Weird Dave Review: Waking Life

With the AFI Top 100 Movies list complete, we Movie Jerks have decided to start up a list of our own. Essentially each Movie Jerk picks 5 movies that they want others to see. Philosophies differ as to the selection of the 5 movies - some of us chose to pick movies we've never seen, while others picked movies they've seen and want others to see. It's going to be interesting, and on Saturday October 2nd we had our first movie - Waking Life.

Format: Theater in the Garage

Screening Date: 10/3/2010

Run Time: 1 hr 39 min

Director: Richard Linklater

Release Date: 2001

Attendance: Weird Dave, Griffie, Killer Wyrm, Akulas Psyhos (!), Matthew, Trent, Eric, Alaina

Review At A Glance

Enjoyment 7/10

Presentation 7/10

Picked by the whim of a fanciful d10, the Movie Jerk to open the post-AFI list was Alaina. She had yet chosen all of her 5, but she had one in mind right away - Richard Linklater's 2001 under-the-radar movie, Waking Life. I had never heard of this movie before and was told it was about dreams.

And boy was it ever. Not only was it about dreams, but it was filmed as though it were a dream. The techniques Linklater used in this film he would later apply to his more mainstream release A Scanner Darkly. Essentially it's animation over real life (for which I'm sure there's a word for), but Waking Life has a sort of chaos that really captures the feeling of a dream. People warp and shift in strange, almost surreal ways even as you're looking at them and listening to them speak.

Which is something you'd better enjoy, because the movie is really just a series of conversation vignettes between various random people and the main character. Most had interesting things to say and all of the topics centered around dreams or moments in dream, though one particularly confusing section spoke of the Holy Moment. After watching the movie, I'm still not sure what a Holy Moment is - something about realizing that reality is based on the concept of "now" being the only moment where all things exist, and we've created history and time to come to terms with this monumental concept? I think?

It's all very surreal, with everything in a state of constant motion. There are many concepts bandied about the movie through animated (both actually and emotionally) ways, but I still found myself straining to stay interested. Characters would approach the protagonist and start talking with no build-up or introduction and begin to discuss at length something profound about dreams. Who are these people? The protagonist doesn't seem perturbed at their presence or their conversations, simply nodding at various times (or was that the animation jumping around?).

This is a movie that you can pull a lot of different viewpoints from. The one that I found the most interesting, and one that I hadn't really heard before, was that death was simply a constant dream state. If I had to pull a lesson or core concept from the film that would be it, but that may be simply because it was the last of the dream concepts discussed.

Bottom line - if you went and saw Inception and enjoyed the multi-layered dream facet of that movie, I'm confident in saying you'll find most of Waking Life enjoyable, or at least interesting. I'm ... not quite convinced this was a movie in the traditional sense of the word, as there was no story (in the sense of beginning, middle, end) - just conversations of complex dream concepts between various people. Still, interesting and insightful, this "movie" made me think about dreams in a new way, and that's gotta count for something.

Weird Dave Review: Alien

In October 2009 I decided to take a break from the AFI Top 100 Films that were being shown in the Theater in the Garage on Thursdays in exchange for a more thematically-appropriate suite of movies. It became a rundown of the classic Universal horror movies - Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, and Dracula.

This year I wanted to do something similar and explore the various subgenres of horror movies. After a bit of deliberation I decided to start with Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi horror film, Alien.

Format: Theater in the Garage

Screening Date: 10/1/2010

Run Time: 1 hr 57 min

Director: Ridley Scott

Release Date: 1979

Attendance: Weird Dave, Griffie, Killer Wyrm, Akulas Psyhos (!), Matthew, Trent

Review At A Glance

Enjoyment 9/10

Presentation 10/10

This is one of the great horror movies of our time. It perfectly captures feelings of isolation and the absolute menace of an unknown alien creature. If you haven't seen it ... shame! Go see it now, because I'm going to assume everyone's seen it and spoil some of the movie here. When you do see it make sure it's the theatrical version, not the "director's" cut that was released a few years ago (along with an extended uncut "director's" cut). Ridley Scott has gone on record saying that the "director's" cut of the movie is the theatrical one - that's the movie he wanted to release as he had complete control over the editing. The movie is paced excellently, while the extended editions feel ... uneven. You see too much of the titular alien too early in those uncut versions. Best to leave the menace where it belongs - in the shadows and in terrifying jump moments.

