Netflix ~ Blade Runner

Avalon (2001)

Avalon is like this poor orphaned red headed step child of Mamoru Oshii who is the renowned Japanese director of the Anime classic Ghost In The Shell (Netflix Streaming). Man I really hate how this movie gets treated here in the states. It sucks!

It has all the stuffs we adore about Ghost In The Shell. The “manufactured reality” versus “what we consider to be reality” of the Matrix and the whole man versus intelligent machine of Blade Runner all nicely done up in a thick almost mythological soup of cross referenced sci-fi idioms and concepts. Video games and video game players (In this case a strong kick ass woman!) and getting caught up in the manufactured reality of a game while the real world sucks and how far would you go to win etc etc etc. Just like all our favorite Anime films, all of them!

I think it must be the whole live action part with dubbing and/or subtitles that is probably what turns people off. I just think Poland was so freaking appropriate and looks so much like a manufactured programmed wasteland it so works for a movie like this.

Anyhow, I am biting a big one here for a Christmas Stocking Stuffer and finally getting the Blu-Ray from Yes Asia. Pricey is a word that could be used for doing this and stupid might be a better choice. The fact is this Blu-Ray will probably never see a release here in America so what do you do? Close your eyes and imagine it is an exotic boxset from the far east with a gold leaf case with angels dancing on the head of a pin.

This film needs Blu-Ray though. Mamoru Oshii did not so much film this movie as he stuck a rough draft in Photoshop and painted the movie frame by frame digitally. So every centimeter of texture and detail counts and every lighting effect and shadow and angle could have meaning.

If you want to see Anime become real or what a well known and well loved Anime film director would do with real live actors you can go cheap and get the DVD from Walmart for about 10 bucks while the dwindling supplies last. I know for a fact the price at Amazon was jacked up to three times that much recently.

Grade A for an unloved, forgotten, but intelligent and wonderfully made sci-fi film about an ass kicking shoot em up Polish woman video game player and how far would you go to win the game. A movie I can watch again and again. That I am seriously paying way too much for the (All Region) Japanese Blu-Ray.

Helvetica (2007)

We all know words have power. Did you know that fonts can have that same ability?

If you have Netflix Streaming click on the craziest most informative documentary on fonts I have ever seen or ever wanted to see to be honest. I was bored and it was there I tell you! Who knew the secret movers and shakers of the “font world” would be so moving or shaking? These guys are really into their lettering. Boris stole that S curve from me I know he did!

You have got to see this thing!

Maybe Tom Cruise can play the part of Helvetica for the dramatic remake. He’s a method actor you know.

Grade A for being so unexpectedly interesting in a Netflix Streaming random way.

Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)
The Turning Point (1977)
Working Girl (1988)
Heathers (1989)
Paris Is Burning (1990)
Naked Lunch (1991)
The Sum Of Us (1994)
The Associate (1996)
The Mothman Prophesies (2002)

After trying out Hulu and subsequently deleting all evidence of my account with that bunch of jackasses after figuring out they wanted me to WATCH COMMERCIALS AND PAY THEM FOR WATCHING COMMERCIALS!

Oh, hell no! Not in this lifetime assholes. This is the Internet, not Cable. I dumped Cable TV and when fiber optic access comes to my neighborhood I will most likely dump Dish Network and my Cable Internet Access at the same time.

I have kept my Netflix Streaming account and I love it. So here is some love for the Netflix Streaming with nine more choices of movies I like to watch again and again for your holiday doldrums viewing pleasure and I definitely recommend commercial free Netflix Streaming over all the other options these days.

Who cares about DVD renting anymore anyway give me commercial free instant gratification NOW.

Blue Velvet (1986)

It’s a sunny, woodsy day in Lumberton, so get those chainsaws out. This is the mighty W.O.O.D., the musical voice of Lumberton. At the sound of the falling tree, it’s 9:30. There’s a whole lotta wood waitin’ out there, so let’s get goin’.

Almost every shot in this movie was filmed right down the street from my little old house.

