Ottercat Friday

Happy, shiny ottercats, with ottercat toys.  What more do you need?

Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film directed by Malik Bendjelloul.




Synopsis: Sixto Rodriguez was a protest/folk/activist singer in the early 1970s. He released two albums that didn’t sell well in the U.S., gave up on a music career and continued living in Detroit as an unknown, working construction and looking after his family. However, his music became wildly popular in South Africa, where his albums went platinum and his songs served as inspiration during Apartheid. Little was known about the singer/songwriter known only Rodriguez, and he was rumored to have died, either by drug overdose or suicide.

Two South African fans, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Craig Strydom, decide to find out more about their mysterious musical hero. Surprise! Rodriguez is alive and well and still living a quiet, working class life in Detroit. Segerman and Strydom bring him and his family to South Africa, where he performs several concerts in front of huge, adoring crowds. He then returns to his nondescript Detroit life.



Review: I have a confession. I watched this movie last night, and, for some reason, I thought it was a faux documentary, a mockumentary. Why? I’m a ginormous goober, and I don’t like to read about movies before I watch them. I thought it was a pretty dang good fictional film. Then, after watching it, I hit the internet and found out it was an actual documentary. In fact, it won a ton of awards, including the Oscar for Best Documentary 2012. Surprise!

This is a beautiful film. An amazing story. Rodriguez is a fascinating character, and his music, and the story of the effect it had on people far way, will resonate with anyone who watches it. See it. It will surprise and delight you.

Especially now that you know it’s a true story. Unlike your trusty reviewer here. Sigh.



Random little known fact: Parts of the documentary were filmed on an iPhone using and app, 8mm Vintage Camera.



WUB rating: Five out of five WUBs. As a fictional story, I would have given it four WUBs. Again, surprise!



Sugar man, you’re the answer that makes my questions disappear. . .



See you in my Netflix queue!

Ottercat Friday

This is Wyatt, brother of Levon, aka WyOh from Ohio, SugarFace, and Why!
He's keeping an eye on you.

Rope

Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Rope was released in 1948, starring John Dall, Farley Granger and Jimmy Stewart.




Plot synopsis: Brandon (Dall) and Phillip (Granger) are two young intellectual elitists who live together in a posh New York apartment. They plan a dinner party, but there’s a twist. There’s always a twist, right? Even way back in 1948! They have strangled their friend David to death, and hidden his body in a large chest in the living room. You know what else? Everyone they are inviting to their party knows dead David—including his fiancée, his best friend, his parents, and Rupert Cadell (Stewart), their prep school schoolmaster.

They’ve invited Cadell because his talks on Nietzsche’s Superman and other philosophies partly inspired their crime. Phillip, and especially Brandon, believe that they are brilliant enough to commit the perfect murder, and that lesser people, like David, really don’t deserve to live anyway.

Brandon cleverly chooses to serve dinner off the old chest--yes, the one with the body inside. This is classic Hitchcock—we know the crime, we know who committed the crime, and we wait for someone on screen to figure it out.

So, the housekeeper (wonderfully played by Edith Evanson) sets dinner up on the coffin chest, and the guests arrive. My favorite guest is David’s Aunt, Mrs. Atwater (Constance Collier), a batty old lady with a thrilling voice. Everyone wonders where David is. Phillip plays the piano and gets drunk. There is talk of wringing chickens’ necks, the usefulness of homicide, and antique books. Pretty much like every dinner party you’ve ever been to, isn’t it?

But Rupert Cadell senses that something is wrong in this Manhattan apartment with the beautiful view. As the worry about David’s whereabouts builds, the guests decide to leave, including David’s father with a stack of books knotted together with the same rope used to strangle his son.

Nice touch, eh?

