Coen Brothers Final Day Three: The Man Who Wasn't There

(note: this might be a reprint, but since he borrowed my paper topic for the final, I'm re-posting it with the question I'm not allowed to answer again...)

3. Discuss The Man Who Wasn't There as the Coens' attempt to recreate or recapture the experience of classic, historical film noir. In what ways do they achieve this recreation? In what ways do they elaborate the genre of film noir, by adding a new element or recognizing a neglected aspect and amplifying it?

More than Noir:

The Man Who Wasn’t There and Critical Approaches to Film Noir

Film noir has a rather unique place in film history, and a role we may consider to be trans-genre(ic). In his exploration of noir More Than Night, James Naremore lays out the particular problem of conceptualizing this amorphous term:

There is in fact no completely satisfactory way to organize the category; and despite scores of books and essays that have been written about it, nobody is sure whether the films in question constitute a period, a genre, a cycle, a style, or simply a ‘phenomenon’. (9)

For Naremore, “film noir is an unusually baggy concept, elaborated largely after the fact of the films themselves” (5). There is a unifying theory of film noir, based largely on a set of “markers”: black and white photography, a flashback structure, existential themes, urban settings, an affinity for water, the “femme fatale”, high contrast lighting, location shooting, chiaroscuro, voice-over narration, and stories borrowed from hard-boiled detective fiction. However, few films that can be characterized as “film noir” have all of these characteristics. In fact, several of them – Laura, for example – have very few of the “accepted” descriptors.

In the introduction to More Than Night, Naremore proposes we set these contradictory elements aside, suggesting that “no matter what modifier we attach to a category, we can never establish clear boundaries and uniform traits. Nor can we have a ‘right’ definition – only a series of more or less interesting uses” (6). Joel and Ethan Coen, however, have other plans with their homage to film noir, The Man Who Wasn’t There.

The film is both an encapsulation of and a commentary on noir, not merely as a style, but as a concept. By sidestepping specific references (although there are many direct references to Double Indemnity, The Asphalt Jungle, and The Postman Always Rings Twice), the Coen brothers instead make The Man Who Wasn’t There embody film noir as it was embraced – and arguably invented - ex post facto by the French critical circle of the 1950s.

The Man Who Wasn’t There is an anomaly for 2001 (when it was made): the black and white film relies heavily on narration from Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), a character who otherwise says almost nothing to anyone else. Speaking directly to the audience, Crane makes the viewer aware of a James M. Cain (author of Double Indemnity)-esque crime involving adultery, blackmail, murder… and dry cleaning. Almost immediately, the Coen brothers begin to alternately recreate “period” film noir and to deconstruct it.

For example, most Film Noir uses some variation on Jazz as its musical accompaniment, along with a score that emphasizes the impending doom of its protagonist for effect. In The Man Who Wasn't There, virtually all musical cues are attributed to Beethoven, with some accompaniment by Carter Burwell. Rather than include music of the period, the Coen brothers revise film noir based on the existential dread of the future. If the characters are consistently looking to the past and away from the future, it stands to reason that conceptual film noir would do the same with its music. Accordingly, all traces of contemporaneous music (i.e. Jazz) would – and should – be removed in favor for the ultimate reminder of the past: Classical compositions.

Elsewhere, The Man Who Wasn’t There includes incongruous references to UFO imagery, part of a late move in neo-noir that includes films like Blade Runner and Dark City. While this iconography appears to have no place – and no referent – in “classic” film noir, it is nevertheless a component of Naremore’s More Than Night and, accordingly, would fit into the Coen brothers’ abstract recreation of the genre. This deconstruction leaves viewers with a sense of both “authentic” and “revisionist” noir simultaneously.

The Coen brothers set out to replicate film noir in an all-encompassing fashion, including as many possible elements from the “baggy concept” into one film. Simultaneously, The Man Who Wasn’t There is both “film noir” embodied in one movie and a commentary on the way the term was constructed. This hybrid status affords Joel and Ethan Coen the ability to do more than freely adapt film noir; they are also allowed to comment on its critical development intertextually and discursively. The revisionist elements seem to reflect shifts and contradictions within the critical community to “noir” as a concept, making The Man Who Wasn’t There both noir and “more than noir” at the same time.

Coen Brothers Final Day Two: Music and the Coens

2. Music is an important element in Coen films. More than background score, the songs and their lyrics are carefully selected and integrated to comment, create humor, and / or to underscore themes and motifs. Isolate and explicated examples of the use of music in several Coen films. In conjunction with their use of music / sound, it would also be interesting to consider the films that are marked by the absence (or minimal use) of music.


Music plays a supplementary role in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen, although in a very different way that it is conceived for most Hollywood features. While many studios are content to package songs for a soundtrack and haphazardly insert them into films where they (vaguely) see fit, and other directors (Quentin Tarantino for example) use music to augment the mood, the Coens integrate songs into their films in order to comment on the themes or underlying narrative. As they continue to make movies, the Coens have shifted the use of music (or, occasionally, the lack thereof) to include the score as commentary.

As early as Blood Simple, music is used in a discursive manner. The Coens use “It’s the Same Old Song,” by The Four Tops, repeatedly within the movie. It functions both to accentuate the decisions made by characters (the love triangle / murder angle), but one could also argue that the Coen brothers are using the lyrics to comment on their own decision to begin moviemaking with a neo-noir. Indeed, it is “the same old song / but with a different beat since you’ve been gone…” The Coens announce to audiences, critics, and the film community that, while their neo-noir is “the same old song,” narrative-wise, their technique distinguishes itself from previous instances of film noir revision. Their incorporation of unorthodox camera techniques (some borrowed from Sam Raimi) and willingness to ironically comment on the admitted un-originality of Blood Simple’s narrative provides a “different beat” needed to distinguish their debut from other first time filmmakers.

In Raising Arizona, Joel and Ethan begin using music to juxtapose styles and themes. The film’s score is primarily a southern / western combination of banjo music and “roots” flavored vocalizations, punctuated by a bluegrass version of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Interspersed with these lighthearted musical excursions are Ennio Morricone-esque “Spaghetti Western” cues (attached to the “apocalyptic” biker Leonard Smalls) and a synthesizer score reminiscent of Goblin’s score for Suspiria. These darker elements create a contrast to the otherwise upbeat tone of Raising Arizona.

The Big Lebowski continues the juxtaposition of music and setting, although the Coens opt to let songs provide much of the commentary. Much of Lebowski’s soundtrack is designed to distinguish the Dude’s mindset from the film’s actual 1991 setting; songs like Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me” or Kenny Rogers “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” roots Lebowski in the late 60s / early 70s, where the Dude peaked mentally and likely remains, regardless of the year. The inclusion of The Sons of the Pioneers “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” as The Stranger’s theme not only creates a juxtaposition between The Dude and Sam Elliot’s mysterious “fourth wall breaking” narrator, but also comments on their shared ability to keep “drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.”

