SPECIAL WHEN LIT: A PINBALL DOCUMENTARY (2009)

This is a documentary about an innovation whose birth and death occurred within the same century, so that the same people who enjoyed it as a rising fad can defend its relevancy later in life.  Yes, that means most people they talk to are super old (like old enough to remember putting dimes not quarters into the machines) and yes, unfortunately most of them can't come up with any more complex than "I like pinball, it used to be popular, now it is not, I don't like that."  But there it still a lot of interesting stuff about pinball to learn, and they also interview a charming (and ancient) Frenchman who says "I like girls and pinball... but girls is finis... so pinball."

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009)

This film belongs to a peculiar and diverse sub-genre of films that adopt the cinematic limitations/conventions of the period in which they are set which includes the likes of The Aviator and recent Oscar darling The Artist.  This film is set during the eighties, so you can expect grainy 16mm film stock, simple zooms in place of complex dolly shots, and of course no modern impurities to the form like shaky camera editing or bogus CGI.  Writer-Director Ti West also goes one bonus step further, and has its subject matter deeply rooted in the past, fashioning a tale of devil worship that would have felt right at home during the height of the satanic panic of the 1980’s.  Devil’s gonna getcha!

JUICE (1992)

This movie might be best known for Dave Chapelle's impression of Samuel L. Jackson screaming about it but it deserves another look on its own merits.  I think Netflix occasionally recommends things based on current events and with all the hub bub over the holographic Tupac performance at Coachella recently I'm sure the great Netflix Recommendation Computer assumed that lots of people would be interested in this 1992 juvenile crime story starring a certain Tupac Shakur.  It might not be as famous as a west coast counterpart like Boyz N The Hood but since it's on Instant and it has flesh and blood Tupac, it deserves a watch.

MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED (2010)

This is the funniest film I've seen in quite some time.  And it's a documentary.  Don't let that scare you away.  The subject is the glut of American made-exploitation films shot in the Philippines, starting with blood soaked monster movies (like the Blood Island trilogy) and sweaty sexy prison romps (like Women In Cages) during the 60's and leading up to the end of the 70's and the unofficial greatest Filipino exploitation movie ever made, Apocalypse Now.  Why were movies made there and why is this a brilliant subject for a documentary?  Let me answer that with a quote from the film that comes pretty early on, courtesy of producer Jon Davison: "Human life was cheap, film was cheap, it was a great place to make a picture."

AMERICAN PICKERS

Two dudes drive around the Midwest in a van, but instead of solving mysteries, they root through piles of junk looking for antique pretty-much-anything.

It grows on you.  Read more at CHUD.

MAYOR CUPCAKE

First she made cupcakes, now she’s mayor.  Oh snap!  If you want to see how far Lea Thompson has fallen since the Back To The Future series, look no further.

Check it out at CHUD.com

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.

VANISHING ON 7TH STREET (2010)

My pal Schifty recommends the strangest movies.  If I've never heard of it and he tells me to watch it, then it's a Schifty's Pick.

Well this is unusual.  Schifty recommending a film that was actually released in theaters?  That can't be right.  Hmm...  Well, it was only in six theaters in America.  Wow that's not very wide.  And it was only for four weeks.  Wow that's not very long.  And it only earned 22,917 dollars during that time.  Holy shit.  That's pretty goddamn low, especially for a real studio movie with three headline stars (John Leguizamo, Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton) not to mention a ten million dollar budget and a talented director, Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist).  This movie could have earned more money if instead of making it they just had one guy work at McDonald's for a year.  I hope they didn't blow all that money on something extravagant like a Ford Focus.  Is this movie as bad as its limited release/immense box office failure would suggest?  Nope.  Don't get me wrong, it's not very good.  But it's not infamously shitty or anything.  Just run of the mill 'meh.'

THE ROBE (1953)

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 # 1 of 5.  Ticket Sales: 65,454,500  It ranks #44 on the list just ahead of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and just behind American Graffiti.

This is a sword and sandals epic, with thousands of extras in colorful costumes, magnificent matte paintings for the backgrounds, immense sets with intricate columns and statuary, and a few cameos from familiar biblical figures playing out well known events just beyond the scope of our characters.  This film is part of the genre of Christ stories without Christ, like #13 on the list Ben-Hur or that other one.  The plot concerns a Greek slave and his Roman master who acquire the haunted death robe of Jesus Christ.  Someone even says of Jesus "Evil never dies."  Alright, I'm interested.

THIRTY TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD (1993)

This intriguing biopic takes the unique form of a 32 part anthology of short films.  But this obviously isn't just any old collection of stories.  Director Francois Girard didn't want to deliver one distinct impression of Glenn Gould, so instead the viewer digests thirty two different versions of Glenn Gould, the famed Canadian concert pianist who gave up touring to focus entirely on recording, whose numerous eccentricities could have served as fodder for thirty two different full length films.  Canadian national treasure Colm Feore plays Glenn Gould, and although this unconventional film's 98 minutes are arranged somewhat chronologically, the segments are incredibly diverse; some are barely longer than a minute, some are as long as seven minutes, some are documentary interviews with friends and contemporaries, some are recreations of interviews or events, and some are as abstract as animated color spheres set to his music or a rapid fire montage of all the prescription drugs Gould took.

