hautecritique's Recent Activity - Spout

Spout Group:Spout Customer Care - Get answers to your questions here!

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:47:00 GMT

Group Name: Spout Customer Care - Get answers to your questions here!
Group Description:

Have a general question? Need help with some thing on the site? Have a bug you would like to report? Well then, you have come to the right place. No matter what you are having trouble with, we would like to help you find a solution. And maybe, through your own experience with the site, you will want to help other users too. That's what communities are all about.

Created: 8/1/2007
Number of Members: 79
Number of discussion posts: 513

Spout Group:HORROR MOVIES 101 - FOR ALL WHO LOVE HORROR MOVIES

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:53:17 GMT

Group Name: HORROR MOVIES 101 - FOR ALL WHO LOVE HORROR MOVIES
Group Description: " I bid you welcome... Enter freely and of your own will..."
Created: 12/17/2006
Number of Members: 414
Number of Lists: 6
Number of discussion posts: 2333

Spout Group:foureyedmonsters - Talk to Susan & Arin about the movie and those addictive podcasts.

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:42:31 GMT

Group Name: foureyedmonsters - Talk to Susan & Arin about the movie and those addictive podcasts.
Created: 6/4/2007
Number of Members: 322
Number of discussion posts: 56

Spout Group:Weekly Theme - "Fighting off boredom with the Iron Fist of Variety"

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:20:23 GMT

Group Name: Weekly Theme - "Fighting off boredom with the Iron Fist of Variety"
Created: 6/30/2008
Number of Members: 52
Number of Lists: 12
Number of discussion posts: 701

Spout Group:Spout Mavens - Spout's best movie reviewers. Membership is limited.

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:10:52 GMT

Group Name: Spout Mavens - Spout's best movie reviewers. Membership is limited.
Group Description:

A group of Spout's best reviewers.
Read the requirements.

Created: 6/20/2007
Number of Members: 36
Number of Lists: 9
Number of discussion posts: 451

Spout Group:missing a film - we'll help you find a film

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:30:05 GMT

Group Name: missing a film - we'll help you find a film
Created: 3/5/2007
Number of Members: 131
Number of Lists: 1
Number of discussion posts: 234

Spout Group:Friends of Foreign Flicks - Discussions of all films not American.

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:05:26 GMT

Group Name: Friends of Foreign Flicks - Discussions of all films not American.
Group Description:

At some point you just want more than what's right in front of you.

Created: 4/24/2008
Number of Members: 30
Number of Lists: 1
Number of discussion posts: 92

Spout Group:The Documentary - A place to talk about the much overlooked genre of the Documentary.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:05:39 GMT

Group Name: The Documentary - A place to talk about the much overlooked genre of the Documentary.
Created: 4/2/2006
Number of Members: 49
Number of Lists: 4
Number of discussion posts: 53

Spout Group:Sound on Sight - Podcasts, movie reviews, interviews, news and more.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:03:03 GMT

Group Name: Sound on Sight - Podcasts, movie reviews, interviews, news and more.
Group Description:

Sound on Sight proudly brings you two podcasts each week. Voted best podcast in 2008, these hard working hosts cover everything from mainstream Hollywood films to noir, horror, science fiction, cult cinema, documentary film making and more. Look out for a new show added every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

http://www.soundonsight.org/

Created: 1/6/2008
Number of Members: 104
Number of discussion posts: 150

Spout Group:Worst Movie Ever - The Group is dedicated to uncovering the bombs, so you don't have too.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:43:26 GMT

Group Name: Worst Movie Ever - The Group is dedicated to uncovering the bombs, so you don't have too.
Created: 5/5/2006
Number of Members: 200
Number of Lists: 10
Number of discussion posts: 412

Spout Group:Movie Polls - Vote in weekly polls and discuss

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:42:29 GMT

Group Name: Movie Polls - Vote in weekly polls and discuss
Group Description:

Each week I will post a new poll. Please vote in the poll and reply to the discussion thread to discuss the question. Please do not vote more than once.

Created: 11/25/2008
Number of Members: 66
Number of discussion posts: 414

Spout Group:Zombie Obsession - Zombie Lovers, Unite!

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:29:56 GMT

Group Name: Zombie Obsession - Zombie Lovers, Unite!
Group Description:

Join us to discuss your favorite or most horrifying Zombie Movies or just your most memorable Zombie Moments. From Funny to Scary to Gory to Bizarre...

Created: 5/28/2007
Number of Members: 104
Number of Lists: 1
Number of discussion posts: 594

Spout Group:A World of MSTies - Thank You, Won't We?

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:25:25 GMT

Group Name: A World of MSTies - Thank You, Won't We?
Group Description:

Glorify the best show ever (MST3K) with wit, wisdom and downright wackiness!

Created: 4/23/2008
Number of Members: 10
Number of Lists: 2
Number of discussion posts: 23

Spout Group:It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar! - Devoted to everything nominated or snubbed by the Academy of Golden Guys

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:11:33 GMT

Group Name: It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar! - Devoted to everything nominated or snubbed by the Academy of Golden Guys
Group Description: Year after year, movie lovers and non movie lovers alike discuss ad nauseum the fate of films nominated for the utmost honor, the Academy Award. Some people watch it for the fashion. Some people watch for the haute couture. Some people watch for their fill of celebrity sightings. If you are a member of this group, you love everything about the Super Bowl of movies, especially the movies themselves! You love to make predictions, guess at the politics, discuss and dissect who should have been nominated and who should have won...or, you're just an avid movie lover that likes to pay attention. Come join the group!
Created: 3/4/2006
Number of Members: 41
Number of Lists: 58
Number of discussion posts: 226

Spout Group:Movie Marathons

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:33:02 GMT

Group Name: Movie Marathons
Group Description:

This is a group for members to start and organize movie marathons. Its primary purpose is to get more people exposed to more film. And to watch these films and discuss them as a group.

Anyone can start a marathon and marathons can be organized in many different ways to showcase the films of a director, actor, genre, theme etc...

Check the Guidlines and Suggestions discussion for ideas.

Created: 7/22/2009
Number of Members: 15
Number of discussion posts: 22

Spout Group:Movies we do not want to see - Try to convince us to see these movies!

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:31:56 GMT

Group Name: Movies we do not want to see - Try to convince us to see these movies!
Group Description: Want to be a member? Send me a message with a list of at least 5 movies that you do not want to see. There are many movies that I do not want to see. I'm not sure if its right of me to decide never to see a movie without seeing it. You know...like when a kid says they hate mushrooms even though they admit never trying them. So maybe this is a good spot for people to display movies they don't think they want to see, and see if anyone can convince us to try them out.
Created: 3/22/2006
Number of Members: 20
Number of Lists: 3
Number of discussion posts: 190

Spout Post: Double Feature – Mall Cop Edition

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:01:06 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 8/14/2009 10:01:06 AM
Body: Hollywood likes to work in pairs. Baz Luhrman had to cancel his Alexander the Great movie because Oliver Stone beat him to production. A couple of years ago there were two Truman Capote biopics. I’m sure if your search your subconscious, you’ll remember skads more. We thought it would be fun to roll the clock back to Q1 of 2009 and watch such a pair. Two movies focusing on mall security guards (or officers?). Paul Blart: Mall Cop and the Seth Rogen starring Observe and Report. On the surface, these two movies appear to be completely different… and they are. One starring a network prime-time sitcom star, the other an Apatow first-teamer. The first would seem to be cotton candy, and the second… special brownies. We, of course, start with the brownies. Click here to view the embedded video. Observe and report is listed as a comedy. It is funny, but not funny ‘ha, ha’. It really isn’t funny ‘huh?’ either. The more I think about it, the less sure I am that it’s funny at all. in fact, I’m starting to wonder if that’s the point. Let me think about ‘the point’ more and get back to you… Click here to view the embedded video. On to Paul Blart, a kinder gentler film. Paul is a socially awkward man with an intellect much younger than his years. He takes his responsibilities seriously, and even his co-workers give him flak for that. He is still aspiring to be a real gun-toting man of the badge, but can’t quite hack the physical requirements. Based on the movie’s format and ironic soundtrack, viewers can be certain that he will overcome and emerge heroic. I won’t say that doesn’t happen, but I’m not one for spoilers. What does happen are instances of awkward delusions, social interactions that can only be explained with the help of an abnormal psych book and slapstick/fat jokes. Run through the standard filters, it teeters between hokey and jokey. Thumbs up or thumbs down depends on your mood, and possibly your bud. With a refresher halfway, through, it was more than bearable, but not something I’ll be repeating. What was more interesting about these two films was not their differences, but their similarities. Both cops are single, living with his mom, no dad, trying (and failing) to get a real law enforcement job, infatuated with a girl in the mall, overly serious about his job and unlucky in love. The similarities go way beyond that. From the opening credits all the way to the slogan painted on Paul Blart’s mall security bunker wall, part of Paul’s mission is to… wait for it…. ‘Observe and Report’. It really seems like both teams used the same research. And that is where things get Haute. Paul Blart is a nice guy. Much nicer than Seth Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhardt. But they have so many similarities, how are these films so different? One so light and one so dark. As I noodled on my cotton candy, the movies flipped. I started to feel that maybe Blart was more cruel than O&R. In O&R, the personal and psychological struggles are laid out in a ludicrous, but almost relatable way. I don’t see myself in Barnhardt, not in a long shot. I do, however, see someone. Blart is laid out as the tinseltown polished clown version. Set side by side, you feel that everyone is laughing at the disenfranchised and marginalized, only no one is laughing in O&R. “Oh my GOD. Look at the stupid Mall Cop. He is SO funny.” O&R certainly leads you down tried and true ‘Ha ha… he’s so pathetic’ paths, but just before the punch line, they drop the pedal to the floor and go well past the border. In at least one case (and maybe more than once) this reveals the director’s poor judgement. Other times, the shock can cut right to the core. The more I think of it, maybe the fact that Observe and Report is marketed as a comedy, but is not funny, hints at a heart. I find that hint intriguing. I am still mulling my true feelings, but I enjoy that part of the journey. Many out there have better uses for there free time than rehashing movies in their mind. Hopefully, you know what camp you are in. If you have the hankering for a disturbingly unfunny, but tightly wound movie, roll the fattest one you got and Observe and Report. If you would rather laugh at the misfortunes of a quasi-charming, but sad mall cop, I won’t steer you away from Paul Blart, but you might as well wait until they air it on TBS this Christmas. Related posts:Double Feature – The Rugged Individuals Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: G.I. Joe – Half a Battle

