The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Year: 2015

Director: Mike Dougherty

Cast: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Krampus is probably the movie I’ve most looked forward to all year. I love Christmas horror, I love Toni Collette, and after seeing Trick R Treat for the first time this Halloween, I had faith in director Mike Dougherty. But, as often happens in this tempestuous business of film, reality imposed a different outcome. Krampus is a huge, gold-wrapped present under the Christmas tree that, upon opening, turns out to be a clothes hamper It’s not a bad or pointless gift by any means, but it utterly fails to match up to the visions of sugarplums dancing in your head.

‘Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the blog, these terrible puns your eyeballs did clog.

Krampus tells the holly jolly tale of a family that has lost the Christmas spirit. Father Tom (Adam Scott) is too busy with work to pay attention, mother Sarah (Toni Collette) is stressed and dismissive, and daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) just wants to smoke pot out of a ludicrously festive peppermint bong with her loser boyfriend. Only their son Max (Emjay Anthony) and their German speaking grandmother (Krista Stadler) seem to even notice there’s a holiday going on. When their annoying relatives, who even Roald Dahl would denounce as hyperbolically vile, come to visit – led by gun-totin’ trailer trash Howard (David Koechner) – Max is mercilessly taunted and ends up destroying his letter to Santa, scattering it to the winds.

This act of treason upon the Spirit of Christmas summons Krampus, the dark shadow of Santa Claus, to dole out punishment and re-instill the holiday value of giving. But instead of Barbies and golf clubs that you’ll need to fake enthusiasm for, they’ll be giving something much more valuable… Their lives.

Well, Toni Collette’s character’s life I valuable at least. You can take or leave the rest of ‘em.

Krampus has a killer opening. Perhaps the best opening of any film this year. An opening that is so ironic, winking, and silly that the rest of the film has all but no choice but to fail to live up to it. But Krampus makes another critical error that it had a veritable ocean of opportunities to avoid: it’s working from a script that, at the very least, needed a couple passes before it was anywhere near complete. From a technical standpoint, the film is a gas, but at the script level it’s a Vegas casino: full of glitz and glamour with very little payoff.

The sheer amount of story elements that are introduced in the first act and never come up again (Eagle Scout survival training, creepy snowmen, a big honking meat cleaver) would have Chekhov swallowing the barrel of his gun. In short, it feels like it was made by a careless teenager, an enthusiastic kid who was too lustily excited by the thought of what he could create to stop and focus on why. There are brief swipes at emotional resonance, but they’re immature and ill thought-out, carried by archetypical characters as broad as the tree in Rockefeller Plaza.

Krampus is a blizzard. A flurry of totally unique, crystalline ideas (including my personal, consumerism-lampooning favorite: the plan to take refuge in a local mall) gets caught up in the furious gale, forming an indistinct rushing mass. It’s pretty to look at, but you don’t particularly want to get caught in it. However, for all that its individual snowflakes don’t stand out the way they should, it’s still a memorable experience.

How’s this metaphor going? I live in Southern California, so this is all hearsay.

For all that Krampus sublimely disappoints one’s expectations, there’s plenty of good that won’t come out. Design-wise, Krampus is an out-and-out masterpiece. Krampus’ hulking, cloaked figure cuts an imposing silhouette through the falling snow, and his helpers are frivolous exercises in nightmare fuel. Especially the fleshy, snakelike jack-in-the-box monster. That guy will be knocking on the door of my fragile psyche for weeks. But, you guessed it, despite their beautiful, feral forms, these creatures get very little to do. There’s just too damn many of them and the film has almost no idea what actual purpose they serve in the narrative.

Krampus bumbles wide-eyed through its own ideas like it’s Alice touring Wonderland. Even the film seems surprised when it stumbles across a patch of pure, fairy tale fright, like the glistening storybook town surrounding the snowbound house. In these moments, which are admittedly pretty frequent, we get a boost of adrenaline to drive us to the next sequence, whether it be an ass-kicking sister in law or an attack by mutant gingerbread men.

I apologize if my ample complaints have been misleading, because Krampus is very fun very much of the time. It’s a turn-your-brain-off good time, a Gremlins for the Twitter set. It’s just that the deficits of the film hit even harder considering the talent that was poured into it. Its unearned emotional beats and stunted character arcs don’t prevent it from being entertaining, but they do cut it off at the knees every time it makes the effort to be something more profound than its cheesy Christmas horror brethren like Silent, Night, Deadly Night.

Luckily, if you desperately want to see a Dougherty holiday flick that will knock your socks off, you’ve got Trick R Treat. And I do hope Krampus makes boatloads of money, but more for the sake of studio horror in general than any genuine devotion to the property, which I fully expected to be a gem. But a good time at the movies is a good time at the movies, even if it isn’t quite as grandly consequential as you’d planned.

TL;DR: Krampus is a fun Christmas horror flick that squanders its potential to be truly great.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 983

Pig In The City

Year: 1984

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz

Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

We are far from the end of our Muppet marathon, but we have hit a major milestone. 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan, the third feature film starring Jim Henson’s beloved creations, is also the final film to feature Henson himself before his untimely death in 1990. I don’t know what we’ll face in the sprawling decade of 90’s Muppetry, but at the very least it’s some comfort that his final silver screen outing was the most consistent, appealing cinematic Muppet venture yet.

Although, let’s not pretend any single moment in cinema history could beat “Rainbow Connection.”

