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wifflechicken
Reviews
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Has raised the bar by lowering it!
This movie is howlingly funny. Although a (very) few parts seemed staged and the narrative is scripted to connect Borat's "real" encounters, the entire movie has a bizarre charm of being both very familiar while blindsiding you with the most outrageous moments ever committed to celluloid. I have heard minor criticisms ranging from the film's crassness to uncomfortable moments over Borat's prejudice against all things Jewish. Well poo on them. Yes the movie is crass, yes the anti-Jew gag is unnerving, but that is the whole point. The entire movie is a subversive comment on us Americans while exploiting our weakest flaws. Also, you have to give Cohen the award for the most committed comedian/actor ever. Those who have seen the movie know what I'm referring to and those who haven't will know in an instant when they do see it. Wow, let's see Mr. Robert Deniro do that! I'm rambling because it is impossible to describe how funny this movie is without ruining it for those who haven't seen it. Go see this movie!
The New Adventures of Beans Baxter (1987)
Fresh and funny and cancelled before its prime
Beans Baxter ran on Fox when it was a new startup network piggybacking on independent stations and UHF. Sad to say, most of Fox's best stuff was during this time as it was daring and crazy for attention. Not that the Joan Rivers Show was great but it wasn't bad. Tracy Ullman got her first TV exposure here (and subsequently the Simpsons) as well as Johnny Depp and Holly Robinson (21 Jumpstreet). But of all these shows, the one that sticks out is Beans Baxter. A spoofy spy show, it had more in common with Batman and Rocky and Bullwinkle in tone than the more obvious Get Smart. To this day I still remember Dee Snider portraying the role of an exorcist under Baxter's employ shaking the bejeesus out of the town's teens who have succumbed to evil foreign powers' attempts to make American youth as square as the Lawrence Welk singers. Both campy and smart, Beans Baxter never had the chance to grow on the rocky new network and fell by the wayside before most of America had the chance to see its charms. Meanwhile, you can't turn on the TV without seeing a rerun of Yes,Dear. Oh well, who said life was fair.
Le pacte des loups (2001)
Mindless fun, but seriously, mindless
O.K. Apparently the premise for Brotherhood has some basis in fact. The characters named actually existed during the period the movie is set when a mysterious "beast" terrorized the French countryside. I must say, half of me loved this movie. The style and feel is cool. O.k, I admit, way cool. From the fight scenes in the pouring rain, to the whipsaw martial arts, to Monica Belucci naked. Not totally naked but M.B. half naked is worth more than three women buck nekked and touching their toes. I won't go into the plot because I don't like to deal with spoilers and because other reviewers already have, and because I'm lazy. What I will comment on are the details. This is where the other half of me went berserk over the ludicrisosity (I figured this movie needed its own word). I mean come on! An Iroquois Indian of Hawaii-Fillipino descent? Who is a master of Chinese Kung-Fu? Marauding gangs of psychotic gypsies? Dressed in their best Grizzly Adams come Mad Max furs? I mean, it is stupid, but yet, it looks cool so it works. Then the plot. See, they could have done the cool "this is stupid but cool" thing or the "somewhat historically based mystery with gratuitous naked Monica Belucci" but not both at the same time. It is hard to buy into the historical markers of the plot, if not the story itself, when a Lou Diamond Phillips look-a-like is going tiger-claw ass kicking on an 18th century French Wild Bunch. And, contrary to a previous review, at the time of the film (c.1765) the French had been in the New World for over a hundred years and wouldn't have been so incredulous at the sight of an American Indian (Pocohantas had toured England, gone home, and been stone cold dead for years before this movie takes place). On the other hand, oh who am I kidding? It's silly. Come on Frenchies, lack of historical understanding coupled with cartoon violence and a total disregard for comprehension is the purview of American cinema. But hey, what are you gonna do? So when the action sags (it does), and the plot becomes unbearable (it will), and the $6.50 40.oz Coke is on the fast track to saturating the fly of your Dockers (it is inevitable) you will at least have had the satisfaction of ogling Monica Belucci amidst one of the best choreographed ass kicking flicks committed to celluloid.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
As pleasant as a kick in the sack
Okay. I will begin by saying that I love the unintentional comedy in bad movies. I never laughed as hard as I have at Highlander: Endgame or Congo (the evil gorillas doing the "itchy pants I'm on fire dance" into a pit of molten lava is an all time screen gem!) I went into this movie fully expecting the same tone and I must say, I could have laughed harder at my own vasectomy. Have you ever looked at something gruesome out of a sick curiosity and wished you hadn't? Well, BE is an accident at the sausage factory.
I won't go into the "plot" details, mainly because they are of the "so bad they're funny" variety only they aren't funny. I did giggle a couple of times though. First, at Travolta's portrayal of Fussy-britches ( Er, I mean Terl). Think a butch Paul Lynde on Thorazine and meth at a leather party, but also as an alien (nobody does crap like JT). Barry Pepper, in contrast, brings to mind Vanilla Ice channelling Gary Cooper as an extra in Willow.
The other times I snickered were at the dialog's. If the script was written by a committee of eighth grade dropouts for eighth grade dropouts, then huzzah! BE is a screen writing triumph! Anyone who progressed to the ninth grade, however, will find swishy Predator ripoffs called "Psyklos" sitting in bars drinking "kobango" and bitching about the "home office", well, silly. Other than that, there is nothing redeemable about this movie.