Placenta Ovaries

Being an extra, and some reviews

I haven't made a post in like a month. Sorry, internet. I have all these ideas for posts I want to make, but I'm never in the mood to write anything. I'm still like a hundred movies behind on reviews I need to write, but catching up is actually fairly plausible right now because I hardly ever watch movies anymore. Before last Sunday, I had gone 9 days without watching a movie. All I watch now are VH1 reality shows, pretty much. I started The Wire, though, so at least I'm making a little bit of progress on seeing all the tv shows that everyone but me has already seen. I might try to cram in a bunch of 24 in the next few weeks, too, because I'm seeing Mary-Lynn Rajskub next month, and what if she makes 24 jokes that I don't get! She doesn't appear until Season 3 or something, I guess, so I probably won't even get that far in time.

Last week, I was an extra on All About Evil. My co-stars are Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker (from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Mink Stole, Cassandra Peterson (Elvira), Showgirls' Patrick Bristow, Noah Segan (Brick), and Jack Donner (one of the Puppet Master movies). I'd like to write a full report of my two days on set, including the details of TV's John Connor flirting with me, but I probably won't get to it. It was a good time, though, aside from the hours and hours of sitting around bored. Please see the movie when it comes out, it's gonna be fucking swayze. You can spot me in the front row during the climactic movie theater scene, and also spitting up blood two seats behind Cassandra Peterson later in the same scene.

Here are the rest of my reviews for December.

12/22

Step Brothers (rewatch, 2008, Adam McKay, dvd) - 9
This movie is still great. It's about Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly becoming step brothers, and at first they don't like each other, and then they love each other, and then they fight again or whatever, and everything is hilarious. I also listened to the commentary, which they did as a musical, and it was kind of funny at first and I liked that they were trying something new, but since it was all improv, they would just go with an idea, and then run too far with it, so it would've been better if they had pre-written some stuff. Still, it was better than most commentaries.

12/23

Fraulein (2008, Andrea Staka, dvd) - 3
A woman works a job, and there's also a younger woman who works there, and that's pretty much the plot. It was boring.

12/26

Baby Mama (2008, Michael McCullers, dvd) - 7.5
Tina Fey wants a baby, but her womb is fucked up, so Amy Poehler has it for her. I guess a lot of people didn't think this was funny, but I don't know, I liked it. It wasn't amazing, but it was pretty solid. Steve Martin was awesome in it.

The Strangers (2008, Bryan Bertino, dvd) - 7
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are having some marital problems, and then people in masks come by and terrorize them. It was ok. I didn't understand the ending. Did they leave Liv Tyler alive on purpose, or are they just really bad at being killers? Why would they show their faces without the masks and then not make sure she was dead? Whatever. It was mostly good. This poster is amazing.

12/28

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008, Scott Derrickson, 35mm) - 7.5
Keanu Reeves is an alien, and he tells Jennifer Connelly that some other aliens are gonna destroy the human race because we're not taking better care of the planet, so she tries to convince him to convince them to not do that. It was pretty good. I haven't seen the original, but this seems like it's a pretty decent update of what I imagine the original to be. Jaden Smith was a fucking dick in it, though. Like, that's the only way to describe his character. It wasn't so much bratty or annoying, he was just a fucking dick. They should've killed him off, or like, not had him in the movie at all.

12/30

In Dreams: The Roy Orbison Story (1999, Mark Hall, documentary channel) - 8
Documentary about Roy Orbison. I actually wasn't paying that much attention, but it seemed really good. Hearing Roy Orbison's talking voice is really disconcerting.

Just BARELY made it on time. Christmas movies, part 3!

12/16

The Lemon Drop Kid (1951, Sidney Lanfield & Frank Tashlin, dvd) - 7.5
Bob Hope is a conman who needs to make a bunch of money quick, so he sets up a fake old women's home, and dresses up as Santa on the street to get donations. It's good.

12/17

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005, Shane Black, blu-ray) - 8
Robert Downey Jr. robs a store, but then he poses as an actor to escape police, but then as an actor, he and Val Kilmer end up involved in a murder mystery as research. Something like that. Some of the dialogue occasionally tries too hard to be clever, but it's mostly pretty funny, with good performances.

12/19

Cobra (1986, George P. Cosmatos, dvd/vhs) - 9
The poster tells you everything you could ever need to know about this movie. Crime is a disease, and Sylvester motherfucking Stallone is the cure. On the Christmas episode of Popcorn Dangerous (as opposed to any of the other episodes), I listed this as my 12th favorite Christmas movie, rationalizing that because there are a few Christmas decorations in the background toward the beginning of the movie, that makes it a Christmas movie. But then the day after we recorded that, I watched Showgirls again, and realized that Showgirls also takes place on Christmas, and so if I go by guidelines that loose, it would mean Showgirls is actually my favorite ever Christmas movie, which is very unfair to Silent Night, Deadly Night, which actually pertains to Christmas. So, anyway, I was wrong and Cobra is definitely not a Christmas movie, but I was right when I said that it's totally fucking awesome, which I assume I probably said during the episode, cuz it's true.

12/24

Elves (rewatch, 1989, Jeffrey Mandel, dvd-r) - 10
Speaking of awesome, Elves is fucking full of it. It's about way too many things to even bother explaining. Just watch it. Hopefully, it'll get a DVD release someday.

12/25

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (short, 1936, Dave Fleischer, youtube) - 8
Some kids at an orphanage get a bunch of fucked up toys that fall apart, so Grampy comes and makes them new ones. It's great. Thanks to for posting it all those months ago.

12/26

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964, Larry Roemer, dvd) - 8.5
I had never seen this. It's about a misfit reindeer with a red, glowing nose and a misfit elf who wants to be a dentist, and they skip town to have an adventure. It's really good.

12/31

Don't Open Till Christmas (1984, Edmund Purdom, dvd) - 8
Someone is killing people dressed up as Santa, and the police are trying to solve the case. Some of the murders are fucking awesome, and it's real sleazy. I liked it a whole lot. I also really love the poster. What do you think was in that present that would bleed when stabbed? Either a severed head or a puppy, I guess.

Susan Slept Here (1954, Frank Tashlin, tcm) - 6
For some reason, I became completely obsessed with seeing this movie before Christmas, knowing only that Frank Tashlin directed it and Debbie Reynolds starred in it. But it's not on DVD, and the video store didn't have it, and I couldn't find it anywhere to download. TCM showed it on Christmas Eve, so I set it to record, but I was out of town, so I didn't actually get to watch it until I got home. It turned out to not be nearly as amazing as I had convinced myself it would be. Debbie Reynolds plays a juvenile delinquent who, on Christmas Eve, gets arrested, but instead of taking her to jail, the cops take her to a struggling scriptwriter's house, figuring he could use her for inspiration, and they end up falling in love, but they can't get married because she's underage and he's like 40 or something, which is fucking gross. I love Frank Tashlin, and he does a decent job of making an inherently creepy premise not seem too creepy, but I don't know, I never really bought it, and it also wasn't funny enough.