Shocktober Revisited: Documentaries - American Scary and The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made

Well, one documentary and a "list" movie, American Scary and The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made, both thanks to Netflix streaming video.

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American Scary is easily the better of the two: it deals specifically with the cultural trend of "Horror Movie Hosts" which caught on regionally in the 50s and 60s. For those not familiar with the movement or have just heard of Elvira by reputation, in the early days of television the networks were starved for content to fill out their schedules. The film studios began leasing out their back catalogs (particularly horror) to the stations, and local stations would punctuate the films with a gag-spouting "host" who alleviated the tension for kids watching at home. As the "Horror Movie Host" spread, it ended up at all hours of the day and grew popular with local audiences.

The documentary covers the birth of the "Host", takes a regional journey through hosts in Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Trenton. Many of the surviving Hosts are on hand to tell their stories, including Roland / Zacherley, Vampira, Ghoularid, Count Gore D. Vol, Crematoria Mortem, Son of the Ghoul, and Penny Dreadful. Elvira doesn't appear in the interviews but he impact is mentioned on a national level.

Along for the ride to share memories of the Hosts are Neil Gaiman, Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, Joe Bob Briggs, Bob Burns, author James Morrow, Chris Gore of Film Threat, Joel Hodgson of MST3k, Tim Conway, Leonard Maltin, Patricia Tallman (the evil witch in Army of Darkness), John Kassir (the Crypt-Keeper), Len Wein and Phil Tippett.

I found the discussion of MST3k's role in carrying on the "host" tradition (albeit in different ways) an interesting take on the show's impact. If you look at Mystery Science Theater 3000 in that light, it does bridge the gap between the corporatization of network television (which effectively ended "Horror Hosts") and the rise of Public Access "Horror Hosts". It's strange that while Joe Bob Briggs appears, no mention is made of Monster Vision. USA Up All Night also fails to register even though it did similar work.

Still, this is quality stuff, and you'll get a lot of footage from people you may have only read about. Check it out.

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The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made is less a documentary and more of a quick hit kind of list. The "movie" itself is 60 minutes long, so you can do the math. Generally you spend barely more than a minute with each film (the runtime includes credits and "graphics" devoted to a booing audience) so it's more of an overview than anything.

All things considered, I did pick up a few ideas for future Bad Movie Nights, and I buffered out the "trailer gallery" for this weekend (available here). I can't really argue with the list too much (other than possibly Spider Baby, which I like), but here are the 50 Worst Movies Ever Made:

50. Glen or Glenda?
49. Mesa of Lost Women
48. Troll
47. Teenage Zombies
46. The Fat Spy
45. Voodoo Woman
44. Ishtar
43. Frankenstein Conquers the World
42. The Creeping Terror
41. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
40. Howard the Duck
39. They Saved Hitler's Brain
38. Black Belt Jones
37. Greetings!
36. The Great Alligator
35. Hillbillys in a Haunted House
34. TNT Jackson
33. Robot Monster
32. The Incredible Melting Man
31. Firebird 2015 A.D.
30. Dracula Vs. Frankenstein
29. Bride of the Monster
28. Smokey and the Bandit Part 3
27. Xanadu
26. Leonard Part 6
25. The Wild Women of Wongo
24. Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla
23. The Ape
22. Galaxy of Terror
21. The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy
20. Snow White (German Version)
19. Creature from the Haunted Sea
18. The Swinging Cheerleaders
17. Trial of Billy Jack
16. Killers from Space
15. Spider Baby
14. Trog
13. The Three Stooges in Orbit
12. The Crippled Masters
11. Sorceress
10. The Crawling Hand
9. Bloodsucking Freaks
8. J.D.'s Revenge
7. Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster
6. Killer Shrews
5. Great White
4. Plan 9 from Outer Space
3. The Thing with Two Heads
2. Eegah!
1. The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies


Honestly this "movie" has next to no value unless you want a quick overview of some bad movies with next to no insight and clips of bad acting and cheap monsters. All Monsters Attack is better for that, as are the 42nd Street Forever discs. This is a "Watch Once" at best, but I'd advise skipping it altogether.

Blogorium Review: Bronson

 Bronson is not the fictionalized story of Charles Bronson, just to get that out of the way. I know that many of you saw the cover (as I did) and thought (as I did not) "I don't remember Charles Bronson being bald or having a curly moustache. I mean, I guess he was tough but this guy looks like he could be Bane from Batman, for crying out loud," or something to that effect. That's a fair reaction, so just so you know, this is not a biopic about The Great Escape or Death Wish any more than the Jason Statham The Mechanic is a faithful remake of The Mechanic and not just a Jason Statham movie with a title you might maybe recognize.

 It is, however, the fictionalized story of Charles Bronson (née Michael Peterson), who has the distinction of being "Britain's Most Violent Prisoner." As the movie (and the back of the DVD / Blu-Ray) tells us, he has "34 Years in Prison, 30 in Solitary Confinement," with the exception of the 69 days he was not in prison which was when he began bare knuckle boxing under the name "Charles Bronson." Bronson is quick to inform us that he's never killed anyone, although he really likes to get in fights, hold people hostage, and cover himself in grease, paint, or feces before fighting prison officials. All because he held up a post office (and then later stole a ring).

 This might be confusing because I swear early in the film that one of the prison officials calls him "Charlie" when he's supposed to be sewing. That would be some time in the 1970s (between 1974, hen he's sent to prison, and when he's sent to an insane asylum), well before he chooses the name "Charles Bronson" which we see happen later in the film. At first I was taken aback but then realized that in a movie that exists in such a heightened state of "reality" that everything we're seeing only exists as Bronson sees it.

 You'd think the parts where he's on a theatre stage addressing an audience while wearing a tuxedo and face paint would be a dead giveaway of that, but I made the mistake of taking some of the flashbacks at face value. My mistake.

 Anyway, so most of the film is designed to be expressionistic or at the very least to not reflect any reality you or I could point to, although it does seem like the real Charles Bronson (not Mr. Majestyk) does actually have the reputation of doing these ridiculous things. There's a moment when he's explaining one of the mental facilities they sent him to before he was released and what happened there, and instead of recreating it he just stands in front of a screen showing (what I assume to be) actual news footage of the riot he caused. Some times the real thing is more effective than trying to re-enact it.

 That said, I don't know how successful Nicholas Winding Refn and Tom Hardy are in conveying this to the audience. A lot of my friends hate Drive (I do not) and if you don't like that then you're really not going to like Bronson. It's way more self consciously "art-y" and has the same affinity for synth-heavy music (example: we learn that it's the 1980s in the movie when the inmates of the asylum are dancing to The Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin").

 I liked much of what Refn did visually with the film and I thought Tom Hardy was charismatic and creepy and sometimes very awkward as Charles Bronson / Michael Peterson. There's a section of the film where he goes all "Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys" in the asylum, drooling and shuffling around and generally not accomplishing his goal of "building an empire." I believe Hardy as Bronson when he says prison was his calling and that he believes it's his way of making a name for himself (I mean, they made a movie about him and not about the guy from Death Wish) and it once again steps Tom Hardy away from being Jean-Luc Picard's wimpy clone and towards being a guy who could break Christian Bale in half.

