Wet Hot American Summer

I don't watch a lot of comedies --- not because I don't like funny things so much as I get easily annoyed by things that are supposed to be funny, but are not.  The worst comedic offender (in my mind, anyway) is what passes for sketch comedy these days; even classic sketch comedy groups like Monty Python or Kids in the Hall are far more filler than killer, and Saturday Night Live probably has less than three hours of good material from their entire run.  Note: just because you can do an impression doesn't mean you're saying anything funny.  Not surprisingly, when a friend told me I should check out Wet Hot American Summer, I was skeptical.  The cast is filled with alumni from SNL and The State, it has a young Bradley Cooper, and it has Paul Rudd, who irritates me on a very basic level.  On the other hand, my first job was as a summer camp counselor, so maybe the writer/director of Role Models (which I was surprisingly okay with) came up with a comedic gem I had overlooked.

Or maybe I found a film to satisfy my short shorts fetish

Since Wet Hot American Summer is a spoof, the plot is both stupid and terribly unimportant.  Basically, it's the last day at Camp Firewood Jewish summer camp in 1981.  Shy nice guy counselor Coop (Michael Showalter) wants to impress his dream girl and fellow counselor, Katie (Marguerite Moreau), and get her to leave her asshole boyfriend (Paul Rudd).  Of course, being an 80s spoof, the only way to accomplish this is through a training montage.  Meanwhile, local stud muffin Victor (Ken Marino) has to figure out how to take some campers on an overnight rafting trip while simultaneously having sexy time with a horny and less than subtle girl.  While that is going on, Susie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Bradley Cooper) are trying to put on the best talent show the camp has ever seen, and they take their job very seriously.

This was over the top until Dance Moms came around

And then there is the subplot involving two friends trying to figure out why they've never seen their buddy (Michael Ian Black) macking on the ladies.  Finally, there is the kind of framing story of the head counselor, Beth (Janeane Garofalo), falling in love with an astrophysics professor (David Hyde Pierce) and having to save the camp from a falling chunk of NASA debris.

SPOILER: He saves them with the power of his 'stache

The acting isn't very important in Wet Hot American Summer.  Every character is essentially a one-note caricature of teen movies from the 80s.  As far as that goes, the cast is fine and they play their parts pretty well.  As far as I'm concerned the standouts were Paul Rudd's (I hate to admit it) great work as the gleefully horrible boyfriend and Christopher Meloni as the crazy Vietnam vet, if only because it is so different from anything else I've seen him in.

I don't know who made this, but it is 8 bits of glorious

The rest of the cast was okay, although I wasn't too thrilled with the obviousness of Molly Shannon's and Amy Poehler's subplots.  There were just an absolute ton of recognizable actors in this movie, and most of them had relatively small parts.  Elizabeth Banks was a disturbingly dirty skank, Joe Lo Truglio was underused, Kyle Gallner made his theatrical debut, and I'm sure there were another dozen or so people you would recognize if you liked The State.

Of course, this isn't the sort of movie that was ever going to wow anyone with its acting.  This is a dumb comedy, so the writing and directing should be more important.  David Wain directed and co-wrote this movie with Michael Showalter (Coop).  As far as that goes, Wet Hot American Summer probably won't surprise you.  It looks and feels like the work of sketch comedians, possibly because it is a series of loosely related sketches.  That's not a terrible thing; Wain manages to avoid that all too common SNL-movie pitfall of mistaking a a silly premise for 90+ minutes of comedy gold.  Yes, there is a stupid premise in place.  Yes, there are some not very funny conceptual jokes running throughout the film, like the ages of these "teenage" counselors.  That doesn't matter, though.  This is a movie that knows it is shallow and stupid and tries to make you laugh with what it has to offer. 

Like training montages

Unfortunately, this movie's offerings didn't impress me.  I will admit that there is a certain amount of clever charm in this stupid comedy, but it didn't veer enough in either direction to satisfy me.  It isn't clever enough to be witty and it isn't dumb enough to make you laugh in spite of yourself.

