Archive for February, 2010
Legion
Pre-ramble:
Four reviews ago, as you may remember, I wrote about Pandorum, and my utter amazement at Overture Films’ lack of promotion for that film. I suspect that now it’s on DVD it will make its money back and then some, if for no other reason, good word of mouth. This is in stark contrast with the movie that I’m going to review in this article – Legion. Sure, they both have Dennis Quad., but that’s where the similarities end. Legion, unlike Pandorum, was very well promoted. I saw the trailer in the theater and on TV more times than I can say.
Did this create excitement on my part for this movie? Not really. I have a knack for avoiding cruddy Hollywood movies. I would have totally given Legion a miss to if not for the obligation, nay, the covenant I’ve made with you, my one and only reader, to review the good, the bad and the ugly.
Dollface
The Short Review:
In college, I used to go to art student showings with my artist girlfriend. What struck me was in addition to being poorly executed, almost everything I saw was painfully personal. It was like group therapy with crayons, but because it was college it was way more expensive. Even worse than that is when art is deliberately vague, implying that if you don’t fill in the blanks for the artist – well, then, you must walk on your knuckles or something. Screw that. It’s lazy, pretentious and boring.
When I watch short low-budget movies, I often relive the experience of going to student art shows. So much of it is painfully personal or worse, falls into the latter category, trying to bluff you into thinking that you’re too stupid to “get it.” Is Dollface just another example of why the indy filmmaker’s are shut out? We shall see. . .
Lo
Pre-ramble:
The Fig Newton– yes, a little cookie filled with fig paste. Consider this: I am not a big fan of figs. I prefer Strawberries. I freakin’ love strawberry pie, strawberry tarts, strawberry donuts. I’ll pretty much eat any baked goods filled with Strawberry-goodness. Knowing that, one might reasonably think that I’d be positively gay for Strawberry Newtons. Nope. I can’t stand them. They are a vile abomination, as are any newton that is not fig. Why? Because, the humble Fig Newton is everything it should be and cannot be improved. It is one of humanity’s great achievements. It is a zen rock garden of flavor.
By perfection I don’t mean best, as is the best food to eat always and every time. I can assume that you wouldn’t want to live on a diet of Fig Newtons. You wouldn’t want everything to taste like a Fig Newton. Fig Newtons are not a dietary staple. Every once and a while they hit the spot in just the right way, leaving you feeling happy and satisfied. I would like to introduce you to Lo, the Fig Newton of movies about demons.
The Wolfman
Pre-Ramble:
When I was a kid, I never went to the old fishin’ hole with my Dad. I didn’t shoot cans with a BB gun. I never ate peppermint ice cream in the park as the first fireworks shot into the air on the Fourth of July. I didn’t collect baseball cards. That wasn’t my childhood. I wasn’t that sort of kid. I went to the beach and built sand castles which I then stomped with my giant clawed foot after rising from my slumber beneath the waves. I grave-robbed the toy box for bodies to take back to my lab in the garage; there I would create three-armed two-headed monstrosities with small green army men and a soldering iron. I terrorized the villagers in my backyard without fear. They had no silver bullets! Instead of scenes from Norman Rockwell, my childhood was filled with visions of gods and monsters!
A world of gods and monster or not, I still share in the near universal tendency to look back with nostalgia. We get possessive about those things with which we have an intimate connection. For a lot of people that kind of possessive nostalgia is reserved for a favorite musical group, a local sports team, or the cub/girl scouts and the like. For me, that possessive nostalgia was reserved for the great movie monsters. Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man didn’t belong to Universal. They belonged to me. Now, after so many years, Universal has remade The Wolf Man. My Wolfman!
Pandorum
Pre-Ramble:
Insanity, according Merriam-Webster is a deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder. I’ve experienced this first hand. I used to see things– horrible, frightening things. For example, I used to see messages on my television all the time; the messages would tell me lies, such as, “Go see The Love Guru. Mike Myers is funny.” My television told me that at least ten times an hour for about a month. How did I know this was a lie? Mike Myer hasn’t been funny in twenty years. Another message that came through the televison told me to see Cameron Diaz and her box. That seemed a rather odd thing for the televison to tell me. Even odder, it told me that about fifty times a day for what seemed like several months.
Eventually I was diagnosed with Rob Schneider’s Disorder, which is the belief that Hollywood would spend millions and millions of dollars to make you go see a movie that sucks, rather than spending it to promote or distribute a good movie. I mean, Hollywood would never do that. It makes no sense. I must be mad, right? That would be as nonsensical as making 40 million dollar sci-fi/horror film and not telling people that it even came out. That would never happen. Madness.