Low Blow

SuckerPunch (2011)

Starring: Emily Brownbottom, Abbie Cornwall, Scott Glenn Directed by: Zack Snyder Rating: PG-13 Genre: Thriller

Review Terrific remake of "Shock Corridor" director Sam Fuller's "Snake Pit" with newcomer Emily Brownbottom in the Olivia D'Havilland role as a pretty young loony who connives with a young Carl Jung (John-John Ham) to convince an even younger and prettier heiress (Abbie Cornwall - "Fly Robin Fly - the Silver Convention Story") that her money is actually a nest of robot spider that can only be controlled through a series of grisly seduction/murders of the rest of the staff. Confusing, absurd and absolutely riveting in its exploration of the wisdom of young women and the bad choices we all make when we imagine that they are looking at us across a Starbucks when in fact we are all but invisible to anyone younger than 40.  Snyder, who previously turned a tiny incident in Spartan history into international hysteria (and inadvertently gave Colin Powell the "verve" pipe he needed to launch the second invasion of Iraq), here shows an uncanny ability to put his hand up a young actress and make her do his bidding.  Not for children, or adults of children, or for older ladies who incessantly question plot points and point out the children of former leading ladies, or really for anyone disturbed by the idea that our psychiatric institutions may be susceptible to "social engineering hacks". But for those remaining, a more-than-adequate substitute for the kind of pleasure we used to receive through physical contact on an occasionally Friday night drive-in rendezvous.

Light My Flyer

Tron: Legacy (2010)

Starring: Willie Nelson, Boy Sting, Olivia DeHavilland, Jr. Directed by: Krzysztof Kieslowski Rating: PG Genre: SciFi Fiction

Review Fifty years ago a Palo Alto, California engineer named Hewlett J. Packard shrunk himself to the size of an engorged tick and "uploaded" his midget brain into the first IBM computer. Though Packard was later to achieve fame for inventing the concept of the expensive printer cartridge, those in the know are convinced that his time navigating the memory gates of that first electronic behemoth formed the basis of the original "Tron." How true this is, I do not know, but it's hardly surprising to insiders that the great Polish director Kieslowski would choose a remake of this original story as his comeback venture. Kieslowski, best known in Poland as the inventor of the color film, has always sought to recover the humanity that the Polish people felt was lost when they gave up the double-entry bookkeeping system shortly after World War II. And, truly, what better way than to team with the "FX" wizards at Disneyland and leave nothing but a immense plain of scorched eyeballs in their wake? But does it work? Until that wonderful rascal Willie Nelson burst fullblown like a chaw-cheeked Venus upon the screen, I had my doubts. But the moment Nelson (as Packard-like engineer "Wink" Winkerbean) "dismounts" from his "light cycle" and grins at the camera we know we're like babies snugly and securely pinched between his huge, dope-stained fingers.  There seems to be no line that Nelson cannot improve by his growly, stentorian delivery (e.g. "I did not know. I DID NOT KNOW!!!"). Somewhat more perplexing was the choice of newcomer Boy Sting as his son "Dingo." Mr. Sting, who rose to prominence largely due to a YouTube video in which he is seen ejecting pickles from his bottom while "beatboxing" to  Cee-Lo's "Forget you", is not (to put it kindly) a "natural" actor. Every line he delivers sounds like a cat force-fed helium and slowly strangled with a string of stale red vines. And if I'm not mistaken, there happens to be another performer with the same surname, whose dignity cannot be impugned by this turdlet of a talent (as a fan of Sting lute music can attest, the man has nothing more to prove and can retire to his chateau to finish the sonnet cycle on the Vedic bards we all await with bated breath). But even the guinea-pig like squealings of the lesser Sting cannot detract from the sheer ferocious intelligence of Mr. Kieslowski's script. And those of us who have already installed track-lighting are well on our way. Tally Ho!

