Film is Pwn

Radioland Murders is an odd duck, no doubt.  A movie probably not a lot of people have heard of, and, though I’m fond of it, I don’t think many film connoisseurs will go to their grave regretting that they never saw that Brian Benben comedy Radioland Murders.

Radioland Murders is the brainchild of Star Wars creator George Lucas, which isn’t always a good thing (see the last Indiana Jones movie and the latter Star Wars trilogy for proof).  Released in 1994, Radioland Murders is caught somewhere between slapstick comedy and dark comedy, which is often an uneasy mix.  For better or worse, the imbalance is offset by the frenetic pace, which launches the audience from scene to scene and joke to joke, so if you don’t like one there’s a different one seconds later, and maybe you’ll like that one.

The setting is a 1930s radio station on its first night attempting to become the fourth national station.  The premiere is a red-carpet affair at a theater (yes, audiences actually used to attend radio events in person) and is not only fraught with madcap antics and catastrophes bordering on hilarity but also . . . (dramatic pause) . . . murder! (more…)

There have been a lot of good-to-great movies about cons and con men to date.   There’s the Robert Redford-Paul Newman classic The Sting to comedies like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to any number of terrific David Mamet films (Heist, Spanish Prisoner, The House of Games), and honestly my knee jerk reaction is that The Brothers Bloom is right up there with the best of them.  (Perhaps in an homage to Mamet, the Brothers Bloom begins with narration performed by Ricky Jay, a magician/actor who appears in most of Mamet’s films, and all three of the Mamet-con movies I referenced.)

There’s a pair of con man brothers, Bloom (Adrien Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) who work with a mostly mute Japanese demolitions expert appropriately named Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi).  Stephen is the master manipulator, the designer of the schemes who plots confidence games with the flair for the dramatic akin to 19th century Russian novelists.  Bloom is perpetually unsure of his role in the swindles, ever promising this job will be the last, and always being talked into one more by his protective big brother Stephen. (more…)

Scary movies are not my favorite genre.  It’s a matter of personal taste, of course. To me, fear isn’t an emotional response I want to plop down $10 at the theater in order to experience, especially when I can get it for free on the evening news.

I detest torture porn (the Saw franchise, Hostel, etc.) and I have no interest in slasher films (Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc.). The only kind of scary movie I actually get a kick out of is the spooky, Sixth Sensekind of movie, where the violence, if there is any, doesn’t exceed PG-13 caliber, and the terror is all in your mind as you wonder “What’s in the shadows?” (Yes, I know I’m a wuss, it’s something I’ve had to learn to live with ever since the “too scared to go on the Scooby Doo Rollercoaster” incident in my childhood.)
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Walking into the theatre, press pass dangling around my neck and garnering stares and questioning glances, New York Lately was exactly the type of movie I hoped for and expected. Don’t take that to mean that it was good. This is a Film Festival, having never been to one, I sat in anticipation imagining what it would be like. I pondered my lack of skinny jeans and ironic t-shirts; both of which would no doubt be uniform for the event. Then I imagined the type of movie a person wearing skinny jeans and an ironic t-shirt would make.

I’m not making fun of this as much as it might seem. I wish I was cool enough to wear skinny jeans and clever enough to have ironic t-shirts, but instead I just wear normal jeans and a button down shirt. I wished I had shaved to have cool facial hair of some sort, but alas I had to just be me. Then as we arrived and looked around, I didn’t see a single pair of skinny jeans, and since most everyone was in a uniform for the festival the ironic t-shirts had been left in the closet. I was acceptable.

Interestingly New York Lately was still much the type of movie I imagined those non-existent stereotypes would produce. It was along the vein of movies like Babel and Magnolia. It’s the story of several people whose lives intertwine in some intricate way to produce a story that paints the picture of modern life with its connections and isolation. The problem is that few of these characters seemed real and the stories didn’t really intertwine at all. So it was more like the make-believe stories of disjointed people.

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I had a very different review of New York Lately planned in my head as the closing credits rolled.  This was the first narrative film I’d seen at the Charlotte Film Festival, and I wasn’t impressed.  It was a full length feature, a notch above student films, but much of the cast looked like they were film student buddies of the director or struggling actors who happened to be available that week and were willing to work for half a Subway sandwich.  A couple performers stood above the rest (Mark DiConzo, Susan Cagle, and that’s the list), a couple scenes had some genuinely interesting moments, and I think I chuckled twice (this is a romantic-comedy-drama, or, as we with Press passes at film festivals say, a “rom-com-dram”.)

