A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014)

Russian title:
“A Fucking Christmas Miracle”

Directed by: Tristram Shapeero
Written by: Michael Brown
Starring: Joel McHale, Robin Williams, Candice Bergen
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes

Pre-Conceived Notions: Logging on to Rotten Tomatoes to yoink the poster for this site, I noticed that the critics panned this film, and the viewing audience agreed. Then to get the introductory elements ready for the post, the words, “Candice Bergen as Donna” made me cringe. There’s something about the name Donna sans last name that just screams “This is a bad movie! Ex-patriate now while it’s not too late!”. I didn’t even recognize her at all watching the trailer.

But it looks like this will be one of Robin Williams’ last movie roles, and for that reason I hope the movie is at least decent. With such a towering movie career behind him, I want him go to out with a triumph instead of a meh. Because that would make things even more tragic.

But with the weak premise, and the addition of the hobo Santa, I’m afraid Rotten Tomatoes and the viewing public may be right about this one.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: Because it was released this month. And yet again, I didn’t know of its existence until 2 hours ago. That’s a good enough reason, I think.

Bit-O-Trivia from the IMDb page: This is Robin Williams’ first and only Christmas movie.

1 hour, 28 minutes later…: I’m not going to mince words, here, not only because it’s late and I need all the strength I can get holiday shopping tomorrow, but I really shouldn’t be trusted with knives. And my jokes are getting worse by the minute.

I didn’t hate this film. It was very low-budget, and the writing seemed to be more geared toward episodic formats, but, by and large, it wasn’t horrible. That being said, I didn’t absolutely love the film, either.

But I can’t put my finger on why I didn’t love the film. I think it was because the acting was half-hearted? I didn’t buy Robin Williams as the hard-hearted degenerate father, and I didn’t buy that Candice Bergen would stay with someone like that. And she didn’t even look like herself. She looked kinda old and matronly.

And even though the writing wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t super good, either. It was like the writer got the idea of writing this film after binge watching a whole bunch of Christmas movies and made a list. “Okay… it would be cool if we had a drunken hobo Santa. And what if one of the cousins was a champion speed eater? Oh! And then the grouchy dad could be a Port-a-John dealer! Yeah, that’s it, and then who doesn’t love an inept cop? And Bea Arthur paintings! And people falling out of attics. Oh, this is going to be good!” Rinse, repeat, put in blender, and dump into a screenplay. Boom. Movie.

If you didn’t take it too seriously, though, the movie served its purpose. I laughed. My mother and her partner laughed. It was what it was.

Final Thoughts: Despite trying really hard to be funny, the writing was like something out of a freshman screenwriting class. But grade-A actors took it and did what they could with it, and turned it into something quirky. But, with the right network behind it, and a team of script doctors smoothing out the rough edges, it could be a really cute show. Something like a Modern Family. 3 out of 6 slices of pizza that you forgot to put in the fridge, but it still tastes good in the morning, so you eat it anyway.

Love and Other Drugs (2010)

German title:
“Side Effects Included”

Directed by: Edward Zwick
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt

Written by: Charles Randolph, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz 

Running Time: I hour, 52 minutes
Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: For a long time, this movie was not on my radar. It was just one of those quirky rom-coms in the ebb and flow of quirky rom-coms, like Along Came Polly or Friends with Benefits, or anything Meg Ryan has ever done. It wasn’t until I joined Phamaly, a theater group for people with disabilities in Denver, Colorado, that my interest was piqued. I found out that one of my cast mates in the production I was in, Lucy Roucis, had a pretty significant scene in this film as the stand up comedian with Parkinson’s disease. Since that production last year, I’ve been fortunate to work with Lucy again, and count her as a friend.

It’s always weird to see a friend in a movie or a TV show, because your brain switches from the reality of the thing you’re watching to, “Oh, look! I know them!” and it kind of takes you out of it. But you’re still super proud of that friend and you have one more name to put in that bag of names for when yet another name dropping fight breaks out.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I’ll tell you what I told my friend (who was an extra in a Bollywood movie once) the other night at trivia: There’s a reason I have a movie review blog entitled No, I Really Haven’t Seen That One. Stop Laughing.