His World And Welcome to It

Avatard (2009)

Starring: Siggy Weaver, Sam Worthingham Directed by: James "Jim" Cameron Rating: PG-13 Genre: Sci-Fi Other

Review Just as the Mighty One bestowed upon apes the knowledge of how to bash each other's heads in with their own bones, He seemingly has given James "Jim" Cameron the power to change the way music videos and infomercials will be made until the end of days. What once was Darwin's crazy folly has jumped into Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's hyper-driven super-egg and warped us all into a future where Jar-Jar Binks can seemingly read our minds from the other side of the looking glass, even when we're thinking about something as trivial as the shiny gloss of a really fresh Junior Mint, or loved ones far away, then Junior Mints again. After Einstein's annus mirabilis, we all slapped our collective foreheads when we realized how we'd all fallen for Newton's "apple" scam - the Earth was indeed as round as The Frizzled One's predictions had predicted. Crowds of infuriated Londoners dug up Newton's body and shipped it to France where it probably belonged in the first place, right next to Liebniz' dog-faced boy. In the same way, Mr. Cameron's theory that we live in a "3-D" dimensional world now seems as obvious (for instance, why is it only you notice that your toilet swirl counter-clockwise?). Putting the technical flash aside, Cameron has warped the weft of Sid Field's screenplay rulebook whole cloth, abandoing entire chunks of Platonic "wisdom" for something I have a feeling Mr. Cameron would call "Life." Well what is it, then? Imagine that you had given the Wachowski brothers permission to harvest your skull and hook it up to a giant movie machine housed in a theater shaped like a starship made of M&Ms. Does that help? Yes, there are still actors in Mr. Cameron's brave new world. But don't fall in love with them too much, because I suspect they will not be with us for long. Instead I foresee virtual "harvest farms" where plasmids are raised on the sloughed off cells of hair harvested from the combs of the greats (think Orson Wellies, Jeanette McDonald or, say, a young Wings Hauser). You'll be able to carry the entire Actor's Studio in a small snuff box! I recognize that I may be riding the giddy afterglow of movie magic, but, as this holiday season reminds us, don't look a gift mitzvah in the mouth.

Friday Night Special - Paved With Good Intentions

On The Road (2009)

Starring: Vigor Morgenstern, Ash "Scrappy" Montana, Charlene Thorzine Directed by: John Hillerman Rating: R Genre: Comedy Other: Scenes of Apocalypse

Friday Night Special - Friday Night Special is a special feature of Oswald's Screen Scene. Here we present reviews of movies that we feel may be of particular interest to those special lovers looking for that magical mood-setter of a date flick that just might ignite the passions bubbling under the surface during the last work day of the week. Is this "The One"? Or just "One of Those Things?" Let us be your guide! Review As the happy Mork-slaughtering hobblits sang, "The road goes ever on..." And does it ever in this misguided "reboot" of the popular post-war "Road To..." series. Originally penned by the bumbling Cohen brothers, former Magnum P.I. star John Hillerman churns Bob and Bing's idyllic butter into rancid sour cream, turning Dotty L'Amour-flavored Bali into a scarred earth that appears to have been bump-mapped from Abe Vigoda's tragic face. Vigor Mogenstern, so good as the mentally-challenged boxer in Peter Jackson's remake of "Fat City" is here teamed with enormously talented youngster Ash "Scrappy" Montana as a pair of fathers and sons who traipse across country searching for the last twinkie in the universe. Not a huge hook to hang this four-hundred minute sombrero upon, but Hillerman does what he can with the Cohens' global-warming nonsense. I personally was left with a tremendous sense of unease, which can't have pleased Mr. Walt Disney or his marketing minions beavering away in their fur-lined hidey-holes at their carpal-tunneling adding machines. And, while I reserve the right to disagree with Hillerman's wrong-minded conclusions, I'd fight an eighteen stone she-badger to defend his right to spout them. All in all, this may not be fatback, but rather very lean Canadian bacon. Those on a spiritual diet may be amused. The rest of us will have to exert enough self-control not to kill the theater staff and burn the mutliplex to the ground. And in the end, maybe that is the point Hillerman is after - conscience makes bastards of us all.

