Our Ten Favorite Podcasts of 2014

I've hedged with the descriptor of "favorite" rather than "best" because there are just way too many podcasts out there that I couldn't hope to get to by the year's end.  Podcasting is bigger than it's ever been: so huge that there are now even podcasts about podcasts: Slate's Serial Spoiler Special and The AV Club's Serial Serial both offered analysis and opinions on NPR's podcasting bombshell Serial (which, while an interesting listen, didn't crack the top 10).

So here are the ten that I most enjoyed this year.  They range from the enlightening to the uncomfortable to the just plain silly, but all are worth your time.

Note: I'm not including the podcasts to which I was personally connected this year, but they may also be worth a listen.  I was featured on The Blockbuster Brunch and chimed in on an honest and frank discussion of one of the greatest modern films ever made, Face/Off.  There's also Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor podcast, which features a couple of episodes from two very funny comedian friends of mine, "Dead Kevin" co-creator Ahmed Bharoocha and "Goatman" creator Tim Vargulish.

10. "Smell the Episode," Jonah Raydio

Jonah Raydio is one of the most casual podcasts I've ever heard.  There appears to be very little editing, the episodes can run upwards of 2 hours, and it pretty much consists of Nerdist and "Meltdown" co-host Jonah Ray sitting around with his friends and listening to new music.  Some of the music is pretty good, and Jonah and crew are fun to listen to.

But while the general atmosphere of the show is fairly loose, "Smell the Episode" is an absolute mess.  It was recorded at LA Podfest, and Jonah and crew make it bitterly clear that there are very few people in the crowd.  They power on through the episode almost grudgingly.  There's an air of desperation in the room: at the halfway mark, Ray is aghast that he has 45 minutes left to fill.  As is usually the case, sound man Neil Mahoney (co-director of Freak Dance) punctuates the podcast with purposefully irritating and poorly timed sound cues.  A guest band, Upset, performs songs that are borderline unlistenable (though that is really the fault of the recording rather than the band).

And yet it's one of the most entertaining podcasts of the year.  It has a raw chaotic intensity.  Few professional podcasts are less produced than this one.  It seems they really did make it up as they went along.  It succeeds based solely on the personality of Ray and his co-hosts, who are charismatic and likable.

9. "The Eight Crazy Guests of Chanukah," Doug Loves Movies

Doug Benson usually caps each year of his movie quiz show with a "12 Guests of Christmas" episode featuring appearances from such regulars as Kevin Pollak and Jon Hamm.  This year he tried something different, featuring 8 "guests" such as "Mark Wahlberg," "Werner Herzog," and "Jesse Ventura."

The 8 "guests" are performed by Paul F. Tompkins, James Adomian, and Dan Van Kirk, who've made regular appearances as these real-life celebrities on Benson's podcast and others.  Particularly hilarious is Van Kirk's embodiment of Wahlberg as an egomaniac fitness nut who insists there are two types of movies: those he was in and those he should've been in.

8. "Mr. Nanny," How Did This Get Made?


Mr. Nanny, a stupid but pleasant vehicle for Hulk Hogan that was meant to cash in on the Home Alone trend of clever kids doing bodily harm to doofus adults, was a massive critical and box office failure. Among this episode's many joys is the utter bafflement of hosts Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas (along with guest Rob Corddry) as to what the movie's intended appeal exactly was, particularly concerning the considerably psychopathic children who repeatedly try to kill Hogan for no real reason ("He is nothing but nice to them"). Also of note is the incident of animal abuse that the team finds in the background of a shot early in the film.

7. "Experts," The Worst Idea of All Time

Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery, the two New Zealanders who nobly vowed earlier this year to watch Grown Ups 2 once a week for 52 weeks, have been going steadily mad since they started. This episode, heralding their 31st viewing, represents the peak of their insanity: after this episode, they seem to find their footing and the show takes a more conventional shape.  But "Experts" portrays Tim and Guy at the height of their Sandler-driven madness.  Though the guys seem to have enjoyed the movie more than usual this time around, that may not be a good sign: much of their discussion is borderline incomprehensible amid fits of cackling.  It honestly shows what a truly bad film like Grown Ups 2 can do to a person.  Tim and Guy have since regained their sanity; you may not.

6. "The Exorcism of Cake Boss," Comedy Bang Bang

"The Exorcism of Cake Boss" gives us the best improv-centered podcast of the year. Host Scott Aukerman welcomes Cake Boss (Paul F. Tompkins) to the show, who is promptly possessed by the soul of deceased designer H.R. Giger (Matt Gourley). Scott swiftly calls Cake Boss's exorcist friend, Rev. Robert Parsimony (also Tompkins), to dispense with the demon. 

Tompkins and Gourley, who collaborate on the very funny sketch podcast Superego, are great together, and the show culminates in a profoundly silly game of "Riddle Me This," plus a retelling of a Bazooka Joe comic strip that is side-splitting.

5. "Easy Rider: The Ride Back," The Flop House

It was in the spring that Dissolve critic Nathan Rabin blasted a recommendation to every bad movie enthusiast he knew: Easy Rider: The Ride Back, the sequel that everyone was no doubt crying out for.  Hosts Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington, and Elliott Kalan are quick to find the greatness in it.  Unlike their counterparts at How Did This Get Made? (who also delivered an entertaining episode on the same film this year), McCoy and crew are less baffled and more appreciative of the kind of egomaniacal awfulness that produces movies like this.  Much like The Room, it's not obligatory or cynical; this is something somebody really wanted to make.

The brainchild of a wealthy Hollywood lawyer named Phil Pitzer, The Ride Back tells of Morgan Williams, brother of Wyatt Williams, the Peter Fonda character from the original film.  His sister Shane (Sheree J. Wilson) begs him to come home to see their father (Newell Alexander) on his birthday.  The movie switches back and forth between Morgan's modern storyline and flashbacks of his childhood.  Jeff Fahey, who's truly entertaining in the film, appears as notorious motorcyclist "Wes Coast."

