Monthly Archives: June 2015

Movies Set in a High School

As I’m writing this, Jay and Sean must be driving home from Sean’s twenty-year reunion. It’s got all of us thinking back to our high school days and our favourite high school reunion movies. Funny how Wandering Through the Shelves seems to be on the wavelength.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)– Jay revisited this one just a couple of weeks ago preparing for the reunion. John Cusack has never been cooler as a hit man coming home to his own ten-year reunion. First of all, I’m a sucker for Prodigal Son Returns movies. Second, I loved seeing Cusack return to high school since many of us remember him from ten years earlier in high school movies like Say Anything. Oh, and the soundtrack is just perfect.

Election (1999)– Speaking of actors we knew from high school, Ferris Bueller is back as a teacher trying to sabotage an election for school president. Director Alexander Payne is the master of cringe-worthy moments and the satire always rings true. There were definately some Tracy Flicks in my school. Both Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon do their best work ever here.

Elephant (2003)– Here’s one I’ll never forget. Gus Van Sant offers no theories or explanations as to what the motivations of the shooters were in his depiction of a high school massacre. Based in part on the Columbine shootings, we follow several students through what at first appears to be just an ordinary day at school. Once the massacre begins, the film is harrowing and unflinching, refusing to even try to make sense of things.

Movie Malarkey: The sequel

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Welcome back to another edition of Movie Malarkey where we, being the Assholes that we are, try to bluff you into buying our fake movie synopses. We loved the responses we got last week so much that we thought we’d try it again.

The obscure movie title of the week is Eegah. Believe it or not, this is a real movie and only one of the summaries below is accurate. The rest are just Malarkey (and thanks to Joel for suggesting it).

a) After Roxy hits a 7-foot giant caveman named Eegah while driving through California desert, her father returns to the scene in hopes of snapping a photo of the giant. When he fails to return home, Roxy and her boyfriend realize they must rescue her father from the terrifying Eegah – a creature who, like any of us, just wants to be loved.

b) Twenty men set sail on the Eegah for adventure, profit, and a chance at a new life they think will favour them once they set foot on New Land. Only two men survive to the end of the journey, and even they are unprepared for the culture they find once there. One thing’s for sure – there’s no going back.

c) Veronique and Michel are a couple of young newlyweds who suffer the agonizing loss of their newborn daughter just a year into their marriage. To save their relationship and heal their hearts, the pair decide to hike the Eegah desert together, but will grief transcend the unforgiving landscape?

Vote by poll and\or comments on which you think is the REAL movie synopsis for Eegah.

SPOILER: ANSWER BELOW!

Eegah, a “beloved” (rating: 2.2 out of 10) comedy from 1962, directed by Arch Hall Sr and starring Arch Hall Jr, with the amazing Richard Kiel appearing as the 7-foot caveman (oddly, since he’s 7’2 in real life). It had a budget of just 15K, but it still manages to make you wonder where the other 12k went. This movie is listed among The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made by Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson. And this guy knows bad movies. The sound recordist was such a failure that almost the entire movie had to be dubbed in post-production, and badly. And the assistant camera operator got so cozy with the terrible movie motif that he went on to make The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? – which, yes, is a real movie title for some reason. Bet you can’t guess what that one’s about!

Still, this movie had some success at drive-ins that summer, and managed to make the director a million dollars, which, if he’s still alive today, I bet he still laughs about.

Thanks everyone for playing along!

Unfinished Business

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I usually have quite a high tolerance for Vince Vaughn, but man was this the most unnecessary piece of filmmaking I’ve seen since RIPD.

And I may have kept quiet except for what they did to poor Tom Wilkinson. The dude was in three (3!) of my favourite movies last year – Selma, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Belle. And this is his follow-up?

I mean, this is a movie where even Vince Vaughn was misused. And what they did to Nick Frost was criminal. But Tom Wilkinson might have a human rights complaint. It’s a goddamn travesty and I feel worse about myself for having seen it.

Spy

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We had a busy weekend out-of-town but slid back just in time to make it to the drive-in and give this one the eyeball.

You know what I liked about this movie? A lot, actually. First, it’s not a spoof. Don’t call it a spoof. It’s a legit action movie that happens to also be funny. Second, it’s not funny because Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is bad at her job. She’s a top agent, extremely competent if somewhat reluctant. It’s funny because she’s not quite got that James Bond suaveness down pat – she still gets a kick out globe-trotting and being upgraded to premium economy. She hasn’t let the whole spy thing go to her head. Third, it’s not just the hero who’s a female – so is her sidekick (Miranda Hart) and her adversary (Rose Byrne), and they’re all great.

