Nickel Tour: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

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Man is born baby-sized, but as an old man. (Looks creepy.) As he moves forward in time, he grows appropriately mentally and size-wise, gets physically younger. Nobody seems to think this is worth mentioning to science. Eventually, he meets a girl or two, falls in love once or twice. Fathers a child around the time he "meets in the middle" he childhood sweetheart- both the same physical age at their point in time. Eventually, he's getting younger physically and starts to get smaller size-wise, as well as seemingly mentally senile. Finally, he dies as a baby-sized baby.

I know that it's meant to be a love tale, but I took it as a flawed an internally inconsistent sci-fi tale. Not easy to suspend disbelief due to Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett's well-known countenances. I found myself wondering what was makeup and was was CG.

For the record, I caught part of the filming of this movie a few times. Many of the New Orleans shots were comfortingly, albeit jarringly familiar. The accents weren't awful overall.

I give it a "Not worth the big screen."

Nickel Tour: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

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I tried not to get my hopes up for this one, but reading some of the headlines can't help but slip few a spoiler or two or a hint as to the buzz and mood of the crowd.

Meh.

Most of the adventure movies in the last two or three decades owe something to Indiana Jones. The fourth movie in the canon felt like it tried to reach for the bar that the first three had set; other movies since (The first National Treasure and The Mummy to name two) have surpassed it. The actual bits of the movie that felt like an Indiana Jones Movie were too far between. Too many of the set pieces were simply set pieces for no good reason and a total disregard for continuity. Several times, this one tired to pay homage to the previous films, but it felt more like a washed-up ex-beauty queen parading around with old trophies, trying to convince the viewer that it still had relevance: Compare the use of the Ark as well as CGI in movies three and four.

I give it a "See the other ones instead."

Nickel Tour: The Illusionist (2006)

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It's been a while since the Netflix fairy brought me anything, much less something good. (It helps when you actually send the movies back instead of letting them get lost on the coffee table.) The Illusionist is a pretty good movie, a love story/magical realism piece. The story itself was a sort of typical boy meets girl above his social station, boy moves away mysteriously for many years, boy meets girl as an adult and she's going to marry the bad guy, etc. However, the characters here are really interesting. Edward Norton is a really great actor, Paul Giametti is lots of fun as the chief inspector ("Are you completely corrupt?" "Not completely, no!"), and Rufus Sewell from Dark City has some good moments as the price of Vienna. Jessica Biel is passable as the love interest, but I think she's just there for the asses-in-seats factor to get guys to watch this with their chicks. All the actors do a decent job with accents, too.

The production itself is very fitting- part of the story is told as flashback, and that section of the movie has a slight iris lighting effect and a bit of flickering, as though seen through a magic lantern or zoetrope. The overall lighting and cinematography was a pleasure to watch in and of itself. If anything, some of the magic so central to the tale falls a little short- the 19th-century audience were amazed, but I had a hard time not seeing the CGI. I give it a "Rather good and definitely worth watching once."

Nickel Tour: A Scanner Darkly (2006)

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Bubbling up to the top of the Netflix queue since I missed it in theaters about six months ago, I'm glad I saw this animated feature. Technically, it's a dream. The rotoscoping, I mean- unquestionably the right choice for the film and totally gorgeous on the eyes. Literarily, parts of it are dreamlike, too; the drug culture is pretty pervasive, even with the transplanted seventies-era mentality through a thirty-year lens.

That said, I'm not really sure I enjoyed this, need to see it again, or can positively recommend it. If you like Philip K. Dick, go for it. If you like the director, Richard Linklater, you'll probably like it. I have to say it could be shorter. I give it a "Really good to just look at."

Nickel Tour: Superman Returns (2006)

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In a nutshell, Meh. Superman is too much the perfect Boy Scout with no real flaws; his moral dilemmas aren't even really dilemmas to him. Plus, Supes is a freaking alien. I didn't really like him as a kid reading comics, or even as a young man reading comics. Four days from my 32nd bday, I wasn't impressed with the big-budget movie. Almost from the first ten minutes, I was in the curious-but-bored phase, and I didn't get out of the zone for the whole two hours. About the only good thing I can say about the movie is that the guy they cast as Superman looks the part, Lex Luthor once again has a real-estate scheme, and the production has made an effort to tie in to the previous movies.