The Muppets Take Manhattan begins like every great Muppet film should: with a dream: Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) and his friends have just graduated college and decide to head to Broadway to put on a show. Unfortunately, the big city eats apple-cheeked sentimentalism for breakfast, and they end up living out of bus station lockers and struggling to get by. The gang splits up to pursue their own destinies, but Kermit stays behind, befriending a waitress named Jenny (Juliana Donald) and teaming up to save the show and get his friends back together.

Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) also stays behind, to tail Kermit and Jenny and fly into a jealous rage whenever they hug. Hijinks ensue, involving roller skates, permed curls (never forget this was made in the 80’s), amnesia, and plenty of celebrity cameos. Half of which I recognized this time!

I might just know Elliott Gould from playing Ross and Monica’s dad on Friends, but that still counts!

With this entry, the Muppets have finally settled into the right budget range. The Muppets themselves maintain their astonishing lack of physical limitation (save a close-up of their marching feet, an unerringly disturbing sight that not even Kubrick could have gotten right), but tone down on the extravagant, showy production numbers. The Muppets are a lot of things, but they’re not shallow, and the exhausting profusion of pace-halting glitz in The Great Muppet Caper got alarmingly close to that dreaded lack of depth. But never mind that, because we’re back and we’re going to Broadway!

Since we spent so much time slamming Caper’s musical propensities, I suppose it’s prudent to explain where Manhattan goes right. The soundtrack is perhaps the most consistent of the first three films (though there is no standout like “Rainbow Connection,” it also doesn’t hit a nadir like “Couldn’t We Ride”), with each number actually servicing the plot and its themes in some way. The only time the film takes a screeching halt for a number is the playful doo-wop “I’m Gonna Always Love You,” performed by a live-action commercial for the Muppet Babies cartoon that would premiere two months hence. Fortunately, this performance is so cute that your face melts like that Nazi from Indiana Jones and you can’t be bothered to notice how indefensibly pointless it is.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

No further questions, your honor.

Another stand-out number, for obvious reasons, is the recurring motif “Together Again,” as direct a statement of the sentimental Muppetian love for the world, its inhabitants, and each other as there ever could be. It also boasts some kick-ass shoulder choreography that just shouldn’t be possible to achieve with felt hand puppets. And then there’s “Somebody’s Getting Married,” a musical theatre pastiche that bottles pure Broadway joy into a song that serves a purpose both in the show within the movie and the movie itself. Now, that’s screenwriting.

Now, Muppets Take Manhattan is not a perfect movie. It’s a consistent movie with by far the most successful narrative in the franchise, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best. At times it can be altogether shaggy, especially when it splits up the core group of Muppets. We get a grab bag of sketches of varying quality describing their whereabouts, and the dutiful focus on each individual Muppet is charmingly sincere, though a bit long in the tooth. Especially in the third act, there are a lot of additional plot points that crop up just to add another wrinkle to the plot for no real reason other than extending the run time.

And I suppose there’s no better place than here to bring up an issue I’ve had with the Muppets since day one. It’s controversial, so viewer discretion is advised. I’m not a fan of Kermit and Miss Piggy’s relationship. I get the sitcom “take my wife, please” act, but I don’t ever feel for more than a minute at a time throughout any of these movies that Kermit cares about Piggy or wants to commit to her in any way. Her unfiltered devotion compared to his slightly alarmed ambivalence gives me angina. Piggy pushes and pushes him about getting married after he sells the show, much to his seeming consternation. So when the musical finale concludes in a showstopping wedding, it doesn’t feel earned at all, making the entire ending a little abrupt and clunky.

So there you have it. Brennan hates love.

But damn it all to hell, this is a Muppets feature. It’s silly, it’s fun, and Miss Piggy bends iron with her kung fu grip. You’re never not having a good time when you’re watching The Muppets Take Manhattan. The cameos are a little lax this time around, but having a roller skating Gregory Hines ask “You gave Jenny the huggies?” pretty much makes up for any deficiencies in that regard.

This is the first Muppet feature to never break the fourth wall, but it’s also the first to be an actual, bona fide movie. With Frank Oz, the Muppeteer with perhaps the broadest extracurricular experience (Yoda! Little Shop of Horrors! The man’s an icon.), at the helm, the movie finds its way to the finish line with fleet footing. Or is that hoofing? Webbing? At any rate, it’s even more fun to watch the Muppets take Manhattan than Jason Voorhees, and you know how much I adore that big lug.

TL;DR: The Muppet Take Manhattan is a little ditsy, but effervescently fun.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1031
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)

Deck The Halls With Pills Of Molly

Year: 2015

Director: Jonathan Levine

Cast: Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! OK, if you’ve been in a Target any time since October, it might feel like it’s been Christmas for millennia. But December is finally here and the holiday season is once again upon us. And this time the present we’re receiving is much sweeter than the unwarranted ire of North Korea. From director Jonathan Levine (of 50/50, Warm Bodies, and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, because rest assured if there’s a slasher hidden in your closet, I will dig it out) comes The Night Before, the movie Judd Apatow would make if his heart grew three sizes.

Health warning: The Grinch is not scientifically accurate. If your heart should swell this holiday season, seek medical attention immediately.

The Night Before is your standard Apatow stable tale of a manboy learning to grow up. This time it’s Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a 30-something with no direction in life. In a tradition that began the Christmas Eve 14 years ago when his parents died, he and his friends gather together on December 24th to celebrate and attempt to find a mythical party known as the Nutcracker Ball. However, this particular celebration will be their last, because Isaac (Seth Rogen) is expecting a child with his wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) is a rising football star with a lot on his plate. And a lot of syringe marks on his ass, if you catch my drift.

