April 27, 2008 - May 3, 2008

Couch Pundit's Sunday Funnies

Michael aka M. Kupperman does the kind of comics art I like best: indescribable. I could tell you about his crimefighting team of Snake 'n' Bacon (they're exactly what their name suggests, a serpent and a talking slice of fried meat), or his superhero, The Mannister, whose power is to assume the shape of a bannister-- but why? Words don't come close to doing Kupperman's deadpan art and dialogue justice.

So here's an example of what he does. See if you can describe it.

Posted by Steve Monaco at May 3, 2008 10:53 PM

My movie year (so far)

Nezulla, the Rat Monster (2002 - Japan), directed by Tagawa Mikita. It's been argued that this Grade-Z biohorror dud was the inspiration for the great recent Hong Kong film, The Host, but its story-- arrogant American military pollutes irresponsibly, creating both a deadly virus and a giant mutation-- has been around since the '50s. Too bad Nezulla didn't have any of the things that made The Host so much fun, like exciting action scenes, interesting characters, and, especially, a title creature that looked scary, not like a goo-covered plastic bunny. The subtitles, on the other hand, appear to have been composed by someone who enjoyed the work-- besides the above declaration, there are plenty of lines like, "Damn these white people! It's like they planted a bomb inside us!"

Gam gai aka Golden Chicken (2002 - Hong Kong), directed by Leung Chun 'Samson' Chiu. It's not every romantic comedy that features its female star as a blow-up doll on the movie poster. Sandra Ng plays a prostitute who gets stuck in an ATM kiosk with a guy who just tried to mug her, and she keeps him amused with Sheherazade-like stories of her colorful past. Ng is a pleasure to watch, and does a fantastic impersonation of Jackie Chan. Besides, how could any movie with a shot like this not be funny?

Le Cochon danseur (1907 - France). Also known as The Dancing Pig, it's a four-minute vaudeville bit committed to film, that now (100 years later!) looks like genuine magic. Best of all, at the very end, the charming little routine turns abruptly into a horror movie, with the pig's costume becoming almost Giger-esque!

Posted by Steve Monaco at May 2, 2008 6:41 PM

Scenes from the 21st century

Posted by Steve Monaco at May 1, 2008 12:56 PM

Great moments in 3-D movie history

The truth about 3-D movies is that only a few of them are even okay, and most of them were really boring and bad. That makes perfect sense-- if the movies had been good, they wouldn't have needed the special 3-D effects. For every House of Wax, Creature from the Black Lagoon, or even Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, there were many more duds like Bwana Devil and Robot Monster.

I think 3-D is much better suited to jokes about the process itself, like SCTV horror parodies Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Slave Chicks and sequels 3-D House of Pancakes and 3-D House of Representatives. And, best of all, this trailer for Albert Brooks' first feature, Real Life. It has absolutely nothing to do with the movie itself (other than a brief 10-second spiel in the middle), and is a classic Brooks short film all by itself. Don't worry if you don't have a pair of 3-D glasses-- just borrow some red and blue cellophane from the person next to you.

Posted by Steve Monaco at May 1, 2008 12:12 AM

The Monday Movie Quiz #173

She may not be the star of the movie, but once you see her, you never forget her. And what a voice!

Know the film she was in? Then send me an email by late Sunday-- if you're right, you'll see your name in next week's heavenly winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at April 28, 2008 3:25 AM

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

One winner spoke for nearly all the others with his one-sentence review of last week's quiz movie-- "Light of Day is exactly what that movie should not see." Maybe it's not that bad, but it's not very good, and today the only real reason to watch it is for Joan Jett in her first feature film.

While it was sold as a Michael J. Fox movie, the real star of Light of Day was Jett. She was completely believable as a rock singer and single mom who can't handle both at once. While that description makes it sound like a role for Shirley Jones, Jett had to handle some pretty grim scenes-- lost custody, dying mother-- and was surprisingly good. I'd even say she was better than Fox, but how hard is that?

(One winner wrote, "Seeing Joan Jett in the flower of her youth was interesting-- it's hard to remember her fresh and un-weathered." Maybe so, but she seemed to be holding up pretty well in the pics of her performance at the Roseau County Fair in 2006. And she seems to be pretty accessible to her fans.)

Light of Day was written and directed by the author of Taxi Driver, and as another reader noted, "Good ol' Paul Schrader-- he couldn't make a feel-good hit if his life depended on it." Schrader may have also planned on making a slighty different movie, because he was originally counting on using a different Bruce Springsteen song for the title. Or, as a quiz winner summarized, "Springsteen was asked to write a song for the original title, 'Born in the USA,' then decided that the results were too good to toss away on the likes of Paul Schrader. Schrader got a new song and title, while the rest of us got . . . well, Light of Day."

The song is a good one, though, and Jett's duet with Springsteen himself is probably the best version of all. Joan outsings him easily-- these days, Bruce hoots and screeches like a hillbilly with a hotfoot-- but Springsteen's guitar work is the best part. I'm a longtime non-fan when it comes to The Boss, and even I like this.

Even if they didn't like the movie, a fair number of people knew what it was, so congratulations and a picture of an unweathered Joan to the following: Vince Tuss, Wayne Palmer, Song-Un Lee, John Seffl, Jim Moomey, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Bob Redwing, Shaun Faulkner, Michael Mattson, ron frigstad, Dave Mallow, Thomas Miller, Bill Hearne, Kevin Musolino, Kenneth Gramer, E. Yarber, Fred Lorence, and Denny Lynch.

Posted by Steve Monaco at April 27, 2008 10:54 PM

Couch Pundit's Sunday Funnies

The writer of the following one-page '60s gem was Dell Comics' resident genius, John Stanley. Stan Lee may have written the adventures of both Spider-Man and Millie the Model (admittedly, quite the creative stretch, and all hail to Stan the Man!) but keep in mind as you read the following that it's by the same guy who was responsible for one of the sweetest kids' comics ever created: Little Lulu.

Posted by Steve Monaco at April 27, 2008 3:37 AM

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