CHILDREN OF INVENTION isn’t a stellar masterpiece of cinematic achievement, but it’s a great dramatic film about the harder edge of life akin to what many experience these days, with the economy and job market what it is.

While the story is of a Chinese mother, trying to raise her two children in America — which presents it’s significance near the end of the film –  the essence of the story remains the same… no matter how hard you work, no matter what you sacrifice, life sometimes still has a way of spitting in your face. However, as this story unfolds, we’re reminded that life also has a way of testing us and repaying us for our hardships in the most unexpected of ways and at the least expected moments.

Raymond finds himself caring for Tina, his little sister, while living illegally in a model home. Their single, naive mother Elaine splits her time between struggling as a real estate agent and getting snookered by one “business opportunity” scam after another. In what Elaine hopes is her big break, she puts all her energy and hopes into a multi-level marketing business, only to find out she’s risking everything she does have in the process.

Meanwhile, the quiet but inventive Raymond and more vocally present Tina take it upon themselves to make ends meet, however possible. CHILDREN OF INVENTION is as much a sweet, charming childhood adventure as it is a heartbreaking testament of how difficult being a single mother can be in the modern world.

CHILDREN OF INVENTION was an official selection in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and is available on DVD and instant stream from Netflix, and at the time of this post, available for free viewing on Hulu, for a limited time.

P.S. After seeing ‘The Bat’ 7 out of 8 people will get cold feet tonight!

Okay, I’ve gotta be honest.  I don’t even know what that tagline for the 1959, murder mystery, ‘The Bat,’ means, but evidently it’s supposed to be menacing.  Much like a majority of the film.  It’s supposed to be foreboding and full of danger.  It’s not.  In the end, fun as it might be for the sheer entertainment value, ‘The Bat’ is nothing more than a stagy, hokey version of a story that had been twice before in the film world.

Based on the stage play from the 1920s, ‘The Bat’ tells the story of a masked killer who strikes his victims with steel claws.  Throw into a large mansion, a missing, million dollars,a mystery novelist, and about 84 secondary characters who serve one of two purposes (suspect or victim) and you’ve got yourself a pulp caper full of twists and turns.

Agness Moorehead turns in a commendable performance as the novelist,one of only two or three people who you know isn’t the killer.  She takes charge and makes every attempt at coming off as the film’s lead.   Unfortunately, she has Vincent Price to contend with, an actor who could find a way to work an Oscar nod into any one of Ed Wood’s films.  It really doesn’t matter the subject matter, Price always comes through with shining illustriousness.  Even subtle glimpses the actor gives towards the camera bring much more detail to any picture than what is already put forth from the filmmakers.  In ‘The Bat,’ he really plays just another suspect in the long line of possibilities.  He comes off as the film’s main suspect, but, being Price, he isn’t satisfied with his character being lumped in with a cast of dozens.  He stands out, and, in the end, both based on his performance and name recognition, he is the face that sells the film.

But don’t take anything away from director Crane Wilbur.  Working off his own screenplay, you get the impression Wilbur should have stuck to his duties behind the camera.  The script had already been put to film in 1926 (‘The Bat’) and 1930 (‘The Bat Whispers’), and, as a director, Wilbur had to work tooth and nail to get any kind of ingenuity into his film. He does so with an atmospheric look and an admirable pace that never leaves the viewer wanting more.  Even a few moments where The Bat appears from nowhere, sometimes silently behind someone, are rather creepy giving the film more of a slasher feel long before that genre was even named.  Much of where ‘The Bat’ succeeds is in Wilbur’s direction and the staggering performance by Price, because the screenplay is nothing to be appreciated.  Granted, this hindrance can also be placed at Wilbur’s feet, as his screenplay offers moments of unintentional hilarity and forced plot twists. This is noticed first and foremost in the end reveal as to who the killer is.  It’s both nonsensical and laughable, and you get the impression the screenplay was begun before even the writers knew who the killer would end up being.  In that, it’s not unlike the recent murder myster, TV show “Harper’s Island.”  At least with ‘The Bat,’ the story is over and done with in a matter of 80 minutes.

‘The Bat’ is the kind of film to keep you entertained on a quiet, Saturday evening.   There’s a reason it’s not as memorable as most of Vincent Price’s other vehicles.   It’s loaded with shoddy dialogue, nonsensical plot twists, and enough scenery chewing to make the Langoliers cry gluttony.   None of that stops the level of atmosphere the director puts into the film nor the always ingenuous and solid acting from Price.

Also, here’s the first 10 minutes of the film, just so you can sample the amazingly kitschy opening theme by Alvino Rey.

There’s a reason why Mike Judge’s 2006 film, ‘Idiocracy,’ falls under the “In Case You Missed It” banner.  After the film’s production and re-shoots in 2004 and 2005, 20th Century Fox sat on the film for nearly a year.  The film had poor test screenings, and in September of 2006, the film was released in seven cities.  Even this was done with little fanfare, only a handful of posters in movie theaters and absolutely no trailers or TV spots to promote it.  Some have speculated that Fox’s disfavor with the film came from Judge’s views on corporate America.  Depictions in the film that put companies like Costco and Carl’s Jr. in less than favorable light may have caused Fox to get cold feet on the project.  The fact that it received a theatrical release of any kind seems to have stemmed from a contractual obligation.  Nonetheless, the film gained a release on DVD, and, much like Judge’s 1999 ‘Office Space,’ ‘Idiocracy’ has gained a cult following.

In the film, Luke Wilson plays Corporal Joe Bauers, the most average guy the US military has ever employed.  Due to his commonness, Joe, as well as a prostitute named Rita, played by Maya Rudolph, are chosen for a military experiment.  They are to be placed in a hibernation chamber for the term of one year.  The project is forgotten about when the officer in charge is arrested, and the military base is demolished for the sake of building a Fuddruckers.  500 years pass, and society has devolved into stupidity.  Everyone is a moron, the economy is in the toilet, and, a la ‘Wall*E,’ garbage is stacked into building-size mounds. After an avalanche of garbage dislodges Joe and Rita’s sleeping pods, they are awakened.  Now, the two find they are the most intelligent people on a planet of idiots.  With the help of an idiot native named Frito Pendejo, played by the hysterical Dax Shepherd, the two try to find a time machine, because, being in the future, they had to have perfected the art of time travel, right?  Along the way, they try to flee the police and even come across the United States government run by President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, played by Terry Crews.

‘Idiocracy’ is a hilarious movie, but it is also fair warning from Judge as to the state we may find ourselves before too long.  The film’s brilliant opening segments shows two, different sets of people.  A middle-class, fairly intelligent couple find themselves struggling in becoming parents while a low-class redneck continuously impregnates various, idiotic women.  Once Judge’s film jumps the 500 years to the future, we find ourselves in a precarious situation.  The film is a statement about a society of morons, but one also finds themselves struggling from laughing at the very things Judge is warning us about.  The number one movie of all time is ‘Ass,’ a 90-minute movie that just shows a man’s ass that passes gas once in awhile.  The film has won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.  The number one television show in Judge’s world is “Ow! My Balls!,” which is 30 minutes of a guy getting racked and hit square between the legs.  The Gatorade-like beverage Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator has virtually replaced water, because “it has electrolytes.”  All of these are humorous and inventive ways in with Mike Judge depicts his world of idiots.  It is all so ridiculous it’s funny, but you just know the days of having mile-long Costcos and fast-food restaurant vending machines are not that far off.

Judge’s film can be viewed as a stupid comedy, but it is also a very accurate satire of a possible future of our society.  Every scene is filled with referential comedy but also very realistic ideas for the ways certain things might be going.  Billboard ads put it bluntly when they say, “If you don’t smoke Tarryltons… F### You!”  Carl’s Jr.’s ad has gone from “Don’t Bother Me, I’m Eating” to “F### You, I’m Eating!”.

‘Idiocracy’ is all things in one, an extremely funny movie that delivers machine gun-speed laughs throughout and an extremely intelligent and through-provoking look at our dystopian future.  The fact that 20th Century Fox dumped the film for flimsy reasons is a travesty.  As it was, the film made just over $444,000, a fraction of its budget.  Had it been released to the masses, it could have become quite a force at the box office.  Granted, Fox, I’m sure, weren’t too keen on releasing another ‘Office Space,’ a film that made the studio very little in profit in 1999, but found its way once released to video stores.  With ‘Idiocracy,’ Judge might not have made a film as funny as ‘Office Space,’ but he definitely made a film that is every bit as satirical and biting as that.

As a side note, in 2007, Omni Consumer Products, a company that produces fictitious products for the real world, unveiled their own version of Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator.   The drink was marketed through viral videos on YouTube, the first of which you can check out right here:

It’s got electrolytes!

In the pantheon of strange films, BLUE SUNSHINE (1976) certainly holds a spot, and a high-ranking spot amidst the films of the 70′s. Written and directed by Jeff Lieberman (SQUIRM), this is a movie that appeals on more than one level. To some, the film will be a memorable b-movie experience, but it’s a drug-induced out-of-your-mind crazy experience as well. The film also appeals to those horror fans that enjoyed the early works of David Cronenberg, as it maintains a similar feel as movies like RABID and BROOD.

