Caligula (1979)

Let me start this review by saying something rather poignant about the process of film making: making film is incredibly expensive. Even the incredibly small timers could be expected to put up at least $10,000 to cover things like actor fees, catering, editing, camera rentals, grips, and so on. For example, Man Bites Dog is considered to be a micro-budget film, and its cost was roughly $11,000. I’m sure The Bunny Game strove to be even more cost-efficient. So say you want to make a film, not just any film, but a FUCKING EPIC film of EPIC PROPORTIONS. The first thing you gotta do is shop around for an investor. Unless you’re the Hiltons with a shit-ton of disposable income, you likely don’t have the cash to bring in A-list actors and a state-of-the-art crew.

This was Caligula’s biggest folly. The story goes that a dude wanted to make a movie about one of Ancient Rome’s most eccentric (read: crazy) emperors. No one wanted to take the risk on his script, but his persistence finally paid off when he met with the guy that created Penthouse magazine. They struck a deal where the movie would be made that would tell Caligula’s story while at the same time promoting the porno mag by implementing scenes of incredibly graphic sex, even if it didn’t serve the film. Somehow, Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell agreed to do the project in spite of these controversial decisions, and the end result turned into a huge mess that no one really wanted to be associated with for a long, long time.

Caligula is a historical erotic sex movie about a guy in Ancient Rome who bangs his sister regularly. He is summoned to the emperor’s court as a rite of succession and he becomes overwhelmed with delusions of grandeur, thinking himself a God in the vein of Julius and Augustus Caesar. He wastes no time in violently deposing his perceived opposition while throwing elaborate orgies and humiliating the senatorial class. He also mocks the traditional foundations of Rome by throwing mock trials of otherwise innocent people, torturing and executing them in horrible fashions. His descent into madness culminates in forcing the Senator’s wives to become prostitutes to help pay Rome’s debt after the death of his sister; at this point, he has fully asserted his Godhood and regards the Senate with utter loathsomeness and contempt. It doesn’t end well for him.

People say that this movie is incredibly controversial and I have to agree. It is riddled with incredibly violent and graphic scenes of castration, decapitation, rape, real sex, and torture. It is interesting to note that there are several scenes that are in direct service to the Penthouse contract–two girls going at it for no real reason as well as the infamously protracted orgy sequence involving the Senators’ wives being two of many examples. I kind of wonder how the movie would have turned out if these obligations didn’t need to be fulfilled and the filmmakers could have just focused on making a historical drama about one of Rome’s most eccentric leaders. There are certainly hints of this in the overall story arc; they really make an effort to keep things serious. Pornographic elements aside, this to me isn’t the most terrible story ever told and is actually constructed fairly well given its tumultuous circumstances. It won’t stand the test of time as a serious piece of art unfortunately, but it is still remarkable in its stunning brutality and moral ineptitude. Watching this film will probably make you cringe, at best, but writing it off completely seems kind of unfair.

C

God Bless America (2012)

God Bless America is a film both written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait about a poor schlub who can’t seem to catch a break. His neighbors suck, he has migraines all the time, he forces himself to watch crappy late-night reality television, he laments the steady erosion of American culture that he claims is typical of a falling empire… the list goes on and on. When he loses his job and is told by his doctor he has a malignant brain tumor both on the same day, he decides he wants to end it all. In a stroke of inspiration, he stops just before he pulls the trigger and decides to go murder an entitled rich 16 year-old reality TV star because she’s a big See You Next Tuesday. He encounters another teenager along the way who is fascinated and excited by what he’s done, and together they embark on a cross-country journey to kill as many bigots, assholes, and reality TV stars as possible.

This isn’t really much a movie as it is a contemporary pop culture soap box. In between most of the action and plot sequences are these long dry monologues about how shitty America has become with its focus on shitty Internet- and pop-culture meme-phenomena. Namely that no one goes outside or talks to anyone else about anything other than what Angelina Jolie or Kim Kardashian are up to, or that really shitty singer on American Superstar that was on last night; man what a retard that guy was. Americans have become narcissistic and cruel with the proliferation of Internet trolling and reality TV, and this activity has extended beyond those platforms into pop culture at large. No longer do people leave their houses to go talk to other people; they just hunch over their cell phones, eyes transfixed on the hypnotic scroll of the Twitter feed or TMZ.

