The Infinite Napkin

I am ever a devoted reader of SHOCK CINEMA, burrowing around looking for oddities to bake my eyeballs. This was one that rose quickly from video obscurity by virtue of being an Andy Kaufman effort. Heck, you can get it on DVD from Rhino now as a flipside of I’M FROM HOLLYWOOD. Now that Andy’s antics have been assimilated into the mainstream almost completely, watching Andy in his time can be a little confusing, much like watching old Steve Martin standup. It was great, it was new, but the bastard children of both now won’t get off the damn lawn.

MY BREAKFAST WITH BLASSIE is a direct response to MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, a high-falutin’ movie (which yes I liked) about a dinner conversation ostensibly in real time. Andy even mimics the voice-over with faux-solemnity. Where MY DINNER WITH ANDRE was about large issues, MY BREAKFAST WITH BLASSIE is Andy’s breakfast at a Sambo’s (if you don’t know what this is, your head might explode when you find out).

DIGRESSION: I ate at a couple Sambo’s in Oklahoma in the early 80s. At the time, their gift shop was loaded with a few of those “official” tiger mascots and a load of the “little black sambo” dolls. It was very creepy.

Don’t know Classy Fred Blassie, wrestling champion and self-proclaimed King of Men? Well, he’s been out of the ring for a while now. He has a lot of opinions on food and cleanliness, and Andy does a brilliant job of stretching a boring conversation well beyond normal tolerances. A couple times Fred actually stumbles into starting a few interesting stories, like how the Shah of Iran’s go-to guy for killing dissidents was also a wrestler and a heck of a guy. Andy interrupts with a question about wiping your butt and Fred’s obsession overrides the interesting tale. He starts in on his three week visit to Japan and Andy cuts him off with the fact/lie about his whole family goes there a lot and he knows all about it. “What should I eat?” Andy asks. Fred disserts until dessert.

Andy even has a few plants in the surrounding booths, including four women to whom Andy is alternately aggressive and needy. Bob Zmuda passes through to throw up on the table, and that essentially breaks up MY BREAKFAST WITH BLASSIE. I made it all the way through, what call I tell ya.

It’s the first thing I’ve seen in years that still captures Andy’s effectiveness. The trick is that the patrons are plants, and the person he’s manipulating is his old pal Fred. He doesn’t do it to make him look like a jerk; Andy’s just revealing the man to us in unexpected ways.

I’ve thought a lot about SR and I have to give it a B+ on the superhero movie grading scale. It was deducted a bit for the hour Singer was ordered to cut out being missed (of all things). It’s like when Robert Evans told Francis Coppola to make THE GODFATHER longer when he turned in a 2.5 hour cut–You shot a masterpiece, but you turned in a trailer.”

That’s not to say SR ain’t great. The whole saving-a-plane sequence was equal to if not better than any feat from the first two SUPERMAN movies. Singer showed us that it’s not that he can’t make a fun movie like the first two–he clearly can–but that he wanted to tell another kind of story. The Luthor subplot (and it is a subplot to the renewed sense of “fish out of water” feeling SUPERMAN has on his return) is bare bones, but so was his plot in the first movie. I know comics fans wanted to see him in a purple shirt or that remarkably safe looking powered armor he used to wear, but the movie Luthor is an asshole genius with very American aims. Truth told: Lex Luthor’s the one with the truest sense of The American Way. He just wants a piece of the pie, the piece coming out of the oven. And he doesn’t care how he accomplishes that.

Parker Posey got miles out of her small part as Kitty, but that’s no surprise. Parker Posey could have found a way to play Superman. It’s really a shame that she couldn’t be Lois Lane, but rules are rules–plum high-profile acting roles like LL go to fresh-faced twenty-somethings. Kate Bosworth is fine, like Brandon Routh; they do their jobs well enough and that’s all we really ask.

