One from the Vaults: Marmaduke

Yesterday the Duke was loosened upon the earth as scores of eager fans lined up to plunk down two hours worth of minimum wage pay for their own personal In-Duke-Pendence Day.

Honestly? Any conventional review I'm going to give will do a huge disservice to both the movie and the loyal readers (or service, depending on how you look at things). You already know the plot: a big talking dog learns life lessons with lots of fart jokes and sight gags that its target audience is too young to understand. (I mean, seriously, did the screenwriters at least consider that the underagers were in diapers at best when the OC was airing?)

Instead, I've decided to create a highlights reel of all the WTF moments your accurate plot guessing will leave out:

• dogs on hallucinogens!
• Marmaduke rollin' in a Mini Cooper listening to Tupac!
• George Lopez as a side kick in his second batshit weird movie about talking dogs in two years!
• shade tippin'!
• William H. Macy doing his best to pretend he's in another Mamet production, weird speech pattern and all!
• A very vigilant dog catcher who's willing to go into a large thicket of bushes near a train yard close to midnight in the pouring rain!
• a dog jumps from a shed into a pool shouting "I AM A GOLDEN DOG!!!"
• a flashback to presumably the 1950s when the Duke was a puppy!
• CGI dog dance sequence!
• Racism in the guise of adorable dogs!
• "A classic OC-style rager!"
• A toddler that appears and disappears at convenient plot intervals!
• Surfing dogs! Cowa-doga!

There are many more highlights, but at this point the muscle relaxants are wearing off, so I can't remember them. And really, I couldn't make a better summary than IMDB user turok818, who states it so succinctly: "amazing movie, haters kill yourself."

PS remember in that last post, when I asked what audience the Marmaduke branding would attract that wouldn't have already been attracted by a talking dog picture? Old people, that's who. The theater was about 1/4 people without children over the age of 65.

The Duke Is Loose

So as you probably gathered, I'm a big fan of crappy movies. For every good, actually good movie I watch, there's five St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Bands (the movie, mind you, not the album). There's this odd sense of respect I have for them (well, all of them except Sgt. Pepper's). It kind of goes beyond watching them ironically back to actually enjoying them.

All this is to set up the fact that my friends and I are going opening night to see Marmaduke. And by "see," I mean we've been leaving goofy messages to each other online and are having a big party beforehand. We're all like-minded and pumped because this movie really looks like the crap of the crop. (1) George Lopez automatically bumps any movie into Million Dollar B movie territory (2) They use Ke$ha in the trailer (3) why the fuck do you make a Marmaduke movie 40 years after its peak?

I guess that last question is what's weighing on my mind. Marmaduke's prime, if it had one, was back when shag carpets were fashionable and people actually read newspapers, let alone newspaper comics. Marmaduke didn't talk and certainly didn't have a sassy cat sidekick. The comics aren't even jokes! They're sentences that you assume are jokes because they're in a comic panel! (kind of like Lopez's stand up formula - random statement + I laugh = you laugh)

I've gotta think the Hollywood pitch meeting went something like this: "Yeah guys, we have an AWESOME talking dog movie for the summer with Owen Wilson, but I don't think that can carry it on its own. We need some kind of big name franchising association like Marmaduke. Yeah, that's it, Marmaduke! Nobody's optioned that, right?"

On the other hand, I can see it kind of like V for Vendetta, the scorn of many an internet anarchist. If you filmed it verbatim from the comic, it'd be seven hours long and boring as all hell. Any cinematic ridiculousness is just going to add to the premise.

Anyway, gang, expect a full write up when the Duke is finally loosened upon the earth this weekend.

One from the Vaults: Whiskers

There's a delightful feature with my cable called On-Demand. Most people use it to catch up on TV shows they've missed, not realizing that a delightful treasure trove of crap lies just within their reach. The free movies section is a grandiose collection of 80s horror, 70s exploitation, and simply uncategorizable head scratchers.