The film is an absolute treasure trove for McCoy and crew, whose delight in its awfulness drives the podcast.  Even a particularly cruel and exploitative sexual assault scene late in the film is delivered so ineptly that it provokes laughter:  The movie is comparable to The Room in the realm of pet projects that are as incompetent as they are sincere.  It's bread and butter for the folks at The Flop House.

4. "Eddie Izzard, Trevor Noah, Tig Notaro, Big Jay Oakerson, Seth Meyers," WTF with Marc Maron

Now this was a surprise.  Recorded live at Just For Laughs in Montreal, as Maron does every year, this episode starts as a typical comic interview show, then transforms into something more.  Maron's interviews are usually unapologetically frank, taking a dive deep into the psyche of the stand-up comedian, and this one is right along those lines, but even more intensely than usual.  Trevor Noah, notable for a recent knockout "Daily Show" appearance, tells a heartbreaking but very funny story of his upbringing as a mixed-race child in apartheid South Africa.  Tig Notaro, now in remission, gives further insight into the personal tragedies that inspired her bombastic "cancer set" last year.

If there's a downside to the episode, it's that the more socially important stories overshadow the benign entries from the other comics in the lineup.  Seth Meyers's interview is fairly short and sweet.  Poor Big Jay Oakerson's story about being hit on by a transvestite in a New York porn store is funny, but it pales in comparison to the rest, and he gets a subtle shaming from Eddie Izzard about his casual use of the word "tranny."

3. "Hollywood Bowl," Analyze Phish


The ninth entry in the series, in which "Parks & Recreation" writer and dedicated Phish fan Harris Wittels tries with all his might to indoctrinate Comedy Bang Bang host Scott Aukerman into the band's fan club, was over a year in the making, and upon listening to the episode, it's very clear why.  It's centered around audio recorded at Phish's Hollywood Bowl show in August 2013, at which Scott was intended to have his first full Phish experience, with the help of a cocktail of drugs.

The reason for the yearlong delay in the episode's release is revealed quite bluntly early on: after the concert, Harris checked himself into rehab, and has been drug free ever since.  The audio from the concert then becomes a harrowing portrayal of a man coming to terms with his addiction.  While previous episodes have been centered around Scott's mocking of Phish while Harris makes effort after sincere effort to convince him to like the band, this one is far less ironically distant and digs deeper into what began as recreation and devolved into addiction for Harris.  Harris is jarringly honest in the episode--jarring because he's usually so ironically distant--and the audio from the concert, while often uncomfortable, is brutally funny.  Highlights include Harris's and Scott's failed attempt at a Jaws-related comedy bit while high, which Harris insists was his precise moment of hitting rock bottom.

2. "Shed Busting," Comedy Bang Bang


Another moment of truth within the Earwolf universe, this is a rare up-front conversation between Scott Aukerman, comedian Todd Glass, and a rare out-of-character James Adomian.  The openly gay Adomian and the recently out-of-the-closet Glass discuss the hard truth about being gay in the comedy industry, when homosexuality carried a heavy burden (and in many ways still does).  Their conversation is so interesting that it's actually a letdown when they get to the show proper, and Adomian retreats into his Jesse Ventura character.

1. "Staind Glass," U Talkin' U2 to Me?


By far the weirdest idea for a podcast of the year, born out of a stupid pun created by co-hosts Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott.  The two Scotts' U2-themed show took a brief foray into early-2000s nu-metal, and they invite Todd Glass onto the show to discuss Staind's bestselling album "Break the Cycle," only because his name completes the pun.  Glass knows nothing about Staind, and next to nothing about U2, which leads to the episode's high point in which Scott and Scott play a series of random songs to see if Glass can guess which one is U2.  The songs progress from reasonable (Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer") to ridiculous (Ross Bagdasarian's "Witch Doctor").

The series in general has been the year's biggest surprise in the podcast department.  It seems to have an unsustainable premise--Scott and Scott review each U2 album until the band's new one is released--but the two Scotts spin that flimsy idea into a series of audaciously silly gags and "sub-podcasts" like Talkin' 'bout Money and I Love Films.  Though they do discuss U2 at length, it's the two Scotts' personalities and banter that keep the podcast alive and make it one of the best overall listens of the year.

Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel: Why SCROOGED (1988) is the Best Christmas Movie of All Time, and Bill Murray's Best Performance

I first saw Scrooged (and loved it) when I was six years old.  I was surprised, then, once I reached the age of reason, that the movie actually wasn't very well received.  Roger Ebert, who is the critic of record as far as I'm concerned, called it "disquieting" and "unsettling," and even its star, Bill Murray, was semi-apologetic about it in an interview, hedging that it "could have been a really, really great movie." Well, it is.

Few movies nowadays are completely dependent on the persona of the lead actor to succeed.  Scrooged is an iconic Bill Murray performance, the best of his career, and probably the only time the actor has truly been permitted to own a movie.  Murray is a powerhouse in the film, and it is entirely centered around his performance.  If his progression from miserly millionaire to humble humanitarian were not believable, the film would fall apart.  The movie is co-written by Michael O'Donoghue, the brilliant "Saturday Night Live" co-creator who helped to shape Murray's persona.  I assume it was O'Donoghue who took Ebenezer Scrooge and made him into a character only Murray could have played.