As I don't want to run down the plot of the movie I'm going to focus on a few of my favorite things about this movie. The first are the sets. Holy crap is this movie gorgeous looking in terms of the raw detail. I really, really miss the days of models especially for sci-fi movies. So much detail goes into those that it feels so real, due in large part because IT IS SO REAL. The Nostromo is wonderfully dark, dank, old, and worn out, a mining ship that's clearly seen much use. The planet holding the alien eggs is a windswept Hell hole teeming with shadows and darkness and mystery. Everything about the movie has a real feel which helps to accentuate the terror of the situation.

I also really enjoyed Ian Holm as the android "Don't Call Me" Ash willing to do anything to achieve company goals. He's so matter-of-fact in his jackassery and his complete lack of empathy towards the crew that you just hate him immediately, though you don't really have a reason at first. And the scene where Ripley is talking to his severed head? Priceless.

The music helps to create this atmosphere of dread and breathless anticipation that it's difficult to take your eyes off the film. Difficult for most people, unfortunately, but as I am not most people I did doze off a few times. Do NOT take that as a criticism of the film on any level. It's just that I've seen this movie dozens of times and it was late and the alcohol didn't help.

Did I forget to mention the alcohol? The other tradition started in October 2009 was the serving of a thematically-appropriate mixed drink to go along with the movie. With the classic Universal movies it was easy, but this year I'm having difficulties finding suitable drinks. For Alien I found a recipe for "alien secretion" which is 1 part Midori melon liquor, 1 part Malibu coconut rum, and 1 part pineapple juice. It was, at one movie goer put it, "quite booze-y" and perhaps was a bit on the strong side.

All in all, I'd say a great movie to kick off the October 2010 Halloween Horror filmfest.

Weird Dave Review: The American

Time for the first review of the newly re-commissioned MovieJerks blog. The format's going to be undergoing some changes, I'm sure, so this is a first stab at an ongoing process. So deal with it.

Format: Theatrical

Screening Date: 9/29/2010

Run Time: 1 hr 45 min

Director: Anton Corbijn

Release Date: 2010

Attendance: Weird Dave, Griffie

Review At A Glance

Enjoyment 2/10

Presentation 6/10

This was a movie that I had very little information about going into it. It had been on my radar for a few weeks, and with very weak theatrical offerings I decided to give it a chance. George Clooney in what appears to be some sort of spy thriller? Potential. I dragged Griffie to the movie as well, who was about in the same boat.

Good God, the movie was a snoozefest. It started off in Sweden, in the snow, with Clooney and a brief but relatively lively if realistic and brief action scene. OK movie, I can dig that. We are then treated to what seems like an hour of Clooney driving around Italy to lay low, during which he receives a "job." At this point there is no indication as to what this character does, except that he's good at shooting people. Again, OK movie, I can get into that, but nothing EVER comes of it. He builds a gun to fit into a briefcase, meets the prostitute with a heart of gold (Character Stereotype #31), and drives around.

And if you're a fan of heart-pumping, show-stopping scenes of people driving the speed limit, boy are you in for a treat. This movie was made for you! Thrill as Clooney ... drives. And then drives some more. And then, for a change of pace, drives to some new place to meet a side character of a side character that seems to add nothing to the overall experience. It was difficult to keep my eyes open during this film, and I'm not convinced I didn't doze off a few times in the theater.

