Gui ma tian shi (AKA Taoism Drunkard, 1984), Cheung-Yan Yuen. Dec 3, 9pm. View count: One.
Crank 2 (2009), Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor. Dec 5, 8:30pm. View count: One.

These two movies totally go together, in retrospect. Taoism Drunkard is a wacky kung-fu thing with a demon (called "Old Devil" in the subs) trying to... kill... some people? but thwarted by a a drunken monk and a powerful grandmother, both played by the same guy. There's a spherical pac-man-like entity whose job seems to be to detect males and bite their crotches. There's a weird group of donation collectors who keep showing up, and who provide the only instance of Fat Lady Kung Fu I've ever seen.

Whereas Crank 2 is more of a Troma-like production (except with a budget, more action, and arguably more style). The tone is really similar, though, as is the subject matter.
It's fairly charming, really; the attitude seldom dips into anything really unpleasant, and the whole thing has a level of cartoonish naivete to it. I would hazard that even GTA, to which I've seen this compared, is more weightily violent.
It also has John de Lancie (Q!) as a newsguy named Fish, which is a brilliant stupid decision. It set the tone.
And I must congratulate the dudes who wrote up the IMDB goofs page. An excerpt:

"Anachronisms: When Chev Chelios borrows a cell phone from his girlfriend, it appears to be an iPhone 3G, released July 11, 2008. According to the Google Maps used in-film, the events are occurring over a year earlier than that."

Chi bi (AKA Red Cliff, 2008), John Woo. Nov 28, 8pm. View count: One.
Lin Shi Rong (AKA Magnificent Butcher, 1979), Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, Woo-ping Yuen. Nov 29, 8pm. View count: One.
Bai ga jai (AKA The Prodigal Son, 1981), Sammo Hung Kam-Bo. Nov 30, 8:30pm. View count: One.

Red Cliff is a solid ancient Chinese mytho-historical epic thingy, seemingly the first Chinese production John Woo's been involved in in a pret-ty long time. It shows a lot of semi-mythical Awesome Historical Figures whipping ass in righteous warfare. It's fun, you don't worry very hard about the good guys, and a lot of Woo's trademark touches are shoehorned in. There's a weird English VO in a couple of spots (which pronounces names in such an anglicised way that's it's actually hard to tell who it's talking about), but otherwise the subtitles are perfectly good.

Magnificent Butcher is purportedly a side story to a Robin-Hood-like mythos, where Sammo Hung plays Butcher Wing, a follower of famous kung fu badass Wong Fei-Hong. The story ends up being kinda dark, but the kung fu is impressive as always. The drunkard has some great expressions, even though he's replaced with a pitifully obvious stunt double when anything much gets going. Wong Fei-Hong has a scene wherein he does calligraphy on a rival's forehead (possibly the best scene in the movie), and you get to see a photo of young, thin Sammo Hung.

The Prodigal Son is another Sammo Hung/Lam Ching-Ying vehicle, where they (eventually) vie over a student. It's pretty amusing, and it's apparently a story about how parents screw you up. It's also about Lam Ching-Ying fighting a bunch of guys in theatre-drag.

The Space Children (1958), Jack Arnold (MST3K version). Nov 26, 6pm. View count: One.
Master Ninja I (AKA The Master, 1984),
Michael Sloan (MST3K version). Nov 27, 3pm. View count: One.
Gui da gui (AKA Spooky Encounters, AKA Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind, 1980), Sammo Hung. Nov 27, 7pm. View count: One.

Space Children is sort of goofy, but harmless. The MSTing seemed a bit extraneous in some areas, but then there was rather an abundance of plot holes and "wait, what" sorts of moments. As some stranger on imdb puts it, "The dramatic structure of the movie is weak. It starts well enough, with the arrival at the missile base, the landing of the alien, its discovery by the children and its first communication with them. After that, it just meanders all over the place. There is no steady build up of tension and no real climax. Things happen, but for no particular reason."

