Put Me Out of My Misery!

Final Destination 2009 (2009)

Starring: No one Directed by: Eli Hoste Rating: R Genre: Horror Other

Review Punky creep Ethan Hawkes ("Finally, Paris!") cheats The Grim Reaper in a game of 3-D checkers thereby dooming everyone he's ever known to a horrible death on a broken escalator. Huh? Hawkes, who must be sixty judging by his haggard smoker's skin and obvious hair "plugs," should have given this teen slasher role a pass. Instead he tries to play it like Marlin Brando ("Brando's Fat!") in a wife-beater, mouth-breathing inane lines like "My sister stabs harder than that" as though "Mississippi" Tennessee Williams was stroking his sand-blasted cheek. Ugh.  Mr. Hoste , if you must kill fifty teenagers in 83 minutes, how about at least skinning them for our enjoyment? Give this one a pass....

From The Vault - Two Left Feet, Shamrock-Style

MY LEFT FEET (1989)

Starring: Daniel Daylowes, Brenda Frawley Directed by: Jim Sheridan Rating: R Genre: DRAMA Other

From The Vault - From The Vault is a special feature of Oswald's Screen Scene. Here we present reviews of movies past that we feel might interest, provoke or dismay our readers. Review Typical Irish blarney about a pedally-disabled man whose life is redeemed  when he stumbles and critically injures a drunken leprechaun. Daylowes ("My Beautiful Laundry") has shown glimmers in the past, but here he reminds me a little too much of the  unjustly forgotten Minnesota Lakers center George Mi-kan - all lank, and no speed. Pet Peeve Time: why oh why does Hollywood insist upon the ludicrous notion that a woman clearly years younger than the lead actor can somehow be believable as his mother? Sexy Brenda Frawley ("The Long, Long, Long Trailer") deserves much better.

Distinctly Nein

DISTRICTNINE (2009)

Starring: Justin Cope Directed by: Neal BlomfonKampf Rating: R Genre: Action Other

Review This turgid "rethink" of The British Broadcasting Corporation's "The Office" "imagineers" what would happen if a bunch of ne'er do well aliens got stuck in a waiting room that God called "Africa." If your jaw is hanging as slack as mine in disbelief that they're making this YET AGAIN, then give yourself a sweet sweet Nilla wafer. Former Journey guitarist Neal BlomfonKampf ("The Night The Lights Went Down in the City") takes all those 70's heavy metal rock star bucks and converts them to fool's gold krugerands. If he'd bother to put down his "doobie" long enough to learn a bit about the history of film, he would have known that there was a little "flick" in the fifties called "When The Gods Made The Gods Crazy" about... wait for it... a bunch of aliens who fall from an an airplane and... you get the rest. A bit of fatherly advice Mr. BlomfonKampf from someone who's admired your music from afar (an admission - I first made a move on my second cousin on the fold-out rear seat of a VW Squareback to the dulcet tones of Journey's mega-hit "Lady") - if a spaceship could make it across the light years of the galaxy it is highly unlikely it would need to stop for "gas." And even if it did, do you really think that an advanced civilization couldn't figure out that the fossil fuels are concentrated in the MIDDLE EAST?!!! Mr. BlomfonKampf, you committed the cardinal sin of science fiction filmmaking - you forgot the science! That said, there are some lovely performances, including Sharleton Copington's poignant evocation of Boris Karloff ("Targets")  in "The Little House That Was Left" (as a bonus, check THAT one out for chills!).  I may have scolded a bit here, but I encourage Mr. BlomfonKampf to try a couple of commercials to get the hang of this business and return with a fully-baked idea. I'll look forward to it!

Gory Glory

INGLORI*** BASTARDS (2009)

