2009
PG-13
111 minutes

***

At first, I thought “Whip It” was a misleading title. In light of the the fast-paced, smash-happy trailers, they would have you believe that it’s all about hardcore chicks beating the crap out of each other and partying hard. But the film’s actually about relationships. Not the hip relationship between Ellen Page’s character, Bliss, and her Urban Outfitters boyfriend, but real relationships: the kind that real teenagers have with their best friends when they’ve been close forever and can hardly imagine a life apart, the sort of tempestuous interactions that only a teenage girl can have with her mother and that a girl feels when her father chooses to play Switzerland in life-or-death social matters. Don’t worry, fellas. There are still plenty of hot babes on roller skates. But those skates also serve as vehicles for a fairly realistic and rather poignant coming-of-age story.

Ellen Page plays Bliss, a 17-year-old girl in a small Texas town who is starting to grow tired of being her mother’s dress-up doll in local beauty pageants. When she’s not going through the motions with the debutants, she works alongside her best friend, Pash (“Arrested Development’s” Alia Shawkat) at a BBQ joint, counting down the days till she can get the hell out of town. One day, while shoe shopping in Austen with her mother and sister, she encounters a carefree group of Roller Derby girls and is immediately smitten. After she and Pash attend a game, Bliss decides to try out for an opening on underdog team, the Hurl Scouts. She’s clumsy but fast and somehow manages to make the cut. So yeah, there’s a bit of the underdog story you expect, complete with progress montage and hipster soundtrack. But there’s also much, much more.

I did not expect to like this movie. Ellen Page is generally a one-dimensional actress who tends to rely on her forehead to convey emotions. But she was surrounded by an able-bodied supporting cast and given such terrific material. I barely noticed her puppy-dog pout. Kristen Wiig, always hilarious, is very effective as the unexpected voice of reason. Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern put in empathetic performances as Bliss’ multi-layered parents. Alia Shawkat (who would have made a better lead) steals her scenes with the jokes and drama alike.

There are a lot of surprises in “Whip It.” Just when you think you know where it’s going, they throw in a curve ball. Bliss’ pageant-obsessed mother is not a stereotypical former debutante and housewife. She works hard at her job and simply wants her daughter to have success the only way she knows how. Bliss does fall for a cute boy, but her story never becomes about the boy. He’s incidental in her quest for independence. Bliss has a lot of lies to juggle and you know that they will all blow up eventually, but the way it plays out is unexpected. The villainous Iron Maiven (Juliette Lewis), from rival team, The Holy Rollers, is not purely evil. Though she makes things hard for Bliss, she still follows a sort of Roller Girl Code. Even the outcomes of the games are never certain. Things are not black and white here. Like the bruises the girls don as badges of honor, everything is in full, brutal color.

The more I think about it, I can see how the title fits. “Whip It” doesn’t just refer to whipping around the track or whipping ass. It’s about a girl who must whip herself into shape and grow up. It sounds trite as a tag line, but when Bliss learns to be her own hero, she becomes a better person. Not just a literal and metaphorical ass-kicker, but also a mature young lady who sees her parents as human beings rather than oppressive wardens. This is a movie that every teenage girl needs to see. Well done, Drew Barrymore. I really didn’t know you had it in you. Also, thanks for sticking to the sidelines, acting-wise. That really helped.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com.

October 3, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2009 
Rated R
108 minutes

****

Prolific and varied best describes Steven Soderbergh’s career. “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Out of Sight” and “The Limey” are all compelling character pieces. “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich” are preachy Oscar-pandering (but hey, it worked) and the “Oceans” movies are gimmicky commercial fare. “The Informant!” falls in line with his character-driven early work. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s definitely the Soder-side I prefer.

Matt Damon proves once again that he was the more talented of the Beantown Twins. He’s virtually unrecognizable in the role of whistle blower, Mark Whitacre, and it’s not because he “bravely” gained weight for the part (though I’m sure the Academy is salivating at gesture). You can still recognize the matinee idol underneath the chub, but he’s pulling off something that few of his contemporaries are capable of. He buries the celebrity persona deep inside the character, in this case, the mind of a manic-depressive mid-western geek who fancies himself a secret agent.

