Justin Robinson's Blog, page 14
May 23, 2015
Free Brand New Story!
http://www.candlemarkandgleam.com/201...
And in the meantime, a little extra time has been added to the giveaway! Awesome, right?
http://www.candlemarkandgleam.com/201...
May 22, 2015
Yakmala: The Warrior and the Sorceress
“Add more muscles to the poster.” “David, you have the physique of a 50 year old pee wee soccer coach.” “I SAID MORE MUSCLES!”
One evening, I went over to a friend’s place for a movie night, and he said, “So, what do you want to watch? Sci-fi? Horror? Fantasy? Bad fantasy?” Any loyal reader knows exactly what I picked, and that was how I was introduced to The Warrior and the Sorceress, which is basically just Yo-Jimbo with David Carradine and a talking lizard.
Tagline: An age of mystery and magic… of swords and sorcery.
More Accurate Tagline: An age of fat guys and grunting lizards… of shin-kicks and inconvenience.
Guilty Party: Writer, director, producer, and auteur John C. Broderick. He’s only directed four movies and after this one, there’s over a decade gap. So the universe has a sense of justice after all.
Synopsis: Look, I can save everyone a ton of time here. This is Yo-Jimbo. Well, minus all the parts that made Yo-Jimbo one of the best movies ever made. Noted genius Dashiell Hammett wrote a story called Red Harvest which was adapted by other genius Akira Kurosawa into a badass samurai movie. Due to the simplicity of the plot and the iconic hero, it’s become the “Twist and Shout” of movies, namely that everyone covered it, and probably sometime in the ‘80s.
We open on two suns, because goddamn it, this movie is going to steal from everyone. We’re on one of those desert worlds that was super popular in the heyday of ‘80s fantasy, and like most, we have a wandering warrior. The credits list him as Kain, but he’s only ever called the Dark One, so that’s what I’m calling him. It’s David Carradine, rocking a wispy gray bowl cut, a space sword, and a cast on his left arm that the filmmakers are trying to pretend is a gauntlet.
He walks into a town situated — seriously, go watch Yo-Jimbo. It’s a million times better. Right, so there’s two warring factions, the one led by Zeg the Tyrant and the other by Bal Caz the… I don’t know. The Opposed to Cardio, I suppose. Zeg is a possibly British guy, who hangs out with the Captain of the Guard, a beefy dude who looks like he should be singing lead in a Journey cover band. I’m fairly certain these two are a couple. Then there’s Bal Caz, a tittering fat guy who takes advice from a lizard that talks exactly like a special needs gremlin. I am a hundred percent certain these two are a couple.
Here they are, getting their picture taken at a mall.
Zeg also has this topless woman, the titular (no pun intended) Sorceress, but she never does any magic. She just wanders around in different colored thongs. Maybe the locals think that’s what magic is?
The Dark One immediately starts working for both sides, you know, exactly like in Yo-Jimbo. He also has a pal in town, the Prelate, who might be the Sorceress’s father. It’s unclear. It’s implied that the Dark One is some kind of ancient jedi warrior from a fallen empire, and come on, guys. You seriously pitched this as Yo-Jimbo on Tattooine. You’re not even trying here. So the Dark One is kind of loyal to the Sorceress, but he hilariously makes her carry his gold when he breaks her out of the pokey.
Eventually, he presses his luck a little too far and Zeg’s guys kick the crap out of him. (They trap him with a four-breasted woman doing a strip tease, who also has a scorpion living in her vagina, and I swear to god, I made not a single word of that up.) Then there’s a big battle and Bal Caz dies (the lizard too), and everyone unites. That’s when Burgo the Slaver, who is this weird pig monster we’ve seen before, shows back up and enslaves everyone. I don’t know what it is with fantasy movies and pig monsters. I really don’t.
Then the Dark One, now wielding a new and better space sword, leads the villagers against Burgo. He kills them, then offs the Captain of the Guard (still miffed his boyfriend Zeg was killed). After that, it’s time to wander the desert some more, and hope that arm heals up. Casts are murder in the heat.
Life-Changing Subtext: Lawyers have no power here.
