THE FRESHMAN (1925) ** ½

Harold Lloyd stars as an eager teen who can’t wait to go off to college to become a big man on campus.  Once at school, he is almost immediately teased by the other students who delight in pulling all sorts of pranks on him.  Harold does all he can to be popular, but no matter what he does, his classmate, a big movie star, constantly one-ups him.  Since the college is a big football school, Harold decides to join the team.  Naturally, the hard-nosed coach only uses him as a human tackling dummy.  Predictably, during the big game, the star player is injured and it’s up to Harold to win the game. 

The Freshman has its moments, but it’s not quite up there with Lloyd’s best stuff.  The problem is that his character is more pathetic than sympathetic.  He’s too busy trying to buy friends than make them the old-fashioned way, which makes him a tad annoying.  Also, most of the humor revolves around Lloyd being humiliated, which isn’t really all that funny.  Since he plays more of a sap than his patented everyman persona, it takes some of the wind out of the movie’s sails. 

It also takes a while before we get to the bulk of the physical comedy.  The scene where he tries to tackle a tackling dummy is pretty funny, but the scenes of him being tackled over and over again are repetitive and soon wear out their welcome.  The highlight comes when Lloyd wears a cheap suit to a dance.  His tailor keeps trying to sew up the seams as he’s mingling, and it results in a few solid laughs.  The final football scene is equally funny and has been copied many times over the years.  It still holds up fairly well.  It’s just a shame that it takes such a long time getting around to it.

AKA:  College Days.

IMMORAL TALES (1973) ***

Writer/director Walerian Borowczyk gives us four stories of sin and hedonism.  Unlike most anthology films, each tale is about as good, if not better than the one that preceded it.  While each of them have their own faults, the loving way Borowczyk films his luscious leading ladies is a marvel to behold. 

In the first story, The Tide (***), a twenty-year-old guy takes his teenage cousin to the beach.  When the tide comes in, they are left stranded on the rocks.  She soon learns it’s all been a plot by him to get her alone so he can teach her the art of lovemaking.  He instructs her to keep her sensual rhythm in time with the tide and that she should conclude their lovemaking when the tide rolls back out. 

This sequence works because the location is so crucial to the characters’ immoral actions.  The time restraint of the tide also gives it an urgency that some of the other stories lack.  The sensual way Borowczyk films the lovers is genuinely erotic.  Despite all the close-ups of butts and genitals, it’s the simple shot of our heroine’s mouth that remains the most captivating. 

Therese the Philosopher (***) has a religious slant that gives it more than a little kick.  Locked in her attic by her strict mother, and given only cucumbers to eat, lonely Therese reads biblical works to atone for her supposed sins.  She eventually finds some pornographic books in the attic and gets turned on.  Guess what happens to the cucumbers. 

Like The Tide, this episode builds gradually.  The reason it works so well is that we sympathize with Therese.  Because of that, we get just as turned on as she does.  I just wish Borowczyk came up with a snazzier ending as the whole thing sort of fizzles out. 

Elizabeth Bathory (*** ½) is easily the best segment.  In it, the notorious bloodthirsty Countess goes around the countryside finding young virgin girls.  She then takes them back to her castle where they are free to get all soaped up and run around naked.  She later bathes in their blood to keep up her youthful appearance. 

This sequence benefits from lots of scenes of gratuitous nudity.  (The part with the pearl is particularly graphic.)  It also helps that the vampirism isn’t treated in a supernatural manner.  We never really know if the Countess attains her immortality when she bathes in the virgins’ blood.  The ambiguity of the scene, as well as the eerie way Borowczyk films it, makes this the standout tale.   

The final story is Lucretia Borgia (***).  In it, the Pope has a three-way with his son and daughter.  This one is the slightest of the bunch, but there is no denying that even though it’s sacrilegious and incestual, it’s still kind of hot.  Borowczyk just has a knack for doing that.  That’s sort of his thing.  These are “immoral” tales after all, but they still have the power to titillate.   

