BNAT1138 – Butt-Numb-A-Thon 2009
“The things you see when you don’t have a gun!”
Harry Knowles is, for two days every year, the luckiest film geek in the world. And a chosen few of us are able to share those two days with him. I don’t know how I got chosen, but I’m glad I did.
This year I actually got to talk to Harry and he was about to tell me WHY I was chosen when he was distracted by a shiny object. DAMMIT!!! I need to know so I’ll know to do it again every year!!
Anyway, whatever the reason, I had my butt in a seat at the Alamo for 26 1/2 hours watching some awesome movies. Here’s how the night went:
We had to start off with the annual torture of one of the Alamo friends. Tim always tells him that he’s going to show Teen Wolf during BNAT and, every year, something “fucks up” and he doesn’t get to show it. This year he had a Dolby “representative” (actually Scott Weinberg in a Dolby shirt) guarantee that the screening would go off without a hitch because of their brand new digital system.
Of course, hitches happen and Scott gave Tim a check for $15,000 “on behalf of Thomas Dolby.”
Many yuks were had by all. Then the movies really started.
Directed by: FW Murnau
Written by: Gerhart Hauptmann/Hans Kyser
Based on play by: Johann Wolfgang Goethe
FW Murnau’s Faust has always been pointed to as one of the more amazing achievements in silent cinema. The special effects are still pretty awesome to this day.
If you don’t know the story, you’ve probably been living under a cultural rock, but I’ll explain a little bit here. God and the Devil are hanging out and make a bet. God says that Faust (Gosta Ekman), a genuinely good man, can’t be corrupted. The Devil (Emil Jannings), however, thinks that he can, and he sets out to prove it. He comes to Earth as a man called Mephisto and gives Faust back his youth, helping a beautiful young woman fall in love with him.
Faust shuns him at first, but then decides to allow Mephisto to give him a trial run of a day. When that’s not long enough, Mephisto has him and it’s all over.
In its day, it was one of the biggest spectacles that audiences had ever seen. It’s still pretty spectacular, although it’s easier to see how they did all of it now. And Jannings is perfect as the slimy and underhanded Mephisto. He vamps it up and is generally evil in all the right ways.
The organ accompaniment was pretty perfect, too. I wish I could remember the guy’s name, but it’s been a few days. Anyway, he was great.
If you ever get a chance to see this movie, go. And, in going, be amazed.
THE LOVELY BONES (2009)
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson/Fran Walsh/Philippa Boyens
Based on book by: Alice Sebold
Peter Jackson can probably do no wrong in Hollywood right now. Sure, King Kong didn’t do was well as everyone wanted it to do, but he directed and produced fucking Lord Of The Rings! Give that man anything he wants!
So they did. He wanted to do a small story this time out, so he chose Alice Sebold’s novel about a young girl named Susie (Saoirse Ronan from Atonement) who was killed by a neighbor in the early 70s. She narrates the story from a place called The In Between. Not quite Heaven, but definitely not Hell. More like a fantasy land that is almost like Earth, but much more surreal.
Meanwhile, her family tries to go on. Her dad (Mark Wahlberg) is obesessed with finding her killer. Her mom (Rachel Weisz) can’t seem to move on, but can’t stand what her husband is doing. Her grandmother (Susan Sarandon) is a bit of a drunkard who tells everyone that she’s 35. Her younger sister and brother are doing their best, but it’s hard when their parents can’t seem to cope.
Meanwhile still, the investigation is almost going nowhere under Len Fenerman (Michael Imperioli) doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The killer (Stanely Tucci) is still at large and still living about 100 feet from Susie’s family.
I gotta tell you, two movies into BNAT this year and I was emotionally drained. The Lovely Bones was something that I usually don’t go in for: a beautiful movie. Not only was the story beautiful (Susie’s journey from needing to have revenge on her killer to just wanting her family to cope), but the In Between was beautiful, too. Surreal, dreamlike and heartwrenching at times.
I loved this movie. It’s long, but I don’t expect much less from Mr. Jackson. He knows exactly what to leave in and wheat to cut out, and he knows how to pull the heartstrings without making us feel like we’ve been duped into crying.
