Don't Go Near The Park (1982)

DECEMBER 31, 2010

GENRE: CANNIBAL, SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

For whatever reason, I was under the impression that Don't Go Near The Park was a Last House On The Left ripoff or something along those lurid lines, and almost considered watching something else for the day since my wife was around and she gets upset with those sort of things. So I decided to check, saw that it involved a 12,000 year old curse, and figured it was 'safe'. And thus, I am happy to report that it was a gloriously way to close out another year of HMAD, as it was not without some sleaze, but was 82 minutes of pure nonsensical entertainment.

While most films are content with a sole "_____ years ago" in its first 10 minutes, Park has two, and then leaves it up to our imagination/logical deduction powers to figure out the other time periods that are depicted until we finally catch up to the present day (a half hour into the movie!). The 12,000 years ago one shows some cavemen arguing with their elder, who puts a curse on them, which is fine, but it's the second title card-ed period ("Sixteen years ago") that really kicks things off, as we see one of our cavemen (who is immortal as long as he disembowels and eats a young girl every now and then) stalk Linnea Quigley and then rent a room at her home. After she discovers he's a murderer, she instantly falls in love with him, they get married, she has their kid, their marriage deteriorates, and we see that he dotes on the daughter. Again, this is all the first half hour of the movie.

So now the girl is 16, and after her parents have a hilarious fight during her birthday party (the guests all awkwardly leaving as she cries), she runs away and meets up with some other runaways in Griffith Park. From there the plot continues to get more convoluted, and to make up for the head-scratching elements, writers Lawrence D. Foldes (who also produced and directed) and Linwood Chase occasionally toss in some T&A, largely courtesy of Tamara Taylor, playing the 16 year old (19 in real life, thankfully). Foldes and Chase play a pair of would-be rapists who paw at her, she falls for a guy named Cowboy who goes to 2nd with her about 17 seconds after they first meet (and later gets it on with for real), her dad rips her clothes off near the end (purportedly to sacrifice her to end his curse, but it comes off more like he's trying to rape her). Hell, even the little runaway kid she bonds with cops a feel while she's sleeping, and when she shrieks he offers "I didn't know you were alive!" as an excuse. Like I said, the movie is lightly sleazy, but mostly it's just that special sort of batshit nonsense that I love.

I mean, it's only 82 minutes long, but we get all of the above and more - at one point, reporter Aldo Ray goes on and on about the history of Griffith Park. And there are a number of out of nowhere situations, like when some dude tries to mug the little kid, or a girl looking for her dog (curiously named "Starshine"). Plus a parade of some sort, and then, in a plot twist of some sort, we find out our immortal cannibals also have laser eyes! Hell, zombies even make an appearance in the final moments! It's cinematic stew - just toss in whatever you got, as long as there's some sort of center that folks can latch onto.

The one thing it DOESN'T have an abundance of is legit horror scenes. There's a few of the afore-mentioned stomach eating scenes, but they're all the same and the effects are too terrible for them to be enjoyed from a technical viewpoint. The zombies (!) don't show up until the very end, and a lot of subplots and characters (Linnea Quigley, for example) just disappear rather than end in another kill. I kept thinking Quigley would come back into the movie, but nope, she argues with the caveman dad and is never seen again. But honestly, I was too busy laughing or yelling "HUH?" at the screen to really notice until it was over. "Hey, was that even really a horror movie?" Good thing it had the zombies.

Of almost equal entertainment value is the commentary by Foldes and Quigley, moderated by Dark Sky DVD features guru David Gregory. Foldes has a really pleasant and young-sounding voice - he sounds like a PR rep or something, which just makes his often tasteless stories and anecdotes all the more hilarious. He randomly begins discussing Aldo Ray's drinking problem, gleefully points out that "as the director I got to cop a feel", and at the very end confesses that he wanted to jump Quigley's bones. He also more or less admits that the film existed solely to fit the needs of a few investors and try to make everyone some money, which might explain the film's record number of plot elements and out of nowhere actions (the laser eyes, for example - you can almost hear a producer saying "Hey, we need some sci-fi in there to make an extra 10% on foreign sales!"). There are a number of gaps in the track though; not sure if it's because they had to remove some comments or if they were just as momentarily stunned by the movie as I often was.

The rest of the extras aren't as entertaining. The "gore outtakes" are completely worthless, it's just a bunch of holding on shots of blood dripping from a wound or something. There's a lengthy deleted/extended scene piece that runs about 25 minutes, but half of that is just footage from the movie that they left in for context (or pure laziness). Most of the scenes are pretty worthless - most of it consists of Bondi and the other runaways talking, though there's a full frontal shot of Quigley that will be of interest to her fans. On the commentary, they discuss their guerrilla style shooting of a scene in front of Mann's Chinese, but the scene was cut from the film and doesn't appear here, which is a shame as it was pretty impressive how they pulled it off (even posting some ADs with 8x11 sheets of paper saying "By entering this area you consent to being filmed" at the sides of the area to cover themselves legally). The final extra is the film's rather misleading trailer, which makes it look like a full blown zombie film ("Zombie on a rampage of blood and terror!" - in the movie they wake up, move about 7 feet to the left, and kill the bad guy. Some rampage.), though I wouldn't envy someone who had to make a legit trailer for this movie that depicted its actual plot.

If you notice, I have added the label Video Nasties for this review and will go back and add it where appropriate for the others. Partially spurned on by Jake West's documentary that I saw at Frightfest, my goal for 2011 is to see all of the Video Nasties that I haven't already, because I'm pretty tickled by what made the list. This movie is pretty tame compared to say, Pieces, an equally batshit but far more gruesome film that was NOT on the list. But also, I was given the 3 disc set to review and I realized that I couldn't because they kept spoiling all of the movies on the bonus features (which, given the doc's brief length, the bonus features are sort of the meat of the release). So once I see them all, I can finally write my review - hopefully by the time it sees release in the US (as of now it's not available on Region 1 disc). Hopefully I can do it; I'm sure some of these movies are no longer available (or never were) on DVD and thus VHS will be expensive. And I want to stick to legitimate releases, so don't offer your bootlegs.

What say you?

Comparing 2010 and 2010

Yesterday, I finally finished watching a movie I started watching 20 years ago.

And in the process, took a break from watching 2010 movies to watch the original 2010 movie -- Peter Hyams' 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

It took me 20 years to watch the damn thing because of the abrupt tonal shift that occurs at about the movie's five-minute mark. If that seems like a ridiculous juncture for a "tonal shift," read on.

When I was growing up, we had a copy of 2010 on VHS, which my mom had recorded off cable, as she was wont to do. I watched the opening five minutes numerous times, because it scared the piss out of me. It contains a report on the failed Discovery mission depicted in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, with computer text steadily typing itself over still images from Kubrick's film. I was entranced not only by these ominous images of monoliths and the poor astronauts killed or otherwise compromised by HAL-9000, but also by the haunting choral music, and the cold deadness of the report's conclusions: "Status of the Discovery ... Unknown. Meaning of David Bowman's last transmission ... Unknown. Location of Bowman ... Unknown (Presumed Dead)."

