JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER
I'm surprised I haven't seen this one hyped up on the internet too much. You know how internet people love to be the one who discovered some small time independent movie, so they overdo it in praising the ones they like. At the same time they love their horror mixed with wackiness. Even today, if they read that Bruce Campbell is appearing in a movie, their first thought is that it will be a great movie. And they have seriously considered naming their first child Shaunofthedead. Also they enjoy the hyperbole. And I honestly don't think it's because they know they could get quoted on the DVD, I think it's just their personality to say everything is the BEST. THING. EVER. (or more often worst, but that's a different topic.)
Despite all that I haven't heard much about JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER, and only knew of it because of the cover story in Fangoria that I didn't read. From the wacky title and the guy-you've-never-heard-of-painted-up-to-look-awesome-like-it's-BIG-TROUBLE-IN-LITTLE-CHINA-or-something cover this seems like a movie I shouldn't bother watching, but on a whim I did. I think it's because I remembered a couple funny looking monster pictures in that Fangoria article. Didn't read it, but I looked at the pictures.
I promise, this is not one of those overboard reviews. I'm not gonna claim this is some new cult classic or that the director will go on to huge things or the old "dude, I want collectable action figure dolls of these characters!" But I will tell you that I did enjoy this movie quote a bit and thought it was well put together.
The title character is a twenty-something plumber. Not a funny plumber with his ass crack showing but just a guy working his way through college night classes. He kind of reminds me of young Jim Van Bebber, although not as heavy metal and without nunchakas. The movie would not work if he was some dumb ass, but Trevor Matthews (also co-writer and producer) gives a likable performance, not trying too hard to be tough or funny.
Jack is introduced while talking to his therapist about how he's doing well with his anger management problem and hasn't had any blowups lately. When the therapist asks about the bandages on his hand he tries to play down the story of the fight that caused it, but as he's recounting the story he completely flips the fuck out, curses the therapist out and storms off (not for the last time in the movie). For me I think the scene was kind of teetering on the edge, it was kind of working great and kind of not quite working. I wasn't sure if I liked this character. But when just before leaving he recommended the egg rolls from the place where he got in the fight he won me over.
So he's an angry young man, and we know why: a prologue shows us that the rest of his family was eaten by some sort of wildman monster while they were camping. This scene is the first sign that the movie is gonna be pretty good. The monster is apparently called a "forest troll" but he looks more like some kind of hairy savage, and the way he leaps out of the bushes and eats those people like he's in a pie-eating contest you know the movie means business.
Robert Englund plays the eccentric teacher of Jack's night time science class. This could be like a million horror movie cameos the poor guy has done since hanging up the Freddy glove. He had cameos in both of the neo-retro slasher movies I always use as examples of bad horror movies hyped up as classics by my internet colleagues. In this one he actually gets a major role where he gets to do a real performance. When Jack comes over to his house to help him with a plumbing problem they accidentally unleash the evil forces of a demonic heart buried next to some of the pipes. England becomes possessed, eats a dead (but still beating) heart, stumbles into class, pukes on the chalkboard and smears it around with his elbow.The story is simple and the movie's only about 80 minutes, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. And the best news is that it's not as comedy-oriented as the name and cover might indicate. It knows it's goofy but figures it might as well play it straight anyway. The action scenes are clear and often involve people being punched across rooms or being dragged at high speeds by tentacles. If none of this matters to you I hope I can at least appeal to your need for monsters. This has a couple real cool monsters done with traditional rubber effects. The forest troll is my favorite, but I also have to hand it to the creature Englund turns into, a huge, fat cross between Jabba the Hutt, something from THE THING, and that stop motion marionette of Freddy from part 3. The head absolutely looks like a cartoon, but has a weird resemblance of Englund's actual facial features.
I noticed they say "sore-y" alot instead of "sorry," so they must be Canadians, but they seem fairly hip. Not as hip as Cronenberg but hipper than Degrassi Junior High.
JACK BROOKS is a surprisingly enjoyable one that leaves you open to the idea of further Jack Brooks adventures.
10/8/08
JACKASS is an important new documentary produced by oscar nominated director Spike Jonze and the MTV television network. Using the "digital video" camera technology a group of young daredevils were able to capture a slice of life that just may blow the lid off of american culture, etc. Or whatever.
It turns out JACKASS: THE THING OTHER THAN THE MOVIE is a tv show on the MTV music channel. Created by Johnny Knoxville, who got the job by spraying himself in the face with pepper spray and shocking himself with a taser (but only on a camcorder, not on some ongoing competitive reality series or anything), it is some kind of tv show. I'm not very familiar with the character or storylines so I have no way of judging if the movie is faithful to the show. But I thought it was good.
I guess JACKASS comes out of the famous "extreme sports subculture." Here is what I know about "the extreme sports subculture."
1. It has something to do with snowboarding, or that thing where you jump out of a plane but for some reason you are wearing a snowboard on your feet. Also there is probaly one where you jump out of a plane while playing one of those v-shaped electric guitars. I'm not sure about that one though I'll have to verify that.
2. It spawned many fine secret agents such as XXX and EXTREME OPS. They are different from James Bond because they are younger, they videotape everything they do for posterity, and they are fighting to protect rap music and video games instead of the monarchy
3. Products such as Mountain Dew, Sobe Adrenaline Rush, and Extreme Doritos are in, drugs are out
4. "in your face" attitude
5. a way of life, etc.
Well I don't ride snowboards but fortunately the movie stands on its own. The characters are introduced riding in a giant shopping cart. They all act real tough, with tattoos, or there is a fat guy and a midget dressed up kind of like Evil Kneival. After that strong opening the story is all over the place. I gotta be honest it was kind of hard to follow, like GUMMO with alot more stunts, vomit, shooting bottlerockets out of their ass, etc.
Let me try to summarize it though. Johnny Knoxville plays a young man who rents a rental car, then spraypaints a number on the side and gets it reinforced so he can enter it in a crash up derby competition. Then he brings it back, completely destroyed, with two inflatable sex dolls in the back, and tells the rental company that they will have to help pay for the damage.
It took me a while to figure out that he and the guys in the shopping cart are part of some sort of secret organization, maybe called J.A.C.K.A.S.S. would be my guess, based on my knowledge of '70s television shows. They are masters of disguise so in their mission they dress up as fat guys and skateboard on skateboard ramps with the famous video game character Tony Hawk, also in a fat suit. Then they have to go undercover as old men to shoplift and do stunts driving Rascals down stairs, etc. Spike Jonze has a memorable supporting role as an old man who drives his rascal down a steep city street yelling "My brakes! My brakes!" Which in my opinion may have sort of "freaked out" some of the witnesses.
Now all this time you're kind of wondering okay, they are in disguise, and they are doing all these stunts. For example they completely destroy a miniature golf course through the irresponsible maneuvering of golf carts. Also they are always training. Remember the scene in FIRST BLOOD where Colonel Trautman explained that John Rambo was so fuckin tough that "he'll eat things that'd make a billygoat puke"? If you are too young to have seen FIRST BLOOD, just think of the trailer for THE HUNTED or whatever that new one is where Tommy Lee Jones explains that no way can this army of guys take on Benicio Del Toro. How do you know? I trained him.