The Man Who Wasn’t There includes a primarily classical score, commenting on a tendency of classic noir films to use the more contemporary jazz set pieces – strange for a movement that priding itself on a fascination with the past. Similarly, The Ladykillers uses its songs to intensify the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, alternating between hymns like “Come, Let Us Go Back to God” and Nappy Roots’ “Another Day, Another Dollar.”

Later in their career, the Coen brothers make a bold choice with No Country for Old Men by removing a musical score altogether. The most noticeable song in No Country is used to punctuate the seriousness of Llewelyn Moss’ injuries as a cheerful Mariachi band plays over his collapsed body. The film is otherwise barren of music, perhaps a result of the Coen brothers unwillingness to dilute Cormac McCarthy’s source material with their ironic detachment. Although credited with the score, Carter Burwell has only one musical cue, and that appears during the closing credits.

A Serious Man alternates between traditional Jewish music and psychedelic rock music, creating a juxtaposition of the Old world and the shift in American consciousness in the late 1960s. The recurring musical message, that of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love”, asks “when the truth is found / to be lies / and all the joy / within you dies / don’t you want somebody to love”, the question underlying much of Lawrence Gopnik’s existential crisis. There is an interesting side note to A Serious Man’s use of Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, and Credence Clearwater Revival: the former both reflect the age at which Joel (born 1954) would be 13 and having a Bar Mitzvah, and accordingly the film’s setting of 1967. The latter reflect Ethan (born 1957)’s 13^th birthday and Bar Mitzvah. Danny Gopnik, the 13 year old son of Lawrence could then be considered an amalgam of Joel and Ethan Coen, and the film’s music reflects an autobiographical aspect of A Serious Man.

Coen Brothers Final Day One: Auteur Theory

1. The categorical designation of MST 527 - Authorship (Auteur) - reminds us that the main focus of the course is the notion of filmmaker as author - the origin of a central voice or vision that leaves its traces ("signature") on every film. Furthermore, this singular and recognizable mark (or brand) should be traceable throughout the body of work produced by a given auteur. Obviously, the question for us is: How do the Coen Brothers fit into the rubric of auteur? To answer this question, address the following points, then add any others you consider important:

• Give a brief summary of the development of the term "auteur"
• Discuss the basic elements that comprise our contemporary understanding of the film author (e.g. likes to work in a particular genre, writes the screenplay, etc.)
• Compare / contrast the Coens and their films with other well-known auteurs.

• Decide whether or not the Coens qualify as auteurs and justify your decision.

The term Auteur remains linked with film theory to this day, despite a concerted effort to refute its meaning near the turn of the century. Its meaning shifted in the 1980s, but the original conception of “Auteur” came from French criticism in the 1940s and 50s. Cahiers du Cinema, a critically oriented magazine that spawned many of the French “New Wave” filmmakers, developed Alexandre Astruc’s theory of the “camera-pen”, a term that likened the director to a novelist as a reaction to the “cinema de papa.” Francois Truffaut objected to the formalism of the France’s cinema, one based in a “tradition of quality”, and instead advocated the “new” film. This new style of film would “resemble the person who made it, not so much through autobiographical content but rather through the style, which impregnates the film with personality of its director” (Stam 84). This “auteur” would “exhibit over the years a recognizable stylistic and thematic personality, even when they work in Hollywood studios” (84).

The early Auteur theory was applied to directors like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray, John Huston, and John Ford, who were considered to have an authorship that extended beyond their individual films and create a body of work. Their tendency to work with a consistent creative team, engage in every aspect of filmmaking (directing, writing, editing, etc) and tendency to cast the same actors from film to film lent a consistency across their films that identified their films. A tendency to work within a particular genre (such as Ford’s tendency to work in Westerns, or Hitchcock’s fascination with crime thrillers) also lent credence to a directorial “voice” that instantly linked the audience with its Auteur. The French critics, interestingly, then became a “New Wave” of Auteurs, as Truffaut, Claude Chabrol. Jean-Luc Godard and Louis Malle moved from writing about American films to create their own distinct styles in the 1960s.

As the Auteur theory moved across the Atlantic, returning to Hollywood, it shifted, all the while coming under criticism. Before long, any successful director capable of amassing a critically praised body of work was “Auteur”-worthy. Meanwhile, writers like Harlan Ellison decried the theory as giving directors the power to declare “the script is merely the ‘floor plan’, the ‘blueprint’, the rough materials from which they, in their photomontagic godhood, fashion the dreams that enoble” (302). Reflecting this critical approach, many directors in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century abandoned the term or openly disassociated themselves from Auteur Theory, even if they their style reflected the original conception. As a result, filmmakers like David Lynch, Steven Soderbergh, Tim Burton, David Cronenberg, and the Coen brothers avoid being called Auteurs whenever possible.

Joel and Ethan Coen, under a “post-modern” representation Auteur (one that embraces the Cahiers du Cinema theory but also acknowledges some of the American adjustments made to include American New Wave directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola) resemble Steve Soderbergh as “author” model: like Soderbergh, the Coens write, direct, and edit their own films, among other roles (often using pseudonyms). The Coens and Soderbergh choose to make films that vary in genre and structure, borrowing loosely from previous cinematic texts as they see fit. Soderbergh once argued that being called an “Auteur” was funny, because “I think you can only know this once a filmmaker has made twenty films. A Huston or a Hawks were never fashionable, and they expressed themselves through a variety of genres… I am not trying to impose my style” (Kaufman, 60). However, Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers have shaped a body of work separately that can be immediately identified as in their own “voice”. Soderbergh relies heavily on fractured narrative structures; Joel and Ethan Coen punctuate their source appropriations with a sardonic wit, alternately working within a genre and simultaneously commenting on it.

But are the Coen brothers auteurs? By both versions of the Auteur Theory, one could argue that they fit, despite their unwillingness to be identified as such. Not only do Joel and Ethan direct and edit their films, with only a handful of exceptions, they also write their films. Their creative team remains consistent; the only noticeable change was a shift in cinematographers from Barry Sonnenfeld to Roger Deakins. They freely adapt material in such a way their films defy categorization, with the exception of a recent development that began to classify the “Coen style” as its own genre classification. All of their films subsequent to Blood Simple have at least one returning actor (most frequently John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, or Frances McDormand). Their relationship with Sam Raimi ripples throughout their body of work; if not in “borrowed” camera angles than with the inclusion of Bruce Campbell in cameos (see Fargo, Intolerable Cruelty, and The Ladykillers). Their collaborations with Carter Burwell, T. Bone Burnett, and the Coens consistent use of music as an extension of their themes would also qualify under the Auteur Theory.

