THE MUPPETS -- (7)

So, today I learned that if you google "muppets movie 2011" you get a Miami Vice photo of Ricky Gervaise with a baby tiger on his knee.

Who knew?

Anyway, THE MUPPETS was a fun movie and I realized while watching it that I had never seen a Muppets movie on the big screen.  My entire childhood's experience with the puppets was exclusively through fuzzy VHS cassettes or even fuzzier memories of what the show was like when I was a kid.  Seeing close-ups of Fozzie on the big screen was sort of disconcerting.   HUGE heads!   Cheap fake fur!  When did Fozzie get grey eyebrows?  Did he always have grey eyebrows??  It was strange. 

However, I really enjoyed the movie.   I liked the musical numbers, I liked 80s Robot, I liked the silly jokes, I liked the closet full of snacking showgirls, and I liked that they never ever untied Jack Black.

But, what it really made me want to do is just watch the old movies.  Back when Kermit & Piggy sounded like they should, Gonzo was insecure about his weirdness, and no one EVER told Animal not to drum.  ESPECIALLY not Jack Black.

TOWER HEIST -- (6)

Have you ever met one of those people whom you want to like but can't quite manage it?  Someone who seems cool, who appears to have a lot in common with you, and who you can't quite connect with?  Someone who isn't quite there enough to have a real conversation with -- or is somehow shutting you out so you can't?


TOWER HEIST is a lot like that.  I really wanted to like it, it has actors whom I am fond of, it has setting and plot which are theoretically interesting, and is supposed to be funny.   Somehow, though,  TOWER HEIST manages to not live up to it's own potential.  It manages to take all these great elements and then not really use them.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this as it was directed by the dude who did RUSH HOUR 1-3.   They weren't bad movies, and TOWER HEIST isn't bad either.  It's just not enough.  Not enough heart to the characters, not enough time spent on anyone, and not enough feasible plot points.  I did like the way Ben Stiller's Ben-Stiller-ness was kept to a minimum.  (He tends to think that he's really funny and can grow tedious.)  I also liked how his character Josh Kovacs is actually smart and tough.  There was some attempt to demonstrate how folks in low-paying service jobs are disrespected but not quite enough time proving how clever and human they actually are.  But, it's a Brett Ratner flick so that is probably asking too much of such a middling director. (Not that I could do better.)

However, Ms Sidibe probably could do better 'cause she's AWESOME!

Basically it's sad when you see a film and walk out of it saying "Well, that was no OCEANS ELEVEN."

RUBBER (6) /HIGHLANDER (6)

So, it's October.  And in spite of it being the month of my birth (which means I can eat cake any time I want based on the "It's my birthday month" excuse) I don't like October movies very much.  It's all scary and I am the biggest pansy ever.  EVER.  "How scaredy are you?", you ask.  Well, I'll tell you and I'll do it in a bulleted list because I really like those.

• I am such a wuss that once I had nightmares for a week after seeing the TRAILER for LEPRECHAUN 2.  Yup, you heard me, LEPRECHAUN 2, a film so bad it was ignored by the Razzies.  Even now I have to watch the preview with the sound off.
• I am so terrified of the Ravers on FIREFLY that I refuse to watch episode 102 ever again.
• I am so bubblegum that when a date once pressured me into seeing SECRET WINDOW, I watched the entire film through the neckband of my sweater, which (and you might not know this) is in NO WAY sexy or cool.  There was not a second date.
• I am such a baby that SHAUN OF THE DEAD gave me nightmares.  However, they were funny nightmares so I rolled with it.
• However, SPIDER BABY freaked me out.  FREAKED ME OUT!  It was so bad I refused to walk by this house down the street which looked just like the house in the movie.  The slightly crazy people who lived there with three chickens and duck didn't help with anything.   
• I am such a scaredy cat that I have to fast forward through the angel episodes of Dr. Who.  Those things are scary!!
• I am such a chicken that I wasn't allowed to see STAR WARS until I was 14 because it would have been too scary for me.  And it was.

So, there you have it.  October is a terrible terrible month, specially when my Netflix account is telling me that ELVIRA MISTRESS OF THE DARK is available.  Et tu, Netflix? However, I gave in this year and watched two horror films: RUBBER and HIGHLANDER.   (Don't argue with me about HIGHLANDER.  Sean Connery pretends to have a Spanish accent.  You can't tell me it's not horror.)

So RUBBER is not a movie about an S&M accessories shop but is instead a French horror movie about a tire.  A tire that can make your head explode.  It's a B-movie shot in the California desert and while it makes fun of all the horror movie cliches, it still manages to be scary.  I watched it over the course of about 6 hours one Saturday afternoon.  I kept pausing it and going to do things.  Things like grocery shopping.  Things like laundry and Taco Bell runs and  visiting teaching and basically ANYTHING to get me out of the house and the eerily suspenseful film about a homicidal tire.  The best part was the opening monologue by the local sheriff.  He establishes that most films do things for no reason, and you, as a viewer just roll with it.  The narrator calls it "no reason" and I really enjoyed the concept.  I mean, why exactly does an abandoned rubber tire come to life and make things explode? No reason.  Was it a cool movie? Yes.

However, I did have to watch it on a Saturday with all the windows open in chunks of 25 minutes so for REAL people it's probably about as frightening as SIXTH SENSE.  (Which, incidentally, I once watched on a screen hanging on the back of a box truck in the middle of a salt plain in the middle of the desert on a dark night.  It was so scary I actually had to go run laps.  In the dark.  In the desert.) (I don't run.)

"Yesh I'm wearing a peacock feather cape. What of it?"

HIGHLANDER is scary for different reasons.  Mainly because the people are ugly and it was obviously the foundation for every 80's hair band video made after it.  Do you want exploding windows?  Lightening from the sky?   Guys keeping their heads on with safety pins? (yuck)  (Incidentally I'm pretty sure that Clancy Brown, the villain of this film, is the original inspiration for Marilyn Manson.)  Anyway, I can see how this film shaped culture after it but it was still yucky when it wasn't ridiculous.  The ridiculous bits were Sean Connery being an Egyptian/Spaniard and training some dude named "Connor" in the ways of the Immortals while pretending to have an accent which fits the name Ramirez.  And by "pretending to have an accent" I mean he just did whatever he always does and then took his peacock feather cape home with him.  Also, stone towers fall apart spontaneously, no one knows what to do when a punk rocker walks into a cathedral, and everyone has hair so damaged it makes Janis Joplin's hair look like a Pantene commercial.

So, HIGHLANDER is far less scary than RUBBER.  The awesome soundtrack by Queen helps (though I secretly kept hoping they would bust out with just one FLASH! AH-AAAAH!)  In scary it's about on par with REAR WINDOW but without Grace Kelly.  So for normal people that translates into "not very scary at all."

I certainly haven't had enough

October is almost over, I am happy to say.  Soon it will be time to sit on a giant pile of Trick-or-Treat candy and watch all the Oscar-bait dramas... which are scary in an entirely different way!  Happy Halloween!