Murray is Frank Cross, the youngest TV network president in history.  His network, IBC, has its reputation riding on a multimillion-dollar live presentation of Scrooge (the more things change...) with Buddy Hackett as Ebenezer.  Cross, who shed much of his humanity while climbing the corporate ladder, lambastes his executives, tortures his harried assistant (Alfre Woodard), ignores his only brother (real-life brother John Murray), and reluctantly sucks up to the chair of the board of directors (Robert Mitchum) to keep a stronghold on his job. (A sniveling kiss-ass played with relentless grinning positivity by John Glover represents a plausible threat.)


When his deceased old boss (John Forsythe) appears to him and warns him of the three ghosts, he's appropriately skeptical.  Scrooged takes place in a world where Charles Dickens's story has been eaten, devoured, and regurgitated by every Very Special TV Hour known to man.  The TV show Frank is producing, while well-mounted, is as cynical an exploitation of Christmas as has ever been presented.  Scrooge's first appearance is preceded by a kickline of street urchins played by the Rockettes, and Tiny Tim (Mary Lou Retton) accentuates his "God bless us" line with a somersault and several backflips.  Mitchum, whose performance is a deadpan masterpiece, presses onto Frank that cats and dogs are becoming a key market, and urges him to feature mice more prominently in the show (the more things change...).

Murray, playing a truly deplorable character in early scenes, lends a unique vulnerability to Frank.  His frequent ironic quips are hysterically funny and delivered with inimitable timing, but also portray an unfortunately distant character who cautiously avoids relating to people or feeling feelings.  Frank is less a Dickensian miser than a 1980s yuppie who's desperate to hang on to the fortune for which he's stepped on so many people.  One of those people is his ex-girlfriend Claire (Karen Allen, whose smile lights a thousand Christmas trees), a charity organizer whose plain niceness is confounding to him.

Frank's character arc is always believable, and more complex than the fairly simple journey of the typical Scrooge.  His dealings with the first two ghosts are riddled with false epiphanies and rationalizations: when the Ghost of Christmas Past (played as a reckless, unshaven cab driver by David Johansen) takes him to see his childhood home, he scoffs, "I get it. You're here to show me my past, and I'm supposed to get all dully-eyed and mushy." The Ghost's response to this is one of the funniest lines in the film, and right on the money.

Murray reportedly disagreed with director Richard Donner's vision for the film: maybe Murray saw it as more of a straight comedy while Donner, who shortly thereafter co-created the terrific "Tales from the Crypt" TV series, wanted to accentuate the horror aspects of the film.  Donner was correct; the performances provide the comedy, and the movie only works if played straight against it.  Danny Elfman's haunting score sounds like the Nutcracker Suite appropriated by Philip Glass.  Above all, the movie isn't afraid to take the ghosts seriously.  Forsythe's first appearance, in ghastly Tom Burman makeup, is admittedly pretty scary, and Frank's walk through his future is a stripped-down nightmare (though Donner allows himself one indulgent shot that's a cheeky Hitchcock parody).

It all culminates in a third-act explosion in which a newly reformed Frank ambles onto the set of his Scrooge special, interrupts the broadcast and delivers a speech that in the mouth of any other actor would seem maudlin and unnatural.  It could not have been easy, but Murray finds the absolute right note, and his utter joy and earnestness in proclaiming, "I get it now!" is a truly moving transformation.  It's a gargantuan outpouring of emotion that's comparable to Hickey's last-act monologue in The Iceman Cometh: it's that honest and that good, and Murray is more alive than he's ever been in anything, as a man who's completely taken aback to learn that he's still capable of feeling joy.

**** out of ****

 

NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #3: GROWN UPS 2 (2013)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 


Adam Sandler's Grown Ups 2 (while not strictly a bomb) is the reason I invented the term "torturously okay." It's the worst kind of comedy: it's not completely unfunny, but there's nothing in it that warrants its existence.  It's a movie made strictly for financial reasons.  Here is a collection of some of the top comic actors working today, serving a script that... well, I doubt there even was a script.  Three talented people are credited (Sandler, Fred Wolf, and Tim Herlihy), but I think Sandler and director Dennis Dugan just concocted some rudimentary comedy film scenarios and directed their cast through them loosely.

There are allegations that the film is actually a Ponzi scheme: it cost $80 million (much of it, no doubt, from product placement) to make when it could have been made for, I dunno, 1/80 of that.  The movie looks horrible; if you ignore the gargantuan cast of all-stars, it has the look of a multicamera sitcom.  The actors--many of whom are Sandler's friends--were no doubt paid handsomely, and Sandler and crew were granted the abnormally large budget on the faith that he and the stars would grant them considerable returns at the box office.

It worked.  The movie made $133 million domestically and about $246 million worldwide, proving that the rest of the world has no right to criticize any of America's crassness.

I can understand why Sandler has chosen to do it this way.  He's the cinematic equivalent of Weezer, the iconic '90s group.  After releasing a risky, personal album for which they were harshly criticized, they retreated back into bubblegum pophood and haven't released anything good since.  Sandler flirted with the idea of being an actual respectable actor: he was terrific in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, and was pretty good in Mike Binder's otherwise disposable Reign Over Me.  But lately it seems like he's been scared back into his comfort zone, content to headline dull lowest-common-denominator duds like Just Go With It and Blended.

Admittedly, I wouldn't have given a thought to watching Grown Ups 2 if not for two Kiwi gents, Tim and Guy, who started a quite entertaining podcast this year--"The Worst Idea of All Time Podcast"--for which they watch the film once a week for a year.  It sounds completely idiotic--the film is not only inane but practically contentless, with very little substance worthy of description, let alone discussion--but actually, it's brilliant.  Even necessary.  When people around the world are spending $246 million to see Grown Ups 2, something is wrong.  It's a cinematic Wolf of Wall Street; it pumped up its penny stock script with big name actors and high quantities of bodily humor, then sold.  Tim and Guy are the Kyle Chandler character, exposing the scheme.

