Episode 41: The Room

A Very Special Episode - The Boy stops by for a spirited review discussion of the greatest bad movie ever made - The Room! Come for the quotes, stay for the family bonding.

The Best of 2008 - Movie Edition

Time for HLS to jump into the fray and add to the ever growing population of "Bests of the Year" lists.  The catch here, for my Movies edition, is a refreshing bout of honesty: I've only seen a handful of the films released this calendar year.  The list, alphabetically, is below.  Bear in mind that I am married, and have kids, which will explain several of the items on the list:

The Dark Knight
Kung Fu Panda
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Step Brothers
Wanted
Tropic Thunder
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Get Smart
Pineapple Express
Mamma Mia!
Zack and Miri Make A Porno
The Love Guru
Baby Mama
Meet Dave


Best Actor:
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder
Seth Rogen, Zack & Miri
James Franco, Pineapple Express
Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Tough call, but Legder (whom I'm considering as a lead actor, since his presence and role was paramount to the success of the film) gets the nod here as the pathological Joker.  It's a shame we'll never see a follow-up, but that will undoubtedly only add to the legend.

Best Actress:
Mila Kunis, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Angelina Jolie, Wanted
Tina Fey, Baby Mama
Elizabeth Banks, Zack & Miri
Meryl Streep, Mamma Mia!

Jolie was the type of mysterious woman who can kick your ass that she's been in several other films, and though she was great, I can't give her the choice.  Streep did all her own singing, which gets my vote in a pretty weak field.

Best Supporting Actor:
Neal Patrick Harris, Harold & Kumar
Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder
Craig Robinson, Zack & Miri
Russell Brand, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Man, what a tough choice here - all awesome.  Robinson nearly steals the film in Zack & Miri, while Brand never fails to get laughs.  I'm going to cop out and call it a tie between Cruise's nearly unrecognizable turn in Tropic Thunder and NPH's tour-de-force in Harold & Kumar.  Remember, the P stands for "Poon Hound".

Best Supporting Actress:
Anne Hathaway, Get Smart
Amy Poehler, Baby Mama

Poeler gets the nod for playing funny, at which she is a pro, but also being able to dial it down when needed.  Hathaway did a nice job as the ass-kicking Agent 99, and always lights up whatever film in which she appears.

Best Cameo:
Justin Long, Zack & Miri

No contest, Long's extended High School Reuinion scene as the gay porn star who ultimately provides the inspiration to the main character was absolutely brilliant.  After seeing this guy as the unassuming "Mac" for the past few years, it was easy to forget what he could do.

Best Kids Movie:
Kung Fu Panda
Well paced, no pop culture references, just a really good story, well told, with good characters.  Oh, and it's funny.  Maybe Hollywood will learn a lesson here, but I doubt it.

Best Movie:
Tropic Thunder
The Dark Knight
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

All were stellar, but for an overall great movie, start to finish, I'm giving the edge to Tropic Thunder.  I was thoroughy surprised at how much I enjoyed this film, which was pushed to the top thanks to the great turns put in by Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr.  The Dark Knight is a very close second.

Most Questionable Decision:
Pierce Brosnan sings (Mamma Mia!)
Male full frontal (Zack & Miri)
Male Full Frontal(Forgetting Sarah Marshall)
Putting "Porno" in the Title (Zack & Miri)

Brosnan gave it his best shot, and wasn't terrible, which is saying something.  I questioned why Kevin Smith saw the need to show Jason Mewes' junk in what seemed to be a gratoitous manner.  Segel being naked while being dumped by Sarah Marshall had a poignancy to it which fit into the story, but Mewes doing the full monty didn't seem to make sense, story wise.


Best Guy Who Shows Up In Every Movie:
Bill Hader - Turned up in Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and better yet, was funny in each.  In 2009, may he see bigger roles.

That's it for 2008, as far as I was concerned.  See this space for Music picks soon...

Journey To The Center Of My DVR - Idiocracy

Idiocracy (2006)
Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard

Directed by MIke Judge

Rated R

Now this one was easy to miss - Fox did all it could to ensure nobody would ever see this film. The release was confined to a small number of screens on both coasts, and quickly disappeared. Only via its appearance on cable has it been able to reach a wide audience, and quickly reach cult status.

It's not exactly clear why the studio would not put any effort behind this movie - it's a Mike Judge project. Judge, best known for TV shows Beavis and Butt-head, King Of The Hill, as well as the great cult film Office Space, seemingly has enough name recognition and credibility to get behind. Could it be that the film, a brilliant science fiction piece whereby stupid people, via pure volume breeding, totally take over the country, just might go completely over the heads of their audiences? Pandering to the lowest common denominator is something Fox specializes in, and they might have been thinking that this movie would have sailed right over the heads of the movie going crowd.

