THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK (2010)

July 2nd, 1863: At a small farm outside Bent Fork, Virginia, the grossly-outmatched (at a rate of fifty-three to one) 13th Rhode Island regiment faced and defeated a massive Confederate force bent on staging a sneak attack on Washington, an herculean military routing that tested the leadership, thinking-out-of-the-box ingenuity, dogged tenacity and the general fearlessness of its four principal Union officers. Yet while many of the Civil War's military engagements remain prominent in the public's consciousness, this set-to, known as "The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek," has faded into the mists of obscurity. Fortunately, documentarian Grace A. Burns has crafted a fascinating act of cinematic archaeology with this feature-length examination of those Union-saving heroes.

The four principal figures in a forgotten chapter of American history: (L-R) Li Shau-zu, Colonel Jonathan Franklin Hale, Elijah Swan, Rowena Harris/Nick Brody. 

The film's narrative goes into considerable detail on its subjects' back-stories, aided by commentary from a number of distinguished historians, rendering them into more than mere historical footnotes to the viewer. The four now-obscure soldiers whose efforts staved off the potentially devastating attack were:

• Colonel Jonathan Franklin Hale, a twenty-four-year-old cross-dressing homosexual, infamous and persecuted within the military for his rakish deportment and insistence upon freshly-laundered uniforms for his men. Sent to West Point at sixteen, Hale was forged into a leader while enjoying every moment of the riding, drilling, stylish dress, and camaraderie of other like-minded young men, and though of Georgian origin, Hale held to his vows as a soldier of the one nation when the South opted to secede, a move that put him at direct odds with his lover, one Sinclair Whittier, a proud officer of the Confederacy. (The film traces the trajectory of that relationship.)
• Li Shao-zu, an aged warrior who joined the Chinese military at a very young age and fought the British in the opium wars. Skipping out on his "lousy, drug-pushing whore" of a a wife who was doing a brisk drug-trading business in opposition to her husband's anti-British efforts, Li made his way to the States with the intention of getting rich during the Gold Rush, but instead found success as a pioneer in the laundry industry, eventually serving as a launderer for the U.S. Army and forging a friendship with Colonel Hale. His bravery and military experience — to say nothing of his innovations in dry cleaning chemical engineering — placed Li in a position that would make him vital to the 13th Rhode Island's martial success.
• Elijah Swan, the result of a liaison between a wood-chopping slave and the jungle-fever-ridden wife of the slave's owner, whose early life was marked by the effects of his mother's many questionable decisions. Cast into the hardship of slavery upon the deaths of his mother and her husband (a fanatical and abstinent Calvinist whose poor vision allowed him to somehow believe that the obviously black child was his own spawn), Elijah eventually escaped and built upon his pre-enslavement education, revealing himself to be a mathematical, scientific and engineering genius.
• Rowena Harris (aka Rowena Oaks, aka Candie Apple, aka "Poison" Apple, aka Nick Brody), the battle's most tenacious hero. A poor and once-innocent young woman who found herself thrust first into sexual slavery and then child-prostitution at the hands of the unscrupulous pimp Beauregard Ridge, Rowena, after proving herself a voracious trollop when it came to making cash from the lust of men, sought sociopathically-motivated vengeance upon Ridge with the focus of a Fury straight out of Greek mythology when her former pimp made off with all of the money she'd saved while in his employ (along with that of all of the other whores in his stable) and joined the Confederate forces in Arkansas. Adopting the identity and uniform of drowned drummer boy Nick Brody, Rowena's quest for retribution was derailed upon her left arm being amputated following catching a bullet. Adrift after that tragedy, Rowena/Nick switched sides and ended up under the command of Col. Hale, who saw nothing odd about having a one-armed drummer boy in his regiment (a decision that may have been influenced by Hale's growing opium addiction). It was during this time that Rowena/Nick experienced a full-on speaking-in-tongues mystical vision, the first of several that aided in guiding the 13th Rhode Island to its celebrated (and swiftly swept under the rug) destiny at Pussy Willow Creek.

But what exactly occurred at the battle of Pussy Willow Creek and just why was it so instrumental in the Union's eventual winning of the Civil War? There's a lot to that answer, and it's best left for the curious to discover for themselves.

The byzantine paths of the disparate figures weave together in a most compelling and improbable tapestry that illustrates just what glorious results can come from a confluence of "misfits" and those derided by general society, and rescues their story from the rubbish heap of history deemed unworthy of celebration by virtue of its protagonists' lack of an heroic image in keeping with the usual "all-American" image as perceived by its era. Packed with vintage daguerreotype images, excerpts from letters written by several of the principals and those who knew them, and seasoned with music and songs from the period, THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK comes from out of nowhere to join the ranks of such celebrated documentaries as ZELIG (1983), C.S.A.-THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA (2004) and Marti DiBergi's epochal THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984), and if its merits can be judged by the company it finds itself amongst, THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK stands as an achievement to be reckoned with...

Aaah, who am I kidding? THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK is actually a straight-faced "mockumentary" written, directed and produced by Wendy Jo Cohen, and is a work of such verisimilitude that one could be forgiven for being snowed by its earnest recounting of a battle that never happened, led as it was by "a drug-addicted faggot, a geriatric heathen, a nerdy nigger, and a crazy, one-armed teenaged whore." Starting out utterly deadpan, the film slowly builds in sheer ridiculousness that ends up as a finely-layered narrative depicting just how badly the groups represented by its protagonists got fucked up the ass without benefit of Astro Glide by the nation they fought for, and its content is just as hilarious as it is riveting. Highly recommended and definitely not to be missed, the film will be screened at Manhattan's Quad Cinema from March 1st through the 7th, so here's the theater's info:

The Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY
(212) 255-2243

Click here for the theater's website and more information. (And speaking of websites, click here for THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK's own site.)