The Day The Earth Jumped About

2012: The Year That Time Forgot (2009)

Starring: John Le Cuisak, Tandy Beal Newton, Rebecca Romero Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen Rating: PG-13 Genre: Action Other

Review Like an MMO (massively mutiliated objects) version of Gnip-Gnop played with the flayed corpses of people not beautiful enough to become movie stars and too dumb to stay away from the John Robert Powers modeling agency, Wolfgang Petersen's 2012: The Year That Time Forgot keeps score the old fashioned way. Petersen, who is perhaps best remembered for his taut submariner flick Das Boot (The Boot), appears to have taken long-time friend and confident Uma Merkel's advice and "gone for the gold," with a film so dumb it it should have been narrated by Wilf Errel's belly button. Former teen idol John Le Cuisak ("The Seven Kingdoms", "Wish I'd Said That") drops lead guitar duties just long enough to dance, prance and dangle puppet-like in front of a "green" screen so that he can be digitally inserted into whatever action-packed scenic fissure Petersen thinks he might fit, which may account for his growing likeness to a vagrant stumbling into a walrus pelt enrobed in salt-encrusted chocolate. Clearly my mind wandered into sad and gossipy places while considering Mr Petersen's filmus terribilus.  With all that said, what ends up on the screen is palpably thrilling with (spoiler alert!) special effects unrivaled since "The Dark Crystal" stole the souls of young 'uns everywhere. As the "Dramatics" so ably put it lo those many years ago "if what you're looking for is real loving, then what you see is what you get." How many of our significant others can live up that? If The Germinator can deliver us for four or five hours from the tragedy that is global warming by presenting the earth destroyed in both fire and ice, I say bring on like a naughty spanking to a rich, impotent old man!

Area Dumby-Dumb

The Four Kinds (2009)

	Starring: Millyov Smirnov, Will Paxton Directed by: Olatunde! Rating: R Genre: Documentary Other
Review I'm familiar with Man, Woman and late-era Billy Murray, but former "Flaming Drums" congero-turned-director Olatunde would have us believe that, like a german linguist, carrot-topped gargoyle Millyov Smirnov has discovered yet another gender lurking in the weeds. After Rue Paul and former Senator William Proxmire, what more is there to say about alien abductions? Nothing. So I won't.

I'll Take Door Two, Clive

Le Box (2009)

Starring: Mare Winningham, Tuck Plugsden, James Cocoa Directed by: Richard Keily Rating: R Genre: Thriller Other

Review Put down the crack pipe, Richard! This whacked-out "suspenser" remake of the flick that forced Kim Basinger to buy an entire Georgia town and burn it to the ground, from an unpublished short story by Ernest Hemingway plays like a Twilight Zone episode that lasts for three days and three nights, and then three more days. Disfigured Russian cosmonaut James Cocoa ("Big Night")  rides a frozen urine icicle down from the space station and lands in Winningham and Plugsden's backyard. They discover a strange box in his unconscious space pants and must decide whether to kill him, or kill him and win a million dollars. Should be just what the doctor ordered for Keily, who hasn't been the same since he went through "the change." Check it out!

Summer Ends With Pants on Fire

The Inventions Of Lying (2009)

Starring: Ricky Gervils Directed by: Ricky Gervils Rating: PG-13 Genre: Comedy/Romance Other

Review As the summer film season winds down, the concepts seem to wind up higher and higher. Beaver-cheeked British lambchop Ricky Gervils ("The Office: Great Britain", "Heroes") takes a break from ripping off American sitcoms just long enough claim that British people invented the art of lying. If I strain I think can hear Doctor Johnson struggling to roll his corpulent, tic-ridden bulk in a 360 degree arc within whatever tomb he currently happens to reside (just to set the record straight, the Greeks invented lying, but didn't realize it until Jesus came along and made it a sin). Lollipop-long Jennifer Garniston (nothing of consequence) plays Gervil's foil, a woman so trusting and beautiful that she produces her own natural insecticide. I don't hold Gervils personally responsible for this particular mediocrity - he does not yet know the ways of the Hollywood fatcats. But here's a bit of advice "Ricky" - when a man with a "Crackberry" and a Starbucks cup approaches you with a script be sure that his Rolex is genuine andthat mica-black Mercedes convertible was purchased outright. And stop watching American television! (Here's a suggestion. When you return to the mother country how about a "Fowelty Towers" remake that takes place in Wales? The town names alone should get you through the first season!)

Friday Night Special - The Heights Of Ecstasy!