 Maybe the problem is that Refn and co-screenwriter Brock Norman Brock don't ever convey that Charles Bronson is actually having the impact he wants to have. Part of this is that we rarely ever see other prisoners when he's in jail (and while he's in solitary for 30 years, he spends plenty of time outside of his cell) and because it's only the world as Bronson sees it, so there's no stepping back and seeing his actual impact on Britain or anything else that merits what we're told ABOUT Charles Bronson. The mistake they make is only showing us Charles Bronson through his eyes and not the eyes of others, with two exceptions near the end that don't bolster his case.

 One is the Prison Governor(Johnny Phillips) who tells Bronson he's "pathetic" after the whole "building an empire" spiel, and the other Bronson's art teacher (James Lance), who sees his paintings as a way to make himself famous for "discovering" this imprisoned artist. Bronson thanks him by holding him hostage and painting on his face, then he demands the Governor play music while Charlie strips down, paints himself black, and prepares to fight a losing battle with the guards. I like that Bronson holds hostages even though he doesn't seem to want anything, but neither of these perspectives seem to reinforce what Charles Bronson wants his legacy to be. The real Charles Bronson at least popularized the "sock full of quarters" method of beatings as a viable form of revenge.

 So yeah, I guess there are things I liked about Bronson, especially Tom Hardy, but also the movie doesn't quite do its subject justice, or at least adequately convey why it is that Charles Bronson deserves the reputation he has. It gives some anecdotal evidence but I think ultimately I'd have to overturn this verdict and say that the movie version of Michael Peterson is not deserving of the moniker Charles Bronson. I think the real Charles Bronson would agree, even from the grave, where I would still assume he could film Death Wish 6, if he desired. Still, Bronson is worth renting or watching streaming on Netflix. Unless you don't like Drive. If you don't like Drive then maybe you should watch Once Upon a Time in the West. That's on streaming, too.

May the 4th... Be with Marvel!

 Again, take that George Lucas. That will keep me satisfied considering that I forgot that in trading up from a dead phone to a newer one that I inadvertently chose the one that gives Lucasfilm kickbacks. Anyway, so as you may or may not be aware, The Avengers opens on Friday (or Thursday at midnight, if you aren't one of those "technicalists" who keep late hours and prefer to think of the next day some time around dawn when you're heading to bed). It is a movie where comic book characters we've been getting to know cinematically for the last four years get together to save the Earth, and if not that, presumably avenge it.

 I can't imagine anyone who is predisposed to seeing Marvel's The Avengers based on the comic book Marvel's The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes does not know who Joss Whedon is, but for the rest of you he's the semi-classic definition of a "cult" hero. The reason that most of you wouldn't know who he was is because if you've heard anything he's created, it's usually in a derisive way, like "oh, the guy that Fox hires and then cancels his shows" (Firefly, Dollhouse), or "the guy who made a TV show out of that Kristy Swanson movie" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), or "oh, guy who had the spinoff of that Kristy Swanson thing with the guy from Bones" (Angel). Maybe it was "the guy that made that movie all those nerdy 'browncoats' wanted me to see but nobody got around to it" (Serenity). Actually, it's probably that "guy who did the musical thing with Neil Patrick Harris that's on Netflix that I didn't see because my annoying nerd friends told me 'OMG it's like the best EVAR!" (Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog).

 By the way, I'm not actually bagging on Joss Whedon for any of this, so there's no need to point out that he created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and wrote the movie which was taken away from him and Donald Sutherland refused to use Whedon's dialogue or that you tried your best to get your friends to see Serenity and wrote letters to save Dollhouse and Firefly and that you saw every episode of Buffy and Angel and you've read Whedon's run on The Astonishing X-Men. It's cool. I get it. There's a copy of Serenity behind me and Firefly is upstairs. I'm not trying to get your goad, folks*. This is for people who read this entire paragraph and said "what now?" There is very little "public perception" of Joss Whedon, but even as a fan of the Whedon-verse, I can understand why some people feel we're insufferable in our geekdom.

 So where was I? Ah yes, okay Joss Whedon is a writer / director / creative force known to a devoted audience and then not so much by the rest of the world. The Avengers is in almost all certainty going to change that. Then people might finally stop mentioning his period as screenwriter-for-hire / script doctor (Speed, Toy Story, Waterworld, X-Men**, Alien: Resurrection to name a few) and he'll have some leeway to do whatever he wants and also get to make blockbuster comic book movies if he feels like it. This is a good thing, by the way, as he is a tremendously talented fellow that has mostly been just under the radar for the last decade.

 I thought it might be fun to revisit the path to The Avengers by looking at reviews for Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger before we get to the main event. And even though I've already seen The Avengers, for reasons I can't get into or discuss at the moment, I'm going to see it again before giving it a proper review. To prove to you that I'm not pulling your chain, here's something that nobody else has mentioned about the film: Harry Dean Stanton has a cameo that's all the funnier because there's no good reason why Harry Dean Stanton should be playing a security guard having a conversation with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) after the Hulk falls from the sky.

 The other fun thing about this recap is that I never actually reviewed Iron Man 2, so you'll get a fresh look at it two years later as I'll be watching it again in the next day or two. Tomorrow, I'll put up a vintage double feature review of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, and then on Wednesday I'll get you a new Iron Man 2 review, followed by Thor on Thursday (how appropriate) and Captain America on Friday. Then we'll close out the week with The Avengers on Saturday. In the mean time, go see The Avengers this weekend. I think you'll really like it. Except for Professor Murder. I can almost guarantee he's not going to like it at all.




 * If I were going to do that, I'd mention that I am not a huge fan of Whedon musicals, which means I don't like Dr. Horrible and I really didn't like "Once More with Feeling". Flame on.
** He is singularly responsible for the notorious "do you know what happens when a toad is struck by lightning" line, which in his defense would sound a lot funnier delivered by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

News and Notes: Vampire Nicolas Cage Edition

 Let's get this out of the way before moving to something more interesting: it's not that they're calling it Qwikster, which is admittedly stupid - I'm really entertaining the thought of dumping Netflix entirely. Not only am I not enamored of their streaming service, which sounds like it's going to get worse before it gets better, but if I wasn't interested in Gamefly after a free trial, Qwikster adding games also won't light my fire. I don't rent DVDs enough any more to justify the price (which will certainly rise very soon), and I'm having trouble justifying keeping either service. I'm certainly open to entertaining other options, including Hulu or GreenCine.

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 Blogorium reader and author of Gin and Candy Liz Fitz asked me to discuss the photo circulating the internet last week of someone in the 1870s that looks like Nicolas Cage. It was listed on eBay and the sale is closed  Luckily, all you have to do to have your own copy is to right click the picture, which is all over the place, and save one for yourself. Then you can share it on the Blogorium, like so:

 The description makes the following claim, which has perpetuated - well, let's just look at the ingenious way someone sold this:


 Original c.1870 carte de visite showing a man who looks exactly like Nick Cage. Personally, I believe it's him and that he is some sort of walking undead / vampire, et cetera, who quickens / reinvents himself once every 75 years or so. 150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a talk show host.

 So this is clever; I'll give it that. Capitalizing on the inherent "weirdness" of Nicolas Cage (he of MEGA ACTING), people are of course going to be amused by the suggestion he might be a vampire. It's the same kind of garbage as the picture. Yeah, I said it. I don't believe for a second that it's real. At all. I'm sure that some incredibly devoted geek is out there hunting down the original photo where the subject is looking to his right (not head on) and isn't the face of Nicolas Cage awkwardly pasted on. Not for a second did I entertain this being genuine (as claimed), but I applaud the seller for attaching a comparably ridiculous theory to distract visitors. I'm sure they made some money, had some yuks, and will still claim the picture is "real." If that's what works for you, but remember that vampires don't photograph well. Just a thought.

