Myriad Netflix Notes…A PLETHORA, EVEN!
Want movie ideas? These are some Netflix Notes I made between March 5 and July 9 of this year. Most recent are at the top.
Star ratings are similar to Roger Ebert’s. Subtract one of my stars to get on his four-star scale (which I prefer). It follows that anything I rate 4 or 5 stars gets a “thumbs up” from me.
5 stars = awesome, but not necessarily perfect
4 stars = good, a worthwhile venture
3 stars = mediocre and most likely forgettable
2 stars = actively dislike, sucks to your mother
1 star = kill
Louis C.K.: Chewed Up
He loses me at “vaginas are pretty” and “white people have been privileged throughout all of history” but the rest of it’s pretty funny. He likes a lot of the same words I like.
4/5 stars
Bruno
Much better than Borat, but it has the same editing tricks and other deceptive filmmaking tactics. Plot is more minimal than Borat’s. I saw Igor the Pituitary Monster at Chateau Theatres today.
4/5 stars
Twilight
I saw this for two reasons: 1) I wanted to see what the hype was about; 2) I wanted to look at Kristen Stewart’s face for an extended period of time. Movie is as anemic as its actors look.
2/5 stars
Resolved
Debates are always boring to me, so I’m not sure why I rented this. At one point, an otherwise smart black guy blames his disadvantages on race even though each one he cites is about a lack of money.
2/5 stars
Pygmalion
I guess I prefer the faggy musical version to this. Ambiguous fag Henry Higgins is one of my favorite fictional characters for the way he talks to women.
4/5 stars
Eastbound and Down: Season 1
Toolbox Jody Hill and revered hillbilly director DG Green teamed up to make this FISH OUTTA WATER tale. HE’S EGOTISTICAL!!! HE SWEARS IN FRONT OF CHILDREN!!! HUZZAH!!!
2/5 stars
Bubba Ho-Tep
First hour is 5 stars, Final 1/2 hour is about 3. Yes, it seems even the more offbeat and “independent” American comedies suffer from Shitty Final 30 Minutes Syndrome.
4/5 stars
Tokyo Zombie
Dr. Kablaa correctly recommended this to me. I think Japanese people are funnier (both to laugh AT and WITH) than the people of any other culture. Make it a double feature with Visitor Q.
5/5 stars
True Blood: Season 1
HBO rocks, yadda yadda yadda. First two episodes I wasn’t sure, but it turns out that vampires work better in movies and TV than pretty much every other supernatural being.
5/5 stars
Night of the Comet
I saw this when I was little, and all I remember is that my 5-year-old mind lusted after the Michelle-Williams-looking cheerleader. Looking at it again today, I probably prefer the 80s-hair woman.
3/5 stars
Opening Night
The movie shows one example of why Trey Parker doesn’t like to work with actors. JUST READ THE DAMN LINES AND FORGET ABOUT THE MOTIVATION! Gazzara reminds me of Sinatra and Guccione.
4/5 stars
The Girls Next Door: Season 2
This is my beer-drinking show. I haven’t yet watched an episode without beer in me. Bridget’s starting to grow on me some. She’s got the others beat in body, but her brain is just so fucking stupid.
4/5 stars
Raw
Murphy wears a leather suit, makes hilarious equal opportunity racist impressions, and probably does a lot of cocaine behind the scenes in this 80s comedy routine that manages to hold up pretty well.
4/5 stars
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Wild World of Batwoman
I’m not liking MST3K as much as I used to. It may be that I prefer my lippy comments about shitty movies to Mike Nelson and the gang’s.
3/5 stars
The Hangover
Pretty broad humor. Lots of winks at the camera (Tyson) and predictability. Trailers ruin some moments. The performances were good for what it was.
3/5 stars
Up
I think the moral is to let go of the past…or that fat Asian Cub Scouts are stupid. Excellent animation and it’s in a world of its own by not having dumb references to other movies.
4/5 stars
It
“It” is a combo of Pirsig’s Undefined Quality and self-unawareness. Celeb mags sometimes refer to “It Girls”…well, this is where that came from. Grutchly flapper Bow would later go to the loony bin.
3/5 stars
Spasmo
Close to 4 stars. Mark of Distinction: the least convincing home movies within a movie ever. When the trailer says “SPASMO!”, it’s in all caps just like that.
