Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996) * *

Directed by:  Jim Mallon

Starring:  Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon

In the late 90's, MST3K (as it became known to fans on the fledgling Internet) was a Comedy Central show with a strong cult following.    (Although after a cult following becomes strong, can it still be a cult following?)    The premise was this:  A goofy doctor Clayton Forrester (Beaulieu) plans world domination by bringing the planet to its knees by showing them the worst movies ever made.    His test subject was the affable Mike Nelson (Nelson), who along with his two wisecracking robot friends Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, sat and watched the stinkers.    Their method of resistance was to rapidly fire wisecracks at the screen making fun of the movie's awfulness.     Or that was how they entertained themselves.

With a movie like this, the question is simply whether I laughed enough or not to recommend it.     We see the silouhettes of the wisecracking trio in the corner of the screen.     The movie skewered here is This Island Earth (1955), a typical scifi B-movie from the era that produced Mars Needs Women and Plan 9 From Outer Space.     With its cheesy visual effects and silly dialogue, the movie surely blended in with the rest of the scifi clunkers of the day and faded into obscurity.     Over time, these movies became parodies of themselves, so much so that anyone in the coming years who saw this film probably did the same thing Mike Nelson and his robots did.

None of the gags and insults hurled at the screen in MST3K are memorable.    I'm sure I chuckled a few times at some smart-ass wisecracks or goofy pop culture references, but I'm at a loss to recall them.     I can't say I laughed nearly enough to recommend the film, although fans of the show would like it.     It is highly unlikely the film would rally up support for a reunion show.     After a while, this stuff becomes repetitive.     There are breaks in the viewing in which Mike and his robots nearly destroy the space station that houses them, but it feels like filler to stretch the movie to feature length.     My guess is I'm probably not the intended audience for this movie. 

Beavis and Butthead Do America (1996) * 1/2

Directed by:   Mike Judge

Starring:  (voices of) Mike Judge, Demi Moore, Robert Stack

Beavis and Butthead was not exactly a show that was on my "must see" radar when it premiered on MTV in the early 90s.     I watched the half-hour show occasionally, which consisted of misunderstandings, misadventures, and music video commentary from the extremely dimwitted duo that wore heavy metal t-shirts and spent most of their waking hours on the couch in front of the TV. 

A 90-minute movie featuring the duo is pretty rough sledding.    Beavis and Butthead are written as so stupid and so limited in their capabilities that there isn't much that can be done with them.      The movie is a series of misunderstandings and misadventures stretched out to 90 minutes.    
Beavis and Butthead's dialogue consists of low-register chuckling and cackling and complete misinterpretation of whatever is said to them.      Judge probably means this as a satire of a generation brought up on MTV, but it wears thin quickly.   

Mike Judge wrote and directed Office Space and the current HBO series "Silicon Valley".    Both are superior as satires.    Beavis and Butthead simply are too moronic to tolerate for any length of time.    Perhaps that is the point, but it doesn't make the experience any better.     Even more painful is when Beavis drinks too much soda and turns into Cornholio, which consists of him walking around with his arms up, his t-shirt partially pulled over his head, and saying, "I am Cornholio."    The entire segment of Beavis as Cornholio is drawn-out and painful, even more so than the rest of the film.

I probably sound like someone who doesn't "get" Beavis and Butthead, as if somehow I'm missing a larger point or joke that continually eludes me.     I think I understand I'm meant to understand, but to the point I do understand, I don't care.       


  

Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays (2014) * * * (shown on HBO)

Directed by:  Des McAnuff

Billy Crystal's one-man Broadway show takes us through a journey which would shape and create the comedian.     Focusing mostly on his childhood and teen years, he paints a vivid portrait of his family and others who occupied his home in Long Beach, Long Island, New York.    Crystal narrates with boundless energy, as if he had a ton of stories he couldn't wait to tell you about.    I couldn't help but compare this show to Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth, which failed mostly because Tyson does not succeed as a public speaker.   Crystal is at home, funny, and sometimes touching in his recount of his childhood.   Plus, it is very easy to understand him.     Tyson wasn't really any of those things.

This review is about what 700 Sundays is rather than what The Undisputed Truth isn't.     Born in 1948 to a middle class Jewish family, Crystal refers to "700 Sundays" as the fifteen years worth of Sundays he spent with his father and family.    His father died suddenly of a heart attack when Crystal was fifteen, causing a few years worth of grief, heartache, anger, and uncertainty in Crystal.     He recovered and went on to marry, have children, and begin a hugely successful career in stand-up comedy, movies, and television.     In between were the laughs and sadness and those moments every family understands and each can truly call its own.

