A Room Of Our Own

Note: I wrote this review of The Disaster Artist over a year and a half ago, after I saw a preview screening of the film. I watched it on opening night to learn that not only was it not substantially changed, not a frame other than the opening and closing credits was touched. On a second viewing, I'm a lot colder on the film, but I stand by the feelings I express in this review. It just doesn't have a lot to offer other than a one-time gimmick. Once that's used up, there's no reason to return to that well whatsoever.

Year: 2016

Director: James Franco

Cast: James Franco, Dave Franco, Sharon Stone

Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I’m a huge fan of oddball auteur Tommy Wiseau’s bad movie masterpiece The Room. So much so that it’s not even listed on my index in the section that’s sorted by rating, because that would have broken the system entirely, not to mention my credibility. I’m also a huge fan of Greg Sestero’s behind-the-scenes book The Disaster Artist, which is hands-down the most fascinating nonfiction book I’ve ever read. It’s not only an insight into the twisted mind that birthed The Room, but the story of a man rattling against the bars of the cage of normalcy who would eventually become that twisted mind's best friend.

So when I heard they were adapting that very book into a movie, I was mighty intrigued. When it was announced that stoner comedy icon by day/berserk artistic soldier by night James Franco would be directing, I was concerned, but realized there’s hardly anybody better to bring that madcap, deranged nightmare to life.

I was wrong.

You’re tearing me apart, James Franco!

In The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) is a young aspiring actor in San Francisco who meets the mysterious, ineffably accented, appallingly dressed Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) in an acting class. The shy young man comes to respect Tommy’s bravado and total lack of elf-awareness. They become fast friends and move to L. A. to pursue their dreams. However, Greg’s success at finding an agent (Sharon Stone) and a girlfriend (Alison Brie) makes Tommy dangerously jealous.

When they decide that the industry isn’t ready for them, they agree that they should make their own movie. They assemble a crew (Seth Rogen, Paul Scheer, Charlyne Yi…) and a cast (Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson, Zac Efron, Jacki Weaver…) with Tommy’s bottomless pit of money and it’s off to the races!

Oh hi, cult classic.

At its heart, The Disaster Artist is about the relationship between Greg and Tommy more than it’s about The Room itself. This is as it should be. And as a movie adaptation of said story, some details are changed to smooth the narrative along. This is also as it should be. As much a fan as I am of the book, I understand and respect that certain choices had to be made when adapting the material. However, the end product is both completely unrecognizable as the original true story and kilotons less interesting. The quasi-horror story of a dark, twisted friendship between a bipolar lunatic and an insecure ingénue has been transformed into a wacky, whitewashed buddy picture about never giving up on your dreams.

It lurches so hard to fit a three-act structure that it’s gut-churning. And again, to make myself clear, I’m not upset that they streamlined the casting process or combined multiple characters into one or cut out the subplot about Retro Puppet Master (OK, maybe I’m a teensy bit upset about that one). I’m upset they capsized years of bizarre behavior, manipulation, homoeotic tension, and drama in favor of a bog standard “girlfriend jealousy,” man-child, Apatow-approved plot structure, which they go ahead and totally ignore in the third act, arriving at zero resolution for either character. And this is not a “true stories don’t have endings” situation. By this point, everything true about this story is rotting under a stack of old TV Guides at the landfill.

I guess they were too chicken to commit to their story. Cheeeep, cheepcheepcheep.

That’s not to say that The Disaster Artist isn’t funny. It completely misses the point of its own story but it still has the juice to be pleasantly amusing. It’s not an uproarious affair, but there is plenty of that awkward comedy that’s rampant in The Room itself, especially in any scene where Tommy has to interact with people out in the real world. It certainly helps that James Franco completely disappears into the role, delivering a pitch-perfect imitation of Wiseau’s haunting strangeness. His comic timing is on point, and frankly he saves the movie from itself, the cuckoo center of the maelstrom of muddled plot elements.

Franco has also assemble a veritable A-Team of essential comic actors for lightning quick cameos, though – mysteriously – some of them (including Dirty Grandpa-redeemer Jason Mantzoukas) aren’t even given any real gags to work with. My favorite would be John Early, who plays a major agent's assistant and needs to get noticed by more people immediately. But frankly, the non-Tommy/Greg cast of The Room are given short shrift in a series of rapidfire scenes that blast through the actual making of the film. Only Ari Graynor (as Juliette Danielle, who played the blonde temptress Lisa) and Zac Efron (as Dan Janjigian, who played the psychotic drug dealer Chris-R.) make any sort of impression as the film completely ignores them. Seth Rogen also livens up several scenes from the peanut gallery, eking comedy around the edges.

To be completely honest, the film’s only acting liability is Dave Franco, who puts almost no effort into crafting a distinct personality out of Greg Sestero. Where James is playing Tommy Wiseau, Dave is just playing Dave Franco, coasting on his looks, his stock mannerisms, and a truly pitiful fake beard that looks like he got tarred and feathered by Fozzie Bear.

You are NOT my favorite customer, Dave.

The film has its ups and its downs, but it’s only half bad. It feels more like a home movie of celebrities hanging out than an actual work of cinema, but there’s certainly a place for that. I do wish it spent more time on the process of creating The Room (in fact, the longest segment of the film is the totally pointless premiere scene, where we get to sit with the actors and watch their weird facsimiles of actual scenes from The Room for what feels like hours. I’ve already seen The Room. I don’t need to watch fans watching a fan recreation of it, celebrities or not), because that’s where the more interesting story lies (in this watered-down version, anyway). And as it stands, if you haven’t actually seen the film, you’ll be flummoxed by the whole process. But I don’t mind spending 90 minutes with these people in this setting. If you’re a Room acolyte, seek this movie out. If not, leave your stupid wallets in your pocket.

TL;DR: The Disaster Artist is an oddball biopic that misses the story mark but lands the humor.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1189

Popcorn Kernels: You'll Never Go Back

In which we review two horror films directed by African-Americans covered on month 5 of Scream 101 season 2.

Blacula (Listen to our episode right here.)

Year: 1972

Director: William Crain

Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas 

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

The African prince Mamuwalde is turned into a bloodsucking monster by Dracula himself, and two centuries later he is released upon 1970’s Los Angeles to pursue the reincarnation of his lost love while a police medical official investigates the sudden spike in local murders.