Defining Quote: Roughly 70% of the dialogue is people screaming, “AAAAAH! AAAAAH!” Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes happiness, sometimes denoting a deep ennui that only those who have experienced loss at the end of a bittersweet summer can truly understand.
Standout Performance: I have to go with the lizard. I think he has a level of untapped versatility we have yet to see. Don’t be surprised if he pulls a Matthew Lillard-esque career renaissance, first with a supporting role in a Clooney picture, then in a critically-acclaimed yet low-rated cable drama.
What’s Wrong: You know when you’re watching a movie and you wish you were watching another movie? This is the hardest case of that in history.
Flash of Competence: If you’re going to rip someone off, Kurosawa is the way to go.
Best Scenes: The soundtrack wears the movie’s “influences” proudly, even brazenly. About half the time, it’s someone trying to do a Sergio Leone cowboy track, but when the battles start, it instantly morphs into the rollicking orchestral score of Krull. And yes, this means I wished I were watching Krull.
You’d think that in a move that lives and dies by the swordfights, those would at least be good. You would be so wrong. I don’t know if Carradine was paranoid about breaking the other arm, or he was just old enough he was terrified of falling down, but he goes through every fight as gingerly as a new father navigates a carpet covered in Legos. He wobbles up to an enemy, kicks him gently in the shins, then maybe bops him with the sword, maybe not. Depends on how he’s feeling.
Transcendent Moment: In a series of events too dumb to relate, the Sorceress winds up in the possession of Bal Caz. Naturally, they want a hostage exchange in the center of town where everyone can see. So Bal Caz brings out the topless Sorceress and threatens her to Zeg, and you get that Zeg’s panicking a little bit. But then, the best thing happens. Zeg brings out the lizard (which the Dark One had abducted earlier), and starts threatening him. Bal Caz loses his damn mind. I’m sorry, he’s fucking that lizard. It’s not even in doubt. And when they exchange, the lizard runs over to him (it’s suddenly bipedal here, because who cares), so it’s clear this is a consensual thing. This instantly makes it the most romantic scene in the movie.
CAAAAAN YOU FEEL THE LOOOOOOVE TONIGHT
The Warrior and the Sorceress is terrible, and it should really be the victim of several lawsuits, but if you ever wanted to see what it looks like when David Carradine doesn’t give a fuck, there is no finer example.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion, Yakmala! Tagged: David Carradine, fantasy, Talking lizards, The Warrior and the Sorceress, Yakmala!, Yo-Jimbo
May 15, 2015
Spring Reruns
I started writing for the Satellite Show in February of 2010, which proves a simple point: I do not know when to quit. Since that time, three regular features have emerged: Now Fear This, when I talk about underrated (mostly horror) movies worth your time, Yakmala, of which I am but a yellow lion in a larger Voltron, and Lifetime Theater, where I talk about… something. I forget. I’ve done so many that it’s inevitable a few might slip through the cracks. This is where I play Louis Black and reiterate some recommendations for your next movie night.
Now Fear This
When you’re looking for a Now Fear This movie, you want something you can enjoy without any irony, probably alone or with a few others, and in relative silence. I’m choosing my favorites of the lesser-known movies, since that’s the whole point of this feature.
Mute Witness: The very first Now Fear This entrant. You can tell because, man I sucked at writing back then. This is a classic low budget thriller that wears its Hitchcockian pretensions well.
The Strangers: Legitimately one of the most terrifying movies I’ve ever seen.
Session 9: It’s hard to be this scary with so very little, but this movie manages with aplomb. It still has one of my favorite final lines in film history.
Dark City: Director’s Cut: Really one of the best SF/Fantasy movies out there. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Cast a Deadly Spell: There is perhaps no movie more influential on my own aesthetic. It’s a nifty weird noir mashup that presages HBO’s status as the beloved creator of original content.
Yakmala!
Here, I want to recommend movies that make great drunk party viewing. Get some friends together, put out the beer, and let the riffing commence!
Blood Freak: A film I introduced to the gang, so it’s always had a special place in my heart. Plus it’s nice and short, and the best moment is the very end.
The Man Who Saves the World, a.k.a. Turkish Star Wars: Has to be seen to be believed.
Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo: Its subtitle has become hacky shorthand for dumb sequels, but the original movie is a delirious day-glo fantasy that could not be more fun.
After Last Season: Only a movie in the loosest sense of the term, this feels like the fever dream of a madman.
Samurai Cop: Finally getting a bit of the recognition it deserves, this is what would happen if a Boo Radley-style shut-in ever tried to make an ‘80s buddy cop film.
Lifetime Theater
Lifetime movies are at their best when they go careening off the rails. There’s a lot of overlap with Yakmala, and the best of them can be watched in the same kind of atmosphere.
Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret: How do you turn a hideous murder into half a you-go-girl anthem? Well, Lifetime isn’t sure either, but they sure did take a shot at it.
Drew Peterson: Untouchable: Rob Lowe really brings it in this bizarre true crime story.
Talhotblond: A favorite amongst the Yakmala crowd for very good reasons. It’s a more-or-less competently made film with insane twists that will keep you guessing.
Petals on the Wind: My Dollanganger obsession is reaching a fever pitch, but thus far the series hasn’t gotten any better than its second installment. This is when the people at Lifetime realized what they had and just decided to go with it.
The Lizzie Borden Chronicles: A distaff Hannibal, it’s also completely insane. These reviews are in podcast form!
If you only watch a few of the movies I recommend, those are the ones to watch.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion, Yakmala! Tagged: After Last Season, Blood Freak, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, cast a deadly spell, Dark City, Drew Peterson: Untouchable, Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret, lazy bastard, Mute Witness, Petals on the Wind, Reruns, Samurai Cop, Session 9, Talhotblond, the lizzie borden chronicles, The Strangers, Turkish Star Wars
May 12, 2015
Blank Day Giveaway!
http://www.candlemarkandgleam.com/201...
May 8, 2015
Lifetime Theater: If There Be Thorns
I had a brief moment of panic this past week. As I was watching Lizzie Borden for the podcast (blatant plug!), I caught a commercial for Seeds of Yesterday, which, due to my exhaustive research, I knew to be the fourth installment in the Dollanganger series. Alert readers will note that I only reviewed the first two movies. I was missing one! As it turns out, only barely. Apparently, Lifetime has grown weary of its Southern Gothic tentpole, as everything about If There Be Thorns screams going through the motions.
For starters, of the once insanely good cast, only Heather Graham as Corrine remains. While it’s understandable that Rose McIver, who is contractually obligated to appear on everything now, might not want to come back, whoever the hell played Chris (I’m not gonna look it up because who cares) has also opted out. In their place, we have two more attractive blond people, this time skewing a bit older in appearance. Now Cathy and Chris are masquerading as the totally not-blood siblings Chris and Cathy Sheffield, married couple. They’re raising Cathy’s two kids, Jory and Bart, both conceived during the events of Petals on the Wind. They’re even adopting young, blonde Cindy, whose never-seen mother is dying of a lingering case of being a V.C. Andrews character.
Or possibly killed during Poison Ivy’s latest rampage.
Alas, everything is not so rosy. While Jory is perfect, Bart is a sullen little weirdo. He has a treehouse stocked with a few girly mags (none of which show any actual nudity) and all the bugs ever in neat rows of jars. He spends his time coming up with ways to be more of an outcast. Oh yeah, and he’s the one person in the family with dark hair. I think the germ of Bart’s evil was because he was conceived as part of Cathy’s revenge (his father is Bart Winslow, Corrine’s lawyer/fiancee). Jory’s dad was a philandering shit, but Cathy at least loved him on their sojourn to Pound Town, so he’s fine.
Anyway, there’s a creepy mansion right next door because of course there fucking is. Chris is a rich doctor. He can live where he likes. Had he picked a gross split-level in some toxic waste suburb, none of this would happen. Bart shows Jory the inside of Addams Manor (it’s where he found those chaste girly mags), but some crows surprise Bart and he falls over, giving himself a nasty cut. He keeps it secret, and it promptly festers because symbolism. Anyway, turns out the house is being moved into by a creepy old lady and her creepier older manservant.
