CLEANING OUT THE DVR: HOUSE OF WOMEN (1962) ** ½

I taped this loose remake of Caged! off Turner Classic Movies on July 23^rd, 2017.  Shirley Knight stars as a pregnant woman behind bars.  She has the baby, which will be kept inside the prison walls in a daycare center until it turns three.  If she is still incarcerated by then, her daughter will become a ward of the state.  Andrew (Lancer) Duggan is the warden who takes a shine to Shirley and makes her his maid.  She plays up to his affections in hopes she’ll receive parole and get her daughter back.  When the warden realizes he’s being used, he denies her parole and her baby is taken away.  The inmates learn about his misdeeds and as a show of solidarity, stage a riot.

House of Women is more melodramatic than exploitative.  That’s more of an observation than a criticism.  Because of the year in which it was made, it goes without saying that it was going to be tame.  Despite being low on sleaze, there are definitely some memorable moments here.  The highlight has to be Barbara Nichols’ parole meeting that probably inspired Morgan Freeman’s similar scene in The Shawshank Redemption. 

There are also enough genre cliches here to at the very least pacify Women in Prison fans.  We have food fights, riots (the matrons subdue the prisoners using stools, just like lion tamers!), and pervert wardens.  It also has one of the best reasons for a catfight I’ve ever seen in one of these movies.  (“She drew a moustache on my picture of Troy Donahue!”)

Knight is a little milquetoast in the lead, but then again, she has to be because her character is trying to win her daughter back.  Duggan does a decent job as the warden, although he never quite blossoms into an out-and-out scumbag.  Most of the fun comes from seeing Jason Evers (the same year he starred in the classic The Brain That Wouldn’t Die!) as the kindly alcoholic prison doctor. 

While House of Women has some strong stretches, it never really gets into gear.  The finale is particularly weak as the big riot is broken up into several sections using newspaper headlines as interstitials.  It is also in this section when the focus kind of shifts from Knight to Constance Ford, who plays an inmate who flips her lid when her son dies from the guards’ negligence.  Even then, there are enough good bits in that first hour to make the flick recommended to Women in Prison die-hards.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: THE ACCOUNTANT (2016) **

This was taped in the same block of HBO programming as Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and The Simpsons Movie on July 23rd, 2017.  Ben Affleck stars as the titular accountant assigned to audit a giant robotics conglomerate.  He has autism which he has overcome thanks to his father’s intense military education, which includes forcing him into Ninja training at a young age.  When the owner of the company is murdered, Affleck looks for answers (no pun intended).  Soon, he finds himself on the run when some mysterious men in black come looking for him.  Little do they know this accountant is basically The Punisher with a pocket protector.

You know, it’s kind of funny to compare this to Good Will Hunting in which Affleck’s buddy Matt Damon played another math savant.  Both characters have awkward social interactions with women and spend a lot of time writing big ass math problems on the wall.  You can see how different Affleck is from Damon though because you can almost hear him saying, “I wanna play a math whiz like Matt, except, you know… maybe I can kill a lot of people?  Ooh!  And can I have a Batman-style origin story too?” 

The Accountant has a dreadfully dumb premise, but it could’ve been enjoyable if it wasn’t so dead serious about it.  Think Rambo Meets Rain Man.  However, director Gavin (Miracle) O’Connor treats the autism angle so sensitively that the movie never once becomes fun. 

Affleck is OK in the lead role, but since we can never quite buy his performance, it makes the goofy premise a hard sell.  The supporting cast is a bit of a mixed bag too.  Anna Kendrick is annoying as his nerdy accounting sidekick, Jon Bernthal and John Lithgow are pretty much wasted as the villains, and J.K. Simmons is tasked with the thankless role of the Fed on the case.  His scenes are most expendable, and his longwinded flashback scene late in the game is pretty much the final nail in the coffin for the movie. 