Mixing Blaxploitation with 70’s horror wouldn’t necessarily seem like a recipe for success, unless you’re a cult film obsessive like Yours Truly. Well, it turns out the naysayers were wrong, because Blacula is kind of incredible. It won’t knock your socks off with pure terror, being as it is a low budget shocker from the pre-Exorcist era of 1972, but it’s – like – alarmingly good.

Sure, there is still plenty of high camp on offer here. I won’t pretend there isn’t. There’s a character named Skillet for crying out loud, but it’s all part of the fun. Blacula is one of those perfect time capsule films, as many low budget horror flicks tend to be. When you’re working on the cheap, filmmakers tend to have actors bring their own clothes and use real life locations that are readily available, and this peek through the lens into black culture of the early 70’s is remarkable. And there’s an ebullient performance of the song “There He is Again” by The Hues Corporation that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

But there’s a point about ten minutes in where everything changes. You’re basking in the stilted acting and the too-sweaty lead, expecting a minor fillip of 70’s camp detritus, but then that opening credits sequence hits, and you realize something monumentally important. Somebody out there really cared about making Blacula. This hand-drawn sequence is an utterly terrific stylized dance between a blood drop shaped like a woman and a staking bat flapping behind her. It’s perfectly, exhilaratingly James Bondian. This isn’t the kind of thing you commission for a tossed-off hack job.

And then the movie kicks into high gear, commenting on the black experience in a white-dominated society, where anyone black (or gay – although Blacula doesn’t treat them well, it’s inclusive enough to depict an interracial same-sex couple without much hemming and hawing) is pretty much already treated like a monster. Sure, it makes plenty of puns on the word “black” as well, but it has so much more on its mind.

Plus, though the gore is virtually nonexistent minus one gonzo final shot, Blacula’s design is a fun blend of old and new, shaping his afro into a classic vampire widow’s peak and giving him a bizarrely angular set of sideburns that provide him an uncanny, animalistic look.

Look, Blacula ain’t perfect. Its particular vintage will tell you that much, as will the disastrously tinny audio quality. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a horror film more than 40 years old that was so effortlessly engrossing and fun to watch, yet still retaining its brain and some sense of dignity.

Rating: 8/10

Tales from the Hood (Listen to our episode right here.)

Year: 1995

Director: Rusty Cundieff

Cast: Clarence Williams III, Corbin Bernsen, Joe Torry 

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Three urban dealers attempt to pick up drugs from a sinister mortician who tells them four stories about how various corpses wound up dead.

Pretty much intrinsically, anthology films tend to be hit or miss. Often, they’re a collection of loosely linked short films strung together by a gossamer web of an interstitial plot. This is not so in the few masterpieces produced by the subgenre, which tend to have a single director and writer at the helm. This was the case with the George Romero-Stephen King project Creepshow, and I’m pleased as punch to confirm this is also the case with Tales from the Hood, which might just be my favorite anthology film I’ve ever seen.

Before we dig into the meat of each story, let’s look at the film as a whole, which – delightfully – Tales from the Hood actively invites us to do. The four stories are integrated with the main plot in such an organic way, it shakes off the lethargy of many anthologies, which dive mindlessly into story after story. Here, each tale feeds thematically (and eventually directly) into the development of the characters in the interstitial plot, to the point that it becomes a full, engaging story of its own. 

The entire movie is a heavy-handed but delightful exploration of black social issues including police brutality and the vicious cycle of black-on-black violence (Spike Lee produced this film, surprise surprise), but in the process it also tells lever, engaging horror stories so it’s certainly the best of both worlds. And Clarence Williams III gives the Cryptkeeper a run for his money as the bombastically campy yet sinister horror host. 

Let’ run through those segments real quick, shall we?

“Rogue Cop Revelation”

A Story that rings even truer today than in 1995, this tale of a black activist murdered by the police is a classic story of revenge served cold… as the grave. Following a powerfully brutal opening, this segment becomes an incredible effects showcase, including a clever design communing organic material with drug paraphernalia. It’s sleek, simple, and effective.

“Boys Do Get Bruised”

Probably the best segment of the entire film, this story hinges on a reveal that’s a little too obvious, but it’s a tale of suburban terror that calls to mind the best of Wes Craven, again leading up to a showstopping display of cartoonishly gruesome special effects.

“KKK Comeuppance”

Another story that pricks even more sharply today. An ex-KKK member is running for governor. This one fills in the requisite “evil doll” slot with another astonishing effects bonanza: this time an effortless integration of live action and stop motion.

“Hard-Core Convert”

Although this is by far the worst of the film’s four segments, it really put the film’s overarching themes through their paces. A flop sweat-fueled Clockwork Orange story about gang violence, it suffers from an extended, extremely annoying strobe effect during a key emotional scene and ends poorly, but at least it’s short.

These four segments combine into one dazzling whole, a politically-minded EC Comics throwback with real talent behind the wheel. The effects are, as I mentioned, spectacular, as is Christopher Young’s chameleonic score. Tales form the Hood is just plain fun, delivering a po-faced, often harrowing message with buoyant charm.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1114

Popcorn Kernels: Q4 2016 Review Purge, Vol. 2

It’s time to clear out more cobwebs from the ol’ backlog of 2016, to create a clean slate ready for Oscar season! So here are some reviews of flicks I watched in December 2016 that weren’t quite so vital to write about in full.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Year: 2010
Director: Jalmari Helander
Cast: Jorma Tommila, Peeter Jakobi, Onni Tommila
Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

In a secluded Finish mountain village, a young boy must stop the evil original Santa Claus from being unleashed upon his friends by a nearby mountaintop dig.

I love me some Christmas horror. There’s something about subverting all the manufactured Hallmark cheeriness of the season that appeals to me, and it helps that I genuinely love the holiday itself. But I genuinely wasn’t prepared for Rare Exports, a Finnish Christmas fairy tale with an unusually somber tone. It’s a stab at Guillermo del Toro-esque weight and spectacle that doesn’t seem fitting of the down-and-dirty genre that brought us Jack Frost and Santa’s Slay.

That tone is what allows it to stand out from the crowd, as well as its focus on a type of rural mountain community not normally seen in Hollywood cinema. The realism with which it presents the struggles of the townsfolk, which are getting tougher around Christmastime even without the invasion of a killer Santa, is outstanding. But the unfortunate fact is that these things are exactly what prevent it from being a particularly great Christmas horror film. The intent is spectacular, but the execution is rather lackluster, holding off on horror for a pretty dull 45 minutes of setup and throttling the film’s chances for entertainment with an overserious tone.