Creepy shit. But not nearly as creepy as that last transmission itself: "My God, it's full of stars." That's the first thing you hear in 2010, before seeing any images, and it's warped by the degraded quality of the voice data, making it extra chilling. (Incidentally, I now have a clearer picture of where this opening came from -- it's more or less stolen from Outland, which I saw earlier this fall and which was also directed by Peter Hyams. The opening to that film contains the same kind of bottom-line report data over chilling images of outer space exploration.)

You'd think an opening like this would rope me in for the whole movie, even 20 years ago, when I was not yet the cineaste I am today. But after the report ends, the credits start, and the familiar strains of Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" hit your ear drums and travel quickly down your spine, 2010 thuds back to Earth. It doesn't stay on Earth for long -- in fact, as I was watching yesterday, I was surprised to discover that I had a very wrong impression about how long it would be before the movie would return to space: something like ten minutes of screen time. But those ten minutes were enough to turn off the teenage version of me. There's an energy-sapping scene in which Roy Scheider's Dr. Heywood Floyd is addressed by a Russian scientist while working on a satellite dish, and this is when I would always turn 2010 off. As soon as they exchanged spooky space for broad daylight, I lost interest.

But I decided that the year 2010 arriving definitely meant it was time to watch 2010, and needless to say, I was running out of days to do it. I got it from Netflix last week, and when my wife went to the movies yesterday afternoon following my early release from work, I settled in for the final 109 minutes of 2010 during baby duty.

I'm not here today to tell you how good 2010 was or wasn't -- whether it delivered on even an ounce of the promise of that chilling opening. Because you might like to know anyway, I will tell you briefly that it's a decent movie if you are not comparing it to 2001. It's leagues more accessible than 2001, which is both a good thing and a bad thing -- ultimately, a lot more of a bad thing. For starters, there's some really terrible narration by Scheider at various points, which is not only on-the-nose, but his voice echoes in a very cheesy, space-opera kind of way. Then there's the little problem of the film's ridiculous ending. But there's also a lot of tension-filled danger-in-space shit, as well as a welcome appearance by Keir Dullea from 2001, looking as creepy and ethereal as he ever did. Plus, the special effects are pretty darn good for the year 1984. So, let's call 2010 a mixed bag.

No, what really interests me, and what allows me to turn this into a New Year's Eve "looking back at the year" piece, is how close they got to being right with their predictions about the year 2010. I took notes on the difference between our 2010 and the one depicted in the movie -- should we look at a few examples?

1. U.S. Foreign Policy
Their 2010: The United States of 2010 is still deeply entrenched in the Cold War, involved in a case of brinksmanship with the Russians that involves a Naval blockade off the coast of Ecuador (of all places).
Our 2010: Our United States is deeply entrenched in the war on terror, a war that has several fronts (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan), but its biggest case of naval brinksmanship involves the North Koreans and their nuclear testing.
Conclusion: Fears of nuclear annihilation are still high, even if the enemy is different.

2. The President of the United States
Their 2010: A never-seen conservative hawk who is described as "reactionary," "not into health food" and having "his finger poised on the button."
Our 2010: Barack Obama is a liberal -- though not as much of one as we may have originally thought -- who is trying to wipe out nuclear weapons in our lifetime.
Conclusion: Although Obama is in shape, he definitely likes his hamburgers, and I believe he probably still sneaks the occasional cigarette. So a health nut he is not. And some would say he is "reactionary," in the sense that he's quick to scrap some of his core principles in the interest of compromise. Whether you think that's a good thing or not is another issue.

3. Area of space exploration
Their 2010: Jupiter is the focus of all space activities thanks to the monolith, whose mysteries have dominated the resources and research of all space programs in all countries since the events of nine years earlier.
Our 2010: Although George Bush pledged to put men back on the moon, humans aren't very busy in space these days. The big NASA news of 2010 revolves around a different planet, Mars, where NASA engineers dropped bombs into craters to kick up plumes of vapor, intended to determine the presence of ice, and therefore, water. (I was having trouble finding the exact date or details online, so, to all you space buffs out there, please forgive any inaccuracies in the previous sentence.)
Conclusion: We don't care nearly as much about space as they once thought we would. It's the economy, stupid.

4. Status of major aeronautics company
Their 2010: "At PanAm, the sky is no longer the limit," says a TV commercial, advertising space travel through the company we would have known for their commercial airline travel: Pan American World Airways, as its full title was.
Our 2010: PanAm has not been in operation for the past 19 years.
Conclusion: The company this movie thought was poised to be the face of commercial aeronautics, well into the future, folded only seven years after the movie was released.

5. Status of the ballpark in Houston
Their 2010: Heywood Floyd (Scheider) and Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) discuss missing the taste of a hot dog. Curnow talks about the best dogs coming from the Astrodome in Houston, though Floyd prefers Yankee Stadium.
Our 2010: The Astrodome stopped being used by football's Houston Oilers in 1996 and baseball's Houston Astros in 1999. It hasn't been demolished, but there is currently a discussion of what to do with it, with the most recent proposal being to turn it into a movie studio. Where they would probably not sell hot dogs.
Conclusion: They couldn't have known in 1984 that almost all the existing baseball stadiums would be replaced in the next 26 years, least of all the Astrodome, which probably seemed state-of-the-art at the time. Even Yankee Stadium has been replaced -- though the new one is also called Yankee Stadium.

6. Status of bioscan technology
Their 2010: Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban) activates a sophisticated government computer by using a scan of his hand to verify his identity.
Our 2010: I scan my thumb when I go to the gym.
Conclusion: Is the future a lot more futuristic than we ever thought it would be?

7. Virus technology
Their 2010: Dr. Chandra sends what he calls a "tapeworm" into the memory banks of HAL-9000, to destroy "unwanted memories."
Our 2010: Viruses enter our computers all the time, destroying things we actually want.
Conclusion: Advantage: Their 2010.

8. Signs that you're well off, financially
Their 2010: The Floyds own dolphins, who live in their indoor pool.
Our 2010: Home dolphin ownership is still a thing of the future, but if you're really cool, you now own a 3D TV.
Conclusion: I would probably rather watch images jump out of my TV screen than get to look at dolphins every day.

9. Portable computing
Their 2010: Floyd types on a computer on the beach, clunky though it may be.
Our 2010: We can take our laptops with us to the beach, if we aren't worried about sand gumming up the works.
Conclusion: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a match!