Master Ninja I'd never actually seen, so this was a thing I'd needed to do. As is pointed out repeatedly, this is the first of a series of seven movie-length compilations of TV episodes. This leads to weirdness as regards characters who show up, engage with a plot, have a wrap-up, and leave after twenty minutes, never to be seen again in the rest of the movielike work. Fortunately it doesn't really matter. Lee Van Cleef is pretty hilarious as White Guy Ninja, and his apprentice is an 80s golem who likes to throw shuriken. The end.

Spooky Encounters is an excellent picture. Pretty much everything in it is awesome. Lam Ching-Ying even has a cameo as a cop! Full-on comedy Sammo Hung in this one. And truly, it is chock full of spooky encounters. Recommended.

Geung si sin sang (AKA Mr. Vampire, 1985), Ricky Lau. Nov 21, 9pm. View count: One.
Ling huan xian sheng (AKA Mr. Vampire III, 1987), Ricky Lau. Nov 22, 8pm. View count: One.
Jiang shi xian sheng xu ji (AKA Mr. Vampire II, 1986), Ricky Lau. Nov 23, 7:30pm. View count: One.
Jiang shi shu shu (AKA Mr. Vampire IV, 1988), Ricky Lau. Nov 24, 9:30pm. View count: One.
Xin jiang shi xian sheng (AKA Mr. Vampire V, 1989 (released 1992)), Ricky Lau. Nov 25, 7pm. View count: One.

These are great movies -- kung fu with various supernatural whatnot. The first one holds together the best, of course, with the third and fourth ranking roughly equal (I'd say) in entertainment value. The second is easily the crummiest, with a weird "heartwarming" aspect and several ve-e-ery lo-o-ong segments in which everyone's under the influence of a sedative, and thus are pretending to move in slow motion. And then there's the fifth, with the western-style vampire and the fake bats. (It should also be noted that the movie we watched which was labelled as Mr. Vampire 5 bears no resemblance to the summary on IMDB, and yet I can't find a closer match. It's weird.)

So, the first one is easily the best (although I bear a great fondness for #4), and apparently codified the chinese movie vampire. (Wikipedia link: "In the movies, jiang shi can be put to sleep by putting a piece of yellow paper with a spell written on it on their foreheads [...]. Generally in the movies the jiang shi are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to rigor mortis.") This is of course the basis for Hsien-ko/Lei lei, who's my default avatar. Even she's sort of a takeoff, with her shifting from foot to foot instead of hopping, and ability to speak.
Anyhow, vampire shows up (ancestor buried in a bad location), hassles Lam Ching-Ying and disciples, almost transmits vampirism (apparently through fingernail wounds?), and eventually is vanquished.

Number Two is schmaltzy and has a vampire family, the child of which becomes friends with a brother and sister in a really, really american mid-century house. Number Three has a con artist with pet ghosts (somewhat reminiscent of the Frighteners). Number Four has a rivalry between a buddhist priest and a taoist one (they are next-door neighbors), and it's totally hilarious, with a lot of goofy slapstick. Anthony Chan as the 'Four-Eyed Taoist,' (he has glasses) a total dick who nevertheless has cool powers, is the best part. Weirdly, I think Lam Ching-Ying wasn't in this one.
And number Five is the christianity-and-western-vampirism one, which wasn't so hot.

Okay, I'm wrapping this up now, because I have more movies in the queue.

Control (2007), Anton Corbijn. Nov 20, 9:15pm. View count: One.

I haven't quite been able to figure out exactly what was wrong with this movie. My best stab at it is that its british detachment went too far into the "impenetrable" side of things, making everyone's emotions (apart from obvious surface ones) impossible to ascertain. I felt throughout as if I were waiting for people's characters to fill out, but they never really seemed to.

Supposedly this was based on a book by Curtis' wife, which could explain the second-degree opaqueness of it all. It had a distinct outside-looking-in quality, which didn't do much for understanding of the protagonist.