Fortunately, when the horror does kick in, it centers on a truly uncanny image that overcomes the abrasive protagonists (who accidentally trap what they believe to be an employee of the dig site and almost instantly decide to prod him with sticks and hold him hostage – delightful!), the jumps in logic, and the rather silly denouement. That image is of a silent, naked old man who crouches in the shadows, unmoving. It’s a sight that chills the spine enough that it doesn’t thaw until the credits roll.

And, to be fair, the silly finale is a tremendous bit of fun that leads to a charming concluding punchline. It just doesn’t necessarily feel like a natural extension of the almost neorealist goings-on that propel the first half of the movie. Visually speaking, Rare Exports is well made (especially a wonderful bit of business with the recurring image of an advent calendar), and the actors are decent, but the tone and the pacing are just a little too wonky to wholeheartedly recommend.

Rare Exports won’t be entering my Christmas season rotation, but it’s at least an interesting curio that I don’t regret watching. It’s a slice of sub-del Toro fairy tale fruitcake with an uncanny confidence in its own construction.

Rating: 6/10

The Color Purple

Year: 1985
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey
Run Time: 2 hours 34 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG

In the South in the early 1900’s, Celie is married off to an abusive husband and relies on the strength of the women in her life to survive.

You couldn’t pay me to even pretend I care more about Steven Spielberg’s serious movies. I’m a Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones kind of guy. I’ve never seen Lincoln or Schindler’s List and I’m happy to let it remain that way. However, attached as I am to a certain drama-loving individual, recently I was given the choice to sit through The Color Purple or face a life of loneliness and regret. I chose the former, and thus was I introduced to Spielberg’s very first foray into the world of prestige drama.

And while the length of this film is indefensible (I could cut at least half an hour without batting an eye), spending time with these characters really did help th efilm grow on me. It doesn’t hurt that this is still a Spielberg movie, so as miserable as the characters’ lives frequently are, it never descends into the ultragrim territory of, say, Precious. And damn, is he a fun director.

The Color Purple might be maudlin as all hell, especially in its third act (a joyful reunion is pockmarked by a woman wearing an enormous flowing cape, for crying out loud), but visually speaking the man knows exactly what he’s doing. Whether it be the way he uses silhouette to portray Celie’s journey and self-identity, the recurring motif that links the sky with freedom, or the decision to stage its grandest scene of female empowerment around a dinner table, it’s clear that a great deal of thought, skill, and care went into this production.

Plus, the story (based on the Alice Walker novel of the same name) is a delicate and earnest tale about women that is still one of the more powerful narratives about female connection and empowerment out there. Although most of the people Celie meets throughout her life start out as enemies or rivals, they slowly realize they share a bond of sisterhood that can never be taken away from them or defined by the male (and white)-dominated society they’re trapped in. It’s wonderful stuff, despite some of Spielberg’s more cartoonish additions (a bar fight scene with Oprah looks like it was lifted straight out of Looney Tunes). Whoopi Goldberg gives an indelible debut performance, giving you intimate access to Celie’s thoughts and feeling using just her marvelously expressive face, the story is uplifting but doesn’t shy away from cold reality, and it’s good enough to forgive that grotesquely bloated run time. If that’s not a mark of true quality, I don’t know what is.

Rating: 7/10

Headhunters

Year: 2011
Director: Morten Tyldum
Cast: Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

An art thief/corporate recruiter must escape from an implacable assassin.

I should probably expand my scope a little before I make this assertion, but as far as I can tell, I love Norwegian movies. From films like Cold Prey or Dead Snow, it seems like the entire country has been gobbling up American genre films for decades until deciding in a snap that they can make some themselves. And they’re better. I can now expand this theory from sci-fi/horror to the action/thriller genre as well. Passengers director Morten Tyldum’s adaption of Jo Nesbø’s best-selling novel Headhunters is – put simply – a high-octane treat.

Although it’s a simple, snappy little crime thriller, it benefits from its European flavor. First of all, the lead isn’t preposterously handsome and debonair. He’s a regular Joe (or Jo) who just happens to be very good at stealing art. His lack of perfection makes his predicament seem that much more dangerous, because you’re not so certain that he can Jason Statham his way out of trouble. Plus, there’s a certain blasé attitude toward nudity and violence that makes the whole thing feel more visceral and human. While the filmmaking itself is very polished, the people and circumstances are not, giving it an edge that it wields like a razor-sharp blade.

I can’t say that I have much in particular to write about Headhunters, because it’s an elemental – almost primal – narrative, except to say that it’s a well-oiled machine. Every genre element is in the perfect position to keep your heart pumping along to its electric rhythm. It’s an exciting, harrowing, twisty, frequently gross tale of the lengths one man will go for survival. It has a James Bondian attitude toward women, which is always unfortunate, but it is what it is. And what it is is very captivating.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1298

Popcorn Kernels: Q4 2016 Review Purge

In which I muck out my annual New Year’s backlog with mini-reviews of 2016 movies that just barely missed the cut.

Passengers

Year: 2016

Director: Morten Tyldum

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen

Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Two interstellar travelers are awoken from cryosleep 90 years before they reach their destination.

Passengers doesn’t know what it is. Is it a chamber piece about human durability? Is it a romance about how the love between two people can overcome all obstacles? Is it a soft sci-fi action film about two people stranded in the cold expanse of space? Passengers at times attempts to be any and all of these things, but here’s the secret. I know what it is: It’s a feature-length Apple commercial.

OK, not literally. Literally it’s a feature-length Sony commercial, as evidenced by some truly hilarious intergalactic product placement. But what I mean by this is that Passengers is full of immaculate creamy white textures and burbling electronic music, is exceedingly pleasant, and lingers in the memory for exactly 0.35 seconds. This ain’t a bad thing. An unchallenging film is sometimes just what you need, and the simplicity of Passengers allows it to act as a clear lens, magnifying the heat of the two stars burning bright at its center.

Sure, it’s stupid. Its infrequent feints into action territory come at the expense of any sort of logic or coherence, and its finale is mind-numbingly implausible. But it takes itself lightly enough that the goofy excess becomes joyful sci-fi window dressing, a loopy analogue to the struggle of the two characters at its heart. And Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are good in this movie, insofar as they just stand still and emit charisma as good movie stars are able to do.

Basically, whenever Passengers tries to have a plot, it threatens to rattle apart (especially during moments of Weyland Utani-esque foreshadowing that thud to the floor like it’s an electromagnet and go absolutely nowhere). But it excels at big, sloppy sci-fi spectacle, especially during the occasional moments where it remembers that gravity in space is like, kinda funky.

