Mar
21
“Paul” Review
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I would like to call upon all filmmakers to begin a moratorium on putting “Star Wars” references in movies. Almost 35 years removed from the original film, and we’re still being inundated with lines of dialogue, iconography and subtle nods to the saga. It’s become like some sort of nervous tic that filmmakers have today. I appreciate the fact that they’ve been inspired by “Star Wars.” I get it. Can we move on now? Can we make a movie that stands on its own?
With “Paul,” the answer is no. “Paul” isn’t so much as movie as it is a collection of film references built around the conceit of two English sci-fi geeks encountering a slacker spaceman while on a road trip in the U.S. What sounds like a cute concept — and in the right hands (Edgar Wright’s), it probably could’ve been — is a movie that feels worn out about ten minutes in.
Let’s make no mistake. I consider myself a movie nerd, and I collected comic books for 17 years. I became a serious Trekkie in 2009. I’ve also very recently gotten into “The X-Files.” So, it’s not like I consider myself some sort of elitist who looks down his nose at grown men who wear shirts with obscure comic book characters on them; during the film, I actually spent more time wondering where I could get Nick Frost’s Ming the Merciless t-shirt than I did caring about whether or not they’ll get the epinonimous alien home.
All that being said, I still found “Paul” to be a movie that feels like they shot the first draft of the script. I wouldn’t have minded being inundated with tired tips-of-the-hat to practically every large-scale science fiction movie made over the past three decades if I’d been guffawing the whole time. But the jokes simply aren’t there. I chuckled a few times, but I expected much, much more from one of the co-writers of “Shaun of the Dead” and the director of “Superbad.”
In “Paul,” two life-long friends — graphic novelists Clive (Nick Frost) and Graeme (Simon Pegg) — attend the San Diego Comic-Con for the first time, then they rent an RV to go on a tour of all the famous alien sightings in the Southwest. It’s during this tour that they meet Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), an actual alien from outer space. Paul crash-landed on Earth decades ago and has now outlived his usefulness in the eyes of the government. Paul has to get to a rendezvous point where his fellow spacemen can pick him up and take him home. If he’s captured by the government, his stem cells will be harvested and they’ll cut out his brain.
Paul is a bit of a prankster. He comes across as sort of an affable roommate rather than a snarling Xenomorph. If anything, he’s a much more interesting character than the two aggressively boring dweebs he stumbles upon in the desert. I liked Paul all right. He’s no E.T., but the character deserved to be the comedic foil for a much better duo of straight men than Clive and Graeme.
See, the problem with having two movie geeks as heroes is that they’re basically ciphers. They have no idea how to drive the action of the story because they’re simply characterizations rather than full-on characters. One is the fat nerd, and he’s a frustrated sci-fi writer; and the other one, well, he’s also fat but not as much, and he’s the sci-fi artist. Oh, and they speak Klingon. There’s nothing that really defines them or dictates their actions. They just spend most of the film reacting to things and going along amiably with whatever Paul needs them to do.
The passivity of the heroes makes for a rather listless plot. They’re being doggedly pursued by Agent Zoil (Jason Bateman) and his two lackeys (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio), but they still seem to have plenty of time to sit out by a campfire and shoot the bull.
I had high hopes for “Paul.” But I’m just exhausted by material now that gets lost up its own ass with the endless pop cultural namechecking. We need to start making new classics, not obsessing over old ones.
-Brad Lohan
Mar
18
Do You Like Scary Movies? | “Scream”
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With “Scream 4″ opening in less than a month, I felt it was time to revisit the first three films in the series and see how they hold up. The original 1996 film, directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, came out of nowhere, redefining dead teenager movies for post-Tarantino, pop-culture savvy audiences in the latter half of the 1990s. It was a period of self-reflection as the century wound down and we all braced for a technological apocalypse that never came about. During this time, horror films had to become smarter to keep pace with a more cynical audience. The cheap thrills of ’80s slashers like “Friday the 13th” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” were no longer enough to satiate the appetites of self-important viewers who’ve seen everything.
And so, “Scream” became the first dead teenager movie that ’s about self-important viewers who’ve seen everything trying to survive a dead teenager movie. This heightened awareness was, up until that point, largely absent from the genre. Typically, dead teenager movies are about a group of interchangeable nitwits being eviscerated in no particular order; the only cleverness on display is in how they meet with their gruesome ends. There’s an amusement park value to such films, but rarely do they stick with you after the experience is over.