I saw this movie some years ago, but recently picked it up on DVD off that Internet thing. Sure, I could have purchased the BLUE SUNSHINE DVD on it’s own, but part of the fun for me seeing it the first time was that I discovered it while watching ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE on TV. Yeah, you got me… the original air date was in October of 1983, making me five years old and not likely to have been watching this. No, I saw it later on as a rerun. So, when I found the double feature DVD with this and MONSTROID, I simply couldn’t resist. Plus, it allows two viewing options… with, or without, Elvira’s commentary from the beginning and end of the commercial breaks. Sweet!

The movie is dated in many places, but the effect of watching these scenes today are more awkwardly fascinating than they are cheesy or just plain bad. These scenes hold up, but do so as a social history lesson about an era into which I was late being born into… lucky me! Everything, from the hair styles to the clothes, the grainy visual style and even the pop culture references, including a poster of Uncle Sam flipping us “the bird” are all over BLUE SUNSHINE and make for a fun trip back in time.

BLUE SUNSHINE has a somewhat non-linear beginning, touching base with two characters at their current places in life. Each of them discover they are having strange symptoms, including the loss of their hair. The movie first starts to get fun during a casual party scene with the ladies sitting around gabbing on the couch near the fireplace. This is also going to be the part of the movie where the horror fans start to wake from their slumber. A strange crazy-eyed maniac with only a few remnant patches of hair left on his scalp bursts into the room, attacking one of the women and shoving her into the burning fireplace while the other women futilely attempt to overpower him.

Zalman King (RED SHOE DIARIES) plays Jerry Zipkin, who returns to the house to find the three women’s bodies being barbecued inside the one open fireplace. Gruesome! Obviously, this makes quite an impression on Jerry, but unfortunately he ends up in one of those wrong place at the wrong time scenarios, being accused of the brutal murders. Someone finds Jerry at the scene of the crime, stunned and emotionless and proceeds to shoot him in the arm as he escapes, only to become a falsely accused man on the run.

Mark Goddard (ROLLER BOOGIE) plays politician Edward Flemming, a character who starts off as a separate story arc that eventually curves around to be connected to Blue Sunshine in a way that could jeopardize everything. Deborah Winters (THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR) plays Jerry’s girlfriend Alicia, who goes out of er way to protect Jerry from Detective Clay while he searches for the truth behind the carnage. Supposedly, the role of Dr. Blume was originally intended for Jeff Goldblum, but Lieberman explains on the DVD commentary that he felt he looked too much like Zalman King, giving the role to Robert Walden.

As Jerry desperately attempts to clear his name while evading Detective Clay’s pursuit, he discovers that there are more murders occurring all over town. He decides to do a little investigating of his own and finds that people are starting to go crazy and kill people, but it’s the cause of the bizarre occurrences that Jerry eventually pinpoints that is the most frightening of all. Each of the murderers had taken a peculiar form of LSD called “Blue Sunshine” at a party some ten years ago, which appears to have a latent effect on the users’ mental state.

BLUE SUNSHINE is just as much a detective mystery as it is a horror film, although much of the “horror” is psychological. Jerry takes it upon himself to go beyond his own interests and makes finding the answers to “Blue Sunshine” and it’s connection to the devastating plague of murders in town his utmost priority. Jerry tracks down various people who were connected ten years ago at Stanford University, all of whom may have taken this potent “recreational” psychotic.

There’s a little bit of everything to be had from BLUE SUNSHINE. There’s a decent car chase with Jerry driving a Bronco, being pursued by a car I couldn’t quite make out. A police lieutenant that becomes a murderous victim of Blue Sunshine early in the film left behind a talking parrot when he died. The parrot’s voice was allegedly provided by the director, Jeff Lieberman himself. The music in the film is actually not bad either, adding a lot to the effectiveness of the film’s suspense.

The soundtrack features music performed by The Humane Society For The Preservation Of Good Music and an original score by Charles Gross (PUNCHLINE, AIR AMERICA). For the serious DVD collectors out there, you’ll want to seek out the limited edition from Synapse films which included a CD of the soundtrack with the movie. The score provides an eerie creepiness throughout the film, especially during the scene when Wendy (Ann Cooper, SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES) finally succumbs to the effects of her past drug use and nearly commits a terrible atrocity, before Jerry arrives to save the day, leading to a death scene worthy of appearing in Italian horror.

I don’t want to give anything away for those who haven’t discovered this little gem of 1970′s psycho-terror, but the final scene in the discotheque is highly memorable and lots of crazy fun. The disco music, the psychotic, bald maniac being tortured by that music, and the lip-syncing marionettes of famous singers like Barbara Streissand and Frank Sinatra are all examples of this wild ride.

The following scene with the mindless, hairless maniac is pursuing Alicia in the discotheque, and the following that when Jerry tracks down the killer inside the department store, well… the last 20-30 minutes of BLUE SUNSHINE are simply great cinema! I’ll close by sharing the absolute, most very bestest quote from the entire film…

Random Guy Fleeing the Discotheque: “There’s a bald maniac in there, and he’s going bat shit!”

Say what you will about Cory McAbee.  The guy’s got the market cornered on sci-fi/western/musical/comedies with a heart.  He’s currently making the rounds on the festival circuit with his latest offering, ‘Stingray Sam,’ of which you can read my review right here.  While maybe not as polished, not as heartfelt, and with songs that aren’t quite as catchy, McAbee’s first feature film, ‘The American Astronaut,’ is still light years better than most big-budget offerings studios give us today.  It’s the type of film that cries out “cult classic,” and it lives up to that moniker in every aspect imaginable.

McAbee stars as Samuel Curtis, an interplanetary trader in an alternate history where every planet in our solar system, and most of the moons, are inhabitable.  Curtis finds himself in an asteroid saloon where he is delivering a cat.  In exchange for the cat, he retrieves a cloning device that is in the process of creating a Real Live Girl.  Curtis is approached by a long-time acquaintance, the Blueberry Pirate, who tells Curtis that he is to take the cloning device to Jupiter, an all-male mining planet where women are as much as mystery as the Heavens.  Here, Curtis is to trade the device for a young boy, The Boy Who Actually Saw A Woman’s Breast.  He is then to take the young boy to Venus, a planet inhabited entirely by women who, every generation, take a young man into their colonies and make him their sex slave.  Curtis is to trade the young boy for the remains of a former king, which he is to take back to the former king’s family on Earth.

Along the way, Curtis runs into various, eccentric characters including the Blueberry Pirate and Professor Hess, a villain who will kill someone for no apparent reason, but does not kill anyone he actually has a reason to kill.  Got that?  It’s confusing, I know, as is much of the imaginative incidents and details that come out of McAbee’s head.  Professor Hess is a character obsessed with Curtis, and cannot kill him because of some long-brewing transgressions Curtis committed ages ago.  Hess plans to capture Curtis, forgive him for these transgressions, thus leaving an open pathway so that he may kill Curtis.

Curtis and the boy also come across a group of Nevada miners who have been living in a cabin in space for decades.  They have been living in space for so long, in fact, they have acquired Space Punies, or atrophy, and have metamorphosed into strange, deformed creatures.

All of these unusual dealings and exotic locations and characters are presented in wonderfully brilliant black and white.  McAbee and cinematographer W. Mott Hupfel III create some splendid imagery that serve the overall tone of that part of the story.  The scene in the space cabin with the miners is very dark, and very little can be made out from the flashlights Curtis and the boy are carrying.  The bar in the opening of the film is smoky and under lit, creating a sense of the American Western.  All the while, however, McAbee never lets the mood of the film get too dark.  There are some very humorous aspects to ‘The American Astronaut.’  Tom Aldredge perfectly plays the part of an old comedian whose job it is in the asteroid saloon to get the crowd revved up for a dance competition.  Hess carries a ray gun that turns its victims into piles of ash, and an incredible dance/musical sequence occurs after he has turned an entire auditorium of men into hundreds of small piles.  It’s incredible to look at, and McAbee’s atypical ideas come to life tremendously.

Humorous as it may be, there are no grand moments of physical humor or over-the-top sight gags that are played up for the audience.  Much of the humor found in the film comes from the mood McAbee and Hupfel create from scene to scene, and the matter-of-fact way things are presented.  The Boy Who Actually Saw A Woman’s Breast is on a stage in front of a group of Jupiter miners, and his sole purpose is to describe what it was like to observe the body of a female.  After an elaborate dance number he simply says, “It was round and soft. Now go back to work.”

Peculiar, strange, unique, and all-around entertaining, ‘The American Astronaut’ is an independent, sci-fi flick that fans of anything out of the norm should be seeking out.  While it doesn’t seem like McAbee is going to be leaving this genre any time soon (‘Stingray Sam’ fits into each of these categories, as well), it doesn’t seem to matter.  He’s perfected this type of film, and, though ‘The American Astronaut’ hasn’t hit cult status on the level as something like ‘Rocky Horror’ or ‘Eraserhead,’ it certainly isn’t because it doesn’t deserve it.