As the night progresses, Ethan must learn that friendships change, and that’s not always a bad thing. When the friends’ three different goals for the night inevitably clash, Chris and Isaac must also face harsh truths about themselves. Also, Ethan pursues his ex, Diana (Lizzy Caplan), who is a woman in a bro comedy and as such doesn’t get very much to do.

Although there’s at least a solid reason she might consider forgiving Ethan. Have you SEEN his face?

Obviously, question number one when reviewing a comedy is “Is it funny?” For my rule of thumb, I propose a secondary question: “Is Randall Park in it?” I’ve written about Randall Park until the cows came home and then left again because I wouldn’t stop, so I won’t belabor the point here. But! If Mr. Park blesses a movie with one of his mystical 30-second nuggets of screen time, it’s pretty much worth watching. Here, he gradates from Thankless Role to Hyperbolically Earnest Bit Part. Progress!

Yes, The Night Before is funny. It isn’t funny in quite as explosive a way as last year’s Neighbors, but it isn’t trying to be. Jonathan Levine has confirmed that the script largely concerned the film’s dramatic beats, leaving the comedy to the improvisational whimsy of its actors. This leaves the film with a laid back, hang-out quality that’s consistently pleasant but each scene lives and dies on the strength of its various performers.

For example, whenever Seth Rogen, Jillian Bell, Mindy Kaling, or Broad City’s Ilana Glazer are onscreen, they spin even their most tripped out, dubiously conceived moments into comic gold. Gordon-Levitt on the other hand, really nails the dramatic beats despite being a bit slow on the uptake humor-wise. And then there’s Anthony Mackie. He doesn’t give a poor performance by any stretch of the imagination, but he is woefully underserved by a character that leaves him physically stymied.

Take a look. Does any part of him scream “roided up footballer?” Because at best I see “investment banker with a lacrosse habit.”

The Night Before is a wholly modern comedy that actually integrates current slang, technology, and social issues in a way that doesn’t feel like a Cool Dad giving Tumblr a whirl. But it’s also a loving look back at Christmas traditions past that covers cultural touchstones as far flung as Run DMC, Die Hard, and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Or maybe it was the Muppet Christmas Carol. Or Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Or Scrooged. Wow, we as a culture really can’t let that one go, can we?

Regardless, we’re dealing with a fun, nostalgic, but forward-looking movie. There ain’t nothing wrong with that. The movie has its share of icy patches, like some obvious foreshadowing, a scatterbrained plot, and an absurd level of focus on a minor character that hardly works at all, but you know what you’re getting when you sit down to one of these movies and it certainly delivers.

Its comedy is low key, but it still packs two of the best cameos of the year and a genuinely side-splitting dinner table scene that I’ll be quoting non-stop for the next, oh, several dozen years. Likewise, its drama is routine and predictable but can wring your tear ducts dry if you’re not too careful.

In other words, The Night Before is a nice movie. It’s a none-too-challenging, safely R-rated holiday treat that just wants you to have a good time. It knows it can’t compete with the classics like A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, or Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! (you know… for some people), so it doesn’t try. It won’t be in my annual holiday rotation, but I sure am glad I watched it.

TL:DR: The Night Before is a pleasant, predictable, but funny bro comedy.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 906

Popcorn Kernels: We're Five College Students On Our Way To An Old Abandoned Cabin In The Woods

For this round of mini reviews, let’s get back to basics by trekking to a secluded area where there’s no cell phone reception. It’ll be just like the olden days! I hope our car doesn’t break down.

The Cabin in the Woods

Year: 2012
Director: Drew Goddard
Cast: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison
Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

For our podcast episode, featuring an in depth review of Cabin in the Woods, click here.

Five college students vacation in a secluded cabin where they are beset by a zombie redneck torture family.

The Cabin in the Woods does for cabin in the woods movies what Scream did for slashers, although it flips the script. Where Scream was funny because the hip 90’s teens were aware they were in a horror flick, the bronzed babes of Cabin in the Woods are funny because they have no idea they’re in the middle of a movie. If you’re not into midway spoilers, here’s where you jump ship. You see, the horror movie scenario is being manipulated by office workers intent on making sure everybody but the virgin perishes.

The humor comes from the absurdly casual manner that these men and women orchestrate teen destruction as if it were a pencil pushing day job. Unfortunately, though the teens are entertaining thanks to a snappy script co-written by Buffymeister Joss Whedon, this renders the actual horror story pretty rote and pointless. Every time we return to our campers (including a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth sporting the best hair of his career), the sparkle fades somewhat until we can return to what really drives the narrative.

However, a dimmer glimmer is still a glimmer, and Cabin in the Woods never stops being a fun tromp through the flattened brush of the horror genre. It’s far more comedy than horror, but a few atmospheric scenes do send a tingle down the spine. But where the movie really triumphs is in neither scares nor laughs, but rather sheer cleverness. The construction of the film is so elaborately detailed that it’s hard not to just sit back and marvel at its postmodern perfection.

This is one film that certainly demands a second viewing, because the flavor of the first half changes tremendously given the context of the finale. In essence, The Cabin in the Woods is two different films, with more subtleties emerging from the woodwork upon rewatch. And depending on how much moral fiber is in your diet, you might just switch sides. In a way, CitW is like a football game or a Twitter feud, with equal fun derived from rooting for either team.