I should reveal that I haven't seen Grown Ups 1... but really, why should I?  Grown Ups 2 isn't a Godfather Part II which fills in the blanks of its predecessor.  There's no plot; the movie's 101 minutes are loosely structured around a backyard party at Sandler's house which everyone in town attends.  With few exceptions, no character learns anything during the course of the film.  Each one of its four leading guys--Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, and David Spade--leaves the film pretty much as they found it.  Sandler is a violent lout, Rock is a passive-aggressive fool, James is a punching bag, and Spade... I'll come back to him.

A look at the characters' names should give you an idea of how much real thought was put into the film: Officer Fluzoo, Principal Tardio, Mama Ronzoni, Bumpty McKenzie.  The "story" threads seem to have been purchased in bulk, partially eaten, from the sitcom factory.  Character arcs are set up and dropped.  For example:

• Rock tells us early in the film that his wife (Maya Rudolph) has forgotten their anniversary, and that this will give him capital to spend later in the marriage.  An interesting premise.  Never followed through.
• James is constantly visiting his mother because he feels he doesn't get respect at home.  His wife (Maria Bello) tries to make up for it by taking him to a cheerleader car wash, which turns out to be a male cheerleader car wash--ho, ho--and that's pretty much the end of that.
• There's some momentary stuff about Sandler being insecure about having a new baby with his wife (Salma Hayek), which is apparently resolved in the end, but I really can't figure out why.

The only part of the story that the movie follows through with is Spade's arc, in which he finds out rather suddenly that he has a child he never knew about.  The kid, Braden (Alexander Ludwig), is supposedly 16 but looks 30, and makes Spade feel uncomfortable, but the two eventually find common ground and build a relationship.  Spade, dare I say, gives the only well-thought-out performance in the film, and is the only character who changes at all during the film.  As a result, the scenes between him and Braden are kind of sweet and moving.  Ludwig has fun as the kid, though his dialogue seems to have been written for a Neanderthal type, when the actor looks more like an overgrown boy-band Kurt Cobain.

Is the movie funny?  Well, sometimes.  A few of the gags do stick, but most of the ones that work are subtle, improvised, and rapid.  Sandler compatriots Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran, and Allen Covert give reliable background performances that contain some of the movie's best chuckles.  Jon Lovitz, as a lecherous gym janitor, has some of the funniest moments in the film, and prompts more laughs with one nonsequitur than the rest of the actors get with the movie's many painfully labored set pieces.  Most are set up for the characters to find funny: when ice cream shop owner Colin Quinn is fixing the soft serve machine and it looks like he's pooping, they all laugh and laugh and we sit silent.

Basically, anything that was intentionally put into the movie doesn't work.  The sub-plot about Kevin James's functionally illiterate son isn't funny.  A brief introduction in which a deer enters Sandler's house and pees on everyone: not funny.  The male cheerleader gag: not funny, and wasteful of cameos from several SNL alums who are doing better things now.  Nick Swardson's histrionic performance as a drugged-out school bus driver: annoying.  The many gags targeted at Spade's girlfriend, a female bodybuilder who's frequently called "he": very not funny.  In fact, none of the female performers are given much to do: not even Cheri Oteri, who appears as Sandler's ex-girlfriend of sorts and has no effect on any of the film's happenings.

The main actors, Spade excepted, are shockingly underwhelming.  Usually any of these guys and gals, Sandler included, would be a highlight of the movie he or she is in.  Imagine Chris Rock reduced to playing a schlub, Maya Rudolph as a dutiful wife who occasionally bursts with stereotypical Tyler Perry-like Mad Black Woman intensity, Kevin James as a doormat, Maria Bello barely in the film, and Tim Meadows, one of the most reliable deadpan comic character-actors working, being forced to gawk and mug in every scene.  Meadows's catchphrase is, apparently, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" He uses it as a response to everything, and presents it as a key laugh line, akin to "Dyn-o-mite!" or "'eyyyyyyy." I surmise that either it was explained in the first film, or it's a private joke between Sandler and friends that the audience isn't allowed in on.

The numerous bit actors redeem the film a little bit from the boredom induced by its stars.  To say they steal the show would imply there was a show to steal.  Steve Buscemi, who is for some reason a regular in Sandler films, is good for a few laughs as a driver's ed instructor.  Shaquille O'Neal is fun to watch as an imposing but shy police officer.  Director Dugan has a brief role as a doctor examining Sandler's son; neither the premise nor the scene is funny, but his delivery is spot-on.  Rob Schneider appears nowhere in the film, and for that he deserves the most praise.

Oddly, the most laughs in the film are delivered by the least likely suspect: Taylor Lautner, who takes his role as an ornery frat kid just seriously and straight-faced enough.  The scenes in which he and his bros (who include Sandler's nephew Jared as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger's son Patrick) taunt Sandler and his crew of old farts, exchange elaborate high-fives and ridiculous handshakes, and perform rage-induced backflips work exactly in the way they're supposed to.  I never liked Lautner as the heartthrob in the Twilight movies, but he might have a future playing heavies like this.  He's very good.

** out of ****

"The Worst Idea of All Time Podcast" can be found on iTunes.

NOTE: Dennis Dugan now works, I believe, full time for Sandler, as he's primarily directed vehicles for him and his colleagues since Happy Gilmore.  As an antidote for this one I invoke his debut film, Brain Donors, an often hilarious modern Marx Brothers film, with John Turturro in the Groucho role.  It proves he knows his stuff, and may be only minimally to blame for this mess.

It Came From Netflix Instant: DARKNET (2013-14)

The premise for the Canadian TV show "Darknet" isn't the freshest, and sounds an awful lot like the plot of feardotcom, William Malone's disappointing rip-off of The Ring.  It's a series of loosely connected fables centering around a website that features grotesque mutilations, maimings, snuff films, all things which we hold near and dear to our hearts.  Everyone who visits the website becomes roped into a macabre underworld.