So is actually living in Wilmington, North Carolina like living in a David Lynch film? Well mostly, I mean people can be truly strange here and seemingly disconnected from reality on every level. What do you expect? It’s a Republican run “good old boy” club house that still thinks drinking and homosexuality and “being colored” is a sin and that the EPA steals your soul and that gas guzzling mericun cars are actually something to be proud of and that sky daddy will save them from the fucked up idiotic mess they have created here with all their churchgoing narrow minded greed and selfish ignorance. I have to say there is a certain youth and innocence about David Lynch and especially in this particular movie since it was done right before Twin Peaks that I find missing in real life picturesque Wilmington, North Carolina though. I tend to feel more like Francine Fishpaw in Polyester.

This version of Blue Velvet is now as gor-jesus as this place really can be. No more pan and scan bullshit. Oh it still is presented in letter box but dang the colors pop and the image is pristine. If you have a PS3 you have just got to see this movie in all it’s twisted glory. If you have seen David Lynch’s later films and were turned off I still say try this one out. There is a hard to describe “more cohesive” flowing story presented here than in later David Lynch films even though there is also a ton of the usual symbolism and film technique only for the sake of symbolism and film technique.

Isabella Rossellini is supreme as the self destructive femme fatale and then there is Dennis Hopper the pervy villain chewing up more scenery than a weed whacker set on mulch.

Grade A

Twelfth Night (1996)

If music be the food of love
Play on
Give me excess of it

Helena Bonham Carter
Ben Kingsley
Imogen Stubbs

Doing a Shakespeare comedy set in the Victorian era with gowns that could be Regency but might be Renaissance? Who cares, I should hate this thing.

I love this movie more than a fat kid loves cake.

This thing rocks with rich decadent character acting for the icing and more bright colored sprinkles of gay subtext and gender bending than a strawberry ice cream sundae. Do yourself a favor and blow the 8 bucks on Amazon and get this DVD even if you have Blu-Ray and enjoy a movie I pull out to watch every December just because it is so warm and cozy and just plain good for you.

Netflix Watch Instantly ~ Hackers (1995)

Dear Hollywood,

Where is the limited edition with cleaned up sound and visual quality Deluxe Remastered Blu-Ray of Hackers? I and the rest of the internet here promise to buy the fuck out of something like that. Right guys?

Yours truly,
Da Pig

Hack The Planet!

Immortals (2011)

From the people who brought you the epic CGI “mantitty” classic 300… we bring you

Mantitty 2: The Other Nipple

Top Gun 1986

Playing, playing with the boys
Playing, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of life’s simple joys
Is playing with the boys
Playing With The Boys – Kenny Loggins

I was in the Navy for 10 years. Ten long years and I can say I spent at least five of those years in some submarine barracks, in some remote part of the United States, drunk watching a plethora of war movies in the TV room. I hate war movies!

I mean it from the bottom of my heart. War movies as a general rule are cliché ridden and rife with recycled plots and dialog and well, cheese. If you were like myself and actually worked on a nuclear submarine you would quickly realize just how god awful fake they are on top of all their other damning traits. But… there were two movies I always liked.

One was 1982′s An Officer and a Gentleman starring a young, and still good looking, Richard Gere before he unleashed Julia Roberts on us in 1990’s Pretty Woman. The other was this movie right here. I don’t think it was because both these films are about Navy Pilots in particular. Since I have difficulty seeing any great difference between Navy Pilots and Air Force Pilots as far as being some different breed or such. No, there had to be something that maybe I did not quite catch at first glance.

Then came Quentin Tarantino’s hilarious monologue in the 1994 movie Sleep With Me where he sums up the plot description of Top Gun with the line “It is a story about a man’s struggle with his own homosexuality.” I have never ever been able to watch this film in the same way since. I don’t know if Quentin was simply coming across with some demented comic jag for effect when he went off on this movie but ya know. If you honestly watch it closely and get beyond the clichéd imagery and listen to the dialog and focus on the subtle actions, it will happen, it will dawn on you.

I’m sure you all know the story or have some idea of what it’s about. The movie opens with Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards playing the parts of Goose and Maverick flying wingman to John Stockwell who plays the bit part Cougar. Cougar gets mentally screwed up after a close encounter with a Russian MiG and barely flies the plane back to the Aircraft Carrier while staring at a picture of his wife and kid.

