Film Freak Central

The Whoopee Boys (1986) - DVD

**/**** Image B- Sound B-
starring Michael O'Keefe, Paul Rodriguez, Denholm Elliott, Dan O'Herlihy
screenplay by Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai and David Obst
directed by John Byrum

by Alex Jackson John Byrum's 1986 comedy The Whoopee Boys is a strictly hit-and-miss affair. When it hits, it's good for a chuckle and a worthy distraction. When it misses, it is, to borrow one of the film's favourite visuals, like a swift kick to the groin. I'm being a lot easier on the picture than I imagine most people would be, in part because I simply admire its sheer hubris. The Whoopee Boys really puts it on the line, and there are many times where it seems like it's working without a safety net. What do you have to gain from making a movie like this? You might make people laugh. What do you have to lose? You could create such an unholy object of pure, unadulterated shittiness that audiences will commit hara-kiri in the aisles to preserve the very last shred of dignity they have left after buying a ticket.

The Wiz (1978) [30th Anniversary Edition] - DVD

*/**** Image B Sound B+ (DTS) B- (DD) Extras C-
starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor
screenplay by Joel Schumacher
directed by Sidney Lumet

by Alex Jackson The Wizard of Oz is a quintessentially American work that could not possibly have been produced by any other culture. Doing a "blaxploitation" version of the story, then, seems considerably less tacky than doing one of Dracula or Frankenstein. Dorothy is a farm girl from Kansas living with extended family in something beyond the traditional nuclear-family structure. There's a strong sense of community in the film as well: in addition to Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, and the hired hands, Professor Marvel, the inspiration for the Wizard of Oz, is there at Dorothy's bedside when she wakes up. Dealing with themes of solidarity among the working class, The Wizard of Oz isn't a film about the black experience, but with just a little tinkering, it easily could be.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) - Blu-ray Disc (DigiBook)

****/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
starring Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Ermey
screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford, based on Hasford's novel The Short Timers
directed by Stanley Kubrick

click any image to enlarge

by Alex Jackson One of the most noticed Stanley Kubrick trademarks is a scene in a bathroom. I haven't read too much about why there is always a scene in a bathroom, but rarer still are comments related to what goes on in the bathroom. Different activities have different meanings. Urination (A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut) is a sexually arrogant act. It's the one bathroom activity in Kubrick's films that is done with the door open. Bathing (Spartacus, Lolita, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange again, The Shining) is a hedonistic, bourgeois indulgence and an escape to a safe place. Kubrick is not beyond exploiting the bath's mythological, symbolic connotations as the unexplored subconscious (the subversion of Aphrodite iconology in The Shining) or the womb (Star Child Alex in A Clockwork Orange); bathing is largely a private activity, you see. It is sometimes interrupted, but when that happens the invasion of privacy has significance. (James Mason's interrupted bath in Lolita, for example, had purely narrative- and character-based implications. He regarded it as just another humiliation to add to the pile.) Defecation is even more private, so private that a Kubrick character has never interrupted it. To defecate (Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey) is human, you see. Everybody has to take a shit, but to shit is shameful. The perfect human being would not shit, would indeed be beyond shitting. The HAL computer doesn't shit, does it? Does the Star Child shit? I sincerely doubt it!

Trash Humpers (2010) - DVD

****/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A
starring Paul Booker, Dave Cloud, Chris Cofton, Rachel Korine
written and directed by Harmony Korine

"To me, there is only one form of human depravity--the man without a purpose."-Ayn Rand

by Alex Jackson My last job was as direct-support staff in a group home for adults with autism and severe mental retardation. The grave and morning staff, I was basically responsible for getting them bathed, dressed, and fed for the day. In one of our training sessions, the instructor told us that all behaviour has some kind of payoff or reward. Of course, I had to challenge this. "What about pica?" I asked. More precisely, I wanted to know why one of our clients ate his own shit. The instructor politely scratched his chin and replied, "The behaviour must be rewarding unto itself."

Love Me Tender (1956) [Cinema Classics Collection] - DVD

***/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B
starring Richard Egan, Debra Paget, Elvis Presley, Robert Middleton
screenplay by Robert Buckner
directed by Robert D. Webb

by Alex Jackson SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. As far as drugs go, Love Me Tender is more pot than heroin. It won't curl your toes, but you'll get a smooth, mellow buzz. It's sort of the perfect film to watch on a Sunday morning on TCM while you're eating a bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Love Me Tender doesn't have a lot of urgency and it moves pretty slowly, yet there's never a moment in which it's not compulsively watchable--and at just a shade under ninety minutes, it doesn't wear out its welcome. Director Robert D. Webb keeps the camera pretty still and shoots the outdoor scenes in long shot, the better to encapsulate the sheer enormity of the under-settled frontier. All this space lends the film a distinctly melancholy feel; there's something lonely and isolated about the picture. But bittersweet is a flavour, too (a good one), and melancholy is the right attitude for this story and the right attitude for a film titled after Elvis Presley's tragically romantic hit single "Love Me Tender." This was the only film that ever killed off Elvis--and it earns the right to do so.

Now, Voyager (1942) - DVD

**/**** Image A Sound B Extras D
starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper
screenplay by Casey Robinson, based on the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty
directed by Irving Rapper

by Alex Jackson I'll admit to being rather tickled by Now, Voyager, but I frankly believe that the movies should have higher aspirations than to tickle. Though getting tickled is sort of fun for a short while, in any long duration it simply becomes obnoxious. Now, Voyager is trash, but it's not particularly great trash. There is nothing in its straight-faced inanity that successfully works as critical commentary on the material. This is camp at its most superficial; scratch off the simple surface pleasures and you're left with one black void.