Bit-O-Trivia from the IMDb Trivia Page: “At one point, director Edward Zwick jumped into bed with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal for a group shot. This shot was used for the film’s poster, with Zwick digitally removed.”

1 hour, 52 minutes (and a little more) later…: Okay. Despite having my DVD player screw up three times, and having to reboot my computer 3 times and then paying $2.99 for the Amazon Prime version of the movie (this is how much I love you, the 6 people who read this blog), I really liked this movie.

I have to say that I related to this movie on many different levels. Right off the bat, being the grandson of a medical doctor growing up and getting various Christmas presents with prescription drug advertisements printed on them through the years, it kind of made me miss my childhood a little bit. And seeing the way the film talks about the commodification of illness kind of made me sick to my stomach. It’s like the drug companies aren’t out to find cures for illnesses. They’re corporations. All they care about is profits, and pushing pills. Anyway, this blog isn’t a soapbox for how screwed up our health care system is, so I’ll move on.

I can’t speak for other people, I can only speak for myself, but this film really struck a chord with me that I think I share with every physically handicapped person out there if they have Parkinson’s or cerebral palsy or whatever. And that is the worry about being adequate in a relationship. Why would anyone want to be in a relationship with someone with mobility issues? So, I saw a lot of myself in Anne Hathaway’s character, which I never expected with this movie.

…and then I saw my friend appear out of nowhere and do a standup routine. It was great to see her way back then, doing some of the jokes I’ve heard her do a couple times since I met her. I didn’t know her during the time she made the movie, and it gave me a real insight to how resilient a lady she is. Her Parkinson’s may have progressed since then, but she still has a devastating sense of humor, and a smile that will knock you off your feet. But there is one thing that I didn’t get in her stand up: One of the things she says is, “Fuck brushing your teeth.” Call me ignorant or whatever, but I would think Parkinson’s would make brushing your teeth a little easier. Maybe not. But I totally get the soup thing.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway were amazing, as per usual. Gyllenhaal played a pitch perfect egomaniac and Hathaway made your heart break over and over as her character was fighting to accept the hand that life dealt her. And kudos to Josh Gad who was the perfect comic relief as the socially awkward little brother.

Final Thoughts: I take back what I said about this movie being a rom-com in an endless stream of rom-coms. This is so much more than that. This movie dares to discuss the intricacies of dating and having a relationship for people with disabilities. I know a lot of other movies do that, but this one was different. Anne Hathaway didn’t die at the end. She understood that she could have a relationship and accept her disability at the same time. I’m pretty impressed that Hollywood would make a movie like that. One of the only problems I had with the movie is he unsatisfying resolution of the Trey Hannigan character. Randall really should have punched his lights out towards the end or something. But that’s my only gripe. 5.5 slices of pizza.

M*A*S*H (1970)

Turkish title:
“At the Front Entertainment”

Directed by: Robert Altman

Written by: Ring Lardner, Jr.

Starring: Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Tom Skeritt, Sally Kellerman
Running Time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: The only real clip I’ve seen of this film is the shower prank scene, the one where a naked and wet Sally Kellerman runs out of the shower and screams. I have no context for the scene, but that’s the one scene that sticks out in my mind. And, being a child of the ’80s, I of course, am familiar with all the characters. It’ll be kind of weird to watch Donald Sutherland in the role of Hawkeye, but I’m sure my mind will gloss over it in time.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: The TV series was more than enough to get my Korean war-centric sitcom fix as a child.
Bit-O-Trivia: Robert Altman’s son wrote the featured song in this movie entitled Suicide is Painless, which made him a millionaire within a year, and became the theme song to the television series later on.

1 hour, 56 minutes later…: First off, I want to comment on the helicopters in the opening montage. Is that how they used to transport soldiers in need of medical attention? On the outside of the helicopters? Weren’t they afraid of gusts of wind, or slippage if the copter were to pitch too severely? I wonder how many people were lost in wars by just falling off the side of a helicopter. If you’re bored, there’s something to google at home, folks!