There were some things revealed that I didn't know about Crystal, such as his family ties to jazz greats Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie.    Some of his recollections are funny,  some sentimental, some sad.    Crystal succeeds at evoking a nostalgic feeling for people we didn't know, but we soon feel like we did.     Not every story is necessarily compelling and the show probably runs 10-15 minutes longer than it needed to, but we understand Crystal's need to tell these stories.  

Crystal doesn't allow 700 Sundays to become a regurgitation of his standup act.     Other than a brief Edward G. Robinson impression, he doesn't break out into impressions or familiar routines.     He focuses on the stories and memories that live on from that small house in Long Island.     There is even touching footage of Crystal touring the now vacant home one last time, peering into each room and remembering what he saw there all those years ago.      Sometimes life moves forward so quickly that we take little time to reflect back.     Were "the old days" as romantic and nostalgic as we make them out to be?   Of course not, but we tend to remember only the most important times and we need to see them that way.     Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays understands that all too well.  

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) * * *

Directed by:  Wes Anderson

Starring:  Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Tony Revolori, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton

Wes Anderson films are unlike any other.    They are part flights of fancy, part active and fertile imagination, and usually have an all-star cast like Woody Allen movies.     Woody Allen movies are more or less grounded in reality, with the occasional tip towards fantasy, while Wes Anderson's movies take place in a world like the one in The Grand Budapest Hotel.     It snows in virtually every scene, although there appears to be little accumulation on the ground.      Characters behave in ways that kinda sorta resemble real people, but are afforded their own idiosynchrasies.     The hotel itself looks like plenty of posh hotels you've seen, but the porters have "Lobby Boy" stitched on their hats and nearly everyone has a funny moustache.     And don't forget the elevator that takes guests in what looks like a covered ski lift to the hotel which sits on top of a large mountain.     

That only scratches the surface to the film's surprises.    The funny thing is The Grand Budapest Hotel matches previous Wes Anderson films in terms of tone and visual texture, yet this one worked for me better than the others.     I enjoyed The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) immensely, which I find to be the most human of all of his films.     The Grand Budapest Hotel is cheerfully goofy and maintains a pleasant tone.     It even has a plot, which involves the hotel's concierge (Fiennes) possible involvement in the murder of one of the hotel's frequent guests.     The concierge, named Gustave H, seemingly has the rigidity of Anthony Hopkins' butler in The Remains Of The Day, but unlike Hopkins' butler, is more than willing to sleep with elderly rich women and bend the rules to his advantage.    Fiennes is charming and has a ball with this role, which is unlike any he has ever played.    The closest thing Fiennes has a ever played to comedy was Maid In Manhattan (with Jennifer Lopez), if you would even count that.     I always sensed he had this versatility in him, if given the right opportunity.   Oh, and he did lend the voice to the villain in the claymation film Wallace & Gromit:  The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

The actors all know they are partaking in a world they aren't used to playing in.    Some Anderson veterans like Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody are on hand, but the actors new to the Anderson universe also act with heedless joy.     The thrust of the plot takes place in 1932, when war loomed in Europe.    The aggressors are for all intents and purposes Nazis (even though Nazis didn't rise to power until 1933 and didn't begin its aggression until later in the decade), but no matter, Anderson manages to sidestep even that potentially gloomy plot point and maintain the good cheer.     

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a lot like Anderson's previous films, yet completely different.     I was more drawn in this time, more interested, and more curious to see what was up the director's sleeve.      The last Wes Anderson film was Moonrise Kingdom (2012), which was not a success for me.     I found it to be tiresomely twee.     The Grand Budapest Hotel is certainly not tiresome, nor twee. 

Grudge Match (2013) * *

Directed by:  Peter Segal

Starring:  Sylvester Stallone, Robert DeNiro, Kim Basinger, Alan Arkin, Kevin Hart, Jon Bernthal, LL Cool J

The plot:  A desperate boxing promoter sets up a fight between feuding retired boxers.

