Evil Dead 2 (1987)

I got exposed to a lot of great films when I went to college. I had always been a fan of movies, but it really wasn't until then that I found some of the weirder stuff that became some of my favorites. Every once in a while me and my friends would pile onto a couch and watch whatever we happened to come across, and it was on one of those occasions that I was first exposed to "The Evil Dead."

It was a good night. Me and my buddy Joel decided that the group of us should have a zombie movie marathon, and so he went out to the local video rental store and hit up the cheap older movie rack, bringing back the original "Night of The Living Dead," the original "Dawn of The Dead" and finally came "Evil Dead 2," which isn't actually a zombie movie, but he hadn't known that at the time.

At that point I hadn't seen any of those films. Needless to say, it was a fun and eye-opening experience, what with the creepy, cold seriousness of "Night of The Living Dead" setting the mood and the intestine-pulling gore of "Dawn of The Dead" going balls-out and raising the bar for disgust. But the real show-stealer was "Evil Dead 2" - a film that is both horrific, hilarious and badass all at the same time, and was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

"Evil Dead 2" quickly became one of my favorite movies. The experience of it, and I would indeed call it an experience, is only enhanced if you're surrounded by friends all looking for a goofy, bloody, borderline disgusting good time. There were cheers, shouts, laughs, and too many high fives to recall on that couch during our first dealing with Ash and the Deadites. It was a fantastic time.

We rewound "Swallow this" at least 12 times. It's arguably the most awesome thing ever recorded.

For those of you uninitiated, "Evil Dead 2" is the 1987 remake/sequel to "The Evil Dead," a 1981 film by aspiring director Sam Raimi, starring future B-movie god Bruce Campbell. It's about a group of people out in a cabin in the woods who become the victims of an evil spirit released by an ancient flesh-bound book called The Necronomicon. The spirit possesses the characters and makes them turn on each other with sadistic and bloody results. Both films have essentially the same plot, but "Evil Dead 2" does enough different things to make it obvious that it's more than just a remake.

You could go online and find nerd-wars that rage for days about whether or not "Evil Dead 2" is a sequel or a remake, but the general accepted conscious is that the first 10 minutes or so is a heavily condensed remake, continuing past the point where the first film ended after the main character Ash (Bruce Campbell) gets attacked and presumably killed by the unseen evil spirit. "Evil Dead 2" then continues the story past that point, showing that Ash wasn't killed, but was possessed by the spirit, which is fighting for control of his body and mind.

What most people will initially notice about "Evil Dead 2" is that it's a pretty raw film. This is not polished. This is not crisp. This is not pretty looking. The effects aren't even good to be perfectly honest. It looks like it was made for about $500, which may seem like nothing until you recall that the first "Evil Dead" looked like it had been shot for roughly $13.75, so it's a notable step up.

Still looks better to me than "Avatar," though. Just saying.

But that also is a significant factor in it's charm. For as whacky, gross and occasionally disturbing as it is, I can't see anyone watching it without a smile on their face. It's like a puppy that pukes on the floor and eats it. While you're cleaning up the whole affair it may be gross, but then it'll walk up to you with a big toy in its mouth, tail slowly wagging as it looks up at you with those big eyes and you just have to melt and say "D'aaaw."

One of the things I like most is the pacing, particularly in the first half. A good chunk of that time is spent with Ash in the cabin as he battles not only the reanimated corpse of his girlfriend he was forced to behead with a shovel when she became possessed (hey it happens), but also his own severed hand which is still trying to kill him after he cut it off with a chainsaw (hey it happens). Throughout all this insanity we watch Ash spiral ever-downward into a realm of madness. By the time the other characters arrive to ground the movie in some minor form of sanity, it has devolved into something like a "Tom & Jerry" cartoon if it was written by Pinhead and directed by Moe Howard.

I'm waiting for Bugs Bunny to show up after making a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

This part is also arguably the most fun the movie gets. When it's Bruce Campbell by himself doing his own thing and acting alternatively badass and pathetic, there's just something so ingratiating about the whole affair. Foremost among the reasons why is because at that point in the movie, "Evil Dead 2" is a comedy. I can't recall a film so expertly and seamlessly switching between horror and comedy as well as this film does. It's the blueprint for how every film of that genre should be, because it's flawless in that regard. It starts off scary, slowly taking that slow left turn into comedy as Bruce goes more and more crazy and does his admittedly impressive slapstick routine until it's practically "Looney Toons," only to take a radical and jarring shift back into horror once the rest of the fresh meat, er, cast arrives.

I think that's the reason the comedy/horror pairing works so well in "Evil Dead 2" - the comedy is mostly relegated to the parts where Ash is going nuts by himself, and it's easy to argue that most everything we're seeing at that point is actually inside his head. That keeps the comedy separate from the horror, perhaps on a subconscious level, but it's separate none the less because it's easy to imagine it not actually happening. That's what makes it so natural when the tone shifts back to horror, because it's like we never left.

