Try Harder

I’ve been pretty out-of-the-loop as to which films the kids are talkin’ about these days… but for whatever reason, one film has awkwardly wedged its way into several conversations with an alarming frequency in my social life. The film in question: The Human Centipede. Unfortunately for me, The Human Centipede happens to be one of maybe four 2010 cinema releases I’ve actually seen, thanks to a misguided recommendation (thanks, Mike!). From these conversations, I’ve gathered that most people haven’t actually wasted the hour-and-a-half I have but likely viewed the trailer or read Roger Ebert’s zero-star review of it. Yet every time I give my look of disgust at its mention, I notice the faces of the people I’m talking to morph into a look of depraved elation. “You’ve seen it?? Is it totally gross?”

Maybe I’ve officially grown out of the phase when one enjoys grotesque films, but I don’t understand how anyone–whether you’ve grown out of that phase or not–derived any amusement from The Human Centipede. If you know the premise, you’ve pretty much seen the film. The simple idea of the human centipede is enough to either nauseate or perversely excite you, and watching the film will do little to change those sensations… unless of course you were expecting anything more. The Human Centipede is an artless film, which isn’t in itself a bad thing, but it is nothing more than a simple disgusting thought turned into a humorless ninety-minute test of one’s patience. Subtext, allegory, motive and tension are all woefully absent, but so is the sort of bloodlust and iniquity that The Human Centipede’s target audience would expect.

I doubt my disgust in The Human Centipede will sway anyone in either direction. The most I can hope for, I suppose, is that the sorry individuals who will make the same mistake I did will share my sentiments and demand more from their trash cinema.

For the love of Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park III
2001
USA
Dir: Joe Johnston

When it comes to Hollywood movie franchises, there always seems to be bizarre patterns of success involved. For anything starring Jason Statham, the second incarnation always stands above the others (I know this to be true of The Transporter, but I’ve heard from various, reputable folks that this is also true of Crank). For a number of the trashy horror chronicles, the Jason Statham rule also proves true (see Final Destination or Rob Zombie’s Halloween… also, outside of the horror genre, the X-Men films), but conversely there’s also the 1 and 3 rule, which applies to two of Wes Craven’s series: the original Nightmare on Elm Streets and Screams (you can argue against Scream 3 being good, certainly, but it’s hard to say it isn’t at least somewhat of an improvement over the 2nd). After indulging for the first time in the third of its series, I would contest that the Jurassic Park series (I’d say trilogy, but I’ve heard another one is in the works) falls into the 1-3 rule, though I know neither of its sequels are held in particularly high regard.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park will always be a notoriously memorable viewing experience for me or, in other words, one that marked a special turning point in my youth. The summer movie season of 1997 will be remembered best as the summer where I first recall truly loathing films of any sort, though it seems hard now to imagine that I was ever “easy to please.” The epic disappointment of The Lost World in May was quickly followed by the colossal disgust of Batman & Robin. Hollywood, for the first time I can remember, has failed this thirteen-year-old with their embarrassing sequels to films I had thoroughly enjoyed during my childhood. Needless to say (perhaps), I decided against seeing Jurassic Park III at 17, already fully jaded, expectedly angsty and unjustifiably haughty; I do know a few of my friends got really stoned and laughed their way through it, but I think I was even “too cool” to get high at that age.

The decision to watch Jurassic Park III nine years later proved to be a fortuitous one. I don’t think that sober, snotty seventeen-year-old would have been half as amused by its ridiculousness (or by the great Téa Leoni!) as this twenty-six-year-old admirer of the low-low-brow was. Like the hilarious and peculiar consistency in which Nicolas Cage has been playing characters with money troubles, Sam Neill returns to the series as Dr. Alan Grant after skipping out on The Lost World and gets tricked into returning to the dinosaur-infested island by a couple of zeroes and a dollar sign (well, as he points out at some point in the film, it’s a neighboring island from the one in the first film, one that’s become overtaken by wild dinosaurs). He’s tricked by a bumbling pair of loons–played by William H. Macy and Téa Leoni (whose hair was clearly styled by the world’s most dedicated Chynna Phillips fan)–whose son (Trevor Morgan) has gone missing on the island after a hang-gliding disaster with the teacher who fucks Reese Witherspoon in Election, who I believe is supposed to be Leoni’s new husband but looks convincingly enough like the town pederast. That the guy from Election shows up, not to mention Laura Dern in a thankless cameo, makes sense when you see Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor’s names appear in the end credits as co-writers. Unlike a lot of other writer-for-hire jobs, Payne and Taylor’s involvement isn’t mysterious or lost in translation, as their contribution can be seen entirely in Macy and Leoni’s characters, who appear to have been magically transported from a very different movie about goofy, bickering exes who inevitably fall back in love with each other. (In a perfect world, Dern would have reprised her role as Ruth Stoops instead of Dr. Ellie Sattler and been cosmically transported into Jurassic Park III).

All of the big dinosaur attacks, once Neill lands on the island with his protégé Alessandro Nivola and the Macy/Leoni odd couple, resemble little of what happens in the first two films, as new director Joe Johnston (the man responsible for such gems as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, The Pagemaster, Jumanji and most recently The Wolfman) shows more of an affinity for the Turok video games than the filmmaker he’d worked under for years. As is always the case for sequels, the stakes are higher, which here translates as the black guy getting offed earlier than he usually would (it takes a little longer for Michael Jeter to bite it). Of course, Macy and Leoni’s far-fetched-in-the-real-world but sure-to-be-true-in-the-movie-land notion that their child is still alive proves true, and of course, the kid is magnetically drawn to the otherwise misanthropic Dr. Grant… and thankfully isn’t half as irritating as the two writer’s contrivances that pass as Richard Attenborough’s grandchildren in the first film (the children of neurotic parents always turn out a lot saner than usual in movies, don’t they?).

