Broadway Melody, Cimarron Won Best Picture! So What, Because They Suck!

BROADWAY MELODY, CIMARRON WON BEST PICTURE! SO WHAT, BECAUSE THEY SUCK!
The Broadway Melody and Cimarron are horrible, terrible, horrible movies and the first two examples of how winning the Academy Award for Best Picture does not guarantee quality.

The Broadway Melody (1929) owns the distinction of being the first talking picture and the first musical to win Best Picture, thus it has a permanent place in cinematic history. Otherwise, though, The Broadway Melody makes me wonder how come the motion picture industry did not return to silent pictures, because the dialogue and the songs both stink up the screen every step of the way. (Apparently, MGM also released The Broadway Melody in a silent version.)

Likewise, Cimarron (1931) is the first Western to win Best Picture and it’s one of those movies, well, near the end of its 130-minute duration, I told my wife, “I feel like I’ve aged 40 years watching this movie.” In fact, I had to use hedge trimmers on my facial hair and step in the barber’s chair after Cimarron, and perhaps I should be thankful Cimarron only covered 1889 to 1929 and not a longer historical span. I might have been in deep trouble, at least six feet under, had the Howard Estabrook and Louis Sarecky screenplay and the 1929 Edna Ferber novel instead considered 50 or 60 years of Yancey and Sabra Cravat.

The first in a series of musicals for MGM, The Broadway Melody stars Charles King as Eddie Kearns and Anita Page and Bessie Love as sisters Queenie and Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney. See, what happens, Eddie and Hank have had a thing, but then he lays his eyes on a now grown up Queenie and boy oh boy, his eyes nearly pop out their head. Whee, Queenie lays off Eddie, sister loyalty, and lets New York high society playboy Jock Warriner (reference to studio mogul Jack Warner) play her. Eddie and Queenie realize they’re in love, Hank finally accepts it, and it all ends happily ever after with the closing line delivered by the character with a stutter. It was so good that I forgot it.

Charles King should have been renamed ‘Charles Sing’ because he sings much better than he acts and the scenes between Eddie and Hank (and Queenie) (and Jock) try and ultimately fail my test for strained melodrama. Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! That’s right, one yap for every piece in the romantic square. Love and Page are easy on the eyes, especially Page, but difficult on the ears with all their hemming and hawing (more Page than Love) and perpetually melodramatic carrying on (more Love than Page). Either way, their dialogue scenes are destined for the mute button and subtitles.

I learned a lesson from Cimarron and it has nothing to do with Oklahoma’s state history before and after statehood on Nov. 16, 1907.

The Lesson: Do not start your movie with a land rush scene, because it’s highly unlikely that you will find something else to approach the excitement of that slambang opener.

After the intense thrills of the land rush, I must admit that I started paralleling Yancey Cravat’s restlessness and I desperately wanted to move to another movie, one that doesn’t even have to be a Best Picture winner, just as long as it can involve me from beginning to end and does not leave me contemplating how many years I have aged just watching it. That’s about the bare minimum I expect from a movie, any movie, and that isn’t asking for too much, now, is it?

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) 1/2*

Let’s start this review with a bold statement and prediction: IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD is the worst comedy I have ever seen and it will remain that way for all my life, even if I would be blessed to reach 100 years old.

Fact: I did not laugh once during the 3-hour, 19-minute duration of IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.

I consider it a lock on being the worst comedy I will ever see because of that length. Sure, I can go 90 or 95 or even 100 minutes not laughing at some dumb or aggressively stupid comedy, no problem, but 189 minutes proved to be a new personal record for remaining in a state of stone cold silence during a comedy. I only broke that silence to express disbelief with a grunt or a sigh. To be honest these intermittent sighs were deep enough to fill the Grand Canyon.

Yes, I almost forgot LEONARD PART 6 (believe me, how I tried forgetting), which I gave no stars and called “the worst movie ever made.” That’s right, it passes comedy straight into being bad enough to encompass all genres.

Why the half-star for a repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive comedy? Because I liked looking at the cast members during any fleeting moments when they were quiet. Once they resumed talking, well, shit, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD turned back into unfunny shit on a stick. Yeah, I felt like IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD beat me over the head with unfunny shit on a stick for roughly a quarter of a quarantine day. I will do my best to utilize past tense during this review because I have no intent to ever watch IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD ever, ever, ever, ever again.

I should rephrase one portion of the paragraph immediately above. Very, very, very, very rarely do any of the characters merely talk during IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. Just imagine a crowded room populated by people who feel compelled to compete with each other for who can be the loudest (and most obnoxious) person in the world, forget the room. And then being trapped inside that room for over three hours describes this movie in a nutshell. Perhaps it would be too much to add real cars to the room. Nah, instead, we’ll have a movie theater size TV in the room playing a loop of car chases at full volume intensity.