In the newer conception of Auteur, the Coen brothers have also demonstrated a “fashionable” quality that Soderbergh noted lacking in Howard Hawks and John Huston. Joel and Ethan Coen, despite making films that straddle mass entertainment and intertextually loaded, have managed to repeatedly to capture the zeitgeist of American culture (if not help craft it). The fascination with Midwestern culture in the mid-Nineties is due in no small part to the success of Fargo, as was the comparable obsession with “roots” music in the wake of O Brother Where Art Thou? The Big Lebowski, despite its relatively amorphous script (an homage to Raymond Chandler) and its lukewarm reception in 1998, has evolved into a full blown cult phenomenon with yearly Lebowski Fests, books, and the Church of Dude-ism. Their adaptation of No Country for Old Men created a newfound fascination with author Cormac McCarthy and earned Joel and Ethan Coen best Director and Best Picture in 2008. Nominated again for A Serious Man, the Coen brothers have found mainstream success – almost in spite of their intentions – in addition to cultivating a consistent body of work, not to mention a host of “Coen-esque” imitators. By this standard, one could argue that Joel and Ethan Coen are auteurs - whether or not they claim to be.

So You Won't Have To: Kick-Ass

Ladies and germs, the only thing I was glad about after watching Kick-Ass was that I didn't have to pay for it. If it gives you some idea of how much I disliked this movie, I nearly gave up during the first thirty minutes. It really is a smarmy, "wink wink look at how clever I am" kind of film, which is all the more obnoxious because Kick-Ass never earns its sense of superiority to "comic book films."

The story is pretty basic: Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is our narrator and protagonist. He's just your average high school loser that everybody ignored (with good reason) who reads comic books and is picked on by his only friends (Clark Duke and Evan Peters) for wanting to be a super hero. But Dave buys some scuba gear online, gets some batons, and decides to become Kick-Ass, a home made vigilante. Because this movie is clever, he's stabbed during his first attempt to fight crime, then hit by a car.

Since he asks the paramedic to take off his uniform so no one finds out, everybody at school thinks he's gay because... well, I'm actually tired of this already. What you need to know is that now Dave / Kick-Ass has a bunch of metal plates and dead nerve endings so he can't feel as much pain. Hence, Kick-Ass still sucks at fighting crime, but he can't feel it. Not that this improves anything, but we're stuck with this lame hero.

Even the movie secretly knows that no one cares about Kick-Ass, but in their infinite wisdom, the other protagonist(s) still don't get that much screen time - and when they do, the wrong character gets the spotlight. Look, I understand that for anyone who never saw Leon (The Professional), the idea of a young girl cursing and killing people might seem "edgy" or "bad-ass", but give me a break. Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) exists only to violate all of the "real world" rules that Dave sets up in his narration.

If you don't believe me, reconcile the sequences where Kick-Ass gets the shit kicked out of him with Hit Girl's fight scene near the end of the film. The one you've seen in the "red band" trailer where she's flipping around and throwing clips in the air that magically land in her gun at exactly the right moment. Or the jetpack with twin Gatling guns that Kick-Ass uses to bail Hit Girl out with. I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure that the recoil from two mini-Gatlings would be enough to send anyone hovering in a jetpack against the nearest building.

But I digress. There are so many stupid things happening in this movie that I haven't even discussed the tone or the villains, or my favorite character, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). Let's cover Big Daddy and the D'Amico family briefly, as they're the only remotely interesting parts of the film. After we watch Dave blather on about how he doesn't have a heroic backstory or any crap like that, but he still wants to be Kick-Ass, we meet Damon MacCready, who has a genuinely interesting comic book story. He was a detective that got on the wrong side of crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), so D'Amico framed him and sent him to jail. While he was in jail, MacCready's wife died giving birth to Mindy, his daughter, and when Damon got out, he swore vengeance.

MacCready pooled all of his resources to become Big Daddy and brainwashed trained Mindy to become Hit Girl. What I like about Big Daddy is there's a logic to his vigilante style: he stays funded by stealing money from the criminals he kills, so he can maintain an arsenal in order to fight crime in the most protected way possible. He dresses up like Batman, wears a fake moustache on top of his real moustache, and speaks like Adam West when he's Big Daddy. I don't know how much of this was Cage and how much of it was writer / director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust), but I'm leaning Cage. It's his kind of crazy, and it stands out as one of the few entertaining parts of Kick-Ass. Alas, Big Daddy is just barely in the movie; instead we're stuck with Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, and Red Mist*.

Mark Strong is also pretty good as the exasperated Frank D'Amico. He really seems like a vicious thug that rose through the ranks of organized crime and is now just kind of holding it together. He's so bad at hiding what he actually does that both his wife and son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) know exactly what he means when he says "gotta do business", and he continually calls his Police mole Detective Gigante (Xander Berkeley) at the station. He really doesn't care which super hero is messing with his business as long as his men get it taken care of, and their failure to do so is a source of comedy later in the film. Frank is, if anything, the most realistic character in a movie that seems to want to be realistic but then fetishizes Hit Girl calling guys "cunts" and "douchebags". Ha-ha, get it? Because she's only eleven!

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. To give you some idea of just how smart Kick-Ass thinks it is, let's look at one of the film's throw-away gags. As Dave and his friends are heading into the movies at the same time that Frank and Chris D'Amico are, the camera holds over a scrolling marquee that reads "Now Showing: The Spirit 3."

Okay, I don't know if this was Matthew Vaughn or Lionsgate (who distributed after Vaughn self-financed the film) at work, but the joke doesn't even make sense. For starters, what is it even saying? That The Spirit was a great movie and in this alternate universe, justice was served and they made two more of them?

No wait, that doesn't make sense, because Dave's narration (not to mention the first act of the film) make it abundantly clear that this is not some alternate universe, this is the real world where nobody tries to dress up like super heroes, hence the excitement, YouTube videos, and Myspace pages needed to get the word out about Kick-Ass.

So we are in the real world, where The Spirit sucked and nobody saw it and there's a pretty good reason there was no The Spirit 2 or 3. So what exactly is the joke? "Ha-ha, get it? We know everybody hated The Spirit, but these guys are probably going to see that movie because comic book nerds will go see any crap based on a comic strip!" Wait, aren't those comic nerds your target audience? Oh, right. I forgot. Kick-Ass is a shitty movie.

Hopefully, this satisfies your curiosities. Kick-Ass apparently isn't drawing as many of those rabid comic book nerds as it thought it would, despite open love letters comparing it to Taxi Driver or lauding its subversive charms. I'm sorry, but no. Kick-Ass never earns the kudos it so openly applauds itself for, and it's not doing anything interesting with Comic Book movies since it can't actually decide whether it's deconstructing or reifying the tropes of the genre. I suspect it'll have a more sustained audience on DVD, but I hope not. At best, Kick-Ass deserves to be movie marquee joke in a comparably lousy film in two years.


* The reason you don't see much of Red Mist in the trailers is because Christopher Mintz-Plasse only appears as Red Mist in order to trick Kick-Ass into giving Frank information on Big Daddy. He's a totally superfluous character in his "hero" form and out of disguise, and really only seems to exist so they can close out Kick-Ass with a reference to Spider-Man.

Announcement.

Platinum Dunes is not making a sequel to Shit Coffin. I suppose this is good news.


To be perfectly honest with you, readers, I've lost the heart to do this. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and there are better things I should be doing with my time than spending a week writing about bad movies. I have no income, no prospects, and I'll be out of school - probably permanently - in two weeks.

