Lars And The Real Girl: What Bologna.

Part of me felt compelled to take this movie seriously, but I can't. When you make a film with such a bizarre concept like Lars and the Real Girl, why would you play by the rules set forth by average Hollywood drivel?


Check it out: socially inept sweetheart (Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, the motivational crackhead teacher from Half Nelson - still a less ridiculous premise than Lars and the Real Girl) buys a plastic sex doll named Bianca to become his real life girlfriend so he can exit his brother's garage and rediscover what it's like to have a life. Suffering from a delusion (or, more accurately, post-traumatic stress disorder from his mother's death that he displaces onto Bianca, the 'girlfriend'), Lars wheels his plastic sex doll girlfriend around in a wheelchair to family dinners, church, a party with coworkers, childhood memory sites, the doctor, and even calls 911 when he thinks Bianca is unconscious and dying.

(Yes, paramedics arrived and took her away without a hint of irony.)

The alarmingly naive (read: unrealistically desperate) real girl, Margo, (Kelli Garner), who falls for Lars, creates a fake relationship with a real person to get Lars's attention. Meanwhile, the community at large is aware of Lars's delusion - so what does the community do? Act like there isn't a problem - like the plastic sex doll Bianca is a beautiful, talking breath of fresh air (who willingly fucks the craziest of guys (Lars)).

...That is, a plastic sex doll who also happens to do volunteer work, like read to little children in a classroom.

I'm not kidding. That's actually a scene in this movie.

...So is the scene where Lars's brother and his brother's wife give the sex doll a bath and debate whether or not it's funny. We'll say it's "meta-funny." It's also the most sexual scene in the entire movie. The filmmakers must have thought that sexualizing the guy who bought a SEX DOLL would make him too creepy to be a sympathetic character, but I dunno. I'm naturally inclined to sympathize with creepy dudes who buy sex dolls off the internet. Aren't you???

And did I mention that Lars and the Real Girl played out like a family friendly Christmas movie - minus the tree - and not like a John Waters comedy? But all along, the other characters say shit like "Is she flexible?" and look up her skirt to find (what I imagined to be) a big scary anatomically correct plastic vagina.

Anyway, you've seen this movie before: it's ET and There's Something About Mary with a splash of Weekend at Bernie's rolled into a (failed) attempt at making the Next Great American Movie. So, it wasn't a bad movie, but now that I'm writing about it, I almost feel like I'd better serve my time ordering a plastic sex doll from the internet and then having lots of sex with it.

Or ya know. Washing dishes. I think I'll go wash some dishes now.

Film Review Medley - from Arm Wrestling to Hitler.

My memory sucks. I might have reviewed at least two of these before elsewhere, but save the Hitler movie, I just saw these all again recently. They're fun to talk about. Enjoy.

To be assaulted by my critical fist:

1. Over the Top
2. Super High Me
3. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
4. Downfall
   

Over the Top - Sly Stallone arm wrestles his way into your heart.

If this ain't (or, tweren't) Ronnie Reagan's favorite movie, I don't know me my Ronnie. What's not to love? An arm-wrestling movie called Over the Top, based on an arm-wrestling move where you go "Over the Top" on the guy's hand to get leverage and win. Maybe you didn't know this, but arm-wrestling another man is the ultimate struggle to prove your manhood against guys who eat lit cigars and drink motor oil right before they hand-grapple you into submission.

Does "Over the Top" have a duel meaning for you, too, yet?

It couldn't be the grunting, sweating, slow-mo vein-bulging, big-rig driving alone that makes this Ronnie's favorite movie. That alone might be kinda gay.

Oh, wait. Let's get this outta the way... Sylvester Stallone plays a semi-truck driver named Lincoln (yes, like the best president EVER...next to Ronald Reagan, of course) Hawk (not quite an eagle, but a noble effort nonetheless) whose son just graduated some sissy boot camp school (they had to wear uniforms - I don't know...) where he learned how to be a giant douchebag sissy bastard who hates his dad (Hawk) because he never met him before. Upon douchebag boy's dying mother's request (if she weren't dying, or had big breasts, why would we care what she thinks? Right Ronnie?), Lincoln picks up his son (in the big-rig) for a father-son bonding adventure across the Land of the Free (that's America, for all you people who are not Ronald Reagan). Sissy boy's grandpa yells at the school's principal for letting his dead-beat father take him home, claiming his dying mother doesn't have the brain anymore to make such a decision... (I'm sure what he meant to say was "Women are too stupid to make such decisions," right Ronnie?! HA! That was a good one, wasn't it Ronnie?! HA!)