At just ninety minutes, Jurassic Park III’s climax smells like the trenchant cocktail of screenplay revisions and budget-cuts, but that’s hardly a setback. Jurassic Park III provides more entertainment than it ever should have; placing a bunch of respectable actors in the broken back half of a jet that’s being tossed around and smashed by a dinosaur has never been a bad idea in my mind, and when those actors happen to be a desperate Sam Neill, a hot Alessandro Nivola, a mustache-donning William H. Macy and Téa Leoni (no adjective needed), I’m sold.

All three Jurassic Park films are available on DVD from Universal everywhere; Blu-rays have yet to come out for any of them.

Thanx, HFP

Embarrassment and/or trainwreck just about sum up the past evening's Golden Globes telecast, which generally unraveled like a slightly more lubricated version of The People's Choice Awards. Every once in a while the Hollywood Foreign Press surprises with a noteworthy, maybe unexpected winner, like Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky or Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but tonight again placed the Globes at the punchline of an easy joke I never mind hearing. While Michael Haneke's win in the Foreign category for The White Ribbon was certainly well-deserved, the description of the rest of the ceremony as a "popularity contest" is pretty dead-on, with the top film honors bestowed upon James Cameron, his Avatar and Todd Phillips' The Hangover (both the highest domestic gross-ers of their respective categories). Toss Sandra Bullock (over Helen Mirren, mind you), Sherlock Holmes, Julie & Julia (though Ms. Streep's speech was expectedly lovely) and Mo'Nique, and you've got yourself one lame-ass awards show. Aside from Christoph Waltz and Jeff Bridges (I haven't seen Crazy Heart), I'd be plenty happy to not have to hear any of the Globe winners' names read when the Oscars nominations are announced on 2 February. At least it won't take much for the Oscars to not grate as hard (as they usually do) this year.

Millennium Mambo, Part 5

Glenn Kenny amends his own "70 Greatest Films of the Decade" by adding another 30, because, as he says, "my best-of-the-decade list of 70 slighted (inevitably, I insist) at least two dozen other worthy works, if not more, I hereby consider my readers' suggestions, and my own memory lapses, and give you thirty more outstanding motion pictures of the last decade." Check his site for the additional 30, but I was happy to see the inclusion of Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, Neil Marshall's The Descent, Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon and Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu.

The Onion's A.V. Club rolled out their second '00 list with "The Best Bad Movies of the '00s." Some of the obvious losers (The Happening, Battlefield Earth) made the list, as well as a few surprises (hello, The Perfect Man!). You can indulge in all the schadenfreude here, but keep in mind, they had to make the tough decision of narrowing down all the terrible Nicolas Cage and Uwe Boll films down to one a piece. That in itself could fill all 15 slots (I think, I'm not going to bother checking).

The Decade List: La terza madre (2007)

La terza madre [Mother of Tears] – dir. Dario Argento

Nearly 30 years late, Dario Argento, once the maestro of gialli and gothic horror during the 1970s, completed his Three Mothers trilogy, which began with his beloved Suspiria in '77 and Inferno in '80. But is this really what we’ve been waiting for? Bearing little resemblance to either of the previous Mother films and utilizing as little skill as possible in every respect, it’s hard not to wonder what happened to Argento. Where did the beautiful cinematography, lush visuals and vanguard cinema tricks go? In Mother of Tears, they're ousted by something that strangely resembles a made-for-TV movie or, at its worst, a Full Moon direct-to-video release. Did Argento lose it or is he just letting someone else do the "tricks" for him? I could waste my time pondering or even bemoan what happened to such a fine director, but instead, I'll just celebrate the emergence of a new Dario Argento, a man more concerned with hilarious inanity and a vivacious lack of class (not that he ever really exuded much) than effective horror.

Certainly the thought crossed my mind that this might be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen at the helm of a once-respected auteur, but howling bursts of laughter quickly silenced that thought, and I'm not embellishing. Whether this exuberant hilarity is intentional or not doesn't matter, and whether it successfully closes the long open-ended Three Mothers trilogy becomes a remote argument.

Now, with every great cinematic disaster, there’s always the unfortunate casualty, and in Mother of Tears, it’s the director’s poor daughter Asia, whose emanatory humiliation is matched only by her disorientation. Being terribly miscast in daddy’s The Stendhal Syndrome sort of made sense, but by now, after working with some of contemporary cinema’s finest directors (Catherine Breillat, Gus Van Sant, Abel Ferrara, Bertrand Bonello, Tony Gatlif), the younger Argento has graduated from nepotistic roles in her father’s declining oeuvre. If her gratuitous shower scene wasn’t weird enough, her dead mother is played by her actual mother, Daria Nicolodi. Nicolodi did write Suspiria in addition to providing the voice of Mater Suspiriarum, but she too seems to not really give a fuck how the trilogy concluded. Her spirit’s “second death” while protecting her daughter is one of the film’s big laughs. Even old friend Udo Kier, who could never be accused of “slumming,” shows up for a moment as a priest before reaching a gruesome demise; Kier also had a small role in the trilogy’s first installment.

