Worst Movies I Have Ever Seen

I have seen a lot of crappy movies, but the ones on this list make my "worst list" because they were overrated, they kept me hanging to the end only to reveal themselves as art house crap or they were deemed better than the best movies of their time. These are not necessarily in any order, with the exception of #1, which has always been and will likely remain the movie that pissed me off more than any other--it falls into all three of the categories.

1. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
2. The Girl in a Swing
3. Boxing Helena
4. Thelma and Louise
5. Ghost
6. Dancing with Wolves
7. Vinyan
8. Curse of the Jade Scorpion
9. Casualties of War
10. The Running Man
11. Bad Lieutenant
12. The Passion of the Christ
13. Crash (Cronenberg, 1996)
14. Field of Dreams
15. Code 46

Thoughts on Geek Love

Reading Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, can really mess with your dreams and eventually with your experience of "normal." Dunn's world is ruled by circus freaks (or geeks), but this story goes way beyond submerging the reader in a world of sword swallowers and fly wranglers. Dunn creates a world where the freakish is prized and normal is seen as a burden to be shed, literally.

The story is told, most of the time, in first person through the eyes of a bald, albino hunchback dwarf named Olympia. Olympia's parents run a traveling geek show, where the main act involves the matriarch, Crystal Lil, biting the heads off of live chickens. But the war comes along, and the geeks leave to join the Army, and attendance is falling off. Lil and her husband Al decide to build their own geek retinue by poisoning Lil during pregnancy. Through a variety of means, such as exposing Lil to radioisotopes and drinking arsenic, Lil has a number of deformed children. Several die, like the alligator girl, and they are displayed lovingly in jars of formaldehyde. Arty is born with flippers rather than limbs and plays the prophet from a large tank. Iphigenia and Elly are siamese twins, with completely independent upper-bodies and a shared lower body. They play amazing piano. Oly, the dwarf, is considered almost too normal to keep. The youngest child appears almost completely normal and is almost abandoned, until the family realizes he has telekentic powers.

This summary just scratches the surface of a world that is by turns jaw-dropping, disgusting, and heartbreaking. Dunn's genius is in getting us to contemplate a worldview where having ten fingers and ten toes, no noticeable deformities at all, is considered a horrible fate. A major storyline in the book has thousands of people joining Arty's "religion," Arturism. Followers work toward the goal of having all of their limbs removed and living in homes for the rest of their lives. They see this as liberation from the burdens and boredom of normalcy.

I couldn't put this book down, though I do have to admit I was disappointed with the ending. I felt like Dunn just ran out of steam, but the ride is so worth it.

Changling: Great, Old Fashioned Movie

I've never been a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, the director. I have found many of his movies a little too straightforward, not challenging enough, safe. I am a firm believer that a great director's movies are a little imperfect, flawed even, so as to leave us room for interpretation and for repeat viewing. I felt this way about Mystic River and about his last two WWII movies. Sure the acting was solid, sure the direction was sure, but like the man who directed them, they seemed too restrained and just a little aloof.

But in the case of 2008's Changling, Eastwood's steady hand and "just the facts" approach are just right. This is just a great, old-fashioned movie. Set in 1928, this movie tells the story of a single working mother in LA, who returns home from work one afternoon to find her son missing. Five months later, the LAPD deliver a boy they say is hers, but is not. When she insists that they need to continue to find her son, they have her committed and besmirch her character in the press. To tell you more would be to ruin a truly compelling plot, with anguishing twists and turns all the way to the end.

Changeling is a plot-driven, actor-fueled movie. Angelina Jolie is excellent as the determined and anguished mother. I was struck by how completely she loses herself in the character, especially given her movie star/celebrity status. As much as I like Brad Pitt, I can't say that I have ever seen a performance of his where I forgot that he was the Brad Pitt. Jolie's performance transcends her as a person and is the glue that keeps you pinned to your seat, jaw-dropped and rooting for her character all the way.

The recreation of 1920s LA is stunning and everything about this film seems authentic and curiously modern at the same time.

Dirty Harry, Bravo!

Three Flicks Review

The three-day weekend provided ample time to take in several flicks. I review three here.

W.

I was really looking forward to this one. I like Oliver Stone and I had caught snippets of Josh Brolin's portrayal of the witless wonder, so I had high expectations. Unfortunately, they were dashed. There is nothing to love here, nor hate. It was just plain dull. Where was the audacity and giddy ridiculousness of JFK? Where was the passion, the judgment, the absurdity? This film feels like a solid TV movie without the commercials. Maybe it is just all too familiar. Maybe Josh Brolin, as good as he is, is just too charming. I don't know, but I do know this was a long two hours to spend for not much payoff.

Battle in Seattle

What a great movie! Okay, I am a bona-fide lefty who went into this already believing--knowing--that the WTO is the root of all evil, so I have no issues with the perspective of the filmmaker. The movie ostensibly covers the riots that took place in Seattle during the WTO's week-long meeting there in 1999. The narrative structure works so well, with the director following several individual storylines to provide multiple perspectives. What impressed me most was that even though the director's perspective is clear, all the players are portrayed fairly and complexly. The only exception to this is an American lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company; he's a jerk, no complexity here. 