Starring: Brad Pit Directed by: Quint Tarentinino Rating: R Genre: Action Other

Review What is it about history that drives directors so mad? Whatever it is, I hope that history keeps it up because Tarentinino's latest is the kind of crazy magic that only someone like Jimmi Hendrickx ("Hey Jobe")  could summon with a Stratocaster and a lighter - and that only on a good night when the wind came from the west! So what exactly have we got here? Imagine Jesus with a pitchfork, or Mohammed with the middle eastern equivalent of a pitchfork. Consider this dynamic duo poking their way through hoards of ravenous nazis who lose body parts like a newt in a cuisinart. Tarentinino's dirty dozen is led by a scenery-engulfing Brad Pit ("The Miniaturization of Benjamin Button"). Those who follow this reviewer know his disdain for dimwitted portrayals of bacon-grease-inflected southern dunderheads gumming straw and fornicating with prone  foreigners in a moonshine-induced hysteria brought on by lack of sanitary conditions. And Pit nails it! Tarentinino,  clearly sensitive to the holocaust theme, keeps the number of severed genitals within reason, but when it's time to pull out the big guns he remains one of our few american directors unafraid to pull them out. Here he brandishes dialogue like the devil's forked tongue, ripping hilarious riposte after hilarious riposte in a dialogue-fest replete with such aphorisms as "Donald Duck can suck my d**ck." Anyone else reminded of e.e. cummings' ("buffalo bill was a clean man")  "Death of a Ball Turrett Gunner?" Okay, that might be a stretch for a man who put Ving Ramses in an afro but I'm enthusiastic about this effort. That Tarentinino has grown as an artist can no longer be in doubt. I think a real love story cannot be far off now. I, for one, am looking forward to it. BTW Don't miss cameos by Michael Myers ("I Am a Hatchet Murderer") as Sir Winston Churchill and Eli Hoste ("The Host") as the great Jewish leader Ben Gurion. The DVD extras should be a hoot!

Spunky Sleeper

DREAMGIRLS(2007)

Starring: Diane Ross, Ike Turner, Shabadoo Shrimp Directed by: Bill Condon Rating: PG-13 Genre: Musical Other

Review Remember Diane Ross, the sleepy-eyed, drug-addled jazz crooner who rode her sulky voice from bordello to Carnegie Hall? Well, a little thing called Dreamgirls has snuck into town to let you know what you didn't know. Former "Rocky" composer Bill Condon helms this all-singing weepfest with a ham-fisted midas touch. Why there was no buildup to this shocking tell-all tale of talented black women and the rich white men who exploit them my Hollywood connections have been unable or unwilling to give up, but here it is. Fast, furious , angry, sexy and above all, musical - this musical captures the backstage madness that made Motown the "place to be" before Los Angeles was even a twinkle in Michael Jackson's eye. Love it or Hate it, you'd better catch it before it leaves your local cinerama and disappears forever.

I Return, Bloodied But Unboned

At the end of "Now Voyager" Betty Davis turns to sir Paul Heinreid and, after blowing smoke into his watering eyeballs, coos "there is nothing to being blind; it's not being able to taste anything that I cannot stand." I wish I had said that, but I didn't and so all I can say to my longtime readers is welcome back.

As many of you know, after leaving a particularly dispiriting showing of "Van Wider" I vowed never to enter a movie theater again. Shortly after that I met the love of my life, Miss Carly, and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where I found a job programming the scoreboard at the old Busch stadium (a job I found very rewarding if occasionally exasperating). While Miss Carly and I had many good months together in the "Queen City" I discovered that she had begun an "internet" relationship with a  young gentleman from the New Jersey area. By the time his parents installed WebBlocker she had already asked me to move out of her uncle's rumpus room.

I find I must disagree with the "wisdom" of Bob Saget - life is most definitely not a box of chocolates. I consider myself fortunate that I was able to land a temporary job as a professional celebrity mimic,  impersonating the Geico Caveman at parties and company gatherings on the upper Michigan Peninsula. While this may not sound particularly life-affirming to those of you who have never trodden the boards as the neurotic,  hirsute cave "dude" (and this before the smash television show made him famous), I can only tell you that bringing joy to tens of children and business people in such a stunning setting reminded me of the magic the entertainment industry, at its best, can bring us all.

As I was departing a particularly energetic appearance at a retirement village in Ahmeek I happened to glance at the large screen television in the recreation room and instantly recognized the unmistakable Leo Gorcey in "Going My Way." Needless to say, I sat, sweaty cave couture and all, and watched the rest of the show, tears streaming through my facial fur. As most of you who have followed my reviews over the years know, I am not a particularly emotionally giving man. But for whatever reason, that movie in that white-walled room, to the accompaniment of clanging bedpans and crazy old-people's (well-earned!) gibberish restored my faith in motion pictures.

I have since moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area, and have met a wonderful older woman and travel writer who, before she set out on a walking tour of British England, inspired me to begin my movie reviews again. And so I have determined to do so.

I am older. And I am wiser. I expect that my reviews will reflect this hard-won wisdom as well as a new-found sense of the absurdity of human existence. Together I expect that these new personality traits will flower forth an exciting and rewarding new era in my reviewing. Let's take the scoundrels to task and the artists to the stars!

Here is looking at you,

Oswald Reeves