The optimistic Dario Argento fan might come to the false conclusion that in Mother of Tears he addresses his harshest criticisms, like Lars von Trier does in Antichrist, by pushing them to their limit. Of course, I’m talking about his oft-suspected misogyny, something easily deducted from the trail of (naked) dead (attractive) women he’s left behind. In one particular scene, the robed killer massacres a lesbian couple, whose relation to the story I’ve already forgotten. More memorable than their involvement with the course of action is the giant phallic spear that’s shoved in one of their vaginas only to, naturally, come poking out her mouth. To attempt to gauge whether the dyke murders are any worse than anyone else’s in Mother of Tears would be trying to push one of your own buttons. Dario’s ability to offend his audience is on par with his capacity to derive genuine terror out of his film (which is to say, nil).

While it took him nearly three decades to unleash this Mother, the film he bestowed upon us is not the director’s way of addressing, confronting or examining… anything. Mother of Tears will likely have most fans of Suspiria and Inferno puzzled at what it is they’ve waited so long for. In leaving technical dexterity and innovative vision behind, Mother of Tears isn’t left with a lamentable void; it’s the birth of a new Dario Argento, the incongruous humorist who knows how to make bad so terribly good.

With: Asia Argento, Cristian Solimeno, Adam James, Udo Kier, Daria Nicolodi, Moran Atias, Valeria Cavalli, Jun Ichikawa, Robert Madison, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Paolo Stella
Screenplay: Jace Anderson, Dario Argento, Walter Fasano, Adam Gierasch, Simona Simonetti
Cinematography: Frederic Fasano
Music: Claudio Simonetti
Country of Origin: Italy/USA
US Distributor: Myriad Pictures/Dimension

Premiere: 6 September 2007 (Toronto Film Festival)
US Premiere: 25 April 2008 (San Francisco International Film Festival)

The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2007)

Since it was established with 2006's Worst that the Austin Butt-Numb-a-Thon, hosted by everyone's favorite troll, is a legitimate place for a film to make its world premiere, technically 300 and Black Snake Moan belong in the previous year. But 300 is such a fucking horribleterriblewretched film that I'll just leave it with the '07s for now. Black Snake Moan, however, doesn't even register on the shit list when compared to that garbage I once heard referred to as "gay porn for soccer moms," but it sucks enough on its own, outside of one nicely edited music sequence.

This list does beg the question: which breed of bad movie is worse? The obvious abortions (I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Good Luck Chuck) or the respected-foreign-auteur-remakes-himself-in-some-form-or-another-for-his-English-language-debut (My Blueberry Nights, Funny Games U.S.)? It was a real lousy year for both Wong Kar-wai and Michael Haneke, whose '07 offerings reeked of not just complacency but utter laziness. Neither could be accused of losing artistic control as a result of Hollywood's over-the-shoulder glare as both were multinational productions, receiving quite a bit of funding from the French in addition to their native countries. They had otherwise respectable English-speaking actors on board, who either did their usual schtick (Naomi Watts) or just embarrassed themselves completely (Rachel Weisz).

Thankfully, Haneke has recovered from the injury of Funny Games U.S., which was one of the major failures that eventually shut down Warner Independent, with his creepy, elegant Palme d'Or winner The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band]. Wong has yet to truly follow My Blueberry Nights up (Ashes of Time Redux doesn't count), though he has reteamed with Tony Leung for 2010's Bruce Lee/martial arts "biopic" The Grand Master, rumored to also star Gong Li and an out-of-retirement Brigitte Lin.

Some lingering questions/thoughts about a few of the titles below. 1.) Why do my parents insist on watching that manipulative drivel August Rush every time its on television (which can sometimes be thrice daily)? 2.) Aside from Assayas' demonlover (and probably The Wizard, but for altogether different reasons), most films that visually incorporate video games are going to blow (w/r/t Ben X, and possibly its upcoming American remake if that's still in production). 3.) Jodie Foster < style="font-weight: bold;">Diary of the Dead? It retains none of the qualities that made his previous zombie films (even Land of the Dead) so enjoyable. 5.) If Dragon Wars had extended that big Los Angeles destruction scene into its full running time, you might have seen it appear on the actual Decade List (as long as they axed poor Robert Forster in the process).

6.) Lots of nudity apparently does not make a horrible movie that much more tolerable (w/r/t the Uschi Obermaier biopic Eight Miles High). 7.) In the past 10 years, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre received a crappy US remake, a crappier US prequel and a wonderful in-spirit-only French take in Fabrice Du Welz's Calvaire; so why bother with something as lousy as Frontière(s)? 8.) Was anyone else deeply disturbed by Dawn Wiener's death scene in Hostel: Part 2? I've already forgotten the specifics of everything else about the movie, but that scene... I can't get rid of. 9.) I should look up and see what other films were in the running for the Caméra d'Or at the '07 Cannes Film Festival, because there had to be something better than Jellyfish playing that year. 10.) The list has a number of "comedies" that didn't pull a single laugh out of me: Good Luck Chuck, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Mr. Woodcock, Molière, Kiss the Bride, Starrbooty and The Ten. I'm pretty sure I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry belongs on that list, but I can vouch that the others didn't provoke even a smirk out of me.

