The Fly

I think this is when he's...80% fly? Hard to tell.

The Fly is the same general story as Spider-man: nerdy scientist guy gets his DNA kick-started with some bug juice and gets superpowers.  In Spider-man, this has the side-effect of making him emo because he can’t sleep with Kirsten Dunst.  I almost never get to sleep with Kirsten Dunst, yet I don’t have pages of terrible poetry filling up my backpack.  Just delicious Suzy-Q’s.  In the slightly more realistic version portrayed in The Fly, bits and pieces start falling off of the scientist until he’s a horribly disgusting creature oozing various fluids.  Whoops, there goes my appetite for Suzy-Q’s.

The yucky fly-scientist is played by Jeff Goldblum, probably to save money on make-up.  His love interest is an intrepid lady reporter who, since this is 1986, has the exact same haircut as him.  She meets him at a nerd party and follows him back to his abandoned warehouse  lair research lab to report on his amazing teleportation discovery.

In reality, she’s there to let the audience know how to feel during the various stages of Goldblum’s transformation: curious, loving, horny, impressed, horny, skeptical, slightly less horny, concerned, then finally freaked the hell out.  Despite this helpful guide, I started out at the freaked the hell out stage, because seriously.  Have you seen Jeff Goldblum?  Would you follow him into the depths of an industrial park at night where no one can hear you scream?  His “research” probably involves a lot of latex gloves, grainy webcam footage, and letters cut out of magazines.

The whole movie’s stock and trade is being gross.  The transformation is shown in great detail, as is Jeff Goldblum having sex.   Regardless, the movie does a good job of showing what would happen if a man turned into the grossest man-fly imaginable, so it’s worth watching as long as you haven’t eaten for a couple days.

Rating: Must-see

Did I fast-forward: Yes, because Jeff Goldblum has sex.  I may not be able to sleep tonight.

Nosferatu

I would not hit that.

In an era of sexy vampires with a penchant for pedophilia, it’s nice to remember that vampires were at one time scary and as attractive as a pile of guano.  Made in 1922, Nosferatu is the first vampire movie.  Maybe.  For all I know, in the late 19^th century between filming the classics Man Sneezing and Cats Boxing, someone made Vampire Sleeps with Nubile Young Woman.  Since the filmmakers didn’t have the rights to Dracula, we get Shmracula, and the familiar story of the people who visit him, and how that turns out to be a bad idea.

At least partially because it’s played by a German, the vampire is pretty creepy.  It actually looks like what would happen if a Transylvanian bat farmer copulated with his livestock.  This is a silent movie, so you’ll have to read something every so often, but it moves at a brisk pace and eschews all the extra pageantry of later vampire stories.  It’s a straightforward story about a scary monster told in a bleak and lonely way.

Rating: Must-See

Did I fast forward: Nope.

Audition

I did not see this part.

Audition is a supposedly scary Japanese movie about some guy who meets some girl and she turns out to be crazy or something.  If that sounds vague, it’s because I started fast forwarding about 40 minutes in, so I’m not clear what, if anything, happens.  Up to that point, the movie had largely been about Japanese men smoking and eating dinner.  My best guess is that this dude’s wife dies, and he’s never heard of the Internet, so to get a date he has his friend set up auditions for hot young ladies so he can make one his wife.

Okay, I guess that’s a little creepy.

I gave up watching the movie after the second or third awkward date interview between the dude and his prospective wife.  While I fast forwarded through the rest, I think I might have seen a creepy thing or two, but I didn’t stop. I was too creeped out by the thought of my brain cells silently dying of boredom.  Oh God!  I can’t remember 2^nd grade!

Rating: Musty

Did I fast forward: God yes.