Structurally I suppose I'd say that we didn't get to see enough of the grinding day-to-dayness of things; when we were shown difficult situations they tended to be the first we'd really heard of that, or a light-touch callback to a previous event. Weirdly, the simple trope of showing the protagonist walking around aimlessly, fitting poorly in an uncaring world -- that would have been highly appropriate and would have allowed for some "loneliness" time.

Of course, the soundtrack was wonderful, and Anton Corbijn knows his way around a lighting setup. I think the two things that charmed me the most were the situational soundtrack choices and the grey gobbets of food that people ate towards the end. But I simultaneously approved of and was a little leery of the 'clever' soundtrack moments; it's not up to Wes Anderson territory, but, still, putting "No Love Lost" up against the word "HATE" written across the protagonist's jacket? A little cutesy. (It's also true that that particular sequence struck me as a misstep -- defiant punky clothing graffiti hardly looks like the work of a guy who's totally losing it.)

I think that this movie would have done well to note the maxim about making every shot develop character or advance the action. Or indeed to refine the action and character arcs in advance, before trying to portray them.

Star Crash (1979), Luigi Cozzi. Oct 17, 8pm. View count: One.
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Grant Heslov. Nov 7, 7:45pm. View count: One.

Star Crash is hilarious, stupid, and terrible. It's up there as regards bad movies that are kinda wonderful. There's a robot who kind of sounds like Slim Pickens, David Hasselhoff, and a Who's Tommy-styled guy who apparently was a child preacher in real life. Recommended.

Goats: I came out of this movie rather angry. It's frustrating, because it has sort of a cute premise, and a cast of fairly good people. You had every advantage, little movie, and yet you just hang around mentioning Star Wars all the time. Why do you do that? Are you making a joke? Are you making a statement? No -- you are just repeatedly invoking Star Wars. Having Ewan McGregor present does not make this easier to stomach.
The movie's not a magical-realist Box o' Wonder, it's not a Coenish knowing semi-comedy, nor is it a Jarmuschian meandering character piece, any one of which (cliches) could have saved its bacon. It's JUST A STUPID COMEDY. It's formulaic like unto Dreamworks. The most you can hope for is Kevin Spacey saying "Twizzlers." (That was the high point, I think.)
The narration, also, is a really poor choice. And the satire is the most toothless satire I've seen in years. Really nothing to love here.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Stanley Kubrick. August 19, 7:30pm. View count: Five?
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), Edward D. Wood Jr. August 20, 8:30pm. View count: Two.
Kaminey (2009), Vishal Bhardwaj. Sept 13, 3pm. View count: One.


Dr. Strangelove we happened to see at our local theatre, the Rafael. It was hosted by Brad Bird, who showed up and took arbitrary questions from the audience at the end. Todd Alcott happens to be doing a writeup of Dr. Strangelove even now, so although his is patently not the type I'd do, it's probably smarter, and certainly longer (although it is true: the "formal structure" of movies seldom interests me seriously).
It was good to see it again -- I don't think I'd ever seen it on the big screen. It was an impeccable new, clean print, really good-looking. We sat next to an awesome middle-aged lady, who talked with me for the hour or so we sat around before things happened (she told me that there had been a high school theatre production of Dr. Strangelove recently nearby, and that a teenage girl had played the part of Major Kong. I find this excellent).

I think my favorite thing about this movie is the way Kong's plane goes from valiant military fellas doing their duty to valiant military fellas doing their duty to blow up the world -- and they're treated the same way, regardless. Against the odds! Suspense! Just doing their jobs.

One of the things Brad Bird brought up was the broadness of the humor, and the tactic of using humor to put forth very serious ideas. He referred to his time on the Simpsons, and how this had allowed them to get away with much more than a live-action show could have. Now, I hardly think that Kubrick had a problem with getting away with things, but there is purportedly a story wherein he realized that it was potentially a very silly narrative, whereupon he decided to go with it.

Finally: it's a little weird to simultaneously feel sorry and pleased that Peter Sellers declined Slim Pickens' role.


