The Stuff

I had never heard of The Stuff until by buddy Danny O'D recommended it to me for my month of horror reviews.  I've seen a lot of horror movies, but Dan is my go-to guy for horror, so when he says that I'll like a horror movie, I usually take his word for it.

The Stuff opens with some redneck miners, giving Death the middle finger by heading into the underground labyrinth/health spa that is their job.  One particularly hillbillied redneck stops to notice some white goo bubbling from the ground.  What would you do in this situation?  If you answered "taste the goo," then get back in the mine, you hillbilly slacker!  Personally, my first (admittedly uneducated) assumption about white goo coming from the earth is that it is planetary semen (AKA Earth jism), so putting it in my mouth would be toward the bottom of my to-do list.  I am not much of a 'billy, though, and this miner ate it up.  And it was good!  So good, in fact, he convinced his friend to have some.  And he liked it, too!  A jump cut later, and we are in the near future, where The Stuff is the number one consumer product on the market.  It's sweet, it's creamy, it's filling, and it has zero calories --- no wonder America "can't get enough --- of The Stuff!"

Not even trannie spokespeople can derail The Stuff

There is just one problem...The Stuff isn't good for you.  It's highly addictive and even has a limited ability to control people who have eaten too much Stuff.  Once it's had its way with you, The Stuff will ooze out of your body, leaving a hollowed-out corpse behind.  Where does it go?  Um.  Home, maybe?  To be honest, that part isn't really explained.

One particularly mediocre child actor, Jason (Scott Bloom), realizes the danger The Stuff poses and starts to act out.  He knocks over hundreds of dollars of Stuff at the grocery store and refuses to eat The Stuff at home, even though that's all his family is eating.

Trust me, son --- I want to see you dead with white stuff on your face

Meanwhile, Mo Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) is hired by the ice cream industry to steal the secret of The Stuff, because their sales have been so negatively impacted by this new craze.  Mo is an industrial saboteur/blackmailer/former FBI agent that seems pretty stupid with his thick-enough-to-cut Southern drawl, but he's actually a clever, likable guy.  He manages to befriend fellow dessert-employed investigator Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris) and seduce The Stuff's head of marketing, Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), with shockingly little effort on his part.  After seeing the effects of The Stuff on normal people --- and surviving an attack from some rogue Stuff --- Mo decides that his key to success is a dim-witted child, so he rescues Jason from his Stuff-controlled parents.  Mo has assembled a marketing expert with terrible taste (Nicole) and a child (Jason) to aid his investigation, and has sent a cookie spokesperson (three guesses) to contact the FBI.  Normally, this assembling of the main characters would happen toward the climax of the film, but The Stuff reaches this point within the first thirty minutes.  What could the next hour have in store?  More Stuff.

In many ways, The Stuff is a stupid, stupid movie.  Most of the characters are slow on the uptake at best, and significantly handicapped at worst.  The special effects range from pretty good to "that's obviously a green screen," although it is the easiest effects that often look the worst.  For instance, goo filling a room gets the noticeably bad green screen treatment...

...while Garrett Morris's head expanding gets some solid (although not frightening) practical effects. 

While I was surprised at how well the plot holds up (considering is begins with hillbillies getting a money shot from the Earth), there are many stupid moments in it:

• When Mo has a glob of Stuff on his face, smothering him, Nicole says "Hold on, I'll burn it;" by "it," I assume she means his face.  Remarkably, his face and hair are none the worse for wear after having flaming Stuff on them.
• As it becomes known that Mo is investigating The Stuff, a Stuff-branded truck tries to run him over in the street.  Sneaky!  Sadly, the vehicular homicide subplot is quickly dropped.
• There are hundreds of Dairy Queen-like shops that exclusively sell The Stuff.  Okay, so maybe we'll see Stuff concoctions, like a Stuff pie, or a Stuff cone, or Stuff with Reese's Pieces in it, right?  Nope.  You get the same pint container that you buy from the grocery store.  All you get from these locations is a plastic spoon to go with it.
• Okay, you're a kid trying to spy on The Stuff factory.  You climb on a tanker truck to hear the employees talk, but are forced to hide or you will be discovered.  Where do you go?  If you said "inside the tanker," you deserve whatever happens next.