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Finally, I am slowly but surely shoring up the titles for Horror Fest 6, including a few films that aren't on the poster (which I'm still not in love with, so if you're the type who likes tinkering with design, I'll be happy to provide you with the text free version). Please keep voting using the options on your right - anything ought to be fun and the titles provide me with no end of amusement.



 Programming Note: The Cap'n will be out of town for the weekend, so while you can expect spoilers for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, as well as the customary trailers to close out the week, there will be no reviews tomorrow or the day after. Have an enjoyable weekend watching movies, or whatever it is you do when I'm not here...

News and Notes: Technical Edition (with Books)

 - Let's start with why it doesn't matter that Starz decided not to continue its contract with Netflix. This news is being treated the same way that Netflix's split with Showtime (and the never-to-be HBO deal), but I for one am happy to hear this.

 Consistently, I've found that Starz content on Netflix tends to be the most egregious examples of "pulling a fast one" on streaming viewers. In an era where "full screen" means something very different than it did five years ago, Starz streaming movies and TV shows on Netflix were constantly shown as "letterboxed" 4x3 images. If you aren't quite sure what I mean, try watching a show like MTV's Jersey Shore on a widescreen TV. See how the black bars are still on the top and bottom of the screen, even though it doesn't fill out the left and right of your TV? This is a fake "widescreen" that only really worked on old television sets.

 MTV released their Jersey Shore DVDs in the same fashion, and Starz did it with everything I watched from them on Netflix. It's a lazy alternative to providing 16x9 enhanced content and it actually diminishes the size of the picture on your screen. While it might have been nice to watch newer Disney films on Netflix, it certainly wasn't worth the drop in picture size. Not in this day and age. Netflix is hurting, and more companies jumping ship isn't necessarily good news for them, but I avoided the "Starz" section of Instant Viewing like the plague after being burned repeatedly. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.

 - Speaking of "Full Screen," it makes me chuckle when I see stores (like one I will soon no longer be with) that still sell new DVDs with that moniker. Widescreen has slowly become the norm, and the pan-and-scan 4x3 discs are less and less desirable for customers. Many studios don't release new movies in "Full Screen" anymore, because it doesn't mean the same thing it used to. Not so long ago I would have to pay careful attention to the DVD cover of a movie I wanted to pick up in order not to buy one with a butchered "full" transfer.

 Every now and then, I put this video up, just to give folks a primer of what I mean by "pan-and-scan," because it doesn't just mean removing the black bars from the top and bottom of widescreen films:



  I often wonder what families who made the transition from standard TVs to widescreen TVs do with their collections of "Full Screen" DVDs when watching them. What probably happens is that they set their TV to automatically zoom in on the image so it fills the whole frame, creating an image twice as messy as the one shown above. Imagine taking a "Full Screen" image and then stretching it out even further to the left and right, because that's what probably happens. Yikes. I've seen it done before with VHS (hell, I did it once with the Star Wars Holiday Special) and if you really don't mind things looking messy, I guess it's watchable. But again, we were watching the Star Wars Holiday Special here, and mostly in fast-forward.

- Some time in the near future the Cap'n might have a book review up again. It's been a while, I know, but I've started reading Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman. From the introduction, it certainly seems to be interested in Wes Craven, Sean Cunningham, George Romero, John Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon, and Brian de Palma and uses the William Castle produced, Roman Polanski directed Rosemary's Baby as the point at which Old Horror passed the torch to Modern Horror.

 I was a little nervous starting out because I have followed much of the history of Night of the Living Dead, The Last House on the Left, Halloween, and Alien, but the chapter on Rosemary's Baby already included an anecdote about Vincent Price I don't think I've seen anywhere to this point as well as a more balanced approach to Castle's involvement into bringing the picture to Paramount than is evident from Robert Evans' The Kid Stays in the Picture. The next chapter is about Hitchcock, particularly Psycho's oft cited influence on Modern Horror, and seems to be adding some nuance to the claims that it spawned the slasher films of the next two decades. Anyway, I'm clearly only starting the book, so I'll give it a proper review when I finish. I will say that it really makes me want to start working on a book idea I've had for years...

The Netflix Dilemma.

 While deleting and re-installing Netflix on the Blogorium PS3 last night (it had something to do with being "unable to connect"), I had a moment of two to mull over the whole "price raising" (some call it gouging) situation the company announced earlier this month. It wasn't popular, and I'm sure they're catching hell for it, and I suspect many Netflix subscribers will leave when the hike takes effect in September.

 Me? I'm on the fence. Truly I am, and while my knee-jerk reaction was "raise your prices? to hell with you jerks!" I did settle down and consider that I was paying $12 a month for unlimited streaming and one DVD or Blu-Ray at a time. If I tried to buy any of the movies or TV shows I was taking full advantage of, I'd be spending a lot more than that a month. That's a fact, even if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of hunting like a madman online for the best possible price and then tacking on free Two Day Shipping (which is, by the way, actually a 68 dollar yearly fee on Amazon) or dropping another three to seven dollars for next-day delivery. Netflix offers a certain convenience with instant viewing and deliverable discs. Their movies also don't go "dead" twenty-four hours after you rent them, like Playstation Network's rental system, and you don't have to download them, so that's another perk. You can stop watching something and pick up where you left off - also nice.

 The flipside(s) are also totally valid, and I can't do a much better job than this piece, entitled Dear Netflix: Drop Dead. You're going to find out a few things you probably didn't know about the streaming service in there, the least of which is that Showtime's currently airing series aren't coming back to "Watch It Now." HBO series probably never will. Netflix arbitrarily pulls movies from the Instant Queues, often with little warning, which sucks, but I always viewed the "watch it now" part of the service as an added bonus - it was something I could use in addition to my DVD rentals.

 Now that I need to consider paying for both, I'm torn. It's not the random dropping of movies or the lack of some TV shows, which I guess sucks. It's not the movies that end up "pan-and-scan" in an era when "Full Screen" finally means something very different, although that also sucks. It's not even the considerable disparity between what Neftlix offers in their disc-based and streaming-based plans, with the 28 day holdover on new releases which are also now barebones discs, which sometimes really sucks. I can get past most of that. The question becomes "do I use both of them enough to merit paying 60% more?"

 That's the catch; the streaming allows me to watch televisions shows, which I am habitually unable to keep up with as they air (the exception is Doctor Who). I've been able to slowly but surely make it almost to the end of Battlestar Galactica thanks to Neftlix Instant Queue. I will finish the series by the end of the summer, something I was unable to do picking up seasons while working at a used book store as the show aired. Then I can start on Luther and Sherlock, two BBC series I've wanted to look into. Netflix just added Mad Men, a show I've been wanting to watch but haven't yet, and now I have a year to catch up on the four seasons before the fifth starts. And there's The League, and Louie, and Archer, FX shows I've caught in fits and bursts. Being able to watch The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Futurama, Arrested Development, Better of Ted, Top Gear, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a host of other shows at any time is also a perk, since I no longer have any of those DVDs and can't afford the Blu-Rays.

 I also was able to watch Exit Through the Gift Shop, Double Take, ThanksKilling, and (sigh) Monsturd through the streaming option, movies I might not be aware of otherwise or might simply have forgotten about. I understand that Rubber is currently available, so can imagine The Troll Hunter won't be far behind. Netflix is very good about picking up smaller, independent films and putting them on their Instant Queue before the discs are available. They're very good with new releases from Criterion, which saves all kinds of money.