Example: this could have been caused by a super glue mishap, but noooo...!

I chuckled at a few bits, but I saw most of the punchlines coming a mile away; even when I was surprised, the payoff was minor.  Since the characters are so shallow, I didn't care about anyone in the film.  Now, I would be totally okay with that if the sketches focused more on the punchlines than on having douchebags perfect the tone of Meatballs.  Oh, well.

"Nailed it!"

I went into this with low expectations, and many of them, unfortunately, were met.  I still don't find Molly Shannon or Amy Poehler funny.  Paul Rudd still irritates me, although I have noticed that the less of a normal guy he plays, the more I like him.  I also realized that Michael Ian Black, who is capable of delivering one-liners, apparently needs other people to deliver his jokes for him in sketches.  And despite a brief period where people cast her in movies, Janeane Garofalo has never been much of an actress, typically playing the same basic character over and over again in every film.

I wonder if she's going to say something sarcastic

Despite all that, I actually didn't dislike Wet Hot American Summer.  It's a light-hearted, dumb comedy that pays tribute to some classic teen flicks that were never all that good to begin with.  This isn't a bad comedy; it just underachieves.  I spent some time pondering why I was more or less indifferent to this film, but kind of liked David Wain's more recent (and successful) movie, Role Models.  According to my exhaustive analysis, there are two key differences.  First, Wet Hot American Summer is completely lacking in-depth explanations of the KISS songbook, and that is a missed opportunity.  Second, that movie actually had a plot and character development.  That can make all the difference.  If this film went for broke with the stupidness and turned out a brainless jem in the tradition of Airplane! or Kentucky Fried Movie, I would have been all for it.  Instead, it half-asses an inconsequential plot and winds up making only about half the jokes it probably should have.

Red State

It has been a long, long time since I have watched a Kevin Smith movie.  I've never been  big fan of Clerks, but I enjoyed the juvenile humor in Mallrats and the ham-fisted Dogma the first time I saw them.  Unfortunately, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was one of the most painful film experiences I have ever endured; thanks to all the winking and nudging, it is the only comedy to make my Most Hated Movie list.  Since then, I have steered clear of Smith's films.  Red State intrigued me, though.  Kevin Smith, a one-time master of filthy and stupid-funny dialogue, writing and directing a horror movie?  There is potential in that premise, assuming that Smith maintains his juvenile sense of humor and makes a solid slasher flick with plenty of smart-ass dialogue.  But you know what they say about assumptions...

Red State begins with three friends --- Jarod (Kyle Gallner), Travis (Michael Angarano), and Billy-Ray (Nicholas Barn) --- of roughly college age scheming to get laid.  Okay, here are our naughty teens; the horror movie is underway.

And yes, Billy-Ray's name is just an excuse for a mullet

Jarod has been frequenting a website that specializes in connecting locals for relationship-free sex; in fact, the "woman" (because, after all, it is the internet) doesn't want to have sex with just Jarod --- she wants him to bring two friends along for some simultaneous loving.  Sure, that's a little unusual, but men are simple and the trio takes the request at face value.  On their way to the sexing, the trio accidentally sideswipes a parked car to introduce a subplot that never really pays off.

Direct quote: "Hamina, hamina, hamina...!"

Instead of seeing the accident as a bad omen --- or leaving a note, exchanging insurance information, or even trying the State Farm jingle to get one of their insurance genies to pop up --- the three youngsters continue on their journey to satisfy their lusty flesh.  The good news is that they find the woman, and she is really a woman named Sara (Melissa Leo).  The bad news is that she is a little older than the boys were expecting.

The really bad news is that Sara drugs them and they wake up as captives of the extreme Five Points Church.  Huh?

You see, in the background of that story, viewers learned about the local murder of a young homosexual in town, and we see his funeral being picketed by members of the Five Points Church, which is a none-too-subtle analogue for the Westboro Baptist Church.  As you might surmise from the fact that they picketed a funeral, Five Pointers are not a sect known for their calm demeanor or reasonable actions.  As such, our three horny teens have been held captive so they may be executed in God's name for sinning against him.  What follows is an intense look at the rhetoric of American hate groups and the tension that comes from waiting for your own execution.

