Monthly Archives

February 2017

‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’

February 27, 2017

Stars: Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell

Rated: NR

Released: 1953

What I “know:” It has Marilyn Monroe in it, so I assume she’ll be a vacuous, beautiful blonde with a really high-pitched, breathy voice. And there are gentlemen, real or metaphorical?

What I know after reading the Netflix blurb (this one’s streaming): “A blond showgirl is unknowingly tracked by an investigator hired by her fiancé’s father. But the detective only has eyes for her brunette friend.” Well, either the detective is no gentleman, or the title is stupid, or it’s intentionally so. So much going on already! And bonus, after the interminable “The Sound of Music” … It’s only 91 minutes long!

TRAILER!

P.S. I turned off my 78th viewing of “The Notebook” (and third today) to watch this. The sacrifices I make …

1:36: Well, that “Little Rock” song was horrible. Oh god, is this a musical too? Please no.

3:11: Either this “Little Rock” song is really long, or it’s a fully themed-out “Little Rock” stage show. Please let it be the latter.

3:34: Monroe’s lipstick is a nightmare in this number. I mean, I don’t wear makeup often, but I’m pretty sure your liner isn’t supposed to be 17 shades darker than your lips.

5:52: Ewwwww she just called him daddy. Also, Jane Russell is all legs. Good lord.

6:37: This timeline is all wonky. She thinks he’s got a ring, he gives her a ring, then they’ve already planned their wedding? What were people doing in the ’50s?

7:35: I know it’s her thing, but every time Monroe speaks, she sounds like a 6-year-old. Kind of kills the sexy, you know?

9:44: “If the ship hit an iceberg and sank, which one would you save from drowning?” “Those girls wouldn’t drown.” Was that a boob joke? In 1953??

11:49: Oh, the 1950s, when the Olympic relay team was four white guys.

13:34: Russell was only 32 when this was made? She looks 40s, easily. Life must have been hard back then, based on her here and Lauren Bacall in “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

18:04: I mean, Monroe’s not a good singer. That’s gotta be accepted fact, right? Not a great actress, not a great singer, but killer body and likes to pout? Was that her thing? Also, kind of bitchy of Russell, who isn’t saying goodbye to anyone, to hog a whole window with her singing Olympians while other people are like trying to wave to their families.

21:32: A bunch of men in only short shorts doing gymnastics in front of a giant painting of a Spartan? Like … that has to be intentional, right?

22:28: As per usual, I could do without the music. But I like Jane Russell WAY more than Marilyn Monroe. I’ve seen Monroe in three things now and she annoys me.

22:40: So the coach is so strict he makes them go to bed at 9 p.m., but he’s fine with this chick in a bustier walking around and messing with his guys while they’re “training?” Sure.

24:25: “I like muscles … and red corpuscles.” Are they serious with this? “I like red blood cells.” Good for you, honey.

32:04: Russell’s “Thank YOU” to Piggy’s snobby wife just made my day. She’s so catty. I love it.

(gif unrelated, but I love Russell.)

34:22: Apparently I can never go on a cruise. I don’t have an evening gown covered head to toe in sparkles to wear to eat from the buffet.

36:11: Holy crap, that kid is a smooth dude. “I’m old enough to know a good-looking woman when I see one. This promises to be quite a trip.”

39:51: Why is she wearing a widow’s shroud with an off-the-shoulder dress? 1950s fashion was weird.

43:27: I like the Monroe’s response to being caught hugging a strange, old, diamond-mining billionaire by the man she thought was interested in her friend but instead was spying on her was basically “Oopsy!”

45:19: Of course Monroe locks herself in the dude’s cabin. Those shouldn’t lock people in, so maybe, just maybe … try the door lock?

45:37: Oh. My. God. She held her hands up to the porthole window, moved them down to her hips, and is now trying to shimmy out? Lady, you have a tiny waist but big-ass hips. You have curves. That’s what dudes loved about you. That and your insane over-lip-moving enunciations of sentences.

46:26: This kid is legit the breakout star of this movie. “I’ll help you for two reasons. The first reason is, I’m too young to be sent to jail. The second reason is, you’ve got a lot of animal magnetism.”

47:25: THEN HE STICKS HIS HAND OUT FOR PIGGY TO TAKE HIS PULSE. Muahahahahahah. This kid is a gift to this movie.

49:43: It feels a little awkward for Monroe to be asking if three sleeping pills is enough.

52:08: I love that even after Monroe moves the glass from spilling water all over his pants that Russell just keeps emptying the pitcher. He can’t possibly be drunk enough after one drink to not see through this. “WHAT KIND OF DINNER PARTY IS THIS?”

57:27: So they just let him walk out of their cabin with the photos? No one noticed the large, yellow Kodak envelope he was carrying? Monroe deserves everything that happens to her.

