At some point this past summer, between all but consecutive viewings of The Dark Knight, I slipped into a screening of Step Brothers with the same tempered expectations with which I had greeted Blades of Glory and Semi-Pro -- and found myself equally surprised in the coming days and weeks and months by just how admittedly tickled I was by any of them (quoting lines was moderate on all counts). Mind you, I'm saying this as the guy who chuckled during Anchorman, sure, but not really enough to keep it on my shelf or call myself thankful for it.
That's nothing against our Eric D. Snider, and nothing against the star of each film mentioned, Will Ferrell (yes, he was actually Batman). In fact, with Step Brothers hitting shelves today (with reports of a wholly sung commentary track), it only seemed fitting that we go over his most amusing roles as overgrown man-children (Ferrell's, not Snider's). Because they're there, and they always will be, and the sooner that I admit to being vulnerable to his shtick, a better world this very well may be.
A few years ago, I wrote a Cinematical Seven on my favorite dysfunctional families in films. Everyone has a crazy messed-up movie family they love, whether it's the Hoovers in Little Miss Sunshine or the Bullocks in My Man Godfrey or the Corleones in the Godfather saga. I thought that this year, it would be fun to make a list of families that got along, worked together, and supported one another. You know, happy families ... but not dull, one-dimensional bundles of endless cheer.
It's a lot more difficult to find seven movies with happy-but-not-sappy families than it is to find the screwed-up kind, especially if you are looking for something more interesting than the Cleavers. Since I'm visiting my relatives for the Thanksgiving holidays, I asked them for suggestions. They were all very helpful, and I'm sorry I couldn't include all the suggestions, which ranged from The Thin Man to The Sound of Music to The Hills Have Eyes. Let me know what else we missed in the comments.
In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday that nears, it seemed only fitting that our minds turned to those films for which we are most unexpectedly grateful, those flops and duds, those bombs and turkeys rife with unintentional humor and renewed entertainment values. Now, we've pretty much stuck with the past decade or so with our picks; anything before that has either been done right by MST3K or is probably titled Showgirls.
With that said, please enjoy this Cinematical Seven responsibly, and do feel free to contribute your own personal favorite howlers of late in the comments below...
The upcoming release of Australia -- directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann, shot in Australia and starring Australian-born actor Hugh Jackman, and Australian-raised Nicole Kidman -- inspired me to take a look at the Australian film industry, thinking I could easily pick out seven highlights. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for everyone else, Australian films are a much richer and more daunting prospect. I decided to stick to films shot in Australia by directors born there, thus eliminating things like Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout (1971). I also eliminated New Zealanders like Jane Campion and Peter Jackson, who deserve their own list. At the 11th hour, I had to eliminate such an obviously great film as Babe (1995); though it qualifies under my rule, the Hoggett's farm could actually be just about anywhere (it's more of a fairy tale world, and Australia is never mentioned). And no, Crocodile Dundee (1986) didn't make the cutoff, but here's what did:
The Road Warrior (1981, George Miller) This movie represents everything that's badass about Australia. It opened there in 1981 as Mad Max 2, mainly because everyone had seen Mad Max (1979). Here, it opened a year later, in the summer of 1982, with the changed title, hoping that Americans could be tricked into thinking it wasn't a sequel. It didn't matter; this film is far starker, funnier and all-around better than the original. Rarely have the roar of engines mixed so well with the wide, empty, sun-baked dust of the outback. Miller was -- and still is -- one of the most interesting Down Under directors, but he works slowly and sporadically and stays out of the limelight. (In the thirty years since Mad Max, he has directed only seven feature films.) And Mel Gibson may have gone a little nuts lately, but we'll always love him for this.
I haven't read Twilight, but a friend who has described it as chapter upon chapter of Kristen Stewart's character swooning over Robert Pattinson's youthful 108-year old vampire. Males the world over are running for the hills -- but maybe they shouldn't. After all, the horror-romance has a long and venerable history. The juxtaposition makes sense: just like clowns can become scary with just a small tweak in their make-up, love stories can turn into horror stories by edging just slightly toward the sinister. I have some hope that Twilight might be creepy rather than gooey; we'll see soon enough. In the meantime, here are a few examples of films that have done a nice job with the horror-romance combination.