New York Lately is about a bunch of disparate, loosely connected New Yorkers falling out of love, falling in love, and looking for love.  There are familiar archetypes, like the two coffeehouse girls, one trying to become an actress and the other trying to become a singer; there’s the disaffected office worker who’s afraid his job — firing people, it seems — has sucked the soul out of him; there’s the guy whose girlfriend wants time apart, and he is torn between winning her back and moving on.
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This is another film that I stumbled over on the MGM-HD channel, and let me just say, Brenda Starr might just be the dumbest movie I’ve reviewed yet for Film Is Pwn, which says a lot coming off of a little film I like to call Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.  This is not “you-can-see-the-monster’s-zipper” stupidity or “the-digital-monsters-look-cheaper-than-the-Trix-rabbit” terrible, Brenda Starr is buffoonery at the plot level, idiotic from its very conception.

Brenda Starr is based on a long-running comic strip of the same name that I vaguely remember seeing many moons ago, when I actually got a newspaper and would turn to the funny pages for Calvin & Hobbes.  I assume a lot of the film is intended to by a Adam-West-era-Batman-style-camp affair, but it’s so painfully unfunny it can only be enjoyed as an object of ridicule and scorn.  A 20-year-old Brooke Shields plays Brenda Starr, and at this point of Brooke’s career as an actress . . . she’s a beautiful woman.  We’ll leave it at that.
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Jim Carrey’s Yes Man a funny comedy, the sort of starring vehicle for Carrey that he was cranking out when he broke out in the mid-90s: Material that utilizes his rubber face, manic energy, and man-child charm.  I criticized the premise when it initially appeared as being a remake of Carrey’s own Liar Liar (probably his best movie to date), except in Yes Man Carrey cannot say no, whereas in Liar Liar he could not tell a lie after a birthday wish from his son came magically true.  Call “Yes Man” “Yes Man Yes Man” and you’ve got yourself an official sequel, my friends.

There is a slightly different dynamic here, as Carrey’s character — Carl — is the unadventurous sort, turning down any and all opportunities outside his dreary routine.  A friend (John Michael Higgins) invites him to a “Yes!” seminar where Carl, being publicly confronted by the guru of the affirmative (Terence Stamp), makes a “covenant” that he will say yes to whatever opportunities are presented to him.  Carl gives it a shot but isn’t too convinced, especially after the first round of saying yes to everything sees him giving a ride, his phone, and his cash to a chatty homeless dude.  As soon as Carl breaks down and says “No,” horribly unlucky things happen, and Carl is convinced he must say “Yes” or the sky will fall. (more…)

Yes, laugh if you will, but I have seen Twilight.  If anyone asks, I did it for you, my beloved Film Is Pwn audience.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

In the weeks leading up to Twilight’s release on DVD, I could not exit my local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, which I frequent, without one of the young women behind the counter asking me if I’d like to reserve a copy of Twilight.  If I didn’t renting anything that store visit, a girl behind the counter would assume my lack of a selection was due entirely to the absence of Twilight, inform me its release date, and advise me how I could be assured of no delay in getting a copy of my own. Even if I’d slipped out sight unseen one of the girls would be waiting by my car to inquire as to my interest in pre-renting Twilight, as if there was major concern that I’d somehow be totally embittered at their store should I come and not be able to see that particular film.  In any case, my smart alec response to any Twilight queries was always a variation on, “No, thanks, I am not a teenage girl.”
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When I walked into the theater for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, suspected it would be bad (but I held out hope). I knew I already knew the whole story, much like the Ironman trailer the Button trailer had given away too much. The difference of course is that with the Button trailer all it needed to do is mention that a man ages backward to give away the entire movie.

After having seen the movie I found myself compelled to read the short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, one of my favorite authors. This story is short, not terribly interesting though entertaining in its sardonic view of the world. The movie was long, not terribly interesting and lacking the charm of the story and actually goes so far as to enter the realm of negative charm. Yes believe it or not this movie actually ranked a surprising -18 on my handy pocket-size-film-charm-detector. For comparison sake, Con Air ranked in at 0 and the average Pixar film is about an 85.

