax is kept off-screen in order to preserve a (not very surprising) surprise for the final scene. It's all about the performances, and David Hewlett (who also appeared in the Cronenberg-ish Splice) is terrific as Leon, spending the entire movie on that thin line between tragic hero and crazed villain. A minor twist involving the sister's boyfriend allows you to keep your sympathy for the guy right to the end, and the opening prologue (when Leon and his sister were children) is brief but long enough for us to get the impression that his closed off upbringing was unhealthy and likely to blame for the way he is.

There's also a wonderfully low-key "subplot" of sorts involving the plastic on the furniture. Their overbearing mother demanded to keep the plastic on, and when she died, the first thing Leon did (to his sister's delight) is tear all the plastic off so they can sit comfortably for once. It comes full circle with the final scene where if you're paying attention you can see that the plastic is back on, now that Leon is no longer in control. It's probably the saddest part of the whole movie, and yet director Sandor Stern doesn't make too big of a deal about it. I love that sort of thing; nowadays someone would probably point it out in dialogue, because most modern filmmakers assume their audiences are idiots (and are correct, for the most part).

I do have one question though - the opening title has ellipses after the title ("Pin..."). Why? Is it supposed to be like a stern, authority figure's way of saying it, like SNL's "Gilly..."? Like, "Pin... what are you doing?" Or was the credit creator just messing with us? Perhaps the DVD commentary can explain, as it has one, yet I opted for Netflix instant, which turned out to be a bad idea since it was a shit transfer (full frame, very lo-res). It also completely stopped playing twice for no discernible reason. All hail this alleged "better" way of watching movies!

What say you?

Working for the other guy's cause

The three movies I brought home from the library for our Halloween weekend viewing "pleasure" were My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009, Patrick Lussier), The Haunting in Connecticut (2009, Peter Cornwell) and Waxwork (1988, Anthony Hickox). I put the word pleasure in quotation marks because none of them looked to be very good choices, and I knew it at the time. However, they rose to the top among an initial group of contenders that also featured the remake of The Stepfather, the remake of Last House on the Left, and the remake of Prom Night. Hey, the pickin's were slim.

My wife sort of laughed at the choices and appeared to have rejected them outright, especially since we now have access to a virtually unlimited supply of horror movies by streaming Netflix through our BluRay player. But when it came time to watch something on Devil's Night last night, it became clear that almost all the movies my wife had singled out ended up being Korean. I wouldn't have ordinarily minded because I've had very good experience with Korean films lately (see here), but we both kind of decided that we weren't in a subtitles mood last night. The only other horror films scattered around in our instant viewing queue were films that seemed as dismal as those I'd brought home from the library, like P2 (killer in a parking garage!) and Below (ghosts in a submarine!). Though just looking up Below now, I see that Darren Aronofsky co-scripted it, so we may have to prioritize that one.

"I'd watch The Haunting in Connecticut," my wife offered. This didn't entirely surprise me, since she watches the show Paranormal State, which involves a team of ghost hunters staking out supposedly haunted homes to try to find evidence of supernatural activity. The Haunting in Connecticut dovetailed with that pretty well ... even if the critic on my site had given it only one star.

So we threw in the disc but failed to skip directly ahead to the menu, exposing ourselves to the trailers instead. One of the first was a trailer for My Bloody Valentine 3D. And it actually looked pretty good. A slasher film to be sure, but with a potentially creepy, original villain -- a miner in a gas mask. (Not original, actually -- as we soon were reminded, this was also a remake.)

So I asked her if she'd rather watch that. "Maybe," she said, in a guilty way that suggests a kid who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. So out came Connecticut and in went Valentine.

Wouldn't you know it, but My Bloody Valentine returned the favor by showing a trailer for The Haunting in Connecticut. Which we also saw by again uncharacteristically forgetting to jump forward directly to the DVD menu. And wouldn't you know it, The Haunting in Connecticut also looked pretty good. Not to mention that we then saw a trailer for a new remastering of the original My Bloody Valentine, and the scenes we saw from that made the remake we were about to watch seem less promising.

So was a switch back in order?

If you can read my Most Recently Watched section on the right, you'll know the answer was "no." We thought all the flip-flopping was a little ridiculous and decided to stick with our original flop. Leaving The Haunting in Connecticut as a possibility for actual Halloween night if we again feel subtitle-challenged.

I do think it was funny that both of the films had an advertisement for the other film on it. I mean, clearly it was just a coincidence -- there would be no way to expect a person to rent these two films in tandem, and to know that they would each inadvertently be trying to make the case for the other movie. But in this one particular circumstance it turned out quite funny indeed.

Now, I would have been really surprised if we'd thrown in Waxwork and seen a trailer for either or both of these other films.

Not having seen The Haunting in Connecticut yet, I have no idea if we chose incorrectly between the two. But let's just say that you could stack almost any movie up against My Bloody Valentine 3D, and the other film would always be the correct choice. My Bloody Valentine was tedious and uninspired, but to such a degree that we both said it was among the several dozen worst films we'd ever seen. We agreed it wasn't scary for a single moment, but it also wasn't the least bit clever. The film follows the tried-and-boring formula where a killer seems to reappear exactly ten years after his first series of killings, after which he was presumed dead. Is it the killer returned, or is it a copycat? No one knows, of course, because he's always wearing a miner's helmet, gas mask and heavy work outfit, which don't prevent him from being anywhere and everywhere at once, like Jason Voorhees before him. The reason it's not scary is that the killer always steps out into view long before he attacks anyone, and each kill is different from the one before only in terms of how the killer's pickaxe enters the victim's body.

Structurally, the film also gets off to a really weird start that completely threw my wife and me. It opens with a rather clever device, actually, in which a series of overlapping newspaper articles whose graphical elements are moving forward in the frame -- remember, 3D -- lays out the whole back story of a man who survives a mine collapse and then goes crazy, killing people. There's nothing at the time that indicates this is ten years before present day, so when the characters are introduced and the plot swings in to gear, it seems like it's just the regular movie starting. Which makes it all the more strange when, at the 14-minute mark, teenagers are being knocked off in a mineshaft like they would be in the middle of a movie that had been set up a lot better. It turns out that this is preparing us for the "TEN YEARS LATER" title card, but because such an unskillful job was done of setting this up as a flashback, it left us laughing and scratching our heads at the structural oddity for several minutes before we were finally oriented correctly. (Oh, and never mind that there's an opening scene where the killer leaves a path of carnage in a hospital that's just ridiculous -- how could anyone dismember so many people (removing their hearts in some cases) without someone intervening?)

My Bloody Valentine 3D would also have been a great film to discuss in my Friday post about the word "3D" being part of movie titles. This was precisely the type of future living room viewing of the movie I was talking about, in which the word "3D" makes no sense in the title. Actually, you could flip the DVD to the appropriate side and watch it in 3D, but naturally, we didn't have the correct equipment. Still, you could easily see the parts that were supposed to be 3D -- I suppose that's always the case -- and it quickly became clear to us that the only excuse for a movie like this is to see which clumps of gore they can flip at the camera, when. I guess the mission statement behind The Final Destination in 3D and Saw 3D wouldn't be much different.

Well, Happy Halloween, everyone. If you're watching something tonight, here's hoping you do better than My Bloody Valentine 3D.

