Three... Extremes (2004, R)

Man, the title of this one does not lie!  This is an anthology of 3 short horror films from different parts of Asia.  The first segment is a Chinese film entitled Dumplings, and was later made into a feature-length film of the same title which is also available to stream on Netflix.  Dumplings stars Bai Ling (Crank 2: High Voltage, The Crow... as well as a couple episodes of Angel and Lost) as a woman who makes some magical dumplings that restore youth and virility to women.  When she says to her client in the film "Don't think about what it was, think about what it will do for you," I should have known to ask myself this question: if there is anything in the world that I don't want to find out she's eating, then I should turn this off right now.  I didn't ask myself the question and I didn't turn it off, much to my horror.  It's an effective piece at evoking shock and awe in the audience (or me at least), so I have to give it that much credit, but it is not for the weak (or only moderately strong) of heart.

Chinatown (1974, R)

This is a solid private investigator story starring Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining) in probably his only non-crazy person role and Faye Dunaway (Mommy Dearest, Bonny And Clyde) as the femme fatale.  The film lacks the visual style of classic noir, but it is a good prototype of a 1950's style.  Nicholson plays a surprisingly successful PI (most detective stories I encounter tend to be down on their luck, stubbly and drinking cheap whiskey out of a coffee mug) who was hired to investigate potential unfaithfulness of a woman's wife, but the case grows into something much more as he finds out things aren't what they seem.  There's loads of secrets, lies, treachery, murder... the works.

Wasabi (2001, R)

This French-language feature is an action/comedy about a police detective played by Jean Reno (The Professional, The DaVinci Code) traveling to Japan where he had met the love of his life and now meets trouble with the local criminals.  I've always liked seeing Reno on screen ever since I first saw The Professional, and this is now (tied for) my favorite film of his.  His character is (I know this is kind of impossible, but) a very competent version of Inspector Clouseau crossed with a less-homicidal Judge Dredd.  He's a straight-to-business action type and has seemingly left social graces behind.

The Devil's Rock (2011, R)

First off, I absolutely LOVED this movie.  It starts off with two Allied soldiers attempting to sneak onto a Nazi-occupied island off the British coast in order to sabotage the gun battery.  I'm not perfect at identifying English-language accents among each other, but the main character of the two was identfied as a New Zelander and I presume the other was as well.  By the way, the title of this film describes the island on which the story takes place, not to a style of music.

I could tell from the first scene with the pacing and the interaction between the characters that the story was sharp.  Tension was bulit very effectively with no need for the various tricks you'll see Hollywood employ to get a moviegoer's attention.  Partway through the story, it shifts to a more occult/supernatural horror story and this is very effectively done as well, but it didn't wow me as much as the beginning.  Don't take this to mean that the latter part was not good, just that the first part let me know how good this movie was going to be.  Character was built,

Harold (2008, PG-13)

This is an off-beat comedy about a 13 year-old boy who is very prematurely bald. What made it all the funnier is that he acts like a middle-aged man in several other ways: he hunches his shoulders and shuffles as he walks, he dresses the part, has non-youth style glasses, and yells at other kids to stay out of his yard. Like in Jesus Henry Christ, Harold is way too smart and mature for his age, and though he is intelligent he's not the genius that Henry is. Harold likes living in his town and he's comfortably a bit of a local celebrity, but when his family moves to a new town it's really darn hard being the new kid and bald. This movie has a humor and story style that makes it more of a movie for teenagers (give or take a few years) more so than most of the other movies I've reviewed, but as an adult I definitely enjoyed it. Though I do advise that, if your family is like mine, that parents watch it without their kids and kids watch it without their parents (it gets a little raunchy in some of the jokes/references, but as you can tell by the non-R rating it's not hard sex/nudity).

Jesus Henry Christ (2012, PG-13)

This is a quirky comedy about a brilliant 10 year-old boy named Henry with a perfect memory.  He's raised by his single mother and his father was an anonymous sperm donor.  The title of the film (along with the lack of a tangible father) had lead me to presume that Henry would be an analogue for the historical Jesus or that his story/character arc would have strong similarities but that's not the case.  Several of the characters use "Jesus H. Christ" as an exclamation and one ponders what the H stands for.

Anyway, Henry is a really likable character, good natured and mature.  I suppose there are some similarities to Jesus, but also to Martin Luther and Martin Luther King as well.  Henry's mother is played by Toni Collette (The United States Of Tara series, Little Miss Sunshine), which is kind of fitting because I find that this movie seems to have similarities to Little Miss Sunshine (in which Collette also plays the mother of a quirky family) and Little Man Tate (which has Jodi Foster as the mother of a genius child).  Though the film has serious moments and social issues mentioned, it is also funny at times and far less depressing than Little Miss Sunshine.  Michael Sheen (Tron: Legacy, Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) played a college professor who was my favorite character in the movie.  He is flawed, and one of his actions that he thought was for the best turned sour and he does what he can to make amends.  I just really connected with him and felt like I got him.  Henry's grandfather is another character that is quirky, charming and will be a favorite character for many viewers as well.