I must admit to preferring that first act in a lot of ways. Although I love the last act of the movie where Ash straps a chainsaw to the stump of his hand and grabs a shotgun to become a total badass, you have to get past the second act of "Evil Dead 2," and I'm not as big of a fan of that bit. It's not so much that it's bad, but I really don't like the supporting cast of this film, and the second act is when we see the most of them as they get picked off one by one. And that's admittedly satisfying, but we still have to watch them before they die.

This is why you don't cast your friends in your movie. Unless you're friends with Bruce Campbell.

Dan Hicks as Jake, the overall-clad hillbilly is probably the most tolerable one, although he is slightly grating and unsurprisingly tends to be one of the more stupid characters. But I've got to give credit to him for having some pretty great lines, which Hicks delivers superbly well. I'm particularly fond of him replying "Hell no. You're the curious one." to the order that everybody go into a spooky dark room together to investigate something terrifying. His far-too-hot-for-his-ass girlfriend Bobbie Joe, played by Kassie Wesley isn't too bad, but she does come off as trying a bit too hard to be tough, until stuff gets crazy and she loses it worse than anyone else. That's actually a pretty good character arc, but she could have been played a bit better.

Richard Domeier as the Fred from "Scooby Doo" stand-in Ed didn't have enough screen time to be particularly irritating as he's the first to get taken out, but he's paired up with the absolute worst of the bunch, Sarah Berry as Annie. I can't stand this chick, either her or her character. Annie would be annoying no matter who played her but Sarah Berry is simply a horrible actress. Her mechanical, uninterested screaming and dead-pan delivery of lines are one step up from either porn-level acting or Jessica Alba. Take your pick. One is slightly better than the other but I'm leaving it to you to decide which.

It's fitting that the only other movie she was in was "C.H.U.D. II."

All of this is made more evident by the presence of our main character. Of course it goes without saying that Bruce Campbell is amazing in this movie. Ash is a fantastic character, being very flawed and very relatable despite fighting demons and having a chainsaw for a hand by the end of it, and Campbell plays him as nobody else possibly could have done. Regretfully Bruce isn't going to win any Oscars, but in terms of what he does, he's a master. The pure majesty with which he balances goofy, hammy, dead-pan and badass is stuff of B-movie legend. There's a reason why he's a cult movie idol, and there's a reason why the image of Ash Williams is known even to people who have never seen the "Evil Dead" movies.

I remember seeing this as a kid. Fast forward some 15 years later as I'm watching "Evil Dead 2" for the first time, synapses in my brain start firing and I say "Is THAT what they were spoofing in that episode of "Reboot?" That's awesome!"

I mentioned before how good the comedy aspect of "Evil Dead 2" is, but I most admit also that when it's trying to be scary, it's pretty damn scary. At least it was for me under certain circumstances. I laughed my ass off at it the first time while watching it with friends, but a few months later when I watched it again by myself in the middle of the night in a dark basement, it was pretty intense. The skill with which the atmosphere is crafted tends to be lost on us at times, what with all the fun we're having, but I defy anyone to watch the scene when Henrietta first appears and tell me that's not creepy as hell.

True story - I can do a spot on "Someone's in my fruit cellar!" impression. I had a girlfriend who would get super freaked out by it. She hated it. It was awesome.

I think the reason this movie, and indeed the "Evil Dead" series as a whole has stood the test of time and become a legendary series, not only among cult movie affectionados but also horror movie fans in general, is that this is a film that is first and foremost a good time. It's not trying to horrify you or disgust you or make you sick to your stomach. We're just here for the fun. When throwing it in it's not difficult to imagine Bruce Campbell sitting at a piano, casually plunking out a melody as he says to you:

"Hey kid. How the hell are ya? Pull up a seat. Take a load off. I mixed you up a gin and tonic. Splash of Sprite, right? I know how you like it. Anyways, listen up. We're gonna have a good time tonight, you got me? Not gonna take this too seriously. Not gonna freak you out. A little weird, maybe but hey! That's just part of the beauty of life, am I right? Just a groovy time, baby. You feel me? Now, for my first number, I'd like to play something from my debut album. It's called "We Just Cut Up Our Girlfriend With A Chainsaw."

::Dm7:: "Ooooooh Linda..."

::Ddim:: "You were so very lovely..."

::C7M:: "Till I haaaaaaaad to decapitate you..."

::Jazzy run:: "Using a shovel..."

And that's why the "Evil Dead" movies have always been fun. They've always stuck to that philosophy. Right?

Check out the trailer for "Evil Dead 2" It's cheesy!

