Retro Review: The YAD Archives (Part One)

 Greetings, readers. I was considering what I wanted to take a look at from yesteryear, and while I was looking at some old files, the Cap'n found a series of reviews from You're All Doomed magazine, an online publication I was involved in with several friends (and periodic guest bloggers here). While YAD wasn't built for the long haul, I was quite surprised how many reviews of films we posted. Many of them never made their way to my old "From the Vaults" column (the one Retro Reviews replaced), so I thought it might be fun to share some of them over the next few weeks.

 Here's a bit of a disclaimer: these reviews are from six or seven years ago, and they represent an embryonic form of Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium Reviews. I'm going to present them "as is", even if it makes me shudder a little bit. I'd like to hope that my writing has improved since then, but here are some movies from half a decade ago that haven't been covered.

 Other disclaimer: So I don't necessarily agree with the Garden State review anymore, but that's okay. We grow apart from movies sometimes.

 2005

This month:

A Very Long Engagement

Garden State on DVD

We Don't Live Here Anymore

The Forgotten on DVD

Blade Trinity

Flesh Eaters from Outer Space/Invasion for Flesh and Blood Double Feature

A Very Long Engagement

3.5 Stars

Fans of Jean Pierre Jeneut need not worry, A Very Long Engagement is indeed another step forward in his filmography; in fact, those most likely to be disappointed will expect to see something very much like Amelie. They wouldn't be wrong to assume so; after all, Jeneut places Audrey Tatou front and center, and the ads (what little there are) don't to much to explain what this movie is about, and you could easily assume A Very Long Engagement is another love story. Which it is, just in a very different way.

For those of you who have no idea what the plot is, it goes something like this:

5 French soldiers a condemned to death for self-mutilation during World War I. Instead of being executed, the military leaves them in a no-man's zone between French and German trenches to fend for themselves (i.e. face certain death) Audrey Tatou is the bride to be of one of these soldiers, and the bulk of the film is dedicated to her search into what happened to the doomed five.

While love is the glue holding this movie together, Engagement is more of a detective film, slowly piecing together the story of what happened to each man, how their loved ones react to it, and whether any of them survived.

Jeneut throws every trick in his arsenal at us during the film; for starters, since the film takes places in 1920, the film stock is deliberately tinted and scratched,  and much of the framing in wide shots resembles films of the teens and twenties. We're introduced to each of the soldiers and the hilarious (and gruesome) each one commits self mutilation before we know where the movie's going, and I suspect much of how things play out are set up in the opening moments. He also replicates newsreel footage to help with transitions and manipulates the soundtrack to sound scratchy and worn out.

Jeneut also seems to have found his acting counterpart in Tatou; he films her in such a way that you can't help but want her to succeed (to make her even more endearing, the choice was made for her to have polio and walk with a limp) I'd be surprised if we don't see them working together down the line.

Tatou is wonderful playing a very different woman than Amelie Poulain; Mathilde is a girl that's lost almost everything, and her persistence on using coincidences to reaffirm suspicions are used to great effect. Dominique Pinion turns in another touching supporting role as her Uncle, and Jodie Foster (!) speaks better french than I'd imagined. Despite the name appearance, Foster isn't American stunt casting; her role is actually a crucial part of the mystery.

If anything, I had trouble with the ending. Not how it ends, but more how quickly it ends. Don't get me wrong, the movie's a little more than two hours long, but the actual denoument comes about 2 minutes before the credits roll. We find out what happens, and suddenly the movie ends. Otherwise, A Very Long Engagement is fine entertainment for fans of the director.

Garden State

4.5 Stars

If there's one problem with Garden State, it's that the movie is too easy to love. This, understandably, is a minor problem, but waiting a few days between watching it and writing this tone my love of the film considerably.

Don't get it twisted, this is a great movie. Zach Braff put together something truly magic here: We're not just talking Wes Anderson's The Graduate (which, incidentally, is Rushmore), but at the same time, comparisons to Anderson are well made. Braff has a great eye of frame composition. Every shot is full of eye catching detail. And he's got a natural chemistry that makes him easy to relate to.