Plan 9 we saw in that Rifftrax broadcast that they had going a few weeks ago. It was colorized, which I hadn't been familiar with beforehand (it didn't do much for the film, really). The Rifftraxing didn't do all that much for it either, but it wasn't bad. Scarily, since the broadcast was from Nashville, they had Lowtax come onstage and do something.


Kaminey I didn't find all that compelling, but "it had its good points," as our friend mentioned afterward. The best of these was when one of the twin-brother leads spun around in the rain with his best buddy, singing "Spiderman! Spiderman!" Except he had a fake speech impediment, so it was more like "Fpiderman!" It was a beautiful moment.
The rest of the movie was about Good Twin and Bad Twin, and the girlfriend of the Good Twin towards whom he was fairly ambivalent. There is an amount of action, and a pretty wacky disco scene. (We actually showed up at the theater wanting to see Daddy Cool (which is taglined "Put the Fun in Funeral" or some such), but we were late and for some reason it wasn't subtitled.)

I was thinking about the blogging thing, and was considering starting a more publicky blog elsewhere (perhaps even on my own webspace! I don't know!), and then I was trying to work out how long that impulse would last, and then I decided to go play Batman.

So: Batman! I am actually enjoying the heck out of it. The low points include the horrifying (lack of) facial rigs on all the characters, and some of the PSA timing intervals. Well, and my pretty lousy fighting ability, but it is, as they say, all good. Oh, but I would like to deliver a hard stare with cocked eyebrow to the nice man who implemented the boob jiggle on Harley Quinn -- who, I might add, is wearing some kind of vinyl Hot Topic corset thing that really should not allow any jiggle, regardless of the preference of some.

Facial rigs: we (the game biz) still really suck at this stuff, and clearly this was not a priority for Arkham Asylum (to the extent that the guards all have the same (kinda weird) model), but the cognitive dissonance still clobbers one at regular intervals. Models can look pretty good in a still, but with lipsync and nothing else (rigging-wise), you have a big problem when Player is expected to stare at a character blah-blahing like an animate death mask. It's especially odd because the lipsync is half-decent, and it does deform the lower face to an extent. So the upper facial area just looks dead, and everyone kind of reminds me of the Phantom of the Opera.

Anyhoo, it's actually really a pleasing game to play, if not to admire the characters of. I am only about a third through, but I am collecting little TACOs like nobody's business. Moving around is fun, finding treats is fun, figuring out the Riddler's little clues is super fun (although sometimes gimped by his clue pointing to the most obvious thing in the room. Duh, Riddler. Try harder). Even yelling at Batman when he misinterprets my commands and screws something up is fun. "Goddamn it, Batman! No! Get back up there!" (It is third-person and thus encourages this implicitly.)

Love Bug (1968), Robert Stevenson. July 6, 10pn. View count: One.
Zazie dans le Métro (1960), Louis Malle. July 14, 10pm. View count: One.
Tron (1982), Steven Lisberger. August 1, 8:30pm. View count: Six?
District 9 (2009), Neill Blomkamp. August 15, 5:15pm. View count: One.

Oh man, I have been so remiss. Okay. Let's.

Love Bug is a stupid 60s movie, with the dad from Mary Poppins as the villain, and the cop from That Darn Cat as the protagonist. It's silly, and I didn't regret watching it.

Zazie is an amusingly non-serious movie, with flights of fancy erupting from every juncture, and a just-barely-not-grating precocious kid as a protagonist. If this had been an american film with twelve-year-old Audrey Hepburn or something, it would probably be on everyone's DVD shelf.

Tron is Tron. It was good to see it again. It holds up well, of course, the effects don't quit, and you'd never know that the actress playing the female lead had no clue what she was talking about. Also, we think that Dillinger went to Yale with the Old Man from Robocop.