I have heard complaints that there are no WOW moments in the movie. I maintain the plane sequence was amazing, just too-well done for you to notice it that way. The big WOW moments in movies are traditionally marked by the director with a big red LOOK AT ME arrow doinging away at it. Bullet-time in THE MATRIX, complex aerial model work in STAR WARS, morphing in TERMINATOR 2…all of these let the process have the whole screen for a while. This is not a complaint about any of those movies, just an observation. The next true step in SFX is seamlessness, the tweening. Effects are supposed to make things look real, or real enough; that’s “real” in the sense of your brain doesn’t call bullshit at a primal level when looking at it (see ULTRAVIOLET, or don’t–why would I do that to you?). The next effects revolution will slide right by most folks, as it should.

Yes, you should go see it. Yes, Routh is channelling Reeve; but we can’t have any more Reeve. Be reasonable. And, I cannot stress this enough–this is a sequel to the first two SUPERMAN movies. This is not another bite at the fanboy god-I-hope-they-use-this-from-the-comics apple. Remember: all the really popular things beyond Krypton and that suit came from the radio and tv shows. The current comics Superman seems downright resentful to me, like the angry dad Superman from KINGDOM COME. Blech.

The subtitle on the box is “Spirit of the Night”. I got this entirely on the strength of the star here, Jenna Bodnar. She’s one of those softcore workhorses, the pretty one who does all the naughty stuff and has some idea of what acting involves. As a result she’s usually either the wronged wife (FRIEND OF THE FAMILY 2) or the tough baddie (BANISHED BEHIND BARS). She’s 20 years too late to be one of the great late-period scream queens, but she’s making her way.

The credits were loaded with what look to me like Czech/Romanian/Hungarian names and a couple clear aliases (James Sealskin?) . Everyone but Jenna talks with an eastern European accent, and yet the opening scene text insists we’re in…Wales? Huh? Are people really that turned off by softcore movies set in Romania? Bruce Campbell tried calling a spade a spade in THE MAN WITH THE SCREAMING BRAIN and everyone just shrugged. Okay, it’s eastern Europe, people said; we knew that.

It turns out this is Jenna Bodnar’s first movie, if the “and Introducing” card is to be believed. The first thing I thought when she first appeared is that she looks EXACTLY like Jessie Spano without makeup. It’s uncanny. This is of course this idea. They pale her up, make her look as dowdy as they can short of covering her in pig manure so that the later transformation into the eager unreal woman of the title will be a big wow moment.

The movie actually shows some restraint compared to the (for instance) Misty Mundae type softcore that seems to be ruling the roost (or the kinda-sorta no-penetration shot porn that’s dominating the pay-per-view of late) these days. They go outside, they film stuff that doesn’t have anyone end up with their shirt off. These guys seem eager to channel BOLERO if anything. But they have a werewolf twist to impart.

After a fair amount of setup, Jenna find a naked scared local girl in her wine cellar. She’s being chased by the locals as if she were a beast (and there are indications earlier that some sort of beast is on the loose). The girl collapses after a ball of light pops out of her chest and the ball of light overtakes Jenna.

Cut to morning as Jenna feels great! She gets out of the shower and sees that she looks like she’s in full makeup even after a shower (the movie actually points this out, interestingly). She goes jogging, is full of life.

That’s about as far as I got. It’s softcore that aims to be an actual movie, and so far so good. Is it a movie you’d particularly want to see? Absent any primal urge to see Jenna Bodnar naked, probably not. It’ll go in the “finish later” pile for now; if it’s still there in a month, I fear the worst.

Nabbed this off the used table at the Mr. Movies, owing to my deep abiding trust in David Cronenberg’s ability to weird and wow me. I didn’t go see it in the theater because I did that with THE FLY and the shit sticks with you when it’s twenty feet high. I love being scared in a movie theater (and it certainly doesn’t happen often enough anymore), but what Cronenberg does to you in a theater is only scary when you realize how it makes you feel.