Admittedly, this isn't the most original idea for a movie, but you really don't mind seeing a movie about finding yourself and true love in the midst of tragedy because of how magnetic the cast is. Along with Braff, Ian Holm brings a subdued, nervous performance of a man who just doesn't understand his son, the always reliable Peter Sarsgard plays the affable loser that wants nothing more to smooth things over so well you tend to forget just how good he is at it. Then there's the revelation: Natalie Portman. I'd been so used to seeing her go half-assed in Star Wars that I forgot that this was the same Natalie Portman that blew everyone away in Leon. She's a force of nature in Garden State, but it's a testament to her talent that she never takes it over the top. This is the type of character that'd tempt some to go way past believable, but you never feel like she isn't a real person (even if that real person is a chronic liar who suffers from siezures. Speaking of which, kudos to Braff for avoiding the easy dramatic device of the free spirit heroine being dragged back to earth with a tragic seizure scene)

Garden State works because everyone involved wants it to, and where most movies would drag or take the easy route, things work so very well because we're invested in the characters.

* I should take a moment to talk about the music. My friend scoffed at my interest in Garden State, calling it "an advertisment for how awesome indie rock is" which, from the tv ads for the soundtrack, isn't that far off base. However, the movie, despite using indie rock as an almost excluse soundtrack, only directly draws attention to the music once. I think it's not as obtrusive as some might expect it to be (think of it as a more subdued version of Simon and Garfunkel's "Graduate" soundtrack)

We Don't Live Here Anymore

4 Stars

I'll keep this short, because the glee in this film is not from the story (which is, in essence about two couples cheating on each other with, well, each other) but the top notch performances from the four leads: Laura Dern, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Krause, and Naomi Watts. This is the kind of movie where the fun is watching four great actors work off of each other, and becoming invested in them. From the short stories of Andre Dubus (In the Bedroom, The House of Sand and Fog). Why this movie came and went I'll never know, but it's most definitely worth tracking down on dvd or video.

The Forgotten (with and without alternate ending)

1 Star

The Forgotten is a movie with nothing worth watching in it. The ads did nothing for me until the VERY end of the trailer, when we see Oz's Lee Tergerson sucked into the sky. along with the cabin around him. That's it. And I should've known that in itself couldn't sustain the movie. Because, guess what folks, this is a twist movie without the twist. What happens is exactly what you'd expect seeing someone sucked into space without any good reason. Fuck it, *SPOILER*, The Forgotten is an ALIEN ABDUCTION MOVIE. And a terrible one at that. The mystery might've been interesting if the payoff wasn't so fucking stupid. No, that's not true, because it's pretty clear about 25 minutes in where this movie is going, and things just get more and more preposterous, with plot holes a mile wide by the time we get to the end.

Oh yeah, the ENDING. The chief differences in the two endings offered on the dvd boil down to this: One has Julianne Moore taking her empowerment back from the alien, the other has him give her the child back. The difference is literally whether she's on the ground or standing up when he loses. (Yes, the means by which she discovers her son are slightly different, but the alternate version is so inept I'll spare you the details) Either way, same stupid happy ending closes the film, implausible though it may be.

If you're wondering, the movie got 1 star for Julianne Moore, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodard, and Lee Tergeson, who really should've known better. Shame on this fucking movie. Suck!

Speaking of Suck:

BLADE TRINITY IS THE DUMBEST MOVIE OF 2005

I promise. There isn't a movie that could come of during the rest of 2005 that was so blatantly stupid. I'm aghast how something this retarded was commited to film. I mean, David Goyer wrote Blade. He wrote Blade 2. Shit, he wrote Dark City. And you're telling me not only did he write Blade Trinity, he DIRECTED it too? This floating turd? Oh, where to start....

Let's start it this way: in the first couple of minutes, Parker Posey's Vampire Skank gives the Sun the middle finger (seriously) right before they resurrect Dracula (oh, wait, pardon me, DRAKE). Or maybe we could talk about Triple H's mind blowing line delivery of "How the fuck do you know how big my dick is?" Or Ryan Reynolds taking EVERY joke too far. For example:

Parker Posey: Where's the tracking chip?

Ryan Reynolds: In my right buttcheek.

(Triple H punches Ryan Reynolds)

RR: Okay, It's in my left buttcheek.

(Triple H hits him again)

RR: All right. Seriously. It's in the meat of my ass.

PP: Stop it!