THE BOTTOM LINE - I love "Evil Dead 2." Few movies can put a smile on my face like it. Perhaps "Army of Darkness" is funnier and "Evil Dead" is more scary, but "Evil Dead 2" walks the tightrope between the two genres the best, and so it's my favorite of the franchise. And it introduced me to the awesomeness that is Bruce Campbell, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. It's a weird time, to be sure, and perhaps it's an acquired taste, but if you've never seen it you're missing out.

The Room (2003)

There comes a time in a person's life when they are forced to stop and take stock of what the implications of their existence are. Sometimes this comes from a religious epiphany. Sometimes from a life changing event. Sometimes it's from a whole bunch of LSD. But no matter the causation of this thought process, the end question still remains: "What is the nature of life, and why are we here?"

When faced with the question, there can be many interpretations. A religious person would say that the point is to serve a higher power. Perhaps Richard Dawkins would say that there is no point of existence expect to exist. An anti-realist would say that nothing exists outside the mind at all. The late great Bill Hicks might say "There is no such thing as death, life is just an illusion, and we're the imagination of ourselves."

I have had my world, and the very Universe torn open in front of my eyes in what addicts call a "moment of clarity," making me question if my very being is merely an illusion. Perhaps I only exist as long as I continue to believe I exist. Perhaps our Universe is merely a speck on a dust mote floating in the living room of a whole other unfathomably large world. Perhaps I am merely dreamt up by the maddest of unspeakable Eldrich demons in swirling cosmic voids.

All I know is that I can't be sure of anything about the nature of my existence anymore. And I owe this shaking of my perception of reality to one man: Tommy Wiseau.

 Ohai.

You see, Tommy Wiseau was a guy who wrote a play. Then he tried to make it into a book. Nobody would publish it. So he said "Hey, I should just make a movie." So he did. Like any innovative, driven individual, he went out and made it happen. He wrote, produced, directed and starred in a little movie called "The Room." It played for 2 weeks in a grand total of 2 theaters, making less than $2,000. And so one would think that's where the story ends.

But oh no. It doesn't end there, my friends.

There is more, because in making "The Room," Tommy Wiseau had created...some thing. Something so mindbendingly bad that it defies explaination. The Lovecraftian horrors that had been seared into the film stock with unholy fire and had then been arranged in the blasphemous sequence which gave us "The Room" were enough to bring even the staunchest of strong willed individuals to their knees as the film ripped out their minds and feasted upon the still steaming viscera, driving them mad even as it engorged itself upon their souls.

It's kind of like that.

And it is quite possibly the most entertaining thing I've ever seen in my life. "The Room" is a goddamn masterpiece.

It's such a weird film to even talk about, because it's not really a "movie" in the way most people would think of one. No, "The Room" is an experience. I think even if you went into this thinking that you were going to simply see a bad movie and laugh at it, that still wouldn't prepare you. In fact, I'm not sure if anything could prepare you for "The Room." You really just have to brace yourself and dive in, hoping your brain will still be intact by the end.

Ok, ok, so what is "The Room" anyways? Well, it's about a guy named Johnny. He's a great person. We know this because everyone constantly reminds us. He's engaged to Lisa. She doesn't love Johnny anymore. We know this because she constantly reminds us. Mark is Johnny's best friend. We know this because everyone constantly reminds us. Lisa is secretly in love with Mark. We know this because she constantly reminds us. And as Johnny famously informs us, Lisa's actions are tearing him apart.

With ACTING!!!!

You may think I'm oversimplifying here, but seriously, that's all that's going on in "The Room." That's it. It's a standard love-triangle plot ripped straight from a soap opera. Somehow, that is stretched into 99 minutes. The main reason for this is because "The Room" contains some of the most circular, go-nowhere, repetitive  dialogue you've ever heard. Nearly every conversation between the main characters can be summed up like this:

"I love Lisa so much."

"I AM EVIL!!!"

"You should marry Johnny."

"Johnny's my best friend! I can't bang Lisa!" ::bangs Lisa::

"It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."

Just loop this dialogue and play it for an hour and a half. There's your content.

There are also several plot threads that come out of absolutely nowhere and are dropped nearly instantly, the most famous of these are the absolutely hysterical "breast cancer scene," which is more like the "breast cancer line," and the riveting Denny/Chris-R drug scandal. Characters show up at the end of the film whom we've never seen before, talking like they've been there the entire time. Pregnancy is lied about because "it's interesting." Tuxedos are worn for no apparent reason. Footballs are thrown at random. And then footballs are thrown while the guys wear tuxedos. Because that's what guys do.

It's all thoroughly confusing,

Still a better love story than "Twilight," though...

But that's not what makes "The Room" as notorious as it is. What makes "The Room" decimate your mind is the acting. Oh god. The acting in this movie is gloriously atrocious. Now, before I go any further let me make one thing clear, because you may have heard some things that are not true. Let me enlighten you.

Tommy Wiseau has gone on record saying that "The Room" was always meant to be a dark comedy. Don't you believe it. That is impossible. The reason it is impossible is because I don't believe that a human being has it in them to be that bad at acting on purpose. And by extension, I don't believe a human being could be that funny while knowing what they were doing. That kind of terrible can only come from pure incompetence.