 On the other hand, I can't watch all of the excellent Doctor Who DVDs on Netflix. I can watch some of the episodes, but not all of them. I can't watch any features, and as many of you know, the Cap'n is something of a supplement junkie. Classic Doctor Who DVDs go above and beyond the call of duty for every story when it comes to extras, so I like to rent the discs for that. Also, they rarely "pull" movies from my DVD queue, something I can't say about their Instant. I don't need three discs at a time, but I don't really want to drop the Instant service. I use both of them, and while the cost isn't excessive, Netflix has a ways to go before it's justifiable to pay for each one as its own entity.

 So I'm on the fence right now, as I suspect many of you are. The other options aren't thrilling, unless I just give up and risk being sued for illegally downloading all of the things I want to watch. That's not cheaper by a long shot. If you have suggestions, I'm all ears, gang.

The Cap'n: Debunker of Rumours.

Every few months, I hear one of the two statements about my movie viewing habits:

1. You didn't see that? I thought you saw everything!

2. Well, of course _____ sounds bad. Everything you show at (fill in the blank) Fest is bad.


or some variation thereof. When hit with both in the course of two days, it seemed like I needed to once again step up and dispel some assumptions about what I watch, what I show others, and other erroneous assertions made about the Cap'n.

The first assumption is fair, and goes along with the theory proposed last week about what non-cinephiles think that "film geeks" do with their time: watch everything. The truth of the matter is that I have neither the time, the money, nor the inkling to watch every single movie that comes out. I can't even see all of the critically well regarded films, though I do keep track of them, bookmark reviews so I don't forget they exist, and hope that I remember when the DVD or Blu Ray comes out so I can add it to an already lengthy Netflix queue.

As it is, I see as much as I can, where I can and when I can, but I'm just like you "normals": I have other concerns that occupy my time, I have the same mundane day-to-day tasks to deal with. I fit in movies late at night, or in small doses so that I have something to write about (which also takes time). While I'd love to be able to wander from theatre to theatre and soak in everything, then head to the video store (supposing they exist anymore) and rent every old title in stock to accompany the new releases I picked up, I can't do that. Yet. When I can, I'll let you know.

I also read, which may or may not come as a surprise (I don't really know what you assume the Cap'n does with his spare time), not always about film, but in reasonable doses. I find that if I ever want to pursue an education and career writing about film, I should soak up as much information as humanly possible about the aspects of cinema I find interesting, so the texts range from academic theory, compendiums of interviews with directors, writers, actors, and editors about process, work by other critics I admire, the occasional bio or autobiography, and one or two movie guides to use in order to find something I haven't heard of - and that tends to be plenty.

To address the second comment (which the first dovetails nicely into), I openly admit that the "about" blurb on the right side of the page says "trash savant," which implies that the Cap'n is knowledgeable about a certain type of film, one that others might hold their nose while walking past were the metaphor extended to food rather than cinema. I understand that, and it is true that that is a facet of what I watch, show, and discuss. It's also true that the Cap'n has a term coined in his honor: the "Trappening," a deliberate misleading of friends to come over and watch a movie only to show them something horrible (named for my devilish enjoyment of M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening and the dirty trick I played on everyone during Horror Fest III).

Somehow these facts, coupled with Bad Movie Night - an appropriation of what my brother and his friends do for each of their birthdays - has given people the strange notion that this is ALL the Cap'n is interested in. Yes, I take a certain amount of pride in finding the obscure and rightfully forgotten films for festivals; more often than not, those are the films that unite the audience and energize them between films with slower pacing or that are less easy to react to. The atmosphere created by a "party" movie can lift the group up and continue momentum over the night, as many fest attendees will attest to.

Let's address the main point for a moment, and where assumption one dovetails into assumption two: the idea that I will, or would want to, watch "everything." The second postulate goes further to assert that I will watch anything as long as it is "bad," which is demonstrably untrue. In fact, I turned the point around to the person who made it when he bemoaned how terrible Transformers 2 was. Here is a reasonable facsimile of the discussion:

Me: Now wait a minute... I never saw Transformers because it looked awful. You not only saw Transformers and hated it, but still went back and saw Transformers 2, which you knew you wouldn't like.

He: Yeah.

Me: And I'm the one who watches "bad" movies?

He: Fair point.

In the interest of full disclosure, the conversation then turned to the fact that I had seen Michael Bay's The Island, which I didn't like, in part because it sounded exactly like Parts: The Clonus Horror, a film I only knew existed because of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you want to negate my point, there's your opportunity. I also mentioned an interest in seeing the 1989 film Red Scorpion, starring Dolph Lundgren, which was met with some derision.

Red Scorpion may well be a terrible movie; in fact, I've seen no kind words written about it, but my reasons for seeing it have nothing to do with the "quality" of the film. My interest in seeing Red Scorpion, like my interest in The Island, has to do with its place among other films. That the existence of Red Scorpion is one of the most surprising things in a film as revelatory as Casino Jack and the United States of Money spoke to me. I had no idea that lobbyist Jack Abramoff dabbled as a Hollywood producer, and this apocryphal piece of film history makes seeing Red Scorpion worth the diversion into "bad" movie territory.

Every now and then, I'll get a wild hair and watch something like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li or s. Darko or, yes, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, and despite the fact that the first two reviews appeared with the caveat SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO, people seem to think that I only seek these movies out. Yes, they're easy to describe and the reviews are often memorable because I go out of my way to describe the lunacy and ineptitude on display, but it isn't the only thing I write about.

The fact that I enjoy the loopy, nonsensical narrative of Death Bed and its novel, totally unexpected way of having the bed "eat", or the fact that Hillbillys in a Haunted House delivers nothing the title promises (but is still charming in a stupid, earnest manner), does not mean that I'm only going to program those films at festivals. What I run into by the time you get to 8 official "fests" is the risk of repeating yourself too much and running out of films that are going to surprise people. So I take risks - some pay off, like the deliriously offensive Blood Car and ThanksKilling, and some don't, like the turgid Matango or the lifeless Navy vs. the Night Monsters.

Do I sometimes relish in how much you hate these films? Yes, at times; I never said the Cap'n was sadistic, but many of you keep coming back knowing that there's a 50/50 chance things could not work. They can't all be as woefully pathetic and hysterical as The Giant Claw, after all. I appreciate your willingness to venture into uncharted territory with me, but by this point I had hoped more people would realize that's not all that makes up the Cap'n.

If not, then maybe "Good Movie Night" would be fun, if a bit redundant conceptually. Beats me; I just thought you were already watching those without my involvement. Am I assuming too much?

Friday Tidbits

Following up on last night's re-review, I'd like to add one more thread to the conversation about cult cinema. The "midnight movie" isn't exactly dead; while it is true that the advent of VCRs functionally killed Drive-Ins and seriously crippled the need for midnight cinema, in the years since Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream, a concerted effort exists in cities across the U.S. to bring back the experience - as the oft-mentioned Best Worst Movie covers in reference to Troll 2. One could argue that The Rocky Horror Picture Show itself disproves the myth that "midnight movies" ever died in the first place. For as long as I've been alive, The Rialto screened (and screens) Rocky Horror every Friday at midnight, and it sells out every week. Its presence on Glee edged the film further into "mainstream," but its unabated presence as a "midnight movie" throughout the country.

