Movie Day of the Dog: Fido

In this week's underdog, Fido, atmospheric anomalies turn all recently deceased into zombies in this under-appreciated comedy, already bucking undead lore and introducing some interesting possibilities.

In lieu of showing a zombie outbreak and subsequent war, the zombie apocalypse has already occurred, and the remaining zombies are controlled and made slaves via a containment collar. Shown in a very 1950s "duck and cover" small town environment, a young boy finds a father figure in his zombie "pet," and an intriguing, funny tale of morality, society, and justice ensues.

Don't think of underdog Fido as didactic, though; it's pure fun, but while the over-the-top perfect small town setting would grow tiresome after a little while, Fido keeps it wholly interesting by making a few witty jabs at Red Scare thinking. In-character acting by an all-star cast completes the picture, which is really far more entertaining than gut-bustlingly hilarious or at all scary.

Why it deserves dog status: Well, with an IMDb rating of 7.0, it seems most viewers really appreciated Fido has to offer, but with a mere 8,500 votes, it's also obvious that this one never quite made it onto many people's radars. You don't have to like zombie flicks to appreciate this instant classic, but loving the genre will make many moments that much better.

The Matrix's Carrie-Anne Moss is excellent as the unwitting love-interest for Fido, and while largely mute, Bill Connolly is dynamite as Fido, with lots of humorous nuances and tacit jokes.
So check out Fido when you're in the mood for a good laugh and some witty entertainment.

The Five Best and Worst Movie Last Words

Five Best Movie Final Words

5. "What say you now, gentleman," says Federal Judge Justin Beach in Bad Company while looking at a picture of fellow judges just before riding the bullet.

4. "MMMMMMMMRRRFFFFFF!" says Gene Simmons just before the grenade Rutger Hauer taped to his mouth goes off in Wanted: Dead or Alive.

3. "What's that smell?" says Fight Club's Tyler Durden before blowing a smoke ring and right after alter ago "Jack" eats a bullet.

2. "You just shat in the one apple pie that knows how to shit back," says self-proclaimed tough guy Hank in Club Dread before promptly getting sliced open.

1. "We die" says Lord Kril from The Last Starfighter, when asked the insipid question: "What do we do?" when about to collide with a moon. In the pregnant pause before these words, Krill's cool little wrap around orange-shaded monocle slides into place.

Five Worst Movie Final Words

5. "Diplomatic immunity" says antagonist Arjen Rudd in Lethal Weapon 2 before Danny Glover puts a bullet between his eyes.

4. "Okay" says Matt Damon in The Departed when coming home to find a CSI-be-damned Mark Walhberg wrapped in plastic and holding a silenced gun.

3. "Fajajrualladuwla!" yells Tom Cruise in Valkyrie before being gunned down by a firing squad. The only thing I can figure is that he finally broke back into German and he was saying: "Please don't shoot!"

2. "But" and "I" say the twins aptly named Igg and Ook in Hudson Hawk before being shot by Sandra Friggin' Bernhard for failing their mission.

1. "But this is my home" says patriarch Jim Dahlberg in The Day After when confronting a roaming family settled on his land, who promptly shot him in the gut. Apparently this guy figured that after a full-scale nuclear holocaust people should still abide by property rights. Good thinkin'.

"Choke" goes down easy, but doesn't linger

I should begin by admitting that Choke is my favorite novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who happens to be one of my favorite authors. So, there's that, which might be considered a rather fine screen through which I'm shaking down the new-to-DVD Choke, with rough-around-the-edges Sam Rockwell.

From the onset, the film is in your face, much like Palahniuk's other book-turned-film, Fight Club. You are hip deep in comic depravity before you've even gotten the premise. In this way, Choke excels, since few films can pull off making nihilism intriguing (though not many films are based on Chucky P's novels now are they?). All scenes based in Victor's job site - think Colonial Williamsburg - are fantastic, as they were in the book.

I had a few issues, though, that I think even someone watching the film without having read the book would likewise pick up on.

1. The acting is bad at times. Not horrible, but Denny and his odd-couple stripper girlfriend Cherry Daquiri are pretty bad, as is Doctor Marshall at some times, not at others.

2. The flashbacks could have been handled better, as they lack the punch that these scenes could have had. I found myself far more interested in the relationship with Houston and Rockwell as present day Victor and Ida than in any of the flashbacks, and they ultimately add very little and have some rough transitions.