Maybe it’s not the best film out there, but it didn’t matter while I was watching it. And it still doesn’t matter to me. I kinda want to see it again. I don’t necessarily believe in any kind of afterlife, but goddamn, this movie gave me hope for kids who die like Susie.
Directed by: Norman Taurog/Busby Berkeley
Written by: Fred F. Finklehoffe/Dorothy Kingsley/William Ludwig/Sid Silvers
Based on play by: Guy Bolton/Jack McGowan
After Lovely Bones, we were all pretty much beaten down. As Harry said, though, what better to bring a room back up than a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical?
Well, I can think of a LOT of things, but this’ll do.
Mickey is a rich playboy who is sent out West by his father to learn a lesson in life. Unfortunately for Mickey, the place he’s sent is an all boys school. No girls at all! What’s a girl crazy boy to do?!?!
Well, he doesn’t have to worry too much. This small town has one girl: Judy. And he instantly falls for her, even if she doesn’t fall for him so easily.
Of course, her grandfather is the dean of the school. And, of course, there’s a guy who she’s pretty much paired with. And, of course, hardly any of the other guys like Mickey. And, of course, the school is threatened with closure unless they can come up with money/applicants.
Car wash!!
Ok, no. No car wash. But there is a rodea, which they pronounce like Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, as opposed to an actual rodeo.
Hollywood. Psh.
It’s a pretty fun little flick, but I’m not rushing out to rent the rest of Mickey and Judy’s collaborations. There was, however, a pretty good Busby Berkeley number at the end. Busby was supposed to direct the whole movie, but he was fired after they filmed this one scene. Too bad, because the movie could have used some of Busby’s flair.
Of course, the script did have some gems like “The things you see when you don’t have a gun!” and “Money is just like women and popcorn: The more you get, the more you want.” I still don’t understand the gun line. The fuck was Judy saying?!
Directed by: Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger
Written by: Emeric Pressburger/Michael Powell/Keith Winter
Based on fairy tale by: Hans Christian Andersen
This is one of those movies that I’ve always heard about, but never seen. It’s a ballet movie and I have very little (if any) interest in ballet. Why would I care?
Well, it turns out that…um…I was right. This was the movie that I had the least fun watching at BNAT this year. But Harry didn’t program it. I’ll get to that later, though.
The Red Shoes is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young dancer who wants to be the best dancer in the world. She buys some shoes from a shoemaker that make her dance perfectly…but then she can’t take them off and she can’t stop dancing.
But that’s not what the movie is about. The movie is about a young woman (Moira Shearer, who was really a ballet dancer) who is chosen to be the lead character in a new ballet based on The Red Shoes written by a young writer (Marius Goring). The two start to fall in love, much to the chagrin of the leader of the dance troupe (Anton Walbrook). He is emotionless and feels that his dancers should be, too.
The movie was really good, but I hated the two men. They were both jackasses. And the girl really wasn’t a whole lot better. Add to that a lot of scenes of ballet (which, I guess, were great) and I was just kind of uninterested.
The best thing about the movie (besides Moira being a beautiful redhead) was seeing how amazing the print was! Martin Scorsese’s film restoration crew have really outdone themselves on this one. It looked like it was made last year. The Technicolor was beautiful and made me miss that process a lot.
I’m glad I saw it, but I probably won’t revisit it.
SHUTTER ISLAND (2010)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Laeta Kalogridis
Based on book by: Dennis Lehane
Now we get to the guy who actually programmed The Red Shoes. Harry originally wanted to lead in to Shutter Island with Sam Fuller’s asylum masterpiece Shock Corridor. He wasn’t even sure if he would get Shutter Island when he got that print. He had to write a letter to Scorsese to see if he could show it and to explain what BNAT is.
Well, Marty wrote him back saying what an amazing idea BNAT is and how he wished that he could join us. But there’s just one thing: don’t lead in with Shock Corridor. Lead in with The Red Shoes. Here’s a print.
How do you say no?