Now, I'm not certain of this, but I'm guessing the "stop it" wasn't in the script. I hope the rest of it wasn't, but considering how utterly dopey Blade Trinity is, nothing's certain. This is a movie that takes the Reapers (remember that? The strain of vampires that nearly killed everyone in Blade 2?) and reduces it to Vampire Pomeranians. Seriously. A movie where Dracula goes to a vampire themed store and kills some goth kids. That's it. He just goes in and kills them. It has nothing to do with the plot. How about a blind woman who creates 3D models on her computer? When Wesley Snipes is the least stupid thing about the movie, you know you're in trouble.

Oh yeah, I guess Jessica Biel kicked some ass. You sort of forget about her (unless you're my roommate, but that's another story entirely).

Now, allow me to explain why I'm giving Blade Trinity 4 stars, when The Forgotten only got one.

Blade Trinity is one of "those" movies. The kind of movie that kept MST3K on the air for 10 seasons. You shouldn't see this movie alone. You'll curse my name if you do. But if you get properly ripped on cheap liquior and drive to the $2 theater for a late showing, Blade Trinity will be the funniest shit you've seen in years.

oh, and speaking of which:

I've been using Netflix to rent pretty much any movie I read a dvd review of (courtesy of DVD FILE, DVD JOURNAL or DVD TALK), and the Warren F. Disbrow double feature of "Flesh Eaters from Outer Space" and "Invasion for Flesh and Blood" was so great I went out and bought the fucker. And I promise, a better $11.99 won't be spent on two movies.

These little gems were made in 1988 and 1992. In New Jersey. And the coup de gras, on HOME VIDEO. That's right, Camcorder horror movies. I know, I know, you've been burned before. Camcorder movies always suck. Not so, my friends.

These movies (which, according to the credits are actually called A Taste for Flesh and Blood 1 and 2) make Splatter University look like the crap it is. True, the acting isn't much less inept in these doozies, but there's something endearing about the scope of these no budget chucklers. We're talking about a movie that starts in Space! (Well, a cut out of a space ship over Earth, and a space shuttle on a black rod) And Disbrow never wimps out on excessive gore (the movies have a running joke about a guy getting his dick ripped off) and every other possible cliche you could hit in 90 minutes. The first movie is just kind of stupid, but the lameness keeps you entertained until it's over. The sequel, however, eschews coherence for comedy and sci-fi geekery that only exists in the basement next to a D&D set. There's a sub-plot about two losers driving around town trying to film naked girls for $10,000 apiece. Really, and it's complete with goofy synth music that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. The biggest star in either movie is the Director's Father (also the BEST ACTOR in either movie) Oh wait, I forgot that Marilyn "37" Gighliotti has a cameo in the second movie. The box proudly proclaims "CLERKS MARILYN GIGHLIOTTI", but I promise, Disbrow's father is second only to the monster in reasons to watch this shit. This is the kind of movie to kick back a few brewskis with and laugh your sorry ass off. Oh hell yeah.

2010 Year End Recap, Part One.

An important note from the Cap'n: While every review available is included as a link, the placement of the film on these "year end" lists may not appear to reflect the review. As time passes, I have the opportunity to reconsider films, revisit initial reactions, and every now and then, change the way I feel about movies.

Let's start with... The Middle (it's a very good place to start). What you'll find in this list are the films that were solid, entertaining, or did just enough to stay out of the "Favorites" or "Never Again"s. They are listed from "top" Middle to "bottom" Middle, with the films higher on the list being recommended and the lower ranked films coming with a warning. For me, all of the films on this list were worth checking out in one form or the other, so see if anything strikes your fancy.

When helpful, I am providing additional thoughts along with a link to the original review. Films marked with an asterisk (*) indicate a limited release prior to 2010, but in most cases were not given a wide release until last year.

The Town - Ben Affleck's sophomore directorial debut just missed the cut in my favorite films of 2010. If anything, I held back because the loose pacing serves the story well, but does, at times, make the film drag. The extended cut, which is still unseen, may sway things one way or the other, but for now this fine, if languid, heist thriller still comes highly recommended.

Micmacs - I still haven't watched Micmacs with subtitles, but Jeneut's follow up to A Very Long Engagement has a quirky, amusing tone that serves it well. It doesn't quite reach the heights of Amelie or The City of Lost Children, but when the bar is that high, you can't hold it against Micmacs for just being very good.