Unless this is all some kind of elaborate ruse by Wiseau that's been going on for the past 10 years, which would make it the most amazing bit of character acting ever recorded in history. Remember when Joaquin Phoenix did "I'm Still Here" and basically tanked his career in real life, and made a jackass out of himself on Letterman, just to make a movie nobody wound up seeing...better I suppose? Anyway, that would have to be the level of commitment we're talking about here, only on a far grander scale. I mean, if Wiseau drops the act a few years from now and says we've all been duped, I'll be first in line to congratulate him.

But somehow I doubt that's what's going on...

The acting in "The Room" is, to put it simply, among the worst you'll ever see. And that's across the board. These people are all terrible. But it's the unfathomably bizarre dialogue that Wiseau has them saying that turns what would normally be painful into something that's quite frankly shockingly entertaining. And when paired together with Wiseau's impossible to pin down accent, there are scenes that are enough to have you laughing close to tears.

"I deed nawt hit hurr, iz nawt true! Iz bullsheet! I did nawt hit hurr! I DID NAWT."

So how could this mess, this absolute train wreck turn out to be a fantastic time? Easy. Get your friends, especially if they've seen it before. Get some booze. Schedule a party around it. Press play. It will be some of the most fun you'll ever have watching a movie with a group of people. Look up drinking games online to play while you're watching it. There's also "audience participation" scripts I've seen that are a lot of fun, too. Yell back at the movie. It's best to think of this as an event rather than a "movie night."

As far as the rest goes, there's not much more I can say that would do it justice. You really just have to experience "The Room" for yourself because it is just incredible. It may be notorious as one of the worst films ever made, and Tommy Wiseau has been rightly compared to Ed Wood, but I've sat through some truly abominable films and none, I repeat, NONE of them has come anywhere close to being as flat out entertaining, or transporting me to another plane of existence like "The Room" has. This movie has a certain power, for good or for evil, I cannot say. But to deny is to be a fool.

So yeah. "The Room" is probably my favorite bad movie. It's the perfect storm of crap. It's so ungodly bad that it loops itself to become one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen. That being said, do NOT watch it alone. It would be your ruin. "The Room" is too powerful for one person to tackle by themselves. But together, you and your friends will have a riot.

So anyway, how's your sex life?

THE BOTTOM LINE - I love "The Room." If you can get some willing individuals and a lot of booze together, there are few movies as fun as Tommy Wiseau's magnum opus. Highly Recommended.

Kung Pow!: Enter The Fist (2002)

I have a bit of a problem today. I am experiencing a moment of "half-puke." Allow me to elaborate.

A moment of "half-puke" refers to one of those moments of pure, unfiltered horror and terror that everyone gets at the precise instant after they realize that there is no good way out of a situation. 

Perhaps you see the flashing cop lights in your rear-view mirror, and you look down to realize your speedometer had been slowly creeping up to 15 over without your knowledge. Maybe you come into your room to find your parents are waiting for you, and next to them is the stack of Gallery, Playboy, and Juggs you had cunningly hidden under your mattress. Maybe the teacher starts handing out an exam you had completely forgotten about, and it's only then that it hits you that you hadn't even read the last 5 chapters of the damn book, and you're not sure that you can "wing it" with Charles Dickens.

Your heart starts beating faster as adrenaline rockets through your veins, your stomach starts its basic seamanship test as it begins to tie various forms of knots, your eyes try to pop out of your skull, and a cold sweat starts seeping out from your skull as your body gets so hot you could become your own pressure cooker. And then some little tiny person in the back of your throat drops an anvil down your esophagus, which lands in your gut with a mighty thud and just SITS THERE.

That's what I'm going through right at this moment, because I know that after this, there is no going back. Nobody is going to listen to what I have to say when it comes to movies ever again. My credibility is henceforth decimated. But, there's nothing for it, so it's time to bite the bullet and just come out and say it -

I love "Kung Pow!: Enter The Fist."

You can't step to gopher-chucks.

This movie...this movie is amazing. It is something that on one hand is hands down the dumbest thing I've ever seen, but at the same time contains sequences that are so breathtakingly brilliant that it really should rival the universally accepted greatest comedies of all time. "It should" is the key phrase in that previous sentence, because it doesn't, but it should.

The concept is rather brilliant: Take an old kung fu movie (in this case a film called "Tiger and Crane Fist") and reedit it with different, funny voiceovers, and digitally swap out the main character with director/writer/star Steve Oedekerk in order to create a whole new narrative, and make it a comedy. It's actually very "Mystery Science Theater 3000" in many ways, almost what you would get if the riffing could actually change the film. And as a die hard "Misty," this kind of thing is right up my ally.