- 300 - d. Zack Snyder - USA [also here]
- August Rush - d. Kirsten Sheridan - USA
- Ben X - d. Nic Balthazar - Belgium/Netherlands
- Beowulf - d. Robert Zemeckis - USA
- Black Snake Moan - d. Craig Brewer - USA
- The Brave One - d. Neil Jordan - USA/Australia
- City of Men [Cidade dos Homens] - d. Paulo Morelli - Brazil
- Diary of the Dead - d. George A. Romero - USA
- Dragon Wars [D-War] - d. Shim Hyung-rae - South Korea
- Eight Miles High [Das wilde Leben] - d. Achim Bornhak - Germany
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age - d. Shekhar Kapur - UK/France/Germany
- Frontier(s) [Frontière(s)] - d. Xavier Gens - France/Switzerland
- Funny Games U.S. - d. Michael Haneke - France/UK/Austria/Germany/USA/Italy [also here]
- Good Luck Chuck - d. Mark Helfrich - USA
- Hannah Takes the Stairs - d. Joe Swanberg - USA
- Happily N'Ever After - d. Paul Bolger, Yvette Kaplan - USA/Germany
- Hostel: Part 2 - d. Eli Roth - USA
- I Can't Think Straight - d. Shamim Sarif - UK
- I Know Who Killed Me - d. Chris Sivertson - USA
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry - d. Dennis Dugan - USA
- In the Valley of Elah - d. Paul Haggis - USA
- Into the Wild - d. Sean Penn - USA [also here]
- Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - d. Jon Knautz - Canada
- Jellyfish [Les méduses] - d. Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret - Israel/France
- Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - d. Julien Temple - UK/Ireland
- Kiss the Bride - d. C. Jay Cox - USA
- Lost in Beijing - d. Li Yu - China
- Molière - d. Laurent Tirard - France
- Mr. Woodcock - d. Craig Gillespie - USA
- My Blueberry Nights - d. Wong Kar-wai - Hong Kong/France/China
- Norbit - d. Brian Robbins - USA
- The Orange Thief - d. Vinnie Angel, Boogie Dean, Arthur Wilinski - USA
- Poor Boy's Game - d. Clément Virgo - Canada
- Schoolboy Crush - d. Kôtarô Terauchi - Japan
- Sex & Breakfast - d. Miles Brandman - USA
- Starrbooty - d. Mike Ruiz - USA
- Sunshine - d. Danny Boyle - UK/USA
- Teeth - d. Mitchell Lichtenstein - USA
- The Ten - d. David Wain - USA
- Then She Found Me - d. Helen Hunt - USA

The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2006)

I've been using the IMDb as a reference for film years when compiling films for the Decade List, and while I realize the site isn't always correct, it's a lot easier than looking elsewhere to find the first official screening of Phat Girlz. However, I've run into my first altercation when using the IMDb for 2006. By their records, 300, easily one of the worst films I've ever seen, is a 2006 movie because it played at something called the Austin Butt-Numb-a-Thon in December of that year. I don't know anything about this "fest," but I'm going to go ahead and disqualify that as a legitimate "film premiere." Black Snake Moan falls under the same category.

Anyway, I have little to say about the films below, but I've included links to shit I've written on them in the past. I've placed an asterisk next to the films that have a special sort of "awful" appeal, failures of a certain charm. I haven't given all of those titles a second look to gauge their level of camp appeal, but I can assure you both Snow Cake and Notes on a Scandal rise to the occasion. Cate Blanchett asking Judi Dench, "You wanna fuck me, Barbara?" and Sigourney Weaver's hilarious performance as a woman with autism in Snow Cake (not to mention how many bad-ass points Alan Rickman lost with his schoolgirl fussiness after confronting the man who killed Sigourney's daughter) are absolutely worth wasting your time over.

- Alpha Dog - d. Nick Cassavetes - USA
- Another Gay Movie - d. Todd Phillips - USA
- Art School Confidential - d. Terry Zwigoff - USA [also here]
- Basic Instinct 2 - d. Michael Caton-Jones - USA/Germany/UK/Spain [also here]
- The Black Dahlia - d. Brian De Palma - USA/Germany [also an appendix; and here]
- Boy Culture - d. Q. Allan Brocka - USA
- Broken Sky [El cielo dividido] - d. Julián Hernández - Mexico
- The Bubble - d. Eytan Fox - Israel [Winner of the "Best Way to Revive Your Otherwise Awful Film" Award at my first, and only, Fin de cinéma awards]
- Cars - d. John Lasseter, Joe Ranft - USA
- Confetti - d. Debbie Isitt - UK
- Cowboy Junction - d. Gregory Christian - USA
- Dans Paris - d. Christophe Honoré - France/Portugal
- Dirty Sanchez: The Movie - d. Jim Hickey - UK
- Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds - d. Phillip J. Bartell - USA
- Eternal Summer - d. Leste Chen - Taiwan
- Factory Girl - d. George Hickenlooper - USA
- For Your Consideration - d. Christopher Guest - USA [also here]
- The Fountain - d. Darren Aronofsky - USA*
- Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus - d. Steven Shainberg - USA
- Grimm Love [Rohtenburg] - d. Martin Weisz - Germany
- The Hills Have Eyes - d. Alexandre Aja - USA
- Idlewild - d. Bryan Barber - USA
- Marie Antoinette - d. Sofia Coppola - USA/France/Japan
- Murderous Intent [Like Minds] - d. Gregory J. Read - Australia/UK
- The Namesake - d. Mira Nair - India/USA
- Notes on a Scandal - d. Richard Eyre - UK*
- O Jerusalem - d. Elie Chouraqui - France/UK/Italy/Greece/Israel/USA [also here]
- Off the Black - d. James Ponsoldt - USA
- The OH in Ohio - d. Billy Kent - USA [also here]
- On ne devrait pas exister [We Should Not Exist] - d. Hervé P. Gustave - France
- One Third - d. Kim Yong-man - USA
- The Page Turner [La tourneuse de pages] - d. Denis Dercourt - France
- Phat Girlz - d. Nnegest Likké - USA
- Psychopathia Sexualis - d. Bret Wood - USA
- The Pursuit of Happyness - d. Gabriele Muccino - USA
- Snow Cake - d. Marc Evans - Canada/UK* [more on Sigourney]
- Southland Tales - d. Richard Kelly - USA/Germany/France*
- Tan Lines - d. Ed Aldridge - Australia
- Things to Do - d. Ted Bezaire - Canada
- The Tripper - d. David Arquette - USA
- The Unknown Woman [La sconosciuta] - d. Giuseppe Tornatore - Italy/France*
- Vacationland - d. Todd Verow - USA
- The West Wittering Affair - d. David Scheinmann - UK
- The Wicker Man - d. Neil LaBute - USA/Germany/Canada*
- The Wild - d. Steve 'Spaz' Williams - USA
- The Young, the Gay and the Restless - d. Joe Castro - USA
- Yours Emotionally! - d. Sridhar Rangayan - India/UK