Sorry, I got carried away. It's just as easy to make fun of this movie by doing a synopsis as it is to call it Reagan's favorite movie. Well, know this - it's one of those bad, bad movies that doesn't get old. All 93 minutes are a laughing riot, because Stallone's script does not pick up on the irony of calling this movie Over the Top.

To sum up - arm-wrestling movie. Bizarre family values featuring a sunuvabitch kid. Ronnie's fave.

Super High Me - Doug Benson smokes his way into your heart.

If I were a stand-up comedian, the idea of Super High Me probably would have occurred to me in a joke at some point, much like it did for Doug Benson. He saw Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me (stoned, no doubt), and thought he could do the same thing with pot. Some filmmakers heard the idea and made it happen.

Doug smokes zero pot for 30 days (the constant of the experiment, I guess??), and then smokes pot constantly for 30 days. He takes tests of all sorts (psychology, psychic abilities (he was more psychic when stoned), physicals, memory tests, SATs, etc.) for no reason other than to legitimize this film's existence.

One major bummer here - you see DEA agents busting legitimate businesses (dispensaries, they're called - the legal pot-selling businesses in California). To summarize this debate, states are legalizing pot, but it's illegal federally, and federal law trumps state law. At least according to the DEA. So they can bust whatever legitimate business they feel like that sells pot. Just because. Isn't that awesome!?

Anyway, I recommend this movie. It depicts stoners as they are. As they should be. Stoned. But also because it doesn't ram the legalization issue down your throat. Sure, we see the DEA confiscating legal marijuana and the protests that ensue, but it's not the focus of the movie. The movie is fun and doesn't try to be anything else. But it doesn't try to ignore its topic, which is currently enshrouded in controversy. So it addresses it. Otherwise, you just feel high and giggly from watching this movie. Or from otherwise.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - Billy Mitchell cheats his way into your heart.

This is my favorite documentary of all time. It gets a rise out of you, the viewer, like you would never expect from a movie about an arcade game from the early 80s. Hell, some WWII movies don't get me as worked up as The King of Kong. Really good ones, even (see review below). So, just see this for chrissakes and then we'll talk.



Seriously - just put your pre-conceived notions aside for one fucking second, of what this movie will be, and fucking watch it. Billy Mitchell/his hot sauce '08.

Downfall - Hitler hara-kiri's his way into...your...heart? Uhhh....

Based on a documentary called Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, Downfall allows us to peak into The Fuhrer's existence during his last few days in the bunker before he offed himself - indirectly through the eyes of one of his secretaries, Traudl Junge (who is the focus of the documentary, obviously, but not the focus of Downfall, obviously). Now, personally, I'd like to believe that no one was ever this insane - that it would be impossible - but I defer to the based-on-a-true-story-ness of this flick. (It just has that based-on-a-true-story feel to it - that's how I know this actually happened.)

Needless to say, lotsa disturbing shit here, uhh...it's Hitler, up close and too personal. He shouts nonsense and refuses to listen to anyone (that doesn't sound like Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or Karl Rove or anyone in our American political arena!). Hitler never struck me as a "good-lookin' dude," but in his last few days he's decrepit. All that hatred did quite a number on that guy.

For me, the most disturbing scene in the film was at a ballroom dance. Eva Braun was leading the show, dressed to the nines, dancin' to the band... Then the music stopped because of all the war they can't help but hear and feel in the background. It shook everyone. Life stopped, until Eva scolded the band to keep playing, hopping up on a table or piano and kept dancing until everyone who wasn't crying played along. I'd like to think that something like the Holocaust could only be possible in states where denial is so strong that you put your own life in danger. But who really knows. Guess how this scene ended.

This was nominated for the Best Foreign Picture Oscar a few years ago, and it's an excellent work. At times, too excellent. Depicting such a time excellently can be quite taxing on the viewer.


...And that's a medley. I like putting arm-wrestling, pot-smoking, arcade-playing, and (rounding it out with) Hitler together in a group. Good times.

What's that bad taste still in your mouth, you ask? That's Hitler. Don't worry about it.

