The Writer's Poke

Directed by Edgar Ulmer -- People on Sunday (1930) and Detour (1945) -- and starring Bela Lugosi (Vitus) and Boris Karloff (Poelzig). Not to mention featuring a black freakin' cat, a modern castle built on a mass grave filled with war dead and dynamite, and home to a crazed Satanic cult leader... this movie has it all. Maybe a little too much. It's like Peter (David Manners), the self-professed crappy writer, wrote it all in a fever dream. Even the ending makes fun of what we just watched, noting (in a newspaper review of Peter's latest novel) that none of it was believable. None of it was remotely realistic.  When Vitus sees a black cat, it triggers him. In no real way, to be honest, except to be overdramatic. This is another instance of the film jabbing at itself when Poelzig tells Vitus to "stop being so overdramatic." But Vitus and Poelzig have beef. It goes back to the War and to the fact that Virus spent the past 15 years in a prison -- a kind of Hotel Calif...

This movie maybe shouldn't be that good. But here are some of the "little things" that make it pretty special: "Does she bite?" "That costs extra." *** "Profession?" Looks. Laughs. "Yes." *** "Italian!" "Danish!" "German!" *** Camera shot of the woman in the swing. *** What it doesn't do so well -- The shots of the man in an ape suit, which is only slightly better or worse than the enlarged close-ups of the Ape's "chimpanzee face." Stuff like that takes me out of the movie, to be honest. So as much as I enjoyed a lot about this movie, it has a rating ceiling. Rating: 3/5 stars

The Criterion DVD includes a 1991 audio interview with Robert Montgomery's daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery. Dang it, Criterion. These are the sort of extras that Criterion includes that are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because they're usually pretty cool. A curse, because I'm always tempted to skip them so I can watch another movie... especially if it's an audio-only supplement. For every 90-minute film, you need to budget 4 or 5 hours just to go through all the extras. Then the stuff you learn in the extras make you want to follow-up with Google searches. Then you probably have a list of movies and actors that you want to add to your watch list. It just goes on and on.  And that's great, because I will never ever run out of content to watch, read, or listen to.  In the interview, Elizabeth -- what a great, happy voice -- admits that she still didn't know her father's body of work all that well. Keep in mind she was 58 at the time, and she would b...

It's hard to explain it. I grew up in the 1980s, and the previous decade seemed like a lifetime away. When I was seven or eight, I loved watching the A-Team, but I could never wrap my head around those guys being in the Vietnam War. I mean, if they were in their 30s or 40s, I guess that makes perfect sense, but the late 60s might as well have been the 19th century to my little kid brain.  Even when I was in college in the 1990s, I wondered why certain authors were bothering to write about Vietnam -- Tim O'Brien, or for the purposes of this film, Bobbie Ann Mason.  In Country is a movie that shows there was still something to be learned and discovered about the Vietnam War and the people that were still caught in its memory.  Samantha (Emily Lloyd) never knew her father. He was killed in Vietnam while her mom was pregnant with her. For that matter, her mom never really knew her husband. They were married for about four months when he was shipped off to Vietnam.  In th...

Is 4 stars generous? Maybe, but I watched all 5 Vacation movies over a weekend, and this one was the only one that really made me consistently laugh. Ed Helms and Christina Applegate do a very good job taking over the lead roles from Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo.  Chase and D'Angelo both have small roles in the film. My first thought was: D'Angelo has aged gracefully, but what in the hell has happened to Chase? The 18 years between Vegas Vacation (1997) and this film haven't been kind to him.  So, the basic premise of this film is the same as the original Vacation (1983): A cross-country to Wally World. The movie acknowledges this with a short "meta" scene. I thought that scene was funny, and I like the Albanian rental car. I thought for sure it could be driven in either direction, but they never showed that. It did come with a rather sus keypad that included quite a few unnecessary options.  Each of the main characters is developed enough to be interestin...

Rusty (Ethan Embry) is back to wearing Izods. In this one, his collection includes yellow and turquoise. They also bring back Christie Brickley and her Ferrari gimmick (this time she's a mom). While I like that they bring back things that might remind us of the classic Vacation (1983), I also feel like the "callbacks" can be almost them saying, "We've run out of anything new to offer."  Enter Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his family. They're back, because now they live in the desert outside of Las Vegas. Eh...  Elisa Bell and Bob Ducsay took over the screenplay duties from John Hughes, but it feels like they wanted to try to go back to Vacation (1983) roots. But honestly, this series just proves my theory that sequels are never as good as the original, and in this case, even the original wasn't all that great to begin with.  On the positive side, after having no reason for being in Christmas Vacation (1989), I was glad to see that Rusty and Audrey (...

No better than European Vacation (1985), which was pretty much dreadful.  In this installment, we have a little more physical humor, as well as some callbacks to the original. In the original Vacation (1983), they accidently killed an aunt's dog. In this one, an aunt's cat gets electrocuted chewing on the Christmas tree light wires.  Another callback is Clark (Chevy Chase) looking out the back window, imagining how nice his new swimming pool will be. Then he sees a hot girl. Maybe this fantasy sequence works if they brought back Christy Brinkley.  If they couldn't get her, though, just cut the scene. Rusty (Johnny Galecki) has some interaction with Clark, but they seem to have forgotten Audrey (Juliette Lewis). She just gets lost in the plethora of family characters. In fact, when they're busy chasing the squirrel, Audrey completely disappears. I thought, "Did she hide in her room?" I mean, I was trying to make up a reason for why she completely disappeared fr...