Get your tickets today and support this triumph of indie filmmaking and comedy that wasn't shat steaming and redolent from the asshole of the Judd Apatow assembly line. This is a film for humor-lovers with a brain, and seriously, it's funny as hell. TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

HEAVY TRAFFIC (1973)

We's all niggers, boy! Ha ha! You an' me, just goddamn crazy niggers! We's all niggers boy. Most of us don't know it yet. 

-Crazy Moe

Back in April of 1972 a new animated film opened and I, as a kid just two months shy of turning seven, begged my mom to take me to see it. She kindly obliged, but when we arrived at the movie theater we were both shocked at being refused admittance because the cartoon flick in question was rated X. The film was of course Ralph Bakshi's FRITZ THE CAT and I was quite confused by not being admitted to a cartoon since in my experience cartoons had always been a thing designed for kids, but I came away from that experience with an understanding that films bearing that strange X rating must contain something it was necessary to protect my innocent young mind from, thereby igniting an interest in X-rated movies that burned fiercely within me until I finally saw one during my adolescence in the late 1970's. The funny thing is the first X-rated movie I ever saw was director Ralph Bakshi's followup to FRITZ THE CAT, 1973's HEAVY TRAFFIC, and while not in any way what I expected from an X flick (namely unmitigated pornography featuring hairy hippie types with dirty feet), I was not in the least bit disappointed and have found that the film sticks with me far more than any other that Bakshi has made.

HEAVY TRAFFIC's cartoonist protagonist, Michael Corleone.

HEAVY TRAFFIC is a surreal and over-the-top blend of live action and animation, but the world it depicts in both instances is a caricatured study of a decaying environment and its equally squalid denizens. It follows the day-to-day existence of several lowlives who act as grotesquely-delineated New York City mainstays from the pre-Giuliani era, those bad old days of a Times Square that oozed a fetid and potentially deadly allure, an urban existential limbo populated by whores, junkies, bums, Mafiosi, and living ethnic stereotypes run rampant. The film is chock-a-block with volatile niggers, spics, guinzos, kikes, gimps and damned near every other unflattering human you can name (although the Chinks are conspicuously missing in action), and at the center of the dysfunctional maelstrom is twenty-two-year-old Michael Corleone (no, not that Michael Corleone), a more or less jobless, virginal slacker who lives in a run-down tenement apartment with his mob-connected Italian father, Angie, and his long-suffering Jewish mother, Ida.

Ida: "I died the day I married a Goy."

While stuck in the middle of his parents' failed and physically violent marriage, Michael spends most of his time at his drawing board, creating what were then known as "underground" comics, and when not being a disappointment in the eyes of his hyper-macho dad and serving as his mom's focus of maturity-stifling Jewish mothering, he wanders the streets of New York, encountering the myriad types previously described. There's not really a plot to speak of, but rather a series of events propelling Michael from Point A to Point B and so on.

During Michael's wanderings we meet such notables as Crazy Moe, a homeless black guy whose bent philosophy may be the closest thing the film has to an existential "voice," pathetic drag hustler Snowflake, the legless and very creepy barfly Shorty (who looks like an even tougher and more mutated version of Popeye transplanted to a depressing post-hippie metropolitan dystopia), and most importantly Carole, a tough, no-nonsense black bartender.

Carole tells it like it is.

Carole is the object of Michael's initially unrequited affections and when she loses her job she moves in with Michael, after which the pair team up for a pathetic series of attempts at earning money that soon escalate to savage brutality.

Angie (Michael's dad and the anti-Homer Simpson) and his drunken mistress, Molly.

But while Michael and Carole try to figure out what to do with their lives, Michael's dad commits a few errors in judgment and conduct that put him out of favor with the local Godfather, a situation that does nothing to soothe his already explosive nature, and his temper is pushed past the limit when he comes home with a fat Italian whore he intends to give to Michael to finally take care of his son's virginity problem, only to find his son shacked up with a mulignane.

A very drunk Angie takes a walk on the wild side with Snowflake (and friends).

Michael's dad then goes on quite a bender, finding solace in the understanding (and frankly predatory) arms of Snowflake — and also possibly several other homosexual hustlers who've set up base in an abandoned cargo truck — and hiring Shorty to kill his son after the Godfather refuses to sanction the hit because Angie's hatred of his nigger-loving progeny is personal and not business-related.

Shorty embarks on a jealousy-fueled hunt.

Y'see, Shorty has carried a seriously unrequited torch for Carole's fine black ass and her hooking up with Michael does not make the legless badass very happy at all, so it's only a matter of time until something very ugly transpires...

Clocking in at a brisk seventy-nine minutes, HEAVY TRAFFIC blew my fourteen-year-old mind when I saw it during a visit to my dad's, late night on WHT (remember that?), since up to that point about the most vivid depiction of New York City that I'd seen was SERPICO (also from 1973). That bygone era was rife with New York City-based films examining the human condition but at such a relatively innocent age I didn't know about that, and my existence in Westport, Connecticut was about as far removed from the horrors of the big city as a one hour ride on a Metro North train would allow, so I certainly was not prepared for the exaggerated truths contained in Bakshi's movie. Several things about it shook me to the core, for better and worse, and to this day I can't get some of HEAVY TRAFFIC's images out of my head. For example (SPOILER WARNING!!!):

• The sequence when Michael is kindly invited to lose his virginity on a rooftop mattress with the very willing assistance of a neighborhood cutie, while a trio of sleazy greasers egg him on.

This bit was especially squirm-inducing to my fourteen-year-old mind because it was certainly a situation to be desired (minus the greasers), but the setting rendered the potentiality quite sordid (who knows what kind of action both that mattress and the girl had previously seen?). But what's more disturbing than the concept of losing one's cherry while being observed by switchblade-wielding local louts is that Michael's over-eager rush toward the girl in question results in her being accidentally shoved off the roof, and after a brief stunned silence Michael turns to the greasers with a sleazy smirk on his face and observes, "She had it comin'," after which he and the greasers laugh at his perceived wit. I was stunned to see such nonchalance in the face of an innocent girl's apparent multiple-story plunge to a splattery end on the pavement, but almost immediately after the boys laugh themselves silly we see the nude and apparently unconscious and unharmed girl dangling by one foot from a clothesline, also to be seen again later in the film from another angle. Was I supposed to read it as the deserved fate of a "loose" girl who'd give herself to any random slob on a rooftop? I didn't know then and and I'm not all that sure about it now, but it still disturbed me when I saw it again recently.