It's silly, but the show is actually a lot of fun, in a way that not many horror TV shows have been since "Tales from the Crypt." Each episode consists of several threads involving not only murder, but the sensationalizing of violence through the internet, and viral video in particular.  A medical student suspects there to be an intruder in her house.  A businesswoman thinks she spies a peeping tom outside her hotel room.  A woman receives a series of e-mails with surveillance footage of people being murdered.  The threads are slowly revealed to tie together in interesting and subtle ways, occasionally across episodes.

As with all anthologies, the effectiveness of each story varies, but none overstays its welcome.  "Darknet" also doesn't have same problem as, for instance, The ABCs of Death, which limited its entries to 5 minutes and thus didn't give any of them the time to build suspense or mood.  Since the stories in each "Darknet" are tonally similar and interwoven with one another, the atmosphere and tension are allowed to build gradually.

The first episode, written and directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice), is an appropriate hook for the remaining five episodes.  Episode 3 has the most memorable sequence, in which a smug salesman is tailed in the street by an odd stranger.  Episode 4 is the weakest, hinging on a hospital plot line that's more predictable than the rest (though it features a secondary story about breast implants gone wrong that's a must see).  The final episode of the season (directed by The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh's Rodrigo Gudiño) is a knockout of a closer, taking the concept of internet trolling to a whole new level.

"Darknet" is available on Netflix Instant.

NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #2: DREAM HOUSE (2011)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 

Sometimes good actors can save a potentially awful movie.  At other times the presence of exceptional acting in an otherwise dismal affair only worsens the experience.  With Dream House it's a little bit of both; the film isn't awful by any stretch, but it does beg the question of why it attracted such talent in the first place, when it seems to be a regular old psychological/supernatural thriller in the M. Night Shyamalan vein.

The talent in this case belongs to Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, and several other very good actors who grace this lackluster film with their presence.  And they're not merely taking a paycheck; they're good in the film.  Very good.  Their dedication may be attributable to the presence of Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) behind the camera.  Or maybe it's that Craig and Weisz fell in love while making the film.  I suppose it'd be difficult to be ambivalent at that point.

The plot comes courtesy of David Loucka, who a year later would give us the unwatchable piece of junk The House at the End of the Street, with Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue.  His script for this film is unlikely but workable, as Sheridan proves with skill that it does not deserve.

Will Atenton (Craig) leaves his city job at a publishing company to write a book at his new suburban home with his idyllic family: wife Libby (Weisz) and irrepressibly cute young daughters Trish and Dee Dee (Taylor and Claire Geare, who are terrific).  Soon strange things begin to happen.  Someone seems to be stalking the house.  Goth kids are camping out nearby and whispering about things that happened in the house years earlier.  As Will investigates, he finds some truths he wishes he'd not heard.

I won't reveal the plot twist that happens at the movie's midpoint, although it's not entirely unpredictable.  Those interested in seeing the film will want to avoid the trailer, which unceremoniously spoils it.

In a less worthy director's hands, the midpoint twist would be an early climax to the film, and it would circle the drain for its remaining 45 minutes. Rather than rely on pulling the rug out from under us, Sheridan uses it as a shift in the movie's framing device, turning it from a mystery-thriller into a Jacob's Ladder-style psychological drama which shifts back and forth between two realities, one just as genuine as the other.

Sheridan, with help of cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and production designer Carol Spier (also heavy hitters who are slumming it here), downplays inconsistencies in the script by setting the film in a constant dreamlike present.  Pay attention to the early scenes, before the big turn, and you'll realize that very little is said other than vague greetings and goodbyes.  There's no exposition.  We don't often know why what's happening is happening: only that it is.  Will's scenes opposite his family are just a little too perfect, for a reason.

It's only in the final act that Sheridan loses control.  It's an ending that was likely tacked onto the film after test audiences reportedly disapproved of Sheridan's first cut, and it becomes more ridiculous the longer you think about it.  Though it wraps up most of the movie's plot discrepancies (and explains an early out-of-nowhere appearance from Elias Koteas on a train), it does so laughably.

Still, Sheridan and the actors don't phone it in, even when the film is lost to ludicrousness.  Craig and Weisz, as well as Naomi Watts as a neighbor who may know more than she lets on, give believable performances which stay grounded even when the script messes them around.  Dream House doesn't exactly do them justice, but oddly, they're not wasted either.

** 1/2 out of ****

NO-HIT NOVEMBER, Bomb #1: DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2014)

All through November we take a look at box-office bombs and widely maligned turkeys, to let you know if you might have missed a classic. Or not. 


Movies that reaffirm faith tend to take more of a thrashing from moviegoers than others, unless they're and marketed directly and exclusively to evangelicals, like God's Not Dead or whatever Kirk Cameron happens to be starring in nowadays.  Mainstream religious movies are usually dismissed as silly.  I don't quite know why; certainly Bill Maher hasn't had such a wide influence.  M. Night Shyamalan takes a licking when his films dare to explore the notion that characters in a horror film are allowed to be redeemed rather than be allowed to fester in a rusty prison like the hapless souls in the Saw films.

Scott Derrickson has been an unabashedly religious filmmaker all along.  His first theatrical feature as director, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, was bland anti-science trash, but his later work exhibited more positive themes from a Christian point of view.  The Day the Earth Stood Still, while not the tightest film, had an admirable message about stewardship of the earth.  Sinister, one of the scariest movies I've recently seen, took a quite conservative stance on the allure of violence, and presented its slayings to be truly horrifying rather than titillating.

Deliver Us from Evil, his latest film, is also decidedly pro-faith, though it understands why its characters have lost it.  It doesn't condescend like many films of its type do, nor is its message oversimplified.

