GIMME DANGER (2016) ****

Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop just seem like a match made in Hell.  The Stooges are exactly the kind of outcasts that Jarmusch would gravitate towards.  That of course, makes him the perfect man to tell their story. 

This enormously entertaining documentary starts with the band’s implosion in ‘73 before working backwards to cover their early days.  Their wild antics get them noticed by the MC5 who take them under their wing.  The Stooges soon eclipse their mentors in both popularity and substance before taking off on their own self-destructive (but highly influential) path. 

Jarmusch’s die-hard devotion to the band is infectious.  I loved how he doesn’t go into Iggy’s solo career at all.  Nor does he cover his descent into drug addiction.  Jarmusch is making a movie about The Stooges.  It’s a solid call on his part, and you have to admire that level of dedication.  A lesser director would’ve padded the film with that sort of stuff.  Jarmusch has enough confidence in his subject to let those kinds of side jaunts go by the wayside.

There are plenty of great moments throughout.  I especially liked the animated bits of the band hearing “Kick Out the Jams” for the first time or crashing a tour bus.  My favorite scene though details how they got permission from Moe Howard to let them use the Stooges name.  I also loved the montage of various punk bands covering Stooges songs, which is a great way to show their far-reaching and long-lasting influence. 

Gimme Danger is a terrific documentary and one of Jarmusch’s all-time best films.  If there is a fault, it’s that I’m not sure how the uninitiated will take to it.  Jarmusch mostly made it for the fans.  That’s fitting though I guess since The Stooges never cared if you liked them or not. 

NOBODY’S PERFEKT (1981) *

Gabe Kaplan, Alex Karras, and Robert Klein are three friends who suffer from various psychological disorders.  Kaplan has “constant amnesia”, Karras talks to his (dead) invisible mother, and Klein is a split personality.  When Kaplan’s car is damaged by a pothole, he goes to city hall to demand reparations.  The mayor blows him off and Gabe steals a cannon and threatens the mayor to get the cash.  

This set-up is unlikely, but if it wasn’t handled in such a sub-sitcom way, it could’ve worked.  I’ve enjoyed seeing Kaplan, Karras, and Klein in various things over years.  Each of their characters by themselves might’ve made for a decent leading man.  Having all three together crowds the narrative.  (It takes about a half-hour before anything approaching a plot starts to take place.)  It also doesn’t help than they have zero chemistry together.  Only Susan (Webster) Clark seems to have brought her charisma to the set as Kaplan’s long-suffering girlfriend.

Kaplan was likeable on Welcome Back, Kotter, but he’s saddled with some lame gags and shoddy writing.  The running joke where Kaplan starts to do something and then forgets what he was doing gets tired and played out almost immediately.  The only real scene that had any potential was when his amnesia hinders his job as a spot-remover salesman, but even then, the punchline is telegraphed from a mile away.  

Directed by Peter Bonerz (who also has a small role as a crane operator), Nobody’s Perfekt is more or less a bust.  It gets a good laugh during the opening frame of the movie where the title doesn’t fit on the screen, but it’s all downhill from there.  Things get especially turgid in the third act when some bank robbers (led by Moe Greene himself, Alex Rocco) plot their armored car heist around the trio’s shenanigans with their cannon.  This leads to an overlong, dumb, and uninspired car chase that wraps the film up in a dismal manner.

Karras and Clark (who were married in real life) also appeared in Porky’s the same year.

SUMMER CAMP (1979) **

Chuck Vincent went back and forth between directing porn and “legitimate” releases like this one.  Most times, he worked on thrillers like Deranged that had a decent amount of skin and featured porn performers in major acting roles.  This is a cheap, crude summer camp movie in the vein of Animal House and Meatballs, but with a lot more nudity.  It’s not very funny and looks pretty cruddy, which makes me think he was better off working in porn.

