COMBO PACK! April/May 2012′s Most Unfortunate Movie Posters.

Due to some major real-world complications I couldn’t get this column (or much else) together in April, but that’s the bad news.  The good news is that, as always, I’ve been steadily amassing grist for the mill, which means I now have twice as many dumb posters as usual to share with you this time.

If you’re new to this feature, the game is simple.  It’s just me riffing off movie posters.  If anything bothers you, try to relax.  It’s all in fun.  There’s no real malice intended (except for a couple cases, but they’re asking for it.)

This is done out of my love of movies and movie artwork.  No other reason.  Oh, and to entertain you, the reader, but that ought to go without saying.

Let’s see what kind of trouble I can get up to this time…

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It was a dark day for humanity, when the giant floating celebrity heads appeared off the Malibu coast.

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“Danny got some bad ass, and now he’ll not stop until he gets a better piece.”

The poster is great. That’s not what I’m saying.  All I’m saying is this:  Our national usage of the word “ass” — sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a bad thing, sometimes it’s so bad it’s good, sometimes it’s good and bad at once — is confusing sometimes.

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Danny Trejo is usually well-served by posters.  But some stars aren’t as fortunate (or as intimidating).  Poor Jason Ritter, for example, has a knack for getting stuck on the most eye-wrecking posters.  This month it happens to be this one…

…But you might remember this one from back in March.

It’s officially a trend.  Sorry, Jason Ritter.

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I like the girl on her cell phone, like “I think that lady next to me was in Borat!”

More than that, I like the kid’s shrugging-it-off expression in the foreground, that typical pose you see on posters for comedies that aren’t all that funny: “You got me!  I’m on a poster for a weed movie wearing a weed T-shirt.  What can I say?  Shit’s crazy, right?”

I also wish Faizon Love was on the Piranha 3DD poster (see below) rather than this one.

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For a dose of class and sophistication, you can always rely on monster-talent Oren Peli.  When dealing cinematically with the matter of a historic nuclear tragedy that afflicted thousands with cancer and death, the artistic mastermind to turn to is definitely the one who made Paranormal Activity so he can turn the whole scene into the setting for another one of his poorly-shot found-footage movies where absolutely nothing happens.  Coming in 2013: The Dachau Notebooks.

Where’s my damn sarcasm hashtag when I need it?

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This poster only officially qualifies as unfortunate when you realize how long and how hard they’ve been working on it.

(A veteran of this column, Cold Light Of Day has also appeared in the February installment.)

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“Dreams Come True”?  I’ll say!  You know how long I’ve been hoping and praying for a James Cromwell Western?

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Here Simon Pegg experiments with the boundaries of how far his devoted nerdy fanbase will follow him.

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First Position: Ballet in the middle of a city street in the blinding sun.

Second Position:  [SPLAT.]

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No snark or criticisms.  This poster is good for the world.  Put it up everywhere.

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Do not promise me something you are not willing to provide.  I’m expecting robots and you’re giving me romantic comedy?  Don’t say the word Godzilla and give me nothing more than Kate Hudson.  It’s a dangerous game you play.

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“Huh. Wouldja look at that? Somebody set The Rock’s pants on fire. The Rock can smell what The Rock is cooking.  It smells like burnt pubes.  The Rock want retaliation!”

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Orlando Bloom is your Elijah Wood now.

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I must be way out of step with the zeitgeist, because America seems to love movies about Meryl Streep’s sex life and I… do not count that among my interests.

Which is the more bizarre love triangle: Meryl Streep/ Alec Baldwin/ Steve Martin, or Meryl Streep/ Tommy Lee Jones/ Steve Carell?

You guys come up with an answer, I’ll be over here with my head in a garbage can.

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Knowing what I know about this movie, in that it’s a “romantic comedy” about the invention of the vibrator, I now shudder to think about what’s going on with Lady Bracknell there on the bottom area.

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As someone who appreciates the music of Hank Williams, I’ve got no problem with the premise, the title, or even the poster.  I’ve only got to take issue with the names on the poster.  Henry Thomas (ET and Gangs Of New York), Jesse James (not the one you may be thinking of), Fred Dalton Thompson of politics and Die Hard 2, and Kaley Cuoco of The Big Bang Theory:  None of these strike me as ideal casting for the country-music legend.

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A sad day for the great Eugene Levy, a glad one for his accountant.

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Well, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see this movie before, but now I am totally absolutely sure.

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They remade Armageddon using nerds.

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We’re going to have to push past the weirdo-tandem of Udo Kier and Norman Reedus in the bottom squares, and to especially push past the guy in the upper left square (kind of a Cameron-Diaz-meets-Sonny-Landham type), in order to talk about the fact that David Carradine is still appearing in new movies despite his death in 2009.  David Carradine is like the Tupac of movies.  Although Tupac was in movies, so maybe we should consider Tupac to be the David Carradine of rap.