3/5 stars
Martyrs
I decided to change my rating. I’m not wild about the aim of the scientists, but it’s still a very compelling and brutal film. Without alcohol in me, the violence and screaming weren’t so random.
5/5 stars
Who Saw Her Die?
Pretty mediocre giallo. My favorite scene was when about 90 kids were playing basketball in a combination gym/museum. I correctly guessed the ending’s lame gimmick.
3/5 stars
Donkey Punch
A ludicrously escalating sequence of events gets this a positive rating. One guy talks like Ali G, and the soft core Meth Party porn was pretty good.
4/5 stars
In a Glass Cage
…of emotion? Monochromatic blue movies annoy me, almost as much as yellow. The jury is still out on the third primary color, red. Anyway, this movie’s about a Nazi in an iron lung getting jizzed on.
3/5 stars
Hidden Fortress
I was wrong to dread watching this movie. It might be my favorite Kurosawa. It’s two-poltroon story structure was later used by Lucas in Star Wars.
5/5 stars
The Room
Another one I’ll have to watch again. I’m not so sure this is an ideal drunk-movie. Grutch tends to ruin my appreciation for nuances in dialogue and behavior.
3/5 stars
How to Marry a Millionaire
I can’t remember why I enqueued this. Probably to see Monroe, who plays an unfunny ditz. Movie suggests that, at heart, gold diggers aren’t really gold diggers. NIGGA PLEASE!
3/5 stars
Drag Me To Hell
One of the best endings ever, and there’s some hilarious disgustingness, but mostly it’s about Junior High Schoolers Lohman and Long meandering through a bad script and supernatural idiocy.
3/5 stars
Breaking Bad: Season 2
I’m iTuning this and have 2-3 episodes left. It’s better than the first season and one of the best shows ever to be on TV. Watch it.
5/5 stars
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
Some of these early sound films have simplicity and straightforwardness that most sloppy, gaudy films today don’t have. It’s like women’s bball with respect to men’s bball that way.
5/5 stars
The Browning Version
One diff. between US and Brit 1950s movies is that in Brit movies the porters aren’t Negroes. I looked up the “Hated It” reviews on imdb and the lowest star rating was 7 out of 10 stars.
5/5 stars
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Newman played a lot of heavy drinkers who were somehow able to keep their good looks. I liked the character Big Daddy, but the ice cream of the 1960s had a weird consistency. MENDACITY!
4/5 stars
The Toxic Avenger, Part 3
Stopped watching after 20 mins. The original “Toxie” worked because it was sleazy, rather than tongue-in-cheek and jokey like this one. You have to be able to think of the makers as reprobates.
2/5 stars
Elmer Gantry
Supposedly not a very faithful adaptation of S. Lewis’s book, and lots of 50s style acting. But Shirley Jones is quite grutchly for someone from the smokey, pre-exercise, pre-plastic surgery era.
3/5 stars
The Wrestler (2nd viewing)
I didn’t think this passed the replayability test required for the 5-star tier, so I bumped it down. For those keeping score, Let the Right One In and Waltz With Bashir were my tops for 2008.
4/5 stars
The City of Lost Children
WHAT AN OBNOXIOUS FILM THIS IS! I identified the director’s fingerprint. That is, I had a feeling he had made Amelie before I knew it for a fact. Visually optical, but full of CHILDISH WHIMSY!
2/5 stars
Johnny Got His Gun
Metallica video for “One”, which has scenes from this movie, frightened me when I was younger. The movie is much less interesting and has the most heavy-handed anti-war message of all films.
3/5 stars
Changeling
Probably Clint’s best movie since MDB. I’d have made a few changes that I won’t go into, but it’s certainly better than Gran Turd. I like it more than his war movies, too.
4/5 stars
Throne of Blood
I have another Kurosawa at my house that I’m not excited about. I don’t need another Jap-samurai version of a Shakespeare story. The ending has a good comeuppance moment, but the rest is boring.
2/5 stars
The Office: Season 5
Here we have the best season since seasons 1&2. More office-oriented and less relationship-oriented. Still, expect there to be a few duds. STRINGER BELL!