Granted, Italy is a beautiful place, and the cinematography was well done. But the whole movie felt like the summer vacation photos of an American tourist who works for Colt. Ughhhh. So dull. So dry. So uninteresting.

There were about three action scenes in the whole movie that seemed to be the passage of time markers, and they were all short. One to begin, one in the middle to remind the audience they haven't died and gone to Purgatory, and one at the end to wake people up so that they can leave. How considerate.

I think somewhere in this film there's an underlying message about emotional attachments, but I'm not sure what it is. Are emotional attachments bad? Did the main character in this movie have an emotional attachment to the prostitute with the heart of gold? I honestly don't know. What about the Italian priest and the bit about sinners? Is Clooney trying to do right by his own moral code, surviving in a world where the best use of his skills is to build guns? Is he an assassin? Does he work for some organization? Who are the Swedes? Why do they want him dead? Does he know something? None of these questions EVEN GET ASKED, since our only window into the movie was Clooney's character and he already friggin' knew the answers. He was just keeping them from us.

Ass.

In summation, I can't in good taste recommend this movie to anyone but the chronic sleep-deprived. Avoid this movie. Please.

Change in Format

I was thinking today, which is something that happens most days, that this blog is terribly underutilized. I blame myself - Harris suggested that I use this blog to post reviews for the AFI movies, and it was a good idea that died with #94. We just finished #1 so I'm not going to go back, but instead I'm going to post my thoughts on EVERY movie I see from now on. Theatrical, DVD, Netflix, whatever - if I see it I'm going to throw up my thoughts on it on this blog. Get some interest going.

I invite others to do the same. If you're a Movie Jerk enough.

AFI #94 Pulp Fiction Review

Oooh boy does this movie divide people. Some people love it, some people hate it, but most can agree that it put director Quentin Tarantino on the collective map. I'm still not sure what I think about this movie after multiple viewings!

Screening Date: 8/2/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 154 minutes (2 hours, 34 minutes)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Release Date: 1994
Attendance: Weird Dave, Harris Burkhalter, Patrick Griffin, Luke Price, Aaron Ostman, Eric Brooks, Alaina Thole, Alice Ruzin

I think, after 10 years of seeing this movie, I've finally come a conclusion. I don't care for this movie very much at all. I've spoken with multiple people about it from multiple backgrounds, and I've learned some things I didn't know before, some things that I didn't see or didn't realize. But that doesn't make it good in my eyes.

If you haven't seen it ... I'm not going to try to recap. It's essentially a character study, with many many characters having many many conversations about many many things. It has groups of main characters that tie together through varied circumstances, like two hit men (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) making a hit on a target; one of the hit men and his boss' wife (John Travolta and Uma Thurman) enjoying a night on the town and a drug overdose; two robbers (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) robbing a diner; a boxer and the boss of the hit men (Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames) rigging an upcoming match; the boxer and his wife/girlfriend (Bruce Willis and Maria de Medeiros) avoiding the hit men boss after betraying him; the boss being raped by rednecks and rescued by the boxer after an uncannily unlucky set of circumstances; the two hit men cleaning up their car with the help The Wolf (Harvey Keitel); and the two hit men meeting the two robbers in the diner as it is being robbed.

As you can read, the movie is very disjointed, with characters thrown about like popcorn at an Ed Wood festival. Each character has their own idiosyncracies that play out in the scenes, and the over ridding theme seems to revolve around morality. The moral choices that face seemingly immoral people, or the immoral choices that moral people choose. After a "miracle" where a man shoots at the two hitmen and misses completely, Samuel L. Jackson has an epiphany and decides that God wanted him to live and decides to give up the glorious hit man life. John Travolta, meanwhile, saves the life of his boss' wife after she ODs on a white powder drug but dies in the home of Bruce Willis after the boxer returns to retrieve his watch. What message does this send?