The owner of a failing summer camp convinces members of the camping alumni back for a weekend of fun and games.  This of course begs the question:  Does a summer camp have alumni?  If you start asking yourself questions like that, you won’t make it ten minutes into this movie. 

Animal House was the obvious inspiration as there is a resident slob in the bunch who chants “Orgy!” like Bluto chanted “Toga!”  There are also Close Encounters-inspired gags and MASH-style public announcements.  The jokes are mostly desperate or unfunny, but the various set-ups (guys sell tickets to watch girls shower, panty raids, etc.) lend themselves to showcasing the female form every ten minutes or so.

Most of the cast are unknowns and not very funny.  The biggest star is a young Linnea Quigley, who’s basically a glorified extra.  However, she does get naked a bunch, which instantly makes it watchable.

Summer Camp is basically like Vincent’s porn films, but all the sex is softcore.  It’s dumb as a bag of hammers and I don’t think I cracked a smile let alone laughed even once.  Still, there’s enough nudity here to make it tolerable. 

COLOSSAL (2017) **

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a perennial screw-up whose propensity for getting blackout drunk hampers her ability to get her life together.  She returns to her hometown and winds up getting a job at a bar owned by her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis).  One day, a giant monster storms Seoul seemingly out of the blue.  Gloria eventually discovers she’s in control of the monster, but can she get control over her personal life?

Writer/director Nacho (Open Windows) Vigalondo’s Colossal is certainly ambitious.  It’s an oddball melding of quirky indie comedy-drama with kaiju creature feature.  It’s a promising concept, but it just never clicks.  After a solid set-up, things go off the rails once Sudeikis becomes a vengeful giant robot.  Whatever points Vigalondo was trying to make about the worldwide effect of toxic masculinity are clunky at best.  Also, it wouldn’t have hurt to have better effects for the monsters.  Instead, we’re stuck with some ugly CGI creations that look like a step above your average Asylum flick.

Colossal’s biggest crime is that it wastes a good supporting cast.  Tim Blake Nelson and Dan Stevens are two of my favorite actors working in the biz today.  Tragically, they are given virtually nothing worthwhile to do.  Sudeikis is just fine as the asshole boss who becomes domineering tyrant once he learns he can stomp on buildings thousands of miles away.  It’s a more serious role than he’s used to, and he rises to the challenge admirably.  I just wish Hathaway wasn’t so miscast.  It also doesn’t help that her character is pretty damn annoying.  

Despite all that, Colossal remains watchable, even if it’s overlong and squanders much of its early potential.  It’s not a colossal waste of time or anything.  More like a big missed opportunity.

AKA:  Synchronized Monster.

211 (2018) *

211 begins laboriously with an extended sequence in Afghanistan detailing how an embezzler is ambushed by ruthless mercenaries demanding a million-dollar payment.  Then, there’s a bunch of rigmarole involving an Interpol investigation, which eats up even more time.  This shit is boring and clunky.  Why is it even here?  Because if we didn’t have these long, superfluous sequences, 211 would’ve only been 75 minutes long.

There’s also a subplot about Nicolas Cage losing his wife, his daughter getting pregnant, and his son in-law coming to terms with his upcoming brush with fatherhood.  It takes a good twenty minutes before the REAL story begins to take shape.  A teenager (Michael Rainey, Jr.) gets into a fight at school, and as punishment, he is sent to do a ride along with a crusty cop (Cage) and his partner (his son in-law).  Naturally, they just so happen to be cruising around when the mercs try to knock off the bank where the embezzler dude hid his loot.

All of this helps to keep Cage offscreen for much of the early going.  In fact, it takes ten minutes before we see our first fleeting glimpse of him and by the time he says his first line of dialogue, the movie is already a quarter of the way over.  By the time the heist goes down and Cage, his son in-law, and the kid are caught in the crossfire, it’s hard to care much one way or the other.  Maybe we would feel different if the plot, drama, and action didn’t feel like something out of an old TV pilot.