You know you have something special in your sights when it is difficult to describe, so I’m not even going to try.  However, having said that, I will say ‘The American Astronaut’ is as brilliantly crafted as anything from the German expressionist movement, is as eccentric and comedic as anything from Monty Python, and offers up a list of songs as memorable as anything Richard O’Brien has ever written.  The film is an insanely entertaining bit of independent filmmaking, and it proves once again just how little of a factor budget is when you have something this creative.

Before there was THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, there was PAPILLON, in my opinion, the finest example of a prison drama followed closely by THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. PAPILLON is based on the memoir written by Henri Charriere, who was convicted of murder and spent his sentence as an inmate in the island prison of French Guiana. The film recounts many of the author’s experiences, but deviates some the from the book. While PAPILLON is said to be based on a true story, much of it’s authenticity has been disputed. Regardless, PAPILLON is a remarkable motion picture worthy of praise.

The opening of a great film can tell the viewer a lot, often by saying very little but doing so with a creative efficiency that says so much. PAPILLON opens with a close-up shot of the warden and his guards briskly marching towards the head of a new batch of prisoners, stripped naked, standing arms length apart in the sun. Showing only their crisply ironed black slacks and shiny, polished black shoes, the names “STEVE MCQUEEN” and “DUSTIN HOFFMAN” appear in large, bold capitol letters over this shot. This is followed by the official addressing the new inmates as to the rules of their stay. What we are about to witness over the 150 minutes to follow is the story of two men who must endure the harsh life of a prisoner on the island of French Guiana.

Steve McQueen plays Henri “Papillon” Charriere, a large man with a tattoo of a blue butterfly on his chest, giving him the nickname “Papillon” which means “butterfly”. Charriere was convicted of killing a pimp named Roland le Petit, but maintained a strong opposition to his sentence of life in prison plus ten years hard labor. He persistently contended that his accusations were false, giving his story an element of human drama in hope and hardship. In the film, the character was always referred to as “Papillon” and never his real name, but his true name does appear on the door of his solitary confinement cell.

Dustin Hoffman plays Louis Dega, a smart but puny little man imprisoned for counterfeiting. Dega is nearly blind, sporting a thick pair of spectacles. Dega’s reputation preceeds him as the best at what he does, leading Charriere to offer Dega protection in return for a mutually beneficial friendship. Dega befriends Charrierre after the two men come to learn more about each other. Dega and Charriere’s playfully casual business relationship is highlighted in the following quote…

Dega: “Do you remember what the chicken said to the weasel?”
Charriere: “If he was a healthy weasel, the chicken didn’t get a chance to say anything. Think about that.”

Charriere’s mind is set upon the planning and execution of his daring escape from the island prison, but to do so he needs cash. This, in the beginning, lays the groundwork for his relationship with Dega, trading protection for the funds needed to escape. Over time, as the harsh reality of the two men’s situations become abundantly clear, Dega decides he would like to escape with Charriere after all. Even though Charriere’s first attempt fails, landing him in solitary, he does not give up hope and seemingly wills his eventual escape. Charriere’s dreams of freedom, or more likely malnutrition-induced hallucinations, fuel his drive to push on despite his physical, and mental anguish.

PAPILLON was a pitoval and important role for both actors. McQueen had already established himself in tough-guy rebel role with THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE CINCINNATI KID and BULLIT. Dustin Hoffman has already established himself as a talented and veratile actor with THE GRADUATE, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and STRAW DOGS. Now, the two rising stars would have an opportunity to show a more personal level of acting. Hoffman is great, but McQueen really shines in PAPILLON, especially in the middle third of the film during his long and torturous two-year stint in solitary confinement. McQueen’s Charriere becomes a ghost-like, shell of a man that refuses to be beaten by the cruel treatment of his guards. I would not be surprised if Christian Bale found inspiration for his performance in THE MACHINIST from McQueen’s performance in PAPILLON.

In the end, having endured imprisonment and a dangerous escape, Charriere finds that rebuilding a life on the outside may prove equally difficult, but it’s a difficulty sweetened by the taste of freedom, albeit brief. The ultimate fates of Charriere and Dega remain to be witnessed on the opposite end of this harrowing journey, but it’s an outcome worth reaching on your own.

PAPILLON was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (PLANET OF THE APES, PATTON, THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL) who has a brilliant eye for framing a static shot that is equally dynamic as much of the busy, frantic camerawork used today. The scene of the fresh prisoners being marched down a narrow street lined with ornate and rustic architecture, filled with scores of the town’s citizens staring silently at their new neighbors, features a simple crane shot from the points crests of the buildings down to the cobblestone street of onlookers. The scene cuts to a typical medium shot of the prisoner’s approach, but then cuts again to one of the most amazing shot of the film, displaying the visual aptitude of Schaffner in his collaboration for the cinematographer.

Director of Photography Fred J. Koenekamp (THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE TOWERING INFERNO, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS) had previously worked with Schaffner on PATTON (1970) which won incredibly high praise from critics and the public alike. Fred’s father Hans was a cinematographer and special effects expert, clearly having made an influence on his son to pursue the same trade with stunning talent and passion. PAPILLON is rich with dramatic contrast and lighting that gives many of the prison scenes a dark, alluring essence that contradicts the filthy, gritty environment within which the scenes take place.

PAPILLON features an appropriately mixed use of steady, moving shots and more unstable handheld shots, determined strictly by the need of perspective and visual interpretation. Two extremely successful visual elements to keep an eye on in PAPILLON are the tremendous editing job accomplished by Robert Swink (Roman Holiday, Midway) and the subtle use of visual imagery to reinforce a subconscious feeling of being imprisoned. One of the more noticeable example early in the film is during the prisoners’ march through town and a three-quarter overhead shot peers through tree branches in the foreground, creating the sense of being behind bars, awaiting the new additions to the penal colony.

Composer Jerry Goldsmith (PLANET OF THE APES, PATTON, CHINATOWN, ALIEN, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE) created the score for PAPILLON, giving the film an additional element of mood and emotion. PAPILLON was nominated for four awards, winning two German awards, but did not take the Golden Globe for Steve McQueen as Best Actor, nor did the Oscar for Best Music – Original Dramatic Score go to Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith lost the Oscar to Marvin Hamlisch for THE WAY WE WERE. To be bluntly honest, I have yet to figure out how PAPILLON wasn’t at least nominated for Best Cinematography. This Oscar deservedly went to Ingmar Bergman’s CRIES & WHISPERS, beating out THE STING, JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL, THE EXORCIST and THE WAY WE WERE.

More than thirty years after it’s release, PAPILLON still maintains a very high level of popularity, currently boasting an 8 out of 10 rating from over 24,930 votes on IMDB and a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomato-Meter. PAPILLON remains an excellent piece of cinematic storytelling and a wonderful film to remember McQueen by, who would make only four more films. The DVD was originally released in 1999, then re-released in 2005. However, both versions offer the same limited special features including the original theatrical trailer and a behind-the-scenes documentary called THE MAGNIFICENT REBEL.

In Alex Orr’s news film, ‘Blood Car,’ it’s the future.  About two weeks from now. Gas prices have risen exponentially, to the point, in fact, that even owning a car has become luxury set aside only for the financially elite. As the opening narrator, a suited man eating a bag of chips, tells us, kids still have sex in cars, they just do it in graveyards. Car graveyards.

This is where Archie Andrews comes in.  A kindergarten school teacher and vegan by day, he spends his nights coming up with plans for an engine that runs solely on wheat grass.   With gas prices rising to more than $30 a gallon, Archie feels he can revolutionize the travel industry if he can just get his wheat grass engine running. Well, you know how these scientist’s plans go. One thing leads to another. Archie cuts his finger. Blood falls on the engine. Voila. The engine begins to run.

Archie’s new invention runs on blood.  Human blood.  Before you can say “Audrey II on wheels,” Archie has turned his car into a deathmobile with a trunk that serves as a blender that sucks people in and feeds the car the juice it needs.  With this new car, Archie attracts attention, not only the attentions of the sex-starved Meat Stand worker, Denise, and the wheat grass girl, Lorraine, but also the United States government. Hilarity ensues. Lots of it, in fact.

‘Blood Car’ is not a film for everyone.   It’s graphic.   It’s offenstive.   It’s hilarious.   If you don’t mind a little gore and bloodshed with your comedy and social commentary, then this is the movie for you.   If that’s the kind of thing that fuels your engine, so to speak, ‘Blood Car’ is right up your alley.   This movie has all of that in droves.   Orr doesn’t hold back in any way, and the film has just as many comedy elements as it does horror elements.   The comedy elements here probably outweigh the horror.   ‘Blood Car’ works much better as an out-and-out comedy, but there’s plenty of blood flying (mostly out of a bullet hole in the car’s trunk) to keep any fans of horror interested.

The schlock factor is off the charts with this movie.   Fans of Troma are sure to get a kick out of it, but the film never goes so far overboard that it loses its way.   The only time the film even threatens to do this is in the final moments, and, by that time, it simply serves as a capper for the rest of the story.