Whiskers falls into the last category. It's a Canadian made for TV kids movie about a boy whose cat best friend turns into a creepy man in a hoodie through the power of love and pagan idol worship. On the surface, it's your average talking animal movie, complete with clueless parents and musical numbers. You'll need to dig deeper for its true horrors.

Whiskers tells the tale of an emotionally stunted little boy named Jeb, who is on the fast track to Norman Batesville because he can't connect to people his age and can only talk to his cat Whiskers. In fact, he's pretty darn obsessed with cats in general. His parents, who have already voiced their opinion that their kid is a nutjob, try to tell him - SPOILER ALERT - that he's going to have a little sister. Somehow the kid processes this as "We're going to get rid of Whiskers, chump," and freaks out.

While at a cat museum with his dad, the kid makes a wish on a statue of the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet to turn Whiskers into a Real Boy so he could still be with his BFF. Bastet makes some 90s CGI happen, and the next day, Whiskers is human! Only problem is Whiskers has aged in cat years, so while Jeb was expecting a boy his age, Whiskers has become a 30 year old man in a brown hoodie.

So Whiskers teaches Jeb all the typical kids movie crap - how to have fun, make friends, and confront bullies - and even has a musical interlude with the world's 2nd catchiest white boy jazz song about cats as Whiskers introduces Jeb to his cat homies. Jeb, meanwhile, has to help Whiskers find his mother in a B plot that suddenly appears when the movie should be over.

Brent Carver, the actor playing People Whiskers, won a Tony for Kiss of the Spider Woman, so either he really believes in this project or has some gambling debt to pay. I hope it's the latter, because the former raises some serious eyebrows. Sure, any kids' movie with a person playing an animal is going to be awkward, but unlike Quigley, which had Gary Busey pretending to be a dog by acting like Gary Busey, this awkwardness gets into creepy territory. Whiskers ends up next to Jeb in bed too many times for me to be entirely comfortable with this movie. And unlike the parents in Goobie, who just seemed negligent with their psychotic son's maladies, these parents seem to take some kind of unnatural glee in fucking with their kid's head.

I can't recall as much batshit crazy stuff from this movie as I'd like, and I'm afraid I can't reference you to a place where you can see it. The internet only has faint traces of it - I couldn't even find a poster for it -and Amazon simply knows it exists. I just assumed it was a fever dream until I found screen caps.

This is the epitomy of the crappy sort of programming from On Demand, which is why you need to scope it out. In the words of Cinderella (the metal band, not the kids' movie), you don't know whatcha got til it's go-o-one. I doubt they were talking about Whiskers, but it applies well enough here.

One from the Vaults: Nothing But Trouble

One from the Vaults: Nothing But Trouble

When I lived with my mom, she loved to scour the discount DVD bins at local grocery stores and buy movies based on interesting covers. This is how as a wee teenager I discovered the delightfully weird clusterfuck that is Nothing But Trouble. I don't think I could come up with a better summary than my husband, who said that it was "a cross between Cars and the Rocky Horror Picture Show." But here's a shot, at least.

Chevy Chase is some kind of smarmy financial writer, and Demi Moore is a lawyer. Because Demi Moore is hot, she talks Chevy Chase into driving her to Atlantic City along with two of his clients he dubs the Brazilianaires. All this back story is mostly a MacGuffin and doesn't matter too much to the plot, except that it's fun to say Brazilianaires.

A speeding ticket lands them in the Night Court of the Damned, as an ancient, sadistic Dan Akroyd makes them hot dogs before trying to kill them on a roller coaster that player the Damned Yankees. Then things get weird. Bonus points for an impromptu Digital Underground concert.

I suppose it's hard for me to objectively review this one, because it's a movie I've seen several times and love to pieces. It's dark, it's both consciously and inadvertently funny, its set design is mind-fuggling, and it's one of two movies based on Centralia, PA. Plus Demi Moore is oddly hot in her... hot pants business jumpsuit? (Yeah, you come up with a better description. Here's a picture.)

