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Cinematical Presents: Our Mother's Day Tribute!



Most of the time, our earliest memories of film have something to do with our parents. Personally, I wouldn't be half the movie nerd I am today if it weren't for my mother and father. My mother took me to see my first film in an actual theater (E.T.), as well as my first drive-in movie (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). While my father was off at work, she sat through the Star Wars films (even though she never got them) and never complained a bit when I'd insist on watching the live-action Popeye for 8-10 hours in a row, six days a week, when I was a small boy. (I was addicted to Popeye, by the way.)

With that said, today is Mother's Day, and all across internet movieland you'll see lists of the best movie moms, the worst movie moms, the best films to watch with your mother, the hottest celebrity moms, and so on and so forth. We here at Cinematical decided to do things a bit differently this year, and instead of shoveling out another list based on one of the above topics, we've gone ahead and given the site over to our moms for the day. Oh yes, we're nutty like that. Basically, we asked our moms to tell us, in their own words, what their favorite movie is and why. So, throughout the day, you'll see posts from a number of our writers ... with one noticeable difference: the majority of said post will be written by that writer's mother.

So this one is for all our moms (and all the hard-working moms out there who read Cinematical on a daily basis). Thanks for being there, and thanks for being you. Love ya!

Cinematical Seven: When an Animated Series Goes Live Action ... and Gets it Right



Whether or not shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force or The Simpsons succeeded in translating their television dynamics to the big screen depends on your point of view, but the release of Speed Racer this weekend raises a more specific question about the viability of turning an animated series into a live action spectacle on the big screen. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Underdog both suggest how this goal can go wrong -- namely, by imploding on its absurd conceits. You may disagree with the inclusion of some of the following titles, all of which culled their material from animation, but it's fair to say that each of them takes its subject matter at face value, allowing the natural ingredients of the original sources to remain intact. Well, maybe not Super Mario Bros., but that one is a special case (fire away, if you must). Until somebody makes an Animaniacs movie with real actors, I'm sticking to this list.

1. Popeye (1980)

Robert Altman's offbeat ode to the famous Fleisher cartoon starring the spinach-eating strongman and his darling Olive Oil is the great misunderstood work of the director's career. Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall manage to bring utterly ridiculous characters into a realm of believability that you could never imagine when watching the show. Suddenly, Popeye made sense -- goofy, almost surreal sense, but sense nonetheless -- in the real world. Thanks to veteran adult cartoonist Jules Feiffer's screenplay and a soundtrack so catchy Paul Thomas Anderson borrowed from it twenty years later in Punch-Drunk Love, the classic status of Popeye can't be denied.

Continue reading Cinematical Seven: When an Animated Series Goes Live Action ... and Gets it Right

RvB's After Images: Crimewave (1986)



As Jack Handey put it, "It takes a big man to laugh at himself, but it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man." Crimewave is about that big kind of man, and his partner: two electrocutioners on a rampage. They prowl the streets in a truck with a hog-sized stuffed rat on top, with red light bulb eyes. The driver is Faron Crush, who looks like Paul Sorvino playing the Incredible Hulk. HIs sniggering partner Arthur (Brion "I'll tell you about my mother" James) wears a jumpsuit, fingerless leather gloves, and a flat leather cap the shape and color of a cow-chip. If you ever had a nightmare about Gallagher, that's what Arthur looks like. The two maniacs carry with them "a shocker," a killing-machine that has three settings: "Rat," "Man" and "Hero". And they have no motivation beside malice and sheer professionalism.


Continue reading RvB's After Images: Crimewave (1986)

RvB's After Images: Herman, Katnip and Other Gloomy Tunes



Recently down for a week to pick up some kultcha in the "hateful megalopolis," as R. Crumb described Los Angeles, I caught a recurring cabaret night of bad cartoons titled Cartoon Dump! hosted by Jerry Beck, an internationally known authority on animation. Frank Conniff, best known as TV's Frank from Mystery Science Theater 3000, was on hand in costume as "Moodsy," a clinically depressed owl. The slim comedienne Erica Doering played Compost Brite! the cute, lisping dumpster-diving elf who had retrieved from the garbage a bunch of stinky cartoons that the world might be well without. Beck and Company dug up some real lulus. Hard to top was the opening from the 1950s, Paddy the Pelican.

You knew you were in for it right from the cackling theme song, seemingly a version of "The Irish Washerwoman" performed by a demented Canadian goose in duet with an electric organ. The graphics and apparently improvised dialog was like something a brain damaged-child might have come up with if you handed him a microphone and a crayon. You owe it to yourself to leave a few bars of that "Paddy" soundtrack on a friend's cellphone. They'll be looking over their shoulders for months afterwards to see if there's someone stalking them.

Continue reading RvB's After Images: Herman, Katnip and Other Gloomy Tunes

BREAKING -- Robert Altman Has Died

The great master filmmaker Robert Altman died last night at a Los Angeles hospital. The writer-director pretty much pioneered a new style of movies using multiple characters and storylines with overlapping dialogue and plots, and he continued making movies well through a time when those he influenced were attempting to copy him. Last year, while shooting A Prairie Home Companion, Altman was assisted by Paul Thomas Anderson, whose Magnolia was almost like a remake of Altman's Short Cuts, just in case the elder filmmaker was to pass on. He didn't.

I guess I took it for granted that he might just continue making movies forever, but at 81, Altman had given us so many classic films, that I can't be too selfishly upset to see him go. I'm going to spend the rest of the day celebrating his life and work rather than sulking in mourning. Many of my favorite films were directed by Altman. He made my favorite western (McCabe & Mrs. Miller), my favorite movie about Hollywood (The Player), my favorite movie about the Korean War (MASH), my favorite wedding movie (A Wedding) and my favorite movie about country music (Nashville). I'm even a big fan of Popeye.

Altman was nominated for five directing Oscars, but never won an Academy Award until he was given an honorary award at this year's ceremony.

Guilty Pleasures: Popeye

Tell someone you love Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and you'll probably have a pleasant movie-geek conversation that's entirely bereft of finger-pointing, muffled chuckles, and slack-jawed silence. If, on the other hand you tell someone you love, say, Robert Altman's Popeye, you better be prepared to step up, argue your points, and maintain a strong sense of humor. Know what? Better yet, just keep it to yourself. Let the fact that you dig Popeye be your own little secret.

Because I'm foolish enough to admit my weakness print, I can guarantee that the opinions found here in the latest edition of Cinematical's Guilty Pleasures will net me several comments in which I'm called a dork, a few emails in which I'm called a fool, and perhaps an entire website devoted to how someone who legitimately enjoys Robert Altman's Popeye should never be allowed to make a living writing about film and would probably be better suited to a career in municipal sewage.

But nyeah. I dig it! And I know some of you definitely agree with me, but I'll understand if you prefer to remain anonymous on this one...

Continue reading Guilty Pleasures: Popeye

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