Speaking of the Glee episode, one would be tempted to say that the "everything old is new again" maxim is reaching a breaking point when the ultimate "midnight movie" gets a glee club treatment, I would like to point out that this is not dissimilar to the Elgin and the Orson Welles Theatre trotting out Reefer Madness and Freaks to exploit their "camp" value for a new generation in the 1970s.

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Despite the fact that nobody is going to pay the Cap'n for mentioning this (which is, in its own way, my disclaimer for what follows), fans of the Criterion Collection with limited budgets may be happy to learn that over a hundred titles are available on Netflix's "Watch It Now" streaming service. While you won't get the supplements, it is a much cheaper way to see Children of Paradise, Man Bites Dog, Tokyo Drifter, Cronos, The Battle of Algiers, Onibaba, Night and the City, Jules and Jim, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Ikiru, Pandora's Box, The Spirit of the Beehive, La Strada, Solaris, Elevator to the Gallows, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, The Hit, Shadows, and The Passion of Joan of Arc.

I mention this because the aggregate prices for just the films listed above is around $700 without tax, whereas you can watch unlimited streaming for $7.99 a month. Again, I'm not getting kick backs from anybody, but it's worth putting out there to frugal cinephiles or Criterion fans. Think of it as a way to buffer your knowledge of the collection without killing your wallet - something that weighs heavily on my mind right now.

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Finally, I just want to say "How cool is this?"


A friend of the Blogorium picked this up for me at a thrift store, and because I thrive on discovering things I didn't know, learning that the Criterion Collection also existed on VHS, in addition to Laserdisc, DVD, and now Blu-Ray.



What I find very intriguing as a Criterion fanatic is that according to the information on the back and the number on the Spine, The Third Man is number 5. A cursory search online is coming up with virtually no information on Criterion's VHS output (their site no longer lists the Laserdiscs, which included Taxi Driver and The Magnificent Ambersons), so if any readers out there finds something, I would greatly appreciate more insight into this heretofore unknown facet of the collection.

Cap'n Howdy's Documentary Roundup

Welcome back to the Blogorium, readers; today the Cap'n will take four quick looks at five documentaries that have, alas, been sitting on the "to write about" pile since May. I don't have quite enough to say about them individually, although I do recommend all five films for various reasons, and many of them are available for Instant Viewing on Netflix.

Champion - Joe Eckhardt and Cecily Gambrell's documentary about ubiquitous character actor Danny Trejo is fascinating and frequently enlightening, helping to separate the actor from his character "type." Trejo - who first landed on my radar with a small role in Desperado - began his life as a criminal and drug addict, but after serving prison time in San Quentin and entering a 12-step program, he cleaned up and became a drug counselor.

Strangely, it was then that the tattooed, muscular, Charles Bronson-esque Trejo began appearing in films: while visiting a young man he was sponsoring on set, Trejo met an old friend from prison and joined the cast of Runaway Train, first as an extra and then as Eric Roberts' boxing coach. Champion features a number of interviews with actors and directors who work with Trejo, including Robert Rodriguez, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Steve Buscemi, and Antonion Banderas, but the star of the show is Danny Trejo, who tells much of his own story directly to the camera, and whose presence on-screen is palpable beyond the "tough guy" in Machete.


American Swing - The true story of Plato's Retreat, the Manhattan "swinger's" club, focuses on the people who worked there (and a few visitors, like Buck Henry) and pays particular attention to Plato's founder Larry Levenson, whose appearances on Donahue and Midnight Blue only increased the club's infamy. Directors Jon Hart and Matthew Kaufman compile the fond recollections of the sexual freedom of New York in the 1970s and early 80s, while paralleling the rise and fall of Levenson with his "anything goes" couples' retreat. Some of the stories must be heard to be believed, and if you saw the Plato's Retreat segment on VH1's "I Love the 70s," this documentary does a fine job at contextualizing the lurid - and at times disgusting - scene from the people who knew it best.

Small Town Gay Bar and Bear Nation - Malcolm Ingram's 2006 documentary on gay bars in rural Mississippi is endlessly watchable and, at times, infuriating (specifically the appearance by Reverend Fred Phelps, who you may know as the man whose group pickets military funerals). Ingram's tour of bars that are, were, and (at the time of filming) will be is a portrait of life where being who you are is literally life-threatening - as was the case for Scotty Joe Weaver, an Alabama teen murdered, semi-decapitated, and burned for being gay. The struggle with finding self expression in the Deep South is primarily Ingram's focus, although the sense of community stemming from these "small town gay bars" resonates the most in the end.

I would be inclined to say more about Ingram's 2010 documentary, Bear Nation, but I'm positive that the one hour version (with commercials) I saw on Logo is anything other than truncated (IMDB has the running time listed at 82 minutes, making it double the length of what I saw). As it is, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Bear Nation, which documents the rise of the "Bear" movement - gay men who are hairy, overweight, or have a less effete build than the stereotypical "homosexual." Of particular interest amidst the interviews with bears, cubs, twinks, and admirers is the rising debate about bear culture being appropriated, sanitized, and marketed, creating new divisions in what was otherwise considered a welcoming subculture. While I understand that Kevin Smith executive-produced Bear Nation, his section in the version I saw was rather long, and its purpose - to demonstrate bear culture in mainstream media - may have been more effective if it were counter-balanced with other examples, like John Waters' A Dirty Shame. Again, I haven't seen the entire film, so this may be an erroneous comment. I look forward to seeing Bear Nation in its full form and highly recommend Small Town Gay Bar.

Don't You Forget About Me - A 2009 documentary released on DVD this year, Don't You Forget About Me is a retrospective of the films of John Hughes, who for all intents and purposes defined "teen cinema" in the 1980s with Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and The Breakfast Club. In 1991, Hughes walked away from directing and the spotlight, occasionally writing under an alias (with Beethoven, Maid in Manhattan, and apparently, Drillbit Taylor). The documentary interviews many of his cast and crew, including Judd Nelson, Howard Deutch (who directed Pretty in Pink), Kelly LeBrock, Mia Sara, Geddy Watanabe, Annie Potts, Ally Sheedy Richard Elfman (Oingo Boingo provided Weird Science with its instantly recognizable title song), Andrew McCarthy, along with admirers Kevin Smith, Jason Reitman, Richard Roeper, and Roger Ebert. The usual holdouts - Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Emilio Estevez, and the normally available Anthony Michael Hall - are nowhere to be found.

The central purpose of Don't You Forget About Me is also its biggest weakness: filmmakers Matt Austin, Kari Hollend, Michael Facciolo, and Lenny Panzer want to know where John Hughes is hiding in Chicago and why he won't return to "save movies" in the 21st century, and the film is split between interviews with collaborators and the crew of Don't You Forget About Me trying to find Hughes. Why? They want to show him the documentary footage they've completed in the hopes that Hughes will be so touched, he'll return to public life. Instead, Hughes rightfully chooses to ignore the filmmakers who appear at his home, unannounced, and the end result is a documentary that's more self-serving than inspiring.

I understand that their interest in appealing to Hughes (who died after the documentary was completed) and attempting to show him his impact on a generation of filmmakers, but the on-screen presence of the documentary crew distracts the focus of Don't You Forget About Me, turning the film into more of a personal film, like Winnebago Man or Bowling for Columbine, than a true focus on the subject. In the end, I found myself rooting for Hughes to dismiss this ragtag film crew, in part because they openly admit how dubious their stalking of John Hughes is, and at least one of them clearly knows their conceit won't work. Don't You Forget About Me is half interesting career retrospective and half self promotion, and the halves don't add up to anything more than an interesting curio.

