Repo: The Genetic Opera

First, let it be noted that this is not for just any taste.

The basic set-up is pretty clever. In the future, a wave of disease has made a market for organ transplants, but since not everyone can afford them, the giant corporation that's making a mint from them provides financing. But if you fall behind on your payments... well, ewwwww.

The Ewwww factor may be your first stumbling block. Granted, I am not a fan of gory horror fare, but still-- I believe a few tanker trucks of blood were used in the making of this film. The best thing I can say about the blood and guts and gore is that they are so omnipresent and over-the-top in this film that they cease to be excessively appalling.

The next stumbling block is that, well, it's an opera. Nothing but singing and a plot (generational guilt, dark secrets, wicked politicking) that is truly operatic. Much of the music is catchy as all get-out and while it is largely industrial-flavored, the composers have covered a wide range from sweeping orchestral to pop to funk to the best faux-punk I've heard in decades. The singers are all capable-- Sarah Brightman of course has chops, but who knew that Paul Sorvino could belt out opera. And Paris Hilton doesn't suck. But yes-- in the operatic tradition, while the music is catchy, there isn't a memorable lyric in the whole thing.

The strongest feature of the film is also its other big stumbling point. It is clearly a labor of love. Its creators have been nursing it along for years, since its genesis as a little ten minute mini-play, and it perhaps could have used some hard but necessary trimming. It's not too long, but it doubles back and meanders through the same territory. Most egregiously-- and this is NOT a mark of love-- somebody decided to add little narrative inserts which add nothing not already contained in the lyrics, but destroy some of the story's revelations.

But clearly everyone loves this. The director, who used his paychecks from some Saw films to bankroll it. The creators, the performers. Everyone obviously really wants to make this film happen.

Cetainly not for every taste, this wants to be a cult hit. It's most often compared to Rocky Horror, but while it is just as socially unacceptable, it doesn't match Rocky's sense of campy fun. On the other hand, it's far more ambitious and grand.

There really isn't anything else like this out there. It's a unique experience and worth seeing at least once, though if you have limited stomach for disembowelings, spurting veinage, and effects like Ms. Brightman clawing out her own eyeballs, you may want to skip the film and go straight to the soundtrack.

Walk Hard

I took a complete netflix flyer on this one. I am not always a fan of the Apatow ouevre (Superbad? Sorry-- the awesomeness completely escapes me). But this is not really one of his typical products.

It doesn't depend on stupid penis jokes (though it does feature some gratuitous nude male junk), doesn't try to make us fall in love with an adorable ass, and doesn't even always go for the obvious dumb jokes. It has all of these things in moderation, but they aren't the point.

The point is a dead-on lampoon of musician biopics. Most of the ridiculous standard tropes are there. John C. Reilly trying to play Cox at the age of 14 (and his bride-to-be playing age 12). Incredibly awkward and heavy-handed expository speeches. Hamfisted appearances of music greats, handled with complete obviousness (backstage at a show, Cox turns to another performer and says, "Gosh, Buddy Holly, I am nervous" and the script works Holly's full name in another half-dozen times). Plus the Famous Artists are played poorly by bad matches (Jack Black as Paul McCartney).

The movie is such a tightly-written mockery of its source material that the occasional moments of improv are out of place, not funny.

And the movie is such a great imitation of a bad movie that, in many ways, it is itself a bad movie.

The music itself is hilarious in a Spinal Tap/Mighty Wind kind of way, and Reilly sounds on a completely different singer on each one. The movie ends up being an actually pretty good survey of pop culture in music from the fifties to the present.

It['s easy to see why this didn't do well in theaters-- it's way smarter than the usual fare from Apatow and company, and it aims at a somewhat specialized niche. This is a movie movie, not an extended skit (and it throws in some great movie touches, like obvious body doubles and a great spoof of the classic tentative-timid kiss move). With any luck, it will find its audience in dvd-land.

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

There are plenty of reasons to be leery of this film (and judging by its box office, many people listened to their hearts). A replaced leading lady and a switch to a completely different setting top the list; like the fourth Indiana Jones and the fourth Die Hard, one immediately wonders whether the franchise has been "freshened" to death.

But this film isn't all suck. Brendan Fraser is still kind of fun. Michelle Yeoh is a goddess, and here she is, still being a hot butt-kicking babe. The introduction of the new Evey is the most audaciously charming reveal line anyone has ever used in this situation.

There's lots of spectacle, plenty of action, and an apparent honest attempt not to play fast and loose with Chinese history.

Still. Jet Li is kind of wasted in a slightly glorified cgi-fueled cameo; his character is there plenty, but he isn't inhabiting it all that often. The effects are fine, but all pretty reminiscent of things we've seen before.

Not a lot of emotional depth or resonance, and in most of the ways that matter, completely divorced from the world of the first two films; even though it's set in 1946, it lacks the period tang of the previous outings. But if you can set your expectations aside, it has its charms.

In the end I expect it depends on which elements you favor how you feel about the flick. Not a top-notch actioner, but not a waste of two hours of your life, either. At my house, this is exactly the sort of movie that Netflix was meant for.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension

A movie that really lives in an odd little world of its own and begs to be watched and rewatched; you never get past the feeling that you're seeing just the tip of the iceberg.

Buckaroo Bonzai is a modern (well, 1984) brand of pulp hero. Highly accomplished himself (physicist, surgeon and rock star) he is surrounded by a host of colorful support characters who save the world, apparently, on a regular basis.

The plot is slightly beyond description: John Lithgow is crazy from sticking his head through a dimensional portal; Christopher Lloyd and Dan Hedaya (and that other guy with the funny-looking head that you've seen dozens of time) are aliens; Jeff Goldblum is dressed in a ridiculous cowboy suit; Ellen Barkin is the spit and image of Buckaroo's dead true love; there's a watermelon on a work bench for no apparent reason.

Like an old Mad magazine cartoon by Bill Elder, much of the fun here is in the detail (all of the aliens on Earth have aliases with the first name "John"). The director's cut leaves you feeling less like you've come in in the middle of the film (and adds a Jamie Lee Curtis cameo), and there is plenty of action and adventure in a straight-faced fun-and-games cheese-fest kind of way. Clearly this could have been a franchise, had it not been one of those films destined not to find its audience until dvd release.

One caveat: though I love this flick, it will take only about thirty seconds of sound-track to identify this as a mid-eighties movie. Maybe if you just squint your ears a little...