Flipside Movie Emporium

[beltmann]

[Danny Baldwin]

I really haven't fulfilled my commitment to regularly posting on here, but perhaps school will give me more reason to procrastinate and mindlessely spend time wasting away online?

I will say, in a brief summation of the highlights of the past month, that Little Miss Sunshine and World Trade Center are two of my favorite pictures of the year.

I continued my Duff-patronage with Material Girls, but I'll refrain from comment due to impending ridicule.

It was particularly pleasurable to revisit Rushmore.

And L'Enfant is solid Dardennes Bros. stuff, but ultimately falls short in many of the areas that The Son succeeded.

Snakes on a Plane surprised me in that it's a different-feeling movie than the marketing would suggest. Of course, that goes without saying that it was made before most of the hype reached a crescendo.
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[Erickson]

The week in review...

Donnie Darko

Matilda

Signs

The Werewold of Fever Swamp (it's a goosebumps movie).
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I hate quotations; tell me what you know

[beltmann]

8/21 ? 8/27/06

First, all ten of the sound shorts that Buster Keaton made for Columbia. None are any good, and it?s rather painful watching him try to breathe life into sickly scripts that feel better suited for the Three Stooges.

General Nuisance / White / USA / 1941

His Ex Marks the Spot / White / USA / 1941

Mooching Through Georgia / White / USA / 1939

Nothing But Pleasure / White / USA / 1939

Pardon My Berth Marks / White / USA / 1940

Pest From the West / Lord / USA / 1939

She?s Oil Mine / White / USA / 1941

So You Won?t Squawk / Lord / USA / 1941

The Spook Speaks / White / USA / 1940

The Taming of the Snood / White / USA / 1940

In preferential order:

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby / McKay / USA / 2006

Neil Young: Heart of Gold / Demme / USA / 2006

48 Hrs. / Hill / USA / 1982

Little Miss Sunshine / Dayton and Faris / USA / 2005

Invincible / Core / USA / 2006

Manderlay / Von Trier / Denmark / 2005

Dangerous Minds / Smith / USA / 1995

Glory Road / Gartner / USA / 2006

Three? Extremes II / Kim, Nonzee, and Chan / South Korea, Thailand, and Hong Kong / 2002

Hoodwinked / Edwards / USA / 2005

Something Other Than Other (short) / Henry and Chia / USA / 2005

The only segment of Three? Extremes II worth seeing is Peter Chan?s contribution, which somehow manages to balance the strange line between psychopathy and romanticism.

I have yet to form any firm opinions about Manderlay, except that I was never bored and Bryce Dallas Howard is no Nicole Kidman.

While Little Miss Sunshine works overtime to affect smart comedy?its sitcom routines feel recycled from every other warm-hearted, idiosyncratic ?indie? this side of The Full Monty?Will Ferrell offers the real thing by channeling the frenetic, surreal, mad spirit of the Marx Brothers, an inclination only hinted at in (the best parts of) Anchorman. Talladega Nights is the best American comedy since The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And, yes, I did just say that in public.
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Jim Harper]

28/07/06 - 29/08/06

Underworld: Evolution (dir. Len Wiseman, 2006)*

The Amityville Horror (dir. Andrew Douglas, 2005)*

Romasanta, the Werewolf Hunt (dir. Francisco Plaza, 2004)

Second Name (dir. Francisco Plaza, 2002)*

The I Inside (dir. Roland Suso Richter, 2003)*

Horror Express (dir. Eugenio Martin, 1972)

The Machinist (dir. Brad Anderson, 2004)

Fragile (dir. Jaume Balaguero, 2004)

Blood from the Mummy?s Tomb (dir. Seth Holt, 1971)

28 Days Later (dir. Danny Boyle, 2002)

The Fog (dir. Rupert Wainwright, 2005)*

The Bunker (dir. Rob Green, 2001)

The Descent (dir. Neil Marshall, 2005)

Hostel (dir. Eli Roth, 2005)*

Poltergeist (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1982)

Buried Alive (dir. Frank Darabont, 1990)*

Below (dir. David Twohy, 2002)

The Thing from another World (dir. Christian Nyby, 1956)