The first hour or so isn’t much better as it heavily involves a lot of math.  Not the most cinematic of activities to be sure.  Once Affleck and Kendrick go on the run, things improve slightly.  It’s here where the movie kind of feels like an updated variation on the old ‘70s political thriller, but with a 21^st century paintjob.  Too bad the action is lackluster, and the twist ending is predictable. 

If The Accountant wanted to be a memorable experience, it would’ve went whole hog on the nuttiness that it only hints at.  We needed less math solving and more autistic Ninjas.  I can understand why they held back though because nobody wants protest groups banning the movie for insensitively portraying people who are differently abled.  It’s just that when you mix such an odd premise with an overly serious tone, nothing ever… ahem… adds up. 

AKA:  Auditor.  AKA:  Mr. Wolff.  AKA:  The Consultant.

DUSK TO DAWN DRIVE-IN TRASH-O-RAMA SHOW VOL. 4 (1997) ***

This is the fourth collection of exploitation, grindhouse, and drive-in trailers from the purveyors of filth at Something Weird.  It is another enjoyable compilation that is consistently entertaining for fans of trailer compilations (like me).  Though some of the trailers this time around are a little on the tame side, the scads of nudity in The Devil’s Wedding Night preview almost singlehandedly makes up for it. 

Things kick off with a trailer for an obscure Blaxploitation flick called Blackjack starring William Smith and Tony Burton, followed by The Big Bust-Out (“Machine Gun Babes Mixing Death with Desire!”), and the hilarious trailer for the “Orgy of the Living Dead” marathon that features a man in a straitjacket who has just gone insane from watching Revenge of the Living Dead, Curse of the Living Dead, and Fangs of the Living Dead.  From there, we get trailers for Three Tough Guys, The Screaming Tiger, The Devil’s Wedding Night, Stacey!, Blood and Lace, Cut-Throats Nine (which has a “Terror Mask” gimmick), The Road Hustlers, Out of It, Zeta One, The Grasshopper, Naked Evil, The Strawberry Statement, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, Don’t Make Waves, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Shaft in Africa (“The Biggest Shaft of All!”), Humanoids from the Deep, She-Devils on Wheels, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Creatures the World Forgot, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes, Musical Mutiny, The Only Way Home, The Mating Urge, The Loch Ness Horror, The Wondrous Story of Birth, Flesh Feast, Bootleggers, Psychic Killer, Three the Hard Way, Penitentiary, and Battle of the Amazons.  Then we get a run of Kung Fu flicks like Superdragon (starring “Bruce Lee”), Death Machines, Shanghai Lil and the Sun Luck Kid, and Fury of the Black Belt.  The collection concludes with previews for The Trial of Billy Jack, Detroit 9000, Black Rodeo, The Harrad Experiment, and Thunder Fist (which advertises, “Kung Fu Karate Action for the Entire Family!”).

Some of the titles skirt on the fringes of what you would expect from a “drive-in” compilation, but since many of them are super-rare and/or offbeat, it’s kind of a moot point.  Other trailers will be familiar to you, especially if you’ve seen as many trailer compilations as I have.  Then again, who’s going to mind seeing such gems as Psychic Killer and Penitentiary again?  While Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 4 isn’t quite up to snuff with Vol. 3, it’s still a worthwhile addition to any trailer compilation junkie’s collection.  

TOM THUMB AND LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (1964) ***

Here’s another Mexican kid’s movie that American distributor K. Gordon Murray redubbed and released on an unsuspecting juvenile audience.  I can’t imagine what went through the kids’ minds when they saw this back in the ‘60s.  It’s pretty much wall-to-wall nightmare fuel. 

The Wicked Stepmother rules over the storybook kingdom with an iron fist.  She puts The Big Bad Wolf and The Ogre (Jose Elias Moreno, the same actor who played Santa Claus in Santa Claus) on trial for not killing Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb while monsters including Dracula and Frankenstein look on.  She then goes around terrorizing the good people of storybook land by poisoning the water supply, which turns the citizens into animals.  When Tom Thumb comes home to find his family has become mice and dogs, he joins forces with Little Red Riding Hood to bring the Wicked Stepmother down. 