10. Number of suns
Their 2010: Two. At the end of the movie, Jupiter explodes, or something (it's hard to tell exactly), and a second sun is created in its aftermath, appearing as a smaller but still very bright light in the sky visible from Earth. Something to do with aliens, I think.
Our 2010: One.
Conclusion: Sorry to spoil the ending for you. But it's so stupid, I had to get it in there somewhere.

Bonus: HALs
Their 2010: HAL-9000.
Our 2010: Hal Sparks.
Conclusion: Sorry, that was the best I could come up with.

One final note regarding the year 2010. At the start of the year I wrote about not being sure what I wanted to call this year -- actually, by arguing in a January 5th post that we should call this year "two thousand ten" because we had always called the movie "Two Thousand Ten: The Year We Make Contact." Now that I've gotten to the other side, I feel the "twenty urge" building up inside of me. Although I've still heard as many people call 2010 "two thousand ten" as "twenty ten," I think the shift is really on for 2011, which will probably be referred to as "twenty eleven" by most people. Including, I think, me. I know, the firm "thousandaire" described in that post may be converting to a "twentier."

Well, happy twenty eleven or two thousand eleven or 2011 to all of you. See you back here next year.

Killing Ariel (2008)

DECEMBER 30, 2010

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

There’s a good movie somewhere in Killing Ariel, but the muddled and repetitive script keeps it from ever rising to the surface. The film boasts two directors, which is perfect for the film’s ultimate problem – it lacks a coherent vision. It tries to be a psychological-based tale AND a supernatural one, and in trying to combine both ends up succeeding at neither.

The main problem is that there are too many timelines. We start in 1933, then flash to the present day as our hero Rick is about to tell his psychiatrist something that happened in 1973. Now, actor Michael Brainard has the ‘unfortunate’ benefit of not looking his age, so this was a bit confusing – he’s supposed to be about 45 (and in real life he was) but he looked like he was in his 30s to me, so they probably should have cast an older actor or changed the opening date to 1943. I’d actually go with the latter, as Brainard’s actually pretty good in the role, and makes the character sympathetic despite the fact that the movie is basically about him cheating on his wife. Also, when he goes nuts in the 2nd half of the film, he reminded me of the best Michael Keaton performances, where he’s unhinged but still likable. Good work, sir.

But back to the timeline issues, it's not just the awkward transition from one to the other - it gets even worse. At one point, Brainard (in a flashback) reads a diary entry, and in that diary entry, the author has a flashback! So its 2008, and a guy is telling his shrink about the time in 1973 that he read a diary entry from 1933 about something that happened a few years before. Jesus Christ. Now I know how people must have felt if they tried watching a season 5 episode of Lost without ever having the show before.

Adding to the confusion is the old movie standby of “is he crazy or is this happening?”, exacerbated by the fact that the plot is, as the title suggests, about killing Ariel. It’s not a spoiler, Ariel just won’t stay dead. So he kills her over and over again (or DID HE?), and she comes back over and over in turn; sometimes as if nothing happens, other times taunting him, and eventually talking to him as a disembodied head. Also, sometimes it’s played for laughs (Evil Dead 2 came to mind more than once), other times it’s straight up psychological thriller. The tone in this movie is as erratic as its timeframe.

But then the twist (of course there’s a twist) came around, and it was a really good one that I neither saw coming nor can recall being used before, at least on a specific level. Unfortunately, its impact is lessened by the director’s insistence on closing the film with another “scare”, which renders the explanation potentially false. I can’t think of any off hand, but I know it’s not the first time I’ve seen this sort of “have their cake and eat it too” ending in a horror movie, and it annoys me every time. One or the other is great/acceptable; both is annoying.

Also, the girl playing Ariel is cute and unabashedly naked quite often, but is not the best actress. She’s supposed to be an exotic “perfect” woman and thus she has an accent and looks like she could be several nationalities, but her limited acting range and lack of chemistry with Brainard is damaging at times. It’s her first movie so I won’t hold it against her, but I couldn’t help but think if the movie would have improved with someone more experienced (if anything, she should be stealing scenes from Brainard, and not just with her breasts). They also could have used more scenes with Brainard’s family, since they are crucial to the film’s final scenes but largely forgotten about by the time they got there; I actually forgot he even had a son for a few minutes.

Another item for the "pro" column - it's a horror film shot in/around Los Angeles featuring a hospital, but it's NOT the Linda Vista. Thank you, filmmakers.

The disc’s sole extra beyond some trailers is a pretty decent behind the scenes that largely focuses on stuff we don’t see too often, namely the rehearsal process and how two directors work together (one handles the actors, one handles the technical stuff, at least they claim – we see the ‘actor’ director explaining where the camera should be at one point). Some of it is the usual boring stuff about applying makeup or whatever, and it could have used some interview pieces, but it’s a bit better than the average indie making of piece (in that it’s watchable).

It’s not a very long movie (85 minutes) so it’s not a question of editing; this movie needs “alternative” scenes to operate at 100% capacity. A little less time with the Killing Ariel stuff (or the pointless epilogue), and a little more time with the family and perhaps showing us “what really happened” in clearer detail at the end, and you’d have a really solid and fairly original flick. Points for trying though.

What say you?

Jeff Bridges in duplicate - or is it triplicate?

There may be no greater measure of an actor's heat than that he appears in two of the most anticipated movies of the same holiday season.

For Jeff Bridges, that's Tron: Legacy and True Grit, alphabetized consecutively and released five days apart.

Last night, I saw them both.

Now, I'm not usually big on giving themes to my theatrical double features -- you know, where you pay for the first and sneak into the second. In fact, the more incongruous, the better. On the one hand, these two films are pretty incongruous -- one is futuristic while the other is steeped in the past. (Perhaps the two would meet in Cowboys vs. Aliens, whose trailer I saw before Tron.) However, they do both star Bridges, so that's a theme if I've ever heard one. And since he actually plays two characters in Tron, it was a triple dose of Bridges, rather than a double.

So I thought I'd take you into the experience of watching four straight hours of Jeff Bridges, accompanied by the smattering of atmospheric details you know and love me for (ha ha).

For starters, these were both movies I had expected to see before now. My wife and I had brainstormed a Tron screening for before Christmas, but scrapped the plan when we heard it wasn't great, deciding we'd be better off using our precious babysitting time to get dinner. And I actually went up to a friend's house on the night before our dinner date, expecting to watch True Grit, but was foiled when his screener copy wouldn't play in his player. So I thought I'd take care of both in one fell swoop last night.

It was going to be a tight squeeze. Tron: Legacy in 3D began at 8:10 and was supposed to run for 125 minutes. Exactly 125 minutes later, True Grit would start at 10:15. If Tron started late or had an excessive number of ads and trailers -- which it did -- it would definitely start to cut into True Grit. On the other hand, the less time between films meant the less time to twiddle my thumbs, and the sooner I'd get home to bed, which already figured to be a ways past midnight on a school night. (I'd heard enough bad about Tron that I had resigned myself to not seeing it in 3D, but it was the 3D screening whose times matched up with True Grit.)