There is actually a very direct link between the two movies, so I can see it. But I would have rather seen Shock Corridor.
Shutter Island, on the other hand, was pretty great. Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a Boston US Marshall in the 50s sent to a local criminal asylum to investigate a missing patient. His new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), was brought in from Seattle to help Teddy out. Why is it that it almost seems like the missing patient never existed? What is Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) hiding? Is Dr. Jeremiah Naerhing (Max von Sydow) a Nazi doing crazy experiments? And why can’t Teddy let go of his dead wife (Michelle Williams)?
It took me a little while to really get into this movie, mostly because the editing seems to be really awful in the beginning. Eventually, though, I realized what was going on and it all worked out. The movie is a mind-fuck of the highest order and it made me want to red the Dennis Lehane novel that it was based on in a way that Mystic River did not.
It may not seem like the most Scorsese-iest of movies, but he’s done well again. Keep up the streak, Marty. We like you being back.
Directed by: Philippe de Broca
Written by: Philippe de Broca/Vittorio Caprioli/Jean-Paul Rappeneau/Francis Veber
I wonder how much John Candy’s Delerious borrowed from this movie.
Bob Sanit-Clair (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is the world’s most famous secret agent. He shoots randomly into trees, hitting hitmen before they even know that they are hitmen. He sees through every disguise. And he always gets the girl (Jacqueline Bisset).
He’s also being written by Francois Merlin (also Belmondo), a writer who just knows that he can do something besides these crappy pulp spy novels. But they make him money to live off of and they’re very easy for him to write.
On the other side of his aparetment building is Christine (Bissett again), the young lady he’s slightly obsessed with. Can he win her over by letting her read his awful books?
The movie is way funnier than it sounds like it should be. It opens with the spy story and looks like the Zuker brothers and Jim Abrahams had decided to make a spy movie. (Oh wait…they did. It was Top Secret. But this is funnier!) It’s full of great slapstick and some awful puns that make you cringe and laugh at the same time. Add to that the Merlin side of the story that makes you feel for this guy and you’ve got a movie that even French haters can love.
Harry has been trying to show this movie for seven years. I’m glad that he finally got to. It was worth the wait.
Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Written by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Guillaume Laurant
I had no idea that Jean-Pierre Jeunet was even working on a new film, much less that he had one in the can! I would have been MUCH more excited if I had known.
Bazil’s (Dany Boon) dad was killed by a land mine when Bazil was very young. Thirty years later, Dany is shot in the head and survives. The doctors can’t take the bullet out without possibly making Bazil a vegetable.
Eventually Bazil falls in with a group of homeless folks who collect junk and make it into amazing things. He also finds out that the weapons companies that made the land mine and the bullet are right across the street from each other. The rest of the movie is a Rube Goldbergian plot to bring down both companies…and yet so much more.
If you’ve ever loved Jeunet’s films before, you’ll love this one, too. He brings his usual sense of humor and (shudder…I hate this word) whimsy to the screen and makes us fall in love with this ragtag bunch of geniuses, which includes his old standby, Dominique Pinon.
FROZEN (2010)
Directed by: Adam Green
Written by: Adam Green
Adam Gren has a lot of enemies in the horror world, and I’m not really sure why. Hatchet was a fun flick that didn’t try to be anything more and Spiral, while not brilliant, showed us all that he had some talent for something besides gore.
Now he mixes those two things to bring us something like Open Water on a ski lift. (On the fake lineup that Harry always posts, this slot was filled by Lifeboat. I can see why.)
Three college kids (Emma Bell, Kevin Zegers and Shawn Ashmore) are on a weekend ski trip. It’s Sunday and they want one more time down the mountain. They talk the lift guy into letting them go up one more time, but through a chain of events, they end up stuck on the lift. And the resort doesn’t open again until the next Friday. Now, how do they et down? And are those wolves they’re hearing?
That little premise holds a lot more fear than it seems like it should. Not only is there plenty of suspense, but there’s more emotion than you would think of coming from Adam. The two guys have been best friends since grade school and the girl is dating one of them. You can see where that’s going.