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Look beyond all those colors and check out the cast list:   Toni Braxton, Chloris Leachman, Christopher Lloyd, Chazz Palminteri, Cary Elwes, AND Jaime Pressly.  Those are six people who wouldn’t make sense living in the same zip code, let alone being grouped together in one movie.  That’s one thing that makes me want to see this, and the other thing is the fact that it’s a horror movie.

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In a foot race?  Just because I don’t know the other two and I don’t think Bob Hoskins is as quick as he used to be, I’m betting on the horse.

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Good news, movies:  The new Mena Suvari you didn’t order has arrived.

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Yes.  You’re Elizabeth Banks and Chris Pine.  You’re extremely talented and attractive.  People like you.  I like you.  Just try not to rub it in, okay?

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It must be nice, to live without shame.

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There are many people out there who believe in exorcisms, so I don’t want to step on any theological toes.  Still, science would suggest that no exorcism has ever begun or ended with a ghost hand reaching out of a person’s stomach and grabbing their face.  A couple cases of tapeworm ended that way, maybe, but that’s it.  (Has there ever been a tapeworm-exorcism movie?  Shouldn’t there be one?)

Alternate observation:  Ever notice how the more “serious” exorcism movies rely on gross-out imagery which wouldn’t be out of place in an Evil Dead movie?

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As atrocious as this may look, keep in mind:  Bon Jovi think they’re too good for this.

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Neat idea:  A political dance movie.  Imagine how many more hearts the Occupy Wall Street movie could turn if the protestors were to bust out some sexy club dancing in the streets.  Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo had its political overtones, but its scope was limited.  Turbo and Ozone were only concerned with saving Miracles.  Step Up Revolution is looking to save the world!

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There’s an inevitability to this poster.  I’m not sure I can explain it.  It has something to do with the pairing of mainstream comedian and indie sweetheart in an artier movie than usually — it’s not far from Adam Sandler & Emily Watson or Jim Carrey & Kate Winslet to get to Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams.  It also has something to do with the young-people-sitting-on-the-front-stoop-surrounded by autumnal-colors movement in romantic-comedy poster design.  What is more promising about this poster campaign is A) “written & directed by Sarah Polley” who is smart and talented and B) the second poster.

More indie-movie posters should be interrupted by Sarah Silverman.  There aren’t many that couldn’t be improved that way.

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Hey, forty doesn’t seem so bad if you appear younger than ever and are allowed to actively shit while appearing on a movie poster.  The only thing that should bother anybody is the blatant product placement (“Honey, when you’re done brushing your teeth and I’m done dropping this hedgehog, do you want to stop by the Genius bar for an upgrade?”)

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You’re right, the poster isn’t particularly laughable.

But the teaser trailer is.

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I actually got a screening invite to this movie.  Should I go?

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Either the worst or the best sequel to The Crow.

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I don’t particularly want to travel to Rome with any of these people.  You guys have fun on your trip.  (I like the idea of a road movie where Benigni torments Woody Allen, but you know this is going to be just another thing full of pretentious literary references and old guys hooking up with young women.  Don’t ask me why I’m not a big Woody Allen fan.)

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A lifeless young woman being abducted?  Charming.

You think I’m being sarcastic?  Then you just don’t know how many times I’ve seen a little movie called Mannequin, my friend.

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If you’re an easily-spooked Shia-Labeouf-looking guy, the last thing you want to have on the other side of your apartment door is an armed Dolph Lundgren.

Trust me, I should know.

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That’s my cue to get going.  Have a great month, everybody!

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Find me on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

Live on @Twitter: PROJECT NIM (2011).

Project Nim is a documentary about a chimpanzee transported from the wild and used in a project by Columbia professor Herbert Terrace who wanted to study what would happen if an ape was raised in close proximity to humans.  In true human fashion, Terrace and his assistants quickly discover they’ve taken on too much, and Nim is passed from foster home to foster home throughout his development, until later in life he wound up at an animal sanctuary where he spent the rest of his years.  There are plenty of entertainingly eccentric and downright bizarre elements to the story, such as the now-grown children of Nim’s first adoptive human mother complaining about being treated as second-favorite, or the tossed-off detail of how that first mother chose to nurture Nim (you’ll know my reaction as soon as you hear it).  But primarily, Nim’s is a sad story, to me at least.  It’s a Promethean myth in miniature, only far more frustrating because it really happened.

James Marsh, the director, also made Man On Wire, the 2008 documentary about the brazen Frenchman who walked a tightrope between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center in 1974.  Here is my brief capsule review of Man On Wire (also from 2008):

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If there truly is life on other planets, I hope that France is not the first country to make contact.  The French are just not like the rest of the people of earth.  Only a man born and raised in France could ever say something like this, talking about a life-threatening stunt:  “If I die.. what a beautiful death, to die in the exercise of your passion.”