If you guessed this lady is Corrine, congratulations, you have a functioning central nervous system. She basically seduces Bart with gifts and whatnot (thankfully not with sex, which is how this series shows restraint) and gets him to hang out with her. Some of those gifts include a pet snake (which she gives to him in the greenhouse — symbolism!) and a bow. Her manservant is a new character named John Amos, and I was calling him John Anus within five seconds. Incidentally, he’s always addressed by both names, like they’re worried about confusion. This character makes zero fucking sense. He’s basically an evil Bible-thumping Angus Scrimm-looking motherfucker, who hates him some incest. Why the hell do you work for the queen of incest then, smart guy? It never gets explained, and when he goes completely nuts in the third act, it looks like something that could have been prevented by Corrine having maybe one conversation with the man in the hiring process.
“And are you an alien intent on enslaving the corpses of the dead with the assistance of a silver murder ball?” “Um… no.”
John Amos goes to work on Bart, giving him the journal of Malcolm Foxworth (that’s Corrine’s father, I think). Malcolm is the kind of religious conservative that people like Mike Huckabee try to pander to. When the infection from Bart’s wound brings on a fever, John Amos is sure to use that time to get into the boy’s subconscious. When Bart comes out of it, he believes that he is Malcolm, and it’s just as funny as it sounds. Also, this means that the middle child is now Malcolm, and shut up, I have to find my fun where I can. You’re not the boss of me now.
By now, the secrets are all coming out. Jory and Bart aren’t too happy about being adopted by siblings. Also, Bart keeps witnessing everyone having sex. While Jory is considerate enough to head up to the attic (where Cathy has set up an apartment because she’s fucking insane), Cathy and Chris do it in front of a half-open door. And he’s hitting it doggie-style because I guess he watched Game of Thrones the night before and thought it looked fun.
John Amos goes insane and tries to burn Corrine and Cathy together in the barn. Cathy forgives a repentant Corrine. Bart snaps out of the mind control, though it’s not clear how he physically escapes from John Amos. There’s one scene where the old man is grappling with Bart, and in the next, Bart is outside running for Chris’s help. Corrine and John Amos burn to death, and the family is reunited and whole.
Is it worth watching? Kinda. This entire production feels half-assed, like the network was locked into four movies and figured out after the second that they’d rather not. The performances don’t really reach the bravura levels the second one touched. Even Heather Graham feels like she barely showed up to work, and when Graham’s not engaged, you can tell.
I’ll just leave this here for unrelated reasons.
Still, there are a couple great moments. The first comes when Corrine confesses the attic episode to Bart and tells him with delicious understatment, “That’s one of my biggest failures as a parent.” The other great line comes when Jory’s paternal grandmother is trying to get him away from Chris and Cathy. He’s initially good with it, but after the fire has reunited them, he’s not having it. He gives her an epic telling off, then finishes it with a muttered, “See you next Christmas.” It’s… it’s so great.
The very end has Jory walking by Bart’s room and peeking in. The boy is by a full-length mirror, putting on a three-piece suit, because sure, I guess he has one. His hair is slicked back like Pat Riley and he sees Jory and grins. The seed is planted! He’s evil!
What did we learn? It pays to interview your manservants. If one has a problem with incest, and you’ve got a lot of that in the family tree, maybe don’t hire him. Tough to slip that question into the interview, so make sure you add a lot of weird questions to disguise it.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Creepy kids, Dollangangers, Ghost possession, Gift snakes, If There Be Thorns, incest, Lifetime Theater, V.C. Andrews
May 1, 2015
Time for free stuff!
When Blank Day -- that's 5/23 -- gets here, there will be a special surprise for everyone!
http://www.candlemarkandgleam.com/201...
Now Fear This: The Sacrament
Nothing good has ever happened in the reflection of mirrored sunglasses.
In the real world, there is nothing I find more terrifying than cults. Yes, that includes clowns, British children, and Dick Cheney. The word, “cult,” is such a loaded one, it’s hard to really pin down. While my definition is likely far broader than the generally accepted one, it’s undeniable that the line separating “cult” from “religion” is narrow when you get right down to it. In many cases, cults turn out to be a lot like pornography. You know it when you see it.