I think “Scream” has since become a victim of its own overwhelming success. The imitators it spawned with rapidly diminishing returns ultimately cheapened the genre once again. A subsequent backlash would see a rise in Americanized J-horror remakes, torture porn and endless reboots of dead teenager movies that collectively stunk up the aughts.
15 years on, “Scream” has a charming simplicity to it. The viewing experience is like revisiting an old friend you haven’t seen in far too long. So, let’s break down “Scream” and see what new light can be shed on the film. First, let’s do a high-level overview.
Body Count: 7
Best Kill: Tatum (Rose McGowan) becomes trapped while trying to escape through a doggie door built into a garage door. Trapped how? Well, her ginorous breasts get in the way. Then, Ghostface raises the garage door, and Tatum’s fake rubber head is crushed.
Most WTF Line: Billy (Skeet Ulrich) tells Randy (Jamie Kennedy), “Maybe your movie freaked mind has lost its reality button.” I have no idea what that means. Do minds have reality buttons? Is it like the “Esc” key?
Most Hilarious Exchange: Intrepid reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and her cameraman Kenny (W. Earn Boen) show up at the scene of a Ghostface attack and Gale says, “Jesus, get the camera!” to which Kenny responds dryly, “My name isn’t Jesus.”
Best Quip: After miraculously surviving a gunshot wound, Randy remarks, “I never thought I’d be so glad to be a virgin.”
Best Scare: Immediately after Randy reveals himself to be a virgin, the believed-to-be-dead Billy springs up and lays out Randy with one punch.
Most Obscure Pop-Culture Reference: “The Town That Dreaded Sundown.” Even I haven’t seen that movie.
Most Anachronistic Line: “What’s a kid like you doing with a cell phone anyway?”
I remember the first time I saw “Scream.” At the time, I was working my first job at a crappy fast food joint. They let me off early one night, and after hastily changing out of my uniform and into my street clothes, I boogied across town to the now-defunct Cineplex Odeon in Alderwood. I liked that venue for horror movie watching because it seemed like a theater where you could actually be killed by some lunatic in a mask.
I didn’ t have high hopes for “Scream.” I figured it was another forgettable dead teenager moviet. But when I arrived at the theater, it was packed. And this was a week or so before Christmas. All these people were here to see a slasher film, not whatever holiday flotsam was playing at the time. There was a buzz in the lobby, like we were really in for something special. Turns out, we were.
“Scream” is about Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a teenager still reeling from the murder of her mother a year ago. Sidney’s being stalked by a velvety-voiced psycho in a ghostly mask when she’s not rebuffing the sexual advances of her boyfriend, Billy. (Remember when Skeet Ulrich was hailed as the next Johnny Depp? Then Johnny Depp turned out to be the next Johnny Depp.) Meanwhile, opportunistic reporter Gale Weathers is trying to unmask the killer who she believes is the actual culprit behind the murder of Sidney’s mother; Sidney, however, fingered Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber in a brief cameo) for the crime, landing him on death row. As the bodies of Sidney’s classmates and close friends pile up, Sidney tries to stay alive while skirting some of the rules to survive a scary movie. Can Sidney confront her fears and overcome the unstoppable Ghostface? Well, she’s in “Scream 2″ and “Scream 3,” so signs point to yes.
“Scream” starts with an oft-discussed opening scene that bumps off the biggest star of the film (Drew Barrymore) ten minutes in. It’s been compared to “Psycho,” and I guess that’s fair if “Psycho” were geared towards a more ADD audience; Janet Leigh doesn’t buy it until we’re well into Act II. The opening scene is a bold bit of business and expertly sets up the shocks and the smarts that make the film such a success. I still marvel at how Craven balances a sense of humor and menace throughout. There isn’t a false note to be found.
On a whole, “Scream” holds up quite well. Though some of the hairstyles and clothing choices are true relics of the Clinton era, the movie doesn’t feel particularly dated. Well, people still went to big box video stores and watched movies on VHS tape. “Scream” is also probably one of the last horror movies in which cell phone ownership was anomalous rather than omnipresent. How I long for those days.
So far, we’re off to a good start. “Scream” still owns. But what about its first sequel? Stay tuned.
-Brad Lohan
Mar
14
“Re-Animator: The Musical” Review
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Forget “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” The real hot ticket isn’t on Broadway, but Hollywood Blvd. at the Steve Allen Theater, where Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator: The Musical” is running through the end of March.