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:01:59 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 8/8/2009 3:01:59 AM
Body: Studios regularly release movies without screening them for critics. Usually these are in the ‘B’ movie category, not their Mega-Hits. When it is a blockbuster, no screening pretty much always means it is a huge steaming pile. This time, however, Hasbro had an explanation. It seems they blame the fact that Transformers was a full load delivered in an adult diaper on the critics. Just to show the critics who’s boss, no advance screenings for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. So, I pack up and head to the multiplex on a Friday morning. A heart full of dread for the horror about to be photon torpedoed into my retina. And honestly, I found it isn’t nearly that bad. But time is a-wastin’, so lets get straight into exactly how bad it is…. That’s what you’re here for, after all. Transformers may have been more than met the eye, but G.I. Joe was the Grande Dame of pithy sayings. For the first bit of the movie, it would seem that knowing them was half the screenplay… er, battle. They Kung-Fu grip the Government Issued cliches like real American heroes. Go Joe?! I remember the cartoons through a haze, but a few nuggets stuck. There was the cast of characters that came across like rejects from The Village People. Gung Ho, Roadblock and Rock n’ Roll. Baby blue camo, Epicurean machine gunner and dude with bushy bushy blonde facial hair. The females. Lady Jaye, a little older. Scarlet, the sharp, girl next door type (one friend rubbed all the color off her action figure boobs). And The Baroness, a bit like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle. And last, but not least, Snake Eyes. When little boys gathered to play ‘G.I. Joe’, Snake Eyes was the only Joe everyone wanted to be. All others were second best. Enough memory lane. It’s time for Holly-fuckin’-wood. It’s time to bring the Boom-Boom! And they do. Not nearly to the magnitude of Transformers: ROFL, but once we leave Three Musketeers era France, destruction happens. Not enough to satiate my inner teenage ‘blow shit up’ lust, but enough to let me know it still exists. This restraint seems odd, however, considering how many times I cringed away from onscreen gruesomeness. That incoherence was a theme repeated throughout the film. Bad guys brutally lay waste to every nameless Joe in sight. Disemboweling them without any concern. With the same blade in front of a named character, it becomes the three stooges (and not in a funny way). A poke and a tickle, then move along. I don’t want to get fanboy on this whole thing, but I will say, that the whole movie would have been much better if Duke had been decapitated by a helicopter in his first scene. His headless torso would have performed the part nearly as well and would have been much less annoying. In fact, the good guys were mostly forgettable. Other than Marlon Wayans, it was a full crew with very little spark. Snake Eyes was very effective and poised, but more like an olympic gymnast, focusing on not being deducted tenths of points by the judges. Turn the page and his nemesis, Storm Shadow, is completely badass. If I were suddenly 8 years old, I would gladly choose Storm Shadow over Snake Eyes based on this movie. And not just him, The Baroness gets a serious upgrade too. It is almost enough to make me understand the allure of skin tight leather. At least for the first 3/4 of the movie she is Femme Fatale. And she whoops ass too! Head to head, she slaps Scarlet around like they forgot the safe word. Without fancy technology, The Baroness surely would have had a new sub. When The Baroness and Storm Shadow combine, the glee of evil and murder swells. I found myself praying that these two would pair up and put all of those bitches (i.e. pretty much every other person in the film) in their place. Of course that doesn’t happen. The movie is never able to turn the dial past six or seven (except with gross out visuals that will be giving tikes nightmares for years to come). Even with the herbal aides, it just can’t break through to the other side. While it is bad, it isn’t mind blowingly craptacular like Transformers: ROFL, If your goal is to see a mediocre action movie, G.I. Joe will fit the bill, but if you want a transcendentally terrible experience, you still need to go for the gold standard and hit Transformers: ROFL. Related posts:Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Drag Me to Hell

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:01:06 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 8/7/2009 4:01:06 AM
Body: Drag Me To Hell was AWESOME. It was the Three Stooges meeting the Excorcist on a train through Awesometown. Sam Raimi has proven with Drag Me To Hell that he could direct Evil Dead 4 without it sucking. Hold on. Let me start at the beginning. Earlier in the day, my ladyfriend and I decided to go see Drag Me To Hell. I had been under the impression that DMtH would be a straight horror movie. I have a passing familiarity with Sam Raimi’s previous “horror” movies, but not until opening day of DMtH did I see it described as “slapstick horror”, and when I did see this description I started to get excited. I love… no, *love*… wait, LOVE the Evil Dead movies. I like horror movies well enough for the most part, but the comedy/action/horror of San Raimi’s older films tickles me deeply. I was a huge Three Stooges fan as a kid and Raimi manages to recreate that sort of mood mixed with his own gory, mystery goo-splattered flavor packet, and a dash of Dobbsian Discordianism. Overall, Sam Raimi is one of my favorite directors, I have just now decided. So, after a quick hufflepuff of the ol’ quiddich pitch, we moseyed up, grabbed our tix from the automated kiosk and made for the gloom of the theater. What followed was not mind expansion, or sensory satisfaction, but total hilarity. As things get rolling, It seems like a regular movie, and kind of a cheesy one. The characters wear their motivations on their sleeves. It’s like a cartoon really. The characters don’t have much depth, but they couldn’t be allowed any depth. Could you enjoy a person’s comedic torture if you had any deep insights into their character? And they are tortured most exquisitely. I don’t mean the Eli Roth type of torture porn that has infected the horror genre of late. I mean old fashioned cartoonish, slapstick violence It’s almost Zennish in it’s purity. Alison Lohman is the plucky heroine. Easy to root for at first, but becoming easy to leave to her comeuppance by the end. Justin Long overcame the stigma of his Mac ads. Ted Raimi popped up appropriately. The only bad thing about Drag Me to Hell was that it wasn’t Evil Dead 4. Deep down in my fanboy heart, I kept hoping that in a particularly dire and hopeless moment a chainsaw would come tearing throught the fabric of reality and that Bruce Campbell’s Ash would step out of the portal, utter a pithy line and start stomping demon-ass. Alas, Bruce Campbell was not to be had. What was to be had was a movie with the same spirit. I enjoyed it completely. Drag Me to Hell on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127180/ No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Funny People