Here’s a main character who speaks in a voice resembling that of a normal person: Emeline-Marcus Finch (Dorothy Provine), whose character seems like the movie loaned her from a library amidst the chaos in this loud, loud, loud, loud movie. They no doubt used the Frances Howard Goldwyn – Hollywood Regional Branch Library, only a three-minute walk from the Walk of Fame.

The film establishes a basic tone early on, when five of the characters stand around and squabble over their potential take of the stolen $350,000 hidden under the ‘Big W’ in the Santa Rosita State Park. Yes, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD is basically one long argument over money interrupted by chases, overacting, mugging, pitfalls and pratfalls, dancing, overacting, cameo appearances, police chatter, overacting, an intermission, pitfalls and pratfalls, plane crashes, explosions, and (for old times’ sake) overacting.

Just take a look at some of the cast: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Jim Backus, William Demarest, Jimmy Durante, Peter Falk, Jack Benny, Joe E. Brown, Norman Fell, Stan Freberg, Leo Gorcey, Edward Everett Horton, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis, ZaSu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Arnold Stang, and the Three Stooges, with more than half of them in minute roles. What a sad, sad, sad, sad waste of talent!

Among the main characters, it’s easy to pick my least favorite: Mrs. Marcus, played by Merman. She’s awful from the start and remains awful for the entire length of the picture. IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD partisans argue that she’s a character that people love to hate. I, however, am not one of those people, because I only hate this character. Thankfully, Merman closed out her career with a hilarious cameo in AIRPLANE!

Gordon Gekko told us “Greed is good” during WALL STREET. Meanwhile, nearly 25 years earlier, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD told us “Greed is bad, mkay?”

One more zinger before closing time: I laughed more during Stanley Kramer’s INHERIT THE WIND than I did IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. (If I ever watch Kramer’s JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, I’ll be sure to revise this final paragraph and gag.)

Friday the 13th (1980)

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) One-and-a-half stars

Of all the horror movies over the decades that have been labelled “classic,” FRIDAY THE 13TH is the one arguably least deserving of that label.

Plain and simple, it’s a bad movie. One-dimensional characters, corny dialogue that even makes references to much much much better movies like CASABLANCA, filler scenes, and perhaps the least convincing mass murderer in screen history are some of its crimes against cinema.

Harry Manfredini’s musical score derived from PSYCHO and JAWS and Tom Savini’s make-up and special effects are both very good, and their work earns the film one half-star each.

I can only see FRIDAY THE 13TH being considered a classic if you count all the sequels and imitations.

My personal favorite FRIDAY THE 13TH movies are PART III, THE FINAL CHAPTER (perhaps the most schizophrenic movie ever made, a cross between leering teenage sex comedy and brutal violence), and JASON LIVES. They succeed more at having a sense of humor and a sense of fun than all the other installments. The rest of the movies all have their isolated moments.

If you have seen the sequels before the original, you might be shocked by the film that started it all. It is very sluggish, at times, and there’s no hockey-masked homicidal maniac in the middle of the mayhem.

Sean Cunningham (director) and Victor Miller (screenwriter) made FRIDAY THE 13TH to cash in on HALLOWEEN, which earned $60-70 million on a $300,000 budget. When there’s an unexpected runaway success like that, naturally the clones and variations start appearing in droves and they did after HALLOWEEN for at least five years.

Cunningham and Miller worked together previously on a family film called MANNY’S ORPHANS, released nearly two months before HALLOWEEN. Cunningham began with adult movies THE ART OF MARRIAGE and TOGETHER, produced Wes Craven’s THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and directed a sexploitation comedy named CASE OF THE FULL MOON MURDERS before consecutive family pictures in 1978.

In other words, he saw FRIDAY THE 13TH as the way to make inroads in the brutal movie business. Honestly, who could blame Cunningham, especially as many others had a similar brainstorm.

Cunningham, of course, lacked the finesse and skill of HALLOWEEN director-writer-composer John Carpenter. FRIDAY THE 13TH does benefit, however, from its own low budget production — $550,000 — so it is effective in fits and starts despite itself. It is far more of an exploitation film than HALLOWEEN, and proved nearly as profitable. We saw FRIDAY THE 13TH movies in every year of the 1980s except for 1983 and 1987.