Anyway he gets back and promptly quits stating he loves his “wife and kid” too much. Did he decide to go straight or something? Here’s your first clue. I mean, why does “wife and kid” suddenly become an issue now? Did they just appear like magic in his emotional landscape to only be dealt with while in the middle of a dangerous mission at sea? If they had slipped his mind up to this point what had been his main focus so far? Did he have a tiff with his copilot that we did not hear about?

Next thing you know Goose and Maverick are heading off to Top Gun school because it’s so realistic to send people with severe disciplinary problems to these expensive military training schools ya know. The next scene is the famous bar scene where Maverick starts singing You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling and all the other pilots in the bar join together to provide what now seems like a gay men’s chorus all dressed up like Good Humor men. Who does that crap and stand around in a dirty beer soaked bar dressed in Navy Whites of all the uniforms one could possibly wear. A uniform well known to get disgustingly dingy if you breath on it wrong? Ten years people, ten long years. I know these things.

Then the first time we see Viper played by a still good looking older man Tom Skerritt talking to the Top Gun students and the pilots are shown sitting paired up in twos in leather love seats. In each seat one guy has his arm draped along the back as if in some suggestive embrace. The pilot Hollywood whispers to his close buddy beside him in the leather love seat “This gives me a hardon.” Wolfman leans in real close and says… “Don’t tease me.”

Here it is folks we are down the rabbit hole and don’t go thinking it gets any better if you keep looking. Maverick is initially portrayed as a loner. A confused young guy who, unlike the rest of the Navy flyboys does not seem to fit in, does not seem to understand the intimate relationship the other Navy pilots expect of him. Goose tries to talk to him. Goose tries to make him understand there is something he’s not getting. Something about caring for the other pilots, about men being men with men. Maybe he wants Maverick to realize they are all spending an awful lot of time standing around the locker room half naked draped in white towels for more than just plot points and male boobie shots. Heh! Then more dialog to take us further out into the void.

Charlie (The main female love interest, yeah right.) played by Kelly McGillis approaches Goose and Maverick in a hallway Goose sees her and turns to Maverick saying “Okay, well, don’t be late again. You look great honey.” Maverick replies “Thanks, dear. See you in pre-flight.”

Then the big bare chested volleyball scene. Poor Goose, the guy’s won’t let Goose play volleyball without his shirt. While all the rest are proud to show off their sweaty pecs and six pack abs. All the while the music bumps and grinds its way through Kenny Loggins (Yeah there’s a butch guy for ya) singing Playing With The Boys. I loved the scene where Goose pleads. “One more game, Please, For me?” If this were any other movie wouldn’t Goose know where Maverick was going? He probably does and is just unwilling to let Maverick go that easily. I mean all the guys are there and they’re all sweaty and maybe tonight. Maybe tonight we could…

Maverick and Charlie have their first date and basically Maverick eats and runs saying he needs to get a shower. Does she not have a shower there? Plumbing problems perhaps? Not the right equipment? Next in the elevator scene we see Charlie decked out in a very masculine ball cap and leather flight jacket. That’ll get him to notice her. Goose’s wife and kid show up to present us with the fact that gay guys can have covers, I mean families too without conflicting with their most important relationship, the other Top Gun pilot. Carol, Goose’s wife, seems to be trying really hard to sell Charlie on how fun it is to be married to a gay guy, I mean, a Top Gun pilot.

So, you all should know by now Goose dies. Yep, that’s too bad really because I think Goose was just about to get his way with Maverick on some sleepless night. Oh well, Viper poignantly consoles Maverick telling him about his valiant dad and saying he would fly Maverick, I mean fly with Maverick anytime.

Here’s where I disagree with Quentin Tarantino and a lot of other commentators. At the end of the movie, we may have gotten that big heartfelt redemption scene between Val Kilmer who plays Iceman and Mavericks main competition, the all around humpy, critical, fly-by-the-book type to Mavericks rebel-without-a-date. Yes, Iceman and Maverick do have a brief moment at the end of the film, after the gay Navy guys beat the Russians with their joy sticks, where Iceman finally indicates to the rest of the pilots by hugging and making doe eyes, that Maverick is now finally one of them. But…

What does Maverick actually do? He runs back to Top Gun school to become a flight instructor and work under that stud daddy Viper. Yeah, you can think all you want that Maverick is gonna be with Iceman or even that oh so remote chance of ever happening, Charlie. That is, if you ignored everything I just pointed out to you. But in my twisted mind its Tom Cruise and Tom Skerritt flying off into the sunset mano y mano. That humpy older guy showing the young guy the ropes deal. Because as we all know if it was good enough for dad, then it’s good enough for Maverick.

