What's Up Doc?

For the holidays this year I was given a book of 501 must see movies, I have been casually looking through it and adding movies to my Netflix as I find ones that appeal to me. This ones page in the book had a photo of Barbara Streisand in a bathtub filled with bubbles and her hair up...how could I resist.

Now before I get to the story, I'm going to admit right now, I only rented this because of Barbara Streisand's nose. I like girls with interesting noses, and no one can really deny that hers is up there. She might not be a great sight now, but in her day, right up my alley.

Howard Bannister is heading to San Francisco with his fiance to try and get a grant to fund his research about cave men making music with rocks. He is a forgetful man with strange tendencies and a pretty pushy fiance (Eunice) In the hotel he meets another woman, one he doesn't exactly find charming (Judy) He does his best to stay away from her, but she for some reason has latched onto him. As all this is going on there are a few other people coming into the hotel, many of which have the same over night bag which is the basis for the comedy in this. One bag is filled with expensive jewelry, one is filled with top secret documents, and of course one is filled with rocks. Along with the cases comes the people who want to steal them. So there are a bunch of these bags being mixed up and misplaced as they get more and more confused.

The man who is supposed to give out the grant to Howard, or another scientist really takes to Judy when she pretends to be Eunice to get closer to Howard. And as all these mix ups occur they begin to fall for one another.

Its 2 parts screwball comedy and 1 part wry sense of humor. The physical gags are thrown out quickly, but what was making me laugh was the one liners that they were throwing out and then doing it again. They talked so fast and were putting so many little quips into each conversation it would be easy to miss a lot of it. Even just the absurd conversations that didn't even make sense because of the delivery made them hilarious. Example: A woman comes into the hotel and says hi to the man behind the counter and calls him Hans, he says his name is Fritz. She asks what happened to Hans and when he tells her there is no Hans only Fritz she responds with "Oh what a shame"

Why is that a shame? Who cares its funny. The actors were all very funny and I just loved Streisand, why couldn't she have just stayed young, she is a modern hipsters dream in this. Why it took Howard a while to warm up to her is beyond me, she was adorable.

It was a very enjoyable movie, not for everyone, they don't really make comedies like this anymore, its a bit out of style. Even so that doesn't mean that its no longer funny. 8/10 stars.

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Starring: Barbara Strisand, Ryan O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Austin Pendleton

Black Dynamite

Surfing on the left over popularity of the "Grindhouse" films comes a Blaxplotation film completely aware of what its doing. When I saw the preview for this I was certainly intrigued because it looked hilarious. Even though I was alone I will still laughing out loud.

The film opens with a drug deal going down, and the ring leader saying that someone among them is not who they appear to be, a man speaking very "preppy" gets shot for obviously being the rat. When the cops find his body they realize that its BD's brother (BD=Black Dynamite) So now he is out for blood, he is Kung Fu fighting ex-CIA operative that takes care of the ho's in the hood, and makes all the women scream. The story gets to the point of being ridiculous and they pack in as much as they can, and since the premise already was so out of this world when they get to the point of getting really insane I just let it go, its a parody anyway.

The acting was delightfully tacky and over done. They wisely chose to keep most of the cast unknowns or at least hid them under enough make up and Afro wigs that it took a few minutes to figure out who they were. The acting was spot on for a bad, cheaply made movie. There were scenes that the boom mic is visible, which is funny enough, but right at the last minute one of the characters will glance at it out of the corner of their eyes which is what made it really funny. It was the small facial ticks or the obviously fake punches that really sold it. Or things like if a crazy fight was going on they would focus on one guy reacting to the other fights so then they wouldn't have to spend money and time to do all the stuff they wouldn't have had the expertise to do anyway.

Its been a few days since I watched it so I'm trying to remember everything that I liked about it. It has also been a few weeks since Ive written a review and am rather rusty, so if anyone is reading this bear with me.

I was impressed with how much the film actually looked like it was made in the 70's, technically it was done very well, even though there were tons of "mistakes" purposeful as they might have been they made them look like accidents. The music is something to keep your ears open for, they do their own lyrics to the funk that us merely describing whats happening in the story.

Overall it was very funny, better than most others of this fare. With the "Grindhouse" films Tarantino and Rodriguez were to busy making themselves happy to make a truly funny and outrageous movie, as much as I liked them they were flawed. This kept it short, to the point like a shot of adrenaline and then let you go laughing. 8/10 stars.

Director: Scott Sanders

Starring: Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson-Whitfield

La Puta y la Ballena

The translation means "The Whore and the Whale" Not a great title if I do say so myself, thing is though, that is basically what the story is about.