But man is it stupid. I mean dumb. Really dumb. I'm taking "Idiocracy" dumb here. Although to be honest, I think "Idiocracy" isn't as dumb as "Kung Pow!," mostly because with "Idiocracy," you can't really call it dumb humor when that was kind of the whole point. "Idiocracy" was approaching dumb humor from an intelligent, satirical level. "Kung Pow!" is just a strange kind of surrealist dumb. And perhaps that's the best way to go into "Kung Pow!" if you've never seen it: Don't expect anything to make any sense whatsoever.

If "Idiocracy" is a Salvidor Dali painting, "Kung Pow!" is an Andy Warhol.

The parts that are funny in this movie are sidesplitting. I don't know how anyone could watch the "stomach plug" scene, with the narration just going on and on about it, and not get a laugh. And if you remember my entry a while ago about "Casa de mi Padre" where I talked about jokes that go on for really long being really hit or miss depending on how over-the-top it goes, "Kung Pow!" contains a scene which could be a textbook example on how to do that kind of extended joke well.

If you've never thought that 4 men beating the everloving crap out of a guy with sticks could be funny, good lord are you in for a treat. I cried laughing the first time I saw this.

But for me, there is really only one thing that makes "Kung Pow!" stand out, and that's the characters. Every single one of these characters is quite frankly amazing, even if some of them just approach levels of "wrong" that defy explanation (Master Tang, I'm looking at you). The main character, Chosen One, played by Oedekerk, has some fantastic moments including imploring people to reconsider, and making vows while adding to the dictionary.

"Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: gnodab."

But like most comedies, the main character is not the most memorable one. The supporting cast in this film, or at least, the performances created by Oedekerk, are incredibly fun. I absolutely adore the inconceivably inept Wimp-Lo, a "fighter" who has been trained wrong as a joke by his master. Ling, the Chosen One's love interest, is potentially one of the strangest character in modern movie history, and is probably the second most quotable character in the film, despite the fact that the quoting of any of her lines usually ends up breaking down into someone screaming "WEEOO WEEOO WEEOO."

But the absolute best character is Master Pain, who you shall all refer to as "Betty." Betty is hands down the best part of the film, as he has the best lines, and really hammers home more than anyone else the completely absurd nature of the movie. Again, it's not that I can really explain it, and I don't know why him saying crap like "Mmm...sleepy time" and "A tiny net is a death sentence. It's a net and it's tiny!" is so ungodly funny, but it probably has to do with the voice Oedekerk gives him.This voice falls somewhere between Snidely Whiplash and Burgess Meredith's version of The Penguin as performed by Steve Urkel. And that laugh...mother of god...that laugh...it's amazing.

Betty's stand-up routine could use a bit of work, however.

There are also some admittedly very clever jokes spread throughout that lampoon various cliches of the kung-fu genre or action movies in general. In particular is a very funny sequence near the end that addresses the fact that "Just because I did this *glagh...uggh...::lays head down::* doesn't mean a person is dead," which is technically true. The final payoff to that scene is fantastic by the way.

Now, here's the part where I have to be brutally honest and come down a bit hard on a movie I really like. I said earlier that it should be counted among the funniest movies ever. Well, the reason that key word "should" is in there is that when "Kung Pow!" is funny, it's tear inducing, but when it's not, it's really, really bad. And I'm talking unfunny kind of bad.

The reason it isn't funny all the time is because "Kung Pow!" is a movie whose worst quality is that it tries too hard. The worst parts of this include any time they try and cram a pop culture reference into the movie, which is almost always comedic death. Those parts almost always come off as nearly unwatchable. There are two primary examples of this, both of which use CGI so poorly that you wonder if that was part of the joke. Granted, it would be a part that failed, but still.

The first part is the CGI baby fight. Yes, you read that correctly. Remember the Dancing Baby commercials? Yeah, they made a fight scene using roughly that same level of technology. And yes, it is every bit as stupid as that sounds. The worst part about that is the fact that it's essentially the first thing in the movie, or at least the first gag. It's such a shame that a movie that is so good starts off so poorly, although it has a really funny joke at the very end of that sequence.

But the absolute nadir of the film is, unfortunately, plastered all over the box art, and was a big part of the marketing campaign. It's that stupid cow fight. By Moradin's Hammer, is that terrible. And I'm not sure what made them put it in there. Was it because they could? Was it because there was a "Fighting Cow" program installed in the software they got to do the special effects? Or was it just so they could reference "The Matrix" and do some bad "bullet time?" You know, because THAT hadn't gotten old in the 3 years since that movie had come out.

As weird as it is to say, this movie is better than this...

That just boggles my mind. And the crazy thing is that I remember seeing the trailers for this movie. All you saw was the damn cow. I don't know who they got to do the marketing for this movie, but they needed to be fired. That should be fairly evident considering that I freaking love "Kung Pow!," but when I saw the trailers, if you were to have asked me if I was interested, I'd have put my own eyes out with garden shears before going to see it. And they wonder why it bombed.