Borowczyk originally included a fifth tale, but he decided to expand it to feature length and release it separately.  That film of course, was The Beast.  If you haven’t seen that jaw-dropping bit of insanity, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.  Overall, I think Immoral Tales is more consistently entertaining.  However, if you want to see some WTF lunacy, by all means, seek it out.

mother! (2017) ****

An annoying houseguest who won’t take their social cue to leave.  Wet clothes being dropped on a dirty floor.  The slowly rising water of a clogged toilet.  Trying to be polite to someone you can’t stand.  A person coughing incessantly.  Someone repeatedly touching something you have told them over and over again not to touch.  These are the things that get my goat.  Darren Aronofsky somehow found this out and put it all into a movie to terrify me.   

He also found out about my reoccurring nightmare in which I find a stranger in my home.  Then another.  Then another, until my house is teeming with hundreds of people.  Aronofsky found this out and filmed it.  To see that nightmare (which I have never told anyone about) projected onto a theater screen was unnerving to say the least.  mother! is a filmed nightmare plain and simple.   

It is also the scariest movie I have ever seen. 

I might be more affected by mother! because of the reasons I listed above.  I’ve always believed that Hell is other people.  Aronofsky understands this and exploits that feeling to the extreme. 

People are dumbfounded when I tell them I didn’t find It scary.  mother! scared me more than any film ever made.  This isn’t “There’s a clown hiding in the sewer”.  This isn’t like a Jason or a Michael Myers type of scary.  This isn’t “There’s a guy in a mask with an ax that wants to kill me” scary.  This is “OH MY FUCKING GOD, YOU HAVE AWAKENED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY OCD TRIGGERS AND THEY ARE FIRING LIKE BOTTLE ROCKETS!”  This is a two-hour anxiety attack.  I have never felt so drained after a movie.  I was literally shaking when it was over.   

mother! is much more than an assault on the senses.  It’s intellectually stimulating as well.  It’s full of symbolism and can be taken as an allegory for many different things.  I spent an hour in the parking lot of the theater discussing all the possible meanings of the film with my friend.  It could be a reflection on fame and celebrity, and the absence of privacy that comes with it.  It can be a metaphor for how men constantly take from women until there is no more to give (literally).  It is about how marriage eventually devolves into a staring contest and the one who flinches first gets custody of the kid (literally).  It’s about how we blindly follow idols even at the expense of our own humanity and the world around us.   

I don’t presume to know what other people go through on a daily basis, but you really get a sense from the movie and Jennifer Lawrence’s performance what it’s like to be a woman in this day and age.  It was so unnerving and eye-opening that when I got home, I apologized to my wife.  “What for?” she asked.   

“EVERYTHING”, I replied. 

We are with Lawrence every step of the way.  The only film I can really compare it to is After Hours where everything that happened to Griffin Dunne felt like it was happening to us.  When Lawrence is being pushed to her breaking point, we feel what she is feeling.  She gives a tour de force.  I can’t say I’ve ever been a “fan” of her, but I have never seen such a brave performance in my life.  Consider me Team J. Law. 

This is the kind of movie that probably should’ve opened in four theaters.  Instead, it was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public on 2,500 screens.  I love the fact that it is receiving such polar-opposite reactions.  Most people hate this film with a passion.  That’s because most people want their entertainment spoon-fed to them.  There is no spoon-feeding here, but there are several punches to the gut that will sure to leave you breathless.  This is a challenging, pummeling, in-your-face, take-no-prisoners experience.  It was designed to push your buttons.  It was designed to make you feel something.  Most people want safe entertainment, and that is fine.  The problem is that safe is often forgettable.  This is dangerous filmmaking of the highest order that will stick with you, probably forever.  Say what you will about mother! but you won’t forget it. 

Imagine being in YOUR home with a thousand of SOMEONE ELSE’S Twitter followers.  Yeah, it’s like that.  What I’m saying is that this is THE film for our times. 

If this isn’t the best goddamned movie ever made, it’s certainly the scariest.

TABOO 4: THE YOUNGER GENERATION (1985) **

Ginger Lynn and Karen Summer star as the teenage daughters of a quack psychologist (Jamie Gillis) who speaks out against incest and adultery.  He thinks his daughters are normal teenagers, but they’re really sex-crazed nymphos who have sex with boys (and each other).  They eventually get kicked out of boarding school for fooling around and have to return home.  While Karen starts making time with her uncle (John Leslie), Ginger sets her sights on seducing daddy. 