My Jeff Bridges double feature got off to an appropriate start when I heard his voice in an ad I saw on TV about 15 minutes before leaving. What is Bridges advertising these days? Hyundai?

Having done a couple shushes of the baby, I started to get myself ready. With double features it's important to stock up on snacks, both to fend off hunger and to help keep you occupied if sleep threatens to overtake you. So I grabbed a fleece with an inner lining perfectly suited for contraband food, and filled that lining with a miniature can of Coke, a Red Bull, a bag of Planters trail mix (with nuts, raisins and M&Ms), and a small box of Toy Story tart candy I'd gotten in my stocking. I had plans for everything -- the Coke with my popcorn during Tron, then the trail mix and Red Bull in True Grit, followed by the Toy Story candy (if necessary) and the box of Altoids I always carry with me (if really necessary). Now the only issue was smuggling them in, a task that usually involves a backpack that the ticket takers never question. Relying only on the fleece, I thought I looked a little lumpy, but no one batted an eye. Which is lucky, because a guy next to me was denied when he tried to openly bring in outside food.

Tron: Legacy did not start until almost 8:30. With each new trailer that started, I became a bit more agitated, a bit more certain that I'd miss a minute or two of True Grit. But when it did start, my agitation turned quickly into exhilaration.

Simply put, the first 45 minutes to an hour of Tron is enthralling. If that's been lost in the negative press about Tron, it shouldn't be. Pretty much the whole "real world" portion that occurs before Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) enters the Grid is fun to watch, and the first introductions to the Grid simply floored me -- first the transports floating back and forth, then the exciting disc matches, then the light cycles. The light cycle sequence kicked in right as my favorite song from the Daft Punk soundtrack kicked in, and let's just say I was in a state of exquisite bliss about the whole experience of Tron -- and loving the fact that I'd decided to go 3D, which I thought was looking damn good (contrary to what I'd heard).

One of the things I thought was so cool about it (at that point) was how violent it was allowed to be, for a Disney movie. Because these were computer programs and not real "humans," they could be smashed, sliced, and obliterated into digital oblivion, without it qualifying as violence in the traditional sense of blood and guts. But they were still viscerally affecting kills, exciting and full of danger -- which seemed like Disney really pushing its own envelope in a surprising way.

Then ... well, then the second half of Tron: Legacy takes over. Convoluted plots. Unclear character motivations. Cheesy dialogue reflective of a highly uneven tone. Every sin of narrative filmmaking you want, you can find in the second half of Tron. The film is an unquestionable visual triumph -- even the digital Clu character, modeled after a young version of Bridges, is a reasonably special effect. But the visuals are not enough to sustain things when they get wacky and unfocused in the second half. Novice director Joseph Kosinski, who has a visual effects background, knows how to create this world, but not how to populate it. His direction of the actors, especially Hedlund, is amateurish to indifferent, and it leaves the movie surprisingly low on stakes. After awhile you just forget who is going where, and why.

So I was pretty eager to beat feet out of there as soon as the first end credit appeared. I'd normally stay through the credits, especially since they were likely to be handled with style in a film like this. But I could just feel True Grit beginning in the theater two doors down, so I made a hasty exit.

I do double features at this theater because you only have to get past one ticket taker, then you're free to roam wherever you want. It was the return of the 3D glasses that I thought might compromise my attempt to see the second film. If I had to go all the way back out to the ticket taker, he'd then expect me to leave. So I thought I'd just leave my 3D glasses on the seat. The watchful eyes of an usher made me think twice about that, so I scooped them back up and figured it was time to improvise. Fortunately, I didn't have to, as a trio of ushers were positioned to take back the glasses directly outside the theater. Once I'd returned mine, they no longer had interest in me, and I barely even needed to slip into the bathroom to throw them off my scent. So I spent about five seconds in the bathroom and quickly scurried into True Grit.

The timing was perfect. Assuming there was no action prior to the credits, I didn't miss a moment.

But then the problem became that I was getting pretty tired, and had already made quite a dent in my supplies. Needing help to keep from falling asleep in Tron's second half, I'd made an early entry into the trail mix and taken a sizeable chunk out of it. (Once I got the taste, it was like opening a bag of irresistible potato chips.) Less than 30 minutes into True Grit I'd finished it, and the Red Bull didn't sustain me as long as I'd hoped it would. The Toy Story candy was probably gone with at least 45 minutes still remaining.

And so predictably, I had a tough time staying awake during True Grit. I'd like to think that if I were really into it, this wouldn't have been an issue. But I wasn't really into it, and I think that's an assessment I could make independent of my current state of exhaustion. I just wasn't very interested by the characters or the plot of True Grit. I didn't know entirely what to expect, having never seen the original, but I figured it would probably be in the same dark territory as the Coens' sort-of western No Country for Old Men. I could have used some of that darkness in True Grit. A lot more scenes than I expected were played for humor, and I wasn't getting the revisionist western vibe of a film like Unforgiven (my favorite western of all time), in which the whole system of revenge and violence is called into question.

To be fair, it was hardest to stay awake during the quiet moments. For example, there was a scene by a campfire in which it seems that Rooster Cogburn (Bridges), LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) and Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) all bear their souls in a way that might have invested me more in their characters. But I was having particular trouble staying awake during that scene, try as I might to slap some vigor into myself. Someone who saw this movie on a full tank, please tell me -- did I miss something? Or is it just not that interesting, all told?

I think the movie did have some of Unforgiven's revisionist tendencies -- for example, we first "meet" Rooster when Mattie introduces herself to him while he's sitting on the can in an outhouse. Then there's the fact that Josh Brolin's character, introduced very late in the film, isn't the menacing personification of evil you're meant to believe he is -- just a regular old good-for-nothing loser. If we were meant to see this as a film in which everything is life-sized and underwhelming, as a very specific critique of Hollywood's method of portraying heroes and villains, it was not clear enough to me that this was the intention. Therefore, it just seemed like a sort of pale version of a Hollywood western. Then again, I am on record having concerns with the Coens in some of their recent films, most notably Burn After Reading.

I was disgorged from the second movie thinking I had lost probably no more than five minutes all told to sleep, but they were five key minutes dispersed at unfortunate times, which kept me from ever getting into True Grit's groove.

It's funny because only just the day before, I was having a discussion with a friend about how our appreciation of movies is very dependent on the circumstances under which we see them. The topic came up in the context of The Fighter, which is what we watched at my friend's house last week when the True Grit screener wouldn't play. We started it at nearly 10, and the pull of sleep was undoubtedly a factor in my underwhelming opinion of that film. So it may be the same with True Grit -- maybe if I saw it under better circumstances I'd feel more fondly toward it. Unfortunately, I may not prioritize that second viewing, and True Grit could just end up being a missed opportunity for me.