1:04:14: Those kids are wearing fezzes. Fezzes are cool.

1:06:00: I will give this movie credit for this: At least in this cafe scene, people are realizing they’re singing and acting like it’s a performance. That’s my main issue with musicals … people just act like singing in the middle of a conversation is totally normal. However, them ditching on the check for that tiny cup of coffee is terrible.

1:08:20: “It’s men like you who have made me the way I am. And if you loved me at all, you’d feel sorry for the terrible troubles I’ve been through instead of holding them against me.” God, she’s delusional.

1:09:29: So I finally get what Madonna’s “Material Girl” video was referencing.

1:10:50: I don’t believe for a second that operatic song intro was Monroe singing. Not even a little.

1:19:10: Oh, Jane Russell, you minx. Dressing up in a blonde wig and a giant fur coat. Thankfully, the lawyer is super blind so you can pass.

1:20:02: I want to start saying “Thank you ever so” for no reason at all.

1:21: 39: This song would NOT continue in court for even four seconds, but she’s way better at this song than Monroe. And she’s sassy as all hell.

1:26:00: That whole courtroom scene was a trainwreck.

1:28:24: “I want to marry him for your money.”

1:30:15: Of course, there’s a dual wedding. And of course they bring the garbage “Little Rock” song back. Jane Russell has terrible taste in men.

Overall, this movie wasn’t terrible. That kid was a delight, and Jane Russell is right up there with Bette Davis for “favorite no-nonsense woman” so far. Marilyn Monroe makes me want to claw my eardrums out, but it wasn’t bad?

Next up: “What’s Up, Doc?”

‘The Sound of Music’

February 21, 2017

Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer

Rated: G

Released: 1965

What I “know”: A pure and wholesome nanny raises a ton of kids while their rich dad tries to outrun the Nazis or something. I think the Nazis are involved. And it’s a musical. And I’m dreading it. And I opened up the sleeve saying “Please only be an hour and a half” only to see “2 hrs, 54 mins” staring back at me. I despise whoever added this to my list, though I suppose I should see it.

What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatest collaboration, a feisty postulant named Maria (Julie Andrews) is sent to care for the unruly, motherless Von Trapp children. She soon tames them — and finds herself falling for their stern father (Christopher Plummer). Oscar-winning director Robert Wise used stunning Austrian locations to transform the popular stage musical into a cinema class in which the hills truly seemed to come alive.”

OK, ,maybe there aren’t Nazis? I don’t know. But what the hell is a postulant? I guess it’s the more formal way to say “nanny,” but whatever. Here goes.

TRAILER!

I saw the first 10 seconds while I was embedding that, and Julie Andrews’s hair makes me sad.

1:05: If two hours of this movie is just panning across mountains, I swear …

3:21: Great. The movie opens with a song. And not even a good one. The hills don’t have music. They have bugs and rocks. P.S. I don’t like nature. I like air conditioning and TVs.

10:16: Oh great, she’s a nun? And she’s the black sheep of the nunnery?

13:07: I’m glad they found a bunch of classically trained singers for this, I guess, but they should have checked to see if they could act. They can’t.

19:59: “Seven children. What’s so fearsome about that?” Honey, pull up a chair. I can make a doozy of a list. Then again, one child frightens the everloving junk out of me … so take that as you will.

23:57: “Wait here, please.” *new nanny goes around opening doors in the great hall to just kind of snoop around on the richies*

27:14: Holy crap, that whistle is annoying. He doesn’t have kids, he has well-trained dogs. And that’s only six kids. Why are they so Stepfordy?

27:35: Oh, there’s Kid Seven. She’s reading. I guess she’s forgiven from the military drill.

32:19: OK, you know what? Once they stopped singing and the kids were brats and she was lost, I was going to give it a shot. Then there was a frog. I have three fears in life: Frogs, bridges, and thunderstorms. Ugh.

37:59: This whole telegram business is making me nauseous. I get it’s rated G, and it’s from 1965, but holy cow. “Dear Rolf, stop. Don’t stop. Your Liesl.” Now, considering she didn’t do another “stop,” She’s actually saying “don’t.” “Dear Rolf, don’t. Your Liesl.” Much better. OH MY GOODNESS, HIS SINGING VOICE. MAKE HIM STOP.

48:22: And of course, now there’s a thunderstorm. Tell me on their long trip to avoid the Nazis that they also nearly die on a bridge. Please, give me the trifecta.

51:25: There are so many things about “My Favorite Things” that make me want to murder. Who wants brown paper-wrapped packages tied in strings? If you have snowflakes that stay on your nose, you might be dead. You shouldn’t be below freezing temperature. Why are girls in blue sashes make you happy? Who wants crispy strudel?

56:02: As someone who never even babysat, I don’t want to second guess a nanny (though I guess she’s new to it) but having a 5-year-old skipping on the edge of a cliff with a river below doesn’t seem like the best decision.