This thesis is what drives the movie, and being wrapped up in a black-comedy package does good things to justify the cold-blooded violence that permeates the action sequences. It gives us a reason to cheer because moar assholes have been thankfully removed from the gene pool. Surely, we’ve had similar passing thoughts about murdering these crazy entitled stupid people that dominate the airwaves. Amirite guys? I mean have you seen Keeping Up With the Kardashians?? Guys??? Hey, put that phone down! I TOLD YOU I WAS MOSTLY HARMLESS. WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN????

Perhaps we’ve become the villains ourselves, pointing and laughing at the carnage without even thinking that this movie may be about us and that we’re to blame.  The well-written dialogues substantiate this succinctly enough, but their constant and nagging presence quickly becomes very tedious and patronizing as the movie drones on.  Writers of the world, please take a note or two here: people do not talk this way.  I don’t care if you have hipster friends who talk about Ecclesiastes and the human condition as it relates to Atlas Shrugged.  This never happens!  Ever!

Goldthwait really, really, REALLY wants to bang it into our heads that America is in decline. On top of that, we have to suspend our disbelief even more than normal as the duo triapses around the countryside killing people in broad daylight with numerous witnesses everywhere. I get that it’s supposed to be a joke that the media would blame, like, Al Qaeda or whatever because people are stupid, but everyone knows that you cannot get away with indiscriminately killing people. The general public might be oblivious to the facts, but police are usually pretty good at sorting things out. They’ve had a lot of practice.  I realize that this is commentary and is meant to be a tad unrealistic, but if you put a neuron of brain power into the ramifications of murdering people for longer than 2 seconds, it might take you out of the movie a little.

C

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a collection of adaptations from two stories: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. In the first, a toad by the name of Mr. Toad is easily obsessive with new fads. He sells the prestigious Toad Hall to a bunch of weasels for a stolen motor vehicle. He ends up in jail and his friends The Mole, The Badger, and The Rat have to clear his name and get him out of there. The second story tells of a guy who wanders into the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow and takes the job of the local schoolmaster. Dude loves to eat and he really, really loves the ladies. So when the hottest lady in town shows up, he’s suitably impressed and does whatever he can to win her heart; but the town bully won’t let him win without a fight. Oh yeah, there’s something about a Headless Horseman in there, too.

This is one of Disney’s most average films. Although it follows the two texts relatively closely, the animation is notably dull; this could be due largely to the pastoral settings of both segments. The colors are mostly drab and washed out, possibly a product of the film’s age but I think it’s an un/successful attempt at casting a drab tone. The stories are also very short–roughly 25 minutes each–so there isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room in terms of development. Things happen, which lead to more things, and then things stop happening. Yawn.

I guess Disney wasn’t committed to turning either of these concepts into a full-length motion picture; maybe it was testing the waters or something? Up to this point the company’s last big picture was arguably Bambi, which came out in 1942, with every other film being only a package of cartoons that explored a myriad of concepts and tones in the vein of Fantasia. Perhaps it was tired of those, too; judging from the main movie list on the Wikipedia they went balls deep into full-length motion-picture territory after this one as a sort of return to form. Whatever the case, your kids may still pay attention to it. The first segment’s essentially a kiddie film, after all; the second segment’s probably enough to scare them a tiny bit but make their imaginations run wild for a time–your mileage may vary with that one.

C

Beautiful Wave (2011)

The road to nowhere.

Beautiful Wave is a road-trip movie about this girl who is sent to live on her Grandmother’s beachfront property for the summer. She finds a special treasure map in her Grandma’s stuff that is clouded with mystery. Apparently, her Grandpappy was a badass surfer in Vietnam or something: the map details a path from wave to wave all the way to Baja. Too bad she has a major fear of the water and refuses to straddle a surf board! If she wasn’t so uptight she’d probably have a lot of fun!  Maybe her surfer friends can convince her to overcome the tragic and terrible loss of her father who died in the ocean after saving her from drowning.  They could do it in a week I bet by telling her to cut loose a little.  No biggie!

I personally don’t get “surfer” movies. What’s the point other than showing off the beautiful beaches of California, the hot babes of California, and to constantly remind everyone how great it is to be a surfer in California? I suppose I probably have issues with many sports movies because of this line of thinking but hey, at least I can play basketball in more than 10 places on Earth.  Seriously, California’s not that interesting.  I saw Baywatch once. It’s really all I need to know.

This movie is dry and boring. The characters aren’t interesting, there’s not enough hotties in swimsuits, and shots meant to chew the beautiful scenery mostly fall flat with zero potential. I can appreciate that they tried to do… something… with the scenario by throwing in something about poachers and drowning, but the whole thing is just disjointed and painstakingly dull. I guess I don’t understand. I wasn’t there.

C