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.

The Prince and the Showgirl

Feel the passion!

In the interest of full disclosure, no one has ever considered The Prince and the Showgirl a must-see movie.  Any movie featuring Laurence Olivier, one of the most respected thespians of all time, and Marilyn Monroe, who is…not, as a romantic comedy couple is probably better lost to the mists of time.

For the first thirty minutes, we watch as Olivier does his level best to date rape Monroe.  As the titular Prince, he tries to make it with whatever hot piece of tail he stumbles across when visiting England.  Monroe wardrobe malfunctions her way into his heart, so he plies her with alcohol, lies to her, and blocks the exits from his bedroom.  At some point, Stockholm Syndrome sets in and Monroe is suddenly convinced she loves him.

By this time, the Prince has begun to have date raper’s remorse, since Monroe won’t shut up with that high-pitched giggly voice of hers.  The stalker becomes the stalkee as Monroe keeps finding ways to impose herself on the Prince’s social circle before he’s forced to flee the country.  Supposedly the Prince has fallen in love with her before he ditches her for eighteen months, but even Laurence Olivier can’t sell that. 

Even beyond the awkward romance, the movie is inexplicable. Much of the movie deals with the political intrigue between the Prince and his son.  The Prince’s son plans to overthrow him, but is convinced not to by Monroe, possibly just to quiet her bat squeals.  Somehow the Prince says this happy turn of events could lead to civil war in the Balkans.  Since this is 1911, the movie might be implying that Marilyn Monroe started World War I.  For that theory alone, this weird little movie is worth a watch.

Rating: Must-see

Did I fast-forward: No.  Muting is not the same as fast-forwarding.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

The Capitol is visible through every window. Waiting. Watching.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is the most American movie ever made.  Halfway through, I was overcome.  I turned to the nearest flag (Go Mets!), saluted, and began to sing “God Bless America.”  I don’t really know the words to the song, so it degenerated into embarrassed mumbling and they kicked me off the bus.  Even if your movie involved a bald eagle making out with the Statue of Liberty, it would be less patriotic than this one.

It’s easy to be cynical about a movie where a nice man gets surprised elected to Congress and defeats corruption through nothing but pluck, but this movie gets away with it.  It has such a strong sense of purpose and place that you really want justice to come against the ambiguously evil and corrupt political machine in Washington.  Nothing in this movie could ever actually happen, no matter how many times Jimmy Stewart says, “Aw shucks.”  You couldn’t get away with making this movie today, and not just because it would be awkward to watch Jimmy Stewart’s corpse for two hours.

It’s not until after post-coital with the American Dream that you realize the movie is actually poorly constructed.  There’s a lot of plot threads that don’t really go anywhere, and the ending somehow lacks the punch it should.  Really, the movie should have been longer.  Wait, who’s typing this?  It must be my evil doppelganger.  I never want a movie to be three hours.  No, don’t steal my identity, doppleganger!  Oh, great, now there are goatee hairs in my keyboard.

Rating: Must-see

Did I fast-forward: No.

Murder on the Orient Express

If you look carefully, you can see chewing marks on the set.

Murder on the Orient Express takes place in 1930, but oddly looks like a bunch of people from the 70’s wearing period clothing.  Oh, hey, it was filmed in 1974!  Everyone has giant sideburns, unkempt facial hair, and there’s that 70’s film covering the camera lens.  God the 70’s were terrible.  They can’t even convincingly portray a time period a mere forty years prior.

It’s easy to be distracted by the 70’sness of it all since there’s little to this movie other than the central whodunit. It’s just a series of interviews led by a detective to find out who killed a train passenger.   Like so much of the production, the victim’s Texas drawl is pretty out of place.  It would probably more at home starring in Dallas than a period drama, so his death isn’t much of a loss.

The interview format leads to a star-studded cast where each star has about five minutes of screen time.  They make the most of those few minutes and overact the crap out of their roles.  Even Ingrid Bergman, the Most Fantastic Woman that Ever Lived, is pretty grating.  The main detective is even worse.  He’s in every scene and does the most off-putting impression of a French person I’ve seen since Gérard Depardieu.

I suspect the whole affair won’t be much fun if you’ve already read the Agatha Christie novel.  Luckily, reading is passé and everything worth reading has been turned into a movie by now.  This one stays true to its book roots by having almost all of the content involve old people talking to each other.  Still, the underlying mystery is pretty good and has an unexpected resolution.  To me anyway.  The last book I read’s twist was that the protagonist did not, in fact, like green eggs or ham.  I just didn’t see it coming.

Rating: Must-see

Did I fast-forward: No.  That’d be like reading the last page of a book first.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Mrs. Muir's Parenting Advice: Lock your child in a box with a flatulent dog. They'll never expect that!