Okay. This is a movie review, so I guess I should review the movie. I’m going to start off by saying that it’s kinda impossible to review the movie without comparing the film with the series, since the series was a major part of my childhood, so I’m just going to do that. It was very interesting to see what elements of the film crossed over in the series:

• The whole tone of the movie centering around the hijinks of Hawkeye, Trapper John, and Duke Forrest. The juxtaposition between the humor taking place outside of the OR and the gravity of things inside is probably the thing I remember most of the series, so it was nice to see the film had that same tone.
• The relationship between Hotlips and Frank Burns. I had never known how Margaret O’Houlihan got her nickname, so it was definitely an eyeopener for me. And a great question for Dirty Trivial Pursuit! Although, I was surprised that the Frank Burns character was much more villainous in the film than in the television show. In the television show, Frank Burns was just a character to be pitied, but in the movie, you really hated him. And the coup de grâce was seeing him driven off in a straightjacket by the military police.
• The announcements made over the loud speaker. I thought the bumbling PA announcer was the perfect touch, especially the one where he had a hard time pronouncing the medical terminology. I almost experienced a “femoral puh—, uh, puh— um…” myself watching that scene.

The one thing that bugged me about the movie was Hotlips’ arc. They drove her love interest to insanity, and then they disgraced her in the shower, and yet at the end of the movie, you see her cheering on the football team? She is portrayed to be a bit of an airhead, but even then, I’d think she’d ask for a transfer or something. But Sally Kellerman’s performance was pretty good. She played enraged humiliation perfectly, and totally deserved the Oscar nomination.

Side note: when Tom Skeritt first appeared on screen my initial reaction was, “Jack Nicholson was in M*A*S*H?” And then once the camera could get a close-up, I was like, “Oh. Right. The dude from Picket Fences.”

Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed watching this movie, just to see how they developed the television program from it. Even though it was like watching the alternate universe version of the show, the almost two-and-a-half-hour runtime flew by. 5 out of 6 slices of pizza.

The Exorcist (1973)

Turkish title:
Satan

Director: William Friedkin

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow

Running Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes

Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: Pre-conceived notions about The Exorcist? I am scared shitless to sit down and watch it because I heard so many fantastical things about how creepy it is. It’s so creepy in fact that the physical film itself was thought to be possessed by a demon. Have you seen the IMDb trivia page to this? Friedkin put his actors through hell. Poor Ellen Burstyn suffered a back injury when they yanked her harness really hard during one of the scenes. And Mercedes McCambridge had to do all sorts of crazy things to perform the part of Pazuzu. She swallowed raw eggs and smoked like one of those machines that smoke 20 cigarettes all at once. But the awful part is that she wasn’t in the final credits. Friedkin was kind of a jerk. Not gonna lie. Back on track: I’m really excited to see how this holds up after 41 years. Part of me hopes it does, and part of me doesn’t so I am not actually scared shitless. These are new pants.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: It’s The Exorcist. 

Bit-O-Trivia from the IMDb page: “This is Warner Brothers’ highest grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation.”

2 hours, 2 minutes later…: A couple things before we get into the meat and potatoes of the movie. 1) I really wish they had developed the plot more. It seemed like there were key scenes missing. Like, okay. One minute Regan is a normal 12-year-old girl, then she goes up to bed, and KAPOW! She’s possessed and urinating on the carpet. I mean, come on! Can you build up the suspense just a little bit more? 2) I would really liked to have seen a scene where Burke flies through the window. We get nothing of that. The character of Burke is dead all of a sudden, Ellen Burstyn has an overreaction, and we’re left sitting there thinking, “Who the hell is Burke?” 3) The way the whole exorcism is dealt with. Father Karras keeps saying, “It’s going to take an awful lot of evidence to get an exorcism approved,” and then he gets all this evidence, and he tells Chris that he really doesn’t have a lot of evidence. Cut to he’s meeting the monsignor, cut to the monk delivery service in the woods, cut to they’re doing the exorcism. What? Why mention the difficulty of getting approved when you’re not going to spend a lot of time on it in the film? Maybe all these scenes I’m mentioning were cut and they’re on the DVD. All I can say is that it made for a very choppy film.