Vera is a writer, she hasn't written anything in many years, when her old lover and editor (Jordi) brings her love letters and photos taken by a man who died during the Spanish Civil War a curiosity and obsession begins to grow in her. She tells Jordi about a lump that she found in her breast that she is getting checked out. She travels to Argentina to find out what happened to the photographer (Emilio) and the woman from the love letters (Lola) We start jumping back and forth in time, from 2003 to 1933 to see her finding out the story, and then seeing it actually play out. She underestimates the tumor and is right away in the hospital in surgery. They end up having to take her entire left breast.

Emilio is in love with Lola, he gets a job out in the middle on nowhere on the coast of Argentina, he takes it and brings Lola along, when he gets there he discovers that he is taking nude photos for the cover of sheet music for the tangos that a blind composer (Suarez) writes. Suarez becomes interested in Lola right away. A jealousy begins to build in Emilio.

While in the hospital Vera finds out that the woman (Matilde) who is in the bed next to her was a prostitute who worked at the whore house that Suarez owned and that Emilio and Lola stayed in while they were there taking photos. I'm going to leave it at that when it comes to describing the story, I don't want to give away how Lola dies, or what kind of betrayals they do to one another, it would be unfair.

Even though it clocked in at two hours, and at times I felt slightly bored, and wanted them to push the narrative along, the story is such an epic that it should have been longer, I was thinking 4 hours. That of course would have pushed away a large chunk of the audience and that's never good, but it was this tragic love story and needed the time to really let it soak in and marinate. I was very happy with it and surprised at times. The effects though really needed work at some parts, you could tell they didn't have the budget they needed to have for a period piece, as well as needing to make a whale look real when it's merely CGI.

The acting was beautifully done as well as the actresses were gorgeous. From the girl who played Mathilde as a young woman, to Vera or Lola, I was always happy to see them on screen. Ive made this same statement before, I believe it was when I wrote about "House of Sand" but Ill say it again for this, the actresses are women, not girls. If this was an American film I'm sure they would have went with a younger group of actresses or at least women who have a certain young look to them. There is a certain maturity and hardness about these characters that needed even if a young actress plays them to have a look about them of knowing the world.

There were a few really cool scenes where Vera is writing about an argument that Emilio and Lola are having, and they take her table that shes writing at and stick it in the 1933 time in between them as they argue, very cool. They let the cinematography sort of just play and meander as it should, its very free like that. Besides the story of Emilio and Lola its amazing and sad to watch Vera try and come to terms with what she and other women who go through this consider no longer being a full woman, or no longer beautiful.

The story is not all that original, I didn't really care though because what makes it so enjoyable to watch was that the writing and dialogue was to a T. They didn't really over write anything, things that bordered on cheesy weren't.

This would be the 2nd movie in as many days that deals directly with cancer, I need to get away from this trend, movies like this never end happy. Films that take a mirror and hold it up and instead of seeing your own reflection you see your own destruction should only be watched once in a while, they aren't really party movies.

It was a very enjoyable movie, not for everyone, but it was certainly a venture away from the norm and will be telling people to check it out for a while, even though it might not be the best movie I've seen recently it certainly earned a mention. 8/10 stars.

Director: Luis Puenzo

Starring: Leonado Sbaraglia, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Pep Munne, Merce Llorens, Miguel Angel Sola, Belen Blanco, Lydia Lamaison

Death: A Love Story

It's difficult to be hard on a film that is the actual footage of a man's slow death and grisly deterioration to liver cancer. The thing is though, this was not meant to be a documentary, it was a coping mechanism that they later edited together.

Mel Howard is an actor and teacher in Los Angles, not particularly successful, but seems to be doing what he loves, and that's the important thing. He meets Michelle LeBrun, she is 23 years younger than him, but already in her late thirties and early forties. She is a struggling actress. They fall in love and wed. Within two years he is diagnosed. It is then a long 8 months before he eventually dies.

Its a painful death, he ends up with Host vs. Graft which for the liver they gave him is the opposite of what it sounds like, the liver that was supposed to save him is attacking his body instead of vice versa. In the months leading up to his eventual death he did many different types of medicine in hopes of curing himself. In a particularly touching part he is describing how he thought he would cure himself, but in fact was healing himself. He didn't cure his body of the cancer but he healed his soul, or whatever you want to call it.

It is difficult to watch them struggle and eventually come to terms with his passing. There were times I felt anger towards Michelle, and it wasn't really something she could help, and eventually corrects herself. Example: She is angry that when one of the doctors tells them he has a 95% mortality rate, he is rather unemotional, she is angry about this. I don't think she understood at the time that if he gets as emotionally involved in his cases as much as you are, or even a fraction he will just end up killing himself. His job and specialty involve telling people that they aren't going to live. I should hope he would come at that from a place of neutrality. She later says she was wrong about being mad at the doctors, she understands what they had to do.

It was shot very poorly, and like I said earlier wasn't really meant to be seen. It had a lot of problems, and was very upsetting. I cant say I would recommend it, but it certainly was interesting. 6/10 stars.

Director: Michelle LeBrun