The Tenant (dir. Roman Polanski, 1976)*

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (dir. Don Siegel, 1956)

Sweet Home (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1989)*

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds (dir. Hiyao Miyazaki, 1984)

The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973)

The Terminator (dir. James Cameron, 1984)

Man-Thing (dir. Brett Leonard, 2005)*

Porco Rosso (dir. Hiyao Miyazaki, 1992)

R-Point (dir. Kong Su-Chang, 2004)

The Survivor (dir. David Hemmings, 1981)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (dir. Tommy Lee Wallace, 1983)

Mr & Mrs Smith (dir. Doug Liman, 2005)*

Dawn of the Dead (dir. Zack Snyder, 2004)

Who Could Kill A Child? (dir. Narcisco Ibanez-Serrador, 1976)

Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Evilenko (dir. David Grieco, 2004)*

Robocop 2 (dir. Irvin Kershner, 1990)

Christine (dir. John Carpenter, 1984)

Night of the Living Dead (dir. Tom Savini, 1990)

Halloween 4 (dir. Dwight H Little, 1988)

A History of Violence (dir. David Cronenberg, 2005)*

Village of the Damned (dir. John Carpenter, 1996)

Reincarnation (dir. Takashi Shimizu, 2005)*

The Haunting (dir. Robert Wise, 1963)

The Hills Have Eyes (dir. Alexandre Aja, 2006)

The Tunnel (dir. Roland Suso Richter, 2001)

Assault on Precinct 13 (dir. John Carpenter, 1977)

Halloween 5 (dir. Dominique Othenin-Girard, 1989)

Vampires (dir. John Carpenter, 1998)

Silent Hill (dir. Christophe Gans, 2006)

Lady Vengeance (dir. Park Chan-wook, 2005)*

The Plague of the Zombies (dir. John Gilling, 1966)

Vampire Circus (dir. Robert Young, 1972)

Hellboy (dir. Guillermo Del Toro, 2004)

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (dir. Val Guest, 1961)

The Stone Tape (dir. Peter Sasdy, 1972)

A big update, so I'll keep it short.

Underworld: Evolution was pretty much the same as the original; not bad, not great, but it did have Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.

The Amityville Horror is rubbish; I thought it was the worst of the recent remakes until I saw The Fog, which is bloody awful.

Second Name is slow and ponderous, but pretty good nonetheless. Not as good as The Nameless (it's titled to imply a connection), but a respectable effort.

The I Inside isn't as good the director's fantastic film The Tunnel, but as a Hollywood debut it's not too bad.

Hostel is crap. The characters are completely unlikeable, the special effects inconsistent (a big failing in a film that relies upon them so much) and the plot derivative. Cabin Fever wasn't great, but it was better than this overrated tripe.

Man-Thing was okay, as was Buried Alive.

The Tenant had moments of intense 'creepiness', and worked much better than Repulsion, which I've never liked much.

Mr & Mrs Smith was lots of fun. My new favourite Brad Pitt film.

Evilenko boasts an excellent central performance from Malcolm McDowell, and while it's not as good as Citizen X (which deals with the same subject), it's a well-made and engrossing film.

In my opinion A History of Violence is probably my favourite Cronenberg film since The Fly; after films like Crash, Naked Lunch and Spider I had largely written him off, but History is a great film.

Lady Vengeance is almost as good as Oldboy but much better than Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. A funny, bleak and emotionally affecting film.

My review of Sweet Home has already gone up on the Flipside and MIke's got my review of Reincarnation.

Phew!

[Michael Scrutchin]

[beltmann]

8/28 ? 9/4/06

In preferential order:

Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story / Winterbottom / UK / 2005

Shenandoah / McLaglen / USA / 1965

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio / Anderson / USA / 2005

Final Destination 3 / Wong / USA / 2006

The Rookie / Eastwood / USA / 1990

Underworld: Evolution / Wiseman / USA / 2006

The top three are all substantially better than the bottom three, but only Tristram Shandy is truly terrific.
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Jim Harper]

30/08/06 - 09/09/06

My Soul Is Slashed (dir. Shusuke Kaneko, 1991)*

Sophie Scholl (dir. Marc Rothemund, 2005)

