October 5th: Idle Hands (1999)

Take all the best elements of Evil Dead 2, The Frighteners, and Kevin Smith movies, boil them down to a soggy base, and I'm willing to bet the result will look something like Idle Hands, a horrible little teen horror/comedy that's about as third-rate as it looks. And look, there's Devon Sawa. Again. In a horror movie where everyone around him keeps dying. Man, I wish this guy had built a career around that. But back to business.

The movie starts with Sawa's parents (one of them played by Fred Willard, dammit) getting murdered right before bedtime by some mysterious serial killer that we never see. Cut to the next morning (or later in the week, whenever really, the movie doesn't seem to care). Sawa (from here on out, let's just keep calling him that), gets up, does his usual slacker routine, and casually comments that he hasn't seen his parents for a few days. No problem. His friends Mick and Pnub (Seth Green and Fulton Reed from The Mighty Ducks) don't seem all that phased by it either. Nor are they really that bothered when Sawa's possessed right hand brutally murders them. No sweat off their back, they decide to stick around as zombies.

("Hi. I'm the only thing this movie has going for it.")

Then there's something about Vivica A. Fox hunting down a demonic force whose killing spree outlines a pentagram on her handy map of the US Southwest. She's out to kill Sawa before he can kill anyone else. And then Jessica Alba figures in as Stoner Sawa's unlikely hot girlfriend. She thinks he's weird, which totally works, because he is.

Just like it's main characters, Idle Hands is a movie that doesn't seem all that interested in either scaring you OR making you laugh. It just wants to get itself from A to B as quickly as possible. Which is perfectly acceptable. It's not that much fun anyway. I remember back when this came out, I thought it looked like it was made for the very idiots I hated in grade school. I watch it now, and I was right. It's the epitome of everything that was loathsome about late-90s pop culture. But two things save this movie. 1) Undead Seth Green is way funnier than regular, I-still-have-a-pulse Seth Green. 2) The Offspring totally get what they friggin' deserve:

1.5 stars (*1/2) out of five. Sorry, Lance.

Appaloosa (2008)

It's no surprise to say that the western genre isn't the box office titan it once was. Most people would agree that Blazing Saddles all but destroyed its credibility back in 1975 (despite the fact that Blazing Saddles is still one of the best comedies ever made). I'm not gonna give you a full history of the western genre, but suffice it to say that in the 21st century, there aren't all that many. So I don't pass up the chance to see one when it does come around. And thankfully, Ed Harris' Appaloosa does not disappoint.

It's 1882, and the town of Appaloosa hires gunman Virgil Cole (Ed Harris, who also co-writes and directs) and his deputy Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) to take care of Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), a nasty rancher whose men have been terrorizing the town. Cole's law is strict, but it gets the job done. Bragg's eventual arrest and the arrival of a new widow (Renee Zellweger) in town cause Virgil and Everett to reassess their partnership, all the while quipping and fighting their way through every incident.


What first needs be said about Appaloosa is that it's about as faithful to the genre as you can possibly get without becoming entirely cliched. Ed Harris knows exactly what he's doing with this material, and stays true to the spirit of the genre. That's not to say that the film goes through the paces laconically. In fact, one of the more surprising aspects of Appaloosa is just how funny it is. There are dozens of great little character moments between Virgil and Everett that go a long way in telling us just how well these two know each other, and many of them are hilarious little lines or knowing glances.

Of course, what would a good western be without a simple theme to explore? The connections between Virgil, Everett and Allie (Zellweger) are dissected with fascinating precision, almost to the point where you know what each character is going to do even before the others. The film takes its time setting up all its pieces, and it's slow, deliberate pace will either work for you or drive you mad. There are a few well-executed gunfights, as there should be, and they're spaced out such that they keep things going just as the film starts to lag.


My one complaint is that the film itself feels like two separate stories. When Virgil and Everett face off against Bragg and gunman Ring Shelton (Lance Henriksen) about 2/3rds of the way through, it feels like the big final shootout. But hold on, because the film still has a ways to go before wrapping itself up. It works in keeping with the rest of the film, but the payoff feels uneven, if that makes any sense. The final act of the film almost feels like its own story. It works well in context of the larger story, but just feels like an epilogue that runs on longer than it ought.