It also doesn't quite work, but it's not bad while it's not working.  Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman put more work into this film than the usual demonic possession romp usually gets.

NYPD Officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) is known for having a "radar" that leads him to the right criminal.  When he sets upon one man and one woman who are committing strange crimes, he links them to an Iraq War veteran who may have brought something evil back to New York with him.  A local priest, Fr. Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez, of the brilliant epic Carlos), offers his help.

The film unfortunately comes bearing the dreaded "Based on a true story" disclaimer, which has doomed brave films before it, like The Conjuring.  Most "true" horror films suffer either from changing the story too much, or from trying too hard to be convincing.  Oddly enough, there really isn't much in the film I can't imagine happening.  Though there are fleeting supernatural moments, the villains are all decidedly human.  The movie does have some spooky scary boogeyman moments, and an exorcism scene that's beyond silly, but at the center it's about how real evil shows itself: through violence, hate, and vengeance.

Bana and Ramirez are solid anchors for the film, lending credibility to a screenplay that's always threatening to go cuckoo.  A late scene in which Sarchie confesses the reason for his loss of faith to Mendoza has an awfully familiar arc, but Bana and Ramirez deliver it captivatingly.  Joel McHale (yes, Joel McHale) is a welcome presence as Sarchie's streetwise partner.  Sean Harris is appropriately nasty as the perpetrator, a demon with a particular affinity for Jim Morrison. (I like that the movie never explains why the demon keeps quoting The Doors.  Maybe he just likes them.)

The movie still doesn't quite come together.  The police procedural plot is trite, and we've seen Sarchie's family sub-plot a thousand times before.  What do you want to bet that the tough cop has trouble being open and honest with his loving wife (Olivia Munn) and daughter?  What do you want to bet they'll patch things up in the end?

As with most demonic possession movies nowadays, the final exorcism is a letdown.  It's always a shame when a movie that's been pretty savvy all along descends into hysterics and shouting.  Derrickson lends the film enough nice touches that we wish it had been a more cohesive work.

** 1/2 out of ****

NOTE: The movie's final line is "Do you reject Satan and all his works?" I am disappointed that the response was not "Yes, except 'Light My Fire.'"

It Came From Netflix Instant: THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ROSALIND LEIGH (2012)

The presence of Vanessa Redgrave is enough to give any movie a certain gravitas, all the more so when she appears second-billed on a little-known low-budget Canadian ghost story.  Usually when renowned stage actors do genre work, it's for the money.  Here, that doesn't seem to be the case.  For one thing, there doesn't appear to be any money; though the movie is professionally shot and looks great, it's limited to one setting and features mainly one actor for much of its screen time.  For another, Dame Vanessa doesn't merely recite her lines and run.  As the title character of The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, she is a presence deeply felt throughout the film.  Her performance is marvelous and haunting, with subtleties that most genre filmmakers are afraid to embrace.

Oh, and she barely appears in the film.  The character of Rosalind Leigh is glimpsed occasionally at certain moments and may be played by a double; I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter.  Ms. Redgrave's performance is pretty much entirely given in voice-over.  She delivers the last will and testament to which the title refers throughout the film, as the framing device for its story.  All of the movie's complexities, all of its tension, all of its sadness, are there in her voice.  She's not a narrator, but rather a character whose role in the story is gradually revealed as her testament continues.  It's certainly one of the best voice performances of all time, and one of the best performances in all horror films.

In a lesser horror film her performance would stick out like a sore thumb, but The Last Will, the feature debut of Rodrigo Gudiño (editor of the horror magazine Rue Morgue), earns her effort.  It's an eerie and thoughtful character study, along the lines of Shirley Jackson's novel and Robert Wise's film The Haunting.  Beneath its traditional haunted-house premise is a quite sad exploration of loss and responsibility.

After his mother's death, Leon Leigh (Aaron Poole) returns to her home for the first time in many years, intending to sell it.  It's implied that he and his mother had had a falling out for religious reasons: she wanted him to believe, and he just didn't.  But while spending a long night in his mother's expansive, iconography-laden mansion, Leon begins to suspect that her spirit may still be there... or maybe something else.  As the nature of his relationship with his mother is gradually revealed, we slowly find out why the two were so estranged, and why she desperately needed him to come back.

Gudiño creates an effectively hallucinatory atmosphere in which each scene feels a bit too quiet, too calm, too settled.  His long establishing shots, often coupled with a foreboding voice-over in the foreground, suggest that a disturbance is always just around the corner.  And when, quite unexpectedly, some creepy-crawlies begin to emerge, he introduces them so subtly that we're not even sure what we've seen.

I'd say the movie has a surprise ending, but I'm not quite sure that it does.  It does, in a sense, pull the rug out from under the story we think we've been watching... or maybe it doesn't.  The movie doesn't reverse its plot, but merely suggests that we may be seeing it from a point of view that's different from the one we thought.  And it reminds us that though Poole is the one with the most screen time (and he's very good), it's Redgrave who anchors the film and has guided it all along.

*** 1/2 out of ****

THE SPOILS OF BABYLON (2014): The greatest work of fiction ever written is perfectly and intricately translated into a beautiful TV miniseries by its very author, literary giant and wealthy philanthropist Eric Jonrosh

The business of writing bestselling novels is a cruel one.  Simply witness the travails of Eric Jonrosh, author of many successful epic novels, including The Spoils of Alabama.  His attempt to create a TV miniseries from his greatest work, The Spoils of Babylon, was constantly in danger of being thwarted, whether by studio interference or actor disobedience.  Even though filming was completed in the 1970s, the miniseries has only become releasable this year.  Jonrosh wrote, adapted, directed, and edited his original 22-hour cut carefully into three hours, and claims it is a masterpiece.