There are certain traits that we can all agree squarely belong to the label of cult. So that even if something we thought was a religion starts doing them, we might want to update the nomenclature as it were. Leaving the country to start a rural existence in a war torn part of the world, say. Paranoid ranting about a laundry list of enemies. Drinking Kool-Aid spiked with arsenic. Yeah, pretty much everything Jim Jones did with his Peoples Temple back in the 1970s. While it’s tempting for me to go into the various conspiracy theories surrounding Jones (that he was a CIA plant working to bring about a genocide against black people), I’m going to leave that to my book series. Instead, I want to bring together atheists and evangelicals, Scientologists and Christian Scientists in a common opinion: that shit was a cult, and it is scary as hell.
This is why this week’s Now Fear This, Ti West’s 2013 mockumentary-ish The Sacrament, spoke directly to me. I have not been quiet in my respect for West, featuring him twice before in my tiny corner of the internet. While this is not as good as his masterpiece House of the Devil, it is far more accessible than his perversely-slow The Innkeepers. West shoots this as almost a mockumentary, though later in the narrative, he abandons the conceit a little bit, showing angles and cuts that would have been difficult if not impossible to achieve. By then, it’s almost an afterthought anyway, and the framing device, that this is some Vice reporters who did get a chance to cut their footage, can alleviate some of the largest questions.
West is also smart enough to play with the conceit a bit. In the third act, when the camera man runs from the assault rifle-wielding death squads, he sets the camera up behind a pair of logs. The assumption the audience makes is the one we’re conditioned to in a first person found footage style film: that this is also the location of the character. Nope. He dropped the camera as a distraction and got out of there, which is the one thing people always demand of found footage characters.
Of course, it’s a bit of a journey to death squad territory. It starts out fairly innocuously, though for someone like me, the hair was already going up on the back of my neck. See, Caroline, the sister of fashion photographer Patrick, moved away from civilization to a clean-living kind of place. Turns out, this place then left the country to an unspecified location heavily implied to be some part of Africa, and getting there involves a plane trip and a secret helicopter ride. Yeah, that sounds good.
Free helicopter ride? Sounds legit.
Two Vice reporters, sensing a story, tag along. It gets weird from the word go. The men who meet the helicopter are extremely squirrelly, and when they get to the actual gate of Eden Parish (through 2km of jungle), the men guarding it are armed with AKs. Getting the Vice guys in is a challenge, and soon Caroline meets them, giving what one correctly identifies as a hard sell of the place. She’s evasive about certain aspects, but in a smooth, practiced politician way. The initial worry calms somewhat when the Vice reporters are allowed to wander around and interview the inhabitants.
Things begin to get weird again with the introduction of Savannah, a mute girl, and her nervous mother. It soon becomes apparent that not everyone is there of their own free will. The cult is treated as a single organism, something that once riled, can rapidly go out of control, though how many are actual loyalists is unclear. It is far more chilling to think that certain devotees are only loyal because everyone around them appears to be. We stay with the reporters as they steadily grow sicker and sicker with worry as they see this community rapidly ready to spin out of control.
At the center of it all is the mysterious Father. He agrees to sit for an interview, but using a magnetic charisma, folksy expressions, a thorough command of the Bible, and just a dash of righteous anger, he thoroughly beguiles the outmatched reporter. He doesn’t answer a single question outright, and expertly puts the interviewer on his heels with a well-timed revelation. After that, it’s a party that once again puts the reporters at ease. You can see them struggling against their innate cynicism and reflexive dislike of a rural life focused on religion. There’s also the element of race: like the real Peoples Temple, the community is predominantly black, led by a charismatic white man. To the film’s credit, it does not shy from the implications of this.
Those who know history know where this is going. The film’s climax begins with that scene, lurching deliriously from one scene of horror to the next, while the reporters desperately try to survive. It’s a slow-motion tragedy that everyone is powerless to stop, as the free will has been methodically stripped away from the faithful. When the Kool-Aid is consumed, that’s when the men with AKs come through to mop up, and in the film’s most stomach turning sequence, there are those who would rather die on their own terms. The stage blood used is a peculiar bright orange, but it matches the drugged Kool-Aid, drawing the perfect visual parallel between them.