District 9 I thought was quite, quite good. I won't spoil here, but the choice of locale, as an element of the first half's harsh, biting satire was very nicely done. I have a few questions about the scifi logistics, but it is, as they say, all good. I will consider it even if I can buy an 18-inch action figure of a certain mech.

This evening in my editing class I was explaining what prepending 'Ur' to a word or phrase meant, since no one else seemed to know. I got it across that it was a way of referring to the first of a kind of thing, or a progenitor, and I then gave a couple of examples: ur-language, ur-hominid, and... there I had to stop, because my mind had supplied and I had almost said "ur-beatle."

Moon (2009), Duncan Jones. July 4, 4:45pm. View count: One.
Road House (1989), Rowdy Herrington. July 4, 9pm. View count: One.

Well! This is a ludicrous pair of movies.

Moon was pretty charming, really, and did a great job of making its effects work difficult to notice. I had a problem with the ending, though, which I will discuss ( under a cut due to spoilery. ) Wasn't quite as smart as could have been hoped for, but it wasn't stupid, and I'm glad I saw it.

Road House, surprising no one, was the stupidest thing ever. We watched this in lieu of actual fireworks, and I think it was a good decision.

Patrick Swayze is a big-headed weirdo who is apparently some sort of super-bouncer at some bar, when a dude with two lines shows up and hires him away to be a bouncer at HIS bar, because his bar is needlessly rowdy and he is always "sweeping eyeballs off the floor" at the end of the night. Safety hazard, don'tcha know. So Patrick Swayze shows up, does a lot of pointless things, and somehow the bar gets nicer and nicer. But there is a bad man who owns the town, and he's a dick, and he sort of looks like a cut-rate mixture of Jonathan Pryce and Sam Neill. Patrick Swayze is also a Buddhist, according to the DVD box copy and nothing else, and he shows this by doing tai chi in a field while an old farmer with a beard blushingly wipes sweat off his head. And blah, blah blah.
It's all pretty awful, but if you have the right group of people, it can be respectably hilarious.

A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990), Stan Winston. June 21, 10pm. View count: One.
The Fountainhead (1949), King Vidal. June 23, 5pm. View count: Two.
Baby Face (1933), Alfred Green. June 23, 7:30pm. View count: One.

Hookay.
Gnome was a wretched pile. Really just horrid. I'm surprised we made it through the whole thing. So, Stan Winston directed it. Stan Winston's a pro at the effects, obviously, but perhaps not so much at picking half-decent scripts. This winner, Pen Densham, was one of two writers, and plus he came up with "the story." He produced, too. The other writer conspicuously was a co-producer on pretty much everything else that Densham worked on, so clearly they're buds and on the same gnomey wavelength. I haven't actually heard of much of the stuff they worked on, but it's probably for the best.
Anyhow, this movie was pure pain from start to finish. The titular gnome is trauma-inducing, whatsisface from The Breakfast Club is annoying and repeats things over and over in a Really Urgent! tone of voice, and guy from Law and Order kinda phones it in. Robert Z'dar is in this, and he's probably the high point. Weirdly, he plays (surprise!) a henchman, and his boss is named "Zadar." It's confusing.
In conclusion, the gnome likes to mutilate people's genitals.

Fountainhead I sat through most of again so I could show its bombast and Agenda Über Alles to JP, but I relented and doodled through part of it. It's not really a fun movie to sit through, even if you hear more about Ayn Rand on a daily basis than most people do. The lead actress has a neat face, though.

Baby Face was actually quite good, although we drew a version (apparently there were multiple versions, censored variously) that had the happy ending but contained most of the rest of the disputed material. Barbara Stanwyck was quite good, and she really managed to get across a lot of character. The lady playing her maid was great, too, with more of a part and definitely more fun than most maids of the time. The happy ending felt pretty undermotivated, but the unhappy ending would have also seemed a bit weird, so perhaps let's chalk it up to the times.

Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), Robert Butler. June 6, 8pm. View count: One.