Blogorium Review: Satan's Little Helper

Today's review is not going to be terribly long, in part because Satan's Little Helper is a terribly boring movie. It really isn't sure what kind of movie it should be: a scary, violent, sex-infused, Satan-apropos film, a critique of Christianity (which it does so ham-handedly that I doubt it to be accidental), or a family-friendly horror film - a sort-of Gooby, but with the Devil instead of an oversized pederast Teddy Bear.

Very Scary!

Satan's Little Helper was a DVD cover I'd seen many times in Used and Mark Down bins, but something I never considered watching until Professor Murder insisted we queue up on Netflix's "Watch It Now" - a service I have to thank for so many bad ideas (*ahem* Monsturd). He loved it, but let's remember that the Professor takes great pride in enjoying movies even the Cap'n thinks twice about.

As it is, I doubt many of you will go hunting down Satan's Little Helper (even on your Instant Queue), I've decided to include photos in this review, just to give you an idea how schizophrenic of a film it is. That, and some things just need to be seen to be believed.

Jenna Whooly (Katheryn Winnick) is a student returning to Bell Island to spend Halloween with her mother Merrill (Amanda Plummer) and little brother Dougie (Alexander Brickel). She brings along a fellow student, Alex Martin (Stephen Graham), who has family in the area, and may be a potential love interest. But to be honest, the movie is about Dougie, who loves his video game "Satan's Little Helper." Dressed as the devil, Dougie wants nothing more than to be an actual minion of Satan, which works out nicely when the dark lord happens to be tooling around Bell Island, killing people (off camera) and posing them as Halloween displays. Dougie brings Satan home, and uh... well, chicanery ensues, followed by some eventual peril, and then some other things happen. Will Dougie learn the error of his ways? Will Alex and Jenna hook up? Is Merrill drunk or is that just how Amanda Plummer acts these days? What does Satan look like under that mask? Where can I get a copy of that video game?



Wait... where was I? Oh, right: the mask. The one thing Satan's Little Helper has going for it is the refusal to actually show Satan. He's always wearing a costume that covers his face (and often, hands) which put me somewhat at ease after first seeing the cheap rubber mask we're introduced to him in. To put it in perspective, here's Dougie's costume:


And here's Satan when we meet him:


That's what Satan looks like for most of the movie, and until Jenna tries to take off Satan's mask - assuming he's Alex wearing a costume - it's not really clear what we're supposed to make of this stiff-armed, totally silent goofball. And when I say goofball, I mean that yes, he kills people (again, none that we see for the first half of the film), but mostly he does things like steal prescription drugs, flip off people with those over-sized blue gloves, examine wine bottles:

1666: a very good year...

And in what may, arguably, be the most memorable scene in the film, sniffs Merrill's panties:

Classy, Satan.

I mentioned Gooby earlier because there's a very similar scene in Satan's Little Helper where the boy and his mythical friend go shopping in a grocery store:



Followed by the strangest reference to Death Race 2000 you're ever likely to see, involving Satan running people down in a shopping cart while Dougie announces the amount of points each pedestrian is worth. (Picture not available because I couldn't find one that did it justice)

Later, when Dougie realizes that Satan is, well, evil, he prays to God to save him (here's where the awkward and ham-handed religious part comes in) and who shows up at his door?

Save me, Jeebus!

But it's not really who you think it is, which prompts the strangest line in the film: "Jesus is Satan!" There's a really funky critique of Christianity going on in this film, where Jesus is immediately equated to God, but Satan is masquerading as Jesus, so what are we saying here? Oh well, it doesn't matter, because Satan starts using his costumes to trick our imbecilic protagonists into killing each other while he trades out costumes.

The family is so stupid that it completely undermines what could be a bleak ending. When NO OTHER characters are around and you've established that the "Satan" you stabbed repeatedly in the Jesus costume is Alex, why would you trust a police office WEARING A MASK that rings your doorbell. Why would you invite him inside? Especially when he does this:


Again, I'm at a loss here. Satan's Little Helper is just a mess of a movie. There's a party scene where, for some reason, everyone is listening to Bob Dylan. Merrill encourages her daughter to dress up like a slutty Renaissance Fair attendee, the previously nonexistent father to Jenna and Dougie shows up only to be disemboweled, and a character is introduced for the express purpose to sneaking in some gratudity halfway into the film. Nothing works, and the only thing I can say for Satan's Little Helper is that I didn't pay any more than the monthly Netflix fee to watch it.

Hrmph. Despite all of my rancor a few weeks ago about the deal between Warner Brothers and Netflix to deprive users of new releases, I can't honestly say it's made a huge difference in my rental activity. It's possible that this is because I haven't been keeping track of "big" releases from team Warners coming soon (can anybody? that's not sarcasm so much as an honest query. what are their major releases now that the holidays are over?)

The other determining factor may have something to do with what I've been renting instead. Truth be told, the movies I have at home are kind of a mixed bag, and none of them are from the Studio of the Shield. Right now I have Land of the Lost, The Girlfriend Experience, and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard at home. Aside from a few people telling me to rent the former and the latter, I'm not really sure why they're here. I haven't been able to talk myself into watching either of them at the moment, especially when better fare like Blood Simple is waiting in the wings.

As for The Girlfriend Experience, I already watched the movie once on Instant Viewing, and checked out the disc for the commentary track and "alternate version", which it turns out isn't so radically different. I need to send that back, and I think Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma is atop the queue.

*edit* I just went and checked WB's Blu-Ray site, and I honestly couldn't find one major release in the next month or two. This makes their ploy all the more confounding, and I wonder if it really is tied to some asinine plan on New Line's part to force people to buy The Lord of the Rings theatrical cuts on Blu-Ray instead of renting them first. That's pretty cheesy.

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The Cap'n cannot vouch for Ti West's The House of the Devil at this time; I hear good things, put the trailer up yesterday because it looked cool, but I haven't seen it yet. Beyond the good buzz for the film, which is a throwback to early 80s style horror with Tom Noonan, Dee Wallace, and Mary Woronov, Dark Sky Films came up with a pretty ingenious marketing gimmick for old school horror fans:

That's right. In addition to DVD and Blu-Ray releases, Amazon is currently selling a DVD combo pack that comes with a VHS copy of the film in the old clamshell packaging. This warms my heart, as it reminds me of my beaten up tape of Return of the Living Dead, but what's more fun is that they slapped the Gorgon Video logo in front of the film. Because a particular segment of this readership might not be old enough to remember, Gorgon video is chiefly remembered for putting out the Faces of Death "films" on VHS, a staple of the "do you dare try to rent this" horror shelf selection.

I have to admit that as gimmicks go, it's almost good enough for me to order a copy. I do still have a VCR, and it might be fun to throw on The House of the Devil at a future Fest without telling people when it was made. I wonder what the VHS quality looks like. For once, I hope it's a pan-and-scan, which I never thought I'd hear myself say.

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Off to bed. You boys and girls behave.

Blogorium Review: Big Fan

People don't tend to think of sports fanatics to be the same, in any way, to comic book fans or science fiction fanatics or hardcore gamers. In fact, anything grouped together under the umbrella term "geek" is meant to suggest an unhealthy obsession with something. While there is one critical difference between the average "geek" and the average "sports nut", people who come to Big Fan based on Patton Oswalt will nevertheless see a lot of themselves in the film.