The cast is largely a reunion of the superior You’re Next, which West also acted in. AJ Bowen, who played Crispian, is the sympathetic Sam here. Joe Swanberg, who was the perfect douchebag in Drake, shows wider range as the leery but good-hearted Jake. Amy Seimetz, their sister in You’re Next, is Caroline in this one, showing a much darker edge. There’s even an Australian woman for no reason, but it’s not Sharni Vinson. Father is Gene Jones, and not John Goodman in makeup, as the poster led me to believe. He is perfect in his role, just chilling enough to get the point, but never overshadowing the paternal grace that gave him this position.
The Sacrament is a horror movie about the power of belief. The Jim Jones tragedy has largely been forgotten, and though this film isn’t what’s going to start that conversation, it is still an effective use of the imagery we carry in our cultural memory. And like I said, cults are scary.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: horror, Jim Jones, Now Fear This, Peoples Temple, The Sacrament, Ti West
April 25, 2015
Blank Day is coming up!
...free stuff. With free stuff.
April 24, 2015
Yakmala: North
This is an appropriate image, though not for the reasons the filmmakers think.
That critics have any power whatsoever is a myth we’ve all agreed upon. Yet, very occasionally, a review will become far more notorious than the movie that spawned it. None have accomplished this feat harder than Roger Ebert, normally a sweet avuncular presence devoted to championing culture both high and low, when he utterly savaged Rob Reiner’s family comedy North. “I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie,” he wrote. If anything, he was being generous.
Tagline: A family comedy that appeals to the child in everyone.
More Accurate Tagline: A family comedy that makes you wonder why you have a family at all.
Guilty Party: The obvious target would be screenwriter Alan Zweibel, who also wrote the novel on which it’s based. Holy shit, there’s a novel? Had this been an Afterschool Special, I might have less of a problem with it. Anyway, I’m blaming Rob Reiner. We know the man can make movies. He made This Is Spinal Tap. He made When Harry Met Sally… He made fucking The Princess Bride. So he, in theory, knows better. Look, I’m not saying abduction is ever the right thing to do, but I was praying for Vizzini to show up and kidnap North about five minutes into this thing.
Synopsis: Whimsy is not my thing. Usually because it feels like it’s covered with flop sweat and trying to entice me into a windowless van to see baby rabbits. I don’t want to end up in a bunker for fifteen years. I am not strong as hell. So when North opens with the tinkling of whimsy in its score, promising me a decade and a half in the dark, my consciousness rebels.
What every Wes Anderson movie looks like to me.
It doesn’t help that it instantly introduces us to one of the most unlikeable heroes in film history. North (Elijah Wood) is the perfect child on paper: a snotty little asshole who pulls perfect grades while being a star athlete. He lives in a palatial suburban home with two harried parents (Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus). What’s this little prick’s problem? He’s not appreciated enough. That’s it.
So he heads over to the mall, where he has a conversation with Bruce Willis in a bunny costume (yes, seriously), who then talks North into declaring free agency from his parents. A judge (Alan Arkin) allows this (although mostly because the parents have fallen into comas), giving North from the Fourth of July to Labor Day to test the waters. If he’s not in the arms of his new parents by noon on Labor Day, he gets sent to an orphanage. I know it’s not in the movie, but I was hoping it would be like the jail in Sleepers. Seriously, North. Fuck you.
That’s when the movie decides it’s time to get racist.
Not quite that racist
Sure, we start out with a relatively harmless caricature of Texas that might be funny to newborns or someone who recently suffered head trauma and is trying to learn to speak again. Then we get wildly offensive with a creepy look at Hawaii, Abe Vigoda and Kathy Bates (who should fucking know better) in redface for “Eskimos,” a quick Amish sight gag, Imperial China where North is the Emperor, and an African village that would have to improve significantly to qualify merely as horrifyingly racist. At most of these, he runs into some form of Bruce Willis, who smirks his way through a scene and looks like he just wants to get back to the hotel bar for some Seagram’s Wine Cooler. He eventually ends up with the perfect family: white and suburban (with John Ritter, Faith Ford, and a larval Scarlett Johansson in her first screen appearance). North can’t stay here, so he has to go home.