So supposedly this is the sequel to "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," which I've never seen, possibly because no one disliked me enough as a child to subject me to it. This one's bad enough, although pretty hilarious for several reasons: 1. Cesar Romero; 2. Kurt Russell as an alpha teenager; 3. Lots of terrible live-action Disney "invisibility!" effects.

There is, however, a high percentage of golf in this, and some terrible, pointless car chases.

Arguably the best thing about this movie is the guy who played the hapless redheaded sidekick went on to write the episode of DS9 in this exchange occurs.

We're No Angels (1955), Michael Curtiz. May 26, 2pm. View count: One.
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Mervyn LeRoy. May 26, 4pm. View count: One.
Brute Force (1947), Jules Dassin. May 26, 7pm. View count: One.

We're No Angels is a cute little 'nice criminals' Christmas movie, wherein escaped prisoners threaten unconvincingly to be mean to a nice family in French Guyana. Everyone is nice, even the poisonous snake. Peter Ustinov is in it, and he is awesome. Oh, and Basil Rathbone as The Bad Guy! (He's not nice, but how could he be?) The surprisingly dark bits stand out all the more in such a 50s-pleasant context, which I think is pretty amusing.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a pretty cool (and surprisingly harsh in spots) depiction of a guy's life in and out of the titular chain gang. I was impressed by its portrayal of the Georgia (implied only - the state is never named, but apparently Georgia was insulted enough to ban the film and sue people) justice system, especially the part where a man stands up at a hearing to tell the court how beneficial the chain gangs are for an inmate. Not to mention a fairly pointed opinion on the fate of WWI vets, with a nice concise scene in a pawn shop. Good stuff, really.

Brute Force, if you cut out the flashbacks that mostly were pretty boring, would be a better movie. However, it's still a very watchable and occasionally impressively badass prison picture, with a sadistic guard-captain (who is really well-played), a violent and vindictive protagonist (who would be MUCH more fun without his sticky-sweet flashback), and prison-work activities that seem to actually include making license plates. If you watch this, be sure you make it to the end, though, as several (but not all!) of the most awesome (in the 'wow, he hit him with that!' sense) moments are placed in the last 10-15 minutes.

The Man With the Golden Arm (1955), Otto Preminger. Apr 28, 2pm. View count: One.
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), Otto Preminger. May 1, 3pm. View count: One.
Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Otto Preminger. May 1, 8pm. View count: One.

The Man With the Golden Arm is an entertainingly abstracted movie, which seems like an interesting direction to go in given that the book it's adapted from is said to be rather complex and dense. I think it suits the subject matter rather well; the four or five sets, each seemingly visible from all the others, bolster the boxed-in atmosphere. Sinatra does pretty well as a dude from circumstances who is rather excited to have in mind a thing he wants to do for a living, only to have everyone around him practically shove heroin needles at him. (Note: everyone calls him 'Dealer' not because he deals drugs (he would then be called a 'peddler'), but because he deals cards in illegal poker games. It took me a while to figure that one out.) All the rest of the cast does decently as well; I particularly enjoyed the sidekick, who is apparently played by a comedian of the time; he's a guy who's ignored and pushed around by most, and that enables him to mouth off to a small but measurable extent, to keep a small but measurable amount of dignity. Kim Novak is described by someone on IMDB as "plant-like", which I now have to agree with. She's that Ideally Supportive Woman that is often to be found in movies, which makes her fairly dull.
The wrap-up at the end I found something of a cop-out; I've seen earlier movies that managed to lay a pall of pessimism or precariousness over a relatively up ending, but this one did not do this. It was just a happy, convenient ending. Preminger seems to do this a lot. Oh, and finally, there is a smooth-coated terrier of some kind which drinks beer out of an ashtray to please a woman. This will be revisited later.

Where the Sidewalk Ends is about a violent detective who just can't stop beating up bad guys. Occasionally he beats up non-bad guys as well. He also has a highly supportive lady that he likes, although that lady does not have a beer-drinking small dog. A lot of the movie is spent on detectives figuring things out, and trying to find one another in various bars and houses. The ending here is almost entirely a happy cop-out as well; I was rooting for something much more along the lines of "and he took the secret to the grave," but you know me and secrets and graves.