It’s shallow, but it’s far from a waste of time. And as loathe as I am to admit it, Thomas Newman’s score – which feels a little like it was written for a silicon valley corporate training video – stirred something in my godforsaken, electro-loving soul. Passengers is probably your best bet in theaters right now if you’ve already caught up with Rogue One and Moana and want to spend an evening away from the cold.

Rating: 7/10

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Year: 2016

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata 

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A man and his foster son get lost in the New Zealand bush, inciting a nationwide manhunt that propels them to hide out in the wilderness.

Remind me again why the don’t set all fairy tales in New Zealand? Hunt for the Wilderpeople takes after Lord of the Rings as a visual exploration of just how f**king majestic the New Zealand landscape can be, and although it’s set in our reality it becomes just as riveting a fantasy. It doesn’t seek to pull away from its storybook influences at all. Hell, there are chapter titles dividing up the ten major segments. This is a daggum fairy tale and it is gorgeous.

In essence, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a tale of two dissimilar people who are thrown together to become unlikely friends, but it’s so much more than that. Sometimes it’s a wry, silly adventure movie with a child’s sense of wonder. Sometimes it’s a scalpel-sharp satire about societal norms and what constitutes a traditional family. Sometimes it’s a lush, large-scale epic with Tangerine Dream-esque synth cues quivering over the soundtrack. It’s a lot of things, but what they all have in common is that they’re pretty brilliant. 

Sam Neil has played a curmudgeon who needs to open his heart to a child before and he does it well here, but as a scene partner, Julian Dennison blows Jurassic Park’s Lexi and Tim out of the water like they’re rubber ducks. The young actor perfectly captures the character’s arc, nailing the nuance of his prickly exterior and displaying a world of pain and emoting on his face as he slowly lets his guard down. And comic timing must be genetic, because someone should have suffered through decades of training to be able to deliver jokes that well.

Oh yeah, did I mention this film was funny? It’s earnest and fantastical with the occasional sharp edge, but it’s also downright hilarious. Every character is a tile in a perfect mosaic, and every piece is in its place to deliver a wonderful cinematic experience. It’s rare that you see such sharp comedy paired with equally luscious visuals, but Taika Waititi is working magic here. It’s just a delightful film, and you should definitely make seeking it out a priority.

Rating: 9/10

Demon

Year: 2016

Director: Marcin Wrona

Cast: Itay Tiran, Agnieszka Zulewska, Andrzej Grabowski 

Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A man becomes possessed by a dybbuk on the evening of his wedding.

For hardcore film fans, the final week of December is known as “cram week,” where we scramble to watch all the films of the year that we missed in order to properly flesh out our Top 10 lists (and, as you might notice, mine in particular requires a lot of fleshing out). I discovered that essentially my entire cram list was made up of foreign films, which makes sense because they’re not so easy to find in your local Cineplex: Japan’s Sadako vs. Kayako, Norway’s The Wave, South Korea’s The Wailing… But at the expense of the others, I chose a Polish export called Demon and here’s why.

1) It’s a tale about a dybbuk, a Jewish demon that doesn’t get much coverage in modern horror. 2) As arthousey as it looked, it also seemed like it would be a devastatingly chilling slow burn. And 3) First-time director Marcin Wrona committed suicide at the festival where this film debuted, and I wanted to honor his fist and last film. Plus, that story is so macabre and tragic, it’s like catnip for the horror community.

Let’s address the elephant in the room right off the bat: Demon is barely a horror film. Frankly, there’s more comedy than there is horror (pretty solid comedy at that, especially involving the drunkard town doctor and an impatient priest), but neither tone is sustained for too long either way. Demon is a very European film, content to glower at its audience with pallid, grey cinematography and a snail’s sense of pacing and dialogue.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The subtextual layering of Demon is phenomenal, beginning with the stress of going through an intense personal crisis on a day where you’re the center of attention and ending at a truly devastating reflection on the erasure of Jewish culture in Poland, a society still shattered by the lingering effects of the Holocaust (delivered in a heart-wrenching moment by an otherwise unassuming wedding guest who subtly emerges as the best performer of the entire piece.) It’s like being pummeled by a swinging log. There are long periods where nothing is touching you, then – WHAM! – the impact crushes you with freight train force.

Demon does very many things well, but they’re scattered throughout a story that feels rather aimless. It’s ambiguous and opaque in a way that seems almost aggressive, and the truly stellar moments are few and far between. While I was affected by these moments, I don’t feel like I can reasonably recommend the movie and the effort it requires to sift through its tonal doldrums. Still, it’s something you don’t see every day and I’m glad I had the opportunity.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1325

Popcorn Kernels: I'm Dreaming Of A White Castle

In which John Cho’s constant cameos during our American Pie marathon inspired me to finally sit down and watch the Harold & Kumar trilogy for the first time. Please enjoy this triple-decker review.

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Year: 2004
Director: Danny Leiner
Cast: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Stoned roommates Harold and Kumar get a mad craving for White Castle burgers, but their food run becomes a nightlong adventure past various obstacles.

I think maybe I like stoner comedies. I know, it’s a surprise to me too, but I guess it’s only a half step away from my most secretly beloved genre of college movies. Or maybe I just really like the work of Danny Leiner, who began his reign over the form with Dude, Where’s My Car?. Harold & Kumar is actually very similar, spinning a wacky odyssey out of a very low-stakes motivation, but if anything it’s an improvement. That R-rating allows his characters to actually smoke pot, for one (Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher seemed more like lazy dopes than actual stoners), but he’s also honed his penchant for absurdist comedy, cutting the fat that bogged down DWMC’s more out-there moments.

Like any good road trip movie, Harold & Kumar lives and dies on its cameos. Obviously Neil Patrick Harris is the standout, throwing himself full bore into the role of a lifetime: a twisted, nightmare version of himself, before that kind of thing became more commonplace. But I’m loathe to shift the focus from the movie’s battalion of other great side characters, including Christopher Meloni strutting his stuff as the extravagantly weird Freakshow (that dude’s timing is so sharp it could draw blood) or Ryan Reynolds as a male nurse chewing the hell out of lines that any other actor would have just blandly recited. They’re both perfect fits for this comedy universe in which the real world tilts into the cartoonish as often as possible (a raccoon literally pulls a Bugs Bunny move at one point and it is glorious).