Director Orr also includes several, little Easter eggs that provide some hilarity throughout the film, too.   From Archie’s ever-changing, increasingly political t-shirts to the strange drawings and keywords he has on his classrooms chalk board, there are several items in ‘Blood Car’s background that offer up the desire for a second viewing.

Much of the comedy works in large part to the lead actor, Mike Brune.   His earlier moments are kind of annoying, as he tries to play the straight man without much success.   It’s only when Archie becomes the blood-craving lunatic who sets out to feed his car that Brune’s performance really takes off.   An early scene where Archie hunts animals is hysterical.   Being an animal-loving vegan, Archie cries deliriously as he takes out small squirrels and even a puppy with his BB gun.   The only thing more hilarious than seeing Brune scream and act frantically is watching him trying to get his character under control.

The females in the film are commendable, though they don’t offer a whole lot to the film’s acting department.   Katie Rowlett plays the psycho Meat Stand girl who holds the power of womanhood over Archie with frenzied glee.   Familiar face Anna Chlumsky pops up as the innocent Veggie Stand girl, but, much like Archie, we don’t pay a whole lot of attention to her.

The half dozen or so guys Orr has playing the Men in Black who want to steal Archie’s Blood Car for the government are also hilarious.   The two guys watching Archie adventures on security monitors have one-liners that hit every time.   The agents who try to steal Archie’s car kick out the physical humor with the best of them.   Really, any time you see someone show up on screen wearing sunglasses, you know the comedy is about to be stepped up a notch.

‘Blood Car’ is a hilarious film, offensive, dead-pan, twisted and one of the funniest, independent films to come along in years.   It brings to mind the early days of Peter Jackson in its ability to mix the perfect amount of blood and guts with a wry sense of humor.   ‘Blood Car’ is an excellent effort by a first-time feature film director who I’m sure we will be hearing more and more about as his career progresses.   This is definitely a film you will want to get in the back seat with, pronto!

I never know what I’ll find sitting in the $4 bargain bins of Blockbuster’s previously viewed sales stock. I tend to stop by my local store just to see what unsung movie titles are merely collecting dust as a result of the average movie watcher simply skimming over the selection looking for titles they have heard of, instead of digging a bit deeper to find the occasional smaller films that didn’t get much publicity but are well worth taking a chance on. A couple of years ago, ‘Around the Bend’ was one of these unknown titles that I discovered and chose to adopt as my own… and I’m glad I did.

‘Around the Bend’ (2004) is a wonderfully charming and thoughtful movie, written and direct by Jordan Roberts, about four generations of men reuniting one last time in an attempt to reconcile past differences. Henry is not well, but he throws a Hail Mary attempt to bring his family together one last time for him to enjoy before he dies. What his kin don’t realize is that Henry has a sort of master plan to bring them all together for good, bonded by his own passing.

The movie begins by introducing us to Henry (Michael Caine), the patriarch of the Lair family. Henry is a gentle old man, long retired from his mining career, living with his grandson Jason (Josh Lucas) and his great grandson Zach (Jonah Bobo). Jason is dumbfounded by the unannounced and unexpected return of his father Turner (Christopher Walken) whom was thought dead to Zach, at least according to what Jason told him. Upon their first meeting, Zach asks who he is and Turner tells Zach he’s his grandad. This leads Zach to respond with “you’re not dead anymore”? Could you imagine meeting your thought-to-be-dead grandad for the first time at the tender age of seven years, finding out Christopher Walken is your relation? Creepy!

Once Henry realizes that his son Turner has actually returned, he is so excited he insists on taking them out to a fancy restaurant… Kentucky Fried Chicken. True, not exactly most people’s first choice for a nice dining experience, but Henry loved the Colonel’s food and makes sure it plays an important part in his plan to bring his boys back together. One night, not long after Turner returns home, Henry sneaks out to the local KFC and writes out his final will and testament. These final wishes include an unconventional request… his surviving kin must embark on a family trip, a pre-determined sort of scavenger hunt, requiring them to follow specific instructions, including that they eat at KFC at every destination he sets forth.

This sets up the journey on which Turner and Jason reluctantly take Zach, discovering little pieces of their late Henry’s life and also little pieces of themselves long forgotten. Turner was never really around for Jason, but sees in this journey his mission to obey his father’s final wishes. Jason wants nothing to do with Turner, but finds himself torn between honoring Henry’s wishes and deciding what’s best for his son Zach, as this may be his only opportunity to know his grandad Turner.

So, here they are, traveling across the country in a beat-up old VW van, eating nothing but Kentucky Fried Chicken and yet, this dialogue-driven movie successfully tells a poignant story about coming to terms with human dignity and imperfection, peppered with light-hearted humor. ‘Around the Bend’ takes the modern trend of dysfunction and shows that nothing is impossible when it comes to family. Jason eventually Turner is also concealing a secret of his own and the underlying reason for his own willingness to reunite with his family.

Walken is absolutely brilliant in this film. He’s funny, dead-on with the dramatic depth an emotion of his character and plays well with Josh Lucas, who also delivers a commendable performance. Walken shows his years of acting experience not just in his voice and his body, but especially in his face. Jason nearly loses it at one point, when they arrive at one of their assigned KFC stops to find it has been torn down to a pile of rubble. Jason busts out in laughter as he realizes he won’t have to eat KFC for once, while Turner sits slack-jawed in the van, his face painted with an inner epiphany of his own life.

What Turner realizes from from the metaphor the broken down KFC represents to him is that his effort to reconcile his family has failed. Turner makes a sudden decision in an effort to end what he sees as a selfish attempt to redeem himself in Jason’s eyes, but Jason discovers Turner’s secret and refuses to let his father leave this last time without a truly open chance for them to make amends. The story shifts at this point and the best acting of the film shows up, both from Walken and Lucas.

This is a movie that both warms the heart and tugs at the tear glands. It’s a movie that tells a human story that we can all connect to. We can all relate to losing someone we love, either to death or to difficult circumstances that may not take them away physically, but can strain our relationships emotionally to the brink of defeat. ‘Around the Bend’ is a quiet, reflective film, but is accompanied by a mellow soundtrack featuring songs from artists including Frankly Calabasas, Leon Russell, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac and more.

‘Around the Bend’ won Best Feature Film at the 2004 San Diego Film Festival and won the Jury Award at the 2004 Montreal World Film Festival. Christopher Walken also won Best Actor for his role as Turner Lair at the 2004 Montreal World Film Festival. The film released on DVD in February 2005 including two main special features, one being IT’S A GOOD DAY: THE MAKING OF AROUND THE BEND and the other being a Commentary by Writer/Director Jordan Roberts, with additional scenes.

What better combination is there for a horror movie than Nazi zombies? Flesh eating minions of der fuhrer? Now that sounds like a recipe for some gory fun. There are some out there who are making the claim that the new film ‘Dead Snow’ is an original idea. Fun as it might be, it’s a long ways away from being a groundbreaking scenario.

1943′s ‘Revenge of the Zombies’ is the first known film to feature zombies created by the Third Reich.  Then you have 1981′s ‘Zombie Lake, ‘Puppet Master III’ in ’91, and the success of the ‘Castle Wolfenstein’ PC games that took the idea of Nazi’s creating zombies to the first-person shooter genre. Somewhere in the middle, though, is the Ken Wiederhorn-directed ‘Shock Waves.’  Released in 1977, it features not one, but two legends of classic, horror cinema.  Those would be Peter Cushing and John Carradine, the latter of which starred in the aforementioned ‘Revenge of the Zombies’ over 30 years prior.   Each actor worked on the film for four days, and each earned $5000 for their performances.

The film centers on a group of vacationers who hire a boat for some deep sea diving.  Being a cheap rental, the boat is run-down and its captain, played by Carradine, is not at all helpful.  After a sunken freighter rises in their path, which damages the hull, the vacationers must take refuge on a near island.  Living on this island is an SS Commander, played by Cushing.  At one time, the commander was in charge of creating a group of Nazi soldiers who were “neither dead or alive” and could survive underwater without breathing.  Needless to say, these zombie soldiers are still hanging around and they awaken, taking their time picking off the vacationers one by one.

To note, ‘Shock Waves’ is anything but a perfect film.  The acting is less than stellar.  Even Cushing and Carradine, who make up all of about 20 minutes of screen time between them, seem to be phoning this one in.  It is also a shame that the two actors never share the screen at any time during this film.  Some might be turned off by the film’s slow pace.  Just about every death scene is choreographed beyond belief, and, in that area, ‘Shock Waves’ doesn’t offer up many surprises.  Those death scenes are awfully welcome, too, as most of the human characters here grate on your nerves.  A lot of that has to do with the acting, but the characters are pretty poorly written, as well.

However, the film is loaded with haunting imagery, the foremost of which is the sight of a handful of the zombies arising up out of the waist-high waters of the ocean.   There were only eight actors playing the zombies, but Wiederhorn shoots them in such a way that it appears there are many more.   The Nazi zombies have a pretty effective look to them, too.  With the blond bowl cut, the pale and rotting skin, German uniforms, and mad scientist goggles, the zombies in ‘Shock Waves’ definitely share a look that has stood the test of time.  This is probably more the case with the zombies’ look than it is with the film as a whole.

