SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - "GOING GREEN"

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - EPISODE 3

There are many ways to go green!

http://youtu.be/g_-70wZJYKA

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP: "THE HAMMERER"

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - EPISODE 2

A famous scene from the low-budget, cult hit "The Hammerer."

http://youtu.be/zkEji6UCheU

Check out our first episode, "Smackin' Cheese!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkEji6UCheU

MOVIE TROPES - DANCING RESOLVES EVERYTHING

 "MOVIES AND THE MYTH OF DANCING"

 
I like to dance. Lots of people like to dance. Men, women, children like to dance. But why do we dance? Is it the florid release of energy, the synchronized movement, or the fact that somehow a single dance number will solve all your worldly problems? Wait! What? That isn't true. I dance alone all time and I'm still balls-deep in debt! How come dancing doesn't make that go away? Have movies been lying to me about the awesome powers of dance my whole life?

Now I don't know where this trope came from, but I'd like to say 80s films like the John Hugh's classic The Breakfast Club. All those disenfranchised high school misfits went from hating each other to bonding over the course of a dance montage, becoming a harmonious unit... It's pretty cheesy, but beats the previous scene where they're all sitting around and f&$@ing crying.

But the myth of the star-studded dance number goes back further than that. One could say as far back as Old Hollywood with movies like Singin' In The Rain, which was a song-and-dance musical about performers in song-and-dance musicals. Typically with these films, the conflict would be resolved with a final dance number, stunning producers and sourpusses alike, marking the big payoff. But what never made sense to me about these films was how one particular dance number seemed to vanquish all dilemmas, but the dozens of others prior (even the more memorable ones) had no affect at all.

This same school of logic was reflected in the Oscar-Eating-Monster The Artist (which is actually a great movie) when the two leads managed to sway their old crotchety producer John Goodman with a starry dance number that would win the old lug's heart, but also serve as nice transition to the film's ending where the leads are on top of the world again.

But that's just something that happens in hokey musicals, right? There's a dance number and all's well that ends well? Not in every musical. West Side Story is an odd exception. In that movie (where all gangs dance and jump on top of each other when they fight) the characters are introduced as using their ability to dance to intimidate people, showing ownership over the neighborhood (but also being the daintiest gang ever). Tony, the leader of The Jets, gets murdered in street and no amount of dancing or singing brings him back. It's actually a surprisingly tragic ending to a musical and has no final dance number to cap things off. 

However, twenty years later, Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsen would do the leather-pants number at the end of Grease and give everyone the happy ending West Side Story never had. Gang feuds are resolved, classic conflicts are washed away, teen pregnancies were, um, gone suddenly, and there was even enough time for a big hooray-hooray before the credits rolled.

In some cases, the movie dance is just a coping mechanism and solves nothing. Take Alex Cox's gritty bio film Sid And Nancy for example. If you can actually stomach this piece of sh%# film, the climax is Sid Vicious stabbing Nancy Spungen to death in a testament to their toxic relationship, and Sid going to jail for being a woman-killer. Once Sid is released, he runs into some rapper kids on the street. They tell him not to not be "so stuck up" and dance with them. He does so, forgetting that he's a f&%$ing murderer for a second. Then a cab pulls up. The door opens and Nancy is inside, alive. Sid gets in and the two drive off into whatever crappy city they live in, excusing Sid of murdering this person and giving us the most condescending happy ending bull$%& I've ever seen... Now, this isn't a dance number per say, but it follows the trope that dancing makes everything okay, and in this case is used very manipulatively. God, I hate this movie so much. As the British would say, pure rubbish.

Personally, I thin dance numbers are their most effective when they cap off a movie in a way that words cannot. For example, Napoleon Dynamite's Jamiroquai dance number won Pedro the election. How? Doesn't matter. The final dance number of Chicago shows that Roxie and Velma have now joined forces and become bigger than they ever were alone. How in reality do a pair of murderesses get so famous? I don't know (ask Sid Vicious), but regardless we accept it.

Then you have a climax like the one to Little Miss Sunshine where it tries to show the family uniting in a way that most dialogue scenes leading up to this could not do. During Olive's semi-stripper dance, the family joins her on stage and supports when the crowd doesn't. Then they all get arrested, but as a family, together. Does that win them Little Miss Sunshine and absolve them of any crimes they have committed? No. Does that resolve their inner dysfunctions? Not really. Does it illustrate a connection that would otherwise be cheesy in words? Yes, it does. Does it make the audience feel good about themselves and laugh? Absolutely, which is exactly the point.

Perhaps the dance number is the comedy/musical answer to the action movie's final fist fight between between good and evil. Neither musicals or comedies usually have villains, so the movies themselves don't really have a visual outlet for what is usually a character's internal struggles. Perhaps the dance number is the answer for those particular genres... but then again, you also have endings like the big dance recital in Staying Alive and realize that sometimes dance numbers a punch in the face might be better.