Ed Harris directs the film well, with a fitting visual style that makes the whole thing feel like a forgotten Clint Eastwood yarn. Harris plays Virgil like a stoic hardass who wouldn't know a good time if it bit him on the ass. Everett knows this, and Mortensen does a good job of playing him as a man who's always picking up the slack, either professionally, intellectually, or otherwise. I wouldn't say Renee Zellweger is miscast, nor is she really bad here. She just is. She feels more like a plot device rather than a real, well-rounded individual. The same goes for Jeremy Irons. He snarls and shoots as the script demands, but doesn't quite make him a villain worth hating.


Appaloosa is not the definitive western for the 2000's, but it does succeed where I felt last year's 3:10 to Yuma failed. That wasn't necessarily a bad film, but compared with Appaloosa, that film was all about action, whereas this one is most definitely a character study. It's the kind of western that makes you want to see more westerns, if not a sequel with these characters. I, personally, would welcome another outing with Virgil and Everett. But only time will tell if the public agrees.

Four stars (****) out of five.

October 4th: Creepshow (1982)

Somehow, I don't know how, it's taken me 22 years and change to actually sit myself down and watch Creepshow. You'd think with a pedigree like Stephen King (screenwriter) and George A. Romero (director), I'd have been eager to watch this movie as soon as possible. The first time I tried watching it (maybe five years ago?), I couldn't finish the first story, "Father's Day". It just seemed to drag on and on and it just didn't seem all that scary.

I guess five years of cultivating a working knowledge of film, horror in particular, have conditioned my brain to think that Creepshow is actually pretty cool. Because it is. The film is a collection of five short films, all written by Stephen King, that have nothing more to do with one another than the fact that they're all kinda spooky, and all just a tad too long.


The first story, "Father's Day", is probably not the best story to start out an anthology film, as it's not all that interesting, not much scarier, and seems to be based entirely on the joke of a dead father rising from the grave all for a piece of father's day cake. It's...odd. The second story and third stories are, by far, the best. "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" is a strange story about a farmer (Stephen King, really hamming it up) whose skin starts growing foliage after an encounter with a meteorite. It's initial silliness gives way to a somber tale of isolation. It's kind of a downer.

"Then there's "Something to Tide You Over", a story about a man (Leslie Nielsen) exacting revenge on his wife and her lover (Ted Danson) by burying them to their necks on his private beach at low tide. It takes a needless turn once Nielsens' character does get his revenge, a classic case of less-is-more. I'm mostly fascinated in the notion of Leslie Nielsen playing a villain. He should have taken more roles like this.


"The Crate", the fourth story, drags on way too long, and it's difficult to tell where the pay off is supposed to be. But finally, "They're Creeping Up on You!", the fifth and final story ends things more in the spirit of the second and third stories. E.G. Marshall plays a germophobe in a hermetically sealed apartment. As he barks orders to his employees over his phone, more and more cockroaches 'leak' their way into his apartment. When people think of Creepshow, most of them are thinking of this segment.

In the end, Creepshow is a neat curiosity, if not honestly scary. Romero and King clearly had fun with this one, but it just feels like kind of a downer. There's not enough payoff in any of the stories to really warrant two sequels. Check it out if only to see Stephen King and Leslie Nielsen playing against type.

3 stars (***) out of five.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)

It simply has not been a good year for comedies starring British comedians. Earlier in the year, Run Fatboy Run was funny in fits and starts, and fittingly tanked at the box office. Just last month, Ricky Gervais' performance proved to be the only worthwhile thing about Ghost Town. It, too, barely registered at the box office. Now, Simon Pegg is back in another comedy, this one marginally more successful than those two, but certainly doomed to suffer the same box office tragedy.

The movie is based on the memoirs of British journalist Toby Young, of whom I'm honestly not familiar. His book, also titled How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, chronicles his years spent writing for Vanity Fair magazine. Here, Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) is hired on as a writer for Sharps magazine, run by editor-in-chief Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges). Sidney's sole desire at the magazine is to expose the celebrity world for the shallow party it really is. And to have sex with starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox). Along the way, Sidney crosses paths and matches wits with fellow journalist Allison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst).