And only a Frenchwoman could state about that speaker, admiringly:  “Every day is like a work of art for him.”

That kind of thinking is what is so fascinating and so maddening about the French.  Man On Wire is a documentary about the group of young people who snuck into the Twin Towers in New York City in 1974 so that one of them could walk a tightrope between them.  A truly thrilling, truly pointless act.  The movie bounces between modern-day interviews, archived footage, and re-enactments, staging the preparation of the stunt like a crime movie (which technically, it is), and leaving the ultimate historical context in the background, without exactly ignoring it.

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So as you can see, James Marsh is something of an expert in vividly detailing the bold follies and arguable successes of iconoclastic endeavors enacted in the 1970s.  Both Philippe Petit, the daredevil, and Herbert Terrace, the scientist, had unique and frankly crazy notions, enlisted collaborators, and undertook their respective projects.  The significant difference is, only one of them pulled it off.

What follows is my stream-of-consciousness as I first watched Project Nim.  It’s all fun and games until someone… well, you’ll see.

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9:26 PM – Watching Project Nim. This is some crazy shit. This lady is breastfeeding the chimpanzee already and it’s only ten minutes into the movie.

9:31 PM – The chimp is smoking pot and drinking beers. There’s weird sex talk also. Matt Broderick had Project X?  This is shaping up to be PROJECT XXX.

9:32 PM – So far, the moral seems to be that chimps are smart like humans, but should not be raised by swingers. Good advice all around.

9:40 PM – The following is a list of some of the words the scientists taught young Nim to use.

One word is not like the others.

9:46 PM – Chimp is a cat person.

Note: This is not Nim but I was determined to find a picture of a chimp holding a kitten.

9:49 PM – These lab people are hooking up with each other all over the place. I’m starting to think that the 1970s porno-professor guy is not the best role model for Nim.

9:54 PM – Nim is currently dry-humping a kitten.  Guess I was right about the influence, unfortunately.

10:02 PM – If this were a feature, the porno-professor guy would be played by Hector Elizondo.

Sadly, that means Garry Marshall would be the one directing.

10:05 PM – If Caesar and Koba were ever to see this movie, they’d be PISSED. #riseoftheplanetoftheapes

10:20 PM – Chimp is smoking pot again.

PINE-APE-LE EXPRESS. #wrongmovie

10:48 PM – Done. That story took some real dark turns. And you all should definitely see it. #projectnim

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What I was getting at, by the end of the string there, is the sense this movie leaves you with, that sinking suspicion that Nim is no better off for having been raised and “educated” by humans than he would have been had he been left to grow up in the wilderness with his birth movie.

In fact, the movie would seem to be ammunition for a considerable argument that Nim’s exposure to humanity, our emotional, impetuous inconsistencies and our heartless, bullheaded bureaucracies, was singularly destructive to his life and his happiness.  Every last bit of heartache we see in the course of this film may or may not have been circumvented by simply leaving well enough alone in the first reel.

So as good as this movie is, and as simultaneously calmly objective and subtly persuasive as it is, don’t expect anybody to learn anything.  Man has been meddling with nature since we first started poking saber-toothed tigers with sticks.  It’ll be that way until the dinosaurs come back and the last man on earth is working on taming hyper-evolved velociraptors.

Sorry, were you expecting less cynicism about our stupid self-centered pink species?  Maybe if you’d caught me earlier in the month, before I stumbled across news stories like this one, or maybe this one, or maybe the thousands of similar ones from the past week alone.  But no, this is man we’re talking about.  We’re the ones who pull the wings off butterflies and then act befuddled that they don’t fly or look as pretty as they used to.  Project Nim can be seen as a cautionary tale, but since it can only fall across the eyes of the most casually recidivist species that has ever existed on Planet Earth, it’s unlikely that the caution can be heeded.

In the meantime, I can be found on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

Live on @Twitter: THE APPLE (1980).

 

For all the shit that gets talked about Cleopatra, Heaven’s Gate, Ishtar, Howard The Duck, Gigli, Waterworld, and John Carter, 1980′s The Apple is one of the lesser-acknowledged costly debacles in cinematic history.  Coming from the legendary Golan-Globus production team, The Apple is a sci-fi disco musical/ Biblical allegory set in a future America (1994!) but filmed in Germany.

Wait, what? 

A couple Israelis take an inexperienced Canadian cast to Germany in order to tell a story about the religious collapse of a futuristic version of America, and the entire thing is set to song?  At the apex of the disco era? 

No way that could fail, right?

Now that you know what it is, here’s what happened when I watched The Apple at 2am one morning while signed in to Twitter:

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Now watching The Apple, because I love weird disasters and torturing myself with movies.

Here’s the trailer to The Apple:

 

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This movie is already hysterical.

