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There was a time on the “DrMovieMovie” website, when film reviews were the main focus. Wes always had a dream for the website to expand it’s coverage to many different subjects. To one day have a sports guy, an entertainment guy, maybe a wacky humor columnist.
While none of these dreams came true, Wes did begin to write a higher volume of features about topics that are not at all related to film. Is this a bad thing? Well, from a creative standpoint they are kind of restrictive and from a reader perspective, the reviews are not as witty as they once were.
In his defense, it is much harder to make a review of a mediocre film such as “Hellboy” as entertaining as a feature I might write about a crazy night with a stripper. Do I enjoy reading reviews about films that are incredibly bad such as “Gigli?” Of course. As well as intriguing films such as “Kill Bill.”
What sucks is reading reviews of mediocre films such as “S.W.A.T.” that provokes very little reaction from anyone. Hell, I’m not going to see it anyway. I would also imagine that Mr. Bennett doesn’t want to spend time out of his life pondering the movie and it’s message when even he has better things to do. I have a theory that critics come down especially hard on films that don’t seem that bad to the laymen, because they are just pissed off that they had to sit around a produce a review for it.
I thought it might be an interesting diversion for the handful of people who read the site, to offer up a retrospective of Wes’s best reviews (or at least my favorite) that were humourous, somewhat well-written and enjoyable along with my own thoughts about the subjects at hand.
10- “Tears of the Sun”
While Bennett’s criticism of Bruce Willis might not be completely fair, because let’s face it, who among big stars didn’t start off doing some really shitty job? (Think Tom Hanks in “Bosum Buddies.”) However the sheer creativity of imagining a situation where an entire room is filled with action heros having a meaningful disucssion, is sheer brilliance.
“Imagine a scenario where a group of action stars are gathered, discussing how they earned the right to play grizzled tough guys in the movies. Chuck Norris proudly states, “I was six-time undefeated World Professional MiddleWeight Karate Champion.” Arnold Schwarzenegger announces, “I won an unprecedented seven Mr. Olympia bodybuilding titles.” Sylvester Stallone quickly points out, “I wrote one of the greatest screenplays of all time, the 1976 best picture “Rocky”. All eyes turn to Bruce Willis who sheepishly says “I was in the 1980s, TV series Moonlighting.”
“Willis has come a long way since then, acquiring an impressive string of hits as well as branching out into other genres with “Pulp Fiction” and “The Sixth Sense”. He has the luxury of being able to play one part very well: The Bruce Willis part. It is very much like John Wayne was good at playing John Wayne. This is not to say that only playing one role makes him a bad actor. Remember that John Wayne won an oscar for “True Grit.””
While a solid Bruce Willis film is always a good thing, one can’t help but think that his career has been bailed out twice: once by Quentin Tarantino and again by M. Night Shyamalan. (Don’t believe me? Check out “Last Man Standing”, “Hudson Hawk” or “The Jackal.”) Clearly he has no idea what he’s doing.
From the looks of the “Whole Ten Yards” Willis might have to pick up a weight or two so he can regain some much needed street credibility if he’s not bailed out by yet another talented director. I mean really, who out there didn’t think that Demi Moore circa “G.I. Jane” could have kicked his ass.
9- “A Man Apart”
Bennett choose to defend a 2nd-rate action film, why? Because they simply do not make that many action films anymore. Diesel may come out of “The Chronicles of Riddick” looking like a complete idiot or a genius. For those who don’t know, Diesel starred in the lucrative “Fast and the Furious” and then “XXX,” but got shut out of both sequels for asking for too much money. He did sign up for the aforementioned sequel to the sci-fi, cult-hit “Pitch Black.”
I would argue that his finest moment occured in the movie “Boiler Room.” He has a small role, but he shows acting promise. The same kind of promise that Stallone had when he made the “Rocky” and “First Blood” before sequels and films like “Judge Dread” and “Stop or my Mom will shoot” robbed him of all credibility whatsoever.
"A Man Apart" is a throwback to the glory days of action films of the 1980’s. There were no obnoxious comic relief characters. There were no computer effects. The films were very bloody and had guns, lots of guns.
