Stalag 17

I keep a list of movies that I want to see at some point in my life. This weekend I had the opportunity to knock out 2 of them. The first was the previously reviewed Pleasantville. The second one is a classic black and white movie. A talkie. It was Stalag 17.

Now I would image that most people are not familiar with this movie unless you lived in the 1950's or are a big William Holden fan. I certainly cannot claim the former, but I can claim the latter.

Additionally, this movie was the inspiration for the late 1960's / early 70's T.V. comedy Hogan's Heros staring Bob Crane (Hogan), John Banner (Schultz, who ironically is played by a Jewish actor), Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink - also a Jew), and Richard Dawson (Newkirk). In fact, the guard in Stalag 17 was also named Schultz, and was an overweight, somewhat bafoonish guy, just like the Schultz of the T.V. fame. You may recall his famous catch-phrases, "I know nothing. NOTHING!"

Stalag 17 is like a comedic drama. There are plenty of laughs in the movie, from Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) and Animal (Robert Strauss), as well as drama from Price (Peter Graves) and Lieutenant Dunbar (Don Taylor). The underlying theme of the movie opens with a failed attempt to have 2 prisoners escape through a tunnel. These prisoners are shot and killed as they exit the tunnel. Immediately everyone in the camp suspects a mole. The sarcastic Sefton (William Holden) is an immediate suspect because he bet dozens of cigarettes that they would not escape. He then barters his reward with the soldiers for an egg, an exotic meal in the prison camp.

Meanwhile, 2 Americans are captured and brought to the camp suspected of sabotage. If this is the case they would not be considered prisoners of war and would be eligible for execution. The camp musters a plan to capture the detained Dunbar and get him out of the camp. Sefton, in addition to wanting to help get Dunbar out of the camp, wants to identify the real mole and untarnish his name.

The movie is too old to be rated by the existing totalitarian MPAA and their evil ways, but I suspect that if it was rated, it would be PG-13 for some violence and some thematic elements, meaning tense situations. The movie is exactly 2 hours long.

I already consider this one of my all-time favorite movies and give it 5 stars. If you are a war-buff, Americana-buff, or a William Holden fan, get this movie on your list and watch it. On a side note, Thomas Magnum mentioned it as his favorite movie in an episode of Magnum, P.I. So if Magnum thinks it's a great movie, you KNOW it's a great movie.

The Wrestler

Nominated for Best Picture in 2009, The Wrestler is a poignant movie about the life of an aging former professional wrestler and his attempt at a comeback.

Love. Pain. Glory. The movie stars Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, who, ironically, has an almost paralleled life to the wrestler. Rourke's career is pretty much over, no one cares about him, and he makes a big movie to try and make a comeback. Oh, and he's old and ugly. And to top off the king of creepiness, he owns an old Chevy van.

Also in the mix are his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood - Running With Scissors, Thirteen) and a stripper that he tries to engage in a relationship, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei - My Cousin Vinny, What Women Want). After experiencing a heart attack Randy attempts to reconnect with his daughter. He sees the end of the road and he wants to make it up to her. But he has never been there for her and has always found a way to mess up his life and their relationship even more.

Meanwhile, Cassidy the stripper sort of feels bad for the guy. He's a has-been, but he's always good to her. He tries to light a flame under her and their relationship, but she IS a stripper.

While staging his comeback, Randy becomes observant of his fellow wrestlers and what they've become. Is this how he wants to end it? Will he ever be able to make something of his life? Or will he end up as another footnote in the tragedies of professional wrestlers?

The movie is Rated R for language, thematic violence (remember those crazy wrestling matches?), drug use, and sexuality and nudity (she IS a stripper!) and the movie is 105 minutes long.

However, depressing this movie is, it is a great movie. I'm not sure if this movie will jump-start Mickey Rourke's career, but he sure did a great job with the character and he deserves the nominations that he received. I give this movie 4 stars.