1:02:11: Aww, how cute. The cultish kids who have never sung have perfect pitch and they immediately pick up harmonizing. How lucky!

1:12:26: I will never understand how Fraulein (I’m not looking for the umlauts in here, sorry) Maria would ever fall for stick-in-the-ass Captain Von Trapp.

1:18:55: They just have a full-size puppet theater? And they’re all trained in marionette? How do they find the time between military drills??

1:21:56: So, I took my dogs out before this number and had “Do, Re, Mi” stuck in my head. I swear to all that is good in this world, if this stupid yodeling song haunts my thoughts and dreams, I will seek vengeance.

1:31:20: So grumpy old Meandad suddenly leaves his date and his party and goes out to the terrace, then cuts in on his son getting his arms broken by the nanny trying to do a spin move. Of course he does.

1:32:41: “What a lovely couple you make,” his girlfriend passive-aggressively says. Why can’t the girlfriend ever be likeable and he just likes the other person more? Why must they write them as cold, frigid bitches?

1:33:31: OH NO IT’S THE AUF WIEDERSEHEN SONG. (Two years of high school German meant I could spell that without having to look it up. Also, “Was kostet den Taschenrechner” means “how much is the calculator.” FYI.)

1:36:01: If I was at a party at some dude’s house and we all had to come out and watch his kids audition for “Austria’s Got Talent” or whatever, I’d be pissed. I mean, sure, they can sing. But that right there is an A-No.-1 party killer.

1:36:16: OMG THEY ANSWERED THE LITTLE BRATS.

1:37:58: “You flatter me, Captain.” “Oh, how clumsy of me. I meant to accuse you.” BURN.

1:39:40: “It’s not your fault he finds you beautiful. He’ll get over it. Oh, here, want me to help you pack? You ain’t got to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

1:40:05: “Please don’t tell the Captain that the woman tasked with raising his children has disappeared in the night and left them without a caretaker. I’d hate for him to be somehow prepared for that news.”

1:40:16: Ugh, Maria’s too nice. She should have gotten catty and rolled down to that party fully dolled up and beat that Baroness at her own game.

1:44:48: Only a two-minute intermission? I was hoping that would eat up 15 minutes of the remaining 70. Though I am enjoying the first scene back of the seven hellions bullying their potential stepmother.

1:49:48: This “greeting of the new mother” thing is more like a funeral procession.

1:55:07: The reverend mother (I don’t know if that’s supposed to be capped or not, sorry) is playing matchmaker? I didn’t think that was how things worked.

1:56:27: I’ve never heard “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and I hate it already. So operatic. Why?

2:03:43: Well, well, well. Maria’s wearing the dress in which the Baroness said the Captain couldn’t keep his eyes off her. And so it begins … the nun becomes the homewrecker!

2:04:12: And the Captain comes out on the balcony. “Juliet, oh Juliet, wherefore art thou a nanny and not a baroness?” And the devil comes out, dressed in red. Not one for subtlety, are they?

2:05:00: “You have no idea the trouble I’m having trying to find you a wedding present. … Oh, I know, I’m enough …” Holy schnikeys, lady, try a little harder? Did she just go from getting him a fountain pen to a villa in the south of France?

2:05:45: “It’s no use.” Well, that’s about the harshest breakup line they could get away with in a G-rated movie, but that had to cut her. “Try all you want to, I’m in love with the virginal practice nun with the boy’s haircut who can sing like an angel.”

2:07:07: I give the Baroness credit for not lashing out and being a psycho, and I give him credit for not denying her charges that he’s going to get with the nanny.

2:10:29: I like that they had to kiss in a shadow since it’s G-rated.

2:11:44: WHY WOULD SHE START SINGING THERE? He’s nuzzling your face, weirdo. Go make out with him. I’m 99 percent sure I’d love this movie if it didn’t have 427 songs in it. Instead I’m just annoyed by the plot breaks for incessant singing. Does she still get paid as a nanny? Or is she just stuck with these kids forever with no remuneration?

2:15:12: NO. I want to see the children’s reactions. Don’t give me this slow fade into her in a horrible wedding dress with half a bush wrapped around her head.

2:16:23: Oh, I get it. The fence is the symbolism of her leaving her old life behind. Again, subtlety not the strong suit here.

2:17:04: It’s every girl’s dream to walk down the aisle with a soundtrack of people singing about you being a problem played over top.

2:19:03: NAZIS. I knew it. Man, I’m glad “Schindler’s List” is further down my queue. I’m about Nazied out right now.

2:22:36: Of course Rolf is a Nazi.

2:26:23: OK, so not only is this movie like 2/3 music, but they repeat a bunch of the songs over and over? Please, stop. So far it’s “The Sound of Music,” “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,” and “16 Going on 17,” at least.