What FRIDAY THE 13TH did was establish a campground setting, add more corpses, er, characters, and amplify the gore, elements that quickly became the norm for an onslaught of “dead teenager” movies. Like virtually every horror movie since CARRIE (1976), it also has one final jump scare. The sequels — namely PART 2, THE FINAL CHAPTER, and THE NEW BEGINNING — upped the nudity and sex quotient. (FRIDAY THE 13TH fans should check out Mario Bava’s BAY OF BLOOD, a 1971 film that undoubtedly influenced the first two FRIDAY THE 13TH installments. If you’ve not seen the Bava film before, you might be surprised. It’s also much better than any of the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies.)

The original FRIDAY THE 13TH exists in that post-HALLOWEEN storytelling mode, where there’s a prologue detailing terrible events that happened in the past and will dovetail with the events of the present. Just about every horror film made after HALLOWEEN includes a bloody, sordid back story.

In FRIDAY THE 13TH, we head back in time to Friday, June 13, 1958, Camp Crystal Lake, when camp counselors Barry and Claudette sneak inside a storage cabin for a little lovin’ and they are murdered. We come to find out that one year before, a 11-year-old boy named Jason Voorhies apparently drowned in Camp Crystal Lake, due to negligent camp counselors.

You could build a nifty little collection of these back story / terrible event in the past scenes.

Let’s see, HALLOWEEN began on Halloween 1963 with 6-year-old Michael Myers killing his older sister Judith.

In PROM NIGHT, it’s 1974 when 11-year-olds Wendy, Jude, Kelly, and Nick cause the accidental death of 10-year old Robin.

In TERROR TRAIN, a sexual initiation prank at a college fraternity’s New Year’s Eve party leads a young man named Kenny to become traumatized and committed to a psychiatric hospital.

In THE BURNING, it’s a fiery prank on a cruel, alcoholic summer camp caretaker named Cropsy that leads to five years in the hospital before his release and revenge.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE waits a bit to spring its 20 years ago flashback story on us.

Anyway, you get the point.

Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) decides that he will reopen a renovated Camp Crystal Lake. That’s his big mistake, one that results in eight deaths — seven of them Christy and his staff — on Friday, June 13, 1979.

Final Girl Adrienne King does have a great scream and some of the same wholesome All-American appeal as Jamie Lee Curtis. We also find out that she’s very talented at making coffee. Alice Hardy is virtually the only likable character among the lot, although we’re aghast that she ever had a love affair with the creepy Steve Christy. Girl, what were you thinking? There goes the whole idea of the Final Girl being a virgin.

As far as the boys go, Kevin Bacon later became a big star but he’s not around long in FRIDAY THE 13TH. Harry Crosby, son of the legendary actor and singer Bing (1903-77), attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and earned his MBA from the Fordham Graduate School of Business Administration before becoming a successful investment banker. Anyway, he’s killed in FRIDAY THE 13TH.

That all leads us to Mrs. Pamela Voorhees, played by Betsy Palmer (1926-2015), who we find out committed all the murders in a final act reveal. This middle-aged, albeit crazy, middle-aged lady, who at first seems like a kindly middle-aged lady, created all that mayhem. Early in this review, I called Mrs. Voorhees “perhaps the least convincing mass murderer in screen history” and I stand behind that claim. I just don’t believe that she could have accomplished such murderous feats, especially as she begins her attack on Alice by slapping her silly. Palmer brings on the camp — as in campy — during her screen time.

Film critic Gene Siskel (1946-99) hated FRIDAY THE 13TH so much that he first gave away the movie’s reveal and Palmer’s fate and then he provided the addresses for the chairman of the board of Gulf & Western Industries (who owned Paramount back then) and Palmer. Siskel rated FRIDAY THE 13TH “no stars.”

Palmer herself thought very little initially of the film and took on the assignment so she could buy a Volkswagen Scirocco. She called the script “a piece of shit” and she thought no one would go see FRIDAY THE 13TH.

In her later years, Palmer embraced the film and the role.

Nowadays, the next FRIDAY THE 13TH might be a documentary on the legal copyright battle between Miller and Cunningham.

As of Oct. 19, 2019, 655 folks have signed the change.org petition “Victor Miller & Sean Cunningham, End The Lawsuit and Work Together To Let Jason Live Again.”

The petition reads, “We, the fans of Friday the 13th ask both Victor Miller, Sean Cunningham along with Horror Inc to end the lawsuit and find resolution over the copyright claim by working together.

“Allowing the battle to take place in court helps no one, especially not the fans of the series. Relying on a courts decision will take years with neither side truly profiting within that time frame. Even after the courts decision one side will likely appeal the case and that will lead to even more years of not profiting on the franchise.

