by ·Comments Off on 31 (2016, Rob Zombie)

What a disappointment after the great Lords of Salem. All I can think is that Zombie was contractually obligated to deliver another full-length movie by the end of 2016, and after touring his band nonstop he ran out of time, so threw some actors and makeup artists in an abandoned factory and said “go nuts, we’ll film it and add some Malcolm McDowell scenes later to explain what’s happening.”

Sheri Moon and beardy Jeff Phillips and Meg Foster return from Salem, minus Ken Foree and Dee Wallace, plus two new black guys to be killed first (to be fair, Lawrence lasts quite a while). Malcolm in foppish powdered wig gambles on annual deathmatch with Jane Carr and Judy Geeson, sending waves of killers into the factory after our abducted carnival gang until only Sheri and “Doom-Head” (Richard Brake of Halloween II, whose makeup keeps changing in the opening scene) remain. Dialogue is mostly “fuck, fuuuuck” and camerawork is handheld garbage. Insultingly, the movie only got a single showtime and was billed as a “special event” with higher ticket fees, but joke’s on the theater since only six people showed up.

AV Club:

31 is set almost entirely within a smoky, leaky, dimly lit factory, like something out of a bad hair-metal video, and it has the structure of an especially half-assed video game, as the survivors creep from one boss battle to the next, confronted by assassins of escalating formidability: a little person done up like Hitler, slinging insults in unsubtitled Spanish; two clowns with chainsaws, cackling about “fucking all your holes”; a flirtatious Harley Quinn clone with a giant European partner … a messy mishmash of shit he’s done better before.

by ·Comments Off on Antiviral (2012, Brandon Cronenberg)

“Celebrities are not people. They’re group hallucinations.”

I wanted to double-feature this with a Jennifer Chamber Lynch movie, the children of my favorite horror filmmakers, but couldn’t get a copy of Boxing Helena in time so I settled for the Xan Cassavetes instead. Pretty sure that even if I hadn’t known the Cronenberg connection I’d have been able to spot it: a total body-horror flick with a cool and clinical atmosphere. Plus someone says “shivers” within the first five minutes, and lead actor Caleb Landry Jones even reminded me of Cosmopolis star Robert Pattinson.

Speaking of Pattinson, the movie is about a future where the public’s hunger for celebrities has become literal, buying lunchmeat grown from the stars’ cells and getting themselves sickened by viruses that come from the stars’ bloodstreams. I think the movie is acknowledging that this is farfetched by having the virus thing be a premium specialty business (no huge lines out the door) run by a small staff of technicians also acting as salesmen.

Caleb is magnetic as Syd, whose celeb-virus business contracts exclusively with star Hannah Geist, and who is always trying to turn a buck in black-market virus sales while trying to get close to Geist himself. The black-market aspect already brings mystery to the movie before the new twist where Syd has injected himself with Geist’s newest illness, which kills her – or so the story goes, but really she’s being kept alive while people in the Geist business fake her death while trying to figure out the poison plot and deal with the leak perpetrated by Syd. Really it’s more complicated than this, and either I missed some information or the big picture is never fully revealed, while Syd ends up where he wanted to be, selling Geist by day and having (parts of) her to himself by night.

Plus: viral copy-protection hacking, viruses represented with blurred, manipulated photographs, man-machine-fusing nightmares (and realities), and doctor Malcolm McDowell.

by ·Comments Off on Television Watched 2014 in Atlanta

Mystery Science Theater 3000 season 2 (1990)

This season included three episodes of Bela Lugosi in The Phantom Creeps, and the first appearance of Mothra. Favorites: Sidehackers, Jungle Goddess and First Spaceship on Venus. Also great: Wild Rebels & Hellcats

Sports Night season 2 (2000)

We finally made it. Katy was not romantically satisfied with the ending, except of course for Sabrina Lloyd and Joshua Malina ending up together again. The “show” is saved last-minute by Agent Coulson, but the show was not saved, and Sorkin moved on quickly to West Wing. Of the Sports Night directors, Don Scardino did a lot of 30 Rock, Marc Buckland made TV movies with Ken Marino and Jane Lynch, Dennie Gordon made Joe Dirt, Alex Graves works on Game of Thrones, Robert Berlinger made a Dukes of Hazzard prequel and Thomas Schlamme made So I Married an Axe Murderer and Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure.