Well this is the same thing. These guys are constantly pushing themselves to the limit, preparing for the future. They are always crashing into a wall or rolling down some stairs or jumping off a trampoline right into a ceiling fan. One guy snorts a big glob of wasabi. I don't know if it makes a billygoat puke, but it makes him puke. They make papercuts between the webbing of their fingers and toes, or electrocute their own balls, or pee all over a bunch of snow and try to eat it and then puke all over the place. Oh jesus I haven't seen that much puke in a long time. In my opinion only, not to be too preachy but I think there was too much puke in this movie, human or billygoat.
Also just too much of a fixation on ass and shitting. I mentioned before that they shot bottlerockets out of their ass. I may have forgot to mention that one of them is tied to a guy's dick. Also there is a guy who goes into a plumbing store and shits in a display toilet. Before he does that though he has a misfire where he shits his pants in the van on the way to the plumbing store, and the camera guy starts puking. I mean these guys are really into puking. If somebody looks nauseous, they will start making horking noises until he pukes. This practice is responsible for at least two or three of the pukes in this movie.
I mean this Johnny Knoxville is a pretty handsome dude, with a sense of humor, and he has a very successful career in show business, with a hit tv show and movie and he's starting to act in major motion pictures and what not. I'm sure the ladies are all over him. I wonder what they think though when they watch this movie and see him so delighted talking about his friend's asses and watching them shit or piss or puke all over themselves or piss and then eat it and then puke, or whatever the case may be.
Anyway I got off the subject there. What I was saying is these J.A.C.K.A.S.S. agents have all their disguises, and the action, and the training. But for what? For who? Well I don't think there is any one true answer, this movie is up to interpretation. But I think maybe the bad guy is this one dude's parents. Because they keep going into their house and setting off fireworks inside the bedroom when they're asleep, or letting a real live crocodile loose in their house. This stuff is real sadistic, but pretty funny. But then you gotta wonder if there are some real issues here during the scene where the dude runs in and just starts punching his dad while he's on the shitter, and then runs off.
Really come to think of it it is really more of a slice of life, this is what it's like for today's youth kind of deal. Not so much a story about good vs. evil, overcoming the odds or anything like that. I wonder if Larry Clark has seen this documentary? People always say KIDS was an exaggeration but if this is what the kids are up to now I think maybe in retrospect Larry was sleeping on the job. I wonder if he knows about the bottlerockets.
I guess what you could say is this is a series of stunts and pranks. I think there are a couple things that makes it work. First of all, I like how they don't waste time telling the people "Ha ha, it was a joke, like on that old tv show Candid Camera they used to have, or hundreds of different ripoffs throughout the years, such as TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes to name only one example." In alot of the shows like "Jame Kennedy Experience" they do a joke and then they fill time by showing all the people laugh and have a good time when the joke is revealed. Here there is none of that pussy bullshit. The J.A.C.K.A.S.S. approach is to just horrify somebody and then move on. There are a couple exceptions in this movie but then it's kind of a relief because when you put a crocodile in your mom's house, for example, it's harder to just move on without making sure she's going to be okay.
Another reason it works is that these guys are total fuckin maniacs. I really cannot believe some of the shit they pull in this movie. I saw it in a full theater and everybody, including me, was flinching or covering their mouth constantly through the movie. It was like an entire movie of nervous laughter and gasps.
Maybe they weren't trying to paint a shocking portrait of america, I don't know. It should still be entered into the best documentary feature category at the oscars. But there is one educational part that is interesting. Mr. Knoxville hires a non-lethal weapons expert to fire a beanbag at his stomach.
The guy seems very hesitant to do it, and insists that Knoxville has to wear protective gear because if it hit him in the heart it would kill him. The guy shoots him in the stomach instead and Knoxville looks like he's in the worst possible pain. Then they show it three days later and he's still in pain, and he has the ugliest bruise you've ever seen on a movie star, in colors representing the entire spectrum of the bruise rainbow.
This is interesting if you remember the WTO protests of '99 or any clash between police and protesters that may have happened in your neck of the woods. These are the same "harmless" beanbags that Seattle cops used to shoot at hippies, environmentalists in homemade turtle costumes, and random passersby during WTO. People who were trying unsuccessfully to either exercise their constitutional right to free speech, or catch a bus. And these cops weren't worrying too much about hitting somebody in the heart.
That is why every american must see JACKASS: THE MOVIE. Don't try to eat during it though.
I actually saw this movie weeks ago, and I thought of this new technique to try: research. See, this is what happens. I see a movie and I like it, but it's based on a book I haven't read and I wonder how it compares. Maybe I wouldn't feel the same about it if I knew my shit. This time I decided instead of reviewing the movie right away I would first read the book, then see what I thought.
The only problem is that after I read the book the movie wasn't as fresh in my mind and it kind of blended in with the book. So I struggled with the review for a while until neither the book or the movie were fresh in my mind. What I'm trying to say is, this review might not be so hot. If I get all confused and start talking about leprechauns or a circus montage or something that doesn't seem to fit what you know about the movie JARHEAD, do not take my word for it, assume that I am confused. Learn from my mistakes people, don't read books or learn stuff. Because the more you find out, the more you forget about that you used to know.
JARHEAD is about leprechauns who join the circus during the first Gulf War. Or possibly about a platoon of marine snipers, I'm not sure. Specifically, it's about Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal). The book has the subtitle "A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles," and the other battles it's referring to are not military conflicts, they're the emotional and mental challenges soldiers face before during and after battle. The movie pretty much sticks to a chronological story of Swofford's career, starting in boot camp and ending up out in the desert for the long, thirsty wait of Desert Shield.
The soldiers in this movie are some gung ho, gunblazin motherfuckers. In their off time they like to watch war movies, even Vietnam movies like DEER HUNTER. There's a scene where the grunts have a screening of APOCALYPSE NOW. They know that shit like the back of their hand, like a nerd knows star wars. They yell out the lines and sing along with the music and whoop and holler. (The book goes into detail about how even the most anti-war movies are pro-war to a soldier, how they enjoy watching every kill, every rape. It probaly wouldn't have been too charming if Jake Gyllenhaal had said that in the narration.)
I guess that sort of makes this a postmodern war movie. Alot of the story is about this war as opposed to their idea of what war is supposed to be, partly thanks to these movies, partly thanks to history. At first they fear they're disposable to America, then they worry they're not even usable. They slowly realize that as snipers they are becoming somewhat obsolete. They wait for months in the desert, they finally get that perfect shot that will cause a whole platoon to surrender, then some big cheese calls in the bombers to blow the shit out of them all. That's not what they fantasized about when they were kids. They were supposed to sneak through the jungle and take out their prey for the US of A.
Throughout the movie the soldiers listen to the Doors and other '60s bands. Somebody complains "That's Vietnam music, can't we get our own music?" When the war ends and they're celebrating, they listen to "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy. I thought that was a good choice. The power those guys were talking about fighting sure as fuck wasn't over in the Persian gulf. Even more than the Doors, Public Enemy was anti-establishment music, but it meant something to those soldiers anyway. At least, in this fictional movie.
