IMDb #205 Review: 8 1/2 (1963)

Source: Wikipedia

If great movies temper fantasy with reality, movies about movie-making should inject reality with fantasy. Or that's the logic of Italian auteur Federico Fellini, as he sketches a director’s plight against the backdrop of his deranged imagination.

There's this guy, Guido, who's made great movies. Problem is, he’s out of ideas. He’s still making a movie, but nobody knows what it’s about, not even him. He smashes together seemingly random elements, hoping they’ll congeal into a coherent whole, but to little avail.

Critique of the Catholic church? Autobiographical exploration of his own romantic conquests? Rocket ships? Tap-dancing sailors? What he claims is “a simple story” collapses under the weight of its own ludicrous complexity.

8 1/2 also smashes together seemingly random crap but apparently succeeds. (At least according to most film critics with an iota of clout.)

So we psychologically explore the director guy's sex life. He can’t control his chatty, foppish mistress. He can’t communicate with his chilly wife. So he fondly reflects on his youth (and its plus-sized temptresses). Without warning, ugly reality transitions into sadomasochistic dream sequences.

The Catholic Church figures into things somehow, as the director pursues an interview with a Cardinal. The paparazzi buzz around the director like flies swarming a corpse. For reasons indecipherable to me, there’s a smiley magician and yes, tap-dancing sailors (actors) on a rocket ship (set).

If this movie sounds at all appealing, I’ll say it now: I was bored, baffled, frustrated out of my mind. Maybe I’m too young, too inexperienced, too monogamous to appreciate a surreal self-referential masterpiece.

But let me cautiously recommend it for smarter, more patient people. And for world-weary movie-making professionals who’ve probably already seen it already anyway.

138 minutes.

IMDb #206 Review: Dil Chahta Hai (2001)

Source: Wikipedia

Three Indian college buddies--the cheesy artist, the bland indecisive guy, and the wild self-proclaimed ladykiller--fall in love in three very different directions and therefore make three varieties of horribly shortsighted decisions. Hos before bros, THE MOVIE! Then consequences plonk down like hailstones, and reparations begin out of sheer necessity.

After the best summer of their lives, the dudebro trio puts aside funky beach trips and wacky pranks and posing on sailboats. They grow into actual people, with jobs and financial responsibilities and career plans.

One guy chases another guy's fiancee, another goes after an older woman with more baggage than Mumbai International Airport, and the third realizes an arranged marriage isn't so bad if she's smoking hot.

Not a brain-taxing flick, unless you're watching without subtitles. Every other line alternates between English and Hindi. Good luck, monolinguals.

Being Bollywood, the drama pauses for SONG-AND-DANCE NUMBERS, homages to vintage Bollywood, and (for some reason) Italian opera parallelisms.

Underneath all the pointless interpersonal drama, there's a sincere film that's actually pretty funny when it wants to be. Sometimes, when it wants to be serious, it does okay at that too.

In a great union of funny and serious, the title means, "The heart wants," presumably followed by "what it wants." And presumably finished with especially if what it wants is tremendously stupid.

184 minutes.

IMDb #207 Review: Stalker (1979)

Source: Wikipedia

A writer, a professor, and the titular Stalker venture into the Zone, a mysterious quarantined location like the Chernobyl disaster area except afflicted with *space magic*. The Zone allegedly grants wishes, such as colorizing grainy black-and-white Soviet Russia like a depressing communist Oz.

So as the nameless characters putz around the grim natural beauty, the Stalker, a glorified tour guide, rambles vaguely about human desire and the supernatural whims of the Zone. The job benefits must be great, because he never explains anything outright. Especially not why this poor sad man makes shitty money taking inquisitive idiots into space magic land to support his shrewish wife and physically disabled daughter Monkey.

Anyway.

Weird shit happens in the Zone. Time and space warp. Traps, marked with dangling bandages, dog them every step of the way. Then an actual dog starts following them. A telephone rings.

Meanwhile, these walking philosophical archetypes drop random Biblical references: Daniel’s writing on the wall, Revelation’s apocalypse, the road to Emmaus.

Sound thrilling? This plot progresses at the pace of a mentally challenged slug. Strewn in the slug’s slimy path are lingering environmental shots, whole minutes of silence, abstract conversation, and withering anticlimax. There are no gunfights, no spiffy special effects, no explosions (well, almost one).

Chekhov’s gun remains on the mantlepiece, discussed in excruciating detail from multiple ideological angles, but never fired. As you can imagine, a pall of weary futility hangs over everything.

But the mood, the setting, the indirect world-building? Mesmerizing.

This plodding philosophical excursion is probably better viewed alone, not a party setting. Or you might have to answer unanswerable questions. Such as,“What the hell was that?”

IMDb #208 Review: Infernal Affairs

Source: Wikipedia

Ignore the dumb pun in the title. This is no wacky Jackie Chan comedy about a Chinese-American cop who goes to hell to liberate his fallen buddies from the devil’s clutches via kung-fu and secretly seducing Lucifer’s hot girlfriend. Though that'd be rad.

Instead, we follow two double lives. One, a bright young cop tasked to infiltrate a Hong Kong drug cartel — for ten years. The other, a dirty cop — working for the same cartel.

Neither knows the other’s identity. The result: spy versus spy, a battle of balls and bullshitting and late nineties tech, set to thumping techno beats.

The clean cop paradoxically surrounds himself with scum. His ex is afraid of him because, to everyone except his boss, he’s a grizzled gangster. And after a decade undercover, he’s cracking. Understandable. Because he sleeps through his mandatory therapy, while the therapist plays Microsoft solitaire.

Meanwhile, the dirty cop enjoys a solid reputation on the force, as well as a loving and pregnant wife. Even as the investigation crumbles (thanks to his efforts), he gets promoted. His new assignment: catch the dirty cop.

It’s pretty intense.

Yes, there are car chases and shootouts and pointless shoehorned romance arcs. Any movie can have those things. But for moral dilemmas, complex characters, dramatic irony, high-stakes cat-and-mouse (where the mouse is secretly a cat, and the cat an overgrown rat) — look no further.

OH CRAP twist piles upon OH CRAP twist. Then the gut-punch of an ending finally pulverizes whatever squishy pulp of heart you’ve got left.

Recommended for police academy valedictorians (who’ve yet to experience the phenomenon of project creep), happy wives (as a primer to spot consummate liars), and morbidly curious Hong Kong tourists.

101 minutes.

IMDb #209 Review: The Imitation Game (2014)

Source: Wikipedia

A petulant pack of crossword puzzle enthusiasts secretly saves the world from Nazis. All thanks to their reluctant leader, antisocial luminary Alan Turing whose lifework led to the device you're using to read these words. And it's (mostly) true.