Ball gags: rarely a good sign

No, not really.  The ATF is eventually contacted, surrounds the house, and royally screws up, a la Waco.  And that, more or less, leads to the end.

Red State is not a typical horror movie, even if it starts out like your average slasher flick.  What could have been a decently effective premise --- teens up to no good are captured and need to escape --- quickly turns into a showcase for Kevin Smith to show how crazy extreme religious people are.  Smith doesn't add anything clever or interesting to the larger argument here, and I seriously doubt that anyone who watches this film will on the side of the hate group.  Even with Smith's heavy-handed diatribe, this could have been an effective horror movie.  Unfortunately, Smith adds a further twist by introducing a firefight between the church group and the ATF.  So...there goes the horror element.  Furthermore, the focus of the story shifts to ATF Agent Keenan (John Goodman), who is heading the operation.  Is his mission to save the three kidnapped boys?  Actually, he isn't even aware of them.  What the hell is this movie supposed to be about, then?

That's my biggest problem with Red State.  The plot is just a mess.  Smith over-complicates things, includes uninteresting subplots and can't focus on a main character or theme.  There are only a few moments where his trademark humor shows up, and the quips are obvious and not very funny.  I was surprised to see how poorly plotted, paced, and edited Red State was.  This is his tenth feature film as a director, and his ninth as a writer --- how could this film's direction be so horribly inept?  My only explanation is that this is Smith's first venture outside of the comedy genre and, without the crutch of dick jokes, his shortcomings as a director are exposed here.

And here, he displays his shortcoming for context-driven humor

Most of the acting in the film is decent, if uninspired.  John Goodman is certainly likable as an ATF agent, but his character's motivations are poorly explained and quickly discarded without any conflict.

To shoot or not to shoot: never mind, there are no consequences

Of the three sex-crazed boys, only Kyle Gallner has the opportunity to act, and I wasn't terribly impressed with his bored display of suicidal tendencies.  Kerry Bishe was definitely the best actor amongst the churchgoers,but her role was also the most over-dramatic.  I was disappointed in Melissa Leo's over-the-top performance as a zealot.

I was, however, very impressed with Michael Parks as the creepy/evil preacher.  While his character was never written with the intention of being convincing, Parks took a horrible villain and added some much-needed charisma, making this nutcase seem plausible, like a modern-day Charles Manson.

Add a self-carved forehead swastika, and you're there

There are also a number of recognizable bit players in the film; Kevin Pollack, Patrick Fischler, and Stephen Root all contribute next to nothing to this film.

There is a solid premise behind this film, but the story loses its way far too early.  I hate the fact that you never know who the main characters are.  Failing that, I should at least be able to clearly identify what the main conflict in the movie will be, but that is left as a second-act surprise.  I despise Smith's straw man arguments against organized religion, and I felt that this was another none-too-clever attack on a subject that demands attention and pondering.  To put it bluntly, Red State handles religious extremism with even less thought than Dogma. 

On your knees and repent!

Worse than the heavy-handedness of the religious story was the total incompetence of Kevin Smith as a director.  This movie wasn't funny, scary, or effectively action-packed.  It has elements of all three genres, but they do not gel together because they are rarely present within the same scene, much less the same film reel.  Personally, I think Kevin Smith is a genuinely entertaining man.  Even if I had never found one of his jokes funny, I would have to admit that he is a talented storyteller, if only because of his Prince anecdote.  Unfortunately, he is not much of a writer or director.  I would love to see Smith bounce back from this with a heartfelt story of his dramatic weight loss or something vaguely realistic, because his strength comes from the way he describes the ordinary.  Red State has him working outside of his comfort zone and the result is half-baked, at best, and truly dull at worst.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

The horror franchise "reboot" trend is an understandable one.  Most horror franchises start with a low-budgeted surprise hit movie, and the sequels add gore and special effects, but never match the effect of the original movie or idea.  I totally get why movie producers would want to scrap all the continuity and baggage from years of lame sequels and try to start anew.  Friday the 13th, Halloween, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have all had reboots/reimaginings in the past few years, so breathing new life into Freddy Kreuger seemed inevitable.  Personally, I would have preferred the wish-it-would-but-never-gonna-happen Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash to have been made, but that's just me: a fan of awesomeness.