Its highest gear isn’t quite comparable to what Daniel Craig is doing over at Spectre, but there’s a kitchen knife fight that’s pretty intense and you can tell that a lot of work went into its choreography. McCarthy gets to stretch some muscles she hasn’t used in a while with a versatile performance rather than a crude caricature. But the greatest treat is that she’s isn’t funny alone; Feig has this great trickle-down effect where he expects everyone to get laughs, and they do, even the cutaway character reaction shots. The best laughs, though, probably come at the expense of Jason Statham, who welcomes them. Nobody else could have played it so well because the jokes don’t just hit back at the manly superagent type, but also specifically at Statham’s career, and he’s game. Obscenely game! And while McCarthy is undoubtedly the star, Feig gives everyone a chance to shine, because if funny is good, then very funny is very good.

Big applause to Paul Feig for being the only one who can truly write for Melissa McCarthy – and that includes McCarthy herself. In anyone else’s hands she turns into a clown. A big, crass joke who’s too obnoxious to appreciate. Feig doesn’t need to humiliate her. He elevates her with the right element, the right foil, and with good writing and the right context, she makes the movie sparkle, and she led this one right to the top of the box office this weekend, smoked right by those Entourage boys like the badass she is.

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion

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You may have heard that one of your favourite Assholes is about to celebrate his 20th high school reunion – I recently lamented the fact that he expected me to accompany him in my Grosse Pointe Blank review\rant.

Romy & Michele is the second high school reunion movie to come out of apparently nostalgia-crazy 1997, and I’m starting to see an alarming trend here. These reunionites are dressed like it’s the second coming of the prom. I’m picturing Sean’s classmates as more the cutoffs kind, maybe denim accessories, vests without shirts.

Also super duper alarming: how EVERYONE goes back to track down their lost loves. Can you really be lusting after your high school crush a decade later?

This movie is so incredibly dumb, but it does prey on my worst fears about high school reunions.

“What’s the point of going if not to impress people?” they ask. Cue a goddamned helicopter. I mean, who, Sean, out of your graduating class, will arrive and\or depart by helicopter?

“All I ever wanted was for people to think we are better than we were in high school” they say. Um, right. Is this whole thing going to be one big circle jerk where they all compliment each other’s middling jobs and average offspring, or are they all just measuring each other’s metaphorical penises to see who wins most successful?

Speaking of which. Romy & Michele manages to get right down to the obvious with an award: Most Changed for the Better Since High School. Everyone is there to compete. Everyone hopes it’s them. But only one can win!

Does this sound super fun or what?

Montage of Heck

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We all know how the story ends, and given that, I should have been more prepared for how fucking gloomy this shit is.

Of course it’s gloomy. If you can recall the lyrics of any one of Nirvana’s songs, literally pick any one at random, and I guarantee you, it ain’t happy. The inside of Kurt Cobain’s head was not all picnics and pantaloons. He was raw pain at times, and the brilliance of this documentary is sheer access to pretty rare footage – home videos, private diaries and notebooks, childhood photos. It doesn’t have the guts to stab at answers but it does ask a lot of questions and highlight a lot of recurrent themes – the search for meaning, wanting to belong, extreme sensitivity to rejection and humiliation. Not great character traits for someone who would achieve absurd stardom.

But there’s also the ease he seems to feel with is daughter, and even Courtney, and his transcendent love of playing music live. This last seems to have come at a great cost to him personally, and his suicide begins to feel inevitable.

Interviews with his family members, former band mate, and even Courtney, help to flesh out the story. Kurt himself addresses us through notebooks and old videos. Notably absent: Frances Bean, and Dave Grohl.

The documentary sort of blurs between his creative genius and his personal pain, which I suppose is a pretty accurate representation of what Nirvana was at the time. Director Brett Morgen uses some interesting techniques to bring Cobain back to life for a couple of hours. It made me think of who Kurt would be today if he was still here. Oh the melancholy.

The White Ribbon

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A brutal black and white film by Michael Haneke about the shame of masturbation, animal mutilation, incest and the symbolism of pierced ears, torturing the retarded, bleak and swift suicide, a meditation on sin,ritualized punishment, cruelty and the hardness of hearts, guilt and innocence, apathy and revenge. So many crazy events occur in this little German village on the eve of WWI that pretty soon the villagers are looking around at each other with very suspicious eyes – and so are we. The children seem to be at the heart of this mystery and I can’t help but think that they’re exactly the generation who would become Nazis. The children, whether or not they’re responsible for the mysterious atrocities, have no escape from their relentlessly punitive lives, and for nearly two and a half hours, neither do we.

Whose job is it to prevent evil? Why do we strive to puzzle out random acts? Are we willing to surrender freedom to mitigate danger? Heneke hints at a lot of uncomfortable questions and if you dare to watch, you’ll find it’s not just a question of whodunnit, and even if you ask the right questions, there’s no telling if you’ll ever find the answers.

Laurence Anyways

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I don’t have much to say about the whole Caitlyn Jenner-break the internet thing. I hope she’s happy and getting happier with her transition. I’m not a fan of the Jenner-Kardashian machine, and it feels weird to me to take something so intimate and personal and seek to profit from it, but I guess she’s only following the family business model. I just hope it doesn’t cheapen the real struggle that less privileged people go through with their own transitions every day, out here in the real world.