The film details how low level career military man Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) is chosen to take part in an experiment whereby he is placed in a state of suspended animation, and revived at a later date, with the idea of creating super soldiers of the future. As this is a movie, Something Goes Wrong, and Wilson (along with local hooker Rita, played by Maya Rudolph) remains "frozen" for 500 years. They awaken to a world which has been overrun by stupidity, making the terminal underachiever and the hooker the de facto smartest people in the country. The opening of the film, which explains how the country (and presumably the world) ended up in this state is hilarious, and somewhat disturbing as one can totally see the scenario happening.
Navigating his way through an endless supply of utter morons who speak "hybrid of hillbilly, Valley girl, and inner-city slang" (and who tell him on more than one occasion after hearing him speak in full sentences that he "talks like a fag"), Wilson manages to get one man, Frito (Dax Shepard) to tell him of a Time Machine. Bauers obviously assumes that technology has advanced to the point where time travel is a reality, but, alas, runs into many obstacles trying to find his way back home. I won’t give any spoilers here, but suffice it to say Joe and Rita don’t have a lot of smooth sailing in trying to succeed in 2505, or return to the present.

The film is smart, funny, and a relatively short 84 minutes. Judge, as he has in his other projects, doesn’t lay it on too thick and mock the future Americans for their stupidity. Indeed, it seems as if he has pity on them, since they can’t be held accountable for their IQ, and Judge sort of celebrates their stupidity rather than mock them for it.
See this movie. Aside form the things mentioned above, it’s funny, and that alone should be enough to merit killing an hour and a half. The fact that the movie makes you think a little, or perhaps makes you just a wee bit uneasy, is just a bonus.

Idiocracy (IMDB.com)

Journey To The Center of the DVR

Here's the deal: This past summer, I changed television providers from Comcast to AT&T U-Verse. Part of the deal, other than the cost savings, was the inclusion of a DVR, which quickly went straight to cell phone status as the invention-I-wonder-how-I-ever-did-without.

Even better, for the first two months I was given the full channel lineup (except Playboy, which is never free). Combine 20 movie channels with a brand new DVR and you've got a recipe for a gathering of films heretofore unseen!

The goal was to grab movies that fit the following criteria:

1. Recent Hit movies which I didn't catch in the theater
2. Movies the kids wanted to see
3. Other movies which had somehow eluded me over the past few years

I grabbed a boatload. What will follow, on a periodic basis, is my review of said films. It might be a bit surprising to you to see some of the movies I've managed to avoid seeing. Like this one:

Kingpin (1996)
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Bill Murray
Directed by The Farrelly Brothers

Case in point: damn, how in the hell did I ever miss this movie? It was released in 1996, and I do recall several half hearted attempts a renting it a few years back. ("Honey, what about Kingpin? It's supposed to be pretty funny? No? Okay" [sheepishly puts it back on rack])

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that just about everyone in the world who wanted to see this has already done so, so anything written after this point can't really qualify as a "spoiler", agree? Good, let's proceed.

This gem from The Farrelly Brothers explores a topic not often seen on the big screen: the cutthroat world of pro bowling. Blend in Randy Quaid's Amish character and you've got a combination that nobody would ever touch again, and with good reason. Woody Harrelson is perfect for the role of Roy Munson, and in the early scenes as an earnest, supremely gifted young bowler you can see a hint of Woody Boyd. Once tragedy strikes (sorry, bad bowling pun, of which I cannot guarantee there will not be more) and the years go by, he becomes a bitter, pot bellied, balding man with a hook for a left hand (when it's not covered by one of the worst prosthetic hands ever seen, which leads to numerous sight gags, all of which are great). There are just the right amount of hook gags as well, and the bulk are done early in the movie.

Bill Murray is great as well, especially when you consider that he improvised just about all of his dialog. He was given the script, decided to wing it using the basic framework, and the Farrelly's later said it was the right thing to do since Murray's stuff was funnier. Every scene he is in is gold, and crucial to the plot since he basically ruins Roy's career by leaving him high and dry (resulting in the hook), then meets his one time protege again in the climatic winner take all million dollar bowling tournament. Vanessa Angel, whom I remembered most fondly from her non-English speaking bra related scenes in Spies Like Us, plays the "stereotypical arm candy of the mid-movie protagonist who defects to the side of the heroes with less than good intentions only to fall in love with the main character by the end and ride off into the sunset", and does it well.

The movie works for one basic reason: it's damn funny. Sight gags abound, but don't overwhelm, and in 1996 tapping into the Amish lifestyle for jokes was still relatively fresh. You can catch this on cable from time to time, and if possible you should see the uncut version as opposed to what Comedy Central would show - I can't imagine how they would handle the sex with his landlord scene.

Phew, only about 30 more movies to go.....

Kingpin (IMDB.com)