A.T. is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, the swanky Brit pigeonholed into hyper-competent jerks. His computer, the invention that unintentionally revolutionized civilization, serves as a semi-reliable plot device at best.

However, his other big idea is the"Turing Test," when a computer can fool a human into thinking it's human, the computer passes. The so-called Imitation Game. The inventor, ironically, lives and works like a machine. To crack an uncrackable code, "Why assign a man, when you can task a machine?" But we see too much of his human side to not know better.

To exercise this human side, there's the romantic subplot, this time ripped straight from history, then stuffed full of unnecessary conflict to fill the movie drama quota. The hero's sort of love-interest, the Smurfette of the smartypants club, surmounts sexism and traditional family values (i.e., sexism) to do her job and woo the troubled genius. She provides an ever-reliable source of moral support and angst.

In fact, for maximum dramatic impact, three critical sections of Turing's life overlap.. First is lonely boyhood, and the doomed schoolboy romance (with another schoolboy). Then his productive period with the Secret Service, fighting Hitler with cutting-edge cryptography and morally murky algorithms. And finally the ignominious post-war years, in which our socially crippled war hero succumbs to obscurity and faces petty with drastic consequences. (It's distressing to watch a stiff upper lip collapse into inelegant blubbering.)

This keeps with reality, which has a record of being disproportionately cruel to its flawed messiahs.

Overall: swell film, OK history, engaging character drama.

Though it's incredible the Brits kept all this secret until the nineties.

IMDb ??? Review: Stalag 17 (1952)

Source: Wikipedia

Important historical distinction: Nazi POW camps were nothing like concentration camps. POW camps were more like shitty low-budget Jesus Camp with machine guns, and concentration camps were concentration camps.

Instead of dying horribly, captured American soldiers bum around, try to escape, then die horribly for trying to escape.

Prisoners fritter away the hours with games like horseshoes, chess, and smuggling contraband. Cigarettes hold strong as currency. Behind closed doors, men indulge in potato skin liquor, literal rat races, and Russian women prisoners within telescope range.

The cast represents the typical motley crew. Cynics, clowns, hotheads, horndogs, psychos, snitches. That’s right–after enough shenanigans implode, the guys conclude there’s a snitch in their barracks. And, spoiler alert, they’re right.

Like most movies about grown men forced into intimacy, this film showcases human brotherhood under duress, and just how quickly it breaks down. (Very.)

The narrator, a stammering nobody, does more telling than showing, or doing anything useful at all. If not to advance the plot, he exists to contrast the interesting characters that do interesting things, which is just about everyone else.

It's funny, but not sidesplitting funny, unless you’re getting knifed in the ribs. Because beneath the veneer of silliness lies deadly seriousness, like the rainbow film of grease over dishwater-grade “potato soup.” But despite the grim tone, the ending dispatches sweet, sweet justice. It’s like Hogan’s Heroes with balls.

Recommended for smug pragmatists, Jesus camp refugees, and staunch authoritarians who cannot comprehend that tighter regulations (MORE MACHINE GUNS) lead to rebellion, not obedience.

120 minutes.

IMDb ??? Review: Rope (1948)

Source: Wikipedia

Nothing kills the mood of a murder scene like a party. Especially inviting the unsuspecting friends and family of the very recently deceased.

Unless you’re the protagonists of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope.

Two Ivy League college students kill a peer on a whim and tackle the consequences with aplomb. One, a worrywart with a conscience; the other, a smarmy devil in a nice suit. Harvard’s Hitler waxes eloquent about murder as an art form, a right the intellectually superior supposedly wield over inferiors. His actions, such as sabotaging his cushy life out of sheer hubris, call into question the intelligence he assigns himself.

Through what seems like one gruelingly long take, Hitchcock, the master of suspense, casts his spell. And nothing spells “old movie” like grainy Technicolor, credits at the beginning, and a parade of cigs and hats and booze.

Most of the movie is dull and/or uncomfortable conversation. Old ladies natter about food, astrology, movie stars. The Ivy League stranglers alternate between insisting there’s nothing wrong and insinuating, “HE’S DEAD AND WE KILLED HIM AND I’M SMARTER THAN ALL OF YOU DUMBASSES AHAHAHAHAHA.”

So much potential. Add brisk editing and a slide-whistle soundtrack, and it’s a forties-era cringe comedy; kill the music and substitute a droning voiceover, and you have a systematic documentary guide to failing at crime and throwing shitty parties.

Overall, I'd say it examines the difference between preaching a philosophy and living it out. Like the difference between tenured poli-sci profs who shill Marxism in the classroom and their comrades who gnaw off their own frostbitten fingers in Siberian gulags.

Recommended for sadistic party animals, anti-social Darwinists, and fulfillers of both categories, such as Alfred Hitchcock.

80 minutes.

IMDb ??? Review: Before Sunset (2007)

Source: Wikipedia

Eighty minutes of conversation.

Two people talk for well over an hour. And I adored every minute.

Whoa.

A writer at a book signing in Paris reunites with the woman who inspired his runaway bestseller. Before he has to catch his plane, they catch up, walking and talking around picturesque Paris as the sun slowly sets, along with any likelihood of them ever meeting again.

The dialogue sparkles in shameless realness–sometimes choppy and awkward, then smooth and relaxed and funny again. It’s a lot of fun to watch. The topic wanders as much as the characters do: from bookshop to café to alley to ferry to taxi, from books to music to philanthropy to sex. (Yes, as grown-ups, they’re going to discuss the dirty deed. Frankly.)

These two can talk to each other about anything, and they do. I envy that feeling, even in my stable monogamous relationship with my word processor -- we’re currently floundering in the post-honeymoon phase, no longer able to impress each other but still attempting to regardless of results.

Back to the movie.

It’s an anti-romantic nuke. Despite the romantic subject matter (reunion of separated lovers), in the most romantic city in the world (Paris). It smacks of cold, hard reality, like a suicide jumper kissing the asphalt at terminal velocity.

Spoiler alert: the ending’s implications support my aforementioned suspicions about Parisian culture. (Infidelity. Everywhere.)

Recommended for hopeful romantics looking for love, hopeless romantics who found love and want out, and socially crippled rom-com characters who direly need lessons in the most rudimentary interpersonal communication.

80 minutes.

IMDb #210 Review: Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Source: Wikipedia

Bruce Willis time-travels from (fabulously grungy) underground 2030s Philadelphia to warn the damnfools in the 1990s of an impending epidemic.

Being professedly rational damnfools, the nineties' smartypants consign him to a mental hospital with paranoid schizophrenic Brad Pitt. There we witness some incredible acting and the vigorous scrubbing of Bruce Willis’s soapy buttocks.

