I’ll admit it right up front. I broke a rule tonight. An unwritten rule that I guess I will write about now. So, only a recently explicitly written rule.

But first, some background before I write out that rule.

I would have been more than happy to settle in with MizSplotchy tonight, for a nice cozy evening of popcorn and Jeepers Creepers.

The recent experience of Freaky Frights On Forest has raised the joy of Halloween in my blood to near toxic levels (also, I believe they had a Jeepers Creepers display on the southwest corner of Forest). I haven’t seen Jeepers Creepers before, and no, I didn’t know my nemesis Justin Long was in it.

But, alas, MizSplotchy had to study. Since I couldn’t watch a scary movie by myself without gettin’ the night terrors, I decided to see what was playing at the LaGrange.

Here’s what my choices were.

The Bourne Ultimatum
I’ve seen the other two Bourne movies on TV, and they were kind of [shrug] okay.

No Reservations
Some godforsaken shitty romantic comedy starring Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Zeta-Jones. I wouldn’t be so harsh about a movie I haven’t seen, but the tagline for it is “Something’s Cooking This Summer”. See? Shitty.

Rush Hour 3
Haven’t seen the first two, and felt like I would be just swimming in confusion. Why is that black guy talking so excitedly? Why is that old Chinese guy trying to do karate?

Stardust
A fantasy of monumentally magical proportions.

So, hmm. Stardust started earlier, at 8:50pm. I sorta half-assed wanted to see Bourne, but it didn’t start until 9:20pm. Agh, that was a little late for me. The only thing I knew about Stardust was from its trailer, with Robert DeNiro sporting a shit-eating grin as he pilots a large, magic flying ship.

I bring up Stardust’s entry on the IMDB. Wow, it’s got an 8.1 user rating! That ain’t shabby. What the hell. I decided to catch the earlier show of Stardust.

So I have sat down for the showing of Stardust. As it starts out, we see there’s this really old wall in England, and an eighteen year old boy gets by an old geezer who’s guarding a gap in the wall, which is supposedly a gateway to a magic land. And it does indeed turn out to be a magic land. So, the kid goes and has sex with a princess who is enslaved to a witch, and then nine months later back in England said boy has a baby delivered to him, and then eighteen years later that baby is a boy who is in love with this girl, and then a star falls from the sky.

I looked at my watch. 9:12pm. Boy, this movie is kind of cheesy. And I don’t like the special effects. Also kind of cheesy. I don’t know if I can wait for DeNiro’s grinning goofiness. 9:16. The fallen star has turned into Claire Danes.

I get up and exit the theater. I walk into Theater 1 and wait for The Bourne Ultimatum to start.

Mr. Damon? Mr. Damon? Over here!

This is the rule I broke. Stardust might be a perfectly fine movie. Hell, many users on the IMDB who possibly aren’t all complete nimrods thought Stardust was fantastic. In the future, I think that if I go to see a movie, I should stay until the end of it. Unless I don’t really want to.

Okay, so. The Bourne Ultimatum. Kind of pointless. Lots of unnecessary camera motion to keep you from focusing on the lack of a plot. In the end, Bourne supposedly answers the riddles of his life that he’s been struggling for in the last three movies. I still don’t see a happy life for him. One day he’s going to be waiting in line at the DMV, and somebody will look at him the wrong way and he’s going to snap their pinkies off.

I got home and told MizSplotchy I started out watching Stardust, but it didn’t feel right watching it. She replied,”Why? Because you aren’t a big vagina?” Oh, MizSplotchy!

I’m not going to even tell you my choices at the LaGrange tonight. I knew what I wanted to see and I saw it.

I was quite excited about tonight’s movie. It had all the components of a perfect two-buck movie:

1. A white-collar revenge drama bringing unholy punishment on a bunch of dirty gangbangers
2. The avenger is Kevin Bacon.
3. The director is James Wan, the writer/director of the completely ridiculous Saw franchise.

Of course, I speak of the magnificent Death Sentence.

Wow, check that poster out! That’s something. I don’t know what that something is, but it’s definitely something.

