More movies! Some Christmas ones peppered throughout.
21. Bad horror is great. Bad comedy is cringe-worthy. Jack Frost (1997) is the latter. The budget is small, but that’s no excuse for lazy writing. The whole thing is just kind of witless and joyless with a deficit of imaginative kills and a glut of bad post-murder catchphrases. Not near as fun as Santa’s Slay.
20. I hope you like parables of hood-life and the letter Z. Bloodz vs Wolvez (2006), directed by Z. Winston Brown, is the tale of inner-city werewolf hoods and upscale vampire realtors testing a new truce. Some of the actors are bringing it despite the terrible script, worse cinematography, and disorienting editing. Funniest thing about this flick is how every location is just a vacant room with no furniture or anything.
19. Admittedly, we were only able to find the supercut, so I feel like I need to find the full copy of Action U.S.A. (1989) and give it a real watch one day. Clearly made by stunt-people with a passion for explosions, car chases, dangling out of helicopters, and full body burns, this was incomprehensible (at least in the unfortunate format we experienced it) but had some fun and ridiculous moments. Maybe no Miami Connection or Samurai Cop, but then what is?
18. Harold Ramis’s final directorial effort was lambasted by critics for being juvenile, stupid, and pointless. And yeah, Year One (2009) starring Jack Black and Michael Cera (and a bevy of comedic actors in various bit parts), is all of those things, but honestly I didn’t hate it. It’s got cavepeople and episodically bounces around through various Old Testament stories with gleeful sacrilege. For an historically hated comedy, I expected worse. Maybe I’m an idiot or maybe my religious upbringing and biblical literacy made it something of a softball catharsis.
17. The Devil’s Sword (1983) is an Indonesian fantasy epic with magic, monsters, and kung-fu. Maybe not as streamlined and polished as some Hollywood fare, but it’s got some wacky fights and a sexy underground crocodile queen who kidnaps men on their wedding day to bang.
16. Shane Black almost can’t not write action movies set at Christmas. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), directed by Renny Harlin, has a great premise (a sleeper cell amnesiac rediscovering her previous killer identity like Jason Bourne), a solid cast (Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson), and a plot that’s just an excuse to lead into new implausible action set pieces. Not great, but worth it for Davis and Jackson.
15. After Diamond Cobra vs White Fox, we had to see more Deaundra T. Brown. Like the other film, Plum (2013) is an incomprehensible mess of narcissism, aliens, and awkward special effects. We loved it, but perhaps a little bit of Deaundra goes a long way and after Diamond Cobra and a buttload of her music videos, Plum didn’t possess the novelty factor of when we first encountered her unique cinematic vision. Still, it was a lot of fun and enjoyed it. The female Neil Breen rides again.
14. The Warriors (1979) are on the lam from a series of implausibly flamboyant gangs through a particularly seedy New York City. The plot is put into motion quickly and clearly and then we’re just running the whole movie. I dig modern takes on older stories. There’s just something unique and yet timeless about it. The Warriors was inspired by the ancient Greek saga Anabasis by Xenophon.
13. This movie is worth it just for that monster. British horror flick, Curse of the Demon (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur, is a fun bit of supernatural versus skepticism mystery. An American (Dana Andrews) investigating a weird cult leader (Niall MacGinnis) confronts the possibility that his materialist attitude may need some adjusting. My only complaint is it needed more of that monster.
12. Childish Gambino and Rihanna star in the musical Guava Island (2019), directed by Hiro Murai. On a little tropical paradise, the machinery of the industrialized world must never stop – not even for a little party. The beautiful locations and great tunes (although not nearly enough) make this, although I would have liked to see it developed a bit more. The politics and stakes are made clear, but I wanted more out of the characters. At 55-minutes it’s an interesting and pretty film that just feels a little unfinished. Its best bits reminded me of Black Orpheus.
11. Ended up re-watching Michael Crichton’s original Westworld (1973). Yul Brynner is great as a killer robot cowboy hunting down the park visitor who shot him, but I still prefer Jurassic Park for a Crichton fever dream about an amusement park that murders its patrons. A little cheesy, but fun the whole ride.
10. Satyajit Ray’s The Coward (1965) is the frustrating tale of a young scriptwriter named Amitabha (Soumitra Chatterjee) who was too afraid to be with the woman he loved. When fate has him stuck and staying with a sloppy tea estate owner (Haradhan Bandopadhyay), he is reunited with Karuna (Madhabi Mukherjee), his old flame. But Karuna is married to the fat, bald tea man. Convinced she would leave this slob, he tries to rekindle what he left behind.
9. It’s about time I saw Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987). A young stockbroker named Bud (Charlie Sheen) wants to study the ways of the master, Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas), and dominate the world of trade. But Gordon is perhaps even more shrewd and cutthroat than Bud could have imagined, challenging him to re-evaluate all he has pursued and what he has already become. Co-stars Darryl Hannah, Martin Sheen, John C. McGinley, Terence Stamp, Hal Holbrook, and Sean Young.