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (20 OF 100)

"North" (1994), Dir: Rob Reiner

 

$40 million in Budget vs. $7,182,747 in Gross

I had seen North when it first came out in theaters in 1994. I was young, but remember enjoying it. Not until doing research had I discovered North is pretty much universally hated as a film. Both Siskel and Ebert nominated it as the worst movie of 1994 and many consider it to be one of the worst movies of all time. Wow... But to be honest, I don't really get the general hatred towards this film. Maybe my standards have dropped with my increasing age, but this is the first movie on my list where I really don't understand why everyone hates it so much.

One of the few things I can think of that I dislike about North is its opening credits. The film opens with a series of soft-focus shots of North's toys on his desk. Personally, I felt it looked cheap and did not reflect the tone of the film at all. If this was Rob Reiner's way of letting us know that we're watching a kid's film, well, thanks. Apart from Bruce Willis' lackluster voice-over work, I can't really say much else that bothered me about this movie, besides the ending, which we'll get to that...

So what is it that bothered everyone else so much about this movie? Well, firstly, the plot centers around a boy-genius named North (Elijah Wood) who is the picture-perfect son and envy of every family, except his own. Unable to cope with his insensitive parents, North decides to become a free-agent, causing a major media stir as the world follows in anticipation of his journey to find more fitting parents...

So, from what I've read from most reviews, people found the plot unrealistic. Okay. But it's a movie, and a kid's movie at that, so it's not really supposed to be realistic, is it? Secondly, North comes across as a bit selfish in his desire to find better parents... but when you have a nagging Julia Louis-Dreyfus (in a terrible wig) as your mother and Jason Alexander as a mid-life crisis father saying that he "found blood in his stool," well, I don't entirely blame him for wanting to explore his options. Thirdly, a lot of critics claimed that the film showed no respect towards parents and didn't treat the family unit as having any value. Maybe so, but if you were a kid growing up in the 90s, it's likely your parents found a great replacement for your babysitter. That's right. Television. And if you're parents were plopped in front of the TV all night until they got back, Bart Simpson and Al Bundy were more likely you're real babysitters; so in terms of knocking down good old family values, North didn't really teach us kids of the 90s anything TV hadn't already...

One thing I will agree with most critics on is that the characters of North are vulgar, callous, and superficial... Can't imagine a movie starring the cast of Seventh Heaven having that many gut-busters. In fact, North's portrayal of children reminded me a lot of the very precocious youngsters of Wes Anderson's movies. Critics also claimed the humor didn't seem intended for children... Maybe it wasn't. The blood-in-the-stool joke made by Jason Alexander did actually throw me off during my most recent viewing, but the 1990 Nicholas Roeg film Witches (based on a book the Roald Dahl) had children being turned to mice and killed, and that holds a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. No one seemed to think that was too much for kids. The only difference between Witches and North is that violence is okay, but toilet humor isn't.

Humor aside, a lot of critics also claimed to find the movie offensive, especially in its stereotyping of, well, Texans, Samoans, The Inuit (featuring Kathy Bates in red face), The Amish, Africans, Chinese, French, etc... but  compared to a modern episode of Family Guy or American Dad, the film's cultural insensitivity is pretty mild by today's standards. For me, the most offensive thing about North was the ending. Turns out that it's all just a dream. Yep. The whole movie, complete with voice-over narration, was just one big dream. North had fallen asleep in the mall and his loving parents have been worried sick about him.The family is reunited and all's well that ends well... Just as an aside, if you've ever take a screenwriting class, that is the first lesson in how not to piss off your audience... not to mention the blatant endorsement for Fedex.

But all in all, it's a bit shocking to me how violently opposed people are to this movie. I didn't think it deserved that much disdain. Am I alone in this?


 
And for your viewing displeasure, Siskel and Ebert's initial and hateful review of North...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (15 OF 100)

"Batman & Robin" (1997), Dir: Joel Schmacher

 

$125,000,000 in Budget vs. $107,285,004 in Gross

It's time, my friends. Time to ask where Batman went so wrong? Why did such a beloved character deserve such a hateful artistic stoning? And even worse, why is Chris O'Donnell still alive? Why, why, why?

With the release of Batman & Robin came a number of career casualties: Joel Schumacher made an apology to Batman fans for killing the franchise. The public has sorta forgiven George Clooney for being the worst Batman since, well, Batmite. Chris O'Donnell should have been made a sacrifice to the vengeful theater-going Gods for such florid blasphemy. 90s hottie Alicia Silverstone got downgraded to D-Movie Hot Girl. Uma Thurman should just be ashamed of herself. The laughable Bane got a badass makeover in Chris Nolan's Dark Knight Rises, even though neither reflect the character from the comics. And no amount of Arnie's action movie puns could save this train wreck.