To be completely honest with you, though, The Stuff is surprisingly fun to watch.  The acting isn't great by any means, but it is certainly interesting.  I'm not too familiar with Michael Moriarty, but I was fairly certain that I would hate his stupid twang and frequently explained nickname after the first scene.  Remarkably, Moriarty kept the ridiculous accent up for the entire movie, complete with some unusual cadences and a nearly permanent smirk --- and, even more remarkably, I actually ended up liking his goofy-ass performance here.  I'm still not entirely sure why. 

I'm pretty sure his next line is "Hyuk, hyuk."

Garrett Morris isn't in much of the movie, but he was perfectly fine.  Andrea Marcovicci and Scott Bloom were both pretty wretched, though. 

Mild disinterest is the best he can do

There are a decent number of notable bit parts in this movie.  Paul Sorvino plays a nutty right-wing colonel with more of a straight face than the role probably required.  Danny Aiello get mauled by his Stuff-fueled dog.  Patrick O'Neal not only got his name featured in the credits with a box around it (80s cast credits were weird), but he also got to play a weaselly executive.  There is a fake ad for The Stuff that features Abe Vigoda in it; it's not a great part, but it was enough for me to say "Oh, hey...Abe Vigoda.  Huh."  If you have a good eye, you can spot some no-dialogue cameos from the very young Eric Bogosian (in the supermarket) and Patrick Dempsey (the street thug at the very end with what looks like a perm).

The Stuff has many aspects that place it within the horror genre, but it's not a very good horror movie.  There is no suspense or scares.  There is some pretty decent gore, especially when Stuff-controlled people get their heads caved in; as one soldier comments, "I kind of like the sight of blood, but this is disgusting."

Above: a novelty SNL toothpaste dispenser

Writer/director Larry Cohen seems to realize this, and has made a pretty decent horror/comedy instead.  This is a poorly/cheaply made film, with several scenes of dialogue obviously being overdubbed and a few moments where a supporting cast member seems to flub their lines but still continue on.  What sets this apart from other crappy horror movies that try to be funny is the fact that it is actually decently amusing.  The gags aren't great, but there is a little wit in there, and some light satire of our consumer culture.  Perhaps the most important thing about The Stuff is that the main actors are committed to the silliness of this story; they could have tried to play this straight as a monster-type movie, but I thought Moriarty in particular did a good job matching the film's tone.  Admittedly, The Stuff isn't much of a horror movie, but it is good choice for a not-too-scary, not-too-gory 80s horror flick, especially if you want to break a youngster into the genre gently.  I imagine that if I saw The Stuff as a child, it would have been an early favorite.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

After I caught Willard in the theater several years ago, I heard another theatergoer remark, "Worst.  Movie.  Ever."  One of my friends (or possibly, me --- it's been a while) loudly countered with, "I don't know about you guys, but I paid to see a movie about rats, and that's what I got."  Expectations can be a tricky thing with movies.  Too high, and you're likely to be disappointed, too low and you'll forgive just about anything.  I was a pretty big Transformers fan as a child, so I was super excited when the first film went into production; then I realized that Michael Bay was directing it, and those expectations dropped considerably.  I've seen all three Transformers movies in theaters now (four, counting the animated one), and I have entered each film with the same expectation: giant robots fighting each other.  Sure, other filler stuff might happen, but that is what the movies need to satisfy me.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon begins with a Transformer spacecraft crash landing on the moon in the early 1960s.  The knowledge of that crash created the space race, which culminated in the Apollo 11 space walk.  You might have thought the space race was a time of scientific achievement and ridiculous funding, but it was all a ruse; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's true mission was to investigate an enormous space wreck.  It makes you wonder what Tom Hanks would have done if Apollo 13 had been successful, eh?