In order to get through the summer, I'm going to sell of most, if not all, of my movies. It's time to stop chasing the dream of being "the movie guy" and to grow up. It was fun while it lasted, but I've already decided there won't be any more Summer Fests or Horror Fests. I need to buckle down and shore up the impending debt that I accrued when I went back to school, and I don't feel there's room to be the Cap'n anymore.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted. In the future I'll try to get older stuff up so there's a better back catalog, but I just don't see the point in pushing forward with blogging right now.

Five Movies: The Best "Worst" Movies I've Ever Seen

While considering Bad Movies (the theme of this week), the Cap'n took some time out to consider my own history with the "lesser" side of cinema. It occurs to me that while I talk about "Bad" films all the time, to the point where I created a "So You Won't Have To" category, I've never collected the Best of the Worst, a "Cream of the Crap" so to speak.

It's a fine line working out what distinguishes movies that are just bad from the kind of bad that keeps your eyes glued to the screen, jaw agape. Lots of movies are fascinating in their crapitude (see The Happening), but it's the rare stinker that merits - nay, demands - repeat viewings. The kind of movie that's so bad it becomes imminently watchable, the stuff of cinemaphile legend.

That being said, I'm going to try to avoid the "big" films. Look, as much as I love Plan 9 from Outer Space, it's not go blow anybody's mind to see it on a list. You all know what Ed Wood has to offer. The Cap'n is about pointing you in new directions, so no Howard the Duck's; no Rocky Horror Picture Show's; no Spice World's. Too easy. Not even The Room, which isn't even something I'd watch again. I'm going to dig a little deeper here for this Five Movies*.

For the sake of keeping it fresh, I'm even going to include the "Best Worst Movie": Troll 2. Just go back to Friday's post if you want to know about that slice of cinematic infamy.

Links to all the original reviews (when possible).

Side note: The reason this took me so long to put up involves finally uploading (and back-dating) every Horror and Summer Fest, which you can find by clicking the Tags.

1. Night of the Lepus - Giant. Killer. Bunnies. It's a HORRIBLE idea, and the movie honestly has no idea whether it wants to be a horror movie or an environmental "warning" movie, so instead it's just goofy. If there was ever a movie begging to be on Mystery Science Theater 3000, it's Night of the Lepus. And that's exactly how you should (and will) watch it. This movie is a staple of Summer and Horror Fests.

2. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats - I really can't stress how weird this movie is. Yes, it's true that the film doesn't make any sense, suffers from massive logic gaffes, and the ending just kinda happens. That being said, the way the Death Bed eats people is hilarious, and the film has a twisted sense of humor (particularly in the flashback montage of all the people the Death Bed ate), and I cannot stress how funny it is to watch the Death Bed eat a bucket of fried chicken and then put the bones back to fool its victim!

3. Shark Attack 3: Megalodon - Better than Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus in almost every conceivable way. It's bad, but quite watchable, and the Megalodon effects are so awful that your jaw will drop. The only thing funnier is the way the film demonstrates Megalodon eating people in the ocean. Oh, and it has the best pick-up line ever.

4. Terrorvision - Terrorvision is by no means a "good" movie. It's cheap, the acting is... uh... well, it has some acting in there somewhere. There's a lot of strange padding, but it's always hilarious (I'm thining of Medusa in particular), and there's something about the low budget that's endearing. The film is never unwatchable; in fact, I can't get enough of the damn thing (ask anyone who comes over here), but I doubt you'd see Terrorvision on any other "Best of" List, so it belongs here.

5. The Giant Claw - I'm sorry. I know Adam feels bad for that stupid googly-eyed turkey puppet, but The Giant Claw is only watchable for two reasons: that bird and the TERRIBLE science. Those two elements, however, get you through the first twenty minutes and keep you guffawing at how cheap the film is for the next fifty five minutes. Trust me, there's a reason I refuse to show pictures of the monster from The Giant Claw, and it's because the surprise is half of the fun in watching this movie.



Dishonorable Mention: Hillbillys in a Haunted House, C.H.U.D., Mac and Me, Terminal Invasion, Chopping Mall, Teenage Mother, Doom, and Shocker.



* Unless, of course, you read this so regularly that you've seen these movies with me. In which case, I can only say "sorry." On the other hand, I also know you'll vouch for these five crap-classics.

Blogorium Review (kinda) - Bionic Ninja

Folks, this is the danger of imprecisely titled movies, particularly ones about ninjas.

This is what I thought I was going to see:


But there is no such movie available on Netflix, or Amazon. In fact, they rerouted me to Bionic Ninja, which has an IMDB page that sure looks like the trailer above. But it turns out what I was looking for is this movie. That movie (Rage of Ninja) is only available on VHS, so the Bionic Ninja I picked up for $4 (with three other Ninja movies) is pretty much a bust.

See, Bionic Ninja, while from the same director (Godfrey Ho, using one of his many aliases) is nowhere as interesting as the trailer above. Since there's no trailer for Bionic Ninja, I can't show it to you, but it wouldn't matter. The plot is incomprehensible:

Bionic Ninja has something to do with the KGB using ninjas in Hong Kong to steal a secret formula for... something, except that they fail to steal the formula before some other guys do. A CIA agent then arrives, but is really British, or something, and he becomes fascinated by the "magic" ninjas. I say "magic" in part because he calls them magicians but also because the ninjas are able to appear and disappear at whim. Not "sneak off into the night" disappear, but literally just pop in and out of a scene as though editing trickery were at play (hint: it is).

There are at least ten other characters I counted that have something to do with the plot, but they're so poorly identified and are piled on top of each other so quickly that it's impossible to figure out exactly what's happening, who is doing what to whom, or what any of it has to do with the formula, the KGB, or the ninjas.

After a while, I got bored and hit the "fast forward" button until I saw instances with ninjas, which it turned out were few and far between. There was a kind-of training montage with the hero, and then a pretty lousy fight in a storage yard with two guys in ninja costumes shooting Uzis for no good reason. There is no Bionic Ninja that I could find, nor do the ninjas even really do anything except jump around. There are some other fight scenes, but when you don't really know who is fighting or what they're fighting about, it's pretty easy to lose interest, so I tuned out about halfway in.

More than anything, I was bummed that this wasn't Rage of Ninja, which was what I was hoping for. When I watch a ninja movie, I'm not looking for sleek assassins hiding in the dark and being badasses; I want truly nonsensical fight scenes coupled with bad dubbing and a white dude who has no business mixing it up with martial artists. Something like this:



Huh. Funny, I think that's the other half of the double feature with Bionic Ninja. Maybe all is not lost...

Blogorium Review - Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

Over the next few days, I'm going to focus on a handful of REALLY bad movies. In lieu of a "Bad Movie Night", I'm going to take a look at some real winners. Yesterday's Troll 2 compendium was the first salvo, and believe me, it only goes downhill from there.

For example, tonight I watched Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. This film, shot in 1972, finished in 1977, and never officially released until 2002, is by no means a "good" film. What it is, however, is a film that manages to combine woeful ineptitude with a handful of inventive - albeit stupid - tricks to create a film that, while awful, is imminently watchable.