The biggest difference between a fanatic of sports and the "typical" geek is that the objects of their obsession are flesh and blood. Teams are comprised of real players who perform every week during the season, and don't have the luxury of saying "well, I'm not really Batman. That's just a character in a film." More importantly, this plants the sports fanatic's heroes and villains in the same world they occupy, particularly if you live in a city with a football, baseball, basketball, or hockey team. Despite the rarefied air they breath, the sports fanatic always has a better chance of running into the cornerback for their favorite football team than the geek will of meeting Green Lantern.

And that's exactly what happens to Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) one night. Paul is a huge NY Giants fan; he spends his days composing carefully worded diatribes to call into radio sports shows with that night. Paul and Sal (Kevin Corrigan) tailgate every home game, talk the scores, the schedule, and what needs to happen to make the playoffs. He idolizes Quantrell Bishop (Johnathan Hamm), a defensive... well, I'm not sure. He sounds like a pass rusher, but I missed Bishop's actual position. When Paul from Staten Island is on the air, his love for the Giants reigns supreme, even against the disembodied voice of Phil from Philadelphia (Michael Rapaport).

But Paul is also a loser: he's somewhere between late thirties and mid forties, lives at home with his mother in a tiny room crammed with memorabilia. He works in a parking garage, has one friend, and as best as one can tell, no prospects whatsoever. His brother is a lawyer and his sister a dental assistant, and he chides them (and his mother) for bothering him about his arrested development. For Paul, the Giants are everything. There is no life worth living beyond that. I can imagine some of you can replace the word "Giants" for something "geekier" and see the parallel.

Everything changes when Paul and Sal see Bishop and his entourage at a gas station. Starstruck, they follow him to Manhattan and into a strip club. So disconnected with reality, they have no idea how to approach Quantrell, and when a chance bathroom encounter and a drink offer amount to nothing, the twosome decide to take the direct approach. Bishop and his boys are amused, to say the least, that two disheveled losers would walk up to their VIP booth, but things go well until Paul lets slip that they followed him. For that, Bishop savagely beats Paul, leaving him in the hospital for three days.

Big Fan is a character study of a man so devoted to his team that he, despite lingering head trauma, refuses to cooperate with the police investigation. Aufiero feels guilty for making Bishop angry, and blames himself for the Giants subsequent losses as their star defensive player is suspended. This would be akin, I suppose, to having a favorite actor or artist attack you, and as you recover the show or comic goes downhill, much to fandom's chagrin. I cannot quite find the accurate corollary, which is why Big Fan had to be about athletes.

I won't say too much more, because the mental breakdown Paul suffers as a result of his guilt mixed with family pressure to sue Bishop and talk radio antagonizing from Phil in Philadelphia is where the movie gets most interesting. The third act of the film moves forward in a logical, albeit disturbing fashion, but then makes a sudden turn which is both uplifting and pathetic. It all depends on where you're sitting on the matter.

Patton Oswalt is fantastic as Paul Aufiero. He embodies the "man child" in a way that's never cheap or condescending; Paul doesn't believe that he's the sad man of the story, even when he lashes out in cruel ways at his mother and siblings. His desperation for the incident to just go away is the portrait of a fan in denial, and Oswalt sells every beat with conviction. People will be rightfully surprised to see him play it straight, and it's a pity more people won't see this film due to limited availability.

Writer / Director Robert Siegel takes a very naturalistic approach to the film, in a manner akin to Aronofsky's The Wrestler (which Siegel wrote). Using RED, a new digital camera that approximates the human eye's ability to pick up low light, Siegel makes the most of the film's low budget to achieve versimilitude. Take a shot, for example, where Paul and Sal are driving through Manhattan, neon lights reflecting off of the windshield, but both men are perfectly visible reacting to the display.

Despite the "no frills" independent film aesthetic, Big Fan looks great in HD. For some reason, the film is only being released on DVD, but I still recommend you check it out. I could continue hurling superlatives as Oswalt, but it's better if you just see the film yourselves. Even if you don't know the first thing about football, I promise that many readers of this blog will recognizes themselves - and a lot of themselves they don't want to be - in Paul Aufiero, the Big Fan.

Things You Should and Shouldn't Look Into

I thought I'd start with an amendment to Monday's piece about The Simpsons Season Twenty. While the episodes are, in fact, in high definition, so far there's nary a widescreen presentation to be found. Based on the opening credits, I may have mistaken the jump from 4X3 to 16X9 by a season. The current run (season 21) has different opening sequences, many of which poke fun at the wider image. Still, I'm a little confused why Fox pushed so hard to rush season twenty out, since it technically misses the 20th anniversary and it's Blu-Ray release doesn't take advantage of the screen in the way fans are going to expect.

Additionally, there is literally one extra on the disc: a three minute teaser with Morgan Spurlock for a forthcoming Anniversary Special. Unfortunately, there's no indication of when the special is airing, or if it's going to be available. None of the commentaries from other seasons are present, or deleted scenes, commercials, making of's, or anything else. It screams of a quick cash-in, and I'm really not going to be shocked if you see this season released AGAIN sometime before season twenty-one.

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For anybody with Netflix's "watch it now", while you can't see any new Warner Brothers releases, what you can do is catch two movies that are a little trickier to see: Big Fan and Che. Now Che comes out from Criterion next week, but Steven Soderbergh's four-and-a-half hour Benicio del Toro as Che Guevara epic is going to be a little steep on DVD or Blu-Ray. Luckily, you can watch Part One and Part Two in HD streaming right now. I might just do that in a bit.

While Big Fan technically came out yesterday, no store in the area was carrying the DVD and Amazon has it on a two week back order, so I wouldn't be seeing it that way until the end of the month. Netflix, sensing this problem, not only has Big Fan to watch Instantly, but they one-upped the DVD version by offering the film in HD. Since there's no Blu-Ray release listed, you're getting a bonus here.

I did watch Big Fan, but I'm going to save that review for tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have access to the movie (instantly or on disc) I highly recommend it. Patton Oswalt is excellent, the character study is engrossing, and the ending was a bit surprising. I'll say more tomorrow, but go seek Big Fan out now.

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The Cap'n promised I wouldn't make you sit through another pan of Terminator: Salvation, and so you won't have to. I won't tell you about the reasonably interesting action sequences hampered by an idiotic story punctuated with massive plot holes. I won't tell you about the squandered opportunities or the myriad references to other films that were bungled. I won't mention the stupid ending, a weaker version of the "John Connor is a terminator!" twist that leaked prior to filming. I won't mention how toothless the film feels with a PG-13. I won't tell you all about how fake the digital Arnold face looked or the REALLY STUPID plan by Skynet that JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, or how Sam Worthington's accent goes from "Southern" to his native Australian while he's hanging by a car frame. Above all, I certainly won't mention how the film feels exactly like the exercise in futility that I thought it would, but somehow manages to be even less interesting than I expected.

No sir, you won't have to sit through that, and I won't have ripped off a Harlan Ellison article to not tell you.

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In the wake of having written my defense of Rob Zombie's Halloween II - which is the best way to prepare someone for that film, because it really is Rob Zombie's singular take on the series - I'd like to hear from Cranpire and find out what others thought. Don't get me wrong; I've seen a lot of bad reviews, but none from people I know. So if there are some guest bloggers out there, I'm asking for your input.