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:01:41 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 8/6/2009 2:01:41 PM
Body: So I’m watching a movie where Adam Sandler is playing a character who is obviously designed to closely resemble Adam Sandler (in fact, much real young Adam Sandler footage is used to backstory the character) *and* I’m at the premiere where the “real” Adam Sandler is in the audience. Oh, if only I had a blunt. Ah, well, onward and upward! This is a movie about a bunch of comedians of different generations living the life of being a comedian. Three roomates: one is the sudden star of a lame sitcom; another is starting to get gigs at “The” Improv; the third, well, he has a “real” job at the food court. At first glance, this is a form of situational comedy about stand-up comedy and comedians. But that’s really just its cover, a lame-sitcom excuse for them to tell a different story. A completely different story about an aging comedian who (spoiler alert) discovers that he is dying from a rare form of leukemia and has suddenly to come to terms with his mortality and with his failed and dysfunctional life choices; to learn the true meaning of friendship and family and Christmas, and to become a better person. All well and good, but if you stare long enough you get the feeling that this too is really just a hook to keep you distracted while they do their real dirty work. You see, the psychonaut goes into this film fully armed with the full oeuvre of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and crew. We believe in secret messages. We know that anyone who can make Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is going to be leaving plenty of breadcrumbs for like minded patrons. So we watch Adam pop corn into his mouth six rows down and settle-in for a bit of nudge nudge, wink wink. And then Mr. Sandler’s character, absurdly being “talked to sleep” by Mr. Rogen’s character, critiques Seth’s ability to be funny: “Your generation had divorce, I’m sure it was tough, but its a whole different kind of funny when dad is coming after you with a baseball bat,” bing, you are in and the whole thing starts to unravel. Comedy is a weapon. Invented by little kids who needed some way to fight back. And it all goes from there – every facet of life is some kind of battle and every way of living a kind of waging war. And our heroes, in spite of all of their flaws and weaknesses – indeed because of them – are engaged in some kind of extended warfare. Although one has to wonder and decode – where is this battle happening and who is doing the fighting? This is a story written people born in the sixties who have become pop culture machines. Sandler can crank out hit movies with a signature everyman-dope-with-a-heart-of-gold-and-edge-of-darkness formula. Apatow has responded with a reflection of that kind of success, but with a twist and a slightly more subversive set of ingredients. These guys have all kinds of mojo. And then you have the younger crew. Rogen seems to have been going gangbusters since his partnership with Apatow in Freaks and Geeks and even Jason Schwartzman seems to be plugged into some kind of magic. How did they come to be in this place that they are? When they write a movie about themselves, what do they say? The younger crew of Rogen, Schwartzman and Jonah Hill is commenting on its generation and sub-cultures. They are lite and trite and just beginning to get a sense of edge. Your roomate fucking the girl that you imagine you might ask out is a minor crisis and the worst thing you can imagine is choosing between a sell-out career and impoverished pseudo-authenticity (importantly, Rogen’s character has assumed a non Jewish name). Pretty par for the course in an Apatow film. But then you layer in the older crew helmed by Sandler and Leslie Mann. Their painful reality crashes right into the not-yet-having-been-there imaginings of Rogen’s youthful playhouse and fantasies of what life might become. Sandler has achieved superlative success within the boundaries that his comedic weapons allow. He can defend himself but good and can command a world of shiny things and shiny women. He cuts through Rogens life like an exacto knife, simply by fiat hiring Rogen away to become his assistant and instantly immersing him in the life that Rogen imagines to be his ideal. But Sandler’s life tastes like dust and even faced with the crisis of death and a surge of an effort to correct his bad decisions, he still finds himself lost in a game that can’t really be won. To “reclaim” his “one true love” he must break up a family – and even while the flesh is willing it turns out the spirit is too weak for even this churlish act. Turns out that in the end, maybe he didn’t get as far away from Dad’s bat as he thought. Its a bitter pill and one delivered nicely with the sugar coating perfected by the comedian. And this starts to dig. Remember, the haute critic doesn’t need to be reminded that these are the guys who have been the strongest advocates of the ganja since Bob Marley. If there is some signal to be received from the higher perspective, it should be here. So then you have to start linking the thing in stronger. Think about the total circumstances. Judd Apatow is a self-aware guy. He grew up Jewish in New York, rubbing elbows as a teenager among the rising luminaries of the 80’s stand-up scene. This is a guy who goes on the Daily Show and talks about masterbating to a Jon Stewart interview of neo-con Bill Cristol. He understands the dark art of comedy. Funny People doesn’t exactly stare into the abyss. But it looks deeply into the eyes of comedy and reminds us that the people who are most capable of making us laugh are often brutally damaged. Folks like Bill Hicks and George Carlin and Richard Pryor were latter-day Frank Booth’s who gave us a shot of laughing-gas before they showed us the severed heads and tortured bodies that they were extracting from the subsurface of every-day culture. At its best, Funny People is an homage to this practice and its practitioners. A subtle reminder that there is something ancient and noble and dangerous in the role of Trickster. In the end, it reminded me a bit of an essay from F. Scott Fitzgerald quoted by Gilles Deleuze: “The Crack Up“. [Now that, my friends, is a link - if you came back from that in one piece, more power to you.] Sadly, Funny People is not quite to that level. It is not a Divine Comedy (Unless my being in the actual audience with the creators themselves, the very people I am writing about implied something spookily more fundamental in its efforts), but it is a nicely crafted mainstream-with-an-edge postmodern comedy. And, as I’m walking out on the red carpet surrounded by famous faces that I recognize but don’t know, I’m quite certain that the entire experience would have greatly benefitted from some of Saul Silver’s best stuff. Cheers! No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:01:14 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 7/18/2009 6:01:14 PM
Body: I’ve seen all the Harry Potter movies, but I am decidedly a muggle. In fact, if you are not a muggle, you have already seen this movie and discussed it ad nauseam with fellow wizards. I don’t mean that pejoratively. My wife, Mrs. Gravity, is pure magic. It was with her and a few other magic folk that I went to the matinee showing of Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Six posters lose the plot For a weekday showing, it was well attended. Once the strains of the familiar score started dancing in the dark, the theater was ready, more like longing, to be entranced. The familiar feeling doesn’t stop with the score. We begin with cryptic warnings of danger and doom from Professor Dumbledore. Harry, feeling cryptic warning fatigue, goes along with Dumbledore compliantly, and without a great deal of concern. And, so does the audience. Yes, there will be danger and the fate of the world will be decided in the balance. We understand all that, now let’s get on with the movie, shall we? It is a great first pitch. Movie after movie we start with a similar setup. We are older and wiser. So is Harry. This matched emotion between viewer and Harry, however, is quickly betrayed. In the first real scene of magic (Other than warping around Britain and turning a wand into a flashlight), Dumbledore goes Mary Poppins and cleans up someone’s house. Harry is *stunned*. Speechlessly he dodges plates returning to the cupboard. His jaw drops as light bulbs change themselves. Surely not! This can’t be possible!?! What happened to that world weary teenager that was a scarf and some eye-liner away from writing some brutally insipid emo poetry? Suddenly he is acting like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. This kid has fought demons. He has seen death. He owns a flippin’ invisibility cloak, but somehow an automatic garage door opener suddenly looks like the work of some unicorn woodland nymph fairy. That rant aside, the film looks great. The slick polish and epic transitions really do build an enveloping world. And whether it is Charlie’s Angels or Iron Man, all blockbusters look a little better through the green filter. The fantasy world looks fantastic, which by some mathematical principle distributes a genuine feeling of place. The stone walls are massive and the snow, pure white. Post production twinkle isn’t the only fairy dust on screen. There is a smorgasbord of puppy love and subdued horn-doggery. The giggling, flirting, crying and pouting are actually really well done; and so many flavors. There are more ‘love’ stories than I can enumerate. Each arc trickles through the first half of the film, like a Plinko chip on The Price is Right, it bounces playfully from peg to peg. Even when the outcome is formulaic, our inner school kid cracks a little smile. Eventually, Dumbledore sighs,”Oh, to be young and feel love’s keen sting.” (or something like that) All of the Sadie Hawkins romance does squeeze any momentum out of the macho storyline. Remember how the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Yeah, that thing. The straining balance totters back and forth. Once the doom and gloom really gets marching, the mushy bits are put on pause, never to be revisited. But the oscillating tone truly does damage to the crown jewel of the whole Harry Potter series. Like I said, I never read the books, but, almost everyone I know did. And when Half-Blood Prince came out, one scene was read and re-read through tear filled eyes. Not just eyes of babes, but adults who felt magic had been left behind long ago. In that moment, the Harry Potter spell was its most tangible. On the road to this revelation there are many scenes of graphic, jarring action and juiced up puppy love presented with flair and acumen. Then, when the time comes, the film simply doesn’t include the books climax. Oh, it happens (and if you have the faintest idea of the plot of this volume of the Harry Potter saga, you know what ‘it’ is). The team that made this picture gets to check that box. The deed is done. However, for someone that didn’t read the book, even being lit up with the spirit, primed for empathy, it seemed pedestrian. For my party of magic folk, it was simply heretical. To me, it was boring. Before we close the book, a couple of parting shout outs. The brightest spot for me was Luna Lovegood. She pops up as if she is a shared hallucination. An ephemeral, and not completely there, sprite. A bubbly lemon-lime refreshment that pops up when the rest of the plot starts getting dry. A bit of lunatic charm that says,”Don’t worry. You’re just as sane as me.” The other part worth mentioning is the liquid luck. It is a potion that brings success in all endeavors to whomever drinks it, until it wears off. We quickly imagine that the potion transforms the drinker into the toast of the town. The director then hints deeper that the effects include a hyper alertness and a suave macho aggression. Then a funny thing happens. We learn that the potion, in truth, gets you totally baked. That’s right. Drinking liquid luck is like pigging out at Willie Nelson’s brownie bar. And, for some viewers, it is another glimpse of the talent this director has with perfect empathy. Unfortunately, that too wears off. As we wandered out of the multi-plex, back towards parking spot 9 3/4, the magic folk cooly dismissed the effort. For my part, while liquid luck helped some of the film succeed, it wasn’t enough to catapult it into haute cinema. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: 420 Hangover Cures