Rupert ends up with the wrong hat, and that wrong hat has the initials D.K. inside, for David Kentley, the missing murdered fellow. So, he returns to the apartment to find out what has happened to David. Brandon gets cocky, Phillip is sloshed, and Rupert ends up lifting the lid on the chest. He is deeply disturbed that he partly inspired such a horrible act, and shoots Brandon’s gun into the air. We hear the sound of sirens as the movie closes.



Review: This movie was originally a stage play, and Hitchcock wanted to keep the stage play feeling, so he shot the film in ten long takes, some as long as ten minutes, and the entire film was shot on a single set. Everything on set was on rollers, so the actors could move without cutting the scene. Also, the backdrop behind the set was huge, and you can watch the clouds change, the sun set and the lights come on as the story progresses.

The film also has an obvious homosexual subtext that sometimes bursts right out of the subtext. There are hints of the Leopold and Loeb case, and the film was banned in some theaters.

I love the movie. I love most of Hitchcock’s movies. They’re smart, they’re beautifully shot, and they’re works of art. However (you knew there would be a however, didn’t you?), Jimmy Stewart was painfully miscast in the role of Rupert. Hitchcock uses Stewart best as the All American Everyman thrown into a dangerous situation. Stewart is not always lovable in Rear Window, but he is still the hero. In Rope, there really is no hero, and Stewart seems uncomfortable as the dark previous schoolmaster.

The script is bitingly funny, it’s a technical masterpiece, especially for the time, and I have a serious thing for Farley Granger.



Random little known fact: The beautiful Montgomery Clift was the original choice to play Brandon.



WUB rating: I’m going to go five out of five WUBs, despite my issue with Jimmy Stewart being miscast. Why? It’s a really cool little movie.



Cat and mouse. Cat and mouse.



See you in my Netflix queue!

Pontypool

Pontypool, the 2009 Canadian psychological horror film, was directed by Bruce McDonald, and adapted by Tony Burgess from his novel, Pontypool Changes Everything.




Synopsis: Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is a radio disc jockey. He used to be a big time shock jock in a large market, but got fired and ended up in the small town of Pontypool, Ontario, on a local radio station. On his way to work the early show, in a driving snow storm, Mazzy is on the phone with his agent, when he stops at a red light. A woman without a coat knocks on his car window. As he speaks to her, she repeats back everything he says, then disappears into the darkness.

The rest of the movie takes place in the claustrophobic radio station. Mazzy gets on the air with his Mazzy in the Morning show, with the help of station manager Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) and production assistant Laurel-Ann Drummond (Georgina Reilly). Sydney is not a fan of Mazzy’s leftover shock jock antics, and they spar a bit. Mazzy believes that making listeners angry is the best way to build an audience. Syd wants him to do school closings.

A story comes in from traffic guy Ken Loney. A violent horde of people is attacking the offices of Dr. Mendez. The attackers all keep repeating the same phrases. Loney gets cut off while reporting, and Syd and Laurel-Ann try to confirm his story. A group of repeating attack people? Is Loney part of an elaborate joke?

Maybe not! Loney calls in to the station again, and says he has hidden in a grain silo on the outskirts of town, while he watches a group of people attacking a couple in a car. A local kid runs to attack Loney, becoming terribly injured in the process. The kid keeps mumbling something. Loney wants to know what he’s saying. Mazzy thinks that is not a great idea. As Loney leans over to hear, the station’s transmission is interrupted. A French recording says people should stay indoors and not speak English, especially terms of endearment.

What now?

Loney calls back in, with the injured kid speaking. “Mommy,” he says in a baby voice. Grant flips out a bit, decides he has had enough, and goes to the front door to see what’s going on. Bad idea. A group of people can be heard repeating Sydney’s words, and running to attack the station. Laurel-Ann bars the door.

Mazzy gets back on the air, running obituaries of all the people who have died in Pontypool that day, lots of them, dead and killing one another. What is going on in this small snowy town?