Maybe we should have saved it for a themed viewing on Valentine's Day, rather than Halloween, for how scary it actually was.

Day 31- Halloween

In the wee hours of Monday morning, after we all attended the wedding of our very own Machine, we were treated to the excellence that is Frank Darabont's zombie vision...

Some old favorites, some new unknowns... we're watching 100 movies in 31 days!

#100- The Walking Dead (TV/2010)- "Police officer Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in a world overrun by zombies."

The Walking Dead pulled a 3.3 rating, which makes it the new ruler of cable dramas. True Blood has never garnered more than a 2.2. What does this mean? People like zombies. A lot.

This show was fantasmical. Wonderlicious. I could make up words all day, but you get the gist. Frank Darabont -the awesome writer and/or director behind such movies as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist, The Blob (1988), ANOES 3, The Fly II, and The Majestic- brings us a weekly show about zombie apocalypse, and it is good. He loves horror, and apparently Stephen King, so we're in good hands.

The first season (AMC has been rumored to have green lit a 2nd season already, btu have yet to confirm) only has 6 episodes, but so what? 6 hours of eposidic, (cable) network zombie bliss is a good thing, and we will take what we can get.

You can see the time, effort, and money that went into this show. The zombies look phenomenal, the cast is great (especially the bad ass Lennie James... long live Jericho!), and it just feels right. Desolate. Creepy. Dangerous.

We can't wait for more.


That's 100/100 movies watched so far... oh shit, were done! Now we can play catch up, and get back to normal...

Mirrors 2 (2010)

OCTOBER 30, 2010

GENRE: REVENGE (?), SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

If one factors in a handicap for the pedigree (the director of Return to House on Haunted Hill vs the director of High Tension), the cast (Nick Stahl vs Kiefer Sutherland), and the budgets (no idea, but Mirrors was a theatrical summer release and this was tossed DTV), Mirrors 2 is actually a better film than the original. Whereas the original was a disappointment, this was a decent enough viewing, hampered only by its familiarity and clunky, exposition-filled third act.

It’s also a bit too similar to Shutter, which is also a FOX remake of an Asian film (which should have gone DTV itself). Like that film, our “villain” is actually an innocent victim seeking revenge against the folks involved with her sexual attack, which is all well and good, but it also results in a movie where the villain is never posing a threat to our heroes. She’s only after the four folks who helped in her murder (and its coverup), neither of which are Nick Stahl or Emmanuelle Vaugier. So as a result, our heroes don’t really DO anything in the movie, just sort of run around seeing stuff happen and explaining it aloud to the audience. At least in Shutter we had the Rachel Taylor character to learn about the story and her husband’s involvement, but here we don’t have that tragic connection. There’s a brief hint that Stahl’s dad (William Katt, who looks like an old David Spade) might be involved, but the ghost doesn’t get him and then he doesn’t appear in the movie again, so he’s just pointless padding. Nice to see the guy though.

But it delivers a few nice kills (courtesy of KNB), and a couple more than were in the original to boot. It’s the same thing – the reflection does something and it causes the equal harm to the real person, but they get a bit more creative with it – we see reflections on shower glass, pizza cutters, etc. The final villain gets killed inside the mirror – we just see his blood being splattered all over the image (from the inside) as he gets his just desserts. There’s also a cool effect where we see the “mirror world”, with the cracks in the image stretching out in three dimensional space. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a visually interesting and unique idea. As with Return to House on Haunted Hill, Victor Garcia displays a knack for strong visuals, he’s just once again saddled with a lacking script. Hopefully his Hellraiser sequel turns out good and allows him to move up the chain a bit and take on an original property for once.

Also, even though the movie is “safer” than its original (no grim ending here), they take advantage of the DVD/unrated leeway. The deaths are gorier than the ones in the original, and we get a lengthy and hilariously gratuitous shower scene, featuring Christy Romano, who’s the type of actress you figure would never do her own nude scene. Why? Because she’s the voice of Kim Possible! I felt kind of dirty when I found that out, but goddamn – the lass has a body worth showing off.

I was also pleased to see that it was shot in Baton Rouge. It’s actually kind of backwards – the original was shot in Romania, which is usually where they do DTV stuff like this, but the sequel went somewhere less generic. They don’t really use the city much (compared to say Hard Target), but even the minor suburban streets and such that we see add a layer of production value and character that these things usually lack. Again, it’s not really that great of a movie, but it’s one with a lot of effort put into it on the production side of things, and that is to be commended.

Two things really irked me though. One is a flashback featuring Stahl proposing to his wife in the weirdest way possible – he’s driving and has her climb into the back seat to find his “phone”, but it’s really the ring he wants her to find. Who proposes to someone when they can’t even kiss or embrace after the “Yes”? Unless, of course, he was expecting her to say “No”, in which case it would be a good idea to have her in the back seat to dispel some of the awkwardness. The other is even worse – Stahl finds a “MISSING” poster that he saw Vaugier putting up earlier (in her only scene until the 50 or so minute mark), which clearly displays the date the girl disappeared. And he uses the poster to find her, and then asks, TWICE, when she disappeared (she also offers the information right off the bat, before she even knows what he’s doing there). Is he mentally disabled or something? Why can’t he remember? Christ even I remember the date (September 22, a Wednesday) and I have no involvement in the proceedings. Perhaps the prop guy wasn’t supposed to put the date on it, but even so, why does he need to be told three times?

The pair of deleted scenes on the DVD don’t provide an answer... or anything, really. One hints that Stahl and Vaugier might hook up when all this crazy killer mirror stuff is over, the other just adds more exposition that doesn’t matter to the climax. The other extras are pretty good though; a making of that’s really a better than usual collection of interviews with the actors describing their characters and talking about filming their death scenes when applicable. It actually starts with the film’s climax, however, so don’t watch it until you’ve seen the movie, if you planned to for some bizarre reason. The other takes a look at KNB’s FX work, which is quite enjoyable. KNB is one of the best FX houses of all time, as far as I’m concerned, and they’ve really done a great job of combining practical and CG effects to keep everyone happy, so I’m always happy to watch them do their thing (and kudos to FOX for shelling out the dough to hire them for a DTV flick). Then there’s a bunch of trailers for stuff like Dollhouse Season 2, for some reason.

If you haven’t seen the original, I’d suggest just watching this one. You won’t be as familiar with the basic premise, and the film is practically a remake for its first half hour (did Stahl have to be a night watchman again, like Sutherland was?). But the backstory is slightly more interesting here (and less confusing), there are more kills, and its 20 minutes shorter. On the flipside, no one says “Be careful of the water, it creates reflections!”, so you make the call.

What say you?

Seeing in black and white

In case you didn't know it, I'm a white guy.

It's true. My first and last name are actually both names that appear commonly in the African American community, so I sometimes wonder if I'm mistaken for a minority in contexts where people only see my name. But I'm definitely not a minority. Well, at least not for another 40 or 50 years, when Latinos are supposedly going to become the largest demographic group in the United States.

But it wasn't until recently that I started thinking about how my race plays a role in what films I like.

