The Wiz

I just can't make up my mind on this one...

I've been watching it (relatively) regularly since about the age of 9 or so. SO, there's that whole childhood angle wrapped up too.  But, I took a break from about the ages of 16 until about 30 and it all just feels differently now. Maybe the death of Michael has something to with that, maybe just my own life changing in various ways... 

This version of the story gets a lot of flak for not being the Broadway version. I've heard (and own) the Broadway version as well... oranges to nectarines, people. Similar but different. Take it or leave it, the only thing this adaptation needs to stand up to is itself. As a film, I find that it does that rather well, albeit in a slightly off-putting way.

Off-putting, perhaps because it is trying to cram a Broadway show onto a film stage and can't seem to make up its mind from time to time if it wants to be an intimate showpiece or a long-shot spectacle. Or both at once.  But, I've felt that way about everything I've seen from Lumet.  Specifically, Dog Day Afternoon. Damned good, but I can't tell if it's broad, short or neither when it comes to the scope of it all.

The music though is great, Charlie Smalls and Quincy Jones (Quincy was to work later with MJ on Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad, etc.) with the help of Luther Vandross and Ashford & Simpson created some quite memorable tunes to help make a very individual re-telling of an already culturally-imprinted tale.

No small feat, but at the same time, the movie is just not much fun. How can a film with Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Richard Pryor (not to mention Ted Ross' ridiculously over-the-top Lion) NOT be fun? I don't really know, but the ingredients just don't jell right here. Almost yes.... but for every spot-on moment there is one or two that hits like orange juice on toothpaste. Just wrong on some level.

It isn't laziness or for lack of trying, I don't think. Something was just ...goofy here. Maybe you can get someone who knows what he's talking about to try a critique of it. I'm not that guy.

But, the soundtrack is one of those where "if you like this kind of thing, you're gonna love this" things.

Here it is in 320 kbps with 500px cover art and corrected id3 tags. (link in comments)

Hell, I'm now one of those buccaneer blogs. So be it.

This "week" in the House of Film

Mutants (2009)

French zombie flick. I know, more zombies, really? Yes, really. It is average in most respects, but an excellent performance from Hélène de Fougerolles really sells this thing. At 95 minutes it can clock through almost on style alone, but there's enough steak to the sizzle to make it worthwhile. On the whole, it may try to go in one too many directions at the same time. I'd be interested in a longer cut if there was one.

3 / 5 shotgun shells


Visioneers (2008)

I've heard it said that this Zach Galifianakis is a very funny fellow. Checking out his imdb page, I'm pretty sure this is my first exposure to him. Yes, I do live under a rock and it's quite comfy, thanks. Smartass. Okay, I'm silly but I saw a lot of Brazil in this one. Which is definitely not a bad thing. Let's call it a near-future corporate slow-burn of a very detached and cold bad dream wrapped in an exceedingly black and dry comedy / drama. Which works well for me.
Judy Greer kind of stole this one by my count. Just like Adaptation.

3.5 / 5 explosions


Cashback (2006)

Another one of those billed as a comedy that just isn't. What, if I laugh once or twice the movie is a comedy? Bullshit, by that logic everything from The Exorcist to Hellraiser to Faces of Death and The Karate Kid is a comedy. I wasn't exactly keeping track but I think I actually laughed at this movie just about as often as I do at the movies mentioned above. Make of that what you will, but this is an excellent and involving little film. The score is very nifty and I'll be looking for that as well.
Again, feels just a little confused in the "cramming one more thing in" sense, but survives all of that with excellent performances from main and supporting cast as well as several instances of "ohhhh shhiiit" editing along with an interesting premise help to make for a damn good ride. If you have reason to care, there is more than a little full frontal nudity here but hey, it's a British film and none of it felt sleazy or tawdry to me. Explicit, yes... you can see and differentiate labia. Does that make the movie porn or worthless? Nope.

4 / 5 still life portraits



Fall Time (1995)

Wow... just not good. Unless you really, really like Stephen Baldwin.

I am a SERIOUS ACTOR, dammit! I was in Bio-Dome!

Okay, well here's him and Mickey Rourke ineffectually threatening David Arquette (!) and some other kids for an hour and a half. Wow... they're tough guys, you bet.  Because these two tough guys happened to be in the small town spot where three kids were having a "prank kidnapping" (because that's a thing) and got roped into it all via trashcan. -You wouldn't believe me if I told you how silly this all is. Even screenshots couldn't make the case well enough. You've been warned.

This is an embarrassingly bad movie.

So bad that they couldn't even properly hang a tied-up David Arquette.

I've owned dogs that could convincingly kill that man onscreen.

And Baldwin breaks into tears while premeditating a double murder. Then he kinda dry-humps Arquette's friend for a bit before someone gets shot at which point he cries on Mickey's shoulder for a second and then tries to play Watson to Rourke's Holmes for an interminably long bit of corny clichéd shit before "guy with bad hair kills guy with bad hair and wounds another guy with bad hair only to wound bad actor and offer him a bad jacket (yep, that also happened) before being killed by Bad Hair/Actor  #2 (complete with a faux-dramatic bullshit cut to the opening credits-flashback).