• The exuberant dance, punch-up/slash-up engaged in by the greasers following the girl's plunge off the roof, musically accented by the Isley Brothers' original recording of "Twist & Shout."

The happiness and bloody violence expressed is indeed cartoonish, but it made me think of some weird ancient ritual performed by a bunch of modern savages whose only joy can be found in pain and degradation. This was also the first time I'd heard the original "Twist & Shout" rather than the Beatles cover, and it holds a lot more power for me when coupled with the idea of a group of friends merrily beating and slashing each other. The Coyote coming back unscathed after his latest crash to earth or run-in with dynamite this definitely was not.

• Snowflake was perhaps my earliest exposure to the late-1960's/early-1970's cinematic stereotype of the pathetic and grotesque gay drag hustler, and I really didn't know what to make of her at the time.

An offensive stereotype even then, Snowflake is depicted as trawling seedy bars for very rough trade and actually enjoying getting beaten when her date discovers she's actually a guy. I grew up with some kids who knew they were gay and were out, loud and proud about it from the time they were eight, so Snowflake's sad creepiness did not compute with what I knew of homosexuals. In the years since 1979 I have witnessed the real life version of Snowflake more times than I care to consider, and just as the question crossed my mind when I was a kid, I still ask myself whenever I see one of those lost boys, "What put you where you are, and what will become of you when you end up on the wrong end of the wrong bruiser?" I'd love for some of my current crop of gay friends to see this movie and give me their analysis of Snowflake, once they got over their justifiable offense and nausea.

• Shorty scares the living shit out of me for a number of reasons, especially after encountering several types just like him in the real world during my time at the barbecue joint.

Shorty's a creepy regular at Carole's bar whose lack of legs is never explained, but his half-a-man stature belies the palpable violence brewing a millimeter from his misshapen surface. This dude is the embodiment of every tough guy loser I've ever seen in seedy dives and his animalistic, uncomprehending need for the clearly not interested Carole is painful to watch because once he gets it through his head that he's been rejected, you just know somebody is going to pay for it in blood. Everything that self-admitted diamond in the rough Popeye stood for finds its polar opposite in Shorty, and that's something I'm loath to contemplate.

• The idea of the isolated loser finding solace in the movies of yesteryear is an old trope but it works really well here as Michael sits alone in a vast decaying moviehouse, watching 1940's comedies and musicals that cast the world in far more pleasing shades than the one he exists in (note that I don't say "lives").

The images Michael watches bear no relation to his reality and the heart sinks as the camera pulls away from him, seated in the balcony, to reveal a theater so empty and quiet save for the unspooling movie's soundtrack. I've experienced a similar feeling several times over the past three decades as I sometimes sat alone in assorted theaters, and every time I'm drawn back to the image of Michael's desolation.

• The New York City captured by Bakshi is a surreal and freakish jungle whose every inhabitant and vista appears to have been hewn from some bottomless source of both psychedelia and deep psychosis.

The panicky, bloody red as Carole fearfully avoids being stalked by Shorty.

A distorted view of Snowflake's dockside cargo seraglio.

The pre-Lynchian models at Michael's uncle's girly magazine photo studio.

Looking back at it now, it's something of a miracle that I moved to New York City to find my so-called fame and fortune in the wake of seeing HEAVY TRAFFIC at such an impressionable age, but maybe some of its untamed interpretation of the pre-Giuliani NYC served as a lure to this Connecticut darkie...

• At the film's end we get to see a live action Michael and Carole, and their real life selves are refreshingly even less glamorous than their animated incarnations.

Y'see, the movie opens with live action Michael (Joseph Kaufmann) playing pinball, and as the game intensifies the animation kicks in, blended with well-used stock footage and live street locations. I may be wrong about this, but I think the main animated narrative is a feature-length fantasy experienced by Michael as he works the pinball machine to a futile conclusion (although a conclusion considerably less bleak and disturbing than that met by his animated avatar). Upon making his way out of the arcade and onto the street, Michael's wanderings bring him past the bar where Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson) worked and he sees his dream girl angrily cursing out an unseen patron. The two eventually meet in a park, briefly argue, and then end the film dancing together to the by-now-haunting strains of "Scarborough Fair" as rendered by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66. It's a weird and disorienting finale, but somehow wholly appropriate.

Reminiscent of LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN in its hopelessness, HEAVY TRAFFIC will come as a sobering and rather depressing story for those whose animated tastes are informed by the works of Das Uber Disney and is not recommended if you need a feel-good break from the real world's endless cycle of misery and ennui. Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66's version of "Scarborough Fair" is heard several times throughout the film and serves as an ominous signature that underscores the film's menace and anguish. When I found the soundtrack album in a cutout bin for a buck about eighteen years ago, I took the LP back to my Manhattan apartment, smoked a fat joint and put the record on the turntable, listening to "Scarborough Fair" about six times as the other-than-nicotinal bliss took hold, and in those moments I felt very much connected to Bakshi's squalid vision.

These days the New York City seen on film in movies like MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SHAFT, MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER is long gone, tits-up dead and relegated to history. But as long as films like HEAVY TRAFFIC and its dark fairy tale of Manhattan remain, its time will never truly fade from memory. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Original theatrical release poster.

MOVIE 43 (2013)

I have often said there is no greater cinematic failure than an unfunny comedy. Think about it for a minute. Virtually any other movie genre can at least yield unintentional laughs and therefore some semblance of enjoyment, while a comedy that does not succeed at its very reason for existing — specifically to be funny and make its audience laugh — provides the viewer with absolutely fuck all and just lays there on the screen like three-day-old roadkill. The last movie I saw that made me feel like I'd been watching ninety solid minutes of roadkill was the execrable THE LOVE GURU, and now I can say that MOVIE 43 provided much the same experience, only with the level of tastelessness cranked up to 11 (for a mainstream release, that is).