I was a faithful reader of DC’s Paradox Press crime/mystery titles from the beginning. But right around GREEN CANDLES I petered out; they all started looking the same to me. FAMILY MAN was good, and all the art was great throughout the books, very Italian. So I bailed before A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE debuted in comics stores.

I think AHOV got the movie deal for reasons similar to ROAD TO PERDITION; the stories were roomy enough for a clever director to make something more of it. Sam Mendes made a beautiful looking picture in which the plot and dialogue was just window dressing for the images. David Cronenberg grabbed hold of the central theme of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and showed how deep it actually ran.

I made it all the way through, even though the point was well-made by the half-way point. Then the plot surfaced and marched to the inevitable end. But right before the credits, Cronenberg winks at us again, with the family at the dinner table sitting in quiet but wary acceptance of one another.

Movies like this let great actors put on a clinic, and Ed Harris and William Hurt do just that. Heck even Carl the detective from QUEER AS FOLK turns up as the local sheriff a few times. I like that guy. But Maria Bello is the one who steals it as the wife of our hero (?). Every time I turn around Bello is doing another one of those brave, layered performances that I hear people like Julia Roberts complaining aren’t available. Gotta want it, Julia.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE may be Cronenberg’s most mannered effort yet; he sets the tone of idyllic life perfectly before having Viggo smash a guy’s nose-bone up into his brain. Four times. Ow.

What is it about going into a rental store that makes me pick something I know I’m going to hate? Is it self-loathing, a commitment to do something different? My subconscious saying “get back to the Netflix queue already”? Can’t say for sure.

I started this well before bedtime, so I watched the whole damn thing. Mostly if you just focus on Scarlett Johansson it’s okay until you start wondering why Michael Bay makes everyone look fake-bake orange. So then you’re looking back at Ewan McGregor to check this assertion, and then you think “I can barely understand Djimon Honsou, even though I know all he’s doing is yelling ‘get them!’ over and over” and then I think maybe Djimon is the man to play Black Manta in the Aquaman movie that I make in my brain when movies flat out suck at me for two hours.

It’s another loud dumb movie that gives dumb movies a bad name by burning through a million times more money than it takes to make a dumb movie. At least if you watch something like CARNOSAUR, you could conceivably have Roger Corman show you the budget and you’d go “For that money, it doesn’t suck as bad as I thought.”

The whole time I kept shouting lines from DEMOLITION MAN, a far superior movie about the future, because we all know that’s how it’s really gonna go down, man. Side with Taco Bell now and the Franchise Wars will go well for you.

From the camera swoop scene changes to the minimalist bass-walk soundtrack, this 70s Czech movie just kept punching me in the head. After a short intro with some “present day” Nazis congregating and telling each other how good they look, we jump straight into an amazing title sequence of cleverly looped footage of Hitler and various WWII German antics, making for some pretty silly moments. The final frozen image of an ecstatic woman in the crowd sets the tone perfectly.

Here’s the deal: a group of Nazis, kept young by some expensive anti-aging pills and a determined screenplay, plan to make use of the new Time Tourism industry (based in Prague, dontchaknow?) to divert a Time Rocket meant for a trip to the prehistoric era to a key moment in Hitler’s timeline. With a hydrogen bomb (and a manual on how to make more) stolen from a military museum on board, they mean to make WWII end the way they want to. The whole affair moves at a determined, crazy pace.

How will the Old Nazis divert a time rocket? Well, they’re going to reflect a light off the moon (I’m 100% certain I was awake for that explanation) to trip something that normally keeps Time Rocket occupants from trying something foolish like giving atom bombs to wackjob dictators at key moments in history. Oh, and they’re bribing the pilot–that’s Charles The Time Pilot, not to be confused with his twin brother John The Time Rocket Researcher Who Lives With Him And Works In The Same Building And Also Knows How To Fly Time Rockets (although the second you see him you know the movie’s gagging to).

