mrbasehart's Film Challenge! - COMPLETE

[stansimpson]

Primer is a really neat, if terribly complicated, science-fiction thriller that was apparently made for $7,000.  Concerning 2 scientists who discover a way to travel back in time.  That's really all there is to the set-up, but it's ingeniously crafted, though there were big stretches where frankly, they could've been talking another language for the sense I could make out of what was being said.  The film, for its low-budget, looks pretty good too, using an over-exposed look that highlights the golden hue that the movie bathes in.  After seeing many, many, first-time directors get it so completely wrong in their first attempt, it's nice to know that someone can sometimes get it right.  A shame then, that the director doesn't seem to have produced anything since the movie came out in 2004.

Glad you got to experience that and thanks for taking the suggestion.  Yeah, I love the "foreign language" feel to it.  It forces you to be awashed in its atmosphere so that you soak up the movie as opposed to being Diligent Follow-Along Moviegoer, y'know?  And at the same time as being overly-cerebral.  As an aside, the director mentioned that the other main guy was cast because he was the only one who didn't read the dialogue like the fate of the world depended on what's being said.  Haha.  Just found a list from Paste.com last week where this ranks #20 for 50 Best First-Time Directed Movies.  It's a really, really great list too.

Just thought of another one you need to see.  It's a Danny Kaye movie called "Wonder Man".  It's a cult favorite among those who love it (my whole family loves to quote it) and would have made Danny Kaye an even more memorable star had this ever reached the right people.  It's basically a high-concept plot where Danny Kaye plays identical twins; one a swanky night club performer, the other a nerdy genius bookworm.  The outgoing one gets murdered, comes back as a ghost and sometimes, um, "possesses" the nerdy twin to help solve the crime.  I know it sounds kooky, but it's a lot of fun and is a great vehicle to show off Danny Kaye's talents.  And the special effects must've been really cutting edge for the time.  They actually hold up (for the most part) surprisingly well even today.  I'm surprised this hasn't been remade yet (GOD FORBID!).  And look for the voice of Dumbo's Timothy Q. Mouse as the hitman, Torso.  I don't see how anyone can't not love the whole bridge at Prospect Park scene.  Danny Kaye was a master and fanciful improver.

Well, I've gone long enough about it (and could go paragraphs more) but I should let the movie speak for itself.  It's out-of-print on dvd and I'm not sure if anyone carries it still.  You can catch it on a YouTube playlist though (the video quality is quite good for YouTube).  Its missing the opening credits (nothing other than title cards) but it does pick up from frame 1 as soon as you start it.  Beware a couple musical segments that wind up blase.  Both "White Christmas" and "Singin' In the Rain" have songs that beg for deletion, but you sit through 'em anyway, yknow, cause that was the time period.
Here's to starting with Part 1.

[mrbasehart]

I've actually seen Wonder Man.  I liked it. 

[mrbasehart]

Dream a Little Dream is, according the the imdb, one of 5 body swap films that came out in the late 80s (the others being Vice Versa, 18 Again!, Big, and Like Father, Like Son)  and is maybe not the worst of the bunch, but it's up there.  In a time where movie executives were so coked up they couldn't tell who was talented or not, Dream a Little Dream stars the two Coreys, a genuine talent (who's genuinely wasted) in Jason Robards, and Meredith Salenger, who gets to prance around in a leotard, though it turns into an excruciating dance scene where Corey Feldman busts out his best Michael Jackson movies.  Okay, back to plot.  Robards plays a slightly hippy-dippy mystical chap who, while meditating with his wife in the garden, finds himself in the body of Corey Feldman, and his wife missing.  Through his dreams, the real Feldman tells him that his wife is in the body of another, though she doesn't know it, and before long, she'll disappear completely.  So Robards as Feldman must navigate high school, find his true love and rescue them before she disappears into the ether.  Plainly, it sucks.  Feldman's an okay actor, but he can't carry a movie and he doesn't convince at all as an old man.  The various sub-plots that run through the movie are weak and cliched, and the ending's a joke.  Robards is good, but I'd much rather see him be good in something that's actually, you know, good.