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a 1947 raunchy sex comedy.  It’s the predecessor to Porky’s and American Pie.  I know, it sounds far-fetched, but take a look at the evidence.  Mrs. Muir is a recently-widowed woman who leaves her all-girl living situation to get some freedom.  She buys a house, largely because no one wants her to.  It’s inhabited by an ornery sea captain’s ghost.  The ghost watches her sleep and undress, and insists Mrs. Muir keep a picture of him hanging on her wall.  He swears excessively, comments on Mrs. Muir’s “needs”, and together they launch into a crazy scheme to save the rec center his house.  There’s constant talk of seamen and a playa that bounces from woman to woman.  It’s just one farting dog short of a direct-to-DVD National Lampoon release.

Now, with such strong language, such as “Blast!” and “Confound it!”, you may think I’m an irresponsible parent for letting my toddler watch this.  Well, I’ve got nothing on Mrs. Muir, since she leaves her pre-teen daughter alone on a beach in the care of a creepy old man that she’s never met before.  Later, she allows her daughter to marry a man she’s never met before just because he’s so dreamy.  Mrs. Muir also finds it flattering when she discovers the playa drawing pictures of her in her bathing suit.  Her entire personality boils down to not doing what anyone expects her to do, leading to some terrible decisions.  The titular ghost doesn’t get off much better, since his entire personality is summed up by “salty.”  The movie itself drags when the ghost isn’t on-screen, but for the rest of the time it’s funny and full of 40’s innuendo.

Rating: Must-See

Did I fast-forward: I almost did during a long-winded speech at the end, but I held back.

Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

A picture of one person.

Despite having entirely too many words in the title, Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a pretty entertaining movie.  It’s got pirates, zombie pirates, and Johnny Depp playing a gay pirate.  The plot involves a main character that is most notable for not being Johnny Depp trying to rescue his one true love from some pirates.  Johnny Depp comes along for the trip because Orlando Bloom is the blandest human being that ever attempted to become a movie star.  My eyes just kind of slide right over him while he’s on-screen, causing me to wonder why various actors are emoting at furniture.  At least there’s usually a monkey around.  Every movie would be better with a monkey it.  Especially The Godfather.

The only real flaws with movie are that it’s a little long and not as awesome as it could have been given the strong premise (zombie pirates!)  Oh, and it spawned two incredibly awful sequels that have similarly long titles but a dissimilar amount of entertainment.  Still, it’s a top notch adventure comedy, but since it recently made more than the GDP of some countries at the box office and retail, I suspect you already knew that.

Rating: Must-See

Did I fast forward: No.

American Beauty

I want to touch...your forehead.

American Beauty is a pretty ridiculous movie.  None of the situations are particularly plausible and most plot developments rely on Three’s Company style misunderstandings.  Kevin Spacey is a suburban loser who one day realizes that he’s a suburban loser.  In response to this revelation he stops caring what anyone thinks about him, speaks his mind, and smokes a lot of pot.

This is, more or less, the plot of Office Space.  I was prepared to call American Beauty a rip-off, but they came out in the same year, so I guess it’s just one of those Armaggedon/Deep Impact things.  To call the characters stereotypes is an insult to the hard work of Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  It’s less of a commentary on life in the suburbs and more of a look into what Hollywood thinks suburbs are like.  Despite all of this, it’s a fun watch that’s nicely shot with great performances from Gay Scott Bakula and Mena Suvari’s forehead.

Rating: Must-See

Did I fast forward: No.

Wings

Welcome to the Air Force! Leave your pants by the door.

If you were to watch Wings followed by All Quiet on the Western Front, you’d know pretty much everything you need to know about World War I. Trench warfare sucks, the tanks looked funny, and the women were oddly shapeless. Wings is all about pilots flying through the sky doing flying things and occasionally fighting over a dame. A skirt. A dough-shaped woman. Most of the movie could have been avoided if the heroes had implemented a “Bros Before Hos” policy early on, but they still become friends while shooting Proto-Nazis out of the sky.

The battle scenes are very well done and even more impressive when you realize they filmed all this with the equivalent of a Viewmaster duct-taped to Snoopy’s doghouse. It’s a good movie, but it’s entirely too long since you spend most of the dialogue scenes trying to read lips. They’ll blabber for ten minutes, then a single card will pop up saying “O.K.!” That’s not very useful. So you’ll quickly get the point of a scene, but have to watch the mimes go at it for a while longer. Most silent films have this problem, but most silent films also have the courtesy to not be 138 minutes long.

On a personal note, this movie isn’t currently in print anywhere in the USA. I had to buy a Korean copy from a fine, upstanding denizen of Ebay. I opened the DVD case with trepidation, expected beetles to come pouring out or maybe porn. It wasn’t porn however, and since I’m kind of okay with that, I’ll have to recommend the film.

Rating: Must-See

Did I fast forward: No, but probably because I fell asleep a bit in the middle.

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.