To set the stage, listen to this portion of Patton Oswalt's cd "Werewolves and Lollipops" and join the Cap'n on the other side:



Are we all back? Cool.

The first thing I need to mention is that despite what Oswalt says, the movie is actually not titled "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People", because the Death Bed eats a lot more than people. In fact, because the Death Bed enjoys toying with its victims so much, it will often eat anything on the bed before it eats a person.

For example, in the opening scene, the Death Bed eats an apple, drinks a bottle of wine, and then empties a bucket of fried chicken in order to confuse the couple making out next to their food. No, really. Then the death bed closes its curtains and kills the couple off screen, just so we don't quite know what happens to people.

What we do know is that the Death Bed eats in a way I was not expecting. Yes, it's true, when I saw the name "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats," I just kind of assumed that it created a mouth out of the mattress and baseboard or something like that. Oh no, not this Death Bed. Writer / Director George Barry had a much better idea: digestive fluids.

That's right; when the Death Bed starts eating something, the person / food object / luggage is covered with yellow bubbles, and then falls into the bed, where the camera cuts to one of two tubs behind yellow glass. This is the clever part: sometimes what we're seeing is food dropped into acid, so that you can clearly see it eating away.

Other times, we just see skeletons, people, blood, or other objects in regular water. Either way, we're meant to assume this is the inside of the Death Bed. The other clever thing Barry does is to design a bed that has a mattress clearly two or three feet above the floor, so that audiences would theoretically be confused as to how the Death Bed worked.

Believe me, that's not what's confusing about Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. Everything else is confusing: almost every character narrates part of the film, and there are flashbacks within flashbacks that span.... maybe hundreds of years? It's hard to say. Basically, this demon has sex with a girl on some bed in the middle of a field, but she lives and the demon bleeds on the bed. The demon goes to sleep inside of a tree and the girl dies but doesn't really die, so she's just lying half dead / half alive in a grave that's waaaaayyy to close to a lake.

Meanwhile, the Death Bed moves into a mansion, then out of a mansion, then back in the mansion, and then to the cellar. Then at some point the mansion is destroyed and only the cellar remains. According to a newspaper - and the narration of a dead artist who lives behind his painting and talks to the Death Bed (don't ask) - thousands (THOUSANDS) of people are killed by the Death Bed between when the girl dies in 1897 and 1977 when I guess the movie takes place.

But mostly we're asked to follow these three girls who apparently have the property for the weekend (or something). One of them is kinda loopy and is quickly eaten by the Death Bed; the other scares the Death Bed so it holds her prisoner; the last girl uh... well, let's just say she's there to explain how the Death Bed grabs a suitcase earlier in the film.

Actually, the first girl isn't really "quickly" eaten by the Death Bed, because first it decides to play some dumb "choking game" involving her crucifix necklace, then her skull magically appears outside of the cellar underground and sprouts a rose bush. No, really.

I'd say more than half of the film's 77 minute running time is devoted to the history of the Death Bed, the demon, the dead girl who isn't dead, or the stupid artist that hates the Death Bed but benefits from it murdering people. I don't really know why; maybe because he painted the Death Bed before letting it eat him...

When that isn't going on, the brother of one of the girls (you kinda assume it's the loopy one who dies first, but then it turns out to be the one the Death Bed is scared of) shows up in time to be trapped in the cellar.

Oh, and this happens:


I know it sounds like the Cap'n spoiled practically everything in the movie, but I can't begin to tell you how weird Death Bed: The Bed That Eats gets. This synopsis doesn't come close to capturing how bizarre and arbitrary this movie is, and I didn't even get to the why the Death Bed eats the suitcase (hint: there's Pepto Bismol in the suitcase. Seriously.).

George Barry recorded a comparably arbitrary and inane introduction to Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, which ends with him essentially saying "go ahead and watch it because it's too late to return the movie," but he doesn't need to do that. Patton Oswalt might sell you on checking it out, but Death Bed will keep you watching well beyond the opening credits. Oh crap, I didn't even mention how it's broken up (by screen titles) into meals of the day.

See Death Bed: The Bed That Eats as soon as you can, and with as many people as you can find. I assure you it's worth your time.

Coming next week: Bionic Ninja, The Wrong Side of Town, The Phantom Menace, and some other surprises...

From the Vaults (and by demand): The Cap'n Re-visits Troll 2!!!

The Cap'n knows what you're thinking: Why?

To which I must reply: What do you mean, "Why?"

It's been almost a year since the Cap'n directly addressed Troll 2, when it made its HD debut during The Greensboro Summer Fest Massacre Part 2, and nearly one year to the day it figured prominently into Bad Movie Night.

Appropriately, Troll 2 is back in the zeitgeist, and given my relationship to that particular slice of "bad movie" lore, it's only fair to look back as we look forward. You see, Best Worst Movie, the documentary mentioned below, is playing in Winston Salem this weekend for the River Run Film Festival. Since Best Worst Movie is about, well, Troll 2, they're also apparently showing the subject of BWM to give the uninitiated proper context.

Since I'm probably not going to catch Best Worst Movie until next weekend (it plays one last time on April 23rd), the Cap'n will instead give you my initial reaction to said doc's existence, followed by both write ups from last year. You're welcome.

---

Will Wonders Never Cease?

Well I'll be damned. It turns out that "cult" films can happen all by themselves and you can totally miss out on it.

Case in point: I had no idea that Troll 2 had a cult following, one based purely on how horrible it is. That at least is the purpose of this new documentary, Best Worst Movie, made by one of the stars of the film and featuring the director and most of the cast. It turns out they didn't know that piece of crap was a cult film either.

Sure enough, it runs at midnight in the same places that show The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that amazes me. Never in a million years did I think that of all "in name only sequels to already midgrade-mediocre horror movies", Troll 2 would be the one with a rabid following.

For those who don't know, Troll 2 has nothing to do with Troll. In fact, there aren't even trolls in Troll 2. There are goblins. If you read that "How to Survive a Horror Movie" excerpt I posted last fall, you might have noticed one rule about staying away from a town named "Nilbog", with a note from the contributor sharing amazement you caught the reference. That would be the town that Troll 2 takes place in.

If by some chance you aren't dyslexic or tend to gloss over words like Nilbog, that would be Goblin backwards*. That's about as clever as Troll 2 ever gets. I'll give it this: the movie is woefully inept, poorly acted, and full of non sequiturs that will cause you to laugh uncontrollably.

