Slime Machine

Okay, so one of the dangers of Netflix streaming movies is that you have no risk but your time when you decide to watch something. Before, when you put a disc in your queue you were at least committing to having a physical object in your house. If you couldn't choke it down, you put it in the red envelope and had to spend a few days waiting in shame for its replacement, preferably something of greater cultural value than "Dude, Where's My Car?"

With the streaming thing, the threshold for a queue add has been drastically reduced. Hey, I'll just watch it for a few minutes. If it's really that awful, I'll just turn it off and go on to the next thing. Instantly!

This is fine in theory, but when you have certain obsessive-compulsive tendencies it can be a trap. Some of us absolutely cannot watch a movie or TV show in which we have even the slightest interest if it has already begun. (Yes, just like Alvy Singer.) And we do not begin to watch or read something that we do not eventually finish. I once slogged through 600-odd painful pages of "The Alienist". Hey, maybe it'll get better. (It didn't.)

Which brings us to "Hot Tub Time Machine". (You can follow the link if you want a full synopsis. Not bothering here.)

I'm about the target demographic for this film. The soundtrack was the soundtrack of my teenage years. If nothing else, I figured I'd chuckle a few times and enjoy the soundtrack. Which I sorta did. Not just the obvious choices (Men Without Hats, Spandau Ballet, Serious Moonlight-era Bowie) but the few inspired oddities, both truly awesome (The Replacements!) and awesomely cheesy (Nu Shooz!).

It's a total guy movie, which is not really my thing. But I can enjoy it if it's funny enough. In that department, it's a coin toss. I'm not quite sure if I wasted an hour-forty or if the few chuckles and titties made it a better bet at the time than another episode of "Torchwood" (which is still there waiting patiently for me, thank goodness).

But what really concerns me here are the morals we're meant (or not) to take away from this cinematic enterprise. And at this point we'll give the obligatory HERE BE SPOILERS!

The film, to its credit, doesn't cast its main characters in a flattering light. We pity them but we don't really like them. But that's what made it harder for me to swallow the ending, which we'll get to in a second.

Early in the film, John Cusack laments that all they had in the 80s was "Reagan and AIDS", the two plagues that were at their grossest back then but continue to pollute our lives today. So one might reasonably expect that, if we were to deconstruct the thing, we might find at least a mild indictment of the values we had back then. The Gordon Gekko "greed is good" era was as slick, empty and one-dimensional as Oliver Stone's screenplays condemning it.

Well, here's what happens at the end. After spending most of the 80s flashback trying to do everything that they did the first time around in a perhaps-vain attempt to avoid the Butterfly Effect, they end by saying "fuck it" and doing whatever the heck they want. Rob Corddry's character even stays behind when the others return to the present in order to take advantage of his knowledge of the future.

I found this a bit depressing. Once the three other principals made their way back to 2010, things were quite different. For all of them. But not because, as in "A Christmas Carol" or even "Back to the Future", they did things better or were kinder people or worked harder as a result of reliving the past. They didn't have epiphanies. Their lives were better because they cheated. And the movie is okay with this. It actually celebrates it.

Rob Corddry is filthy stinking rich because he knew about Google and Twitter and Motley Crue before everyone else. Craig Robinson is well-off because he pre-empted his wife from cheating on him in the future and wowed an audience by teaching his band a Black Eyed Peas song from the future instead of lamely crooning "Careless Whisper", as he did the first time around. John Cusack meets a music journalist that he ends up with instead of brooding over the girl who stabbed him in the eye (and, as he learns, would have stabbed him in the eye either way).

To boil this down to one sentence, "Hot Tub Time Machine" teaches us that the road to happiness and wealth is insider trading. It isn't a repudiation of the 80s. It's a celebration of its worst aspects, which just happen to have exploded again in this decade. Rob Corddry's character is a dick at the beginning of the movie and he's a dick at the end. But now he's a rich dick. And he isn't rich because he earned it. We're supposed to feel good?

