Police Academy

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Patrick and I were feeling pretty charged going into this one. You know, we figured this whole experiment would break us down at some point, but that wouldn’t be until like the 5th or 6th movie. The first Police Academy had been a big hit, it was the only one that was R-rated… it was probably going to be at least a little funny. Definitely the funniest of the bunch, and maybe not a bad movie overall.

Look at how excited we were, early that morning.
Looking back at this picture, I almost feel disgusted with my naivety.

About 10 or 15 minutes in, I was already becoming aware of my own hubris. I can tell, because in our notes I wrote down “10-15 minutes in… no laughs.”

And the situation didn’t improve much after that.

The jokes were so bad, and the filmmaking so incompetent, that half the time I couldn't even tell if isolated lines and scenes and moments were supposed to be funny. The “funny” dialogue was indistinguishable from the serious dialogue. I think someone involved in the production must have realized this too, because the editing really tries to underline some of (what I will generously refer to as) the punchlines. A scene will end on what I guess is supposed to be a zinger or punchline, and as it cuts to the next scene, the picture would do this sort of goofy flip transition. It’s hard to describe, but it was kind of the visual equivalent of a slidewhistle sound effect. In fact, given the level of humor we’re talking about here, I’m kind of shocked that there weren’t any slidewhistles. That would have at least made the film feel a little nutty.

So, Police Academy, it turns out is like a wannabe Stripes; an 80's style party-vibe comedy complete with female nudity and a flippant sense of humor. Or, at least, that's what it aspires to be. (And in the case of the titties, succeeds). It takes place in an unnamed city, and the mayor declares that to increase police enrollment, they will pretty much start letting anyone who wants into the academy. Hence setting the stage for a bunch of crazy characters to run amok at the police academy, etc etc. You know this movie is in trouble when the lead character "Mahoney" is a Bill Murray type, but he's being played by Steve Guttenberg. Guttenberg as Mahoney is supposed to be a crass but lovable party-anaimal who brings down the establishment with his zany antics. Only he's not lovable, and his antics aren't funny.

When he's introduced, he gets into an argument with some bald asshole, and I think this is supposed to be the part where we fall in love with Mahoney by illustrating what a funny rebel he is. So, to show us he's a free spirit, he, uh, points out that the other guy is wearing a wig. "Wig! Wig! Wig!" he shouts. And that I believe counts as Mahoney's first joke. Hilarious.

But you know what? It gets worse. Fuckin' Mahoney turns out to be a complete fuckin' sellout. Instead of taking "the man" down a peg or subverting the authority of the Police Academy, Mahoney decides to take this police shit seriously, and he cleans up his act to become a model citizen. He wasn't a rebel at all, just some whiny punk who didn't get enough structure in his youth.

We also ended up theorizing that Mahoney, despite his vague attempts at fucking Kim Cattrall in the movie, is a closeted homosexual. See, he repeatedly listens to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's classic gay sex anthem Relax, which raises a red flag. Then, he plays a prank on some other trainees by telling them to meet him at a bar, which turns out to be a gay bar named the Blue Oyster, where of course the men are immediately sexually assaulted by the flamboyant clientèle (the gay panic level in this movie is alarmingly high). Thing is, Mahoney offers up the address of the bar without a moment's hesitation, as if he were intimately familiar with the locale. I would kind of like it if our theory is true, if only because it means he would be a 2 dimensional character instead of 1 dimensional.

The stealth anti-hero of the movie turned out to be this clumsy guy whose name I don't remember. He keeps accidentally hurting other people, especially his wife (rampant misogyny = blockbuster!) and it's never funny. But at the end of the movie, he accidentally starts a major riot, doesn't realize he did it, and then in the middle of it all he sneaks off, changes out of his cop clothes and steals a suit, and completely shirks his duty. It's subtle, but I think he's truly the Bill Murray type rebel. He still sucks though.

So there's a cast of kooky characters like Hightower (the Big Black Guy), Hooks (mousy black girl), Tackleberry (the gun nut), Callahan (basically Hot Lips Hoolihan with bigger tits) and a bunch of others, and not a single one of them turn out to be funny in any possible way. They are only defined by their one character trait, and then the movie doesn't even bother to make any jokes about that. If Hightower shows up in a scene, the movie simply points out that he is tall or strong or black, and that's it. Hightower is in 6 of the movies, and the complete lack of a joke was so transcendental to us that Patrick and I just started screaming "Hightower is strong!" or "Hightower is Tall!" every time he appeared. The closest anyone comes to being funny is the guy who plays Cmdt. Lassard; he doesn't actually do anything funny, but he's a Leslie Nielsen type who has a certain charm to him.