The costumes are often creepy as hell.  The Big Bad Wolf looks ragged and unnatural, almost like a zombified stuffed animal that’s come to life.  They talk about the uncanny valley a lot.  This is more like an uncanny abyss.  (Also, his dubbed voice makes him sound like Jimmy Durante auditioning to play McGruff the Crime Dog.)  The Skunk Man named “Stinky” (who speaks in a Chipmunk voice) isn’t quite as bizarre, but he’s still a little sketchy (especially the scene where he lifts his tail and sprays right into a guy’s face).  The Wicked Stepmother is very faithful to the Disney version though. 

I think it’s funny that about halfway through the Good Fairy turns Tom Thumb into a regular-sized boy.  Not really because she’s doing a good deed, mind you.  It’s more like so there won’t be any more costly forced perspective special effects that will eat up the budget. 

The monsters include a robot that looks like it was borrowed from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a werewolf, “Father Hurricane” (who looks like the Wind Demon from The Sword and the Dragon), a fire-breathing dragon, and, uh… a serial kidnapper?!?  When he is trapped by Little Red Riding Hood, the children he abducted climb out of a burlap bag, string him up, and beat him like a pinata.  Wow.  There’s also a scene where the Wicked Stepmother threatens to pluck Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes out with her fingernails.  The kids who saw this during its original release must’ve been shitting in their pants.

That is to say, as an adult, you’ll probably enjoy it as much I did.  It’s wildly uneven, but those heights are rather weird, surreal, and just plain WTF.  If anything could make me watch a kid’s movie from the ‘60s, it’s the fact that those wild and wonderful Mexican moviemakers I love so much were at the helm.  Sure, there’s a couple of really annoying songs, but not quite as many as your average Disney flick.

There’s also something to be said for the theme of the movie, which is to forgive your past tormentors for their misdeeds and join forces with them to overcome a greater evil.  Yes, folks.  This flick was doing the X-Men 2 thing before X-Men 2 was doing it.

In short, Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood may not be for all tastes, but hey, if you ever wanted to see The Big Bad Wolf being waterboarded, here’s your chance. 

AKA:  Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters.  AKA:  Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs. the Monsters.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (2007) **

This had been sitting in my DVR ever since July 22^nd, 2017.  It was taped as part of an HBO free preview that also included Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.  I’m not sure why I even bothered since I haven’t watched The Simpsons on a regular basis since the early ‘90s.  I was a big fan when it first came on.  I bought the cassette tape, said “Don’t have a cow” a lot, and wore the t-shirts (which were banned in school because they had the word “hell” on it).  

The appeal of The Simpsons when I was younger was that it was more adult that your average cartoon.  However, once Beavis and Butt-Head and South Park came along, it began to look a little lightweight in comparison, so I stopped watching.  (I was always a bigger fan of Matt Groening’s Life is Hell, anyway.) Aside from a handful of cinematic looking animation sequences, it just feels like an overlong episode than a full-length movie.  The plot (which involves a dome being placed over Springfield) doesn’t really feel like it’s big enough to sustain a theatrical movie either.  The various subplots likewise fall a little short.  The idea of Flanders becoming a father figure to Bart might’ve worked, but it feels like deleted scenes from an episode that were crammed in there to pad the running time.  The same could be said about the stuff with Lisa finding a boyfriend.

That’s not to say there aren’t a few laughs here.  I liked Homer’s reaction to the Itchy and Scratchy movie, and Bart’s nude skateboard ride allows them to get away with a shot that wouldn’t fly on network TV.  It’s just the laughs kind of dry up once the “A” plot takes hold.  Another disappointing thing is the fact that the usually great Albert Brooks is pretty much wasted as the villain.  While the casting is inspired, he isn’t given much to do.  I mean if you’re going to do a movie of one of the most popular TV shows of all time, you should probably go big or go home. 

