I really surprised myself this time around with the sheer contrast of film styles contained in this post. It's amazing what you come across when you don't really care what you watch.
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Annie (1982)
I hate the Little Orphan Annie character. I hate precocious child actors. Most importantly, I hate musicals. I loved South Park : Bigger, Longer, Uncut , but I don't consider that to be a 'true' musical. Annie was in theatres when I was a kid, and I remember vowing to myself that I would never, never, never, ever, ever see this movie. Now, 28 years later, I have two young girls at home and a wife who loved this film as a child. I was backed into a corner when it came to seeing it. It was a choice of either watching this on a Sunday afternoon with my kids or get off the couch and do some chores. Being as lazy as I am, this was hardly a choice at all.
I would love to say that it completely changed my attitude and made me a believer, but I can't say that. I still hate Little Orphan Annie, I still hate child actors and I think it made me remember why I hate musicals. But.....(here it is folks - I'll never repeat this).....Annie wasn't that bad.
I wasn't exactly blown away, but I didn't hate it, and seeing how much the kids liked it made me smile, and that's worth something. My girls are 6 and 2, and both love to dance and sing, so this was perfect for them. It was exuberant, funny, exciting and very sad (ie: sappier than a Waltons episode). The music, I'll admit, was well done and kind of catchy. Carol Burnett was hilarious (and a good singer), Tim Curry and Albert Finney were good in their roles, and even Bernadette Peters wasn't half as annoying as she normally is. The girl who played Annie was/is an excellent singer and dancer. I think she was grown in a secret laboratory somewhere in the cellars of Radio City Music Hall - she's an unstoppable Broadway monster.
I still can't believe that I'm saying this, but I'd give Annie a hard-won C+
(Mostly because my kids would give it an A.)
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War of the Gargantuas (1970)
Speaking of unstoppable monsters...here's a good one (or two, rather). Being a giant monster movie fan, I have to say that War of the Gargantuas is one of the most clear-cut cases of "so bad that it's good" that this genre will ever see. (I still have yet to see any Gamera movies or Reptilicus - the Danish produced giant monster puppet movie.)
As for visuals, well, what can I say? I wasn't expecting Lord of the Rings. The monster costumes look terrible and totally unconvincing, but the miniature sets (as with all Toho movies) are impressive. They probably should have spent more time on the monsters and less on the scenery.
Acting? I guess you could call it that. It was very funny to watch the American actor Russ Tamblyn speak all of his lines in English while conversing with horribly overdubbed Japanese actors. I can't tell if he's playing it for laughs or if we're supposed to think he's cool or something. (He's not cool.)
The story is wickedly supid - something about clones of the Japanese Frankenstein monster; one good (Brown) and one evil (Green). The army is just about to kill the Green Gargantua, and suddenly the Brown Gargantua shows up and saves his life. Later on, Brown scolds Green for eating people and chases him to (where else?) Tokyo. Lots of tiny buildings get flattened, lots of stuff blows up, and cool toy laser cannons constantly shoot at the monsters throughout the entire movie. In the end, a volcano pops out of nowhere and they both die in red-hot magma. Someone gives one of those 'perhaps the world wasn't ready for them' kind of speeches at the end and everyone who hasn't been eaten or stepped on goes home happy.
In summary, War of the Gargantuas is not just so bad that it's good; it's so bad that it's AWESOME!!!
Check your brain at the door.
A
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The Garden (2008)
I am somewhat of a documentary film fan, mostly because of Michael Moore. I'm pretty much a leftie, so I like the films that portray the rich and powerful as the bad guys and the common folk as the good guys. The Garden has some of that aspect to it, but this story is a lot more complex and layered than I expected.
Remember the L.A. Riot of 1992? Well, it seems that a large portion of the South Central 'landscape' (ie: ghetto) was burned to the ground, and the land was turned over to the people to use as an urban agricultural site. It was truly amazing to see what these local residents created out of nothing. Here's an aerial view of the site at it's peak:
For something like ten or twelve years, it existed as the largest urban farm in the world. It supplied fresh produce to hundreds of poor families in the surrounding community. Then the actual owner of the land decided he wanted to use it for something else and turn a profit again. The film is all about the lawsuits, appeals, personal conflicts, solidarity, cheers and tears associated with the struggle to keep the garden in tact and in the hands of the local farmers.