Oh well. I had to do it for the Bridges double (triple) feature. And because it's so rare, in the baby era, that I can carve out theater time, getting in two at once not only maximizes my money, but also my time.

And what did I think of Bridges overall? As I said, I thought the Clu character was a pretty advanced creation -- you could tell it wasn't a real human, but they're getting better and better at these things. His vocal work was certainly good in the role. As the human Flynn trapped in the Grid, Bridges was a bit more disinterested -- it was hard to really sympathize with him. Plus, there were times when he seemed to be inexplicably sinister, which didn't really make sense. As Rooster Cogburn, he's fine, doing his drunken pot-shotting and marble-mouthed old-westing. But nothing special. About what I would expect.

Then again, I wasn't much of a fan of Crazy Heart, either -- the role that catapulted Bridges back into the prominence that allowed me to see him twice in the theater last night.

Or, three times.

Sssssss (1973)

DECEMBER 29, 2010

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, MUTANT

SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Sometimes, I’d rather watch a flat out shit film than one that was just ‘off’, because it’s too frustrating to see cool ideas and scenarios botched by a terrible pace or nonsensical censorship. Sssssss is one such film; the concept is awesome and even scary, but the film’s piss-poor structure keeps it from being a winner; if I had any power at all, I’d have a remake of this movie in development ASAP.

I’ve seen enough movies to usually accurately gauge how much is left based on the way the movie is going. Even a movie like Memento, which is told backwards, reached an obvious point where it seemed things were about to be wrapped up. However, in Sssssss’ case, I was more inclined to believe that Netflix’s transfer was broken or maybe the film was actually just the first half of a two part story when I saw that only 8 minutes were left (including credits), because the plot had just reached the point that should have been the end of the second act. This isn’t a slow burn, it’s literally two acts of a story awkwardly converted into three. Whereas most movies of this type would have the end of the 2nd act be the point where the monster breaks free or becomes fully formed, the end of this movie’s 2nd act is roughly the point where the monster finally starts turning at all.

And even that would be OK if it was more tragic, but since the movie spends more time with its mad scientist villain that its tragic would-be hero, I never got attached enough to him to really care. Dirk Benedict is cheesy as all hell, sure, so there’s already some “Ah go ahead and kill him” feeling, but a few more scenes devoted to his character could have helped immensely once he began to turn into a snake (yes, that’s the movie’s plot – not a snake-like man, an actual snake). Granted, the mad scientist guy is crazy enough to be entertaining, but by focusing on him the whole time, it renders the big finale not only abrupt and incredibly weak, but also anticlimactic.

The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any way for Benedict to become human again, so the stakes are already pretty low. But also, he doesn’t even get revenge on the scientist! He gets attacked by another, presumably not-originally-human snake, while the Bene-snake fights a mongoose, a fight we don’t even get to see the outcome of – they just cut to Benedict’s girlfriend screaming (so I guess we can assume he lost to the mongoose).

Also, this is as "exciting" as the action gets in the entire movie. Like I said, it takes forever for him to turn, so until then it’s just the scientist talking to and/or about snakes, and occasionally getting revenge on folks. Those scenes are also confined to the film’s latter portion, but at least they are more satisfying than the climax. In one example, he goes to the house of a jock douche who had killed one of his snakes while snooping around the lab, and tosses another snake into the shower with him. The other one’s even better – he chains a professional rival in his basement and produces two keys and two snakes – one snake is lethal, the other harmless, but he can’t tell which is which. It’s like an early Jigsaw trap!

Hilariously, it doesn’t even matter, because he ends up getting eaten by the 18 foot King Cobra snake, which we are told is the “most dangerous of all living things”, which I call bullshit on – a grizzly or great white would eat the ever living fuck out of one of those things. We’re also told that one bite “has enough venom to kill 30 men”, which is a fairly worthless statistic. Enough venom to kill one man would mean just as much – it would have to BITE 30 men to actually kill 30 men, right? Dead is dead.

There’s also the matter of the inane “blocks” in scenes that have partial nudity. Considering how talky it is, I can’t imagine anyone but adults wanting to see this movie, but apparently someone had a different opinion, because in post, odd objects were placed in the “foreground” over shots that had nudity. The jarring leaves and branches in the skinny-dipping scene were one thing, but later they put what I guess is supposed to be a giant lamp over a half nude girl, one that moves along with the shot. Why not just cut the scene? She wasn’t even a victim – she’s boinking the jock douche and takes off before the scientist even shows up. Could have just cut the whole scene, lessened the movie’s excessive length (98 minutes) and not had distracting nonsense. Nope, a giant superimposed lamp made more sense.

Shockingly, the producers of this character and suspense challenged movie are none another than Zanuck and Brown, who just two years later would produce a movie called Jaws. Guess the genius of that film can be chalked up to someone else...

Now, like I said, it’s not a bad movie, it’s a frustrating one. A mad scientist turning folks into snakes and getting revenge on those who wronged him is an awesome idea. The gradual snake-turning effects are pretty decent for the time, and I loved how Benedict started showing snake-like instincts before he physically began changing. There’s a scene where he’s at a carnival and that same jock douche starts harassing him, and rather than take a swing like a normal person, he jumps up and sort of wraps himself around the guys torso and tries to bite him. It’s pretty hilarious. It’s also the first moment of action in the movie, occurring right around the 50 minute mark or so.

I remember this because right after this scene, I had to stop it in order to make it down to the New Beverly for Godfather Part III, which I had successfully avoided for the past 20 years. Luckily for Sssssss, it was even worse (couldn’t have guessed that the low budget killer snake movie would be superior to something that shockingly earned a Best Picture nomination), but I was surprised to discover that both films had abrupt endings that weren’t dramatically satisfying in any way. I don’t need Michael Corleone to go down in a Scarface-like blaze of glory, but for Christ’s sake, would it have killed them to resolve anyone else’s character or at least provide context for that final scene? Where’s Kay or Anthony? And for all the shit Sofia Coppola’s acting gets (which I prefer to her films, for what it’s worth), at least it was entertaining, and it was hardly the only problem with the movie; it was terrible whether she was on-screen or not. At least Sssssss disappointed me in half the time.

Final note - I could swear I have seen the house/lab in another movie before. Anyone else recognize it? The IMDb didn’t have the “filming locations”. Also, if you want to watch on instant, you have to do so today or tomorrow – it’s going away. Thus, if you seek frustratingly slow-paced movies about folks being turned into snakes, you’ll have to make other plans.

What say you?

Christmas BluRay haul

I've done nothing but weigh you down with words over the last couple entries, so I thought I'd give you a break with a different approach today. Who has the time during the holidays to read all these words, many of them self-indulgent?