Remember Van Damme in "Blood Sport", Seagal in "Hard to Kill", Willis in "The Last Boy Scout", Schwarzenegger in "Commando", even Stallone in "Cobra" -these are barely average films, yet fans of the action genre consider them to be classics. We knew these films were not going to win Oscars, but damnit man, we could count on our boy to grimace, say some one-liners and kick some ass.”
Reading this review makes me wish that “Walking Tall” didn’t suck as much as it did. Obviously the Rock is ahead right now in action hero status, but Diesel could still come back.
The film is worth a look on DVD for the scene when Diesel beats a criminal to death by ramming his skull repeatedly into the side of a car in the middle of a ferocious shoot-out.
8-Cabin Fever
I have yet to talk to anyone else besides Wes who will admit that this was a wildly entertaining film. I have actually been laughed at -at the video store for recommending the film. (Maybe I shouldn’t try and make serious movie recommendations to small children while wearing my clown suit).
“Plagiarizing a page out of “The Evil Dead,” five friends, not so much characters as iconic movie types including the stud (Joey Kern), the sensitive guy (Rider Strong), the good girl (Jordan Ladd), the topless babe (Cerina Vincent), and the Belushi-ish party animal (James DeBello), escape to a remote log cabin in the woods, for one week of sex, drugs and, well, more sex and drugs.
At the end of the day, we only “see” a movie for 90 minutes. We are left with the rest of our lives to discuss and think about it. With that in mind, movies should be about provoking a reaction and being memorable, and “Cabin Fever” is one that undeniably makes an impression. “Cabin Fever” is truly an enjoyable film and the most fun I’ve had in a while at the movies.”
7-House of 1,000 Corpses
Who in their right mind would have expected that this long delayed Rob Zombie film, one that was delayed for having too much gore, would have been so bad? Too much gore is always a good thing (unless it's Romans mercilessly flaying Jesus.)
But secondly, Zombie stood out in the late 90’s as being able to write kick-ass hard rock songs. Even Metallica had faltered by this time. As a matter of fact, I believe that the late 90s were just an awful time for music in general. You may disagree, but I think starting with the Strokes, Hives, Vines, White Stripes.. things are turning around. Jet, The Darkness, even Audio Slave, we have some cool stuff going on right now.
After the intial Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers breakout of 1991-92, we had a few good years. I think things faltered after 1994 after the Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, Soundgarden era. All we had after that, were groups like Limp Bizkit, Semisonic, Third Eye Blind, Match Box 20, Creed, Oasis,... Apart from the Foo Fighter’s album that had “My Hero” and “Everlong” it was generally a bad time that gave birth to the dreaded nu-metal era with bands like Slipnot, Korn and Papa Roach
>
But during this dark time, Zombie had hits such as “More Human than the Human” and “Dragula” that were badass. His image and videos were much more unique and creative compared to his contempories.
The point is that all this evidence would lead us to believe that “House of 1,000 Corpses” would have been really good. And it’s failure created a massive letdown.
“The horror genre has several types of films. The audience often roots for an all powerful villain to kill it’s victims. In franchises like “Friday the 13th” or the “Nightmare On Elm Street” series, they are the stars of the film and we take pleasure in the terror they inflict. Others have well developed characters facing insurmountable evil, like “The Ring”, “The Evil Dead”, or “The Exorcist”. Still others such as “Misery” or “The Blair Witch Project” create a building sense of dread and suspense. “Corpses” has none of these things going for it. All the characters are awful and annoying, there are no obstacles to overcome and almost no suspense is developed.
The movie derails fairly quickly. The plot manages to make even less sense than you’d expect, especially at the end, where we meet a number of mutants and victims in an abandoned mine shaft. Zombie’s film isn’t about story, it’s about style, as in the style to freak us out with gore. But it’s too much to handle. Zombie asks us to swallow so much, that by the end we feel like Bon Scott in the back seat of a Cadillac (not that we died by choking on our own vomit, but that we had way too much).”
6-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
This film represented a rare instance in which a bad film proved to be wildly entertaining (like "The Butterfly Effect"). Bennett, along with legions of horny teenagers were quite taken with Jessica Biel. Oddly this film turned out to be everything that “House of 1,000 Corpses” was not, even though the plot is almost exactly the same. Innocent kids go into a bizarre setting, or some weird house in the middle of nowhere and people begin to die.