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:01:37 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 7/16/2009 3:01:37 PM
Body: It’s mostly a blur. At some point, there was someone’s house. One guy was laying on the floor with a tiny dog licking his face while he giggled uncontrollably. A friend of a friend was picked up and creeping everybody out, and Heather Graham might have called the police on him. That is when I left. Was that my bachelor party or someone else’s? Or, was I watching The Hangover? In comic book jargon, it is the gutter. That blank space between the sequence of images that allows your brain to fill in the gaps. Your imagination searches through the universe of possibilities based on the visible evidence. The Hangover translates this to the big screen. The main difference is he Dali-esque absurdity of the evidence. You see, Doug is getting married on Sunday. He and a couple of friends, along with the bride’s brother, head off for Friday night in Vegas (baby). We see them toasting to the night to come, then the film breaks and resumes late Saturday Morning. The writers take a crack at what would be the most perplexing evidence to wake up to, and then let it slowly ravel. There are times when it is so funny, you can’t keep your eyes open. There are also times where it is so cringe inducing, you can’t keep your eyes open. For all the shut eye, however, there is a fair amount of the movie you will actually watch. And with a little buzz to stretch one chortle to the next, it can be a belly-aching experience. I can strongly recommend blazing it up for The Hangover, but be warned. While it does have the boundary busting humor of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it is thin on charm. The movie is all about alcohol and date-rape drugs. Where the mushroom Vegas trip in Knocked Up toys with the senses, Jaegermeister leaves the rust on this razor blade. A special shout out does go to Zach Galifianakis. His turn in this movie is special. Not special like Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Ok, a little like that. He owns the character to a terrifying degree. After this film, I wouldn’t want to meet either of them without their parole officer present. No asylum, insane, political or spiritual, could hold him. Alan (Galifianakis) is excruciatingly cracked and honest. He is a never ending barrage of words and actions that range from brilliantly stupid to utterly revolting. His challenge to decency forces you to define lines that are, otherwise, never pondered. And, at altitude, that feeds the munchies in your subconscious. If you have worn out your copy of Old School and don’t feel like watching Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up or any other in that litany, give The Hangover a spin. With a bit of herbal seasoning to cover up the tasteless bits, it’s a yummy, if not wholly, just desert. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Up, but not so high

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:01:57 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 7/14/2009 3:01:57 PM
Body: I can’t say that Up was a bad movie. It was, in many ways, good. When Chicken Run came out, it was 90%+ on the Tomatometer. Over the years I’ve noticed this across the board. Animated movies can be very high (with a few exceptions). Waiting for Up, we saw trailers for two horrible looking animated features. Up, however, didn’t look horrible. The Pixar/Disney film looked great. The styles, shapes, shading and color were fantastic. They’re not done with a realist’s eye, but with true inspiration. And the writing! It was nail on the head. When they needed a sad beat, it was at their finger tips (failed at child-birth, forcing your wife needlessly up a death march of a hill to give her a poignant present, killing her before she reaches to bow on the box, a boy whose douche bag father’s new woman berates him for longing for paternal acceptance). If they needed cute, oh, that came out of thin air. Baby chicks, Seth Rogen in dog form (seriously cute)… And the Tomatometer shows it. Another 90+ for Disney/Pixar. Most of their pictures are in that range. Places usually reserved for Best Picture Nominees. Are these production companies the greatest motion picture artists of a generation? Since Beauty and the Beast danced across a psychedelic chandelier with Oscar, can they do no wrong? Beauty and the Beast (1991) – 93% Aladdin (1992) – 91% The Lion King (1994) – 92% Toy Story (1995) – 100% Antz (1998) – 95% Toy Story 2 (1999) – 100% Chicken Run (2000) – 98% The Incredibles (2004) – 97% Ratatouille (2007) – 97% Wall-E (2008) – 97% Up (2009) – 97% I think that the format and style lends itself to a low bar. Leaving Up, we re-conjure the part of the film we like and, if we laugh some, check. If we are sad, another check. Shed a tear? Check plus. Laugh with that tear still on our cheek and awards season isn’t that far off. The child in us does a little victory dance. Up seems to try a little too hard for that tear. Defeats are brutal and relentless, and they are executed with a sadistic exuberance. If this were recreated in live action it would be beyond disturbing. Early on we would watch the main character start as a darling little boy and build a beautifully charming life with the love of his life. After she passes, THE MAN comes and tries to squeeze our ideal grandfather out to make way for some horrible tenement. The plucky hero, courageously stands up for his heart. Picture Ernest Hemingway or the Dos Equis guy in your head. Then, a couple of construction goofballs (think Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez) accidentally knock over his mail box. Suddenly plucky old man goes all Falling Down on the guy. The cartoon naturally softens the violence, but the fall from grace becomes too realistic and breaks the spell. Plus Leads to this: Click here to view the embedded video. Of course, he is booked, tried in a court of law, found guilty, and forced out of his home, by Agent Smith from The Matrix, no less. If it is so obvious that these situations are just previous motion picture archetypes playing twister on a story board somewhere at Pixar or Disney, why such hard charging positive reviews? It has to be that victory dance. The appeal of a dog telling us the reason he fell asleep next to us on the couch was because he loved us. What kid doesn’t love that? One issue with Up is that this well honed vernacular seems too technical. Technical can be beautiful, and often has been for Pixar. Up, however, lacks the pitch perfect balance that turns something technical into what the french call technique. I can’t wave you off seeing Up. In fact, I can guarantee you will see something you like. And, maybe that is enough. (But, I prefer Miyazaki.) No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Pack and Play – The Breakup Breakdown

