D-

Disco Godfather [The Avenging Disco Godfather]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1979)

Dear God the Father! Some movies are so terrible, you love them for everything wrong with them—what’s bad is exactly what endears them. Other movies…well, they’re just terrible. It’s a thin line. Sadly, Disco Godfather falls into the latter category.

J. Robert Wagoner and Cliff Roquemore’s screenplay stars Rudy Ray Moore as Tucker Williams, an L.A. cop-turned-DJ at the trashy-ass Blueberry Hill Disco, which looks like a repurposed Denny’s. The plot involves Williams’s nephew, Bucky (Julius J. Carry III), who’s gotten hooked on “angel dust.”

One word: YAWN! What were they thinking? Disco Godfather is so boring, I’d rather watch reruns of 2 Broke Girls. The only thing that saves it from total failure is the wardrobe—Felice Hurtes, Jimmy Lynch, and Kimberly Sizemore deserve major kudos for finding the cool Goodwill stores. Fuck this bullshit: watch Dolemite and call it a day. They could have tried a little harder here.

With Carol Speed, Jimmy Lynch, Jerry Jones, Lady Reed, Hawthorne James, Frank Finn, Julius J. Carry III, Bishop Pat Patterson, Pucci Jhones, Howard Jackson, Yetta Collier, Pat Washington, Doc Watson, Leroy Daniels, Melvin Smith, Ronny Harris, Dolorise Parr, John Casino, Keith David

Production: Generation International

Distribution: Transvue Pictures (USA), Xenon Pictures

93 minutes
Rated R

(DVD purchase) D-

Cool World

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1992)

“That one, she’s a waste of ink.”

“What, you got ink for brains? Get down!”

—Det. Frank Harris

Oh boy. Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World is not good. It probably started out with some fun ideas, but man did they get lost in a morass of crap. A jailed cartoonist (Gabriel Byrne) draws a scantily clad floozie, Holli Would (Kim Basinger), whom he fantasizes about and no doubt spills a lot of seed over while he’s locked up. Upon his release from the big house, he gets zapped into Cool World, a fifth dimension where humans (“noids”) interact with cartoons (“scribbles”). They can’t have sex with each other, though—as if that’s the first thing you want to do with a cartoon.

Oh, there’s also a random, inelegantly placed storyline about Detective Frank Harris (Brad Pitt), Cool World’s one-man vice squad, and how he ends up there after a motorcycle accident that kills his mother (Janni Brenn-Lowen).

Where to begin? The plot is full of unexplained holes, and I didn’t care enough to bother trying to fill them in. The jokes are lame, and there’s an awful lot of filler. I’ve never seen Basinger as boring as she is here, with lines like, “Now you can buy me more fries, dickhead.” Whatever. Byrne is an even bigger snooze, unable to feign an ounce of excitement over…anything. Cool World is a blatant ripoff of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Dick Tracy, and even Tim Burton’s Batman; sadly, the finished product doesn’t come close to any of them.

The animation, however, is cool: a kind of retro-futuristic Ren and Stimpy thing. The soundtrack, which features original songs by the likes of David Bowie, Thompson Twins, and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, is great even if it’s so 1992 with its techno-industrial sound. Plus, Pitt is actually decent despite the material, his affected accent and the awful suit and tie combo straight from U Men or Oak Tree aside. It’s strange and sad to see him in something as soulless as Cool World, but he’s nice to look at.

With Michele Abrams, Dierdre O’Connell, Frank Sinatra, Jr.

Production: Rough Draft Studios

Distribution: Paramount Pictures

102 minutes
Rated PG-13

(MoviePlex) D-

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1984)

I’ve seen A Nightmare on Elm Street twice: once as a teenager and once as a middle-aged adult. I can say with authority: no matter how you slice it, this movie sucks.

The plot sounds like a good idea: a knife-fingered ruffian in a tacky striped sweater reminiscent of the original PBS children’s show Zoom haunts teenagers in their dreams and kills them in their sleep. The problem is, A Nightmare on Elm Street just isn’t scary. It’s silly. Dumb, even. One by one, a bunch of kids gets offed by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund in the role of a lifetime). There’s a really cool scene of a blood geyser spurting from a bed. Heather Langenkamp’s overacting is amazingly bad. There’s that gorgeously diabolical line, “I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy” followed by a tongue coming out of the receiver (never mind that the phone’s unplugged). A young, dumb, and full of you-know-what Johnny Depp is here, all dolled up in an incredibly gay softcore porn outfit. Bizarre. Nancy’s weirdo vodka-lush mother (Ronee Blakley) adds some much needed comic relief—that final scene! Oh, and that catchy nursery rhyme. Other than that, though, this is tedious slasher stuff warmed over from the ’70s but with a slicker ’80s look. I mean, fuck, do we really need that clanking noise to cue us in that Freddy’s coming? Every time? We get it.

Watching it, one is dumbfounded knowing that A Nightmare on Elm Street spawned an entire franchise let alone a sequel. Sure, it’s got kitsch value, and everyone knows this movie so the late Wes Craven did something right. I’m just not sure what. To be fair, I was well aware of what I was getting into here, so I can’t complain about the experience; I already knew this is bad. I’m glad the theater has a bar and we went early as a group to load up on liquor (not vodka) before siting down—that made it fun for a midnight screening.