Laurel-Ann begins having issues, repeating the word “missing” in different contexts in a confused way. “Mr. Mazzy is missing. Missing Mr. Mazzy.” Then, she echoes the sound of the whistling tea kettle, disturbing Sydney. A man crawls in through the station window. Guess what? It’s none other than Dr. Mendez, whose office was attacked.

Mendez, Syd and Mazzy lock themselves in the soundproof radio booth, and Laurel-Ann goes from bad to worse, slamming herself against the booth windows, getting bloodied up in the process. She may also be chewing off her own lips. Whoa.

Mendez explains on air that a virus has infected the English language somehow, causing certain words to infect certain people. Laurel-Ann is infected and hunting others to infect. Loney calls in again to report on the mayhem in town, and also falls ill, repeating the word “sample.”

Things pretty much go to hell from there. Laurel-Ann implodes, the mumbling infected language zombies try to get into the station, temporarily distracted by a looped recording, and Syd and Mazzy speak French.

Mendez crawls through the window back into the snow, yelling so the language zombies will follow him. Sydney is infected, caught on the word “kill,” until Mazzy is able to cure her. He then returns to the booth to attempt to cure anyone still listening, with Sydney assisting. A bullhorn voice from outside tells him to stop broadcasting, and then begins counting down from ten. At the end of the countdown, Syd and Mazzy kiss, and we assume the building is razed.

A series of radio broadcasters talk over the credits, hinting that the virus has spread beyond Pontypool. After the credits, there is a black and white scene of Mazzy and Sydney, where they discuss, in cryptic terms, escaping, while the scene saturates with color. It kind of looks like they’re in Asia. What does it mean? I honestly don’t know.



Review: Pontypool is brilliant. Confusing, unclear and brilliant. It may be my second favorite zombie movie ever, after Night of the Living Dead, the granddaddy of all zombie movies. Why? you may ask. Because language carries the disease. Language. Shut up or die. I love that idea. People are infected by hearing language. It’s no accident that Mazzy was a shock jock. How many times has someone read some sensational crap online and believed every word? How many times has misinformation been reported as news, and people completely believe it because “the news is always right and true”? How much information that has been spun and spun and spun again do we hear and read and see every single day? And it has to be true, right? I read it online, heard it on a news station, read it in a magazine.

Language is the infection. Brilliant.

The movie was made for 1.5 million dollars, and it looks like it. But that works in its favor, with the claustrophobic movie set and the limited cast adding to the tension. The viewer is stuck along with these people on a tiny, grimy ship that is going down fast. Also, McHattie does a fantastic job as Mazzy.

I first saw this movie around Halloween of last year, and have watched it countless times since. I can also heartily recommend the book, Pontypool Changes Everything. There has been talk of prequels and sequels and remakes. I hope to see more.

Not your average zombie movie. Smart. Funny. Weird. And I have no idea what the add on scene at the very end means.



WUB rating: Four and a half out of five WUBS. I can’t quite give it five, because there are so many unresolved loose ends.



Kill is kiss.



See you in my Netflix queue!

Ottercat Friday

You may be wondering about my rating system, WUBs.  Here is Levon, also known as Wubby, or The Wub.  See why five WUBs is the best rating ever?
WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB!

Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused is director Richard Linklater’s coming of age movie, from 1993.




Synopsis: May 28, 1976. The last day of school in Austin, Texas. The next year’s seniors and the incoming class of freshmen rock and roll all night. And party every day. That’s really the gist of it.



Review: One of my favorite high school movies of all time, Dazed and Confused features a delightful cast of bell-bottomed, beer drinking, pot smoking 1970s teens. From Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), the handsome football star, to Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins), the leader of the freshman pack, each character is well realized and entertaining. Keep an eye out for Ben Affleck as O’Bannion, the paddle-wielding jerk, and indie doll Parker Posey as Darla Marks, the widow-peaked evil doer.