You see, I have a relatively new co-worker who is black, though his name sounds a lot more white than mine does. One of the first things I learned about this guy -- on his first day, in fact -- was that he loves movies. Naturally, this was a man I was interested in getting to know better. I stopped short of telling him that I a) write film reviews and b) write a film blog, because I don't talk about either of these things at work -- I don't want anyone to get wind of the fact that I sometimes do both during business hours. (Only during genuine down time, I swear.) I assume people are still generally ignorant about that, or they would have busted me on it by now.

But we did return regularly to talking about films we liked in his first few days on the job, after which the discussion thread kind of faded into the background. This was a good six months ago.

This past week, I stayed late on Monday night, as did he. No one else was around, so we shot the shit about movies for the last hour we were both here. You've been in movie discussions before ... you know how that can happen.

I should tell you that this guy is not a movie fan the way you and I are movie fans. He loves movies, but he doesn't worship them -- or maybe he thinks he does, but he's fooling himself. He doesn't have the commitment nor the breadth of knowledge you and I have. He's not familiar with the names of a lot of directors, he mixes up the names of relatively famous actors, and he hasn't heard of some movies that I thought most people who describe themselves as movie fans would know. In other words, he's an amateur movie fan, not a professional movie fan.

To his credit in this regard, he was bemoaning the fact that he didn't have a good way to get exposed to obscure titles, titles he would certainly seek out if he knew they existed. So I told him I'd loan him movies from my collection that I loved. He seemed excited about that prospect.

Where our different races come in to play is in the movie titles we discussed. And I quickly realized that this guy is not necessarily a fan of all movies -- he's a fan of movies that feature at least one prominent African American character.

This caught me by surprise. Which is probably because I tend to have this idealized concept of what the great movies are, thinking that all people who call themselves "film buffs" would have many of the same films as common references, and would be conversant about the same films that are widely considered to be great.

But just as I probably seek out similarities to my own frame of reference in the films I love, he does the same. I don't know why I should expect him to relate as easily as I do to films featuring all white faces, any more than I would relate as easily as he does to films featuring all black faces.

The problem is, there are a lot more films that feature all (or mostly) white faces, than films that feature all (or mostly) black faces. And therefore, my co-worker inevitably lives in a smaller cinematic universe than I do.

It was when he started to ask me about a series of films with black casts -- a series of films that I hadn't seen -- that I started to feel really bad about this.

"What did you think of The Great Debaters?" he asked.

"I haven't see that one," I responded.

"Okay, what about The Secret Life of Bees?"

"I haven't seen that either."

"What did you think of Ray?"

"You know, I never saw Ray," I admitted.

"Really?" He gave me a funny look.

It was then I started to worry this guy might think I'm a film racist.

Of the 55 films nominated for best picture between 2000 and 2009, there are only two I haven't seen. One is Ray. The other is Capote. So, maybe I'm a film homophobe as well.

What Ray and Capote also have in common is that they are both biopics -- Ray more so than Capote. As luck would have it, I had already told this guy that biopics are not my favorite type of movie. So I used that as my excuse for why I hadn't seen Ray. What the actual reason is, I don't know. I missed it when it was in the theater, and never prioritized a viewing after that. Fortunately, he doesn't know that Ray makes up half of the 3% of best picture nominees from the last decade I haven't seen.

I felt particularly bad because Jamie Foxx was the star of Ray, and I had already mentioned -- twice -- a bad piece of acting by Foxx in another movie he had asked me about. On two separate occasions he asked me if I liked Miami Vice, and I told him I didn't. When he asked why, I couldn't conjure anything meaningful -- in my own head, I know that I thought it was uninspired, long and boring. But I thought I needed to give him a specific, so both times, I talked about the scene in which Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Tubbs (Foxx) are walking away from a building that's about to explode. A split second before the building explodes, Foxx reacts to the explosion. It's like that scene in North by Northwest when the kid covers his ears before the gun goes off. The gaffe is probably as much Michael Mann's fault for not noticing it as it is Foxx's fault, or perhaps Mann was stuck with that one take because they couldn't blow up the building a second time. But my co-worker doesn't know Michael Mann from a hole in the ground. He knows Jamie Foxx, and that's the part of what I said that probably sunk in with him, even when I tried to back-pedal and blame the director. (To make matters worse, I had also previously criticized Collateral, Mann's other collaboration with Foxx.)

My co-worker then helped me out by asking about a different biopic and whether I liked it: Malcolm X. I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to heap praise upon Malcolm X, explaining that Spike Lee brought something to it that made it more than your typical biopic. I then told him it was one of my three favorite Lee movies, the others being Do the Right Thing and 25th Hour. He had never heard of 25th Hour and wrote the title down. Unfortunately, as he may soon discover, the cast of 25th Hour is almost all white.

The next day we had another moment that wasn't so great. He asked me about The Hurricane -- another biopic -- and whether I thought Denzel Washington really deserved to lose out to Kevin Spacey in that year's best actor race. When he talked about Spacey and American Beauty, he had a kind of disgust in his eyes and in his tone that suggested American Beauty could not possibly have offered anything to anyone. It was at that moment that I saw the movie through his eyes, and understood how it might not have spoken to his experience.

I tend to be honest to a fault when discussing films, so I told him I didn't think The Hurricane was all that. Which was a shame, because the way he introduced the topic was in a manner that suggested "Here at least is something we can agree on." (Funnily enough, I had a discussion with someone soon after I saw The Hurricane in which I told him I thought it was good. He told me that it was totally standard and not very interesting. I ended up being swayed by his argument.) But I also said that sometimes there's a groundswell for movies that everyone is talking about that year, and that's probably why Spacey won the Oscar. (Even though I probably do think Spacey was better in American Beauty than Washington was in The Hurricane.)

Other movies with mostly black casts he asked about, that I hadn't seen: Hoodlum and Takers. At least with Takers, when he mentioned T.I. and Chris Brown, I was able to tell him that I'd really liked T.I. in ATL. He hadn't seen ATL. So there's that.

The weird thing is that I actually think I've seen more movies with black casts than almost anyone else I know. I've reviewed a ton of movies that fit this description on the website I write for. And one of the reasons I request these movies is that I don't want them to be given the short shrift, just because other white critics at my site are not that interested in seeking them out. I've seen most of the movies directed by Tyler Perry and most of the movies directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, plus a dozen other directors toiling in relative anonymity. But these were not the films he asked me about. (And by the way, do I sound yet like I'm listing the number of black friends I have to prove that I'm not a racist?)

But even in the previous paragraph there's an unfortunate kind of condescension. I'm basically acknowledging that many white critics who choose their assignments don't seem that interested in reviewing Stomp the Yard or Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, and I'm positioning myself as some kind of "white savior" who's going to swoop in and make sure these films get reviewed. I'm not, you will notice, saying that I actually want to see these movies because I predict that something about them will speak to me or be especially interesting to me. That's certainly true in some cases, but in other cases, it's just work.

Like anyone, I think I just want to see stories I haven't seen before, executed in an interesting way. And I think the unfortunate problem with Hollywood is that there are few risks taken on unique stories of any kind, particularly with predominantly African American themes. When a movie like Precious does come out, however, I'm first in line. I saw it in the theater and I ranked it third out of all the films I saw in 2009. (There I go, making those "see how I'm not racist?" excuses again.) The reason Precious interested me was because I had never seen a movie in which the main character was a 300-pound teenager of any race. I thought it would/should be interesting, and you better bet it was.