I give it a "Not worth the time, even if you're a fan."

PS- How stupid of a criminal do you have to be to shoot Superman with a gun? Also, how stupid do you have to be to try your pistol after the big-caliber Gatling bullets just bounce off?

Nickel Tour: Duck Soup (1933)

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Yep, this is a Marx Brothers film. Someone over on the IMDB calls this one of the greatest comedies of all time. I disagree. I've seen too much of this film already. Too many of my contemporaries have aped the Marx Brothers' routines and gags and bits. Almost every time Groucho set up a bit, I knew the punchline already. Whenever Harpo did something obnoxious, I'd wonder why nobody saw him and/or cleaned his clock. Whenever Chico spoke, I wondered what was up with the lingo. I don't recall Zeppo doing anything particularly notable. I'll say this, though- watching the camerawork really hits home the fact that back then, movies weren't really movies yet; they were stage productions on film. I give it a "I'd rather watch Buster Keaton."

Nickel Tour: My Science Project (1985)

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The Netflix fairy brought me this old flick, mostly because we had recently seen Real Genius and The Manhattan Project. There's a certain genre of sci-fi that we don't see in this day and age very often- the semi-wacky sci-fi comedy. (No, the new Hitch-hiker's movie doesn't count.) usually you've got the kid/Trickster figures, a number of cop/Authority figures, the sympathetic wise Teacher and the weird Mystical Science Widget. Maybe we're ultimately better off with less eighties movies being made. My Science Project falls firmly into the category of the kind of movie you only like if you watched it as a kid and liked it back then so therefore it has nostalgic value and you enjoy watching it not for the content of the movie itself but rather for the positive associations that you recall from watching the movie when it first happened into your life. I give it a "Might be worthwhile for to see Dennis Hopper act like an ex-hippie."

Nickel Tour: Brick (2005)

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My brother and I got out of the theatre about an hour ago. You need to see this movie. Brick is a noir film set in a modern-day high school, but this is emphatically not a teen movie- instead a blend of non-direct narrative and 40's grit, all dark and seamy and hard-edged crime drama. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's a hell of a ride as the story unfolds and the plot is revealed by our protagonist, Brendan, easily at home in a hoodie and denim as his predecessors in trenchcoats and fedoras. Don't believe me? As of this writing, the Tomatometer gives it 74% fresh. Josh alleges I showed him this trailer months back, but I know I saw it while I still worked at Dell. Heck, go watch the trailer yourself and tell me what you think. I give it a "I need to see it again" and a "I wish I could run a game like this."

Nickel Tour: Madagascar (2005)

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More of a two-cent tour, really. Madagascar is a Dreamworks animated feature. We're talking Shrek and Antz, not Toy Story or Finding Nemo. As such, the picture includes many sly references just for the adults. I saw the "Madagascar Penguins" in a short before Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but I hadn't seen the original movie until now. I don't think I've even really seen it now, either. Evidently, Americans put video entertainment on the magic moving picture box in order to placate their young and keep them quiet. Interestingly enough, the cult of the Great Glowy Box doesn't appear to care what sort of active colorful shapes appear on the video screen, much less what kind of musical noise or vocal antics come out of the speakers. As long at the tube engages the brain (or should I say disengages the brain?), the content is virtually irrelevant. The medium matters more than the message. To wind up my rant, I only caught some of this movie as it performed its baby-sitting duties in the background. What I saw, I liked. I give it a "I shall Netflix this so I can actually watch it."