Matthew McConaughey steals the show with his bit part as Wooderson, the guy who graduated years ago, but who still loves hanging with the kids. Every small town has one. “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”

A perfect time capsule for the era; I guess that would make it a period piece now. Incredible soundtrack, too. If you update the hairstyles and clothing, I’m sure these same kids will be starting school in the fall of 2013. That's the sign of a great movie. A movie about the 70s, made in the 90s, and still relevant and funny twenty years later.



Little known random fact: The word “man” is said 203 times in the movie. No one called anyone “dude” in 1976.



WUB rating: Five out of five WUBS.



Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.



See you in my Netflix queue!

The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods is a horror/black comedy/satire film from 2012, starring a bunch of people playing college students, the likable guy who played Josh in The West Wing, and Sigourney Weaver in an exposition cameo.




Synopsis: Five college students go to an isolated cabin in the woods for a weekend of relaxation. The first evening, the cellar door flies open, and they descend into a room of mysterious objects. One of them reads a Latin incantation from a century-old diary, unleashing a family of sadistic killer hillbilly zombies. The zombies begin picking off the young people one by one, just like every formulaic horror movie you have ever seen.

Or is there more going on?

Down below the cabin, a group of technicians works to make this scenario follow the formula horror movie fans know so well. Using explosives, chemicals, temperature changes and other fancy stuff, the techs steer the action, ensuring the “promiscuous girl” is killed first, followed by the others, leaving the “pure virginal girl” to be killed last.

Why are they doing this? As a bloodletting ritual to appease the giant ancient angry gods who live below, so the human race can continue. These rituals take place simultaneously in different nations around the world. (The footage of the Japanese ritual is actually very funny.) However, this year, all of the other rituals have failed. The Americans must pull theirs off, or the world is doomed.

The other four young people die, leaving the virgin as the last victim, and the technicians celebrate with booze and REO Speedwagon, while she is tortured by the hillbilly zombie on the large screen behind the party. Ah, but not so fast! The stereotypical stoner kid has survived somehow! He and the virgin find the elevator down to the technicians’ offices, passing room after room of horror movie horrors along the way—including a character similar to Pinhead from Hellraiser and some sort of multi-mouthed toothy ballerina child.

When they reach the office level of this maze, the two hole up in a room. The virgin launches the “System Purge” option, and all of the monsters are set loose. Every time the elevator dings, more nightmare monsters are unleashed, killing all of the technicians. Aliens, more zombies, flying reptile things, a really angry unicorn, and a merman. Yes, a merman. And much, much more!

The two young people survive all of this somehow, and find the area where blood is collected for the ritual to appease the old giant gods. Sigourney Weaver shows up and explains the entire dealio. The virgin must die last, or the entire human race ends at the extra large hands of The Ancient Ones.

The stoner kid refuses to sacrifice himself. For a moment, it looks like the virgin might shoot him, but a zombie and a werewolf intervene. In the end, Sigourney Weaver is killed, and the virgin and stoner smoke a joint until The Ancient Ones rumble to the surface.



Review: I really want to like this movie. There are some wonderful moments, especially with Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins as the two main technicians in charge of making the ritual run smoothly. Yet, I don’t like this movie very much.

I can appreciate the satire, but it’s just a little too clever. A little too snarky. Was I surprised by it? Yes. I knew nothing about the movie before seeing it, and it surprised me. It made me laugh a few times. It looks good. But it rings hollow. Are the horror movie fans really The Ancient Ones, hungry for formulaic slasher plots to keep them appeased? Maybe. Does that mighty bit of symbolism make this a good movie? Not really.

Worth seeing, maybe even twice, just because it’s not formulaic.



Little known random fact: Watch for The Flying Purple People Eater.



WUB rating: Three out of five WUBs.



They may be WUBs, but they’re my WUBs.



See you in my Netflix queue!

Side Effects

Side Effects is the 2013 thriller from director Steven Soderbergh, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones.