The one thing I came away with from this movie was thank the universe I was not alive during the early 70s. Were all those medical procedures authentic? The arteriogram shit that was going on there? Dude. And whatever that other thing was? Double dude. And my hats off to Linda Blair. What she had to go through to make the film was incredible. 75% of her screen time was her tied to a bed in the middle of a refrigerated bedroom set, 25% was her having to go through that freaky-deaky medical stuff, and the remaining 15% was of her being a regular kid.

There were some comedic parts thrown in there, too. Like when Chris MacNeil asks her nanny at the end of the film, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us?” Are you freaking kidding me? Your daughter just went through an exorcism during the course of which 2 priests died (**Spoiler!!**), shit was flying around her room, and freaky stuff happened 24/7. No. She doesn’t want to remain in your employ, you freak of a woman, you.

Final Thoughts: The movie wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be, but I can say with certainty that if I had been a moviegoer in 1973, I’d be scared of split-pea soup for the rest of my life. The sound design was magnificent, and for the time in which it was made, it’s a very impressive bit of cinema. But unfortunately it doesn’t hold up very well. 4 out of 6 slices of pizza.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Swedish title:
“The Poseidon
Catastrophe”

Directed by: Allen Neame

Written by: Paul Gallico, Stirling Silliphant, Wendell Mayes

Starring: Gene Hackman, Red Buttons, Ernest Borgnine

Running Time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

Rating: PG

Pre-Conceived Notions: I am expecting something along the lines of Titanic, but instead of the boat sinking 30 minutes before the end, it starts sinking 30 minutes into the movie. Some people survive; some people don’t, and in the end everyone learns a valuable lesson: Shelley Winters curses every boat she steps foot on. True story.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I have a fear of drowning?

From the IMDb trivia page: [The movie was] shot in sequence, taking advantage of the fact that the principals became dirtier and more tattered and suffered injuries—some real and some artificial—as they progressed.

1 hour, 57 minutes later…: I am completely exhausted. Utterly and completely exhausted. From the time they say, “Happy New Year!” at the beginning, it’s about 1 hour and 45 minutes of the Seven Layers of Hell. And to think that the actors themselves did most of the stunts. I really hope they got paid a whole hell of a lot of money to be put through that kind of physical stress, because, wow. 

Let’s get right into the meat and potatoes of this whole thing: There were characters you loved, namely Gene Hackman’s character, the Reverend, who would never give up no matter what happened to them. Mrs. Rosen, played by Shelley Winters, was a really sweet woman who tried to keep positive throughout the whole ordeal. 

And then there were those characters who you wanted to smack. Mr. Rogo, played very intensely by Ernest Borgnine, who didn’t know when to shut up and was more of a hinderance than a help, and then there was the that singer girl who was the most useless person ever. Every time they’d have to go through an obstacle, she’d crumple up and be useless. I kept shouting at the screen, “Dump her! She’s dead weight! She’s slowing you down!” I’m curious to think what my neighbors were thinking. 

Final Thoughts: A whole pizza. 6 out of 6 slices. I’d love to know if they did a documentary of the filming of this. I mean, there fires raging in the background, gallons of water flooding everywhere, and then all of those tunnels and ladders and stuff they had to climb. Please. Go out and rent this movie. Not only is it feature one of John Williams earliest scores, but you’ll get the experience of being in the ship with them trying to be rescued yourself. 

Big Fish (2003)

Lithuanian title:
My Fish Life

Director: Tim Burton
Written by: John August

Starring: Ewan MacGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup

Running Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Pre-Conceived Notions: From the trailer, I get whimsey. And Danny DeVito with weird hair. And then more whimsey. From what I gather from my friends, it’s a pretty spectacular film. Like, people cry and stuff. I’m not sure if it’s a sob, or one of those cries where your diaphragm spasms and you’re all snotty and shit, but I have a box of Puffs Plus handy just in case, because even OnStar commercials have made me cry in the past, so…

Why I Haven’t Seen This Film: I have no good answer for this, so I’m going to say that up until recently I had an irrational fear of movies that mention sea creatures in their titles, and “fish” is a huge umbrella for sea creatures in general. So, I spent tons of money and got therapy and now I’m cured and can cry into my Puffs Plus with abandon*.

