01/28/08
Hoi Holloi (1935)
Del Lord
Trading Places for its day finds two rich men making a bet that one can turn some bums into smart gentlemen. The three men turn out to be the Three Stooges and they get their shot at a fancy party. There are some good laughs here including a scene where Larry loses his shoe on the dance floor but overall this is a pretty standard short. I did notice that the sound effects were heavily used here for the first time.
Ants in the Pantry (1936)
Jack White
The Three Stooges are working as exterminators but when business is slow they decide to plant the insects themselves, which just leads to trouble. All the jokes here are rather hit and miss with most of them being misses but this short is still pretty entertaining. There's a "cut the hards" scenes, which was borrowed from the Marx Brothers but it's pretty funny here as is another scene where the boys start a dance after a guy gets a mouse down his back.
American Gangster (2007)
Ridley Scott
Set in the 1970s, a detective (Russell Crowe) tries to bring down a notorious heroin kingpin (Denzel Washington). 2009 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first gangster film and I'm not sure if one small sub-genre has given us more great films. This is an incredibly little picture that packs quite a punch with its violence, moral lessons and storytelling. The film clocks in twenty-minutes short of the three hour mark but there's not a single second that comes off boring and there's not a single second where something great isn't going on. We've seen the rise of gangsters before but director Scott does a terrific job at making it feel fresh and new. The cinematography is terrific, the soundtrack great and the film has an authentic feel throughout. What really makes the film special is the screenplay takes time to look at Crowe and Washington outside their jobs. We see how the two men work but we also get to see how the two of them deal with stuff in their personal lives. The film takes its time telling the story but this is a big praise because we get to see more than one dimensional characters. Both Washington and Crowe deliver great performances and I might even go as far as to say it's the best of both of their careers. Both come with that calm and cool grace that most actors try for but fail at delivering but that's not the case with these two. How neither of them got an Oscar nomination is beyond me but I think time will be very friendly to both of them. Another strong aspect is the supporting cast, which includes Ruby Dee, Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and a terrific Armand Assante. There's a lot of intense dialogue from start to finish and near the end with get a classic shootout but the best moments of the film might take place at the very end when Washington and Crowe finally share the screen together. For the most part the film is very fast paced but it slows down at the very end when the two stars come together and their little chat gives one a lot to think about what they've seen.
01/29/08
Half Shot Shooters (1936)
Del Lord
Seventeen years after the end of WW1, the Three stooges find themselves poor and hungry so they accidentally sign up for the Army to cause more trouble. There are a few gags here that work but most of them miss. One of the best gags has Curley pulling his shoe up and another has the three firing off a canon, which hits their Admirel's boat.
Pain the the Pullman, A (1936)
Del Lord
The Three stooges board a train heading for a new job but their pet monkey causes all sorts of trouble. Once again, this short is pretty good but there are still plenty of misses in the joke department. The best moment is when the boys are trying to get into their bed but it's up to high so they have a little trouble. The monkey also gets a few nice laughs.
False Alarms (1936)
Del Lord
The Three Stooges are about to be fired at their fire fighting jobs but the Captain gives them one more shot, which they take advantage of by destroying his new car. This is certainly a step up from the previous couple shorts as this one here returns to the fast paced roots of the earlier movies. The stuff with the fat girl was very funny and the boys antics are a lot funnier here including a great sequence where the wreck the car.
Whoops I'm an Indian (1936)
Del Lord
Lazy short from The Three Stooges has them wanted by the law so they dress as Indians but then run into a man whose wife left him for one. The jokes here are pretty standard and routine and there really weren't any laugh at loud moments. The fishing scene is probably the highlight but even this wasn't that funny.
Slippery Silks (1936)
Del Lord
The Three Stooges inherit a rich silk shop but of course they manage to screw it up. The second half of this short, taking place in the silk shop, is rather unfunny, although we're treated to another food fight. The first half has the boys in a wood shop causing all sorts of damage and this is here all the laughs are to be found. Curley falling into the nails and all the gags with the glue are among the highlights.
Amateur Porn Star Killer (2007)
Shane Ryan
Each and every year horror fans start hyping up a film saying it's one of the best of the genre and so on. The skies usually falls down as these hyped movies turn out to be shit but that's not the case here. I had never even heard of this movie until I got bored and kept walking around the video store and noticed the naked woman on the DVD cover. I read the mini-reviews scattered across the front and back cover so I decided to give the film a shot and it was certainly worth it. The film is more psychological drama than horror but no matter which genre the film works.
A man (Shane Ryan) lures a 13-year-old girl (Michiko Jimenez) to a hotel room for what she thinks is to make an amateur porn movie but soon, as she begins to feel uncomfortable, she knows something else is going on. The set up is simple but the style is what really pushes this film over the edge. This is another film that tries to be a snuff movie and it actually works here but I'm sure a lot will blow their brains out. The whole style of the film is that the movie looks like a real, low budget movie with splices on the print, the darkness goes up and down, tape rolls and other things. This will annoy most but it does work in making the film look and feel like a real snuff movie. It's ugly to look at and sometimes the audio is hard to hear but this just captures what a real snuff film would probably look like. The film is meant to be a warning to women about going places with men that they don't know and this simple idea works very well. The film runs 71-minutes and 68-minutes of that time is shot in "real time" as we see the two enter the room, start talking, slowly taking their clothes off and so on. There's a real oral sex scene and the film isn't shy about the nudity but all of it is done in a grungy way, just like what we'd expect the snuff film to be.
The film runs very short but with the lack of any real editing it just adds to the movie. Apparently this was shot in a couple hours for $45 and it looks it. That's not a bad thing either. The film opens with a small scene in the car and then we hit the hotel room where we get a forty-minute scene done without any edits and then another thirty-minute scene without edits. The film plays very smoothly and you really get the feeling that you're watching a real video that's uncut. Star and director Ryan does a very good job in both departments and his acting was pretty damn good. He does a great job at playing this creep who starts off like a girl's dream but slowly turns to the psychopath that he is. Jimenez gives a terrific performance as the young virgin who gets in over her head. I was rather shocked at how great she was and considering there aren't any edits or double takes, the fact that she was able to stay in character and go with the story ranks this performance as one of the best I've seen in 2007. Shane, the director, does a terrific job with the visual style, although again, the bad quality will probably bug some. If we're going to call this a horror movie then it's one of the best I've seen in a very long time and like the films of the 70s, its point is to shock you and that it does very well.