No. This left a very bad taste in my mouth. And it wasn't because of Salt-n-Pepa. It's a total glorification of corruption. And really, not funny enough to mask that fact. The characters in "The Producers" were much funnier and much more sympathetic. And they ended up in jail.

Bernard Schwartz

Okay, it's Tony Curtis. But Bernard Schwartz was just way too jewy for Hollywood.

And besides, he wouldn't have been known as Stony Curtis if he hadn't changed his name. I mean, come on. Stony Curtis. Now that's a name for a rock star.

Ahem. Sorry.

I was never a big fan of Mr. Curtis. Even in his best movies ("Spartacus", "The Sweet Smell of Success") he seemed like window dressing. Or worse.

I think I liked him best in "Some Like It Hot". He seemed to let loose a bit more there. But even then, I found myself wishing for someone a bit less...I don't know. Unsettling, maybe. Maybe it was those icy blue eyes. Expressionless. He never seemed like he belonged in any of the movies I've seen him in. Except maybe "Sweet Smell". His "I think I'd just as soon be someplace else" manner made the most sense in that creepy world.

At any rate, he's out of here. Maybe he's going to the castle of his faddah. Which lies over yonder.

And if he hadn't changed his name? Why then, Fred would have been the stunt double for (wait for it)...

Bernie Quartz!

Arnold Stang

Remember how on MTV's "Remote Control" they had a category called "Alive or Dead"? Always loved that one. We've had two people shuffle off on us this week, neither of whom I realized was still alive. One was a complete charlatan and another was a comic treasure.

Guess which one Oral Roberts was.

Never mind him, I'm here to write about Arnold Stang. You may not recognize his face, although it was a great one. But the voice is unmistakable.

Here he is as the Bilko ripoff "Top Cat", using his slightly more cool voice.



But the total nerd voice was his real stock-in-trade. Even when he was in live action he was a cartoon. Here he is as one of the gas station attendants (he's the skinny one) in a priceless scene from "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", fleeing in terror as Jonathan Winters wrecks the joint. The real mayhem starts about 4:30 in.



"Irwin, we're gonna have to kill him!"

Karl Malden

Admit it. You thought he had been dead for years already. He was 97, after all. 97!

Growing up, I knew him as the guy on the American Express ads with the funny hat. And as the dude on "Streets of San Francisco" with Kirk Douglas's son. And he was old then.

It was only later that I found his earlier work in two classic films, "On the Waterfront" and "A Streetcar Named Desire", both directed by the great Elia Kazan and both starring some dude named Brando. He was clearly meant to be a character actor. That mug and that schnozz were there even back then. Not a handsome man.

But, as it goes, he could act. And he had himself a long and distinguished career. He stands in stark contrast to this week's other celebrity snuffings. Unlike Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, he lived a long life unmarred by controversy or suffering. His greatest achievement? He was married to the same woman for 70 years. 70! That's beautiful.

A good and well-lived life. Thanks, Karl, for doing it the way it oughta be done.

Beckinsdale?

Subsequent visits to the site from which this was purloined show a typo-free add. Either that or Ms. Beckinsdale was replaced in the film by Ms. Beckinsale. They're both real purdy.

The Oscar Grouch

Remember when Bill Murray used to do his Oscar picks on SNL's Weekend Update? (Sorry, I came up empty on You Tube. There's a small picture here but you'll have to use your imagination for the rest.) He usually talked about how he hadn't seen most of the nominees and then picked his winners based on dumb things like how big someone's breasts were.

I haven't seen any of the Best Picture nominees. But I'm going to talk about them anyway. Let's start with the "winner".

Slumdog Millionaire - I just can't get excited about this. I can take or leave Danny Boyle. Even his best movies (like, say, "Trainspotting" or "Shallow Grave") left me entertained but not inspired. I've seen or read nothing that makes me think I'll feel any differently after watching this. But I'll watch it anyway. That's what Netflix is for.

