This Week in Cinemasochism: Kirk Cameron's SAVING CHRISTMAS (2014)

I thought I had this movie pegged.  The poster said it all, I figured: the evangelical former teen idol Kirk Cameron at the center, in a Chuck Norris-like pose, wielding a candy cane like a sword and protecting a snow globe as if it were the baby Jesus himself.  The tagline, "Put Christ back in Christmas," suggests a full-on acceptance of our declaration of War on Christmas, and that Kirk will be there to meet us on the front lines.  Watch out, liberals and atheists, 'cuz evangelicals are coming to kick your ass!

I embarked upon this 80-minute film ready to get served a lesson in the True Meaning of Christmas.  But then the movie dug into its plot, and... well, I was humbled to find that I wasn't in the movie's crosshair at all.  It isn't even a straw-man attack on secularism so that evangelical audiences can cheer on the defeat of those who would insist on "Happy Holidays" in every store.  Though there's lip service paid to the "wet blankets" who don't want Christians to celebrate "too loudly," Cameron surprisingly aims to the right rather than to the left.  It's targeted at people who think Christmas needs to be more pure, more religious, more centered on Jesus.  Kirk positions himself as the liberal reformer, who's here to tell those stiffly stiffersons to lighten up: that all the decorating, singing, celebrating, gift-buying, and ho-ho-ho-ing is perfectly okay!

After a five-minute introduction featuring Cameron himself sitting in front of a Christmas tree musing about what Christmas means to him and sipping from what I'm pretty sure is an empty cup of cocoa, we go to a lavish Christmas party hosted by Kirk's sister (played by his real life sister--Bridgette, not Candace).  Kirk learns from his sister (she's billed only as Kirk's sister) that her husband, Christian White (the symbolism here is about as subtle as a brick), has been struggling with Christmas lately.

Rather than join in the celebration, Christian (played by the film's co-writer/director, Darren Doane) has elected to sit in his car and stew.  Kirk goes out to sit with him to try to bring him out of his Scrooge attitude.  Christian explains that he can't shake his skepticism about Christmas.  How does our celebration of Christmas represent the Christian faith at all?  Wouldn't the more Christian thing be to take all the money we spend on presents and trees and decorations and use it to feed poor children?

A question that leads even the most liberal among us to think: well, yeah, wouldn't it be?  Nah, I guess not, and the prospect of all those starving kids doesn't seem to bother Kirk a lot, since he listens to Christian's fairly legitimate quibbles with an unending smug grin, as if he's just waiting to deliver him a yuletide smackdown.

He never really answers the question about the poor children.  Instead, Kirk deters the conversation to an absolutely befuddling thesis on Jesus's swaddling clothes in the manger, the relevance of which I'm still attempting to grasp.

It's around this point that we realize that the entire movie is going to be made up of Kirk and this guy sitting in a car talking.  Kirk essentially runs through every element of Christmas celebration that has a pagan or secular origin and explains that, see, it's Christian after all.  The Christmas tree hearkens back not to the winter solstice but to the tree of knowledge from Genesis.  The act of material gift giving isn't materialistic at all; it's a representation of God's spirit being made material in the form of Jesus, get it?  And most ridiculously at all, the shape of the presents under the tree really seems to resemble the cityscape of Bethlehem!

Cameron, Doane, and crew must have realized soon into production that their car conversation wasn't enough to sustain a feature film, as most of the actors seem to have been directed to milk every beat for as long as they can.  The movie's barely an hour long if you take out Kirk's long introduction and the interminable final dance number, followed by a "credit cookie" outtake sequence that, if it isn't  hilarious, is at least loose and goofy enough to show that the movie was made by human beings and not robots.

There's little plot to speak of, though the monotony of Cameron's feature-length lecture is broken up slightly by the appearance of two Happenin' Black Dudes who occasionally converse about being restricted from celebrating Christmas.  It culminates in one of them delivering an off-the-cuff beat poem presenting a litany of conspiracy theories; it's here, I think, that the filmmakers mean to downplay the whole "War on Christmas" thing as kinda silly, which is commendable, though if you listen closely, the dialogue seems to equate fears of the Koch Brothers and Citizens United with 9/11 truthers and chem trail watchers.

The movie isn't completely unwatchable; it appears to have been made with a modicum of production value.  Cameron has a completely vapid screen presence, though Doane has a certain lumpy charm as the Scrooge character.  And though the movie is patently offensive, both logically and religiously, it is effective as a crass curiosity: here is, from the country's most prominent right-wing straight-arrow devout Christian, a defense of tacky materialism in the name of Jesus.  It's okay to get gaudy on Christmas; it's a little disingenuous to say the Bible told you to.

* out of ****

P.S. I didn't mention the "Game of Thrones"-style Santa Claus fight scene.  It's not as much fun as it sounds.