I remember going to see Batman & Robin with my entire family, which I shortly realized was exactly what Warner Brothers wanted out of this new franchise installment. Since infancy, I've lived and breathed Batman religiously. He is still my favorite fictional character, and it's doubtful that will change.

At the time, though, and under the false impression that Batman Forever had actually been a good movie, (mainly because of Jim Carrey's performance as The Riddler) the next film was to feature Mr. Freeze as the main villain and I was very excited. Bringing probably as much pathos and sympathy to the Batman Universe as the title character himself, Mr. Freeze is Batman's only reluctant villain. His goal has always been to save his dying wife Nora, a sympathetic one but alas one that also makes him very dangerous too. With a varied but fascinating history in comics and television, it seemed like a great choice... then they cast Arnold Schwarzenneger in the role.

A grave misstep, yes, but could Arnold really be blamed for the entire movie falling apart? With three feature films and an animated series all in one decade, I think Batman was getting a little played out in the public eye, (Did you guys hear that Ben Affleck's gonna be the next Batman?) and nobody wanted the same old song.

Prior to the movie's production, I picture the Warner Brothers' executive board having a catered lunch and trying to decide what needs to change with this fourth Batman installment to keep the franchise fresh (and probably used the same school of thinking as Lucasfilm did with Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull). "Guys, we need to make Batman something the whole family can enjoy. Husbands, wives, kids, grandmas, grandpas! So let's go ahead and lose the whole depressing witnessing-his-parents-being-murdered thing. I'm sure he'd be over that by now. Get rid of all the gritty urban futurism and replace that with neon lights and C.G.I. instead, and as far as the Tim Burton's movies go, f&%$ 'em and his little Frankenweenie too."

Now, I'm pretty 50/50 with the Burton films, (in fact, pretty 50/50 with all Batman films), but at least Burton knew to steer clear from the campy Adam West series and stick with the darker, moodier settings and villains the comic books had. But alas, we ended up revisiting the Adam West Days and added Schumacher's stamp of gay culture to the iconic characters' mythology as well (I refer you to the bat nipples). I have no problem with gay culture, but I think most gay men would probably agree with me that they'd rather see pretty boy Zachary Quinto from Heroes being a psychotic, badass Demi-God than another flash of Clooney's blatant plastic package...

Bat nipples and bat crotch aside, the film's also just plain stupid, from Mr. Freeze's singing hockey team to the f*&%ing Bat Credit Card, to Bane reduced from a super-genius to mindless idiot, to the climatic giant freeze gun (no one saw that coming), and finally appearance by Fitl On Film's blog favorite -- that's right -- Coolio himself! Do any of these ideas sound... good... to anyone? Maybe the studio stopped making Batman films for eight years for a very good reason.

At that point, I was pretty much done with these movies. I didn't like Batman Begins, but Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises swayed my return. But now that Mr. Affleck and Legend Killer Zack Snyder have taken over the franchise, I feel as if we are entering another West/Clooney Era. Eight years from now when they reboot the franchise again, this will be known as The Affleck Era, and then shortly renamed The West/Clooney/Affleck Syndrome. Hm... See you again in eight years.

 And for your viewing displeasure, Honest Trailers takes a biting stab at this mess.

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (6 OF 100)

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BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (4 OF 100)

 

"Southland Tales" (2006), Dir: Richard Kelly

$17 Million in Budget vs. $374,743 in Gross

Some movies are so bad that they are fascinating, like The Crow 2 or Natural Born Killers. You watch it and wonder what exactly was going through the director's mind they made whatever this is. Apparently Richard Kelly's abomination Southland Tales was inspired by the events of September 11th. Now, what exactly the Highlander driving around in a van, Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star, Kevin Smith as a gun-totting Obi Wan Kenobi, and the Rock traveling through time have to do with the events of September 11th is beyond me, but that's what was on Kelly's. (The funniest thing is that besides the time travel part, I could see most of the insane notions of celebrity explored in this movie coming to fruition.) Starring pretty much every C-grade actor and misfit in Hollywood -- Sean William Scott, Jon Lovitz, Cheri Oteri, Will Sasso, that midget-lady from Poltergeist -- Southland Tales is a senseless, pretentious mess. Abundantly attempting to be social commentary, the dares to go places its audience might not necessarily want to, ie. seeing Stifler try to seriously actor, Cheri Oteri threatening to kill herself unless she gets some Dwayne Johnson c%$#@, and some androgynous Chinese woman dancing in, like, every scene. Unraveling into moments of what looks like a  George Michael video and with a soundtrack entirely by Moby, this giant mess runs over two whole hours. The movie has its moments, but that's mainly the C.G.I. car commercial that turns into vehicular pornography with one truck ramming another. The rest, I just don't know...



For your viewing displeasure, what could arguably be the best scene in the film or the worst. I'm gonna be generous and call it the best because at least its creativity takes over the confusing aspects.