2 hours, 5 minutes later…: This is the movie where the guy who does the priceless MasterCard commercials is sick and tired of his father, Daddy Warbucks, telling the same old fantastical stories about when he used to look like the younger Obi-Wan Kenobi. But I’m not sure why, I mean, I love people who can tell a really good story, no matter how embellished they are. But this movie dealt with a lot more than just tall tales and mind-bending adventure. It really looks at how much our identities are link with the people who came before us. We are how our parents met, and what experiences they had before we had us. We are as much them as we will be to our own children. For several millennia now, our identities are kind of like cotton, i.e. the fabric of our lives.

Like all other Tim Burton movies, this one is loaded to the brim with rich imagery and larger-than-life storytelling. Helena Bonham Carter, a.k.a. Mrs. Burton plays 3 characters that kind of hints at being one character? But maybe I won’t spoil that part for you. It was a little weird. But it is interesting, because she is the only person to have played both the older version and the younger version of herself amongst characters who had both younger and older versions of themselves, apart from her as a little girl. So she’s the connection between the past and the future.

One of my favorite parts of the movie was seeing 7'4" Matthew McGrory tower over 5' Danny DeVito. It was like a Burtonesque replay of a blenderized version of Gulliver’s Travels. One of my least favorite parts of the movie was seeing Danny DeVito’s naked behind. As I was eating lunch. So, if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t watch it while you’re eating lunch.

Final Thoughts: 5 out of 6 slices of pizza. This movie is like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland with hints of Forrest Gump, and is a perfect way to escape the reality of life for a while. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I didn’t cry. THey tried to pull at my heartstrings at the end there, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

*I'm getting no remuneration for mentioning Puffs Plus twi— uh, three times, in this post.

Capote (2005)

Italian title:
“Truman Capote -
In Cold Blood”

Directed by: Bennett Miller

Written by: Dan Futterman, Gerald Clarke

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Clifton Collins, Jr., Catherine Keener

Running Time: 1 hour, 54 minutes

Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: In all honesty, Truman Capote was a little before my time. I’ve only seen one interview with him, (the one he did with David Frost in the ’60s), and that’s all I have to go on as far as the authenticity Philip Seymour Hoffman brings to the role. I like a good biopic, so I’m looking forward to watching this.
Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I gravitate towards comedies. This doesn’t look very funny to me, although I have been wrong about these things before.

1 hour 54 minutes later…: If you’re too young, like I am, to really have a good picture of what Truman Capote acted like and sounded like, just watch this clip, and tell me Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t knock this one out of the park. It is very rare that an actor is so good he can embody any character he sets out to play. Johnny Depp is one of those people, and as I mentioned earlier, Helena Bonham Carter is one of those people, and you would be crazy not to put Hoffman on that list as well. 

This was a very compelling story. You’ve got this prisoner on death row, Perry, who sees Capote as his only way out of getting executed, and you’ve got Capote himself who has such a driving urge to tell the story that he’s willing to use these two people and keep them alive for as long as possible and then abandon them when he gets all he needs. But he didn’t bank on falling in love with Perry. What this movie does best is highlight was a master manipulator Truman Capote was with his masterful lies and his cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor. I may have to go out and find a copy of In Cold Blood and read it, just to get a grasp on what kind of book he was writing. 

Before I close out this review, I’d like to spend a few words saying that we truly lost someone with ridiculous amounts of talent who wasn’t your typical movie star. He exemplified the now-cliché that there’s no such thing as a small part, just a small actor. Every single part he did, he grabbed it by the balls, and acted the crap out of it. He was always memorable no matter how supporting his role was. It really too bad that drugs has claimed yet another gifted human being. 

Final Thoughts: 5 out of 6 slices of pizza. Top-notch acting, and the movie was unabashedly unapologetic about what it showed us. Rest in peace, Mr. Hoffman. Your work is done here.