Not an amazing film by any means, but absolutely worth checking out. One of my friends who hates Adam said that this is absolutely his best film. He liked it quite a bit. If that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Directed by: Keith Li
Written by: Amy Chan Suet-Ming
Hong Kong isn’t really known for thier horror movies…and there’s kind of a reason for that. Most of them are pretty silly. I mean, Mr. Vampire is a great movie, but it’s silly as hell.
The Centipede Horror really won’t win any converts for HK horror. In fact, it will probably make people run from the genre.
The movie was introduced to us as being horribly vile and banned in many countries. I don’t really understand what the hell Tim and Zack were talking about. Yeah, there were a couple of gross-out moments, but it really wasn’t any worse than most Hollywood movies now. Vomiting centipedes (real ones!) is gross, but it’s not as squirm enducing as they made it out to be.
A couple of young girls go from HK to SE Asia (they talk about it like it’s a country) for a quick vacation. They’ve been warned to never go there, but they go anyway and, of course, one of them DIES!!!! She’s killed by centipedes, which apparently have a bite so strange that no doctor knows what one looks like.
Her brother comes to SE Asia to find out what happened and gets trapped in a plot by an evil wizard who hates the guy’s grandfather. He’s cursing everyone in the man’s family to be killed by centipedes.
What’s really interesting about this movie is how quickly everyone is ready to jump on the “maybe it’s something supernatural” bandwagon. Someone trips and their friend says, “Maybe an evil wizard cursed you!”
It’s a pretty awful movie, but it’s funny in its awfulness. Possibly the worst movie of the day, but it was enough fun that I was able to enjoy it. If you’re a fan of bad, weird Asian cinema, see if you can find it. And watch for the broiled zombie chickens.
Directed by: Guerdon Trueblood
Written by: Bryan Gindoff
The fake lineup movie for this one was The Lovely Bones. Heh.
Candy (Susan Sennett) is a 16 year old daughter of a jewel store manager. She gets kidnapped by three inept criminals who want a bag full of diamonds from her dad. What they don’t realize is that daddy isn’t too hip to getting Candy back.
I really don’t have a lot to say about this one. It’s an exploitation film that I don’t think made a really big impression on anyone except for the weird relationship that Candy developes with one of the kidnappers. It’s not supposed to be sexual, but it’s still a little bit creepy.
And then there’s the ending with the mute kid and his annoying mom. She’s SUPER-annoying. But her kid isn’t much better, really, and he’s suppoed to be sort of a hero of the movie…kind of.
IRON MAN 2 TRAILER
This was the only clip we had all night! I was a little surprised. It started out as an E! True Hollywood Story style bit about Harry with Jon Favreau, JJ Abrams and Michael Fucking Bay talking about how Harry nearly ruined their careers. Then Jon comes back and introduces the trailer. It looks pretty awesome, although I agree with one reviewer: Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash looks like he’s more of a danger to himself than to Iron Man. We’ll see, though. I’ll be there. You know it.
KICK-ASS (2010)
Directed by: Matthew Vaughan
Written by: Matthew Vaughan/Jane Goldman
Based on comic by: Mark Millar
I kind of can’t believe that they allowed a movie to be called Kick-Ass, but that’s really the only way that I could describe the movie, to be perfectly honest.
Dave (Aaron Johnson) is a geek. He’s a little bit obsessed with comic books and spends most of his time with his two buddies at a local coffee shop/comic book store. (Why hasn’t someone opened one of these up in Austin?!)
That’s where he gets the idea. The idea that will change his life forever. How come no one has ever become a superhero? So that’s just what he does. He goes out and buys a wet suit and walks around town until he finds some crime to fight…and gets his ass beat.
Kick-Ass didn’t have a very auspicious beginning, but he soon finds out that there are other people doing it…and they’re much better at it than he is.
Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage and his moustache) is a devoted father to Mindy (Chloe Moretz from (500) Days Of Summer and Hammer’s upcoming remake of Let The Right One In). So devoted, in fact, that he has taught her to kick some major ass…and he helps her steal the movie from everyone else.
Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong from Rocknrolla) is a gangster. He’s also a family man. His son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), goes to school with Dave, but he’s never able to make friends with anyone. Too many bodyguards. All he wants to do is fit in at school. And, of course, be just like his dad.
The movie wasn’t quite finished, but DAMN was it good! It never let up! The action only stops long enough to let some more comedy in. And there’s more than enough story and character to go around. It’s surprising to me that this was based on a comic book by the same guy who created Wanted.
I’m not really sure how this movie is going to find an audience, though. It’s a pretty hard R what with all of the violence and cursing being perpetrated by small children. (Mindy says things that would make a grown-ass man blush.) But I really hope that it’s a hit.
Kick-Ass comes out in April with a few CGI tweaks and a slightly different soundtrack. The soundtrack was a major source of consternation amongst the audience. It was fucking perfect the way it was! But Warner Brothers won’t let them use the Batman and Superman themes. That’s really too bad, because they’re used in scenes that are perfect with those themes.
Speaking of the soundtrack, there’s one scene where the audience burst out into applause and then started clapping along to the score. I’ve been to a LOT of movies in my life and that is something that I’ve never witnessed.
Yeah. We all loved this movie. It was my favorite of the day. Go see it in April.
Director Matthew Vaughan was at the screening and talked a bit about the casting process. Apparently, there’s a mother out there who was very upset with the fact that there was a masturbation reference on page three. She thought that it would give her 16 year old son bad ideas. Lady! Your 16 year old son had those ideas at LEAST three years ago! And he’s had those same ideas a LOT! Stop worrying about it!
Before I go, one more plea:
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET MATTHEW VAUGHAN USE THE BATMAN AND SUPERMAN THEMES!!!!
GodDAMN, I can’t wait to see this movie again!
Ok. I’m done. On to the next movie
AVATAR (2009)
Visuals: Story:
Directed by: James Cameron
Written by: James Cameron
I really wish that Harry had ended the day with Kick-Ass, but whatever. The day ended the way it needed to, not the way we wanted it to.
We all know what Avatar is by now: James Cameron’s new half-billion dollar movie about aliens, environmentalism and 3-D.
But we don’t all know what it’s like. I do. I’ll tell you.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a Marine who is now paralyzed. His twin brother was part of the Avatar project, which allows humans to go out onto a hostile planet without dying from the atmosphere. They are basically able to project their minds into artificial bodies of the local inhabitants. This also means that they can (sort of) blend in with the aliens.
The Marines are there to take a certain element from the planet, no matter what the inhabitants say. The unfortunate thing for all involved is the fact that the biggest deposit is right under the giant tree that the inhabitants live in.
The other unfortunate thing is that Jake is actually a little bit sensitive. While he’s in his brother’s avatar, he falls in love with one of the natives (Zoe Saldana) and decides that they deserve to live their lives the way they want to.
SHOCK!!
The other side of things involves Sigourney Weaver as a scientist who feels the same way as Jake and Giovanni Ribisi as an engineer (maybe?) who thinks that these “savages” need to get the hell out of the way of Earthling’s progress.
It’s Dances With Ferngully! Add in some comments about how “we ARE the terrorists” and you’ve got a modern fable about America and how selfish we are.
I dunno. The movie is decent as far as the story is concerned. Nothing special, though.
No one cares about the story, though. Not really. They’re going for the spectacle. And that spectacle is fucking amazing! The CGI is nearly perfect. (Still a bit cartoony for my taste, but that’s to be expected…kinda.) The 3-D is amazing. The world that Cameron and his crew created is beautiful. It’s absolutely worth seeing on the big screen in 3-D. Probably even on the IMAX.
I just really wish that he had attached a better story to those visuals.
Well, maybe next time…ten years from now.
That’s it from BNAT! It was actually a pretty amazing day. Harry fully admits that the last couple of years have been a little bit on the lame side. Not terrible at all, but not really want BNAT is all about. He’s remembered now and, hopefully, his mojo is back. We’ll see next year.
See you in the theatre. I’ll be right behind you.
Wish I could have gone, man. Killer lineup.