I've strayed a bit from the point, so why don't I get back to it.

So the result of Monday night's conversation was that I said I'd bring in some films from my home collection for him to take a look at. However, I was busy that night and forgot. The next day he said "Oh man, I was looking forward to watching something tonight!" So I made sure not to forget again.

But I had another busy night and had to kind of choose the movies on the fly. I knew he liked action, suspense and sci-fi, but I also knew he liked period pieces (he mentioned specifically the Harlem Renaissance -- sorry, can't help you there). If I had been able to do a full scrub of my collection, I'm sure I would have come up with better choices. But in the interest of not disappointing him two days in a row, here's what I grabbed:

Donnie Darko
Glengarry Glen Ross
Code 46

Not a black character in any of the three casts.

On my way to work, I realized these choices may have made my cinematic world view seem all the more limited to him. So I offered them to him almost apologetically, though I certainly didn't indicate what reason I'd have to feel apologetic. I did tell him I'd chosen them sort of quickly and would do better next time. He hadn't heard of any of them (not even Glengarry Glen Ross?) and so didn't have any reason to think I'd done poorly. Yet. He did notice Al Pacino in the cast of Glengarry Glen Ross and seemed excited about that. I told him not to watch the movie with his daughter in the room, because of all the f-bombs.

While I think the machismo of Glengarry Glen Ross will be enough to please him, it does feature his nemesis, Kevin Spacey. And of the other two films, well, one is about a depressed white suburban teenager in the 1980s who hallucinates rabbits, and the other is about a star-crossed love affair in the near future between porcelain-skinned Samantha Morton and Tim Robbins. At least Tim Robbins is known as a good champion of liberal causes. Then again, my co-worker is a registered Republican.

Given his stated preferences, what do I expect him to get out of these films? They're indisputably good films -- but maybe they're only indisputably good from the perspective of a white film buff who sees the cinematic universe a certain way.

Plus, will I do better next time? I'm ashamed to say that my collection does not get much more ethnically diverse. Ashamed because I don't think of myself as a person who gravitates toward "white" movies. I just gravitate toward good movies. Whether they feature a large quantity of whites is not something I usually think about -- though maybe the point is that it's totally unconscious.

In fact, as I went through my movie library on Wednesday (read that post here), I made some startling discoveries about just how white my collection truly is. Of the 84 movies we own, only two have primarily black subject matter, or even a significant number of black characters. And which ones they are are telling: Get Christie Love!, a blaxploitation movie given to me as a joke (which I still haven't watched), and the aforementioned Precious, which I loved, but which we received as a free screener copy, and therefore didn't choose to own per se. There are a number of black characters in 8 Mile, but tellingly, the main rapper is white, and I actually got this movie through passive means as well -- it was among the leftover belongings of a former neighbor of mine, who skedaddled in the middle of the night because he couldn't pay his rent. (For the record, this guy was white.)

Because I've already gotten myself pretty deep into this soul-searching, let's continue.

Why don't I own the movies I love that star blacks? I love Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, as discussed previously. But I have never thought of buying either of them. (That could be because they are both pretty heavy, and I don't have the desire to repeatedly revisit dark subject matter, no pun intended on the word "dark.") And speaking of movies about rappers, I love Hustle & Flow, which I ranked #1 out of all the movies I saw in 2005. At least half the cast is black, and it's heavy in ways that invite repeat viewings, rather than discourage them. But, I still don't own it.

Just because I'm stopping now doesn't mean there aren't more examples. (Jeez, I sure hope there are.)

I really hope this is coming off as earnest self-examination, and not some kind of pandering to black cinema. I hope it doesn't seem like I think I need to fill some quota of black movies in order to be a well-rounded movie buff. I believe you should watch what you watch because you want to watch it, not because you feel like you should watch it. (Unless you're getting paid, then at least the word "should" has a financial incentive attached.) If you follow my label for "racial politics" on my blog, you'll see that the way race and the movies interact has been an interesting topic to me over the years. I've just chilled on it a bit in 2010, because last year, some people thought I was finding racism against blacks everywhere I looked.

I also don't want to appear to be pandering to my co-worker, who will probably never read this, but who I want to represent fairly anyway. He's a smart guy with good taste. I am specifically calling attention to the films he mentioned that have majority black casts, because a) there were an overwhelming succession of them in this particular discussion, and b) it fits into the thrust of my current argument. But he also talks regularly about other films he loves, such as The Matrix, which just has Laurence Fishburne and a bunch of white folks. (Oh, and a black oracle I guess.) I think he's also probably conscious of trying not to appear too black-centric, the same way I'm conscious of trying not to to appear too white-centric. He has twice told me that he "cried like a baby" at the end of The Notebook, which is about as white a movie as you can get. This is probably his go-to example of his own cinematic diversity, the same way I might tell people how much I like Precious.

I do think it's invaluable to explore these things in ourselves, because all I really want is to live in a world where film fans can find common ground in the movies they love, regardless of what race they are. I just want to know how to get there.

Maybe I'll know a little bit more about the road to that cinematic paradise on Monday, when my co-worker returns to the office, and is sure to have watched at least one of the films I loaned him. Maybe he'll find value in at least one of them. Heck, maybe he'll love all three.

And maybe, to do him the same courtesy, I should do something I should have done a long time ago: Rent a damn copy of Ray.

The Initiation Of Sarah (1978)

OCTOBER 29, 2010

GENRE: REVENGE (?), SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Since old school TV movies like Duel, Don't Go To Sleep, etc are just as good if not better than comparable theatrical features, I figured The Initiation Of Sarah, made for TV in 1978, would be a perfectly decent Carrie ripoff. After all, it boasted a story by credit for Tom Holland, and was remade recently, so it must have SOME merit, right?

Yes, it does. SOME. Unfortunately, "some" is not "a lot", and thus the movie is mostly pretty forgettable, with a snail's pace and a lack of the "balls" that those other TV horror films had. Whereas Don't Go To Sleep has a little girl killing her whole family, this supernatural sorority girl can't even bring herself to kill the horrible girl who humiliated her. At least, I don't THINK she kills her - she just makes it really windy at the sorority (?) and the girl gets old crone face, but it doesn't seem like she dies (the epilogue makes no mention of it). Instead (spoiler!) she uses her power to kill the evil witch who runs the rival sorority, killing herself in the process. So our body count is 2 - our hero and a villain (Shelley Winters, by the way). Apart from the wind, the only other thing Sarah does with her powers is make the water too hot in the shower while the 'bad' sorority girls are in there, but she lets them go before any real harm comes to them. So it's the equivalent of Carrie going the prom and just turning the punch sour and maybe letting Chris get minor burns. In other words, WEAK revenge, lady.

Until this non-epic non-showdown, it's just a lot of yammering, as Sarah's sister Patty gets initiated into the "bad" sorority (i.e. the popular one) while Sarah gets inducted to their rival's house, populated by less attractive girls and a total lack of sisterhood (when Sarah and Patty visit the house to check it out, no one even bothers to welcome them, nor do they have any sort of pledge period). And this of course puts a strain on their relationship, as Patty is not allowed to talk to her in public (a pledge rule) and it makes Sarah feel less wanted. It's sad, sure, but it lacks any real punch. Maybe if Patty had gone to the "dark side" and turned on her, it would be more tragic, but from the start Patty defies her new friends and defends Sarah when they pick on her. So there's no real weight to the "conflict".