This Week in Cinemasochism: A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST (2014)

It's always a shame to see a promising auteur collapse under his own weight. Seth MacFarlane, creator of the occasionally ingenious but now mostly tiresome "Family Guy," took to live action deftly a few years ago with the hilarious Ted. His second feature as director is, sadly, a labor of love: a rare comedy-western that aims to be equally a parody of and a tribute to the classic films MacFarlane loves. But while Ted was funny, smart, and never overstayed its welcome, A Million Ways to Die in the West is repetitive, dumb, and long. When he tries, MacFarlane can be crude without being crass, hip without being too self-referential, and witty without being smug. This film represents two full hours of MacFarlane's worst habits and none of his good ones.

MacFarlane plays Albert Stark, a mouthy but cowardly sheep herder who always finds himself on the wrong end of somebody's fist. He lives in a small frontier town in the late 19th century, and he hates everything about the place and time he lives in. When his doe-eyed girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him in favor of a handsome mustachioed shop owner (Neil Patrick Harris), he sinks further into depression. But then a gorgeous gunslinger named Anna (Charlize Theron) takes a liking to him, not revealing that she's actually married to Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), the most vicious gunfighter in the West.

MacFarlane's first mistake--and not his last--was casting himself in the lead role. It's clear what he's trying to do: the key lies within Woody Allen's early work, like Bananas and Love and Death, which placed Woody as a modern-speaking nebbish standing at a right angle to a conventional genre plot.  The difference is that unlike Woody, MacFarlane doesn't have a self-deprecating bone in his body.  He's always putting wisecracks and asides into his character's mouth, but in a way that makes him seem obnoxious and superior rather than charming.  That the strikingly gorgeous Theron is required to fall in love with him at first sight only makes the film more awkward.

Still, Theron is a trooper.  She's the best thing about the film, and should perform in comedies more often: with a better comic foil than MacFarlane to play with, she'd make an excellent straight woman.  In fact, everyone in the cast who plays it straight is quite good.  Neeson has some of the best scenes as the imposing villain.  As Albert's wiry nemesis, Harris's big laughs rarely fall flat; the mere look of him is funnier than any of MacFarlane's labored gags.

A few moments do work.  MacFarlane has a very funny Woody-esque monologue early in the film in which he runs through a laundry list of what a horrible time it is to be living.  Bill Maher's cameo as a hacky square-dance comedian is spot-on.  Christopher Lloyd appears in a scene that will melt the heart of everyone born in the '80s.  MacFarlane's talent as a songwriter (along with composer Joel McNeely, whose score is a likable Dmitri Tiomkin soundalike) stands out with two very good songs: a fun dance number at the midpoint, and a closing-credits title song sung by Alan Jackson that has more laughs than the entire movie.

The rest of the movie drags on for two full hours.  When MacFarlane tends toward the repetitively vulgar--as in a sub-plot featuring Giovanni Ribisi and his Christian prostitute girlfriend played by Sarah Silverman--the laughs wither soon.  When he has the characters speak in a "meta" style, the movie suffers too.  The numerous references to slavery and the massacre of the Indians are properly culturally sensitive but lazily written; he'll usually just have his characters comment flippantly on what's happening.

Some bad movies are a collaborative effort.  This one is pretty much entirely MacFarlane's fault.  It's not that MacFarlane is untalented, or as hackneyed as this material represents; he's done great things and will again.  He will write and direct a great film again.  Dare I say, he could even act again; though he's got an immensely better presence as a voice actor than as a live actor, he could be shaped into a good live performer.  But he should never be allowed to direct himself in a live-action film again.  Some auteurs need complete artistic freedom, but in every scene of this film MacFarlane desperately needs someone to check on him.

* 1/2 out of ****

Is it really that bad?: Yeah, for the most part it is.

Pain level: Moderate to intense, depending on whether Neeson or Harris is on screen.

This Week in Cinemasochism: THE OOGIELOVES IN THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE (2012)

This Week in Cinemasochism takes a look at movies that have been notoriously rejected by the mass populace, and tells you if you might perchance be missing a classic. Or not. 


The Oogieloves in The Big Balloon Adventure came and went with barely a whimper in the late summer of 2012.  With a budget estimated at $12 million, it made about 1 of those millions back in its short but wide release, setting the record for lowest-grossing opening weekend for a film running on over 2000 screens.

Children's films like this seem to fall the hardest.  In a world where we have The Lego Movie, Harry Potter, Shrek, the Marvel films, or any of the Disney and Pixar movies that appeal equally well to kids and their parents, enough producers still seem to put their money into films that aim for the lowest common denominator, forgetting that kids can enjoy smart humor just as well as silliness.