If you want a different opinion, check out Rotten Tomatoes, where the flick averages 11%. About the only ungushy thing I can say is that you can definitely tell at times that Dan Akroyd wrote the movie, particularly with the awkward pacing that some of the actors use. But mostly, I can just echo the sentiments of an IMDB forum member who said, "Someday when I'm rich, I'm going to have a pickle-shooting condiment train."

Trust me, you won't know what you're watching. Even with repeat viewings, you'll never know what the hell is going on. But at the very least, you can walk away saying you saw Tupac's film debut.

Buy Nothing But Trouble on Amazon

One from the Vaults: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

One from the Vaults: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

So many times naive young indie rockers and pop culture lovers ask themselves, "It's the Beatles, how can you mess it up?" That phrase, kind of like "I'm not racist but..." should automatically signal to you that something is amiss. But even I found myself at age fifteen asking, "This movie can't be as bad as everyone says it is - how can you mess up one of the best albums ever?" Then I watched it and found out exactly how you can mess up one of the best albums ever.

May I present to you a timeless piece of cinematic vomit, 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I rewatched it over the weekend and found it to be even worse than I remembered. Sometimes I wonder if the filmmakers asked themselves the above questions, though I think the only question they really asked was, "how much coke can you buy in this town?" (answer: enough to get through a film shoot)

The record Sgt. Pepper's had the Beatles pretending to make a concept album so they could secretly experiment with their sound. Likewise, the movie Sgt. Pepper's had the filmmakers pretending to make a rock opera so they could secretly showcase some bitchin' Beatles covered by the Bee Gees. Yes, friends, that's right, the band portraying the Beatles' alter ego is the Bee Gees and is led by Peter Fucking Frampton. And unlike the Lisa Bonet's cover from High Fidelity, when he sings you're aren't going to "kind of like it now." You're going to wonder what dark personal vendetta Frampton has against the Lennon family.

That alone should be enough of an explanation, but let's try to dive into the plot. The Product Description from Amazon states it a little too coherently for its own good: "SGT. PEPPER'S GRANDSON AND THREE OTHER GUYS FORM A BAND AND FIGHT BAD GUYS.MUSIC FROM THE BEATLES. "

George Burns as Mr. Kite, the town historian, tells the legend of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, who singlehandedly conquered both world wars and the great depression through British brass music. After Sgt. Pepper dies, his grandson Billy Shears and three of his buds decide to reform the band and perform in their quaint hometown of Heartland. There's also Billy's stepbrother Dougie, who's bitter because he didn't get breastfed or some shit and I can't tell if he ever figures into the plot again because everyone in the movie looks so fucking whitebread that I can't tell who's who.

Anyway, the band magically gets a record contract and goes to LA, where they promptly get drugged by a record exec and raped by a pop soul band, which everyone in the film's universe seems to find completely a-ok. They forget about that and record a record and get world famous. Meanwhile, Mean Mr. Mustard and his gang of robotic rubber dominatrix ladies, who hate love and music, cruise into Heartland. The band isn't there to protect the town by playing "When the Saints Come Marching in" or "God Save the Queen" so Mr. Mustard steals some magical instruments as commanded by the mysterious FVB via computer and then turns the town into a pinball brothel.

Billy's girlfriend Strawberry Fields runs away to get the band back from LA and save the town. They steal Mr. Mustard's pedovan and drive to beat up Alice Cooper and Steve Martin and then come back to play a concert with Earth Wind and Fire. Then Strawberry gets kidnapped by Mr. Mustard and taken to Aerosmith, who've been pulling the strings the whole time. Strawberry dies in a giant neon gyroscope while Frampton beats up Steven Tyler.