The central schtick of Simon Pegg acting like an insufferable ass is what makes this movie bearable, and ultimately saves it from being just another romantic comedy. I'm not entirely sure why screenwriter Peter Straughan felt the need to have the film switch gears halfway through, but to his credit, the romance angle at least sort of works. The cast is well chosen, for the most part; Pegg especially. Jeff Bridges and Gillian Anderson, who plays Sophie's publicist, feel underutilized, like their characters could've been satirized further.

I can't help but feel that soemthing about the movie just seems ephemeral, like it's doomed to obscurity on WGN or SpikeTV. Perhaps it's the fact that the humor feels too imbalanced. For every dry Brit-gag that Pegg executes flawlessly, there's a sight gag like a transsexual's penis (seriously, why?) that just feels unnecessary. Perhaps it's the fact that I just want more of Pegg's character antagonizing every Hollywood jerk that he possibly can. At one point, he refers to the film's token wunderkind director (Max Minghella) as an idiot who things all things cinema begin with Tarantino. If only there had been more jabs like that.

(Yes. That shirt says what you think it says.)

Ultimately, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is likeable, though not a complete success. It's definitely funny, but the need for a romantic B-story kills any home for an anarchic finale that the first half seems headed toward. See the film for Simon Pegg's performance, and stay after the credits for a fake trailer starring Sophie Maes as Mother Teresa. It's more hysterical than most of the gags in the film. What I was hoping would be a journalism-laden take on The Hudsucker Proxy plays more like The Devil Wears Prada for guys. Of course, that's not entirely a bad thing.

3.5 stars (***1/2) out of five.

October 3rd: Final Destination (2000)

Okay, down to business. It's really too bad that the Final Destination series slowly deteriorated as most horror series tend to do. The first film brought a welcome change of pace to the slasher genre (as far as I'm concerned), and since then the deathtrap scenario flick has been beaten into the ground by its sequels, and three too many Saw films (soon to be four). Of course, if you really want to get technical about it, Final Destination is more or less a Faces of Death film crossed with The Dead Zone.

The first in the Final Destination series the best overall movie (though that's not really saying much), though the kills and deathtraps are more intricate and better executed in the two sequels. Just like the Saw series, I fail to see how this series can continue without inevitably repeating itself. Not sure if the world truly needs a Final Destination 4, but...um...I don't know. How awesome is that plane crash scene?

October 2nd: Monster House (2006)

2006 was not a good year for animated films. Cars was PIXAR's singular failure, and with bad-to-average movies like Everyone's Hero, The Ant Bully, and Barnyard, Monster House seemed like a shining beacon of animation. For my money, this is the movie that should've won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2006. Sure, Cars and Happy Feet are more photo-real and have better effects teams behind them, but Monster House is the most visually interesting of the bunch.

So why Monster House? A number of reasons: It takes place on Halloween, so right there, it qualifies. The movie is about a possessed house. It's a house that eats people. It's like a kid-friendly version of Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. It's not exactly scary (maybe to younger kids), but it's got a great, creepy atmosphere to it. Also, it's short and I felt like watching something short tonight.


I really don't have too much to say about Monster House. It's only been a couple years since it came out, but I've sorta dedicated myself to watching it at least once a year around Halloween. While it's certainly not a very scary movie, one thing it definitely is is funny. It's veeery funny. The kind of humor that might actually go over most kids' heads. Subtle jokes that are funnier on repeat viewings. That's the kind of movie Monster House is. It's a movie that takes harkens back to a time when children could be in mortal danger in movies and that was ok. It knows its roots and it plays to that audience wonderfully. Check it out.

October 1st: Meet the Feebles (1989)

Now, you might be thinking: "Joe, what does this have to do with Halloween?" Well, to answer that, I say this: Meet the Feebles is the single most disgusting, offensive all-puppet movie ever made. NOW, you might be thinking: "Joe, how bad could a movie involving puppets possibly be?" You clearly have never seen Meet the Feebles.

Adultery, drug deals, Vietnam flashbacks, sex tapes, homicidal rampages, and oh, did I mention it all takes place during the rehearsal of a TV variety show? If you really want a full description of the plot (and there's definitely a plot), I'll direct you to the movie's Wikipedia page.