Our hero’s questionable sanity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Understandably, since he gets so kicked around. In the future, dickheads with doctorates send him to the wrong time, yank him back, send him to an even wronger time, then plop him dangerously close to the apocalypse.

Meanwhile, the present pack of dickheads institutionalizes him. They issue a manhunt when he goes on the lam cause the nuthouse is lame. As if they’re surprised he doesn’t want to stick around for more awful TV and degrading experiments.

Our misunderstood messiah traipses around Filthadelphia in all its seedy glory, the Pennsylvania woods, the U.S. highway system. Somewhere along the line, he picks up his increasingly credulous psychiatrist, whose experiences with him erode her faith in modern science. Conveniently relevant newspaper articles and TV spots dog the characters wherever the script leads them.

Time travel, schizophrenia, animal testing, ecoterrorism, and virology somehow mesh into an intricately woven noose on which to hang the denouement.

Finally, all this bizarre meandering culminates in the mother of all red herrings. But the ending raises questions. Did he change the future? Was there a future? Couldn’t the studio afford a less underwhelming child actor?

IMDb #211 Review: Jaws (1975)

Source: Wikipedia

This summer blockbuster cancelled millions of beach trips, indirectly murdered millions of sharks, and garnered millions of dollars. Thank Stephen Spielberg’s crappy animatronic prop, John Williams’s unforgettable score, and the eminently forgettable source novel.

We begin with a teen beach party celebrating bonfires and seventies hairstyles. Amorous shenanigans go awry, and a skinny-dipping waif dies theatrically.

When the authorities recover her fragments, the smarmy mayor refuses to close the beaches. However, when shark rumors poke above water, the entitled middle-class nitwits freak out.

The reward summons wannabe shark-killers, who only succeed in catching red herrings. Naturally, the beach remains open for a Fourth-of-July swimmer smorgasbord.

The shark is incidental. The true enemy? Greed. Stupidity. Tiny minds. The people don’t listen to warnings, just severed limbs. And the good citizens of Amity, New York blame the heroes for their own incapacity to absorb information. (Case in point: bereaved mom in black veil blames the chief for son’s death/the mayor’s dumbass decision.)

So the heroes muster a team. A police chief scared of water; a weirdo oceanographer prone to dropping important things in moments of crisis; and a crazy misanthropic shark-killer who cites an isolated incident from World War II as a Freudian excuse for his crusade.

The dudes hang out on a boat, toss meat overboard, swap scar stories, booze it up. Actually, the shark hunt occupies the entire (substantially superior) second hour.

Although Mythbusters debunked the movie's solution the shark problem, it’s still great fun.

Recommended for oceanographers keen on skewering misconceptions and small-town government studying poor crisis management.

IMDb #212 Review: Before Sunrise (1995)

Source: Wikipedia

Two strangers futz around in nineties Vienna. Cue sunrise, roll credits. Because it's art, dammit.

Wait, where are you going? Just because it’s art doesn’t mean it’s bizarre and unapproachable!

Here: an American tourist and a French college student meet on a European train and chat. For hours. About whatever. In English, mostly, amid Austria’s linguistic cornucopia.

Then they take a break and walk around and do stuff, whatever they find. Yes, this refreshingly candid romance doubles as a documentary about improvising a piss-cheap Vienna day trip, which may or may not involve bamboozling bartenders into forking over free booze.

So they talk. They visit a cemetery for the nameless dead. They sip wine in the summer moonlight. They laugh. They talk some more.

This romance doesn’t exemplify “love at first sight” so much as transparency. Minutes after meeting, these two can exchange intimate childhood memories.

As their relationship barrels onward like a runaway train, they say, “This is going really fast.” To dispel awkwardness, they say, “This is awkward.” When the conversation sours, they say, “Let’s talk about something else,” and once again rehash how girls and boys are different. As morning approaches, they acknowledge the need to say goodbyes–so they practice.

Dialogue in movies often feels too polished. This one incorporates pauses, repetition, filler words, the works. Even though somebody probably calculated every inflection, the results sparkle with raw charm. Even the idle philosophical speculation is charming, devoid of pretentiousness.

Sure, knowing there's sequels detracts from the bittersweet tone. And replaces it with unfettered joy.

IMDb #213 Review: High Noon (1952)

Source: Wikipedia

When the West was still wild, a freshly wed U.S. Marshal takes up the tin star one last time. Why? To defend his life, his wife, and a whole town full of ungrateful bastards.

That's right. Gary Cooper just married Grace Kelly, so now he pulls a George Bailey and postpones the honeymoon to get right back to work.

Again, why? Well, because he did his job so well, a murderous outlaw he put away (recently pardoned) is moseying back into town on the noon train, to plug him. Despite the killing heat, the villains wear all black, because subtlety, like color television, hadn't been invented yet.

The marshal recruits special deputies from the townsfolk and receives an impressive variety of excuses. They hem and haw; attend church, then interrupt church for a town meeting/haranguing session; hide from his house calls; bet against him in the saloon and Sunday school, within earshot of the guy in question.

The only one on his side? His Quaker wife, a pacifist, against four ruthless ruffians. While the lawman frets, the wife visits the marshal’s ex, the local harlot, to fail the Bechdel Test.

Spoilers ahoy -- the final fight embodies the quintessential Western showdown. One obstinately moralistic macho moron stands against a pack of cartoonish evildoers. Add melodramatic orchestra, and you have a classic. Like any sensible idiot, the marshal fights dirty. For a good cause, so it’s OK.

This thrilling yarn, compressed into one awful morning, both elevates and debases human courage. The lesson: don’t rely too much on people, but be really frigging great at dealing with them. Preferably with a six-gun.

85 minutes.

IMDb #214 Review: The Terminator (1984)

Source: Wikipedia

This blockbuster changed popular culture, and not just by reducing it to skull-littered rubble. It made James Cameron rich. It brought the general public to fear AI and computer scientists to blithely ignore those fears. Most amazingly, it taught Americans how to spell Schwarzenegger.

Our implacable Austrian cyborg hails from the grimdark future — yet another robot-ravaged wasteland, this time with Star Wars lasers. (Most of the practical effects hold up decently.) Through his perspective, which looks like Doom for the Virtual Boy, he hunts the mother of the human resistance, a klutzy waitress with eighties hair.

But she's not the hero. A human warrior, sent to the past by the waitress’s unborn son, arrives to rescue her from the robust robot and his hilariously efficient brutality.

She accompanies this wild-eyed, probably funky-smelling rebel from parking garage to police station to ratty motel. Being action movie protagonists, they engage in the three C’s of action movies: clubbing, car chases, and copulation. (Sorry, no synonym of "explosions" starts with “C.”) Time paradoxes are blithely ignored.