About an hour into the movie, Patrick caught me already slacking off and ignoring what was going on. Here is our first moment of shame of the day, me rewinding Police Academy to watch what I missed:

Christ, I have a large fucking forehead.

This movie fucking sucked. I hate its simpleton mentality, its blatant homophobia, its faux-rebellious but secretly commercial values. I hate America for making it a hit. It inspired me to start drinking at 10 in the morning.

Still, though, it was a painless kind of suck that inspired an empty kind of hate in me, so Patrick and I were still pretty enthused by the end.

I was starting to feel a buzz, and the soothing tingle of the alcohol was telling me that everything was going to be OK. If I kept up the liquid courage, this marathon would be no problem at all.

Patrick and I did a wrap-up, where we discussed what elements we liked/didn't like/wanted to return for the sequels. Well, frankly, I don't think we wanted anything to return for the sequels except maybe more hot naked titties. But, trying to be fair, we liked Lassard, thought the guy who made funny noises could maybe in some way have potential, and the gun nut guy could maybe be funny in a better movie. We wanted to lose the gay panic, the goofy editing, the asshole villains (except Harris, who you will remember as the asshole with the cane), but in a moment I bet he'll be regretting when he reads this, Patrick actually expressed his desire to see clumsy guy come back. His prophecy would come true, and we would end up ruing his presence in the sequels.

Here we are celebrating during the ending credits.
And yes, I did notice my striking resemblance to Lynndie England.

“Because It Is There,” Introduction to an Unprecedented Act of Selfless Courage

What defines a hero? Is a hero someone who saves lives? Is a hero someone who upholds the laws and values of their society? Is a hero someone who inspires us to be a better person? Is a hero someone who kills people?

Or, is a hero someone who engages in an act of extreme psychological masochism, documents this act, and then reports on it so that others won’t have to experience it themselves? Something along the line of, say, marathoning all seven Police Academy films in a row in a single day?

Put your hand down, I’m not really asking your opinion. I already know the answer, and it is a resounding “fuck yes.”

It all started about 3 ½ years ago at JMU, around the time I first made the acquaintance of an ambitious, bright-eyed freshman named Patrick. He and I bonded over a shared knowledge of bad, often forgotten pop-culture media from our childhoods. At some point, I imagine after a robust discussion of the finer points of Surf Ninjas, we began discussing the Police Academy series. Or, more specifically, how un-goddamned-believable it was that they actually managed to make seven of them. I mean seriously, we pompously chuckled, seven? Ghostbusters was a way bigger hit, and they only made two of those. Who would actually watch all seven?

As it turns out, we would.

I think we meant it as a joke at first, but before we knew it, we started planning it out for real. And with Patrick graduating this May, we knew this semester may be our last chance ever. So, after a few missteps and cancellations, we finally found a Saturday that worked for both of us.

We set some simple ground rules. It all had to happen in one day, as the point was to be an endurance test. Talking was allowed, but we always had to stay focused on the films. Drinking was strongly encouraged, but not so much that we would lose focus on the film. We were allowed to take breaks to eat, but only short ones, and we in fact just ended up eating all three meals that day while watching. Most importantly: if at any point we felt that either of us had stopped paying attention, we had to rewind back to the last part we remembered. We had to commit to paying attention to all seven films.

After each film, we would assess our mental state, briefly discuss the film and decide what we liked and did not like, and what we would like to see in the following film. About midway through, just to make it more of an endurance test, we would run around my block as fast as we could, while drunk.

So, the following posts will be a summation of our day, on Saturday March 1, 2008, spent watching all seven Police Academy movies. It was a day like no other I’ve ever had, and not exactly what either of us expected. It was both easier and far more challenging than we had believed. And we pushed ourselves to the very limit of what a human being can take… an act of selfless courage unprecedented in our era.

Special thanks must be made to my girlfriend Shenan, who (in an act of superhuman girlfriend dedication) actually stuck around for about 75% of the marathon, and not only took all the pictures, but provided some serious emotional support during our moments of doubt. I would like to say that she was the true hero here… but actually, Patrick and I are still the real heroes. Regardless, we appreciated her presence, and hope she earns her rightful place as a footnote in our great legacy.

Severance

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I can't figure out why my dad would Netflix this one. This is the kind of shit I watch, but not him.

