Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Lawdogs.

Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson are THE HIGHWAYMEN, two old detectives past their prime, hired by the Texas Governor to join a manhunt – for Bonnie and Clyde. Ah, connection to popular culture! But this ain’t your granddaddy’s BONNIE AND CLYDE from 1967 with sexy Faye Dunaway and sexier Warren Beatty – we’re not gonna fall in love with Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow here – we hardly even see them – this is a tribute to the lawdogs who brought them down.

Set in 1934, when wiretapping and two-way radios were brand new, Costner and Harrelson play two real life Texas Rangers who really did hunt the pair. Costner is Frank Hamer – the most celebrated Texas Ranger in history – brought out of retirement because he has a particular set of skills. Harrelson is longtime partner Maney Gault, who gives us a chilling description of Frank’s skills, as he relates a story of how he and Frank once brought down a Mexican gang by Frank NOT following lawful protocol and NOT giving them warning, just shooting to kill. That’s the outlaw skill the state wants from him.

Kathy Bates is the Texas Governor. The great John Carroll Lynch is chief of police. At the time Hamer and Gault were called in, Bonnie and Clyde had been fugitives for two years, elevating their bank robberies to a murder spree including cops. With the governor and chief of police at wits’ end, when giving their orders to Hamer and Gault, they both leave so much unsaid about stepping outside the law – wink-wink – the only thing separating them from mob bosses are their cheaper suits.

I’m the dandy highwayman you’re too scared to mention / I spend my cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention…
— Adam Ant, “Stand And Deliver”

I like the twist on the title – because highwaymen usually means outlaws; in this case, these off-the-book detectives are literally driving the blacktop of rural America, pursuing their prey with a single-minded purpose, illegally crossing state lines out of their jurisdiction, which made them… uh, outlaws.

Best scene in the movie is when Hamer meets Clyde’s father, Henry Barrow (William Sadler), and we realize it’s not just about the hunt – it’s about a man coming to terms with his particular set of skills. Barrow implores Hamer to go easy on his son, because Clyde “wasn’t born with a dark soul,” showing Hamer a picture of the boy, saying it was just “one turn on the trail” that damned him – when he stole a chicken as a boy, with the cops on his back ever since. And Hamer, well, it’s a good thing he’s Kevin Costner because only Kevin Costner could turn the empathy tables on Barrow and tell his own sob story of wanting to be a preacher, including the “one turn on the trail” that damned him to a life of hunting people for the law. And Costner is so damn good at turning our sympathies that Barrow ends up begging him to kill Clyde and himself and his wife! Man, Costner: what an actor! Anything he does in his older years is just magnificent. Where does he go in his head to be so compelling?! He just has to be onscreen with that face – just BE that face – and I start weeping with the gravitas and empathy – Kevin, shoot ME, shoot ME!!

Authentic old-world cinematography, set dressing, costuming, with a climax so explosive, and a final death parade so chilling, it will compel you to look up exactly how Bonnie and Clyde were actually taken down. Amazingly – it’s all true!

Da-diddley qua qua…

END

Yoko Gucci.

Lady Gaga stars as Patrizia Reggiani, one of the world’s greatest gold-diggers (alongside Heather Mills, Anna Nicole Smith and Melania Trump). From a poor Italian family, Patrizia manipulates her way into THE HOUSE OF GUCCI in 1972, marrying Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), heir to the Gucci fashion empire. Not content to sit on the sidelines and earn a fortune to simply – as Eddie Murphy puts it – “just fuck your husband,” Patrizia’s snide meddling in the Gucci business would drive a rift between Maurizio and the Gucci movers and shakers – his powerful father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), and entrepreneur uncle Aldo (Al Pacino), resulting in betrayal, financial instability, and eventually murder. Not to mention all the fashion emergencies.

Patrizia Reggiani was truly the Yoko Ono of the fashion world.

Directed by Ridley Scott, and based in small part on events documented in Sara Gay Forden’s book The House Of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed, Custom House 2001 – the book details the whole Gucci story from its founding in 1921 by Guccio Gucci, while the movie focuses on Patrizia’s contribution to the Gucci family’s dysfunction – and is told from her point of view.

Patrizia is flabbergasted that Maurizio did not want to exploit the empire at his disposal (he wanted to lead a quiet life away from the headaches of overseeing a business), and overestimated her power and influence, her narcissism leading her to believe that the Guccis would welcome her business acumen. When she drove the business into chaos with her interference and was ousted by the Guccis (Aldo: “Tell her to stay away from Gucci before you do any more damage!”), her pride wouldn’t let her leave the family without revenge.

After her divorce from Maurizio in 1994, she was forbidden to use the Gucci name, yet continued to do so. And when she discovered Maurizio was about to marry a friend of hers, Paola Franchi (Camille Cottin) – she hired a hitman. Maurizio was shot and killed on the steps of his office building in Milan on March 27, 1995. Movie opens with that murder…

Why did Patrizia have Maurizio killed? Many reasons: because she detested he was remarrying; because he did not lavish enough riches on their two daughters; because if he had remarried, the conditions of their pre-nup would cut his annual alimony payments of $1.4 million in half… I mean, what’s a gold-digger to do? (Still, wouldn’t killing him make the payments stop altogether? Isn’t it better to have half of 1.4 million, than none of 1.4 million? And why not kill the girlfriend instead? The mind of a gold-digger is a terrible thing to baste.)