I first discovered a copy of this at a secondhand store in 2004. This was right around the time I was really getting into the pre-LOTR Peter Jackson catalogue. Of his films, it's definitely the one I watch the least, if only because one viewing is enough to last anyone for a long time, including myself. Having said that, as I watch it tonight, I'm still surprised by how got the movie looks for being a movie featuring all puppets and shot on 16mm.

(Show me another movie featuring a warthog, a bulldog,
and a walrus playing golf. I dare you.)

Meet the Feebles is one of those movies that I'm sort of afraid to show people, because doing so might make them think I'm deranged or creepy or something. But why do I like it? Well, despite it being a completely gross, reprehensible movie, it demonstrates some of the best staging and execution of puppets that you're ever likely to see (with apologies to the Muppets).

Also, it's Peter Jackson's first real movie. As cool as Bad Taste is, the thing took him four years to make, and still has all the look of a gigantic home movie. Meet the Feebles, though, is the real deal, as strange and unbelievable as it might be. And remember, the man who made THIS, won an Oscar for Lord of the Rings.

(Rumor has it this gun was firing LIVE AMMO instead of blanks.
Peter Jackson is officially insane.)

In it's own way, Meet the Feebles is horrifying, if only for how you'll never ever look at the Muppets in quite the same way. I think it's a perfect way to kick off the Halloween season: strange, disturbing, and all kinds of fun.

Coming up in October...

Hi everyone, I'd first like to apologize for posting those last two reviews so late in the month. At first, it was just hard for me to know what to even write about Burn After Reading, so I put the whole thing off, and didn't get around to both that and my Ghost Town review until just the other night. And I'm sorry.

So sorry, in fact, that I'm going to make it up to you by promising one post every day for the whole of October. Sick, right?

Here's how it's going to work: In celebration of Halloween, I'm going to try and watch one horror(ish) movie a day for the 31 days leading up to and including Halloween. I'm not going to tell you what they are just yet, because A) I haven't really made out a list yet, and B) where would be the fun in that? Of course, if you know me at all, you can probably guess what some of the movies might be. Some will be movies I've seen before, some will be new to me.

And I'm thinking that, just like with my "Seven Days of PIXAR" series, most of the posts will be more reflections on my memories with these movies rather than straight reviews. Of course, for the movies I have yet to see, those will certainly be reviews.

But for today, though, I'm enjoying the first of the many great movies Hollywood gave us this past summer:


Stay classy, internet.

Ghost Town (2008)

Ricky Gervais just can't seem to catch a break here in the States. Sure, the US version of The Office is one of the best shows on network TV right now, and he had bit parts in Night at the Museum and Stardust, but for the most part, Gervais is one of a number of British comedians for whom American stardom is still elusive.

Enter Ghost Town, a romantic comedy written and directed by Spielberg's go-to screenwriter David Koepp. The film, which has already fallen out of the Top Ten at the US Box Office, is a moderate success, if only for Gervais' quick witted delivery and the way he plays scenes opposite Greg Kinnear. As a straight comedy, this might have been a winner. As a romantic comedy, however, it's on shaky ground.


Bertram Pinkus (Gervais) is quite possibly the most bitter, disdainful person in all of New York City (and, I'm willing to bet, the world). He seems to be a successful dentist, but that's the only thing he's got going for him. After a near-death experience during a colonoscopy, Pinkus begins seeing strange people around town who only seem interested in following him around. These turn out to be ghosts. As the lead ghost, Frank (Kinnear), explains it, all these ghosts have unfinished business, and now that someone can see them, they're desperate for him to finish their business for them. Frank then cuts a deal with Pinkus: Stop Frank's wife (Tea Leoni) from marrying a complete jerk, and Frank will make the ghosts leave Pinkus alone.

You can imagine where things go from there. If not, shame on you. The second half of the movie plays out in typical rom-com style, but with a series of supernatural nudges that have all the subtlety of a jackhammer. After a very promising start, the movie quickly becomes a hybrid of Ghost and "Cyrano de Bergerac". For better or for worse, the only things keeping the film afloat are Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear. Koepp's script is very by-the-numbers in its approach, coming off more like a poor man's Stranger than Fiction (itself a poor man's Adaptation). Tea Leoni doesn't necessarily kill the movie, but she's clearly the weak link in the primary cast. As the love interest, Leoni is really given nothing more to than be pursued and then react. I fault the script rather than the actress.