The killing machine follows in cold pursuit. He and the heroes play shotgun tag, which humans aren't very good at. Arnold tops shotgun with machine gun, pipe bomb with robo-bitchslap.

The girl flees Arnie’s spooky stop-motion skeleton into the nearest convenient denouement factory for tidy disposal of unstoppable villains.

And the future is saved!

Until the sequels.

Recommended for unexpectant mothers, Luddites hunting for metaphorical parallels (The Internet is Skynet! Panic!), and theoretical physicists looking for an even more baffling problem than reconciling general relativity and quantum field theory: straighten out the Terminator timeline.

107 minutes.

IMDb #215 Review: Fanny and Alexander

Source: Wikipedia

In snow-clogged Sweden, a motley conglomeration of genetically related lunatics strive to become the most dysfunctional family in Europe.

The title refers to two young children, a girl and boy who seem to stay the same age through several time-skips. They hardly appear for the first hour, then for the other two they mope around and mouth off. Meanwhile, their relatives (who don’t have movies named after them) quarrel and philander and flatulate to amuse the aforementioned youngsters.

Despite ties with the local theater, the family lives in luxury. Then tragedy strikes, and our morose ragamuffins go from riches to rags, from a lavish mansion to an ascetic hellhole.

Did I mention the ghosts? There are ghosts. With no explanation, except a firm, unspoken “Deal with it.” Sure, an art-house masterpiece can explore the transforming influence of fantasy over reality through the dynamic metaphors of film and stage and childhood. That's cool and all.

But I can only process so much metafictional commentary before I wake up and realize I’m a dumb schmuck at a keyboard plonking out words about foreign films too blindingly brilliant for me to appreciate.

Reality bites. Fantasy enhances reality. Why else would we watch movies and junk.

The ending, though satisfying, felt long overdue. It marks the culmination of a long, strange, difficult journey, like finding a North Korean flag on Pluto.

It could be worse; the original cut was five hours. So if you enjoy odd rambling domestic epics in which good children suffer and learn unclear lessons, good for you.

Also, I’m not inviting you over for Christmas dinner.

188 minutes.

IMDb #216 Review: Groundhog Day (1993)

Source: Wikipedia

What if you had all the time in the world to do whatever you want? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.

Of course, there’s a catch. You’re Bill Murray (hooray!), playing himself but as a prima donna weatherman and not an acclaimed actor/screenwriter/party-crasher. Also, it’s still the 1990s, and you’re inexplicably trapped in a twenty-four hour timeloop in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on February 2nd.

Stir up this weird batter, bake for 102 minutes, and presto! Comedy.

All this happens, more or less.

Phil the weatherman (yes, the same name as the groundhog, stop asking) wants what he doesn’t have. Happiness. Respect. The affection of his sweet female co-worker. When he drops into an endless recursion of time, he resorts to a timeless video game tactic: save scumming. He reloads “old saves” until the desired result, the “perfect end.”

Not without a montage of failures. He pigs out, picks up chicks, flirts with suicide, then always glitches back to the original save point.

Only his memories survive, even if injuries and consequences don’t. So he uses the excess time to learn useless but entertaining skills, unlike folks who spend time reading movie review blogs.

Thus a cynic, who can’t score with the Grim Reaper, transforms into a charismatic superman whose bachelorhood sells for $339.88.

Finally, the true message surfaces. Be nice, or who knows what arbitrary horrors the cruel universe might inflict upon your sad wad of conscious particles.

Horrors such as having this review reposted every day for the rest of the year.

102 minutes.

IMDb #217: Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Source: Wikipedia

A four-hour Indian movie about cricket.

I didn't know what to expect when I buckled down to slog through this thing.

I'll tell you what I didn't expect: entertainment.

All that to say, it's totally worth it.

Despite the exotic setting, a rural Indian village in 1893, the story pulses with timeless familiarity. The farmers pay an annual tax of crops to the British (the titular Lagann), but this year there’s a drought. In a fit of pique, a British officer challenges the Indians: beat the British at cricket, and no Lagann for three years. Lose…and it’s triple Lagann. Basically a death sentence.

So the cheery bumpkins get to practicing. Unfortunately, they have no idea what they’re doing. They might as well have challenged Korea in StarCraft, or the United States in competitive eating. It doesn’t help that cricket’s rules are utterly bonkers.

It’s a classic underdog story, boosted with fatally high stakes and spontaneous Bollywood song-and-dance sequences. Seriously, there’s a song celebrating CGI rainclouds (spoiler: don’t get your hopes up), a team recruitment song, and a Krishna mythological parallel to justify the requisite love triangle.

The characters are instantly recognizable. There's the staggeringly charismatic protagonist; the coy love interest; the big bruiser; the hothead; the mole, whom everybody trusts for no reason; and the flock of asshole white people. However, being India, they must invoke the caste system — the team's not-so-secret weapon is an untouchable with a withered hand. He becomes pitcher. Naturally.

When it finally arrives, the big game takes three days.

Like the movie, a grueling ordeal, but tremendously rewarding.

224 minutes.

IMDb #218 Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2011)

Source: Wikipedia

After the first half’s piddling around, the final film concludes the Harry Potter mega-franchise with a splendiferous whiz-bang. It’s guaranteed to baffle new viewers.

Wizard Hitler has risen again like Evil Snake Jesus. He speaks softly but carries a big magical stick. The Wizard Nazis overrun England, and presumably nowhere else. The bright and flamboyant magical subculture has decayed into grays and greens. Fitting, for a dark finale — sometimes too dark to see a bloody thing.

Meanwhile, the Golden Trio languishes at a beach house, talking about things they already know to inform the audience. (Props for trying.) They look very serious and stand around awkwardly a lot.

To kill No-Nose, the heroes hunt his soul shards. They flirt with the heist genre but revert to the usual supernatural shenanigans. Five fragments to destroy in two hours. This herculean labor is made more feasible by convenient visions, logical leaps, climbing on piles of junk, and blind-as-Oedipus luck.

Cashing in on top-notch foreshadowing, certain whimsical devices return from past adventures (now for warlike purposes), just as old characters reappear to enter the battle and promptly snuff it.

Finally, the castle/school gets used for castle purposes: keeping people out. It’s glorious. Good guys battle Wizard Nazis, unusually  human werewolves, and CG giants (possibly unemployed Lord of the Rings extras).

At the end, Harry knows there’s only one way to beat Evil Snake Jesus: Harry must out-Jesus him. Which he does, with the help of a Gandalf the White analogue who speaks in inscrutable koans. (Wait, “the good guys win” doesn’t count as a spoiler, does it?)

130 minutes.

IMDb #219 Review: Ip Man (2008)

Source: Wikipedia

In China, the 1930s, kung-fu masters practice their art despite twentieth-century industrialization and increasing prevalence of firearms. Packs of ruffians still rove the countryside and challenge masters for their schools. Only Ip Man — a small, humble, egregiously overpowered Wing Chun grandmaster — can defend his defeated friends. But we like egregiously overpowered.

