Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!

Because I waited too long after seeing most of these movies to write a review, I really can't remember many details about them (or I just don't have much to say about them in the first place). Therefore, I'm gonna get them all out of the way all together as... Manic Movie Madness Spectacular Bam Wow!


The Title: The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The Skinny: I finally got around to just sitting down and watching this. They say you have to not only go in open minded, but have an acquired taste for it. I'm about as open-minded as they come, I love musicals, and I do love me some camp... but apparently I don't have the acquired taste. Tim Curry was excellent. But I didn't care for the music at all, with the exception of "Time Warp." Repo! The Genetic Opera is compared a lot to this film, but I suppose only in that it's a musical that one must be open minded about. And it has a cult following. Needless to say, I much prefer the quite excellent Repo! over this (nothing against you fans out there! Don't hate me).

The Score:

The Zed Word



The Title: Interstella 5555.

The Skinny: It's only an hour long, but feels longer. It's basically a long music video for Daft Punk. Because of this, there's no dialogue, as the whole movie is a string of their songs put together one story. It's a great concept. If you like Daft Punk, I'd suggest at least one viewing. I like Daft Punk, but apparently not enough to want to watch this again. The animation was decent, though the story was hard to follow at times. And it did get a bit boring after a while.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: Film Geek.

The Skinny: This movie had so much potential, but ultimately falls flat. The movie is about an uber-film geek who gets fired from his rental store job for being annoying. He ends up meeting a girl who apparently likes movies on his own level, but not in his obsessed way. Of course, he gets obsessed over her and basically stalks her. There were some really funny moments, especially in the first act before he's fired. But there's no redemption to the character. This movie tries to be Napoleon Dynamite for film buffs, but the one liners aren't funny half the time. And you mostly find yourself as annoyed with the main character as the supporting cast does. And as I said, there's no redemption. The movie goes nowhere. Nobody learns any lessons. It's just... over.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!



The Title: Gray Matters.

The Skinny: I really like Tom Cavanaugh, and I think he's vastly underrated. Unfortunately, this movie hardly focuses on him. Instead, it focuses on Heather Graham's character, Gray, who realizes she's falling in love with her brother's (Cavanaugh) new wife. This movie tries so hard to be quirky and original, and it shows. It tries too hard, and I think that's why it fails. There's one scene I really liked, but otherwise, the movie as a whole is rather 'bleh'. It's a romantic comedy without the romance. Or the comedy.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!



The Title: Howl's Moving Castle.

The Skinny: Yet another Miyazaki. It came on IFC (or some similar channel), so while it was uncut and without commercial interruptions, it was the dubbed version. Luckily, one of the voice actors is Christian Bale, and another is Billy Crystal, so it's really not that bad. The beginning drags a bit up until Howl is shown to us for the first time, though unknowingly. The movie plays with a lot of great ideas, probably coming from the book it's based on. Though it does have its flaws. First, it seems like (due to Miyazaki's involvement) the movie is British-based with some strange Japanese influences (like the book is British, but Miyazaki tries to alter it for the anime). It feels strange at times. And it's never explained why the main character is constantly shifting in age throughout the film (there are quite a few things not explained). For the majority of the movie, though, I was at least enjoying it... until the ending. The ending is so rushed and awful, it's like they ran out of budget and realized they still needed to resolve every single character in the film, so they had to do it all within a 3 minute time frame. It was such a piss-poor way of doing it, that it made me really dislike the rest of the film (of which I was already only slightly above-average' on). I've seen better from Miyazaki, though I've seen worse.

The Score:

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.



The Title: The Gamers.

The Skinny: This is the original short film that the recently reviewed The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is a spin-off from. While there are a few who liked this short film better than Dorkness, the vast majority saw Dorkness as a vast improvement. I'm with the latter. The idea is very similar to Dorkness, though. The Gamers takes place almost entirely in the fantasy world and doesn't focus much on the outside lives. Overall, I didn't really laugh much (maybe once) at this one. It just seemed to fall flat for me. There were some good ideas, but they weren't executed very well, in my opinion. Most of my issues stemmed from the characters over-explaining everything, as if they were afraid their audience wouldn't get it. One idea I do wish they would have expanded on and done again in Dorkness (though done it a bit better than in this) was the idea of what to do with a character whose gamer isn't present. I liked how, in the fantasy world, the character just stood there until the guy would show up. And then the idea of the DM taking over the character, etc. If done right, it would have been a hilarious bit. But alas, I didn't really care much for this one. Still, check out Dorkness. You won't regret it.