2:29:06: Man, they picked a really awkward time to go on their honeymoon. Now they have like four hours to pack up nine people and all their belongings and get out of Dodg … er, Austria.

2:30:58: Who was steering the car around the turn? And OH NO, NAZIS.

2:39:47: So wait, the game plan is to turn the crowd in this one building against the Third Reich for wanting to separate a man from his family? And they think that’s going to make a difference? I swear, if this is what fixes everything, I’m done.

2:40:27: Oh god, now it’s “Auf Wiedersehen” again? Ugh. Maybe this is the plan, to send them off into the dark so they can escape. Makes the Nazis look stupid (duh) but at least it’s more believable than them saying, “Oh no, people don’t like our decision! Forget the whole thing!”

2:41:47: But … they’re all sitting in the front row. In the front row, you can see outside the spotlight. They’d be able to see them all sprinting for the wings. Especially with the way the stupid kids kept looking back at the parents.

2:44:02: So there was even a Nazi guard down where all the acts were hanging out and they still got out? Man, that’s a dumb mistake.

2:49:42: Awww good guy Nazi Rolf.

2:50:01: Oops. Spoke too soon.

2:51:52: That thing’s a clown car if it fit eight people in it.

2:52:38: Man, those nuns sure know a lot about cars to be able to pull [insert important parts here because I am not a nun and do not know much about cars] out of the Nazis’ cars.

2:53:18: That’s a really high mountain for a bunch of kids in knee socks and loafers to have climbed.

I MADE IT! I MADE IT THROUGH. And I was right … I would have liked that movie a lot more were it not a musical. I just … don’t like musicals (“Grease” excepted). I’m more open to “Singin’ in the Rain” than this one. Also, the whole Nazi plot was just kind of sprung. I know it’s based on a real story (but I’ve also read things about all the stuff they got wrong, like how the Nazis came in 11 years after they got married or something) but more than just a throwaway line at a party, they should have dealt more with the Nazis in the movie rather than just launch them in at the end.

Next up: “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!”

‘All About Eve’

February 19, 2017

Stars: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, George Sanders

Rated: NR

Released: 1950

What I “know”: Another movie I literally know nothing about. I’ve started the DVD player up, so I’m on the title screen, so I see a very … alluring Bette Davis? With a couple behind her? I’m guessing she breaks them up or tries to for some devilish scam. Also, it’s 2 hours and 19 minutes. Did no one have editors back then??

What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s sharp script anchors this story about New York City theater life, with Bette Davis playing an aging Broadway diva who employs a starstruck fan (Anne Baxter) as her assistant, only to learn the woman is a conniving upstart. The now-classic “All About Eve” won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders).

Well, I’m intrigued. A “sharp script” is always going to be a positive for me, and this thing was a “short wait” on Netflix, so it’s obviously still popular. Or, more likely, they only have one copy they have to ship around the country. Oh well, here we go!

TRAILER!

3:20: Addison Dewitt, Sanders’s part, is a catty old hag, isn’t he? He’s giving the lowdown on everyone at this awards ceremony and he pulls no punches. He said the playwright’s wife had nothing in her history or life that should have brought her closer to the stage than Row E, center.

4:10: Ha! Margo pours liquor in her glass and waves away the soda water. Good girl.

6:45: Well, the women don’t like her. Men all clapping, Karen and Margo … not so much. I mean, having read the sleeve, I know she does Margo wrong. Maybe Margo and the wife are friends? Maybe Eve sleeps with the writer to get the part? No idea. P.S. “Playwright” is one of those words that I know is right, but when you write it a few times, it stops looking right. Like how if you say any simple word, like drawer, over and over, it starts to sound weird. Anyway …

8:44: A-ha! She is Margo’s best friend. And she’s apparently the one who lets Eve in the door. Good work on destroying your friend’s career, Karen!

12:45: Bette Davis’s eyes, those of songs, don’t do much for me … but I could listen to her voice all night. And Birdie with the early entry for “best spoiler of Margo’s attitude.”

14:30: Uh, Eve is giving off some strong stalker vibes. I mean, beyond the just “huddling in an alley and then doing SRO for every performance” thing. Margo says, “There are other plays” and Eve says, “Not with you in them.”

16:03: “It got so I couldn’t tell the real from the unreal.” Dude, this is where you escort her out of the room. They were too trusting in the 1950s. She moved ACROSS THE COUNTRY to follow a play Margo was in. Come on. My stalker senses are giving me a headache.

19:46: “Heaven help me, I love a psychotic.” Margo is my spirit animal.

27:58: I’ll tell you who doesn’t like Eve … Birdie. That lady is smart. She smells the opportunist.

31:34: Man, if “Single White Female” had come out in the ’40s, Eve Harrington could have played it.