I do wish the zombified antagonists were a little ore interesting and the deaths a little less indifferent ,but these complaints are heartily addressed (and then some) by a gonzo finale. It’s just plain an exuberantly fun movie, no two ways about it. While I’m certainly a little perturbed by the movie’s eagerness to indict horror viewers for not abhorring the violence of the genre, it’s nevertheless an infinitely witty twist on the genre that pushes meta horror to the next level. I’ve vacationed in this cabin many times before and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

Rating: 8/10

Cabin Fever

Year: 2003
Director: Eli Roth
Cast: Jordan Ladd, Rider Strong, James DeBello
Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Five college students vacation in a secluded cabin where they are beset by a nasty flesh-eating virus.

I genuinely liked this movie for about five minutes, which is a pretty decent record for an Eli Roth picture. The characters seemed vulgar but kind, the humor was licentious but fun, and the zany atmosphere was settling in nicely. Then Eli Roth remembered who he was and the whole thing went straight to hell in a severed hand basket.

Above all else, Roth has a talent for writing venomously irritating douchebags, a skill he displays right from the get-go. Once you have a chance to get to know them, the characters populating Cabin Fever are downright nauseating. Their already trite dialogue (“safe sex” is a quip that wouldn’t pass muster in a Leprechaun movie, a franchise that had two straight entries that took place “in da hood.” And those were the better ones!) quickly runs out of steam, mutating into a sick competition to see who can pointlessly shout the F-word more times. It’s not a script so much as a laundry list of groundless obscenities. Not a single conversation can go by without somebody bursting into a rage and calling somebody a slut, whether they’re talking about killing a man or debating their favorite beer brands.

Look, I’m no Puritan about language. I’ve seen The Big Lebowski, I can handle a little cursing. Hell, that film is a monument to the four-letter word. But there comes a point when the cussing drowns out the script, the result of an amateur director looking to shock but never really understanding why. It’s like a smoke alarm that needs new batteries, dutifully shrieking with brainless devotion. Instead of being fun, it’s just immensely frustrating. When your viewers only continue watching because they’ve succumbed to exhaustion and no longer have the energy to reach the remote, you’ve got a problematic film on your hands.

A lot of the film’s failures can be chalked up to a first-time filmmaker. Abrupt fade-outs and jarring edits suggest that the coverage wasn’t quite what he wanted it to be, and the slapdash experimentation with color and alternative POVs show a Raimi-esque ambition but none of that master’s innate flair for the macabre. In fact, Cabin Fever is largely composed of material regurgitated from other classic films like The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with a sizable dollop of Friday the 13th. This kind of construction is typical for a neophyte, but the personality sprinkled atop that amateur framework is one that will haunt Roth throughout his career.

No matter how far you run, you always bring yourself along for the ride, and that’s why Cabin Fever’s major flaws are just as unforgivable as those that riddle Roth’s films a decade down the line. He might get more experienced, but he’s still stuck with himself. Because, wonky construction aside, this movie really just isn’t very good at all, which is a shame considering its truly solid potential.

Unbearable characters with microscopic motivations (including a cop who must get a dollar for every time he says the word “party”) rattle around a pinball machine of effective but hardly revolutionary gore (the standard tune of my Roth reviews, or so it seems), plus Roth himself steps in with what is unequivocally the most grating, soul-suckingly unfunny cameo in the history of cinema. Armed with a soul patch and a sub-par Zoolander impression, he stabs the movie in the heart and leaves it to die.

The one bright beacon of hope in this incessantly boorish film is the convenience store, the location of the film’s two best scenes, as well as its most haphazardly iconic. Here, largely thanks to the unforgettable, breathy performance from ingenious unknown Robert Harris, the film’s intention shines brightest and it briefly becomes the palatable, silly horror venture it constantly wishes it could be. Cabin Fever is a major disappointment, but these scenes prevent it from being utterly contemptible, which Ii admittedly rare with this particular director.

Rating: 5/10
Word Count: 1242

Movin' Right Along

Year: 1981

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

The second stop on our tour of theatrical Muppet features is The Great Muppet Caper, which elbowed its way into theaters in 1981 amid the greatest slasher boom of the 20th century. It actually debuted on the same day as Road Games, sandwiched right on in between Final Exam and Student Bodies as a family friendly alternative toall those psychopathic murder sprees. Film history is weird.

The feature film follow-up to The Muppet Movie two years earlier, The Great Muppet Caper debuted after The Muppet Show finally closed its doors. It netted almost twice the budget of its predecessor, carving a new path for the future of Jim Henson’s Muppets. And who better to direct this next chapter than Henson himself? Taking over from the anonymous James Frawley, his work would be much more idiosyncratic, though perhaps not quite so coherent.

I’m just saying, maybe the guy who invented these guys didn’t have his head screwed on totally straight.

In The Great Muppet Caper, Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) and Fozzie Bear (Frank Oz) are twin brother reporters and Gonzo (Dave Goelz) is their intrepid cameraman. In order to save their jobs, they travel to England to investigate the theft of Lady Holiday’s (Bond girl Diana Rigg) diamonds. Kermit mistakes secretary Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) for Lady Holiday and they fall in love, because apparently their romance is going to respawn every time like it got blown up in Call of Duty. Lucky us.

When Miss Piggy is framed for the theft, Kermit and the others team up to catch the real criminal, the Lady’s brother Nicky (Charles Grodin) before he and his team of models steal the Baseball Diamond from the Mallory Gallery.

Yes, this movie was made for children, why do you ask?

Summing up The Great Muppet Caper is a thorny task. The ways in which it improves on the uneven, vignette-driven Muppet Movie are almost exactly equal to the ways it utterly fails to match up to the giddy, warm-hearted heights of that film. Let’s open with some positive remarks, because I don’t want you to go around thinking there’s a bad Muppet movie floating around out there somewhere.