The Score:

Feed Me, Seymour!


The Title: The Happiness of the Katakuris.

The Skinny: This movie is f**king weird. I'm tempted to leave my review at that, but I'll explain. This movie is a dark comedy musical directed by Takashi Miike. Let me explain that for those who don't realize what I just said. Takashi Miike is known for making some of the most brutual horror films in Japan (Audition, for instance). This is a (darkly) comedic musical. This would be the equivalent of having Clive Barker directing Mary Poppins or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There is so much strangeness surrounding this movie, it would take me ages to discuss. In fact, I almost wrote a "WTF Did I Just Watch?" for this movie, but it's so sporadic and bat-shit crazy that I wouldn't have been able to talk about it in any linear fashion. I think an entire movie made up of the "bowling daydream" from The Big Lebowski would have made more sense.

The Score:

WTF

LKMYNTS: The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.

This is one of those movies you're either going to love or hate. And that all depends on how open minded you are. If you have to have Michael Bay-level special effects and action... you'll probably hate this. But, say, if one of your favorite parts to Role Models was the live-action RPG scenes, you'll love it. This movie is about as low-budget as they get (Napoleon Dynamite looks big budget in comparison). And those are most of the reasons people seem to dislike it... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Kevin Lodge (Nathan Rice) and his friends love Pencil & Paper Role Playing Games (RPGs), especially Dungeons & Dragons. Lodge is the resident Dungeon Master (the one who runs the games), and he's come up with his own world and campaign that tends to... play with the rules a bit. This really ticks off the other gamers, including Cass (Brian Lewis), Gary (Christian Doyle), and Leo (Scott C. Brown). Cass, especially, can't deal with Lodge's rule bending, as it keeps getting everybody killed... and he refuses to not win a campaign. So the group goes out to recruit new members to help before they try the campaign again--for the third time--though all they can get is not only a "female," but a complete newbie, Joanna (Carol Roscoe). And she also happens to be Cass' ex-girlfriend. So now that they have all the players, they decide to make up new characters to get through the campaign (without using "player knowledge"). Cass plays a "Western" Monk; Gary plays a chaotic "neutral" female wizard, and keeps forgetting he's a woman, so the character is shown as both the normal actor and another (Jennifer Page); Leo decides to forgo his warrior types and try out a Bard (how different could they be?); Joanna creates her own warrior woman... with high charisma and speed and low Hit Points and strength; and Lodge goes with a holy Paladin, who all the others see as a "babysitter" so they can't do anything wrong or whatever Lodge doesn't want them doing. But the trick is... can they get through the campaign without wanting to kill each other in real life, too?

I know all that sounds really nerdy, but outside any random MST3K episode, I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I laughed harder at this than I did at The Hangover, which itself was a very funny movie. Actually, I started off really worried with the opening scene thinking "what have I gotten myself into?" However, thankfully, you grasp what's going on pretty soon, and the movie picks up considerably after the opening scene. But here's the question: do you need to be a gamer or have knowledge of the gaming community to "get" this movie? I don't think so. Especially because of Joanna's character, the movie is very "newbie" friendly. Rules are explained clearly, so you'll get most if not all of the jokes. Sure it helps if you've played (or at least watched somebody else play) at least one game of D&D. It gives you some perspective on the film that adds a whole other level of comedy to it (because you can relate so much easier to these people).

I got so many flashbacks watching this movie, it was great. Guys playing females and forgetting what gender they were... guys always wanting to seduce other characters... characters who are one orientation ("chaotic neutral"), but act another ("chaotic evil")... DM's using paladins as babysitters... rule nazis... rolling epic fails (1)... and so much more. This is a movie made by gamers for gamers (or previous gamers), but non-gamers will enjoy it just the same, much like viewers enjoyed the world of live-action role playing in Role Models, learning rules through the eyes of Paul Rudd's character.