What we have in this film is a white suburban male revenge boner fantasy. Wait, that’s really not fair. What we have here is a hacky writer/director’s silly notion of a white suburban male revenge boner fantasy.

This movie was so darned silly and implausible, I heartily enjoyed it.

Kevin Bacon is a well-to-do risk analyst with a loving wife and two kids he adores (well, he loves one of the kids at least – he’s really good at hockey). As he and the loved son head home from a hockey game, Bacon makes the biggest mistake a white person can make when driving a car at night — flashing his headlights as a friendly reminder to another driver that their headlights are not on. BIG MISTAKE, MR. BACON. The next thing you know, he’s watching his #1 Son get his neck sliced open by a gangbanger wielding a machete.

Wait, don’t feel sad! It’s clear that the filmmakers don’t want you to feel any sense of loss. What you need to feel is the white suburban rage coursing through Kevin Bacon’s thetans.

Through a series of incredibly silly plot twists, Bacon goes to machete dude’s place of residence and kills him with a rusty knife. But wouldn’t you know, he was spotted by the sister of a gang member, who fingers Bacon as the rusty knife-wielder.

Bacon gets home and informs his family that the gang member that killed #1 Son was killed, perhaps by some sort of rival gang violence. And please ignore his rumpled clothes and the deep, bleeding slice on his hand! He fell on the driveway!

Meanwhile, the gang members are stewing at their favorite bar, trying to determine whether pouring your drinks on the floor or drinking them constitutes more respect to the departed. What they do agree on is that they are going to kill Mr. Bacon.

So, the following day, as Bacon is walking out of work, the gang members attempt to ambush him. A reasonably exciting foot chase ensues. One thing I found amusing was the chase was the flipside of something you would find in a Friday the 13th movie. In the Friday the 13th films, Jason walks at a steady but unhurried pace after some dimwitted victim. The victim is invariably hauling ass, but it makes no difference. No one can escape the plodding of Jason, despite how close to the speed of light they are traveling. In the chase scene in this film, seven or eight guys in their physical prime are sprinting after the middle-aged Bacon, but they just can’t seem to gain on the fellah.

Bacon manages to get away to his home. Now, you’d think that now that he realizes the gang members are aware that he killed their buddy, and are out for his blood, that he might warn his family, or at least say, “Hey, let’s go on a ROAD TRIP!” Well, you would be wrong. What does he do, the day after he was ambushed at his place of work? HE GOES BACK TO WORK.

A gang member delivers Bacon’s briefcase (he had dropped it in the prior day’s chase) to him, with a picture of Bacon’s family with their faces crossed out. Holy cow! I didn’t take the previous day’s ambush seriously, but they have crossed my family’s faces off! That’s a red flag! My family and me are in DANGER!

Bacon finally calls the cops, who put a car outside his home. No, the detective that keeps on popping up throughout the film doesn’t ask him any hard-hitting questions about why his hand is sliced up, etc. What, is that a detective’s job? Figuring shit out?

There is a brief interlude between Bacon and his wife. She doesn’t give him ANY crap for putting their entire family in jeopardy, and doesn’t give him ANY crap for killing a guy. She says, “No matter what happens, you’re a good father.” HOLY SHIT. What a gal.

Of course, the next thing you know the gang members have slit the throats of the patrolmen parked out front and have entered Bacon’s house. Shortly after they shoot Bacon, his wife and their son. Just remember, no matter what happens, Bacon is a good father.

I have already recounted much of the plot, but I must really stop, to give you something to look forward to. How about John Goodman as a body shop owner and gun dealer? How about a police force that feels no need to arrest anyone in relation to the throat-slitting of a couple patrolmen? You’ll have to wait and see for yourself Bacon’s heartfelt confession to his comatose Son #2 that he really didn’t like him as much as hockey-playing Son #1.

Oh my God this was a cheap movie to warm the heart and soul.

The LaGrange has been closed the last couple weeks on Monday and Tuesdays for “renovations”, so tonight was the first night I could make it out this week to see a cheap movie. I hope that “renovations” doesn’t mean “you’ll shortly be paying more to see movies here”. I guess I’ll wait and see.