5/5 stars
Lost: Season 5
The finales are always compelling. It’s the rest of the seasons that make me wonder why the fuck I still watch them. Average star rating of this is incredibly incorrect.
3/5 stars
Wendy and Lucy
Shoplifting ruins your life. Wendy should have learned from Jean Valjean. What a shitload of fuck this indie critical darling is.
2/5 stars
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Good children’s film, but a children’s film nonetheless. Phil Hartman speaks from beyond the grave, recalling a time when he didn’t have a bullet lodged in his brain.
3/5 stars
House, M.D.: Season 5
A show I watch every week and basically tune out half of it. House’s interest in Cuddy is gay. The medical stuff usually isn’t that interesting. House & Wilson dynamic is good and Olivia Wilde is hot.
3/5 stars
Shotgun Stories
I was going to say that this is DG Green-esque, but then I realized it’s more than that: DGG WAS A PRODUCER OF THIS. Some rednecks have trouble letting go of their hate.
4/5 stars
Top Gun
Possibly the mold whence the rest of the Bruckheimer movies came. Hard to look at this through anything but the “1980s were cheesy” lens and Tarantino’s “gay subtext” lens.
3/5 stars
Breaking Bad: Season 1
WEAK! But not in a Quality way. In a “there’s only 7 episodes in the season” kind of way. I would say 5 of them are very strong.
5/5 stars
Existenz
The best movie about umbilical-corded gaming systems and amphibious teeth-guns and starring Jennifer Jason-Leigh that you’re likely to find.
5/5 stars
The Reader
The token Miramax / Oprah’s Book Club entry in this year’s Best Picture category, it was a little too Rochelle, Rochelle for my tastes (see: Seinfeld). Better than Snooze Button, worse than Slumdog.
3/5 stars
Saraband
Guy beds his daughter because his wife died, old couple reunites after being divorced for 30 years, everyone opens up about their depressed feelings, and my DVD skips because other people scratched it.
3/5 stars
The Wild One
Brando and the boys hassle shopkeepers, women and old people before TAKING OVER THE TOWN in this 1950s cautionary tale of teenage ruffianism. Abundant use of rear projection.
4/5 stars
JCVD
Not as jizz-worthy as some are making it out to be, but Jean-Claude’s “soul-bearing” is one of the better things movies have given us in recent years. POST-MODERNISM!
4/5 stars
The Woman in the Window
Lang is solid even when he makes a formulaic noir. Pretty amusing, suspenseful and Hitchcockian.
4/5 stars
I Will Walk Like A Crazy Horse
Excellent first hour; the final 40 min. aren’t as strong. Why do surrealists like deserts so much? Maybe they find it SURREALISTIC that life can thrive there, I don’t know.
4/5 stars
Occupation: Dreamland
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies: the act of putting a camera on the soldiers unavoidably changes their behavior. Still good.
4/5 stars
Frost/Nixon
About what I expected. Why go to a secondary, fictional source when the primary, documentary source exists?
3/5 stars
Splinter
Last 20 minutes have stupidity, but mostly this horror movie makes efficient use of its small budget. And the girl is hot. CINDERBLOCK!
4/5 stars
Hud
I don’t mean to come off like Harry Knowles with all my 5-star reviews, but I think I’ve seen some really good ones lately. Paul Newman drinks a lot of grutch in another one of his great roles.
5/5 stars
The Case of the Bloody Iris
Check out the alternate title to this movie. The one that begins “What are those strange…” I thought it was a pretty good giallo, and surprisingly coherent.
4/5 stars
Ugetsu
“One of the greatest of all films,” says Ebert. I can’t say that I agree. It’s a morality JapFilm about greed and lust for power, or something. And the craftsmanship isn’t that interesting either.
2/5 stars
Nanook of the North
Deputy Grutch saw this in his documentary film class. He’ll tell you about the time Nanook tried to eat the phonograph record, setting a precedent for fakery that would later be followed by Michael Moore.
3/5 stars
Shadows
Odd for a 50’s movie, especially considering treacly race-relations movies of the 1960s like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. A black guy in this microbudget movie looks like Darrel Thompson.
5/5 stars
Mutual Appreciation
Too mellow for me. Too long, too. Some reviewers compare this to Cassavetes, but it’s too “realistic” and not psychologically primal enough for that.