Since one of the first sights we witness is that of a battalion of armored policemen synchronized in dance, I have no choice but to follow this movie wherever it leads.

From what I can tell thus far, The Apple is basically a nihilistic, dystopian Running Man/ American Idol fantasia.

The Apple presents us with the Golan-Globus team’s idea of the future, which in 1980 is how they referred to 1994.

Who are Golan-Globus?  The production team of Menahem Golan (The Apple‘s writer & director) and Yoram Globus, they also brought us Cobra, Over The Top, the Breakin‘ films, and a whole lot of ninja movies, among others.

     

   

And this is their musical.

Here’s the opening scene:

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(Notice how this movie uses the word “bim” more often than my pals over on Tremont Avenue do.) #thebronx #theapple #urbandictionary

Choose any scene at random, and two things become clear:  A) This movie is an absolute disaster, and B) it’s hard to discard the notion that it’s still got more imagination in five frames than most movies do in fifty minutes.

Half an hour into the movie, and they’ve gone to Hell for a musical sequence with animal masks. There are no longer words.  There are, however, vampires.

 

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But is there a reggae-aerobics musical number? Yes! There is that also.

 

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The kaleidoscopic musical number “Coming” marks the first time I’ve ever seen a musical number that is explicitly about fucking.

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A disco-porno-sci-fi musical featuring clowns, midgets, and Canadians? Yeah. There’s plenty here to chew on comedically.

You might have noticed “Mr. Boogalow.”  He’s this movie’s incarnation of the Devil, and he is mentioned by name very many times. 

There he is, the shit version of Roy Scheider in ALL THAT JAZZ.

Glad I’m not drinking while watching  because if I was, I’d drink every time someone said “Mr. Boogalow”, and if I did that, I’d be dead.

At one point in the story, the young hero seeks refuge in a colony of hippies “from the 1960s.”  Hippies from the 1960s still partying in 1994.  Do you know what that means?  GOLAN-GLOBUS PREDICTED WOODSTOCK ’94!!!

The movie’s heroine is played by Catherine Mary Stewart, who I loved in Night Of The Comet.  Me and every other horror nerd in the universe.

Catherine Mary Stewart in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.

Catherine Mary Stewart in THE APPLE.

 

Catherine Mary Stewart’s character in The Apple is named Bibi, which is also the name of the robot from Deadly Friend. #Iwatchbadmovies

BB in DEADLY FRIEND.

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Catherine Mary Stewart is lovely, but did you know The Apple also gives you a svelte young Miriam Margolyes (The Age Of Innocence, Romeo + Juliet, James & The Giant Peach, Magnolia)? 

Miriam Margolyes as you may know her today.

Miriam Margolyes in THE APPLE.

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And as long as we’re looking up pictures of distinguished character actors who appeared in The Apple, let’s all take a moment to enjoy Joss Ackland’s IMDb headshot:

 

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You know Joss Ackland as De Nomolos from Bill & Ted‘s Bogus Journey, or as the villain in Lethal Weapon 2. 

“Diplomatic immunity.”

True Hollywood Trivia!:  When director Richard Donner heard Joss Ackland’s …um… distinctive singing voice in The Apple, he considered adding a musical number to the climax of Lethal Weapon 2. #nottrue 

Revision to True Hollywood Trivia!:  If there had been a musical number in Lethal Weapon 2, it would have been called “Diplomatic Immunity.” #definitelytrue 

Just so you know: Near the end of The Apple, God comes down from the clouds in a space-Bentley and walks all the hippies up to heaven.

I was all doped up with cold medicine when I watched The Apple so it seems fair to consider the possibility that I hallucinated that last part. #butIdidnt

IMDb reports that: “Reportedly, during [the premiere of The Apple], audiences threw their free souvenir soundtracks at the screen, causing extensive damage.”  Yet the damage had already been done.

IMDb also reports, “Director Menahem Golan has said that he felt like committing suicide after the picture was booed at the 1980 Montreal Film Festival.” 

I know how Golan felt, or at least I have ever since I wrote up the phrase “a svelte young Miriam Margolyes.”

Seriously though, imagine having to watch this movie over and over again in the editing room.  The rest of us only have to watch The Apple one or none times.  How many times did Menahem Golan have to watch it?  And is it any wonder why he turned his attention primarily towards making violent revenge movies afterwards? 

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If you want to learn more about The Apple, there’s this review of the DVD from Entertainment Weekly (they gave it an A!!!), or better still…

Please check out the epic episode of the great Projection Booth podcast which features interviews from many of the principals, including Catherine Mary Stewart.  It gives a thorough picture of the production and the reception of this uniquely bizarre movie, and features more than the usual amount of utterances of the word “Menahem”, which is also great.

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And if you’re in need of more from me, follow me on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

Live on @Twitter: DARK TIDE (2012).

