Happy Panic Productions

Worst non-blog of 2005

For some reason, I posted my 2004 best-of-list at nacho.org but never posted it here. Pretty dumb, since the whole reason I started posting film and video reviews here was to help me remember what I'd seen when compiling the end-of-year list. Anyway, I've post-posted it because you were dying to know.

Things you don't want to hear your wife say

On telling my wife (who doesn't want her name used here so I will henceforth refer to her as Seymor) an idea for a joke: "That sounds like something Mel Brooks would do. Today."

The joke in question: a rapper who is so old-school, he raps in Latin.

Roger, Ebert, I read you: Kung Fu Hustle (2005)

The title of this film, in its original Cantonese, is Gong Fu. Finally, a Chinese title I can pronounce! If only Sony Pictures Classics trusted us enough to use it.

The tagline: "A new comedy unlike anything you have seen before." Funny way to describe a movie that makes a point of being derivative. I read it as a direct response to Kill Bill. Director Stephen Chow drops the gauntlet when he introduces a gang leader dressed like David Carridine's Bill (calling special attention to the snakeskin boots), then immediately decapitates him. What follows is all-out attempt to outdo Tarantino both in the collision of genres and of cultures. Interestingly, on some level it's a rejection of the encroachment of Western culture on the East (or of Western appropriation of the East): nearly all of the villains bear the mark of Western culture, in their dress, music, and decor, while the heroes don't. Yet the film also embraces Western culture by taking those cultural signifiers and promoting them as the trademark of the film in its advertisements (in the body of the villainous axe gang). As long as we're jumping on the multi-culti bandwagon, why not bring the Wachowskis into it? And so we end up with a fight scene that feels like the Crazy 88 from Kill Bill Vol. 1 and the 100 Mr. Smiths from Matrix: Reloaded. (At least Chow picked a new Matrix scene to spoof.) I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn that there are exactly 188 Axe Gangsters in the fight. But for all that, Kung Fu Hustle has one influence that looms large above all others: cartoons. Or rather, to our collective misfortune, specifically the CGI-assisted live action cartoon movie. I have not seen Garfield (2004) or Scooby-Doo (2002), but many of the gags in Kung Fu Hustle felt like they would be very much at home in those movies. No, it's not quite as terrible as that comparison makes it sound; there are creative, funny, fun moments to be had. But unlike God of Cookery, the only other Chow movie I've seen, which invigorated me with its complete freshness and originality, Kung Fu Hustle feels like a movie too desperate to compete in the marketplaces of commerce and of coolness. (And I'm not even getting into the problems with the plot structure, since I don't know whether to blame that on Chow or the meddling hand of the American distributors.)

But what does Ebert have to say about it? Once again, he spends almost as much time talking about the genre as a whole as the film he's reviewing. The problem is, he is only writing about the martial arts genre. You don't need to be very familar with the genre (I certianly am not) to know that this is pretty far from a straight-up genre movie, but you wouldn't know that from Ebert's review, until you get to the second-to-last sentence: "When I saw it at Sundance, I wrote that it was 'like Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny.'" He does describe it a comedy, but his thesis is that this is almost standard to the genre: Lurking beneath the surface of most good martial arts movies is a comedy. Sometimes it bubbles up to the top, as in Stephen Chow's 'Kung Fu Hustle.'" What an understatment! Zany and Wacky describe the movie far better than Chop Socky.

Stephen Chow uses concealed wires, special effects, trick camera angles, trampolines and anything else he can think of. If you went by Ebert's description, plus his references to Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan, you would expect to see an awful lot of impressive stunts performed live in camera. You would therefore be wholly unprepared for the massive amount of digital effects which completely dominate the action. Yet the four words "special effects" and "Bugs Bunny" are the only clues Ebert gives you that you're not going to see what you probably expect when he repeatedly says "martial arts flm". (Never mind that every other item in Ebert's list -- including the trampoline, assuming the character is not meant to actually be jumping on a trampoline -- is technically a special effect.)

The movie opened a year ago, inspiring a review in which I gave my most rational defense of the relativity theory of star ratings. I'm glad you're enjoying this little trip down memory lane, but I don't see how it's germane to the review I'm reading, and I'm not going to consult your archives to find out!

I am reminded of Jack Lemmon's story about the time he saw Klaus Kinski buying a hatchet at Ace Hardware. Okay, I give. What do I have to do to be as cool and Hollywood-insider as you so I get hear this story?