The story begins with Dean (Kellan Lutz) nodding asleep while at a diner.  He doesn't want to sleep because he is having some nasty nightmares, but we don't get much insight into them here.  When Dean's girlfriend, Kris (Katie Cassidy), arrives to meet him, Dean falls asleep once more; this time, it's fatal.  In the dream, Dean tries to protect himself with a knife from a shadowy, fedora-wearing, clawed-glove-wearing villain.  The villain turns the knife inward toward Dean and slowly pushes it toward his body.  In the real world, it looks like Dean's knife hand wants to kill him --- and succeeds.  He basically committed hari kari on his throat.  With Dean's death, a group of kids in town, start to admit to having the same nightmare; some guy with a hat and a clawed glove is forcing them to have bad dreams.  But bad dreams can't hurt anyone, right?  Well, I doubt this is your first exposure to Nightmare, but here goes anyway...SPOILER: They can.  And will.  Anyway, at Dean's funeral, Kris notices a picture of herself with Dean as preschoolers.  That's weird...they met for the first time in high school...or did they?  It turns out that all the kids who are having (and dying in) these dreams --- Nancy (Rooney Mara), Jesse (Thomas Dekker), and Quentin (Kyle Gallner) all went to the same preschool.  And, thanks to some detective work, they figure out that the mysterious dream figure is a man named Freddy Kreuger (Jackie Earle Haley).  But why is he hunting these kids?  And how?  For God's sake, I must know the origin of this supernatural phenomenon!

Actually, I don't need to know how Freddy attacks you in your dreams, but it is interesting that this film never even makes a half-assed attempt to explain that unusual course of events.  Really, there isn't even any explicit motivation given to Freddy, either.  Sure, they retell his origin, making it grimmer for today's jaded viewer, but there's never a "Freddy's going to kill me because ____".  I find that strange.  They just accept that Freddy is in their dreams and that he's trying to kill them.  Well, okay.  Maybe I'm just the curious type.  But, while I'm asking questions of motivation, why is Freddy attacking now?  It's been between ten and fourteen years since Freddy's had motivation.  What's with the delay?  We can't all be Jimmy John's fast, but that's a long time to hang out in dreams, not killing people.

Obviously, I have a few basic issues with the basic premise behind this movie.  Beyond the villain's motivation, how was this movie?  Pretty terrible, actually.  The movie starts with a kid being murdered in front of his friends and stays that cheery throughout.  These teens are, at no time, even remotely happy.  They're not even sarcastic, which is far more shocking than the happy thing.  With such a serious tone, the movie doesn't really have anywhere to go.  I'm not saying that horror movies need levity, but I need the actors to show a variety of emotions, if only to indicate that one scene is supposed to be scarier than another.  The big story when this movie was released was that the filmmakers had decided to make Freddy less of a hyena-laughing jackass and more of a killer.  I love that idea (the "Vegas Freddy" movies are pretty terrible), but the execution leaves something to be desired.  For some reason, Freddy still likes to laugh, but he doesn't make jokes.  He's not even being mean (aside from all the murdering) or a jerk, so his chuckles come off as very unnatural.  And, I'll be honest, I didn't think the realistic burn victim makeup did anything to enhance Freddy's menace.  There were moments where the recessed eyes and lack of facial definition made me think I was watching a muppet designed to teach children about fifth-degree burns.  So, the tone of the movie was too one-dimensional and the villain felt a little off.  What about the story?  Let me answer that question with a question: how much do you love back story?  If you answered anything less than "a crapload," then you're going to be annoyed.  The movie makes it seem like there is a mystery in Freddy's origin that will blow your mind when it comes to light, so the story spends a lot of time trying to develop that secret.  But the secret ends up that Freddy is a mean bastard that likes to kill people.  It's a little underwhelming, as far as secrets go, and the story is all about uncovering it.  Blech.