The thought of Tom Cruise being Tom Skerritt’s sex toy should make Brooke Shields feel a little bit better about all the terrible things he eventually said about her.

Grade A for a Tom Cruise gay movie.

Netflix Streaming: Handsome Harry

OMG! It has been a long long time since I have seen a small independent gay movie with such spot on production. Too long! This film just stands alone in the current crowd as unique in that fact. Well done!

The film is about this rugged dashing older man who gets a call from an old Navy buddy who is dying. So they meet up and they discuss the terrible beating and maiming of one of their fellow Navy shipmates on their old ship. Seems the dying man wants some closure and maybe a little forgiveness. So off Handsome Harry goes to rediscover the truth of what he has forgotten about that night and see the old crew mates again and maybe see the victim David.

Handsome Harry came out in 2009 and the lead is the “very handsome” Jamey Sheridan who in my opinion pulls this whole melodramatic angst ridden mess of a flick through till the end. Many many way too many scenes survived strictly because he is so capable of acting out the brutish masculine emotions necessary here despite some utterly lame and frankly illogical writing.

For him alone you should check this film out. He worked his ass off!

I am still stuck with giving this film a big old C. Now I am sure many of you will wonder why but several key parts of this film just do not add up for me. Take the flashbacks that keep getting thrown in our face… Vietnam? Not only Vietnam, but Vietnam War and Jazz? If you had told me Korean War or World War 2 and Jazz no problem I would have been fine. But Vietnam War and Jazz? What happened to rock music and hookers? Robert Altman ring a bell? Robin Williams maybe?

Not just that though… The way the young guys are portrayed as “teenagers” or young men or whatever in 1973 is all off from the type of folks I knew back then. I mean for the early seventies they come across as prissy and stodgy even when their backgrounds might have suggested more rock music and t-shirts and jeans and pot smoking yet you end up seeing all of them as straight laced and repressive and pretty much innocent late teens like in a World War 2 movie. Sailors smoking in “Jazz clubs” and going to “whore houses” just strikes me as not very “seventies like” or Playboy Club. I kept getting stuck on this and I wonder if anyone else will.

It’s mainly because the flashbacks are the core of this film and they simply feel wrong to me is the reason that I am taking off so many points. As Erastes would say “historically inaccurate” but that is not the only thing glossed over in this film. The very end we finally meet DAVID. It’s big tears time and he comes across as one of my most hated gay stereotypes.

Can you guess which one that is? The gay saint! The Magic Queer! Oh fucking christ on a stick!

This guy who was crippled by his closet case “lover” and friends… Oops, that’s a small spoiler there but never mind. Anyway, David is just way too “saintly” and “all knowing” and overly conciliatory for me. You want to make me feel objectified then watch me squirm by making gay guys into these deeply moving, deeply loving, deeply understanding freaks from hell. Teenage freaks from hell no less.

When David says he has been keeping tabs on Harry and starts rattling off all these facts about his life that was not implying love to me. That was a pure stalker moment. Extreme OCD Playhouse! No getting over anything for this crowd. No maturing and moving on. No forgetting or forgiving anyone. Every single one of these characters has to stay emotionally distraught and stunted for the rest of their lives.

Oh and his hand injury was so pathetic and also over done. Did they burn his hand? Because my own father busted his hand and an arm and a leg while crawling around on helicopters in the Army and he still has use of his hand and his arm and leg. I can see not being a surgeon or a classical pianist after a severe bust but I am not so sure Jazz piano is all that demanding.

The over wrought twists of the ending was simply some of many aspects of this film I found difficult to swallow and taking all the various things that get fudged I came away feeling manipulated by the bad writing. Still hey, it’s a halfway decent gay movie with some good acting on Netflix so give it a look see. I liked Jamey Sheridan a lot and he needed more nude scenes as far as I was concerned. Maybe someone can build him an even better film to see him in all his glory.

Grade C but nice try.