The Decade List: Shadowboxer (2005)

Shadowboxer - dir. Lee Daniels

[Edited from an earlier post; I made unnecessary paragraph breaks to accommodate more screencaps from this beauty. Also, if anyone would be interested in, maybe, a live-blog of this film, holler my way!]

Shadowboxer is the sort of complete disaster that certainly doesn't come around very often. Even when they do, they seldom come in a way that could fool the most passive viewer into looking past the utter absurdity of the entire production. Shadowboxer doesn't ever crack that smile you're waiting for, and this is to its credit... or, more accurately, to our enjoyment (though Bradford did remind me that Vanessa Ferlito is watching Valley of the Dolls in all its camp glory when Helen Mirren walks into her room... it's even the scene where Susan Hayward sings "I'll Plant My Own Tree"). That his latest film, Precious, has been getting so many raves (even with Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Sherri Shepherd in the cast) this year makes me wonder if Shadowboxer was just a ruse.

The always-wonderful (even here) Mirren plays Rose, a cold assassin dying of cancer on her final mission with partner/lover Mikey (Cuba Gooding Jr., and yes, you read that correctly). Things don't work out as planned when Rose reclaims the compassion that's been missing in her life as she decides to deliver her hit's baby, instead of killing her. Yes, Mirren and her gun manage to scare the water right out of the pregnant Vickie (Ferlito, who probably kicked herself after thinking this would be her breakout role), and like a pro, Mirren gets that baby right out. Rose, Mikey, Vickie and the baby go into seclusion, forming a strange family alliance away from Vickie's crazy husband (Stephen Dorff), the one that hired the hit on her. Explaining what happens plot-wise in Shadowboxer is not where you find the magic; the unintentional marvel of Shadowboxer presents itself in the revoltingly gaudy and hysterically absurd ornaments that string the film together.

The most noticeable head-scratcher of Shadowboxer is its casting. One can only assume that Lee Daniels called in a few favors and threw those favors together any way he could. In addition to the coupling of Mirren and Gooding, he also pairs Joseph Gordon-Levitt with Mo'Nique. Somehow he also asks us to suspend disbelief in accepting Gordon-Levitt as a doctor and Mo'Nique as the crack-head nurse who put him through medical school. Dorff is expectedly awful as a hot head, but the real gem of this casting is Macy Gray as Vickie's sassy, alcoholic best friend Neisha. Gray, a one-hit wonder with a gravel voice, fully assumes her role in a way that makes you think she stumbled drunk onto the set, threw herself into the film, and miraculously ended up in the final cut. But you would be oh-so-wrong in that assumption, as Daniels blindly thinks that her character is actually essential to the film. She’s absolutely not, and that’s why she works so well here.

One can’t help but wonder if Daniels actually read the screenplay by first-time writer William Lipz, let alone questioned anything that happens within the pages. Who the fuck is Stephen Dorff’s character supposed to be? It’s never explained, nor is it explained why he shoves a broken pool stick up a guy’s ass, wants to kill his wife, or decides to go full-frontal in one of the most gratuitous nude scenes I’ve seen in a while. Why is Mo’Nique a crackhead, and why would someone cast a woman of her size as one? Unless, I suppose, she recently picked up the habit.

I can appreciate films that have no raison d'être, but films that naïvely assume they're important (coughCrashcough) really churn my stomach. Thankfully, Shadowboxer is so blissfully unnecessary, unimportant, misguided, and incoherent that I have no shame in saying it was one of the more pleasurable film experiences I’d had in a while. A friend of mine and I decided the most telling example of Shadowboxer’s perplexing appeal is a scene in which Cuba Gooding Jr. offers to buy Macy Gray a drink. She insists upon five drinks and turns to the only other person in the bar (extras are expensive) who happens to be the most toe-up nasty tranny Daniels could find and asks if she wants a drink as well. I could do my best Macy Gray impersonation, but that wouldn’t get the full effect.

And I don't even have the time to mention Cuba in drag or the zebra. One can’t help but admire Helen Mirren for emerging from this abysmal failure unscathed as she did in Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Donned in Vivienne Westwood, she still manages to be just as wonderful here as she’s ever been. Don’t let Mirren (or the lushly uneven cinematography, or straight-faced tone) fool you, Shadowboxer is a train wreck all its own, so astoundingly wrong in every way that we may have to ask Nomi Malone to pass on her crown.