So instead of discussing at length how literally my family took me when I told them I wanted movies for Christmas (and that I didn't get the one movie I definitely expected to get), today I will post in pictures only. Here are the BluRays I got for Christmas, posted in the order I opened them. Discuss.

And Soon the Darkness (2010)

"And soon, the boredom..."

This is the kind of movie that really bums me out to have to dislike. As a fan of Amber Heard and Karl Urban, it sucks that I have to diss their work here, especially since this movie marks Amber Heard's first gig as a producer. After seeing this lame fest, it might just be her last.

The story is more than familiar, full of the usual cliche's and pitfalls, and horrible plot devices are really all that drives it forward.

Stay with me here...

Two super hot American hot chicks who are hot, go biking through the isolated Argentinian countryside in search of... who knows. They separate from their briefly mentioned "bike tour" for god knows what reason, and rent a room in some small town, for again, some unapparent reason.

One of them is a smart, responsible girl, and the other is a loud mouthed slut. The slut (the poor man's Megan Fox, Odette Yustman) says and does some wild things, insults the locals, and shows poor manners, inviting trouble. The chaste good girl (Amber Heard) tries to keep her wild friend under control, but fails.

After a drunken night of danger and debauchery, they miss their early morning bus (to where, we're not certain, since their on bikes), and decide to go sunbathe in the deep, isolated countryside somewhere. Makes sense. Long story short, the two separate, the slut goes missing, and the good girl runs around acting foolish in an effort to find her.

From this point on, the movie is just about flimsy characters making poor decision after poor decision, and battling a bunch of cliche's along the way; shady locals, shady policia, evil gringo hating latino's, the "is he good or bad" red herring guy... It's like Turista's, but not good. Or even The Ruins, but bland and pointless.

One of the things that always drives me insane in these types of movies, are the moronic characters that always seem to do the most moronic things, and at every turn; Screaming when they should shut up, antagonizing creepy locals, leaving friends alone in the rapey forest of a foreign country, making no effort to think things through and be smart about their actions... all plot devices, and all frustrating. How can you pull for characters like that?

Karl Urban comes off as gimpy in this movie, which is a shame because the guy has played some great roles in some great movies. Amber Heard is hell and gone from her awesome work in All the Boys Love Mandy Lane here as well, which is odd to me, because she tends to pick challenging roles that at least take chances. And Odette Yustman... well her best work is still in The Unborn. Yeah.

For me, this movie is a D, because it's just so frustratingly cliche and pointless. That's not to say it sucks horribly, or that other won't like it, but honestly it's just totally unremarkable. Even though I just remarked a bunch about it, but you know, whatever.

It's a nice looking movie, but the substance just isn't there.

At least we do get to see this...

Buried (2010)

"The idea of being buried alive now scares me as much as jumping from a plane does..."

BURIEDSub-Genre- Buried Alive

Cast Members of Note- Ryan Reynolds is the only person in the film, though Samantha Mathis and a few others do lend voice support.

What's it About?- All there is to say about the plot of this movie is that Ryan Reynold sis a truck driver in Iraq, and he wakes up to find himself buried in a coffin-like box somewhere, that he assumes is the desert. Alone in the box with only a lighter and cell phone, the entire movie is spent with him making calls to various people to somehow get himself some help.

As the movie progresses, and the plot unravels, it looks increasingly like he's screwed.

To say anymore would be giving too much away, and with such a limited array of things a tightly plotted film like this has to work with, it's best to leave the details to your eyes for watching.

"Hey hun, it's Scarlett... I want a divorce."
The Good- "A guy trapped in a box for 90 minutes" sounds like a tough sell for a movie these days, but then again so did "A girl and her autistic brother trapped in a house during a hurricane with a hungry tiger." I'm happy to say that as with Burning Bright, Buried worked extremely well in its limited confines.

This one man-in-a-box show had me tensed up and anxious without ever realizing that I was. At first I thought it to be decent and clever, but as the movie wore on it gripped me hard, as I caught myself about 30 minutes in tensed like I was ready to jump out of my seat and throw a karate kick into the air. You might not believe that such a simple premise can be so effective, but trust me, it is.

Ryan Reynolds does a great job with limited movement or other characters to interact with. It didn't take long for me to forget he was the funny actor, and believe that he was a hopelessly trapped regular guy, desperate to find someone to come help him. This is how you do suspense.

Method-acting goodness.
The Bad- The end. I will say no more.

The Downright Horrendous- **SPOILER ALERT** (Skip this part if you don't want a pretty big plot point ruined for you...) I know this movie made some statements about a few different issues, but the biggest of them all was the way that big business throws the little man to the wolves. So a truck driver is ambushed, kidnapped, buried alive and held for "ransom" somewhere in Iraq, and the head of personnel for his company fires him while buried alive, to avoid culpability and paying out any type of damages or insurance to his family? Infuriating. There was no "We will get you out of this" or "We will take care of your family, don't worry", only "we're going to make up an excuse to fire you, because we can't be libel for this shit." Wow. A strong message, and sadly, a very true one.

The Gory- Ryan Reynolds cuts off a digit, but that's about it.

The Naked- Nay.

Best Line- "Okay, fuck you."

What did we learn?- Don't drive trucks in Iraq. Also, your boss most likely hates you.
The Master Says- A If you want to tense up for about 90 minutes and feel true, hopeless despair, then Buried is the movie for you. I have to say that if you're claustrophobic, even mildly, this movie will probably send you into a panic attack; I'm not so bad with tight spaces, and I found myself a ball of nerves for nearly the entire running time. Ryan Reynolds in a box for 90 minutes seems like a lame concept, but he and the filmmakers deliver the goods. See this one asap. If you're so inclined that is.

Final Thoughts- How did that dog get in the coffin!?!

Campfire Stories (2001)

DECEMBER 28, 2010

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY, CRAP

SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I never finished Sopranos (not having HBO, I would rent on DVD, and got sidetracked after S3 or 4); I liked it, but didn’t love it as much as every TV critic in the world. But one thing I fully enjoyed was watching Jamie-Lynn Sigler blossom from cute to positively stunning over the few seasons I watched. However, after Dark Ride and now Campfire Stories, I will be sure to never ever watch a horror film starring Ms. Sigler ever again. Yes, the rule is three strikes and you're out, but these two movies are so bad they make for like five outs. I don’t care if it’s a Halloween sequel with cameos by Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck as their Armageddon characters*, if she’s in it I will avoid like the plague.

Not that either film’s colossal failure is her fault; indeed, she barely appears in this one, despite her top billing. She’s one of the three teens that “host” David Johansen (Buster Poindexter!) is telling his stories to, which means her role consists almost entirely of reaction shots (or NON-reaction shots – most of the time she’s just staring blankly, and I can’t blame her). She gets a bit more to do in the final scenes, due to an inane but still obvious twist involving her character, but still, her combined screen time is probably less than five minutes.