37:35: Haha, Birdie’s face is all, “I tried to warn you” after Eve said she’d sent a telegram to Margo’s boyfriend for his birthday. Birdie is all of us.

40:28: WAIT, dresses in the ’50s had pockets? What? I thought that was a new-ish thing.

45:25: Holy crap, that’s Marilyn Monroe! That’s the prettiest I’ve ever seen her look. So pure and young.

55:40: Man, Karen is the reason everything keeps getting worse. Road to hell, etc., etc. Now she wants to make Eve Margo’s understudy and says, “I think [Margo]’d cheer.” Guess again, buttercup. She’s literally never seen her act a single second, aside from the four seconds in this movie she’s acted like a non-stalker.

59:08: Eve is talking crazy about how applause is like love and Karen just smiles like it’s the sweetest thing she’s ever heard. Karen is the worst.

1:10:47: “It is about time the piano realize it has not written the concerto.” Damn, Lloyd Richards. I mean, Margo’s being a bitch, no doubt, but Lloyd had no chill.

1:15:16: So Margo just basically quit the play and got dumped, all within 10 minutes? Well done. Time management skills, check.

1:24:58: Karen is THE WORST.

1:26:05: Or wait, Eve might be the worst. Lordy, she might as well just hitch up her skirt and ask Bill if he likes what he sees.

1:27:13: Bill handled that about as well as he could have, short of slapping her and calling her names. “What I want, I go after. I don’t want it coming after me.”

1:28:39: “We all come into this world with our little egos equipped with individual horns. If we don’t blow them, who will?” I can see why Sanders was honored. He’s the little observer for all of us.

1:30:17: Oooooooh Addison is coming for Eve. Coming hard. Hoisting her on her own petard, or something.

1:45:18: Karen tells Eve, “I don’t think you meant to cause unhappiness.” Oh, she very much did. Oh my god, she’s blackmailing Karen! I don’t know who to root for. I mean, they’re both terrible people. Bill is the only person in this movie who gives a shit about Margo!

1:55:12: Nope, never mind, Eve is the worst. Karen is just stupid.

1:58:50: I know I’m supposed to hate Eve, so well done, moviemaker? I mean, there’s not a lot of nuance to her, so I’m glad she didn’t get an award for this. But cripes, she just moves from man to man, power grab to power grab.

2:02:04: I mean, Addison is more responsible for creating Eve than even Karen, but man … that slap across her face felt due.

2:03:50: THERE’S MY ADDISON. He set her up, and he’s taking her down, hard.

2:04:54: “You are an improbable person, Eve, and so am I. We have that in common. Also, our contempt for humanity and an inability to love and be loved.” If he wasn’t using this as a way to hit on the woman he just exposed as a power-hungry liar, it would stand for a description of my dating history.

 

2:10:23: And Margo, line of the movie:

2:12:47: Why are there so many stalkers in this movie? Now there’s just some young girl who broke into Eve’s apartment? At least Eve … er, Gertrude … was invited in.

2:16:49: Man, talk about circle of life. The stalker becomes the stalkee. Is everyone in acting this insane?

I’m trying to do a little introspection as to how I love Scarlett O’Hara so much, but hate Eve. No clue. But I need to see more Bette Davis movies if she always plays sassy ladies. I lived for her, even if she was a little slow on the uptick.

Up next: “The Sound of Music”!

‘Foul Play’

February 12, 2017

Stars: Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn, Burgess Meredith

Rated: PG

Released: 1978

What I “know”: Honestly, nothing. I’ve never heard of this movie in my life. It was recommended by a friend when I asked about movies everyone should have seen, but I literally know not a thing.

What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “Goldie Hawn shines as gentle librarian Gloria Mundy, who finds her peaceful and slightly boring existence shaken when she uncovers a plan to assassinate the Pope in this action-comedy inspired by Alfred Hitchcock thrillers. Fearing for her life, Gloria elicits the help of local cop Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase), who’s game enough to take on the strange case. Good thing, too, as matters morph from odd to bizarre and love blooms between the two.”

Never mind, I’m in 100 percent. Though the Hitchcock shoutout concerns me. Here’s hoping it’s more “Psycho” and less “Vertigo.”

TRAILER!

3:10: I, somehow, never noticed Goldie Hawn has a fivehead.

5:45: BARRY MANILOW MUSIC? I’m stoked. I love him, totally not ironically.

8:22: Oh, I like her in the giant ’70s glasses. That’s a good look for her. Sexy librarian, indeed.

11:20: I was going to say something about how even if she didn’t smoke, she’d notice that a pack of cigarettes was really heavy for only having three in it once he added the roll of film, but he got smart and just put them in her purse. That buys him a few minutes before she discovers the crazy plot that puts her on the path to love!

13:29: Ewwwww, dripping blood is always gross, but dripping blood on sweet, buttery, salty popcorn is a step too far.