For the rabid horror hounds out there, take note that ‘Shock Waves’ isn’t your typical, guts running across the floor zombie movie, either.  There is very little in the way of gore, in fact.  Wiederhorn, instead, relies on the mood and somewhat surreal atmosphere created by the island setting, the zombies, and the effectively eerie score by Richard Einhorn (‘Don’t Go in the House’ and ‘The Prowler’).   There isn’t a whole lot in the department of scares and tension in this film, either.   Most of the horror found in ‘Shock Waves’ stems from the atmosphere Wiederhorn creates, and, in that area, the film is a resounding success.

‘Shock Waves’ was released in the US on July 15th, 1977, the same day as another, horror movie that might terrify people away from the water, ‘Orca.’   The original negatives for the film mysteriously disappeared over 20 years ago, so, when it was time for the film to get a DVD release, Blue Underground used the print from Wiederhorn’s personal collection.   The DVD is available on Region 1 and includes an audio commentary from director Wiederhorn, still photographer Fred Olen Ray, and special makeup designer Alan Ormsby.   The DVD also includes the theatrical trailer, TV spots, radio spots, poster, still and production art galleries.

Every once in a while there’s a film that slips through the cracks, unseen by most but is well worth seeing. Well, that’s sort of the point of this column, so it sort of goes without saying. Being surprised by a little film like ‘Winter Passing’ (2005) is a welcome treat from first time writer-director Adam Rapp. ‘Winter Passing’ boasts a cast that’s and unconventionally matched, bringing comedic and dramatic talents together in an unexpected harmony.

Reese Holden (Zooey Deschanel) is an aspiring actress, but aspiring to act isn’t paying her bills very well. Reese is approached by a publicist, eager to acquire the rights to print the love letters written by her father to Reese’s mother. Reese’s father, Don Holden, played by Ed Harris, is an accomplished and celebrated novelist who has also fallen off the radar and not published in many years. In fact, he hasn’t published since his wife, Reese’s mother, died.

Strapped for cash and not feeling altogether close with her father anymore, Reese accepts the offer to acquire her father’s love letters by requesting them as an inheritance. When Reese returns home, what she finds is something both familiar and unexpected. Returning home becomes a powerful lesson in life for Reese as she recovers a bond with her distant and remorseful father, learns some truths about her mother and meets the eccentric Corbit, played by Will Ferrell.

Ed Harris, as if to state ice cream and chocolate are surprisingly tasty, is excellent in ‘Winter Passing’ as the quiet, loner shell of a man he once was, living outside the city with a former student of his named Shelly (Amelia Warner) whom is anything but warm and inviting to Reese’s return. Despite Shelly and Corbit’s willingness to take care of him, Don Holden spends much of his time alone, locked away in his garage turned into a writer’s fortress of solitude. Harris deceptively presents himself with long, ratty white hair and his weak, feeble posture add to his knack for portraying an alcoholic, something he’s done before with ‘Pollock’.

Harris deserves some additional credit for his role in ‘Winter Passing’ as he managed to help pull above average performances from his two co-stars, whom I love dearly but are not generally known for their range. Zooey Deschanel gives one of her more accomplished and least characteristic performances alongside Ed Harris, who allows Deschanel to lead one of their strongest scenes together, when Don brings up his disappointment in Reese for not attending her mother’s funeral. Likewise, Harris helps to refine Will Ferrell’s performance as the quirky but thoughtful Corbit.

Corbit and Don share some subtle personality traits, which is part of the reason they click so well. One of the best examples of this is when the two characters are driving golf balls in a room upstairs, a ritual they partake in together every night before dinner. While Don Holden is considered a genius of his craft, Corbit is a man who dreams of being a musician but his fears keep him from pursuing a performance in front of strangers.

Corbit is shy and awkward, but his intentions are pure and he develops a bond with Reese over time. While Amelia plays the part of the overly cautious step-mother, Corbit is sort of like a son to Don, but becomes more of a diamond in the rough for Reese who finds Corbit is growing on her the more she gets to know him.

Corbit: “Well, I gotta go rock. And if you see Holden, tell him his balls are clean.”

This is one of my favorite quotes to illustrate the kind of character and humor that comes across from Will Ferrell, but the key to this is to see how the material is presented. This line of dialogue can easily be taken as typical crazy talk from him if not put into context. Corbit is almost a child in a man’s body, but not really. He loves music and it’s the primary focus of his daily activities, but at the same time he cares for his make-shift family. Don’s balls being clean refers to the golf balls that the two of them bond over in a strange way each night.

Ferrell is a funny guy, but I enjoy his work best when he scales it back a notch and brings some real humanity into his character, such as in ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ he does so as well with ‘Winter Passing’ on a much more intimate level. The three stars of the film, Harris, Ferrell and Deschanel, work together to create an emotional evolution within a family that has all but destroyed itself, picking up the few remaining pieces and attempting to make it work, despite the tragedy that tore it apart.

This tends to be a trend with me, but movies that incorporate a creative use of good music tend to draw my attention. The soundtrack for ‘Winter Passing’ features music by Cat Power, Mr. Complex, Kinsbury Manx, Azure Ray and The Shins, to name a few. However, Zooey Deschanel also contributes to the soundtrack with two songs she sings herself, and three songs she actually wrote, one of which is a piano piece she wrote called ‘Bittersuite’. Director Adam Rapp also wrote two songs and even Will Ferrell lends his voice in one scene. His voice is far from perfect, but his rendition of I Can’t Tell You Why by The Eagles is surprisingly moving.

‘Winter Passing’ is not the most amazing piece of cinema that you’ll see and it’s received mixed reviews, but for me it was a wonderful experience catching this the first time after finding the previously viewed DVD at Blockbuster for $5 and saying to myself, “Ed Harris and Will Ferrell in a movie together? This I’ve got to see!” Then, throwing in Zooey Deschanel and her big, puppy dog eyes is nearly always a deal-sealer with me. Maybe you’ll enjoy this film as much (or more) than I did, maybe you’ll hate it or feel it’s generic indie drama as some out there have, but I was certainly not upset by parting with my $5 for ‘Winter Passing’.

Martin Rosen’s adaptation of the Richard Adams novel, ‘The Plague Dogs,’ is an underrated film, a hidden diamond of animation that doesn’t get as much love as Rosen’s other film, ‘Watership Down.’  ’The Plague Dogs’,’ though not exactly a film you want to watch to brighten your day, is unflinching and Rosen’s animation is flawless.

Released in 1982, ‘The Plague Dogs’ was released during the latter years of a particularly noteworthy movement in animated films lead by the works of Ralph Bakshi. It was ten years after ‘Fitz the Cat,’ but animated films continued to move out of the Disney/family-oriented realm and into darker and more adult territory.  ’The Plague Dogs’ is no exception.  It’s not R-rated.  In fact, it is rated PG-13, but that doesn’t necessarily put it into the “child-friendly” category.  Far from it.  When PIXAR released ‘Up’ last month, one thing that surprised me, and a few other critics, I might add, was the inclusion of a character bleeding at one point in the film.  If that is surprising now, imagine the shock on people’s faces in 1982 when they witnessed a dog accidently causing a shotgun to blow some guy’s face off.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Based on the Adams novel, ‘The Plague Dogs’ centers on Rowf, voiced by Christopher Benjamin, and Snitter, voiced by John Hurt, two dogs who are being tested on in a small laboratory in north-western England.  Early on, and through the good fortune of human error, the dogs are able to escape.  Finding themselves in the wild, the dogs attempt to survive, seeking a master but, ultimately, fearing all humans for the actions the “white coats,” as they are called, have done to them.

As with Adams’ novel, the dogs are the main characters here, and they are given human qualities such as communication and reasoning. In fact, Rosen goes out of his way to make the human characters of the story as much of the background as possible. We rarely see a human’s face, and, when we do, it is typically in shadows or angled so that we cannot make out any identity. Through Adams’ story and Rosen’s animation, we are put in the role of an outside, helpless as we watch the humans, at first, try to recapture the dogs and, later, make an attempt at hunting them down. Through this feeling of helplessness, Rosen and Adams have crafted an extremely pessimistic view of the world and what it means to be human.

At times, the dogs question their place in the world. When they first escape from the labs, they make an attempt at herding sheep, but they are quickly run off by the real sheep dogs. “They belong where they were,” says Snitter about the sheep dogs who run them off. Snitter and Rowf don’t belong anywhere, and their attempt at finding a place in the world grows more and more futile as the story progresses.

It is Snitter who has less of a sense of place in the world than Rowf. Snitter was once a part of a family, but his actions indirectly killed his master, and he was sold to the laboratory. The scientists there performed a number of surgeries on Snitter’s brain, and he is left in a constant state of perplexity. The surgeries have melded his conscious with his subconscious, and Snitter continuously questions what is real and what is only part of his imagination.

