The Second mrbasehart Film Challenge!

[mrbasehart]

Run Ronnie Run is a comedy starring David Cross and featuring all of his friends (I noticed David Koechner, Sarah Silverman, Garry Shandling, David Foley, Andy Richter, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Ben Stiller and Jack Black in small roles or cameos) who plays a southern layabout who has a knack for appearing on Cops-like programmes to the amusement of the public.  Seeing potential in the ridiculous antics of Ronnie, a desperate TV producer puts his continuous battles with local law enforcement on TV and he quickly becomes the biggest thing in the country.  It has a couple of standout moments - I particularly liked the filth-enthused Mary Poppins pastiche - and Cross is quite good in the lead, but I couldn't help feel a little disappointed.  It never really feels funny enough, especially with the talent involved.

[D.B. Barnes]

Run Ronnie Run is a comedy starring David Cross and featuring all of his friends (I noticed David Koechner, Sarah Silverman, Garry Shandling, David Foley, Andy Richter, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Ben Stiller and Jack Black in small roles or cameos) who plays a southern layabout who has a knack for appearing on Cops-like programmes to the amusement of the public.  Seeing potential in the ridiculous antics of Ronnie, a desperate TV producer puts his continuous battles with local law enforcement on TV and he quickly becomes the biggest thing in the country.  It has a couple of standout moments - I particularly liked the filth-enthused Mary Poppins pastiche - and Cross is quite good in the lead, but I couldn't help feel a little disappointed.  It never really feels funny enough, especially with the talent involved.

This suffers from the age-old "let's take a comedy sketch and stretch it out to a feature-length film" syndrome. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend checking out Mr. Show with Bob and David.

[Johnny Unusual]

Run Ronnie Run is a comedy starring David Cross and featuring all of his friends (I noticed David Koechner, Sarah Silverman, Garry Shandling, David Foley, Andy Richter, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Ben Stiller and Jack Black in small roles or cameos) who plays a southern layabout who has a knack for appearing on Cops-like programmes to the amusement of the public.  Seeing potential in the ridiculous antics of Ronnie, a desperate TV producer puts his continuous battles with local law enforcement on TV and he quickly becomes the biggest thing in the country.  It has a couple of standout moments - I particularly liked the filth-enthused Mary Poppins pastiche - and Cross is quite good in the lead, but I couldn't help feel a little disappointed.  It never really feels funny enough, especially with the talent involved.

This suffers from the age-old "let's take a comedy sketch and stretch it out to a feature-length film" syndrome. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend checking out Mr. Show with Bob and David.

Also Bob and David say "Don't watch that movie."  They were upset it was released, I hear.

[mrbasehart]

Die Hard Dracula is a horror comedy and is basically a reworking of the familiar Dracula story.  A young man loses his fiance in a boating accident and decides to take a trip to "Eastern Europe" where he finds himself in a village under the thrall of a mysterious and malevolent Lord.  There, he teams up with a vampire hunter named Van Helsing and meets a girl who looks exactly like the one he just lost.  First things first: This is a bad movie.  A real bad movie, the kind that would have made for sweet beautiful harvesting on MST3k (perhaps Cinematic Titanic could take it on one day) as ripe as it is.  It's also... kinda fun, which obviates some of the stinking awfulness that we're subjected to.  It's shoddy throughout, with horrible performances and accents (lots of cod-Bela Lugosi) and motivations that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Dracula is repeatedly attacked by Van Helsing and his cohorts, yet does practically nothing to stop them, instead he puts up with the petty jealousies of his wife as he sucks on other womens' neck.  It also has a really odd tonal shift about halfway through the movie: at first, it's a fairly straightforward, terrible horror movie, but upon the arrival of Van Helsing (played by Bruce Glover, who you can tell pretty easily is Crispin Glover's father) it becomes a really bad comedy movie too.  I'm not sure that was even the director's intention. Here's a quote from the Bruce Glover's imdb page, "Sometimes the best thing you could do is a real bad film... you could improvise all over the place and probably only improve the script."  While I think he improvised a whole lot, there's no discernable difference in the quality of the movie at all, as it stumbles from horrible set-piece to horrible set-piece.  Though in the end, it all adds up to something that while not good by any stretch of the imagination, is surprisingly laugh-at-able.  Oh, and the Carla/Julia chick was hot.   

[mrbasehart]

And I've just discovered that the Trial of Billy Jack is a 3 hour movie! 

[spaceforarent]

Die Hard Dracula is a horror comedy and is basically a reworking of the familiar Dracula story.  A young man loses his fiance in a boating accident and decides to take a trip to "Eastern Europe" where he finds himself in a village under the thrall of a mysterious and malevolent Lord.  There, he teams up with a vampire hunter named Van Helsing and meets a girl who looks exactly like the one he just lost.  First things first: This is a bad movie.  A real bad movie, the kind that would have made for sweet beautiful harvesting on MST3k (perhaps Cinematic Titanic could take it on one day) as ripe as it is.  It's also... kinda fun, which obviates some of the stinking awfulness that we're subjected to.  It's shoddy throughout, with horrible performances and accents (lots of cod-Bela Lugosi) and motivations that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Dracula is repeatedly attacked by Van Helsing and his cohorts, yet does practically nothing to stop them, instead he puts up with the petty jealousies of his wife as he sucks on other womens' neck.  It also has a really odd tonal shift about halfway through the movie: at first, it's a fairly straightforward, terrible horror movie, but upon the arrival of Van Helsing (played by Bruce Glover, who you can tell pretty easily is Crispin Glover's father) it becomes a really bad comedy movie too.  I'm not sure that was even the director's intention. Here's a quote from the Bruce Glover's imdb page, "Sometimes the best thing you could do is a real bad film... you could improvise all over the place and probably only improve the script."  While I think he improvised a whole lot, there's no discernable difference in the quality of the movie at all, as it stumbles from horrible set-piece to horrible set-piece.  Though in the end, it all adds up to something that while not good by any stretch of the imagination, is surprisingly laugh-at-able.  Oh, and the Carla/Julia chick was hot.   

