MADAGASCAR

BBC Earth Presents Madagascar: The Land Where Evolution Ran Wild.

That's one helluva title, isn't it?

Check out my first Blu-ray review for CHUD.com.

There's plenty of lemurs!

DRIVE

This film is a genre mash-up, a hybrid of an art house film and an action movie.  I think the ideal audience is anyone in the small overlap of fans of both those types of films; in other words, great for me, your mileage may vary.  You get the best of both worlds, unless you are not a fan of one or more of those genres, in which case you get the worst of at least one world and possibly two.  Since it's an art film, you get long takes, deep focus, and meaningful gestures substituting for dialogue; but because it's also an action movie, you get car chases, car crashes, gun fights, knife fights, and at least four scenes that cause the audience to quickly get very loud before they fall very silent.  You could call it an inter-textual/meta-textual minimalist neo-noir, but why not just call it a good time?  Hell, I'd call it a great time.

WIRED (2008)

Check out this review at CHUD.

What's it about?  Stealing Pounds.  That means money in England.

Bloody Hell!

TARAS BUBLA (2009)

Check out my first review for CHUD.

What's it about?

Vladimir Putin presents Braveheart except the Scots are the Ukranians, and the English are the Polish; also the hero is a pot-bellied 68 year old.

Sign me up!

WARRIOR

The actors here (Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte) are all too talented for this movie to be a total wash but it's definitely underwhelming.  This movie suffers from comparison to The Fighter which is phenomenal, seriously, go watch that instead on Netflix Instant right now; even if it had been twenty years instead of one year, the comparison would be made because of the similar titles and (only vaguely) similar storylines.  The story here concerns a winner take-all mixed martial arts tournament where two of the competitors are, gasp, long lost brothers.  So if you want to see an MMA movie, and you can tolerate a cliched, overwrought and serviceable one in place of a conventionally 'good' one, then this film will work in a pinch.

CONTAGION

Somebody didn't even survive the poster.

This film is for adults.  That doesn't mean it has any cursing, or nudity, or violence.  It means this is a smart picture.  There are no car chases, gunfights, sexy spyjinks, contrived back stories, adorable animal sidekicks, plucky comic relief, and no extensive buildup for our 'heroic' main character who will save the day by picking up the virus and throwing it off the top of the Nakatomi Tower.  In fact, as the title hints, the main character is the virus.  Everyone else is a supporting character in what could best be called a viral-procedural.  We have the first victim, her family, some CDC officials, some WHO officials, the military, the DHS, a janitor, and a fear-mongering blogger.  Who will survive and what will be left of them?

EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE (1973)

Just pretend it has the right title

To get the taste of yesterday's Hobo movie out of your mouth, I implore you, watch this Hobo adventure film.  I first saw this three years ago thanks to the employee recommendations section at Reel Video (RIP) and I've wanted to watch it again ever since.  Well thank you Netflix!  Lee Marvin plays A#1, a legendary Hobo during the Hobo heyday of the 1930's, a Hobo's Hobo if you will.  Faithful to the Hobo lifestyle, A#1 wants to ride the rails, feeling the freedom of no fixed address and no fiduciary responsibilities.  The only obstacle to his lifestyle is Ernest Borgnine, and if you laughed when you read that, then Borgnine took advantage of your distraction and killed you. 

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011)

The poster is also better than the movie

This film's origin is more interesting than the film itself.  It's Canadian, it's the debut for director Jason Eisener, and it's the result of a promotional contest for the 2007 Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino debacle Grindhouse.  They invited budding filmmakers to submit fake trailers in the grindhouse spirit and the winner would be shown along with the movie's other fake trailers during select screenings in their home turf.  Since RR was able to turn his fake trailer for Machete into an actual film, and an entertaining one at that, it was only a matter of time before another trailer became a real film.  This one doesn't quite make the same smooth transition.  It worked better as a 2 1/2 minute trailer for the same reason that many trailers are better than the films they advertise: some ideas are great for a few minutes, not so great for 80+ minutes.

WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS (1970)

You might know this movie by its original Japanese title Furankenshutain no Kaijū: Sanda tai Gaira but you probably don't.  The plot has a simple beauty: there are two monsters who appear suddenly and mysteriously called Gargantuas that kinda look like 200 foot tall Sasquatchs.  The English dialogue calls them 'The Brown One' and 'The Green One' which is uncreative but accurate as far as their fur is concerned.  The Green One is better known as Gaira, named for his habitat of choice, the sea; The Brown One is Sanda, named for his home, the mountains.  What divides these colossal brothers and leads to their titular confrontation is their stances on killing people and smashing vehicles/buildings.  The Green One is strictly in favor of both those things, whilst The Brown One fondly recalls growing up in a laboratory amongst human scientists and subsequently is not too fond of eating them or smashing their vehicles/buildings.  Unfortunately for Japan, and very fortunately for the viewers, the only way for them to settle their differences is with a crowd-pleasing metropolis-leveling no-holds-barred death match; make some gigantic popcorn.

STREETS OF FIRE (1984)

The opening titles call this film as a 'rock n roll fable' which is a confusing description until you've seen the film and then it's perfect.  Director/co-writer Walter Hill wanted to make the ultimate archetypal teenager movie and moved down a checklist: "custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor."  The Tough Girl singer gets kidnapped by the Evil Biker Gang so her ex-boyfriend The Wandering Tough Guy comes back to town at the behest of her Weasel Manager/New Loser Boyfriend and teams up with a Tough Tomboy to rescue her.  What kind of movie has musical numbers, weird 50-80's culture fusion like Blue Velvet except not terrifying, the most intentionally fake looking city between One From The Heart and Dick Tracy, and a climactic pick axe duel in front of crowds of youths, cops, and bikers?  This kind, and it's all kinds of weird but still fun.

AIRPORT (1970)

Looking over the list of the top ticket-selling films of all time, I counted that within the Top 50 I had seen all but 5 films.  So now I'm going to watch them.  This is # 3 of 5.  Ticket Sales: 66,111,300  It ranks #42 on the list just ahead of American Graffiti and just behind Goldfinger.

You can thank this movie for all the other disaster movies.  Get a bunch of stars, pre-faded and fading, and put them together in a big, easily identifiable and relatable place.  Then give them a bunch of intersecting, melodramatic plotlines to kill time until catastrophe strikes.  This film differs from later disaster films a little bit by not really showcasing any impressive special effects.  We have a blizzard (painted sawdust) and a mad bomber (Van Heflin), but around that we have about two hours of people doing airporty stuff like struggling to get all the snow off the runways, catching stowaways on flights (how quaint), greasing local politicians' palms for a planned airport expansion, carrying on affairs and conceiving little bastard babies, and oh yeah flying planes.  I have to disagree with star Burt Lancaster who called the film "the worst piece of junk ever made" because there are by far worse films; it is a bit shocking that this is one of the most successful movies of all time, but at least modern viewers can enjoy it ironically and/or historically across a time-chasm of 40 years.  Like a PSA or a TV Christmas Special, this is the kind of schlock that improves with age.