Rosen’s way of showing this sense of mystification in Snitter is brilliant, at first showing us one of the dog’s dreams. In Snitter’s dream, the world is black and white, he and his owner are in color, and, through his dreams, we witness the accident that took his owner’s life. Later on, Snitter’s surroundings being to flash in and out of different locations, and we even begin to wonder what parts of the dog’s environment are real and what is all in his subconscious.

However, even though his mental state is questionable, Snitter is the more upbeat of the two dogs. Rowf is the pessimist, always cynical and questioning of the world and those the two dogs encounter. This comes into play when the two bring a third animal into their party, a fox named The Tod, voiced by James Bolam, who knows the ways of the wilderness.

The Tod is an untrustworthy character. There are a number of times in ‘The Plague Dogs’ where it seems as if he is only out for himself. The only reason, as far as outer appearances go, he stays with the other two is to see what else they can do for him. Like Rowf, we question The Tod’s motives, and Rosen and Adams do an incredible job of keeping those motives from us until the latter moments of the film.

‘The Plague Dogs’ is a film that should be watched, and it should be commended. Not only does it tell an incredibally engaging story, but the animation in ‘The Plague Dogs,’ hand-drawn and without the usage of rotoscoping, is simply a masterwork. These were the days before computers made animation a much smoother art form, as it is today, and Rosen’s crew have done a flawless job here. Adams’ story is heartwrenching as it is delicate, and Rosen’s adaption of the story into film is equally adroit.

Though Adams’ original novel was no sunny walk in the park, Rosen’s film is much more pessimistic. Without giving anything away, I will say the ending credits, when they pop up, literally take your breath away.

There are two, different cuts of the film, an 82-minute cut and a 103-minute cut. The film did not garner much success in the worldwide box office, and it was edited greatly for release in the states in 1984.

When it was first released on VHS (only 8000 copies were made) in 1982, it offered the full 103-minute version of the film. However, in subsequent years, many cuts were made to the film. These cuts were mostly made for the sake of the running time, but there were a few scenes cut that showed some of the more graphic depictions of violence. One in particular was of a man who has fallen from a cliff to his death and who has been eaten upon by the starving dogs. The longer version of the film was released in 2008 on Region 2 in the UK. The film is attainable on Region 1 DVD, but it is the heavily edited version.

Unfortunately, Martin Rosen has not made another, animated film since ‘The Plague Dogs.’ He directed a live-action drama in 1987 called ‘Stacking,’ but, other than that, he has not helmed a film since. We are left with ‘Watership Down’ and ‘The Plague Dogs,’ two films based on novels by Richard Adams, and two, animated films adapted for the screen with unparalleled flair. ‘The Plague Dogs’ is a film that you should set upon yourself to seek out and watch. Forgotten for the longest time, it is one of the finest pieces of hand-drawn animation from the last 30 years.

If you enjoyed this column, leave us some feedback in the comments section below.

The number of well-distributed films coming out of Scotland seems disproportionately low, so I felt like taking one of my more recent favorites that’s slipped under the radar and talking it up a bit. ‘Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself’ is a dark comedy with a brooding and slightly depressing undertone which is as . In fact, the comedic element to the film is slow subtle and understated, I find it difficult to even classify it technically as a comedy in the most traditional definition of the genre.

‘Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself’ tells the story of Wilbur [obviously] who is sort of depressed, but it doesn’t really show that clearly in his character. A more appropriately descriptive way to explain Wilbur (played by Jamie Sives) would be to say he is terminally apathetic and is obsessed with ending his life as a way to escape what he sees as a mundane and purposeless life. Wilbur makes repeated efforts to bring his life to a halt, a few of which bring him extremely close to success and one even is a success, at least for a brief moment, having technically been dead for a short spurt before being resuscitated.

Wilbur’s brother Harbour (played by Adrian Rawlins) is a kind and caring man who now runs their recently deceased father’s book shop. Aside from tending to the endless number of books, Harbour spends a majority of his remaining time caring for and keeping an eye on his brother Wilbur, who has a tendency to concoct a new method for attempting suicide whenever he is left alone. Wilbur’s tried popping pills, drowning, hanging and even considered leaping off a tall building, but his methods usually fall within the confines of less painful, more peaceful techniques.

The story shifts and Wilbur’s life begins to change course once he meets Alice, a petite Scottish waif with a cute and mousy little voice and her daughter. Alice (played by Shirley Henderson) discovers Wilbur hanging in a make-shift noose in the backroom of the book shop she visited to sell some old books. After assisting Wilbur down, Alice meets Harbour and in time leads to their getting married. What evolves is an intimate love triangle between Alice, Harbour and Wilbur, one which benefits all three parties but is an odd and often uncomfortable arrangement.

Alice dearly loves Harbour, but her love for him is mostly one of friendship and deep emotional connection, whereas she finds herself more physically attracted and lustful for his brother Wilbur. This becomes clearly apparent as Harbour learns he is dying from pancreatic cancer, but cannot find the will and strength to tell his family the distressing news. Harbour realizes that his death would bring undue hardship upon Alice and her daughter and would leave the burden and keeping watch on Wilbur to Alice as well.

Wilbur makes a few attempts at having a “girlfriend” which all result in awkwardness and ultimate failure. These attempts are a way of Wilbur making an effort to be “normal” and keep himself occupied outside of his obsession with suicide. These attempts end being being little more than anti-romantic and humorous bits of appropriately placed comic relief. One of the best examples of this dynamic of the film appears in a scene where Wilbur opens himself up to the advances of a nurse at the hospital and she proceeds to lick his ear during their brief moment of awkward intimacy, resulting in Wilbur’s blunt response…

WILBUR: “You licked my ear. I’d have bought a dog if I wanted my ear licked.”

The supporting cast is highlighted by Horst, a psychologist that runs the suicide support group that Wilbur reluctantly attends at the hospital and who ends up becoming a supportive figure for Harbour once he realizes the severity of his cancer. Horst, played by Mads Mikkelsen (Le Chiffre in ‘Quantum of Solace’), serves to help move the dramatic development of the story along, providing an impartial reality check for the characters as they stumble through this turbulent chapter of their lives.

In the end, things sort of work out favorably for Wilbur and Alice, despite the unfortunate path by which their lives together becomes possible. Death plays a major role in the story. Wilbur and Harbour’s mother died when they were still very young and the way in which their mother died plays a significant role in understanding why Wilbur is the way he is, which is eluded to in the film but not directly explained as the the cause of his suicidal personality. Their father passes away at the beginning of the film, causing Wilbur to slip further into his troublesome habits while Harbour is less able to keep Wilbur under his wing due to the needs of the book shop. Even Alice is familiar with death, working as a nurse, but finds herself less comfortable with the concept, finding herself stressed by a job surrounding her with death.

‘Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself’ is co-written and directed by Lone Scherfig, a female Danish filmmaker best known in the states for her 2000 film ‘Italian for Beginners’. The movie has been nominated for twenty different awards and has won eleven of them. Released theatrically in the US by THINKFilm, ‘Wilbur’ received US DVD distribution through Sundance. As such, it’s not the most widely distributed film but can be found with relative ease online or at Blockbuster. The US version of ‘Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself’ is rated “R” and has a running time of 109 minutes.

Being a huge fan of Kevin Smith(both literally and figuratively) I must own every version of their Kevin Smith dvd releases. In 2004 they released ‘Clerks X’ to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of its release, and if it featured this badass, feature full length documentary called ‘The Snowball Effect: The Story of ‘Clerks”.

The documentary is a very in depth look at how ‘Clerks’ all came about, from getting written, financed, edited, and eventually picked up. We all pretty much know the story of how it came to fruitition but its still badass to see all the behind the scenes stuff that comes along with this doc.

I wish all directors went through the trouble of putting stuff like this on their DVD releases because it really adds value and rewatchability, which is something that is missing from alot of bare bones releases out there. Smith is well known for his love for the fans and this documentary just proves that again.