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:01:22 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
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Post Date: 7/10/2009 1:01:22 PM
Body: This week it is going to get a bit heavy, but sometimes heavy is good. To go along with each track, I wrote a short blurb as a companion. When you are ready, press play and read along. Take a break and wait for the song to finish before moving down to the next entry. The following are true stories. Only the names, places and facts have been changed. It starts here: Can I Sleep In Your Arms by Willie Nelson from Red Headed Stranger A desert canyon. A circling eagle. Willie Nelson spins up on the ipod. I look down and see a breaking news alert. A murder suicide, the worst of all breakups. We can’t know what drove them together. She had dropped out of high school and moved to Nashville, home of country music, four years earlier. She moved there to live with her boyfriend, Kieth. Those four years had come crashing down as their relationship fell apart. It wasn’t long before, working as a waitress at Dave and Buster’s, she was swept away by Steve McNair. Vacations, gifts, and even a car. So why had she left him so cold and alone? Shooting him in his sleep. At Least That’s What You Said by Wilco from A Ghost Is Born That night, Steve McNair had spent out with friends. When he arrived at the condo, she was already there. She had left work early. When I sat down on the bed next to you, you started to cry. I said,”Maybe if I leave, you’ll want me to come back home.” “Or maybe all you mean is,’Leave me alone.’” At least that’s what you said. You’re irresistible when you get mad. Isn’t it sad, I’m immune? I thought it was cute for you to kiss my purple black eye. Even though I caught it from you, I still think we’re serious. At least that’s what you said. Wilco was having problems. There was another drummer, and rumors that Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer, was having clandestine relations. Effectively cheating on Jay Bennet. Things weren’t exactly all flowers and moonbeams between Jay and Jeff. The resulting fights and finally, the breakup were caught on film in the movie I’m Trying to Break Your Heart. The opening track to the first album after the split is this plaintive song of a love frazzled and maybe already gone. It was Las Vegas. Steve was going to meet her there. She had suspected he, 36, was already trading her, 20, in for a younger model. It turns out the Escalade, the one she told her friends Steve bought her for her birthday, she was responsible for the payments. She was still making payments on that KIA that no one wanted to buy off her. Her roommate was moving out, so she had to pick up that too. Now this. The Vegas Vacation never happened. She was stood up, alone in Las Vegas. The guitars sound like a rusty chainsaw cutting through a wedding dress. He is leaving his wife and four sons. He said they would get married. At least that’s what he said. A few days ago she listed her furniture on Craigslist. She bought a gun in the Dave & Buster’s parking lot. Her mind was falling apart. The swell of joy she felt in her chest turned to deep pain. The kind you try to exhale, but for every breath out, you draw one more back in. Fucking Boyfriend by The Bird & The Bee from The Bird & The Bee It wasn’t all grim. The pictures of the pair parasailing, creepy age difference aside, look like a smashing time. She told her friends they were in love. Captured and enraptured. His house was up for sale. But, he told no one. She was in the wings ready to step on stage with her man. Months had passed and she was still his side thing, and even that was slipping away. Maybe, if they just talked. She’s Lost Control by Joy Division from Unknown Pleasures Curtis’s last live performance was on 2 May 1980 at Birmingham University. He was staying at his parents’ house and attempted to talk his wife into staying with him, to no avail. She left him in her house overnight while she left to do some errands. In the early hours of 18 May 1980, Curtis hanged himself in the kitchen. At the time of his death, he was attempting to balance his musical ambitions with his marriage, which was foundering in the aftermath of his affair with journalist Annik Honoré. His wife found his body the next morning. Curtis’s memorial stone is inscribed with “Ian Curtis 18 – 5 – 80, Love Will Tear Us Apart”. We don’t know what was said. Was it over? Was he leaving? However the talk ended, McNair was asleep on the sofa. Stay Together by Suede from Stay Together[EP] In February 1994, Suede released “Stay Together”, which became their highest charting single. Released only as an EP, it captures a crystalline moment for the band. The moment when they were at their peak, even though it was already over. Following the EP, singer Brett Anderson isolated himself and wrote songs for Suede’s next album. During the making of the album, the songs were stretching longer and longer. The band thought it was the result of guitarist Bernard Butler trying to wind the band members up. The tension built until they were unable to record at the same time, each member recording their parts separately. Eyes turned more and more towards Butler. Staying together was an echo from the past. She took the gun. Next to his sleeping body, she squeezed the trigger. He didn’t wake. He was dead with the first shot. Then a second. Then a third. Then a fourth. Sitting by his side, she placed the barrel to her temple and pulled one last time. She had hoped to be framed together on the couch forever. As the bullet sealed the scene, her limp body fell from the couch, leaving her laying across her dead lover’s feet, lifeless. They wouldn’t be discovered for hours. Through all of the excess and drama, eventually the song swells. It keeps going. Brett starts rambling, Bernard drives madly forward. then a reconciliation happens. Something resembling peace. But it won’t, no, it can’t last. While recording the follow-up album, Butler took a break to get married. Days after the wedding, he returned to the studio to find he was not being allowed in. Months earlier, when they recorded Stay Together, they tried harder and harder, It sliped away. More, more, more. As hard as they try they can’t let go and they know they can’t hold on. Bring it back. Horns. Fanfare. Romance. In the end, just a twisted echo of passion escaping this world. Stay Together would be the last full recording Anderson and Butler would produce as Suede. Just two months after Steve McNair taped a youth suicide prevention public service announcement, his lover shot and killed him as he slept and then turned the gun on herself. It was the last act of a life that was beginning to fall apart. Related posts:Pack and Play – Build the Beat Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Transformers 2: The Megan Fox Show

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:01:11 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 7/6/2009 2:01:11 PM
Body: I remember seeing the first trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (T2:ROTFL?) in the theater. It was loud, and that was the best I could say. Everything that followed that first impression accelerated expectations in a death spiral. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one, Reviewers around the world sharpened their pencils and got jiggy with it, sometimes with magnificence. ”’Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times “Few elements of Fallen are completely odious unto themselves, but rolled together it becomes a wave of inescapable proportions – a literal tsunami of shit.” – Rob Humanick, The Projection Booth “It’s a wad of chaos puked onto the big screen, an arbitrary collection of explosions and machismo posturing and frat boy assholery.” – David Cornelius, eFilmCritic “If it sounds as though the script was written in serial-novel form during an all-night mescaline bender, well, I have no evidence that it was not.” – Chrostopher Orr, The New Republic “I know there are still 17 months to go, but I’m thinking Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone All of this piling on, however, pales in comparison with the masterpiece spawned on io9. Charlie Jane Anders drops the mother lode of a review, defending Transformers as a subtle work of post modern art. The truth is, it is her review that is art. If you haven’t read it, you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing. For now, let me quote a few choice moments. Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one. LaBoeuf projects a pathetic, wall-eyed dorkhood, when he’s not babbling like a tumor removed from Woody Allen’s prostate that somehow achieved sentience. And he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe, Megan Fox, for whom banality is a huge aphrodisiac. The more pathetic Sam gets, the more Fox’s lips pout and her nipples point, like little Irish setters. …part of your brain that thinks it would be awesome to see robots with giant dangling testicles, or hot chicks turning into robot tentacle monsters, or “ghetto” robots that talk in inept hip-hop slang and smash each other playfully, or funny Jewish men who talk about their “schmear” and randomly strip to their G-strings. Is that going too far? Then let’s go 100 times farther than that and see what happens! Transformers: ROTF is so long, you’ll need to wear adult diapers to it. But the movie’s pure celebration of the primal urge, and unfiltered living, will make you rejoice in your adult diapers. You’ll relieve yourself in your seat with a savage joy, your barbaric yawp blending in with the crowd’s screams of excitement. …after you fall into a brazen despair that the walls of reality have become toxic ice cream of a million flavors, you will gasp with a greater realization: that once the world is reduced, forever, to a kaleidoscope of whirling shapes, you are totally free. Nothing matters, effect precedes cause, fish spawn in mid-air, and you can do whatever you want. Let yourself go in your adult diaper, Michael Bay invites you. Then there is Megan Fox’s own contribution. She’s dropping quotes to Entertainment Weekly like: People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. Once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can go, ‘All right, I know that when he calls action I’m either going to be running or screaming, or both. Then speaking of her stardom as a result of her attitude: I think if I had been a typical Hollywood actress and I said all the right things and I had been a publicity android, it wouldn’t have escalated to this level. And then ludicrous stuff: I don’t understand why people don’t have a f—ing sense of humor. Always assume that I’m being sarcastic. Like when I said those things about High School Musical. I didn’t really mean that it’s about pedophilia. But if you get high and you watch it, that is what that f—ing movie is about! Q: Did you watch that high? A: Yes, and it blew my mind. With the stage set between a phalanx of reviews and this faint glimmer of self awareness from Fox, I strapped on that adult diaper and dove headlong into Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen. Ambition is certainly not lacking from this picture. We start, just like Kubrick’s 2001, with pre-sapien hominids. This grandiose wankery permeates what is otherwise a pretty straight forward Saturday morning caliber story line. Spoiler Warning (like you really care.) Many reviewers claim the plot is impenetrable, but it is really quite simple. There is some bad motherfucker Decepticon buried on Earth. He is going to destroy the sun, but there are two things in his way. First is that he can be killed by a ‘Prime’. Second, he needs a widget to do the dirty deed. Of course, Optimus Prime is the last of the Primes, so they whack him. Then poor little Sam (La Boeuf), goes Beautiful Mind and is the only one in the universe that can find the widget. Oh yeah, and the widget can bring Optimus Prime back to life. A race ensues to decode Sam’s brain. The good guys get the stuff and bring Optimus Prime back to life and… That’s right. Dot, dot, f’ing dot. Roll credits. The ever escalating boom and gloom, all heading for an anthropomorphic death battle of epic proportions, fizzles. Two and a half hours and they couldn’t even fit it in. Sure, OPrime gives you the hollow platitude at the end, but that’s it. Maybe the baroque CGI mayhem (and there is enough that this might qualify as an animated feature) isn’t the point. In fact, not a single flickering frame catches the best performance and only reason to see the film, and that is the performance Megan Fox has been giving on the press tour. The one thing that is mentioned in every review, no matter how snarky or scathing, is the fact that Megan Fox is quite the woodland nymph fairy. After being buried under a pile of men’s magazines rushing to crown her ‘Hottie #1’, she started doing interviews. The attention pointed at her has given her a chance to say some silly things, but also, to craft a persona out of her puttified male interviewers. She hasn’t quite got it all together, but it was enough, combined with my own private reasons, to try and summarize it in this set of clips. Click here to view the embedded video. Alone, these comments are fairly banal, but paired with this steaming heap of a movie and the drool drenched pages of every male targeted magazine, it starts to make sense. In some cases, is down right genius. So, the final verdict is pretty straight forward. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be subjected to this movie sober. Terrible idea. Also, don’t see this movie unless you have a borderline obsession for Megan Fox. Blazing through this fiasco, one thing becomes evident. Her screaming and running, mixed in with her otherwise slutting it up fused her wicked, if sometimes annoying, off screen presence spins a seductive intrigue. I don’t think this formula is unknown to the studio either. I’m pretty sure their accountants added it up. How many stoners are there? And how many people are obsessed with Megan Fox right now? Shit. This is going to be the biggest movie of all time. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: In Bruges

