(1956) dir. Frank Tashlin
viewed: 11/27/06
I’d never seen a Jayne Mansfield movie before, don’t know why. It’s easy to see how she was being utilized as a poor man’s more buxom Marilyn Monroe, platinum blonde and with an enormous chest. Apparantly she had an enormous IQ too, but here, it’s pretty straight dim blonde.
The film is [...]
Archive of entries posted on November 2006
The Girl Can’t Help It
Happy Feet
(2006) dir. George Miller
viewed: 11/26/06 at AMC Loews Metreon, SF, CA
When I had caught the trailer for this movie, I had thought to myself that there was no way in hell that I would go see this. Dancing penguins for chrissakes.
Well, as it works out, I did end up going to see it and the [...]
Street Trash
(1987) dir. J. Michael Muro
viewed: 11/25/06
I stumbled across this movie in the San Francisco Chronicle, which was detailing a minor revival of this “lost” cult film that never achieved its cult status from the late 1980’s. Frankly, I had never heard of it, but it sounded pretty amusing. It’s about homeless people, certainly a very [...]
Grey Gardens
(1975) dir. Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer
viewed: 11/21/06 at the Castro Theatre, SF, CA
This is one of those cult films that I had heard about for years, but had never seen. I had come close to renting it several times, but when I saw that it was playing at the Castro, the [...]
Be Cool
(2005) dir. F. Gary Gray
viewed: 11/17/06
Very Un-cool.
Pathetic, in fact. This smug, self-satisfied film about the movie and music industry, a follow up to 1995’s Get Shorty, a follow-up that Elmore Leonard wrote at the behest of the prior film’s popularity. Where the 1995 film was an adaptation by the then somewhat with-it Barry Sonnenfeld before [...]
Slither
(2006) dir. James Gunn
viewed: 11/14/06
A pretty decent B-movie, the kind like momma used to make. Well, maybe not momma, but it is the likes of which haven’t really been made well in recent years. I have mentioned in the past that horror films seem to be better when the budgets are lower, the filmmaker is [...]
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(2006) dir. Larry Charles
viewed: 11/12/06 at Selma Cinema, Selma, CA
This film is funny. Funny as hell at certain points, less so in others, but overall, is pretty hilarious and clever.
It’s not without its points of cringe-worthy events or words. It’s little wonder Kazakhstan has taken umbrage with this. Sascha Baron Cohen creates a very offensive [...]
The Return
(2006) dir. Asif Kapadia
viewed: 11/12/06 at Edwards Fresno Stadium and IMAX, Fresno, CA
I was binging on films this day, hitting three in a row, though I had even considered seeing more. So, I was stretching the limits of what I was genuinely interested in. I think that horror films have been a favorite of mine for [...]
Harsh Times
(2005) dir. David Ayers
viewed: 11/12/06 at Edwards Fresno Stadium and IMAX, Fresno, CA
This film is the directorial debut for screenwriter David Ayers who has made his name with his gritty, street realism of gangsta types and hoodlums in Los Angeles, hitting his high point with Training Day (2001) which I hadn’t seen. This film is set well within [...]
Thank You For Smoking
(2005) dir. Jason Reitman
viewed: 11/10/06
This comedy, written and directed by the son of director Ivan Reitman, is not bad. It has moments of genuine cleverness and doesn’t careen into annoying too often. It’s fairly interesting, though not really compelling.
Ostensibly about the cigarette industry’s top P.R. guy, who can spin so hard that people often reeling [...]