It's a new school slasher movie, the kind like Wrong Turn 2 or Hatchet that seem to be made by guys who, like me, grew up watching all the 70's and 80's slasher movies, and maybe revere them a little and want to make a more respectable, well-made version of what they were going for.

This isn't a bad movie per se, but it doesn't really work, mainly due to constant and mostly unsuccessful attempts at humor. It also falls into the same trap that Wrong Turn 2 did, where it wants to be both a gory, over-the-top comic slasher and a dark, disturbing and genuinely frightening horror movie, and it never figures out how to reconcile the two sides. They end up canceling each other out. It's about a bunch of British business people and tries to work in some satirical humor, so it kind of feels like a cross between The Office and Wolf Creek. Not a good combo.

The direction is also very mixed. They find a nice look for the movie, and it seems like the director has a good idea of how to generate suspense. On the other hand, many of the important moments of violence/action/surprise are poorly staged or mishandled, and much of the impact is diminished.

Any shit, this was a weird choice to make, dad. But I respect you for sitting through the whole thing. And yeah, that part where they guy tries to jam that severed leg into the fridge was pretty funny.

In Bruges

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

I guess much like you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you shouldn't judge a movie by its trailer. In Bruges looked like another generic, post-Tarantino crime comedy. As it turns out, there's nothing generic about it, and it's only maybe 25% crime comedy. The rest mixes elements of character study, heavy drama, and whimsical fantasy. And does an admirable job of pulling them all off.

It also has one of those endings where everything comes together, a bunch of coincidences pile on top of each other, and seemingly innocuous details from earlier all converge in a big ending. But not in a way I've ever really seen before... it comes together in a very bizarre, very dark way. I suspect that if there is one element of this film that people would really dislike, this would be it, but I must say I thought it worked well.

Brendan Gleason pretty much steals every scene he's in, but the whole cast is great, and I'd like to give Colin Farrell a shout-out. I always want to write this dude off, but every now and then he shows up in something like this, or A Home at the End of the World, and really shows how tender, exposed and affecting he can be as an actor.

Midnight Express

Monday, February 25, 2008

I wasn't the biggest fan of Alan Parker. I thought he had talent, sure. But, Mississippi Burning and (especially) The Life of David Gale are offensive, condescending, over-the-top, liberal nightmare/fantasies about the evils of Republicans. Sadomasochistic misery-porn for left-wing loonies.

Midnight Express is just that, I suppose, only a lot more entertaining, and much less condescending and offensive. (Although still pretty offensive if you're a Turk). It plays fast and loose with the facts, but I knew that going in and watched the film as if it were fiction. It's basically a prison movie set in hell. And on that level, as a skillful exercise in audience manipulation, it works. It goes a little too far over the top here and there, and maybe there are a few unintentional corny moments, but mostly it is a captivating, exciting movie with some strong performances. I liked it.

Also, apparently my folks once met the guy this movie is based on. They didn't think to, but if I met him I would have asked if he really bit a dudes tongue out.

(Wikipedia tells me he in fact did not)

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Is Audrey Hepburn considered attractive? Because, as an actress, I find her a charming and irresistible screen presence, etc etc, but she looks like a creepy, evil skelletized zombie or something. A charming zombie, sure, but still a zombie.

Anyway, did this one for my K2K. It's a pretty funny, charming, but not great movie that I'm glad I saw. It's also an accidentally fascinating cultural artifact, because Mickey Rooney plays an asian man with giant teeth who has a ridiculously exaggerated accent. The character is already an offensive stereotype, and then having a white man play the role (yellow face?) makes it an unforgettable experience. They still did this kind of shit in the early 60's? Hot damn.

Rififi

Sunday, February 24, 2008

OK, a while back I was checking out some films by Jean-Pierre Melville, a french director who made some awesome crime films, most notably Le Samourai. I had heard great things about an early flick of his, Bob le Flambeur, and was disappointed to find that it was a boring and talky heist film where the heist never really happens.

That came out in 1955. That very same year, another French heist movie by the name of Rififi was released, and it turns out this is the movie I had imagined in my head when I saw Bob. It's an exciting, visually stylish, badass, cold-hearted tough guy movie with a fucking awesome heist sequence and classic noir ending. It felt more like a Melville film than Bob did. In fact, there is more than a passing similarity to one of Melville's later films, Le Cercle Rouge, especially the 30 minute, dialogue-free heist sequence smack dab in the middle of the film. So maybe Melville caught this one after Bob came out and thought "Fuck! That's the movie I should have made!"