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I’ve got a theory about 1994’s most prestigious film featuring Jack Nicholson urinating on another dude’s leg: Wolf, starring Jack, Michelle Pfeiffer, and James Spader.  Before I get to the theory, which is just so crazy it just might be true, let me provide a relatively brief, spoiler-heavy synopsis of the film. All those who don’t want to know that at the end of the film Jack Nicholson’s character kills James Spader’s character in order to save Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, you are hereby forewarned and encouraged to read no further:

Will Randall (Nicholson) is the editor-in-chief of a esteemed New York publishing firm that has just been acquired by billionaire Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer).  Will’s two-faced protege Stewart Swinton (Spader) goes behind Will’s back to Alden and secures Will’s job out from under him.  In his defense, with a name like “Stewart Swinton” how can you not be a pretentious, two-faced huckster of some variety?  Not since Snidely Whiplash has there been a name better suited to unbridled villainy. Anyhoo, Will’s outlook is pretty bleak, until a chance encounter with a wolf on the highway rejuvenates him in a strange spiritual kind of way.  He instantly becomes less of a wuss more of a literal wolf and fights for his job, threatening to take his loyal authors to a new publishing house if he isn’t reinstated, and it works.

Will discovers that his wife Charlotte (Kate Nelligan) is cheating on him with that jerk Stewart, which fortunately frees Will up to pursue a relationship with Alden’s hot daughter, Laura (Pfeiffer), who is roughly one eightieth his age, but she doesn’t mind so why should we?  Charlotte is murdered, and everyone suspects Will is the culprit except for Laura, who hides him out.  It turns out Will thinks he might have actually done the deed, though Laura soon discovers that it is, in fact, Stewart who is the killer.  Stewart and Will battle over Laura’s fate, though you won’t be squeezing the ultimate conclusion out of me, no sir!

That’s the movie in a nutshell: a tale about political maneuverings at a publishing house (ooooh! Sexy!), a really old dude romancing a really young, really gorgeous woman (yuck!), and Hollywood’s 4,183rd “man wrongfully accused of murder battling the real killer” story to date (*checks watch*).  So how did this yawner get sold and get A-list talent attached?  Read on . . .
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You know, sometimes even I, Daniel John Muctarr Roos, the man erstwhile Film Is Pwn founding father Tom Stephens called “the Bad Movie King”, get tired of crappy action movies. Shocking, I know, but it’s true. (For those playing the “Where in the World Is Tom Stephens?” homegame, the latest rumor I’ve started – I mean heard - around the web is that Tom Stephens is laying low from the FBI and composing his manifesto in his quest to bring down capitalism.)

So what am I to do when I don’t want to watch a good movie, don’t want to watch a crappy action movie, and Planet Raptor flashbacks are preventing me from going near a Sci-Fi Channel Original? Well, since dull problems call for drastic measures, and I surfed the channels for something different to blog on, I am going to go where no man has gone before: A Lifetime Movie Network Original Movie, namely Final Verdict. That’s right, dreadful, made-for-TV movies aren’t just for guys any more!  In my defense, I want to stress that this is a murder mystery Lifetime Original, so it’s not just about affairs and abusive boyfriends and that kind of thing.  Still, I give you not just another guy movie, finally, something for the ladies . . .
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I have not yet seen Fireproof yet, but I was reminded of my admiration for this little movie that could when I read an article at nationalreview.com more on the movie’s success than the movie itself.  You can check out the article here. 

For those unaware, Fireproof is a family friendly movie made by Christians with a positive message about seeing a marriage through tough times.  Other than Kirk Cameron, no one in the cast is an experienced or trained actor.  Everyone, including Cameron, volunteered their time for the movie which was filmed on a shoe-string budget.  

Despite being dismissed by most critics (the same critics that love utter crap like Benjamin Button and Babel, so what do they know?), Fireproof came from outside the studio system blew away expectations at the box-office grossing approximately $33 million.  Every person I know who has seen the movie (and there have been several) give it a hearty recommendation, and on their behalf I endorse it as well.  I’ve never written a blog to praise a film I haven’t seen, but the fact that Fireproof’s success is a testimony to the financial viability of bonafide family – if not outright Christian – films.  Hollywood can finance Mike Myers’ the Love Guru but not one mainstream film designed to appeal to the enormous religious portion of the population?
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