“There was no massacre in Texas with chainsaws. The original writer has said that he based the character of Leatherface on the infamous Ed Gein, a the psychotic Wisconsin farmer who robbed graves and murdered at least two women in the 1950s. Police eventually discovered the remains of 15 different mutilated female bodies in Gein's filthy farmhouse, parts of which had been fashioned into a variety of bizarre objects including drums, bowls, masks, bracelets, purses, knife sheaths, leggings, chairs, lampshades, and shirts, as well as a refrigerator full of human organs.
Gein inspired the Norman Bates character from “Psycho” as well as the Buffalo Bill character from “Silence of the Lambs.” Gein’s ability to inspire art rivals George Harrison’s first wife Pattie Boyd, who was the inspiration for the brilliant love songs “Something” and “Layla.”
“Jessica Biel was amazing, I am using great restraint in not devoting an entire paragraph to her upper body and yet another for her lower. Physically she defies gravity, and looks almost like a robot built by lonely scientists for the specific purpose of pleasure. For nearly an hour and a half after seeing the film, I seriously thought that we, as a society, should bronze her nude body and worship it as an idol. On a more serious note, although all she did was run around and scream while looking really scared, she was perfect for the part and I could not take my eyes off of her.
Horror movies are traditionally a psychological playground for social fears. This film, like 1972's "Deliverance" or the recent “Wrong Turn” feeds into an urban phobia of small-town life, inbred-hillbilly folk and alien geography. Even 1969's "Easy Rider" capitalized on such paranoia. Is this because people from New York and L.A. fear middle America? To be fair there are some really weird people tucked away out in the country. But are things really safer in the city? Last time I checked inner city Chicago, D.C. and Memphis aren’t the best place to walk around at late at night. The genre of films where unsuspecting country folks get lost in the ghetto and are systematically picked off has, with the exception of “Judgment Night” with Cuba Gooding Jr., yet to be explored.”
5-The Real Cancun
Many critics scoffed at the notion that a film could package the kind of reality programming that is so prevalent on TV and expect movie goers to pay for it. The film made no money and got horrible reviews. But most people missed the point. Underneath all the critical bashing, there was actually a pretty enjoyable film. I agreed with Bennett, what’s not to like? I’ll admit that with a little bit more effort by the filmmakers, perhaps something more could have happened.
“The only problem I have with it, is that a regular documentary requires several years of filming and around a year of editing. "The Real Cancun" was filmed in a month and was released in theaters a month and two days after shooting wrapped in Mexico. I couldn’t help thinking that if they had filmed these people for a year, a few months or even more than one week, the film could have been better.
Worst of all the movie reportedly cost $7.5 million to make. How is this possible? Did the entire crew get a daily allowance of Coke and hookers?
There’s Jeremy the ladies man who declares early on that "girls go on spring break to meet guys like me" before embarking on a crazy sex spree, living the high life as if he was David Lee Roth circa 1982.
One of his victims is Laura, a waitress from a tiny town in Wisconsin, who starts the week thinking she's a hard-partying, temptress driving the slut mobile at top speed, but within three days is chewed up and spit out by the Jeremy sex-machine.
A large part of what keeps the film entertaining is the sex appeal of the spring-breakers. They are all attractive, but each in his or her own way. And between a wet T-shirt contest in the opening minutes, body shots throughout the film and assorted treats of voyeuristic sex and nudity, there is plenty of eye candy.”
One wishes there were more films like this that had no aspirations to be anything else other than cheap thrills and eye-candy instead of drivel like “Bobby Jones” and “Dreamcatcher.” Wes once admitted to me that he enjoyed this film more than “The Hours.” While I would disagree with this point, there are probably a lot of people who agree with him but wouldn’t admit it for fear of ridicule.
4-Jason vs. Freddy
How could anyone not enjoy this film on some level? Just the concept itself is genius, and the execution is actually pretty good as well. I have always fantasized about a film where the Terminator is sent back in time to kill Rambo. The possibilities are endless here, but the films never actually materialize. I will go on the record and state that the “Alien vs. Predator” movie is not going to be any good. Like a slutty-looking girl who probably has an STD, sometimes you just know.