Bottom line, this movie is pretty kickass, and the heist sequence pretty much set the template for every classic heist sequence to follow. It's so fucking good, it puts glossy bullshit like Brett Ratner's After the Sunset to shame, seeming infinitely smarter, more stylish and more exciting even though he did it over 50 years ago. However, give a little credit where it's due, this movie does owe a heavy debt to the Americon crime films that came before it. Especially John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, (maybe the first heist movie? Dunno.), so much so that it pretty much just steals the ending of that movie, what with the lead character speeding around in a car while bleeding to death. Although there are no horses in this version.

Gone Baby Gone

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Damn it, I like Ben Affleck. I know he's been in some pretty shitty movies, but the dude's got a bad rap. Maybe he's not a great actor like his buddy Damon, but he's a good one who maybe just doesn't always pick the best movies.

Anyway, fuck all that, because we are now entering a new era of Affleck, whereby he regains his dignity by proving himself as a talented director. I love Gone Baby Gone, it's the best detective film in a long time, maybe since L.A. Confidential. If I made a top 10 list for 2007, it would have a respectable showing on it. I dug it enough when it came out that I thought I'd check out the book series it was based on, by Dennis Lehane.

Turns out that was a good call, because they are some highly entertaining, well-written detective books with some great characters. I'm already through the first three, Gone Baby Gone is the fourth and I plan on getting around to it soonish.

Thing is, though, I actually like Affleck's Gone Baby Gone better than any of the Lehane books I've read so far. He reigns in some of the more over-the-top elements of the book, and plays the story more intimate and realistic. Granted, I haven't read Gone Baby Gone yet, so it's possible that Lehane makes a few notable changes to the style in that one. But if I had to guess, I'd guess that it's more similar to the other books.

The problem with the books is the violence. The first book was also a little too self-consciously hip and badass, but I've noticed that happens to a lot of crime authors on their first book, and he seems to have cured himself of that for the other books.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like violence. Shit, love it. But once or twice in each book, the violence gets so over-the-top that it undermines the realism of the characters. Like at the end of the 2nd book, where the bad guy holds a baby hostage during a shootout. It's a little much. I mean, I know they are detective books with absurdly convoluted plots, but he does a great job of making the story feel plausible. Until he gets to a shootout or something, and suddenly everyone turns into the fucking Punisher, and maybe it tries a little too hard to seem cool and exciting.

There is violence in Affleck's film, but he saves it for choice moments and always makes it visceral and real, which gives it a lot more impact.

Affleck really gets the soul of Lehane's books perfectly, especially in how well he captures the moral complexity. I think the heart of most good detective fiction (that I'm familiar with, at least) is about characters having to take a hard look at who they are any what they believe. The story usually brings the hero to some moral line, and he either decides that it's the one line he won't cross, or sometimes when it's a more noir-ish tale, he crosses it and pays the consequences. Lehane does this as good as any other crime writer I've read, with his lead character making hard choices, and finding out surprising details about what he is capable of.

The movie is very much in that spirit, and perhaps halfway through the main character does something that, while shocking, we understand his motivations. But then the movie lingers on the implications, and shows his guilt and conflicted feelings. This would be a strong enough theme for a detective movie, but it turns out that it only sets the stage for an even bigger decision that he makes at the end of the film... and the movie has the balls to make it clear that it was very possibly the wrong decision, but is still so empathetic towards the hero that we understand exactly why he does what he does.

I guess I'm not shocked that this movie didn't get more love, but fuck. What more do you people want? This is a great detective film, I think perhaps a new classic.

I oughta pick this up on DVD at some point.

The TV Set

Saturday, February 23, 2008

The TV Set is a satire of the television industry, all about how an ambitious pilot is slowly turned into a generic, lame-ass comedy. A lot of the humor comes out of that style of studying awkward, embarrassing or manipulative behavior. This kind of humor can be great, like on say Seinfeld, but here it doesn't quite transcend into hilarity, and instead leaves the audience feeling genuinely uncomfortable. I mean that as both praise and criticism... it's a worthy accomplishment, but sort of prevents you from "enjoying" the movie in a traditional sense. There are some very real laughs, but not enough to break a lot of the tension.

