Movie Mon. - Zinger Calls Her "Aemish Flux"

Not a lot of movie watching this week because (a) Netflix was really slow in getting some of my returns and (b) I spent a lot of time listening to the commentaries for Martin and Orloff and Reefer Madness: the Musical, both of which were highly entertaining. Still disapointed there's not soundtrack available for Reefer Madness. Oh, well. On to the reviews


Gingerdead man: Remember when Gary Busey was a respected actor? Okay, me neither. Still, playing a psycho killer trapped inside an animated gingerbread man can't be anything but a step-down for him, right? As I listened to his character's ramblings, I was reminded of the commentary on the episode of Entourage he appeared in, where the cast and crew talked about the fact that he refused to learn his lines, and would only speak what the thought felt "true" to him at the time, and had to wonder if he followed the same precept here when he wasn't playing himself; it would help explain his character's incoherency. Still, have to admit that having him in the role gave killer's psychotic tendencies a bit more weight . . . The fight between the lead and the spoiled girl? Worst. Catfight. Ever. And the characters' rationale for staying in the bakery instead of running for their lives was what again? Before they discovered the ill-defined and improbable "booby-traps" that is. And the FX, the horrible, horrible FX; several times when the killer looked like he'd be more at home on Greg the Bunny than in a horror flick. Some pretty pitiful acting as well, as most of the actors did their best to butcher Southern accents. The two leads did okay jobs; I think her performance was helped by the fact that she didn't even try an accent. Wise choice. All in all, plenty of unintentional comedy to keep my entertained; I also found the various baked good puns mildly amusing. My favorite: Killsbury Doughboy.

Aeon Flux: First of all, let me say that I liked it; seen better, seen worse, but all in all, not sorry I spent money to see it, which is more than I can say for some films (I'm looking at you, John Carpenter's Vampires! Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate and I still want our two dollars back!). Some cool concepts and designs, such as the killer garden and all of Aeon's special enhancements. There were also some nice nods to the animated series it was based on: the character with hands for feet; the passing-secret-info-through-Frenching maneuver; the special device needed to get into Trevor's lab; the fleeting glimpse of Aeon in sleep gear that looked a little like her super-skimpy outfit in the cartoon (the lack of which in the trailers caused Zinger to dub her "Aemish Flux"); and, of course, the infamous fly-trapped-by-eyelashes image which, of course, did not look anywhere near as cool in the film as it did on the cartoon, but a nice effort. My biggest problem with the film is this: it actually made sense! How can you have an Aeon Flux story that actually makes sense? It defies reason that the film does not defy reason! I also spent far too much time trying to figure out where the heck I knew Trevor's brother from: turns out it was Jonny Lee Miller, best known to me as Crash Burn, the lead hacker in Hackers, most recently seen by me in the surprisingly-entertaining Mindhunters.

Murderball: Very interesting documentary about wheelchair rugby, which was originally called murderball, but whose name was changed because "it's hard to sell murderball to corporate sponsors." The focus is nominally on the rivalry between the U.S. and Canadian teams, but, of course, as with all good documentaries, it's more about the people than the sport. You get a pretty intimate look at the lives of some of the more prominent players on the U.S. team, as well as the highly embittered coach of the Canada team, whose sole purpose in life is to beat the U.S. team, for whom he was once one of the most valuable players before getting cut (unfairly, in his eyes) because he was getting too old. The scenes between the uber-competitive, sports-minded Canada coach and his nerdy, violin-playing son are pretty interesting, in a "that kid's going to need tons of therapy some day" sort of way. Fair warning to the easily offended: the guys they show here are rough and randy and raunchy; there's a section of the film devoted to the impact of spinal cord injuries on sexual activity that's pretty frank. This might be a documentary, but it's definitely an R-rated one. Also, some of the early scenes where the players are showing their scars and injuries and the like . . . *shudder* Gave me the heebie jeebies. I can watch slasher films 'til the cows come home, but seeing real-life injuries like that freaks me out to no end.