If you know me at all, either in the real world or from reading my blog's ramblings, it's readily apparent that I have nothing whatsoever against bad taste, profanity, general offensiveness, and the aggressively stupid when it comes to humor. Fuck, I positively revel in such stuff! So how could I not be interested in seeing a movie that purportedly harked back to the now lost comedic niche once filled by such films as THE GROOVE TUBE, TUNNELVISION, THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, and AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON? And the other factors that lured me into seeing MOVIE 43 were that it was not screened for critics — never a good sign — though a handful of critics did see it in advance and spurned it like it was a rabid dog, and when the movie opened, the critics were all over it like ugly on a gorilla, almost universally condemning it. (I saw exactly one positive review.) Being an out loud and proud (though cultured) vulgarian, I opted to ignore the critics and see the film for myself, with my friend Lexi and her high school-age brother, Charlie (whom I proudly consider to be my nephew).

We braved the frigid weather and rendezvoused at Park Slope's infamously irritating Pavilion theater, a cheesy multiplex located across from Prospect Park and staffed with an assortment of ghetto-acting louts. Two of the auditoriums did not have heat (which at least was considerately posted at the box office) and the general interior of the place was rather chilly, but the auditorium for MOVIE 43 at least was warm. Charlie arrived before Lexi and walked in to meet me in the lobby, where he walked past the sleazy ticket-taker, who for all we knew could have been just some lout who'd wandered into the theater from the street. My ticket had been torn when I entered but Charlie had not yet purchased his, so I told him to hit the box office. Hearing that exchange, the dodgy ticket-taker asked if Charlie was with me and when I answered in the affirmative, he told Charlie to just walk in and he would meet us in the theater to get the money. Thinking the film was such a mega-bomb that it didn't matter if Charlie paid or not, I figured the guy was just letting him in because why the fuck not and his comment about the money being a feeble attempt at humor, so we thanked him and went into what was hands down the darkest auditorium I have ever been in. True to his word, the ticket guy followed us upstairs and immediately demanded the full $12.00 ticket price from Charlie. As Charlie fished in his pockets for the cash, I looked at the ticket guy and said "Twelve bucks? Dude, I just paid $8.50 for mine!" He quickly shot back with "Oh, shit! Matinee! I forgot it's the matinee! Just gimme eight bucks. I hate change! Just tryin' ta make some money, man." So the guy was obviously short on cash and decided to deny the place of his employ the price of a movie ticket so he could line his own pockets. When Lexi arrived and took her seat, I looked around and noted that including the three of us, there were exactly ten other people in the whole auditorium. I wonder how many of them also got hit up for cash by the ticket-scamming usher?

In other words, the perfect bit of shabbiness to set the mood for the movie that immediately followed.

Anyway, MOVIE 43 is a series of "shock comedy" shorts, loosely connected by a framing narrative in which a desperate and clearly insane screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) attempts to pitch his screenplay to a Hollywood studio producer (Greg Kinnear). The sketches are meant to be seen as segments from the mad writer's script as read by the writer to the stunned producer, none of which really have anything to do with an over-arcing theme (despite the writer's attempts to convince us otherwise), with each providing a central offensive and/or gross concept upon which the bit hinges. More often than not, once the gag is made clear, that's pretty much it, even if the gag elicits an initial giggle or titter, and one finds themselves counting the time until that bit ends and another begins, with the new bit hopefully being better than what preceded it. Unfortunately, around 98% of the material would not pass muster on even the lamest of sketch shows, so what we have here are bits with varying degrees of unfunniness and no solid gems. At times it felt as though the various talent involved — actors (several of whom are A-listers), writers, directors — figured that touching on taboo subjects, profanity, nudity, and violence would automatically add up to comedy gold, but instead those efforts have spun straw. You may laugh once or twice but for the most part the general reaction as the movie's foul scenarios escalate is a skeeved-out "Oh, god!!!" after which the shock wears off and is swiftly rendered tedious and punchline-free.

Of the material trotted out during the flick's ninety-seven-minute running time, I admit to being entertained by the ongoing escalation of the screenwriter's crazed pitching, a situation that results in gunpoint extortion of a paycheck (and fellatio that happens offscreen) and other insanity before the actual writers simply lose interest and cop out by having the actors (who drop character) and film crew (who are now plainly visible) simply say "Fuck this. Let's just run the last short." As for the shorts themselves, none of the full-length offerings were fully satisfying and several went on too long for no good reason, but the ones that stuck with me for various small reasons include:

• Kate Winslett's blind date with Hugh Jackman, the "perfect" man who possess a rather jarring physical flaw. The bit has no proper punchline and is abruptly cut off by returning to the appalled producer telling the insane scriptwriter there's no way the studio would go for it.
• A speed-dating session involving Batman (Jason Sudeikis) dickishly ruining Robin's (Justin Long) chances at romance. I've seen this basic setup done better elsewhere but it gets points here for casting Kristen Bell as Supergirl (sort of).
• A fantastic "romantic" dialogue exchange between a supermarket worker (Kieran Culkin) and his ex-girlfriend (Emma Stone), both of whom clearly still ache for one another. Unfortunately, the bit has no real punchline. Once the crazy dialogue back-and-forth is done, the sketch might as well be also, but it's not.
• The sequence where a seventh-grader (Chloe Moretz) has the misfortune of getting her first period while in the presence of her classmate makeout buddy, his asshole older brother (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and the boys' dad (Patrick Warburton). This could have been a genius bit that cleverly played with male cluelessness when sudden menstruation occurs, but once again the film drops the ball, this time ending the bit with a fake commercial.
• The aforementioned commercial, a fake spot for leak-proof Tampax, is less than a minute in length and is easily the funniest thing in the entire movie.
• Halle Berry's blind date with a tall, dorky-looking Englishman (Stephen Merchant), which devolves into a truly ridiculous game of "truth or dare" escalation. It's funny up to a point but it goes on too long and, once again, results in a fizzled fart of a so-called punchline.
• Terrence Howard as a 1950's-era coach to an all-black basketball team, trying his damnedest to get it through his team's heads that they are black and will destroy their all-white opponents simply because "that's how basketball works." A funny idea that actually does have a punchline, but not much of a good one. The denouement was fairly predictable and it went exactly  where I thought it would.
• A completely gratuitous appearance by FAMILY GUY creator Seth McFarlane, as himself, that serves no purpose whatsoever other than to shoehorn him into the film. He is literally given absolutely nothing to do. There's also a gratuitous shoutout to FAMILY GUY during the Halle Berry sketch that only serves to remind us that there is funnier stuff that we could be watching.