Billy is pretty bummed about his dead girlfriend, so he tries to jump off a roof. But wait! The weathervane that's been watching over the town the whole time turns into Billy Preston and stops him with his magic trumpet! And turns all the bad guys into Catholic religious figures! and reanimates Strawberry! And then a bunch of celebrities join around and sing the reprise from the album.

The reason this is so long and describe the whole plot is to spare you the pain. For the love of God, those are two hours you'll never get back. Sometimes you think it's going to verge into "so bad it's good" territory and you're proven horribly wrong, kind of like getting a staph infection from a flu shot. I understand that the Beatles are hard to tackle despite how many people have tried, but these guys were handed material on a silver fucking platter and decided to use it as toilet paper instead. Steve Martin dresses up as a crazy doctor - almost the same act he'd reprise in Little Shop of Horror with flying colors - and dances around to Maxwell's Silver Hammer and it's still not good.

The thing is, I don't understand why this film is so bad. The Bee Gees don't automatically suck the win out of a film, and on paper this should be a campy romp with some great cameos. But it's not. Sweet sassy molassy, how it's not. So I blame Peter Frampton. Sure, I suppose the casting director is partially to blame for creating a horrific world in which Peter Frampton can triumph over Alice Cooper, but the casting director wasn't the one prancing around in a pink suit and fuggling my brain.

So, in short, this movie is bad. And not the fun kind of bad, more like being given a puppy and then watching being thrown into a woodchipper. It takes the worst elements of the campiest of 70s musicals and shoves them into a film while taking a huge dump on something that should at least be fun if not good.

One from the Vaults: Gooby

One from the Vaults: Gooby

The first thing you probably need to know about my movie going habits is that I see five shitty movies for every good movie. Willingly. And even though this was released a few months ago, I'm including it in the Vaults because of its sheer awfulness. Nothing says quality like direct-to-video, and Gooby is the very pinnacle of direct-to-video.

Gooby tells the story of a boy with some serious mental health issues, acknowledged at the first of the film and then conveniently glossed over (giving me the take-home message that childhood onset schizophrenia is outgrown? ). His yuppie parents find the house of the dreams and make the kid move, which sets off the hallucinations and then brings his childhood toy Gooby to life. Gooby is not, in fact, a hallucination, as everyone else in the film can see him. Gooby gets the kid into all kinds of madcap zany bullshit, and his parents learn the lesson of spending time with their family. Or something.

Here's a better outline: a giant orange bear with a Scottish accent runs around and makes weird jokes while Eugene Levy, a sadsack substitute teacher and failed kids' author, tries to photograph him and the world's most self-aborbed parents have some vague yuppie job and don't notice their kid going out at night or being sent to the hospital. (In one scene, the kid pretends to throw up on the dinner table to cover for Gooby making noise upstairs, and the parents' only reaction is to move the Chinese food out of the way. Not, "Shit, my kid is sick," but "please don't party foul on our moo goo gai pan.")

Like most of these weird direct-to-video kids movies, most of the hilarity is unintentional, so bad it's good. The long shots, the awkward lines, the creepy adults, the misplaced CGI and green screen. It's worth the cost of renting it if only for (1) the nanny that looks like Iggy Pop and (2) the scene in which Gooby terrorizes an 11 year old bully in a hot dog costume so much the bully pisses himself, and then Gooby utters in simple, childlike amazement, "Look, Willy, the hot dog peed!"

Honest to blog this is a real movie. For the longest time I thought it was a clip from Tim and Eric, but I promise you that this movie exists in 99 minutes worth of gut-wrenching glory. I honestly don't expect you to believe me, so here's a link to the Gooby trailer. May God have mercy on your soul.

true masochists can buy Gooby on Amazon

One from the Vaults: Meet John Doe

One from the Vaults: Meet John Doe

Let's get a few things straight here. This is not the movie where Brad Pitt is death (that's Meet Joe Black), nor is it a movie about the bass player of X. Instead, this is a mostly forgotten Frank Capra movie, which is a pity. Meet John Doe could stand up beside It's a Wonderful Life in production value and has a more cynical political undercurrent. But because it's in the public domain now, it hasn't gotten a proper release, and even the more expensive versions seem to have the same lousy transfer my Dollar Store copy has.