(It SEEMS like there is, however - one of the sorority sisters looks exactly like Patty, rendering some scenes confusing for me.)

Since it's a 1970s movie, it's fun to see some future stars looking young. Morgan Fairchild plays the bitchy sorority sister who hates Sarah the most, and Airplane!'s Robert Hays plays the William Katrole, duping Sarah into thinking he likes her, leading to the prank that sets her off (though true to this movie's nature, he instantly feels guilty and takes the high road, snubbing Fairchild). Of course, when I say "young" I mean compared to now; none of these people would pass for fresh college graduates let alone freshmen - the average age of the cast seems to be about 26.

My favorite character is probably Paul Yates, the teacher who falls for Sarah despite the fact that, you know, that's totally WRONG. But no one seems to have any problem with it, and he has the best introduction of all time: after Sarah saves Patty from an accident that she caused (one of the few "action" moments in the first 80 minutes of the movie), he walks up and says, all in one breath, "Hey, that was good going, she could have been killed! My name is Paul Yates." His delivery is hilarious too - he says "she could have been killed" almost as if he was impressed, like someone saying "she's really good!" in response to a dance routine or something. Also he looked like my ex-godfather John, who went crazy in the 90s, embezzled a bunch of money from his car dealership, and disappeared. Wonder what happened to that guy.

ABC Family or one of those remade this movie (with Fairchild returning) not too long ago, though that sort of pedigree leads me to believe that if anything, its even tamer (though the trailer - which I put below since I couldn't find one for the original - at least promises a demon of some sort). It's weird that an unabashed ripoff of a successful movie wouldn't even try to one up it (Carrie's a great film, but no one can accuse it of being fast paced), but maybe someday someone can do the "Supernatural Sorority Loser" movie right.

What say you?

Number of sequels vs. number of dimensions

Saw VII is coming out today. Marking the seventh straight year -- and last, they tell us -- a Saw movie has been released the weekend before Halloween.

Except it's not called Saw VII. It's called Saw 3D.

I take issue in general with using the word "3D" in the title of a movie, in large part because it will only actually be experienced in the correct number of dimensions by a minority of the people who see it. Some will see it in a theater that isn't equipped for 3D, like the drive-in theater that sends me weekly emails, which had to specify it wasn't in 3D. Many more will see it later on video, where they probably either won't have the glasses or won't have the correct type of TV. Including the word "3D" in the actual title, then -- rather than saying [Title] in 3D!, a marketing campaign that would be limited to the period of time in which the theatrical release was being advertised -- is a kind of permanent deception of the viewing public.

But it looks like we're going to have to get used to seeing "3D" in the titles for movies, so let's not push that particular argument too far.

When it becomes really problematic is when the 3 in 3D is out of sync with the sequel number of the franchise in question. Like the Saw series.

Some series have gotten lucky. Some series -- like Jackass and Step Up -- were timed just perfectly so that the third movie in the series would be the one to take advantage of the current craze. Hence, this year's Jackass 3D and Step Up 3D. Hearkens back to the last major 3D trend, when the third Friday the 13th was in 3D, as was the third Jaws. (We should probably pause here to honor Pixar's restraint in resisting the urge to call their 2010 release Toy Story 3D.)

Or it can be the first movie in a series, like this year's Piranha 3D. I'm okay with that too. (Okay, you caught me -- this year's Piranha is actually sort of a third Piranha movie, as there were exactly two previously. However, Piranha II: The Spawning came out 29 years ago, so I hardly think this year's Piranha counts as a third movie to most viewers.)

But the Saw example is really problematic. Seeing the 3 on the poster may time warp some people back to 2006, when Saw III was coming out. (Though to be fair, they used roman numerals on those posters -- or actually, three uprooted teeth dangling from ropes.) For those expecting Saw VII to follow last year's Saw VI, there's a definite disconnect.

Which brings us back to the argument made at various times previously on this blog, about how studios think their franchises can get a boost if the latest release appears as some kind of a reboot. By destroying the sequel numbering system in the Saw series, they're trying to tell you that this movie could be something new and freshly worthy of your attention -- not just the seventh movie in a series. A roman numeral VII behind any movie title tends to cause snickers, even among its most devoted fans -- it's that point at which continuing on in a series strikes everyone as ridiculous. You might say that point should have logically been reached after a half-dozen, or even five, but the seventh movie really pushes it over the top.

Not so, now. Instead of this being the seventh Saw, it's the Saw that's in 3D. And also, the last Saw.

Or so they say.

I'll believe that when I don't see the next one in 2011. Or 2015. Or whenever they decide it's the perfect time to release Saw VIII.

Or, by that point, perhaps Saw 4D.

30 Days Of Night: Dark Days (2010)

OCTOBER 28, 2010

GENRE: COMIC BOOK, VAMPIRE

SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I wasn't a big fan of 30 Days Of Night, but it was at least a good alternative to other vampire stuff that was out there, boasted some impressive gore and beautiful cinematography, and assembled a good group of characters to keep you from knowing who would die and when right off the bat. The sequel, 30 Days Of Night: Dark Days, boasts none of those things, and is ultimately just a generic DTV vampire movie with a script that borrows heavily from Blade (and sequels) and From Dusk Til Dawn, not to mention its source material that wasn't that memorable to begin with (they would have been wise to come up with their own story, I think).

But the biggest problem is the recasting. Nothing against Kiele Sanchez, but she's no Melissa George, nor does she attempt to play the role in any similar way - which is a big problem when the movie is essentially about her journey to put her life back together after the events of the first movie, while dealing with the emptiness she feels over the loss of her husband. Since the character is so far removed from the one we know/already care about, and the two actresses look nothing alike, it just seems like a brand new character - one that they haven't really developed. She's just some broad. Sorry about your husband and all, but why do I care? This also makes the would-be shock ending carry no weight whatsoever; in the comic it was horrifying, but here it just feels like a typical sequel setup/lazy horror movie ending.

Sanchez of course was clumsily inserted into another geek series: Lost. She played Nikki, a character hated by pretty much everyone (including the show's writers, apparently). Luckily, she had a fellow castaway with her here - Harold Perrineau (Michael, best known for shouting WALLLLLLLLLT!) plays one of the vampire hunters she joins up with and eventually takes over (yeah, in addition to the various vampire movie "homages", there's also a bit of a Matrix vibe to her journey). They are matched by a pair of 24 regulars - Mandy (Mia Kirschner) and Sean (Rhys Coiro) are also on board. The only exception among the main cast is Diora Baird, who is known more for her horror films than serialized fan favorite TV shows. Of them, Perrineau fares best, since he is introduced, does almost nothing, and gets killed 10 minutes later, likely inspiring jealous feelings from his castmates who have to stick around a lot longer.