The world sparkles with color and humor and energy. Typical kung-fu antics abound.

For the first thirty minutes.

Surprise! World War II happens. (Frankly, the Chinese were surprised too.)

The color drains. The energy dissipates. The frivolity disappears and leaves an aching void. Japanese armies march over China; cowards submit to their service.

Languishing in squalor, kung-fu masters beg for work shoveling coal. Formerly wealthy Ip Man struggles to provide for his wife and young son.

But the occupying Japanese general remembers the city’s reputation for martial arts. He summons Chinese martial artists to challenge the Japanese style.

The result is what you'd expect. People fight, people die. Enraged by senseless violence, our hero resurges from retirement to deliver sensible violence.

The effects punch through your eyeballs so the story can grab you by the heart and squeeze.

Actually, this film attains a peculiar balance. The fight sequences are spectacular, but they aren't the whole focus. The hero has a family to mind. He inspires courage by standing up for his people’s honor in the face of almost certain death. And leaves the quislings quivering in their boots.

The best part? This story is true. (Mostly.)

108 minutes.

IMDb #220 Review: The King's Speech (2010)

Source: Wikipedia

As the British English royal family loses the power to command beheadings and Parliament gains the power to further impede legislation, newfangled radio technology connects tea-sipping British subjects worldwide. (Coincidence? Evidence says–yes, certainly.)

Even in the early twentieth century, the Windsors existed to make public appearances and live in staggering luxury. And sometimes to give speeches, to "speak for the people."

Bertie, Duke of York and son of King George V, stammers something terrible. He’s tried every speech therapist except the one on the movie poster. Finally, he gives in and tries a failed actor’s “unorthodox and controversial” methods. These include tongue twisters, shouting out of windows, swearing fits, listening to music, and discussing his miserable royal childhood.

Inhibited by his stiff upper lip, Bertie quits. Several times. Unfortunately, as you might have guessed by the title, his father has the audacity to shuffle off this mortal coil. A plethora of undesirable circumstances plop the crown in Bertie’s lap. Worse, World War II pokes its helmeted head around the corner to say “Guten tag.”

Then it’s back to elocution lessons/remedial psychotherapy.

Public speaking is feared more than death, according to specious claims lacking citations. No. Reluctant speakers fear flubbing, looking dumb in front of people. But Bertie stares failure full in the face to see who blinks first. At first it’s a toss-up, because anthropomorphic personifications of abstract concepts lack eyelids, but King Bertie gains ground, along with the whole British empire.

Which gives little excuse to us mere civilians with self-diagnosed social anxiety disorder.

118 minutes.

IMDb #221 Review: Notorious (1947)

Source: Wikipedia

At last, film noir starring the femme fatale. The stone-hearted private dick (this time a G-man snoop) takes a backseat, mostly to create romantic tension for our lovely drunken floozy.

The Americanized daughter of a Nazi officer, she receives a special job:

• Take a Brazilian vacation on Uncle Sam’s dime.
• Hook up with some Nazi expatriates (ahem: German businessmen), maybe seduce one or two, stoke up an old flame.
• Finally, report every seemingly inconsequential detail to the fedora-toting CIA spooks who just happened to follow her down.

On what motivation? To demonstrate her patriotism (veiled threat intentional). Also, to show her spontaneous love/infatuation for aforementioned G-man snoop, who fortunately happens to be devilishly handsome. Her new German fiance is notably less so.

When the twitterpated dummkopf wakes from his honeymoon daze, he makes a shocking revelation ripped straight out of Third Reich men’s magazines: "Oh sheiße, I married an American spy!"

As if the gal’s recurrent interactions with the suspicious-as-hell American Adonis weren't evidence enough. Her unlucky hubby should thank Hitler’s ghost he lives with his canny old mother, despite his own obscene wealth and scary Nazi refugee buddies who drop in for schnapps.

Alfred Hitchcock captures the war aftermath the best way he knows how: a genre movie with all the trappings. Snippy speeches about love; suspense from repeated near-discoveries; posh dinner parties; and so, so much infidelity. There are hints at the potential of Nazi nukes, foreshadowing the Cold War’s baby steps and the subsequent arms race. But, like the Cold War, after ages and ages of mounting tension, the movie just…ends.

Like so.

101 minutes.

IMDb #222 Review: The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Source: Wikipedia

Contrary to ever World War II movie ever made, evil didn't evaporate forever with the demise of Hitler and/or Hirohito. People still suck.

Case in point: in the 1950s, the French occupy Algeria in North Africa. The Arabs want the French to leave, the French want to stay. It gets bad. So bad you almost want to root for the terrorists.

We follow a delinquent draft-dodger who unwittingly bumbles into leading the National Liberation Front.

These Arab terrorists bomb the French. In retaliation, the French institute checkpoints, blockades, propaganda.  Undeterred, the Arab ghetto harbors fugitives, goes on strike, and ululates. The unofficial war escalates into full-blown violence.

Hollywood loves explosions, but war-torn Africa isn't Hollywood. Bombs don’t make pretty fireballs; they create clouds of dust and rubble and maimed corpses. (The gore here never becomes gruesome, but it doesn't need to.)

The minimalist soundtrack reflects the situation. Low piano notes plunk like distant dynamite, drums click in regular rapid tempo like machine gun fire. And despite all the repetitive noise, nothing really goes anywhere.

The film drifts in a moral gray area, not just because it’s shot in black and white. The French are World War II veterans, and the Arabs are rabid underdogs. As the rebel ranks dwindle, the survivors suffer alone and persevere. As one character says, revolutions are hard to start, harder to sustain, and hardest to win.

A difficult watch, but oddly inspirational, the same way Greek tragedies and reality TV marathons make us want to become better people. Or should, anyhow.

Recommended for Arab haters (for some perspective), Francophiles (for more perspective), and the poor dupes who pray the U.N. will save us all.

120 minutes.

IMDb #223 Review: Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Source: Wikipedia

Biological abominations performing mundane factory duties shouldn't be this entertaining, let alone family friendly. Leave it to Pixar.

Okay. So these self-identified monsters live in a parallel world just like ours, except for the parts that aren't. The population spans a staggering range of shapes and sizes and color combinations, yet everyday objects appear designed for the relatively humanoid. Human things are just tweaked to look more monstrous. Moreover, clothes seem optional.

The urban economy depends on actors who go through interdimensional portals made of wood and metal and rubber tubes.

Why? To harvest the negative emotions of human children which fuel their technological society. Because of course.