No, the problem with the movie, as is far too often the case, is that every single character in its three stories is a hateful piece of shit, rendering most of the film borderline intolerable. Our first tale concerns four douchebag jocks (one of them played by Perez Hilton, of all fucking people) who pick on and beat up a mentally challenged janitor for no real reason, then run around in the woods with hockey sticks and golf clubs as he kills them one by one. That’s about it – there’s no twist or anything, nor anyone to root for (well, besides the killer). It doesn’t even offer any good kills – everything is off-screen, which renders some of it just plain incoherent, especially during the pointless prologue (what the fuck kind of anthology segment has its OWN prologue?) where the guy escapes from a mental institution and we just see these random, choppy bits of violence happening to people we haven’t really been introduced to.

And yet it’s still better than the second segment, which ALSO features a group of annoying assholes picking on some older guy, in this case a Native American with a magic bag that glows yellow and produces 50 dollar bills. Well, anyway, they kill him, and then smoke his “drugs”, which causes them to see the worst CGI snakes and beetles (I think?) ever committed to film, before they all freak out and become old. The twist at the end (which was hinted at in the beginning of the tale) isn’t too bad, but the hateful characters, similarity to the scenario of the first story, and truly atrocious CGI take away whatever goodwill it would have earned from the twist, and then some. I mean, Christ, look at this horseshit:

They couldn’t just film these two with an actual sky behind them?

The third tale is probably the best, if only because I didn’t know where it was going from the first few minutes. I didn’t LIKE where it went, but at least it had the “suspense” going for it. Overlong and again keeping everything off-screen (including any and all outcomes of an endless game of truth or dare – this movie was shot in New Jersey – you couldn’t find two ‘actresses’ willing to kiss on camera?), at least the characters are slightly more tolerable than the ones in the other stories, and since the killer used a video camera, the filmmakers’ decision to use what had to be the shittiest digital available at the time (2000) at least paid off, as the in-camera shots looked appropriate, unlike say Cloverfield’s way too professional looking “found footage”.

The music is also uniformly atrocious – when they’re not using obvious library cues (particularly in the first story), they just load it up with horrendous (presumably) local bands, including one that offers a horrid Alice Cooper ripoff called “Welcome To My Hell”. Oh, and The Misfits show up out of nowhere. It’s the best production value the movie has to offer, in fact – everything about it looks/feels cheap, including the DVD itself, which has chapter breaks in the middle of scenes, which just seems even more ridiculous on an anthology.

You know, this seriously makes Dark Ride look good. At least the killer looked cool in that one and the opening scene was decent. This doesn’t offer a goddamn thing.

What say you?

*OK, obviously I’d watch THAT, but otherwise my threat stands.

Little Fockers with my little focker

When I wrote last week about how much I was not looking forward to Little Fockers, I could never have guessed I'd be seeing it in the theater within a week of its release.

Nor that I would have my son sitting next to me -- my four-month-old son, who is not suited for watching anything, let alone a movie in which a man (Ben Stiller) gives an injection in the erect penis of his father-in-law (Robert DeNiro) after the father-in-law takes a Viagra-type pill called Sustengo.

But when I discovered that there was one theater showing a Mommy Movie on my extra day off after Christmas -- I took a day off on either side of the paid holiday (Friday) and the weekend -- I jumped at the opportunity. Even if the only choice was Little Fockers.

Most cities -- LA being no exception -- have a program designed to help stay-at-home mothers (and fathers) get to the movies. In LA they are called Mommy Movies, though I was misidentifying them as Mommy and Me Movies, because almost everything else involving a mother and her child is described from the child's perspective: "Mommy and Me." The Mommy Movies play Monday mornings at 11 a.m., and they show films intended for adults. I suppose there are certain guidelines of decency -- you're probably not going to see Saw 3D at a Mommy Movie, for example. But a Fockers sequel where most of the "humor" is linguistic, and will go over the head of any children in attendance? That fits the bill fine.

We first researched these Mommy Movies a couple months ago, but not primarily for my wife -- who does in fact stay at home with our son, though she also works out of the house. We researched them for me, so I could see a movie on a Saturday morning with my son, while she enjoyed some much-needed downtime. The only problem was, Mommy Movies don't play on Saturday mornings. They play on Monday mornings, when Daddy is at work. Which I suppose makes a certain sense. If the theater is going to "sacrifice" one screening a week, where everyone has signed off on the sight of dozens of baby carriages and the sound of dozens of crying children, then they better make it the matinee screening on Monday -- when no one else will be there anyway. A Saturday morning doesn't make sense financially -- not only because the regular customers won't want to be there, but also because the Mommies won't want to be there. They'll be spending Daddy's day off either with him, or at the salon while he takes the kids.

So I figured it was pretty unlikely I would ever get to a Mommy Movie with Jasper. However, it occurred to me last week that one of my upcoming days off would be a Monday, and that the planets might actually align. In fact, Little Fockers would probably be a better choice than a movie I actually wanted to see, because I wouldn't be frustrated if my son ended up "ruining" the movie for me. With Little Fockers, there shouldn't be much to ruin.

The Pacific Theaters chain hosts the Mommy Movies in the greater LA area, at four different theaters, one of which is reasonably close to our house. But three of those theaters were not doing a Mommy Movie yesterday, presumably because many of the Daddies were off work for Christmas, reducing the utility of such a Monday morning screening (and potentially cannibalizing the theater's own regular customers). One, however, was -- the theater in Glendale, which was showing Little Fockers. Glendale is the second closest of the four, but it's still a half-hour drive under the best of circumstances.

However, the Monday after Christmas is probably the best of circumstances -- at least, it has considerably less than the regular dose of weekday traffic. Figuring this might be my only opportunity for this kind of life experience -- and thinking it could also make a great blog post -- I put the wheels in motion.

My wife had suggested I leave at 10, because I'd never been to the theater, and it would help to give myself the time to get situated. I thought 10:15 would be fine. Of course, I didn't actually leave until 10:25. And by following the directions of my GPS with unquestioning loyalty, I took a very slow route to get on the 10 freeway, which set me back further. If I had been 100% certain I'd be using the 10 to get there, I would have shaved off at least five minutes with a different route. Live by the GPS, die by the GPS.

But I ended up rolling into the parking garage at about 11:02, making good time after the poor start, and breathing a sigh of relief as I narrowly avoided an accident -- one of those jam-on-the-brakes situations where everyone slows down for an exit more quickly than you're expecting. (The car in front of me actually swerved to avoiding hitting the car in front of him).