I’m very much a fan of the 1985 HP Lovecraft-inspired film, also directed by Gordon, and starring the inimitable Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West. In the movie, West has discovered the key to bringing the dead back to life — a green-glowing serum he calls his “reagent.” Trouble is, the test subjects West uses aren’t fresh enough, so they come back a little screwy. The film’s a hilarious splatterfest and easily one of the best gore flicks of the 1980s.
The musical version is as faithful an adaptation of the film as a fan could hope for. Beat-for-beat, it follows the plot of the movie. Graham Skipper’s Herbert West is a fitting tribute to Combs’ take on the character, and he sings my favorite of the musical’s songs, “I’ll Create Life.” Chris L. McKenna plays West’s roommate, Dan Cain, who’s drawn into West’s macabre experiments. Dan’s disapproving girlfriend, Megan, is played by the lovely Rachel Avery. Jesse Merlin is West’s nemesis, an equally mad scientist and plagiarist, Dr. Hill. George Wendt brings his comedic chops to the role of Megan’s father, Dean Halsey. Everyone’s a gamer, and everyone’s clearly having great fun with the material.
What I should also mention is how blood-drenched the stage version of the play is. The first two rows of the auditorium were designated the “soak zone.” The seats were wrapped in plastic and ponchos were handed out to anyone who wanted one. Apart from a gag at the very top of the show where a doctor’s head explodes, the first act is fairly dry. But having seen the film, I knew all the major gore effects were going to come after the intermission. I wasn’t wrong. The second act goes heavy on the red stuff. I was seated off to the side, so I didn’t get the worst of it. But Graham Skipper makes sure during his final song that the people in the soak zone got what they paid for as he becomes tangled in someone’s entrails.
“Re-Animator: The Musical” is the best show I’ve seen in a long time. I hope it’s held over for additional performances and goes on the road. This is a real treat for fans of the film. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
-Brad Lohan
Mar
9
Pilot Season | “Hunter”
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I’m taking an episodic television writing class, so I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately. Well, Hulu. And while I should be watching all the current, critically-acclaimed stuff (“Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Cheaters”), I can’t help but see what else is out available for instant streaming. I’ve been chipping away at old, old episodes of “The Outer Limits,” which is great. But I also noticed a big, gaping hole in my life: the fact I’ve actually seen precious few TV shows from the 1980s. So, I thought I’d start doing regular blogs about the pilots to popular TV shows from Reagan era. Let’s kick things off with the first episode of “Hunter.”
Created by Frank Lupo, “Hunter” stars 6′6″ ex-football player Fred Dryer as Sgt. Rick Hunter, a shoot-first-ask-questions-later supercop on the LAPD. Hunter goes through partners like bullet-riddled Kleenex, and his particular brand of policework has him on the outs with Captain Cain (Michael Cavanaugh), a desk-riding bureaucrat. Early in the episode, Cain issues a memo to everyone in the precinct that outlines his touchy-feely approach to crime-fighting (e.g. always fire a warning shot); it’s the kind of B.S. that could easily get a man killed on the streets. The streets, by the way, are as dangerous as you’d expect. Hunter can’t even stop by the bank to make a deposit without showing up in the middle of an armed robbery. Even worse, there’s a serial killer on the loose, some nutjob in a ten-gallon hat who targets blondes that frequent a country-western bar.
Not wanting to be paired with the bowtie-wearing doofus Capt. Cain’s assigned him, Hunter partners up with Sgt. Dee Dee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer, who I think might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life…ever). She’s another loose cannon, and therefore, they make most insubordinate duo on the force. I’m glad that the producers didn’t make McCall a shrinking violet, like Tyne Daly’s character in the Dirty Harry movie, “The Enforcer.” Rather, McCall’s basically Hunter with ’80s hair and a skirt. At any rate, they put a blonde wig on McCall and have her go undercover as a potential victim for the redneck bar ripper.
Meanwhile, Hunter butts heads with his psychiatrist, Dr. Bolin (Brian Dennehy). Capt. Cain, the pencil-pushing empty suit that he is, has ordered all officers to have bi-annual psychiatric evaluations. Now Bolin holds Hunter’s career in his hands. A negative evaluation could cost Hunter his badge. But Hunter begins to suspect that Bolin might actually be the killer he and McCall are looking for. Coincidentally, the killer, whose M.O. is slashing women’s throats, drives a Ford Bronco.