Then again, I have no idea how you market a movie like "Kung Pow!"

"WEEEEOO WEEEEOO WEEEEOO" on repeat for 2 and a half minutes, THAT'S how! #brilliant

There are two main things to keep in mind about "Kung Pow!" if you've never seen it before, and perhaps this will help your viewing experience:

1) Understand how dumb it is beforehand, because seriously, you kind of need to brace yourself for it.

2) Watch it with friends. Preferably friends who have seen it already, and are fans. It really does help the experience. Plus, this is one of those films I can't see watching alone. "Kung Pow!" has become something of me and some of my best friends' signature movie, and there's just something special about watching it with good people and laughing your butts off at the dumbest things you've ever seen.

"What do you get when you cross an owl with a bungee chord? MY ASS! Nnnyaaaaa ha ha ha!!! ENOUGH!!!"

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Kung Pow!: Enter The Fist" is the definition of acquired taste. I'm not sure how much someone will like it on the first go, but it's a film that gets funnier the more you watch it, much like "Idiocracy" or "The Big Lebowski." And above all, you need to be ready for some really absurdest humor. Personally, it's one of my favorite comedies. Highly Recommended.

Casa de mi Padre (2012)

Oh Will Ferrell. Will, Will, Will. You are such an enigma to me. On one hand, I can't stand you. I loathe your films. I find you painfully unfunny. Your schtick of simply yelling very loudly at inopportune moments like some over-caffeinated, borderline mentally handicapped man-child in an attempt to be humorous causes me physical pain.

On the other hand, "Anchorman" and "Stranger Than Fiction." What the hell, Ferrell? Every time you get me this close to boycotting you, you come out and make an incredible film that injects some hope into me that perhaps, if I dared to have the audacity to believe, you might actually start making good movies. Then another 3 or so years go by, you make a dozen movies that are all crap, and just when I've just about given up all hope again, "Everything Must Go."

Why do you continue to make me suffer through all your crap to get to the good stuff, Ferrell? Don't get me wrong, I'm overjoyed whenever you give me a fantastic movie like "Everything Must Go," but the horrible, horrible things you make me suffer through to get to that point, man! It's just outright cruel. And the worst part is when I can see the vast dip in quality ahead of me, right when I'm coming off of one of your good films.

Before seeing "Casa de mi Padre," "Everything Must Go" was the last of your movies I'd seen, which had left a pleasant, minty aftertaste on my palette. Now, in front of "The Dark Knight Rises," I see the trailer for "The Campaign," staring you and one of the only people I find more irritating than yourself, Zack Galifianakis. And that movie looks ATROCIOUS. That looks "The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" bad. Is this the start of another 3 to 4 year long streak of terrible for you? WHY DO YOU MAKE ME SUFFER SO?!?!

I guess I can't really blame him too much. He keeps making these movies because, well, why the hell wouldn't he? People love them. A Will Ferrell comedy is pretty much guaranteed money in the bank. And despite the fact that he is a shockingly good dramatic actor, when he does serious stuff, it bombs. Such is life. It just makes me sad when I see talent so wasted. I really do want to like Will Ferrell, because the things I like him in, I really like him in. Seriously, some of the roles he's done I consider Oscar worthy. I keep coming back to it, but his performance in "Everything Must Go" was unforgivably ignored in the 2011 Academy Awards. At least a nomination. Something to encourage him to continue making quality films.

So finally getting to the point with today's film, "Casa de mi Padre." I was cautiously intrigued by this film simply because of the fact that it was different, or at least appeared different. And of course, based on his track record, different is usually better for a Will Ferrell movie. The fact that it was entirely in Spanish I felt was a ballsy move that, perhaps, would mean that it was one of those better Will Ferrell films.

Oh, by the way, it's completely in Spanish with subtitles and everything. You 90% of the American movie-going public who whine and complain and refuse to watch a movie based on that fact alone can just stop right here and not watch it. Just know that I don't really think less of you for refusing to read subtitles. I just feel sorry for you.

Sorry, that's my snob moment for the day. Might not happen again till the next time.

Nice high horse you got there, Will. I gots me one o' dems, too.

Anyways, although I respect the hell out of Will Ferrell and the makers of "Casa de mi Padre" for even making a film like this, I can't in good conscious say it was worth it. "Casa de mi Padre" was just not good. In fact, I'd call it outright bad. This is not, however, for the reason most people would assume. The fact that it was in Spanish didn't kill it, although it may have hurt it a little. No, what killed it is the fact that it's another one of those "half-way" comedies. It's a movie that isn't funny enough to be a comedy, but is too goofy to be a drama.