1. The Fly (1986) - I actually think that Cronenberg's take on The Fly is the scariest movie I've ever seen, albeit for reasons having little to do with the romance between Jeff Goldblum's Seth Brundle and Geena Davis's Veronica. (I'm generally freaked out by genetic weirdness.) But the film gets much of its poignancy from their relationship, which both sets things in motion and brings them to a close. Consider that Brundle tries his invention on himself out of jealousy, imagining an infidelity that didn't exist. And Veronica's final heartbreaking gesture is one of both pity and love.
With the news that the musical score from The Dark Knight has been disqualified from Academy Awards consideration on the grounds that too many people were credited with composing it, outrage against the Academy's stringent, complicated rules has erupted afresh. In the interest of fueling this indignation and making the world an angrier place, let's take a belligerent march down memory lane and look at seven other controversial disqualifications.
The Jazz Singer disqualified for being a talkie. When the very first Academy Awards were held in May 1929, honoring films released between August 1927 and July 1928, everyone was talking about The Jazz Singer -- the first feature-length movie to use recorded sound in some of its talking and singing scenes. So great was the attention that the Academy disqualified the film from the inaugural Best Picture category, reasoning that its use of sound put it on an uneven playing field against the films still stuck in silence. Instead, the Academy gave Warner Bros. a special award "for producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry." It's true, too! I don't know if you've noticed, but pretty much all movies nowadays have talking in them.
Young Americans disqualified from Best Documentary category ... after it already won. Whoops. This is a sad case, and a unique one. The documentary, about the peppy Young Americans show choir, won the Oscar at the 1969 ceremony for being the best feature-length documentary of 1968. But a few weeks later, the Academy discovered that the film had screened at a theater in October 1967, making it eligible for that year's awards and not for 1968. The Academy actually took back the Oscar statues from the filmmakers, Alex Grasshoff and Robert Cohn, and gave the award to the film that had been first runner-up. When Grasshoff died earlier this year, his widow told the Los Angeles Times how heartbroken he'd been. Can you imagine?
(In anticipation of Quantum of Solace, we're rerunning some of our favorite Bond posts alongside a few new ones. Enjoy!)
By: James Rocchi
Now that there's been a matter of, you know, 24 hours since the release of Quantum of Solace, enough time has passed for an assessment of the canon -- out of the James Bond films, which are the best? Well, it's easy to name the best seven -- and in doing so, draw our week of Bond pop-culture coverage here at Cinematical to an end. Bear in mind that this list is only worth noting as a source of minor-scale arguments -- which is exactly why it's fun. And now that my inner Rob Gordon is ready, let's talk about the best Bond films of all time ... In no particular order, except for number one.
Yeah. It's in there. In the top third, most definitely. There's more in my review, but there's not a single part of this film I didn't enjoy -- or, if I wasn't enjoying it, I was at the very least respecting it as part of the plot, as an attempt to set mood or build character, to tackle the backbreaking stoop labor of thriller-style exposition. Craig is a great Bond, and it felt real -- like the sort of thing that may, in fact, happen in something like the real world. Well, not the kick-ass free-running sequence, but still. Oh, and also: There are computers and cell phones in Casino Royale, and only one piece of gadgetry was essential to the film. Everything else? Guns, knives, fists, phones. It's down-to-the-ground stuff, and it's amazing to watch.
Even as the franchise began to shed staples with 2006's Casino Royale and tomorrow's Quantum of Solace, the James Bond series is still known for several keystones across twenty other films: girls, gadgets, guns, martinis, silhouettes of female figures thrusting about during the credits, and so on. Some would say that these were the traditions that helped lead James Bond down the path that would end in 2002's Die Another Day, which some would say made them want to take a top hat to their own throats. (Me? I didn't hate it.)
Among these recurring touches were the last lines, often cheeky turns of phrase that seemed to suggest that everything was going to be just fine between Commander Bond and that chick who we'd never see or hear about ever again. So, out of twenty-one films, I humbly offer up my picks for the seven best of the bunch. I'll leave you to find out if Quantum ends more along the lines of Royale's "The name's Bond... James Bond", or with something a bit sexier...