91 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) D-

http://m.nightmareonelmstreet.com

http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com

Director’s Cut

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

Yeah…this. Hmmm. Herbert Blount (Penn Jillette) is a weird crowdfunding stalker obsessed with actress Missi Pyle, playing herself, who costars in a low budget crime-gore “movie” with Harry Hamlin and a guy named Reed (Hayes MacArthur). Blount, who is given behind-the-scenes access because he used his PayPal account to donate a large sum of money to the project, is seduced by the artistic process and secretly hijacks the film to make his own version: he wants Pyle front and center. He undermines the director (Adam Rifken), steals footage, and kidnaps Pyle to shoot new scenes with her in his basement.

A movie within a fake movie (Knocked Off), Director’s Cut is a satire of the film industry, celebrity, and the changing role of the audience. Directed for real by Rifken, it exhibits some competent technical handiwork: Knocked Off, little more than a CSI episode, looks professional right down to its angles, cuts, and color grade. A slew of cameos—some, like Jillette, former contestants of Celebrity Apprentice (Gilbert Godfrey, Lisa Rinna)—adds a smart lighthearted touch. Jillette’s longtime partner in magic, Raymond Joseph Teller, makes a fun though not exactly unexpected appearance. Pyle’s diva tantrums “off screen” are amusing. The film makes interesting and timely points about the dangers of giving artistic input and access to the general public and obsessed fans: even in an era where the tools of the trade are readily available to virtually anyone, not everyone can (or should attempt to) make a movie.

Director’s Cut just doesn’t cut it. Sadly, Jillette himself is the most disappointing thing about it. He doesn’t pull off creepy; his gentle, dulcet voice bantering lame “commentary”—like in a bonus feature of a DVD (get it?)—undermines that. Worse, his terrible “acting,” the oddly tame scenes he stages with Pyle, and his crude homemade edits of his version of the film paint him as a harmless grandfatherly dolt more than anything. The gimmick here wears out before the movie is even half over. Director’s Cut has good ideas, but it’s just not funny.

83 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) D-

https://makepennbad.com

Vibes

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1988)

A day off of work is a good time to watch a DVD, so I picked Vibes. Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Goldblum are both talented performers with long careers sustained in large part by their quirky, so unusual personas (personae?); it stands to reason that each would have a good share of hits and misses—and they do. Vibes is definitely a miss for both of them—a huge one.

Vibes starts out, to use a Lauper song from another movie, good enough: two robbers in the Andes set up the backstory in a short opening. The action shifts to New York City, where psychics Sylvia Pickel (Lauper) and Nick Deezy (Goldblum) meet while participating in a study on paranormal abilities. The scene is promising: Nick can tell where objects have been by touching them, and Sylvia is a medium for a spirit named Louise. The exchanges between the two and their analysts are actually funny. Unfortunately, things slide steadily downhill from there. Con artist Harry Buscafusco (Peter Falk) shows up at Sylvia’s apartment at night and offers her a job under the guise of finding his lost son in Ecuador. Sylvia convinces Nick to join them. The adventure begins.

YAWN! Vibes is painful to watch—fucking painful. The writing sucks—the situations are unoriginal, the story is predictable, and the dialogue is dull. Lauper isn’t funny at all; she’s shrill, clearly inexperienced with acting, and downright grating with her over-exaggerated Queens shtick that she seriously toned down following this bomb (check out interviews of her from 1989 forward and her subsequent acting gigs if you don’t believe me). Aside from her first scene, she shines only when she’s using her voice for something other than reading lines—for example, singing a lullaby to villain Ingo (Googy Gress) and speaking in tongues when a spirit takes over her body after she touches a glowing pyramid that connects her to a past world. As usual, Goldblum’s timing is spot on; but he can only do so much with the material, which is so lame I doubt anyone could have saved it. A romance develops, and it’s laughable because there’s zero chemistry between Lauper and Goldblum—he doesn’t even seem to like her (and according to Lauper’s memoir, he didn’t). The whole thing is dismal.

Vibes initially sounded like a good idea: real actors, including Julian Sands and Elizabeth Peña, signed onto the project. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel—who had an established track record with comedies like Night Shift, Splash, and Spies Like Us in addition to episodes of sitcoms like The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Laverne & Shirley—started (but didn’t finish) the script. It seemed like a good bet for a light summer comedy (it was released in July or August, as I recall). Vibes no doubt didn’t go as planned. It features some nice scenery, a young and unknown Steve Buscemi as Sylvia’s ex-boyfriend, and Lauper’s arguably underrated single “Hole in my Heart (All the Way to China)”—but that’s about it. I should’ve gone to a movie instead.

(Home via DVD) D-

https://www.sonymoviechannel.com/movies/vibes/details

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Posted on by moviebloke

(Sweden 2014)

It’s sad when the previews show the best part of a film. More a series of sketches strung together like clunky Christmas lights, Pigeon makes the not-so-grand point that life is long and dull and full of drudgery, and everyone goes through the same bullshit. The sentiment is promising, and I love the brand of dark, offbeat humor that pervades this film. The overall look works well: drab, empty long shots emphasize the mood.

It had its moments, but Pigeon never got off the ground for me: it was, well, long and dull and full of drudgery, repeating the same jokes ad infinitum. What a disappointment. Maybe I just don’t get Swedish humor—if such a thing exists.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) D-

 http://www.magpictures.com/apigeon/

While We’re Young

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2014)

Noah Baumbach’s snooze of a film about a middle-aged couple (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) whose staid life is seemingly revived by an effervescent, young hipster couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). While We’re Young relies heavily on angst and clichés, and glides into an unfortunately trite comparison of GenXers vs. Millennials. What a fucking yawn. Yes, there are a few laughs and a nice cameo by Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz, but still—I was bored with most of this disappointing piece of meh. I should’ve brought a book. Now get off my lawn.

(AMC River East) D-

http://while-were-young.com