There were many movies to choose from at the LaGrange tonight.

Simpsons Movie – I saw this in a first-run theater. I’d like to see it again, but prolly won’t review as Two Buck Schmuck. I have no snarky things to say about it – how can you lambast a movie that shows Bart’s doodle and has a Spider-Pig?
Live Free Or Die Hard – Seen it!
Transformers – “Directed By Michael Bay” are not four words I am generally happy to find strung together.
The Invasion – Hey, I’ll see this one!

I saw the Philip Kaufman directed Invasion of the Body Snatchers back when I was a kid, and it scared the bejeebus out of me. I thought it was great, especially the ending, with the creepy trees and Donald Sutherland screaming. Just a little side note, those strange trees really do exist. I went out for a walk when I was at a conference in San Francisco and stumbled upon the location where they shot that last scene for the movie. I still don’t know what kind of trees they are. I tried asking people in the vicinity about the trees, but they only told me I should lay down and take a nap, and asked me if I would hold their pod plant for them.

In my twenties, I saw the original, which is short, snappy and very well-made. Hey, it was made by the fantastic director Don Siegel – how could it *not* be great?

I have yet to see the Abel Ferrara remake Body Snatchers, but I have heard it’s pretty good.

Anyways, this is a film that has been remade a couple times, and at least the original and one of the remakes were great. So, I was curious about this version. And now I am no longer curious, having seen it.

It’s not that great.

In the two versions I have seen, there were pod plants that produced replacements for human beings. It was one of the cooler aspects of the films, as the protagonists eventually stumbled upon the enormous logistical operation that was being undertaken to transport pods across the country. One of the best parts of the original was when Kevin McCarthy’s character jumps into the back of a truck and realizes it is full of pods.

In this film, the infection begins with a space shuttle crash, where the many pieces of the exploding shuttle fall across parts of the United States, and carry some very robust alien organism. The organism enters a couple people’s bloodstreams, who then proceed to vomit into assorted beverages and give them to their unsuspecting loved ones. You think I am trying to be funny, don’t you? I’m not. That’s what they do. Well, they can also vomit on your face, which works almost as well. But the aliens really like throwing up in coffee. Go figure. So you take out the cool pod plants being carted this and way and that, and you replace it with vomiting. It frankly looked a little silly, though it was played so seriously. The whole film took itself waaaaay too seriously.

One of my favorite character actors Jeffrey Wright has a relatively important part in this film, where he has the unfortunate responsibility of delivering expository dialogue informing us of the scientific mumbo-jumbo underlying all the vomiting and the people-becoming-emotionless-dweebs. I was a little surprised that his character didn’t follow the arc that Leonard Nimoy’s character did in the 1978 version. It’s a crime when Mr. Wright is underutilized in a film. Yes, I am calling the people responsible for The Invasion criminals.

Nicole Kidman is the lead. She’s fine, I guess. One of the first scenes involves her in a very, very thin white undershirt (attention, nipples!), which is always a nice way to introduce a strong female character. She’s got a kid, whose well-being is presumably supposed to be the focus of much suspense and tension. I dunno — he was just some cutesy child actor — make him a pod person, what do I care? My favorite part of the movie actually occurs in a scene between Kidman and her son. She’s been infected (vomit on the face, not vomit in a cup), and is trying to stay awake. She tells her son to stab her in the heart with a hypodermic needle if she falls asleep. Surprisingly, this did not phase the kid at all. It’s all these videogames and cop shows today, desensitizing children from stabbing their parents in the heart with hypodermic needles!

I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, so I’ll ROT13 encode it (use my decoder on the right sidebar to decrypt the text): Vg fhpxf!

So I get out of the theater, and it’s only 10:30pm. I took a quick glance around as I left Theater 2, then snuck into Theater 1, where the 9:20pm showing of Transformers was already in progress.

I stayed for about twenty minutes. I didn’t stay for the ending, because I don’t hate myself.

The little scene I saw was like an extremely crappy version of the Joe Dante film Small Soldiers, which itself was an extremely crappy version of the Joe Dante film Gremlins. So, in a nutshell, it was a third-rate Joe Dante ripoff made by the guy who brought the moviegoing public the shittiest film ever made.