To give you some idea of the kind of quality Troll 2 represents, here's one of those ubitquitous YouTube compilations:

.. Wow.... it's worse than I remembered. It's reasonable to see why this movie has a cult following, albeit one I wouldn't have expected. Like, why Troll 2 and not Ghoulies 2? Why not Megalodon: Shark Attack 3**? Since I put it on last night for the first time in years, why not Batman & Robin? No, really. Batman & Robin is even worse than you remember it was. It's embarrasing how hard that movie fails in just about every way, or why anyone thought it was a good idea. The hockey fights with Mr. Freeze's henchmen? The gratuitous butt shots of Batman and Robin at the beginning? Letting every other line out of Arnold's mouth be a pun? We're not even getting to the nipples on their suits... Yeesh. But here we are, a documentary celebrating a movie I'd almost forgotten existed which is inexplicably a cult phenomenon. Good for you, Troll 2, maybe this will help drum up interest for the Troll remake coming later this year***. Cult films work in mysterious ways, I suppose. Here's the trailer for Best Worst Movie, now showing at South by Southwest. .. * Technically I suppose it would be gobliN. ** Seriously, why not? Do I need to repost the most awkward hook up line ever? *** No joke.

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Bad Movie Night, Day Two

Now that I've seen Troll 2 as an adult, I bow down to its reputation. That movie makes the cast of The Giant Claw look like polished professionals and the story makes even less sense than it did 20 years ago. Holy cow is this movie funny for all the wrong reasons.

My favorite subplot has to do with the guys who follow the Waits family to Nilbog and stay in an RV outside of town. They seem to think there's plenty of girls to score with if they just hang out in the RV. Somehow they just end up naked in bed together or in similarly compromising positions. Finally one of them gets lucky with the Goblin Queen (?) and has the greatest scene involving popcorn ever**.

It is totally fair to call Troll 2 the "Best Worst Movie" and show it at midnight. I only wish a nearby theatre offered such an experience.

Things we learned: Italians hate vegetarians, Part of Stonehenge is in Nilbog, Kicking a guy in the nuts will in fact turn him "into a homo", the Biscuitville in Nilbog is open past 2:30 pm.

---

Summer Fest Day Three

I think everything I said about Troll 2 here is still accurate. The only additional thoughts I have are about how good it looked in HD, which is just weird. The popcorn scene is funnier the second time, along with the strange homoerotic overtones in the camper van those guys share. Realizing that movies are shot out of sequence, I understand that maybe there was no "continuity" crew member, but its kind of silly to have characters clearly realize something is totally wrong in one scene and forget in the scene that immediately follows it, even if the same characters are involved.

I speak, of course, of the "Church" scene where Josh's father saves him from eating that nasty Goblin ice cream and freak out about their handling of his son only to welcome them with open arms into his house not three minutes later and accept their evil green food.

Troll 2 is some kind of awful, which in this case translates to some kind of special, but you need to be prepared for a movie that struggles to advance a simple plot forward and subplots that don't make sense, period. If you can do that, this "Best Worst Movie" is right up your alley.

---

Finally, that fan made picture for something we'll never see.


Sigh.

Sequence Analysis: No Country for Old Men

Originally, I thought I might review No Country for Old Men, but I've come across a pretty serious point on contention about one sequence in the film based on class discussion today. So, in order to help share this with you, I took photos of the scene in question and will present them to you (in case you were wondering, the pictures were taken with my camera phone of the Blu Ray edition).

(necessary spoilers ahead if you haven't seen the film)

But first, the scene itself: near the end of the film, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) returns to the motel room where Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) was killed. It's at night, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) visited in Bell's absence.

To this point in the film, Bell has never met or seen Chigurh, partially because he's afraid of what may happen if they meet face to face. The point of contention in this scene occurs because of a cut away to the inside of the motel room, where Chigurh appears to be hiding, anticipating Sheriff Bell's entrance. I'm going to present you with as close as "shot by shot" as I could, so my question to you readers is:

Based on the way this sequence is constructed, where is Anton Chigurh in the motel room?

Okay, so Bell pulls up to the Motel and has immediately noticed something about the door that we cannot see yet.

You can't quite see it here, but the next shot (from Bell's POV) indicates that:

Chigurh used his pressurized air prod to knock the lock out (as he's done on previous occasions). Now, Llewelyn was killed by the Mexican drug dealers, who Bell saw fleeing the scene. I checked that scene, and you can't actually tell if the lock was blown out or not based on the positioning of the door, so this is our indicator that Chigurh was (or is) here.

Bell reacts to what he knows is Chigurh's trademark entrance.

A close up of the lock, to make it clear that who (has been or is) in the room.

Another shot of Bell, contemplating what might be behind the door.

We now come to the hotly contested shot:

A shot of Chigurh, pressed up against the wall of the interior of the room (somewhere), waiting to see if Bell opens the door. Forgive me for the washed out nature of the pic, but the only light source in the scene other than a beam of light on Javier Bardem's face is from the light shining through the lock hole (visible on the right side of the image). Note what appears to be a door hinge behind Chigurh, just behind the silencer on the shotgun.

To make it clear where the spot of light is coming from in the previous picture, there's a shot of Bell's headlights shining through the lock hole. The positioning of Chigurh would indicate that he's pressed against the wall near the closet based on where the beam hits.

Bell cocks his gun and decides to open the door. Missing is a shot of him nudging the door open in profile.

The door is open, and light floods into the motel room, illuminating the left of the frame and giving us some idea of the geography of the room, which is coupled with:

A reverse shot of Bell's silhoutte (mirroring an earlier shot where Chigurh does the same in a motel room similar to where Llewelyn has hidden the case full of money). Again, note that there is no room for Anton amidst the furniture, so he must then be to the left side of the screen.

The camera pans over, showing the bed and lamp, but still no Chigurh. The closet and bathroom are still shrouded in darkness (although it is less impenetrable onscreen than in the picture).
Llewelyn's blood, indicating that this is, in fact, the room he was murdered in and not the room next door (which is also taped off).

Forgive me for the difficulty to see the left side of the frame. On the DVD and Blu Ray, you can see all of Bell as he heads into the small hallway between the closet and bathroom.

A slightly brightened image to give you some idea that there's nothing in the closet, where Chigurh logically would have been if not in the room itself.

Bell turns on the bathroom light, facing away from the closet. Even in the dark, if Chigurh were in the closet, this would be where they would have likely exchanged gunfire. Instead, he proceeds into the well lit bathroom.

Bell looks at the window, which is closed. It seems unlikely that between when he opened the door and when he arrived in the bathroom that Chigurh had time to escape that way, but to make the point further, the Coen brothers move to the next shot:

A POV of the window, which is locked from the inside.

Bell walks out of the bathroom, facing the closet, and into the bedroom. Notice that IF Chigurh were in the closet, it would have been almost impossible to slip out without Bell seeing him in such close proximity.

Bell sits down on the bed, and looks to his left. He sees the following:


The air conditioning vent is open (this is the same M.O. that Llewelyn demonstrated in the first hotel room we saw him in) and the money - which Moss hid - is gone. He also sees:
The cover to the air conditioning sitting on the floor next to the screws and a dime (which is exactly what Chigurh used to open the A/C vent in the first hotel room). Chigurh was here, and Bell missed him again.