Leave your high-concepts on your smartphones, eggheads:  All you really have to do to arch my eyebrows is to combine the phrases “great white sharks” and “Halle Berry” into the same sentence.

Dark Tide is the newest movie from star Halle Berry and director John Stockwell, and it’s not great news for either of them (or a good sign to the rest of us) that it went straight to DVD without a theatrical release.  Halle Berry is, of course, a world-famous movie star, but you might not know who John Stockwell is.  In addition to being an actor himself (Top Gun, Christine, My Science Project) and apparently the uncle of Florence from Florence + The Machine, he’s successfully transitioned into a career as a director of some note.  I was really into his movie Crazy/Beautiful, not so much Into The Blue — see, it takes more than Jessica Alba in a bikini to get me excited about a movie!

It takes Halle Berry in a bikini.  And great white sharks.

My history with Dark Tide is A) featuring it in my Top 50 Most Awaited of 2012 list, B) making fun of the poster (the more moody one above is much better), and C) finally watching the movie.  Despite its attention-getting elements — again, those being Halle Berry and great white sharks, as I will keep repeating because it gives me joy — the movie couldn’t fully hold my attention.  The following is what happened when I took to Twitter during Dark Tide.  (Watch as the enthusiasm is bludgeoned out of me, in real-time!)

(Note the hilariously non-self-aware tagline.  No character in this film exhibits courage at any point during the events depicted.)

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Watching the shit out of Dark Tide, the movie where Halle Berry cavorts with great white sharks at Seal Island. It’s my kind of bad movie.  [OR SO I THOUGHT AT FIRST...]

• Serious film scholars would weep at the numbers of great films I haven’t bothered to see just because they don’t have Halle Berry or great white sharks.

“The funny thing about memories is, you remember the good ones, and forget the shitty.” — Halle Berry as “Kate Mathiesen”, #DarkTide

• No offense, but “Kate Mathiesen” is scarcely plausible as the name of a character played by Halle Berry.

In real life, Halle Berry has apparently shacked up with her Dark Tide costar, Olivier Martinez (who is very French). They must have bonded over their career-worst acting in this flick.

That isn’t to say that this Olivier Martinez guy could necessarily point us to an example of his career-best acting.

• “Jeff Mathieson” is scarcely plausible as the name of a character played by Olivier Martinez.

It’s a legitimate cruelty, what this French guy is doing to the English language. It was funny at first but now my ears ache.

CREEP FACTOR:  A shot lasting a minute has Halle Berry bending over in a bikini while some guy off-camera goes, “Now that’s more like it.”  #skeevy

Two characters watching a shark swim past the boat.

“He’s huge…”

“She’s a he.”

“How do you know it’s a male?”

“I can see his claspers on his anal fins. Essentially that’s like two penises.” #DarkTide

SAFETY NOTE:  If you’re ever at the beach and you hear the word “claspers”, get the fuck out of the water immediately and don’t ever look back.

• ON A PERSONAL NOTE:  The only character more unbearable than the French guy is the dude driving the boat. He’s the Afrikaaner Robin Williams. #accents

CINEMATIC BLACK-GUY DEATH TOLL 2012: So far the only two shark victims in this movie have been black.  What the hell is it with this particular cliche?  Every single white character is completely insufferable, yet the sharks only hunger for the brothers. I hate movies sometimes.

RIP, guy on Halle’s right.

• Innovative overboard vomiting shot. #check

“He wants to see big ones? I’ll show him big ones.” — Halle Berry, #DarkTide

• It’s been a while since I’ve seen a film with a complete absence of story.  This is one of them.  Despite all the bikini stuff, believe it or not, I’d actually like to have a story too.

I’m sure it sounds like I’m not enjoying this movie much, and I’m not, but they’re periodically showing GWS footage so I continue.

The Australians call that a Yoooge shaaahhk!

• We were promised the movie would end after an hour & 34 minutes. We’re well past that. Occasionally #IMDb and #Netflix will lie.

The moral of #DarkTide is: Do not get into a shark cage at Seal Island in the middle of a typhoon. Anybody on earth considering doing that?

Find me on Twitter, where this kind of thing happens all the time: @jonnyabomb

Screening in NYC: MILK (2008).

 

Gus Van Sant’s Milk is screening at MoMA as part of their 10th Anniversary Salute to Focus Features.  Milk could arguably be called Van Sant’s Malcolm X, a historical drama of historical importance and a keystone work in the filmography of a fiercely original and occasionally frustrating filmmaker.  This is what I wrote about Milk in January 2009.  You can take out the reference to Prop 8 in California and swap in a reference to North Carolina’s decision to ban same-sex marriage. 

In several ways, Milk might just be the best movie of 2008.  For sure, there isn’t an award for which it’s so far collected nominations and wins that it hasn’t absolutely deserved.