All this offbeat weirdness blends into a sensational symphony of the instantly relatable and unquestionably bizarre. Human names, human events, human social situations, but cloaked in a luxuriously animated monster metropolis.

Oh right, the story. It's great stuff. The gentle giant and bigmouth bipedal eyeball are the top in the scaring business. Then, via shenanigans, a human toddler escapes into their world. A reverse monster movie ensues. Blah blah unmitigated brilliance.

Turns out the girl isn't toxic like the monsters think, but she exhibits typical toddler attributes. She babbles incoherently (yet coherently enough to communicate); she transforms intelligent adults into gibbering morons (did they all legitimately fall for that disguise); and might possess the superpower of teleportation.

Scrambling for an easy solution to an unexpected child (there is none), the well-meaning heroes stumble upon corporate corruption and pragmatic atrocities. It can happen.

At the apex of their genius phase, Pixar creates yet another enormously complex world. Even better, they make it comprehensible and slick-paced and legitimately funny. Every hair, tentacle, and snowflake oozes obsession to detail.

Why yes, I’m raving. Carry on with your doubtlessly fascinating lives. Which would be even more doubtlessly fascinating with adorkable monsters.

92 minutes.

IMDb #224 Review: Rocky (1976)

Source: Wikipedia

As a boxing parallel to his own career, Sly Stallone slugs and slurs through the ultimate underdog story. A pet project that Stallone nearly had to sell his dog to pay for, Rocky charts the inspirational metamorphosis of a total loser into a triumphant loser (with a girlfriend).

Before he became a bloated caricature of his early opponents, the Italian Stallion beat the snot out of fellow nobodies for petty cash. Loan shark debt collector by day, punching bag by night. A champ for chump change.

He rambles about his woes to his pet turtles, the shy pet shop girl, the gravel-voiced gym manager, or his weaselly meat-locker buddy. Anybody who’ll pretend to listen.

Then an opportunity plunks in his oversize lap. Thanks to fortuitous embuggerances, the world heavyweight champion challenges Rocky Balboa for a shot at the title.

Enough endearingly clumsy thirty-something romance. Enough intentionally clunky comedy. Enough depressing footage of grubby Philadelphia. There’s an American dream to pursue.

It’s easy to forget the difficulty of the transformation. Before Rocky had a statue on the art museum steps — before the mother of all training montages — the first run began around 4 a.m., 28 degrees Fahrenheit in a Pennsylvanian December. Not fun. But necessary.

The contrast between the contestants is spectacular. Apollo imports his personal barber, reserves ringside seats, funds advertising, orders flowers for the mayor’s wife. Rocky punches raw meat.

The goal isn’t to win. It’s to prove himself, to "go the distance," whatever that might mean. Which Sly does, beautifully.

Recommended for anonymous urbanites, dejected southpaws, and single gals who (contrary to Hollywood opinion) still look plenty fine in horn-rimmed glasses.

119 minutes.

IMDb #225 Review: Memories of Murder (2003)

Source: Wikipedia

Being a detective sucks anywhere in the world. Welcome to South Korean mid-eighties true crime, which translates to:

1. It’s not North American.
2. It’s gruesome, grueling, frustrating, and crushingly depressing.
3. Typewriters, tape recorders, rotary dial phones, and godawful CRT-TV resolution remind us that technology evolves but people remain morons and/or bastards.

The tagline -- “The true story of an unsolved crime under military dictatorship” -- should have been the first sign we weren't in for a barrel of laughs. That, or the opening shot of a girl dead in a ditch. Or the cops torturing a mentally retarded man to get a confession, though admittedly the tone was difficult to define due to the nonexistent soundtrack.

Not a happy story.

As spoiled by the tagline: expect zero closure. Escapists beware.

A rural police department tracks down a bad boy who likes to rape and strangle pretty girls. For a personal touch, he stashes various objects inside their body cavities. Like peach slices. In their, uh, peach slices.

Totally stumped, the detectives import a hotshot young detective from Seoul. This college-educated upstart introduces such revolutionary tactics as DNA testing, interviewing instead of torturing potential suspects, and reasoning from extant evidence.

Local cops ain’t down with that. They prefer the tried-and-true methods. Namely, relying on intuition to pick which suspect to torture for a confession. Conflicting tactics result in a clash of departmental priorities. But maybe the factions are more alike than they think. After months and months of failure, the easy way out looks more and more tempting.

Being cops, the sort-of-heroes process a revolving door of disturbing characters, who may or may not have anything to do with the case. Battered witnesses, likewise.

For Western viewers, there’s an exotic setting. Karaoke, chopsticks, ear-cleaning, and Korean barbecue allay the depressing madness with learning about another culture. Unfortunately, we also learn their humans are just as flawed as ours.

Recommended for free-roaming psychopaths, closeted necrophiliacs, and the twisted masochists who lap up gritty realistic police procedurals.

127 minutes.

IMDb #226 Review: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Source: Wikipedia

You just can't make some shit up.

Like the guys who robbed a New York City bank to pay for the leader’s boyfriend’s sex change operation. Well, try to rob a bank. Spoiler alert: it's harder than it looks in the movies. Anything can and will go wrong.

Consummate character actor Al Pacino plays a disgruntled Brooklynite with a hot head and a soft heart. Despite his best-laid plans and banking know-how, Murphy’s Law deals him a doozy. One partner chickens out. The other gets antsy. The cops show up, then the TV guys. The hostages gripe. The AC unit conks out, drenching them in the dead heat of August.

Tensions escalate.

The cops drag in people to talk him down. His chatty chubby wife; his frizzy neurotic man-wife Leon; his doting but delusional mother. All to no avail — our anti-hero screams and swears and sweats it out.

The suspense is exhilarating, exhausting. The dialogue is raw. It all feels unbelievably real. (Fitting, because it was.)

For analytic critics, there’s plenty of fodder ripe for interpretation. A critique of capitalism that drove a man to crime. A mockery of fame worship, exemplified by the pizza boy ecstatic about being on TV. A lower-class mistrust of civic authority, represented by the public disdain of police and adoration of these gun-toting maniacs. Or a sympathetic depiction of closeted gays in the seventies.

Or, you know, a fictional analogue of a real event, with no hidden message except entertainment and madness and whatever underlying meaning you attach to reality.

Recommended for any hopeless soul who feels trapped in a stifling marriage or job or gender, any dashing desperado brave and/or dumb enough to risk everything to get shot in the face.

125 minutes.

IMDb #227 Review: Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)

Source: Wikipedia

Bollywood's spin on The Godfather? Took you demented geniuses long enough.

From the 1940s to the present day, three generations of three warring families struggle to control the titular shithole cities of Wasseypur, Dhanbad, etc.