Another thing that bothered me more than it should have was the rules regarding the ghosts in the film. Now, metaphysics probably isn't the thing to get hung up on in a romantic comedy, but every once in a while something strange would jump out at me and make me start asking questions. For instance, if there are this many ghosts wandering NYC, there must be millions like them roaming the Earth. Is this some kind of statement regarding society's general selfishness? As we come to learn in the film, it's the living who have the unfinished business. After all, the dead are dead, so what do they care? I guess what I'm saying is that the film raises questions that you know it'll never bother answering. This is something to be analyzed in greater detail elsewhere.

Also, for as many ghosts as we end up seeing in this film, Ghost Town paints New York City as a woefully empty place. Sure, Pinkus' world is meant to feel lonely and isolated, but when you set your movie in New York City, I expect to at least see people walking the sidewalks, traffic jams, long lines, anything to show the populace of the city at large. Aside from a small handful of lead characters, Pinkus' New York is a largely hollow place.


That's actually kinda how I feel about the movie. Good performances all around, but the final product exhibits an odd hollowness to it. In the hands of a better director/writer, Ghost Town might have been one of the better comedies to come out in several years. Instead, it seems content to settle for being mostly hilarious, yet modest in its ambition.

3 stars (***) out of five.

Burn After Reading (2008)

This review's been gestating in my brain for the better part of three weeks. When trying to discuss a film by the Coen brothers, it's always hard to figure out where to begin. There are so many tangential threads going on at any given time, even in their lesser films (see: The Ladykillers). One of the key things to remember when watching a Coen brothers movie is that these guys might as well be film scholars in their own right, because they know genre, story structure, and character arcs inside and out. So when they make a movie like Burn After Reading, it's important to understand that every fault, every little detail that might seem odd or out of place is entirely done on purpose.

The plot, such as it is, concerns a small army of characters motivated by personal gain. Central to this movie's tornado if strange circumstances is Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a former CIA agent who vindictively decides to write a tell-all memoir about his years 'observing the Balkans'. His wife (Tilda Swinton) thinks he's an idiot, and is cheating on him with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a Treasury agent with a bit of a personality disorder. At the same time, Harry is cheating on her with Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), a self-absorbed gym trainer who, along with dim-bulb coworker Chad (Brad Pitt), tries to blackmail Cox with a CD of his personal files.


If it sounds like a dumb plot, it is. There are three or four different stories going on here simultaneously, but the fun of Burn After Reading is watching the way in which each of these stories ends up colliding into another one. It takes the movie a good 15 minutes or so to really pick up steam, but once things get moving, it's a roller-coaster ride to a truly odd finale. In fact, if you study this film next to other Coen films, like Fargo or No Country for Old Men, the ending is about the same. Meaning: each of these films wrap up their stories in such a way that one has to ask: does anyone truly come out ahead?

As is the case in most every Coen film, the cast is largely well chosen. The only one who feels at all out of place is Tilda Swinton, though she apparently was the only major player whose character wasn't written specifically for her. Clooney plays the fool here, just like he does in Intolerable Cruelty and O Brother Where Art Thou?, though he does go a little further over the top. Frances McDormand shines, just like she does in Fargo. The real treats here are John Malkovich and Brad Pitt. Malkovich plays Cox with the kind of misplaced anger that really makes him a fun villain (as villainous as he can possibly be here), and Pitt makes Chad such an idiot, that you really end up missing him once he exits the film.


Overall, Burn After Reading is a truly odd take on the whole spy thriller genre that's been taking the country by storm. It works as a parody of our Me-First mentality the same way No Country for Old Men examined the ideas of evil, justice, etc. The story itself does feel a tad unfinished, as evidenced by the final monologue from a CIA official played by J.K. Simmons. It's a fun 90 minutes with Joel and Ethan, and your enjoyment of the film depends entirely upon how much you enjoy the way these two tell stories. Personally, movies like Burn After Reading are right up my alley. It won't sweep up any awards, but it's definitely a fun movie I look forward to seeing again on DVD.

3.5 stars (***1/2) out of five.