Despite a terrific cast, Taboo 4:  The Younger Generation never really turns up the heat.  I mean the big climactic scene where Ginger and Jamie finally get it on should be steamy as all get out, but they unfortunately fail to create any sparks between them.  Gillis is usually capable of delivering a memorably sleazy performance, but he’s much too inhibited here to make a lasting impression.  Kay Parker fans will also be disappointed because she’s barely in this one.  To make matters worse, most of her scenes are just footage from previous installments that are only there to help pad out the running time. 

The farther the sex scenes get away from the subject of incest, the more predictable (and boring) they become.  I mean did we really need another “Director Having Sex with His Latest Discovery” scene?  While there are maybe two or three decent scenes in the film, it’s not nearly enough to sustain your interest. 

One observation I made:  Even though the movie was made smack dab in the middle of the ‘80s and everyone sports the big hair, fashions, and belly chains that made that decade memorable, all the music sounds like it came out of the ‘70s.  (It has a heavy disco slant.)  Again, that’s an observation; not really a complaint.

IT (2017) ** ½

Stephen King’s It was one of my favorite books as a teenager.  I would even read it every year just before October to get me in the mood for Halloween.  I’m also a big fan of the 1990 TV movie starring Tim Curry, so it goes without saying that my expectations for director Andy Muschietti’s new version were lofty.  Sadly, it’s only half a great film. 

The stuff I loved, I loved dearly.  The Losers Club, the team of youngsters who band together to fight the evil clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard), were all perfectly cast.  Every pre-teen in the film was amazing, but for me, it was the foulmouthed Richie (Finn Wolfhard) who was the standout.  (Although that’s probably because he reminded me so much of myself.)  Beverly (Sophia Lillis), the lone girl of the club, proved she was the boys’ match in every way and Lillis’ performance shows that she is a star in the making. 

The scenes of the Losers riding their bikes around town, standing up to bullies, and coming together to face the monster were expertly crafted.  Usually, in a horror movie, you can get away with having thin characters and poor craftsmanship if the scares are there.  Unfortunately, the opposite can be said for It.  It’s a superbly put together film filled with great performances, but the one performance the entire picture hinges on is so bad that it nearly sinks the whole enterprise. 

I’m talking of course about Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise.  I loved the opening scene where Georgie has to find something in the basement and is menaced by what appears to be two glowing eyes that turn out to be nothing more than two lightbulbs sitting on a shelf.  This is unfortunately the scariest part of the whole film and is way spookier than anything Skarsgard can come up with. 

First of all, Skarsgard sounds like the goddamned Leprechaun.  I don’t know who thought this was a good idea, but they should’ve been fired on the spot.  Every time he opened his mouth all I could think of was Warwick Davis.  (Actually, Davis wouldn’t have made a bad Pennywise.)  Secondly, he looks like he can’t wait to devour the kids, which is a huge miscalculation.  He should represent something wholesome to lure the kids in, and then turn evil when it’s too late to turn back.  If you start off with him being evil, there’s nowhere for the character to go.  The only thing you can do is give him even more teeth (which they do, and it doesn’t work at all).

The design of the new Pennywise was another miscalculation.  When I saw the first images of the costume online, I felt that something was off.  As it turns out, my gut instinct was right.  The problem is they tried way too hard to make him look “scary”.  Don’t the filmmakers know that a regular clown is creepy enough to begin with?  It reminds me of that Teen Titans Go episode when Beast Boy and Cyborg try to make clowns “extreme”.

Muschietti goes overboard with all the jump scares, high pitched screams, and sped-up fast motion monsters.  The monsters themselves are pretty crappy.  There’s a headless guy and a pus-spewing leper, and both of them suffer from poor CGI.   

The children’s fears are weak too.  Hands, a painting, a doll that looks like it came from Monster High, and a clogged sink all act as harbingers of doom.  This is It we’re talking about.  It should be shit-your-pants scary.  This feels like some Goosebumps stuff.  If only Muschietti could continually recapture the feeling of that early basement scene, this would’ve been a bull’s eye.  Too bad the rest of the scary set pieces land with a thud. 

There is one area in which the film improves on the original:  The final confrontation.  Instead of having just a cheesy spider, Pennywise transforms himself into various things while fighting the Losers.  While this is an improvement, it’s still nothing to get all worked up about. 