So I ask again: based on the images presented, where is Anton Chigurh in this motel room? Where does that shot come from? We've seen enough of the room to be sure where he's NOT, so what's left for him to be hiding in? There's not enough time to sneak out; while it has been demonstrated that he operates silently and is quick, Chigurh is nevertheless still portrayed as flesh and blood in the film (while he survives, he still bleeds and is clearly feeling the effects of being shot in the leg and breaking his arm).

My own theory is that shot of Chigurh - which is the only interior shot of the hotel room before Bell opens the door - isn't real. It's all in Bell's head, and the fact that he's imagining Javier Bardem is a movie conceit based on the fact that the audience knows who Chigurh is even if Bell doesn't. Not only is the image of Chigurh hiding inconsistent with the way he's portrayed anywhere else in the film, but the idea that Bell is fantasizing a shoot out to be (which never occurs, hence his sense of relief when he sits on the bed) is only there to reinforce the idea that the old Sheriff does not actually want to meet the psychopath.

This was rejected flatly by other members of the class, under the argument that at no point prior in the film is there precedent for a "fantasy" sequence, and therefore the Coens were intending to demonstrate that Chigurh is ethereal, metaphorical, and even spectral. If this is the case, why does a very tangible Anton wipe his boots off after killing Carla Jean and then flee the scene of a car accident. Just because his code is "not to be seen" does not negate the fact that Chigurh is still a real person, albeit Jason-like in his indestructability.

I'm open to other suggestions, but I hope I presented my case clearly. I will concede that, because it is difficult to see the lock on door 112 (the room next door), one could argue that Chigurh is hiding next door. It was a thought I had the first time I saw the film, but the editing indicates some continuity of images between the exterior headlights, the vacant lock hole, and the shaft of light to Chigurh's right. I sense that if we are meant to believe Chigurh is there at all, he's in the room Bell is walking into.

And yet, where is he?

(in)Frequently Asked Questions (part 2)

Greetings, readers! If you missed out on yesterday's post, I (the Cap'n) am answering ten of the most frequently asked questions about the Blogorium. Questions 1-5 were answered yesterday, and Questions 6-10 are today. Enjoy!

6. Okay, so I saw these tags that say "Horror Fest", and you seem to mention that all the time. What is it, and do how can I get in?

Horror Fest began in 2005 when I lived in The Apartment of Solitude, although it had unofficial versions going all the way back to 1999. It's typically a three to four day event - usually taking place the weekend immediately before, during or after Halloween - where we watch horror films from around 7 pm until we can no longer stay awake. The record for a Horror Fest was during Horror Fest 2, where we went from 6 pm until 7:30 am of non-stop film action.

I tend to break my "once a day" rule for Horror Fests and will post after every single movie (if I can), although lately because the events tend to draw more people every year and for longer periods of time, I may condense several movies into recaps.

While Horror Fest is heading into its fifth year, there are also two other "event" or "marathon" nights:

Bad Movie Night, which I try to celebrate around my birthday. It's exactly what it sounds like, a night (or two) of some of the most awful - yet watchable - films I can find (last year's installment included Troll 2, Mac & Me, The Giant Claw, and Crank: High Voltage). There will, alas, not be a Bad Movie Night this year (I just don't have time), but hopefully in 2011 it'll come back, as I have some really special titles saved up...

Summer Fest, which is the July equivalent of Horror Fest. Typically devoted to "horror comedies," Summer Fest is considered to be a lighter atmosphere than Horror Fest and is a break from typical 4th of July festivities. If I can have one this year, Summer Fest III will probably be the last in current Blogorium Headquarters. (sorry I don't have a specific tag for Summer Fest, but you can find almost all of them under "Horror Fest").

While I can't say for certain how to "get in" other than paying attention to see if they're happening, readers of the blog who are willing to travel and don't mind sleeping on couches can come as long as they respect others, if not always the films.

7. Can I be a guest blogger?

As I said yesterday, I typically like to generate most of the writing here on the Blogorium, but I'm certainly happy to take a look if you've got something you'd really like to share here. Every now and then I'll put up a contest that is asking for someone to write their own review, so keep an eye out for that.

If you'd like to pick up the So You Won't Have To portion of the Blogorium and make it a more frequent part of the site (perhaps because you have a penchant for watching more awful movies than the Cap'n does), I'd certainly welcome that. Just leave a comment or drop me a line.

8. Come on, seriously; you're Grampa J, aren't you?

I get it, really I do. It does seem like some kind of Andy Kaufman-esque gag where I'm posting to both blogs in order to mess with your heads or to make some comment on identity, but I assure you that I am NOT Grampa J.

9. If I recommended something to you, would you watch it?

Sure. I will tell you right now that I'm not going to watch Avatar or any of the Twilight movies, but I'll consider pretty much anything else you think I'd enjoy or would like to see the Cap'n review.

10. How much does this pay?

Nothing. I write these every day for free, both meaning free to you and free to me, which means nobody is paying me to do this. It would be nice if somebody would pay me to do this, since I hope I'm demonstrating that I can consistently write quality reviews, essays, and content, but right now that's not happening. The good news means that no one is asking me not to write something.

The bad news is that once school is over with and I have to work two (or more) jobs to make end's meat, it's going to be much harder to keep writing every day. Believe me, I treat this like it is a job, but I don't make any money from it. Studios don't even send me movies, which I guess most DVD sites do have as some kind of arrangement. Of course, I can't prove that thousands of people come to the Blogorium, so why would they pay me?

However, what matters to me is that you're reading it, and that you're enjoying it. If it ever turned into a paying gig, that'd be awesome, but in the meantime I'll keep going as long as I can.

and finally, a special "bonus" question:

11. I finally realized that when you say "Dinosaur Island", you mean Lost, so why do you keep calling it that? There are no, and never will be, dinosaurs on the island. What's wrong with you?

It's called Dinosaur Island because there are dinosaurs on the island. I don't really understand what it is I have to explain here. There's nothing wrong with me because I happen to know that there are dinosaurs on Dinosaur Island which is precisely why the show is called Dinosaur Island. Yeesh.

(in)Frequently Asked Questions (part 1)

A good Monday to all Blogorium readers. I thought I'd take some time out today to address ten of the most frequent questions that come up. The Cap'n isn't above doing more Q&A's, so if I leave something out, feel free to ask for future posts of this kind.

In the interest of keeping this from going on forever, I'm going to break up the questions over two days. For today, enjoy questions 1-5.


1. I have to ask, what the hell is that picture on the top of the Blogorium?

The picture that greets you every time you come to Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium is Doctor Re-Animator. It's a screen grab from "Move Your Dead Bones," which is this strange techno-dance video that's an extra on Beyond Re-Animator, which is the second sequel to Re-Animator and was (as best I can tell) never released theatrically in the U.S. It is not directly tied to the film, but I find it to be both hilarious and dangerously catchy.

See for yourself:

Two hours from now, that chorus will still be in your head. I promise.

2. Do you really post every day?

Whenever possible. There have been a few circumstances, usually tied to moving or unforeseeable circumstances, where I've missed the "chronological" or calendar version of "day" and had to post a little late, but I do try to have something new up every single day. Periodically you'll see a "From the Vaults" or I'll hand things over to a Guest Blogger if I know I won't be able to make good on this self-imposed productivity.