“The Informant!” is the true-ish story of a scientist-turned-executive working for an agribusiness firm that makes corn additives for foods. Whitacre becomes involved with the FBI when he reveals that his company has been involved in price-fixing. He is suspiciously cooperative when they ask him to wear a wire. Before long, Whitacre’s enthusiasm takes over. He fancies himself a character in a John Grisham novel. The spy-music score echoes the fantasies that Whitacre weaves in his head. Eventually, we learn that his self-delusion goes deeper than anyone had ever imagined.

I love an unreliable narrator, and Mark Whitacre’s voiceover is about as unreliable as they come, thus eliminating the usual trappings, such as tedious over-exposition. His narration is more stream-of-consciousness than informational. Most of the time, his thoughts are only loosely connected to what’s happening around him. His brain spouts factoids about animals and comes up with ideas for TV shows when he’s in the middle of a conversation. So when he repeatedly tells the FBI agents “There’s something I haven’t told you guys,” the revelations are as much a surprise to the audience as they are to the other characters. This keeps things interesting in what could have easily been a dry corporate corruption story. There is a definite Coen Brothers-esque lightness to the whole thing.

The supporting cast is also excellent. It’s refreshing to see Melanie Lynskey returning to the meatier fare that launched her career. Scott Bakula, Joel McHale and Thomas F. Wilson (Biff!) also turn in terrific performances. Where the film suffers is in the editing. The story feels a bit repetitive at times and could have been tightened up. The retro titles and music are an interesting but not entirely appropriate choice for a film that begins in 1992. Many of the jokes work, but occasionally, they are just a little too cutesy for their own good. For the most part, however, “The Informant!” earns the charisma that the title’s exclamation point implies.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com.

September 18, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2009
Rated R
95 minutes

*

In these trying times, it’s difficult to say what the world needs. But I can tell you what the world didn’t need. And that is a little film called “Baby on Board.” I suspect the pitch meeting went a little something like this: “It’s ‘Baby Boom’ as directed by the Farrelly Brothers. A successful businesswoman accidentally gets knocked up. It’s something the ladies can relate to but we also throw in that D.J. from ‘Northern Exposure’ to make lots of poon jokes so the dudes don’t get bored.” Green means go!!

Heather Graham plays Angela, the businesswoman in question who must impress her hardass boss (the barely recognizable Lara Flynn Boyle, puffy in the face and nowhere else), by selling a perfume for pregnant ladies to the Japanese. Angela’s husband, Curtis (Jerry O’Connell), is a lawyer with a guilty streak regarding his knack for finding the loopholes in pre-nups. He really wants to start a family but Angela isn’t sure she’s ready. Her best friend Sylvia’s kids are assholes. (What if her kids are assholes?) Plus, she might have a very successful perfume career ahead of her if only she could stop farting and ruining presentations.

Meanwhile, Curtis’ best friend, Danny (husband to Sylvia), is going through the ultimate mid-life crisis – in that he can’t stop getting blowjobs from hookers. He’s not apologetic, and he doesn’t make any attempts to hide it from his wife. He also tries to coerce Curtis into the whole hooker/blowjob scene whenever possible. I take it Danny is supposed to be the comic relief, but most of his jokes involve telling his wife she’s ugly and unfuckable and he would rather get it from a prostitute. That’s more mean than funny.

Things get really hairy when Angels discovers she’s pregnant just as she begins to suspect Curtis of cheating on her with a client. Astute viewers may have seen this coming because Angela can’t stop farting or puking. She does both constantly, leading one to conclude that the writers, never having met a real pregnant lady, did all their script research on Yahoo Answers. To further complicate matters, Curtis decides Angela must have cheated on him because he has been “double bagging” so there’s no way that baby is his. They have a Three’s Company argument in which neither party actually says what’s bothering them, leading them to assume the worst. What follows is a madcap series of misunderstandings. Will these two ever work it out? What about those other two? Whatever! Probably!