Also, for alleged vampire hunters who have turned this into their life's mission, they sure do suck at it. Stella does most of the killing, and they go into danger shockingly unprepared. If you're battling vampires, why only bring guns? How about some UV lights or holy water (if that works on these particular vamps, I don't think it's ever mentioned in either film)? Stella even has a bunch of them - in one of the film's few good scenes, she holds a conference about how vampires are real, points out that some always follow her, and then floods the room with UV lights that she rigged up to "out" the vamps in the crowd. Why not bring some along? Oh, because then they couldn't have an easy way to get to the film's primary form of an action scene, which is to charge into a room, kill maybe one, get in trouble, and then run away.

And it's a shame, because production wise, it's not that bad. It's not as good-looking as it's bigger budgeted predecessor, but it's miles ahead of the usual DTV fare - I could almost picture seeing this in a theater. The vampire makeup is just as good (though they overuse the digital blood), and there are some really cool deaths, particularly a beheading that involves hanging hooks. And I liked the final fight between Stella and Lilith (Kirschner) - ain't nothing wrong with two hot ladies throwing down whilst covered in blood. I will assume that the budget prevented them from getting too crazy though - the original was pretty hard R at times for a theatrical major studio release, but this is pretty tame for the most part.

I will also give it credit for adding a bit more drama to the proceedings. Coiro's character is borderline suicidal, and him and Stella form a bond and share a number of quiet moments that I wasn't expecting to see in this sort of thing. Hell even their obligatory sex scene is kind of sad; two broken folks trying to feel and all that. And the sequel does have its own identity while keeping ties to the original - the locale has changed, the plot is different, etc, but apart from the recasting, it's not so far removed that it feels like a different movie entirely that they just slapped the 30 Days title on in post production. But the film as a whole just doesn't gel - the action is lazy and repetitive, the characters act like idiots, and the most interesting asset they have (a vampire who has retained his human side and aids them) is left on the sidelines for far too much of the movie.

Writer/director Ben Ketai provides a commentary track (one of the producers is there too but he barely says anything). It's a decent track, blending story discussion with technical nuts and bolts stuff. Sort of like the movie itself - it's "fine" but wholly unnecessary. A brief making of is also included, but it's the sort of glossy and fluffy nonsense I have no patience for.

I own something like 12 different mini-series of the comic, but I've only read the first two (which would be the original and the "Dark Days" sequel). I don't recall much of the book but this one hits a few of the bullet points (the ending, the UV "surprise" at the conference), so kudos for blending the "needs" of the comic fans with the needs to make a movie on a certain budget. And at least if there's a part 3 I will go in blind, because I assume that between now and then I won't suddenly have the urge to read comic books from 3-4 years ago that are likely buried underneath the long boxes of my newer titles. But I'm certainly not holding my breath.

What say you?

Blu-Ray Review: Altitude (2010)

OCTOBER 28, 2010

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Here we have a rare example of an ambitious low budget film with lots of effects and a risky setting (a tiny plane) that falls apart due to the things that come for free – a good script and likable characters. Altitude cost less than 10 million, but sports 600 CGI enhanced shots, which is on the level of a Lord of the Rings film, and impressively keeps up a good pace and interesting photography despite the fact that 90% of the film takes place in a seven-seater plane that the actors can’t even stand up straight in. But man oh man, the script seems hell-bent on dragging it down.

For starters, they have managed to create the least likable group of teens in a horror movie in ages. Christ, I liked some of the Friday the 13th Part VII assholes more than these clowns. I spent half the movie wondering why anyone was even friends with each other. The main girl (Jessica Lowndes, who I like but is possibly the least believable pilot since Julie Haggerty) seems to hate Bruce, her sort-of boyfriend, and her best friend’s boyfriend Sal is a complete asshole right from the start, and later we discover she has cheated on him with the other guy in the plane. Who am I supposed to like, exactly? I understand the need for conflict to ramp up the tension, but why do they have to be so hateful before anything bad even happens? And why can’t good people fight? I fight with friends every now and then, even when we’re not trapped in malfunctioning planes. You don’t have to paint someone as a completely unsympathetic asshole just so you can have another character be at odds with them.

I mean, seriously, at one point Sal grabs a rare comic book that Lowndes bought for Bruce and tears a page out of it (which, given the information we learn later in the movie, means that that is one meta comic book), laughing at him for being a “baby” and reading comic books. I’m sorry, in what universe do human beings act like this anyway, but since when is collecting rare comics a “childish” activity? If the guy thinks it’s lame, fine, but who destroys an acquaintance’s property just for “fun”?

(SPOILERS AHEAD!)

And because these people are so unlikable or annoying, the twist just completely fails to work. Technically it’s actually an interesting twist, if not wholly original (certain episodes of Twilight Zone and the book/movie Sphere covered the same territory), but it just becomes laughable here. The poster and trailer promise a monster, and it IS there, but we discover it’s just Bruce’s manifestation, and that it can disappear in the blink of an eye if he focuses on something else. Thus, at one point Lowndes literally saves the day just by kissing him. I agree with the film’s notion that making out with Ms. Lowndes can solve your problems (a theory worth exploring!), but at this point I wanted the monster to kill these pains in the ass, not disappear because the kid stopped being such a goddamn baby.

There’s also another twist, one you can probably see coming early on. It seems Bruce is such a worry-wart weirdo because his parents died in a plane crash when he was young (one he survived). And the pilot of that plane was none other than Lowndes’ mother! Their plane crashed when they collided in mid-air with another plane that came out of nowhere and had no record of being in flight. Anyone want to guess where the movie ends up? Again, not a bad twist in its own right, but the execution is sloppy. Its telegraphed way too early, the idea that these two would be friends 15 years later is way too convenient, and it just seems far too Deus Ex Machina-y for my tastes.

But again, on a technical level, there’s a lot to appreciate and enjoy here. For a single location movie, the camera moves around a lot and keeps things visually exciting throughout. Some of the compositing is bad, but the monster itself looks great, as do the various extensions and such that helped make the plane seem complete on the exterior shots (one of the kids jumps out, attached via rope, to try to fix one of the plane’s problems from the outside). And again, the actors can’t even stand up straight, so it’s impressive that they can fight, move around, etc when necessary without feeling awkward or even cramped. Director Kaare Andrews really uses every bit of space to his advantage, and blends the CG with real world elements better than most big-screen/big-budget fare.

And when they’re sticking to survival/thriller stuff, it’s enjoyable enough, annoying kids aside. Everyone has at least a slight unease of flying, and somehow (at least, to me) these smaller planes are scarier than a big jet, in terms of “Holy shit what if THIS crashes” anyway. As everyone is so confined and panicked, it does create a lot of tension out of very little, not unlike Open Water or Frozen. It’s a monster movie that’s ruined by its monster.

If you do like the movie, or at least interested in combining low budget resources with ambitious scenarios/settings, going through the DVD or Blu-Ray will be worth your while. Andrews provides a terrific commentary that is largely technically oriented, but he is honest about some of the film’s shortcomings and discusses the challenges he faced without sounding whiny or accusatory – he seems to be genuinely grateful to have the ability to shoot a film at all and looked at the limitations as challenges instead of detriments. Then we get a cool look at the film edited together (on fast speed) without any of the FX inserted, so you’re just seeing actors on half of a plane with a lot of green-screen all around. Here he talks more about how certain effects were pulled off or why things had to be done a certain way, not unlike the commentary but with the visual information to help illustrate his points better. Then there’s a 50 minute making of documentary that takes you through the whole production. It’s similar to the one on Frozen in terms of structure and taking a more candid, nuts and bolts approach than a glossy marketing-driven types you see on most DVDs, but it lacks Frozen’s personal touches that elevated that one above most of its type. Still, a good piece, and again, budding filmmakers can take something away from it, which is always good. Some storyboards are also included, though I have little use for such things so I just acknowledged that they were there/functional and moved on with my day.