Let's talk first about the comedy. Most of the gags are one of two jokes: either the film draws attention to the fact that it's really cheap, or things take an inordinately long time to end, such as people laughing over a stupid comment for far too long, or ending a tense conversation by saying "goodbye" for like 5 minutes. There's also a weird running gag where Will Ferrell is terrible at rolling cigarettes. What is funny is subjective for everyone, I realize that, but that just seems to me to be the laziest kind of humor, especially the "low budget" kind.

"Oh look. They are obviously in front of a matte painting. How hysterical. You going to do anything with that? Make a comment about it? Acknowledge it? It's just there? What's the joke? That's it's cheap? That's not funny in of itself. There needs to be a joke associated with it."

There are two examples I can immediately think of for movies that did the "cheap equals funny" thing right. The first one was "Black Dynamite." Now that movie was a parody of notoriously cheaply/poorly made movies, specifically "Dolomite," and there were scenes where they acknowledged the cheapness. Now, they didn't go all forth-wall obliterating with it, they would just have maybe a moment when Michael Jai White would have a boom mic get a bit too close to him, get in frame, and he would spare a quick, annoyed glance at it. That also fits into the infamous "wandering boom mics" so prevalent in "Dolomite."

See, that's a joke. It's not side-splitting, but it's an actual joke. If they had just had the boom mic drift into frame, it's not really funny, is it? It's just pointing out that the production value is in the toilet. If, because of the cheapness, it affected their acting or something, then it moves into the "gag" territory.

The second example, probably a better one, would be "Monty Python and The Holy Grail." I don't think I even need to remind you of coconuts. See, there they worked the cheapness of the movie into an entire bit that is one of the most memorable in a film where nearly every line could be etched in stone as a monument to comedy. Not only did the other characters acknowledge the fact that they were using coconuts to substitute horses, but it lead to an entire discussion about where in Mercia they would have possibly gotten their hands on tropical coconuts in a temperate zone.

God, I wish I was watching " ¡Three Amigos!"right now.

The second kind of joke in "Casa de mi Padre," the thing about taking way too long on something, or extending a gag way past the point of absurdity is for me a pretty tricky thing to do right. It's really only worked a few times that I've seen, one of which is the gag which pretty much started the whole thing: Sideshow Bob stepping on the rakes on "The Simpsons."

That was a masterful bit of comedy, and really is the best example of the "slightly funny becomes annoying becomes confusing becomes absurd becomes hysterical" thing, which is the basis of the whole gag. "Mystery Science Theater 3000" also had a bit in their "Devil Fish" episode when Mike and the Bots mockingly laugh over the end credits to the point of hyperventilation for what seems like a good 2 minutes straight, and it's quite infectious. And while I hate to give credit to a show I despise, Peter grabbing his knee on "Family Guy" was great. Seeing what happens after the evil laughter peters out in the first "Austin Powers" movie is also brought to mind.

It really doesn't work here, for some reason. While seeing Will Ferrell and his friends laughing over some really really unfunny statement for a very long time does have a certain instinctual effect of eventually putting a smile on your face, it's really just like spreading a yawn. It's not that you necessarily want to, it's just that you can't help it when someone next to you does it. I think the reason it works in the other examples was that it was taken so far over the top that the absurdity of it hit with much greater impact. "Casa de mi Padre" keeps those jokes relatively low key, which was probably a mistake.

I also have to bring up the fact that while I appreciated them making a film in Spanish, I think it may have hurt the comedy a bit. Timing is a really import thing in comedy, if not the most important thing, and if you have to read something, no matter how fast of a reader you are, the timing is going to be a bit off. It may not matter greatly in every case, but it's a tricky thing that, while it may not have hurt always, it certainly didn't help. Just food for thought on that one.

I'd also like to address tone for a minute. It was really surprising to me that for a comedy, this has some obscenely dark stuff in it. In keeping with the style of the Spanish soap operas which they are parodying, there is a whole lot of violence and killing going on, and I don't know if it's supposed to be funny or not. If it is supposed to be taken funny, they sure could have cut back on the drama and tragedy a bit.

Oh that's hilarious...

There are scenes which could have been spliced into "The Godfather" with how dark and brutally violent they are, especially a scene where like 30 people get mowed down with machine guns at a wedding, all in operatic slow-motion, with blood spraying everywhere. It's actually a very horrible, emotional scene which in a legitimate drama would have been quite powerful. And of course, let's not forget about the flashback where you find out that, as a child, Will Ferrell accidentally shot and killed his mother while trying to save her from two rapists.

You know? Funny!

That scene is played for serious, by the way. I don't care whether or not it takes place in front of a cheap backdrop - they have a dim-witted but well meaning 5 year old shoot his mother with a rifle as she's struggling to escape two men trying to rape her. No amount of cheap set design and sepia-tone filters to make it look old-timey can make that funny. I really question this film's sense of priorities when it comes to tone, because that stuff bummed me out, man, and I have a dark sense of humor.