In the present time, the Autobots (the good Trannies) are spending their time hunting for any left over Decepticons (the bad Trannies) that survived Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  To kill time between giant robot fights, they help out the US government by apparently fighting terrorism.

Presumably pictured above: a member of Seal Team 6

On a mission in Chernobyl (tourism motto: the playground of Eastern Europe), the Autobots find a fuel cell from The Ark, an Autobot ship that was damaged as it left the Transformer home planet of Cybertron.  Autobot leader Optimus Prime and the other good Trannies head out to the moon and investigate the wreckage, finding the inactive (but not dead) Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy) and some important devices.  These devices, called "pillars," can create a space bridge capable of transporting large amounts of stuff across the universe.  Like what?  Oh, I don't know, maybe...an invading force of Decepticons?  Clearly, Sentinel Prime and the pillars must be kept safe from the Decepticons and their leader, Megatron.  One thing that troubles me, though, is what happened to the several hundred other pillars that were supposed to be on The Ark...

Oh, and there are some stupid human subplots that involve Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) trying to find a joe job and dealing with the pressures of living with a fantastically successful girlfriend (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) who could pass as an underwear model.  These stresses help shape Sam into an ungrateful, whiny man-child and lead to all sorts of awkward and "comical" interactions with the likes of John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, John Turturro, Alan Tudyk, and a slumming Frances McDormand.

Yeah, I'd be pissed if I wore white that day, too.

I know that the acting in this movie is probably the furthest thing from your mind, but I have to comment on it.  I hate Shia LaBeouf in this movie.  He is such a dick to everyone else and he keeps getting rewarded for it.  There was one moment, where he had to choose between his girlfriend (who he can have sex with) and Optimus Prime (who he probably can't have sex with), that could have made up for the rest of his bitchy performance --- but that incredibly difficult decision ended up having no impact on the greater plot, so who cares what happened?  I thought Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who more or less replaced Megan Fox as Shia's romantic lead, did a surprisingly good job in her role.  Sure, she was a damsel in distress, had no good lines of dialogue, a bizarre fetish for rabbits, and apparently was hiding a Machiavellian streak for most of the film, but she did a pretty solid job of what she had to work with.  I have to admit, though, that my favorite scene in the movie is the extended shot of her staring blankly into the distance as Transformers blow stuff up behind her.  That made me laugh out loud.  As for the rest of the cast, Patrick Dempsey was MWA-HA-HA evil, Frances McDormand was a bureaucrat, John Malkovich was comic relief, and Ken Jeong delivered the same ridiculous performance that is normally expected out of him.  Nobody was great, but nobody was awful (although that depends on your Jeong tolerance).  Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson return as the sexiest robot fighters the US military has to offer, as do the eternally chatty/embarrassing/migrane-inducing Witwicky parents, played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White.  How these characters have all survived three robot battles is beyond logic.  Speaking of which, John Turturro returns to cash another paycheck as a goofy former secret government agent, this time accompanied by his fey butler, played by Alan Tudyk.  These two are responsible for some of the worst lines in the movie, but I'll give Tudyk credit for actually making me smile a couple of times.

As with the other Transformers movies, the coolest characters are still the giant robots.  We see the return of Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving again), and Starscream, as well as some of the supporting Autobots, but only Bumblebee and Optimus get a decent amount of screen time.  Megatron spends the film with a gaping hole in his skull that is being slowly repaired by insect Transformers and I only noticed Starscream when he stopped by to chat with Megatron.  The two big additions to the robo-cast this year were Sentinel Prime and Shockwave.

If they made a fourth film, I want an Autobot with fat Elvis sideburns.

Sentinel was voiced by Leonard Nimoy and, for reasons I still can't comprehend, has a goatee.  Sure, it's a robotic goatee that probably transforms into something else (a Van Dyke, maybe?), but it's damned odd.  Anyway, I wasn't impressed with his design or the "unpredictable" twists he provides to the general plot.

I was similarly under-impressed with Shockwave.  He was the toughest villain in the movie and he was more of an ominous general that commands the big worm-looking thing than anything else.  I don't even remember him transforming into anything.  Whatever, he had a pretty sweet final scene, even if they did change up his character design significantly from the cartoon.