The episode also has a few interesting character beats. Hunter’s the son of a big-time crime boss and the only member of the family who chose to work on the right side of the law, and McCall’s a widow, whose husband was killed in the line of duty. They both have very personal reasons for not wanting to molly-coddle scumbags.
Here’s some more fun trivia about the 90-minute ep:
Hunter’s Catchphrase (Spoken Twice): “Works for me.”
Occasions McCall Goes Undercover as a Prostitute: 2
Explosions: 1
Flipped Cars: 2
Body Count: 4
Best WTF Line, Spoken by Sgt. McCall: “We’re going to wind up doing weekends in the electric chair if Cain finds out about this.”
Would I Watch It Again? Absolutely. “Hunter” is a blast.
So far, we’re off to a good start with my Pilot Season experiment. I loved “Hunter” something fierce. To borrow a phrase, the show definitely “works for me.”
-Brad Lohan
Mar
8
Now I know what the shepherd in Ezekiel 25:17 feels like, beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Or maybe not. At any rate, someone made fun of me on the Internet again, so it is time to salute Mr. J. Evert Jones for his response to my “Back to the Future” blog, wittily entitled “Claudia Wells > Elizabeth Shue.”
If I remember the piece correctly, I suggested that actress Claudia Wells, who played Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer in the first “Back to the Future,” essayed a performance that was superior to Elizabeth Shue’s turns as Jennifer in “Back to the Future, Part II” and “Back to the Future, Part III.” Some say there are more pressing things to discuss. Libya, for one. Charlie Sheen, for another. Nay, say I. However, Libyan terrorists do machine gun Doc Brown to death at the beginning of “Back to the Future,” and Charlie Sheen would someday replace Michael J. Fox on “Spin City.” And so, there is in fact some tenuous way for me to shoehorn those of-the-moment topics into a blog about BTTF.
I think I may have adult-onset autism.
But I digress. What was I talking about? Oh, yes. J. Evert Jones and his remarks. Here they are, unedited:
“I’m sorry you didn’t like Ms. Shue’s bow in the BTTF series, but I think you missed an important plot point– that of the danger of interacting with yourself while time travelling.
“Remember, Jennifer had to be knocked out by Doc Brown with his MIB prototype (!). This action caused an insufficient “knockout charge” administered to Marty Jr. And then, the dominoes fell; the fight/chase with Griff putting him in front of the clock tower, the idea of buying the sports almanac, etc.”
In particular, I like how he used the word “bow” when describing Elizabeth Shue’s performance. Since she spent the bulk of both movies in a state of unconsciousness, I think maybe he’s overreaching with his actorly terminology. Also, he brings up the idea of interacting with oneself during time travel, but his subsequent paragraph doesn’t bother to elaborate on this ever so important “plot point.” Even worse, he mischaracterizes the function of the neuralizer in “Men in Black,” which is designed to blank someone’s short-term memory, not render them unconscious. What a maroon!
Point is, Claudia Wells played Jennifer Parker with a sultriness that’s lacking in Shue’s take on the role. As played by Wells, Jennifer is the ultimate high school sweetheart. Shue’s Jennifer is cloying and kind of dim; she reminds me of my actual high school sweetheart. Don’t get me wrong. I love Shue in “Leaving Las Vegas,” a film I like to think is a spiritual sequel to “Back to the Future, Part III.” I imagine that Jennifer eventually broke up with Marty, relocated from Hill Valley to Sin City, and reinvented herself as a prostitute named Sera. But that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother blog to be ripped apart by Internet trolls.
-Brad Lohan
Mar
7
“Cool World” Review
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I must’ve seen the trailer for “Cool World” about a hundred times. It was one of those previews that seemed to be on every VHS tape in my collection, and I’d blow through it on fast forward practically every time. Still, the imagery seemed striking. The film looked like some sort of sleazy take on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” a dark fantasy about a cartoonist who gets to make it with one of his sexy drawings in a parallel universe from his own imagination. And who wouldn’t want to see a movie about that?
Well, a lot of people.
Despite starring a freakishly young Brad Pitt, “Cool World” was a turkey during its initial release in 1992. The amount of walkouts must’ve been staggering. Oh, how I’d've loved to have gone to a Saturday matinee of this and seen the smattering of families gradually filing out of the auditorium after they came to the realization the film’s definitely not “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” This movie must’ve scored more free passes for pissed-off parents than “Batman Returns” that summer.