Stallone and DeNiro seem to be having a pretty good time in Grudge Match, a boxing comedy about two old, retired boxers who finally have their long-awaited rematch set up by the son of their late, dubious boxing promoter.    Both are at least on the wrong side of 60 (in real life much more than that), but still carry around plenty of grudges against the other.     Henry "Razor" Sharp (Stallone) and
Billy "Kid" McDonnen (DeNiro) fought each other twice in the early 80s, each winning once.    The rubber match between the two never happened though, as Razor retired from boxing.    

This left Kid empty and frustrated because he didn't get to finish Razor.    Razor in turn nurses a grudge against Kid for having an affair with his then-girlfriend Sally Rose (Basinger) and fathering a child.     A small-time desperate promoter named Dante Slate Jr., the son of both men's late, unscrupulous promoter (Hart) proposes the rubber match after the two men brawl while doing some work for a boxing video game.     Due to desperate finanical situations, they agree to fight despite their advanced age.    Things like medical clearances are not issues in Dante's world, who drives around in a jalopy while promising big bucks to the fighters.  

The first half of Grudge Match is funny and it is fun to watch DeNiro and Stallone do their stuff.    But then the energy level subsides and a lot of sentimental issues are covered, like the introduction of BJ (Bernthal), the son Kid never knew.    Grudge Match doesn't work as well when it lays the sentiment on thick.    The scenes involving Basinger and Stallone also seem perfunctory.     I would've preferred the film continue to explore the sometimes bizarre world of boxing, where there is no such thing as bad publicity.    

Then, we have the issue of the fight itself, which the film was building up to and thus had to be longer and drawn out than it would realistically be.     The two men throw haymakers at each other at will as if they picked up where Rocky 6 left off.     I suppose the film wanted to give the audience its money's worth, but is it really possible these two men could administer such punishment to each other?    Don't brittle bones, achy joints, slowed motor skills, and lessened stamina play any part in this fight?    The answer of course is no.  

It is good to see Stallone play an actual character instead of an indestructible killing machine pushing 70.     In Grudge Match, he is quiet and likable, a study of what Rocky would've been like if he retired after the first Apollo Creed fight.    DeNiro also enjoys himself.     He doesn't walk around with a facial expression of someone who seems to perpetually smell a dirty diaper.    Kevin Hart and Alan Arkin are really one-liner machines and get off some funny ones, but both roles are rather limited.     Basinger does her best in a role that in the grand scheme of things is rather unnecessary.  

Grudge Match is funnier than I expected, but doesn't quite go the distance.    Many of the things in the film are handled better than the fight itself.     I honestly didn't really care who won, just as long as no one got seriously hurt, which is not likely in this film's boxing world. 

Side note:  Something unintentionally funny is the film's use of fake snow, which is seen in small, unmelted white piles all over the place.     If you look hard enough, you can see they're made of plastic.   

August: Osage County (2013) * *

Directed by:  John Wells

Starring:  Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Dermot Mulroney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Shepard, Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin

The Plot:   A very dysfunctional Oklahoma family reunites in the wake of the patriarch's suicide and funeral.

Here is a movie crying out for a sequel.    There are plenty of subplots, arguments, threats, revelations, and dramatics that are introduced but not explored or resolved.      In real life, there are not always clear resolutions to issues, but we watch movies to transcend or escape real life.    Resolutions are not unreasonably expected unless a sequel is forthcoming, but I don't expect the gang back together for another go-round.

So what do we have?    Based on the stage play by Tracy Letts and directed by John Wells (who directed the superb The Company Men in 2010), August: Osage County takes place over a scorching hot weekend in rural Oklahoma with the Weston family.     The patriarch Beverly (Shepard), a sad alcoholic who gave up hope of being anything more than a scholar years ago, goes missing and matriarch Violet (Streep) puts the word out to her family near or far.     Soon, all are descending on the Weston home, which has the curtains drawn and the air conditioner unused.     I think part of the reason everyone is so miserable is that the air is not turned on even when it's 108 degrees outside.

Soon, the patriarch Beverly (what a curse for a man to be named Beverly) is found at the bottom of a lake from a suspected suicide, stirring up conflicting emotions and emotional conflicts.    Violet is not without her own problems.    She is suffering from mouth cancer and is hooked on pills, all the while is barely seen without a cigarette in her hand.      I can't imagine that will help with the mouth cancer.
Is it so hard to act without having a prop like a cigarette or a drink in your hand?     The Violet character is a scenery-chewing loudmouth anyway, but why distract from it?    Streep is an 18-time Oscar nominee (including this film) and a three-time winner.     She enjoys playing the insulting, condescending, doped out Violet, although I don't rank this with her best performances.    

