UvulaPie Reviews

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Book Lovers Are Aghast

[7/10 · 14 February 2005]

While I'm not a rare book dealer I cannot imagine that those who collect and sell such rarities would allow smoking around them (and everyone seems to smoke around these books, the ashes and coals hanging just above the pages). Or allow them to be so crassly flipped through. Or have their seams mashed. Or set their spill-prone beverages precariously close to them. Or have the pages touched by hands not wearing gloves so they don't leave acidic oils on the pages. Or carried around in a duffel bag protected only by being wrapped up in a cloth.

But other than this injustice done to bibliophiles everywhere, the movie was keen-o-riffic!

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

When Romero dies he'll turn over in his grave on this one

[8 November 2004]

The Mrs. and I watched the new Dawn of the Dead and it ticked us both off, for various reasons. Many had said that it was a good remake so I was very optimistic. But I dunno... it just seems like I was cheated, as if they made a modern-day generic zombie movie and put it in the mall just so they could say it was Dawn of the Dead.

My biggest beef is that in the original all of the survivors' actions are believable. "Hey, we're in this mall, it's safe, let's stay here a loooong time." or "We're tough bikers who have fun hacking zombies to pieces." Simple yet believable.

In the remake they constantly do stupid things. Like the lights go out one night. "Oooo! We can't spend one night in the dark even though we're safe!

Let's make a dangerous trip to the generators just so the audience gets a jolt." or "My husband turned into a zombie three days ago but I've never mourned over him and now I've fallen in love with a Best Buy TV salesman." And don't get me started on the whole "Get the dog" gimmick (never seen THAT before). As if it's any indication, we were both distracted by the funny sentences in our daughter's kindergarten reading book.

Psychos in Love (1987)

My life has been a vacuous void without this film!

[10/10 · 15 April 2002]

If you had one shot to make a perfect comedy movie with slasher gore effects, you would throw in every idea, every concept, every joke imaginable, right? And they did and it works.

I just saw this film for the first time in over a decade and I had forgotten how great it is! Largely snubbed by The Academy, this film has bad humor, odes to Hitchcock, gore, Pythonesque meta-film moments, and gratuitous T&A... well, gratuitous T. But very, very funny. Sure the sound overdubs are not always dead on (and they know enough to make fun of this) and the acting isn't quite first-rate, but dammit, this film is pure gold!

Expect to hear me playing the "Psychos In Love" theme song in a coffee house near you!

Malcolm in the Middle (2000–2006)

Incredible!

[10 January 2000]

I just saw the first episode last night and it rocked my giblets! Right off the top I recognized the theme song to be written by They Might Be Giants (who also had their song "Pencil Rain" used later in the show) and it got better from there. A live action Simpsons fits it pretty well. Very arcane and offbeat... I actually laughed out loud a number of times (very rare for a stodgy robotron like myself who mentally notes, "Hmmm, that was amusing.")

Hope this finds an audience!

Headless Body in Topless Bar (1995)

A good film... if you like surreal films involving exposed breasts

[3 January 2000]

Ah, the joys of headlessness. If it were not for the vast amounts of nudity, this film would be a complete waste of time. Seems Joe (played by the gruff but lovable Biff Yeager) has a problem: his best friend Carl (played lamely by Paul Williams) has spontaneously decapitated. So what does Joe do but drag his headless friend to their favorite topless bar, sets him in a corner booth, and the remainder of the movie is Joe and his dead friend watching strippers while Joe comments on the size of their, em, talents. From the style this could almost be a student or art film, as surreal as it is, but it is the real deal. Stay away unless you like to see Burbons poured down the neck of a headless guy by a faithful best friend.

The Single Guy (1995–1997)

One of the Great Shows of the 90s

[23 December 1999]

When this was on it was one of my favorite shows. I guess I identified a lot with the Silverman character (people say I look like him, only taller and with a gut… oh, and less cute). Silverman is a struggling author trying to find love while surrounded by married friends and that wacky doorman played by Ernest Borgnine. Few remember that the Borgnine character was a flashy cross-dresser in the first three episodes but test-markets showed this was not working so they dropped it (in an episode near the end of the first season, the Borgnine character made a reference to his "garters" that surprisingly made it past the censors!) The show would have probably been a big hit had it not been for the character Sam Sloan, Jonathan's best friend. This guy was supposed to be the wacky, fun guy as the foil to Silverman's straight man but he quickly turned into a catch phrase machine with writers trying like mad to create a catchy phrase. Some of the things he uttered were "Yeah, like an emu!", "Enjoy the veal", and "We'll make millions for sure!" None of these caught on. My personal favorite episode is when Illeana Douglas guest starred as, I kid you not, a female alien who came to earth for superior breeding. Of course, Silverman thought she was a kook and did his best to stay away from her.

Rooster: Spurs of Death! (1978)

Slow-motion Cock Fights!

[6 October 1999]

You can't get much better than roosters fighting in extreme slo-mo while a dwarf (Tommy Maden as Chicken) looks on in eager anticipation. Such was the grand climax of this film! It's been years since I saw it but as I recall, the dialog was lame, the acting stiff, and character development non-existent. For all this, though, there was a laudable moment near the end where the roosters are fighting (again, in slow motion) with the typical early 80s sound effects. In a precursor to "Babe", the roosters are actually talking to each other as they fight. The lines I remember are "There's hippos in the kitchen" and "Wax the cat, Joel". I KID YOU NOT! And then there was this flashback sequence concerning the "conception" of Chicken, the dwarf, where his mother is attacked by a flock of roosters while browsing a selection of pigeon books in a local adult book store.