First off, this film marries its Muppetian antics to a wonderfully intelligible plot. With actual conflict, story beats, and a recognizable three-act structure, Caper is driven by an intentionality that The Muppet Movie totally lacked. Second, Henson has an eye for composition that isn’t exactly Wellesian, but certainly outpaces Frawley’s frantic fumbling without breaking a sweat. My single favorite visual moment is when a lurking model drifts behind a mirrored pillar, drawing attention to another model across the room and creating the uncanny sense of being surrounded. His use of the camera in his storytelling is simple, but nevertheless whimsical and fun.

But you know what this movie doesn’t have? “Rainbow Connection.” The score is overloaded with original compositions, but none have the sweet resonance of Kermit’s swamp serenade, or even Gonzo’s terrifically earnest “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday.” The opening song “Hey a Movie!” captures some of the exuberant joy of creating entertainment and boasts a dazzling, intricately choreographed display on a city street utilizing dozens of dancers and even moving cars, but most of the other tracks (of which there are a staggering profusion) call to mind that dreaded word… Filler.

A word that instantly strikes fear into the heart of any devoted completist.

I really get the sense that The Great Muppet Caper was written after the songs were composed, because the story does some truly impressive Linda Blair contortions to shoehorn in production numbers. The entire second act feels like a prime time TV show with too many commercial breaks. Whenever we get an inch of plot, a mile of singing quickly unravels after it.

The actual conflict doesn’t kick in until about an hour into the movie, because of the film’s uncanny dedication to lushly staged but frustratingly pointless numbers like “Piggy’s Fantasy” (a lavish pool sequence that calls to mind Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) or “Night Life” (a wordless, tedious New Wave noodle that drags like a dead body – Electric Mayhem strikes again). By the time the meandering “Couldn’t We Ride” interrupts one of the longest sustained plot points (about a minute and a half, by my count), you begin to wonder if this movie dearly wants to punish viewers who have a less than thorough knowledge of Busby Berkeley. I mean, I like musicals, but this is like banging your head into a piano.

The unsuitably boring middle third of the film is also marred by what can only be described as a scathingly awful performance from Mssr. Charles Grodin, who certainly can act but even more certainly does no such thing here. If he was shooting for “unfathomably drunk,” he undeniably succeeded, but his unmotivated dialogue is exacerbated by the sense that he doesn’t seem to know what room he’s in half the time.

Sorry, dude. Love the sideburns.

But take every negative feeling generated by that section of the movie and flip it the hell around, because the first and third acts feature the madcap Muppets at their finest. From the adorable, fourth wall shattering opening credits to the litany of jovial jokes (which aren’t quite as dopey as The Muppet Movie, but just as silly and vaudevillian), The Great Muppet Caper is a very lovable, extremely fun watch for the young, the old, and the furry.

Utilizing its gargantuan budget (methinks the lady’s diamonds might have been stolen to fund this movie), Caper performs incredible feats of visual splendor that the Muppets were wholly incapable of pulling off before. The opening number and the closing heist thrum with vibrant creativity that plays with the darkness of the crime genre in a safe, effortlessly exuberant environment. 

For all that I kind of despise a good third of The Great Muppet Caper, everything else is a more than suitable ointment for my pain. These are still the Muppets, and they still put on a good show. It’s their job and they do it well. With Henson at the wheel, they brim with cheery sentiment and unforgettable charm that goes an extremely long way.

TL;DR: The Great Muppet Caper is an effervescent family comedy that suffers from an extremely bloated second act.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1078
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)

Arrow in the Head: One Flew Over The Dodo's Nest

The time has come! My second official Arrow in the Head review has been posted! I had to throw in a Kate Beckinsale reference to appease my straight audience, but otherwise it’s my bona fide opinion on the 2015 indie release Dementia.

Year: 2015

Director: Mike Testin

Cast: Gene Jones, Kristina Klebe, Hassie Harrison

Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Read my review here.

Additional Notes: This really wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s just another one of those films with a plot like a clear day. You can see every twist coming miles in advance, and they’re usually not that satisfying to begin with. As I mentioned before, I hate the movie Session 9 with every fiber of my being despite the fact that it’s pretty widely acclaimed. Dementia kind of reminds me of that film with its rudimentary psychological thriller machinations, so I’m sure somebody will love it. It sure as hell ain’t me though.

There’s basic flaws in its construction of reality (have you ever tried to subtly FaceTime someone? That noise could wake the dead), its continuity, and even its sound mix. The dad character looks and acts more like the daughter’s boyfriend, at least in the opening scene, and the veteran character abruptly shifts his entire personality with no motivation.

Dementia is constantly shifting, but not out of an attempt to create an atmosphere. It literally has no idea what’s going on in its own story and it’s immensely frustrating. But at least it’s better than The Sand.

TL;DR: Dementia is an unfocused, boring attempt at a psychological thriller.

Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 942

To Kill A Mockingjay

Year: 2015

Director: Francis Lawrence

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

Run Time: 2 hours 17 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

So, here we are at the end of yet another YA franchise, possibly the last teen lit blockbuster for a good long while, unless The 5th Wave pulls a Hail Mary opening weekend. The second half of the obligatorily split finale of the Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay – Part 2 has no right to be as spectacularly bland as it is. The Hunger Games movies had been steadily improving, and when Mockingjay – Part 1 converted the worst half of the most insipid book into a gritty triumph of revolutionary filmmaking that tapped into the sociopolitical id of contemporary American culture, it seemed that the adaptation of the good half could only be a nigh-on masterpiece.

Alas. Katniss giveth and Katniss taketh away.