In a nutshell, this is what we can learn from “Baby on Board”: All men are pigs and all women are crazy because they spend all their time wondering if their pig husbands are cheating on them. Half the time, they’re right. But it’s only because some men don’t know how to express love. Also, when you’re pregnant, you fart and puke a lot, but it’s still possible to hold down a job. There. I just saved you 95 minutes of your life. Time enough to get a blowjob from a prostitute! You’re welcome.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

September 11, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2009
Un-rated
12 minutes

*

“Reunion,” which tells what the lives of those lost during the Columbine tragedy might have been like, is eye-rollingly corny. I’m sorry, dudes. It is.

This is the sort of movie review that makes people think I have a big black hole of hate where my heart should be. I promise I don’t. What happened at Columbine was indeed horrific, and I’m absolutely not belittling that tragedy. It’s terrible when anyone dies, let alone young people with their whole lives ahead of them. But “Reunion,” which tells what the lives of those lost might have been like had they not been snuffed out on that fateful day, is eye-rollingly corny. I’m sorry, dudes. It is.

With the gimmick of a 10-year high school reunion, the film is (mercifully, I suspect) sparse on dialogue and uses flashbacks set to music to show the alternate future/past that the 13 victims would have had. Mislaid careers include a pilot, a biologist, a famous singer, and a novelist. Apparently, everyone would have been very successful, the Columbine shooting being the only thing standing in the way of a full and happy existence for all. Hilariously, in this idealized version of events, the teacher who was killed would have spent a couple more years inspiring students and then still dying before the 10 year mark. Maybe he had a terminal disease that I’m unaware of but, if not, it’s a strange choice for an otherwise rosy-colored parallel universe. And then the reveal we all knew was coming: None of this happened. These people are all dead because two jerks decided to play “Doom” with real guns.

The heavy-handedness and cheese with which “Reunion” illustrates this point makes it feel more like a report on “Inside Edition” than a tribute film. We all know it was an awful day. The victims were cheated out of a future and the rest were left to try and make sense of a senseless act. It never should have happened. But why revisit it in such a trite way? If you don’t have anything insightful to say, why say anything at all? Leave the dead to rest in peace.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

August 31, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: 1 Comment

2009
Un-rated
90 minutes
Freak Show Entertainment

***

There’s no question about what director Joseph Guzman was going for with “Run! Bitch Run!” He aimed to make a 70’s-style sexploitation film and that’s precisely what he accomplished. Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie would be proud. If sex (well, mostly rape), drugs, and constant bleeding aren’t your bag, you’d best stay the hell away from this film. If you like a bit of the ultraviolence, however, read on.

“Run! Bitch Run!” follows two Catholic teenagers who are on a mission to sell religious paraphernalia and raise money for their school. It’s not a bad idea, actually. If anyone’s going to sell bibles to heathens, it’s young girls in a shorter-than-regulation plaid skirt. In true Catholic schoolgirl fashion, one of them is just a little slutty. Unfortunately, the townspeople of Mosely (a tribute to Bill, perhaps?) don’t see it that way. The girls are met with profanity, slammed doors, shotguns, and a punk kid who rips them off. And those are the nice folk. Their persistence is punished when they knock on the door of Lobo’s brothel just as he’s blowing a hole into the head of a disobedient whore. What happens to them next is bloodier and more sinister than the brimstoneiest pages in the Old Testament.

Rest assured, as the poster indicates, there’s also payback. Hell hath no fury like a Catholic schoolgirl disillusioned. But before the payback, there is MUCH scorn. Lobo isn’t the only bad wolf in the den. There’s also Marla, a whore with an insatiable libido and a nasty habit of killing her customers, and Clint, a meek but violent lackey. Marla also has a bit of a Lady MacBeth complex. It seems these three have seen “The Devil’s Rejects” one too many times.