I feel a little better about suggesting it now that you seem to have "enjoyed" it, in a sense. Some day I hope to try writing an iRiff for it, but that's a long way off if it will ever happen.

[mrbasehart]

I feel a little better about suggesting it now that you seem to have "enjoyed" it, in a sense. Some day I hope to try writing an iRiff for it, but that's a long way off if it will ever happen.

Well, it was bad in a way I could get behind, you know? I wasn't bored, I laughed a few times at the ridiculousness, and it had boobies. 

[spaceforarent]

I feel a little better about suggesting it now that you seem to have "enjoyed" it, in a sense. Some day I hope to try writing an iRiff for it, but that's a long way off if it will ever happen.

and it had boobies. 

Always a plus.
Well, mostly always...

[Doctor Who?]

Charlie Wilson's War.

An interesting and fun movie.  I really don't think we should have ever given the Afgans or any country like them any help at all for any reason,but it made for a fun 90 minutes.

7.0/10.

[mrbasehart]

Charlie Wilson's War.

An interesting and fun movie.  I really don't think we should have ever given the Afgans or any country like them any help at all for any reason,but it made for a fun 90 minutes.

7.0/10.

Wrong movie thread, Doc. 

If you have any reviews of the films in the challenge though, that'd be cool.

[mrbasehart]

Left Behind is the first in a modern trilogy of Christian movies detailing the Rapture and the proceeding events written in the Book of Revelations.  Kirk Cameron plays a reporter looking into some dodgy middle-east business dealings when millions of people all over the world disappear without a trace, even leaving the clothes they were wearing in a bundle on the floor.  As not one person seems to have seen what happened to them, it's put down to "weapons radiation" by worldwide governments and things seem to move on, but Cameron seems to have found a link with the middle-east story and why the people disappeared in the first place, and just what does it have to do with the charasmatic UN Secretary General?

What the hell, I actually kinda like the premise (if we forget about the stupid God part) and what its impact would have on the world. It's also probably the best genre to put this kind of thing in, if we're trying to explore world events at such a massive level, but the film really fails in its ability to feel that epic in scope.  Everything about it feels "made for TV", limiting the affect on the viewer and on the movie's message.  Apart from the rather weak conspiracy plot (involving about 3 people) that the movie throws out, it's gear change into Christian preaching actually feels clunky and out of place.  Characters who seem to embrace God after all the people disappear come off like barely coherent raving loonies who've gone off the deep end with grief because their devout loved ones have fucked off to heaven without so much as a goodbye note.  The final 5 minutes are really kinda ridiculous too - with Satan walking straight out of a direct-to-video Die Hard rip-off rather than the blackest bowels of hell.  That said: Looking forward to the next two! 

[mrbasehart]

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a French film adapted from the auto-biography of Jean Dominique Bauby, a fashion editor of Elle magazine in Paris who suffers a stroke and is paralyzed from head-to-toe, resulting in the extremely rare "locked-in" condition, upon which the victim retains all of their mental faculties, but is unable to move.  Bauby is able to control his eyes however, and the doctors help him devise a system where he can communicate through the use of blinking upon someone reciting the alphabet to him and with which he painstakingly writes his book. 

The film - originally meant to be in English and starring Johnny Depp - benefits hugely from the director's insistence that most of the film is viewed from Bauby's POV, his eyes wandering over the spaces in his hotel room as his nonchalant voice speaks his thoughts to the audience.  At first it's quite frustrating, but it ends up conveying in the most efficient way possible the condition that Bauby suffers from.  It's also very moving, and this mrbasehart is not ashamed to admit that he had a lump in his throat several times during the movie, especially in detailing the relationships between Bauby and his elderly father and his son.  It's to the movie's credit however, that while it's extremely emotional, it's never histrionic or overtly melodramatic, nor does it wallow in self-pity or sentiment.  What it adds up to is an excellent movie, full of great performances, involving, and oddly beautiful.

[iv3rdawG]

I'm glad you liked it. And yeah, I think a lot of people might pass on the movie if they just read the synopsis which is very depressing, but at the core of it, like you stated, it's very moving and even uplifting. Love that movie. I'm glad that it was filmed in French and not English. I think it works better that way. It also really needs a Blu-Ray treatment.

[mrbasehart]

I was also going to watch 4 Months, 3 Weeks., 2 Days, today, but after being somewhat put through the wringer with Diving Bell, I think that'll keep for another day.

[iv3rdawG]

Yeah, that's probably a good idea.