There's a lot of other shit to be had but none of it is funny, and when the credits roll we are "treated" to supposedly-funny outtakes that are not at all amusing, presumably included to pad out the running time. The fact that a film containing so much vulgarity and dumber-than-dirt "guy humor" did not win my favor says a lot, so I simply cannot recommend MOVIE 43, not even when it ends up on cable. It's an almost-total waste of time and I can honestly say I regret not seeing HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS instead, which Lexi wanted to do but I, like an idiot, instead opted for the movie that looked like it would be gone by the end of the week. Now I'm curious to see if it makes it through even a mere seven days. When the inevitable lists of 2013's worst films hits, I guarantee you that MOVIE 43 will be quite deservedly at the head of the pack.

Lastly, the whole experience was quite eloquently summed up by Lexi, who, after we'd all said our goodbyes, texted me with a simple comment: "I want to wash my brain."

Poster from the theatrical release.

DISASTER MOVIE (2008)

NOTE: This review was originally posted at THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS in August of 2008.

Sweet ass-fucking Jesus... Was this foreseen in the Book of Revelations?

Is child molesting funny? No. Was the Holocaust funny? Nyet. Was chattel slavery a laugh riot? I say thee nay. Is ovarian cancer a gut-buster? Um, nope. To this list of things that are in absolutely no way funny you can now add DISASTER MOVIE, a "comedy" completely and utterly bankrupt of any and all elements that go into what is considered humor. Compared to what DISASTER MOVIE has to offer, the feeblest of "knock knock" jokes looks like BLACKADDER III by comparison.

BLACKADDER III (1987): actual comedy.

No lie, DISASTER MOVIE is a film so awful that while enduring its cornucopia of wretchedness you may find yourself wishing you were stuck in a maximum security prison, sucking the dicks of hulking prisoners named D-Cell and Stab Wound instead.

Brought to us by writer/director team of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, the same creatively bankrupt purveyors of garbage who gave the world the unwanted cinematic landfill that was DATE MOVIE, EPIC MOVIE and MEET THE SPARTANS, this so-called film hinges its avalanche of point-and-click references — they are most certainly not jokes — on the world coming to an end unless the Crystal Skull (yes, that Crystal Skull) is returned to its sacred altar. That’s literally all the explanation we get before we’re off on an endless, numbing parade of sub-'70's era CRACKED MAGAZINE “parodies” of all the recent movie blockbusters and potshots at random pop culture figures, about .02% of which elicited a smile from me, much less an actual laugh. There is no script to speak of, the unfortunate cast instead finding themselves in a celluloid bedlam that reels off like the stream of consciousness ramblings of a Richard Roeper on a heavy dose of some seriously bad Mexican cough syrup chased with a bottle of window cleaner. Among the multitude of films, characters and personalities to receive a nod are:

• JUNO (the mocking of which provided the only moments of genuine humor in the entire movie, which amounted to about forty seconds of material out of a total of ninety minutes)

• 10, 000 BC

• WANTED

• INDIANA JONES AND THE CAVE OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

• HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL

• IRON MAN

• THE INCREDIBLE HULK

• SUPERBAD (a year late)

• CLOVERFIELD

• YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (an admittedly stupid/silly comedy that was 500,000 times better than DISASTER MOVIE)

• HANNA MONTANA

• ARMAGEDDON (a film that while terrible is nowhere near the same galaxy of awfulness as DISASTER MOVIE)

• Amy Winehouse as a sabretoothed tiger (don't ask)

• HANCOCK

• SEX & THE CITY (with Sarah Jessica Parker played by a man; sadly, that gag kind of worked)

• AMERICAN GLADIATORS

• Flavor Flav, nude, Viking-helmeted and with that big-assed clock obscuring his junk (thank the gods)

• JUMPER

• THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

• TWISTER (at least a decade too late for anyone to care)

• HELLBOY II

• ENCHANTED

• NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

• STEP UP (1 and 2)

• GET SMART

• ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS (doing death metal, which was almost funny in concept)

• BATMAN (in general, not even specifically THE DARK KNIGHT)

• SPEED RACER

Each and every one of those were clearly identifiable to anyone who hadn’t been an expatriate on the planet Mongo for the past twenty years, but rather than have faith in the fact that the audience knows what they obviously came and paid actual money to see, the filmmakers — bile churns within me as I use that word to describe those no-talent ass-clowns — feel the need to have the protagonists explain the alleged gags for the moviegoers, thus proving that they have no respect whatsoever for the viewer’s intelligence. For example: when the Flavor Flav impersonator pops into frame and lets loose with the expected “Yeah, boyeeeeee!” coonery, the protagonist exclaims, “Flavor Flav?” Another case in point: during the 10,000 B.C. segment, an Amy Winehouse lookalike (with sabretooth tiger fangs, remember) is greeted by the protagonist (in caveman drag) with, “Amy Winehouse?” If you think that’s both feeble and annoying, try sitting through ninety minutes in which about 99% of the visual references are verbally spelled out to you like you were as dumb as a burlap sack full of doorknobs. Compound that with the now-ubiquitous and nigh-incalculable uselessness of Carmen Electra and you have a cinematic attempt at comedy that’s about as funny as the rape of the Sabines, medieval torture upon pregnant “witches,” the Tuskegee Experiment, the My Lai massacre, and the entire run of ACCORDING TO JIM all rolled up into a humor-leeching black hole of Stygian suckhood. Yet people keep flocking to this team’s tripe with every new release and the films make money because they’re so fucking cheap to make that they recoup their costs within maybe two weeks through domestic ticket sales. I have no idea how these films do overseas but any money raked in from foreign countries is strictly gravy. So as long as the American public keeps on shelling out cash to see this shit, the colossal anus of the Friedman-Seltzer monster will just continue to defecate onto movie screens in multiplexes across this fair nation.