Let’s start with Sean Penn:  I am a huge admirer of the man’s work, on-screen and off-screen, but seriously now – I don’t think he’s had a role in which he’s given a non-malevolent smile in decades.

In Milk, he beams.

You really do forget you’re watching Sean Penn, broody acting genius, and are persuaded that you are seeing an entirely different persona.  Penn makes us care about Harvey Milk, both in his political and his personal lives.  The entire ensemble, mostly male, mostly playing gay, is of a piece with Penn’s sympathetic portrayal.  James Franco, Diego Luna, Emile Hirsch, the great Victor Garber, and particularly Josh Brolin, as Milk’s probably-closeted, most ferocious nemesis, Dan White, all give canny and bold performances, the strongest possible support to Penn’s textured embodiment of a character very different than his own public persona.

So now Milk performs the remarkable achievements of convincing its audience of Harvey Milk’s positive legacy by helping us understand him as a person; of depicting the senseless tragedy of his assassination – without in any way making a simple monster out of the pathetic, confused Dan White; and in addition to those achievements, inspires one to march right out of the theater and join the continuing struggle against discrimination and hate of all kinds.

No one who sees Milk, other than a bigot who needs to work harder to change, will leave it wanting anything other than seeing that contemptible Proposition 8 in California repealed.  I don’t like to bring up politics in this space if I can help it, but at this point, it’s a civil rights issue.  Anyone can feel free to disagree on that, but if they manage to get into it with me, they ought to be prepared to have their argument entirely decimated.  There is no good reason why gay people should not have the same rights as any other group in America – they love and lose and live and die just the same as the rest of us do – and this movie has the power to show why.

Find me on Twitter: @jonnyabomb

 

 

 

See This Movie Now!: BERNIE (2012).

Bernie is a friendly little film about friendship, truth, and murder, and what’s more, it has the feel of something new: I’ve been playing around with the term “documockumentary.” The restlessly creative director, Richard Linklater, wrote the movie with Skip Hollandsworth, the journalist who wrote the article in Texas Monthly upon which this fictionalized true-life account was based. The story is a whopper; its telling is even better.

In small-town Texas, (Carthage to be exact), Miss Marjorie Nugent, an elderly, church-going woman whose departed husband left behind a sizable wealth, was murdered by the town’s assistant mortician, Bernie Tiede. Marjorie wasn’t a beloved figure in town but she and Bernie were best of friends, to the point where she rewrote her will to leave her money to him. After killing Marjorie, Bernie hid the body and carried on for nine whole months as if it hadn’t happened. Once he was finally caught, Bernie immediately confessed to the crime, yet there are plenty in Carthage who still refuse to believe that he did it. Marjorie may not have been beloved, but Bernie was, and it’s an old story that perception counts for plenty in the court of public opinion.

It’s a pleasing irony that Bernie the movie feels so much like a documentary, considering that Bernie and Marjorie are played by Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine, two of the most outsized film actors on the planet. Jack Black is known as a pop-comic barely equalled in modern comedy for his energy and anarchic enthusiasm, whereas Shirley MacLaine has, over the course of a film career that has seen her go charisma for charisma against massive stars the likes of Clint Eastwood, Dolly Parton, Jack Nicholson, and Frank Sinatra, built up an on-screen and off-screen persona as a formidable battle-axe of a lady. For what Linklater is up to with Bernie, he couldn’t have cast it any more perfectly. Is it possible that Bernie was quite as boundlessly spry as Jack Black is? Is it possible that Marjorie was nearly as intimidating as Shirley MacLaine is? Maybe so and maybe not, but that’s definitely the way their friends and neighbors seemed to perceive them.

What makes the movie feel so fresh and so enjoyable is that Linklater, in a narrative masterstroke, has stocked the movie with a mixture of local Texas-area actors and actual Carthage townspeople, many of whom actually knew Bernie and Marjorie. The movie is structured like a documentary, where the peripheral characters are interviewed about their experiences with Bernie and Marjorie and their knowledge and opinions of the crime, while the actors “recreate” the dramatic scenes in between.

This gives the movie an uncommon sense of local atmosphere and believability (the older fella who describes Texas geography is worth admission all by his own self), but also a hugely comical friction, considering that we’re watching real people interact with real-deal Hollywood movie stars. While Shirley MacLaine either doesn’t, can’t, or chooses not to disappear fully into character (which isn’t a huge deal since, let’s be honest, she ain’t in the movie for as long), Jack Black gives one of his very greatest performances as the sprightly Bernie Tiede.

Jack Black is a guy who it’s somehow become easy to take for granted. He started out doing brief roles in baroque movies like Mars Attacks! and Demolition Man, started gaining steam in the alt-comedy scene with Mr. Show and Tenacious D, and then broke huge with his revelatory supporting role in High Fidelity and with his over-charged lead role in Linklater’s own School Of Rock. Like any major comedy star, he’s ended up in as many bad movies as good ones, which has seemed to put him in the Robin Williams category in too many minds. I hope that enough people see Bernie to be reminded of what a phenomenal talent Jack Black is.

