The Writer's Poke

Will Ferrell is not the most subtle or understated actor out there, but the movie does have nice attention to small details, and I can appreciate the "craftsmanship" of his writing. One of my favorite scenes is when Ron and his crew are attacked "Guys and Dolls" style by the #2 news team. That would have been a good scene, but then the #3 news team shows up. Then the PBS news team. Then the Spanish news team. It's that kind of thing that makes this film a little better than average for me. Another scene that I liked is when Ron's dog survives the dropkick attack from the motorcyclist Ron hits with a burrito (Jack Black). We see the dog again as Ron and Veronica are trapped in the Bear exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. It's the dog who is able to communicate with the bears, securing their release. The dog's dialogue is pure Will Ferrell. I haven't watched any other Will Ferrell films. At least not on purpose. When he was on SNL, I was a big fan. Certa...

Dan Castellaneta is the actor who plays Homer Simpson. But in this movie, all he does is sit in Gavin's (Danny DeVito) office and listen to the story of what happened to Barbara and Oliver Rose (Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas). Gavin is a divorce lawyer; he works at the same firm Oliver worked at. To be honest, Oliver and Barbara look like they have an okay marriage. Oliver might be a little condescending and controlling, but Barbara seems used to that. She's found a house that she's proud of making their own. She's started her own business. Everything might go along just fine. After all, they've been married for at least 17 years. But when Oliver has what at first seems to be a heart attack, Barbara initially starts for the hospital but stops when she realizes that she's no longer in love with her husband. She actually hopes he will die. This reminded me of something that Kate Chopin might write -- the classic "The Story of an Hour" moment, when ...

In the sequel to Romancing the Stone, we start off on a ship. No attempt at realism here. Definitely on a Sound Stage. Jack (Michael Douglas) and Joan (Kathleen Turner) are fighting off pirates that for some reason look straight out of Mad Max.  Then cut to "reality." Joan and Jack are actually living it up on a yacht. In the last movie, they had planned a romantic year of sailing around the world. And here they are, off the coast of the French Riveria, six months into the trip. She's typing her latest novel, but this time, instead of thinking her "pure cheese" writing is good, she recognizes just how horrible it is, and throws her typewriter overboard. It seems like an ill omen for the sequel, as what was lauded and applauded in the first movie might now be seen with sober clarity in the sequel. The stuff she writes is shite, and maybe it's also the movie admitting its store is shite.   The sequel was rushed into production after the original film did bette...

This is the first in a trio of films with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito -- the other two being The Jewel of the Nile (1985) and The War of the Roses (1989). The movie opens in the American West, and the story is pure cheese. Cut to Joan Wilder (Turner) sitting at her typewriter. She's a romance novelist, and she's just finished her latest novel. She's pleased with the way it came together at the end. Based on the opening sequence, are we then supposed to excuse the movie itself for being pure cheese? My thought being: This is a framing device, and starting off with one of Joan Wilder's romance novels makes little sense, unless we're being prepared for the movie itself as being another one of her romance novels. Maybe one that "really happened" to her, but one that she will then fictionalize and write as a romance novel. As I watched it, I thought: The quality of the script and the filming is on par with the 1980s TV show The A-Team... ...

This is Lon Chaney's only non-silent film, a remake of the 1925 The Unholy Three. He would die of lung cancer at the age of 47 after the filming of this movie.  What might interest me most about this version is Charles Gemora in the Gorilla suit. In the 1925 version, they just used a monkey, and sometimes they'd play with camera distortion to make the monkey appear bigger and more dangerous. In the 1930 version, it's just Gemora in a Gorilla suit. Convincing? Not really, but the brief bio on Gemora I read was interesting.  Gemora began his movie career just by hanging around the entrance of Universal Studios. According to IMDb, the Filipino Gemora was just 5' 5", and he would have a 30-year career in film, usually uncredited in the Gorilla suit. When he wasn't the Gorilla, he was worked as a make-up artist. The list of films he worked on is quite impressive, including: Island of Lost Souls (1932), Double indemnity (1944), and The Ten Commandments (1956) as a ma...

Professor Echo (Lon Chaney) is a ventriloquist at the Carnival. His life philosophy is simple: Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry. His pickpocket partner is Rosie O'Grady (Mae Busch). He loves her, but she happens to love Hector (Matt Moore). The Carnival doesn't make a lot of money for Professor Echo and the other "freaks," I'm guessing. So, Echo also dresses up as an old woman and runs a pet store on the side, as you do. Eventually, he gets together with the World's Strongest Man and the World's Smallest Man. They form a faction called the Unholy Three, and they case a rich person's house so they can still some rubies. While Echo never wanted things to go violent, the other two men in the Unholy Three don't have the same scruples. The owner of the rubies dies, and the men decide to frame the murder on Hector. But Echo is a good guy. He can't let Hector go to the chair for something the Unholy Three did, even if that would clear the way fo...

Did I watch this last night, or was it a fever dream? I guess I've discovered I want to know what kind of story I'm watching. I expected this one to be something of a comedy. Sometimes I will cheat a little and scroll through Letterboxd reviews or critic reviews. If they write stuff like "dark comedy," then I will expect some sort of comedy element.  I wasn't really seeing that as I watched. I mean, sure, I get that some of it is "dark" and perhaps somewhat absurd/comedic, but I was trying to fit this movie into neo-noir. Ultimately, that's what I think it is. You have Frank (Steve Martin), a dentist with a successful practice, fall for a Susan (Helena Bonham Carter), a drug addict. Is this plausible? Is she really that much more seductive and attractive than Jean (Laura Dern), fiancée and a dental associate that works in his clinic? Does Susan fulfill some sort of fantasy? Does Frank really fall for her just because she will have sex with him in the...