Awkward Press

According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Mike:

When we go to the movies, we have fairly reasonable expectations for whatever flick it is we’re going to view. If we’re to watch a comedy, we want to laugh. If a horror movie is on the docket, we want to get the chills. A drama should wrap us up in its plot, or at least engage us with characters worthy of emotional investment. At the very least, we want to be entertained. Some movies actually fulfill such expectations. A lot don’t. But then there are a select few that take our expectations, lift them over their heads, and smash them to pieces. I recall having such an experience around this time a decade ago. I was a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, a movie that blended the epic storytelling of Scorsese’s Goodfellas with the puerile silliness of a seventh grader telling dirty jokes to crack up his friends at recess. So, naturally, I was psyched to see Anderson’s follow-up, Magnolia (released ten years ago this Friday). The trailer was pretty incomprehensible, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The cast was pretty stellar, though (Julianne Moore and Jason Robards, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Walters, Melinda Dillon, Phillip Baker Hall, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly…). Tom Cruise was in it too. (more…)

Until last week, I had absolutely no interest in Avatar. I’m not a James Cameron hater. I still think Aliens is one of the best action-adventure movies ever made. The first two Terminator movies were cool. I even thought Titanic was just fine. It did not make a huge lifelong impression on me, but for the 12 1/2 hours I was in the theater, I remember being interested in what was happening. Spoiler alert: the boat sinks.

That being said, Avatar just did not look good to me. Three words: blue cat people. I’m all for computer animation if it involves adorable Pixar characters, but I have yet to see anyone convincingly combine CGI characters and people characters. I mean, I guess that’s why people were so pumped about this in the first place, because Cameron was assumed to be the first person who was able to do it properly. But then the previews came out, and the blue cat people looked like bad video game animation. So I wrote it off as a movie I would not be attending. Until the rave reviews started coming in, and I decided that I didn’t want to be left out of the conversation at the water cooler. Even though I am the only one in my office right now and the only person who would try to talk to me about Avatar at the water cooler was me. Also, someone else bought tickets for me. (more…)

So – here is my contribution to the Awkward Press end-of-the-year Top Ten blowout. Given that Jeffrey requested we pick a topic near and dear to our hearts, I went ahead and came up with the Top Ten Horror Movies of 2009 That You Probably Didn’t See. Considering most of the horror movies you probably did see in the theatres this year were absolutely dreadful (Orphan, The Fourth Kind, Saw VI, Drag Me To Hell, The Collector, The Final Destination, Friday the 13th, Halloween II, Sorority Row, The Unborn, The Uninvited), with the potential exception of the box office phenom of Paranormal Activity – chances are, you haven’t seen or even heard of the following horror movies. Unless you’re a total horror film geek like me.

10. THE BURROWERS
Written and directed by J.T. Petty.
(Watch the preview here.)

J.T. Petty is one of those filmmakers that seems to volley between making interesting, complex, thought-provoking horror films (such as the amazing S@Man) and bizarro mainstream direct-to-DVD sequels (such as the unnecessary Mimic: Sentinel). The Burrowers is somewhere in between – a Tremors-inspired western yarn, complete with shades of Pitch Black and Young Guns thrown in for good measure. While the movie suffers in the center, it is most definitely a fun film that prefers patience over cheap thrills. Considering Petty is a compatriot to such New York-based indie-horror filmmakers as Ti West and Larry Fessenden, it’s exciting to think what scares he’ll be coming up with next year. (more…)

According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly semi-regular feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Jeffrey:

It’s difficult for me to understand why so many people have such animosity for Wes Anderson. Read the comments on any review of The Fantastic Mr. Fox and you’ll find half a dozen variations on the phrase, “He hasn’t done anything worthwhile since The Royal Tenenbaums.” For those of you keeping score at home, the “nothing worthwhile” in this comment refers to two movies (out of a five film career): The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited. I’ll agree, The Darjeeling Limited was a waste of everyone’s time and should promptly be forgotten. But this is only because Anderson ignored the first rule of filmmaking in the official Filmmakers Guide to Making Films: do not let Jason Schwartzman collaborate on your screenplay. Anderson can be forgiven for making this rookie mistake because from what I hear, he ripped up his Filmmakers Guide to Making Films years ago and replaced it with lollipops.

Anderson’s greatest claim to fame may be his introduction of the word “whimsical” to the handbook of movie reviewers’ derogatives. I’m not sure how he came to embody the essence of whimsy, because a surface glance at any of his films reveals a deep undercurrent of sadness. Bottle Rocket ends with one of the main characters getting sent to prison. In Rushmore, no one ends up particularly happy. Hackman dies in The Royal Tenenbaums and Luke Wilson engages in one of the gnarliest suicide attempts I’ve ever seen captured on film. In The Darjeeling Limited, everyone’s an asshole and the movie sucks. The only one that actually fits the characterization of pure whimsy to me is The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and that’s garnering Anderson some of the biggest raves of his career. So go figure.
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According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Mike:

When we last left The Awkward Movie Challenge, Jeffrey and I were caught in a bitter, blood-spewing, movie-critiquing apocalypse over Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, a film most likely never intended to stir up such mutual loathing between close friends. Since then, Jeffrey flew out to the East Coast for the express purpose of discussing his feelings with me in person. Yes, there were tears, hateful words were spoken, punches were thrown (as was dinnerware), but there were also words of forgiveness… and a fair amount of cuddling. Now that the scales have been set level again, Jeffrey and I are ready to continue delivering those movie challenges you crave the way a junkie craves plunging a syringe into his scrotum to deliver that sweet, sweet fix.

We’ve decided that David Lynch’s cult classic Blue Velvet (1986) would be the perfect film to kiss and make up to. Lynch is my personal favorite director (some might accuse me of being a bit obsessed, but those people probably just know me very, very well), and I believe that Jeffrey has described Blue Velvet as his all-time favorite film (correct me if I’m incorrect, Dinz). So what, you ask, is the point of evaluating a film that both of us unconditionally love and I’ve been writing about ever since I was a college undergrad constantly inventing new ways to shoe-horn David Lynch references into my term papers? I don’t know. Perhaps the problem is that you ask too many fucking questions. I recommend you sit back and just allow the cool waves of fawning to wash over you like a lilting mountain breeze.

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According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Jeffrey:

August 24th marks the 30th anniversary of Rock n’ Roll High School, the movie that is best known for introducing the world to beloved film star Clint Howard. Also, some band called the Ramones is in it. The three principal Ramones (Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee) have sadly passed on to that great Gabba Gabba in the sky, but, luckily, director Allan Arkush had the smarts to preserve the young pinheads in celluloid for future generations to enjoy. It would’ve been nice if the film he constructed around them wasn’t painfully unfunny, but I suppose we have to take what we can get.

Rock n’ Roll High School centers around the struggle between Miss Togar (Mary Woronov), principal of Vince Lombardi High, and Riff Randall (P.J. Soles), “rock n’ roller.” After a brief introductory scene in which we meet school brain Kate Rambeau (Dey Young) and football star Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten), we join Miss Togar in a school board meeting. While Miss Toger is informing the school board of her intentions to clean up the school, Riff hijacks the P.A. system and welcomes everyone to “Rock n’ Roll High School.” Which is really just Vince Lombardi High School with rock songs on the P.A. The crowd goes wild, because they think she’s going to play some Grand Funk Railroad.

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According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Unfortunately, this week Jeffrey is being a very, very small baby, and he says he does not have time to provide his contribution, so Mike is taking over the Awkward Movie Challenge, making it considerably less challenging, but a whole lot more awkward.

Mike:

In many ways, I’m a sad specimen. When Gremlins debuted in theaters 25 years ago this past June 8th (the same day as Ghostbusters, incidentally), my friend from down the block asked me if I wanted to see it with his family. I backed out because… well, I was a great big chicken (for more evidence of that, check out the regular feature Things That Scare Me on my site Psychobabble). I was not fooled by that fluffy Gizmo thing being hawked at the local Toys ‘R Us. I knew that he was just the cutesy-pie bait used to lure impressionable 10-year olds like me into some sort of traumatizing orgy of disemboweling and face-slashing.

When I finally saw Gremlins after it debuted on HBO a year later, I didn’t find it particularly horrifying, although I did find it to be highly entertaining. Still, I wasn’t completely wrong in my initial assumption that Gremlins might be disturbing; I was only wrong in thinking it contained material that would disturb me (I was more frightened of humanoid creatures than the kinds of scaly beasties in this film, and I lived in terror of seeing any kind of graphic eviscerating).

An assortment of Gremlins merch.

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According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Jeffrey:

2009 is a spectacular year for 25th anniversaries, because 1984 was a spectacular year for movies. Besides Purple Rain, which we discussed last week, it is also the year that brought us Ghostbusters and Gremlins (to be discussed next week). In fact, not only did the last two movies come out in the same year, they came out on the same damn day: June 8, 1984. What a glorious, glorious day to be a 9 year old boy, which is what I was, at the movie theater, trying to decide which one I should see first.

In addition to Purple Rain, Ghostbusters, and Gremlins 1984 also brought us Footloose (February 17), Repo Man and This is Spinal Tap (March 2), Splash (March 9), Police Academy (March 23), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (May 1), 16 Candles (May 4), Bachelor Party (June 19), The Karate Kid (June 22), Revenge of the Nerds (July 20), The Terminator (October 26), A Nightmare on Elm Street and Stop Making Sense (November 16), and the top-grossing film of the year, Beverly Hills Cop (December 5). Not to mention The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (August 15), both Breakin’ (May 4) and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (December 21), The Neverending Story (July 20), Romancing the Stone (March 30), and Tim Burton’s first major(ish) effort, Frankenweenie (December 1). Nearly every month of 1984 saw the release of an iconic film that has lived on in cinematic history. Was it the best year for film ever? I have no idea. I just spent 30 minutes on IMDB looking up those dates and I’m not venturing back in for a comparison. But in terms of quality mainstream Hollywood movies that have stood the test of time, I doubt you’re going to find too many years to rival that one.

Now, please note that I use the phrase “stood the test of time” loosely. Very few of these movies stand the test of time in the way that, say, The Godfather or Chinatown stands the test of time. But there is undoubtedly something compelling about them that keeps us watching. Is it mere nostalgia? Or are these movies actually good? In some cases, there’s no question: Stop Making Sense is one of the best music documentaries of all time, and This Is Spinal Tap is the movie that both defined the mockumentary genre and surpasses pretty much every effort since. In other cases, the quality of the film is so overshadowed by its place in culture that it becomes very difficult to look at it with fresh eyes.

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From the IMDB description of the new movie A Perfect Getaway:

Cliff and Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are an adventurous young couple …

Stop! Stop right there. That’s all I need to know. Well done, IMDB. 13 words!

According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Mike:

This past June 24th marked the twenty fifth anniversary of the greatest soundtrack ever recorded specifically for a movie. Man oh man, is Purple Rain ever an amazing soundtrack! “When Doves Cry”? That song is awesome. “Let’s Go Crazy”? Even awesomer, especially when Prince gets all Hendrixy at the end of the song. “Take Me With U”? Holy shit, that song is so awesome they don’t even have a word to describe it (you could probably describe it by calling it “Really, really, really awesome,” but that’s four words). “The Beautiful Ones”? “Baby, I’m a Star”? “I Would Die 4 U”? Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yes, there is no doubt about it; Purple Rain is one totally awesome record. Case closed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the movie for which the Purple Rain soundtrack was recorded (did I mention how awesome that soundtrack is?), which celebrated its own twenty fifth anniversary this past Monday. Purple Rain: the Movie stars Prince as “The Kid”, a wunderkind musician who lives in his parents’ basement and creates music deemed too weird for First Avenue, the Minneapolis club where Morris Day and the Time draw huge crowds by playing music almost exactly like that of The Kid and his band, the Revolution. Except it’s not as good. The Kid meets aspiring singer Apollonia, falls in love with her, and lets her know this by tricking her into jumping naked into a lake. In Minneapolis. In the winter. Shooting her in the back would have been an equally romantic valentine, but then I guess we wouldn’t have gotten to see her boobs. Despite The Kid’s sadism, Apollonia is unable to resist the pubic hairs glued to his chest (or his purple pirate costume… or his Batgirl Cycle…), so she buys him a guitar. When Morris Day gets wind of the budding ingénue, he swoops in to turn her into his personal protégé. The Kid reacts to this news by punching Apollonia in the face.

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