[REC] 2* - Did [REC] 2 ever come out in the U.S.? Other than absolutely needing to see the first film, this sequel ups the ante in nearly every way, even if it stumbles during a perspective-switching middle section.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money - I never got around to reviewing this on New Year's Eve, but the documentary about Jack Abramoff - not to be mistaken with Casino Jack, the quasi-biopic starring Kevin Spacey - from Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) is a fascinating portrait of the "villain" of Lobbyists. It certainly makes me want to watch Red Scorpion with Dolph Lundgren (a film Abramoff wrote and produced between his run as President of College Republicans and his Too Successful for Its Own Good Lobbyist stint). Aside from an ill-advised opening - which uses footage from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to make the "is it just Jack or is corruption systematic?" argument - the documentary is guaranteed to surprise you.

The Book of Eli - As you know, I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic cinema. The Book of Eli is a good-looking, well constructed take on the genre; its "twist" tends to turn people off, but while it won't change your life, it's a nice distraction.

I Love You, Phillip Morris

Harry Brown* - If not for that final character revelation, I'd put it higher.

Leaves of Grass

American Grindhouse - This documentary takes you on a whirlwind tour of exploitation films, and manages to cram a great deal of information into its 78 minutes. Focusing on one or two types of exploitation films, it manages to cover a lot of ground from "Facts of life"-sploitation, Blaxploitation, "Roughies," Nudies, Schlock, Drugsploitation, Women-in-Prison films, Nazisploitation, heading into the inevitable shift from exploitation films to porn in grindhouse theatres. Includes interviews with Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast), William Lustig (Maniac), Fred Williamson (Boss), Larry Cohen (Black Caesar), David Hess (The Last House on the Left), and John Landis (Schlock), who insists that The Passion of the Christ is closer to a "grindhouse" picture than Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse.

Speaking of which, the next films form their own trifecta of action exploitation:

Machete, The Expendables, and Predators - None of these movies are perfect, in and of themselves. Machete wanders too much from the main character (ala Once Upon a Time in Mexico), The Expendables is so "old school" action movie that most modern action fans don't know how to deal with it (which isn't a fault, per se, but it also totally fails to make any character remotely "expendable), and Predators needlessly grinds its momentum to a halt when Laurence Fishburne arrives onscreen. Still, there's something to like in all of them, and when there is, it's a lot to like.

Pontypool*
44 Inch Chest*

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - One thing I feel I need to clarify is that I didn't hate Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I admire the effort: after watching many of the extra features on the Blu-Ray, I actually respect what Edgar Wright accomplished in adapting Scott Pilgrim. My qualm with the film, the reason I can't side with its legion of fans (or fanatics) is that the film fundamentally didn't connect with me. Nothing about Scott Pilgrim or Ramona Flowers roused any emotional response from me (or, for that matter, any particular intellectual response), and as much as I may appreciate the effort, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World misses the mark where I needed it to hit most.

Tales from the Script*

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - Despite a fundamentally positive review, I can't help but dwell on the fact that Oliver Stone has a little too much sympathy for his characters - something that really kicked into high gear with World Trade Center - and as a result, Money Never Sleeps doesn't really have any bite to it in the end. On its own, that would be no big deal, but when dealing with the sequel to Wall Street, it's a serious hindrance. The use of obvious visual metaphors (the dominoes and bubbles) and too "on the nose" David Byrne and Brian Eno songs also keeps Money Never Sleeps from being higher on the list.


Iron Man 2 - Since May, I've been trying to figure out what I had to say about Iron Man 2. I saw it twice: once in the theatre and once... well, one other time. I have the Blu-Ray and watched part of the film a month ago. It's not that there's anything colossally good or bad about the film: I like that Tony Stark's real adversary in the film is himself, and that there's a level of moral ambiguity in the film so that there is no "bad guy." If you've only seen the advertising, it's wildly misleading: Mickey Rourke has a very good reason for hating Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson isn't a villain at all, and the barely featured Sam Rockwell is a jealous rival weapons manufacturer who really just wants Tony Stark to be his friend. Of course, it does give Iron Man 2 a serious case of "who cares?" No villains, not much in the way of stakes, and the increased presence of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to push ahead the impending Avengers film, in a subplot that could have existed organically in the film without the tie-in. In many ways, it's a better film than Iron Man, but the question is if the focus is less coherent, is the sequel ultimately better?