“It's a try for a return to glory for two aging stars that were very popular in the 1980's, (kind of like a Journey, REO Speedwagon concert). Of the two sturdy franchises, the “Nightmare” series that Wes Craven initiated in 1984 had a pretty clever premise, and at least in the early installments the execution was quite effective. Sean Cunningham’s “Friday the 13th” flicks, on the other hand, were, at best “Halloween” rip-offs, mindless snuff-fests featuring the mute, machete-wielding, mask-wearing Jason. Both franchises faltered as repetition set in and the imagination of filmmakers in devising ever-gorier ways of death began to slow down.
Determined to get back in the killing game, Freddy resurrects the ultimate player hater, Jason Vorhees. But Jason, being both compulsively homicidal and impossible to stop, just keeps on killing -- much faster and more efficiently than Freddy, who favors elaborately surreal, dream-based traps for one victim at a time.
Soon the town isn't big enough for both of them. The horror villains enter onto a collision course, heading toward a final confrontation between evil and well, evil. What should you predict? As Clubber Lang said in “Rocky III”, simply, “Pain”.
In my opinion, any review that can reference “Rocky III” gets props.
3- Dumb and Dumberer
This has to go down in history as being one of the all-time worst sequels. Sure we complain about “Fletch II”, “Caddyshack II” and “The Blues Brothers 2000” which were all pretty bad, but never has a film gotten rid of all the stars and still tried to pass itself off as a major summer release (I know about Predator II, but Danny Glover wasn’t pretending to be Arnold). “Dumb and Dumberer” truly is one of the most horrible films ever released.
“Dumb and Dumberer” is very close to the cinematic train wreck one might expect. Believe the hype, it really is that bad.
The original “Dumb and Dumber” is one of the best comedies in the last 15 years, marking the collaboration of the Farrelly Brothers and Jim Carrey in their prime. Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film “an inspired, irreverent, spark-driven comedy”. I still argue that it stands as Jim Carrey’s finest hour.
Right, so what happens when we lose the director, writers, the stars and everyone else? You get one of the worst movies of the year. It’s bad. Not in an enjoyable “Anaconda” or ”The Core” kind of way. It just sucks. The film really feels unprofessional. Unlike “2 Fast 2 Furious” which also lost some big name stars, it does not appear as though a major studio hired professionals to work on the script, direct or edit.
All this being said, I knew coming into the film what I was getting into and I decided that if the film made me laugh out loud even twice, I would be happy. Surprisingly Bob Saget (“Full House” and “Half Baked”) has a very funny role as a Dad who confuses melted chocolate with feces. Another amusing scene was one in which Harry and Lloyd pump gas into the window of a car in an effort to look inconspicuous. But two laughs in 90 minutes isn’t that impressive.”
I’ve always felt that Bennett was overly complementary on the film by admitting that made him laugh twice. Isn’t that like saying that Hitler loved dogs?
2- ”The League of Extraordinary Tomb Raiders”
The only other combination of reviews Bennett has attempted was “When Along Came A Date with Polly T. Hamiliton.” But he failed to reproduce the heights of wit and humor featured in this review. For anyone who has had to suffer through both of these films, let alone back to back, the entertaining review is far superior to the experience.
“The only thing I remember about the first “Tomb Raider” was when Lara Croft ventured into the artic’s subzero temperatures, she was still wearing a sexy, revealing outfit as opposed to everyone else who were huddled in enormous coats. It’s as if the director said,
“People are you crazy, if you cover up Angelina’s breasts, than we don’t have a movie.”
“But sir, its supposed to be like 15 below zero. Doesn’t that matter?”
“Breasts- movie, no breasts- no movie. Got it?”
My only thoughts throughout the film were that Angelina Jolie’s lips are enormous, as were her breasts. She claims that she has not had sex in over a year. To this I am speechless. This is the biggest waste of talent since that guy from Blind Melon killed himself a few years ago. That was the true day that the music died in my opinion.
I also couldn’t suppress a bizarre desire to actually cut off her lips and keep them in a jar of formaldehyde. Maybe take them out and play with them every so often. (Wow, I really should have cut that part out of the review).