This is an Anchor Bay release, so do I really need to point out the good transfer? They have done consistently great work with their high-def titles and this is no exception. There isn’t a lot of color in the movie (black, blue, and green – that’s about it) but it looks terrific all the same, with minimal crushed blacks and plenty of detail. The grain amount is inconsistent, but I assume that’s just the film’s editor going overboard trying to hide some sub-par effects rather than a mastering one (and unlike most studios, AB doesn’t try to clear the film of grain, so I’d rather this than no grain at all making everyone look plastic). The surround mix is also quite good, if nothing spectacular (though the rears will get a nice workout with the nearly non-stop rain/storm sounds).

However, as good as they are with transfers, they sure do suck at the coding of the disc itself. For starters, we have to sit through the trailers at the top of the disc – you can only skip them one at a time, no bypassing to the main menu. This is really annoying, especially for a feature heavy disc that most folks won’t have the time to watch all in one sitting. There also doesn’t seem to be any resume capabilities built in, so even if I hit stop halfway through the movie, I’d have to go through the trailers all over again. Also, for some reason you cannot access the bonus features from the pop up menu while watching the movie, another “feature” that is offered on most if not all other studio Blu-ray discs. If Anchor Bay put as much effort into maximizing the format’s potential and user-friendly capabilities as they did their transfers, then they’d truly be the kings of the Blu-ray industry. Although, they did at least finally figure out how to give the disc an image and a name on the nav-bar on PS3 – it used to just say BDMV or something equally unhelpful.

With a few more passes at the script, this could have been a winner. There is much to appreciate on both sides of the camera, and the disc has a lot of great supplements, but ultimately the film itself never quite gelled for me. Rewrite this thing and try again!

Movie Score: 5/10

A/V Score: 8/10

Extras Score: 8/10

Overall: 6/10

What say you?

Community: "Epidemiology"

OCTOBER 28, 2010

GENRE: COMEDIC, ZOMBIE

SOURCE: TELEVISION (NBC)

My buddy Mike suggested on Twitter that I review tonight’s episode of Community for my HMAD, and after watching it (he was on the East coast and got to see it 3 hrs earlier, the jerk!), I realized how right he was. Not only is it a legit zombie “movie”, but it’s also a way for me to help spread a little love for the show, which I often have no place to do so beyond Twitter.

If you haven’t been watching Community (and based on the ratings, no, you haven’t), it’s a single-camera comedy not unlike Arrested Development or 30 Rock, where it feels more like a real show than a staged sitcom with canned or studio audience laugh tracks (i.e. Big Bang Theory, its now-timeslot rival that I’ve tried to watch a few times over the years and just cannot fathom why it’s even still on the air, let alone hugely popular). And that approach makes episodes like tonight’s work like aces, because you can turn it on for a second and think you were watching an actual zombie movie.

The show, usually, concerns a group of folks who shared a Spanish class in season 1 (this year it’s anthropology) and formed a study group. 99% of the time they don’t seem to even have their books out, let alone be studying in any meaningful way, but the show is very much a college based show – they rarely leave the campus and many of the plotlines revolve around either a new class or a campus event (such as tonight’s). Our lead character is Jeff (Joel McHale), a lawyer who got disbarred for having a fake degree. The other folks are the typical varied lot – the cute blonde who Jeff (at least initially) had a crush on (The Box’s Gillian Jacobs), an old man seeking a new lease on life (Chevy Chase – hence why I started watching it in the first place), a Ken Jeong type actually played by Ken Jeong... it’s a really great ensemble and the best episodes give everyone a moment to shine.

But it’s also kind of a weird show, which probably doesn’t help its ratings. Like 30 Rock, the jokes can be very obscure or just plain random, and it can be uneven at times in terms of the humor. Because the show’s creators put so much effort into making fully realized characters and kooky but plausible stories, sometimes there’s not a lot of room left for laugh out loud jokes, relying instead on the occasional sight gag or just the sheer absurdity of the situation. So there might be an episode where you don’t laugh very much, but it doesn’t make it a bad episode by any means – if anything it just proves how much richer a show it is overall. However, I can see how this might turn someone off, especially with “easier” fare airing on the other channel, with helpful prompts telling you when to laugh.

Tonight’s had a number of laughs though. Chevy dressed as Captain Kirk, which allowed for a couple of zings at William Shatner’s expense, and the other costumes all paved the way for a few jokes apiece (“Why did I think this was a good idea?”). The writers also played with the conventions of horror movies, featuring a cat that was seemingly hellbent on jumping out at our hero at every turn, and careful viewers will note the homages in most of the “death” scenes, which often paid tribute to zombie movie classics.

And even better, it wasn’t all a dream or a fantasy scenario, like something from Scrubs. No, due to ingesting some government research matter that looked a lot like the surplus ration meat that the Dean bought at a discount for the annual Halloween party, everyone got “infected” and began biting each other, which would spread the infection. And the end had a goofy but still not completely out-there explanation that will allow everyone to not only survive but pretty much forget the whole affair, without erasing the existence of the event entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the stuff came back into play in future episodes (i.e. Troy’s voicemail during the end credits).

So check the episode out on Hulu, and if you’re still not convinced, I urge you to watch “The Psychology Of Letting Go”, which aired a couple weeks ago. Not only is it one of the show’s best episodes, but it also makes a perfect example for how rich the show is with details – keep an eye on the background (perhaps watch a 2nd time, or if you missed it and don’t have time, google “Community Abed Background” (no quotes) and see what you missed). The show does OK enough in the ratings to stay on the air, but it would be really nice if a “smart” comedy could match its critical praise with ratings for once.

What say you?

P.S. This episode also had a reference to The Human Centipede. I guarantee you, no other show on the air this week can claim that.

A properly functioning library

Knowing what you know about me, how I'm meticulous/anal about keeping movie lists, it may surprise you to know that I don't actually have a list of all the movies I own on DVD.

Or, I should say, didn't, until yesterday.

Upon getting home from work, I piled stacks of DVDs and other disc-sized formats next to me and inputted them into a spreadsheet. It was long overdue, you will agree.

What prompted the project was that I realized I had six different movies loaned out to three different people. Many more, and I'd start losing track of what was where.

And loaning movies to people is one of the primary practical usages I get out of having a film library. Sure, I watch the titles in my own collection from time to time, less frequently than I probably thought I would when I bought most of them. So the value of these movies, in terms of earning their keep by getting watched semi-regularly, is in loaning them out to people, introducing people to (what I consider to be) great works of art they may not be familiar with. I share that mission statement with all the public and private libraries around the country, indeed, around the world.

So I decided it was time to get my library in order, so I knew what I actually had in my inventory (there were some surprises, believe me), and didn't forget which movie I'd loaned to whom. (I created a column to indicate the current status.) There would be no fee for late returns -- I have a friend who's had two of my favorite movies borrowed for going on 18 months -- but at least I'd have a system to help repossess the DVDs in question, at some point in the future.