As I write this there are 137 user comments relating to DISASTER MOVIE on the IMDB (to which I will shortly add my own) and I believe it may be the only film on Rotten Tomatoes to score a 00% rating, a perfect storm of utter worthlessness. The horrendous MEET THE SPARTANS and EPIC MOVIE both garnered a 2% rating, while DATE MOVIE got 6%, so if you’ve seen any of those flicks you know just how wretched they are. Think about just how much it takes to earn a rating of 00%. That’s motherfucking ZERO PERCENT! Even GIGLI managed a six, for fuck’s sake!

TRUST YER BUNCHE and avoid DISASTER MOVIE at all costs, unless, like me, you just cannot help yourself and you absolutely have to see for yourself what is a strong contender for the title of WORST MOVIE EVER MADE. Those smug bastards who award that honor to Ed Wood’s far, far superior and immeasurably more entertaining PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE —a film released almost fifty years ago for about as much money as one would spend on an egg roll and some chicken fried rice — really need to shut the fuck up and try sitting through the cinematic Chernobyl of DISASTER MOVIE. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.

Oh, and for the record, I did not pay one cent to see this film. Let’s just say I have connections and leave it at that.

DATE MOVIE-UNRATED (2006)

NOTE: This review was originally posted at THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS in August of 2006.

When it comes to bad movies there is no greater tragedy than an unfunny comedy. A film in virtually any other genre can fail in its attempt at what it sets out to present and still in some small sense provide the viewer with entertainment by being so bad that it’s hilarious, some notable examples being EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, DEATH WISH 3, KUNG FU FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, AT LONG LAST LOVE, and the incredibly entertaining ROAD HOUSE. But when you suffer through a bad comedy. there is nothing to be had at all. The whole endeavor just sits there, inert like a festering corpse, and you can’t help but feel bad for everyone involved in the production. Such a film is the execrable DATE MOVIE, a literal textbook example of how NOT to make a comedy film. In fact, the film is so utterly diametrically opposed to the very nature of what is funny, it can best be described as the humor equivalent of Chernobyl, Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Mi Lai massacre, and 9/11 rolled into one great big hunk of hellaciousness.

Stylistically owing everything to the already feeble school of reference-without-a-joke filmmaking popularized by the SCARY MOVIE franchise — which attempts to ape the vastly superior AIRPLANE! and doesn’t even enter the same universe of quality — DATE MOVIE is a would-be pastiche of all those vomitous flicks that guys get dragged to and squrimingly sit through in hopes of getting some pussy after the movie lets out, such as BRIDGET JONES’ DIARY, HITCH, MEET THE PARENTS/FOKKERS, THE WEDDING PLANNER, MY BIG, FAT GREEK WEDDING and innumerable other testosterone-leechers, only it also veers into “parody” territory utilizing films and other media offerings that have nothing to do with its intended target genre. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH, the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, and even PIMP MY RIDE, each hauled out to make the viewer with a fifteen-second attention span say, “Hey! That’s from NAPOLEON DYNAMITE!” or whatever random thing caught the screenwriter’s fancy at that particular moment. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but mere visual recognition is not a gag.

The plot — such as it is — tells the story of a fat chick who seeks true love, gets a makeover and lyposuction, finds the guy of her dreams and then endures every possible romantic comedy cliché that you can think of until the film finally grinds to a halt. No surprises whatsoever there, but the true horror of this film is that it is simply so anti-funny that it becomes a thing of diabolical, even perverse, fascination. (Another perfect example of a film transcending its own horribleness is the nigh-unwatchable endurance test that is CURSE OF BIGFOOT, but that’s another story for another post…)

The cast, led by the adorable and hot Alyson Hannigan (Willow from TV’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER), are all quite game and try very hard to make the script into something even remotely fun, but let’s face it: you just cannot polish a turd. The jokes not only fall painfully flat, but the filmmakers apparently thought that if they stretched out any given gag to an intolerable length then the joke would render itself that much more side-splitting, a theory that might hold water if the bits in question worked at all, but such is not the case here. Once a joke falls flat, the same bit is suddenly driven home again, then there may be a brief pause for effect, as if to say, “Get it?” And then, just when you think they’re ready to move on to the next train wreck of non-hilarity they smack you right in the teeth with the same bullshit joke. Yet again!!! However, the one time where this strategy did work was a bit that played off of the sequence in MEET THE PARENTS with the toilet-trained cat; in DATE MOVIE the cat is played by a truly hilariously tatty puppet, and it takes the longest, loudest and downright foulest shit that I’ve ever seen outside of a German porno, the difference being that here it was fucking hilarious. The visual/aural is funny enough to begin with, but when stretched to such a preposterous length — nearly three minutes of a cat thrashing, shrieking and flatulating while perched on a toilet seat — the gag becomes a triumph of bad taste that had me crying for the next five minutes.

The “friend” who made me sit through DATE MOVIE insisted that I watch it so I could see just how unfunny a film could be, and as I watched the film my jaw hung open in unfeigned disbelief as each humor-void segment kept getting outdone by the scenes that relentlessly unspooled, utterly succumbing to the hypnosis of its wretchedness.

Yes, I had fallen under the insidious spell of DATE MOVIE, a foul glamour that sparked the analysis-bug in my already obsessive psyche, and I have since sat through the unrated DVD a total of two more times, once to hear the cast’s commentary and once more to hear the brilliant “anti-commentary” of two professional film critics. Not that I needed anyone to break down for me just why the damned thing sucks. It’s just a sign of resignation to reality that the filmmakers have accepted the fact that DATE MOVIE sucks big, veiny moose nards and have enough of a sense of humor to roll with it. Too bad that sense of humor is rarely in evidence during the running time of the flick. Speaking of which, the movie is as short as it can be and yet officially qualify as a feature-length movie; the fucker is barely seventy-eight minutes and they stretch out the end credits for almost ten minutes.