There's a few parts that sum up to little more than overblown cameos for people Tarantino likes, admires, or sleeps with. Christopher Walken plays an released Vietnam POW who hid Bruce Willis' father's watch in his ass for two years. Harvey Keitel plays a cool, collected "specialist" called in when Travolta and Jackson have an accident involving a gun, a bullet, and a head. Tarantino himself plays a role in this scene, and boy is he not a good actor.

There's so much going on in this movie that it's impossible for me to say I hate it. Many of the coversations, especially between the hit men, are filled with interesting lines and good points, but are these gems worth the price of admission? Hard to say, but I think this is a movie everyone needs to see once, which I suppose is the reason it's on the AFI list. At least we're not treated to extended sequences featuring Tarantino's foot fetish, though an ongoing conversation revolves around foot massages.

AFI #95 The Last Picture Show Review

Like "Do the Right Thing," this movie falls squarely into the category of "never heard of before now." It's got quite a cast in their first starring roles, including Randy Quaid (emphasis on the randy), Jeff Bridges, and Sybill Shepard. Does a movie filmed in 1971 set in 1951 seen in 2009 hold up?

Screening Date: 7/31/2009, 12:01 AM
Run Time: 126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Release Date: 1971
Attendance: Weird Dave, Harris Burkhalter, Patrick Griffin, Luke Price, Aaron Ostman, Eric Brooks, Alaina Thole

I felt this was a very depressing movie. It stars Timothy Bottoms as Sonny, the main character of this film set in the drab, windy Texas town of Anarene. It's 1951, Sonny and his friend Duane (Jeff Bridges) are still in high school, trying to score with their respective girlfriends. They frequent the local movie house, where they keep to the back of the auditorium with their lady friends making out. Duane's got Jacy (Sybill Shepard), the prettiest girl in school, while Sonny's got ... someone else.

The movie was filmed in black and white, which really helps to capture the bleak feel of the film. Early on Sonny dumps his girlfriend, and begins a secret tryst with the wife of the high school gym coach. The wife is played by Cloris Leachman, and is it sad that the only two things I know Cloris Leachman from are "Young Frankenstein" and "Beerfest"? Probably. We see the sexual frustrations and inexperience played out between the two main characters in their unique positions.

It's quickly revealed that Jacy wants nothing to do with Duane, and leaves him for a nude pool party with Randy Quaid. Randy Quaid ... brrr, the guy just oozes creep like a cheap cologne. We see far too much of Randy at the pool party, where he and the gaggle of onlookers convince Jacy to strip naked and join them in the pool. It's an interesting turning point for the young girl, perhaps a pivotal moment where she throws caution to the wind and just goes with it.

Sonny goes steady with Cloris Leachman, even after high school, while Duane gets more and more restless after Jacy leaves him. A few members of the town are revealed as the movie progresses, including the owner of more than a few buildings in Anarene - Sam the Lion. Sam runs the pool hall and owns the diner, and he employs a mentally handicapped boy named Billy to help clean up and keep things tidy. Sam, Billy, and Sonny enjoy many a time together, including a fishing trip out to a muddy creek with no fish. Sam describes how he once loved a woman who was a wild filly, but their love didn't work out.

Afterwards Sonny and Duane take a weekend trip to Mexico, and upon their return learn that Sam died of a heart attack. This was the last straw for Duane, who takes the incident as an excuse to head out of town on an oil rig job. Sonny, however, sticks around, since Sam left him the pool hall. After Duane's left Jacy cozies up to Sonny, upsetting his relationship with Cloris, and when Duane returns for a weekend things get heated between the two friends. Words are spoken, a scuffle breaks out, and Duane breaks a beer bottle over Sonny's face.

The wounded man spends some time in the hospital recuperating, and has a large bandage over the side of his face. Jacy, seeing in Sonny a successful young man who owns the town pool hall, decides to get married and the two run off in a surprising turn.