He is correct.  The legendary tale of the Morehouse family's rise to and fall from grace, captivatingly depicted on the page, has now been breathtakingly beamed to the TV set.  With this work, Jonrosh finally establishes himself as the king of both the printed word and the television screen.

Of course, it's all bogus.  IFC's The Spoils of Babylon is an uproarious deadpan parody of "epic miniseries," like The Thorn Birds and Rich Man, Poor Man, common in the '70s and '80s.  Each episode is introduced by Jonrosh (a heavily made-up Will Ferrell), in sequences not-so-subtly inspired by the infamous Orson Welles wine commercials of 1979 (as well as the notorious outtakes).  What follows is a straight-faced work of such deliberate and unbelievable smugness and self-importance that it's amazing that director Matt Piedmont and his co-writer Andrew Steele can sustain the deadpan atmosphere.  They can, and do.

Jonrosh's tome chronicles the story of the Morehouse family, narrated in the last moments of his life by Devon Morehouse (Tobey Maguire).  An orphan, Devon was adopted by oil prospector Jonas Morehouse (Tim Robbins).  When Jonas strikes it big, the family is thrown into disarray, especially when Devon develops feelings for his adoptive sister Cynthia (Kristen Wiig).

Babylon's only sin is that the entire premise is borrowed without credit from a British series, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which hasn't largely caught on in America yet, save for a brief run on Adult Swim.  That, too, was a deadpan sendup of a TV trope (Twilight Zone-type sci-fi mixed with General Hospital-style soap) headed by an egocentric auteur who vastly overestimates his talent.  Babylon would be impeachable for this almost-plagiarism if it didn't do well by that premise, but it does, to the point that it should attract new fans to Darkplace, and vice versa.

The series-within-the-series is brilliantly conceived, and the performances from the exceptional cast are carefully realized.  The actors (all in character as phony actors from the '70s) do not merely give purposely bad performances, but craft believable characters who give bad performances.  Piedmont allows his actors to be serious rather than clownish, and they avoid the "so-bad-it's-funny" distinction by giving intensely committed performances of bad material.

Maguire's performance in particular is among the actor's best.  He finds what a hammy actor might seize upon in the character of Devon and plays it, and holds his seriousness as the series hurls him through several genres.  Robbins is also exceptionally good, playing the part of an acclaimed British actor taking on a southern accent to play the Morehouse patriarch.  The closest the series comes to going off the rails is Wiig's purposely histrionic performance, which threatens to break the series's deadpan tone several times, but Piedmont reins her in, and much of her heavyhanded acting is meant to be in character (the actress she plays is meant to be Jonrosh's ex-wife, who divorced him during production).

Rounding out the cast are Haley Joel Osment as Cynthia's loose-cannon son, Michael Sheen as her fey, Rhett Butler-like husband, Val Kilmer as a corrupt Army general, and Jessica Alba as a rival for Devon's love.

Keeping this sort of thing from becoming tired for three hours couldn't have been an easy task, but Piedmont and Steele manage it.  Jonrosh is set up as the kind of egomaniac who would attempt to master every genre, so each episode tackles a different one, from western to political intrigue to corporate melodrama to sci-fi, to a monumentally awful emulation of William Burroughs.  It's to the credit of Piedmont and Steele, who also collaborated with Ferrell on the underrated Spanish-language melodrama sendup Casa de mi Padre, that the series's tone is maintained for as long as it is.

If you've got cable, the entire series is viewable at IFC.com.  The entire series of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is available on YouTube.

CURSE OF CHUCKY (2013)

After efforts to reboot the Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead, Scream, and Texas Chain Saw series have fallen through pretty pathetically, it's good to see that Chucky is still Chucky.  The killer Good Guy Doll™ has still got it.

While many horror series pass through different hands and different approaches, Curse of Chucky benefits from familiarity and limited ambition.  It sticks with what has worked about the concept.  The series thus far has had the same producer and writer, and Brad Dourif has voiced the titular killer in each one.  Curse continues the tradition by keeping things spare, lean, and simple.

Nica (Fiona Dourif, Brad's daughter), bound to a wheelchair, lives with her mother Sarah (Chantal Quesnelle) in an old, decaying mansion that looks carted in from a James Whale film.  One afternoon she receives a strange package from an unclear sender.  Inside: well, you know.  Terror is soon pursuing Nica and Sarah in their labyrinthine house, as well as Nica's sister Barb (Danielle Busutti), her husband Ian (Brennan Elliott), their young daughter Alice (Summer Howell), and their au pair Jill (Maitland McConnell).

None of what happens here is groundbreaking, but writer-director Don Mancini creates believable characters with real relationships that exist for reasons other than to be chopped up.  They have real family troubles that are connected to the impending Chucky massacre, and not artificially built like many horror films' stabbing fodder.  The performances are also exceptionally good: the younger Dourif makes for a tenacious heroine, and Elliott a likably boorish male foil.  A Martinez also appears as the family's priest, and factors into one of the movie's more gleefully nasty scenes.

Mancini, in his second feature as director, shows a sure hand at suspense.  He makes great use of the setting, which helpfully includes a leaky roof, a winding staircase and a creaky old elevator.  Even though he's been with the series for six entries now (and has only written two screenplays that aren't Chucky-related), he doesn't seem to have grown tired of it.

The elder Dourif, too, is a major reason that Chucky is still as effective a presence as he is.  Chucky's voice has a unique clownish menace that can be at once enticing for children and disturbing.  It's also nice that Dourif gets to appear on screen this time around, too, as Chucky's former human self, serial killer Charles Lee Ray.  And if his appearance was not inspired by Tommy Wiseau, it should have been.