Who is The Oogieloves for?  Certainly not for anyone above the age of 3, I would think.  It's the brainchild of Kenn Viselman, whose name is announced by the opening credits with the majesty usually reserved for Walt Disney.  I read on IMDb that he's the producer of the "Teletubbies," and this film exists on about the same plane.  Unlike the TV tubs, the Oogieloves and their friends speak in words and sentences rather than in seemingly random noises, but that doesn't necessarily make them more coherent.  As with the 'tubbies, the aim of Oogieloves seems to be to fill the screen with colorful sights, constant action, and various silly sounds to appeal to very, very, very young viewers.

Certainly by now we all know what an Oogielove is, but I'll explain for the few who are uninitiated into the Oogielove phenomenon that has swept the nation.  The Oogieloves, we learn, are Gooby, Zoozie, and Toofie, three hideous giant plastic children--played by full-size adults in Teletubby-like costumes, whose faces barely move.  I've complained about the partially paralyzed look of motion-capture characters in movies like The Polar Express and Beowulf, but these decidedly analog live-action characters are even worse.  Smiles barely vary from frowns, and the three protagonists' stonefaced, deadened non-reactions to the wackiness around them makes them seem like refugees from an Antonioni film.

Like all good Ninja Turtles, each Oogielove has his or her defining talent and personality type.  Gooby loves science and wears glasses.  Zoozie loves sparkles and can speak any language (though most of her talent is dedicated to interpreting animal sounds).  Toofie is the party dude whose pants keep falling down.  The plot, so far as there is one, involves their excursion to retrieve five magical balloons as a birthday present for their pillow, Schluufy. (No word on whether Cthulhu or Azathoth will be on hand to help, but I eagerly await the presumed sequel: The Oogieloves in the Sunken City of R'lyeh.)

The movie continues in episodic structure as the three 'loves hunt down each of the five balloons while their harried father-figure, a vacuum cleaner named J. Edgar (a reference which no one in this movie's intended audience will get, and which no attending parent will find funny), waits impatiently at home.  Their mother-figure is Windy, a window with a human face (Maya Stange) not unlike the mirror in Snow White crossed with the creepy sun baby of the "Teletubbies."

The movie is so completely off its rocker that the fact that its plot is completely centered around a birthday party for a pillow is completely acceptable in context.  The balloons, which have talking faces not unlike Marshie the Marshmallow from "Homestar Runner," wind up in the hands of a cavalcade of celebrity guest stars, all of whom seem oddly happy to be there.  Cloris Leachman (as a dancer who loves polka dots), Christopher Lloyd and Jaime Pressly (as two flamenco dancers who pilot a flying sombrero with the power of dance), Cary Elwes (as an off-putting cowboy bubble salesman), Toni Braxton (as a constantly sneezing lounge singer), and oddest of all, Chazz Palminteri (as a the cheery proprietor of a milkshake shack), all bring their collective A-game to the film.  Their commitment is unearned but commendable.

The movie's main selling point is its supposed interactivity: kids are encouraged to get out of their seats, dance around, and talk back to the screen when prompted.  When a flutter of butterflies flies across the bottom of the screen, that's the clue that a song is about to begin and that it's time for the kids to get up and dance; when a bale of turtles walks across, it's time to sit down. (And yes, I did just look up those collective nouns.  It's fun to learn.)  Sometimes the turtles arrive shortly before the end of a song and it looks like the turtles are giving the movie the gong.

After a while, the prompting of the audience grows positively tiring.  The number of times we're asked to stand up and sit down rivals a game of musical chairs; sometimes we're asked to leave our seats for a mere two-line chant.  Near the end, the balloons ask us to rescue them by blowing them kisses.  Let it be known that I, a man who will still (as proven recently) applaud for Tinker Bell at the end of Peter Pan, was unable to swallow enough pride to blow kisses at a talking balloon.  I wonder if the few children who saw Oogieloves in the theater were so entranced.

Does the movie work as it was intended?  I think so; it may serve as an appropriate distraction for the toddler set, if nothing more.  Maybe they'll be rapt by the brimming romance between J. Edgar the vacuum and Windy Window.  Maybe they'll be utterly charmed by Schluufy, the pillow who uncomfortably resembles a mentally challenged child.  Maybe they'll love the climactic musical number from the talking balloons, which may as well have been called "We Couldn't Get the Rights to 'Happy Birthday'."

The movie deserves praise in one (1) area, and that is in the performances of its three lead actors.  It could not have been easy to move, let alone dance, in those gigantic costumes, but they manage, and even contribute a breakdancing number over the end credits which is actually impressive.  Because of their commitment, I'd be remiss if I didn't list their names: Misty Miller, Stephanie Renz, and Malerie Grady.

Is it really that bad?: You bet.

Pain level: Advanced.