In case you couldn’t manage to get through the book, here’s the plot. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is the Mockingjay, a symbol of hope for the 13 rebelling districts of Panem, a dystopian future America ruled by the iron fist of the Capitol and President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Rebellion leader President Coin (Julianne Moore, whose filmography is a profound mystery) wants to use Katniss as a figurehead, but the proud young girl sneaks off to the front lines to assassinate Snow in revenge for his torture of her Games partner Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). Oh, and all that iron fist stuff. That too.

In the background, a love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) quietly picks at its nails, waiting for somebody to care. Yadda yadda, Katniss, Gale, and Peeta end up infiltrating the war-torn Capitol with fisherman soldier Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) and a troop of meatbag soldiers who aren’t sexy teens and can thus explode as needed to prove that the Capitol is indeed a very dangerous place.

Where’s Finnick? Odair he is.

The biggest triumph of Mockingjay – Part 1 is that it toned down literary Katniss’ tendency to screech like a hormonal parrot and break down sobbing in closets, in addition to the inclusion of several major scenes of war and rebellion that were not present in the source material. Inexplicably, despite featuring the exact same cast and crew (I’d be surprised if the end credits weren’t just cut and pasted back in), Mockingjay – Part 2 takes one look at those successes and tells them shove it, happily leaping into the mire of relentless moping and tedium.

I thought this portion of the story would be salvageable because it’s where most of the action takes place, but the painfully devoted adaptation merely results in holding the novel’s most glaring flaws under a 30 foot high microscope. Perhaps the most notorious is the stilted romance angle, which trudges ever onward, asking dazzling feats of chemistry from actors who could hardly care less and never actually giving Katniss a realistic choice between the two. And then there’s her bleating, asinine morality. 

Somehow the girl who wants to rip out Snow’s throat with her bare teeth and [SPOILERS publicly assassinates a woman during a well-attended ceremony] has a problem using TWO bombs against the enemy. I don’t condone any kind of killing and her stance on protecting civilians is airtight, but this sullen, hypocritical mewling is a trademark of an author who has completely lost control of her character. The movie happily hits this point over and over again, signed and dated in triplicate.

It’s all immensely frustrating, but the worst holdover from the novel is that, by focusing on Katniss’ POV, the story is robbed of a climax. The expanded scope of Part 1 gave me hope that Mockingjay would evade the same pitfalls, but alas. Instead of watching a finale, we gag on twenty minutes of slowly softening treacle.

Just in time for the holidays.

The one thing that could have saved Mockingjay – Part 2 is the action that permeates the second act. Despite one genuinely thrilling underground battle, the stakes here are lower than the Mariana Trench. Character deaths are flat and perfunctory, the narrative throughline is more than meaningless, and the film is all too keen to return to those moments of down time so Katniss can wring her hands about her dubious moral compass and which boy she would rather smooch.

Like it’s a hard decision.

However, it’s a disappointment, not a waste of time. If you’ve gotten this far through the series, you might as well finish it off. It won’t hurt you, it might just sting a little bit. Although almost ever shred of its potential is wasted (just like franchise icon Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinkett, whose screentime is so short, it’s almost physically impossible to see her), there is still a great deal of talent poured into realizing this juvenile vision of a futuristic dystopia.

For one, the set design by Philip Messina is a delight, depicting a heavily stylized land of opulent decadence that has been laid to waste with detailed care. The mighty, off-kilter structures that dominate the screen are just as imposing as the sadistic regime they represent, and the empty streets of the comfort class paint a desolately gorgeous pictures.

Never mind the fact that its occupants are just sci-fi hipsters.

The cinematography, by third-timer Jo Willems is also a standout,. Though there are far fewer breathtaking compositions than his previous entries, he almost saves the crappy cop-out climax with some preternaturally beautiful framing that calls the film’s themes to mind far more effectively than its characters’ hemming and hawing.

Overall, Mockingjay- Part 2 is a serviceable popcorn flick, though it’s hardly ever a likable one. Just like Katniss, who packs a dozen arrows for a war, the film leaps into the fray totally unprepared for the trials to come. It caps off the series in a sufficiently basic way so it won’t anger fans, but as an ending to an increasingly promising film franchise, it falls dreadfully flat. I thought I knew why the caged bird sang, but now that chirpy tune has become a solemn funeral march. Goodbye Panem, and good riddance.

TL;DR: Mockingjay - Part 2 is a dull, inadequate end to an exponentially improving franchise.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1038

Reviews In This Series

Catching Fire (Lawrence, 2013)

Mockingjay - Part 1 (Lawrence, 2014)

Mockingjay - Part 2 (Lawrence, 2015)

Popcorn Kernels: Hell Hath No Fury

As we continue to clear out the wreckage of Halloween, let’s take a couple quick jaunts into the depths of Hell and see what we can dredge up.

Drag Me to Hell

Year: 2009

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Ruth Livier

Run Time: 1 hour 39 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

An enterprising young banker denies a gypsy woman her loan and is cursed to be tortured by the Lamia then dragged to hell.

Like most horror icons, Sam Raimi has done all in his power to not actually direct horror movies. After helming the unforgettable Evil Dead trilogy, he moved on to projects like the Kevin Costner baseball treacle For the Love of the Game or the Spider-Man trilogy, all three of which are superhero flicks, but one of which is inexplicably a musical. After years and years of this nonsense, Raimi finally stepped back into the ring with Drag Me to Hell, and the really surprising thing is that it’s freaking awesome.