Nickel Tour: March of the Penguins (2005)

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Narrated by Morgan Freeman (in one day, says the IMDb), this documentary shows the incredible lengths the Emperor Penguin goes to in order to breed and reproduce. In a nutshell, the species walks some 70 miles day and night across Antarctica, mates, lays eggs, then the mother walks back the 70 miles to eat, then back to feed the chick while the father walks the 70 miles to feed himself. All this happens in the freezing and the occasional dark and the barren, frozen, wasteland of Antarctica. The Wikipedia mentions that the Religious Right used this movie to support their views on conservative family values and intelligent design. However, in captivity, the Emperor Penguin displays extremely nonconservative sexual behaviors. Furthermore, the oddity and the odds against the chicks in the rookery speaks against intelligent design. Regardless of the implications, the film is beautiful and moving. I give it a "Definitely worth watching."

Nickel Tour: Lifeboat (1944)

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It's 1944. The war is on. A U-Boat attacks an Allied ship; both sink. Eight survivors make it to a lifeboat. They soon pull one more man from the water, and he's a Nazi. All in all, I found it an interesting character drama, but not as compelling as I had hoped. John Steinbeck wrote the story and Alfred Hitchcock (spot the cameo) directed. I give it a "Dated but kicks Gilligan's ass."

Nickel Tour: The Lonely Guy (1984)

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Steve Martin (you know him, you love him!) plays the titular character, a "lonely guy" in New York in the mid-eighties. Amazingly, Charles Grodin is funnier as the supporting lonely guy. One commenter on the IMDB observes that Martin suffers for playing the straight man in a comedy, and I agree. I didn't laugh as much as I wanted to, and most of my grins and chuckles shared time with blank stares, counting the seconds to a knowing payoff, and eye rolling at this dated film adaptation of a surely even more dated book. Some of the sight gags worked well, despite being cliched- Martin opening curtains in a potential apartment to reveal an underwater vista with live fish, but wait for it, a tire floats by. A lot of the film comes off this way- not a one-two punch of comedy, but rather more a feeling of desperation in making sure the audience gets the joke. I give it a "They should've called it The Lonely Film."

Nickel Tour: The January Man (1989)

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I've seen this movie before, and I remember really liking this movie. It used to stand up to the Kevin Kline Moustache Theory of Comedy. You know the one. If Kevin Kline appears in a movie with a moustache, it's funny and good and all is right with the world. January Man has Kline as an ex-firefighter returned serial strangler catcher. The supporting cast is okay, Alan Rickman rocks, Danny Aiello is a New Yorker, Rod Steiger yells and screams, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is the female romantic lead, Susan Sarandon doesn't act like Janet Weiss. Plotwise, I nearly fell asleep. Maybe I'm watching too much CSI, or Silence of the Lambs changed everything, but I just want more out of a police procedural/serial killer flick. I give it a "Not as good as I remember."

Nickel Tour: Dead Calm (1989)

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In this installment of "Eighties movies I've never seen before," we touch on a thriller that launched Nicole Kidman's career- she still has he kiwi accent as the wife of Sam Neill in the middle of the ocean on a boat with a crazy man, Billy Zane. Even though this movie had some obviously dated plot points, it captivated me almost from the opening shot through the end. As always, Neill does a wonderful job going slightly mad. Zane, while almost too pretty to play a lunatic, also convinces. And Kidman does quite well with the script she has. The isolated environment of the ocean and the limited cast (three, plus a dog, not counting characters seen on a videotape) really work well for this sort of story. I give it a "I really want to see a remake of this, set in space."

Nickel Tour: 11:14 (2003)

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We picked this up on a lark using a free movie coupon. Like many other movies, 11:14 features an ensemble cast and multiple, out-of-order stories. I don't know if the stock has grown to having its own genre yet. I can't believe that nobody did it before Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, but I can't think of a better example. 11:14 features five interconnected stories of sex, murder, mayhem, love, and crime in a small town at the same precise moment- forty-six minutes to midnight. I don't want to reveal much more than that, but consider this an indie black comedy so you know what you're getting into. I give it a "Surprisingly solid."

Nickel Tour: The Gingerdead Man (2005)

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Got a pizza the other day. Got two coupons for free movies. Went to Block****er.

ACTUAL QUOTE FROM THE MOVIE:

The guy that killed Jeremy and your daddy, that you helped send to the electric chair, Millard Findlemeyer, has come back, from the dead to get revenge on you, inside a cookie?

