Author: mauer

Reds (1981)

I had never seen this. It has not been released on DVD in the US (Or VHS now) despite three A-list actors and a slew of Oscar nominations in 82. (Nine, winning three including best director for Beatty. Can there possibly be many other Best Director oscar winners not out on DVD? Particularly one that is fairly recent?!)

I wonder what the discussion was then as the Bright Shining Reagan Era was dawning about the merits of a very good film vs. its story of political dissent, socialism, communism, voting for leaders who would not take us into war and so on. Especially when, at its core, it’s just a love story. Continue reading Reds (1981)

Jiminy Glick in LaLawood

I’m honestly a little amazed that no one has mentioned this film yet – let alone seen it. I mean, you people obviously aren’t afraid to watch shitty films as evidenced by discussions on Catwoman, Fantastic Four, and Two-Lane Blacktop. Also, I know there are big fans of SCTV here. Bruns I think is a big Martin Short fan, and I think Reynolds is as admiring of Clifford as I am.

Also, the Jiminy Glick show on Comedy Central was consistently funny. Watching A-listers like Tom Hanks and Seinfeld stare in amazement as Glick brings up incredibly obscure points about their lives and then stuffs his face with donuts and candy – It made for good TV. Continue reading Jiminy Glick in LaLawood

Grizzly Man

Finally I’m getting around to writing something about Herzog’s latest film. I’ll say first of all that I was surprised at the number of good reviews for this film, and that it seemed to do well on the art-house circuit. Having seen the film, I’m even more surprised.

Herzog has been cranking out decent documentaries for years now on all manner of obscure topics, and no one has taken much notice. His last feature film had been the disturbing Cobra Verde in ’87, though he did make a feature film a few years ago; the sweet Nazi-circus drama Invincible with Tim Roth. I’ll stop adding “which you should see” b/c this is Herzog, and it should go without saying you should see it. Continue reading Grizzly Man

Arrested Development cancelled

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/13144665.htm

I’m not terribly surprised, but I’m also not terribly disappointed. As much as I think this is the best comedy on, it would have probably gotten stale if it kept going.

What I wish for (and I don’t think FOX will allow this to happen), is that the rest of the season could have played out knowing it was coming to an end, as The Office did so well; heightening the tensions and relationships up to the finale.

Last week’s episode, where it’s revealed that Charlize Theron’s character is retarded, cracked me up.
It frankly had a really good run, won some emmys, and will do well on DVD – and thank god, it put Jason Bateman back on the map. Perhaps now they could revive his old Silver Spoons spin-off “It’s Your Move.”

Land of the Dead

Dreary.

If anything can be said to be somewhat redeeming about it, it’s that Romero still wants to infuse his zombie movies with some sort of social commentary.

But here, we have three groups; the haves (represented by Dennis Hopper and his black valet who was almost as sterotypically offensive as Bob Hope’s black valet in The Ghostbreakers (now there’s a movie.), the have-nots, represented by Asia Argento, the whore with the heart-of-gold, some shmuck who was supposed to be the star, and John Leguizamo, whose character was charmingly named “Cholo.” (Why not Spic? Or Beaner?) Continue reading Land of the Dead

House of 1000 Corpses / Cocksucker Blues

Just watched House of 1000 Corpses and Cocksucker Blues. The first half-hour of House of 1000 Corpses is fantastic. I watched it twice and could have watched it again. The dialogue between Sid Haig and Michael Pollard (Scrooged, Roxanne, Bonnie & Clyde) is hilariously vile. If the whole film had been them talking and occasionally slaughtering some people I’d have ben thrilled. The rest of it is not as good, but pays tribute to the old 1970s American International exploitation drive-in flicks in fine form. It’s also beautifully shot, and fantastically colored. Some of the between scene cuts in negative and orange and blues are too much, and distracting, but I wouldn’t want Rob Zombie to be overly restrained… I eagerly look forward to the relase of the sequel on DVD soon.
Continue reading House of 1000 Corpses / Cocksucker Blues

Downfall

I really thought someone had posted here about Downfall, but I can’t find the post. We saw this a couple of weeks ago. Riveting. Great performance by Bruno Ganz. There’s a lot of ways to look at this film: History is written by the winners, Hitler was a human being, blind devotion to power is scary, and – perhaps the most interesting – how innocent can an individual be of a government’s crime? I have a feeling we may be asking ourselves that a few times over the next few decades.

I don’t really want to go into it a whole lot, but it’s a fine movie. On another note, I had a dream last night I was in school, and had to do well in two classes, but they both had horrible teachers. One of the teacher’s was Hitler, and he was depressed, and wouldn’t teach us anything, and the class was held in the bunker. Man, Professor Hitler sucks.

The Upside of Anger

Another one of Joan Allen’s flurry of good and overlooked films this year. This is more melodramatic than I am usually willing to sit through, but it’s well done. Nothing “stupid” happens in the plot, which I appreciate on one hand. However, I wonder how realistic it is that a mother and four daughters get abandoned by the father and none of them strike out at Kevin Costner, or do anything less than act like a grown-up. The mother is the least stable of the bunch, and that seems unlikely, though certainly possible; and even she deals with the obstacles thrown into her life in a mostly grown-up way (She does drink a lot, but so do I. Who am I to cast stones?) Continue reading The Upside of Anger

The Corpse Bride

When I wrote up something about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I said that I would have loved it if I saw it at 13. Well, if I had seen The Corpse Bride at 9, it would have opened up whole new realms to me. Not only would I have loved it, it would have been one of my favorite films ever. Yet, while Hitchhiker’s Guide disappointed me as a 35 year-old, Corpse Bride still amazed me, and was a load of fun. (The fact that it opened with a Bugs Bunny Cartoon only helped.)

This film had the mix of humor, gorgeous animated beauty, eroticism, fear, songs and gothic horrors that enraptured and terrified me watching Disney’s Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty and – especially – Snow White. Continue reading The Corpse Bride

Murder By Death (1976)

Last night on TCM they showed Murder by Death . I was 6 when this came out, and there’s no way I could have understood much of what was going on, but it quickly became one of my favorite films, up there with Snow White and TV’s Laugh-In. I know I must have seen it three times at the movie theater.

Even at 6, it featured some of my favorite actors at the time: Peter Sellers, the Bounty paper towel lady, Peter Falk, David Niven (who I knew from other Peter Sellers movies), James Coco (who in retrospect I must have thought was Dom DeLuise), Truman Capote in a rocket-powered chair… (whom I probably recognized from Dinah Shore’s show) Wow, if it’d had Paul Lynde and Jonathan Winters in it, that would have sewn it up for me.
Continue reading Murder By Death (1976)