I guess he'll die another way, to paraphrase Madonna's lousy theme song for the 20th Bond movie. Bond's survival of baroque death traps has been mocked on screen all the way back to 1965, when the noted character actor Robert Easton had the following line as a fruity-accented Bond type in The Loved One: "I think it could be dicey if he decides to use the giant squid." There was a giant octopus in the novel of Dr. No, though no villain ever actually employed sharks with laser helmets as in the Austin Powers films. However, there had been a planned robot shark in the kinda-non canonical Bond adventure Never Say Never Again. Our hero has dealt with seven especially exotic murder weapons over the years:
1. Death by giant yo-yo:Octopussy (1983) Resting after an exhausting shag with Maud Adams, Commander Bond (Roger Moore) is awakened by the sudden arrival in his bed of a razor-ended steel yo-yo as large as a family-sized pizza. This must have been the invention of co-screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser, who was always menacing his hero Flashman with just such stuff. I can't nail down the exact first use of strapping a heroine to a log and sending her into a sawmill, though this was considered so essential to the silent serials that it was parodied in the titles of TV's Fractured Flickers. This particular flying guillotine, some sort of cousin to this ancient sawmill gag, brings the circle around from silent movie heroism to modern day pulp.
A love affair with the James Bond series is like a marriage; it's for life, and it's definitely a "richer or poorer, better or worse" proposition. Some days you get Casino Royale (2006) or Goldfinger (1964), where everything is bliss, but then other days you get Grace Jones or a cameo from Madonna or someone named "Christmas Jones." Some days are Connery and some are Lazenby. Some days your director is Guy Hamilton or Martin Campbell, and some days your director is John Glen or Marc Forster. But, like a diamond, the imperfections are what make it all worthwhile. From among the dregs, then, here are a few of my favorite things:
1. The entire supporting cast in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) I confess it's one of the weakest Roger Moore entries, but come on! Motherf---in' Christopher "Dracula/Dooku/Saruman" Lee is the bad guy! And Hervé Villechaize as his diminutive villainous sidekick! And sex-goddess Britt Ekland as the Bond girl! In a bikini! And Swedish model Maud Adams, who would return as "Octopussy"! And Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn! And Soon-Tek Oh as Lieutenant Hip. The only drawback is that the goldurn redneck sheriff returns (see #2)...
2. The Paul McCartney Theme Song in Live and Let Die (1973) Some fans like this early Roger Moore entry, but Moore hadn't yet settled into the role yet, and I call it "the one with the redneck sheriff and the idiotic boat chase." But conversely, it has one of the best -- if not the best -- song of the series, with its slow build, peculiar tempo changes and odd lyrics ("in this ever changing world in which we live in.") This was McCartney at his crazy out-there best, and it brings much goodwill to the rest of the film.
(In anticipation of Quantum of Solace, we're rerunning some of our favorite Bond posts alongside a few new ones. Enjoy!)
By: Jeffrey M. Anderson
One of the pleasures of anticipating a new James Bond film is considering which singer or band would be most appropriate to add themselves to the long and diverse list of James Bond themes. (Wouldn't a Radiohead theme song be just great? Or the Pixies?) It's almost like winning some kind of award. These songs will likely be revived and re-packaged for generations to come. Not all of the choices have been particularly timeless ("The Living Daylights" by A-ha), and many others are not without a cheeseball flavor (Tom Jones strutting through "Thunderball"). It's also obvious that a great song does not guarantee a good movie, and vice-versa. Hence, as terrific as Casino Royale was, the song by Chris Cornell was only so-so. But no matter what anyone thinks of Quantum of Solace, the new song "Another Way to Die" (by Jack White and Alicia Keys) rocks!
In choosing my seven, I decided to omit Monty Norman's original, instrumental theme, written for Dr. No (1962), but used again in various forms throughout the series.
1. "Goldfinger," by Shirley Bassey Bassey and the Sean Connery era go together like "martini" and "shaken, not stirred." She had that bold, brassy voice that sounded not unlike the wah-wah horns or the twangy guitar that accompany all that 1960s music. It's the most instantly recognizable song, and the most closely associated with its specific film. Plus how can you not love those bizarre rhymes, like "Midas touch" with "spider's touch" and "Goldfinger" with "cold finger"? Pure genius! Bassey returned to record "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) and "Moonraker" (1979), the latter for an undeserving Roger Moore.
Tomorrow brings Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott to the screen as Role Models. Energy drink and driving bandits, they crash the company truck, and get one of two choices as punishment -- sign up to mentor children, or go to the slammer. Of course, they choose mentoring, having no idea what they're really getting into.