It actually didn't take very long, an hour all told.

In recent days I had estimated I owned about 100 DVDs. And so I guess I was a wee bit disappointed when there were only 84 titles entered after all the dust had settled. (For the purposes of this discussion, let's exclude the various TV shows, short films, comedy concerts, sports championship videos and other non-movie DVDs that are in our collection.) Hey, I have been trying not to buy so much in the interest of saving money, for going on three to four years now.

The good thing about having only 84 titles means that it's not too many to list on a blog. And so list them I will, guilty pleasures and all. In a way, this could be helping you understand where I'm coming from, cinematically, better than anything I've written here before. What says more about our movie tastes than the movies we've chosen to own? Of course, collections can be diluted by movies that have been given to us as gifts -- we may not love or even like them, but here they are, part of the whole. Also, some movies we love are not necessarily movies we want to own, because their subject matter may have made them difficult enough to sit through the first time.

But I won't bore you with excuses. If you hate any of the movies you see on this list, well, that was probably the one someone gave me as a present. ;-)

Without further ado, here is a complete list of the movies owned by my wife and me, the majority of which are "mine" and a smaller quantity "hers":

300 (2007, Zack Snyder)
The 13th Warrior (1999, John McTiernan)
8 Mile (2002, Curtis Hanson)
Almost Famous (2000, Cameron Crowe)
Amreeka (2009, Cherien Dabis)
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009, Sacha Gervasi)
Bedazzled (2000, Harold Ramis)
The Bourne Identity (2002, Doug Liman)
Bowling for Columbine (2002, Michael Moore)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992, Francis Ford Coppola)
The Cable Guy (1996, Ben Stiller)
The Cell (2000, Tarsem Singh)
Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuaron)
A Christmas Carol (1984, Clive Donner)
Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
Code 46 (2003, Michael Winterbottom)
The Dark Knight (2006, Christopher Nolan)
Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly)
Easier With Practice (2009, Kyle Patrick Alvarez)
Election (1999, Alexander Payne)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry)
Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996)
Fathers' Day (1997, Ivan Reitman)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001, Hironobu Sakaguchi)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988, Charles Crichton)
Flirting With Disaster (1996, David O. Russell)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1995, Mike Newell)
The Full Monty (1997, Peter Cattaneo)
Gentleman's Agreement (1947, Elia Kazan)
Get Christie Love! (1974, William A. Graham)
Ghostbusters II (1989, Ivan Reitman)
The Girl Next Door (2004, Luke Greenfield)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, James Foley)
The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
The Guru (2003, Daisy von Scherler Mayer)
Hair (Milos Forman, 1979)
Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino)
Intermission (2003, John Crowley)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973, Norman Jewison)
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino)
Kissing Jessica Stein (2002, Charles Herman-Wurmfeld)
L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)
The Lady Vanishes (1939, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Lives of Others (2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
The Living Wake (2007, Sol Tryon)
Lost in Translation (2003, Sofia Coppola)
Memento (2001, Christopher Nolan)
The Messenger (2009, Oren Moverman)
Misery (1990, Rob Reiner)
Moon (2009, Duncan Jones)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004, Jared Hess)
North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
Once (2007, John Carney)
The Others (2001, Alejandro Amenabar)
Paprika (2006, Satoshi Kon)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006, Tom Tykwer)
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (2009, Lee Daniels)
The Quiet Earth (1985, Geoff Murphy)
Raising Arizona (1987, Joel Coen)
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008, Darren Lynn Bousman)
The Ring (2003, Gore Verbinski)
Run Lola Run (1999, Tom Tykwer)
The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
Sideways (2004, Alexander Payne)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)
Southland Tales (2007, Richard Kelly)
Superman: The Movie (1978, Richard Donner)
Superman II (1980, Richard Lester)
Superman III (1983, Richard Lester)
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987, Sidney J. Furie)
Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, James Cameron)
Thelma & Louise (1991, Ridley Scott)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984, Rob Reiner)
Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter)
Up (2009, Pete Docter)
Vanilla Sky (2001, Cameron Crowe)
The Vicious Kind (2009, Lee Toland Krieger)
Wake in Fright (1971, Ted Kotcheff)
Waking Life (2001, Richard Linklater)
War of the Worlds (2005, Steven Spielberg)
WarGames (1983, John Badham)
When Harry Met Sally ... (1989, Rob Reiner)
Where the Wild Things Are (2009, Spike Jonze)
Wonder Boys (2000, Curtis Hanson)

Whew.

Some other stats that may interest you:

Breakdown of formats: 74 DVDs, four BluRays, two HD DVDs and two Region 4 DVDs. That's right, my wife bought an HD DVD player a couple years ago on the cheap as a replacement for our broken DVD player, which is how we ended up with 300 and The Bourne Identity, two films I don't care about all that much. They were sent to us free with the player. Also, we can't watch Ghostbusters II and Wake in Fright because my wife's sister and father (respectively) gave them to her on Region 4, that being all that was available to them in Australia.

Breakdown of "ownership": 57 movies originally owned/purchased/received as a gift by me, 22 DVDs originally owned/purchased/received as a gift by my wife, and only five that are best described as "mutually owned"

Broad genre breakdown: 12 Action Adventure, 5 Animated, 1 Christmas, 19 Comedy, 2 Costume Drama, 2 Documentary, 29 Drama, 7 Horror, 4 Musical, 4 Suspense

Multiple copies owned: Raising Arizona, one standalone and one as part of a three-pack with The Full Monty and Fargo (great three-pack, eh?)

Multi-packs owned: The aformentioned three-pack, and a package of all four Supermen, which is the only reason imaginable for a person to own Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Director most represented: A tie between Curtis Hanson (8 Mile, L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Rob Reiner (Misery, This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally ...)

Year most represented: 2009, with 10 (Amreeka, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Easier With Practice, Inglourious Basterds, The Messenger, Moon, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, Up, The Vicious Kind)

However, that's primarily because ...

Movies received for free as screeners because of my wife's involvement with Film Independent: Amreeka, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Easier With Practice, The Messenger, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, The Vicious Kind

Movies we own that I haven't seen: Get Christie Love! (a blaxploitation film given to me by my wife as sort of a joke), The Lady Vanishes (watched two minutes once but was then distracted and never returned -- I saw little enough of it that I didn't feel "committed" yet), Wake in Fright (see aforementioned DVD region problem)

Movies gifted to us as a joke, though in some cases I may actually like them: Get Christie Love!, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Southland Tales

Movies you'd think I'd own, but don't: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, National Lampoon's Animal House, Three Kings, Toy Story 2, Galaxy Quest, Dumb and Dumber, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Unforgiven (just to name a few)

Oldest movie we own: The Lady Vanishes (1939)

Newest movie we own: Easier With Practice (2009, though the film actually had a theatrical release this year despite being nominated for an Independent Spirit Award last year)

Movies currently "checked out" from the library: Children of Men, Code 46, Donnie Darko, Glengarry Glen Ross, Moon, Run Lola Run

Had about enough of my library for one day? Okay.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it -- what you're glad to see included, what you think sucks, anything you might want to comment on. After all, this is another practical function of having a film library: sharing its contents with the world. At least virtually, in the cases where I can't do it physically.