Laurence Anyways is a 2012 movie by talented Canadian director Xavier Dolan. It’s about a man, Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) who, in the late 80s and his early 30s, decides he must live as the woman he’s always known himself to be. Hurdle number one: breaking the news to his girlfriend Fred (Suzanne Clement), who goes through the predictable knee-jerk reactions – are you gay, have you ever worn my panties, I’m leaving you. But she can’t really leave him. Leave her, I should say, and soon becomes his biggest supporter.

Dolan is a young director who’s still finding his way with this film. There are some crazy set pieces that don’t always work, but are still admirable and some quite memorable. He’s clearly got a visual talent beyond your average director. But he brings this movie in at nearly three hours, and it just doesn’t need to be that long. In fact, the film’s first 20 minutes are probably the most editable. And the interview framework feels forced and unnecessary.

Poupaud and particularly Clement are masterful here. I really enjoyed scenes between Laurence and his ice-bitch mother, played wonderfully by Nathalie Baye. There’s a lot this film is telling us in sideways glances and throwaway remarks. Poupaud’s quiet moments work like magic. The first day Laurence wears a dress to his job (as a college professor) is a minute in film that needs to be studied. The silence is crafted beautifully. Clement, meanwhile, gets to be the explosive one, her red hair accenting her passionate missives like fireworks.

There are some mis-steps here but Dolan presents his flamboyant film with confidence, if a little too much music, a little too stylized. But it’s something to behold, and this kid just keeps getting better and better.

Movies for Kids That Adults Would Enjoy (Non-Animated)

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Wandering Through the Shelves’ caveat at the end made this a tricky one. There are so many G-rated animated films taht I adore. I really had to dig deep for liv action family movies for me to endorse, especially since I already used up Babe in Live Action Fairy Tale Adaptations.

Home Alone (1990)- It makes it easier when the movie for kids came out when I was a kid. All I needed to do when rewatching it for the first time in twenty years was remember what it was like to be a ten year-old ewatching this for the first time. When I was a kid, I watched it for the sadistic finale. As an adult, I love Catherine O’Hara’s quest to get home to her son and got a kick out of how resourceful Kevin becomes. The casting is perfect from Pesci and Stern to Hope Davis as a French ticket agent.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)– If my calculations are correct, this may be the last time that the once great Jim Carrey was actually fun to watch. His homicidal master of disguise dominated the previews but the three kids- an inventor, a reader, and a biter- are the real stars. When all the adults are either despicable or clueless, these three take care of each other without ever having to set traps. Although not nearly as dark and unfortunate as Jude Law’s narrator keeps warning us (the parents die in every movie, bud. This isn’t that unusual), SOUE has a wicked sense of humour and genuinely touching moments.

Hugo (2011)- Does this really count as a kids movie? One of Scorsese’s better post-Goodfellas films, Hugo is pure magic for any age. The scenes in the train station- where people get on and off trains and work in various shops-were especially spectacular in IMAX 3D and scorsese’s love of movies has never been more apparent. Not sure I can picture Hugo as the next Spiderman though.

Movie Malarkey!

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Welcome, one and all, to our first ever round of Movie Malarkey!

The aim of the game is thusly: an obscure and vague movie title will be selected. Without looking it up, two of us will attempt to guess what the movie is, based solely on the title, and the third will write up a synopsis of the actual movie. Your job, dear reader, is to guess which one is the REAL movie, and you shouldn’t be looking it up either. You can vote via poll or by comment. Anyone who wants to participate in the coming weeks can leave a comment. Same goes for anyone who’s go the perfect vague title.

This week the movie title is: Phffft! Our entries are:

a) When a washed-up Broadway actor’s girlfriend is kidnapped, her captors demand $3 million dollars in ransom. To raise the money, he must reassemble the cast of his hit musical Phffft!, including his volatile ex-wife and two men sharing a horse costume, in order to raise the money.

b) An acrimoniously divorced couple can’t seem to stop running into each other in various surprising ways while being counselled by their confidantes to keep their distance, until one night they find themselves in a nightclub doing the mambo together. Can a rekindling be far behind?

c) Roslyn and Kara were the two most popular girls in school, until the bus crash. Now Kara is in a coma, trapped in limbo, with the ability to move things with her mind and only helping her friend from beyond will wake her up. But what will Kara do when Roslyn starts crushing on Kara’s boyfriend? Find out in the latest teen comedy from the writers of She’s All That.

ANSWER:

As many of you guessed, the answer is b) – the divorced couple who end up “doing the mambo.” Although I’d venture to say that if you guessed a) you are even more correct since that is clearly the superior movie synopsis, and one I wish existed. Phffft is a 1954 film starring Jack Lemmon. It gets its title, rather randomly I think, from Walter Winchell’s gossip column of the times. When a celebrity couple split, he called it a phffft. So there you have it.