Too, Palahniuk is known for his ability to have odd, fascinating origins to the strange characters and occurrences in his novels. In Lullaby, you find out that the cause of SIDS is the unintentional incantation of an ancient culling spell - I mean, that's cool stuff!

Alas, these facets in the film version of Choke are largely missing, such as how Victor's money-making scheme of choking in fancy restaurants is brought to an end, or where Doctor Marshall really came from. These are things that would not have been difficult to include in the film, but are left unanswered or replaced with more mundane explanations.

All in all, Choke is very much worth your time, and worth a rental, even a purchase. It's funny, Rockwell is great, and it's twice as original as anything else you'll see the mainstream film industry putting out.

The ways in which it falls a little short are just in the insipid hopes of a silly Palaniuk fan, and are therefore to be largely ignored.

Throwback Thursday: "Tourist Trap"

Tourist Trap is not a film that I haven't seen and decided to watch for the first time, as most of my Throwbacks are, but rather one that has been tormenting me since I first saw it during a shut-in at the YMCA in little Greeneville, Tennessee.

Granted, it didn't take too much to scare me back then, but having seen the movie once more a few days ago, I can honestly say that it is a genuinely scary and innovative film that I am surprised doesn't have a more significant following.

Today's horror movies avail themselves of a few modern elements that I think actually hurt the genre, if indeed the purpose of a horror flick is to scare the viewer.

1. Jump scares. These occur when the creepy hand comes out from under the bed and grabs the all-too-inquisitive protagonist, often accompanied by a harsh violin noise. This is nothing new, but the ability to make it loud and solicit more "jumps" is, due to THX sound and home theaters. Hence, however, you have film after film of no real substance, but just one jump scare set up after another. There's just no meat there.

2. CGI. Two words: Van Helsing. There isn't a damn thing about that movie that is remotely scary or disturbing, and CGI is the sole culprit in this. A cartoon wolf - no matter how large, muscular, or agile - is still a cartoon wolf.

3. More CGI. This time, I'm talking about CGI gore. Humans are not easily fooled when it comes to what we see, particularly in regards to other humans. So when someone gets cut and a bunch of CGI blood flies out, there's a very subconscious part of our brain that cries "BS!" Thus, anything that would have been disturbing is now cartoonish and maybe even funny.

Trap has none of the following modern techniques, and it - like so many others - is all the better for it. The fear comes not from hands that shoot out of nowhere or wayward cats leaping from the closet, but from tense, prolonged scenes of horror as the mannequins are brought to life - they laugh, fool, and otherwise torment the teens about to meet their doom. Cacophonous music echoes and builds to a crescendo that ends with the inevitable demise of the victims, with cuts to the various mannequins building the fear factor and making it stick in the head.

In contrast to cartoon wolves of no consequence to the viewer, something as blatantly illogical as a moving mannequin adds a disturbing undertone to the film, so you're not asked to fear some hillbilly hanging on to the dregs of a dying tourist attraction, but rather his animated minions and his masked alter-ego (again, a time when something unnaturally fake is disturbing, not laughable).

Just ask yourself: what was the scariest thing about Poltergeist? The clown, right? Trap taps into that same base revulsion of the doll brought to life.

So pass up gag-worthy modern horrors when you're in the mood for a good scare and give Tourist Trap a try. It represents the type of horror flick now high on the endangered list - the kind which stays with you after it's over.

Day of the Doc: Confessions of a Superhero

I don't think that reviewing documentaries will necessarily become a weekly thing, but there are some excellent documentaries out there that are in no way so artsy that they would lose the mainstream moviegoer. Confessions of a Superhero is very much along those lines.

Confessions surrounds the lives of four actors who dress up as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and the Hulk and hang around in front of Mann's Chinese Theater posing in photos for tips. They make anywhere from $30 - $500 per day, so not exactly a predictable income, but potentially sweet.

Like many things LA, the characters have a sort of sad desperation about them, thinking that perhaps Steven Spielberg is going to come by and sweep them off of their rubber-booted feet with a lead role. They all have pretty spotty pasts, and mediocre futures, but they also take some pride in what they do, though I'm equally sure they'd rather be in some really, really bad movie rather than spend another minute in front of Mann's.

Confessions is very human in that it portrays many things about these four people that you can really relate to, not at all progressing like reality television, with slow piano music and slo-mo crying scenes backed with poorly-acted voice-over (if I had a nickel for every one of those).