So what’s “Cool World” all about? That’s what I’ve been asking myself since the closing credits started to roll. Here’s what I was able to come up with.
The film opens (for no particular reason whatsoever) in 1945 with Pitt’s character, Frank Harris, returning from WWII. His mother greets him at the airport, and they go back to her modest home on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Frank changes into a zoot suit as mom prepares dinner. (Hey, where are the cartoon characters? Hang on, there’s tons more useless backstory.) Then Frank shows his mother a motorcycle that he says he won in a card game in Italy. How it suddenly materialized in front of her house is left unexplained. They go for a ride on the bike and get into the least convincing car accident I’ve seen outside of student-produced short films. Lying in the dirt, Frank has some sort of weird WWII flashback, finds his mother dead near the scene of the crash and gets pulled into Cool World by a cartoon mad scientist named Dr. Whiskers.
Oh, yeah, there are cartoon characters in the movie. I’d forgotten, since this thing seemed like a weird, unofficial sequel to “Inglourious Basterds” for like the first ten minutes there.
We flash-forward to 1992 and meet Gabriel Byrne’s character, Jack Deebs, a cartoonist in the hoosegow. It must be some sort of minimum security facility, since he has a drawing table and all of his art supplies. Deebs is drawing a picture of Holli Would, a busty blond bombshell, who comes to life on the page and yanks him into Cool World. There, Holli (voiced by Kim Basinger) dances her little stripper dance in some kind of nightclub populated by the least appealing cartoon characters I’ve ever seen. Holli teases Jack, who seems to be a little bewildered by what’s going on, not unlike the audience. Jack’s then dumped back into the real world and promptly released from prison.
Jack goes back home, visits a comic book store, and readjusts life on the outside, a process that takes, oh, five or six minutes. We do learn that he was put away for killing his wife and her lover. Character sympathy? Eh, who needs it? At any rate, Jack’s then drawn back into Cool World, where we learn from Frank Harris, now a detective working the Cool World beat, that “noids” are not allowed to copulate with “doodles.” But Holli wants to hook up with Jack anyway because, well, she’s essentially sex personified. So, she and Frank do it, and it turns her into Kim Basinger. This is problematic for reasons beyond my understanding. Actually, Kim Basinger’s pretty terrible in this movie, so maybe that’s what it is.
There’s a lot of chasing around between our world and Cool World, none of it particularly interesting. Holli needs to get some MacGuffin called the Spike of Power that’s at the top of a casino in order to make her change into a “noid” permanent. See, she briefly changes back and forth from a noid into a doodle, and so does Jack for whatever reason. I guess it’s like a cartoon character STD flare up or something.
Problems? This movie’s got ‘em. The story is an absolute bugnuts mess. I have no idea who the hero of this movie is or why I should care about any of these people. Is Frank the hero? He’s a cop, trying to keep order. No, he can’t be the hero. He doesn’t really drive the action. Is Jack the hero? He created this kooky place sort of; it’s never made clear why it was around back in ‘45 but is also from Jack’s imagination in ‘92. Still, Jack doesn’t really do much but act like he has no idea what’s going on most of the time; I guess that makes him the audience surrogate. Is Holli the hero? She actually wants something, but beyond the superficial (boobs), we’re really not given much of any reason to root for her.
Okay, so out of three central characters, none of them emerges as the protagonist. This makes the movie seem aimless, since we just watch people we’re not really interested in doing things we’re indifferent about. Who cares if Holli becomes a noid? Who cares if her becoming a noid might destroy our world and Cool World. Both places suck anyway. Sincerely, this movie is so bad, it made me give up on humanity.
How’s the animation? Craptacular. Holli Would is the only cartoon character in the movie that isn’t a grotesquery. I guess that was done intentionally, but sheesh, “Cool World” on a whole is an eyesore. And damn if it isn’t the clunkiest blending of human actors with cartoon characters. Everyone’s eyelines are off; the physical interactions between noids and doodles are awkward; and the sets look like something out of bad dinner theater.
“Cool World” is a cinematic failure of the first order. It’s an interesting footnote in Brad Pitt’s career, but apart from that, this film doesn’t even merit the “so bad it’s good” backhanded compliment. It’s got a cool trailer, though.
-Brad Lohan