THIS WEEK IN CINEMASOCHISM: Movie 43 (2013)

Just why Movie 43 exists is a good question.  A middling collection of short sketches starring A-list actors might have been a novelty in the time of Kentucky Fried Movie or Amazon Women on the Moon, the obvious inspiration for this strange anthology spearheaded by Peter Farrelly.  But with the rise of Funny or Die, it's not out of the ordinary to see the biggest of names turn up in short films and sketches online.  A movie full of them is kind of like a VHS full of Blu-rays.

Because the movie is a collection of sketches from different directors with little connection and no continuity, they by nature range from the very funny to the not funny at all.  Kind of like the recent horror experiment The ABCs of Death, when it is good, it is very good.  When it is not, it's at least short.

Most of the films aim for pure grossout effect, and seeing famous actors doing decidedly grotesque things is one of the movie's redemptive joys.  Farrelly directs two sketches himself, both about blind dates gone wrong.  One of them, "The Catch," is awfully easy once the premise is revealed, but it moves briskly, gets laughs and ends early, and Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman are good sports as the two people in question.  He also directs the wraparound sequence, in which Dennis Quaid pitches the anthology to movie producer Greg Kinnear; this segment overstays its welcome quickly, though Quaid's outfit alone is good for a laugh.

Some sketches wring themselves out before they're over.  Real-life couple Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts are funny as parents homeschooling their son, though the sketch has limited gas in it.  A love story in which Anna Faris has a strange request for boyfriend Chris Pratt is a little too obvious, though the performances are genuine, particularly from JB Smoove as Pratt's best friend.  Griffin Dunne's sketch, about a weird grocery store romance (Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone), and Brett Ratner's, about a couple of guys (Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville) who catch a leprechaun (Gerard Butler), are pretty much swings-and-misses.  An overlong sketch about Batman (Jason Sudeikis) ruining Robin's (Justin Long) chances on a date is painfully labored, though it does feature a welcome appearance by John Hodgman.

The sketches that work best are the ones that have something up their sleeves other than grossouts.  Best is Elizabeth Banks's, about a young girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) on a date getting her first period, and the men around her having no idea what to do.  Steven Brill's, in which a room full of corporate executives are unable to determine why their product is injuring so many young men, is very funny, and contains some great deadpan work from Richard Gere and Aasif Mandvi.  James Gunn's is a wonderfully disgusting story about a woman (Elizabeth Banks) who's a bit upset at her boyfriend's (Josh Duhamel) relationship with his housecat.

And Rusty Cundieff, a veteran of "Chappelle's Show" and director of Tales from the Hood, a great and underseen socially conscious horror-comedy, delivers a faux sports reel about an African-American basketball team about to be the first to play against a white team, and a coach (Terrence Howard) who seems to be the only one not worried.  The sketch's one joke is a well-worn one, but it works, because of the time at which it takes place, and how the white team is portrayed, and how the inevitable punchline is executed.

** out of ****

Is it really that bad?: No.

Pain level: Beginner, though some of the longer sketches breed impatience.

30 NIGHTS OF NIGHT, Night 4 / THIS WEEK IN CINEMASOCHISM: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2011)

Fans instantly chirped at the news that Jackie Earle Haley had been cast as Freddy Krueger, that irreplaceable haunter of dreams, in the new redux of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Some, having seen Haley’s exceptional work in Little Children and Watchmen, eagerly awaited his take on the well-known villain. Others poo-poohed the casting, insisting that the only real Freddy is the original, Robert Englund.

It has been interesting seeing Englund’s performance of Freddy evolve over the many sequels: from a powerful evil presence in the first film, to a jokester in the third film, then just a joke in later efforts. Casting another actor stops Freddy in his tracks, and only works if the filmmakers have a new direction to take the character in. In this case, they do not.

Not only does the casting of Haley—who’s far too talented an actor to be involved in the first place—bring nothing to the film, but the new Nightmare is poorly written, badly acted, and amateurishly directed to boot. I remember making movies like this with my VHS camcorder when I was 12. The Be Kind Rewind guys would have made a more professional-looking film than this.

It follows the plot of the original film fairly closely. Teenagers in Springwood have been having graphic nightmares in which a man with a burnt face, a striped sweater, and knives on his fingers stalks them. Soon they begin to notice that when they’re cut in their dreams, they bleed in real life. The parents seem to have some idea of what’s going on, but stay suspiciously silent. It all ties back to Fred Krueger.

Freddy’s backstory is well-known at this point, but this movie dwells on it as if it’s a surprise. Each detail is spelled out as if the movie aspires to be an encyclopedia of movie monsters for nerds. The 2009 Friday the 13th remake was no classic, but it at least began knowingly, with a prologue that assumed we knew who Jason was and then moved on quickly.