Speaking of, fans of Rob Zombie’s work might notice a few convenient parallels (“Run rabbit, run,” anyone?), but it’s not an overt rip-off by any means. “House of 1000 Corpses” and “Devil’s Rejects” are more of an homage to films of that era, while “Run, Bitch Run!” could easily be mistaken as the real deal. Guzman and Robert James Hayes aren’t quite as effective as Zombie at writing compelling evil characters or memorable dialog, but that actually gives “Run! Bitch Run!” more authenticity. You’ll never find yourself endeared to Marla and Lobo as you might Baby or Captain Spalding. Thus, the revenge portion of the narrative is all the more satisfying. The gore effects are terrific and there’s good use of pacing, which is key in a story with so many rape and torture scenes. The cinematography also deserves a mention as they’ve deftly captured the lovely, warm, 70’s film look. “Run! Bitch Run!” may not be a repeat-viewer, but it’s absolutely worth a first look.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

August 27, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: 1 Comment

2009
Un-rated
90 minutes
Zeitsprung Entertainment

**

Nick is a dim-witted, petty felon in the German crime biz. All he wants is to take his equally dim girlfriend, Celia, to the States for a fresh start. But it’s never that easy, is it? Before he leaves town, he must pay off some unseen crime boss with an undisclosed amount of money…or else! In a moment of desperation, Nick decides to rob a gas station and accidentally shoots a cop in the process. Now on the run from pretty much everybody, Nick and Celia decide to hide out in a mansion and take the owner, Victor von Hartenberg (Billy Zane!!!), hostage. Unbeknownst to them, Victor’s German accent is shoddy for a reason. Victor is not who he says and his family isn’t “just at dinner.” Now, under siege by a motley Special Forces Unit and trapped in a house with a madman, Nick and Celia begin to second-guess the safety of their “Perfect Hideout.”

With such a plot and the presence of Billy Zane, it’s difficult to imagine where they could go wrong. But wrong they went. Their biggest mistake was not marketing this thing as a crime thriller spoof because it is damned funny and I’m certain that was not their intension. Sure, there are lines that are clearly jokes (Nick and Celia’s constant bickering, for instance) and Zane hams it up like his name is Virginia. But when a Special Forces guy shouts things like, “It’ll be a massacre!” and “That’s madness,” I don’t think we’re supposed to laugh. It’s a shame too, because if director Stephen Manuel owned the inherent comedy in the script, he may have really had something. With a few dialog tweaks and a different directing style, we could have had the “Tropic Thunder” of crime thrillers.

By way of example, take this exchange between the arcane European Special Forces Officer who is now in charge and the inexplicably American Special Forces Officer who was formerly in charge. They are discussing the identity of the man they think Nick is holding hostage:

Euro Boy: Do you have any idea who this man is?!

G.I. Joe: An important private banker.

Euro Boy: …AND serious political heavyweight!

This, my friends, is comedy gold. But gems like this are squandered; as Manuel clearly thought he was making “Die Hard.” Like Gina Gershon in “Showgirls” before him, Billy Zane is the only one who knows what kind of movie he’s in, and decides to make the best of it. You know a movie is flawed when you desperately want the bad guy to win. Not the protagonist reluctant criminals mind you, but the absolute antagonist with no redeeming character value whatsoever. At best, “Perfect Hideout” is the Billy Zane Show. At worst, it’s a schizophrenic, silly pile of Eurotrash. If only Stephen Manuel had listened to his friend Billy Zane.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

August 19, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: 2 Comments

The parody film is rarely necessary and the results almost never approach biting or witty satire. But there is obviously an audience for it somewhere. There must be. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep making those genre spoof films and Carmen Electra and all those celebrity impressionists would be out of work. In that way, the Schuermanns were ahead of their time. Their “double feature” DVD release actually contains four films, each with mercifully shorter running times.

