craysellers Reviews

A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)

Was National Lampoon funny before the P.J. O'Rourke period?

[3/10 · 23 August 2019]

It became hysterical under O'Rourke who gave John Hughes free reign to show us what he would later do with movie scripts. But pushing the idea that Michael O'Donnahue was ever funny? Yeah, he was so edgy and shocking! If you have no twist to it or no point other than a disturbing premise, when do we laugh? Who would put that mad man on TV? Maybe the show's competitors. It's like the Andy Kaufman myth: "God, he was funny!" If you didn't have to actually sit through his bits and pretend it was inspired genius. Did Doug Kenney revolutionize comedy with the National Lampoon? We kept waiting. Animal House had moments, but not many. Belushi smashes food into his face. Did you laugh the first time? Have you tried watching it, lately? This movie really does capture what Doug Kenney offered. That makes it a pretty depressing movie.

Funny Games (2007)

You Really Don't Want to See This Movie

[2/10 · 12 April 2019]

Reviews give opinions, and those who read them decide if it sounds like they'd agree, or they ignore it and watch (or don't watch) the movie, regardless. But my opinion is that this movie isn't even fair. Judgements like good or bad don't apply. The acting is fine, it's cinematography is actually good. Tasteless? Pink Flamingos is tasteless, but at least it's true to its story. Funny Games is like Psycho where Norman Bates never really existed and Janet Leigh's experience is nullified and Hitchcock leaves in the shower scene as a blooper. I'm avoiding a major spoiler, so understand: it's important for a movie to have some rules of logic to qualify for good or bad status. When your narrative is so corrupt that basic rules of logic don't apply, how can nonsense be worthwhile? There's a movie called The Hitcher where the bad guy pops up in the strangest places: at one point he leaves a victim's finger in his prey's French fries. But even supernatural powers would have made it impossible for him to do that (barring the supernatural power to do something at the same time you aren't doing it). Some movies show an intense personal struggle that fails. Something about the futility in the failure offers some insight whether it's Frances (Frances Farmer bio) or Cool Hand Luke. Why try so hard when satisfactory results are out of the question? But you understand, and appreciate those fighting lost causes. But when they win? Imagine a story going there, and then you're mugged by an absurdity that says, "Not really!" Don't waste your time, honestly!

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Everything but convincing

[6/10 · 10 July 2018]

The excessive privilege of Susan's world of artists and entitled people is a beautiful cinematic experience. If the story stayed at that level this would be a masterpiece. When she receives a copy of her ex-husband's book, she sees his metaphor for how and why she left him, and what it felt like through his eyes. We see the mother's warning about romanticizing someone who will never be the man she wants him to be. Her guilt over succumbing to social pressure, that's what she can't forgive about herself; that's what she says, but her actual relationship with Edward doesn't bear it out. Her mother was right. She's in love with the man she wants Edward to be, but Edward - the real Edward - the man she's disappointed in and exasperated with? They have a boring, unfulfilling relationship and she wants out. The movie isn't honest about this detail and it's too important to ignore. She claims, later on, to have really loved him, and her claim is convincing. Even the husband she left Edward for, he cheats on her and she knows it, but she gets him because she has more respect for him as a man. If the director (Tom Ford) didn't mean to show that, it's incompetence. If her relationship with Edward was love, that's not shown, and Ford took a hard swing at it and missed.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Truly funny: a unique comic form

[10/10 · 13 July 2012]

This is a whole different animal in the genre of film called 'Comedy'. It doesn't set up conventional comedy dilemmas that allow you to judge its merit on how well it handles the pay-off.

I mean it as a compliment that it's more Pee Wee Herman than Mel Brooks, because it assumes we've all known a Napoleon Dynamite and know that really funny people are 'out there': unashamed of their inherent nature, and not about to show any deference to anybody.