Bottom line: DATE MOVIE is really, REALLY bad, but I strongly urge you stare into the maddening abyss that it is and use it as an object lesson on all that can go wrong with a comedy, even when supported by a strong cast and a major studio having your back. TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

MONDO TRASHO (1969)

John Waters’s fledgling full-length feature effort, 1969’s MONDO TRASHO, is a very odd duck of a movie that even the writer/director’s fans may find a daunting work to sit through in one straight shot, and I can totally understand why. It’s very crudely crafted — in terms of artistic quality and realization, not just in terms of questionable content — needs several editing and pacing problems addressed, and possesses other aspects that irritate, but I have a very soft spot in my heart for it. Simply put, it’s a bizarre head-on collision of film school-style pseudo-artsy narrative and aural collage with the look and feel of a squalid fever dream.

Opening with a sequence of a medieval executioner beheading a live chicken with an axe — a bit that, as far as I can figure, has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual story — the narrative proper (such as it is) commences with a tawdry-looking bleached blond in fishnets and short-shorts (Mary Vivian Pearce, identified in the credits as “the Bombshell”) strolls to the bus stop and rides the public conveyance to the strains of the incongruously-employed “Pomp and Circumstance,” a tune that lets the audience know it’s gazing upon a late-20^th century avatar of Venus-like beauty and regality. (Yeah, right. Sure, she’s kinda/sorta cute in a trashy way, but come on…) Our heroine makes her way to a local Baltimore park bench, where she feeds raw hamburger to scampering cockroaches (to the accompaniment of Billy Stewart’s 1965 hit “Sitting in the Park”) while a scurvy-looking longhair (Danny Mills) observes and stalks her from the nearby bushes. 

Seduction in the park.

Initially startled by the hippie’s attentions, the Bombshell soon finds herself quite taken by the fellow’s dubious charms and apparently aphrodisiacal foot-fetishism, allowing him to lead her deep into the woods near the park for privacy, where she ends up on her back on the ground as she is seduced by the hippie while he sensually kisses and sucks her feet. For her part in all of this, the Bombshell is clearly transported upon the wings of pedally-induced sexual ecstasy, moaning like a rusty door hinge as she fantasizes about being Cinderella (complete with the cunty step-sisters and the hippie cast in the role of Prince Charming).

But all good things must eventually come to an end and the hippie, after having satisfied his own selfish foot-related needs, fucks off into the unknown (to the tune of “See You Later, Alligator”), leaving our heroine heartbroken and in a confused daze. She staggers out of the woods, straight into the path of a joyriding Divine (the now-legendary drag performer in her first feature film role) who, distracted by her fantasy of a nude hitchhiker, backs her car over the Bombshell. Divine throws the seriously injured Bombshell into the back seat of her convertible and the pair embarks upon a trashy odyssey of petty larceny, a highly questionable mental institution (after they are forcibly abducted off the street by the institution’s staff), foot-replacement surgery performed by the heroin-addicted “Doctor Coathanger” (David Lochary), religious visions and visitations from the Virgin Mary (Margie Skidmore), death in a pig sty, and an ending that absurdly harks back to Dorothy’s “there’s no place like home” bit from THE WIZARD OF OZ.

Filmed on a budget that probably wouldn’t get you a decent cheese sandwich even back when it was shot, the grainy, black-and-white MONDO TRASHO reads like what would have happened if David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD had been made as a comedy, only with no mutants and monsters (unless one counts damned near the entire human cast). There’s virtually no dialogue and the film relies on its imagery and soundtrack of illegally appropriated music segments to tell its story. The soundtrack is the key reason why the film is unlikely to ever again be released in a legitimate home video format, thanks to Waters re-purposing snippets from dozens of old pop songs — ranging from the 1930’s through the mid/late-1960’s — to serve as the movie’s Greek chorus. The resulting effect is akin to being stuck in a room with one’s demented grandfather as the old geezer incessantly plays around with the dial on his battered radio, unsatisfied with any song he encounters and changing the station after only a taste of any given tune is heard. That aspect is one of the “flaws” that prevent less-hardy movie fans (I call them “pussies”) from making it all the way through MONDO TRASHO without being driven hopelessly mad.

Other sanity and patience-shredding elements include the at times dodgy editing (several scenes go on for far too long), often murky/terrible lighting, an idiotic and aimlessly rambling plot, and an aesthetic/cinematic feel that makes the audience feel like it’s been on a three-day binge involving heavy-duty Jamaican cough syrup and Everclear, while chain-smoking one’s way through an entire carton of unfiltered Marlboros. All of that is as it may be, but to me it all adds up to an engrossing and occasionally hilarious live-action cartoon nonsense odyssey that gene-splices a fairytale quest with an ultra-sleazy, doped-up late-1960’s Baltimore hillbilly sensibility that just holds me mesmerized.

Every filmmaker has to start somewhere and it’s surprising to see so many of John Waters’s signature tropes and themes already in place so early in his filmography. All would soon be refined and perfected into what is now one of the most singular directorial voices in American (and world) cinema, but the rough and messy birth of his oeuvre can be traced straight back to this scabrous little first feature-length flick. And several of Waters’s soon-to-be-familiar repertory players are on hand for this journey into aggressive weirdness/absurdity, including:

• Mary Vivian Pearce as our hapless heroine.
• Mink Stole as a tutued, topless, and merrily tap-dancing funny farm inmate.
• David Lochary as the most questionable of bargain basement surgeons.
• And the one and only Divine, who is of course at the epicenter of the narrative’s shitstorm, pitching overwrought histrionics and generally being as fat and delinquent as she wants to be. (Hey, the girl can’t help it.)

The one and only Divine, vamping it up.