With: Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Vanessa Ferlito, Stephen Dorff, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mo'Nique, Macy Gray
Screenplay: William Lipz
Cinematography: M. David Mullen
Music: Mario Grigorov
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Code Black Entertainment

Premiere: 9 September 2005 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 21 July 2006

The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2005)

Every year, the list seems to be getting longer. The sentimental issue with 2005 was that a list of the Worst Films of 2005 was my very third blog post ever on here, so unlike the previous years, I've written quite a few venomous words about the films below (I was pretty hostile when I started writing this blog). So for both your and my pleasure, I've selected some really mean and/or smart-ass "pull quotes" from what I had to say about these, the worst films I saw from 2005.

On The 40-Year-Old Virgin: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin is essentially a bunch of laughless sketch appendages (the worst involving foul-mouthed Eastern Indian coworkers), branching from a thin backbone of a lifeless romance." On Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma: "Amnesia ends up being an idea film with nothing to say and Langlois a lousy psychological researcher who’s happy enough to just to ask the questions instead of looking for the answers." On Dirty Love: "That this film presumes we’re going to care about a woman who flops around a supermarket looking for tampons to stop her Shining-size bloodbath of a menstrual flow is not only dead-wrong, but also rather insulting."

On Fratricide: "There’s grittiness and then there’s absurdity, and Arslan can’t figure out the difference." On Happy Endings: "Happy Endings’ mix of nastiness and earnestness is like water and electricity… when you’re in the bathtub." On Hard Candy: "Hard Candy is one of those films you could see someone handing into their teacher as a genre assignment. Everything is "fine" about the film, if you consider "fine" to be hitting all the points of a job or assignment. Or if "fine" simply means passionless."

On Havoc: I quoted my friend Mike on this one: "About as sharp and edgy as an oval-shaped blanket full of kittens." On Lower City: "Merely a collection of reminders of better films." On Me and You and Everyone We Know: "Weaving a bunch of quirky moments (involving setting hands on fire, a cuuuuuuuute little boy wanting to shit in a woman’s ass, a goldfish in peril, and tag-team fellatio from a duo of sassy teen girls, among other things) into a sloppy motion picture, Ms. July created the “indie” groan of the year."

On Monster-in-Law: "Setting women back nearly fifty years with this one, Jane Fonda returns to the screen, opposite the sweet-as-pie, stripped-of-race Jennifer Lopez. It’d be one thing for this film to just be unfunny… but it’s a two-hour-long cat fight, turning women into caddy, selfish, backstabbing cunts." On Pretty Persuasion: "Siega has accomplished the feat of making his film the only thing more despicable than [teen edge queen Evan Rachel Wood's protagonist]." On The Puffy Chair: "Do I really want to choose to join in on the roadtrip when I hate the people I'm traveling with... and don't really care where we're going?"

On Sorry, Haters: "Allow me to introduce you to the 9/11 exploitation film." On Transamerica: "The tolerance that Tucker does expect from us is even more offensive than a sweet "trannies are people too." He expects us to continue with his annoyingly familiar film because of Felicity Huffman." On Walk the Line: "When Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) proposes marriage to the love of his life June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), he asks her to come up with a fresh answer. Strange, we as an audience were asking the same thing out of this film."

- The 40-Year-Old Virgin - d. Judd Apatow - USA
- Amnesia: The James Brighton Enigma [Amnésie: L'énigme James Brighton] - d. Denis Langlois - Canada
- Antibodies [Antikörper] - d. Christian Alvart - Germany
- The Aristocrats - d. Paul Provenza - USA
- Backstage - d. Emmanuelle Bercot - France
- The Cabin Movie - d. Dylan Akio Smith - Canada
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - d. Tim Burton - USA/UK
- The Civilization of Maxwell Bright - d. David Beaird - USA
- Diary of a Mad Black Woman - d. Tyler Perry - USA
- Dirty Love - d. John Mallory Asher - USA
- Don't Tell [La bestia nel cuore] - d. Cristina Comencini - Italy/France/UK/Spain
- Eighteen - d. Richard Bell - Canada
- Evil [To kako] - d. Yorgos Noussias - Greece
- FAQs - d. Everett Lewis - USA
- Feed - d. Brett Leonard - Australia
- Fratricide [Brudermord] - d. Yilmaz Arslan - Germany/Luxembourg/France
- Happy Endings - d. Don Roos - USA
- Hard Candy - d. David Slade - USA
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - d. Garth Jennings - UK/USA
- Havoc - d. Barbara Kopple - USA/Germany
- King's Ransom - d. Jeff Byrd - USA
- Lemming - d. Dominik Moll - France
- The Longest Yard - d. Peter Segal - USA
- Lower City [Cidade Baixa] - d. Sérgio Machado - Brazil
- Madagascar - d. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath - USA
- Manuale d'amore [Manual of Love] - d. Giovanni Veronesi - Italy
- Me and You and Everyone We Know - d. Miranda July - USA
- Monster-in-Law - d. Robert Luketic - USA/Germany
- The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green - d. George Bamber - USA
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith - d. Doug Liman - USA
- Nanny McPhee - d. Kirk Jones - UK/USA/France
- Pervert! - d. Jonathan Yudis - USA
- Pretty Persuasion - d. Marcos Siega - USA
- The Producers - d. Susan Stroman - USA
- The Puffy Chair - d. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass - USA
- Queens [Reinas] - d. Manuel Gómez Pereira - Spain
- Remedy - d. Christian Maelen - USA
- Robots - d. Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha - USA
- Sorry, Haters - d. Jeff Stanzler - USA
- Stoned - d. Stephen Woolley - UK
- Transamerica - d. Duncan Tucker - USA
- Walk the Line - d. James Mangold - USA/Germany
- The Wedding Date - d. Clare Kilner - USA
- Where the Truth Lies - d. Atom Egoyan - Canada/UK
- Witches of the Caribbean - d. David DeCoteau - USA
- Zerophilia - d. Martin Curland - USA