“By coming to a mutual agreement you both compromise and get something you want. You find common ground and you can work together to profit both sides. You’d also be supporting the fans that have supported you and the franchise for so many years. We want to continue to watch the franchise grow under your direction. Please support us as we have supported you. Thank you.”

Juno (2007)

JUNO (2007) One-and-a-half stars

The second episode of the 10th season of “South Park” gave us a great concept that applies to the 2007 comedy JUNO: “Smug Alert.”

That internal smug alert went off throughout Jason Reitman’s film, especially regarding Diablo Cody’s screenplay and Ellen Page’s precious little title character.

Two quotes from “Smug Alert” pinpoint what’s not right with JUNO.

“Being smug is a good thing,” Gerald Broflovski said.

“You mean — we should drive in hybrids but not act like we’re better than everyone else because of it?” Randy Marsh said.

JUNO (both the movie and the character) acts like being smug is a good thing and that it’s better than everybody else because of it, well, yeah, because that’s what it means to be smug.

Believe it or not, Cody’s original screenplay won for “Best Original Screenplay” in both the American and British editions of the Academy Awards. Yeah, I don’t believe it.

The dialogue scene between Juno and a clerk named Rollo proved enough to set off the “Smug Alert.” I’ll quote it all because I’ll let it form my case against JUNO and Juno.

Rollo: Well, well … if it isn’t MacGuff the crime dog? Back for another test?

Juno: I think the last one was defective. The plus sign looked more like a division sign so I remain unconvinced.

Rollo: Third test today, Mama Bear. Your eggo is preggo, no doubt about it.

Tough Girl: It’s really easy to tell. Is your nipples real brown?

Rollo: Yeah. Maybe your little boyfriend’s got mutant sperms. Knocked ya up twice.

Juno: Silencio old man! Look, I just drank my weight in Sunny-D and I gotta go pronto!

Rollo: Well, you know where the lavatory is.

Rollo [yells]: You pay for that pee stick when you’re done! Don’t think it’s yours just cuz ya marked it with your urine!

[later]

Rollo: Well, what’s the prognosis, fertile Myrtle? Minus or plus?

Juno: [taking a pregnancy test] I don’t know. It’s not seasoned yet. [grabs some candy] I’ll take some of these. Nope … There it is. The little pink plus sign is so unholy.

Rollo: That ain’t no Etch-a-Sketch. This is one doodle that can’t be un-did, homeskillet.

Yeah, exactly, that early dialogue indicts itself and the entire film. Did the voters for “Best Original Screenplay” have that scene erased from their collective memories? Never mind all the critics who listed JUNO as one of 2007’s best films — Roger Ebert named it his No. 1 film.

There are some good things in JUNO but they are ultimately overshadowed by that darn you-know-what that starts with ’s’ and ends with ’ss’ (it’s not success or sadness).

I also dislike the cinematic trend where seemingly every single damn character in a comedy talks like a stand-up comedian with crack timing and perfectly-timed cheap shots, even the characters that are not being played by stand-up comedians.

You had to have been living under a rock to not hear about JUNO in late 2007 and throughout 2008.

JUNO received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress (Page), in addition to its one victory.

Other screenplays nominated against JUNO were LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (Nancy Oliver), MICHAEL CLAYTON (Tony Gilroy), RATATOUILLE (Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, and Jim Capobianco), and THE SAVAGES (Tamara Jenkins).

I don’t know about you at home, but I’d favor the rat over the brat ‘cause Ratatouille and RATATOUILLE are not smug in the slightest and that makes a huge difference.

Cody (born June 1978) made a name for herself writing an “adult” blog named “The Pussy Ranch” (honest to blog!) and her memoir “Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper” before she hit the jackpot with her debut screenplay for JUNO. Her life sounds perfectly equipped for becoming an Academy Award winning bio pic. Would her character be played by Miss Sassy Pants Page?

Cody’s other screenplay credits: JENNIFER’S BODY, YOUNG ADULT, PARADISE, RICKI AND THE FLASH, and TULLY. I also regret watching JENNIFER’S BODY, a horror comedy starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried that again set off the “Smug Alert.”

Cody said of JUNO, “You can look at it as a film that celebrates life and celebrates childbirth, or you can look at it as a film about a liberated young girl who makes a choice to continue being liberated. Or you can look at it as some kind of twisted love story, you know, a meditation on maturity.”

I’d rewrite Cody’s quote, “You can look at it as a film that celebrates superficiality and celebrates hipster, or you can look at it as a film about a glib young girl who makes a choice to continue being glib. Or you can look at it as some kind of situation comedy, you know, a meditation on monotony.”

JUNO also frequently misses the mark with the soundtrack, apparently picked by Page herself.