Naturally, it was one of those serpentine parking garages that serves the whole mall, and once you drive up several ramps to find your own spot, then you need to figure out the best route to the theater. A sign by the elevator at least told me I was in the right place, advertising the Mommy Movies, but it didn't actually direct me to the theater. I had to ask two other people before I even learned whether I'd be taking the elevator up or down. Down on the street level, I weaved my way through a very charming outdoor mall still dressed for Christmas, getting further encouragement I was heading in the right direction from various passersby, until I finally saw the facade of the theater.

The line to the ticket counter was one of those disorganized affairs that seem to perfectly encapsulate the parenting experience. It was more of a glob of people than a proper line, with each mini glob consisting of a stroller and either one or two parents fussing around the edges of the stroller. Hating to miss the beginning of movies, even movies as frivolous as Little Fockers, I started to feel the agitation of stress building up inside of me -- or, I should say, feel it even more, as stress had been spurring me onward the entire trip. Jasper was unaware of all this, sleeping peacefully in the car seat strapped into the stroller.

From my spot in the back of the slow-moving line, I called out to the woman taking tickets, to ask her if I could buy Mommy Movie tickets at the automated kiosk on the other side of the lobby. She got that apologetic/guilty smile on her face and said she didn't know. But the ticket seller at the front of his line picked up on our exchange and said I could. I guess that was probably obvious, but I didn't know whether there was a special protocol for the Mommy Movie -- whether they had to ascertain not only that I had a child, but a child who bore a resemblance to me, before they would issue me a ticket.

So I hit the kiosk, but of course, the kiosk wasn't recognizing my card as I tried to swipe it. Figures. Meanwhile, I looked over my shoulder, and somehow the impossibly convoluted line I had just been in had dissipated down to almost nothing. Just when I was about to make a second course correction, the swipe registered and my tickets were issued.

The ticket taker apologized for not knowing the protocol, but ensured me that the movie had not started yet. "Whew," I thought, passing a cordoned-off area that was described as "Stroller Parking," and had about a dozen strollers in it. For a moment I wondered if I was allowed to bring the stroller in, or would have to leave it out here. I was relying on that stroller. But there was no one there to tell me otherwise, so I went on in with it, finding numerous others inside as well.

And also finding that the ticket taker had been wrong a second time. The movie had started. In fact, the first images I saw were of Robert DeNiro in the midst of a very slapsticky heart attack, in which he was using some wires from the surveillance equipment in his basement as a makeshift defibrillator.

For a moment I was annoyed. I had hoped at least to come in during the opening credits. But then I adopted a new perspective on my lateness, for which I had only my own poor planning to blame: I had gone into Little Fockers knowing that I could be distracted for large portions of it because of my son acting up, or that I might even feel the need to leave the theater altogether if I just couldn't manage to calm him down. Coming in a few minutes late seemed to be very consistent with the kind of distracted viewing I expected to have -- in fact, you could say it guaranteed that this would be the kind of prototypical Mommy Movie viewing experience I was hoping to have. So I just settled in and enjoyed myself.

Finding many of the key aisle seats either to be taken, or to be on a riser that wasn't big enough to accommodate the stroller, I moved straight down to the front row. This was about the best front-row scenario you could ask for, as the rows of seats curve back in an arc, leaving you with a more than decent view if you position yourself near the middle. Being the only person in the front row, I had plenty of room to spread out, and had plenty of room to push the stroller back and forth if Jasper got fussy.

Which he didn't do for the first 20 minutes. In fact, he slept so soundly that I had to give him a little touch on the face just to make sure he was still with me. (It's a parent thing -- we do it all the time.) When he did finally awaken, I took him onto my lap and played with him a little bit. I knew he'd need to feed soon, so I sunk the frozen vial of breast milk into the boiling water I'd been carrying in a travel mug. It had last been boiling an hour ago, so it was merely hot at this point, but it did the job of unfreezing the milk to the point where he could drink it. You ideally want the milk to be a little bit warm before he drinks it, but the best I could do was not-cold/a little bit cold. He drank it anyway, appreciatively.

Having my son with me was not nearly the difficulty I thought it might be. He only got fussy before he had eaten, which was understandable, and once later -- and with the one time later, his fussiness was cured almost immediately with a few times backward and forward in the stroller. The rest of the time, he was simply a joy. It's no secret babies like the moving images of a TV screen, but Jasper was absolutely transfixed by the larger-than-life images of a movie screen. Not only did he stare, as I have seen him do with the TV, but he also smiled. Maybe he just thought Little Fockers was really funny.

And the funny thing is, I found Little Fockers a lot more enjoyable because I had this cute little guy by my side. The movie itself was sloppy -- more on that in a minute -- but I will probably always remember it fondly because Jasper was there watching it with me. We genuinely had fun, and he was one of the best-behaved children there.

Because I was down in the front row, I probably didn't have the immersion in the rest of the scene that I would have had if I'd been back with most of the other mommies (and daddies, of which there were plenty). But I didn't think this would be a complete post about the Mommy Movies if I didn't give you some other atmospheric details.

For one, I was very surprised at how little the other children bothered me. Yeah, there was some crying, but not as much as I expected. Yeah, there was a girl two rows behind me who got her head stuck between two seats, and needed to be extricated by her mother. And yeah, there were mothers walking up and down the aisles, holding children in their arms who wouldn't shush in a stationary position. But I think I actually could have been watching a movie I cared about, and not had that experience significantly diluted by the environment. Maybe all those kids were also transfixed by a 20-foot-tall Ben Stiller.

A couple other funny things: 1) In the final scene, which takes place at Christmastime, a little girl walked to the front of the auditorium and yelled out "Merry Christmas!" which got a sprinkling of laughs; 2) Immediately afterward, about four sets of parents were seen changing their children on changing tables that had been set up between the back section of seats and the front. Since my son was not showing any signs of a dirty diaper, I just hightailed it out of there.

And a couple thoughts on Little Fockers as a movie:

1) Teri Polo has been working regularly since Meet the Fockers in 2004, but she was so underused in this movie, it was like they'd had to bring her out of mothballs to play her part, and only for the sake of continuity from the two previous films. Jessica Alba, as the woman trying to tempt Stiller's Greg Focker into adultery, has twice as much screen time.

2) This movie is barely about little Fockers at all. Yes, there are five-year-old twins, the children of Pam and Greg. But the plots barely involve them at all, focusing more on the shenanigans between Jack (DeNiro) and Greg, and on the potential that Greg and Pam's marriage is threatened.

3) Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand appear so briefly in this movie, if you blinked you'd miss them.

4) Owen Wilson is on-hand as a temptation for Pam, but this too is handled sloppily. He starts out dating a Russian woman named Svetlana. Is it just me, or is every impossibly hot Russian woman in the movies named Svetlana?

Okay, I've taken up enough of your time.

In conclusion: I already know you're a movie fan, since you're reading my blog. If you're also a parent, try the equivalent of Mommy Movies in your city. We go to the movies first and foremost to have fun, and even though Little Fockers wasn't good, it was fun -- thanks to my son.