Meanwhile, back home the kids have taken North’s emancipation as an excuse to be dicks to their parents. Led by the insufferably precocious Winchell and assisted by simpering toady Jon Lovitz (Jon Lovitz), this movement isn’t going to let North come home so easily. So they launch an assassination plot. You know, for kids.
While North dodges a hitman who looks like he’s on break from an episode of The Sopranos, his parents come out of the coma. Eventually, they’re about to have their tearful reunion right at the buzzer, when the hitman gets the drop on them. There’s a gunshot… and North wakes up.
Yep. It was all a dream. In other words, the laziest, most trite dodge in the history of writing. The movie can’t even be troubled to think of a new way to tell you to fuck yourself, so it uses the oldest one of all. North goes home, finds his parents were worried about him, and he’s happy again.
Life-Changing Subtext: Foreign cultures are weird and stupid, so it’s best to stick with white people.
Defining Quote: North’s Father: “I saw some blood in my stool this morning.” After his movie, me too, pal.
Standout Performance: Alan Arkin as Judge Buckle. He’s like the ghost of funny Alan Arkin, but you sort of have to grasp at straws with this one.
What’s Wrong: The dream thing is a convenient dodge. Hey, the movie’s not racist, it’s taking place in the mind of a little boy. He doesn’t know any better! Right, okay… let’s analyze.
At the very least, North is shockingly narcissistic. We’re talking Buffalo Bill territory, so if poor little ScarJo ends up as a dress in his basement, I won’t be shocked. The first reel of the movie is all about how amazing North is, and how his decision instantly becomes front page news and touches off a cultural movement.
Does he warrant any of this? Really? Considering that the kid still thinks Imperial China is a thing, and that he would instantly be crowned Emperor, says his grasp of geopolitics might a little shaky. Kind of makes you wonder about how good the school is. He’s also convinced that at least Zaire is entirely jungle villages with topless women and Tarzan sounds. So all this racism we’re sweeping under the rug? It’s all North. He thinks he’s incredible, and he’s just a couple years away from being a moderator on Stormfront.
Flash of Competence: The production design isn’t bad.
Best Scenes: In any movie like this, you don’t want to lean to hard on the “everybody’s a pedophile” jokes. But seriously… everybody is a pedophile. Don’t blame me, it’s this goddamn movie.
Okay, so in the beginning when his parents are loudly complaining at the dinner table and ignoring North, he has a heart attack. Although, he never goes to the hospital, so he might have been faking it for attention. Wouldn’t put it past this horrible little gremlin. What’s his dad’s response? “Loosen his pants!” Where does his dad think the heart is located anyway?
Then, off in Hawaii, the governor’s plan is to start a tourist campaign that shows an octopus pulling North’s pants down. North instantly begins screeching about his “crack.” That’s the precise word he uses, and he uses it a lot. So he thinks that the one thing that’s keeping people from going to Hawaii is that they haven’t seen his bare ass. Dennis Reynolds could get ego lessons from this kid.
Then Bruce Willis in his various guises is being inappropriate, first waving around a carrot, then telling smutty jokes, then straight up saying that in Miami, “your balls stick to your leg like krazy glue.”
Transcendent Moment: The first moment you realize that you’re not just watching a bad movie, you’re watching an epically terrible misfire, an asylum taken by the lunatics and then burned down, is the musical number. Yeah, there’s a musical number, and to the movie’s credit, if you hire Reba McEntire and don’t have her sing, you’re not getting your money’s worth. It’s not the song that’s the problem. It’s the one moment, the lyric that promises North a bride, and there she is. Ten years old, giving him flirty eyes and doing the splits. The goddamn splits.
Only JCVD is allowed sexy splits.
North has no idea what it is. Is it a black comedy about the false innocence of children? A broad, racist throwback to an earlier age of Hollywood? A family movie with dirty jokes for the grownups? A comedy that just isn’t any fun? Oh, it’s all of these things and none, and now I return to the oblivion it sent me.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion, Yakmala! Tagged: bruce willis, Elijah Wood, North, Rob Reiner, Somone kill me, Yakmala!
April 22, 2015
New Podcast!
We are "An Axe to Grind." Listen. Love. Wonder what the people of Lifetime are thinking.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