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:01:28 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
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Post Date: 6/19/2009 12:01:28 AM
Body: In Fucking Bruges!?! My wife has been there, and that is the only reason I know it is in Belgium. The movie garnered a fist full of ‘Best Screenplay‘ nominations, including an Oscar nod. And it is… both set in Belgium and well written. We get the gist pretty quick, two Brit mob killers are sent to cool their heels in Bruges after a hit goes awry. One is an older sensible fellow, the other the brash young one who was obviously responsible for whatever the cock-up was. The odd couple pairing could play like every other incarnation… Oh, the sensible one likes culture and the oafish one doesn’t. The traditional formula is quite simple. Circumstances force opposing personalities together. They clash in humorous ways until a challenge appears for both of them. By embracing their differences, they overcome and gain a great appreciation for each other. For ‘In Bruges “>In Bruges‘, you might as well stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, because that isn’t the gig. Somehow, through the cunning use of Collin Farrell’s eyebrows, In Bruges “>In Bruges escapes that cliche. And having conquered the cliche, it embraces Belgium, and what it is famous for. That is, it gets a bit weird. They are filming midgets. Click here to view the embedded video. The first signal you will be leaving the station is the dog. If you are in the right frame of mind, you’ll know. When the black dog looks up at you, something freaky stirs in your cranium. The director puts little clues there to say,”Ok, my green thumbs in the audience, you aren’t forgotten.” By the time it degenerates into a rehash of suicidal midget karate race wars doing cocaine with strippers you are well settled. What was a bit laborious in the first half of the movie becomes snappy dialog by Act III. Improbable plot twists limbo just beneath the bar of implausibility. By the end, even those enormous eyebrows become believable. There are some laughs to be had. Not gut busters, but more like David Mamet style chuckles. The wordy style and plot driven indie fare isn’t for everyone, but if those are in your sites, this film will not disappoint. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Double Feature - The Rugged Individuals

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:01:21 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
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Post Date: 6/11/2009 3:01:21 PM
Body: We went to the woods. Down the National Park road the direction Yogi told us. There was supposed to be a helipad there. The flat rock outcropping would suffice. We climbed up and smoked a bowl at sunset. Thousands of feet below a river ran. Its motion making static the vast forest in front of us. Next to the table-top flat stone was a fire ring that looked as if it had been recently used. We were not the first to rest here at dusk. As the darkness rose from the forest floor up to the stars we decided to head back. Instead of following the road, we would follow romance and the rugged path through the uncharted woods. Just in case, we kept an eye on the road to make certain we would not end up lost, stoned hikers. 20 paces further and the road had disappeared. For a split second we were there… primal purity. The search for that sensation drives the main characters in both of the films in this double feature, the titular Jeremiah Johnson and Chris McCandless of Into the Wild. Jeremiah Johnson hangs up the uniform in the mid 19th century to seek solace as a mountain man in the American West. We don’t get elaborate details of his motivations, but the spirit of jaded disillusionment runs through anyone that found dad eating Santa’s cookies or waited for that sophomore album after a glorious debut. Everyone at one time has caught a boot to the teeth. Jeremiah doesn’t need a backstory. He can borrow ours. The cinema of Jeremiah Johnson is epic. The quiet solitude. Robert Redford’s eye creases. Bits of comic relief underscored by a Hollywood Studio Orchestra. Technicolor looks great through the cannabinoid lens. Sidney Pollack’s direction puts out a meal for your psyche with triumphs and failures told by a filmmaker craftsman with enough movie magic to make you feel satisfied. In the end, though, it is a period piece, but not of the old west. It is a period piece of 1972. As the movie was being prepared for release, burglars broke in to the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Before that Vietnam. Before that civil rights. Almost 20 years of wrenching social turmoil. And what is a man to do? While Woodward was meeting with Deep Throat, Redford was in the mountains, purifying Jeremiah Johnson of the ills of society. There is a subconscious feeling that this dark-side of humanity is the price paid for progress. Human cruelty increases with every txt message. For every new airbag and wonder drug, there is a trail of dysfunctional families. Families like that of Chris McCandless. While Jeremiah Johnson meditates on solemnity and quaint virtues, Into the Wild is a new millennia of motion picture. The only character that was not a star (the libidinous 16 year old, Tracy) is the lead in the Twighlight series. The celebrity extends to the celebrity soundtrack by Eddie Vedder. Writer, Director Sean Penn. Its the 21st century and nothing is as simple as it seems. Alexander Supertramp, nee Chris McCandless, claims to be on a spiritual journey, but his calculations feel much more like a cry for personal celebrity. Without the social strife immediate to the character of Jeremiah Johnson, Alexander Supertramp is on a reactionary anti-pilgrimage against society in general. As the movie progresses, my 4 hour buzz is waning, Into the Wild is getting me seriously aggro. His, aww-shucks schtick seems more like a veil to his imagined future as a Gen-X Kerouac. Here he is, flaunting his inexperience in the face of unforgiving nature. His arrogance makes his quest for the rugged individualist epiphany seem like a self indulgent masquerade. The film has music for every segment. It all seems a bit contrived. His hatred of untruth and rejection of society seem cliche and tired. Didn’t Hal Holbrook get nominated for an oscar for this movie? On cue, he hits the screen. After being taunted and emotionally bullied up onto the mountain with McCandless, he drops a fortune cookie, the way only an old man can. He tells the Supertramp that forgiveness brings love. And love brings the light of god. I know it is cheesy, but as selfish as McCandless was, I forgive him… more than nature ever could or would. And that makes me feel human. Back in the National Park, we took a 90 degree turn and found our way back to the road. The instant of primal purity now a memory, we were heading home. Thinking back to that emotion, it was much better realized in Jeremiah Johnson. The intense explication of Into the Wild continually drove a wedge between me and the Supertramp. Forgiveness of these sins brought love, and maybe even the light of God, but it couldn’t bring back my buzz. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: More Star Trek!

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:41:53 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 6/11/2009 1:41:53 PM
Body: Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the franchise Star Trek; it’s continuing mission to seek out lucrative licensing opportunities. To blandly go where there has been a comfortable encampment for decades! To be honest, I didn’t hate the new Star Trek movie. It looked really pretty. There were some decent performances… It didn’t poison any significant memories of my childhood. And did I mention it was pretty? Oh, and hopefully it will stir the exploratory spirit of the movie-going world and fuel a resurgent space age, one which will carry a united humankind into it’s interplanetary adolescence. High hopes, I admit… But what Trek was to me, both TOS and TNG (to toss around Trekkie shorthand) was optimism. It was a positive furture created by and for sentient beings out of enlightened self-interest, intellectual curiosity and a genuine desire for the betterment of all peoples. A utopian future that looked hoplessly naive, but was the better for it. However, what I disliked about this new chapter was not the perceived misinterpretation of Trekness; it was the accurate interpretation of crappymovieness. JJ Abrams doesn’t like to earn his drama. He seems to like to jump over all the “character building” and “plot development” by playing on the archtypes and stereotypes that have been built by generations of American popular culture and expecting the media reflexes of his audience to close the gap. Sadly, I can’t say for sure if that is a terrible thing, or a brilliant one. I don’t know whether this is a symptom of a lazy media production/consumption cycle or a sign of an emerging metaphorical syntax (akin to the Tamarians from that episode of ST:TNG… you know, “Darmok and Jilad at Tanagra”, etc). Most likely it’s both. A distressing simplification AND an evolutionary storytelling technique. Curse you grey area! Curse you for not letting me loathe JJ Abrams with the purity to which I am accustomed by our nuanceless mediascape. And the thing about Star Trek is it’s full of enough archtypal characters to make Joseph Campbell masturbate into the nearest clean sock. This allows JJ Abrams to hit certain story markers in dull, mechanical stride and make you think that he’s woven a story. You’re familar with how these people *should* relate to one another, and how these events *should* play out, so you think you’ve seen a coherent story. It’s a multilayered illusion that seems, at a distance, to be a movie. But the longer you look, the more you ask, “What the fuck”? This new Trek is scifi by art students instead of science wonks. So, the Enterprise was built on Earth, not in some sort of orbiting spacedock. WTF? Kirk and most of the crew of the Enterprise were all in the same class at Starfleet academy. WTF? An emergency comes up and the only available crew are academy-fresh cadets, so Starfleet gives them the new flagship. WTF? And it continues like this through the whole movie. Small discrepencies and nonsenses that slowly build dissonance in the brain, dissonance which requires a mighty suspension of disbelief (or simple inattention) for the movie to be digested. Part of what made the ST:TOS endearing was what it was surmounting. It was on TV when TV was cheap. It was compelling anyway. It sneakily promoted racial equiality when race was a taboo topic. It pointed at the wars of the 20th century and called them madness. It promoted a core idealogy of optimistic freedom and social duty. It had it’s flaws, but it pointed to a future where humanity was going to be better than we are now. This incarnation of Trek has no lofty ideals to inspire. Kirk seems not rakish but reckless. This can all be explained away by the plot I suppose, a divergent timeline. Sure. But it’s not the Trek I have loved. JJ Abrams may have pulled the Trek universe back from the brink Brannon Braga pushed it to, but it was already a hollow shell of a franchise by then anyway. It’s pretty much what I was expecting, but I was hoping against past experience that I would be wowed out of my trousers by a bold new Trek. No luck. Still, the product placement wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been. A Nokia central computer in a 300 year old gas burning Ford Mustang and “Budweiser Classic” ordered at a bar… both plausibly vestigal corporate identities on the future Earth of Star Trek, where they don’t even have money, goddammit! But hey… Bruce Greenwood ROCKED. Sylar and Harold were decent, and the other folks weren’t bad. When Simon Pegg appeared, Scottie-ing it up, it seemed like everyone else turned to cardboard… That guy is fun to watch. The design was mostly nice; Old Spock’s Hoth-coat was rad. The Enterprise herself looked nice enough, some proportions altered, but nothing distracting. So, overall, not too bad, but not Star Trek. Or, not *my* Star Trek anyway. It was like Star Trek’s dumb cousin who loves football and Jerry Bruckheimer movies got into Star Trek’s wardrobe and did some role playing. But it was watchable, as are Jerry Bruckheimer movies. Accompanied by the appropriate intoxicants it should be VERY watchable. But there’s no depth, no substance. Lastly, my strongest hope for this movie, I shit you not, is still that people love it and are inspired by it and that interest in the exploration of space is reinvigorated by it. Because mankind’s future is among the stars, and if JJ Abrams can push us just a little closer to that Trekkish future by making Star Trek cool, then all his other transgressions can be forgiven. Even Cloverfield. Youtube - The most cogent visual analysis of New Trek I could find IMDB - New Star Trek Related posts:Star Trek Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Moulin Rouge