The premise is absolutely ludicrous -do you think in 30 years we could team Angela Lansberry with Perry Mason, Columbo and MacGyver to solve mysteries. The possibilities are, again, endless here.
Then he goes to London to attend a meeting called by a spy master named “M” who has assembled a team of gentlemen who are,- what’s the word I’m looking for, -um pretty neat I guess, including Captain Nemo, from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Nemo doesn’t at all look like the manly captain of Disney’s “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,” instead bearing more of a resemblance to the Arabian Fighter, Great Tiger from “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out”. (“Beware of my Tiger Punch”).
Dr. Henry Jekyll, or, Mr. Edward Hyde (Jason Fleming), an enterprising scientist who, with of a drop of his potion, can transform himself into a raging Hulk-like creature. Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr. Hyde was about the same size as Dr. Jekyll, but here Hyde expands into a creature scarcely smaller than a mangled version of Fat Bastard. These are the shittiest special effects in a big budget film that I’ve seen in awhile (hello walking trees from “The Two Towers”).
Connery, at 73, hasn't really lost his stuff. He brings to this project a sense of style and grace that he brought to his best movies such as “The Rock” and “Entrapment”. He can still believably slug it out with bad guys. This is interesting because when I see him on talk shows he is badly incoherent. Kind of like Ozzy Osbourne can barely function except for when he is shoved on stage he can transform into a frenzied mad man.
“League” made no attempt to develop its main characters beyond fighting machines, and in the end, we know just as much about them as we did after reading the “Cliff Notes” from their respective books in grade school. Unlike the far superior “Dirty Dozen” or “Captain Planet” series, where the character’s powers actually mean something, director Stephen Norrington gives little credence to the character’s abilities found in their literary roots.”
I for one hope that neither of these films spawn a sequel. It seemed like back in my day movies had to be really, really good to deserve a sequel. Now they have to really bad to not get a sequel. Did the world really need “The Whole Ten Yards.” No I haven’t seen it.
1-Gigli
Whereas Led Zeppelin had “Stairway to Heaven”, Bruce Willis had “Die Hard,” and Tommy Tutone had “867-5309”, every artist has a masterpiece, a benchmark of excellence that they will be known and recognized for long after they retire.
Indeed Bennett’s review of “Gigli” was groundbreaking. If you were to look at film reviews across the nation by professionals working high profile jobs at big cities, none could approach the preternatural sense of hilarity contained in the opening paragraphs of the review of “Gigli.”
“In the past 100 years, there have been a handful of works of art such as “Birth of A Nation”, “Sgt. Pepper’s", and “Citizen Kane” that have revolutionized popular culture.
It is said that great art can shed light on our own existence and help us to see the world in a clearer light. They provide inspiration and guidance as to what the essence of life is truly all about.
They transform day to day living, inner life and outer life, dream and actuality into a poem whose rhyme scheme is events rather than words. A symphonic unity, which structure setting, character, genre and idea meld seamlessly.
“Gigli” accomplishes none of this. It does feature the incredibly talented couple of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. (Remember in “City Slickers” when Billy Crystal asks what they serve for dinner and the cook replies, “It’s hot, it’s brown and there’s lots of it”? For some reason I always think of that when I see Jennifer Lopez’s ass).
Their collaboration brings to my such legendary pairings as Lennon-McCarthy in The Beatles, when Hemmingway and Picasso created the rubix cube or at least Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford in their 1986 power-ballad duet “If I close my eyes forever.”
We, as a society, can only collectively hold our breathes until they conceive a child, because I am confident that their offspring will no doubt find the cure for cancer, prove the existence of God, or at least be able to beat Super Mario Brothers without warping levels.
“Gigli” is in the same class as “Dumb and Dumberer.” If you could come up with some kind of a crazy drinking game to play to it, or if you had a girlfriend who was pleasuring you orally throughout the entire presentation then I would recommend it, maybe.
P.S. Roger Ebert wrote, “It is so rare to find dialogue of such originality and wit, so well written.” He then gave the film a B-
Roger, please do us all a favor: set your hair on fire and drive yourself into a lake.
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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