Metaphorical dominoes knock each other down until they go nuclear and vaporize the game room. The blood feud begins as rebellion of mistreated coal miners, then vengeance for a murdered father. This simple revenge plot proliferates into a sprawling web of lies and hate and power struggles.

Atrocities beget atrocities. Betrayals beget betrayals. Movie-making laws beget explosions and spectacular gun battles and multilingual anti-smoking PSAs.

A family servant, the meekest man in the land, narrates the decades of bloody stupidity. His wisdom goes unheeded, because every Indian story must remind us that (a) the caste system is horrible, and (b) it's not going away anytime soon.

As the war drags on, people marry, spouses cheat, mistresses bear bastard children. Those cute kids grow up into raging assholes. Actually, the children suffer most, not just from ridiculous names like Definite and Perpendicular. No, the children cannot escape the quagmire of crime life, nor the obligation to avenge dead family. Attempts at revenge or restitution fail. A Romeo and Juliet union yields unsurprising results.

Source: Wikipedia

The legions of characters might overwhelm you. Good thing they die off so quickly you can keep pace with the survivors.

Because it's Bollywood, there are melodramatic musical numbers, but sung in the background, because this is serious cinema. Fortunately, the lyrics are lurid, violent, and profanely hilarious to degrees that'd leave American censor boards gibbering similarly insane obscenities. ("Dark skin, darker heart" -- "My bullets will rape every pore of your body, my friend" -- "All hail my assholiness." Seriously, who thinks up this shit? Is this the feeling you creatures call love?)

Strangely enough, in an unexpected metafictional commentary, the principal antagonist/deuteragonist attributes his success to not watching Bollywood movies. Because cinephiles believe themselves the heroes of their own stories, thus untouchable by death. The main story supports this hypothesis. A raid occurs when the extended family has gathered to watch a soap opera. Characters attend movies as a distraction from significant plot events. And having a shrill-voiced Bollywood ringtone practically indicates a death sentence.

After fifty years of gang wars and five hours in real time, the cumulative catharsis from the climactic shootout might physically reduce you to a puddle of goo. But an immensely satisfied puddle, because the payoff is glorious.

Part 1: 160 minutes.

Part 2: 159 minutes.

IMDb #228 Review: La Haine (1995)

Source: Wikipedia

Initial impressions tend to set the tone of a film, like smashing a champagne bottle on the hull of a new ship. But sometimes the glass lacerates your poor clumsy hand and the alcohol seeps into your wounds and while everybody’s clapping and cheering, you’re screaming your head off.

In English, La Haine means “Hate.” As in, “Hate breeds hate.”

This film starts off with the broken bottle at your throat and doesn’t let up. How does it begin?

• As a black-and-white French movie from 1995.
• Grainy riot footage interspersed with opening credits in New Courier font.
• A dedication “to friends and family who died while it was in the making." Holy crap.

Put 'em together, and what have we got? A grim urban funk-fest not even Bob Marley’s “Burnin and Lootin” can dispel.

With the plain horror of an expository documentary, we sample a slice of nineteen hours in the lives of three angry young men from the Parisian ghettos (banlieues). And what a harrowing slice. Stark depictions of crime, drugs, guns, poverty, boredom, and manly flexing in front of bathroom mirrors.

The three friends -- a Jew, an Arab, and a black guy -- sound like the setup to a bad joke, which they are, courtesy of the cruel universe.

These guys bum around from crash pad to rooftop party to crime scene. Their neighborhood crackles with tension, since a recent riot put a buddy in the hospital. Worse, if their buddy dies, cops are gonna die. An officer’s revolver has disappeared, and reappears in a main characters itchy, twitchy trigger fingers.

Prejudice, brutality, and obscenities proliferate on all sides of the law. Tempers flare, tensions surge to violent climax.

And just when you think you’re done -- so far, so good -- the ending busts you in the jaw.

Not exactly propaganda from the Parisian tourist department.

98 minutes.

IMDb #229 Review: Night of the Hunter (1955)

Source: Wikipedia

Dear hypothetical girls of the Internet:

If your significant other should die with ten thousand ill-gotten dollars missing, don't trust the first amicable stranger that ambles into town. Just don't. And definitely don't marry the creep you've known for one day, even if you're lonely, or he's charming, or your pinhead friends nag you. Even if he says he's a preacher, and makes a damn good show of it too.

Because that means you might be in a Southern grotesque. A genre fueled by human nastiness, sustained by gullible morons.

Admittedly, the reverent cuts an impressive figure, amidst all the cutting throats. He sports L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattoos on his knuckles. In his resonant baritone, he preaches the dominance of L-O-V-E over H-A-T-E. His busy switchblade hints otherwise. Because underneath his spiffy Sunday suit, he harbors a festering conscience-shaped hole in his soul.

In case this character retained any ambivalence, his presence is announced onscreen by dramatic horn blats.

Only the dead robber's children show a lick of sense. Because they know where the money's hidden. It doesn't help that, when Mom ain't looking, the creep badgers and browbeats the brats to fork over the cash. As the mother's influence wanes, the tension tightens like a noose.

Gospel hymns have seldom sounded so ominous.

My only complaint souring the suspense: the conflict hinges on ostensibly good characters behaving like idiots, a role they cheerfully oblige. Every character may likely annoy you at some point or another. Be warned.

Also, the titular hunter might be divinely precognizant or part bloodhound; and neither option strikes me as theologically reassuring.

Recommended to comfort poor widows, and to scare straight the heedless masses who believe anything worded well or said by a demagogue toting a Bible.

92 minutes.

IMDb #230 Review: Barry Lyndon (1975)

Source: Wikipedia

When the opening credits play George Frederick Handel’s Sarabande in D minor and display “Part I: By What Means Redmond Barry Acquired the Style And Title Of Barry Lyndon” in big loopy letters, you know you’re in for a fun ride.

Fate kicks around a wee Irish sprat. Decades whiz by, kids grow up into new actors, while the star stays the same. Friends appear and disappear, money pours in and evaporates. In short, we see the random events that direct one kid’s bizarre life bouncing through Europe.

Sadly, hardship transmutes this naif into a knave.

How much do you enjoy anti-heroes? Because I spent half the runtime cursing the frigging idiot, the rest wondering why we’re supposed to pull for this dick-basket.

Fortunately, it’s a period piece. You know what that means. Costumes! Wigs! Sets! Historically accurate props! Accents! (I wasn’t alive then, but it sure looks convincing enough.)

Also, people back then seemed much cooler…about dying horribly. Duels at ten paces — not even turning around, just taking turns, standing there and waiting to get plugged. And battle tactics — marching in straight lines, firing right at the big fat targets. Not to mention lead-based face powder, which the movie doesn’t address, but features prominently.

And characters act surprised when major players snuff it.