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:41:52 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 6/11/2009 1:41:52 PM
Body: Where to begin? We are talking about a film that is eight years old, but if you’ve been there and done that you know that it is worthy of a Critique. If not - then download it (with full surround sound of course) and watch it. You will be glad you did. The movie begins perfectly. The red velvet curtains open. Are we watching a movie, or a live show at the theatre? Layers within layers within layers. Its a movie about a show about a song about a story about a love between a boy and a girl who must disguise their affair in the collaborative writing of a musical spectacular about a boy and a girl who must hide their affair from . . . you get the picture. The higher perspective loves layers and Moulin Rouge is the gift that keeps on giving. But it doesn’t stop there - oh no. Baz Luhrmann decided to fabricate a musical almost entirely out of what we would now call “remix” songs. Each of the major songs in the movie are alchemical concoctions of myriad pop hits. Elton John, Madonna, David Bowie, Joe Cocker all make an appearance, mixed together in belle epoque cocktail that will leave your head spinning and your senses dazzled. Try to follow the thread of exactly what boy and girl are saying when you constantly have to identify “material girl” as a Madonna song, remember what that song is about, how it fit into its cultural context and then link that back up to the phrases before and after it - within the context of the point in the movie in which it happend. Beautiful. Then there are the visuals. Let me first suggest that you are well strapped in and with plenty of munchies on-hand *before* the green fairy makes her appearance. This is a Moulin Rouge spectacular spectacular, after all. You have bejewled beauties swinging from high trapeeze (to the tune of Nirvana of course) and courtesans living on top of an elephant that must have been imagined by a string theorist. You have song and dance numbers replete with vein-popping, foot-stomping energy and narcoleptic Argentinans stomping out a tight tango (yes, to the tune of Roxanne). And if you’ve managed to keep your chin off the floor as the love story drifts past singing moons and animated frogs, you get the quasi-closing bollywood-meets-the-Bohemian extravaganza to make sure that you are right there with towelie having absolutely no idea what is going on. But loving it. And, of course, the characters. We’ve already mentioned the narcoleptic Argentinian, but this film is full of em. Jim Broadbent does an insane job gnashing his teeth and rolling his eyes as the owner of the Rouge. But nothing comes close to John Leguizamo’s brilliantly absurd Tolouse-Lautrec who somehow manages to get cast as a magical sitar that only speaks the truth in the awe-inspiring conclusion. And what a relief - in a film that is linked and cross-linked, fiction within fiction within fiction to, finally, run into the pure unvarnished, obvious Truth. This is a film that has the wisdom to remind you in the end credits what it was about: Beauty, Truth and (most of all) Love. Whew! After all of that, you very much need the help. And, amazingly enough, in-spite of the sound and fury, you really do get the sense that Love is somehow somewhere contained therein. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: The Natural History of the Chicken

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:41:50 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 6/11/2009 1:41:50 PM
Body: Last night, I smoked. And it was good. On the suggestion of a friend I watched The Natural History of the Chicken, and it was amazing. It’s not a movie, just 60 minutes of chicken-ery (HA! get it? like “chicanery”! Ha ha! No? Okay whatever)… Facts and anecdotes related by people who LOVE chickens, but delivered with an odd drama, unexpected gravitas… I sat gaping at the wonder of this strange little video as it totally fucked my brain inside out. High or not, you can’t help but wonder if the featured human cast is kidding *just a little bit*. It’s not fake, not mockumentary, but almost as if the director Mark Lewis realized that the material might get a little dry if not presented with flair. It’s basically a PBS nature documentary… Everybody knows that PBS continually creates some of the best Haute programming in the universe (judged by content and tone), but TNHotC raises the bar. There are chicken fact and chicken statistics, chicken anecdotes, chicken reenactments of chicken anecdotes! TNHotC serves as a cordial introduction to an animal that usually passes unnoticed betwixt our jawbones and through our excretory apparatus and invites you to appreciate it’s place in human culture. What else is there in the world of chick-umentary? Consider this my strong recommendation to get stonier than a chicken’s gizzard and soak up the Natural History of the Chicken. The Natural History of the Chicken on PBS The Natural History of the Chicken on YouTube (though I would suggest watching it on your TV, for full effect) The Natural History of the Chicken on Netflix No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: Star Trek

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:39:53 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 6/11/2009 1:39:53 PM
Body: Star Trek It is a wonderful thing to see what a talented director of Generation X can do with a piece of media. In some ways JJ Abrams’ Star Trek is a revelation. In other ways it is a vastly missed opportunity. First the good part. This haute critic had the good fortune to view the film in IMAX and it benefits from the facelift. The visuals are (for the most part) gorgeous - filled with inspired architecture of what an optimistic and very human future might look like. Abrams takes the look and feel of vintage 60’s Trek and resurrects it boldly into the 21st century. Costumes have just the right flush of color to give you the feel that you are watching “in real life” what the folks captured “on TV” in the 60’s. And the characters go there as well. Abrams fully modern touch hangs real psychological depth on our once legendary two dimensional favorites. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura. Even Checkov, Scotty and Sulu come to us now suddenly as real people with real motivations behind their actions and desires. The essence of the new generation. In this dimension, Star Trek might even exceed Batman Begins and Spiderman - now, finally, you can understand Kirk’s almost salacious womanizing and fire-from-the-hip (lack of) strategy. Bones’ growling and eye-bulging become the natural expressions of a real person from a real place that seems plausible. The Shatner, Nimoy, Kelly characters presumably came from somewhere, but the GI Generation templates that must have been impressed on Gene Roddenberry’s mind in a flying fortress over the Pacific couldn’t translate through the stock personalities available in the 60’s. Abrams seamlessly accelerates our favorite characters into his mythical universe without spilling a drop. And, in a way, that is the bad part. At the end of the day, Abrams fails to take advantage of the real power and heritage of Star Trek: it is the expression of a personal experience and vision from a generation that is almost fully passed from the Earth. The greasemonkeys who looked back on the collapsing 19th Century world of their parents with confusion and dismay and forward to the Final Frontier that science, technology and American Gusto could bring to bear left their collective fingerprints all over Star Trek. Hatching in the last warm glow before the tumult of the mid 60’s, Star Trek unselfconsciously and unashamedly projected a confident (even cocky) view of what the kids of WWII aspired for in a human future. And from its earliest beginnings Trek managed to catch enough to keep it renewed and relevant through more than four decades — as the rest of the culture warped and spun all over the place. There is a message to be found there - somehow more vital and alive than most that have managed to survive into our era. In many ways Star Trek represents the last breath of a pure optimism from our pop culture - importantly birthed out of the lived experience of people who were children in the Great Depression and youths in World War II. Its easy to dismiss Trek. Its linear extrapolation of 50’s society and technology into a decently distant future seems absurd and implausible. Vernor Vinge’s singularity compression curve makes us all too painfully aware of how near the future is and how implausible that the future will look anything at all like today. But lest we forget - for the past four decades, that Roddenberry vision has been the ultimate self-creating future: generations of inspired kids have been working hard to make real that portion of Star Trek that most captured their imagination. The deep sprit of Trek goes far beyond Klingons, communicators and transporter beams into a comprehensive vision of how we can go about building what we imagine to build. FInding that deep spirit, reaching down into it and giving new life to it in a way that works for the children of a New Millenium; that would have been a true gift. And the opportunity was there - Abrams had the opportunity to (and did) reboot the entire Star Trek concept - and he did so with style, panache and a real sense for the aesthetic of the world. Unfortunately, he didn’t really take his shot. The story was very much a re-tread and clearly was little more than an excuse for Abrams to fulfill his visual intent. There aren’t that many Star Treks left in the world. The door isn’t closed on what can be done with the franchise, but it will take a real effort to craft the right depth of story and sense to match the potential of what could be done. A quality experience for the initiated, but nothing compared to the Watchmen and one suspects upcoming fare (Terminator, Harry Potter, Nine) will have more to offer those looking for a fully baked theatrical experience. Related posts:More Star Trek! Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Post: The Parallax View