The Quatermass Xperiment (dir. Val Guest, 1955)

Quatermass II (dir. Val Guest, 1957)

Sahara (dir. Breck Eisner, 2005)*

Demon Seed (dir. Donald Cammell, 1977)*

Island of Terror (dir. Terence Fisher, 1966)

Shaun of the Dead (dir. Simon Pegg, 2004)

The Night Caller (dir. John Gilling, 1965)

The Face of Fu Manchu (dir. Don Sharp, 1965)

Das Boot (full-length version) (dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 1981)

Blood on Satan?s Claw (dir. Piers Haggard, 1971)

The Exorcist II: Heretic (dir. John Boorman, 1977)*

Trauma (dir. Marc Evans, 2005)*

Twins of Evil (dir. John Hough, 1971)

Night of the Eagle (dir. Sidney Hayers, 1962)

The Omen (dir. Richard Donner, 1976)

The Cave (dir. Bruce Hunt, 2005)*

Race with the Devil (dir. Jack Starrett, 1975)*

Damien: Omen II (dir. Don Taylor, 1978)

The Final Conflict (dir. Graham Baker, 1981)

Hello people!

My Soul is Slashed is a Japanese horror comedy from the director of Pyrokinesis and the modern Gamera series. It's not bad, but nothing terribly original. Best moment: the cigarette burns (reel markers) are drops of blood!

Sahara was a fun adventure flick, and The Cave was a half-decent pastiche of Alien and The Descent. Both entertaining enough.

Demon Seed was pretty good. Better than I expected, to be honest, with solid performances and some genuinely unsettling moments. Race with the Devil was pretty good too, as far as popcorn viewing goes.

I had reasonable hopes for The Exorcist II, since I'm not a particular fan of the original and I knew it was substantially different. However, after a very promising opening, it really did degenerate into the absolute mess everyone says it is. I thought it might just be unpopular because of the (unjustified, IMHO) statues of the original, but no, it really is that bad. Who the hell seriously thought that plot was a good idea??

Trauma is a waste of time. Marc My Little EyeEvans obviously has talent, but the film is derivative and boring, despite a decent caste.

I've re-watched the Omen trilogy again, since I haven't seen the second and third films more than once and that was years ago. So here are my mildly controversial conclusions:

1. The Omen II is the best in the series. You only watch these films for the over-the-top deaths, and this film has more than the other two put together. Beyond that, it's much better at conveying the pervasive nature of the Satanic conspiracy (something the first film avoids almost entirely) and makes some interesting comparisons between the Forces of Evil and the worlds of big business and politics. It's also bloody good fun.

2. Final Conflict sucks. It really does. Sam Neill is great, but the rest of the cast seem to be asleep and the script simply recycles the other two films. And what happened to the horrible death scenes? As for the ending, it's pathetic. Damien spends his entire life obliterating anyone who might conceivably pose a threat but ends up getting knifed because he happens to be looking the other way. To be honest, I'd rather have had a bloody cliffhanger.

3. The Omen is better than The Exorcist. Yes, yes, before anyone starts gathering firewood, just hear me out. Both films are over-the-top, hysterical horror films, but Friedkin's film tries to hide its exploitation roots by throwing in plenty of ludicrous, unbelievable statements from medical personnel and dime-store moralizing and trying to convince of the reality of the situation. The Omen on the other hand knows exactly what it is and works a hell of a lot better because of it. Regan is a completely two-dimensional movie-realistic character, but we're supposed to care about her and what happens to her. I didn't, so the effect was considerably weakened. The Omen doesn't try and make us care about the Thorns, so I had a lot more fun watching them get torn to pieces.

So there. Cheap exploitation is better than cheap exploitation with pretensions.