(The book doesn't give any alternatives but in an interview Swofford said he listened to Jane's Addiction and the Dead Kennedys back then. Dead Kennedys, that would've worked too. [see, I told you I did research on this one, reading interviews and shit. Next thing you know I'm gonna reveal that I joined the marines for this review {actually I have not done that, even though I still got a month left of commitment to excellence. sorry}])
Alot of reviews have said the first part of this movie is like FULL METAL JACKET and the second part is like THREE KINGS. I guess the fact that this one reminds you of those better movies shows how it's failed, but I think it does have its own feel. THREE KINGS did a great job of capturing the surreal images of the war (cows stepping on landmines) but it was sort of a heist thriller, at least pretending to be an action movie. This one is about the lack of action. About being shipped off to the desert and not doing anything, and still going crazy. It's at its best when it's depicting the weird little details about the war: the drinking tubes on the gas masks that don't work, having to drink water and pee all day, being forced to play football in full chemical gear as entertainment for reporters, having to burn buckets of shit as punishment, seeing lots of dead Iraqis and very few living ones, and most of all the apocalyptic look of the burning oil wells. There's a scene where Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx are covered in oil, watching the fires against the black sky, and Jamie Foxx says how he loves this job because nowhere else would you get to see shit like this. And I really wasn't sure if he had a good point or was completely insane.
Before it came out I kinda figured JARHEAD was a best picture nominee shoo-in, because it would seem politically relevant but not too politically relevant. Knowing Sam Mendes I figured it would be something where it would seem like a strong political statement for whatever it is you want it to be a statement about. Like Forrest Gump. Of course, when it came out nobody liked it all that much and the chances died down, but also most reviewers seemed to say it was not political at all and didn't take a stance on the war. I don't agree. It's not too heavy-handed, but there is a scene where he comes across the "highway of death," the long road of burnt cars, the civilians trying to escape who were incinerated from the sky by our exciting new smart weapons. Remember the bomb that went right down the chimney? And the guy on the bridge that got blown up? Yippee!
In the movie, Swofford and his brigade come across that, and they don't make some corny speech about it or anything, but there's a long quiet walk through the bodies, a horrifying tour. And I think the fact that that was finally put on screen sort of makes it an anti-war movie. Or at least anti that part of the war. (Of course, the book tells us that there are no anti-war movies and Swofford says it's not because it's about the soldiers who fight the war, not the suits who decide to launch it.)
My favorite character was Kruger. It took me a few scenes before I realized he was Lucas Black, the kid from SLING BLADE. He's still a good actor and it's kind of weird to hear an authentic southern accent in a movie. I like him because he's the one who questions authority, calls bullshit on the bullshitters. He says the war is about oil and he spits out the pill he's forced to take. But later he wants to kill people just like everybody else. Because he's not just a vessel for expressing a certain point of view, he's complicated, like a real human.
I guess I can understand why nobody fell in love with this one. It's not like the great war movies. It doesn't have thrilling battle sequences or triumphant heroes, and when it does come across the horrors of war it has more of a quiet disgust than an outraged shout. But I liked it, I remember, and I think it has a unique point of view. It's not so much about war as it's about soldiers, what makes them become soldiers and what becomes of them because they are soldiers. You know Swofford is supposed to be a smart guy because he reads Camus on the shitter. He's smart enough to see when his comrades are bloodthirsty and when they're over the line. And he's honest enough to see that he's no different, maybe even worse. The scene where he finally snaps (one of the few big scenes that's close to what happened in the book) is something I'm not sure I've seen before. You hear about soldiers fragging each other or killing themselves or going nuts and cutting off ears. But that's people who have had to kill people and risk being killed. When Swofford snaps, he hasn't even seen battle yet. But he finds himself pointing a rifle at his friend's face and forcing him to repeat statistics about the weapon.
A buddy of mine hated this movie and said it was anti-soldier. I don't buy that argument because it's written by a soldier (William Broyles, who also wrote POLAR EXPRESS 3-D SPOOKARAMA) based on a book by a soldier. And it's fairly faithful to the point of view of the book, and in some ways watered down. I think it's just being honest, showing the inherent brutality of the whole military system while also showing the soldiers as human beings. Not as monsters, not as victims. Swofford's view is that wars sometimes are necessary, but always are horrible. At the end of the book he writes:
"Unfortunately, many of the men who lived through the war don't understand why they were spared... These men spread what they call good news, the good news about war and warriors. Some of the men who spread good news have never fought--so what could they have to say about the purity of war and warriors? These men are liars and cheats and they gamble with your freedom and your life and the lives of your sons and daughters and the reputation of your country. I have gone to war and now I can issue my complaint. I can sit on my porch and complain all day. And you must listen."
Reading the book though made me like the movie a little less. The movie is fairly respectful of the spirit of the book but when you read the actual memoir it's more obvious how much they Hollywooded the shit up. And I don't know, I know they're making fiction and not a documentary. But I feel kinda weird about how much they deviate from the facts of what happened. I mean I guess it doesn't change the meaning when his guys are accidentally fired upon by their own jets, instead of tanks like in real life, but why would you change that when it was something that actually happened? And I'm glad somebody's acknowledging the "highway of death" in a movie but since Swofford never saw it (or at least never mentioned it in the book) it's kind of cheating, isn't it?
Same thing with the scene where the guy gets his head blown off in training. Horrifying scene, but didn't happen, at least to Swofford. Is it a universal military type of thing to witness something like that, and not just a scene out of STARSHIP TROOPERS? Maybe, but then why didn't Swofford see it happen? And there's a fucked up scene where one of the soldiers plays with a dead body like something out of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2. In the movie it seems believable, but then you read the book and there's no mention of it. I guess it's inspired by the scene in the book where after the war a bunch of them, not just one guy, use dead bodies for target practice. But they had to simplify the story so they leave when the war is over so then they had to change it but why would they be practicing DURING a war so now we got something different and it's not true anymore and there's your movie. Enjoy.
To be fair, Broyles is a Vietnam vet and his son is in Iraq now, so some of this stuff may come from his own experiences and things he's heard about from others. It's hard to really know. In the movie Gylenhaal says they're jarheads because their head is a jar that ideas can be put into. Since Swofford never gave it that meaning in the book I thought it was fishy, but then I read an interview where Swofford did explain the title that way. So who knows. Until I stop reading I won't really know what to think about the movie, I'll keep changing my mind.
Here's the important thing though: they coulda made it a much more unique movie if it was more the book and not trying to fit it into a standard war movie template. They did alot of things to make it different from other war movies, but following the book more would've really done the trick. There's so much more of the little details. They should've had a young Swoff before he's in the marines. There's a great scene in the book where the USMC recruiter comes over to the house. His mom makes cookies and coffee, his dad gives a tour of the backyard and introduces his dogs. They sit down and make small talk about the furnishings, about dad's days in the air force in Vietnam and that kind of thing. Then all the sudden dad says, "Staff Sergeant, I'll sign your contract if you guarantee me you won't get my son killed. Then I'll sign your contract. Otherwise, you sould leave my house."