Everything that the new Nightmare tells us about Freddy is something we know from the original film. The only new step the movie takes is to focus uncomfortably on Freddy’s pedophilia, so that we’re rewarded with several flashback scenes of Mr. Krueger asking young girls if they want to know a secret. Barf.

The casting of Jackie Earle Haley might have easily led the film in a new direction. Haley was no doubt cast because of his excellent Oscar-nominated performance in Little Children, in which he played a convicted pedophile who was sick and afflicted, and garnered our sympathy. Are we ready for a sadder, resigned Freddy Krueger, who’s a monster simply because there’s nothing else he can be? Apparently not; Haley’s take on Freddy is pretty much the same old stuff, and at times he even seems to be parroting Englund. Even Englund’s snappy jokey dialogue from the later sequels would have been welcomed here. Instead we get this:

Teenager: “You’re not real.”
Freddy: “I’m real.” 

There are other actors in the film going through the motions. One is the delightful Rooney Mara, whose work in The Social Network had already lifted her above junk like this. Connie Britton appears as one of the moms, but her performance as a standard plot-deliverer only reminds us of Ronee Blakley’s brilliant off-the-wall portrayal of the same character in the original.

So much more could have been done with this plot. With the steep takeoff of ADD drugs in recent years, something might have been done with the fact that kids actually are awake all night nowadays. There’s one scene involving a video blogger that might have been expanded upon, but is quickly dismissed. There are ways to update A Nightmare on Elm Street for the times without simply rehashing it.

What an incredible bore this movie is. There’s not one legitimate scare in it. Not one. It carbon-copies the original but sucks out everything that made it work. The characters are turned into lame teen soap stars, the plot is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, and Freddy is made inert. One of the writers is Wesley Strick, who has written some very good thrillers over the past twenty years: Arachnophobia, Wolf, Return to Paradise, Doom, the Martin Scorsese Cape Fear. His draft for A Nightmare on Elm Street should never have left the bottom drawer.

* out of ****

Is it really that bad?: It's excruciating.

Pain level: Advanced. 

THIS WEEK IN CINEMASOCHISM: The Devil Inside (2012)

This Week in Cinemasochism takes a look at movies that have been notoriously rejected by the mass populace, and tells you if you might perchance be missing a classic.  Or not.


The Devil Inside is a quick cheapie built for a swift box office draw: the kind of horror movie that's being made more and more often since Paranormal Activity spun a few thousand dollars into 100 million.  According to IMDb, Devil cost about a million to make and brought in $33 million on its opening weekend: modest for a major-studio movie, but more than enough.  The reception among critics and fans, however, was not as successful; it may have gone down as the most hated movie of 2012.  It scored a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is not easy (The Oogieloves is listed at 27%), and appears to be generous at that.  Let me quote from the critics who "liked" it: "Exorcism horror gets the cliched shaky-camera treatment," "The less said about that ending, the better." The bad reviews aren't just unfavorable; they're downright nasty.  Peter Travers: "The Devil Inside manages not only to scrape the barrel's bottom but to drill a hole in said bottom and funnel deeper into the scum."

Ouch.  I, uh, I kinda liked it.

I really don't see what all the vitriol is about.  The Devil Inside is a competently made, well-acted, quickly paced and enjoyable thriller.  It's unambitious, but, well, so what?  Sometimes a demonic-possession movie doesn't need to be ambitious.  It's certainly more entertaining than The Conjuring, a dull would-be shocker that's been heaped with praise.  Will it fill you with dread?  No.  But if you're the kind who enjoys demonic screaming and flailing, levitating objects, crosses that burn your skin, possessed women shouting something that rhymes with "Your mother sews socks that smell," and pea soup that flows like water--all things which we hold near and dear to our hearts--then the film will not disappoint.

It begins with that old portentous signal "Based on true events," which is the second-most meaningless caption in the film.  It's followed by the most meaningless, which says that the Vatican did not in any way endorse this film.

Yes, I wrote in my review of The Conjuring that the old, old based-on-true-events trick is the kiss of death for a horror movie.  But that's only if the movie takes itself seriously, which The Devil Inside doesn't.  Though it plays itself straight, it's content to be nothing more than a romp with the devil through a series of body-bending exorcisms.

An ominous, anonymous call is placed to 911: "Three people are dead." Police arrive to find... well, I'll leave you to discover it.  Flash forward twenty or so odd years and Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) is traveling to Rome with a couple of rogue exorcists (Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth) and the camera crew from The Blair Witch Project at her behest.  Isabella Rossi (no relation to Ingrid Bergman) hopes to exorcise the demon that she believes has possessed her mother (Suzan Crowley).