Actually, it's exceptionally well cut - knitting together scenes that flesh out these people in a way that there own commentary or the insights of those actually shooting the doc never would. It's full of irony and truth, without making any spoon-fed judgments about how you're supposed to feel about them or about what they do.

I think that documentaries have come a long way in the last decade - shifting from something only emos and film school students cared for. Now, they are as well constructed and thought-out as any movie, and tend to come across far more germane because of it.

You don't have to have any interest in LA or super heroes to enjoy Confessions, just plan on doing something fun afterward, as this is ultimately a sad tale of failed dreams - an LA mainstay unfortunately.

DVD: "Quarantine" infectious

If you've read some of my other reviews, you'll know I'm a zombie fan, so just take that slight bias into consideration when reading my opinion about new-to-DVD Quarantine. Of course, I might be more critical of zombie flicks, however, since I know when to raise the flag on the parts that violate zombie lore for ill.

And Quarantine does violate some zombie lore...but for good, in my opinion, not for ill. Sometimes it's cringe-worthy to watch a zombie movie where the heroes move as slowly as the zombies. But they films must keep having someone getting bit or else how does it spread? This often tends toward unrealistically clumsy, slow, or careless heroes, who are kicking zombie tail one minute, and then letting a crawling zombie bite their ankle the next.

In Quarantine, the action is contained, as is the infection. You know this at the film's beginning, and it does nothing to take away from it, but rather connects you to the characters without worrying about if and when the infection spreads, the worldwide social effects, and other facets of zombie lore often either glazed over or handled poorly (it is hard to glean a billion extras willing to amble along in heavy makeup, I'm sure).

Before you run off and snag the DVD - zombie fan or not - there are a couple of things to consider:

1. The camera work is choppy, moves a lot, and may cause dizziness is some. This is nothing new. Think Cops. Think Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. If the camera work in those films doesn't bother you, then you'll be fine. If you like that style (as I do) then you'll find that Quarantine adds to this sub-genre rather well, with innovative scenes in total darkness, real in-your-face moments, etc.

The cameraman really is present for the whole thing, and he's given life and feelings and emotions. For some, this type of film brings out the raw talent of actors where for others, it's just a lot of whining and shaky cameras.

2. Just because I said it goes against zombie lore for good doesn't mean there aren't some "come on!" moments. The incubation time seems to vary completely, as does zombie speed and strength.

Many zombie flicks now fall just as much into the action genre as they do horror, but Quarantine is horror first, and it's very refreshing to see. While I like movies such as Resident Evil and Doomsday, these are action flicks who happen to have zombies, not horror. Quarantine brings the scary, disturbing element back to the zombie genre in a unique, palpable way that I think Romero's Diary of the Dead tries but falls short of achieving.

Again, this is not for the kiddies, nor the squeamish, but I think that a mature teen who loves the genre could appreciate it without being exposed to excessive gore or sexual situations.

Day of the 'Dog: "Evan Almighty"

After Bruce Almighty, I wasn't expecting too much out of today's dog - the sorta-sequel of director Tom Shadyac, Evan Almighty. But Evan is a pleasant surprise from start to finish.

While rubber-faced Jim Carrey is the total center of attention in Bruce, Evan has a score of notable actors all bringing their own brand of comedy into the mix: Steve Carell, Jonah Hill, and even Wanda Sykes (who I usually find rather annoying, but who's quite funny as Evan's no-holds-barred secretary).

Why it deserves dog status: Evan received a 5.6 star rating compared to Bruce's 6.5, and sports only half of the reviews (granted, Bruce is older). This is likely due to either people who automatically declare that they don't like Carell, or because they still had a bland taste in their mouths after Bruce.

Yet Evan has far more depth than Bruce, bringing up more religious and philosophical ideas rather than the blaming God mantra of Bruce. And speaking of God, Morgan Freeman's character in Evan is much more three dimensional, coming across less as a pedantic deity trying to get his point across and more as a warm and caring God.

Let's not forget the fact that the film is both hilarious and filled with clever symbolism without having one of those close-up "here's the morale of the story" moments that I can't stomach. The chemistry between both Carell and his family as well as his "crew" at the office proves entirely believable, and keeps the story moving along without any "good time to hit the bathroom" moments, either.

If you've not seen Evan because you - like me - think Bruce is pretty mediocre, give it a fair shake and I think you'll be far more entertained and feel much better about Evan, despite the reviews.