Man to Man with Dean Learner (2006)

The laugh track wrecks the deadpan comedy, but as with most laugh tracks, you learn to ignore it after a while. Dean’s first guest is, of course, author Garth Marenghi, followed by a racecar driver, a prolific sci-fi actor, a folk guitarist, and a psychic, all played by Matthew Holness. The final episode reminds of Look Around You s2, bringing back the whole cast (all the Matthew Holnesses) for a memorial to the would-be-sixth guest, downward-spiralling star of the film Bitch Killer. I love how Dean blatantly mistreats his guests, sometimes to disfigurement and ruination, through flashbacks and insinuation and even live on the show.

The Day Today (1994)

Based on a radio show called On The Hour, this show saw the brilliant debuts of Christopher Morris (Jam, Brass Eye, Nathan Barley, Four Lions), Armando Iannucci (Time Trumpet, The Thick of It, Veep), Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge character, Rebecca Front (Big Train, Nighty Night), producer Peter Fincham (Ali G, Look Around You, Smack the Pony), and weirdly, writer Patrick Marber (Closer). And I’m going to assume it inspired Charlie Brooker as well, since it’s a fake news show, but instead of making fun of current events, it’s mocking the manner in which they’re generally presented – so it’s still relevant and hilarious twenty years later.

My Life in Film (2004)

Starring the blond guy from Love Actually (the one who picks up American girls with his cute British accent) as a self-described “independent low-budget filmmaker”. He never gets around to making any films, but each episode is in the style of a different classic (I loved the driving-school homage to Top Gun). Fake-hitchcock cameo in the Rear Window ep by Ron Burrage (Double Take).

The Sarah Silverman Program season 1 (2007)

Hadn’t watched this in a while.
Co-created by Sarah and the guys behind Community and Heat Vision & Jack
It costars Brian and Jay from Mr. Show, Sarah’s sister Laura (of Dr. Katz/Home Movies) and Steve Agee (Cyberslut Killers in the Hollywood Hills) with guest spots by Zach Galifianakis (as Sarah’s homeless ex-classmate), Jill Talley (as a ghost), Doug Benson, Jimmy Kimmel, Ron Lynch, Rachael Harris, Scott Aukerman, Tig Notaro, Paul F. Tompkins, and Tucker Smallwood as God.

Important Things With Demetri Martin season 2

Man this was such a brilliant show.
And Jon Benjamin!

Metalocalypse season 2 (2008)

I can never keep straight which ones Malcolm McDowell and Mark Hamill play.
The other thing I can’t keep straight: the entire plot, or any non-band-member characters.
But is that so wrong? I’m enjoying myself.

Revenge of the Subtitle (1992)

Short public-access series in which comedians take clips from foreign films and maliciously re-subtitle them. Hoy!

AD/BC: A Rock Opera (2004)

A 1970’s-style nativity musical from the innkeeper’s perspective, mashing up the casts of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh. Not a lost masterpiece, but cute enough. Next Christmas I will see if Katy will sit through it.

more shows to find: Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle and Horrificata Illuminata.

by ·1 Comment

Leisurely-paced, straightforward story of silent film star George Valentin and early talkie star Peppy Miller. He’s struck by her early on, helps her career get started, and they stay acquaintances, but he’s more focused on his career. He sinks his savings into a big film, written produced and starring himself, which comes out and flops the day after the stock market crash and the same day as Peppy’s massive hit Beauty Spot. After she becomes famous she stalks him, buying up his pawned and auctioned belongings, and putting him up in her mansion when he’s hospitalized after burning up all his films and nearly himself. Another suicide attempt, with a gun this time (punchline provided by George’s dog) before Peppy manages to find him a worthwhile job as a film dancer.

Good supporting cast. John Goodman is the film producer, James Cromwell is Valentin’s extremely loyal chauffeur/assistant, Penelope Ann Miller (who played Edna Purviance in Chaplin) is Valentin’s wife (then ex-wife), and a weird little appearance by Malcolm McDowell, who must’ve been spotted near the set that day and hastily recruited. Writer/director Hazanavicius and stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo made the OSS 117 spy comedies before this.

UPDATE:
It’s been commonly reported that The Artist is the first silent film since the first academy awards in 1928 to win best picture. But it’s also the first novelty film since 1929’s weak (but with sound! and in color!) Broadway Melody to win the award.