We get the basic setup–John the Scientist is a good boy and Charles the Pilot is a greedy schmuck. One morning, Charles chokes to death on a breakfast roll; John is horrified, but when the doctor asks him which name to put on the death certificate since he could never tell them apart anyways, John has an epiphany. Charles has the hot fiancee that he treats like poop, he’s got the cooler job, he’s got a better life if only someone sane and moral could live it properly. To his credit, John thinks it over some, but eventually he decides to tell the doctor that it was poor John who died.

So now we’re in spy movie mode. The Nazis have already paid for Charles’ part of the scheme, and Charles has already arranged for the bomb to be onboard the rocket. When the Nazis call Charles (now John) and ask him about the bomb in terms of the passphrase “Are the shirts in the closet?”, a puzzled John/Charles looks in his closet and says “Yes.”

So what we have is a serious poopstorm brewing–a Time Rocket full of Nazis with means and designs on changing modern history and a pilot they think is in on the gag is one of the better recipes for trouble I’ve ever heard.

Right about where the Nazis realize their mistake/decide Charles is betraying them, I fell asleep. I’ll come back to this one, though. This movie is nuts! It’s pretty well-made, too. It looks like an episode of HART TO HART t-boned THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, the one with the sasquatch.

Jean Rollin is one of those prolific yet-basically unknown to the general public directors that I’d always been meaning to get around to. Netflix has filled that need recently with Night of the Hunted.

Before I begin, I should explain my methodology. I like movies that don’t work. I like movies that do work. It can be hard for me to recommend things to people as a result. “Is it good-good or John-good?” I get asked that a lot. I have recommended MISTER FREEDOM to people as an experience more than a movie, for instance.

With these catch-up movies, things I’ve been meaning to see but which may not be all that objectively great, I’ve been putting them in before bedtime and seeing how long they can hold my attention before I fade out; my dad has used this process for years and has documented proof that he only likes a few movies. Some movies I’ll pick up at the drop-off point the next night if I’m still curious how it turns out.

The opening sequence on the disc was shot in unretouched VHS camcorder. I started to fear. It was a three minute deal with naked siliconed gothy women and lots of Karo Syrup all over their boobs. No dialogue, lots of bad music. Then the DVD maker’s logo appeared and I realized I’d seen the longest logo reveal in human history. Think Dreamworks: water, bobber, follow the line, kid sitting on a crescent moon, logo–thirty seconds maybe? This one was three minutes and I might have even slept through some of it. The picture then jumped to a comfortingly ill-restored film stock.

A car at night, a lost young lady, a dashing helpful young man…and ten minutes in there’s about 10-15 minutes of softcore between them. I had heard Rollin was basically bolting plots onto softcore (horrors!) to make his movies, but even this surprised me. The softcore even went through the usual revolutions, as if halfway through Rollin had picked up a megaphone and barked “aaaand switch!”. But, to his credit, Rollin’s idea of softcore fun is far superior to the DVD packager’s. It’s not as perfunctory as Lord of the G-Strings or anything, but it had a practiced look.

Then all of a sudden, plot arrives: sudden, without warning. The girl has Guy Pearce’s problem from MEMENTO: Retrograde Amnesia Dentata or whatever it was. It leads to the most interesting reason I’ve heard in a movie for suddenly jumping on top of some guy who picks you up on a lonely road at night. The girl is so freaked that she can’t remember anything, that as long as she’s with the guy, she won’t forget him, and she desperately wants to remember something. As reasons for cheap sex go, at least you’re not laughing at it.

The driver leaves to go to work, then a doctor and nurse show up and take her back to an apartment where there is another woman with the same problem. It seems they were to buddy up to keep themselves out of trouble. Is this really wise? Shouldn’t she hang out with the girl who can’t forget anything?

“Where are my car keys?”

“When?”

“Do I own a car?”

“Which one?”

I faded out in the reunion part of the movie, so more later. Have to admit I’m still curious. Maybe Rollin said “Here’s your beast with two backs, now I’m gonna make with a mystery.” I want to like this movie, I really do; but movies with ideas and naked girls often run aground, so I don’t have my hopes up.