Once he's old enough to sign up himself, his dad drives him off to boot camp. But before he drops him off he brings him to the place where he was born.In the movie there's a subplot about how his girlfriend sends him letters that make it obvious she has a new boyfriend, and it's such a common occurrence there's a "wall of shame" he can go put her picture on. In the book he actually has multiple girlfriends and the betrayal is not all that surprising to him. But the similar scene is maybe even more devastating - he realizes that his mom has been remarried and didn't even tell him. It's deeper than just infidelity - he wants the world to stop and wait for him to get back, but he realizes it won't. Life goes on while he's stuck in the desert drinking, pissing, jerking off and worrying. There's also a real interesting thing about obscene "any marine" letters that the guys without lots of correspondence receive, and what the letters mean to them. Maybe that doesn't sound cinematic but I really think it could've been a more memorable movie if they approached it more like they were adapting FIGHT CLUB or something instead of making war movie.
Still pretty good, if I remember right, but the book is better.
JASON X is the future of slasher franchises left over from the '80s, and not just because it's about Jason Voorhees being frozen and defrosted in outer space 450 years later. No, this is the future because it finally figured out a good approach to keeping these stupid characters going. This isn't trying to update things by infusing the same old crap with last month's stale gimmicks. See for example the upcoming Blair Witch/webcast Halloween picture you see advertised before JASON X (although I do like seeing Buster Rhymes say "Trick or treat motherfucker!" - wouldn't he make a better Dolemite than LL Cool J?)
No, this one works because it works as a genuine dumb slasher movie, as a parody of one, and as some weird pop culture accident where a familiar series got thrown into the wrong genre unexpectedly. It's a more consistent attempt at the BRIDE OF CHUCKY approach to modern slasher sequels. Take the character and cliches from the earlier sequels, put them in a way more ludicrous situation (and it really is WAY more ludicrous in this case) and have fun.
Of course the look of JASON X is much cheesier than BRIDE OF CHUCKY because it doesn't have oscar winning cinematographer Peter Pau. But it does have a few good digital effects (mostly in the opening credits sequence which takes place inside Jason). I heard a rumor that it was shot on the same digital cameras used for VIDOCQ 1 and STAR TREK 2 and EL MARIACHI 3, but if it was you couldn't tell by looking at it. All you could tell was that it was shot in Canada.
In the earlier Jason pictures, I think the filmatists were taking things more seriously than the audience. I know there are a couple of nutballs out there who enjoy these movies straight up but clearly the vast majority of people who go to see them go in and laugh at the fancy new tools Jason manages to find laying around somewhere and use for mutilation. The filmatists may or may not have been aware of this fact but if they were they never let on, treating the situations like the audience might actually be scared by them.
Well now what you have is a situation where the filmatists KNOW what they're doing is a load of horseshit, and they take full advantage of that. Some of the audience though is now taking it more serious than the filmatists. For example I know a group of film geeks who passed around a bootleg vcd of this months ago, and they all said it was a piece of shit, an aliens ripoff, etc.
The beauty of it though is that it IS an Aliens ripoff, where instead of hunting an alien the space troopers are hunting good old Jason, and evil scientists are curious about his "regenerative powers" because he always comes back to life at the end of each sequel, and during one of the ol' gratuitous tit shots, the nipples fall off because the girl is a robot. I mean how could you not get a kick out of that type of shit? I'm glad I waited to see it as it was meant to be seen, on the big screen, with digital sound, in a nearly empty theater. And I have to wonder what in fuck's name those knucklehead friends of mine were hoping to get out of a movie about Jason being cryogenically frozen and reanimated in outer space.
Well let me tell you what you do get. You get all the cliches of the series, but updated for the future. So instead of him stalking a teen summer camp, he's stalking a spaceship of teen science students. (At least I assume they're supposed to be teens, since they don't look like teens, and neither did the ones in the previous movies.) For his trademark Creative Kills he takes full advantage of modern technology, freezing a woman's face and shattering it, mutilating people in virtual reality, even spinning somebody around a giant drill bit. (I guess that's not modern technology, but it is on a spaceship.)
The screen scripters musta Wrote a list of all the cool things you could do with Jason in the future that you couldn't do in the present day. So he gets to fight a robot, and punch off her head. He manages to chop a kid's arm off even while he's frozen, and the kid gets it reattached. He goes into virtual reality, he gets turned into a cyborg (called Uber-Jason on the credits), he punches through airlocks, gets sucked out and flies through space. They mention that he has a body count of over 200, but he must at least triple that when he effortlessly destroys a city-sized space colony.
He still has a weird thing about sex, and there are alot of jokes about that. When his body is being dissected by futuristic science students, two of them start making out right next to him, and you fucking KNOW that's gonna be trouble. They eventually leave to have sex somewhere else but it's their orgasmic sounds that magically bring the big guy back to life.
The filmatists also have a good time with the backstory, the references to what happened between this movie and the last one. You find out that Jason was somehow caught, and repeatedly executed, to no avail. Man that will be great to show in one of the many upcoming sequels or prequels. You know what New Line Cinema, why don't you hire me to Write a prequel called THE TRIAL OF JASON VOORHEES? Now that would be a great fuckin movie. "Mr. Voorhees, one more mutilation like that and I'm holding you in contempt of court!" I would NOT want to be in that jury. I can't really see Jason working with a team of lawyers, either. And obviously he didn't have Johnnie Cochran or he would've gone free. I wonder what would happen if he represented himself?
There's alot of funny shit in here in my opinion, and the two howlers in front of me definitely agreed. The real crowdpleaser is a brief sequence near the end that parodies previous Jason pictures. I won't give it away but I liked it even better than the opening of JASON VS. THE MUPPETS OF HELL where the naked chick in a towel that Jason tries to kill turns out to be part of a sting operation setting him up to get blown to shit by a SWAT team.
Anyone who ever enjoys this kinda crap, please go see it. You will not be disappointed. Definitely my favorite in the series although I also enjoyed the 3-D one.
In 1999, after the pro-wrestler and PREDATOR badass Jesse "The Body" Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, they made this quickie TV movie about his life. My main problem with it is that it kind of sucks.
TV movies don't have to be bad. There is the obvious DUEL precedent, but I'm not gonna hold anything to that standard. A more fair comparison would be the EVIL KNIEVEL movie starring George Hamilton. That one's pretty cool, and personally I think a wrestler who becomes governor is an even better biographical subject than a dude who jumps motorcycles over canyons.
At the time I thought a wrestler becoming a governor was a poetic gesture. I thought "See that? People have more faith in a professional wrestler than a politician. His job is fake and they believe he is more real than Democrats and Republicans." But I also had a predisposition to like him because, to be frankly honest, I watched my share of WWF wrestling in the '80s. I don't remember Jesse too much as a wrestler, but I always liked him as the bad guy commentator. It was him and Vince McMahon, who was the whitebread goodie-two-shoes commentator who would be outraged by Jesse's comments. He was like the Alan Colmes of the WWF - the guy who did a poor job of making you root for the good guy point of view. I didn't know at the time that McMahon owned the WWF, or that he was a huge prick who would later beef up on steroids and become the supervillain of the league. He was just some dork in a tie.
Jesse stuck with me enough that when I named my column "VERN TELL'S IT LIKE IT IS" it was an homage to him. I don't think I've ever admitted that before, but it's true. I remember him always bragging that he was "just telling it like it is" and like me he was pretty full of shit but also sometimes right.
After his 4 years as governor though I gained a deeper respect for him. He's real libertarian and always complaining about "big government," which is not really my thing. But he really does "tell it like it is," I honestly never heard of another politician who so genuinely did not give a shit about how people would react if he said what he really thought. He's like BULWORTH without having to squirm at his rapping. So he doesn't mind openly talking about legalizing drugs and prostitution, for example. Or that interview where he criticized organized religion.