The documentary takes its name from a specific line in the film, if you dont know what that is, or dont remember then I cant take pitty on your soul and you should sit down to rewatch this classic. If you want to see this documentary for yourself you have to go out and buy ‘Clerks X’ which is something every movie geek should already own because the 3 disc set is ridiculously great. Here are the specs:

The 93 minute “Clerks” Theatrical cut- All new HiDef transfer from 16mm IP supervised by Dave Klein with all-new 5.1 Skywalker Sound remix supervised by Scott Mosier, includes original commentary track from laser disc/initial DVD release (Disc One)
The 103 minute “Clerks” IFFM First Cut, includes all-new audio/video commentary track with Kevin, Scott, Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran and Jason Mewes. (Disc Two)
The 95 minute “The Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks” Brand Spanking New Documentary that inteviews almost everybody who ever had something to do with “Clerks” (Disc Three)
The MTV Jay and Silent Bob shorts that everyone’s been crying for us to put on a DVD for years now
The Arclight 10th Anniversary Q&A with Brian, Jeff, Marilyn, Scott, Dave, Mewes, and me
Lots of new video intros.
“The Flying Car” short from the Tonight Show (re-telecined in HiDef).
The Original theatrical trailer
“Can’t Even Tell” Music Video
The original Jeff, Brian, and Marilyn and Ernie O’Donnell audition tapes
The brand new, seven minute animated “Lost Scene” short
Expansive Still Photo Gallery
‘Clerks’ Trivia track
Original 168-page original first draft screenplay
Kevin’s ‘Clerks’ Journal
Kevin’s ‘Sundance’ Journal
Peter Broderick’s 1992 article “The ABC’s of No-Budget Filmmaking” that inspired the budget for ‘Clerks’
Peter Broderick’s followup article “Learning from Low-Budgets” a year later that does the same treatment on ‘Clerks’
Amy Taubin’s Village Voice article on the 1991 IFFM and ‘Slacker’ that inspired Kevin to take ‘Clerks’ to the IFFM
Amy Taubin’s Village Voice article on the 1993 IFFM about ‘Clerks’ being the gem of the festival.
Janet Maslin’s 1994 New York Times review of ‘Clerks’ entitled “At a Convenience Store, Coolness To Go”
The entire John Pierson ‘The Odd Couple: Sundance 1994″ Chapter from ‘Spike Mike Reloaded’ book
The original Kevin-penned IFFM program note
The original Bob Hawk-penned 1994 Sundance Film Festival program note.
“Mae Day” – Kevin and Scott’s Vancouver Film School documentary short.
Booklet.

You can get a signed copy of this on Smith’s site for just $35!

I love quirky dramedies and yes, I also love baking. So what? Laugh if you want, but home-baked goodies are like heroine to me. Anyway, how do these two seemingly irrelevant things have anything to do with one another? They have everything to do with each other when speaking about the 2007 movie ‘Waitress’.

‘Waitress’ was written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, who also co-stars as Dawn in the film, which stars Kerri Russell as Jenna Hunterson. Jenna is a waitress and “pie genius” working at Old Joe’s Pie Shop. Jenna loves making pies and that’s all she wants in life. Well, that and… to get rid of her mentally and verbally abusive a**hole of a husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto) once and for all. No, she doesn’t want him killed, just gone out of her life.

Her fellow waitresses and best friends, Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly), help her to cope with her selfish, emotionally draining loser of a husband, especially once she discovers that she’s pregnant as a result of letting him get her drunk one night. Now, with her well-laid plans to escape Earl for good at risk, Jenna struggles to decide how she’ll restructure her plans while keeping the baby.

‘Waitress’ is filled with quirky characters, but none of them are bizarre to the point of being absurd. The entire story occurs in a subtly strand little universe that seems to exist just outside the normal boundaries of real life. Nearly the entire film takes place in the little pie shop, which is in a small rural town that might as well be on Mars. Nathan Fillion (Slither) plays Dr. Pomatter, Kerri’s replacement gynecologist and short-lived secret love interest.

Kerri Russell (August Rush) does a fantastic job as the talented pie-maker Jenna with the quiet and polite exterior, but whom hides emotions that boil and churn just under the surface like a molten eruption of frustration just waiting to explode. Jenna feels trapped, evenclaustrophobic by her husband Earl, who is played with a creepy unlikable effectiveness by Jeremy Sisto (May). Dawn and Becky are pinned as stereotypical characters with quirks of their own and even Old Joe is given some pleasant life as a horny old multi-divorcee played by Andy Griffith.

‘Waitress’ is a charming tale of a woman who yearns to break free of her failed marriage and start her life over on her own terms. The movie is filled with emotional lows and truly sells Jenna’s determination and justification for wanting out of her marriage, but also plays wonderfully on Jenna’ssensibilities to her own ethical concerns regarding her pregnancy, her marriage and her life.

Jenna uses her odd and unique pie creations as a creative outlet for her varied emotions, giving them strange names like “Bad Baby Pie” or “Pregnant Miserable Self Pitying Loser Pie”. Jenna and her pies are the life-blood of the pie shop and everyone realizes that but Earl, whose whole world revolves around himself and expects Jenna to put him on a pedestal without any reasonable return of sincere affection or gratitude.

‘Waitress’ can be seen as having a negative tone towards marriage, but it’s the extent to which Earl is a lousy and unworthy husband that confirms Jenna’s intentions and places her goals within the realm of acceptability. Jenna does keep the child, whom she names Lulu and the movie does ultimately result in ahappy ending, but not necessarily as one might have planned. The small ensemble cast is great, the story is heart-felt and original with a healthy mix of gentle but quirky comedy and genuine drama. ‘Waitress’ is a great pick-me-up film to watch that leaves a resonating residue of relief after enduring Jenna’s daily plight.

I don’t have to sit here and tell you about the backlash that comes from any news about Hollywood remaking something.   Just the thought of the words remake, reboot, or relaunch makes avid moviegoers rolls their eyes, grit their teeth, and wish death on studio execs young and old.   This week, we’ve heard news of 20th Century Fox rebooting the ‘Alien’ franchise, and, as expected, it has people up in arms and debating what should and shouldn’t get the remake go-ahead.

This is where films like 1979′s ‘The Glove’ come in.   Films like ‘Alien’ that are incredible concepts with impeccable execution behind them are memorable.   They don’t need to be remade.   They are perfect just the way they are.   Films like ‘The Glove’ could benefit from being remade, because they are films that have a good starting point, an interesting concept, that fall somewhere along the way to execution.

‘The Glove’ was directed by Ross Hagen, a gravelly voiced character actor who has appeared in over 80 movies and television shows and who has a whopping directorial resume of eight films.   Trust me, you probably haven’t heard of any of them.   I hadn’t heard of any of them until about a month ago when ‘The Glove’ came on TV.

This was Hagen’s first directing.   It centers on Sam Kellog, a bounty hunter played by John Saxon.   Down on his luck and going through some marital issues, Sam is handed an opportunity to turn it all around.   He is offered a job for $20,000 to bring in an ex-convict named Victor Hale who is beating prison guards to death with a steel-laced, riot glove.

Quite an interesting premise, no?   Of course, Hagen isn’t exactly Kubrick when it comes to putting together a scene, a shot, or even passing instructions on to his actors.   ‘The Glove’ has the dirty and sweaty feel that the best exploitation films can elicit, but the camera work from frame to frame is jerky and, sometimes, incoherent.

There are a few fight scenes that are pulled off quite nicely, but most of that is due to the skills offered up by Saxon.   The actor’s black belt skills are on full display, and you can just tell that much of Hagen’s direction involved him just putting the camera on Saxon and letting the actor’s martial arts moves go.   However, this film isn’t exactly wall-to-wall action, and much of the film is focused on Kellog’s struggling life.

Much of the storyline, which, on the surface, is very interesting, is broken up by some God-awful voiceover narration from Saxon.   Seriously, there are times where it feels like he is going over every, little aspect of his bounty hunting day.   The narration gets on your nerves very quickly, and Hagen doesn’t allow it to let up in any way.

As a whole, however, the film is quite a load of schlocky fun.   At times, it seems that Victor is as much a main character in the film as Kellog.   Normally, this would be an issue, and this level of sympathy is probably what caused this film to not do very well at the box office.   Fortunately, the role is played with complete authenticity by Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier.   If you don’t recognize the name, you probably should.   The guy was a defensive lineman for the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams before tearing his Achilles tendon in ’67.   He then served as a bodyguard for Robert F. Kennedy.   As an interesting side-note, Grier was guarding RFK’s wife, Ethel, on the night Kennedy was assassinated, and he was the bodyguard who broke Sirhan Sirhan’s arm after the shots were fired.   Grier went on to be an actor, most notably the black half of ‘The Thing With Two Heads.’

Grier’s performance is a real standout in ‘The Glove,’ and he elicits a level of depth of legitimacy that makes me wonder why he never became a bigger star.   Between his and Saxon’s performances, ‘The Glove’ has some great moments when it comes to acting.   It is a fun, exploitation film that falls by the way-side a number of time.   Regardless, it is one that should be checked out if you are given the chance, and, should any Hollywood execs be reading this, take note.   ‘The Glove’ is the perfect kind of film that should get the remake treatment.

Back in 1993, when I was a youngster and really into roller hockey I was cruising around the local video store and ran across this movie called ‘Airborne’. Mitchell Goosen(Shane McDermott) is a surfer/skater dude living it up in Southern California, until his parents drop the bomb that he will have to go live with his cousin in Cincinnati while they go on a business trip. His cousin Wiley(Seth Green) is a dorky redheaded kid who is struggling with his identity and trying to fit in anyway he can.

Since it is the middle of winter in Ohio, and there is nothing better to do everyone turns to Hockey. Hockey players are this school’s equivalent to stud football players. They are all big, cocky and run the school. Two of the all star players, Jack and Augie, have a problem with Mitchell from the beginning and its probably because all of the girls love his California accent and laid back attitude. Mitchell takes their harassment as playful banter and brushes it all off for the most part.

Mitchell tries to hook up with the wrong girl, who happens to be the Jacks little sister. It doesnt stop him from hanging out with her and eventually they start dating much to the dismay of her big brother. At this point the entire hockey team start dishing out extreme harassment and it gets the best of Mitchell and Wiley.