Though there are so many more jokes in this film. And unlike other movies where D&D nerds are portrayed as, well, nerds... where they're seen in a negative light... this film honors them and really shows how much fun they have. I was laughing almost non-stop, and I've also experienced something very rare: the after-laugh. Just thinking about certain scenes of the film the next day is making me laugh. How could you not laugh at a wizard resurrecting a cooked chicken just for the hell of it, and having the chicken go ballistic on the characters (which ends in something so classic that I don't want to spoil it). Or at characters rolling charisma to distract the paladin while they torture another character for information?

If you couldn't figure it out, the film bounces back and forth between the "real world" and the "fantasy world." Of course, the "real world" actors play their "fantasy world" counterparts, except that Luster (the female wizard) goes back-and-forth between a male and female actor/actress, depending on if he remembers to stay in character or not. The fantasy world stuff is much funnier than the real world stuff, though I suppose the real world stuff is necessary for character development (no pun intended). But the best thing is when they mix the two. You can hear the rolling of die over the fantasy world scenes at times, or there's one scene where the Bard has to use his "Bardic knowledge" about information the Dungeon Master knows, so you see a hand pop from off-screen and hand him a cue-card to read from. And then, of course, the occasional "real world" discussion as they try to figure out what to do (most times it'll flip back to real world altogether here, but there's times where it just sticks in the fantasy world). Everything just adds to the awesomeness of the film.

So obviously the script is solid. What about other things? I wouldn't say the acting is as bad as the haters make it out to be. There's one actor who is obviously bad, but he's such a small character and only in the film for maybe a total of 2 minutes. The main people are all decent. They won't be winning any Oscars, but that's not the point of the movie. I loved what the director told them in the behind-the-scenes: just pretend this is real life; if you feel that you're acting, stop and start over. The guy who plays Cass was the best of the group, and I wouldn't be surprised if he broke out into mainstream films. But the thing is, while I could easily see this film made by the Apatow gang (for instance, Leo being Seth Rogen and Cass being Paul Rudd), I think it would take away the charm of the film. I think these particular actors bring something to these characters that those others wouldn't be able to--the heart of an experienced gamer.

But what got to me more than anything else, and what tends to get to the haters, are the special effects. They're pretty bad. Like... "I made this on my home laptop" bad. It makes Sci-Fi channel visuals look great. Thankfully, they just use visuals for powers and such, and not monsters or anything (the closest it gets, which is arguably the most cringeworthy of the bunch, is a ton of flies coming from an injured demon). However, this is how I think of it: this movie is an exploration of the imagination and comedy. Why wouldn't the special effects be cheesy? Part of me believes that the cheesiness of the special effects adds to the feel of the film, while part of me just wants more superb visuals anyway. Thankfully, the movie isn't too reliant on these effects, so it's not really distracting (or detracting).

And you know every comedy has the big 'fall out' moment where something happens between the main characters, and one or more have to come crawling back with an apology. Most movies usually go for some melodramatic speech with the apology... this touching, heart-felt moment. I have to say that this film handles it much more realistically (and more hilariously)... and it takes only two lines of dialogue between characters. Okay, so there's a mini-speech with one character, but the one to another character is better.

This movie can really only be found via Netflix or Amazon, it seems... but as soon as I finished watching it (at about 1 in the morning), I went right to Amazon and placed an order. It almost immediately became one of my favorite movies, bad special effects or not. This movie is truly the heart of extreme low-budget films. It's original, hilarious, well-written, and done to the best of everybody's ability. If you go to check it out, make sure you're getting Dorkness Rising and not the original, The Gamers, as this is apparently a spin-off of that short film. If super low-budget films don't bother you, I highly recommend this film, especially if you have any knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons or P&P role playing (first or second hand). And even if you don't, check it out anyway. I swear, you will find yourself laughing. Great, great movie.


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