Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Okay... first things first. I apologize for last week’s column. Or at least, for the last four or five entries on the list. I’ve fixed it by now, but when I first posted it, I hadn’t slept in something like 36 hours (ahhhh, the joys of new parenthood), and I wrote those last entries in a quick burst of what I thought was energy. Turns out, it was actually dementia, and nothing I wrote made any sense. I honestly couldn’t decipher a single thing from that batch of titles, and I’m embarrassed that I published it in such shoddy shape. That’s what happens, though, when you don’t have an editor or any filter between yourself and the public sometimes.
Today, I’m much more awake and aware as I sit down to work on the column, and I’m making sure I stay awake by playing the brand new PIXIES SELL OUT DVD as loud as I can without getting arrested. It hit the stores last week, and it’s a kick-ass set list made up of various shows from their reunion tour last year. I don’t think they’ve ever sounded this good, and listening to old favorites like “Wave of Mutilation,” “Bone Machine,” “Monkey Gone To Heaven,” and “Velouria” played with the experience that comes from all those years of touring together and as solo acts, it’s a real treat. 43 tracks over 145 minutes on one DVD guarantees that even the hardest of hardcore Pixies fans is going to feel fully satisfied by the end of the disc.
I spent most of this weekend watching horror movies since it is October now and HorrorThon is in full swing here at the Labs, with only a few brief pauses to check out the first two films from the new Warner Bros. BATMAN box set. I watched both of the Tim Burton films with the commentaries on, and I have to say... Burton seems very self-aware. I’m no fan of the 1989 film, and much of what Burton has to say cuts right to the heart of my problems with the movie. I’ll have a full review of the box before it hits the street, but for now, I’ll just say it’s an impressive effort.
So what’s coming out this week? What’s worth picking up? What's going on the shelf? Considering how close we are to Halloween, I’m shocked at how few horror titles are hitting the street today. It’s actually sort of a light release list, and I’ve got some of the new releases here at the house. As always, those are marked with an asterisk (*), while everything else, I’ll be picking up at the store when I manage to sneak over there tomorrow.
*11:14
This one surprised me. It’s not brilliant, and I’m not going to hype it to the skies, but it’s a really solid, smart dark comedy in which a traffic accident that takes place at... you guessed it... 11:14 is examined from multiple angles as we cut back and forth in time and space to see every POV leading up to the fateful intersection. It’s got a solid cast, including Henry Thomas, Colin Hanks, and Hilary Swank, and it goes from wild to thoughtful depending on whose story you’re following. If you’ve ever seen the third season of THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, this is sort of like a more grounded version of that, and it’s the sort of film that video was created to help salvage from obscurity. At the very least, track it down on Netflix and give it a try. I’m sure we’ll hear from writer/director Greg Marcks again.
ABBA MOVIE
Lasse fuckin’ Hallstrom, folks. Long before he became Bob and Harvey’s Oscar mule, he directed ABBA: MOVIE, a big honkin’ slice of cheese that I haven’t seen since I was a kid. I’m not saying that this is a great film worth tracking down. It’s the part of me that ran out and bought VIVA KENIEVAL that wants to see this one again. Besides... Alan Partridge is going to buy it, and if it’s good enough for Alan Partridge, it’s good enough for me.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON
I love this show. Every episode, I keep waiting for it to start sucking so I can tune out and get back to other obligations, but even with the change in writing staff this year, it hasn’t happened yet. Season Two was definitely sillier than season one, but there was a confidence about it that was hard to argue with, and the ensemble just keeps getting better and better at playing off of one another. I don’t know what sort of deal with Satan Jason Bateman had to make to get his second 15 minutes, but if he can continue to do work this good, I have a feeling he won’t need a third chance at the spotlight. He’s not going anywhere.
THE EXECUTIONER/THE EXECUTIONER 2: KARATE INFERNO
Two Sonny Chiba films from the ‘70s that I haven’t seen before. That alone would be reason to pick this up, but check out the title of that sequel. KARATE INFERNO? How can I call myself a DVD fan if I don’t have that film on my shelf somewhere?! In both films, Chiba plays Ryuichi Koga, a criminal who is called on to perform missions with his gang of thugs. Sounds good to me.
HIGH TENSION
I’ve spent a lot of column inches talking about the flaws of HIGH TENSION in the past, but what gets lost in bitching about one of the worst endings in a long time is the fact that up until the point he shits the bed, director Alexandre Aja does a hell of a nice job of putting everything else together. This is a confident film, a glossy slasher ride that plays nasty and never even breaks a sweat. It knows what it’s doing. I think the reason the ending makes me so angry is because until then, I’m along for the ride, loving it, digging the performances and the unbelievable gore and the general intensity (ahem, ahem, Koontz fans) of the whole thing. A bad ending feels more like a betrayal if everything before it is really good. I’m sorry Aja’s doing a remake of HILLS HAVE EYES next, since he’s the kind of guy who should be doing original work and adding his voice to the genre as frequently as possible. Just, please... make sure he’s got a great script to shoot.