Just as good as it sounds.

It's a bit like watching a smalltown high school play with aspirations.
It maybe, possibly could have been something.
But it was not and all those involved should never speak of it again.

High point: Cop gets shot twice... a few minutes later we see his body with three distinct bleeding wounds.  Yay for continuity.

Oh, and then there's the "evidence-tampering train-hopping at the last minute for no apparent reason" nympho hostage. And reverse-fade to that BS-opening flashback to liken her to Mom and your time in the pool with your friends.

Because that also makes perfect sense.
Somehow.

Most episodes of G.I. Joe could be crossed with the entire series run of "Alf" and still make more dramatic sense than this piece of garbage. If you ever spent money or made money on this, you are officially a Two-Star Human.

1 / 5 "Patty was in the bathroom, I'm Carol!" scenes.



Damn, maybe I'll do some music posts next time.  Or at least some better movies.

Immodium's House of Film II

I'm not going to get too deep into it this time...

John Carpenter's THE FOG (1980):
"It is now generally considered to be, as Carpenter once called it, "a minor horror classic"."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog)

Minor indeed. I have seen worse, but have certainly seen better and see no desire to rewatch it in the future.  Passable and really not bad... but not very good either.

I hope I get into the mood to watch a good Carpenter flick sometime when I'm near the computer.

2.5 / 5 unexplainably old pickup trucks.

Immodium's House of Film

As threatened, I'm just going to completely rip off one of my favorite blog's regular features and attempt to recap / halfassedly critique things I've watched just lately.  Here's an installment of that:

John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987):
I tried, I really did. Most things Carpenter that I've run across I've dug on some level. In my younger years, I even wrote the guy a fan letter that I never sent.  All the pieces are here... it looked really good on paper. "Paper" to mean, that Netflix account.  Sigh. 

Really though, am I that crazy?:

Donald Pleasance is a priest... credited first, as "Priest" trying to stop Satan, I suppose. 

 Victor Wong is the theoretical scientist counterpart to Pleasance. Who?  You know, this guy:

 And as a nice surprise to me, Dennis Dun!  Who?  You know, this guy:

And as added bonus: Alice Cooper stabs a guy. With a bicycle.

Okay, so maybe that doesn't actually look very much a "good" movie to you. And you'd be right. It isn't. Carpenter is at his best when dealing with the cold, hard realities of a given situation. Think about Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, etc. Cold and hard. And yes, he wrote the screenplay for this mess too.
This is aimless wanking though.  There are a lot of various insects and a giant jar of green goo standing in for evil. No, wait: "E-VIL!"
Donald is woefully underused and apparently pretty much hides in a corner for most of the movie. Eventually a Linda Blair look-alike stands menacingly still with too much Aqua-Net on. Then she'll spit water at people. Which makes them "E-VIL". So they now spit at people.
Now this is the internet, and the whole plot of this thing is right here if you want it, but it's so dumb it hurts. It hurts even more for 105 minutes.  Trust me.  At no point in film history would this have been good, but there was a half-second or so when Father Donald lops off a blond... thing's head which was enjoyable for the performance. It was surrounded by silliness, naturally. If I felt like editing this thing into something good, it'd be about 90 seconds long and it's mostly Dennis Dun.

Want double proof?  Are you old enough to remember a middling-average TV detective show called Simon & Simon?  Do you remember... this guy?

That's (I kid you not) Jameson Parker, our leading guy for this thing, and while I'm sure he's a decent guy and I'm glad to hear that he can take a bullet and recover (thumbs up pal!) and all of that... doesn't he, umm remind you a little bit of someone? Or two someones, maybe?

 Uncanny yes, but what if he rocked a vintage 1978 handlebar mustache throughout?
Hell, he still does. And good for him.

 Let's just say that at this point in his career, pinning a film on his ability to emote and convey a primal and maddening fear of the unholy and the unknown may have been asking a little bit much. An hour a week as a hunky dude on his kickass boat? Yep, you were the guy. Good luck with whatever your thing is now.




 Dennis, thanks for trying...

 ...but I still want my hour and a half back.
This is a bad movie and should be avoided. Not even funny-bad. Just bad.
I've taken the bullet for you. Don't watch it. Nothing redeeming here... except Dennis Dun.

1/5 stars.

Stirrings...

Well, the handful who knew to look here in the first place probably won't be terribly surprised when I say:  there are changes afoot.

The only interesting part would be that I intend to be more active on this front in the future.
I don't exactly know what kind of shape it will take yet.
I've got yet another new job in the works, a rock band I'm trying to help be groovy, a Netflix account that I'm really just starting to play with and apparently... some time.

Come along for the ride if you like. I can't promise that it'll be interesting, regular, or good.

But I'll do what I can when I remember to.