For one thing, he’s really playing a character here, not doing a riff on what has come to be recognizable as the hyperactive “Jack Black” persona. He’s actually using that expectation against you, as he plays a very different person so very well. It helps that Bernie isn’t exactly a low-energy role — Jack gets to channel that contagious energy into another direction. There is a key scene where Bernie plays the lead in a community-theater version of The Music Man where Black gets to unleash the full force of his remarkable performing ability, and it’s actually one of the best musical moments we’re likely to see on screen all year. But it’s not Tenacious D and it’s not Kung Fu Panda. It’s something very unlike any role Black has played before, which makes it all the more rewarding.

If you, as many people, see Jack as “the indie-rock Belushi”, it’s another layer of humor to see him play a guy who sings along with gospel music in the car, sings like an angel at church, acts with the most proper Southernly table manners, and, if he isn’t gay, sure doesn’t take much interest in the ladies other than in the most sisterly way. That last point is one of the most fascinating parts of the story — Linklater and Black play Bernie’s sexuality as kind of an artful dodge. By all reasonable appearances, Bernie is a gay man, but while the question is raised, it never seems to ultimately matter that much. It’s especially rewarding to see how the very Southern town of Carthage loves and embraces Bernie despite every sign of him being outwardly homosexual besides the -sexual. As Northerners, we probably don’t expect that kind of tolerance. And maybe there isn’t even that much tolerance — maybe people just loved Bernie THAT much.

This is where the third central performance of the movie comes in. Matthew McConaughey plays Danny Buck Davidson, Carthage’s District Attorney (another real person), who is determined to prosecute Bernie for the murder of an old widow despite the overwhelming pro-Bernie sentiment in town. McConaughey, who made such a strong comedic impression all the way back in Linklater’s Dazed And Confused and always seems to be at his best as an eccentric character actor rather than a straight-ahead leading man, not only seems at home in the world in this movie but also does something somewhat extraordinary when he’s the odd man out: He’s both the movie’s straight man and a satirical figure at the same time. McConaughey’s reactions as the townsfolk harangue him to let that poor Bernie go are hysterical, but so too are his brag-heavy pronouncements to every camera in a five-mile radius. Danny Buck comes off as the voice of reason (sure Bernie is a nice guy, but he also did kill somebody) and as totally silly at the same time. It’s just another aspect of the warm, inclusive anima of the movie, which has fun with its characters even while recognizing that everyone is a human being with thoughts and feelings and all are worth hearing out, whether they’re on the right track or otherwise.

I have so much affection for this movie. It’s modest, in that it’s not filled with space robots, farting cartoons, or punching people in latex suits, but narratively speaking it’s a high-wire act that I think is pulled off with wit and charm. Again, it’s one of Jack Black’s best performances, and it’s one of Richard Linklater’s most successful and accessible experiments. Most incredibly, unlike so many movies, there isn’t a single dull moment in Bernie. It’s thoroughly entertaining and engaging, and if I see many more movies I enjoyed as much this year, I’ll be feeling pretty good about life.

Find me on Twitter!: @jonnyabomb

Things I Did For Love: THE SMURFS (2011).

I enjoy a fair amount of autonomy in my moviegoing choices, but that isn’t always the case.  Sometimes someone else gets to pick the movie.  That’s how I ended up seeing The Smurfs.  It is and it isn’t as awful as you expect it to be.  Here is a collection of the thoughts that went through my head while loaded up on sugary snacks and watching The Smurfs.

• In the beginning:  The movie starts off with the most generic narration possible, but that turns out to be the mellodious voice of a new Smurf character, Narrator Smurf.  That was a joke I liked!  You’ll be able to count them on one Smurf hand.

       

• Quick recap:  The Smurfs live in a faraway valley where everyone happens to know all the most recent American pop songs.  Prominent Smurfs featured include Papa Smurf (voice of Jonathan Winters), Jokey Smurf (voice of Paul Reubens), George Lopez Smurf (voice of George Lopez) and Smurfette (voice of cartoonish pop star Katy Perry.) So as you can see, the voice cast represents something of a distressing downward-tilting timeline of American comedy legends.

 

 

• On the movie’s special effects:  To be fair, the movie Smurfs aren’t exactly the worst CGI creations a movie has foisted upon us (the needle is pushed once you’ve seen Birddemic), but to be fair again, The Smurfs do have those Scooby-Doo/Yogi Bear blank soulless eyes that have obviously glimpsed the true face of Satan.