The movie delivers far more guffaws than frights.  Was that intentional?  It doesn't matter; it does.  The first scene between Isabella and her mother is a delight, in which the mother spouts ominous warnings in several different languages and accents, and boasts a body covered in markings of upside-down crosses.  Since the crosses point in many directions, I don't know how the characters know they're upside-down.  The exorcism scenes are actually quite well done, with some excellent stunt work from contortionist Pixie Le Knot at key moments.  The performances are earnest and surprisingly good, particularly from Crowley as the possessed mum.

Director William Brent Bell works handily within the well-worn "found footage" template, and never cheats on the point of view.  The quieter scenes fail to achieve the kind of brutally honest emotion that other documentary-style horror films have, such as The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Blair Witch.  As a result some confessional (in the reality-TV sense, not the Catholic sense) scenes are extraneous, and the movie feels a little padded at barely 75 minutes followed by the slowest scrolling end credits you'll ever see.  But the film is punctuated by some truly entertaining, gory and kinetic scenes.  The ending has been much maligned, and the film doesn't so much end as it does stop, but Bell throws in a few delicious set pieces near the end.  I'm thinking in particular of one memorable baptism scene in which... well, I'll just say I didn't see it coming.

** 1/2 out of ****

Is it really that bad?: Yes.  Which is to say not at all.

Pain level: For horror fans, non-existent.  For others, moderate. 

THE CINEMASOCHIST: Sucker Punch (2011)

The Cinemasochist takes a look at movies that have been notoriously rejected by the mass populace, and tells you if you might perchance be missing a classic. Or not. 



If The Artist really does fulfill its promise of bringing the silent picture back to the American cinema, Zack Snyder will be the first director I'll be eager to see make one.  Snyder is a master at telling a story with images.  His prologue and opening credits sequence for Watchmen were fascinating and set up everything we needed to know for the film, with very little dialogue.  The film became less compelling as the storytelling became hamfisted, but the first twenty minutes contains some of the most memorable film images in recent years.

The same can be said for Sucker Punch, which begins with a masterstroke of a prologue.  It tells a story in itself, completely free of dialogue, using only montage and images.  If it were released in the 1920s, it would be praised as an expressionist masterpiece.  This silent sequence proves that Snyder is a born silent film director.  The talkie film that follows, unfortunately, proves the same.

But still, what an opener.  We meet Babydoll (Emily Browning), a young girl who's just lost her mother.  Her wiley stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) is upset at not being included in the will, and after a series of unfortunate events he has Babydoll locked away in a mental institution.  At this early point in the film, Snyder has established character, status, and conflict as succinctly as the best directors of the silent era.

Once we get to the mental hospital, the movie goes off the rails and keeps chugging.  When Babydoll is committed, we learn that she's going to be lobotomized in five days.  She then retreats into a fantasy world in which the hospital is a high-class brothel where the female inmates dance and seduce rich people.  The psychiatrist (Carla Gugino) is the madam, the orderly (Oscar Isaac) is the pimp, and the fellow inmates (Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Jamie Chung, Vanessa Hudgens) are fellow prostitutes.  But that's not all: whenever Babydoll dances, she goes into a further sub-fantasy, where she and the girls dress as soldiers and fight dragons, under the command of a mysterious leader (Scott Glenn, aping David Carradine).

The '70s were rife with an exploitation subgenre known as the rape-revenge movie, in which formerly helpless girls took righteous revenge on the beastly men who attacked them, and the movie was generally just as interested in watching the poor girl get savaged as in depicting her rapists' retribution.

Sucker Punch is a step down from that: it's a rape-run-and-hide movie.  Though it's toned down to a PG-13 level, it's still morbidly fascinated with watching its team of girls get emotionally and physically abused by men, whether it be by the stepfather, the lecherous pimp, or a lobotomist (Jon Hamm, in a desperate cameo).  But rather than glorious bloody revenge, the characters' triumph is in retreating into their minds.

I have always had a problem with movies that find their victory in the magic of imagination.  Though one or two have done it right (Tarsem Singh's brilliant The Fall is an example), most are condescending and insulting (Marc Forster's insipid yet somehow Best Picture-nominated Finding Neverland being the most insidious culprit).  Sucker Punch is a few steps more tragic: the idea that any victim of abuse should find any sort of victory by retreating into fantasy is absurd and, when you think about it, extremely sexist.  Though it fancies itself a girl-power flick, what with its battle scenes of chicks decked out in army gear and kicking ass, Sucker Punch is firmly on the side of the attacker: when you're abused, the thing to do is deal with it yourself, in your own mind, without bothering anyone.

Even aside from that distressing implication, Sucker Punch is a story poorly told.  The fantasy-within-fantasy motif, which must have been modeled on Inception, might just as well have been ditched.  If the brothel scenes are predictable and dull, the battle scenes are completely devoid of any stakes or any connection to the story.  There are a lot of explosions, but what's being achieved is never quite clear.  Compare it to Inception, in which each level of reality has an effect on the other, and a bullet fired in one reality creates the stakes for the next.