Toodles!

Two movies after 9:00pm this week at the LaGrange.

Knocked Up – I’d seen this and liked it in a first-run theater, but didn’t feel like seeing it again.

Live Free Or Die Hard – Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

So, it was the Die Hard movie I subjected myself to, and yes, it sucked harder than all its predecessors.

The bad guy in this movie was computer superdude Thomas Gabriel, played by Timothy Olyphant, probably most recognizable as Seth Bullock on the HBO series Deadwood, where he displayed a wide palette of emotions — agitated hostility and hostile agitation. He plays basically the same character here, except without a mustache.

Mr. Gabriel creates havoc via his team of hackers to shutdown the US, in order to get money, or teach us a lesson, or be a jerk, or something. Ah, the action movie that uses computers as a major plot device. Excepting WarGames, these movies never work.

Here’s some tips for Hollywood types thinking about making an action movie centered around computers:

1. Watching someone hit a Delete key, even if it results in an explosion causing their death, is not exciting.

2. Having a closeup shot of a cable being plugged into a USB port is not exciting.

3. Watching people sweating under pressure typing on a keyboard is not exciting.

4. Building up suspense to reveal the ultimate uber hacker (which invariably leads to a “comical” revelation that he lives in his parents’ basement) is not exciting.

5. Having that uber hacker be Kevin Smith is not exciting.

John McClain, now an unstoppable action machine, has a nerd dork in tow for the entire movie — it’s that asshead Mac guy, Justin Long! I still blame you for making me go out and buy a new wireless router, jerk!

I don’t know. I really enjoyed action movies in the 80’s where all sorts of physical laws were routinely violated by the hero, and much destruction was done to anonymous henchman, but here it just left me cold.

Bruce Willis is just such a humorless smarmy wiener, it’s impossible to enjoy this movie. And, I’m no strapping young buck, but the man’s head is approaching some sort of strange four-sided polygon shape. I’m a little concerned for the man’s health. Maybe he should eat more circles.

Ah, the approach of fall, and crisp, chilly evenings. It’s my favorite time of year. And with fall comes Halloween, and with Halloween, HORROR MOVIES. HORROR! HORROR!!!!

The late 9:00pm schedule is truly crazy this week at the LaGrange. I only had two choices:

1408
Waitress

From what I could ascertain, Waitress does not contain any overt, intentional moments of horror, so that was out. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a good old-fashioned horror movie, and from the look of it, 1408 looked to be a crappy old-fashioned one. Still, old-fashioned.

So, I checked into the John Cusack-laden 1408 (check out the movie poster’s shitty graphic design! Tres magnifique!):

I have now seen movies in all four theaters of the LaGrange! Tonight’s showing was in Theater 3, which is apparently the “musical” theater. Theater 3 is exactly like Theater 4, except for the fact that the artwork that adorns the sides of the theater consists of badly rendered record albums and musical notes, rather than badly-drawn eagles and soldiers.

I got to the theater with some minutes to spare. As I sat there reading a Chicago Reader snagged from the lobby, I realized they were playing Abbey Road, which was quite the unexpected pleasant experience, although “Get Back” was rudely interrupted to make way for a preview of Captivity. From its trailer, it appeared to be another entry in the torture-porn genre that looks improbably shittier than Hostel II.

The director’s name popped out at me during the trailer — Roland Joffé. He’s responsible for movies reportedly liked by some friends of mine — The Mission, The Killing Fields, etc. Looking up the movie’s entry on the IMDB, I see that the film was written by Larry Cohen, who has done a lot of interesting work (It’s Alive, Maniac Cop, Q). I don’t know, maybe I’ll see it, but it looked horrifically bad.

Boy, it’s taking me a while to roll around to talking about 1408, idn’t it?

Okay, I’ll get on with it. First, some positive things. I like that the title of this movie is a number, with no words. Now just because I say this, doesn’t I mean I like the movie title 300. Because I don’t. I don’t like that movie title. Sheesh, I’m fickle.