I can see why critics complain Kubrick is cold. Barry Lyndon is an ice bath: upsetting, then refreshing, but it feels the best when you stop and towel off.

Recommended for readers nostalgic for eighteenth-century novels (in which case, GET OFF MY INTERNET), classical music snobs, and voluntary human targets.

182 minutes.

IMDb #231 Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2013)

Source: Wikipedia

Among the deluge of comic book movies, few make it into the Top 250. This one squeaks in thanks to its star-studded cast, Nazism parallels, and tight-blue-bodysuit Jennifer Lawrence. (Don’t fret, fella-fanciers; for your needs, there’s a certain Huge Jacked Man.)

In a generically bleak dystopia, mighty morphing power-copying robots rule the world from needlessly coffin-shaped dropships.

A handful of marketable X-Men survive. The bald prof in the floaty chair invokes a time travel plot: send everyone’s favorite angry Canadian back to the 1970s to fix the future. Like Terminator, with better acting and even more man-service.

So Wolverine, our pointy-haired mascot, transitions from grim-dark future to seventies funkitude, all to save a stuffy rich dwarf in big glasses.

In the meantime, he’s gotta:

• Rescue the not-yet-bald prof from a heroin metaphor. 
• Rescue his on-again/off-again nemesis Magneto from a plastic prison (with help from a super-speedy teen who could solve the plot if he weren’t a flaming douche). 
• Rescue a shape-shifting blue girl before she unwittingly kills everyone. 

In short, stop the world from imploding due to speciesism.

Actually, it’s a huge job, but holy balls, the movie delivers. It breaks out the most special effects (kitchen scene, train scene, stadium scene, etc.), the smartest script, the highest stakes, plus a complimentary dose of political intrigue.

Better yet, the story logically meshes the first X-Men trilogy with the reboot, to glorious results. Using mutant versus giant robot battles. Pretty frigging sweet.

Recommended for everybody–for long-term fans, why are you still reading? Watch it.

IMDb #232 Review: The Truman Show (1998)

Source: Wikipedia

In this parallel dimension, Hollywood engineers burn mountains of money to produce a 24/7 TV show about Jim Carrey’s perfectly normal life in the most perfectly boring town in America. Worse, the poor dolt is the only one not in on it. Worst of all, it’s a hit.

How the mundane exploits of a random schmuck capture a worldwide audience is never discussed. Nor how the showrunners keep the show entertaining when Truman’s asleep or defecating (24/7, right?). Nor how anybody could create and sustain an artificial island community under a dome right next to the Hollywood sign.

How’d anybody think this was a good idea? Actually, I’d watch a movie about the pitching process behind The Truman Show.

Once you cease tearing your hair out at the premise (or run out of hair) ... it’s a pretty good flick.

When a guy finds out his life is a lie, he flips out. Understandably so. As the auteur director says: the world is false, but his emotions are real.

Like an insular religious community, they’ve controlled his education, social circles, career, marriage…and they won’t let him leave. His escape attempts escalate in desperation. The director's megalomania break into Orwellian territory and beyond.

Watching the facade crumble is oddly satisfying, though not as much as seeing Jim Carrey struggle to under-react for a change. Interestingly, the way to break the system is to behave erratically. So, to be free, Truman must become…Jim Carrey.

Infer your own satire of our television-saturated culture.

Recommended for seemingly ordinary insurance adjusters, extreme method actors, and closeted solipsists.

IMDb #233 Review: A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Source: Wikipedia

Jerks massacred in the ass-end of nowhere, The Movie!

Clint Eastwood stars as The Man with No Name, the silver screen's favorite squinch-faced, cigar-chomping mass-murderer. Our scruffy serial killer wanders into a blood-soaked little rathole called San Miguel. At best it's a loose conglomeration of planks and adobe, but the town harbors two rival smuggler gangs.

Here it's crooked sheriff versus legitimate crooks, Americans versus Mexicans, gun boss versus booze boss.

ENTER: our boy Clint, machismo made flesh, to stir up the metaphorical pot.

He provokes the feuding families to fight each other, likely to milk both for the titular fistfuls of dollars, most likely to amuse himself. Never rushing, never struggling, never panicking. Clint just oozes, like tar in a smoker’s lung. He protects the innocent (enough people to count on half a hand) and grimly dispatches the rest.

And the grand finale predictably culminates in a macho standoff between hero and villain, whiskers versus mustache, Colt. 45 revolver versus Winchester rifle. The result? Predictably glorious.

EXEUNT: all.

The action screams classic. By that I mean, old. Expendable extras die dramatically, often bloodlessly. It’s easy to knock people out with a bop on the noggin or a slap on the cheek. Sadly, amid the fake punches, explosions, and old-school gunshot effects, there’s a tragic absence of the Wilhelm scream. Missed opportunity. They compensate for this oversight with plenty of piss-poor lip-synching.

One last word. If Clint paints the picture of the Western, Ennio Morricone’s score creates the sound and soul. Flutes, whistles, plunking piano, twanging guitar — the music gives life to the universe, making the ridiculous slaughter entertaining if not believable.

Recommended for gun nerds firearms historians, spaghetti [western] slurpers, and worshippers of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (#107).

IMDb #234 Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Source: Wikipedia

What's this? A jolly good romp based on a Disney World theme park ride, that's what.

Pretty people shoot ugly ones who don’t die because of gold coins cursed by Aztec gods, who apparently exist and are pissed and never show up in the story so who cares.

Anyway.

The Caribbean, eighteenth century. Two awkward kids grow up into awkward adults, one obsessed with pirates and another obsessed with not being a pirate. There’s some subplot about unrequited love and political marriage and the health hazards of modern fashion, but that’s unimportant except to tween girls.

Disney knows why we’re here.

Explosions! Sword fights! PG-13 hijinks! Hans Zimmer-esque action/study music!

The plot sails briskly over choppy waters, plowing through contrived coincidences and logical leaps. Snappy writing, solid structure, and ingenious callbacks slice through the whitecaps of cracking good storytelling, till this overburdened barge of a franchise strikes the iceberg of artistic prostitution and sinks to the murky depths of mediocrity.

Overblown metaphors aside, Johnny Depp’s Keith Richards impersonation steals the spotlight and pawns it at twice the wholesale value. If you’ve paid attention to popular culture for the past decade, you might have seen this character in other Johnny Depp movies, as tepid copies of undiluted eccentric genius. The original remains the best.

Also, thanks to unusually bright moonlight, we’re privy to a history lesson in turn-of-the-millennium CGI. Why the computer-animated dead have eyeballs remains unexplained. To market toys? (Here, Little Jimmy, now you can play "Skeleton Pirate Abbot & Costello disemboweling British Regular Abbot & Costello!" Fun for the whole Manson Family!)

Ignore the sequels. This one holds up.

143 minutes.