But in addition to being funny in increasingly sophomoric ways, Harold & Kumar actually has a brain in its head. At first I marveled at the incredible diversity in the cast of the film (the Korean and Indian leads are patently not white, nor are the Hispanic and Asian love interests), but it quickly becomes apparent that this is all in service to a satirical skewering of ethnic stereotypes, eventually diving into white rejection of immigrants and racial profiling in the police system. This is no accident, and the fact that for at least a third of its run time, it’s devoted to humor (good humor, at that) revolving around topical racial issues is remarkable.

Once again, there’s a heady undercurrent of unfortunate homophobia, but at least here it serves as a series of character-based gags that build on one another to complement the wacky world our stoners inhabit. If you’re gonna be wrong, this is the right way to do it. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is an astoundingly fun motion picture, if you have the constitution to survive some truly gross scatological humor. Luckily I do, and I hope you do too because this flick is a real laid-back treat.

Rating: 8/10

Harold & Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay

Year: 2008
Director: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg
Cast: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

A mishap on an airplane gets Harold and Kumar sent to Guantanamo. They escape and embark on a road trip across the American South to clear their names and just maybe stop the wedding of Kumar’s ex-girlfriend.

The only strange thing about the fact that the surprise hit Harold & Kumar garnered a sequel is that it took them four whole years to make it. Thus we jump from 2004 to 2008 and find ourselves in a very different political climate, even though the film ostensibly takes place that same week, back in 2004. We as a nation had picked up the pieces of our shattered post-9/11 confidence and had slowly turned against Our Leader George W. Bush and his War on Terror. People were tentatively starting to listen to the Dixie Chicks again, and in this fertile loam Harold & Kumar sprouted from a subtle racial satire to a full-blown exploration of terrorist panic, government incompetence, Islamophobia, and ethnic stereotypes all across the board.

It might still be dumb, scatological stoner comedy, but its sheer political audacity is stunning. And a lot of it works. Rob Corddry’s inept government agent is a miracle of over-the-top humor (perfectly paired with Ed Helms in a standout scene), the inevitable return of Neil Patrick Harris as a twisted funhouse mirror version of himself takes the indecency to dizzy new heights, and the film doesn’t even let its own protagonists off the hook as Harold and Kumar perform their own set of woeful racial assumptions and miscalculations. And a review that fails to laud Christopher Meloni’s gut-busting contributions as a KKK Grand Wizard caricature is a review I don’t want to be a part of.

Unfortunately, these new balls of steel create a bit of drag now that the film carries the added weight of the inevitable comedy sequel diminishing returns. Two already not great gags from the original are dredged up once more in flatly unfunny recurring bits, and the gay panic and poop jokes are both more abundant and more deeply wearisome. And while I enjoy most of what the film does with its hyperbolic humor, one scene in particular (the boys meet an inbred redneck Cyclops baby) pushes things waaay too far, irretrievably breaking whatever reality the film had left.

Plus, frankly, the wedding storyline is tired at best and any time the zany comedy is interrupted for another abortive rom-com sequence, you feel like gouging out your own tongue just for something to do. But as sequels go, Guantanamo Bay strikes a solid-enough balance. It might have deflated somewhat, but it has enough strength to deserve its existence, and its commitment to furthering the surprisingly nuanced social satire of the original is commendable. And damn it, it’s funny. What more do you want from the thing?

Rating: 6/10

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

Year: 2011
Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Cast: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Harold and Kumar are reunited after several years and team up to find the perfect Christmas tree to impress Harold’s father-in-law.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas doesn’t feel like a Harold & Kumar movie. The stakes are too high, the gags are even more juvenile, and – worst of all – there’s not even a whiff of a Christopher Meloni cameo. This is the most American Pie-y movie in the franchise (no surprise considering that the trilogy screenwriters and Guantanamo Bay directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg ditched this film mid-production for American Reunion, handing over the reigns to The Final Girls director Todd Strauss-Schulson) and it doesn’t suit these characters. Nor does their age, which forces them into Apatowian ”manchild learning to grow up” archetypes, in turn cramming their love interests into the even more boring “sweet, innocent, constantly disappointed angel” roles that so ruined Alyson Hannigan’s American Pie arc.

But as much as it’s not a Harold & Kumar movie, it’s still a half-decent R-rated comedy. The plot is functional. The acting is solid (especially Kal Penn, whose understated one-liners are the stuff of legend). And the jokes are kind of dumb, but at least willing to go to refreshing extremes. The 3D gimmick is perhaps too keen to point itself out and never really challenges the format, but at least it shows that this movie was given a healthy budget, which allows it to chase its wackier impulses (including an all-Claymation scene provided by LAIKA and a late moment that’s way gorier than anything cooked up int The Final Girls).

What really makes the film shine is its obligatory Neil Patrick Harris scene, utilizing his newfound megastardom perhaps even better than they managed his career slump back in 2004. He’s always been handed the funniest moments in these movies on a silver platter, but his extended cameo (in which he gets to share the screen with his partner David Burtka, also gleefully subverting his own personality, and perform an immaculate holiday number) is the best in the entire trilogy. If NPH was the only good thing about this film, it would still be eminently watchable, but luckily he’s not.

The absurdity of the in-demand holiday gift Wafflebot, Thomas Lennon bringing a truly bizarre energy as a family man along for the ride, and Kumar’s plan to steal a church’s Christmas tree are equally bizarre delights to be found in this film, which isn’t afraid to go for the brass ring. It doesn’t always manage to grab it (especially in any scene with Danny Trejo as Harold’s father-in-law, who gives maybe the worst performance of his entire career here,), but the fact that it tries is more than enough to keep you going through the weaker patches. It’s a jolly holiday treat, and while I certainly won’t keep it in heavy rotation, I know I’ll slap this DVD on in future holiday celebrations.

Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1574

Popcorn Kernels: Even The Wind Is Afraid

In which we review the final two Mexican horror films screened during month 4 of the Scream 101 podcast: a classic 60’s horror film and its New Millennium remake.

Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo (1968) (listen to our episode right here)

Year: 1968
Director: Carlos Enrique Taboada
Cast: Marga López, Maricruz Olivier, Alicia Bonet
Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes
MPAA Rating: N/A

The students at an all-girls school are haunted by the ghost of a past student who committed suicide.