Walerian Borowczyk, Laura Gemser, Jude Law in drag, punk rock in concert, Orson Welles, Ally McBeal and a lotta Ida Lupino! (Not all together, sadly)

I should point out a few things about the releases below. Firstly, IFC announced another few titles for DVD release, all of them genre flicks (of what quality, I'm not sure, as I haven't seen any of them), and I wonder when they're going to get around to their theatrical releases, instead of their VOD titles. Secondly, I've only mentioned Anchor Bay's re-release of the film Where the Day Takes You because it gives me the opportunity to mention that it's easily one of the worst films I've ever seen. It's this dishonest, cheeseball Gen-X exposé of street kids in Los Angeles with a silly cast of once-famous-but-still-recognizable actors. Laughable doesn't begin to describe Hollywood's fallible attempt here, but my friend Chris and I wanted to program a So-Bad-They're-Still-Not-Good film festival and make a double-feature of Where the Day Takes You and John Singleton's dreadful Higher Learning. It would be one miserable night!

Also, Liberation Entertainment announced November release dates for Sally Potter's Rage, which got scathing reviews at Berlin in February, and Caroline Bottaro's Queen to Play [Joyeuse] with Sandrine Bonnaire and Kevin Kline. I don't recall either film receiving a theatrical run. So if seeing Jude Law in drag suits your fancy... And finally, you can put down your pencil from all the letter-writing you've been doing to try to get Fox to finally release the complete Ally McBeal series onto DVD, 'cos your wishes have been granted; on the 6th of October, you can relive all the zaniness, all the dancing babies, all the unisex bathroom interactions and all the Vonda Shepard you want! I heard there were a lot of music rights issues which held up the US release; just please tell me it wasn't Vonda's fault. The DVDs are in descending order of release.

- Objectified, 2009, d. Gary Hustwit, Plexifilm, 29 September
- Ally McBeal, The Complete Series, 1997-2002, 20th Century Fox, 6 October, w. Calista Flockhart, Jane Krakowski, Peter MacNicol, Portia de Rossi, Lucy Liu, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Gil Bellows, Robert Downey Jr., Regina Hall, Dyan Cannon
- Drag Me to Hell, 2009, d. Sam Raimi, Universal, 6 October
- Fighter, 2007, d. Natasha Arthy, IFC Films, 13 October
- Left Bank [Linkeroever], 2008, d. Pieter Van Hees, IFC Films, 13 October
- The Objective, 2008, d. Daniel Myrick, IFC Films, 13 October
- Where the Day Takes You, 1992, d. Marc Rocco, Anchor Bay, 13 October, w. Dermot Mulroney, Lara Flynn Boyle, Balthazar Getty, Sean Astin, Will Smith, Rikki Lake, James LeGros, Kyle MacLachlan, Alyssa Milano, Rachel Ticotin, David Arquette, Laura San Giacomo
- Pageant, 2008, d. Ron Davis, Stewart Halpern-Fingerhut, Wolfe Releasing, 20 October
- God's Left Hand, Devil's Right Hand, 2006, d. Shusuke Kaneko, Tokyo Shock, 27 October
- The Art of Love [Ars armandi], 1983, d. Walerian Borowczyk, Severin, 24 November, w. Laura Betti
- The Cricket [La cicala], 1980, d. Alberto Lattuada, MYA Communication, 24 November, w. Virna Lisi
- The House on Sorority Row, 1983, d. Mark Rosman, Liberation Entertainment, 24 November
- Hunchback of the Morgue [El jorobado de la Morgue], 1973, d. Javier Aguirre, MYA Communication, 24 November
- The Lady Medic [La dottoressa del distretto militare], 1976, d. Nando Cicero, MYA Communication, 24 November, w. Edwige Fenech
- The Last Decameron [Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti e mariti penitenti - Decameron nº 69], 1972, d. Joe D'Amato, MYA Communication, 24 November
- Mad Dog Morgan, 1976, d. Philippe Mora, Troma, 2-Disc Limited Edition, 24 November, w. Dennis Hopper, Jack Thompson
- Queen to Play [Joueuse], 2009, d. Caroline Bottaro, Liberation Entertainment, 24 November, w. Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline, Jennifer Beals
- Rage, 2009, d. Sally Potter, Liberation Entertainment, 24 November, w. Judi Dench, Jude Law, Eddie Izzard, John Leguizamo, Dianne Wiest, Steve Buscemi, Adriana Barraza, Bob Balaban, Simon Abkarian
- The Real Emanuelle [Amore libero - Free Love], 1974, d. Pier Ludovico Pavoni, MYA Communication, 24 November, w. Laura Gemser
- Schoolgirl Hitchhikers [Jeunes filles impudiques], 1973, d. Jean Rollin, Redemption, 24 November


Below is a list of some of the titles Warner has made newly available since June as part of their Warner Archive collection. You'll find a lot of recurring stars (Elizabeth Taylor, Gary Cooper, Ida Lupino, John Barrymore, Al Jolson), as well as Brian De Palma's Get to Know Your Rabbit with Orson Welles; Jodie Foster in Carny; the cult concert film Urgh! A Music War; Otto Preminger's The Moon Is Blue; and Mel Ferrer's adaptation of Green Mansions with Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins.