The Roberts character is Barb, the "favored" sister with plenty of issues of her own long before her father died.    She's in a crumbling marriage to an eggheaded professor (McGregor) and has a mouth that would embarrass a longshoreman.    I have no objections to movie characters using four-letter or twelve-letter words, but they should be used sparingly.     Roberts isn't exactly a million miles removed from her Oscar-winning turn in Erin Brockovich.     She is sometimes so abrasive and loud that it is hard to have sympathy for her.     We can't really blame her ex for wanting to stay as far away from her as possible.

Other characters are introduced, given a few moments in the sun, and stand on the sidelines while the women have it out.    The men in August:Osage County are MIA when the women are sitting around drinking and having dustups.     My guess is they are running for cover.     My biggest issue with the people in August: Osage County is that they aren't really people we can identify with.     They are play/movie characters with a lot of baggage and drama, but we never quite feel their pain.     There is a lot of shouting, confessions, and a bizarre revelation which makes a creepy relationship between first cousins Ivy (Nicholson) and Charle (Cumberbatch) even creepier.     But despite the all-star cast, August: Osage County in the end just didn't move me.      I'm reminded of the song with the chorus, "Is that all there is?"


  

Auto Focus (2002) * * * *

Directed by:  Paul Schrader

Starring:  Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Rita Wilson, Maria Bello, Ron Leibman

Bob Crane was bludgeoned to death in 1978 while sleeping in a Scottsdale, Arizona hotel room.    The murder remains officially unsolved, although his friend John Carpenter was tried and acquitted of the crime.    We may never know for sure who killed Bob Crane, the affable star of Hogan's Heroes who led a life that spiraled out of control due to sex addiction.     In the 60s and 70s, sex addiction likely wasn't even thought of as a true addiction.     Crane (Kinnear) thought he was normal and was proudly indiscreet about showing people dozens of photo albums full of his conquests.     What he never grasped was that his addictions ruined his career, two marriages, and may have led to his untimely death.

Auto Focus is a fascinating study of a man who was a slave to his compulsions.     Crane rationalized his behavior by saying "I don't drink.   I don't smoke or do drugs."    All true, but sex was his drug of choice.    He doesn't seem to experience much joy in having sex, but has a compulsive need for it.    He saw nothing unusual about his motto, "A day without sex is a wasted day,"    He found a kindred spirit in Carpenter, who first befriended Crane by selling him new video equipment.     Soon, he and Carpenter became inseparable, booking swinger parties all over LA and then on the road after Hogan's Heroes is cancelled and Crane embarks on a nationwide dinner theater tour.     Their relationship is co-dependent, but there are homosexual undertones as well.     The only outward sign of any affection is when Carpenter felt up Bob's ass during an orgy, which offended Crane but not enough to keep away.     It's noteworthy when Carpenter explains he also has such a friendship with Crane's co-star Richard Dawson.     Crane's response:  "It's either him or me."   What exactly was going on there?

Crane's reputation for swinging cost him jobs with Disney and attempts to resurrect his career after Hogan's Heroes.     His agent (Leibman) warns him against being indiscreet, but Crane sees no issue in his behavior.     Crane sees no problem with he and Carpenter masturbating while playing back videos of their sexcapades.    Early on when Crane was playing drums at a strip club, he seeks out advice from his priest, but isn't very eager to join the priest's band.      By 1978, Crane decides to change his ways and disassociates himself from Carpenter, who behaves like a thrown-over lover.   Did this lead to Crane's death directly?    We will likely never know.    What we do know is someone was angry enough with Bob Crane to murder him in his sleep.

Kinnear is truly effective playing Crane as a likable guy who doesn't want to hurt anybody, but can't help himself.     He lacks insight into his behavior, mostly because few thought that there was any such thing as sex addiction in the 1970s.     But as we witness the joylessness that accompanied his sexcapades, we see that sex became quite a drag for him.     We feel it.     Going from place to place night after night with Carpenter takes its toll on him.     Carpenter, in my opinion, is at least bisexual and is half in love with Crane, but parties with the women because it keeps him close to Crane.    Dafoe is creepily convincing.     We can believe he would be someone who would kill rather than lose his lifestyle, which is troubling and sad.   

The pity is, we see Bob Crane edging closer and closer to a tragic ending.    He could never beat his demons because in his mind he didn't have them.     But they were there, they were real, and they crushed him.