Anatomy of a Murder is apparently an adaptation of a True Story, which was accordingly Ripped From Today's Headlines (where "today" is defined as "sometime in the fifties"). It's in large part a courtroom drama, which is mostly entertaining enough. The real kicker, however, is the sheer number of times that Jimmy Stewart says "panties." It's punishment, but it's the kind of punishment that makes one still kind of want a little mp3 of each instance. I mean, what if I needed it?
Apparently the discussion(s) of rape that happens in the movie was fairly off-putting to at least some people, including Jimmy Stewart's father, who reportedly "was so offended by the film, which he deemed 'a dirty picture,' that he took out an ad in his local newspaper telling people not to see it." It does all seem fairly inappropriate for the fifties, albeit the late fifties, and, as I say, probably Jimmy Stewart's father was just reacting to the horror one cannot escape when Jimmy Stewart says "panties."
The rape victim is the one with the terrier that drinks beer from an ashtray (she, like the woman in Man With the Golden Arm, is utterly charmed by this for some reason), and the dog is even used to point out a stuffy man who does not like dogs. Oh ho ho, only bad men do not like dogs!
I would not exactly recommend this one; it has sort of a sunny tone which does not much befit the subject matter. However, the courtroom scenes are well-handled and don't drag, and you could do worse if you're looking for a movie with law in it for some reason. And Jimmy Stewart saying "panties."

Murder She Said (1961), George Pollock. Apr 4, 8:30pm. View count: One.
The Fountainhead (1949), King Vidor. Apr 21, 2:30pm. View count: One.

Murder She Said was an adorable 60s predecessor to the Murder, She Wrote series. The lady playing Ms. Marple was sort of a battleax in comparison to her television counterpart, but it was fun to watch her bluff her way around (as opposed to pretend innocence and obliviousness all the time). She witnesses a murder, and, when the police brush her off, she determines to solve it herself. She does, of course, and 60s music which invites one to do the Monkey plays. The end.

The Fountainhead, pardon me, I found... laughable? I suspect that not all of this need be laid at Ayn Rand's feet (she did write her own screenplay, though); Gary Cooper as the lead never quite seemed to be very much of anything. The female lead tried harder, as did the newspaperman; but really, the script is so didactic, and so simplistically so. "Why, this seems to be a world which supports my ideology precisely! What a pleasing coincidence! And everyone lived happily ever after, if they deserved it by behaving as I wish it."

Laura (1944), Otto Preminger. Mar 10, 2pm. View count: One.
Sita Sings the Blues (2008), Nina Paley. Mar 13, 9am. View count: One.
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (MST3K version)(1996), Kenneth J. Berton. Mar 13, 9pm. View count: Three?

Whoops! Forgot to actually post this! And write it, I suppose.

Laura is an excellent whodunit-ish mishmash of events, with which really only the private dick could keep up. This is fine, because young Vincent Price is in it, as the secretly broke cad. Possibly due to his presence, I'd built up an impression of this movie (prior to seeing it) as a darker Poe-ish thing, but it isn't at all. The way everyone sort of worships Laura, though, is not un-creepy.

Sita Sings the Blues I'm pleased to have finally seen! It is a nice piece; the weird, highly Flash-oriented character designs work much better in motion (nearly all of which is quite solid). There's heavy use of cycles, but it works nicely. It's definitely a concatenation of styles and concepts, but it's pleasing to watch and the Annette Hanshaw soundtrack is welcome anytime. You can download it or watch it at this place which will also let you donate money (this is Nina Paley's business model, since the copyright-holders of the Annette Hanshaw tracks are not allowing her to sell DVDs outright).