8. Teruo Ishii’s Blind Woman’s Curse (1970) is the story of warring yakuza gangs and a series of mysterious murders. Meiko Kaji plays the leader of the Tachibana clan who is haunted by cats, she suspects in response to her blinding a woman in a battle with her katana as she struck down the woman’s husband. Mystery, murder, and intrigue with the highlights being the fights, creepy circus, and one badass blind woman back from the grave.
7. Finland. What a country. Rare Exports (2010), directed by Jalmari Helander, is the Christmas folk horror you’ve been dreaming of (especially if you liked Norway’s Troll Hunter). Dry deadpan humor, terrific tension, and an awakening of yuletide monsters of ancient lore – drawing from darker legends of Santa Claus, Krampus, and Finland’s Christmas buck. Great acting, writing, cinematography, and marvelously horrific takes on classic Christmas creatures. This is how you export culture. It loses points for being a bit of a monster tease. Watch the short film it was based on too. Make this a new holiday classic.
6. Yorgos Lanthimos presents a somewhat fictionalized love triangle between Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman), Lady Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), and ambitious social climber escaping destitution, Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) in The Favourite (2018). Sumptuously opulent abodes and regal chambers shot stiflingly through ubiquitous fisheye lenses capture the absurdity and the suffocation of the whole situation. The three ladies all give fantastic performances (perhaps most of all Olivia Coleman as the besotted and put upon royal out of her depths politically and haunted by tragedy emotionally). The tactics of manipulation employed to stay in or gain the Queen’s good graces is equal parts funny and despicable. A fantastic, devilish film all around.
5. I like a film that can manage a good tone. African Kung-Fu Nazis (2019) strikes a fine balance between being a great kung-fu movie and being a cheeky, low-brow comedy. According to the movie, Hitler escaped Germany after WWII with Hideki Tojo and they started brainwashing the people of Ghana (turning them into white-faced Ghan-Aryans). When Hitler (Sebastian Stein) kills the leader of a peaceful martial arts school, surviving member Addae (Elisha Okyere) has to fight back and rescue his girlfriend. Cue the training montages. The fights are shot very well, and like a few other micro-budget genre films coming out of Africa, it is self-referential, winking, and plunges you into a whole new world of cinematic possibilities. Oh, and the music is great too.
4. The more things change, the more they stay the same. John Ford’s famous adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Dust Bowl novel might seem shockingly prescient despite documenting a real chapter of American history. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is the story of the Joad family. When the banks kick countless Oklahoma families off their land, all that’s left is to make the long trek to California in the hopes of getting work as fruit pickers. Along the way, the family endures much hardship together and frequently gets abused and lowballed by greedy big farms. It’s human and bleak, but not quite as grim as the book. Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, and a host of other craggy faces and character actors round out the cast.
3. How have I gone this long without seeing the Coen Brothers first film? Blood Simple (1984) is a perfect film. A gritty neo-noir where every piece that is set up remains in play until the end of the game. Like many a classic Coen Brothers movie, much of the plot is instigated by an unfortunate murder gone awry. I went in knowing very little about it and maybe you should too. You’ll figure it out. Stars Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and John Getz, but it’s M. Emmett Walsh that steals the show.
2. I must have watched Modern Times (1936) at least a dozen times, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t due for a re-watch (and Chaplin double feature). Widely regarded as one of his very best, it certainly is the Tramp’s most political work (well, at least on par with The Great Dictator). The dehumanization wrought by the advent of cold industrialization and the plight of those living in abject poverty during the height of the Depression are on full display, so you may forgive its maudlin overtures. And 84 years later it’s still expert filmmaking, laugh-out-loud comedy, and a piercingly prescient social commentary. Paulette Godard is also probably the very best Chaplin girl, playing a spunky barefoot vagabond. Chaplin, despite his age at the time of making this film, still proves to me an absolute master of physical comedy.
1. Modern Times may be more socially significant, but The Gold Rush (1925) is my favorite. We ended up re-watching the 1942 re-release that cuts out a few elements for narrative expediency and adds a robust Chaplin voiceover narration that is alternately poetically compelling and just a tad in the way. The Gold Rush is a perfect movie, adroitly mining the humor out of snowbound starvation and desperation. Visually, it is Chaplin’s finest and every gag fits into the plot snugly and propels it while upping the stakes. No matter how many times I see it, The Gold Rush never disappoints. Honestly, the Tramp Cinematic Universe might be my favorite. 95 years on and it is still an undeniable masterpiece of the medium.
BONUS: TV
Legendary animator, Genndy Tartakovsky, turns his creative team towards something I was genetically engineered to love. Primal (2019-2021) is a wordless Frazetta-inspired adventure about a caveman and a t-rex trying to survive in a prehistoric hell world populated by bloodthirsty monsters and weird cultures. It is a work of art. A glorious, gory work of art.
This Won't Be For Everyone 