My favorite thing I've read about his politics is from when he vetoed a bill that would require the flag salute to be recited in schools. He said:
"I believe patriotism comes from the heart. Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief. A patriot shows their patriotism through their actions, by their choice. No law will make a citizen a patriot".
And of course Jesse is a (very) proud combat veteran, so don't be putting that "unpatriotic" bullshit on him. But he hit the nail on the head there. That's the kind of thing that makes me trust him, because many politicians might agree with him there, but would they think it was worth it to veto the bill? It's the kind of phony bill politicians on both sides usually pat themselves on the back for. And it's not gonna really hurt anything if it passes but he stood on principle.
Anyway that's part of what bugs me about this movie is that their Jesse Ventura, while obviously portrayed in a positive light, doesn't seem like a smart guy. When he makes speeches in the later part of the movie they're about two sentences long, simplistic ideas, often ending with him yelling something like "The American Dream still ROCKS!" or "Helmet laws SUCK!"
A guy named Nils Allen Stewart plays the adult Jesse. I didn't recognize him, but he's been in a whole lot of movies playing roles like Bouncer, Bodyguard, Security Guard, Guard, Thug, Fighter, Fight Instructor, Mongol, Mohawk Leader, Large Man, The Warrior, Shaved Head Robber, Gorilla, Cue Ball, Blacksmith, Roach, Biker, Rapist, Bad Guy, Scar, Demon Bounty Hunter, Rex, Scorpio, Bald Man, Another Victim, Crazy Patient, Janitor, Mercenary, Stuttering Mercenary. He was in THE SCORPION KING but he only played "Torturer." In both SPACE COWBOYS and ANGER MANAGEMENT he was called "Tiny."
So it's pretty cool for a guy like that to get a lead role. He gets to wear lots of crazy outfits, skydive, wrestle, but also have tender scenes with his wife and his parents. Two births and a funeral. He even narrates the movie in an annoyingly cutesy device where he walks in and out of the scenes as Governor Ventura and comments on what's happening. It's an obvious "tell, not show" storytelling device but also probaly more lines than he's gotten to say in all his other movies put together. So I feel proud of him watching it even though I never heard of the guy.
But the poor guy was miscast. He looks the part pretty good but he makes no attempt to talk like Jesse Ventura, and that deep, bitter voice is to me the most important part of Jesse's persona. Maybe Jesse is a sweetheart with his family like shown in the movie, but you still have to have that brash bad guy personality come through when you're showing him as a wrestler and a talk radio host. You see this muscleman in a suit with a bald head and mustache, but he opens his mouth and sounds like this gentle dude. It's just not Jesse Ventura. If you had a guy playing Mr. T he'd talk in a Mr. T voice, he wouldn't just say "pity the fool" in a Philip Michael Thomas voice.
The movie definitely seems designed for casual channel-flippers with no knowledge of the real guy or of wrestling. You can imagine the writers (who wrote six episodes of "Fame") knew it was an interesting story but didn't want to do more than read a brief bio and do a book report on it. You never get the feeling that they did much research or had any interest in the details.
The depiction of the wrestling world doesn't feel at all believable and has a blatant disregard for historical accuracy. For example the movie opens with a match that's supposed to be in 1984, but the crowd is clearly from 1999. There are multiple shots of them holding up their signs and t-shirts about Hulk Hogan and the NWO. It's not even the right wrestling league! All of the wrestlers he faces or is friends with are fictional or from completely different eras. The only exceptions are Jesse's fellow commentator Gorilla Monsoon and some scenes where a younger Jesse is supposed to be watching "Superstar" Billy Graham.
The depiction of the world of humans is also shoddy. It's all so much TV movie bullshit crammed together assuming nobody gives a shit. Jesse and his wife make up his new name and entire wrestling persona while on their honeymoon. In the most effective scene about his relationship with his father Jesse's dad talks to him emotionally about disagreeing with his "cheating is the American way" wrestling line. But then he says "Otherwise I think you did a really good job," and it's kind of touching. He turns around and walks out the door and right then Jesse's wife goes into labor. They talk about calling her mom and do not address the fact that Jesse's dad is still crossing the fuckin porch. It makes no sense.
And maybe it's because they didn't want to get in trouble over a TV movie, but the TV movieists even brush over or skip some of the more interesting parts of his career. For example there's a scene where wrestlers worry he'll get in trouble by talking about unionizing. In real life he was seriously looking into it, but Vince McMahon found out and told him any wrestler who joined a union would be fired. Wrestling is a screwed up life, with so many wrestlers dying young after years of damaging themselves, living on the road, using steroids and painkillers and being ripped off by shady promoters. Ventura's idea was a good one and having been shut down is an important part of his history. But the movie doesn't follow up on it.
And his reason for quitting the WWF (well, WCW I guess) is, as far as I can tell, an adaptation of the incident shown in HITMAN HART: WRESTLING WITH SHADOWS where McMahon screwed over Hitman. Even though Jesse had nothing to do with that.
And of course I knew this going in, but since the movie was made before he'd actually governed for 4 years it's kind of a shitty place to end it. We already know he wins and we've seen a million grassroots political campaign underdog stories, so it's kind of old hat.
The failure of this movie has everything to do with the lack of effort (and WWF cooperation) and nothing to do with the subject. I'm not sure if it would ever be possible while the WWE is still in business, but Jesse Ventura is worthy of a genuine PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT style biopic. Not only is it a great story but it's a great world to depict on film. I would love to watch a more serious attempt at recreating some of those old school wrestlers and their matches.
JESUS' SONSometimes a movie comes along without much of a push, and without much commercial appeal, and not very many people go to see it or even hear about it. But most of those who do are pleased to find that it is an unusually good picture. They tell their friends about it, they write rave reviews of it. Then your connection in the home video industry, Pornographical Jerry, hooks you up with an advanced preview cassette of the picture and you give it a shot. And holy shit, it turns out to be the best movie you've seen in a long fucking time. Now you can't wait to use your power and responsibility as an acclaimed Writer on the films of Cinema to promote the movie, so you try to time your review to come out on the day it is released so that all the little Outlaws out there will storm into their chain video stores and say look asshole, where is it? Where is Jesus' Son fer cryin out loud, don't give me that never heard of it look, this is a highly acclaimed movie. "Oh, you mean the one on Vern's sight? Right over here, sir."
But then on the release date Pornographical Jerry's store doesn't have it out for rent so you assume okay, it got pushed back. But then you find out a week later that no, there was some kind of mixup, it came out on the 19th and here it is the 25th and maybe Jerry doesn't have it yet but you know it's been sitting on the shelf somewhere and some poor motherfuckers out there might not even know they should be renting it.
Sometimes, as in this case, the movie is called Jesus' Son directed by Alison McLean and starring Billy Crudup as a nomadic junkie in the '70s in a series of vignettes that are a perfect combination of funny and sad. Two of my all time favorite emotions. More about them later, people.
You may have seen Billy Crudup in the popular movie Almost Famous, where he plays the guitarist Russell. Or who knows maybe you even saw him in Waking the Dead or Prefontaine, two other Crudup pictures. It seems like every time you turn around Crudup comes out with another limited release movie playing some shaggy haired flakey dude from the seventies. You might even say Billy is the It Boy right now, and if so the IT in IT BOY is Jesus' Son. Because IT is pretty fucking good.