Zombie Strippers.

This movie, starring Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) and Jenna Jameson (accountant), exists, and had a limited theatrical run in the United States. The proof is in the picture:



...Eh, I needed to go with something less offensive here than my previous post. And yes, that is definitely Tito Ortiz in the upper left corner of the poster.

Why So Serious? Heath's So Funny! and other Dark Knight thoughts

I think the funniest thing I read about Heath's performance was that it was completely overshadowed by Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent. Christopher Orr of The New Republic you contrarian bastard you.

We'll get back to that. He's wrong, by the way. Dead wrong. And stupid.

And not good looking (possibly, I don't know).

Again, Christopher Nolan and company proved with The Dark Knight that summer blockbusters don't have to be total suck-fests of explosions and bad dialogue. 2005's Batman Begins expanded my expectations of what could be a good superhero movie, which continued evolving with Knight. As my latte-sipping-film-connoisseur friend said of this latest Batman flick, "It's not a superhero movie. It's a great film." Sure, whatever - the guy still wears a cape and fights crime. It's a great superhero movie that also happens to be a great film.

All the cast members known and loved from Begins return here (yes, all of them. No one liked Katie Holmes because she lost her teenage-Dawson's-Creek-charm and married a friggin' psycho. And Maggie Gyllenhaal is way cooler, actually acts well, and looks like less of a chipmunk), with a handful of highly anticipated characters, specifically Harvey Dent and The Joker.

(Spoilers kept minimal and insignificant, regrettably)

Now, how anyone could call Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent a 'show stealer' over Heath Ledger's joker is beyond my comprehension. The uniqueness to Harvey Dent resides in tragedy. The role of a tragic character has limitations in how the character develops as tragedy unfolds. Not to take any credit away from Eckhart's performance - he was well-cast and executed a gut-wrenching, sympathetic performance. (Everyone knows through Batman folklore that Harvey Dent is Two-Face, but if you haven't seen The Dark Knight, he can fall from grace without becoming Two-Face yet, spoiler haters...)

But don't we tire of the tragic, fallen hero? Even more specifically, the hero? This film's central theme segues nicely into my point that The Joker stole the show and was my on-screen hero. "Why So Serious?" indeed, said the villain/comic relief. The brilliance of Ledger's performance had been lauded an obscene amount before the film's release, to the point of early-July Oscar buzz from critics and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Now I see why people would say crap like that, but that trivialized his performance more than it drew attention to its finer nuances that one can't gauge with a golden naked anatomically incorrect statue. When I think of an obvious Oscar-winning performance, I think of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood or Helen Mirren in The Queen. Neither of these had mass appeal, which was why Ledger's Joker thrived - the intricacy, brilliance, irony, subtlety, blah, blah, and blah of Ledger's Joker lied in its mass appeal.

(Sorry, gotta start a new paragraph for the posthumous jerking off of how hard this performance rocked...)

What Ledger did was make us forget he was acting. Make us forget he was brilliant. Make us forget he rehearsed these lines. Make us forget they said that Jack Nicholson was born to play the Joker. Make us forget we all raised a collective eyebrow upon the news of Ledger's casting. Make us forget, in the face of a media that would not let us, that this was his swansong performance. As Christopher Nolan predicted, none of this could impact the audience's reaction. The audience need not analyze anything about his performance to enjoy it; on the other hand, they could analyze everything. When he says "...kill the Batman," we all just laughed, everyone. It was funny. Or, you could analyze Ledger's delivery of the line. He understood the monotony and cliche behind such a line, but he also recognized that it is the penultimate goal of a villain, if not specifically the penultimate line. Since when was it a secret the villain wants to kill the hero? Why do other films/villains/actors pretend it is a secret? The Joker mocked the question asked of him by potentially fellow villains with his reply; at the same time, Ledger winked at the audience because his character created an anticipation of the bizarre and unthinkable, yet delivered the obvious response. Almost but not quite playing to the cliche of "easier said than done," in regards to "...kill the Batman." Well-played, Heath. Well-played.

In retrospect, I can't say much about Harvey Dent other than important plot points. It's not as good, period. And now that I've written a full rebuttal to Mr. Orr's claim, I'm going to actually read what he said instead of the tagline.

Oh, but see the shit outta this movie. Nothin' but rock and roll, here.