Hasta el Viento Teine Miedo faces two hurdles right off the bat. First, it’s a 60’s horror movie. Second, it’s a classical haunted house film. Both of those genres tend to be too stately and antiseptic to provoke blood-curdling chills in today’s audiences. However, the film’s antidote to this is writer-director Carlos Enrique Taboada, who is as close to a Dario Argento as classic Mexican cinema would get.

Although Hasta el Viento still lacks powerful scares, it does boast a sense of creeping dread provoked by an extremely powerful and well-crafted aesthetic. Its use of light and shadow is a perfect stepping stone between German expressionism in the silent era and the stylistic rush of 70’s giallo filmmaking in Italy. The plot might be straightforward and predictable (even at the time), but it lives in a lush, exciting world. This profound grip on style arrives fully fledged in the very first shot, which shows the feet of a hanging body in the top of the frame before revealing its full silhouette on the wall in a flash of lightning. It both skirts the heavy censorship of the period and creates a more dreamlike, provocative image out of a vision that could have merely been crass and blunt.

This delightful handle over the style spreads to every aspect of Hasta el Viento, including the score, which soars up and down in a blustery refrain, and the framing that turns the mundane into an eerie fantasia. It shows a consistency of vision that allows it to transcend from being a horror flick to being an actual bona fide work of cinema art.

Then the characters that occupy that bare bones plot are just delightful. And I’m not just talking about their gravity-defying go-go hairstyles. Each girl has a distinct personality and set of motivations, and their interactions ring with truth, simultaneously sparkling with naturalistic humor. Their dialogue is what makes the movie, buoying the down moments.

I wouldn’t advise going into Hasta el Viento expecting anything other than a stately foreign film, but it delivers its atmosphere with an engaging, surprisingly modern flair. Another Mexican horror film about the terrors of institutional oppression, it’s both a political and stylistic triumph, even if it really isn’t scary anymore.

Rating: 8/10

Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo (2007) (listen to our episode right here)

Year: 2007
Director: Gustavo Moheno
Cast: Martha Higareda, Verónica Langer, María Aguilera
Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

After a suicide attempt, Claudia is sent to a home for troubled teens that is haunted by the vengeful spirit of a past patient.

It turns out Hollywood isn’t he only place where we can make a hash out of a classic foreign film with a ham-handed remake. Those foreign countries are perfectly capable of doing it to themselves. By updating the classical ghost story of Hasta el Viento Tiene Miedo to the modern age, they drown it in detail and sleaze, stripping away every last element that made it an enduring horror tale.

They’ve given Claudia a gritty origin story, updated the setting to be more grim, and tossed in about half a dozen superfluous lesbian subplots, all in a desperate attempt to jazz it up and appeal to a jaded modern audience: More blood! More boobs! An unnecessary backstory for the tower where the action takes place! It’s an unholy mess, and proof positive that more story detail does not equal a better movie.

I will admit that the story here is more coherent and structured than the original, which had an elemental, almost campfire-esque quality. But the plot will always be simplistic, no matter how much you accessorize it. What made the film click was its inimitable style and engaging characters, two things that the remake entirely lacks. In the habit of most 2000’s remakes, the characters are reduced to interchangeable assholes in the name of “edginess,” and the aesthetic is crude at best, eliminating all mood and shadow with wide blasts of light that make the whole thing look like a forgotten TV movie.

At least this movie attempts to add one element that could be interpreted as intelligent. A major visual and narrative motif is menstruation, as the blood is linked to the characters’ fears of aging, sexuality, and life itself. Naturally, it’s too dumb to do anything particularly exciting with this development, but at least it’s trying. I guess.

However, beyond that, Hasta el Viento 2007 has nothing to offer. Having removed all the best qualities of the original, it’s trapped with that dud story and is left as a miserably tedious slog. I always do my beast to give any remake a shot, but like all too many entries in the genre, this one is just a wailing waste of time.

Rating: 3/10
Word Count: 881

Pahk The Cah In The Hahvahd Graveyahd

Year: 2016
Director:  Kenneth Lonergan
Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler
Run Time: 2 hours 17 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

By far the best thing about Manchester by the Sea is Casey Affleck’s SNL monologue describing it: “It’s an incredibly depressing picture. It’s really a downer. I mean, it’s great… It’s a beautiful testament to what we’ll do for our family, to how everyone deserves a second chance, and also to how unbearably sad movies can be. But it’s also great! But sad. And funny! But just, crushingly sad.”

Has there been a movie more obviously teed up for Oscar buzz? I was nervous about sitting down to another film about a deadbeat white dude feeling sorry for himself, but I underestimated Manchester by the Sea by about the same degree pretty much everybody in the world massively overestimated it.

Got some Oscarbait on your hands? Come on down to Popcorn Culture and we’ll trash it for ya, free of charge.

In Manchester by the Sea, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a deadbeat Bostonian working as a handyman. When his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies, he must move back to the seaside town of Manchester to make the funeral arrangements and see if he’s prepared to be a guardian for his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Being in town forces him to confront his past, especially his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams). Can he overcome his drunken depression and find it in his heart to take care of a teen in need?

We’ll just have to see, but the odds are against him. This IS an Oscar frontrunner after all.

Manchester by the Sea is not a fun movie, as if I needed to tell you that. But it’s also not fun in the way that giving yourself over to a harrowing movie can be cathartic. Despite its reputation for ravaging melodrama, Manchester by the Sea is a rather intimate and small portrait of a character who’s closed off from the world. And watching someone who’s dead inside going through the motions is dull, far removed from the sharp, searing pain of most cinematic tragedies. While many fans felt that the dullness is applied with such pressure it creates a kind of blunt force trauma, I slipped off the slick surface of this one, finding it hard to get a foothold in any remotely engaging character element.

That doesn’t mean you won’t like it. By all accounts, most film viewers differ from Yours Truly (if they didn’t, The Boy Next Door would’ve had a much higher box office take), But for this reviewer, the emotional core of Manchester was too distant to feel any true connection.

Fortunately, that almost doesn’t matter, because what people don’t tell you is that the film is also quite funny. Manchester by the Sea has a similar sense of humor to The Fighter, chucking a handful of aggressive Bostonians into a room together and seeing what sparks fly. Hedges and Affleck have a prickly yet easy chemistry that feels as lived-in as if they’re genuine relatives, but strained by their circumstances and clashing personalities.

Probably like when Ben comes over for dinner.