I guess for Simpsons die-hards, none of the above will matter as they probably already saw this thirteen years ago.  I'm sure it hit all the notes they were expecting it to hit.  If it didn’t win back this fallen fan, it definitely won’t convert any new ones to the fold.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES (2016) ***

Another HBO free preview and another slew of movies put into the DVR.  This group was from July 22^nd, 2017.  The first movie on this block of programming is the pleasant, engaging, and frequently funny Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. 

Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) are two man-children brothers who have a habit of getting wasted and ruining every family get-together.  With their sister’s Hawaiian wedding on the horizon, their father (Stephen Root) orders them to find nice and respectable dates for the occasion.  Enter two sketchy, down-and-out friends named Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) who pass themselves off as nice girls in exchange for a free trip to Hawaii, but in reality, they are just as wild and out of control as Mike and Dave. 

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates has a one-note sitcom premise.  You might even find yourself experiencing a little bit of Wedding Crashers déjà vu.  (Heck, the characters reference the movie at one point.)  All that doesn’t really matter though if the performances are entertaining and the laughs are there, which they are.

It’s pretty much a far-gone conclusion how all of this is going to play out.  Even if the set-ups (and often times, the punchlines) are predictable, there is enough genuine chemistry between Efron and Devine and Kendrick and Plaza to put a fresh energy into even the most obvious jokes.  Plaza in particular is very funny, especially when she occasionally lets down her guard and her wild side slips out.  The extended scene where she and Devine flirt back and forth contains more laughs than most recent comedies have in their entire runtime.  We also get a few cameos and guest stars who help keep the laughs moving at a steady clip.  I mean, you know you’re in the right place when Marc Maron is in the opening scene.  Kumail Nanjiani also has a memorable bit as a sensual massage therapist. 

Bottom Line:  Even though it’s cliché and predictable, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates has enough laughs to make you say “I do” to watching it.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: THE YARDS (2000) **

I taped this off The Movie Channel way back on July 18, 2017.  It was director James Gray’s follow-up to his indie drama Little Odessa and it was beset by many post-production problems at the hands of producer Harvey Weinstein (whose hands would later get him into a lot of trouble).  It was the first in an unofficial tetralogy of films Gray made back-to-back-to-back-to-back with star Joaquin Phoenix, the other three being We Own the Night, Two Lovers, and The Immigrant.  The only one of those I saw was We Own the Night, which was pretty good, so I was hopeful that this would follow suit.  I was wrong.

Mark Wahlberg stars as a young guy fresh out of prison looking to make some quick dough to support his ailing mother (Ellen Burstyn).  His uncle (James Caan) offers him a job at his train yards and tries to steer him away from the shady side of the business.  He does not try very hard.  Soon, Marky Mark is riding shotgun with his best friend (Phoenix) as he makes illegal payoffs to contractors, businessmen, and politicians.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long until someone gets killed and Marky Mark becomes the top prospect to take the fall. 

Despite an all-star cast that includes Charlize Theron (who has a nude scene), Faye Dunaway, and (the hell?) Steve Lawrence, The Yards is often thematically muddled and dramatically inert.  In fact, they don’t do a helluva lot to inject the story with much passion.  Wahlberg barely looks interested, Theron is completely wasted, and Phoenix’s performance lacks the spark you’d expect.  (Gray paired the duo much more successfully in We Own the Night.)  Only Burstyn rises above the material as Wahlberg’s long-suffering mother.

The early scenes of Wahlberg readjusting to society hold promise.  From there, The Yards quickly goes off the rails.  The film really starts to deflate once Wahlberg’s character goes on the lam for a crime he didn’t commit.  The last twenty minutes are especially sluggish as things go out on a whimper instead of a bang. 

Co-writer Matt Reeves later went on to direct Cloverfield.