Synopsis: Emily (Mara) is depressed. Her big-shouldered husband (Tatum) went to prison for insider trading, and she lost her lux life. Even with his release from prison, she just cannot get happy. He wants to move to Texas to start a new business. Emily isn’t feeling it. So she drives her car into a wall.

At the emergency room, psychiatrist Dr. Banks (Law) treats her. She begins seeing him regularly. Dr. Banks prescribes all kinds of anti-depressants for her, but none of them do the trick. She has the urge to walk in front of a subway train. Not good. But we’re in luck! Dr. Banks is running a trial for a new anti-depressant medication, Ablixa, and getting paid $50,000 by a major pharmaceutical company. Emily can try this drug. It will make everything better. That’s what the Ablixa TV commercials say, anyway.

Uh-oh. One of the side effects of Ablixa is sleepwalking. Wouldn’t you know it, while Emily is cutting up a red bell pepper, her husband comes home, and she stabs him to death all over the wood flooring while in a trance. Then she goes to bed.

I guess Ablixa isn’t going to work either.

Emily is brought to trial. Dr. Banks confers with her previous psychiatrist, Dr. Victoria Siebert (Zeta-Jones, with severe hair and glasses). Emily is found not guilty by reason of insanity brought on by depression and Ablixa. Dr. Banks agrees to continue treating her.

Banks’ career and marriage suffer from the high profile case. So, why does he keep Emily as a patient? Because he believes there is more to this story!

Banks visits Emily and tells her he is giving her truth serum. She reacts to the drug, but does not confess. Guess what? Banks gave her a placebo. SHE IS FAKING! And Victoria is in on the ruse!

Banks outwits them both, making each believe the other can’t be trusted. Emily coughs up the entire story: Emily went to Victoria for treatment; both hated their husbands, and they hatched this convoluted caper.

There’s always a caper.

The two women became lovers and figured out a way to use Ablixa and pharmaceutical stock to become rich, get rid of their husbands (literally, in Emily’s case), and run away to live happily ever after. Tra la.

But no! Dr. Banks releases Emily, and she goes to see Victoria, wearing a wire. Victoria blabs away about the plan, and off she goes to prison. Banks has Emily readmitted to the hospital, drugs her up on a Thorazine cocktail, somehow gets the stock money, and lives happily ever after.



Review: Side Effects is one of those movies that fell apart for me. The first half, with its examination of our pharmaceutical culture, was fantastic. “Try Effexor. Try Zoloft. Doctor, I saw the commercial for Ablixa, and the people seem so happy. Give me a prescription for that.” Advertising prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies paying physicians to prescribe certain medications. Ablixa ink pens! I wanted a movie about the side effects of the influences of Big Pharma in Amercia, not a run of the mill thriller that twists and twists and twists again. We’ve seen that; we have seen that one million times. Oh, look, a twist to the twist to the original twist. How clever. Whoopee.



I’m not crazy about Rooney Mara in this film. Jude Law is delicious, and his face interests me, no matter what he’s doing. Zeta-Jones, meh. And Tatum? I don’t get the Tatum fascination at all.

A lot of reviewers compared this to Hitchcock. I don’t see it, maybe because it didn’t deliver what I wanted. I kind of felt like it didn’t deliver what it promised.



Fun random fact: Blake Lively from Gossip Girl was originally cast as Emily, but insisted on no nudity, so the role was recast with Mara. Also, this may be Soderbergh’s last film. That makes me sad.



MAB rating: Two and a half WUBs, because I enjoyed the first half of the move, and because of Jude Law’s yumminess.



Yes, I wrote this review with my Ablixa ink pen!

See you in my Netflix queue!

Mulholland Drive

Hello!  Welcome to MAB on Movies!  Where I, MAB, will talk about random movies!  Randomly!  Because random is what I do best.

I figured we should start off with a bit of a challenge, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, from 2001.  Labeled as a surrealist neo-noir film, and confusing as all heck, Mulholland Drive is an enigma inside a riddle inside a Sudoku. 