Anyway, it's another thumbs up for director Jake Kasdan, who I really enjoy, although I'm not as enthusiastic with this one as I am some of his others. The cast is uniformly great, especially David Duchovny, Sigourney Weaver and whoever the hell it was that played the lead actor. (He gets the biggest laughs as an actor who performs strongly but subtly in his rehearsals, only to go waaaaaaay over the top every time the cameras are on.) I think part of what keeps the movie from being better (aside from the uncomfortableness it causes) are its occasional attempts at seriousness... it's best when it sticks to satire and personality-observational humor.

Starman

Saturday, February 23, 2008

This movie suggests the possibility of an entirely different John Carpenter. One who, while possibly still doing genre films, would make films more concerned with characters and with genuine romances.

He didn't write Starman, and I don't think he could write a movie like it even if he tried, but he sure as shit proves that he can direct it. The emotions here, even though they are on the level of fantasy, are very genuine, and it's his only film that can be described as touching.

You'd think, based on his other movies, that he'd be totally lost making a love story and only really succeed at the sci-fi elements of Starman. This couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, he uses his great visual style to add a beauty and lyricism to the dramatic scenes, especially during the perfect final moment.

If I had to choose, I'm glad that Carpenter stuck with sci-fi action and horror movies. Still, it's fascinating to watch him try something different here and succeed so strongly.

Be Kind Rewind

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Attentive readers may recall that I have very mixed feelings about the films of Michel Gondry. The three I had seen before Be Kind Rewind all left the same impression on me: that they had taken a lot of energy and imagination to create, but that the final product was just ok. There are a lot of great little moments, but the films themselves weren't strong as a whole. Often times this was due to the characters... he seemed to strive hard to make his movie insightful, but had no idea how to actually pull it off.

However, my gut was right on this one, and Be Kind Rewind is easily his best movie. The plot best plays into his aesthetic of clever visual effects for the sake of visual effects. And he doesn't try so hard to make a movie about people, he just sets up some likable characters. The movie is more along the lines of a Purple Rose of Cairo style tribute to the magic of cinema (the casting of Mia Farrow doesn't seem like an accident). And while I may not trust Gondry to tell me a compelling story about relationships, I definitely trust him to tell me about why movies are cool.

Also, kudos for the Sigourney Weaver cameo.

The Brothers Solomon

Friday, February 22, 2008

Shenan and I have enjoyed Bob Odenkirk's Melvin Goes to Dinner and Let's Go to Prison, so we were looking forward to his latest. It looked kind of like a bad, dumbass comedy, but so did Prison and that movie still makes me laugh a lot, haters be damned.

I have conflicted feelings here. A lot of this movie made me laugh, but a lot of it didn't, and it was downright poorly made at times. The editing especially was awkward... I remember at one point there was clearly no punchline at the end of a scene, and suddenly it turned slo-mo and an 80's rock song cued up, like they tried to force a laugh in after the fact. I just watched The TV Set, and one of the big jokes at the end is that the TV show they make, which is a comedy drama, is re-edited to be more overtly comic by adding wacky music and sound effects. It's not that bad in The Brothers Solomon, but it does feel a little like it at times. Odenkirk was never exactly a master of cinematic language, but his movies at least felt competent before.

Still, enough made me laugh here that I have a soft spot for it. It was worth watching for the Plane Banner scene alone.

The Fury

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

People accuse Brian DePalma of ripping off other directors, especially Hitchcock. I think it's more influence than theft, and that DePalma brings enough of himself to make his style feel original. No, the real person De Palma rips off is himself.

I love Brian DePalma, but the man is not shy about repeating himself. It's not uncommon for one of his movies to steal a plot point, or a set piece, or a major theme, or other story idea or structural element from an earlier movie. His movies cover a broader range of genres than, say, Dario Argento (who, don't get me wrong, I also love), but there is a strong sense of repetition or rehashing in a number of his films. Sisters, Dressed to Kill and Raising Cain all use the split-personality gimmick. Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Body Double, Raising Cain and Femme Fatale all have a big "it was only a dream" fakeout. Scarface and Carlito's Way both are about latino crime lords, both times played by Al Pacino. Blow Out and Body Double both have "movie within a movie" motifs. And his newest one, Redacted sounds like it reuses the same soldiers raping and murdering a civilian plot as his other war film, Casualties of War.

This list could go on and on.

I bring it up because The Fury turns out to be an early, particularly brazen example of De Palma ripping himself off, and my least favorite example of him doing so. Why? It's the only time where I feel like he's repeated himself solely to try to cash in on previous success.

You see, The Fury was his first film after Carrie. And the main character is a teenage girl with telekinetic powers. Yup. It's a little more of an action/intrigue movie than a horror film, but still. Jesus. It must have looked at the time like DePalma was going to become the auteur of psychic teenager movies.