It pretty strictly adheres to the Evil Dead formula of invoking an ancient evil, being tormented in grotesquely hilarious ways, and then facing an unrelenting denouement, but from the perspective of an older and wiser director. He’s no longer 21 years old, and while in his maturity he has somewhat lost the borderline callous disregard for traditional film language that made his Evil Dead so uncannily kinetic, he has gained a sharper talent for embedding story and character in among his zany showboating.

These characters re still pretty rudimentary, but compared to Ash Williams and his meatbag friends, they’re Chaucer. Alison Lohman’s Christine is set up with a whirlwind flurry in a series of swiftly efficient scenes that paint her personality in bright splashes like Jackson Pollock canvas: she’s timid, eager for promotion, afraid of being branded a country hick, and ashamed of being overweight in her younger years. These qualities come into play again and again throughout the film, so they’re broad but hardly the pointless shading of 80’s cannon fodder that just needs to be differentiated from the next blonde over before she can be exploded into goo.

The dominoes are hardly even in position before the first one topples. Christine is suddenly plunged into an ancient nightmare and for the duration of the first act, it’s legitimately scary. Classic Sam Raimi touches electrify the proceedings (giddily twirling camera, looming silhouettes on faces, you know, the usual) and Drag Me to Hell goes through the motions of an utterly effective horror flick.

That is, until about he midway point. A talking goat and a necrotic mazurka smash the film off its hinges, sending it flying into a classic Raimi fever dream. The subtle and chilling horror jumps screeching into your face, putting Lohman through the Bruce Campbell ringer, smearing her with filth, gore, and excrement, beating her to a pulp with a gypsy corpse, and just generally making a mockery of her attempts at normalcy. It’s buoyantly silly, with enough references to Evil Dead II to be a hearty nod and not a brazen rip-off.

An exquisite blend of gushing camp and bleak fearlessness (they kill a child, for goodness sake), Drag Me to Hell isn’t Raimi’s best film, but it’s certainly a dazzling return to form. Between this and the pilot episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead, I’d say it’s time for the man to ditch the producing game and get back on the horse. And yes, we’re pretending that Oz the Great and Powerful never happened.

Rating: 8/10

Bedazzled

Year: 2000

Director: Harold Ramis

Cast: Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O'Connor 

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

An unloved loser sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for wishes, which invariably go awry.

“Starring Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Fraser.” Could a phrase possibly be more early 2000’s? How about “comedy where a lead actor performs caricatures in a variety of zany, vaguely racist costumes?” Bedazzled, a remake of the 1967 movies of the same name, is an effortful, ridiculous comedy that reeks of flop sweat. As Brendan Fraser attempts to channel his inner Jim Carrey, jokes are flung out into the audience like wet fish. They can be funny in a nostalgic “the new millennium was so stupid” kind of way, but that’s the only thing that has allowed itself to hold any vestige of esteem past its demographic’s infancy.

OK, maybe I’m being a little harsh. The opening credits are genuinely fantastic. I really mean that. And there is good in Bedazzled, it’s just sandwiched between a whole lot of “wacky” artifice, Sometimes the film stumbles into thickets of such sublime stupidity, that you let your guard down and it can actually tickle you. You absolutely, positively must be in the right sophomore Stifler mood to watch this movie, but it’s entirely possible to enjoy it all the way through.

The biggest setback to the comedy is the smokin’ hot Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil, who gets the film’s funniest lines but delivers them with the nuance and vivacity of a mailbox. I bet she and Rachel Ward are having crumpets in some fantasy realm beyond our understanding, because they share the same vacant, pouty stare. The lines are humorous enough a la carte that they still work, but Hurley does everything in her power to vacuum every last crumb of comedy from them. She is the knife in Bedazzled’s back if you’re not attracted to women, because otherwise she has absolutely zilch to offer.

It’s not like the movie needed help sucking the air out of itself, what with its preponderance of offensive stereotypes. In one fell swoop, Bedazzled knocks down Latinos, gays, and wise old black men. In the fantasy where Fraser becomes a basketball player, I’m legitimately surprised they didn’t put him in blackface. I’m grateful they showed a modicum of restraint, although the hulking albino beanpole he becomes is pretty unsettling just the same. I forgive that scene’s woeful makeup for providing a pretty hilarious lampoon of less-than-erudite players in post-game interviews.

But Bedazzled isn’t finished with us quite yet. We still need to talk about the way it treats the women. Oh, the women! There are brief specters of progressive values here (merely being rich and powerful can’t win someone’s heart, etc.) but the love interest here is never treated as anything other than a vapid, mercurial prize to be won. [SPOILERS] Even once Fraser realizes that he just wants her to be happy and accepts her rejection, he is rewarded for his morality with an exact twin of her. I hate to get too political on movies that are irrevocably from a certain time period, but it’s not exactly on message.

So, here we are. Bedazzled is palatable if and only if you can manage to completely unscrew your brain. It’s problematic and its narrative is nothing more than a sequence of sketches, but if you’re in the mood for a juvenile time capsule flick, look no further.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 1173

We Know That It's Probably Magic

Year: 1979

Director: James Frawley

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

I just made the best decision of my life. Because I’m a huge fan of the Muppets and their new TV show on ABC is just unlawfully good, I decided to drag myself and Sergio through a marathon of their 8 theatrical features, only three of which I have previously seen (and just one of which – Muppets Most Wanted – I have previously reviewed).

Jim Henson’s Muppets have withstood the test of time with grace and flair, bringing their enterprisingly meta comedy to the masses for over half a century. Although The Muppet Movie is not where they got their start (they debuted on Sam and Friends in the ancient year of 1955 and were already three seasons deep in The Muppet Show by the time the movie was released in 1979 – totally incidentally, the same year that Mad Max injected fuel into the engine of action cinema), it’s nevertheless a great place to start: their origin story.