[beltmann]

9/5 ? 9/10/06

This week I had time for only a single movie on DVD, and it was quite awful. About 20 minutes in I began ironing shirts, an activity which generated more suspense than Firewall did.
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Danny Baldwin]

[beltmann]

9/11 ? 9/17/06

Of the many short films featured on TCM on Friday, I had time for only the set of new shorts commissioned by TCM and Hermes. My favorite was Peter Gilbert?s There Is No Place Like Home, a moving documentary about how the world of movies provides a common meeting place for people. I also enjoyed Mary Sweeney?s In the Eye Abides the Heart and E. Elias Merhige?s Din of Celestial Birds, two avant-garde pieces with spectacular imagery. Griffin Dunne?s Your Product Here was a deadpan documentary with a couple of funny jokes about candy and E.T. However, Baadasssss Grandkids! finds Mario Van Peebles returning to the family well yet again, and it feels more self-serving, tacky, and desperate than ever before. The worst of the bunch was Floria Sigismondi?s Postmortem Bliss, a show-offy piece about overmedicated teenagers marked by especial glibness.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu / Puiu / Romania / 2005. Viewers accompany an ailing, aging widower as he travels between four Bucharest hospitals that refuse to seriously regard his claims of head and stomach pains, mostly because those complaints are drenched in the smell of alcohol. His full name is Dante Remus Lazarescu, and that moniker, pregnant with not one but three symbolic meanings, suggests a grim odyssey top-heavy with self-importance, but quite the reverse is true: While the movie does swing for the fences in its hellish, sometimes funny indictment of inefficient medical systems, its strength derives instead from its matter-of-fact smallness. There?s much more waiting around, filling out of forms, and mundane conversation than in, say, an episode of ER, and what?s remarkable is how the unhurried style feels completely authentic and gripping--it offers the kind of human empathy that?s missing from Lazarescu?s dehumanizing hospital experiences. (At one point, a surgeon?s plan to circumvent consent law involves asking an ambulance nurse to take the patient on the road and bring him back only after he?s fallen comatose.)
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Danny Baldwin]

Busy, busy, busy this week... but I did catch:

The Black Dahlia (De Palma, 2006)

The Last Kiss (Goldwyn, 2006)

The former, despite my eager anticipation of it, is one of the worst movies I've seen in years; under the excuse that he's trying to embrace the conventions of noir, De Palma allows himself to be purposelessly grusome, over-the-top, and nihilistic. And, aside from a voluptuous Hilary Swank, the cast is rahter terrible. Scarlett Johansson, in particular, serves up one of the biggest misfired performances I've ever seen in film. The cinematography's nice, but who cares? Word is that James Ellroy, who wrote the source-material, calls the theatrical version a mess but has called De Palma's three-hour original cut a "masterpiece". Doubt it.

The latter, on the other hand, really impressed me. In the lead role, Zach Braff proves he's not just a guy that makes movies and ends up starring them, effectively taking to his character. Opposite him, Jacinda Barret would be nominated for an Oscar had her work been in a more Academy-friendly picture. Still, as much as I liked the movie, I almost wish it would've extended itself into more abstract territory. One of the characters asks his friends if they'd like to escape their Wisconsin lives and head for South America. Why doesn't a writer ever come along--not to diss Paul Haggis, whose dialogue here is truly terrific--and allow those characters to follow up on the conquest and then spend a third-hour of what once was a "light romantic comedy" turning the story into a diverse epic exploring said characters' fight for surival against indigenous cheetahs in the Colombian woods? Ah, my imagination is getting the better of me...
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[beltmann]

9/18 ? 9/24/06

Another week with limited time, but I managed to see two moderately enjoyable films:

Dave Chappelle?s Block Party / Gondry / USA / 2006

Sky High / Mitchell / USA / 2005

Block Party is looser (and Chappelle?s comedy more uneven) than I expected, but it has a good-natured, egalitarian spirit, lots of good music, and a few funny bits. (I think I most enjoyed Jill Scott?s performance.) Sky High was obviously influenced by popular works like Harry Potter, X-Men, and The Incredibles, but I was most reminded of Mean Girls: What?s most agreeable about the movie is its fast, clever, satirical edge.
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Danny Baldwin]

This week:

Crank (Neveldine, Taylor; 2006)

High Tension (Aja, 2005)

Both are fun, but the latter is bogged down by a totally incoherant final third, regardless of the neat twist it was going for.

Viewings seem to be few and far between for me these days, but I'm seeing thirteen films this week at the San Diego Film Festival, including A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Cronica de una Fuga, Ten Canoes, and The Queen.
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[beltmann]