Did I mention that Gary Busey plays the eponymous titular character?

ACTUAL QUOTE FROM THE MOVIE:

I say we take this thing on Leno, Letterman. Do you know how much dough we can make off a talking cookie? (laughs) Dough. Cookie. Get it?

Did I mention that all the characters' names are silly? Sarah Leigh is the heroine. Amos Cadbury is the funny one. The token Latina is Julia. This movie was so bad it wasn't even as bad I wanted it to be to make more fun of it. At least it was short. I give it a "That's 71 minutes of my life I'll never get back."

Nickel Tour: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

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Unsurprisingly, if you like Harry Potter, you'll like this movie. I must tip my hat to anyone who must reduce a 734-page book into a movie that contemporary audiences will sit through. Even so, the film runs two hours, thirty-seven minutes and has a lot of material to cover. They cut a fair amount of material (as they must), and I hadn't read the book in a while, so I felt like I got to watch the film without the book influencing me overmuch. Still, I enjoyed seeing the translation from print to film- Shades of Laocoön. Overall, the film really works as a film. The drama and comedy really come through in a way that pleasantly surprised me. As the franchise's first PG-13 movie, it continues to him home that Rowling does not write "children's books" in the traditional sense. I give it a "Already want to own it."

Nickel Tour: Lost in La Mancha (2002)

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Terry Gilliam. Just saying his name brings all of the imagery of Time Bandits, Brazil, Baron Munchausen, the Fisher King, and 12 Monkeys leaping through my head. Like most of us, I have a Lottery List for what happens should a stupid amount of money fall out of the sky. On that list, I have charities to donate to, projects to sponsor, and movements to lead. Of the artists I wish to sponsor, Gilliam is the only director who gets a check. Most of the others I'd prefer to work with to realize some vision or another.

Terry Gilliam has wanted to make a movie of Cervantes' Don Quixote for more than a decade. The most recent attempt, The Man who Killed Don Quixote, starred Jean Rochefort as Don Quixote and Johnny Depp as a modern day ad exec in the past, playing the role of Sancho Panza.

Lost in La Mancha documents the disasters around this production. In less than a week of production, weather ruined the oudoor set and the lead actor, Don Quixote himself, suffered a herniated disc. Don Quixote, the knight error, could not ride a horse. Watching the documentary (originally produced as a "behind the scenes" extra for DVD or whatever), I really felt the sinking desparation of the production. The same guys who made The Hampster Factor for 12 Monkeys also made this, and their craft showcases Gilliam's plight, insight and lunacy perfectly.

Terry, if you read this and I have zillions of dollars, call me.

Nickel Tour: The Machinist (2004)

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I don't know why I had this in my queue. Possibly someone suggested it to me, or I just grabbed it because of its description, or possibly Netflix itself suggested the film. Premise: Christian Bale is a (you guessed it) machinist who hasn't been able to sleep for a year. The character has lost a lot of weight, and Bale looks like a skeleton. According to the IMDb trivia, the man lost some 63 pounds by eating an apple and a can of tuna per day. The movie definitely has a few good weird moments, but I felt the payoff was not worth the setup. It also uses a certain plot twist that seems fairly obvious. Although I won't spoil it overtly, let's just say that Twelve Monkeys and Fight Club both handled the ideas better. I give it a "Slightly let down."


If you like, buy it:

Nickel tour: Frailty (2001)

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Bill Paxton directs a movie. Game over, man! This movie presents as a crime drama with supernatural overtones- a "Thriller," to use the vernacular. The movie opens with Matthew McConaughey telling an FBI agent that his father and brother acted as the "God's Hand" serial killer. Flashback, flashback, current event, flashback, flashback, twist, revelatory ending. Frailty left me wanting- I even predicted the twist, which I'm notoriously blonde about not doing. I kept thinking of the not-too-shabby Stir of Echoes, which is a solid ghost story weakened by a contemporary release. Frailty, on the other hand, is one of those movies that improve if you tell the plot to someone, but I won't go so far as to say it's a great premise that was poorly handled. I give it a solid "I've already forgotten it."