It's always been an interesting idea -- make ne'er-do-wells change their ways by making them do good deeds and be role models. But sometimes it's not such a good idea. In the world of film, there are MANY characters who should never, ever be allowed to act as role models to impressionable youths. Menaces to children everywhere, they'd most likely do the exact opposite of what was intended. This list is, by no means, complete; but consider it a starting point. Read on, reminisce about these bad influences and then comment below about who you would include.
And be warned: These clips may include strong language, and all sorts of adult conduct.
Mention the name Michael Crichton to a heavy reader, and they'll probably think of a very smart man who used real science as a springboard for some truly fantastic stories. Mention the name to a movie geek, and their reaction will probably depend on how old the movie geek is. First and foremost I believe Mr. Crichton will be remembered as the author of Jurassic Park, mainly because the book and the film were such massive hits all over the globe. But if you focus solely on the late Michael Crichton's cinematic output, you start to realize what a silly streak the smart man must have had.
Looker (1981, screenwriter / director) -- Once again, a novel concept that's way past its expiration date in 2008, but it's about a plastic surgeon who slowly comes to discover a conspiracy involving computers, supermodels, and TV commercials.
Runaway (1984, screenwriter / director) -- What must have seemed like a futuristic techno-thriller at one point now looks like a hopelessly outdated piece of action-flick silliness. It's cyborg hunter Tom Selleck vs. Gene Simmons and his gang of robo-spiders! Crazy stuff. And MC was too smart a guy to not notice how goofy some of this stuff is...
The Great Train Robbery (1979, screenwriter / director) -- For my money this is (far and away) Crichton's finest directorial effort. (I rented the DVD from Netflix several years ago, sent it back, and bought a copy the next day. I love it.) It's a period piece, so the use of technology is of course limited, but that doesn't keep the movie from being smart, slick and quick. Plus Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland make a really entertaining team.
Tonight (we hope), the longest and hardest-fought Presidential campaign in recent memory finally comes to a close. To celebrate, we've assembled a list of the seven most memorable political campaign workers in the past 50 years of movies. We've got office staff members, campaign managers, and the candidates themselves, each one giving their all in the most important campaign of their lives.
Redford plays activist and staunch idealist Bill McKay, son of the former governor of California, who reluctantly enters the race for Senator with little chance of winning, all so he can speak out honestly on "the issues." As his popularity and support grows, so do the temptations and pressures to compromise his beliefs. My favorite scene comes deep in the campaign when McKay goes a little nuts in the back seat of a car speeding to a TV station. Repeating his slogan over and over, he's so exhausted that all he can do is laugh hysterically. Peter Boyle and Allan Garfield play his equally memorable political operatives.
What is it about California that makes Senators go nuts? Up for re-election, California Senator Jay Bulworth (Beatty), no longer wishing to live, decides he can finally speak the truth instead of campaign rhetoric, making for a racous series of politically incorrect adventures. Beatty, of course, had previously made Shampoo, in which he spent Election Day in 1968 running around Los Angeles putting out romantic and business fires, but he outdid himself with Bulworth.
Every October I rack my brain trying to come up with some new type of horror list. (Me and every other genre site in the world!) But I was watching one of my favorites the other night and I was struck by how damn creepy the movie is. Like from frame one to the final stinger. Off-putting, distressing, ominous, sinister ... creepy, basically. And boom, there's your Cine-7 topic. Plain Old Creepy Flicks. And obviously I want some good contributions from you folks. Have a safe and happy Halloween.
Sleepy Hollow -- It's not often mentioned among Tim Burton's best films, but I've grown very fond of this flick over the last several years. The basic story is cool enough, and there's a great ensemble to sift through, but it's just the simple LOOK of the movie that keeps me feeling a little bit creeped out. This adaptation is perfect for family viewing, too, provided your kids are at least pre-teens. It's scary (and gory) enough to not be corny, and it's got just enough plot to keep the parents interested. Plus, c'mon. Johnny Depp is great in this movie.
Pumpkinhead-- Prior to sitting down with the recent (and excellent) special edition of Stan Winston's one and only directorial effort, all I'd remembered about the flick was A) Lance Henriksen, B) a very cool monster, and C) a surprisingly atmospheric presentation. And that recent viewing said the same thing: This is a very cool monster movie. Dark, gothic, a little gory, and a rather cool ending.
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