It is a well-told story that doesn't emulate Michael Moore's sometimes preachily (is that a word?) overdubbed narrative style, or even contain any narrative by the filmmaker at all. The story is told by the people who lived it through interviews and 'on the scene' footage. I can't say too much more about what happens, because I recommend that you see this movie and see how it all plays out. Not the best documentary film I've ever seen, but a very, very good one.
A-
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Justice League : Crisis on Two Earths (2010)
I like comics. I specifically like Marvel comics. I just grew up with Spider-Man and the Hulk instead of Superman and Batman. Lately however, I've been hopping the fence into the DC universe, and I'm loving the vacation from Marvel. DC seems to have a lot more going on in terms of full-length animated movies compared to the other guys, so there's a lot of DVDs in the video store to choose from. Marvel has a a handful of really good ones, but lately I guess they're too busy producing flashy, big-budget live-action movies with storylines that too often do nothing to capture the spirit of the source material. I think I prefer the animated features because they are really just moving comic books, and thus can adapt to the (often outrageous) storylines more fluidly.
As you would expect, all of the greatest DC heroes are in this one (except Ambush Bug, who sadly never made it into the Justice League). If you look at the above still shot from the movie and you know anything about comics, you'll notice that yes, that is in fact Lex Luthor standing shoulder to shoulder with Superman and the rest of the good guys against a common foe. Turns out that he's actually the heroic version of Lex Luthor from a parallel universe, who crosses the dimensional gulf to recruit the Justice League to fight against the corrupt Mafia-esque version of the JL from his own universe who rule there with an iron fist. Needless to say, they're a little skeptical about helping him. Batman outright refuses and stays where he is while the others go to the other Earth to try to stop the evil Justice League. (The Injustice League?)
This parallel Earth has it's own version of Superman (Ultraman, who is the 'Boss of Bosses' and talks like DeNiro), Wonder Woman (Super Woman, the biggest, toughest, scarist evil bee-yotch you'll ever see), Batman (a genocidal psychopath voiced excellently by James Woods), Green Lantern, the Flash and all of the other heroes. Crisis on Two Earths is chock full of super-powered brawls between the two teams with absolutely no punches pulled. When it comes to sheer super-powered ass-kicking, Marvel animated productions have nothing on this film. Normally, I don't like a lot of violence in my films, but when Superman knocks some bad guy through a wall, down the street and leaves him in a smoldering crater miles away - well, that's just plain cool. Plus it's animated, so there's no fatalities and barely any blood, so that means it's okay. The sweet sounds of punches, explosions and energy beams going off resound throughout pretty much the entire length of this film. That's exactly what I paid for.
I think I'm becoming a DC fan after all....
A
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Youth in Revolt (2009)
I'll be brief with this one. Michael Cera, who is enjoying an upswing in his career with Scott Pilgrim right now (no, I haven't seen it), is kind of whatever to me. Not that he's a bad actor, but just that I don't find him the least bit funny or interesting at all. This movie has an excellent supporting cast - including Steve Buscemi, Ray Liotta, Zach Galifianakis, Jean Smart and Fred Willard - and they're all given worthy comedic parts to play. The story is pretty ludicrous but somewhat entertaining, and is produced in the currently hot 'black comedy' style by Bob and Harvey Weinstein. It's not as funny as Superbad like the DVD cover says, but if you believe any of the critics' quotes they print on those things, I feel sorry for you.
Just like Michael Cera, this movie is just kind of whatever. I didn't dislike it, but my life is no better for having seen it. Just some filler to pass by my jaded movie-watching eyes for ninety minutes - no more, no less.
C+
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That's it for today! See you next time for something most likely to be completely different!
May the Force be with you...
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