I thought Crudup was good in Almost Famous but all through the movie I kept thinking of how much more interesting he was in Jesus' Son, because he is, let's face it, kind of a dumbshit. The movie is based on a semi-autobiographical book and has a strong literary type voice to it since, like all movies based on semi-autobiographical books, it has voiceover narration from the protagonist, probably taken straight out of the book. But in this type of movie I am accustomed to the narrator being some clever dude throwing clever phrases and observations right and left, trying to show his dissatisfaction with consumerist society along with his intriguingly postmodern way of admiring it through the technique of ironic distancing.
Well Jesus' Son does not make himself out to be that clever. Sure his narration is reasonably literate but he makes it pretty clear in each event that he is a fuck up. In fact the only name he gives for himself is "Fuck Head" and much of the story attempts to illustrate why he deserves and will never escape that name.
At this time I would like to introduce Vern's Theory of Dumb People In Movies, which states that
a) smart people like movies about dumb people
b) dumb people who think they're smart hate movies about dumb people, and say the movies are dumb
According to this explosive new Theory, people like you or I will love Jesus' Son. Because Fuck Head, let's be honest, is not exactly the brightest bulb a motherfucker is likely to come across. He is basically a sweet guy who always tries to help people out but always ends up making things worse. Like Edward Scissorhands without the scissors, or the talent, and on heroin, and in the '70s.
Let me give an example. There is a section in the movie where Fuck Head is trying to straighten his life around. He has one of those Sid and Nancy style passionate, fucked up, on-again-off-again emotionally violent love affairs with Samantha Morton, who is just as cute as she was in Sweet and Lowdown only now she talks, and is on heroin, and in the '70s, with less jazz. Well Samantha is pregnant so it's high time Fuck Head started to be a little more god damned responsible and upright so he gets a job as an orderly at a small town hospital. But wouldn't you fucking know it, Jack Black works there too and he steals alot of pills from the pharmacy and sometimes he lets Fuck Head use them.
So next thing you know Fuck Head finds himself in charge of a litter of prematurely born baby bunny rabbits. And he and Jack Black run around in the snow blasted out of their minds on who knows what. And then they're sitting in the car and Jack Black goes, where are the bunnies.
At first Fuck head tries to change the subject and then he starts crying and admits what happened to them. To me this scene represents what is so great about this movie. The scene is sad enough to make anybody cry. Not only because of what happened to the poor baby bunnies, but because of what a pathetic, low point this is for this fuckhead Fuck Head at precisely the moment when he needs to start going in the other direction. And he can't even get any sympathy from crazy junkie Jack Black and his big round santa claus belly.
At the same time the situation is very absurd and the dialogue is very funny and you can't help but laugh. But this is not a joke that is also sad. And it's not a sad scene that is also funny. It is some kind of powerful concoction of the two, a potent crossbreed that lies exactly in the middle of pathos and laffos (or whatever the latin is for funny).
The movie is full of vivid imagery and weird characters whose eccentricities and what not always ring true. When Denis Leary or Dennis Hopper or Holly Hunter or somebody wanders in playing some weird, lonely character it doesn't feel like a stunt, it feels like some real incident brought to Cinematic life. I don't know about you motherfuckers but to me this is one of those strong American slice of life movies that just clicks right from the beginning and never goes off track. Like a Pulp Fiction or a Do the Right Thing although it's really not like either of those pictures. Subject wise I'd say it's closest to Drugstore Cowboy with less violence and more heart. I'm tempted to categorize it in some kind of new wave of drug pictures with Larry Clark's Another Day in Paradise but it's not nearly as much about drugs and crime as it is about people and relationships and trying to find a place in the world where you are happy even if you know everybody thinks you're a Fuck Head.
Well shit I don't know how to explain this movie, I am only a Writer on the films of Cinema what the fuck am I supposed to do anyway. But let me tell you this. This piece right here, this ranks somewhere up there just below Ghost Dog as one of my favorite pictures of the year 2000. Although this is not a Badass Picture by any means I hope some of you individuals will give it a chance and let me know if you liked it as much as I did.
JET LI'S FEARLESS
I don't know if that title means "Jet Li's" in the sense of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA or as a less formal way of saying Jet Li is Fearless. Neither one makes complete sense because Jet Li is not the director (that would be the great Ronny Yu) and his character is not named Detective Jack Fearless, he is playing a guy named Huo Yuanjia who it turns out is a real life martial artist (1869-1910) who united the various factions of Chinese martial arts to form "wushu." He's the guy who is supposed to be the teacher of the fictional character Bruce Lee played in BRUCE LEE'S FIST OF FURY and the one Jet played in JET LI'S FIST OF LEGEND. This new movie is a very mythology-ized version of the guy's life but does have many elements that are based on actual historical events. But they are honest enough not to say "BASED ON A TRUE STORY" in the ads, despite the continual lowering of the standards for what counts as a true story. (The latest chapter: the prequel to the crappy remake of a completely fictional movie that was vaguely inspired by what Ed Gein did to dead bodies now counts as a true story.)
Instead, the hook they're going for with JET LI'S FEARLESS is "Jet Li in his final martial arts epic." This claim is not really a true story either, or at least it's up to interpretation. If you read interviews with Mr. Li, he is saying that he considers this his final statement on wushu, so he does not plan to do more movies about wushu. But he will do action movies with martial arts in them and he hasn't even ruled out historical epics with martial arts. Just not movies specifically about him being a martial artist.
Will he even stand by that promise? Most people don't seem to think so, but I am willing to take his word for it. Jet Li is made of different mettle than most of us. The dude survived a Tsunami. This is a guy who promised his wife if she got pregnant he would stop doing movies for the entire pregnancy and spend that time with her. Not only did he keep that promise, he dropped out of a little movie called CHOW YUN FAT'S CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON in order to do it. So there is reason to believe he means what he says.
Of course, nobody is gonna complain if he does another one, unless it's terrible. But if this is the last one I think it's a good one to end it on, and I'll explain why. That's what I do.
I don't think there's a huge buzz on this movie, and I'm not surprised. The fights (choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping) are great, very traditional, lots of weapons (including the guaranteed Vern-pleaser the 3-section staff) no flying or magic powers. Most of the fights are competitive, on a platform or in a ring, although there's one in a restaurant that gets totally destroyed. I think these are very good fights but in the spirit of honesty I must say that these are not amazing, knock you on your ass fights that are trying to one-up everything that's come before it. It's not like that scene in TONY JAA'S TOM YUM GOONG THE PROTECTOR where there is a continuous 4 minute tracking shot as Tony Jaa goes up stairs fighting dozens of guys, and you feel like this has actually advanced the fight scene to a new level never attempted before. It would be fun if Jet wanted to make a movie saying, "Oh yeah Tony, that's what you got? 4-minutes of elbows and throwing dudes over ledges? I see your 4-minutes and raise you 3. Let me show you how the fucking GROWN-UPS do it!" That would be fun but that's not what Jet is up to here. It's a more low key type of fight where you admire the grace of the fighting and the choreography and that's about it.