Grumbly Growl (more about renting...)

By now, you might have heard that Netflix and Warner Brothers reached a deal this week that will prevent new releases from the studio being available for 28 days after retail availability. Warner Brothers s attempting to increase DVD and Blu-Ray sales by removing all new films from the rental market. Of course, they don't appear to be making a similar deal with Blockbuster or Hollywood video. Perhaps that's because, as I discussed two days ago, Netflix and Red Box are dominating the rental market.

Here's the rub: by not making your recent releases available for a month, I'm less likely to purchase a new Warner Brothers release, and I suspect I'm not alone. Not only will I wait a month and rent other films, but I'll seriously reconsider buying any new Warners release new. Maybe I'll just wait for it to hit the "used" market, on Amazon or at second-run retailers. If they want more money so badly, they made a bad decision by cutting off the rental market.

If you're wondering, "so what? what's another month?", imagine this: if this stunt works, then the other studios are going to follow suit, and assuming that you'd rather drive to Best Buy or Target or Wal Mart to buy a movie you haven't seen. If that somehow works, then they'll start looking at "classic" or top tier titles from the catalog and withhold those, in the hopes you'll pony up another $30-70 for "Deluxe Editions" on top of your Netflix rental price.

I have Netflix precisely because I don't want to buy everything that looks interesting. Sometimes I'd like to rent it first, but if I really like a movie, I'll probably pick it up. If the film is only available to buy, I'll put that film way down on my queue and forget about it. Yes, there are other movies to watch - which is another perfectly reasonable reaction to my grousing - and there are so many of them that maybe users will just bypass Warner Brothers altogether.

For example, there's been a LOT of complaining about New Line (a Warner Brothers subsidiary) deciding to put out The Lord of the Rings films on Blu-Ray in their theatrical cuts, when it's abundantly clear that this is a cash grab. Obviously the extended cuts will be on Blu-Ray some time before The Hobbit hits theatres, so New Line thinks they can sell us both versions when they'd easily fit on the same disc. Now I won't be able to rent them and see if it's even worth the picture upgrade for a month, unless I want to drop $70 for the boxed set. Buyer beware.

This is, in some ways, just a slight annoyance, but it says that the studios are concerned about losing money, and that they're willing to negotiate with the new rental giant to remove films in a way that they aren't elsewhere. Netflix fans are being hosed, Warner Brothers is indicating that money is more important than customer relationships, and the other studios are peeking over the wall to see if the suckers will eat it up. And maybe they will. I don't know. I'm not happy about this at all, because the upside has yet to manifest itself.

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So as to not leave everyone on a sour note, may I present to you this French interpretation of Star Wars.... at least, I think that's what it is...

Blogorium Review: Up in the Air

Watching Up in the Air, much like the recently viewed Facing Ali, makes me wish I could travel back in time to last week and amend the Year End List a bit. I'd add those, as I suspect that when I do see The Road and Big Fan I'll have two more. Up in the Air isn't quite the movie I was expecting, but to be fair I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

I'd read the Walter Kirn novel a few years ago, when it passed through Edward McKay's, but I didn't remember the book very well. Despite all the movie watching and writing, I do read quite a bit, though most of it wouldn't ever end up in the blogorium. But I digress.

Back to the movie at hand: if you don't know anything about Up in the Air, it's the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) who is paid to fly around the country and fire people so that their company won't have to. He's also periodically a motivational speaker, specifically with a piece called "What's in your backpack?" The movie, directed by Jason Reitman, starts comedy. This is appropriate, because Up in the Air is initially going to remind you of Reitman's first film, Thank You For Smoking. The narration is similar, the disdain for humanity is similar, and it plays the funny for quite a while.

Bingham lives in hotel rooms and in airports. It's where he's comfortable, and his nomadic lifestyle keeps him from having to form long term relationships, even with his family. His actual apartment is embarassingly spartan, down to what I believe is a jar full of Pop Tarts above the fridge and abandoned food containers littering his counter. The life works for Bingham, and he even meets a fellow traveler, Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), who meets... shall we say, other needs. In between this, he spends his time coaxing people into accepting their status as unemployed by saying things like "Anyone who ever did anything great sat where you're sitting".

One of the first people we see Bingham fire is Zach Galifianakis, the first of several cameos or small roles in the film, which also includes J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliot, Jason Bateman, Heavenly Creature's Melanie Lynskey, and Danny McBride (the latter two play Bingham's youngest sister and brother-in-law to be). We don't see a lot of these folks, but each brings something interesting to the story, which gets a little more complicated after a breezy introduction.

See, Bingham's job is in jeopardy because the company's new whiz kid, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) developed a simpler system of firing people via video conferencing. Bingham's convinced it won't actually work, and when he learns Natalie doesn't know how to fire anyone, his boss (Bateman) makes him take her out on the road. This could easily be an excuse for more comedic hijinks, and for a little while there's humor to be mined from the mismatch, particularly a non-PC explanation of which ethnic groups are best to get in line behind.

Then, perhaps predictably (or at least as I was expecting), Reitman gets a little sentimental on us. Movies like this are mean to challenge people like Ryan Bingham's beliefs, so Natalie shakes his resolve not to make a serious connection with Alex, and everyone bonds a bit. Ryan decides to go to his sister's wedding with a Plus 1, and even gets the chance to talk Jim (McBride) out of his cold feet. You can see the movie we're heading towards; life lessons are being learned, conventions are being challenged. Yikes, I thought, this is Juno territory... the other side of Reitman territory, the one I don't like so much.

But then Up in the Air does something else, something that a lot of similar movies wouldn't do, something that won me over. I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but it's nice to see a movie that presents a character with easy outs, but doesn't necessarily make them ones that can or should actually happen. Maybe that big life change takes more work than an hour and forty nine minutes allows for. Maybe it does get messy instead of "happily ever after", and while the ending may not satisfy everybody, it's certainly true for the characters. And I appreciated that.

George Clooney is again excellent, and I found his character arc to be similar to Lyn Cassidy's in The Men Who Stare at Goats, but more resonant. Both films presented themselves in a one dimensional way and then veer off in unexpected third acts. Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick are also great as foils for Clooney, and Danny McBride gets the rare opportunity to play it totally straight, without being a jokester or an asshole, and does so very well. I always enjoy seeing Melanie Lynskey in films, and J.K. Simmons makes a lot out of a very short scene. I don't have anything bad to say about Jason Bateman, who again is playing the straight man role - as in Extract - or Galifianakis, who's in and out so quickly that you might not realize it. I'm not going to spoil how or why Sam Elliot plays into the story.

Jason Reitman, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Sheldon Turner, has a knack for great shot composition and organic storytelling, even when working with something that could so easily be a "feel good" film. He makes the best out of the cities Ryan travels through, mostly middle-America, and the aerial photography is at times hypnotic. All is forgiven for Juno, Mr. Reitman. I'll chalk that up to the writer and leave it at that. Up in the Air sits comfortably with my very favorite films of 2009, and because many of you might not check it out, I advocate seeing it on the big screen.

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Maybe tomorrow I'll give a short write up of Facing Ali, an excellent documentary about Muhammad Ali's life from the perspective of the men who fought him. Or I might take a second to talk about a new development involving Warner Brothers and Netflix that continues last night's question about the impact of "on demand" rentals, but this time relating to dvd sales. We'll see when I get there.