 

 

• On the Smurfette issue:  Smurfette is the only female Smurf in a village full of male Smurfs.  I understand why everyone’s sex questions usually center around Smurfette, but here’s an equally pertinent question:  How come we never see Vanity Smurf attempting to bugger the rumps of all those other Smurf dudes?  You just know he has to be noticing Hefty or Handy while they’re walking around out there, lifting stuff, without their shirts on.  It’s 2012!  Let Vanity Smurf be openly out of the mushroom closet.

      

 

• More on the plot, and on Smurf diction:  The Smurfs travel to New York City via some method I already forgot about. When they get there, George Lopez Smurf asks, “Where the Smurf are we?” Try explaining that one to your kids. Smurf this, Smurf that, Smurf you… When you really think about it, these Smurfs are foul-mouthed little buggers.

 

They mean "Fuck."

 

• On the rest of the cast:  I like a lot of the ‘human’ actors in this movie, but I also wonder what the thought process is when it comes to taking a role in a Smurfs movie.  There can’t be any artistic fulfillment for them.  You’re not getting much occasion to stretch your acting ability.  This isn’t even really a movie you could show to even the youngest of kids with any kind of pride.  I mean, if you want to take the money, that’s fine, I get it, life is expensive, but maybe they should announce which charity they’re donating to, so we can maintain our respect for them.  I guess what I’m really pondering here is why Sofia Vergara will appear in a movie this useless, but she won’t show those boobs.  Which act is ultimately more harmful to one’s karma?  Which would make more people happy?  Just because this is an unfortunately piggish thought doesn’t mean that everybody’s not having it.

                   

• One encouraging thing did happen during the movie though: In a Times Square scene, there’s a Community billboard. Score one for the good guys.

 

• It’s also nice that the script factors Peyo, the creator of the Smurfs, into the Smurf legend.  In a world where the best kind of creator recognition we usually see is Stan Lee playing a hot dog vendor in a Fantastic Four sequel, this was a genuinely sweet touch.   

 

• Also to its credit, the movie raises a question I’ve always wondered about: How do Smurfs get their names? Is it nature or nurture? For example: Does Brainy Smurf become a nerd because his name is Brainy Smurf, or is he born a nerd and he was given a name that captured his essence accurately from the start?  It’s a quandary for the ages, but just as you’re getting all fired up to ponder Smurf philosophy, the movie bypasses any answers.  The question is dropped as soon as it’s asked.  That’s what you call a major Smurftease.

 

• Some actors have a more arduous journey to the top:  Rising star Anton Yelchin plays Clumsy Smurf, who actually gives a better performance here than he did in Star Trek. Think that one over.

 

• Not every SNL star can be Kristen Wiig:  Kenan Thompson (Good Burger) plays a Smurf, which I get – he has experience playing cartoons from Fat Albert.  But Fred Armisen?  I thought he was the indie-cred SNL guy.  So much for that.  I would love to hear him explain this to his friends in Sleater-Kinney.

 

• This has been fun, but there will be no discussion of Hank Azaria’s performance as Gargamel.  It’s shockingly, brazenly, thoroughly atrocious,  the kind of thing that makes you lose all confidence in us as a species. I know the guy is talented, and it’ll depress me too much to revisit this part of the experience, so let’s not go into it.

 

• On Writing:  There are four credited screenwriters on this movie.  All four are reportedly adults.

 

• On Music:  At this point, you may be wondering, is there an embarrassing ‘hip-hop’ rendition of the Smurfs theme song in the Smurfs movie? Yes there is.  It sounds exactly like whatever you’re hearing in your head right now, and I’m sorry to have planted that seed.

 

• Romance:  Finally, you should be aware that there is a recurring joke where George Lopez Smurf comes onto a green M&M.  Let me clarify:  I mean he falls in love with an M&M and keeps hitting on it.  I don’t remember if there was any “Melts In Your Mouth” innuendo, but probably there was.  It’s a little weird.

 

Ironically, since this movie came out, Vanessa Williams has started doing the voice of the brown M&M.  Now George Lopez Smurf wanting a bit of THAT, I could almost get.

 

Overall, I have to admit that The Smurfs exceeded my expectations.  Going in, I thought it was gunning for a spot on my list of the worst movies I have ever seen, and in the end it only made the lower 20-30% zone.  It’s bad, but forgettably bad, rather than the brain’s equivalent of stepping in dogcrap.  I’ve seen plenty worse.  I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. 

[Revisit my descent into movie madness!] 

Sometimes with a movie like this, you’ll hear an illiterate reviewer say something like, “If you are an adult with the heart of a child, you will love this movie.”  I suppose that’s possible.  You may be an adult who recently got a heart transplant, and the donor was a young child.  That’s intense.  It wouldn’t be for me or anyone else to take away the joy of any movie from you under those circumstances.  You’ve been through a lot.  I do hope that you enjoy The Smurfs.

But everybody else, you know, if you have any choice, don’t see it.

 

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