And yeah sure, there are plenty of Oscar reel showcase moments. Michelle Williams gives a hauntingly broken performance is what is more like a glorified cameo, Hedges shines with his brassy rebellion until a standout breakdown scene of his own, and Gretchen Mol shines in a brief appearance, cementing in the film’s themes of guilt and addiction. Affleck doesn’t really stand out from the pack because his character is purposefully underplayed, but he is the glue that holds the film together nevertheless.

Manchester by the Sea has a lot of strengths, but a strong hook is not one of them. It’s not quite misery porn, not quite comedy, and not quite realism. And it’s certainly not quite great. It has its share of small, memorable moments crafted through subtle physical performances and dialogue, but other times it drowns out its own characters with endlessly repetitive driving scenes and a swooning score, bizarre tangents that make it clock in at two and a half hours long, and a certain lack of grace in the bigger dramatic moments (including a bar fight that elicits a gasp from a crowd of apparently invisible women at a pub filled with men – the sound designer must have had a hot date that night, because that rushed slip-up is punishing.)

Sure, I liked Manchester by the Sea. Its run time flew by and the humor was engaging. But the drama elements are so quiet they’re nearly inaudible. If you respond to movies about loss and broken people, by all means go see it. But otherwise, unless you’re like me and aiming to see all the Best Picture nominees, you could much better spend that time somewhere else.

TL;DR: Manchester by the Sea is overpraised, but it's an engaging, strangely funny, intimate tale of loss and addiction.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 829

This'll Be The Day That I Pie

Year: 2012

Director: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg

Cast: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott 

Run Time: 1 hour 53 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Well, here we are. I may have skipped way ahead in our Seann William Scott marathon, but of course that was only a pretense to allow me to watch the American Pie movies again. So that brings us to American Reunion, the fourth and probably final film in the franchise, coming a long 9 years after American Wedding. Let’s see if this Pie has gotten stale.

Pro-tip: if a pie has been sitting on a windowsill for a decade, maybe don’t eat it.

In American Reunion, the denizens of East Great Falls return home for their not-quite ten year high school reunion. Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) now have a two-year-old son; Oz (Chris Klein) is back from the dead and a B-list sportscaster/celebrity dance show contestant who’s dating sexy nymphette Mia (Katrina Bowden); Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) has arrived with an array of globetrotting tales; and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is just happy to be included. They plan to spend a nice, quiet weekend catching up before the reunion. Enter Stifler (Seann William Scott). Frustrated by his job as a temp, he wants to have a wild, crazy weekend just like they did back in high school.

Thus our aged foursome is tempted away from their wives and boring jobs by various women and the rekindling of old flames. Oz and Kevin run into their exes Heather (Mena Suvari) and Terrible Vickie (Tara Reid), who is terrible, Finch woos band geek-cum-sexy barmaid Selena (Dania Ramirez), and Jim must resist the advances of Kara (Ali Cobrin), the lithe now-eighteen-year-old he used to babysit.

And thus they continue to act like they’ve never seen boobs before in their entire lives.

Remember that thing I said about the first American Pie where the women were actually fleshed-out, sexually autonomous characters? Well, apparently the law of diminishing returns also applies to quasi-feminism in raunchy movie franchises. The rule of thumb still holds true in that an American Pie film’s quality is directly proportional to the screentime of Alyson Hannigan’s Michelle, and Reunion takes after American Wedding in the misuse of that iconic character. Once again she is crammed into the role of “Wife,” the woman who must be kept unaware of the boys’ sexual misadventures, as if she wouldn’t have been right in there with them.

And frankly, most of the other female characters don’t even make sense. I get it when Terrible Vickie is terrible, because she’s terrible, but why the hell would Heather get mad upon seeing Oz macking on his live-in girlfriend? Why would Kara have any sexual interest in Jim (no offense, but c’mon), especially with such rapacious determination? And why does Michelle threaten to pack up and move in with her grandmother the second Jim commits a sexual misunderstanding, something that has become – like – a full time career for him at this point? I think this all boils down to the biggest problem with the later films in this franchise: These adults are still written like teenagers.

Obviously adults can get into sexual hijinks, probably even more so than your average high school student. But the motivations here are so childish and crudely motivated, they make way less sense when transplanted from the locker-filled halls of Long Beach Poly to a family cul de sac.

Yeah, I’m still not convinced that we’re in Michigan. Better luck next time, fellas. Oh wait…

At least American Reunion has reassembled its core cast (including cameos from Natasha Lyonne, Shannon Elizabeth, Chris Owen, and a slightly expanded part for a finally famous John Cho, who appeared in all 3 American Pies before hitting it big with Harold & Kumar), so it feels more like a legitimate continuation than the stunted Wedding. And you can rarely go wrong with Seann William Scott’s Stifler, the only character whose actions make any sense as he yearns for the glory days of his teen years. His mugging overreactions and faux charm still hold some juice, once again bringing most of the best laughs by the bucketful.

And American Reunion is funny. At least enough to justify its own existence. The bright colorful characters of the original film have become shabby and patched (especially Eugene Levy as Jim’s Dad, who they can not find a use for here, shoving him into a shopworn dress-up montage that stops the movie cold), but the situations they find themselves in are still reasonably diverting. And this is the first film in the entire dick-obsessed franchise to actually show a penis – if only for a second – so I applaud its audacity at the very least.

Unfortunately though, for the most part American Reunion is just a retread of the lackluster American Wedding (although there are fewer gay jokes, thank heavens), only with Neon Trees on the soundtrack instead of Sum 41. This one-two punch is good enough not to totally sink my esteem for the franchise (those first two are just too good), but I don’t think I’d mind if this was the last slice of Pie. There’s no reason to revisit these characters in their current, destitute state.

TL;DR: American Reunion is a decent years-later followup, though it copies the problems of its immediate predecessor.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 898
Reviews In This Series
American Pie (Weitz, 1999)
American Pie 2 (Rogers, 2001)
American Wedding (Dylan, 2003)
American Pie Presents: Band Camp (Rash, 2005)
American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile (Nussbaum, 2006)
American Pie Presents: Beta House (Waller, 2007)
American Pie Presents: The Book of Love (Putch, 2009)
American Reunion (Hurwitz & Schlossberg, 2012)

Popcorn Kernels: Nobody Puts Baby Jesus In A Corner

It turns out, if you’re secular or just religious with a good sense of humor, there’s nothing more hilarious during the holiday season than evangelical Christmas movies. Here’s hoping you have a merry Christmas if you celebrate it. My gift to you is two of such Christian cinematic delights.

[EN: It’s almost impossible to give legible scores to good-bad movies of this magnitude, so bear with me. Things are about to go a little haywire.]

