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| NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #315 [archive] JULY 27, 2024 |
Gwilliam (2015)
Streaming free at YouTube
This is a 5½-minute short that made no sense to me, so I watched it a second time, and again failed to understand.
My impression is that the film is telling an inside joke, but I'm outside. Explain it to me, if you're wherever inside is.
Verdict: NO.
♦ ♦ ♦
Gymkata (1985)
Streaming free at Daily Motion
Can a major-studio action movie be built around a baby-faced gymnast? To answer that question fairly, it would need to be a movie with a decent script and direction, etc, but this ain't that. Thomas is not a Golden Globes-level thespian, but he's OK at reciting lines, and he certainly has the athleticism. The movie, though, is uninteresting and incompetent.
Verdict: NO.
♦ ♦ ♦
Gypsy 83 (2001)
Streaming free at Tubi
"I just don't fit in, anywhere."
When the show ended, I never heard from Sara Rue again, though IMDB tells me she's had a career and continues to. She's lost weight, becoming an actress who looks like most other actresses, and I'll say nothing about that.
This film was made before the sit-com, and stars Rue being fat and funny. Early on, someone tells her she'd be pretty if she lost some weight, and she replies, "I am a pretty girl. Big is beautiful, haven't you heard? And I don't give a flying fuck or a rolling rim job what you or anyone else thinks of me." That's the attitude and delivery than made me a fan of Ms Rue.
The movie has her playing a big beautiful goth woman who enjoys picnics in the cemetery with her gay best friend, Clive (Kett Turton). They both idolize Stevie Nicks, so they're headed to a Stevie Nicks lookalike jam session in New York City, and on the way they pick up an Amish hitchhiker.
Lots of odd characters are in this movie, all seeming genuine, and being odd and genuine myself I liked that. If there were lots of movies about genuine oddballs, this might be average, but since there aren't many, Gypsy 83 stands tall.
It's not a masterpiece by any means. Karen Black is gone far too early, the second half of the movie drifts away, and nothing short of rape is un-sexier than sex in a public restroom, which happens twice here. It's a good movie, though, with great rock on the soundtrack, and Rue's big presence on the screen always made her a joy to watch.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Habit (1996)
Streaming free at YouTube
Reviewing it is tricky, though. I came in knowing nothing about Habit, and what made it sparkle is the slow progression toward figuring it out. Almost anything I say would be too much, and rob you of the pleasure the film gave me.
So let's just say it's good, and I'm recommending it, but I'm not recommending my review of it.
Stop reading now please. Just put this flick on your watchlist, and move along to the next review.
Still here? I wish you weren't, but if you insist: The main character is mildly annoying, but only the way ordinary people are. He's frequently inebriated, grieving over his recently deceased father, and in the process of breaking up with his girlfriend, while hooking up with a different lady. He has a bloody lip all through the flick, so even looking at him is sorta unpleasant, and it took a while for the movie to start simmering for me.
It's a very indy production, written and directed by its star, Larry Fessenden. It's a character study, then a mystery, and eventually a horror film, all while feeling like these are people you might know if you're not picky who you hang out with.
Fessenden made this without spending millions of dollars, and it's a success, unsettling all the way.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hail (1971/1973)
a/k/a Hail to the Chief
The President is paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere. When he starts having hippies and protesters arrested and jailed, and talks about suspending the constitution and ending elections, one member of his cabinet (familiar character actor Richard B. Shull) decides he must take action.
When the comedy works, it's funny. Here's the President, calling out for pizza: "It's the only house on the block. There's a large fountain out in front. You can't miss it, it's all lit up…"
Some of the laughs aren't there, and the movie has dull stretches, but now and again it's audacious, even breathtaking. You've seen plenty of movies about plots to assassinate presidents, but how many have you seen that think it's a good idea, even in jest?
The film was co-written by Phil Dusenberry, who was mostly an advertising executive. He famously invented "the Pepsi generation," but also dabbled in film, co-writing this and Robert Redford's The Natural, and nothing else.
Hail is unpolished but enjoyable. It was made in 1971, but deemed too subversive to be released. After Watergate, it played briefly in 1973, then disappeared, and remains very hard to find. If you can't score a copy, drop me an email and I'll hook you up.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
It's a backstage Hollywood comedy-drama of the blacklist era, with George Clooney as a dimwitted movie star who's involved with communists, Josh Brolin as a harried studio executive who's been offered a job as CEO of Lockheed, Scarlett Johansson as an Esther Williams knockoff who's scandalously pregnant out of wedlock, Alden Ehrenreich as a singing cowboy star who can't act, and also Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Jonah Hill in fat mode, Channing Tatum, Christopher Lambert, and more and more, and not enough Allison Pill.
Some of this is grand, like when a bar full of sailors burst out singing and dancing, and to someone who's seen Ben-Hur, the Ben-Hur spoof is hilarious. But it tells half a dozen stories, and never coalesces into something solid enough to sweep me out of my recliner and into the flick.
Maybe I should add, though, my reaction was the same when I first saw the Coen brothers' Hudsucker Proxy, but over the years I've come to like that movie quite a lot. So I might be full of hooey.
Verdict: MAYBE.
♦ ♦ ♦
Hail Columbia! (1981)
Streaming free at YouTube
There's too much hero-worship of the astronauts, though, and we're often shown images in only a small square, leaving the rest of the screen blank and black. As I recall, that was the IMAX style back then, but it's weird to watch.
Verdict: YES.
7/27/2024
• • • Coming attractions • • •
Hail! Mafia. (1965)
Hail the Conquering Hero (1943)
Hail the New Puritan (1987)
Hair (1979)
Hairspray (1988)
... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
Huh. So this guy who made Habit made an earlier short film with the same subject, same characters and the same female lead... but 13 years earlier!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm0810874/
And that's all Meredith Snaider acted in. I am definitely checking this one out but only as a precursor to the rabbit hole that must be underneath it!
Must be a habit. (Sorry.)
DeleteReminds me of Sling Blade, and a few other movies it would remind me of if not for my memory loss. A rookie filmmaker had only the funds/knowhow to make a short, but was able to come back later and make the feature film he wanted. The original seems to be unavailable, sadly.
Nice that Habit stuck with the same leading lady. Billy-Bob Thronton dumped Molly Ringwald when he remade Sling Blade.
The short version of Habit is on the Blu-ray of the film. I may have neglected to include that on the movie drives I sent. I actually haven't watched it yet - just his full lengths.
DeleteOr do you mean Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade? That's on youtube, so I assume you mean the Fessenden short.
Yup, I meant the Fessenden short.
DeleteAs for the full-length, seems a mistake for them to have marketed it as a horror movie. Mostly it's other things, better things.
Yeah, he uses the genre both for what it is and also reflexively/metaphorically/secondarily as well. Like a lot of "horror" directors over the years. I see Habit as a story about addiction. No Telling is his Frankenstein story, with an animal rights twist. Wendigo may be his best, a real interesting look at Native American mythology and childhood fears, etc.
DeleteNo Telling and Wendigo are on my list, thanks. His IMDB is all about horror, which is why I'm mostly unfamiliar with him. So many moviemakers with something going on, I dunno why people are willing to settle for all the movies about blah.
Delete