Second good thing: When Cusack is first in the super-duper-haunted Room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, there is some nice suspense when you are waiting for something extraordinary to happen.

Alright, now you know everything good about the movie.

Samuel Jackson phones in a performance as the manager of the Dolphin. I used to be so excited to see him in smaller film parts early in his career. Hell, I remember being really impressed by his performance in the crappy National Lampoon movie Loaded Weapon 1. Could the thrill be gone? Could it?

The film is pretty stinky. 1408 is essentially that one scene in The Shining where Jack Nicholson goes to Room 237 to see what the hubbub is all about. The only differences between that scene from The Shining and this movie is that 1408 doesn’t have a hot, wet young naked lady, and it doesn’t have a creepy, wet old naked lady, and it goes on for about an hour and half longer than the Room 237 scene. Did you know both movies were based on the work of Steven King? You did? Oh, I’m sorry, then. I’m wasting your time.

Jerk.

Oh, brother. Bad movie choice here. Seriously, I may get my nonexistent movie reviewing license revoked for seeing this one.

So, what were my choices?

Spider-Man 3 – Seen it.
Meet The Robinsons – Didn’t feel like a kid’s movie tonight.
Bug – This might sound a little petty (and it is), but I still am reluctant to see an Ashley Judd movie since my last experience with one of her movies near the dawn of the millenium.

Bug actually sounds kind of intriguing, though perhaps a little derivative of a Cronenberg movie — characters believe there are insects crawling under their skin. Hey, an hour and a half of insects crawling under one’s skin might be better than the time I spent seeing:

Hostel: Part II

I honestly should have foreseen my troubled evening when I was stopped by not one, not two, but three trains as I attempted to reach the theater. Thank you, suburbs!

It was late enough that I skipped the customary Walgreen’s stop for plain M&M’s, and ended up just plunking down a fiver for a large RC cola and a small cup o’ popcorn. As I took my seat, I had every intention of enjoying a well-constructed horror movie.

Then the groups of high school girls and guys started filing in. There were six rows of them eventually sitting to my right, all part of the same group. And they all had cell phones. And they all were looking at their bright, bright cell phones. And they all were talking on their cell phones. Now, keep in mind that if there is any judgment passed by the patron god of cinema, it was judging me, a mid-30’s guy alone with his popcorn and large soda, more harshly than them. But still, goddammit. I think a rowdy audience is great, as long as it’s not a moronic, rowdy audience. Two Buck Schmuck WAS NOT AMUSED.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, someone on the other side of me was whipping something small and hard at my neck. When the first bit of gory violence occurred, I felt something bounce off me. Then when the next bit of violence occurred, bam! — another whap, which I was able to grab before it fell. It was a small cherry. I looked back one row and saw an excessively nonchalant high schooler sitting behind a couple of girls. I promptly got up and sat in his row. I wasn’t sure it was him, but the cherry-pelting did cease. It’s an interesting psychology behind the cherry-thrower — engaging in a little petty violence as some putrid excessive violence unfolds on the screen. Not to mention he was a jag-off.

This movie… this movie was not scary at all. It actually starts promisingly, picking up with the survivor of the first Hostel. But he is promptly dispatched at his kitchen table, shown with a cat licking his neck where his head used to be. And on we follow more unwitting victims we don’t like, tortured by people whose motivations we don’t believe, in a world we’re not supposed to care about. The film was really just a boring, ugly picture of humanity, and a celebration of that ugliness. It was like nihilism and a poop-throwing monkey had a baby together.

I equate this movie with the majority of dreck that John Carpenter’s Halloween spawned during the Reagan years – Friday the 13th, etc. It’s dull, unimaginative, and has nothing to say. AND IT’S NOT SCARY.

The only thing different is its philosophical focus. While the 80’s movies sought to inflict punishment on teens for having sex, this movie is more concerned with inflicting punishment on teens because hey, it would look really cool here if we hang this girl upside-down and have her bleed on somebody.

There have been words coined to describe this genre — “torture porn”. I dunno, that seems a bit trite. Can’t we just call it bad cinema?