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:51:39 GMT

Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 6/11/2009 12:51:39 PM
Body: I love the concept. Coming from the greek for alteration, parallax refers to using multiple points of view to determine distance. It doesn’t take much twisting to say another definition would be the use of altered states as depth perception. So, I dig the term, but I had no idea what the movie was about. Some 70’s flick that a friend in college told me about. The high was hitting and I had no better ideas so away we go. We start in Seattle where some uber-politician is meeting throngs of blathering idiots. He is so loved and handsome and doesn’t follow either political party. Obviously he’s not going to make it to the opening credits. There is some confusion, a trip up the space needle. Bang. Bang. Dead senator. The gun man is chased over the edge. Splat. Hokey and fun assassination to kick things off, but not really convincing. Then the movie starts. Some sort of government tribunal is going to release the findings of the investigation. This is not a press conference. There will be no questions. The grueling strain of intensity starts. Something is happening here. And, what it is ain’t exactly clear. The hip Warren Beatty, cynical and self assured, swaggers around owning the world. We saw him briefly at the space needle. Now, he is the coolest rebel reporter to ever humiliate a figure of authority. Through a meeting with a fellow Space Needle alum, we get a peek into the paranoia that followed the assassination. Beatty dismisses it all, but he happens to have all the facts and theories right at his finger tips. Then it starts. He has a doubt. And doubt leads to paranoia. And paranoia leads to schizophrenia. But not for him. This taste of the frizzle fry hits the couch-locked much harder than Mr. Cool. The special sauce that this film has for the high minded is an alternate track. You see, there is the intricate and impenetrable plot and intrigue. Simultaneously, those with ears to hear are led down another path. Where Taxi Driver brings insight through observation, The Parallax View begins to pour the crazy right in the ear hole. You begin to wonder if this is some sort of training video. The pacing often makes it difficult to straddle those rails. And the melon twisting details layer on top and beside. Connections. Innuendo. The Obvious. Love. Country. You. Happiness. All the sober folk in the room fell asleep well before the slick resolution. Even the elevated could drift off here and there. But if you are jones-ing for a post Kennedy paranoid retro psycho-bomb with a mind-fucking intermission, Turn the vaporizer to 11 and put your hands on the white box. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Spout Member:The_MOW - Mickey Micklon

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: The_MOW
Name: Mickey Micklon
Interests: movies, sci-fi, professional wrestling
Occupation: Unemployed
Location: Salem, NH
Films listed: 369
Number of lists: 4
Number of groups: 2
Blog posts: 372
Blog post views: 11337
Number of times tagged: 25
Member since: 4/4/2009
Last login: 10/13/2009

Spout Member:horror

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: horror
Films listed: 1
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 1/17/2009
Last login: 1/17/2009

Spout Member:butterknife

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: butterknife
Films listed: 1
Number of lists: 4
Blog posts: 1
Member since: 4/2/2008
Last login: 4/2/2008

Spout Member:rnt2630

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: rnt2630
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/13/2007
Last login: 9/13/2007

Spout Member:dsalaski

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: dsalaski
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/10/2007
Last login: 9/10/2007

Spout Member:jennkp

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: jennkp
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/10/2007
Last login: 9/10/2007

Spout Member:Don0262

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: Don0262
Films listed: 2
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/9/2007
Last login: 9/9/2007

Spout Member:martinluthar

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: martinluthar
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/8/2007
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Spout Member:clwoolfe

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: clwoolfe
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/8/2007
Last login: 9/8/2007

Spout Member:XtreamDenny

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: XtreamDenny
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/7/2007
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Spout Member:bofo

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: bofo
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 9/7/2007
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Spout Member:seanjoneswrexham

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: seanjoneswrexham
Number of lists: 4
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Spout Member:nny921

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: nny921
Number of lists: 4
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Member since: 9/3/2007
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Spout Member:mr_lol

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: mr_lol
Number of lists: 4
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Spout Member:fire1311

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: fire1311
Number of lists: 4
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Spout Member:Argueta

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Identity: Argueta
Number of lists: 4
Member since: 8/31/2007
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Film:Funny Games

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:47:00 GMT

Title: Funny Games
Year: 2007
Director: Michael Haneke
Times Tagged: 27
Number of Lists: 24
Number of blog posts: 14
Number of discussion threads: 8
SpoutRating: 3

Film:The Dark Knight

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:13:34 GMT

Title: The Dark Knight
Year: 2008
Director: Christopher Nolan
Times Tagged: 149
Number of Lists: 98
Number of blog posts: 156
Number of discussion threads: 55
SpoutRating: 4

Film:H2

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 08:45:58 GMT

Title: H2
Year: 2009
Director: Rob Zombie
Number of Lists: 1
Number of blog posts: 1
SpoutRating: 1

Film:Eleanor: First Lady of the World

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:47:51 GMT

Title: Eleanor: First Lady of the World
Year: 1982
Director: John Erman
Number of blog posts: 1

Film:Black Test Car

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:01:54 GMT

Title: Black Test Car
Year: 1962
Number of Lists: 2
SpoutRating: 4

Film:Dumpster Baby

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:53:10 GMT

Title: Dumpster Baby
Director: James Bickert
Number of Lists: 1

Film:Rick

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:32:48 GMT

Title: Rick
Year: 2002
Director: Curtiss Clayton
Times Tagged: 1
Number of Lists: 1
SpoutRating: 2

Film:Speed Racer

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:21:45 GMT

Title: Speed Racer
Year: 2008
Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
Times Tagged: 90
Number of Lists: 16
Number of blog posts: 41
Number of discussion threads: 16
SpoutRating: 3

Film:Speed Racer [Anime Series]

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:20:43 GMT

Title: Speed Racer [Anime Series]
Year: 1967
Number of Lists: 1
Number of blog posts: 1
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 3

Film:The Raven

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:13:53 GMT

Title: The Raven
Year: 2007
Director: Ulli Lommel
Number of blog posts: 2
SpoutRating: 1

Film:The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:25:24 GMT

Title: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Year: 1991
Director: Simon Callow
Number of blog posts: 2
SpoutRating: 2

Film:New York, New York

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:22:40 GMT

Title: New York, New York
Year: 1977
Director: Martin Scorsese
Times Tagged: 23
Number of Lists: 12
Number of blog posts: 57
Number of discussion threads: 2
SpoutRating: 2

Film:St. Nick

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:01:06 GMT

Title: St. Nick
Year: 2009
Director: David Lowery
Times Tagged: 3
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 5
SpoutRating: 5

Film:We Are the Strange

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:25:52 GMT

Title: We Are the Strange
Year: 2007
Director: M dot Strange
Number of Lists: 3
Number of blog posts: 3
SpoutRating: 4

Film:The Sadist

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:08:29 GMT

Title: The Sadist
Year: 1963
Director: James Landis
Number of Lists: 4
SpoutRating: 3

Film:The Alligator People

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:04:19 GMT

Title: The Alligator People
Year: 1959
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 1
SpoutRating: 2