[mrbasehart]

Pootie Tang is a film I'd heard of, but never known anything about.  I'd assumed it was one of those awful "Booty Call" movies, but upon actually seeing the credits, I actually became a little hopeful.  Written and directed by Louis CK and produced by Chris Rock, it's a kind of spoofy blaxploitation movie about a man named Pootie Tang who, while a hero to millions because of his crime fighting abilities, speaks utter gibberish that everyone seems to understand.  At the height of his popularity, he produces a number of public service announcements, denouncing drinking, drugs and unhealthy eating, destroying the profits of LecterCorp, an evil corporation who makes billions off of those products, so they set out to corrupt him.  Though it has a couple of good moments, it's not very good, with the jokes being mostly cliched and repetitive, and just like the worst spoofs, not making you actually care about any of the characters or what happens to them.  It does however, have a very early appearance by lovely Kristen Bell during the end credits, who wears a school uniform, for all you (us) pervs. 

[mrbasehart]

As per my criteria, I'm going to have to remove the following from my list due to unavailability issues:

Rock and Roll Nightmare
The Apple
B.A.P.S.
Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever
Grim Prairie Tales
Quigley
Houseboat Horror
Blue Monkey
The Legend of Gator Face
Kids of the Round Table
Hysterical

I will gladly accept substitutions from those people who suggested these movies, but no more than the ones that have been listed.  I'll need to finish this eventually!

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

I will gladly accept substitutions from those people who suggested these movies, but no more than the ones that have been listed.  I'll need to finish this eventually!

You say that as though you're going to give up watching movies.   

And I'm still not giving up on The Apple....

Found the soundtrack the other day.  That's some progress.

[mrbasehart]

Brain Donors is clearly an attempt to bring the Marx Brothers style up to date (1992 up to date at least) and stars John Turturro in the Groucho role, Mel Smith as Chico, and someone I don't know as Harpo.  Turturro plays an unscrupulous lawyer who's flirtations with a wealthy older woman gets him a job as creative director at a ballet, while a rival tries to unseat him.  As I watched the first 10 minutes, I thought, "oh jeezus, this gonna suck" but knock me down with a feather, I actually ended up enjoying it a whole bunch.  It may not have the appearance of improvised anarchy that the Marx Brothers were so good at, but there's some killer lines worthy of Groucho in there, and though it was incredibly silly, I loved the final ballet sequence.  I'm not really sure why it's called Brain Donors though.

[mrbasehart]

I will gladly accept substitutions from those people who suggested these movies, but no more than the ones that have been listed.  I'll need to finish this eventually!

You say that as though you're going to give up watching movies.   

When I've finished watching every movie ever made, I might!

...

Actually, my next goal will be to watch every movie ever made, twice! Ha!

[D.B. Barnes]

As per my criteria, I'm going to have to remove the following from my list due to unavailability issues:

Rock and Roll Nightmare

Sorry to go off the movies topic for a sec, but that took me back to Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare by RKL One of the founders of West Coast hardcore.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Brain Donors is clearly an attempt to bring the Marx Brothers style up to date (1992 up to date at least) and stars John Turturro in the Groucho role, Mel Smith as Chico, and someone I don't know as Harpo.

Bob Nelson...very funny stand up guy.

[mrbasehart]

Heh.  That was pretty good.  I think he was a little too large in Brain Donors for the kind of role he played, but he had some good moments.

[gbeenie]

Le Dernier Combat (or The Last Battle) is a French post-apocalyptic drama, filmed in 1983 and is the feature length directorial debut of Luc Besson.  Entirely without dialogue, the film concerns a lonely man who is looking for a female companion.  Starting out in a sand blasted office building, before moving to a decrepit apartment complex, the film is beautifully designed and shot entirely in a gritty black and white that seems to only enhance its crumbling atmosphere.  Not a great deal happens in the movie, hence the real lack of plot summary in the review, but there are some really nice moments sprinkled throughout - for example Jean Reno's repeated and frustrated attempts to breach the defences of the complex.  I felt the ending was a bit of a whimper, and never felt particularly satisfying, but it's obvious why Besson would go on to bigger and better things in the future.

I love this movie.

Trivia: It was shot in black-and-white because, as they scouted bombed-out locations, they found the multiple colors of the brick walls really jarring.

[mrbasehart]

The Plank is a short (43 minutes) film, made in the 60s in Britain and features the talent of 2 of the country's biggest TV stars, Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper.  In this mostly silent slapstick homage to Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, the 2 play builders who discover they need one more plank before finishing a construction job, and the story is about them going to get it and the havoc that it causes amongst the people on London.  It's pretty dated now, but there's undoubted charm in its look at another age, and Tommy Cooper is especially good as the slightly more bumbling of the pair. 

[Tripe]

That was the one of only a couple of my suggestions that were on my list due to really liking the film.

[THE QUEEN!!!]

I've actually seen Wonder Man.  I liked it. 

Wow, I haven't seen that movie in simply years. I love Danny Kaye.