15:56: So the people sitting behind her weren’t like, “Yeah, there was this guy, he came in, then his head lopped back, then she ran out and two other guys came and carried him out?” They didn’t think that was worth sharing? Just crazyshame the loopy blonde?

18:11: Awww, Burgess Meredith. So good.

19:07: Ix-nay on the ake-snay, please. I’m OK with spiders (I take a live-and-let-live philosophy there, especially for the good house ones … One lives in the top corner of my shower) but snakes are a no-go for me.

20:00: Why is no one noticing the 10-foot snake that is now climbing up on the coffee table between them?

20:09: Oh, I’m glad it’s his. I was going to have to question how the killer knew she’d be in his apartment … but never mind, it’s just a crazy old man with a pet serpent.

20:51: “Just scream and I’ll be upstairs in a flash, kicking ass” *loud screaming and flailing to show his asskicking skills*

24:35: OH NO, A DWARF SHOWED UP AT THE LIBRARY?

26:29: Man, she was right … that umbrella does pack quite a punch! Weird albino guy is weird.

27:27: MORE MANILOW. This soundtrack is amazing.

29:25: I just set down my lunch because I laughed so hard I spit a piece of lettuce out at “Here it is, my own little beaver trap.” Oh, Dudley Moore, you were a comedic gift.

31:50: Congratulations on having the gaudiest apartment in 1970s San Francisco, Dudley.

33:01: If Dudley Moore were a foot taller, I’d totally have a retro crush on him.

33:11: OMG THAT BED.

34:32: If this movie gets better than this scene right here, I may die. Honestly. I’m laughing so hard. He’s using binoculars on his own wall for like a soft-core porn he’s playing out of the cabinet next to his bed. I can’t.

36:03: Oh god, the inflatable doll floating away and him quietly saying “Please come back” just gutted me. Holy crapolies.

I can’t even do this whole thing justice. Here :

37:00: DO NOT WALK INTO YOUR APARTMENT IF THE DOOR IS ALREADY OPEN. I was willing to overlook the whole “picking up a hitchhiker” thing (though, to be fair, it would have avoided this whole mess which, I guess, would also undo the whole movie plot) but this is a step too far. Also, please lock the window that’s IN YOUR SHOWER.

41:31: I love that albino killed the guy who’s trying to kill her. I guess there’s good money in killing her and now they’re fighting over who gets to do it?

42:15: Holy crap, Brian Dennehy was young once?

43:15: The albino guy is a bait-and-switch, huh? Like Mr. Slugworth?

48:07: “You are a walking light bulb, waiting to be screwed.” God bless her crazy feminist friend who thinks all men are just on the planet to rape.

48:47: So wait, if the albino wanted her all along, why leave her in her apartment? Why not get the dead scar dude AND her and throw them both in the trunk? She was already unconscious. Seems safer than knocking her out on a street in broad daylight.

50:24: They had her pass out on her kitchen floor just for the boobs shaking, I’m 99 percent sure. Now they’re going to send her out in the rain in a white silky dress. Well played, moviemakers.

52:36: These old biddies playing Scrabble with curse words is my second favorite thing to happen so far in this movie.

58:46: I’m not going to lie, I’m impressed the little person could balance on a suitcase on wheels.

1:00:12: Sight gag of a little person hanging out of a window notwithstanding, why wouldn’t she just run out her front freaking door while he was over there fiddling with his suitcase. Also, I was 99 percent sure when he came in it’s a red herring. I’ll bet “The Dwarf” is a dwarf like Tiny Lister was tiny.

1:05:13: OK, so Stiltskin isn’t a giant man. I hope they work a Rumplestiltskin joke in here somewhere.

1:06:18: Do cops usually take people who are being murdered to the address where the vehicle being driven by people who want to murder them is registered? That seems like a questionable decision.

1:09:41: Stella, the man-hater, is so so damaged. Who hurt you, Stella? Who made you like this? “If they say they like you, it’s not so bad. It’s when they say ‘I love you’ that you’ve gotta watch out.”

1:10:34: I feel like if I’d known this Chevy Chase, I’d have been more forgiving of Chevy Chase now as a horrible human being. But instead, I watch this and I’m just like “You become a complete dick.” He’s smoother here than he is in the National Lampoon movies. Not as stupid.

1:19:22: So the cop who’s supposed to be guarding her just never shows up and she thinks nothing of it. Then he calls her, tells her to come someplace strange right away and hangs up and her thought is “Sounds legit?”

1:30:45: So Stiltskin sees the cabinets falling and still doesn’t move? Dope.

1:34:17: Goodness, Burgess Meredith was the bestest.

1:36:18: An oboe sighting! I played oboe for two years. I was terrible at it. Still, cool!