The cast of girls is interchangeable.  They're a talented group of actors, especially Cornish, who starred as Fanny Brawne in the fine John Keats biopic Bright Star, and deserves better.  Browning, so good in the underrated ghost flick The Uninvited, is given little to do as the movie explodes around her.  The only actor allowed to make an impression is Isaac, who as the film's primary villain eats up the scenery and spits it out violently.  Jon Hamm, who doubles as the hospital's lobotomist and (in Jiminy Glick makeup) a rich customer at the brothel, must be on a quest to prove that he can cameo in everything.

It doesn't help that the film is plastered with wall-to-wall bad covers of classic rock songs.  The most egregious is Yoav's gutting of the Pixies' "Where is My Mind," though the eardrum-bursting rendition of "White Rabbit" that plays through one battle scene is formidable competition.  For a saving grace, Browning does a quite nice version of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" which plays over the prologue.  And as a nice touch, the movie prominently uses Bjork's "Army of Me," which makes for a great revenge anthem.

This is Snyder's first film based on an original script (which he wrote with Steve Shibuya).  He struggles with coming up with his own conceits; he's excelled mainly with finding ways to translate other works to the screen.  Building stories into images is his talent; here he comes up empty.  If the film had only consisted of the first ten minutes, it would have been a masterpiece.  As it is, Sucker Punch is a discouragement to abuse victims everywhere, disguised as a pointless, endless, loud mess.




* out of ****

Is it really that bad?: It's worse.

Pain level: Excepting the first ten minutes, high.

THE CINEMASOCHIST: Ghost Dad (1990)

The Cinemasochist takes a look at movies that have been notoriously rejected by the mass populace, and tells you if you might perchance be missing a classic. Or not.



Ghost Dad assembles a top-notch cast, some of Hollywood’s best screenwriters, Sidney Poitier (yes, Sidney Poitier) behind the camera, and America’s greatest father figure, all in the service of a premise that is completely grotesque. I shudder to think what Hollywood executive dreamed it up and thought it was a good idea. It certainly cannot have been Cosby or Poitier, who seem far to cheerful to invent something so morose. Nor could it have been writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, who seem to be trying to wring all they can from this unfortunate story. Whoever invented it must be a sad, lonely person who has trained himself to deal with misery by laughing at it.

The notion of Bill Cosby playing a ghost isn’t in itself so bad. One can imagine mining some comedy from Cosby getting stuck between worlds and trying to make his way around.

But, well... okay, let me put it this way. You’re one of the children in this film. Your mom passed away a few years earlier, and your dad (Bill Cosby) has been struggling to raise you and your two siblings ever since. He’s a few days away from securing a new promotion that will make things a whole lot easier. And then he shows up one afternoon and explains to you that he’s been killed in a car accident, and is now a ghost.

I know--barrel of laughs, right?

Of course, humor can always be found in the gallows, but that is not the kind of movie that Ghost Dad seems to want to be. It wants to be a silly family comedy. We’re even treated to a scene where Ghost Cosby, unable to communicate with his children, develops a goofy game of charades to explain to them that he’s a ghost. We see the children take delight in playing the guessing game, and then we see their faces drop when they figure it out.

Hold on--my sides are splitting.

So what we have is a silly comedy in which three kids are on the verge of being orphaned. The movie avoids the real gravity of the situation by progressing from set-piece to set-piece without much thought. Ghost Dad has to go on a date. Ghost Dad messes around with daughter’s stupid boyfriend. Ghost Dad needs to go get a physical. The most befuddling is the show-and-tell sequence, in which Cosby’s son gets on his case about helping him with a magic trick.

Hello? Kid, your dad is dead. Forget about the magic trick and cry or something. That the kids do not quite grasp what has happened to their father makes the movie even sadder.

The movie is competently made. Cosby is much more at home here than in the dismal Leonard Part 6. The role of a hapless father trying to keep his family together suits him quite well, and he even wrings a few funny moments out of trying to parent from beyond the grave. I must admit that I laughed at a scene in which he is forced to undergo a physical, which he manages to do quite believably (with the help of Arnold Stang--yes, Arnold Stang).  The usually reliable Ian Bannen appears as a scientist named Edith, and the fact that his name is Edith is one of many jokes that the movie insists is very funny.

It should be mentioned--spoiler alert!--that the Cosby character is thankfully not really dead, and he finds a way to put himself back in his body and reunite with his family, and the movie has a happy ending. This is a relief. There is absolutely no way to accept a version of this movie where the character actually dies, and where the kids grieve for their father in a normal way. Such a movie would be tragic, and to try to make it into a comedy would be unconscionable.