Needless to say, fans of even the worst of Cage’s DTV output will walk away disappointed from this one.  He only gets one brief moment when he gets to go in full-on Cage mode as he yells, “MY SON IS DEAD!” at his superior, which isn’t much consolation.  Other than that, this is wholly forgettable in just about every way.

In short, the 411 on 211 is dial 911.

AKA:  The Bank Heist.  AKA:  Code 211.  AKA:  211:  Cops Under Fire.

CAM (2018) ** ½

It’s been a long time since I watched a webcam show, but if Cam is any indication, webcam girls are a lot different than they were back in my day.  Either that or it’s the guys who pay to watch the girls that are changing.  Maybe they’re looking for something more extreme.  I mean, five minutes into the movie, our heroine Alice (Madeline Brewer) has to resort to doing a “Suicide Show” in order to bump up her ratings into the webcam girl Top 50 charts, and even then, she isn’t successful.  Desperate for more followers, she continues trying to give her viewers what they want to see, even if it breaks her “rules”.  One day, she finds herself locked out of her account with a doppelganger taking over her identity and… gasp(!) webcam show.  She then sets out to reclaim her life (and her webcam show).

Director Daniel Goldhaber does a good job in the early scenes to establish Alice’s world of sitting around all day in front of her computer and putting on shows for her fans.  Brewer is winning and engaging enough that we root for her and want her to eclipse her dream of being a top tier web girl.  Their efforts help to draw the viewer in and together, the set-up is admittedly irresistible.

Unfortunately, the film is less successful once it shifts gears and becomes a paranoia thriller.  Sure, there are some awkward scenes here, like when Alice’s mom (Melora Walters) discovers her daughter’s profession at a birthday party.  However, Goldhaber never quite ups the ante enough to make the tension truly crackle.  The scenes of Alice watching helplessly as her evil double takes over her show are initially intriguing but get repetitive as the movie wears on.  Goldhaber doesn’t quite stick the landing either, which prevents me from giving it an out-and-out recommendation.  

This is one of those cases where the picture might’ve worked better as a short.  The opening sequence in particular is a real grabber.  Too bad it peters out before the end credits roll.  I guess that’s just like a cam girl for you.  They catch your eye, get you interested, and then brush you off just before the climax.

SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947) ***

The sixth and final Nick and Nora Charles mystery finds the lush detective couple (William Powell and Myrna Loy) investigating the death of a bandleader aboard a cruise ship.  They do some digging and go undercover on the dime tour of the bandstand circuit posing as musicians.  The couple then go looking for an antique gun that could possibly be the murder weapon.

Directed by Edward (At the Circus) Buzzell, Song of the Thin Man benefits from a fine supporting cast.  It’s fun seeing a young Dean Stockwell as Nick Jr.  He holds his own with Powell and Loy and gets some laughs too.  Keenan Wynn is also amusing as a wisecracking musician who helps Nick and Nora on their case.  Patricia Morison, Jayne Meadows, and Marie Windsor all make memorable impressions as well.

I don’t know if the franchise ever got credit for allowing its characters age believably.  Not only that, they let the character of Nick Jr. grow up a little bit.  The domestic scenes of the three of them (and their loyal dog Asta) together are among the best in the movie and indeed the entire series.  I especially liked the scene where Nora goads Nick into spanking Nick Jr. and he just can’t bear to do it.  (Flashbacks of the kid being born are projected on his bottom.)  

This doesn’t have the feel of the sixth entry in a long-running franchise.  It’s much livelier than any of the other sequels and Buzzell keeps the quips coming fast and furious, with many of them hitting the mark.  (My favorite was when Nick lamented the “death” of his bottle of Scotch.)  Some stretches work better than others, but there’s enough genuinely funny moments here (like when Nick and Nora use a bunch of nonsensical slang to ingratiate themselves with a bunch of musicians) to make this the best entry since the first one.