I don't think any of the moments in the movie made me laugh out loud, but I definitely smirked at moments, and I was very happy with some of the characters' personal triumphs.  I found it extremely charming and uplifting in many ways despite struggles for characters.  If you liked definitely Little Miss Sunshine and probably Little Man Tate, then you'll like this.  I also get kind of a Midnight In Paris feel from this movie, though I can't quite put my finger on why (it's doesn't involve literary or art history really).  For me the movie is 4.5 stars, or if I'm being generous, a 5.  I would definitely watch this one again, and probably will in order to have some of my friends see it.

Enter The Void (2009, R)

Fair warning ahead of time: if you have epilepsy, then this movie intends to do you harm.  The title sequence is flashing the text so quickly that you would need to slow it down frame by frame in order to pick out more than a couple of the names in it, and it's more than a little disorienting.  But in its defense, it is artistically pretty cool.  It's like a gallery art show... only in flashing text of alternating colors and styles with fast music playing.  The story itself is about Oscar, an American drug dealer in Tokyo (I wonder if that could be a movie title...) taking drugs and kind of reflecting on his life.  It's a slow movie with more thought than snappy dialogue, so if you're not a patient person, you'll hate this movie.  By the way, this is an English-language French film.

When Oscar smokes some of his product early in the film, we get another kind of artsy sequence in some computer animated rendering of what he sees.  I wouldn't be qualified to attest to how accurate a representation this is (among other barriers, I'm not 100% sure what it was, but he often tried to score DMT in the film), but if any knowledgeable readers out there have seen this film and would care to post in the comments (heck, set up a dummy-account if you want to stay anonymous) I would be curious to hear how it compares to your experiences.  Anyway, much of the film is seen out of the main character's eyes (rather than an obvious [or steady] camera), so this scene in particular reminds me of much of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (which I once played a drinking game during, and very strongly caution you against trying), and the camera-motion style reminds me of Irreversible (which did not surprise me when I found out that Gaspar Noe wrote and directed both films).  One thing I didn't particularly like about the film was that much of the dialogue was pretty low/quiet and during the drug/disorientation sequences there was some voice in a low/echo-y tone that was almost impossible to make out.  That may have been the intention (not to know what was said), but I like to know what words are used when words are used.  I do like when some scenes flashed from "present tense" to a moment in the past as our first-person view character is reminded of that moment.  I thought it was clever and pretty seamlessly integrated.

After one point, the movie kind of changes gears to a reflection on Oscar's childhood and recent life, and here we get a broader picture of what's going on with him and some context for what we have seen so far.  We (the camera) also spends a lot of time drifting along the ceiling and across town observing different scenes and moving between them.  This is kind of disorienting but also kind of interesting as we're along for the ride (more so than with other films, in which I suppose this is also true).  There was some interesting juxtaposition of concepts by visual similarities between different scenes that have very different (in some respects) subject matter or emotional tones.  One such scene took me a moment to recognize what I was seeing, and when I did realize it, it was pretty disturbing (they make it clear shortly afterwards what it was, and while the reveal is also disturbing, it might be more merciful if you don't realize until that point).

If you like artier movies and/or enjoy recreational drug use, then I imagine you'll like this movie.  If you liked Irreversible, then you'll like this film.  If you're not a patient person, then this movie is not for you.  It was creative storytelling, so I liked it even though I can't really identify with any of the characters.   It's not something I think I'll watch a second time, and so with its value and caveats it scores 3 stars for me.  It's probably a "play silently in the background at a party" kind of movie (if you know the film and know your guests enough to know that they will appreciate and not hate the various images).

Four Rooms (1995, R)

This movie stars Tim Roth (Rob Roy, Lie To Me tv series) playing a bellhop in a hotel in a series of humorous vignettes with each story by a different writer/director.  This is no less than the third Tarantino film Roth has acted in (also, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction), so I think this movie was basically a bunch of friends getting together to make a film.  Among the various famous faces in this movie are Madonna (Evita, though she's most famous for her music... now that I think of it, she was a topic of discussion in the first scene of Reservoir Dogs... interesting), Kathy Griffin (comedian), and Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny, The Wrestler).  It's a comedy, sometimes darkly humorous, and there was one scene (thankfully only one) of gross-out humor.  I was shocked by how young Roth looked in this role.  Tempus fugit.

Another of the directors was Robert Rodriguez who is most famous for Desperado (we'll pretend he never made Spy Kids), but who also co-directed From Dusk 'Till Dawn (also starring Tarantino and Harvey Kietel who were both in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs) and Sin City with Tarantino.  The Rodriguez sequence was probably my favorite in the film (funniest) and starred Antonio Banderas (Desperado, The Mask Of Zorro), an old favorite of Rodriguez.
The final sequence featured (acting) and was directed by Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained); you could tell by the idiosyncrasies of the various characters (including Bruce Willis [Die Hard] and Paul Calderon ["Hey, my name is Paul, and this is between y'all."], both of whom acted in Pulp Fiction as well).  This sequence was also very good in that certain Tarantino way, so if you liked his other movies then you'll like this scene.  And in true Tarantino style, he makes various film references (verbally through his character this time).