Can you imagine if that's really how his career turned out? Like, if he kept making psychic teenager movies in different genres? If Casualties of War was about American soldiers raping and murdering a telekinetic Vietnamese girl? Or if Scarface was about a telekinetic Cuban taking over the drug trade? That actually sounds incredible, he should remake all his movies with psychics and telekinetics.

Enough of that. I'm sorry to report that The Fury turns out to be one of my least favorite DePalma movies. The story and writing is pretty lame and sometimes funny for the wrong reasons. He's usually great at messing around with a normal movie structure; making you think someone is the main character then killing them off, going off on tangents that take up a larger chunk of the film than you expect, major characters or plot elements disappearing for a while or being introduced later than expected. There's a little of that here, but it doesn't work. It just feels like the movie ignores one boring character for a while to go focus on another boring character for periods of time that feel distractingly long.

None of this would matter if this had some classic DePalmian set-pieces, but unfortunately there really isn't anything special here. The big car crash/shootout pales in comparison to even his average work. There were maybe a handful of little moments I like. Especially at the end where the girl uses her mind to make a guy explode, thereby one-upping David Cronenberg's Scanners like 3 years before it even came out. Take that, you canuck fuck. Two masters of the horror genre made psychic-themed movies around the same time, and they both sucked, but yours sucked more!

Well, I'm still slowly but surely working my way through the DePalma filmography, but I have a bad feeling that most of the ones left to see are more at the ass-end of the spectrum. Oh well.

The Bridge On the River Kwai

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Fucking sweet. My K2K has yet again lead me to a great movie.

What I loved about The Bridge On the River Kwai was that while it is superficially a big, war epic type film, at it's heart it is really a quirky study of some surprising human qualities and moral complexity.

It's really only maybe 1 1/2 parts war-epic to the 3 parts character study, with an appreciated 1 part obsession-on-the-brink-of-madness tale. So basically right up my alley.

And all the shifting of moral viewpoints is great... a lot of big, epic, adventurous movies I think try to put a definitive right/wrong stamp on the story, but what works so well here is that there are at least four major character with varying, conflicting viewpoints, but some empathy is achieved for all of them. It all comes to a head during the (fucking awesome, suspenseful, bridge-exploding) climax, most of the characters end up dead, and the movie leaves you not exactly sure how to feel. This isn't deliberately unsatisfying like the end of Zodiac, but I love coming to the end of a 2hr 40 min movie and not being sure what the message was. It means I have to actually think about the movie, and determine for myself what's right/wrong, etc.

I'm largely ignorant of the films of Alec Guinness, save for Star Wars (duh), but he was so amazing here that I really must delve further into his filmography. I already knew that William Holden was great, but this still reinforced my love.

Also this David Lean fellow, the director. He knows his business, and I'm going to have to somewhere down the line check him out.

Oh, and the exploding bridge I mentioned? A fucking train goes flying off of it. You don't see shit this awesome in movies very often, even in straight up action flicks. Hawt.

The Wizard of Gore

Sunday, February 17, 2008

OK, I need to stop it with this kind of shit. I mean, seriously. A while back I saw Hershel Gordon Lewis's 2000 Maniacs, and it was old, ultra-cheap, poorly shot, poorly acted, corny, but really offbeat and (for the time) really violent. So, I gave it three stars on Netflix... it was bad, but I found something about it's cheap-ass aesthetic effective. It created a weird tone that I liked.

Really, though, it's a shitty movie, and I think any atmosphere it created was accidental. The Wizard of Gore is the same way... bad, but also accidentally kind of funny, and so oddball and violent that it's strangely watchable.

But you know what? I'm setting the bar too fucking low here. Anything I enjoyed about this movie, I was meeting it way more than halfway. It's more about my own fascination with horror movies than anything the movie itself did. And it's not accidentally funny enough to become a classic that way, although the ending is pretty fucking funny.

Still man, there's too many good fucking movies out there for me to be watching this shit. And too many good-bad movies, for that matter, not a bad-bad movie like this that I find inexplicably captivating.

I'm making a pledge here to cut down on this kind of shit... I'm not saying no bad horror movies, I just pledge to be more honest with myself. When they are bad-bad and not good-bad, I need to just admit that to myself instead of finding reasons to enjoy them. Finding good elements of bad movies is something I pride myself in, but that doesn't mean I should trick myself into liking the entire movie if it doesn't deserve it.