Milk - This is the only one of these five that I have any more than a passing interest in. And it's not much more, trust me. I generally hate biopics. The academy adores them, though. Hence, mediocrities like "Ray" and "Walk the Line" tend to mop up around this time of year. I have the highest hopes for this one, but that's not saying much.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - This is the kind of quirky concept that ordinarily peaks my curiosity just a tad. But I'm not a big David Fincher fan. (Okay, "Zodiac" was pretty good, but that's about it.) And I may be the only person in the world who is not gaga over Cate Blanchett. (Go ahead. Say it.) I think I may be a bit quirked out now at this point, anyway. After "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" I think we need to retire the whole idea.

The Reader - I read that there was a scene on Ricky Gervais' "Extras" in which Kate Winslet mentioned that she'd need to do a holocaust drama to get that elusive statuette. Ha! Satire is always eclipsed by the truth eventually. Just watch "Network" now. It was way over the top in 1976. Now reality (TV) has gone way past it. The concept of this movie bugs me. We're supposed to feel something for someone who committed atrocities because, what, she learns to read? After getting poked by a minor? Reading is supposed to wash all this away? How about getting down on your knees and (hey, wait for the rest, already) begging for forgiveness for what you did? And, for the record, I feel the same way about Kate Winslet as I do about Cate Blanchett. (Go ahead. Say it.)

Frost/Nixon - Can I tell you how much I hate Ron Howard? He seems like a swell guy and it looks like his heart is always in the right place. He just doesn't have any discernible talent as a director. He epitomizes the term "Hollywood hack". And yet, he is continually lauded by the academy and its drooling sycophants. "The Da Vinci Code" was a crappy movie based on a crappy book that itself was begging to be made into a crappy-but-fun movie. Instead we got crappy and not fun. At least it didn't get nominated for anything. "A Beautiful Mind", on the other hand? Why, God, why? Excuse me, but I thought it sucked. Howard has absolutely no trust in his audience to "get" anything. He needs to spell everything out and, in doing so, he drains the life out of it. I love Frank Langella though. So I'll watch it for him.

What this boils down to is five films made by five directors with whom I have spotty relationships, at best. (I didn't talk about Gus Van Sant or Stephen Daldry, but Van Sant is closer to Boyle for me while Daldry is closer to Howard.) Last year, we had two of my favorite directing entities, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers, represented by some of their best work, as well as two other films that I thought were terrific, "Michael Clayton" and "Juno". This year? Poop.

I suppose I shouldn't say that without actually seeing the movies. But if Bill Murray can get away with it, so can I. Tell me I'm wrong, please.

Ann Savage

Ms. Savage has shuffled off this mortal coil. She was a B-movie actress for most of her career. She had resurfaced recently to play Guy Maddin's "mother" in "My Winnipeg" (which I haven't yet seen, although Maddin is a unique and fascinating filmmaker).

She'll be remembered most for playing the absolutely vicious Vera in Edgar G. Ulmer's no-budget film noir "Detour". "Femme fatale" doesn't even come close to decribing what Savage does in this movie. Savage's character would eat a femme fatale for breakfast. And then beat another femme fatale to death with the first one's bones.

The scene where she wakes up in the car next to Tom Neal is awe-inspiring in its trashiness. When Savage opens her eyes, it's as if a sleeping crocodile has just been startled out of its tentative slumber and is mere nanoseconds from tearing your head off. It's so over-the-top that you don't know whether to be frightened or to laugh. The movie is basically trash, but it's hugely entertaining trash. Savage's character, such as it is, is one-dimensional and subhuman. And you can't stop watching her.

I Said PLEASE Pass the Popcorn

So, if you don't know already, there's a blog over on Word Press to which I contribute called Please Pass the Popcorn. It's about movies (duh). I had originally intended to plop some of my movie thoughts here at the Den but once this site popped up I decided it would be more fun to use that forum and share with some other cinephiles. The site's been live for several weeks now and lots of fine folks contribute, including Mrs. Chili and Kizz. My contributions so far have been posts on Truffaut's "Day for Night" and Wendell B. Harris' "Chameleon Street".

But the real news is that Saintseester, one of our other contributors, will be running a contest over there next week. Like contests? Like movies? Like the potential for free stuff? Check it out here. Go have some fun for a change.