JUNO makes overtures to punk, glam, alternative, et cetera, but picks songs like the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Sticking with You” and Sonic Youth’s “Superstar,” for example, atypical numbers for those bands. Where’s Nirvana and the many bands name-dropped by Kurt Cobain? Like the Vaselines, just one example. Nirvana covered “Here She Comes Now,” the most accessible song from the Velvets’ second LP WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT, 40 minutes and 13 seconds of sound renowned for clearing rooms and making ear drums bleed. What would Juno have made of “Sister Ray”?

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore on JUNO in Magnet Magazine, “Every once in a while, you’ll be asked whether your music can be used in a movie. Invariably, we always ask, ‘What’s the movie about?’ Because you don’t want it to be some kind of grotesque film. I didn’t even remember that they’d used the song until I was watching it with my daughter, then I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ [Laughs} When Mark (Jason Bateman) tells Juno, ‘Here’s a Sonic Youth song, I think you’ll really like this,’ and then he plays the song that’s the least indicative of our music — us covering a Carpenters tune — it’s such an odd choice. It’s also funny that she would be into totally hardcore punk — Iggy, Patti Smith, the Runaways — and then quantify Sonic Youth as ‘just a bunch of noise.’ But I think she was just angry at the guy and trying to get back at him.”

Michael Cera plays Paulie Bleeker in what amounted to his second movie featuring “The Michael Cera Role,” following SUPERBAD, and I was already tired of it. No, that’s not Jesse Eisenberg, who you might remember from THE SQUID AND THE WHALE and ZOMBIELAND. Yeah, it’s confusing.

Guess this confusion happened to the guys all the time.

“I bumped into Jesse on the street once and he told me he gets it once a day,” Cera said in the New York Post. “This guy asked me today if I was Napoleon Dynamite [Jon Heder].”

You know you’re in trouble when the best performance in the movie belongs to Jennifer Garner.

Avatar (2009)

AVATAR (2009) One-and-a-half stars
After I watched James Cameron’s AVATAR for the first time in nearly 10 years, numerous things hit me over the head like a (Hebrew) hammer.

Mental notes:

1) This movie sucks. I mean it, man, and I’m not sure how or why I ever liked it in the first place. I’ll blame it on the alcoholic consumption during my first watch in late ’09 and my love/lust relationship at the time with a woman who loved AVATAR.

2) It never ends. AVATAR is not the cinematic equivalent of the late ’60s Jefferson Airplane chestnut “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” or 216 miles per hour. The final act of AVATAR, in fact, could be called “3/4 of a Hour in 10 Years.”

3) Will Cameron ever direct a film again that comes in under 120 minutes? The 161-minute AVATAR followed hot on the heels (12 years later) of the 195-minute TITANIC. Here are the run times for TRUE LIES (141), TERMINATOR 2 (137), THE ABYSS (140), and ALIENS (137). In fact, you’d have to go all the way back in time to the 107-minute TERMINATOR (1984) for the last Cameron-directed picture under 120 minutes. (For the record, I like TERMINATOR 2, ALIENS, and THE ABYSS, I’ll pass on TRUE LIES, and I’ll have to revisit TITANIC to see how it holds up removed from all the hype and hysteria in late ’97 and early ’98.)

4) It’s been said that no good film is too long and no bad film is short enough. In that case, AVATAR will be cinematically torturous for people who think it’s no good. Let me put it yet another way: AVATAR and my last dentist appointment lasted about the same length of time, and I’ll go back to the dentist before I ever watch AVATAR again.

5) AVATAR just might be the preachiest movie ever made, even more so than any movie about, you know, preachers. Apparently, even 20th Century Fox asked Cameron to remove “some of this tree-hugging, FERN GULLY crap” from AVATAR. This preachiness makes AVATAR a real drag at times, and why it feels more like an endurance contest than an enjoyable, visionary motion picture experience.

6) Cameron practices what he preaches, though, because AVATAR recycles from DANCES WITH WOLVES, POCAHONTAS, FERN GULLY, ALIENS, and several Hayao Miyazaki films (just a short list). We’ve seen this movie before, and better.

7) AVATAR uncannily illustrates the “uncanny valley.” Definition: “The uncanny valley is a common unsettling feeling people experience when androids (humanoid robots) and audio/visual simulations closely resemble humans in many respects but are not quite convincingly realistic.”

8) Blue is not my favorite color.

9) Black is my favorite color. I loved AVATAR most when it finally faded to black.

10) I liked the Na’vi subtitles much better when they were in German on the bootleg copy I first consumed.

11) I must follow the THIS IS SPINAL TAP rule, which means this list must go to 11.