Overheard in the Emergency Room

Elderly woman: (obviously in pain) “Ooooooh... Ooooooaugh... I've gotta go number two... Ooooooooooohhh... Ooooooh, I've gotta go to the toilet.”
Middle-aged daughter: “I've called for them. They'll stick a bucket under you.”
EW: “Someone's gonna have to clean me up. Oooh, whoaaaoooooooooooohhhhhh... hoooooooo... (various grunts) I can feel it sticking to my bottom.”

A short while later:

Doctor: “Okay, let's have a look at you. Do you prefer to roll onto your right or your left side?”
EW: “Left.”
Doctor: “All right.”
EW: “I hope they cleaned me up good, I can still feel it on me.”
Doctor: “They did a good job.”

This, just on the other side of a curtain in the ER the other night, where I had taken my wife because of an apparent allergic reaction to mold which, as it turns out, is saturating the air of the room we've been sleeping in at my mother-in-laws. We really need to find a house soon.

Recent Videos

Star Wars (1977) Yes, I still call it that. It still gets me that during a long stretch at the beginning, the only characters onscreen we have to care about are robots. And it totally works. I still get a kick out of Ben Kenobi's plot to convince Luke to join him by killing Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and framing it on the Storm Troopers. Why else would he be so giddy to show his handywork, the blaster holes in the Jawa transport?

The Empire Strikes Back (1980) The film that doomed the franchise, when Lucas went into a jealous pique that Irvin Kersher, Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan made a better movie than he ever could.

A Better Tomorrow (1986) I watched the dubbed version because C was in the room knitting and I thought it would be easier for her to follow along -- big mistake, because the dialogue kind of sucked; when I watched the Cantonese trailer in the DVD extras, the dialogue in the previewed scenes was easily superior. Plus, C was't that interested to begin with and left the room halfway through. I didn't really get into it, not as much as the other Woo movies I've seen.

And those are just the ones I watched today!

Goodbye, Lenin! (2003) Everything that's wrong with this movie is right there in the title. It seems like its supposed to be a joke; what else is that exclamation point doing there? And yet, there's no joke to it. Similarly, this movie resorts to fast-motion of all things to remind you that what you're yawning through is allegedly a comedy. And it's not even trying to be that until 15 or 20 minutes in; apparently, the genre did not enter into East Germany until the Berlin Wall came down. (Which might explain why German comedy is still something of an oxynoron.)

Osama (2003) If you're ever on the verge of forgetting how horrible the Taliban are, and you're badly in need of getting depressed, then this film is recommended. And it's another one of those non-actor casts that puts a lot of professional acting to shame. Are you paying attention, George Lucas?

The Maltese Falcon (1941) I've been really into Dashiell Hammett lately, as I'm reading through the Continental Op short stories in Crime Stories and Other Writings (The Library of America, 2001). And while I liked the dialogue, and loved Sydney Greenstreet, I never felt like the stakes were very high in this story. I'll have to read the novel, and I'm curious to see the 1931 version, which is supposed to be a lot sexier.

Sons of the Desert (1933)
Block-Heads (1938)
The Music Box (1932)
Way Out West (1937) Laurel and Hardy are the best.

The Bishop's Wife (1947) I know it's mean to say it, and I can't really justify it, but Loretta Young strikes me as possessing a bovine intellect.

Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker (1999) Also, less funnier.

Night of the Hunter (1955) The film student came out in me while watching this one. I couldn't get over all of the awkward edits, and the cartoonish false perspectives (particularly with those ridiculous shadows) really distracted me. So I just couldn't get into it somehow. And Shelly Winters has never been so unsexy!

True Romance (1993) Today, it feels like just another Tarantino knock-off, an impressive feat considering it predated nearly all of Tarantino's work, and is counted among them.

Das Boot (1981) I usually include movies in this list if I've seen the whole thing, but despite trying for three months, I just couldn;t get through this one. In fact, I still feel like I'm watching it sometimes. The sweat! The facial hair! The terror-stricken eyes at the sound of depth-charges! It's such a relief whenever they go up on the bridge, to stare through binoculars to the tune of a synthesizer score that sounds like it's out of Rocky IV, and to be splashed with water in an obvious studio set that looks remarkably like a silly parody of Das Boot.

Overheard in the breakroom

Man 1: So among my findings was an original copy of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Man 2: Was it in good shape?
Man 1: There was some damage to the header, but otherwise it was in pretty good shape.
Man 2: Sweet!
Man 1: Yeah, it's tight. Or as our friend Austin Powers would say, 'it's toit.'"