Plot Synopsis:  Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) arrives, perky as a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, in Hollywood to persue her acting career.  When she reaches at her auntie's old Hollywood apartment, she discovers a voluptuous dark-haired stranger with amnesia (Laura Herring), who takes the name Rita after Rita Hayworth.  Rita has been in a car accident, and has hidden out in the apartment in her confusion.  Betty has Rita look in her purse, and they find a pile of money and a weird key.  They go to Winkie's diner, where their waitress is named Diane.  Rita remembers the name Diane Selwyn.  Is this a clue to her real identity?

Subplots abound.  Two fellows also meet in the diner.  One relates a nightmare about a monster outside that causes his death.  Guess what?  There's a monster outside who causes his death.  In the second subplot, gangsters tell a director who to cast in an upcoming movie, and the director arrives home to find his wife in bed with the pool man, who is magically portrayed by Billy Ray Cyrus.  The director also meets a mysterious cowboy who also tells him to cast Camilla Rhodes in his film.  In the third subplot, a goober of a hit man makes a mess out of nicking an address book.

Back to Betty and Rita.  They decide to investigate Diane Selwyn's apartment, and find a decomposing body.  A wig and girl on girl sex ensues.  Rita awakens with the word SILENCIO!  This leads the couple to The Club Silencio, where everything is an illusion, even the lady singing Roy Orbison's "Crying" in Spanish.  Betty and Rita are upset by the show.  Rita finds a blue box in her purse.  After returning to the apartment, Rita finds that the strange key opens the strange box!  And Betty vanishes.

Whew.

Dark dingy apartment with threatening, eyebrowless cowboy knocking at the door.  Betty (Naomi Watts) is on the bed.  But wait!  Betty is now Diane Selwyn.  Rita (Laura Harring) is now Camilla Rhodes.  What the hell is going on here?  Diane is in love with Camilla.  Camilla is involved with the director and kissing another actress at a party.  Diane is depressed and angry, and meets with a hit man to have Camilla killed.  Guess what?  This time, the waitress is named Betty.

Are you with me so far?  Yeah, it's going to be all right. Onward!

The hit man says that after he kills Camilla, Betty will find a blue key on her coffee table.  What does the key open?  HA!  Who knows?  Betty finds the key on the table.  Camilla must be dead.  Betty is chased by the perky old couple who originally flew into California with her in the first half of the movie.  Now, they don't seem so nice, do they?

Betty goes into the bedroom and shoots herself in the head.  SILENCIO!

Review:  Wow, maybe I should have started with an easier movie!  I love David Lynch, and I love Mulholland Drive.  I have seen it several times.  The first time, you do get that "What the hell am I watching here?" sensation.  The second time, it starts to shuffle into place a bit more.  What we have here is a nonlinear narrative, with a dream/fantasy sequence, and then Lynch just doing his thing. Or not.

The first half may be Diane's dream reality, heavily influenced by her (and Lynch's) love of old Hollywood and old movies.  It's a mystery!  It's a caper!  We're girl detectives!  The second half is the dark reality of what often happens to happy, shiny young women who go to Hollywood with visions of Oscars in their heads.  Grim, depressing, with rotary phones.

The joy of Lynch is not over-analyzing.  Just make as much sense of it as you can, and love the way the movie looks.  Love Naomi Watts in her double role, and the way that woman acts.  My goodness.  Suspend logic, suspend disbelief, pay your money, and ride the ride.  Mobius strip?  Dreams?  Parallel universes?  Sure!

Little known random fact:  Angelo Badalamenti, Lynch's longtime soundtrack composer, plays the gangster movie guy early in the film, the one with the espresso issue.

MAB rating:  Five out of five Wubs.  I'm not sure what just happened, but I liked it.

WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB!

And this concludes our first trip through MAB on Movies!  More to follow!

See you in my Netflix queue!