The plot is pretty clever. To save her job, a newspaper advice columnist (Barbara Stanwyck) writes a fake suicide letter signed by John Doe, a man fed up with the current state of the world who plans to jump off a building on Christmas Eve. The public goes into a frenzy, and the newspaper is forced to produce a real-life John Doe. They find him in Gary Cooper, a transient ex-minor league pitcher; pretty soon he's groomed and ready for the media, much to the dismay of his hobo friend the Colonel.

The media goes bonkers over John Doe's first speech, and soon John Doe fan clubs pop up all over the country to "help their fellow man." John begins to buy into his own hype and thinks he's doing a great public service. Nobody gives much thought to the mysterious politician funding the John Doe project until it's too late.

First off, I've got to speculate that Frank Capra had Seasonal Effective Disorder, as this is yet another movie where Christmas and suicide go hand in hand. But (1) I can empathize and (2) this is one of the reasons I dig his movies: somehow they're simultaneously dismal and feel-good.

Even if the script gets into Capra-corny territory at times, the performances are outstanding. I was particularly impressed by Stanwyck's range and Edward Arnold's portrayal of the political mastermind behind the John Doe movement. Again, as a film nerd, the John Doe convention scene floored me. Keep in mind this was before the time of GCI, so those grandstands were literally packed with thousands of people in the pouring rain.

If you're a fan of Capra or classic films in general, it'd be worth your time to hunt this one down. Because of the themes, it'd also make a nice addition to your Christmas movie collection. You can find it with some sleuth action at any place they sell crappy $1 public domain DVDs, like your local Dollar {Store/ Tree/ General} or your drugstore's discount DVD bin.

Buy Meet John Doe on Amazon

One from the Vaults: Teenage Strangler

One from the Vaults: Teenage Strangler

It's been awhile since I've been to the theaters, so I thought I'd shake it up and review some of my favorite b-movies, exploitation flix, and MST3K-worthy films. Fittingly, the first one actually was the subject of an MST3K episode and was filmed in my hometown. May I present for your consideration 1964's Teenage Strangler.

A serial killer is loose in West Virginia, targeting teenager women and strangling them with a nylon stocking (hence the name). A witness to a recent murder sees the killer wearing a local Hot Rod gang's jacket, and soon the police are hounding that gang, including the witness's secret boyfriend. Everyone suspects the boyfriend because of his murky past, but the movie throws out red herrings left and right. Is it the boyfriend? The gang's tough leader? The creepy janitor? Local folk-rock act the Huntington Astronauts? Adorable Mikey?

This movie was the vision of Ben Parker, who made the movie entirely in his hometown and filled the cast with friends and relatives, few of whom had set foot in front of a camera before. Like any small town film project, there's more than a few out of focus shots and hilariously bad actors, but that's part of the fun. And true, the movie doesn't quite deliver on the "defilement and death!!" (definitely not the "dismemberment" promised in some ads... seriously, how do you dismember someone with pantyhose?), but really, what drive-in movie from that era did?

The good moments really surprise you. There's some absolutely gorgeous cinematography, like when two characters are running down a street weaving in and out of the light. Being a low/no-budget moviemaker myself, I can spot happy accidents, as purposely lighting that shot with anything other than streetlights would have taken HOURS.

What you end up getting is a charming time capsule of 60s West Virginia that happens to take place in a proto-slasher flick. I have a soft spot in my heart for this era of horror, and it's only a bonus that I can recognize the locations (hey, I almost rented an apartment next to that murder spot!) And if you don't walk away forever scarred by the unexpected musical number "Yipes Strikes," you are a machine.

Buy Teenage Strangler on Something Weird Videos from Amazon