It doesn't work out, Jacy's parents catch them at the border, and Sonny returns to the doom and gloom of small town life in Texas. Duane ships off to the military while Sonny sticks around in Anarene. The mentally handicapped boy gets hit by a truck in the middle of town and Sonny tries to reconnect with Cloris Leachman. The end.

All in all this was a depressing tale of how a small town get dig its claws into your hollow husk and never let go. The film seems to be about the death of small town living when the movie house closes up for good, leaving nothing but wind and flatness and gray. Endless gray, like the color of Sonny's soul. Or something.

AFI #96 Do the Right Thing Review

I realized fairly recently that there were a lot of movies that I had not only not seen, but weren't even aware of. There are titles on the AFI list that I couldn't tell you one thing about them. "Do the Right Thing" falls into this category quite soundly, so already I feel like I've expanded my movie watching horizons.

Screening Date: 7/26/2009, 10:00 PM
Run Time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
Director: Spike Lee
Release Date: 1989
Attendance: Weird Dave, Patrick Griffin

I have not seen many Spike Lee movies; in fact, I think the only one I had seen previously was "Malcolm X." After seeing this racially charged, hate-fueled movie, I'm not sure I want to rush out and see more to be honest.

"Do the Right Thing" gives us a picture of the hottest day of summer in a small neighborhood in Brooklyn populated primarily by black people. We see Samuel L. Jackson as the DJ for the local radio, along with Ossie Davis as a drunk bum who calls himself "The Mayor." Spike Lee plays Mookie, the protagonist/antagonist on this hot Brooklyn day, who works at a local pizzeria shop run by an Italian man named Sal (played quite brilliantly by Danny Aiello) and his two sons, Vito (Richard Edson of "Super Mario Brothers" fame) and Pino (John Turturro, who was recently urinated on by a gobot).

Mookie works as a pizza delivery man for the neighborhood, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him. A nice enough neighborhood it seems, with interesting characters going about their business as interesting characters do. The trouble starts early in the day when a young "power to the black man" kind of upstart demands that Sal put up pictures of black celebrities on the wall of his Italian pizzeria. Sal throws him out, but this sparks a heated and continued debate between Sal and his son Pino over their future in the neighborhood. Pino feels like they should move out into the Italian section of Brooklyn and Sal says he's staying right there.

As the day progresses tempers flare all over the place and we get introduced to a pack of more interesting characters, including a deafeningly-loud boombox playing gent named Radio Raheem. The action that played Radio seemed so familiar, but all I coudl think of was Tracy Morgan. After a bit of digging afterward the reason he seemed familiar is because he was the same actor who played Robbie in the Spider-Man films. Man, that bugged me throughout the movie.

We're introduced to a budding romance between The Mayor and the local gossip queen known as Mother Sister. Nothing really goes anywhere with it, which pretty much sums up all of the myriad of plot threads in the movie - they don't really go anywhere. We see a lot of characters doing things that don't get resolved or don't go anywhere, and then WHAM! The gent who was thrown out of Sal's pizzeria comes back with Radio Raheem, sparks an intense racially fueled argument that escalates into a fistfight in the streets, and culminates in Radio's death at the hands of the police.

But the mob of angry residents blame Sal, and it is Mookie who throws the trash can through the glass window. Torches are lit and the place burns to the ground, a business that had been around for many many years as established in earlier scenes. I'm not sure the message here, since the riot was fueled by Radio Raheem's death, but perhaps the undercurrent was the overriding, mounting racial tensions built up over the many many years. Maybe.

Overall I think the movie had some great symbolism, but it just felt like it didn't go anywhere. We see a lot of characters doing things around the neighborhood, some racially charged some not, and then Sal's pizzeria is burnt down in an angry mob. Mookie threw the first stone, so to speak, but he kind of reconciles with Sal the next morning. Lesson? Umm ... I'm not sure. The lesson that stuck with me was that anger can override any other emotion and turn normal, decent folks into monsters. I'm going to stick with that.