- ...All the Marbles, 1981, d. Robert Aldrich, w. Peter Falk
- Beau Brummel, 1924, d. Harry Beaymont, w. John Barrymore
- The Better 'Ole, 1926, d. Charles Reisner
- Big Boy, 1930, d. Alan Crosland, w. Al Jolson
- Boulevard Nights, 1979, d. Michael Pressman
- Bright Leaf, 1950, d. Michael Curtiz, w. Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Neal
- Carny, 1980, d. Robert Kaylor, w. Gary Busey, Jodie Foster
- Colleen, 1936, d. Alfred E. Green
- Conspirator, 1949, d. Victor Saville, w. Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Taylor
- Cynthia, 1947, d. Robert Z. Leonard, w. Elizabeth Taylor, Mary Astor
- Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues, 1972, d. Paul Williams, w. John Lithgow, Barbara Hershey

- Deep Valley, 1947, d. Jean Negulesco, w. Ida Lupino
- The Divine Lady, 1929, d. Frank Lloyd
- Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, 1973, d. John Newland
- The First Auto, 1927, d. Roy Del Ruth
- Fliration Walk, 1934, d. Frank Borzage
- Get to Know Your Rabbit, 1972, d. Brian De Palma, w. Orson Welles, Katharine Ross
- The Girl Who Had Everything, 1953, d. Richard Thorpe, w. Elizabeth Taylor
- Go Into Your Dance, 1935, d. Archie Mayo, Michael Curtiz, Robert Florey, w. Al Jolson
- Green Mansions, 1959, d. Mel Ferrer, w. Anthony Perkins, Audrey Hepburn
- Happiness Ahead, 1934, d. Mervyn LeRoy
- The Hard Way, 1943, d. Vincent Sherman, w. Ida Lupino

- It's a Big Country, 1951, d. Clarence Brown, Don Hartman, John Sturges, Richard Thorpe, Charles Vidor, Don Weis, William A. Wellman, w. Gary Cooper, Janet Leigh, Gene Kelly, Ethel Barrymore
- Juke Girl, 1942, d. Curtis Bernhardt, w. Ronald fucking Reagan
- Let Us Be Gay, 1930, d. Robert Z. Leonard
- Love Is Better Than Ever, 1952, d. Stanley Donen, w. Elizabeth Taylor
- The Man I Love, 1947, d. Raoul Walsh, w. Ida Lupino
- Mike's Murder, 1984, d. James Bridges, w. Debra Winger
- Min and Bill, 1930, d. George W. Hill
- The Moon Is Blue, 1953, d. Otto Preminger, w. William Holden
- Nora Prentiss, 1947, d. Vincent Sherman
- Old San Francisco, 1927, d. Alan Crosland
- One Sunday Afternoon, 1933, d. Stephen Roberts, w. Gary Cooper, Fay Wray

- Operator 13, 1934, d. Richard Boleslawski, w. Gary Cooper, Marion Davies
- Politics, 1931, d. Charles Reisner
- Ready, Willing and Able, 1937, d. Ray Enright
- Reducing, 1931, d. Charles Reisner
- Rhapsody, 1954, d. Charles Vidor, w. Elizabeth Taylor
- Saratoga Trunk, 1945, d. Sam Wood, w. Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman
- Say It with Songs, 1929, d. Lloyd Bacon, w. Al Jolson
- The Sea Hawk, 1924, d. Frank Lloyd
- Shipmates Forever, 1935, d. Frank Borzage
- The Singing Fool, 1928, d. Lloyd Bacon, w. Al Jolson
- The Singing Kid, 1936, d. William Keighley, w. Al Jolson

- The Story of Mankind, 1957, d. Irwin Allen, w. The Marx Brothers, Hedy Lamarr, Agnes Moorehead, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Cesar Romero, John Carradine, Dennis Hopper
- The Story of Three Loves, 1953, d. Vincente Minnelli, Gottfried Reinhardt, w. Kirk Douglas, Leslie Caron, Ethel Barrymore, James Mason, Agnes Moorehead, Zsa Zsa Gabor
- Task Force, 1949, d. Delmer Daves, w. Gary Cooper
- The Terminal Man, 1974, d. Mike Hodges, w. George Segal
- Today We Live, 1933, d. Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson, w. Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper
- The Unfaithful, 1947, d. Vincent Sherman
- Urgh! A Music War, 1981, d. Derek Burbidge, w. The Police, Toyah Willcox, Wall of Voodoo, Oingo Boingo, Echo & the Bunnymen, XTC, Jools Holland, Klaus Nomi, The Go-Go's, Dead Kennedys, Gary Numan, Joan Jett, Magazine, The Cramps, Devo, Gang of Four, X, UB40
- Week-End at the Waldorf, 1945, d. Robert Z. Leonard, w. Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner
- When a Man Loves, 1927, d. Alan Crosland, w. John Barrymore
- Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, 1978, d. Ted Kotcheff, w. George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel
- Wonder Bar, 1934, d. Lloyd Bacon, w. Al Jolson, Dolores del Rio