Shockwave: bustiest of all Decepticons!

I've never been a big fan of Michael Bay, either as a director or a producer.  At his best, he makes nonsensical action movies with meaningless catch phrases.  At his worst, he combines spectacular destruction sequences with extreme melodrama.  The Transformers series, to me, has always leaned toward Bay's worst tendencies.  Yes, the action sequences are pretty damn cool, especially for fans of the toys.  The human elements in the stories, though, are just an annoying distraction from robots punching each other.  This time around, Bay managed to make Shia LaBeouf far less likable than ever before and he threw in as much random supporting character "humor" as he could, in an attempt to disguise a paper-thin plot.  I'll give Bay credit, though.  The fight in Chicago looked pretty cool.  But there was at least ninety minutes of crappy movie before that.

It was a lot of fun to see giant robots destroy downtown Chicago, though.  As a Chicagoland native, there was a little thrill whenever I saw something I recognized getting blown up or ravaged by a giant Transformer worm thing (that transforms into...?).  The action scenes in general were all loud and fast, and (most importantly) featured giant robots fighting each other.  My complaint with the action in this movie is the same as with all the movies.  Aside from Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Megatron --- who are all given prominent speaking roles and are visually different from the other 'bots --- most of the fighting robots were interchangeable.  The Decepticons rarely had any colors to differentiate them from each other and the Autobots were still poorly developed, even after two previous films.

The winner of MTV's "Pimp My Autobot"

Action scenes would happen, and I would catch the gist of them (good robots vs. evil robots, right?), but there was rarely a time where I could explain who was actually fighting on screen, why, or where they were, in comparison to the other characters.  I was also a little uncomfortable with Optimus Prime acting as a vengeance machine.  He actually states that he (and the Autobots) will kill all the Decepticons.  That's awfully final and brutal for a hero, Optimus.  At the end of the movie, he actually executes a Decepticon --- the other character is begging for mercy and he snuffs them!  That's some cold shit for a PG-13 movie.

Action something something explosion

For every fight scene that entertained me or made me geek-out a little, there was about thirty minutes of truly awful movie.  The emotional weight of the story rested on sympathizing with Sam Witwicky --- who grew up wealthy and has only dated model-quality women --- as he tries to find a job where he is important.  Those are readily found in entry-level positions, right?  At least we get to see him have trouble committing to a beautiful woman for the second straight movie.  His whining about finding a job is more annoying as we see how "comically" bad he is at interviewing; the interviews were another thing --- who manages to get five or six sit-down interviews in the same day?  Apparently, someone who wears jeans to big-boy job interviews in Washington, DC.  Jackass.

There is a lot to hate about Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  The plot is dull and predictable.  The script tries and fails to be funny over and over again.  The action is often confusing; the cinematography frequently made it difficult who was fighting who.  The acting was mediocre at best.  The movie was two-and-a-half hours long, with the only fun stuff in the extended final 45-minute fight scene!  They never try to explain why the Decepticons pick Chicago as a place to stage their invasion!!  Wouldn't their evil plan cause the Earth to crash into Cybertron?!?  Most Decepticons on Earth take the form of cars; when Sam is running away from a man who admitted to working for the Decepticons, he hops into a car that was owned by that man!!!  And how bad were the special effects in the early scenes that bridged the gaps between 1960s news reels and the rest of the movie?  Worst Presidential impressions ever.

And yet, none of that really seems to matter.  This is a movie about giant robots fighting each other.  Do you really expect anything else?  From a quality film perspective, this film deserves a pitiful rating of

From the perspective of someone looking for giant robots killing each other, the movie is actually much, much more entertaining.  If you combine that love of action with a desire to laugh at Michael Bay, Transformers: Dark of the Moon gets a solid Lefty Gold rating.  Watching Chicago get ruined is pretty entertaining, but the rest of the film's awfulness more or less balances that out.

I would bump the entire movie up six stars if this scene actually happened, but sadly, it is just someone making great use of Photoshop.