The movie sags quite a bit in its third act.  Its climax is diluted by backstories and flashbacks which don't contribute much to the story.  The little girl disappears for a long stretch for no particular reason.  And it ends a few too many times: I think you'll agree that there is one perfect moment where it ought to have cut to black, but it continues on for a few extraneous scenes, including one after the credits which strangely seems to negate the one that came before it.

*** out of ****

AN OKAY YEAR AT THE MOVIES 2014, Week 1

1. The Bay (2012): Jan. 2
2. Texas Chain Saw (2013): Jan. 2
3. The World's End (2013): Jan. 2
4. Upstream Color (2013): Jan. 3
5. The Apparition (2012): Jan. 3
6. I Saw the Devil (2010): Jan. 5
7. Stiches (2012): Jan. 6
8. 2012 (2009): Jan. 7
9. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010): Jan. 10
10. Tower Heist (2011): Jan. 10

The Bay (2012, Barry Levinson): ** 1/2
An interesting experiment in eco-horror: a found-footage Paranormal Activity-style mockumentary in which the pollution of Chesapeake Bay leads to horrific results.  Its heart is in the right place, and the environmental message is urgent, but Levinson's shaky hand with the genre is evident, and many of the scares don't land.  Still, the point of view (compiled from various first-person and journalist accounts) is flawless, and there are a number of creepy crawlies that are good for a shock or two.

Texas Chain Saw (2013, John Luessenhop): **
Reboot of the legendary slasher series ignores the above-average 2003 remake as well as the below-average 2006 prequel, and aims to be more of a direct followup to the original film.  Results are middling, scares are few, though blood and gore is plentiful.  Oddly, its biggest success is making the saw-wielding Leatherface into an antihero, something at which Rob Zombie failed with his two Halloween movies.

The World's End (2013, Edgar Wright): ***
The closing chapter of the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg Cornetto Trilogy, in which the not-quite-recovering alcoholic Gary King (Pegg) reunites his old school buddies (Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman) for a night of drinking and debauchery in their hometown.  Like its predecessors, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, it has a genre side-plot, this time influenced by apocalyptic actioners like They Live and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that ties into the characters' relationships and exacerbates each one's troubles.  But the character work is so good, and the performances so charming, that it might have just been about the reunion of five friends without all the action-movie business.  Still, it's consistently hilarious.

Upstream Color (2013, Shane Carruth): ***
This is a love story that, at the very least, has never been told before.  A woman (Amy Siemetz) is attacked, brainwashed, and has her memories stolen.  Soon she meets a man (writer-director-composer Carruth) whom she suspects has had the same thing happened to him, and may have some of her memories.  Hypnotic, strange, and engrossing, told from a dreamlike first-person point of view inspired by David Lynch and Terrence Malick.  Only problem: its puzzling, difficult framing device can be tiring.

The Apparition (2012, Todd Lincoln): 1/2
Uninvolving ghost story is the type of film that's usually lazily ripped from Asian horror; this time it's an original dud.  Kelly (Ashley Greene) finds out that she's being haunted by a malevolent ghost that her boyfriend (Sebastian Stan) and his buddy (Tom Felton) awakened years ago.  Filled with half-baked ideas and empty scenes that are meant to be eerie but are just boring.  Two redeeming qualities: (1) the final shot is an effective rip-off from the 2005 Korean film Cello, and (2) the 82-minute running time includes ten minutes of end credits.

I Saw the Devil (2010, Ji-woon Kim): ** 1/2
After his fiancee is murdered, a federal agent (Byung-hun Lee) tracks down the killer (Oldboy's Min-sik Choi) to take his revenge... but simply killing him would be too easy.  Long, bloody, and brutal, and director Kim takes the revenge thriller to an extreme degree, though Lee's revenge plan is too much of a movie concoction, and his descent to the same level as the killer is predictable.  Choi is memorably ruthless and sadistic as the amoral, seemingly invincible murderer.

Stitches (2012, Conor McMahon): **
After he's accidentally killed at a child's birthday party, a cantankerous clown (Ross Noble) returns from the dead to take revenge on the now-teenaged kids who caused his death.  The shabby, drunken, foul-mouthed Noble is never as scary as a regular well-behaved clown, but the movie is at least populated by awful, annoying brat teenagers who we're happy to see killed in comically graphic ways.

2012 (2009, Roland Emmerich): ***
I've got a soft spot for Irwin Allen, so this movie was music to my ears.  An all star cast including John Cusack, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, and Woody Harrelson battles the rising oceans and shifting earth crusts after the Mayan prophecy of 2012 is proven to be true.  Not the tightest of storytelling, but no one does this sort of thing better than Emmerich; the special-effects scenes of the world's destruction are spellbinding.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010, Jon Turteltaub): ** 1/2
Pleasant and usually fun, if disappointing, reunion of the star and director of National Treasure.  Nicolas Cage is Balthazar, student of Merlin, who's reawakened in modern-day New York to stop an evil wizard (Alfred Molina) from world domination.  He's got the help of a college student (Jay Baruchel), whom he's taken as his apprentice.  Some fun special-effects sequences set in realistic New York locations, and likable performances from Cage as the frazzled hero, Baruchel as the awkward apprentice, and Molina as the flamboyant villain.

Tower Heist (2011, Brett Ratner): ***
A heist movie for the Occupy Wall Street era: formulaic but entertaining, with a surprisingly potent economic message.  The manager (Ben Stiller) of a Trump Tower-like condo building in New York invests his employees' pensions with his billionaire penthouse resident (Alan Alda); when the billionaire is arrested for fraud, the employees have to find their money, and steal it back.  Never more than predictable, but consistently likable, with a terrific ensemble of performers.  Alda is exceptionally sleazy as the Bernie Madoff-like scam artist, and Eddie Murphy and Matthew Broderick have their best roles in years as a career burglar and a disgraced businessman, respectively.