Wish for Christmas

Year: 2016

Director: John K. D. Graham

Cast: Joey Lawrence, Leigh-Allyn Baker, Anna Fricks

Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

When a young girl’s selfish wish for her parents not to believe in God comes true, she must learn the true meaning of Christmas to return things to normal.

You gotta love Christian movies where God actively grants wishes, touting evangelical values while pretty much defying established doctrine. But hey, I’m not a theological scholar, so I’m probably not qualified to make these judgment calls. Maybe God is a genie. But it just seems like the wrong foot to start off on when you’re trying to promote traditional beliefs and values. Although, all the feet that follow the start are also wrong, so maybe I shouldn’t get hung up on just the first one.

Frankly, Wish for Christmas is hilarious, presenting a gloriously overwrought false dichotomy. If you’re not a conservative Christian who balks when a girl shows her shoulders, that mean’s you’re a misanthropic money-grubbing snake who convinces your daughter to get a belly ring and joins the infantry of the War on Christmas by ceaselessly chanting “Happy holidays!” (I’ll never understand why acknowledging that the likes of Hanukkah exist is a bad thing – Christmas is still included in there, folks!). Oh, and you’ll become so cruel and business-minded at your law office that you’ll fire your terrible employee who sent legal documents to the opposition and had a nervous breakdown when you asked her to do two things at once! The alternative being… giving her a trophy and a plate of cookies?

The fun thing about these movies is that they usually paint non-Christians with a monstrous brush, but they accidentally depict actual Christians as total chumps. Neither of those things are true, but you gotta love that wholehearted dedication to failing at an argument.

But don’t worry, Wish for Christmas fails just as epically at being a movie. Of course there’s an abortive arc at the center of the film, where the teenager seems to have already learned her lesson the second her wish is granted. And a panoply of Wise Old Gurus who teach her lessons that you halfway expect to vanish into thin air when you turn around.

But we already know the script is riddled with flaws. What I would really like to discuss is the massive incompetence in the rest of its construction, which gives it an air of hilarious bad movie grace I haven’t seen in a good long while. The extras are just bananas at all times (there are conspicuously never enough to fill any given scene, but they always seem mismatched to their actual environment e. g. church is filled with kids but a barn dance is populated by elderly retirees), the girls attend what might be the worst party ever recorded and have a blast, and the acting is pretty universally atrocious.

And the only thing that might be considered by any stretch of the imagination “good” if only because it’s truly inexplicable are the handful of scenes where Joey Lawrence and Leigh-Allyn Baker (as the afflicted parents) have a chance to be alone together, spouting some ludicrous dialogue but selling it so hard by maintaining a breezy, pleasant comic chemistry. The inexplicable script combined with their lived-in relationship is frankly exquisite. It’s a real blast to pick apart. Even though I didn’t love it as wholeheartedly as a Troll 2 or The Room, it’s a lovely experience to sit down with a couple friends and riff all over Wish for Christmas. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5/10

Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas

Year: 2014

Director: Darren Doane

Cast: Kirk Cameron, Darren Doane, Bridgette Cameron

Run Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Kirk Cameron has an earnest conversation with his brother-in-law Christian, who is feeling down about the materialism of Christmas.

There could hardly be a more common plot structure in evangelical fiction. A transparent Straw Man is being a Grinch and must be taught the true meaning of Christmas. But this is Kirk Cameron we’re talking about, and he’s deathly allergic to doing things by the book. So, to put a festive spin on Saving Christmas, apparently he slammed back a pint of ayahuasca, grit his teeth, and set about making this evangelical Christmas film a pro-materialism polemic.

Words cannot describe how ludicrous – perhaps actively blasphemous – Saving Christmas is in its pseudo-religious justification for all the trappings of an upper-middle class Yuletide celebration: the Christmas tree, Santa Claus, and the greedy unwrapping of mile-high stacks of presents. “B-But, Wikipedia told me those are Pagan rituals!” yelps the Straw Man, mouth a-sputter, snot glistening from his heretic nose. He’s right, by the way, and the movie fails to realize how much more evidence and clarity they give to his argument, hoping they can bury it under several kilotons of Robin Williams-style vamping (incidentally, this character is played by the film’s writer-director, and he gives himself license to get preternaturally unhinged).

So, after some excruciating anti-comedy involving Token Black Friend Diondre babbling for approximately 9 hours about office politics at a job we’re unaware of that never get resolved and a certain keenness to stay on Kirk Cameron’s face as he reacts for a full minute to unfunny punchlines, further deflating any microscopic threat of genuine entertainment, Kirk and Christian sit down in a car for their film-long talk. Kirk’s explanations are presented via lifeless static shots that fade out, then back in on themselves. It wouldn’t get a passing grade in an elementary school documentary class.

Frankly, this interminable section would be utterly miserable if it weren’t for two things: 1) These explanations are absurd, desperately grasping at straws (“Um… swaddling cloths are like… parallels to the resurrection? So we need nativity snowglobes, which I feel the need to explain for some reason, even though they’re the only explicitly religious thing in the whole movie. And the Bible had trees, ergo Christmas trees. And Adam was the first Adam so Jesus was the last Adam and.. Wait, what was I talking about?” Your brain just loses its grip halfway through any monologue. It’s like listening to Kellyanne Conway speak), and 2) stuff gets cray, and eventually a dubstep Saint Nick kicks the sh*t out of a dude in a bar.

Then the film ends with an extended hip hop dance number, because why the hell not? Saving Christmas is a holiday treat, with every part acting in conjunction with the others to create a truly execrable entry in the cinematic canon. The acting is atrocious (Kirk Cameron is terrible, flapping his hands around like he’s making up his own interpretive dance about his dialogue, but he’s a damn sight better than the mawkish Darren Doane or his own sister Brdgette Cameron, who makes the same sour, disdainful face for ten straight minutes, slowly rotating it so we can see every possible angle), the script is a nightmare (aside from the D-level arguments, it’s peppered with “dudes” and “bros” in a bizarre attempt to humanize the characters), and the cinematography is either tripod static or caffeinated squirrel shaky, at one point shifting focus in camera between people in the background and foreground having a conversation, one of my favorite hallmarks of trash cinema. 

Frankly, it’s a delight. To paraphrase Saving Christmas itself (in a line describing the original Saint Nicholas), this is a bad, bad movie. Bad in the good way.

Rating: 2/10

Word Count: 1326