I was equally impressed by one storyline that focuses on a man, a European, who is attending the meetings and trying to get the powers that be to acknowledge the responsibility of the developing world to ensure that trade decisions favor health over profit. This is such an interesting juxtaposition to the work of the protesters, who would agree with this man, but are responsible in part for keeping him from his task.

I was also impressed by how Townsend portrays the mayor and police. The mayor, played by Ray Liotta, is a particularly interesting figure, who starts out believing Seattle can savor the glory of hosting this global event and ensure that the protesters are allowed to voice their opposition. He just never anticipated how organized and effective the protesters would be. Once that becomes clear, he is pressured to unleash the police.

The acting, cinematography, and story telling are top notch. 

Frozen River

Melissa Leo plays a very poor woman living in upstate New York. Her husband is a compulsive gambler and leaves with the money they have saved for a new mobile home just before Christmas. When she goes to look for him, she discovers that a Native American woman on the nearby reservation has taken his abandoned car. The woman tells her she can sell the car to a guy just over the border in Canada, but when they get there (after driving over a frozen river), she is forced to smuggle two Chinese illegals back into the US. Quickly, she realizes she can make enough money to buy the double-wide. 

This is a gut wrenching, unflinching portrayal of poverty in America. But it is amazingly heartening and hopeful as well. A very original tale that I will not soon forget.

Reflections on "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"

Okay, I've said it before, and I will say it again: Lousy movies really chap my hide. I was looking forward to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. I like Michael Cera. I'm a sucker for stories in which cool teenagers (i.e., smart, anti-superficial, funny) triumph over privileged, fake ones. And, I was led to believe this movie would have a great soundtrack....so it was with high expectations that we popped the DVD into the machine tonight.

Oh, I failed to mention that this movie was a critical darling when it was playing in theaters. It must have been a slow couple of weeks because this flick is a doodie (as Spalding would say)!

What can I say? Michael Cera phoned it in. The three female characters were boring, grating and just plain stupid, not necessarily in that order. The dialogue was cliche, spartan, and unimaginative.

The highlight of the action for the first hour (it was only an hour and 24 minutes long--thank God) consisted of a drunken 17-year-old puking in a public toilet, dropping her phone and gum in said toilet, fishing them out and reinserting the gum in her mouth.

The love story was boring, lame and completely uninspired. In order to convince us that Norah and Nick really belong together, we have a scene early in the movie where the villain (Nick's ex) tells Norah that she's "heard on the street" that Norah has never had an orgasm. This is so that at the end of the movie, when Nick and Norah are having sex (in a recording studio), we can hear and see Norah's tremendous "O" on the sound board. Ewwww!

The soundtrack pretty much sucks, by the way.

Pigman: Then and Now

I recently had a flashback to the Jackson public library, where I spent some time my first summer living in Amador County. I remember these great books that the librarian recommended: Pigman; My Darling, My Hamburger; and A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich.

A couple of years ago, I told my son Joe to read Paul Zindel's Pigman. I remembered reading it as a kid and how it made me feel--devastated. I actually couldn't remember the plot, just that it was something to do with an old man and some mean kids. I just reread it and was amazed at the honesty of the story. Two high school students write alternating chapters about their friendship with a recent widower who collects ceramic pigs and eats snails and chocolate covered ants. The alternating first person structure helps us experience the blossoming of the friendship with the kids. Eventually, the kids act irresponsibly and break the old man's heart. Alone, ill and bereft at the callousness of his teenage friends, Mr. Pignatti dies of a heart attack when he discovers that his beloved baboon at the zoo has died.

As a girl I felt so terrible about the death of the Pigman and angry at the kids. As an adult, I experienced it as a really bleak look at the lives of three people who are just trying to pretend that they are not alone, outcast, and stuck in a life without meaning. Some kids' book!

My plan now is to re-read the other books I have listed.

Mid-Read Review of The Hour I First Believed

A few novelists tackle the big ideas--in a big way. Wally Lamb's latest novel is doing just that (I am about half-way through it). I still remember how moved I was by his novel I Know This Much Is True. It was at once a family drama and a meditation on so many of the big issues: race, tolerance, and mental illness. 

The Hour I First Believed is equally powerful. Using the Columbine massacre as a factual conceit around which he can weave a story about a woman's descent into despair, drug addiction, and overwhelming guilt, Lamb also weaves in a meditation on violence (all kinds, not just the kind Eric and Dylan visited upon their victims). He explores the way that people deal with grief, rage, incarceration, abandonment, and marital discord. And that's not all. About half way into the tale, his narrator (written with great truth and vigor in first person) meets a couple who escaped the ninth ward during Katrina. 

He makes some scathing observations about modern psychology along the way, as well. In the first half of the book, the details about the Columbine shootings are haunting, frightening and nightmare-inducing. This book is a steak dinner, not a bowl of potato chips. Take your time with it; let it seep in and work on you for a while.