While I've said a lot about "Casa de mi Padre" sucking, there were two things about it that I really liked. The first thing was a character trait Diego Luna gave to Will Ferrell's brother Raul, which was that he is constantly drinking and smoking. And I mean constantly. There isn't a moment where he doesn't have a drink in his hand, which is always changing in between shots.

 This guy was awesome.

While that doesn't sound necessarily funny, when he reaches into the aether to pull out a whiskey on the rocks in the middle of an intense gunfight, takes a drink, and then starts shooting again, I had to laugh. Even when he's in the middle of his death scene, doing his best Willem Dafoe from "Platoon" impression as bullets carve him up in slow-motion as operatic music swells, he is still taking sips from his glass, being sure not to let it spill. It's pretty hysterical.

The other thing I really liked was a scene that had me laughing really hard. It happens right as some coyotes are about to fight a stuffed white lion (don't ask). The movie suddenly stops, and in a very "Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked" moment, a letter from the second assistant director appears on screen to apologize, because while what they filmed was the most amazing footage they'd ever seen, they can't legally show us. The apology goes on to include coked-up tigers and people getting eaten. It's a great bit of writing, and it was the only part in the entire movie where I was laughing out loud. A lot.

Funniest part of the film.

I've talked a lot about a movie that I really didn't like much at all, so I guess that's a victory in my favor, since I actually found something to discuss. I think the worst thing about it is that while I respect Will Ferrell for doing something different, the fact that this movie not only failed to make its money back in the States but also sucked leads me to believe that it will be even less likely he'll take more chances. And taking chances is usually what results in him making a decent film. Damn.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Casa de mi Padre" is a very weird film, and I respect it for being unique. I respect the hell out of it. But it wasn't good. It's not funny, with the exception of that one bit with the apology, and it's overall way too dark to even be charming. And as a drama it would fail because of the goofiness, despite the grim subject matter. Perhaps you need to be a huge Mexican soap opera fan to really "get" it, but somehow I doubt that would help much. Skip it.

Tower Heist (2011)

This one will be brief.

I'm racing the deadline of posting all the movies I saw in February actually IN February. Well, that and "Tower Heist" wasn't so much bad or even unmemorable as it was OK, which is always pretty hard to talk about, because what are you supposed to say about something that's just...OK?

I remember hearing about how this was supposed to be Eddie Murphy's return to form after not being relevant for what seems like 15 years. Now see, I remember when Eddie Murphy was popular. But that was so long ago that it's hard to remember a time when a trailer for one of his movies was met with anything other than an eye-roll and someone in the back of the theater loudly groaning "Really, dude? Just retire already." Actually, come to think of it, most of the time that guy in the back was me.

After seeing "Tower Heist" I think that the best I can say about Eddie Murphy is that at the very least, it's a step in the right direction. It's not a glorious comeback akin to a Phoenix rising from the ashes like we would have liked to have seen, but it's not brutally painful like his movies normally are. It's also nice to see him NOT in drag.

Honestly, the biggest thing is that he can swear in this. I know it sounds juvenile to say that because he can swear, it means that it's better, but whenever I see Eddie Murphy in one of those stupid kid movies I can't help but feel like I'm watching a lion in a cage, pacing back and forth, wishing that he didn't have to be there. It would be like Bill Hicks being on "Blue's Clues." It would only end in tears and lawsuits.

It's just nice to see Eddie Murphy with some semblance of dignity, reminding us that he actually is a pretty funny guy.

Let's hear it for crawling your way back up the ladder to "average."

The rest of the cast manages to be entertaining as well, although with the possible exception of Matthew Broderick, none of them are quite as funny as Eddie Murphy. Broderick manages to come off as sad and pathetic as a live-action Gill from "The Simpsons," and as bad as I felt for laughing at him he was pretty hilarious. As far as the rest of the cast goes, it was all par for the course. Ben Stiller was Ben Stiller and Casey Affleck talked like he was constantly stoned. All is as it should be.

 

If there was a glaring issue I took with the movie, it would have been the ending. Now there are endings that are ambiguous and endings that just end. I don't mind the former. This one was of the later. Had I seen this in theaters I would have had a hard time guessing whether the movie was done or if the last reel hadn't been sent and the projectionist just said "screw it" and ran it anyways. There was a definite sense that the movie should have gone on other 5 minutes so that all the loose ends were tied up.

Oh, and by the way. Where the crap can you go to hock car parts made entirely out of gold? Just a question.

While it may seem like I don't have much to say about "Tower Heist," well you would be correct. It was good, but it was that weird kind of good where you don't have much to say about it afterwards. Almost as if someone typed in "HEIST/COMEDY/ENSEMBLE-CAST.EXE." into a MovieMakerMatic 4000 and "Tower Heist" was the result.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Tower Heist" was decently entertaining. It's neither overly good nor bad. If you want a few laughs, you could do far worse than this. See it if you get a chance, but don't go out of your way to.