And while Ronny Yu has created a very pretty and gentle historical feel, this doesn't have the jawdropping cinematism of JET LI'S HERO, the awe-inspiring imagery and stunning beauty that might equal CROUCHING TIGER type crossover appeal. That is another thing I like in movies, but this isn't that type of movie.
What it is, the thing that is great about it, is the story. The movie opens with a huge fight expo where Jet is taking on a bunch of different assholes representing England, colonialism, and the white man. It's an unfair fight because he has to take on all of these guys one after the other, but he feels it is important for the pride of all of China. We see him win all of the fights except one, he still has to fight a Japanese guy named Tanaka. But then it skips back to his childhood.
(One thing I don't understand about these movies. How the HELL do they get their braids so long? Okay with adults I can understand, they've kept it going for years. But even the little kids have braids down to their asses. They didn't have weaves back then, did they? I wonder what their secret is.)
The scenes with him as a kid are cute, especially since he's a little brat who can't fight and gets his ass kicked. His father is a great fighter though, and he sneaks out to watch him compete. But he's completely shocked and humiliated when his father stops himself from making what could be a lethal blow, and loses the match. What the fuck, dad? I want to see winning! I want to see asskicking! Kill that bitch! So he vows that he will become a great fighter and, unlike dad, will be undefeated. At that age he doesn't understand what the fuck his dad is doing, but by the end of the movie he will get it.
Instead of another story about a guy getting revenge for the death of somebody (as great as those stories are) this one is kind of the opposite. Adult Jet, after becoming a great, undefeated competitive fighter, becomes an egomaniac who chooses his disciples based on if they can drink well. They dress all in black (like Johnny Cash, not like goths) and go drinking after every fight, as well as after anything other than a fight. They are almost more of a fraternity than a clan.
But Jet one day finds himself fighting another master for what appear to be honorable reasons, and he kills the guy. In alot of martial arts movies it would be cool that he killed him, but in this one Jet is so upset by what he did that it makes him puke. And when he finds out that he's been misled by his drunken kung fu fraternity, and the guy REALLY didn't deserve to die, he is pretty pissed off. Now he's not really a martial arts hero. HE is the guy who killed your master. So he can hardly go for revenge.
Instead it's him that gets avenged. The godson of the dude he killed goes to his place, kills his daughter and his mom. Not cool. So he storms over to the godson's place. This guy has innocent female relatives as well. This is a perfect opportunity to keep the cycle of violence rolling. He almost does it but, like his father did all those years ago, pulls his punch.
Then he basically turns into Gary Sinise after Vietnam in TOM HANKS'S FORREST GUMP. He leaves town, stumbles around drunk and depressed, grows his hair back, ends up washed up in a river somewhere. He gives up on life. Eventually some people in a nice farming community help him out, try to cheer him up, and give him the nickname Ox. There is a nice blind lady named Moon who he falls in love with. He not only learns useful skills like how to plant crops, he learns to take a moment to just stand and breathe in the breeze and appreciate nature's beauty and shit. Like the Hulk in ERIC BANA'S HULK contemplating the lichen in the desert.
Eventually, of course, he decides to go back to fighting to help Chinese people be proud in the face of continued colonialism from the west. But he brings with him a new understanding of wushu, that it is a way to improve yourself and to bring people together, not to beat each other's asses and prove how awesome you are.Jet Li has been trying for a while now to make a movie that represents his Buddhist beliefs and his philosophy of the meaning of martial arts. Even that crappy movie JET LI'S THE ONE he was talking about how he worked some of his Buddhist beliefs into the plot. JET LI'S HERO has kind of a non-violent message, and of course JET LI'S DANNY THE DOG aka JET LI'S UNLEASHED is even moreso. That's the one where he's raised as an attack dog and trained to go ape shit on everybody if his collar comes off. But then he gets away from his master and meets normal nice people, and has to learn how to not go ape shit anymore. I enjoyed the movie but it has a pretty huge weakness in the premise. As an audience, we sympathize with Danny the Dog and want him to achieve his goal of non-violence. But as Jet Li fans we also want to see him fight, especially in this more savage style he and Yuen Woo Ping created for this character. So it's working against itself.
JET LI'S FEARLESS solves that problem because it's not about street fights or forced competitions to the death. It's about exhibitions, and about a character who tries to discourage competitions to the death. If it's not to the death it's fine, he can still do it without contradicting his values. This way he is able to achieve both his own goal (not kill somebody) and the audience's goal (see Jet Li kick ass). Everybody wins.
One of the most memorable fights is against Hercules O'Brien, played by Nathan Jones. That is the almost 7 foot tall bald muscleman I was raving about from THE PROTECTOR. I hope he has an even bigger role in that WWE movie he's doing. Somebody cast this guy as the president or something.
To me, JET LI'S FEARLESS achieves one of the best things you can do: make a movie about fighting where you somehow trick the audience into being emotionally invested in the story and not caring as much about the fights as what happens to the characters. I recently caught up with JET LI'S ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. This one is very similar. Both are based on tall tale versions of famous Chinese historical figures. Both have a more westernized, non-fighting friend who handles business. Both have fuck up disciples who need to be kept in line. And both movies are very much about preserving Chinese culture and pride during a historical period of westernization. ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA is more impressive on a technical level and probaly has more fighting. But personally I was more moved emotionally by FEARLESS. It feels like a more focused and sincere message from Jet Li to the world. So thank you Jet Li, and congratulations on your retirement.
VERN'S NOTES:
1. The real Yuanjia really did those competitions, really was poisoned, really fought a guy named Tanaka, and really was considered the winner despite a technical loss because he had stopped himself from making a fatal blow. There really was a Hercules O'Brien, but he actually never fought Yuanjia because he left the country before the match was scheduled to take place! Pussy.
2. I was confused by that ending though, it seemed like he died from the poison and his spirit was with Moon, but then the text made it clear that he didn't die until later.
3. I hope Ronny Yu keeps making ridiculous BRIDE OF CHUCKY type American movies, but it's good to see he can still make 'em classy. It's been, what, eleven years? Finally he went back to Cantonese language epics and showed he still had the juice, despite being fired from SNAKES ON A PLANE. Basically, he went back to the old neighborhood and cleaned up the streets. Congratulations Ronny.
JUNO
This movie was written by Diablo Cody! She was a stripper for a year! Then she was a blogger! A stripblogger! She quit stripping in time to avoid the heroin addiction and was not necessarily molested as a child like many other strippers! It's just something she did one time! Her name is really Melinda Cartwright or Heather Daniels or some shit but she calls herself Diablo Cody! I bet she has some fire or a sexy devil or something tattooed somewhere on her, that would be awesome! She loves lip gloss! The director is the son of the guy who directed GHOSTBUSTERS and produced all the early Cronenberg movies! This guy also did the movie THANK YOU FOR SMOKING! Get it because it's like thank you for NOT smoking, only it's thank you FOR smoking! It's hard to explain but I love it! THANK YOU FOR SMOKING!
As you can see I have been witness to some of the excruciating advance hype on this year's LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or FULL MONTY or whatever the fuck you want to say JUNO is, and I will literally punch the next article I see about Diablo Cody. I will punch it until my knuckles bleed and I will ask it for an apology. This guy Laremy who sends me lists of possible topics for film.com articles included the topic "If I see one more 'Diablo Cody was a stripper' article I'm gonna hang myself." I liked the topic but there was no need for an article, the headline said it all. This was like a week and a half before they had one on the front page of the Seattle Times. So there is a newspaper that does not care about the suicide rate.