While I'm not a big Pee Wee Herman fan (the infantilism makes me a little uncomfortable), Jon Heder's Napoleon doesn't enjoy being silly. His geeky affectations are delivered with the belief that nobody is cooler or smarter than he - other people are just, all-too-often, luckier ("Lucky!" is his common anguish when he acknowledges that he wants what you got). In fact, the whole plot - if you can call it that - is a tally of unexpected lucky triumphs and frustrating failures where Napoleon fearlessly follows his odd instincts with abandon. He will not deny himself the experiences his curiosity brings because he might lose or look stupid. Bullies can do physical harm to him, but they'll never shame him. Dropped by a punch to the gut from one who despises his absurd bragging, he snarls "Idiot!" - a little too loud, too nasty, for us to feel sorry for him if it earns him a second punch. But there's something admirable about his refusal play the victim. He lacks pathos: that traditional, endearing characteristic of all the other comic losers who don't deserve their misfortune. So why is he so funny? Why do we like him? Because he's so insanely strange, but he's not over the top - we really know people with that stubborn, self-righteous commitment to not letting anyone else decide how they feel - and an ability to dismiss his tormentors as annoying without giving them the power to challenge his resolve. This kind of comedy ignores all the formulas that define what 'funny' is. Like the best jokes are the ones that make you groan, this is comedy where you watch him play out a strange but vaguely familiar character - ridiculous, but completely believable - shake your head and think, "Idiot!"

Hugo (2011)

A street urchin with a flair for clocks gets a history lesson in film mastery.

[5/10 · 3 March 2012]

This review is only a spoiler if you're indoctrinated into praising the pedantic pace of Martin Scorcese. This is not a children's movie. Not because there's violence, nudity, coarse language or an adult theme. It' isn't for children because they have short attention spans. By the time Hugo and Isabel find the key to the automaton (that starts the story), any normal child would have quit caring why he was in the theater, long ago, and started some annoying tactic to ensure his removal. Sparse flashbacks to early film making might interest someone old enough to remember how special effects were set up prior to universal CGI, but a kid expects to see the results and let those who attempt to entertain him worry about how it was done. George Melies was a magician who used the new phenomenon of film to synergize his shows. He was brilliant, and so were his movies. That's what you can try telling an eight year old who thinks he's going to see a young boy outsmart the adults who are trying to send him off to an orphanage. But that won't work long enough to allow you to see where this film is going. But remember this is Martin Scorcese! (What gave you the idea that it was going somewhere?) "Will the clock-robot become a friend of Hugo, like E.T, and help him with supernatural uncanniness (because he's taken on the consciousness of Hugo's departed father)?" If you're determined to stay in the theater, suggestions like that might string your child along until he falls asleep. But then there's the question of you staying awake, amidst the ticking and talking and waiting for the tedious details of the premise to show some pay-off for having been so exacting.

Ben Kingsley's character goes to great lengths to stop Hugo from making a well-kept secret well-known. For what he's willing to do to Hugo, it must be an ugly, ugly story - one would think. In terms of "what really happened to George Melius?", one answer might be that he was heartbroken because his great efforts were no longer appreciated by the public. And if that was true n the 1930s, then Scorcese has a pay-off that can that generate enough bang for your buck to warrant an interest now. But to go into that would constitute a spoiler. Don't take a child to this movie. Adults can argue the artistic merits of Martin Scorcese in the same way they argue the merits of Jackson Pollack, but don't do that to a kid.

Under the Undertow (2005 Video)

It's "Night of the Hunter"

[3/10 · 18 December 2010]

This movie is an over-directed version of "The Night of the Hunter". Josh Lucas replaces Robert Mitchum stalking two young siblings for the fortune they ran away with after Lucas (Mitchum) murdered their single-surviving parent.

In both movies, the stalker has a supernatural ability to go without sleep - to know where to look and whom to charm to stay one clue behind his prey. The older child will eventually destroy the fortune that he was previously willing to die to protect.

Mitchum's psycho-Evangelist portrayal transcended every other uninteresting aspect of "Night of the Hunter". In "Undertow", it's Shiri Appleby's character, Violet - a strange homeless tramp with a huge wardrobe of rags. She looks like she rubs her face in mud, and her bipolar con-artist/savior is the only reason to sit thru this self-indulgent exercise.

self-indulgent exercise.

The Merry Gentleman (2008)

Protecting Kelly MacDonald

[4/10 · 7 December 2009]

Kelly MacDonald has that quality about her that pulls the male ego into wanting to protect her. I felt it in "The Girl in the Cafe," and I'll never forgive Javier Bardem for keeping his vow in "No Country for Old Men." "The Merry Gentleman" could be titled "Who will Protect Kelly?" Will it be the cop, the hit-man (Keaton) even her "born-again" husband?-they all want to protect her. Her husband is insane, and the cop offends her every time he speaks. Cold-blooded murderer Logan (Keaton), seems to win her heart with coughs, wheezing and repeating twice "I found a girl under a Xmas tree." Keaton's minimalist dialog even has him wheezing for her to quit talking and leave the hospital. If he charms her with any more silver-tongued devilry than that, it must have been edited out. I thought the ending worked; the part that was missing was 'What did she see in him?'