Warner Bros. Presents Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s - DVD

Image B- Sound B- Extras B-
Goldie Gold and Action Jack: "Night of the Crystal Skull"
Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos: "Deadly Dolphin"
The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley: "Tall, Dark & Hansom"
The Flintstone Kids: "The Bad News Brontos/Invasion of the Mommy Snatchers/Dreamchip's Cur Wash/Princess Wilma"
Mister T: "Mystery of the Golden Medallions"
Dragon's Lair: "The Tale of the Enchanted Gift"
Thundarr the Barbarian: "Secret of the Black Pearl"
Kwicky Koala Show: "Show #1 - Dry Run/Robinson Caruso/High Roller/The Claws Conspiracy/Hat Dance/Dirty's Debut"
The Biskitts: "As the Worm Turns/Trouble in the Tunnel"
Monchhichis: "Tickle Pickle"
Galtar and the Golden Lance: "Galtar and the Princess"

by Alex Jackson

"Portions of original film elements from certain programs contained within no longer survive in pristine condition. As a result, archival elements of varying quality have been carefully assembled to provide you with as close an approximation of the original program as possible." --Actual disclaimer on the "Warner Bros. Presents Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s" DVD collection

From the sound of that, you would think they discovered these episodes of "Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos" and "Monchhichis" in the basement of an Argentinean mental hospital. Certainly, "Warner Bros. Presents Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s" holds genuine appeal as a cultural artifact. I was born in 1981 but have vague memories of watching an episode of "The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley", which might have featured a clip from the 1933 Fay Wray horror film The Vampire Bat. I have a better but still hazy memory of putting a cartoon "Mister T" temporary tattoo on my mom's guitar case. If nothing else, this collection is irrefutable evidence that I didn't imagine these programs.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) + Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979) - Blu-ray Discs

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY
****/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras C
starring Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Herbert Mundin
screenplay by Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, Carey Wilson, based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
directed by Frank Lloyd

KRAMER VS. KRAMER
****/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras A
starring Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, Justin Henry
screenplay by Robert Benton, based on the novel by Avery Corman
directed by Robert Benton

by Alex Jackson Frank Lloyd's 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty and Robert Benton's Kramer vs. Kramer don't have much in common other than that they both won the Oscar for Best Picture and that they are both totally fucking awesome. I know it sounds weird for me to apply fanboyish hyperbole to such conventionally middlebrow fare, but I love these films in much the same way I love Star Wars or the Indiana Jones movies. One is a lavish, two-million-dollar literary adaptation starring Clark Gable and Charles Laughton; the other is a minimalist Issue Movie about divorce (apparently aiming to do for the dissolution of marriage what Gentleman's Agreement did for anti-Semitism) starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Evidently, they represent what the Academy believed was quality cinema at the time.

Rain Man (1988) - Blu-ray Disc

****/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras B+
starring Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Jerry Molen
screenplay by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow
directed by Barry Levinson

by Alex Jackson From its opening shot of a Cadillac craned across the smoggy Los Angeles skyline as The Belle Stars' iconic cover of "Iko Iko" plays on the soundtrack, Barry Levinson's Rain Man announces itself as one of the very best films of the 1980s. The ultimate high-concept movie, it has a fashionably icy Adrian Lynne/Michael Mann/Ridley Scott aesthetic that's semi-parodied by way of an absurdist, non-sequitur twist. Pauline Kael called Rain Man "a piece of wet kitsch" while paradoxically impugning its "lifelessness." In terms of content, it certainly sounds like sugary glurge, but as rendered in the emotionally-detached lexicon of '80s advertising, all the irony, all the junkiness, has been bled out. The film equates Yuppie materialism with autism, and in a subtle, underhanded way, this humanizes the alien while undermining the film's own pretension. Once we see this hip disengagement in terms of pathology, we're no longer attracted and/or repulsed by it.

I Know Who Killed Me (2007) + Captivity (2007) [Uncut] - DVDs

I KNOW WHO KILLED ME
**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras D
starring Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty
screenplay by Jeffrey Hammond
directed by Chris Sivertson

CAPTIVITY
*/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras C
starring Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gilles, Michael Harney, Pruitt Taylor Vince
screenplay by Larry Cohen and Joseph Tura
directed by Roland Joffe

by Alex Jackson SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. I wasn't that upset about the bad reputation I Know Who Killed Me had acquired until I saw Roland Joffe's Captivity. I Know Who Killed Me recently took home Worst Actress and Worst Picture Razzie awards and at one point was listed on WIKIPEDIA as "one of the worst films ever made." Captivity, meanwhile, despite the not-insignificant controversy surrounding a disastrous billboard campaign and a scathing editorial by Joss Whedon condemning it sight-unseen, has all but vanished into obscurity. I guess that makes a certain amount of sense. Poor Lindsay Lohan (I'm sorry, but her pathetic Marilyn Monroe spread in the current issue of NEW YORK gets my sympathy sensors buzzing) is a staple of the tabloid industry and an easy target for hipster schadenfreude. I Know Who Killed Me has the trappings of a serious thriller and requires Lohan to do a little bit of stretching while playing off her off-screen persona. Captivity, on the other hand, is considerably less ambitious and considerably more exploitive, and as such, actress Elisha Cuthbert's participation can be dismissed as just another former TV star paying her dues in the horror genre.