1:52:47: Dudley Moore is the second-bestest. Hiding when he saw Chevy’s badge and coming back up in sunglasses? Amazing.

I LOVE that movie. Thank you to whatever random friend figured out I would love a stupid slapstick movie. I love you a little. And thank you to my friend Linda, who organized my queue and gave me that after a movie about cloning Hitler. The tone change was nice. Love!

Next up: ‘All About Eve!’

‘The Boys from Brazil’

February 5, 2017

Stars: James Mason, Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck

Rated: R

Released: 1978

What I “know:” Absolutely nothing.

What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “In this thriller based on Ira Levin’s novel, young Nazi hunter Barry Kohler stumbles on the trail of the infamous “Angel of Death,” Dr. Josef Mengele, who is planning to resurrect Hitler’s vision in South America.”

Well, this is a slight change in tone from “Spinal Tap?” Not sure I’m in a good place for such a bad movie (not bad in quality, but bad in evilness), but considering the state of the world right now … maybe?

TRAILER:

OMG I just watched this like 15 minutes into the movie and Jesus, this is a MUCH weirder movie than I have seen so far. (You’ll notice I hadn’t seen it yet below when I was like “wait, Peck is the bad guy?” What is with the doll laughing over the phone? This is weird.

00:56: Is Steven Guttenberg like the Steve Guttenberg? Dude went from this to “Police Academy” movies? I guess I can see it … needed a little levity.

2:38: Uh, it is. Weird. Not sure I’ve ever seen him do serious work. Well, aside from his impeccable presence as Woody Goodman on “Veronica Mars,” but that’s neither here nor there.

11:09: So Steve Guttenberg is the only guy not named Mengele on the Netflix sleeve, and he’s not even listed as one of the stars? Just a co-star? Interesting. Also, he just went down to Paraguay by himself, broke this story, and now magically has the home number of an older Nazi hunter he looks up to?

12:03: Kohler just walks up to a table with the same little kid who helped him earlier, handed him a box, and then led him away … an no one flinched. No one asked questions. He was sitting with other people and they either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

13:16: I am assuming the man dressed all in white who is suddenly bathed in lights, arriving on a small plane, is Dr. Mengele. They didn’t traffic in subtlety with the score to this movie. Blaring music when he was shown for the first time.

15:26: Holy crap, Gregory Peck is the baddie? Peck = Mengele? Weird. This is not the charming Peck I remember from “Roman Holiday.” Also, the baddie underling he’s talking to is the guy from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” which is doubly weird.

17:25: “In the next two and a half years, 94 men must die on or near certain dates.” Wait, what? I thought this was about Nazis. Who is he assassinating? Or why? Civil servants? Like mailmen? WHAT IS GOING ON?

19:05: “And by killing this old mailman, I will be fulfilling the destiny of the Aryan race?” THANK YOU FOR ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, RANDOM NAZI.

19:46: Ugh, that stupid kid. You can’t start playing the conversation while guards are walking by. Dummy. But I like how while all his henchmen are destroying this room, looking for the bug, he just stands there looking menacing. Do some work, lazybones.

 

21:29: Having now watched the trailer, and knowing that Guttenberg is only listed as a co-star, methinks his whooping in the car for having escaped is slightly premature.

22:12: Peck looks like a meaner Tom Selleck with that mustache. Speaking of Selleck and Guttenberg, can we get a “Three Men and a Grandbaby” made? Please?

25:46: Laurence Olivier getting sassy: “Take your time. Old men do not go back to sleep once they have been awakened.” Sadly, Guttenberg should not take his time as the Nazis are downstairs giving the front desk clerk some coersion to share where he is.

26:48: Poor, dead Guttenberg. Then Mengele is all smiles at the kid, then says “kill him.” Classic movie villain.

30:55: OK, Ezra Lieberman is the best. After his sassy rejoinder above to the soon-to-be-dead Kohler, he meets some guy he knows in the street, asks to speak, and the guy says he’s late for lunch. Lieberman says “Eight times last week I called you, and each time you were at lunch. Perhaps you have a tapeworm.”

35:21: I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure driving into a crate full of bottles while someone pees behind it, then them falling between two other crates, would not actually kill them. Cut them, sure. But I wouldn’t leave just thinking “well, one down, 93 more to go.”

35:56: So he didn’t have the kid killed, he just injected blue dye into his eyes so he’d look … Aryan? Doesn’t make his brown skin go away, good doctor.

36:45: The entire point of the scene of him walking out of his house to go meet the sea plane was to show the topless woman sweeping his front porch, right? Can’t see any other reason.

38:05: Well that’s horrifying.

46:47: So the weird kid with the clarinet has the weird, cloudy blue eyes that Mengele gave that poor native boy who worked for him/spied on him.