2/5 stars
The Spanish Prisoner
God damn, for a movie that had such a good backswing, I was almost literally nauseated by the follow-through. GOLF METAPHOR! Everything just fits together perfectly in a way I’ve come to hate.
3/5 stars
House of Clocks
MENACING CLOCKS! One of the better Fulci movies. A few LOL moments, especially that unintentionally hilarious ending (about as goofy as the Pieces ending).
4/5 stars
Observe and Report
Much of the comedy doesn’t work, including the lisping mall cop. Some of it does work, including Faris’s scenes and the comedy/drama identity crisis most critics seem to hate.
3/5 stars
Philosophy of a Knife
I skimmed the first 40 minutes of this 4-hour movie. I may skim some more today. Unless something changes, this sonically grating film in need of an editor gets one star.
1/5 stars
Short Cuts
Without even looking into it, I’m positive this movie was the biggest influence on Magnolia. LA people have problems. Possibly Altman’s best movie. Chris Penn is less dead here than in real life.
5/5 stars
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Incidentally, the 2nd Elizabeth Banks movie I saw today. She’s like a better version of Rachel McAdams. More full frontal nudity and vulgar language than your average romantic comedy, I suppose.
4/5 stars
The Spirit
Sin City+Myra Breckinridge – R = feh. Without R rating, you get Mendes’s ass but not bosoms. Boner fide grutchenas Paz Vega and Scarlett J co-star, also PG-13ily. Tries hard to be QUIRKY!
3/5 stars
Faust
I’ve been foiled by Netflix once again. They carry an inferior version of this movie, just as they do for Let the Right One In. And, like the other time, it didn’t matter. One of the best silent films.
5/5 stars
Le Doulos
The lower half of this one guy’s face looks like David Hess’s. A problem with some Melville movies, and many foreign films in general, is too much plot and reliance on words. Needs more STYLE.
3/5 stars
The Shining
My brother sent me a Simmons column about movies from which people lost their “breastirginity”. This was one of those mentioned and it’s the one I lost it to, when I was about 5. SEX+TERROR+YOUNG MIND!
5/5 stars
Big Love: Season 2
Mac’s Mom from Always Sunny plays a dude, people overhear lots of things they aren’t supposed to, Sara cries a lot, and HARRY DEAN STANTON!
4/5 stars
Death Rides a Horse
Bitchin’ titular tune (heard in Kill Bill v.1) sounds like garbled shit in this poor DVD transfer. Good Italian western, though. LEE VAN CLEEF!
4/5 stars
Friday the 13th: Part 4: The Final Chapter
Of the 7 legit (Camp Crystal Lake) entries in the series this was the only one I never saw when I was young. Crispin Glover plays a horny dork and the title is a misnomer. One of the better Ft13ths.
3/5 stars
House by the Cemetery
I half-watched this. I noticed abrupt changes in music and the usual Fulci gore and bad acting.
2/5 stars
The Girls Next Door: Season 1
Holly’s the hottest and smartest. Kendra’s the most fun and amusing. Bridget is superfluous, but good to have around I suppose. I like Hef’s set-up even more than the Big Love set-up. FRIVOLITY!
3/5 stars
Africa Addio
“Europe left its black baby too soon.” If you ever wanted to see lots of elephants and hippos shot and speared to death, here’s your chance. Influenced Cann. Hol. Ebert gave this 0 stars.
4/5 stars
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mitchell
Joe Don Baker drinks grutch and sweats a lot. Martin Balsam and JOHN SAXON co-star. Ending is amusing. Episode is significant for the changing of hosts.
4/5 stars
Let the Right One In
My new favorite ‘08 movie. In the last week, I’ve seen two great movies about superheroes and vampires set in the 1980s. HAS THE WORLD GONE TOPSY-TURVY? Do not use English dub.
5/5 stars
The Princess and the Warrior
Movies like this aren’t made in the U.S. I don’t mean this is violent or controversial but that it has lots of nice “pointless” moments that’d be cut from a U.S. movie. I like Tykwer’s movies.
4/5 stars
The Brothers Quay Collection
I just can’t appreciate surrealism that’s a completely irrational stream of images. I like stop-motion stuff, and I was hoping to enjoy this, but it was too much like latter Lynch and MOMA films.