It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, but only slightly less violent.

The Muppet Movie opens on the World Wide Studios lot, where the Muppets (including Kermit’s terrifyingly waifish nephew) have gathered for a screening of their first film, depicting how the felt-covered crew came into being.

The film rolls and we’re immediately plunged into the single best scene in the history of children’s entertainment: Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) sits on a log, strumming a banjo and wistfully crooning the Willliams & Ascher tune “Rainbow Connection,” the ethereal paean to following your dreams that has landed at number 74 on AFI’s 100 Best Movie Songs list, been covered dozens of times by artists including The Carpenters, Weezer, Justin Timberlake, and Kenny Loggins, and caused more teary eyes than a century’s worth of animal dander. “Rainbow Connection” is a goddamn perfect song. This film was, is, and always will be “Rainbow Connection,” and thus can be forgiven if nothing to follow ever adequately reaches those heady heights.

Following his sojourn into unadulterated joy, Kermit meets Bernie (Dom DeLuise), a Hollywood agent who tells him of an upcoming audition for frogs, wanting the opportunity to make millions of people happy, he takes a trip from the swamp to sunny California, making friends along the way and taking them with him. These fine furry folks include failed comedian Fozzie Bear (Frank Oz), traveling plumber Gonzo (Dave Goelz), down-home beauty queen miss Piggy (Frank Oz), and the band Electric Mayhem, of whom the only one that matters is Animal (Frank Oz, who I hope got a dozen different paychecks for this).

There’s a lot of hippy-ish free love ride sharing going on, but the gang is pursued by the very un-New Age Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), a fried frog legs magnate who will stop at nothing to make Kermit the spokesfrog for his restaurant chain, even if I means killing and stuffing him.

Kiddie flicks used to be DARK, man.

Now, this is a movie from the 70’s, and it more than betrays its vintage. Of the dozen or so cameos that pack this film, today’s kids would only recognize two – Steve Martin and Big Bird. And Sergio and I hardly fared much better, though we at least had heard of everybody featured. Between that and the older, more threadbare puppet designs, The Muppet Movie doesn’t quite bridge the gap to the modern age, though it really doesn’t need to with its universal themes and cheery humor.

The real trouble with The Muppet Movie is that it never truly tells a cohesive story. It’s more a loose string of vignettes with the same broad theme, a problem endemic to many road trip movies (except, oddly, Bride of Chucky). There are some hazardously dull patches on the rocky road from point A to point B, especially any scene featuring Electric Mayhem, who I must admit I’ve never cared for except as an Animal delivery system. This story structure also allows some self-indulgent breaks from tone, like a bizarre and pointless Western interlude (which is almost made up for by the hyperbolically adorable sight of Kermit in spurs and a ten-gallon hat).

The soundtrack has its equal set of rough patches. I know that comparing any song to “Rainbow Connection” is like comparing a glass of water to the Pacific Ocean, but Piggy’s “Never Before, Never Again” is still a bit wan, pepped up only by Frank Oz’s gonzo performance (pun not intended, with all due respect to Dave Goelz). And I think if I badmouth Electric Mayhem one more time, I’ll be run off this blog with torches and pitchforks, so I’ll just say that I wish they’d ended along with the 70’s.

Unfortunately, puppets hardly ever have contract disputes, so we’re stuck with ‘em.

But for all that The Muppet Movie isn’t the greatest film ever made, it’s still an unimpeachably fun motion picture. While the broad-as-a-barn vaudeville comedy stylings might not be everybody’s cup of tea, the humor is so sweet and gentle that it’s impossible to dislike. Plus, several of the cameo performers are downright uproarious, including Mel Brooks in an explosive turn as a sublimely evil German doctor and Steve Martin as an uncouth waiter. Any time they’re pulling their absurdist antics onscreen, the only way you’ll stop laughing is if your lungs fall out.

The real core of The Muppet Movie is its earnest desire for you to have a good time, a goal which it indubitably accomplishes. It has no higher purpose than creating smiles, the simple compositions and unchallenging plot line serving only as a means to an end. But, oh, what an end. Jim Henson’s Muppets have always had an uncanny level of emotional life thanks to their mind-bogglingly terrific puppeteers, but the earnest and sentimental approach to storytelling here is uncannily effective.

From the heartstring thresher that is “Rainbow Connection” to the open-faced, generous enthusiasm with which Kermit chases his Hollywood dream, The Muppet Movie very frequently taps directly into the human soul. Perhaps no scene is more potently sincere than Gonzo’s solo song “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday,” a piece that is literally about him wanting to be a stuntman but rings with percussive emotion about optimism, passion, and reaching for he stars. I’d say it’s inhumanly powerful, and I’d be right. It’s muppetly powerful. That unfettered sappiness which never ever feels dishonest is the reason that this film is a classic.

It never hurts to feel like a kid again.

Soon, just like the film’s jaunty recurring theme, we’ll be “Moving Right Along” to later, occasionally better Muppet pictures. But let us never forget the sacrosanct pleasure of watching these good friends get together, even if there were some bumps in the road.

MVP (Most Valuable Puppet): Kermit the Frog

Kermit is usually the straight man (well, straight frog) among his zany friends: but this movie is his and his alone. His earnest desire to make people happy drives this occasionally uneven film with all the Jim Henson sentimentalism he can muster.

TL;DR: The Muppet Movie has its rough patches, but is unfailingly earnest and sentimental.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1207
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)