Vertico (1958)

Starring: Jimmie Stewart, Hope Lange Directed by: Sir Alfred Hitchcock Rating: R Genre: Romance Other

Friday Night Special - Friday Night Special is a special feature of Oswald's Screen Scene. Here we present reviews of movies that we feel may be of particular interest to those special lovers looking for that magical mood-setter of a date flick that just might ignite the passions bubbling under the surface during the last work day of the week. Is this "The One"? Or just "One of Those Things?" Let us be your guide! Review Ply those who knew The Master with a few potent potions and they just might spill the beans about the so-called Suspense-meister - and those beans just might surprise you. Hitch was a well-known romantic who often locked his wife Alma up in the highest turret of their Scotts Valley mansion for weeks at a time, reading to her from the works of erotic magus "Rumi" while Ravel's "Caballero" droned endlessly through the forest. Legend is that even the snails tasted sweeter when Hitch had an extended romantic stay at "Le Chateau." Exhibit #1 for those gimlet-eyed skeptics is his fevered ode to l'esprit d'escalier - "Vertico." Vertico, as the medicos among you may know, is a disease of the mind that causes normally sane people to vomit when climbing anything taller than a matchbox. Jimmie Stewart ("The Philadephia Experiment", "Destry Rides A Donkey") plays "Heathcliff", a former cop who accidentally killed an entire circus while investigating the nefarious  activities of a tiny, mustachioed highwire artist. Retired and living in shame, he meets a woman (Hope Lange - "That Touch of Hare")  who reminds him of a woman who tried to kill him in a previous life when he was a Spanish Grandee living on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco. The plot's nonsense, of course. There never was a Barbary Coast of San Francisco (The real Barbary Coast is an island off of the island of Tripoli, populated exclusively by apes - maybe Hitch was thinking of Santa Barbara?) But the love story between Stewart and Lange is the real thing - their chemistry burns a hole right through the cellulose and into your heart. By the climax, when Stewart throws Lange from Coit Tower into the San Francisco bay because she reminds him of the countess who mocked his love poems ("There was once a Countess from Cork...") only to realize she was NOT the Countess but a modern woman who needs love like any modern woman who needs love, you can't help but melt for this bag of juddering, throbbing pain. Who hasn't wanted to throw a woman (or even a child?) from the top of Coit Tower only to realize it was only one of the squares of pink popcorn that always seem stale and whose kernel shells manage to work their way between your gums and teeth only to realize it's really a dream and your innamorata is four thousand miles away sharing a double-zip Mountain Hardware down bag  that was a special birthday present with a part-time tour guide name Nigel who claims to make his own cider? Of course it may mean something different to you, which is the beauty of the movies. Regardless, I COMMAND YOU to rent this gem, curl up with the bepelted pet of your choice, some Nyquil and Limoncello on the rocks and make a night of it. You will not be disappointed. I "guarantee" it!

Baby Splitters

Surrogate (2009)

Starring: Bruce Willits Directed by: Jonah Moscow Rating: R Genre: Action/SciFi Other

Review 100% pure skunk juice. Begoated chrome-dome Bruce Willits ("The Whole Ten Yards", "The Sick Sense")  stars as a man who gives birth to smaller and smaller versions of himself, until finally he needs to make a huge robotic version of himself in order to see into the world that his tiny selves have built. A fascinating idea wasted by director Moscow ("Moscow on the Hudson", "Termites 3Dimensional") whose one big idea is that people in the future will dress like John Travolta in "Saturday Night-Fever". Personally, I'd wait for the comic book.

Game On!

GAMER (2009)

Starring: Jock McGregor Directed by: Mark Taylor Rating: R Genre: Action Thriller Other

Review Sexy Jock McGregor ("The 3 Hundreds") plays "Boner", a lone wolf game designer locked inside a game he designed but cannot escape without the help of young gaming genius "Booger" (played ably by a remarkably well-preserved Red Buttons ["Red Dawn"]). Booger "plays" Boner as a character in a Donkey-Kong-like side-scroller - but here the barrels and gigantic maddened gorillas are for real! Long-time readers know how acerbic I can be about shoddy special effects (see my review of Toy Story, if you can stand the heat!), but here they work, as the pixelated, "green-screen" action replicates the seizure-inducing hysteria of Antari's gaming masterpiece. I've praised the hunky McGregor for past work, but here he's a revelation as the man without a past, a genius so smart he created a game with no solution -- except Death! The twist is (spoiler alert!) only a mildly-otherly-mentally-abled child whose synapses have fused directly to his wrist ligaments can unlock the " master stage" and defeat the "Boss" (grotesquely shriveled one-time actor John Turturro) that leads McGregor out. There's one more twist (think "2001: A Space Odyssey"), but I won't give it away because I want to encourage you to check out this thoughtful, spine-tingling indie screener. But if you have any questions about your wife's fidelity, leave her at home with the ugliest babysitter you can find! Jock McGregor is a definite home-wrecker!

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!

Now You See Him...

THE ILLUSIONERIST(2006)

Starring: Edward X. Norton, Hume Jackman, David Bowie Directed by: Christopher Nolan Rating: PG-13 Genre: Drama Other

Review In the late 1800's Jack the Ripper is on the loose and Sherlock Holmes' London has got him! Director Christopher Nolan (The Batman) claims to "solve" the mystery of the man known to London prostitutes as The Ripper" by explaining that Dandy Jack was a magician who disappeared into walls whenever London's finest got to close to his trail. It's all nonsense of course. The Ripper was identified last year by writer Clive Barker as none other than Queen Victoria's paramour Prince Albert (why didn't they make THAT story?) But Nolan's got enough going on to distract us from all the plot idiocy. Edward X. Norton (The World According to X) and Hume Jackman (The Boy from Down Under) are a pair of brothers whose hatred consumes the love of the women who love them until only one of them is left to grapple with the evil David Bowie (The Boy From Under the Earth). Bowie sears the screen with an accent so protean that he could be any of a dozen weirdball Bondian villains bent on bending electricity to their nefarious world-dominating purposes. Does it make sense? Who cares? Nolan's balderdash is a gloomy hoot! If you figure out what was supposed to be going on at the end, drop me a line.

Bald Isn't Always Beautiful, Baby

THX118 (1971)

Starring: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence Directed by: George Lucas Rating: R Genre: Drama Other

Review This Star Wars "prequel" (a film term for a movie that precedes the sequel to a successful film) appears to have been pieced together from bus fare change. Bald folks wander around in a stupor. It looks like a Hair Club For Men terror ad. Lucas is a genius (see Howard the Duck for surprising evidence of this) but he was badly advised by his advisors here. Still, if this was the price for us to get Obi-Wan Kenobi-Wan and Luke Star War then I'll willingly pay this eccentric piper.

Ape for Congo!

Congo (1995)
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Starring: Dylan Walsh, Shirley Jones Directed by: Frank Marshal Rating: PG-13 Genre: Action & Adventure Other

Review What if you went to Africa and found a world in which the very laws of nature have gone berserk? That's the intriguing premise of this action masterpiece based on Eric Segal's bestselling novel. Director Marshal finds a way to get at the tough nut that Planet of the Apes was unable crack - namely that apes should never ever act as metaphors for human beings. They're apes! Beautiful Shirley Jones seems ageless as a scientist who risks it all for the man she loves. DVD extras are equally spectacular - including documentary on computer-generated ape hair -- if only!

Brothers Deliver A Heavy Load

The Matrix (1999)
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Starring: Keenu Reeves, Laurence Fishman Directed by: Joel Coen Rating: R Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Other

Review Keenu Reeves stars as an alien who discovers that he is God in this stunning sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Lawrence Fishman (bald!) is the unfortunate doctor who must break the news to Reaves. With no way out, Reeves decides the only way to save the world is to face his alien parents and flush them down what looks like a giant lavatory. But don't let that description put you off. I learned more about the Bible from this movie than ten years of Sunday school. Stunning commentary track with a surprisingly insightful Reeves and director Coen discussing if God is a software programmer.

Cruis-in!

Memento (2000)
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Starring: Tom Cruise, Carrie-Anne Moss Directed by: Christopher Nolen Rating: R Genre: Drama Other

Review Tom Cruise tears the screen to shreds in this quixotic sci-fi thriller about a man bonked on the head who discovers that he's moving backwards in time. And what does he find? He's killed (spoiler) HIMSELF!! Director Nolen knows how to handle a camera but it's Cruise who is the revelation as a man so confused he has to take pictures to remember who he is. Crazy stuff from an actor unafraid to make a fool of himself. We should all be so talented!