BLACK DEATH (2009)

This pick from my pal Schifty jumped a place in line; the third movie he recommended was Final starring Denis Leary but Netflix took that off instant-watch so the world will never know.  That means the first real star to appear in a Schifty's Pick is Sean Bean.  I don't know what Schifty's aversion to seeing films afforded a theatrical release is all about, but this film is definitely a few steps up in construction and coherence from the last two suggestions.  During the Black Plague, Bean is dispatched by the Church along with a rag-tag band of colorful knights to investigate reports of a remote village that has survived the troubled times by forging a dark pact with a sorceress who defies God's will by bridging the worlds or the living and the dead.  That's right, its a Men-on-a-Mission movie, and its not bad.  Is it good?  Yeah, it just might be.

THE LIVING WAKE (2007)

This absurdist comedy tells the tale of K. Roth Binew (co-writer Mike O'Connell), a self-proclaimed artist and self-proclaimed genius, as he plans the titular party for just prior to his imminent demise from a "yet to be named" disease.  His faithful manservant Mills Joaquin (Jesse Eisenberg) chauffeurs him by rickshaw around their surreal little town; the film's official description calls it a 'timeless story book universe'.  The film seems to deal solely in serious concerns that it does not take seriously, reflected by the fatuous, dandy, grandiloquent nature of the main characters, not to mention their wardrobes.  The faux-serious demeanor that K. Roth presents to almost every encounter might seem a little off putting at first, but it grows on you.  When he offers an neighbor an invitation to his party, and receives a haranguing for his trouble, he responds "That's the stuff Reggie!  First thing in the morning, I like to get empty threats from a shallow man, it gets my blood going."

THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID (1972)

Another Jesse James picture?  What makes this one different?  This film from director Philip Kaufman has a narrow focus, concerning itself mainly with the titular event, which showed up as the finale of The Long Riders, but is portrayed much differently here and serves as the bulk of the film.  James is one of our twin protagonists, the other being Cole Younger again.  Jesse James is played by Robert Duvall (same year as The Godfather) but again his depiction is far cry from what might be expected.  This James is ignorant, careless, sloppy, fanatical, shortsighted, petty and seems to have become such a great outlaw solely by luck and good company.  Cole Younger, by far the wiser of the two, is played by Cliff Robertson who is best known nowadays as Uncle Ben in the Spiderman Trilogy.  Dirtier and grimier than most westerns, with loads more period language thrown in to boot, this film seems more authentic even when its differs from history.

EDEN LOG (2007)

This pick from Schifty makes me wonder where he finds these movies in the first place; it's not like you can tell Netflix to only show you things that weren't released in theaters.  Or that you only want to watch something if nobody else in the world has seen it.  The only two requirements for a Schifty's Pick are 1) he recommends it to me and 2) I haven't heard of it until he recommends it.  Anyway, this film is a European production, mostly French, but don't worry all the dialogue is in English.  At least all the important dialogue is in English.  After a few minutes of grunting and writhing in the mud with total darkness only occasionally punctuated by a strobe light, the story begins in earnest, with an amnesiac wandering a subterranean power plant full of mutated workers, hunted rebels, and incompetent soldiers.

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950)

This film noir uses a little less flourish than others.  No music, except for the opening and closing sequences, with over a hundred minutes of soundtrack-silence.  No looming shadows, no thick clouds of smoke, no rooms lit by a single swaying light bulb.  Here, the devil is in the details.  Showing how all the pieces and players aligned to pull off a million dollar jewelry store heist, and the real difficult part, everyone cooperating afterward to divvy up the loot.  You might call this movie 'hard-boiled' because one of the main characters says things like "Why don't you quit crying and get me some bourbon?"  And that's to another man.

THE STAR CHAMBER (1983)

Netflix is probably recommending this movie to a whole bunch of people right now, what with its theme of 'avenging the miscarriages of justice.'  The examples of the law failing to right wrongs provided here are much more outlandish than merely a mother murdering a child.  A man who enjoys murdering old ladies for their welfare checks is released scot-free because the detectives improperly searched his trash for the gun, and a pair of child murdering pornographers are let go because the unpaid parking tickets that led to their initial arrest were actually paid off so they never should have been pulled over in the first place.  Judge Michael Douglas is fed up with all the criminals being set free to commit more crime so he joins a shadowy cabal of judges led by Hal Holbrook who hire hitmen to take out the thugs that the court system is just powerless to stop.  Guess we know how they feel about the death penalty.