I was convinced that 75% of the people who've been praising the shit out of this movie were reviewing it from inside their pants. They have crushes on Diablo Cody because she's cute and outgoing and has a history of showing her boobs. So I did not find most of those rave reviews credible. (In the case of Roger Ebert's four-star review the crush is not on Cody but on the character Juno. He actually says in his review that he wants to hug her. He does not say anything about holding hands or passing notes, but you know what he means.)
JUNO definitely has most of the problems I expected while reading some of that swill. For example it has the most painfully self-conscious HEATHERS-slang and teenager quips since DISTURBING BEHAVIOR or DAWSON'S CREEK. The guy from HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES who's now on THE OFFICE has a small scene at the beginning of the movie, and every line Former Stripper Diablo Cody gives him is bad enough to merit public caning in some parts of the world. For some reason he's teasing this poor girl about having just found out she was pregnant, calls her "mama bear'" and says "That ain't no etch-a-sketch. That's one doodle that can't be un-did, homeskillet." As soon as the strike is over I would like Diablo to provide a written explanation of why it's supposed to be funny that a guy says "homeskillet."
And the movie is definitely self-indulgent with all the references to favorite bands and movies and shit, in that way Tarantino does that bugs the shit out of some people, or like the scene in GARDEN STATE where Zak Braff has to talk about the bands he likes. I sort of forgive la Diablo for this, having spent all that hard year on the pole and the other years in the mines or wherever she toiled away earlier in life - she never thought she'd get a movie made so she works every goofy thing she's obsessed with into her first one. But it makes me squirm sometimes. Is this a motion picture or a Myspace Teen Friendship Profile? Save the top ten lists for the internet. Or is this a new form of communication, movblogging? Whatever she's trying to do, the bottom line is that WIZARD OF GORE is not better than SUSPIRIA, let's be serious here Diablo Cody.
And at times it's clearly coming out of the Wes Anderson Changed My Life school of direction, you can tell by the quirky music and the closeups of ironically tacky clothing or objects. There's still only one Wes Anderson though, and the sooner this guy and the NAPOLEON DYNAMITE guy and all these commercial directors figure that out the better off society will be.
Also there's a part where she says "Thundercats are Go" but come on man, it's those creepy English puppets called Thunderbirds that say they "are go," not Thundercats. Get it straight lady, do some fuckin research. Don't we have fact checkers on this thing?
But you know what? All that said, I still liked this movie. As it goes on the wacky wordplay gets toned down and the emotion comes in more. It's a nice little story about a Cynical Outsider Teen named Juno (would've been played by Winona Ryder if this was 15 or 20 years ago) who accidentally becomes pregnant and then builds a relationship with a rich couple looking to adopt her baby. It helps that all the lead actors are really good. The girl is Shadowcat from X-MEN 3, the adoptive mother is Elektra from ELEKTRA, adoptive father is that prick from SILVER SPOONS, biological father is the kid from SUPERBAD who is not the fat one. All are perfectly cast.
I'm not sure Juno is such a great character that the movie needs to be named after her, but she is a good character. A smart girl, kind of abrasive, doesn't put up with shit, but I bet she does good in school. Her parents are divorced but both her dad (J. Jonah Jameson from SPIDER-MAN - wait a minute what's going on here, did they cast this fuckin thing at the San Diego comics tournament or what?) and stepmom are goofy but nice people and supportive. And there is no drugs or alcohol involved. So she's pregnant but not really troubled, not really the Hollywood cliche. Most of the characters are shown as flawed but good people. For example Jennifer Garner's character is kind of a prissy stick-in-the-mud kind of wife (like the off-campus girlfriend she played on TV's FELICITY, according to insider tips I have received) but she's also clearly a loving and sincere person and you expect she will be a real good mother.And when it comes down to it it's nice to see a story that's not your usual Hollywood topic. I would say KNOCKED UP is the better going-through-with-an-unwanted-pregnancy comedy of 2007, but both seem sincere. Some stupid motherfuckers have to politicize everything, so these movies have been accused of being conservative or even right wing propaganda because you know how us lefties are supposed to abort any baby we can. I don't buy that though. These characters, and I'm guessing the authors of the movies too, are "pro choice," and this is the choice they make, one that might surprise themselves. That's why it's appealing, we see these characters we might have something in common with making a hard choice and taking their life in a direction they never expected. And in the case of JUNO I don't think she even understands what a nice thing she's doing. Jennifer Garner says she thinks her purpose in life is to be a mother. What she does not say, except in certain facial expressions, is that she cannot give birth. So it's kind of sweet that Juno's mistake helps her fulfill her purpose in life. And what the fuck is wrong with a little sweetness every once in a while?
So despite the "indie" trappings, the abundant hipsterism, the tiresome fetishism of tacky material items, the aggressively quirky soundtrack... despite somebody thinking hey if we hand-write the credits and add a little eraser sound when they go away, wouldn't that be cute, that would be so home-made, despite there being probaly more one-liners that made me wince than made me laugh... somehow after all this Former Stripper Diablo Cody pulls the landing. The movie ultimately works. There is at least some basis for Diablocodymania other than her camera-ready persona. So after she wins her Oscar for best original screenplay and there are even more articles and the novelty wears off and crushes fade and everybody catches up with me and Laremy and gets sick of fuckin hearing about her and there's a backlash and everybody hates her... well, at least she doesn't have to feel like a total asshole. At least she will have something to be proud of. Good for her.
As a postscript I would like to note that I noticed DJ Cut Chemist was playing the chemistry teacher and Emily Perkins from GINGER SNAPS was the receptionist at the abortion clinic. That's the kind of sharp eye you are dealing with here, I am a real professional. I don't think Rex Reed is gonna be mentioning Cut Chemist's role in his review, let's put it that way. So perhaps I should be in one of these anthologies of the year's best writing is all I'm saying. I think I have earned my stripes, your stripes, I got plenty of stripes to go around. For your consideration.
Also, in a completely unrelated note I wanted to mention the funniest trailer before this movie, for an import called UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA). On the trailer a narrator says, "Not since CINEMA PARADISO - has a film captured the hearts - of audiences around the world." And that's it! Isn't that beautiful? He makes no claim that this movie captures the hearts of audiences around the world. In fact, we can infer that this movie has not captured the hearts of audiences around the world since he is straight up telling us that such a feat has not been accomplished even one time in the past 19 years. (Hey AMELIE, hey BABE, hey the motherfuckin MATRIX, hey highest grossing movie of all time TITANIC - you think you captured the hearts of audiences around the world? Keep tellin yourself that, asswipe. Hasn't been done since '88.)Only time will tell if JUNO will be the one to break the capturing-hearts-of-audiences-around-the-world losing streak, but judging by the reviews so far it looks like a LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, where everybody will love it a little too much and almost make you forget that it's a worthwhile movie. Oh well, that's how it goes. Those who are particularly sensitive to hipsterism and '80s/'90s nostalgia should approach with caution. Younger people should definitely see it though since they will have less aversion to that shit and might relate to the characters more.