The acting was as good as it needed to be in a horror movie with this level of prominence.  The kids all look fairly young (they ranged from 22 to 25 years old), which is nice to see in a movie about high school kids, but that's probably the best thing I can say about them.  Every single character was one-dimensional and had no chances to develop; they're scared of death, then they're scared of sleeping and dying, and then they die --- it's not much of a dramatic arc.  I don't think any of them were overly terrible (except Kellan Lutz, whose line delivery is on par with that of a bored corpse), but the plot and dialogue make that hard to determine for sure.  I thought Aaron Yoo's uncredited cameo (which I didn't think people made, unless they were really famous) was some of the film's best acting, but that's not saying much.  As the film's resident adults, Clancy Brown and Connie Britton both had their talents wasted, with few scenes and less dialogue.  Jackie Earle Haley took over the Freddy Kreuger role that Robert Englund had played in seven movies.  His take on the character was, at times, pretty sinister; unfortunately, this movie delivers no actual scary moments (or even the startling ones), so I was pretty disappointed with the new, meaner Freddy.  This was the first feature film that Samuel Bayer directed, after a distinguished music video career that includes Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Blind Melon's No Rain, and all of Green Day's American Idiot videos.  Bayer can tell a story decently well, but if he can work with professional actors to get the right performances, the proof is not evident here.

Forget all that "acting" and "story" junk, what about the violence?  This is a horror movie, so the violence and nudity should help grade this movie on a curve.  As for nudity, there is none.  At all.  There's nothing remotely sexual about this movie.  So that's definitely different than most horror flicks, but not unheard of in the Nightmare series.  As for the violence, there are only three death scenes and one of them was a remake of the ceiling kill in the original movie.  There's nothing wrong with recycling a classic kill, but it looked as good now as it did then --- it just wasn't as scary, since I had seen that exact kill before.  The third kill (the first one was the one that opened the movie) was only decent, but I liked how Freddy taunted his victim; this was one of only two times where Freddy was intimidating at all.  A Nightmare On Elm Street has never been, as a series, about the body count.  I was surprised that a reboot wouldn't raise the number of corpses, but I was shocked by how visually boring these scenes were. There were maybe thirty dream sequences in the movie, and only two were even moderately cool or imaginative, and I'm pretty sure they lifted something from Silent Hill.  This movie even directly lifted two of the original film's best moments (Freddy's glove in the bathtub and Freddy's face in the wall), so the best parts of this movie were done exactly the same way twenty-five years ago!  So, let's recap: no nudity, mediocre (at best) kills, and no originality.  Even by horror standards, this movie sucked.

Man, the dream sequences pissed me off.  This is a movie where you get killed or chased or whatever in your dreams...but we don't ever see any of these kids dreaming.  Freddy doesn't interrupt them during a dream about being a spy or the Dos Equis guy or seducing that special someone --- they dream about being in a creepy industrial warehouse or boiler room or something.  Way to miss the boat, people.  You can dream anything, so these movie sequences could add all sorts of character insight, visual appeal, or extraordinary things that are not limited by realism.  Shouldn't the scary thing about Freddy be that he gets us in our dreams?  This is just dull writing, but you can't expect much when a first-time screenwriter is brought in to polish up the script from the writer of Doom.

Since this is a remake, and I have seen every Nightmare to date, I might as well address how it stacks up to the other movies.  Nightmare, unlike most other horror franchises, has always been tangled in its story continuity.  Does anyone really care about the details about Freddy's life and afterlife?  The answer is no.  We want to be frightened by something that we have no protection against, a monster that kills us in our sleep.  I liked that this movie tried to escape the convoluted story of the series, but they just introduced the least mysterious mystery I have ever seen in a horror movie, instead.  This movie doesn't capture the defenseless fear that makes the original film and Part 3 fun to watch, either.  Instead, it takes a more serious and boring path to its final destination, the bad movie pile.  It should feel right at home, though, since it's about as bad as the rest of the Nightmare series.