3. Are you Grampa J?

No, I am not Grampa J. For those of you new to the site, Grampa J is a blogger who runs @Josh@Themovies, a site that really seems hell bent on parodying the Cap'n by using my real name and pilfered photo. I don't know exactly where he came from, but I do have some idea who "he" is. Since Grampa won't go away, I will periodically point you in his direction for a particularly insipid review, and I've decided to hound him until he gives up this embarrassing ruse of identity theft.

4. Why do you do "theme" posts, and why are some of them so infrequent?

I do the theme posts to keep things interesting, both for me and for you. It's true that I watch enough that I could easily do reviews every day, and there's enough news going on that I could also constantly link and react to the goings on in Hollywood, but after the first year or two, that got a little dull. So I decided to spice it up.

For new readers, I'll break them down for you:

There are two "theme" posts that will appear every week - Video Daily Doubles on Wednesday and Trailer Sundays on, well, Sunday. Video Daily Doubles are devoted to short films, random clips, or movie related ephemera I find during the week, and Trailer Sundays are devoted to introducing you to movies you may have never heard of and might not otherwise. The VDD's are a little newer, but I find it breaks the week up in an entertaining way.

As for the rest, they're broken down thusly:

Five Movies - It's exactly what it sounds like. Five movies that fit into some theme, designed to give you new titles to look into or to remind you of films that you saw and maybe forgot about.

Four Reasons - Here I'll try to take one movie or series and reconsider or revisit aspects that may not have occurred to me (or you) before. It's a much more specific post than Five Movies, and I use it to distinguish from longer Reviews.

So You Won't Have To - When the Cap'n is feeling particularly masochistic, I'll sometimes sit down and watch a movie that no one in their right mind would endure otherwise. I do so typically because I have some lingering interest in one aspect of the film or another, and the subsequent review (almost always a pan) is done so that you won't have to watch what I just finished. I'll always try to address the morbid fascination I had coming to the movie, in the hopes that it will satisfy any questions you had. Consider it an occupational hazard and a courtesy rolled into one.

From the Vault - I haven't always been here at Blogspot. For years I wrote on Livejournal and Myspace, and while both of those accounts have been abandoned, I did like some of the writing I did there, and will periodically re-post it for people who haven't been aware of the Cap'n. There's around 10 years worth of writing out there, and some of it is even good, so you can expect more every now and then.

Guest Blogger - There actually aren't that many of these. Typically I like to generate all of the content here at the Blogorium (it is, after all, my moniker attached to the top of the page), but every now and then I'll have a contest or ask somebody to be my DH for a day. It could even be you (more details tomorrow).

As to why some appear more frequently than others, I can say that Five Movies and Four Reasons take more time to put together than a review, so I do them less often. I enjoy them, but the preparation time is a little more involved. The So You Won't Have To's have been a little lax lately because, well, I haven't seen too many bad movies. If there's something particularly heinous you're interested in that's not Twilight, let me know.

5. How do you pick the movies you watch?

I have a pretty extensive collection of films here at Blogorium Central, many of which I haven't seen or have not seen in years. I also have a Netflix account and shop frequently at Edward McKay's Used Books and More, where I can find all kinds of movies I've never heard of. It's generally a combination of those three elements, interspersed with recommendations from you (the readers), films I watch in class, or screenings around town.


Questions 6-10 will appear tomorrow afternoon. Stay frosty, everybody!

Five Movies I Haven't Seen (but know I should...)

Remember earlier this week when I said that I hated writing negative reviews of movies I wanted to like? Well, there's something the Cap'n hates to do even more than that, which is admit that there are movies - well known, highly respected movies - that I have not seen.

Actually, every self-identifying cinephile feels the same way; we love to hang our hat on the assumption that we've seen all there is to see, save for the truly obscure, rare, or hard to find films we trade as currency to raise our stature among other film geeks. Oh sure, there are the movies that cinephiles are "too good for", or other excuses to deflect the "wait, you didn't see this or that", but what many of them will never tell you is that there are movies they should have seen but have not.

I could qualify this and say "yet", but let's not mince words here: I know that I should have seen the following five movies, but I just haven't. Hopefully I will, but right now I won't continue to hide behind the "film scholar" shield.

Think less of me if you will; certainly, you'd have every right. I have have no excuses.

1. The Shawshank Redemption - I know. Everybody loves it. I've seen The Green Mile, or most of it. I've seen The Mist, but for some reason I never got around to watching Frank Darabont's first Stephen King adaptation. It's on all kinds of "top" lists and critics and audiences love it, but the Cap'n has yet to make time for Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. I honestly don't know what happens in the movie, which may be as amazing to you as the fact I never saw it.

2. West Side Story - I can honestly say that I've never seen West Side Story. I've seen clips from it; I may have even watched entire sequences, but I know for a fact that I've never seen the movie from beginning to end. The Cap'n is a BIG Robert Wise fan (The Haunting may be one of the creepiest horror films I've ever seen) from The Day the Earth Stood Still to The Sound of Music*, and I have seen productions of West Side Story. Just not the film.


3. Mean Streets - I talk a lot about Martin Scorsese here, so it's a crying shame that despite the fact I have seen Boxcar Bertha, Cape Fear, and The Color of Money, I have yet to make the time to watch Mean Streets. I have no good reason whatsoever. I have a copy of Mean Streets in my apartment, and must have seen the same clip of Robert DeNiro losing it in the bar over and over again, and yet it has not entered my dvd player.


4. The Dirty Dozen - I'm not sure why I'm including this, because I have started watching The Dirty Dozen. I've just never finished watching it. There are a lot of movies I can say that about, some of which I'm simply too embarrassed to put out in public. Someday I hope to finish the "men on a mission" World War II movie, so I can put it alongside The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, and the original Inglorious Bastards in my "seen it" pile.


5. Rebel Without a Cause - Okay, this is kind of a cheap shot, because I have no intention of watching Rebel Without a Cause either. I don't care how influential it was with "teen" culture in the 1950s; I don't like James Dean. I just don't. I think people mistake his inability to act for "raw emotion" and it annoys me. The only movie I ever kind of liked Dean in was East of Eden, and that's pushing it.

Since I'm an unabashed member of "Team Brando" in this situation, allow me to qualify (and admit) that I've also never seen The Wild One. There's a slight chance I will someday see that, but Rebel Without a Cause is probably S.O.L. as far as the Cap'n is concerned.


I don't quite know why, but I too realize that this list is almost entirely about angsty guys dealing with their drama. Take from that what you will. To be fair, there are a number of other movies I simply couldn't bring myself to admit to you good readers that I a) have not finished watching or b) simply haven't seen. Considering some of the ones I have, it's just better if you don't know right now. If - or when - I decide to give up writing about film, I'll share the rest of the list with you (honestly, it grows both longer and shorter every day), but for now you have five to chide me about while I attempt to rectify the situation.


* But not Star Trek: The Boring Picture.