3/5 stars
Jet Li’s Fearless
A possessive or a contraction? YOU BE THE JUDGE!
4/5 stars
The Fire Within
Nietzsche delivered the coup de grace to my ability to identify with the ennui expressed in most melancholic Malle/Kaufman /Allen/W.Anderson/ Bergman films. The 2nd half of this is alright.
3/5 stars
Frisky Dingo: Season 2
More rib-tickling brutality and hilarious atrocities. Xander Crews is one of the funnier characters on TV. I think this show could be made into a feature length movie.
4/5 stars
Monster of the Milky Way
I was getting tired of all the anthropomorphic descriptions of black hole behaviors: “eats”, “binges”, “fasts”, and so on. BLACK HOLES ARE NOT SENTIENT BEINGS!
3/5 stars
Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter
Titular cartoon is OK, “Under the Hood” is kind of stupid. I hope to Christ neither of these things are integrated into the director’s cut. EXTRANEOUS SCENES!
3/5 stars
Le Deuxieme Souffle
Melville’s COOLNESS of his heist/gangster/noir films has kind of reached self-parody levels with me, but that doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing. UN FLIC!
4/5 stars
Synecdoche, New York
This is like the offspring of Huckabees and Zerkalo. Apparently Kaufman requires a goofball like Jonze or Gondry directing to mitigate his solipsistic despair and make something watchable.
1/5 stars
Saw III
The torture-porniest movie I’ve seen to date. I found it hard to look away. Far-fetched stuff, but it ends decently, unlike the first two Saw films. I don’t see how 2 more movies follow this.
4/5 stars
Fanny and Alexander
The first hour is slow, but I was engaged in the following two. Sheds some light on Bergman’s contradictory God-hating/atheistic outlook. I may watch the “TV version” some day.
4/5 stars
Nightwatching
PETER GREENAWAY’S INDICTMENT OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE’S “VISUAL ILLITERACY”!!! Or so his website tells me.
N/A
The Bourne Ultimatum
Some people talk a lot to hide the fact that they have nothing of Quality to say. Greengrass edits so rapidly to hide the fact that he can’t shoot a scene. I’m glad he thought Watchmen was unfilmable.
2/5 stars
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET!
3/5 stars
Role Models
It does drag at the end. Hearty LARPer-like laughs along the way, though, and that’s how I rate comedies. GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD!
4/5 stars
Rachel Getting Married
Sort of a Hollywoodized version of a Cassavetes movie. I could see how this could have been great without certain GRAND “MOVIE” MOMENTS. Hathaway does play a good wackjob, though.
3/5 stars
How Much Do You Love Me?
FRENCH SEX COMEDY! BELUCCI NUDITY! THE BIGGEST SUBTITLES I’VE EVER SEEN! STUPID ENDING!
3/5 stars
Milk
I probably would have given this 2 stars if it weren’t for Penn’s great mincing queerlord performance. Van Sant is shit at composing his frames and generally bad at visual storytelling. MANMILK!
3/5 stars
The Rocker
Jason Sudeikus is hilarious and stands out from the rest, Schrute is decent, the rest is pretty mediocre. Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper have small roles as rockers.
3/5 stars
Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler
After 70 kinda slow minutes, I did some research and discovered that there were 210 minutes of this silent film remaining, so off my DVD player went. Perhaps for a later, more patient time in my life.
3/5 stars
Mongol
Basically a Mel Gibson movie in Mogolian. Revenge, lots of blood, rousing scores and so on. It’s on the border of 3 and 4 stars.
4/5 stars
Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
Possibly the last of the Futurama movies, and one of the better ones. Sexist jokes and mockery of eco-feminists appeal to me.
4/5 stars
Pepe Le Moko
I can’t really rate it fairly since my mind was elsewhere (Watchmen). I liked the opening scene where they describe the Casbah. It seemed like it might be a good movie.
3/5 stars
5 stars = 17 (16.346%)
4 stars = 37 (35.577%)
3 stars = 37 (35.577%)
2 stars = 11 (10.577%)
1 star = 2 (1.923%)
Average star rating = 3.539
Worthwhile viewings (sum of 4- and 5-star ratings divided by total number of ratings) = 51.923%