The Haunting in Connecticut

That is a great visual.  When I looked at that poster, I wasn't sure what was happening --- is that kid vomiting liquid marble? --- but I thought it looked pretty cool.  Obviously, with a title like The Haunting in Connecticut, it must have something to do with ghosts, but that tag line threw me for a loop.  "Some things cannot be explained" sounds like a cop-out for a satisfying ending.  On the other hand, the poster claims that this film is based on a true story, so perhaps there's some spooky ambiguous ending.  All in all, I think this poster made the movie look pretty promising.

But you know what they say, rules and promises are made to be broken.

Sarah (Virginia Madsen) and Peter Campbell (Martin Donovan) have three children, one of who, Matt (Kyle Gallner), has cancer.  Matt is undergoing some experimental treatment at a hospital in Connecticut, but the commute takes over four hours each way, so the Campbells rent a place near the hospital to ease the strain on Matt.  The house is old, full of hidden closets and somewhat creepy rooms; in the basement, there is a door to a mysterious room that refuses to open for the family.  As soon as the Campbells start staying in the house, Matt starts to have strange dreams, both when he's awake and when he's asleep.  Unfortunately for him, these aren't visions of supermodel nude beaches, but of dead bodies being mutilated and the walls being filled with meat paste.  Assuming that the visions are a side effect of his experimental medicine, Matt keeps them to himself.  Surprisingly, that turns out to be a bad idea.  As the story goes on, we learn that the house was once a mortuary, which would be a creepy place to live, I'll admit; the place is still fully equipped, with the mystery room in the basement being the place where the magic happened.  That brings up an obvious question: What kind of Realtor rents a fully equipped funeral home to a family without making a casual mention of the building's history?  I'm not insisting that they make it sound awful, like, "Oh, and, if you happen to spend time in the basement, you might see some embalming tools.  No biggie, the previous owners touched dead things," but at least toss the term "mortuary" somewhere in the deal.  That is just the tip of the disturbing iceberg, though.  Eventually, Matt befriends a fellow cancer patient undergoing the same treatment who so happens to be a priest (Elias Koteas).  In a bizarre coincidence, this priest can see ghosts, too, and knows how to get rid of them.  What luck!  But can even Casey Jones help this family uncover the terrible secrets that lurk within their home?

I know, I know, it's a sucker's bet watching a movie because the poster looked cool.  Really, if publicists are doing their jobs, all movies should have at least somewhat intriguing posters.  Still, I saw the poster image and wanted to see what the deal was; I was rewarded with a visually cool moment in the film, surrounded by about 90 minutes of awful movie.

What makes this movie bad?  Well, the acting isn't great --- Kyle Gallner is a poor man's misshapen Devon Sawa, minus any talent --- but that's not the problem.  The premise could work; I'm not a huge fan of spooky ghost stories, but the effective ones tend to have rich atmospheres and let your imagination take over.  Unfortunately, the story goes for shock more than spookiness.  For most of the movie, Matt is the only character that reacts to the ghosts, but the ghosts are often shown as mini-scares in scenes with other characters.  That takes away the question of Matt's sanity and (since the ghosts don't affect anyone else) undermines the effectiveness of the ghosts.  Part of that is the script's fault, but first-time director Peter Cornwell deserves blame, too.  Under Cornwell's guiding hand, this ghost story was shot more like a slasher film, without a mysterious killer.  Ambiance was sacrificed for some cheap scares that didn't pay off.  Yes, the image from the poster is cool, and that scene was pretty cool-looking, too.  That's not nearly enough to make up for this boring, poorly executed attempt at horror.

Do you know what the worst part about the movie was, though?  Nobody ever asked this question, but there would not have been an answer if they did: The Campbells are renting the house; they still have a home four hours away...why don't they just leave when they realize that the rental is haunted?