Pleasantville

I finally watched Pleasantville for the first time in my life. I know, can you believe it? So many movies I haven't seen.

My main objective for watching the movie is to fulfill my fantasy of dating Reese Witherspoon. I figure if I see every movie she's ever been in and she learns about how obsessed I am, she'll like me. Sounds like a high school tragedy, doesn't it? (And by sheer coincidence, Tragedy by the Bee-Gee's is currently on the radio as I write this.)

As I mentioned, the movie stars Reese Witherspoon, in addition to Spiderman, I mean Tobey Maguire, as her brother, William H. Macy as their father, and Joan Allen as their mother.

Tobey is obsessed with an old T.V. show called Pleasantville, sort of a spoof on late 1950's, early 1960's T.V. shows like Leave It To Beaver and My Three Sons. His sister Jennifer, on the other hand, likes to get around. A lot.

On the day of the big Pleasantville marathon, Jennifer plans to have her boyfriend over, but Tobey plans on watching the marathon. They get into a fight over the remote and it breaks. But not to worry, Barney Fife the T.V. repairman mysteriously shows up at the door with a new magical remote. Unbeknownst to Tobey and Reese, the remote sends them into the T.V. show - black and white and all. As my son would say, this is a gray T.V. show. They then spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to, so to speak, 'get back to the future', only this version is funny.

The presence of the 2 kids in town changes the balance of harmony and things start to fall apart. Then colors start appearing and people start to freak out. What's going on? Will the town tolerate these new changes? I mean, some people have color and some don't. The funniest thing in the movie was a sign in the window that read, "No Coloreds", alluding to segregation in the early to mid-1900's, though the reference is to people in technicolor. In fact, I don't think there were any African-Americans in the movie at all, or black people.

This movie is clever and funny. I'm disappointed that it took me this long in life to see the movie. If you haven't seen it, then you need to knock it off of your list. Because after you see it, "Fire! Fire! Fire!.......Dog in a tree!" will have a lot more meaning to you.

The movie is rated PG-13 for language and sexuality. And Jeff Daniels painted a naked picture of Joan Allen on the window of the diner. It's not a bad picture either. And her in the tub...quite a visualization.

I gave this movie 4 stars, and that's without the Reese bias.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick is Michael Cera (Juno), the typecast insecure nerdy guy who girls kinda like. Norah is Kat Dennings (40 Year Old Virgin), the somewhat insecure girl who knows what she likes, knows who she's not, and is quite glad about it. Together, they have Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Norah attends a hoity toity rich girls' school, along with Alexis Dziena (Broken Flowers), but doesn't quite fit in. She and some girls meet at a local music venue that specializes in gay bands. In an act of desperation, Norah runs up to Nick (the non-gay member of the band) and asks him to kiss her and pretend he's her girlfriend.

Nick actually sort of likes Norah and his friends decide that she's the girl for him. Problem is that Norah's friend Caroline needs to get home because she's super sloppy drunk. The gay guys say they will take her home and Norah agrees. Now the shenanigans begin.

The movie plays a lot of good music, hence the infinite playlist. Nick and Norah fall in and out of, well, we won't call it love, but maybe a budding interest in each other.

The movie is fast movie, funny, and lovable. I found myself cheering for both of them. The movie is rated PG-13 for teen drinking, sexuality, language, crude behavior, and gayness and is just over an hour and a half long. I gave this movie 4 stars.

Broken Flowers

I got this movie out of the library for a few reasons. First, I was watching Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and noticed one of the characters. I thought she was pretty hot, but before I publicly announced that she was hot, I wanted to make sure she was over 18. So I went on www.imdb.com.

To my delight, Alexis Dziena is 25. Then I noticed she was in Broken Flowers. I did a Google image search and out popped a totally nude picture of her. As Joey Lawrence would say, "Whoa!" So I reserved it from the library.

When it arrived I read the back and it was rated R for language, drug use, and graphic nudity. Graphic nudity? What does that mean? I was thinking extended sex scenes or something.