Though Ghost Dad is a bit more bearable than Leonard Part 6, they share one thing in common: both are films that fall prey to a premise that is completely unworkable. There may be a way to make a movie about a dad who dies and comes back as a ghost to set things right for his children, but it would have to be somber and honest and not the fun fest that this film wants to be.

* 1/2 out of ****

Is it really that bad?: It's not completely devoid of humor.

Pain level: Fairly low, rising to intermediate whenever the young children are involved.

THE CINEMASOCHIST: Caddyshack II (1988)

The Cinemasochist takes a look at movies that have been notoriously rejected by the mass populace, and tells you if you might perchance be missing a classic. Or not.



Harold Ramis's Caddyshack was a unique occurrence.  It was less a cohesive film than it was an experiment to see what happens when you throw ten or fifteen of the world's best comic actors in a room and see what happens.  Nobody remembers it for its plot or its screenplay, or its perfunctory love story, or even the adorable puppet gopher who dances over the opening music.  It was for the manic comic explosion that happened when Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Ted Knight occupied the same movie.  It wasn't a smart bomb by any stretch--more of a comic splatter--but there were more hits than misses.  And the actors--even Murray and Chase, who hated each other--improvised together to make it work.

Caddyshack II, perhaps inevitably, followed eight years later.  Though unable to rekindle much of the original cast, it supplies a surprisingly strong road company.  Chase returns as the inimitable Ty Webb.  Jackie Mason steps into Rodney Dangerfield's shoes as the rich rabble-rouser who actually cares about the non-rich community.  Robert Stack plays the Ted Knight role, as the upper-crust patrician who opposes him.  Dan Aykroyd plays the Bill Murray role as a shady diner cook.  Jonathan Silverman, Dyan Cannon, Jessica Lundy, Chynna Phillips, Dina Merrill, and Randy Quaid also step in.  Ramis wrote the screenplay with Peter Torokvei, and veteran Allan Arkush (of Rock and Roll High School) takes the director's chair.

The problem?  The film plays as the exact opposite of the original.  While the original was an improvised masterpiece, the sequel seems meticulously planned.  Nothing about it seems spontaneous.  Though by no means horrible, and sometimes even funny, all the actors seem restricted, as if they're more closely scripted this time.

The plot is pretty much the same.  The aristocrats of Bushwood Country Club are shaken when philanthropist Jack Hartounian (Mason) joins up.  His company is in the process of building a block of low-rent apartments for low-income people, which threatens the property value of the nearby rich, notably Chandler Young (Stack).  Meanwhile, Jack's daughter (Lundy) really wants to be part of the upper class, and finds herself being courted by Young's son (Brian McNamara), though a bumbling caddy (Silverman) has his eye on her.

Mason's character is one reason the movie isn't as potent as the first.  Though Mason is often funny, he's far too polite to take on the Dangerfield role.  His character is unimpeachable and nice; though Rodney was the hero of the first film, the funniest moments came from his crudeness in the face of the prim and proper atmosphere of the country club.  Though he gets off a few one-liners, Mason is far too pleasant.

Stack is fun to watch as the straight man; though he'll never have a moment as laugh-out-loud funny as when he took off his sunglasses in Airplane!, he wisely takes the role as seriously as possible and makes a convincing punching bag.  Chase also remains effortlessly funny.

Not a whole lot can be said for the rest of the film.  Cannon and Silverman are wasted.  Quaid mugs interminably as Jack's assistant.  Aykroyd is a sorry replacement for Bill Murray; his answer to Murray's unforgettable character from the first film is to affect an irritating falsetto and act goofy.

Some of the set pieces in Caddyshack II get good laughs; others don't.  But what pervades all of them is a sense that it's all been planned.  Gone is the improvised atmosphere of the original, and in its place is an average '80s comedy.

** out of ****

Is it really that bad?: Well, no, but why bother with this film at all?

Pain level: Most of the time, intermediate.  When either Randy Quaid or Dan Aykroyd is on screen, sharp.

THE CINEMASOCHIST: Leonard Part 6 (1987)

The Cinemasochist takes a look at movies that have been notoriously rejected by the mass populace, and tells you if you might perchance be missing a classic. Or not.



On second thought, the only person who could have possibly conceived this movie as a star vehicle for Bill Cosby is Bill Cosby. No outside person would have ever looked at his standup, looked at his popular sitcom, looked at his place in the pantheon of comedy history, and reached the conclusion that the perfect role for him would be as a slapstick James Bond-style spy/action hero with barely any dialogue. Critics are quick to point out incredulously that the great Cosby was co-writer and producer of this gargantuan mess. That isn’t the unbelievable part; what’s incredible is that he found someone else to collaborate with him on it.