IMAGINING ARGENTINA
I haven’t seen this one, but it’s by Christopher Hampton, whose SECRET AGENT is a deeply underrated character thriller. This one’s set in Buenos Aires about a theater director (Antonio Banderas) whose wife (Emma Thompson) disappears, possibly for political reasons, forcing him to dig into a conspiracy that threatens to destroy the life he’s built. Or something like that. Like I said... I haven’t seen it. The cast, the director, and the premise got me curious enough for DVD, though, and I’ll certainly give it a try.
IZO
This has become one of Miike’s most divisive films, the kind of picture that polarizes film viewers. Some people adore the film’s anarchic spirit and three-hour length, and others find it a pretentious jumbled bore that overstays its welcome. Either way, you won’t forget it once you’ve seen it, and even bad Miike has a certain attitude that makes it worth seeing once.
KICKING & SCREAMING
It’s a big day full of things I didn’t see when they were in theaters or on TV. This Will Ferrell comedy is the sort of thing I typically would have seen with my wife, but this May, she was busy being too pregnant to enjoy many press screenings, and we just ended up not seeing this one at all. It was one Will Ferrell film too many this year, and one of them was bound to get shuffled to a home video viewing. Still, it’s Will Ferrell with Robert Duvall and a bunch of kids, so how bad can it be? Maybe we’ll double-feature this with MAD HOT BALLROOM this weekend.
*KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
I liked this film. I may even really like this film, but I’ll have to see it again and chew it over a bit before I’m sure. It’s easy to be burnt out on historical action epic dramas right now, movies with massive battle scenes played out against a story of very serious acting acted very seriously by serious actors, a genre that Ridley Scott helped repopularize with the success of GLADIATOR, a film I still really dig. Orlando Bloom starts off as a bit of a stiff here, but he gets better over the course of the film, and the supporting cast is packed with people doing interesting work. I know that Ridley Scott prefers his much longer director’s cut to this, the one that played theatrically, and I’m equally sure that we’ll see that cut one day on DVD. For now, though, this is well-written by Bill Monaghan, even if it does feel truncated in several places, and Ridley’s eye continues to dazzle in a way that his brother can only dream about.
THE LIBERATORS
Before one of the days of QT Fest this year, we got the word that there was a secret movie playing in the afternoon, and we could show up to see it if we wanted. Only about ten of us, including Quentin, made it to the theater to see this warped print that we weren’t even sure was going to work properly. It starred Klaus Kinski and some guys I didn’t recognize, it was a WWII movie, and it was much, much cooler than I think any of us expected it to be. When we watched it, the film was called SALT IN THE WOUND, but it’s being issued today on DVD as THE LIBERATORS, and I’m willing to bet this is a better print than what we saw. Two soldiers (Kinski and Ray Saunders) are court-martialed in the field by their commanding officer, played by George Hilton, but before they can been killed by firing squad, a Nazi patrol kills everyone else, and the three of them are forced to work together to survive. It’s an Italian film by Anthony Richmond (or Tonino Ricci, to be more accurate), and it’s a little gem, managing to buck cliché in a lot of surprising ways. If you see it on the shelf, it’s relatively cheap. Take a chance. It’s worth it.
ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
Another of those films I absolutely meant to see when it came out earlier this year, only to find myself bogged down by other obligations. I’ve heard enough about Miranda July’s film debut to know that I need to see it, and many people seem to have really flipped for it. It won the award at Cannes for Best First Film, and it sounds very personal and very quirky, so I certainly root for films like this. Films about how families handle divorce can be either great dramatic pieces because of how they handle the material, or maudlin weepy crap. This doesn’t sound like a traditional tearjerker, so count me in.
PROJECT GRIZZLY
Not to be confused with Werner Herzog’s GRIZZLY MAN, which also came out this year. This is a documentary about a guy who decided after being attacked by a bear that he would develop a suit that would allow him to not only survive another bear attack, but which would actually enable him to fight any bear that might attack. The idea of a guy spending $150,000 to develop his own home-grown IRON MAN outfit cracks me up, and I’m curious to see how seriously the film treats it.
THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS
Hey, man, I buy films for my wife as much as I do for myself. Especially now that she spends all her time tangling with Toshi. He’s a full-time gig, and I heard this was actually a good film for its genre. I have a friend named Jeff who was evidently born with a vagina, because he’ll call me up to rant about how great ICE PRINCESS was or he’ll try to talk all of us into a group excursion to opening night of a Hillary Duff film. This was one of his big movies for the year, and if I remember correctly, he was not disappointed. If he liked it, that means my wife will like it. And if she likes it, then I’ll gladly sit through it at least the first time she watches, since it’ll make her happy.
Besides, after we watch this, I’m sure she’ll happily join me in devouring...
*SOAP: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON
It’s been a treat to watch each season of this classic Susan Harris sitcom as they’ve been released because my wife had never seen the show. I was a rabid fan the whole time it was on the air, and any time it’s been repeated in the years since, I’ve tried to watch the entire run if possible. Having all four years now on disc, I’ve been able to introduce her to the Tates and the Campbells, and she’s learned to appreciate and savor every great moment with Burt, Jodie, Chuck and Bob, Danny, Mary and Jessica, Chester, Billy, Benson, Corrine, Eunice, Dutch, and every other character that appeared on the show. A wild, screwball riff on the soap opera genre, SOAP worked because you somehow ended up genuinely caring about these lunatics no matter how wild the series got. I would argue that there are very few comic performances in film or television that have ever bettered the work by Richard Mulligan on this series, and Katherine Helmond’s very nearly as great as he is. The writing was always sharp, and the actors all seemed to get the particular tone of the writing. Age has been kind, and SOAP remains just as great now as it was when it first aired. Check it out.
*SOUTH PARK: THE COMPLETE SIXTH SEASON
They are racing through these box sets. I can’t believe we’re already up to the year of Lemmiwinks. SOUTH PARK is a show that seems to be ready to run forever, always figuring out some way to keep itself fresh, and this season includes such highlights as “Russell Crowe Fighting Around The World,” “The Simpsons Already Did It,” the destruction of society by Bebe’s boobs, and Christmas In Iraq, courtesy of Cartman. As always, Matt and Trey’s mini-commentaries provide a nice personal touch without becoming overbearing. Paramount’s done a great job with this series overall, and continues to do so with each new season’s release.
UNDEAD
I admire this film much more than I actually like it. I admire what the Spierig Brothers did for their budget. I admire what they tried to do, mixing horror and SF in this particular way. I admire the design of the film. I just wish I actually gave a shit about anything happening onscreen at any time. More than anything, this is a calling card, a chance to check out the chops of a pair of filmmakers who will obviously be working a lot in the future, and who I’m sure are capable of amazing things. Ultimately, this will be a trivia question, not a film that anyone actively revisits.
*UNLEASHED: UNRATED
Yep, it’s a little heavy on the melodrama. Yep, Kerry Condon seems to be playing a character that is either ten years younger than she really is or mentally retarded. Yep, Morgan Freeman’s been coasting on variations on this particular characterization for over a decade now. But none of that really matters to me, because I love Louis Leterrier’s film. It’s so well-made, so confident, so brutal in the right moments and so tender in others. Somehow, this particular stew is greater than any of the individual ingredients, and I’ve already seen the film twice since Universal sent it to me, in addition to the one time I saw it theatrically. Luc Besson continues to turn out better-than-they-should-be martial arts films as a producer, and this one is elevated by Massive Attack’s score, Bob Hoskins as a snarling mad dog, and Jet Li’s childlike poise in every scene, whether he’s kicking ass or not. Great stuff, and the disc lives up to the film completely.
*VERONICA MARS: SEASON ONE
I know Herc thinks I don’t listen to him. I know Herc thinks I ignore his suggestions. I know Herc is baffled by what I do or don’t watch when it’s on the air, especially since I’m a Neilsen household, and me not watching one of his favorite shows makes him crazy. Even without my help, VERONICA MARS made it to a second season, and I figure now’s the time to back up and take a look at Season One in this jam-packed DVD edition. I love Rob Thomas’s failed series CUPID, so I’m willing to give this one my full attention at least once, and I hope it lives up to the rather deafening praise it’s been getting.
Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
Harry called me to share an anecdote that’s told in some of the deleted scenes on this disc, and I totally understand why. This film is a celebration of the love of movies. The personal tragedy of Jerry Harvey is certainly not ignored in this film, but ultimately, Z Channel was bigger than Jerry. It was about reminding people of the pure love of cinema, removed from hype and advertising and opening weekends. It was about giving people a chance to see things they might otherwise not see. If Z Channel had ever gone national in a serious way, competing with HBO, who knows what might have happened? I’m looking forward to digging into this for the extra features, and also to seeing the film again.
And that’s it. Like I said up front... thin week. Now I’ve got to catch a few hours sleep, then come back and continue putting up some long overdue articles for you guys. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