2009
Rated G
92 minutes
ATOZ Films

*

Hick Trek: The Moovie (1999)

One year before the first “Scary Movie” was released, “Hick Trek” found its way onto tape. This slapdash mess of a Sci-Fi send-up utilizes cowboy pun naming conventions and redneck jokes in a completely ludicrous plot involving cats that want to destroy the universe. Captain Slim T. Jerk must battle the threat alongside Mr. Schlock, Horns McBoy and Sueyou. It’s as if Mad Magazine penned an extra long episode of “Hee-Haw.” Granted, the hick theme does lend itself to the low-budget props and shoddy effects. It would almost be cute if they were teenagers making a movie in their garage. But adults should know better. Still, I have to give them credit for one thing: The Trekkie references are slightly less on-the-nose than those in the J.J. Abrahms version.

Star Warp’d (2002)

After learning After Effects and stop motion animation, the Schuermanns returned with an ever-so-slightly less painful Sci-Fi spoof based in the Star Wars universe. They sling three painful episodes at us in rapid succession and then dangle the threat of a fourth over us so that we will never feel completely safe again. In Episode I, “The Fandom Menace,” the conceit is that a tear in the universe allows a mashup of iconic Sci-Fi characters to battle over something-or-other. The two main opposing forces are, of course, punny versions of Star Trek and Star Wars characters. Specifically, Dark Vapor (yeah, it’s a fart joke) vs. Captain Kwirk and Mr. Spuck. They do a good job with the near-score (making a copyright-free ripoff of John Williams’ classic strains) and the animation is decent for the caliber of filmmaking. But beyond that, it’s just as painful as their inaugural outing. 2001, X-files. E.T., Terminator, Predator and Robocop are all name-checked for no real reason other than they could be made out of clay. The result feels like a much less sophisticated precursor to Robot Chicken.

In Episode II: The Good, the Bad and the Ewoquies, the madness continues as Kwirk and Spuck must save the titular furballs from genocide. Episode III: Veni, Vidi, Vapor (I Came, I Saw, I Farted…Yes, the translation is part of the title…SIGH.) brings in a superfluous “Matrix” parody.

What really blows my mind here is that stop motion animation is not exactly easy to crank out. It’s a painstaking and lengthy process. That means the filmmakers had plenty of time to mull over each of their inane gags and they still decided to go with through with it. Fans of Mel Brooks’ more juvenile jokes and people with a lifetime subscription to “Cracked” may find something to love here. The rest of you should watch Robot Chicken’s Star Wars specials and continue to live in blissful ignorance of “Star Warp’d.”

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

August 17, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2008
Un-rated
58 minutes
Dime Western Productions

***

Catalina High School in Tuscon, Arizona wasn’t that much different than any other American high school in the 90’s. That’s what makes the true story of the Lady Trojans so universal. Anna Hesik was one of several lesbians on her basketball team who became involved in a complex web of love, sex, backstabbing, and rejection. This sort of drama is pretty typical of any group of teenagers. And “Lady Trojans,” which screened at this year’s QFest in Philadelphia, does a terrific job of showing how growing up gay isn’t much different from just plain growing up.

The story follows director Elizabeth Hesik’s sister, Anna, as she joins the basketball team, discovers her sexuality, and falls in love with a bit of a lothario named Quinn. However, “Lady Trojans” is not about basketball. The sport takes a backseat to relationships and sex both in the film and in the lives of the girls it portrays. Hesik uses home movies, interviews, and re-enactments to place the viewer right into the heart of the drama. At times it feels almost uncomfortably voyeuristic, as the girls apparently lived in front of their camcorder shooting slumber parties and choreographed dance routines. Regardless of your sexual orientation, it’s impossible not to recall your own mortifying memories while watching Anna reading some of the love poetry she wrote to exorcise her romantic demons.

The outfits, hair, and music exacerbate the cringe-worthiness, and serve to Delorean us straight back to the 90’s. Big shorts, big hair, and sports bras are the dominant garb of choice. Quinn dons a particularly impressive hi-top hairdo that would give Kid a run for his money. Anna’s Belinda-Carlisle-looking former best friend (who is not a lesbian) has the most embarrassing hair of all, which she admits was inspired by TV heartthrob Kirk Cameron.