Unavailable on DVD — legally, that is — MONDO TRASHO is worth seeking out on VHS or via whatever shady means you can obtain a hard copy (it’s available in its entirety on YouTube) and it’s a must-see for students of Waters’s career, especially those who are fucked-up out of their minds at Jesus o’clock in the morning and need something to hold their attention in an effort to stave off imminent death via alcohol and drug-related misadventure. That said, though possessing damned near everything one could ask for from a movie — drama, romance/sex (sort of), adventure, nudity, transvestites — it’s definitely not for all tastes and certainly way tamer than the majority of the director’s subsequent efforts. A wholly worthwhile curiosity.

Poster/flier from the original release.

SKYFALL (2012)

James Bond is back, in one of the series' finest entries.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I'm a lifelong, hardcore fan of James Bond and his adventures in nationalistic espionage. That said, unlike the perceived majority of 007 fans, my favorite flavor that the series has to offer features less gadgetry and fantastical bullshit and more of an emphasis on characterization, a solid, believable plot, a Bond who exudes a sense of menace — the man is, after all, a supposedly cold-blooded professional killer — and a minimum of humor that does not originate organically from the narrative. The signature one-liners that infested the series for far too long amused me when I was a kid, much like the over-the-top sci-fi gadgetry and vehicles, but with an adult's perspective and more of a grounding in just how nasty international spookshow fuckery really is, my entertainment needs from this department have changed and it's good to see the James Bond series changing for a less naive world. Daniel Craig's take on 007 for the 2000's pleases me immensely, in that his quiet, alert demeanor registers as though someone had stealthily inserted an asp into a cocktail party and from the moment he walks into that room, you have no doubt that someone is going to meet a nasty, coldly-administered demise, with the approval of the British government, no less. And it is with all of that in mind that I proclaim the latest 007 entry, SKYFALL, to be the best of the no-bullshit, straight-up thrillers in the series since 1969's polarizing ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (a film that many cite as the very best James Bond film ever made). I won't give away any spoilers because this film is rather unpredictable for a Bond flick and it's best approached cold, so for those who want to avoid even the most minor spoiler-free outlining of the plot, let it suffice to say that SKYFALL makes it onto my Top Five short list of best/favorites from the series' roster of 23 installments. 

WARNING!!! Here comes the synopsis with no real spoilers but some details that explain the basic initial plot, so read no further if you want to go in cold.

The story opens with Bond and a fellow MI6 operative (Naomie Harris) on a mission in Turkey, where they are tasked with retrieving a stolen hard drive containing the real names of all undercover operatives who have infiltrated terrorist organizations around the globe. The mission hits a major snag, so 007's boss, M (Judi Dench), makes a judgment call that unintentionally allows Bond to feign his death and live off the radar for three months (in what amounts to a tropical paradise with a hot babe, natch). However, shortly after M writes Bond's obituary and declares him legally dead, the top floors of MI6 are bombed, killing a number of agents and drawing Bond back to the land of the living. Complications swiftly arise that lead to M having only two months to suss out the source of the bombing and retrieve the still-missing list of agents before it gets sold or leaked, so a not-quite-up-to-snuff 007 is put on the trail. Bond's search brings him into the sights of Silva (Javier Bardem), a charming madman who has a major grudge against M, and you'd better believe that an already dire situation rockets straight down the bowl once that meeting occurs. When all is said and done, some very serious shit has gone down and we learn some very interesting things about Bond and his boss...

SKYFALL is a first class thriller from start to finish that respects the audience's intelligence and uses its 143-minute running time to allow for what's probably the most character development in a James Bond movie since ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. (If you saw that film, you know exactly what I'm talking about.) With the exception of the welcome return of a familiar bit of classic-era hardware, there's no gadgetry that strains believability, the plot's motivations for the characters make perfect sense, a blistering hand-to-hand fight sequence is shot in silhouette and its choreography is so outstanding that its never visually confusing (which cannot be said of the majority of fight scenes in major studio releases), but it's Javier Bardem's Silva that steals the movie, especially in his introductory scene in which he engages 007 in one of the most unforgettable Bond/gloating villain exchanges in the series' history.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) meets Silva (Javier Bardem) in a sequence that's an instant classic.

To sum up: I loved SKYFALL and I intend to see it again as soon as possible. The initial viewing was strictly for the Bond fan in me, and subsequent viewings will serve to allow me to savor and study its many pleasures for future geeky discussion when more of my friends have seen it.

But with all of that said, I should stress that SKYFALL is likely to be another of the series' entries that will polarize its audience. It's a delight for Bond fans like me who enjoy the more realism-based installments, but those who go into this kind of thing expecting wall-to-wall action and over-the-top "super-spy" tropes — both those codified by the James Bond series, and those taken to next generation extremes by the Jason Bourne franchise — might be put off by the film's strong emphasis on building up the characters at the relative expense of visceral razzle-dazzle. Which is not to say that film isn't exciting; it's riveting throughout and its scenes of mayhem and carnage resonate, but you'll find yourself shit outta luck if your taste in 007 leans more toward the comic book extravagance of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE or THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (which, let's face it, are pretty much the same movie when you get right down to it). Be that as it may, this one gets my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION, so TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

Oh, and for the record, my Top Five James Bond films are as follows:

1. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963). My very favorite of the lot. A terrific, realistic Cold War-era spy thriller that embodies everything a perfect James Bond film should be, with classic Bond Sean Connery at the apex of coolness.
2. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969). George Lazenby's sole turn as Bond, this was a departure from the increasingly absurd/over-the-top of the series up to that point, instead emphasizing plot and characterization. That, and it has an ending that is literally shattering.
3. SKYFALL.
4. CASINO ROYALE (2006). The rebirth of Bond for the 2000's and a cracking good thriller across the board.
5. GOLDFINGER (1964). The film that carved the Bond series' tropes in stone. After this one, the series mostly fell into a repetitious formula that grew more and more bloated and outlandish with each installment, a state of affairs that only served to point up GOLDFINGER as the classic gem that it is.