Now, the movie itself is a dark humor movie starring Bill Murray, a former comedian. He receives an unsigned letter informing him that he has a 19 year old son. With the help of friend Winston (Jeffrey Wright), Murray decides to drive around and reconnect with former girlfriends to find out if they are the mother and if they typed the letter on a typewriter.

There is nothing overly funny about the movie. It is filled with long awkward pauses, which at first were funny, at least the first 41 times, but after that they got annoying. Murray is down on life and every former girlfriend that he finds reminds him that he sucks. Some of if was mildly funny. But for the most part I was unimpressed.

The movie also stars Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, and Jessica Lange as former girlfriends. But as I mentioned, the reason I watched it was Alexis Dziena. And based on what I saw and the rating, I have come to the conclusion that MPAA description of graphic nudity means that it shows pubic hair. A boob? That's just nudity. Pubic hair? That's graphic. How ridiculous is that?

So I give this movie only 2 stars. Bill Murray is no longer funny. And the graphicness of the movie was not enough to win me over. Booo!

My Best Friend's Girl

I have to admit that I will receive the Doomass Award this year. I watched this movie and near the end I was like, "How many more times are they going to play that song by The Cars??? Oh, then it hit me. The song is called, My Best Friend's Girl. Duh!

My Best Friend's Girl stars Dane Cook, the profanity-laden closet homosexual comedian as Tank, Kate Hudson, the real-life daughter of Goldie Hawn, as Alexis, the real-life Socialist Alex Baldwin as Professor Turner, the misogynistic father of Tank, and pussy-whipped boyfriend in American Pie Jason Biggs playing Dustin, the pussy-whipped want-to-be boyfriend in this movie.

The premise of the movie is simple. If you want to look like a better boyfriend, hire Tank to take out your girl (or ex-girl). He'll show her the worst time of her life and she'll realize how great she had it and she'll come back crawling on her knees to you. However, his newest assignment, Alexis, isn't so simple. The problem is he actually falls in love with her.

The movie is mostly a battle of profanity and put-downs, many of which are very funny. Kate Hudson prances around in her bra a lot in the movie showing you how small her boobies are - not that it's a horrible factor, but just something that I noticed.

Overall, the movie is somewhat funny. Dane Cook has perfected playing the likable spontaneous jerk and Kate Hudson surprises us with her witty spunkiness. Baldwin and Biggs, however, are no surprises.

The movie is rated R for profanity, sexual situations, profanity, crude humor, and profanity. I give this movie the average of 3 stars.

Pineapple Express

I originally thought this was a movie about Hawaii's new transportation system. Perhaps a mental transportation, but certainly not a physical one.

Seth Rogen and James Franco star in Pineapple Express, the zany comedy where they're being chased by the bad guys after they witness a murder while doing a stakeout in order to issues a summons. Seth Rogen is the average guy who likes to smoke a little pot, okay, a lot of pot. This is a character that Seth Rogen has perfected, almost as if he really likes to smoke a lot of pot.

James Franco, best known as the son of the Goblin, is Rogen's dealer. Rogen figures out that they'll probably find the roach and figure out that it's the pineapple express blend, track down the dealer and find him. So both go on the run.

Also in typical form, Rogen uses the movie as an opportunity to break the world record for dropping the F-Bomb in a 2 hour movie. I thought the South Park movie held the record, but according to this site, Pineapple Express actually comes in 62nd place.

The movie has some cameos by some has-beens and some future has-beens, including Nora Dunn, Ed Begley Jr, and Bill Hader.

Pineapple Express is rated R for persistent and pervasive language, some drug use, wait, lots of drug use, some sexual innuendo, and lots of violence. But don't get me wrong the violence is mostly hysterical. The movie is 129 minutes long.

Overall I give this movie 3 stars. Most of my friends gave it 4 stars, but all will admit that I'm slightly turned off by foul language. The movie is a good laugh, though. Check it out!