47:32: Oh, so this is one of the widows? And her kid looks like one of Mengele’s experiments? So that’s why he wanted this dude killed, but are all his experimental children just randomly living with civil servants? That’s really orchestrated, and would also pretty quickly trace back to him, I’d think. Also, this widow is CRAZY transparent. Her whole “Well, I don’t know if he was a Nazi as I only met him after that, and also, who is this ‘Dr. Mengele’ you’re mentioning?’ thing is weird.

49:32: HAHAHA she is REALLY happy her hubby is dead. He beat the shit out of the kid and she’s like “Thank God he got hit by that car!”

50:32: So creepy Nazi had to sleep with and then kill the blonde just to kill her landlord? That seems unnecessary. I mean, also, the killing of the 94 random people around the world, but whatever.

51:08: There’s the creepy doll with the phone! Is it just like her weird kid with a weird puppet? What is happening??

1:01:06: Man, reconnecting with an old Nazi friend and then tossing him off the top of a damn is pretty hardcore.

1:01:34: Anne Meara! Man! I love her. P.S. How is this movie only halfway done? Eek.

1:02:30: Yeah, another weird blue-eyed freak kid with an attitude at the house of a dead dude. I think it’s the same kid … yep, IMDB says it’s the same actor. And there are two more! Oooh Anne Meara knows something. She just shut down that whole “You look just like this kid in Germany” conversation real fast.

1:04:07: There’s the third. And he’s even feistier than the others! “Don’t you understand English, you ass?”

1:06:13: So all these kids are getting handed out by some evil German woman?

1:10:43: This woman worked for an adoption agency with a four-year window for both the husband and wife to have been born, but they had to be like 20 years apart, with the man older? And they had to be Nordic-Christian? Suddenly the Nazi thing makes sense.

1:13:15: “Thirty years and the world has forgotten.” Uh, no, it hasn’t. People very much remember the Holocaust, you spaz. Also, Ezra’s look of disdain after she said that was golden. “You are not a guard here, madam, you are a PRISONER. I may leave here empty-handed, but you may not go anywhere.”

1:17:57: I would like to think most people didn’t celebrate their second honeymoon at a Nazi gala in the ’70s?

1:18:44: “Shut up, you ugly bitch.” Well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, Dr. Mengele …

1:19:30: Awww poor Mengele’s murderers are being called back home because Ezra is on the trail, or, as Mengele called him, “that infernal Jew.”

1:27:19: Uhhhhh I think I know where this is going now. And it’s not good.

1:33:31: And therrre it is. Mengele is cloning Hitlers. Jesus. Side note, how pissed would you be if you found out you adopted Hitler? Like, man. $500 for a psychopath? No thanks.

1:39:47: “I don’t know about the Nazis. It’s the n*****s we’ve gotta worry about.” Hello, sir, have you heard about the Ku Klux Klan? They’d be interested in talking to you.

1:42:20: I’m not convinced four Doberman’s couldn’t break down a hollow closet door if they’re that trained to protect their master. I feel like they should have broken down the door and eaten Mengele’s throat.

1:43:57: If Mengele kills Ezra, I’ma be mega-pissed.

1:46:27: This is the best/worst fight scene ever captured on film. No doubt. They’re literally just squirming around and biting each other.

1:49:45: Wait, so Ezra took two more gunshots just to let those murderous bastards out so they could bark menacingly?  Come on, Dobies, do better.

1:52:16: So Hitler IV walks in, sees two strange, bloody men in his living room, one surrounded by snarling Dobermans, and instantly starts just taking pictures? Then it takes the old one who ISN’T being threatened by dogs to say “Call the police” and then he says “Yeah.” Not exactly the brightest kid.

1:52:42: “If I prove I know you better than anyone in the whole world, better even than your mother, will you listen to me?” No, that would make you a crazy stalker. Call the police, kiddo.

1:53:58: Oh god, this whole movie was worth it for the belly laugh I just got from Hitler IV listening to Mengele’s whole speech, ending with him being the living duplicate of the greatest man who ever lived, and then the kid saying, “Oh man, you’re weird.”

1:55:30: FINALLY the dogs eat his face. Thank god. That was some good tension.

1:58:33: Yay, Ezra’s awake!

2:01:19: Ezra Lieberman is a boss. Good on him for believing in people, despite everything he’s seen.

Anyone who knows me knows I hate symbolism, so I have no clue what the whole shark-tooth bracelet means, and I don’t really care. I wouldn’t say this movie was “enjoyable” as that would kind of make me a psychopath. It felt slow-moving through the first 90 minutes, but then I understood why. You can’t just give that away at the beginning. Also, this is the second Peck movie I’ve seen, two very different movies, and I’ve really enjoyed (and believed) him in both. He might have been OK at that acting thing. Overall, not the sunniest movie I’ve seen, but very interesting and climactic.

Next up: “Foul Play!”