The only real problem with the film is the re-enactments, which are based on Anna’s fictionalized account of events (the film is based on her short story). Shot in a blown-out, “Unsolved Mysteries” style, they play out like a bad episode of “Degrassi,” and that means bad. While they do help to change up the storytelling and fill in narrative blanks, the stiffness of the acting and over-expository dialog detracts from an otherwise raw and candid film.

By and large, however, “Lady Trojans” is a realistic and empathetic portrayal of teenagers attempting to figure out who they are. It’s also really refreshing to see a coming-of-gay tale that doesn’t result in violence and death.

Originally posted on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

August 5, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Most times, when an entertainer announces their retirement, they really mean, “Press please. PS: I am already planning my comeback.” But Dave Chappelle was never anything but sincere. So, unfortunately, after he revealed that he wouldn’t be returning to “Chappelle’s Show” and needed a break from the business of show, he all but disappeared.

Sure, he’s since popped up in a few places, namely “Inside the Actor’s Studio”. Unlike many guests who speak pretentiously of “the craft” and bask in James Lipton’s sycophantic line of questioning, Chappelle was completely himself. That is to say he was honest, open, humble and naturally hilarious. He spoke candidly about why he bailed. He was not made for corporate whoredom. He feared he was losing touch with the original intentions of the show. “The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself,” he lamented. “Especially when everybody is watching.”

About why he bailed to Africa, he explained, “Coming here I don’t have the distractions of fame. It quiets the ego down. I’m interested in the kind of person I’ve got to become. I want to be well rounded and the industry is a place of extremes. I want to be well balanced. I’ve got to check my intentions, man.”

How many famous entertainers are that introspective? Not fucking many.

On “Actor’s Studio”, he also talks about the money. He’d already made buckets of dough for “Chappelle’s Show” when the studio offered him a $55 million contract to continue cranking out the hits. That’s a lot of money. It may not sound like it in the context of television and film because we’re so used to enormous budgets and ridiculous salary wars. The rich and famous convince themselves they deserve it. But what the hell would the average, one-car, one-mortgage American do with that kind of cheddar? You could buy fancy toys, expensive dinners and completely lose touch with reality. Or you could cut out and recognize that you have an opportunity to do something that will help others and make them feel good. And that’s what Dave Chappelle did.

He’s not the first guy to use his money to help people. But he’s certainly one of the only famous people to do so without all the self-congratulatory smugness of, say, Bono.

I was really depressed the day I saw “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party”. I’d just been through a breakup and a career setback and was feeling pretty lost myself. But I cried tears of joy whilst watching that film. I left that theater completely uplifted. The premise is simple: Chappelle uses his own money and connections to throw the block party of a lifetime in a small Brooklyn neighborhood. He pads the bill with Kanye West, Mos Def, Erykah Badu, the Roots, and even manages to reunite the Fugees. Many of these acts are known for their egos. You could easily pay $100 to see any of them individually, but somehow, through his charisma and general goodness, Chappelle convinces them to perform for free.

Whilst preparing for the block party, Chappelle wanders around the small Ohio town where he lives, talking to the locals and inviting them to the show. He invites folks from all walks of life, from the old man who runs the menswear shop to the Ohio State University marching band. He also offers to pay for their transportation to the show. The result is an incredible melting pot of people celebrating life and music together. It’s not about money and it’s certainly not about fame and status. It’s just a big-assed party. It’s the closest anyone has ever come to recreating Woodstock (and not that corporate-branded bullshit from 1994, either). One day of peace and music.

This is why we need Dave Chappelle. There are those that don’t fully comprehend his significance. His recurring characters became clichés. The frat boys shouting, “I’m Rick James, bitch,” certainly contributed to his brief meltdown. But his comedy turned the mirror on American culture in a very accessible way. He poured a little sugar on those moral Cheerios. He was making Hollywood a better place. And then he left us.

I understand that he needed to get back in touch with himself. I’m glad he got out before he went crazy or lost sight of his goals. But I really hope he doesn’t stay away long.

Maybe if we all clap our hands and believe, we can bring Dave Chappelle back.

August 4, 2009
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: 2 Comments