Another stumbling block is that we’re really only being shown half a movie.  This one focuses solely on the kids fighting It while the sequel will focus on them as adults having to confront It again.  Maybe my feelings will change when I see both halves together as one whole, but until then, the film just feels incomplete. 

There’s a part of me that wishes I could edit all the “scary” stuff out of the movie and repackage it as Stand By Me Too.   

In the end, this is an OK Stephen King adaptation.  It is a movie that is in many ways slightly superior to Pet Sematary 2.  It is, however, no Maximum Overdrive. 

WILSON (2017) *** ½

Wilson has some of the biggest laughs I’ve had in a comedy in recent memory.  It comes to us from the mind of the great Daniel Clowes, who was also responsible for Ghost World, one of my favorite movies of the ‘00s.  I can’t say it’s altogether as insightful and poignant as that film, but it’s a definite improvement on the last Clowes adaptation, Art School Confidential. 

Woody Harrelson stars as Wilson, a loveable loser who is shaken by the death of his uncaring father.  He sets out to reconnect with his ex (Laura Dern) who tells him they once had a daughter that was given up for adoption.  Inspired by the news that he is a father, Wilson decides to stalk and eventually befriend the daughter he never knew, which leads to a series of unintended consequences. 

Harrelson is terrific as Wilson.  Very few people could pull off the character’s in-your-face behavior and still make him likeable.  Harrelson does it with ease though.  It helps that he is given some truly hilarious dialogue.  When Dern takes him to task for calling everyone he meets an asshole, he turns to her and asks, “Am I wrong?” 

The second half is a bit maudlin and more than a tad depressing.  It’s definitely lacking the freewheeling panache of the early scenes.  That’s okay though because Harrelson does an equally great job when his character is down and out.  The ending is a bit too pat, but these little nitpicks probably won’t mean much upon repeated viewings.  The fact that I’m already itching to see it again is a testament to just how great it really is.

TERROR AT LONDON BRIDGE (1985) **

There were a lot of films about Jack the Ripper in the ‘80s.  In the span of just a couple of years we had The Ripper, Jack’s Back, Edge of Sanity, and this Made for TV movie.  It’s not exactly great, but it does have a fun cast and slightly more blood than you’d typically see on television at that time. 

Jack the Ripper is shot and killed by bobbies on the London Bridge.  His body falls into the Thames and his soul becomes trapped in a dislodged stone.   A hundred years later, London Bridge is brought over to Lake Havasu, Arizona and is turned into a tourist attraction.  When a tourist accidentally bleeds on the stone containing Jack the Ripper’s essence, he is reborn and starts killing women.  Cop David Hasselhoff investigates and tries to convince everyone that Jack the Ripper is alive and well and living in Arizona. 

Director E.W. Swackhamer handles things in a competent manner.  The stalk n’ slash scenes are well done and he manages to squeeze a decent amount of atmosphere out of the unlikely setting.  Unfortunately, there’s just too much fat here that gets in the way of the good stuff.  The Jaws plotline in which the town council wants to can The Hoff’s investigation because it could impact the local tourist trade is overly familiar and eats up a lot of screen time.  You also have to put up with the subplot about the appearance of not one, but two creepy guys with English accents; both of whom are potential Ripper suspects. 

The awesome cast will be the main draw.  David Hasselhoff is at the height of his Hasselhoffiness here.  Wearing tight jeans and a polo shirt, he just exudes all the Hoffian traits you’ve come to expect from The Hoff.  We also have the great Adrienne Barbeau as the town’s sexy librarian.  Although I wish her part was larger, I can honestly say there’s something about Adrienne Barbeau as a sexy librarian that gets my motor running.  Randolph Mantooth also appears as Hasselhoff’s more seasoned partner and Clu Gulager steals every scene he’s in as the chief of police.  (He even calls people “Buddy Boy”, just like he did in Return of the Living Dead.) 

This is exactly the sort of thing I would’ve eaten up if I caught it on the USA Network as a kid.  I’m a man now, and my tastes are (slightly) more refined, but it went down smooth enough.  It’s just a shame that all the padding ultimately prevents it from ever gaining much momentum. 

AKA:  Bridge Across Time.  AKA:  Arizona Ripper.