Largely this movie reminded me of a Tex Avery style cartoon or a Tom and Jerry (minus one character trying to eat another), but with a more adult twist (there were lots of boobies in the first sequence) and peppered curses throughout.  One cartoon-like quality was that (especially in the first sequence) Roth was largely silent but animated in gesture.  So actually, if you liked The Mask, then you stand a good chance of enjoying this movie.  It's nothing groundbreaking, and it won't be anyone's favorite film of all time, but if you're in a chill mood you can find it very enjoyable.  For me, this movie is 3.4-4 stars.

Deadtime Stories (2011, R)

 

I made the mistake of accidentally watching volume 2 of this series before volume 1 (consecutive days, so not a huge gap), so my supreme disappointment with v2 might have tempered my impression of v1.  V1 is way better, if not great.  Famed horror director George Romero (Day Of The Dead) hosts these anthologies of three short horror films each, with a different director for each story (some directorial overlap between volumes).  Romero keeps a pulpy-horror feel and really reminds me of the Cryptkeeper, and he might actually be my favorite part of the films.  In each volume, the stories get less and less bad as we progress through the 3 stories, such that the later ones could have been adapted from a decent short story fiction.  In v1, the first story was completely "blah", but the second one was actually a decent mermaid story (I kid you not).  It showed and/or implied history to the characters and made a creative tale that I did not think possible.  The third tale in v1 had some pretty cool cinematographic choices and decent writing.  All of the stories had pretty bad acting (actually the second tale in v1 was not so bad).

World's Greatest Dad (2009, R)

This stars Robin Williams (Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting) as a high school English teacher, aspiring author, and single father of a complete and utter douchebag son.  The son (among his numerous issues) is into auto-erotic asphyxiation, which means that he likes to choke himself (with a belt in this case) while he masturbates.  Now, I try not to be judgemental, but I don't like the kid to begin with, and he didn't take basic safety precautions (here's my public service announcement: if you're going to choke your neck while you choke your chicken, you should always do it with someone there to assist if you're in danger of actual death... kind of like a spotter for when you're lifting weights).  The son accidentally dies while doing this and the father makes it look like a suicide (rearranges the body, writes a note) to spare... well... everyone: the son, the father, and the community.  Then we get to see how this impacts the father, the school and the community/society.  It's actually pretty poignant, if difficult to watch.

Out Of Sight (1998, R)

This fun caper flick stars George Clooney (Ocean's Eleven, ER tv series) and Jennifer Lopez (The Cell, Maid In Manhattan... c'mon, JLo the signer, you know who she is), supported by Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible, Striptease), Don Cheadle (Iron Man 2, Hotel Rwanda), and Dennis Farina (Snatch, Get Shorty).  Clooney plays a career bank robber who has spent a good chunk of his life behind bars (as have his criminal associates Rhames and Cheadle, friend and less-so respectively) and JLo plays a federal marshal (presumably her father, played by Farina, is a veteran himself) who meets him under strange circumstances.  While the lead actors have disappointed me in the past (Lopez in Gili, Clooney in Batman And Robin), they did great jobs here.  Lopez was far more believable as a tough girl in here than in Gili, though my favorite film of hers (despite her) is The Cell which I absolutely loved largely for the costumes, set design and special effects.  Bit of a tangent there, sorry.  I don't think I've ever been disappointed by the supporting actors though: Rhames was the best part of Striptease, which was itself better than I expected it to be; Farina is one of the (many, now that I think about it) most memorable characters in Snatch; Cheadle (like everyone else in the film), acted his ass of in Crash.

Galaxy Of Terror (1981, R)

At the time of this writing, Galaxy Of Terror is not available on Netflix Instant, but I liked it so much I want to put it out there anyway.  In several ways, it's a combination of Alien and Hellraiser (two franchises that I get a real kick out of).  It's a future sci-fi/horror tale about a rescue team that is trying to see if there are any survivors at this one outpost with which the Imperial central has lost contact.  We know from the opening sequence that the original crew was killed off by some weird-looking creatures.  The rescue crew has several faces you might recognize from other films or shows: Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian tv series, Fast Times At Ridgemont High), Erin Moran (Happy Days, Joanie Loves Chachi tv series), Robert Englund (Zombie Strippers!, Nightmare On Elm Street [fun fact: it's based on the Elm St in the town in which I grew up]), Sid Haig (House Of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects), Grace Zabriskie (Twin Peaks tv series). 

Zabriskie plays a reckless hotshot pilot, a role almost necessary for any good pulpy space-jocky story, but this time the role is filled by a middling-age woman for a change of pace.  I liked that the dialogue gives insight that this story takes place in a greater universe (Haig's character uses some crystal glaives and indicates that they are a tied to his culture; the field commander indicates that there is an ongoing power struggle with another crew member).