Eventually the jocks need Mitchell’s help to compete in a downhill rollerblading race through “Devils Backbone”. Mitchell decides to join their team in the hope that Jack comes around and warms up to him.

A big surprise for people when they first watch this movie is that the Augie the goalie is played by none other than Jack Black in only his 3rd movie of all time. Check out some of these images of a very young Jack Black and Seth Green(who looks exactly the same):

Here is a clip of Mitchell calling one of his bullies “Bra”, or “Bro” if you aren’t from California. In the clip you can see a young Jack Black!

Here is a skating montage from the film as well:

This movie is a very fun disney flick that I think anyone can enjoy at any age. If you can find a copy of this it will only be on VHS, but you might run across it on TV someday.

‘December Boys’ was directed by veteran TV director Ron Hardy, who rarely does film but given he is from Australia it seems he felt a particular connection with this story. Despite his lack of cinematic experience, Hardy is well-versed in the ways of the director, having helms several episodes of some great television shows including Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, Doll House, Battlestar Galactica, The Practice and The X-Files, not to mention several made-for-TV movies.

Based on the novel by Michael Noonan, the story follows a group of four orphaned boys all born in the month of December, who have grown up together to become close friends. The four boys, Maps (Daniel Radcliffe), Misty (Lee Cormie), Sparks (Christian Byers) and Spit (James Frasier), are sent by the orphanage on a holiday, or vacation, to a small seaside town. While the trip quickly becomes a fascinating adventure for the boys, they eventually discover that they are essentially competing for a single adoption spot with the family they are staying with during their vacation.

‘December Boys’ is narrated by Misty as an older man, voiced by veteran Australian character actor Max Cullen (Australia, X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Misty is a quiet but imaginative spectacle-wearing buy whose friends are more outgoing. The movie has a great deal of thematic and nostalgic similarity to ‘Stand by Me’ without the dead body and Stephen King sensibilities. ‘December Boys’ is a magical story of youth in exploration and the innocence of childhood colliding with the facts of life.

Daniel Radcliffe was likely cast for name recognition and to draw in the tweener crowd. His character, obviously older than the other three boys, has a significant role in the movie as it reaches its climax. Unfortunately, Radcliffe is shown up by the younger actors. The adult cast provide appropriately understated performances that eccentuate the focus of ‘December Boys’ on it being a story lived by and told from a child’s point of view.

Visually, the movie is well-photographed by David Connell and offers shot after shot of picturesque landscapes and pleasantly composed images of postcard perfection. This, accompanied by a warm and welcoming score by Carlo Giacco and a soundtrack of songs that are equally likable, places us perfectly in the right era and frame of mind to experience the most from ‘December Boys’.

Overall, ‘December Boys’ is a heart-felt story centered around a bittersweet situation, handled with a gentle but honest touch. While a few of the scenes with the adults can feel a bit like they belong in a television drama, the boys’ scenes make the movie into the adolescent adventure it becomes.

Since this is West Memphis 3 week here on WeAreMovieGeeks.com then its only fitting for us to first talk about the ‘Paradise Lost’ documentaries. Done by famed documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the 2 part documentary chronicles the happenings of the case from beginning, up till the appeals process starting in 2000.

What is so special about these documentaries is the fact that anyone can watch them and immediately start wondering just how the hell a jury was able to convict these 3 young men with ZERO evidence.

‘Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills’ was made in 1996 which is 2 years after the conviction of Damien, Jason and Jesse. The doc follows the events after the murders happened, the arrests, trials and eventual conviction of the WM3.

You get a gruesome look into the real life situations of small town America’s justice system. A system which has allowed for 3 innocent men to be imprisoned for the last 16 years. You also get a very scary glimpse into the life of John Mark Byers, the step father of Christopher Byers. He really puts up a good front in the film and attempts to come off as less of a creep than he really is. I will tell you this boys and girls, living down the street from this guy still gives me nightmares. To think of what he is capable of(for the record: I am not accusing anyone here, I witnessed first hand his abuse and neglect of Christopher) is unnerving.

While watching the first documentary you find yourself questioning whether they are guilty or not and its in ‘Paradise Lost: Revelations’ that will seal your thoughts on the case. The sequel drops a bomb on the reality that these guys are only guilty of trying to express themselves in a small town where it is frowned upon. Any evidence the city of West Memphis presented during the trials, which is very slim, is refuted and you slowly become infuriated at the fact that they are still living out their days in prison.

The onslaught of John Mark Byers is even more present here, but this time he is trying to make you beleive he is a broken man since the mysterious death of his wife Melissa. His scenes in the film are really ridiculous and its obvious that he is attempting to bring himself into the spotlight.

‘Paradise Lost 3′ is currently in post production and hopefully we will get to see it very soon, I cant wait to see John Mark Byers in the movie promoting his book and spouting off at how much of a supporter he is now.

These movies should be required viewing and will really make you sick to think this can really happen. If you havent seen them please go out and buy the dvd’s which now come in a set.

‘Harsh Times’ was released in 2006, about a year after ‘Batman Begins’ in which Christian Bale played the polar opposite of his role in this gritty drama. Bale stars as Jim Davis, a former military ranger who is trying to adjust back to a civilian lifestyle. His best friend Mike(Rodriguez) is trying to find a legit job to appease his lawyer wife(Eva Longoria). Jim and Mike set start off each day with the mission of dropping off resumes to find job but usually end us drinking, doing some sort of drugs and getting into debauchery.

Jim also has a girlfriend that lives in Mexico with her family and he is trying to get a good paying job so they can get married and she can come live with him in LA. After failing a psych test for the LAPD, Jim gets an offer from the homeland security to come and head up a drug task for that will be relocating to Colombia. Taking the job would mean that he will have to put his plans on hold.

The above synopsis might paint the picture that Jim(Bale) is a nice guy, which is the complete opposite as you will be able to tell if you watch the fighting scene below.

I left alot of the movie out of the above snyposis because I dont want to ruin it for you guys. The movie is pretty thick and has a lot of heavy storyline to it. If you are a fan of Christian Bale(who isnt?), and you like those really gritty cop dramas then you will fall in love with this movie because its almost the same thing, except Jim isnt a cop.

Here is the trailer:

Here is a badass fight scene in the movie:

What better day than Monday to have an article about movies you might have missed. Every Monday we are going to bring you a new movie that you might have missed and tell you why you should see it. Enjoy..

“It’s lonely being a cannibal. Tough making friends.” – Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones)

‘Ravenous’ is a film that was unjustly disregarded when it was released into theaters in March of 1999. Â  It is a horror film. Â  It is a slight comedy. Â  It is a film about cannibalism in the mid 1800s, but it is a whole, heaping lot of fun. Â  At its heart, it is also a very well-crafted film that deals with themes such as survival and loneliness.

Guy Pearce (ironically a vegetarian in real life) gives an incredible performance as a soldier during the Mexican-American war. Â  After taking over a command post via an act of cowardice, he is sent to Fort Spencer, a remote outpost in the Sierra Nevadas. Â  There, he finds himself in the midst of an eccentric group of soldiers. Â  Everything is going as well as can be expected until a stranger, played by Robert Carlyle, shows up. Â  The stranger is half-famished, and he tells the soldiers of a small group of settlers who lost their way in the mountains, the malevolent captain who was leading their party, and of the drastic way the group survived out in the wilderness. Â  From there, things get really violent.

‘Ravenous’ boasts an amazing cast that include, alongside Pearce and Carlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, John Spencer (in the underrated actor’s final performance), Neal McDonough, and David Arquette. Â  Everyone turns in an astounding performance, even Arquette, who, for a change, doesn’t portray his typical, annoying self. Â  Carlyle is tops here, though, giving a performance that spans across a wide range of emotions and character traits. Â  He is everything in ‘Ravenous’ from heroic to comedic to downright scary and intense.

Directed by Antonia Bird, ‘Ravenous’ rides that edge between horror and comedy extremely well. Â  It is moreso a drama with horror and comedic elements strewn throughout, but the balance is near perfection from start to finish. Â  Bird captures the level of isolation the characters within the film are enduring with a pristine accuracy, making believers of all of us that things would go exactly as they play out in the film.

Adding to the intense story and immaculate direction is an insanely quirky score from Blur and Gorillaz founder Damon Albarn and minimalist composer Michael Nyman. Â  The music in ‘Ravenous’ captures everything the film is about. Â  It is eccentrically rustic at times, eerily nervous others, and, yet, still finds time to be epic in other places. Â  There are moments with this film’s score that really call to mind Morricone’s score for ‘The Untouchables’ in every great way possible.

‘Ravenous’ is a film that every fan of horror should be checking out. Â  Unfairly neglected when it first came out, it is a film that deserves to be on any list of “best horror films of the past ten years.” Â  However, movie lovers who aren’t all that into horror will respect and admire the film’s intense drama and subtle yet black comedy, as well.

Check out the trailer for ‘Ravenous’ right here:

Here’s a great sample of the film’s music:

…and here’s one of the film’s creepier moments: