Moviephile

All right, this is totally cheap of me to pass this off as a blog, but I’m going to take this chance to share with you a bit of claymation that my brother made - because I love it. Enjoy.

You might have heard of the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.  These are a pair of excellently funny British films that I might have talked about on other occasions. (If not, expect more on them in the future.)

Although I have a lot of respect for the writer/performers of these films (Nick Frost and Simon Pegg) I haven’t followed British comedy news since 1999… It’s a long story. Anyway, the point of this rambling commentary is that because I haven’t followed British comedy since 1999, I had no idea that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost got their start on a BBC sitcom called Spaced. (In 1999.)

I got introduced to this over Christmas break. My parents, actually, had the entire series (14 episodes or so) on DVD. They told us it was funny, and invited us to watch one episode. We watched one. Then another. Then another.

We watched the first season in one night. When we got back from Christmas break we promptly placed the second disc (the last seven episodes) on Netflix, got it right away, and watched the rest.

The formula is this: Tim (Simon Pegg) and Daisy (Jessica Hynes) are a pair of strangers who meet in a restaurant and are both looking for a place to live. They spot an ad for a likely apartment -the problem is, the owner requires that the tennants be a “Professional Couple”. So Tim and Daisy pretend to be a couple and move in, and must maintain the fiction of couplehood to maintain their lease.

At least, that’s the plot of the first two or three episodes - but saying that’s what the show is about would be a gross understatement. Sometimes the series is about Tim and Daisy struggling with their separate relationships (Tim recently got dumped, Daisy gets dumped not long after the beginning of the series); sometimes it is about them struggling with their careers (Daisy wants to be a writer, Tim a comic book artist); sometimes it is about their dog; sometimes it is about their neighbors; sometimes it is about being a young person and shirking responsibility; sometimes it is about pop culture.  Pop culture is almost a star of this series in itself. There are a million and one references to pop culture - from Scooby Doo to Murder She Wrote.

The funny thing is that almost every character on this show is reprehensible in some way, yet you find yourself sympathizing with them each step of the way. The creators described it as “a cross between The Simpsons, The X-Files and Northern Exposure .” (All three of those shows - Northern Exposure especially - were favorites of mine as a young person; perhaps that explains why I loved this show so much… But don’t take my word for it. Here’s the first episode for you.)

I hate reviews where the person just repeat unquantifiable things like, “It’s really good” or “It’s hilarious”. Yes, it is both those things, but I can’t explain why at the moment, so let me cogitate on this for a while. I watched this entire series in two evenings, it’s a bit of a blurr… I think I need to contemplate it for a while before I discuss it anymore.

I think I’ll talk about Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz next, and then maybe I’ll try discussing Spaced again and see if anything changed.

I believe I already mentioned the fact that my in-laws bought me a trip to see Cinematic Titanic Live for my birthday earlier this month. It was delightful. For my full review of that show (typos and all) visit the official MST3k fan site.

The movie featured at that performance was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - a movie that was previously performed by MST3k; a “somewhat controversial” choice on their part.  I still don’t know why Cinematic Titanic decided to choose a movie that the exact same people (minus J. Elvis) had already made fun of once… Can it possibly have been some kind of complex, well-thought out move to simultaneously connect to their old fans while distancing themselves from their old work? Or was it just that they were able to get this movie really, really cheap? (Hmmm….)

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a poorly made Sci-Fi/Christmas film. The plot is this: the children of Mars have forgotten how to have fun, so a handful of Martians go down to Earth and kidnap Santa with the idea that Santa’s Christmas magic and toys will bring joy back to Martian kids. The best thing I can say about this movie is that it has a kicky little theme song (”Hooray for Santy Claus!”)

Anyway, as I said, I received a trip to the live show for my birthday, and it was lovely. However, fortuitously, I also received the DVD of their riff on said movie. I took it home and watched it with my parents on St. Stephen’s Day. Hense, two viewings of the Cinematic Titanic version of the film.

However, I also have a DVD of the original MST3k riff, and it seemed a shame to pass it over for the sake of its Cinematic Titanic progeny… so when Mr. Hall and I visited his parents, we watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. That makes three viewings.

Then when we got home from our vacation yesterday we discovered we had a Christmas present from a friend, Miss Landis. We opened it up - and found that she (knowing how we enjoy watching bad movies) has given us the un-MST3k’d, un-Cinmatic Titanic’d, RAW version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

I’ve never actually seen this movie without a humorous commentary running over it - so I daresay this spells one more (a FOURTH!) viewing of the film before the end of the holiday season.

Did I mention lately that in addition to having the best husband ever, I also have the best in-laws ever?

My birthday is coming up on the 7th (the day that lives in infamy, don’t you know). Well, when I got home from work yesterday I discovered a birthday card from my in-laws. I opened it and found a folded piece of paper. “Hm,” I remarked to myself. “Looks not unlike a ticket confirmation of some kind.”

It was. It was a confirmation of two tickets, for myself and my husband, for an upcoming local, live performance of CINEMATIC TITANIC!!!

… No, it’s not a band. If you aren’t up on my previous posts, this bears a little explanation: my favorite TV show was Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3k was a “theater” show (in the tradition of shows like Svengoolie and Elvira) where a B or C-grade movie is shown and then mocked; however, MST3k took the step of actually having the hosts present throughout the entire movie and mocking the entire thing. MST3k was on for ten years, then got cancelled. The cast has gone on to other projects… including, but not only, Cinematic Titanic.

Cinematic Titanic is not a TV show, but direct-to-DVD (or download) releases - although it has essentially the same format as MST3k. The hosts (all of the writers of the show - all five of them - are hosts on this show) are outlines on the bottom of the screen, present throughout the entire crappy movie, mocking it constantly.  What fun.

However, in an unusual move, the cast is touring. They are doing live versions of the show on DVD. I found out a couple months ago that they are coming to Chicago for several performances this month. I sadly decided I would not be able to attend due to tight finances, and there it sat.

UNTIL I OPENED MY BIRTHDAY CARD LAST NIGHT!! I am so excited. I’ve already met half of the cast of MST3k (the Sci-Fi channel years) - but I haven’t met the Comedy Central years cast, i.e. Joel, Frank, Trace, Josh, etc (the Cinematic Titanic cast) so I’m very excited.

And yes, I have superb in-laws, in case I didn’t mention that already.

Now, don’t get me wrong when you see the title of this post: I love the movie A Christmas Story. It delights me on many different levels. However, I am completely perplexed as to why my generation (think people in their 20’s and 30’s, i.e. small tots when the movie was originally released) have embraced it so.

How do I know they have embraced it? Well, apart from the observation of my own eyes, this headline met my notice this morning:
‘Christmas Story’ fans celebrate film’s 25th year
Well? It turns out they’re holding a convention around the movie - 4000 people are booked to attend. Four-thousand people? I’ve seen elections that didn’t get as good a turn-out.

In case you haven’t seen A Christmas Story, it’s a Christmas story (yeah, yeah) based on the short, humorous essays of author Jean Shepherd. Jean Shepherd actually narrates the film, discussing the incidents therein. It’s all about “Little Ralphie” and his desire for the Christmas present of a “Red Ryder BB-gun” - and the various other Christmas adventures he encounters. It takes place in the 1940’s. It’s obviously a rather low-budget film, but features excellent performances.

Okay, this is what perplexes me. Why did my generation (people born in the mid seventies to mid eighties) embrace this movie about a childhood so utterly removed from our own? 1940’s? That’s like my grandparents’ era. My generation barely even likes to watch movies made before 2001. So why have we whole-heartedly embraced this movie about a Christmastime that is so utterly foreign to anything we might have experienced?

I don’t know. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that it is so foreign… Kind of a “The Christmas That Never Was” kind of thing. Or maybe it’s our idealized version of what Christmas should be. Or maybe it’s simply the fact that there has been a near-complete dearth of good Christmas movies during the past twenty-to-thirty years. (Disagree? Think about it - the only “good” Christmas movies I can name that came out during that time are this, Ernest Saves Christmas and Elf . That’s barely one a decade! Not even to mention the fact that some people would debate whether those two can be classified as “good”!)

I don’t know. I still don’t know.

I know this is a bad note to end on… but I just don’t know why this movie has been so embraced by my generation. Any thoughts? Watch it and let me know.

I don’t know how it originally came up in conversation, or what train of thought led to me remembering the conversation… but I recently recalled an episode where I was relating to my husband how I had watched the Uncle Buck sitcom (spin-off of the film Uncle Buck) when I was a child. Mr. Hall, in his inimitable fashion, claimed that I was making it up and that no such sitcom existed (especially after I related that the concept of the show was that the parents of the children in the film were killed in a car accident, hence Uncle Buck moving in as their full-time caretaker).

I seem to have a habit of having watched shows that no one else in the world remembers. However, I know this show existed, so (inspired by whatever train of thought had recalled the conversation to me in the first place) the other evening I did a search on YouTube for the opening credits of the show.

I found them.

(Please note, after the opening of Uncle Buck are the opening credits for several other shows as well: apparently the gentleman who posted this posted the opening credits for all the “1990 TV Show openings” that he could find… enough to fill up ten parts. Thank you, sir, whoever you are! You have provided me with hours of nostalgic entertainment - and also reminded me of “back in the day” when there was actually an entire night of television every week that I looked forward to watching.)

Anyway, the Uncle Buck TV show existed, and I am vindicated and glad.  Well, kind of glad. I recalled the show rather fondly, yet this opening looks incredibly, horribly, cheesy.

Not to mention that the premise of the show (that the children’s parents have died in a car accident) is rather horrible, and even the opening of the show presumes that none of the main characters learned any lessons from the incidents of the film.

The film? Well, in case you haven’t seen that, Uncle Buck is a classic John Hughes film, and a tour-de-force for John Candy. In it, the parents of a dysfunctional (but stuck-up) family are called away for an emergency, and their low-class brother (Uncle Buck) comes to watch the kids. The teenage daughter is going through a “difficult” phase and they give each other hell; it’s a painful and yet hilarious movie, and very heartfelt. Mr. Hall and I re-watched it last night and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The TV show, however, looks as though it was a rather poor imitation of the latter. I was rather surprised to read the Wikipedia entry and discover that, no, it was not canceled because it was awful; it was canceled because it lost viewers after being moved from Monday nights to Friday. Oh well! I can’t really slam it because I watched (and, as I recall, enjoyed it) at the time. However, I was about eleven then, and can’t speak for my then sense of taste. (If it ever comes out on DVD I’ll have to pick it up and tell you how it fares nowadays…)

Time to haul out your long red robes and glowing orbs: it’s Life Day, kiddies, better known as the anniversary of the first (and only) broadcast of the little known Star Wars Holiday Special. Today has special significance, though, because not only is this the anniversary - today is the 30th anniversary.

In case you don’t know what this is: the Star Wars Holiday Special was released during the holiday season following the release of the first (the REAL first) Star Wars movie. It was apparently written by a handful of people who had never seen Star Wars and simply heard that it was “some kids’ movie about robots and crap”… and they went on from there, styling a semi-sci-fi themed variety special, featuring popular comedians and singers of the day - including Art Carney, Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, and so on.  It has something of a plot: Han Solo is trying to get Chewbacca back to Chewie’s home planet for “Life Day” (Wookie Chirstmas, apparently). Surprisingly, the original cast of Star Wars also appears in this during the “plotted” segments - including an overly eye-makeup’d Mark Hammil, an obviously stoned Carrie Fisher, and a very angry looking Harrison Ford.

(Yes, this really exists. When I first heard about it six years ago, I didn’t believe the person who was telling me about it. I thought it was made up. I thought, “How could they possibly have made something like that? That’s ridiculous!” What a poor, sad, innocent fool I was.)

You know, I’ve seen some bad movies in my time. I’ve seen some real bad movies. But this is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever seen. The first time I watched it I immediately made up my mind that it was going on my list of films NEVER TO EVER WATCH AGAIN. Ever. (Along with The Man With Two Brains, Modern Problems and Nothing But Trouble.)

However, I have watched it again - probably six or seven times, maybe more - partly because of its truly extraordinary badness, but also because it makes you feel like part of a select club when you watch it. There is no such thing as an “official copy” of this film. It is so bad that George Lucas had the master copy destroyed; it only exists in bootleg form from copies taped off TV when it was broadcast. Mr. Lucas has been quoted as saying, “If I had the time, and a hammer, I would track down every bootleg copy and smash it.”

And if you’ve seen Episode One, you know it takes a lot to embarrass George Lucas.

Sadly for Mr. Lucas, it would be nigh-on impossible to track down every copy now. Happily for us true-believers, you can usually find one on Ebay, and can watch most of the special in 10-minute chunks on YouTube. (And, for you fans of MST3k, you can download a commentary for this film by Rifftrax. It is absolutely hilarious, although due to the fact that all the bootlegs are somewhat different, it’s somewhat difficult to keep it sync’d up to the film. Totally worth it, though. We watched it last Christmas and laughed ourselves silly.)

So, in honor of Life Day, track yourself down a copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Become a part of this exclusive club. However, I’m warning you… at times your mouth is going to be hanging open in pure horror - and I am so not kidding about that.

While we’re on the topic of movies you should probably see, you should probably see the film UHF if you haven’t already. This is what is generally considered a “cult” movie - a film that didn’t do terribly well when it was released but has gathered a devoted following in the ensuing years.

UHF is about a guy named George who is more or less a failure at life because of his contstant daydreaming (a-la Walter Mitty). Unexpectedly, George is given the chance to run a small UHF station by his uncle - and the hilarity ensues. This film starred and was written by music-comedy-sensation Weird Al Yankovic.

The reason this film didn’t do well is two-fold. The first problem it had was that it was released at a time when it had to compete against Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Batman, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (i.e. its competition were huge summer blockbusters).

The second part of the reason why it didn’t enjoy more success is that I think a lot of people just didn’t know what to make of it. The humor in this movie is a combination of the bizarre, the outright childish and goofy, and clever parody which are the hallmark of Weird Al’s comedy style. It’s very reminiscent of the very early issues of Mad Magazine (which Al has mentioned were a comedy influence). And I have a feeling that a lot of the people who went to see this movie didn’t get it, thought it was weird and dumb and thumbed their noses at it.

In fact, I can state categorically that this is how some people reacted. My parents rented that movie on VHS shortly after it came out; they were perplexed and disgusted with it and returned it hastily. I (still in the single-digit age group at the time) had no say in the matter - I only remember being somewhat scared of some claymation effects at the end of the movie.

So why am I recommending this movie to you? Because, like a fine wine, this film seems to have gotten better with age. I was reintroduced to it by my husband when we were dating, and I was surprised (and delighted) to discover that it was hilarious. Oddly, when my parents watched it with us, they liked it too. Perhaps it was us that got better with age… Or perhaps it was simply the fact that our sensibilities had been hardened by the 1990’s and we no longer found claymation frightening.

However, I’m getting off my point, which was that despite its unenthusiastic reception by the public at its release, UHF actually did quite well on tape; its audience, no longer distracted with Indiana Jones or Batman, finally found it. It was popular enough that when it was finally released on DVD, it was decked out with all sorts of extras including a commentary by Weird Al. A commentary, I might add, which is so hilarious that I think I have watched the film with commentary just as much as I’ve watched it without. Yes, it’s that good.

So, anyway, put this movie in your queue and prepare yourself for smart, dumb, goofy bizarreness - and a bit of Weird Al’s signature music. Oh, by the way, in case you’re wondering why I called this film”Oft-Maligned” - it’s because of what I mentioned earlier about people not understanding and thumbing their noses. It’s amazing how, if something is funny, people will simply dismiss it. Mr. Yankovic is a very intelligent man and a lot of thought goes into the works that he produces; just because something features “dumb” humor doesn’t make it dumb.

So watch UHF . And then tell me what you think of it. I’d really like to hear from somebody who doesn’t like it so that I can figure out what is the dividing line between someone who likes Weird Al’s comedy and somebody who hates it.

We have watched two more James Bond movies since I last wrote, and no, we did not go to see the new one today: Mr. Hall had to work all day, and I certainly am not going to go to the movies by myself. (That would just be weird.) So we won’t be seeing that one until Tuesday.

However, rather than write yet another blog about James Bond movies (if you don’t care about them you’re probably getting pretty tired of that at this point) I decided I would recommend a movie for you today.

If you haven’t seen it, a movie you should put in your rental queue is this: Time Bandits. This movie was penned by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame); it is the story of an adventurous boy stuck in a drab, boring British home, and how he gets caught up in an adventure that drags him through time and space to a final climactic battle between good and evil. It’s sci-fi, it’s fantasy, it’s adventure, it’s comedy, it’s historical, it’s mythic.

And it’s funny. And has special appearances by John Cleese, Sean Connery, Michael Palin (surprise!) - as well as David Warner as Evil. Can you ask for a better recommendation than that? No, I don’t think that you can.

As a holiday, I love Thanksgiving: what’s better than a day entirely focused on counting your blessings and food? However, the day has its problems: one of which is that there just aren’t enough Thanksgiving movies.

How many can you think of off-hand? Okay. Let me count. 1… maybe 2, wait, no…. uh….

I can think of ONE Thanksgiving movie.

There are movies that feature Thanksgiving that I am not counting. Holiday Inn features Thanksgiving prominently at one point - but it also features lots of holidays prominently. It’s Holiday Inn, for pete’s sake. Miracle on 34th Street begins on Thanksgiving - but the focus of the film is Christmas.

There’s A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, but I’m not counting that as a movie because it was made for TV and it’s only 25 minutes long. Mr. Hall likes to watch Nightmare Before Christmas at Thanksgiving, because it (for him) marks the transition from Halloween Time to Christmas Time - but it must be said, it is not about Thanksgiving.

Which brings us back to the ONE Thanksgiving movie: Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

I’ll discuss this movie later at some point when I can do it justice - possibly around Thanksgiving (it would make sense). But seriously! This is the only movie I can think of that is focused on Thanksgiving! You’d think that as a national “we don’t have to go to work” holiday it would at least out-strip Groundhog Day for movies (I mean, if you get right down to it, Groundhog Day is about as important as “Talk Like A Pirate Day” to your average citizen), but as far as I can see… it doesn’t.

If you know of another Thanksgiving movie - let me know. Because this is just ridiculous.