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders is a cobbled-together pile of silliness, another terrible movie saved by the MSTing. A thing that I learned from IMDB is that parts of it were filmed in Petaluma, a town that's kind of close to where we live, and that I know primarily for its big ol' "antique" store. (It's where I took all of these pictures of terrible things.) It's not hard to make the connection between the killer cymbal-monkey of the movie and that blown-glass angry clown, I tell you what.

Lady in the Lake (1947), Robert Montgomery. Mar 2, 12pm. View count: One.
The Night of the Hunter (1955), Charles Laughton. Mar 2, 2pm. View count: One.
Out of the Past (1947), Jacques Tourneur. Mar 4, 1pm. View count: One.
Ace in the Hole (1951), Billy Wilder. Mar 8, 6pm. View count: One.

Lady in the Lake is a highly clever Philip Marlowe story that's shown almost entirely in first person. It's a thing which some regard as gimmicky, but it worked for me. It's interestingly adventure gamey, really.

The Night of the Hunter is a seriously creepy Robert Mitchum piece, the original from which Cape Fear was made. If you want some scary-preacher-chasing-little-kids action, you want this movie.

Out of the Past is another Robert Mitchum one, where he plays an ex-PI. It's not a bad one, but compared with all these standouts, it's less compelling. Lots of noir basics, though, solid.

Ace in the Hole is a 'crooked reporter' picture. Well-handled, a couple of great lines. Kirk Douglas does a good job, makes the newspaper business look pretty terrible. Also features prominently the Hut Sut song!

Coraline (2009), Henry Selick. Feb 22, 4:30pm. View count: One.
STar Trek: Generations (1994), David Carson. Feb 22, 8pm. View count: Two.

Coraline! Finally saw it, want to see it again. Very good stuff. It's so interesting how its quiet natural character motion contrasts with the crappy crap in the trailers; one for Ice Age [n] stands out particularly (lame character designs, failure to overshoot or really push poses even though the timing and editing says 'I think I'm being very cartoony'). Only a couple of false steps in Coraline; a too-talky bit, some muddy decisions - but I'll take muddy over cookie-cutter simple any day. It's dense and complex, sort of like the difference between a drawing where you move the pencil lightly over a line again and again, and one where you grip it in your fist and scrape it across the page once. If that makes sense. Also: I am so gay for stop motion.

Star Trek: Generations is not really that good, by contrast, as if you didn't know. This is the one where Shatner dies anticlimactically saving the planet from Malcolm McDowell, who outclasses most of the cast. It's already fading from my memory. Oh, the Nexus wish-fulfilment thing was a wasted opportunity, barely touched before it was time to abandon it. Could have been a great Solaris ripoff.

Werewolf (1996)(MST3K version), Tony Zarindast. Feb 8, 8:45pm. View count: Two.
Soultaker (1990) (MST3K version), Michael Rissi. Feb 10, 10pm. View count: One.
Future War (1997) (MST3K version), Anthony Doublin. Feb 11, 7:30pm. View count: One.

Werewolf is, surprising no one, terrible. It's got Joe Estevez moping around looking blank, a crap-ass 'werewolf skeleton' with pointy skull-protrusions for ears, easily killed live werewolves, and a full moon that sticks around for weeks on end. Also a hilariously-accented female lead who just cannot be arsed to care about the movie.

Soultaker also has Joe Estevez, who pals around with Robert Z'Dar. They are reapers or something, and a bunch of stupid teenagers try to escape being reaped. This movie is co-written by the female lead, and the worshipful slow-mo shots of her getting ready for a bath are therefore extra yucky. The script is pretty bad in general, though, so it's hard to discern where the blame should go.

Future War leaves Joe Estevez behind but continues to carry Robert Z'Dar, who is a cyborg this time. Someone on IMDB renders the male lead as 'Jean-Clod van Dumb' and this is both cute AND true. This movie has very bad T. rex puppets, some fat guys, and a nun who used to be a hooker. It's so awful. There's this incredibly long sequence where a pipe hallway is very slowly traversed by our heroes, and it'll destroy your will to live if you let it.