The Crazies - Apparently, I never reviewed Breck Eisner's remake of The Crazies, which is a reasonably effective "virus" film that expands George Romero's low-budget original and generates some genuine suspense. That said, I tried watching it again, and it doesn't hold up well. For first time viewers, I sense there will be some level of enjoyment, but don't buy it and expect to revisit with friends.

Wrong Side of Town - It's only in the middle because people who read my review need to know they're heading into a surprisingly entertaining BAD movie. I stand by the After Hours meets Commando description, with the caveat that this film is nowhere near as good as either film. Approach if you have a very generous ability to be entertained by low budget action films starring professional wrestlers.

The Other Guys - If the "Unrated" cut makes a difference, I might come back to this. As is, the film is amusing, random, but unspectacular.

Toy Story 3 - I think my review covers why this is where it is, unlike many critics' "Top" list.
The Lost Skeleton Returns Again
Dark and Stormy Night

Crazy Heart* - Trim out 30 minutes, and maybe this would be a better movie.

Dead Snow* - I get why people love it, but the references are so direct and so obvious that I can't share your unbridled enthusiasm. Still, it is periodically very funny.

Hot Tub Time Machine - After the initial shock laughter wears off, the film's flimsy premise shows through, doesn't rise above it's lack of creative mayhem, and totally fails the "second time" test at home.

Dinner for Schmucks - Thoroughly inconsequential. I can barely remember the film, and it's only been four months.

Daybreakers - While I appreciate setting up the premise and sticking with it in a non-ironic, non-jokey way, Daybreakers falls apart halfway through and isn't something I really plan to revisit.

Winnebago Man - What happens when a director isn't talented enough to course correct when his original documentary falls apart? Winnebago Man, an aimless film that some believe works because of the "train wreck" aspect. I respectfully disagree.

Tron Legacy - I can't recommend this poorly written, badly acted, sporadically awfully animated film. At the same time, I was never bored, and we didn't give Tron Legacy the usual MST3k treatment many of you assume we did. Three people went in together, three people agreed the movie was terrible, three people also agreed we had a good time. I can't explain it, try as I might.


Tomorrow I'll be back with "Never Again," the bottom of the barrel. Surprisingly, it's a shorter list than in years past; I only saw ten truly awful movies last year. That's the good news. The bad news is that they all should be "So You Won't Have To"'s, and for some reason not all of them are. Until then...

French Film Festival Recap (one week later)

Although it would be nice to share all of the cooking (especially the Crepes), the wine, or Kronenbourg beer (death to Budweiserdrome! Long live the new hops!), I think it might just be best to dispense with the surrounding details and focus on the two films we watched: Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (Breathless) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs à tire-larigot (or Micmacs in the US).

If you want to quickly explain the French New Wave aesthetic to somebody, the first ten minutes of Breathless is your best bet. Narration indirectly linked to the action, jazz score, cinema verite camera style (documentary-like but then again clearly artificial, a walking contradiction), and no shortage of jump cuts; it's all there. All of the components used to divorce French film from the Pre-WWII "cinema de papa."

The story is almost incidental: Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a car thief roaming around France, trying to get away from his existential angst. When he kills a police officer in panic (in a scene reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard), Michel hurries off to Paris in an attempt to collect money owed to him and sneak off to Italy. A car thief is no great problem, but Poiccard is now a murderer, and a cop killer at that.

While he's waiting (and waiting... and waiting) for someone, anyone, to pay up, Michel tries to talk Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), an American living in Paris, to run away to Italy with him. They had a brief affair sometime before the film begins, and he seems more infatuated than she does. Patricia, who sometimes is speaking French and sometimes English, works for the New York Herald Tribune's Paris office and has aspirations to be a reporter, a dream parodied during a press interview with Parvulesco (Jean-Pierre Melville), who is only interested in talking about women and his opinion on love (or is, it seems, only asked about that).

To tell you much more would give away the entire movie, since much of Breathless is Godard and Raoul Cotard using hand-held cameras and natural light to follow Michel and Patricia around Paris while he waits and she makes up her mind about him. The juxtaposition of naturalistic filming with deliberately artificial editing (the jump cuts are most noticeable during conversations, where the audio plays out in real time but the images jump forward and backward in time) isn't easy for audiences unaccustomed to its unrestrained use (we at least have the benefit of the ensuing 50 years' worth of variations on the style. Imagine what it must have been like with only The 400 Blows and Hiroshima, Mon Amour to prepare you for the nouvelle vague). The combination of the two may actually be more daunting to audiences than Godard's deliberately formal "12 Tableau"s of Vivre sa Vie, but the result is a rewarding one.

---

We tried something very different for Micmacs, which I suppose still doesn't have a wide release here in the states; I've always held to a theory that the only problem with subtitles for those who don't speak the native language in foreign films is that audiences are forced to choose between following the mise en scene or trying to understand what the actors are saying. Splitting the difference necessarily means leaving something out, and accordingly the experience is never quite what it could be. This is the sort of problem to which there is only one good answer (learn every language fluently), but for the lazy or those short of time, I do not propose to tell you how to best approach this.

On the other hand, when we realized that the Micmacs we'd be watching had no subtitles, there was a choice to be made: stop watching the newest Jean-Pierre Jeunet film (and the first since 2004's A Very Long Engagement), or soldier on with my proposed experiment. I wanted to see if, lacking the necessary linguistic skills, we could follow the film purely on what was presented in images. Luckily for the Cap'n, my friends decided the experiment would be a fun one (it didn't hurt that Doctor Tom provided some spot-translation for us when necessary).

Fortune smiled upon us, as Jeunet is an extraordinarily visual director, and tends to orient his mise en scene and action like a silent director (fans of Amelie, Delicatessen, or The City of Lost Children will already be well aware of this). Micmacs is his magnum opus on this subject, as the film is a love letter to the artifice of film, right down to the opening credits that are designed to mirror the Golden Age of Hollywood's title cards (in black and white and English). Without the benefit of understanding what the characters were saying, much of the film is still perfectly easy to follow, even in dialogue heavy moments like the very end.

The story could be easily (and cheaply) summed up as a cross between The Little Rascals, Freaks, and Ocean's Eleven. Bazil (Danny Boon)'s father was killed by a landmine when he was a child (manufactured by one weapons company) when he was a child. As an adult working in a video store, Bazil is struck in the head by a bullet (from a rival weapons manufacturer) during a freak accident. (Here, having some of the translation may have come in handy, as while trying to settle in to the "no subtitles" mode, we failed to notice that the doctors decide not to remove the bullet).

Left with no job, nowhere to live, and no means to support himself, Bazil resorts to becoming a street performer, until he's adopted by Placard (Jean-Pierre Marielle) who takes him to live with other outcasts in a dwelling halfway between modified junk and steampunk architecture. Not having a stable footing on the names (we essentially learned the characters by behavior), I'm going to simply link to the IMDB page so that you can work things out for yourself when you've seen the film. Because the "this film is like" should give you some idea what the story is, I'll say no more other than Bazil discovers that the weapons manufacturers happen to be across the street from one another.

The experience was more interesting for us, particularly because Jeunet made a film that gleefully plays with the image. Having a character that hallucinates allows Jeunet to insert touches like video cameras that swivel like cartoon characters or animated thought bubbles when Bazil gets very dizzy. The most inspired gag occurs when Bazil discovers that the source of his life's miseries are directly opposite each other. The camera tilts down slowly on his face as the orchestral score swirls, only to reveal a full orchestra playing on the stairway behind Bazil. He has his epiphany, shakes the delusion from his head, and the orchestra "pops" out of existence.

I cannot say definitively how Micmacs will play with all of the nuance of dialogue intact, but as an experience in following the language of cinema, it was an enjoyable experience. I don't sense many of you would be foolish enough to try this yourselves (as there's really no point to it unless you just wanted to try), but I would recommend the film and intend to watch it myself when there's a chance to see it and understand what's being said (Doctor Tom indicated there's a heavy anti-American military industrial complex tinge to the weapons manufacturer subplot). It's quite enjoyable, and whimsical much the way that Amelie was, although the characters may be a bit broader. Still, if you're a fan of Jeneut, Micmacs will be well worth the six year wait.

All in all, French Film Friday was well worth it. I'd like to have a few more of them while I'm here in the Apartment that Dripped Blood, so keep your eyes peeled.