And who did Patrizia hire? A local pizza guy down on his luck. And who advised her on this plan of action? Her psychic, Pina Auriemma (Salma Hayek, in real life, married to François-Henri Pinault, CEO of Kering, who owns Gucci!) And how did Maurizio actually divorce Patrizia? He left the country on a “business trip” and told a friend to tell Patrizia the next day that he wasn’t coming back… HOUSE OF GUCCI was a movie just waiting to happen.

Before I start lauding the cast for their performances, the movie as a whole suffers from a language barrier… we need to get past the SCHOOLYARD ITALIAN that everyone is speaking, before we can relax into the soap-opera stylings of the insane plot. I mean, Italians speak Italian, not English with Italian accents – that’s a conceit of Hollywood. Even Al Pacino is speaking Schoolyard Italian – and he’s really Italian – and was in THE GODFATHER!

Lady Gaga (despite the Schoolyard Italian – even though her heritage is Italian!) is magnificent as the narcissist Patrizia, who quickly adapted to life in the 1%, even though at first she seemed innocent of her wiles as she forcefully seduced Maurizio (which includes a rough bang on a desk – not many movies are brave enough to portray this kind of forceful pumping!). Gigantic in the world of pop music, after Gaga’s acting turn in 2018’s A STAR IS BORN, she became that star in the acting milieu! Adam Driver may be the leading man, but the movie is held aloft on Gaga’s shoulders.

Jared Leto seems to have watched every episode of THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW and assimilated Hank Kingsley unto his being. As cousin Paolo Gucci, the put-upon, talentless family hack, he oozes insecurity, ineptitude and feeble-mindedness. Desperate for his inferior designs to be taken seriously, desperate to be loved, Patrizia plays a long con on Paolo, advising him that he could leverage Aldo’s approval of his designs if he threatened to expose Aldo’s tax evasion to authorities. The scheme inadvertently exposes Paolo’s own inadequacies, and he regrets it as soon as it backfires on him. Once again, the giants Irons and Pacino are doing a mesmerizing job as company heads and tragic fathers, yet Leto’s doofus out-entertains them.

With her every move, Patrizia created chaos within the ranks, while thinking she was being constructive for the Gucci brand. Maurizio would tell her, “I never asked for your help…”

Patrizia’s psychic Pina tells her, “Men have this problem of thinking they are smarter than they really are.” This, coming from a psychic! It proved true with Maurizio though, as he eventually does grab Gucci by the pussy… and cocks it up, ousting his relatives and almost losing the company. When police turn up at his Milan house for his financial crimes, he makes his escape by simply riding off on a bicycle behind his house, crossing the border and avoiding arrest (the quirky getaway accompanied by Rossini’s cute little Barber of Seville motif). Ah, the beauty of living in Europe, where whole countries can be crossed by bicycle in the time it takes to issue arrest warrants.

Movies “based on real events” insert all manner of dramatic license, but HOUSE OF GUCCI just sticks to the outlandish events that transpired and still ends up a magical mystery tour.

And that, Movie Maniacs, is why The Beatles broke up.

END

New Horror from Old Trope.

HEREDITARY inherits its DNA from THE EXORCIST and THE OMEN. Writer-director Ari Aster’s feature film debut is a brutal masterpiece, drenched in dread, an eerie thriller about a fractured family that ends in a different genre altogether.

Movie’s opening scene is a study in creativity: camera pushes in on a room filled with paraphernalia, then focuses on a doll’s house with its front wall open, slowly pushing in to one of the rooms, which, unexpectedly and imperceptibly – becomes real: A man walks into the room and wakes the figure we notice sleeping on the bed. His first film, his first scene, Aster is flaunting his cool right outa the gate. (At this point, having seen his first two feature films, we can verify his opening impressiveness was not a fluke! Both HEREDITARY and his followup, MIDSOMMAR, are shot through with this same level of roaring creativity.)

Toni Collette is Annie, whose mother has just died. She tells husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she is “going to the movies” and secretly visits group therapy sessions, where she confesses she was never close to her mother, yet there was never closure, her mother diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder); her uncle and brother also had schizophrenic natures. So there are demons flying about in Annie’s head long before the real ones come calling…

CASTING CALL. SEEKING: Daughter 18yo to play 13yo, introvert, socially inept, cuts the heads off dead birds with scissors. Must be one weird-lookin’ mamajama.

Steve and their teen son Peter (Alex Wolff) are not inordinately affected by Granny’s death, but their 13-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) is disturbed that “no one will take care of her” now that doting Granny is gone. Charlie is pretty disturbing herself, introverted, scruffy, seeing visions of Granny beckoning from across the schoolyard—wait whaaat?? When the teacher busts her not doing her work in class, a bird outside hits the window (in a scene effective for its subtlety) and everyone in the classroom jumps and yelps in surprise – except Charlie, stone-faced. Outside, Charlie finds the bird, uses scissors to cut off its head, and attach it to a toy of hers…

You think this is disturbing? Wait a few minutes.

Peter, who is at that age where the pull of pussy is stronger than any known force in the universe except gravity, wants to borrow the car to attend a party where the girl of his lust will be abiding. Concerned mom Annie insists he take little sister Charlie. At the party, while Peter is making time with his potential cherry-popper, Charlie is eating a chocolate cake (it’s already established she has a nut allergy). When she starts going into anaphylactic shock, Peter makes a desperate drive for the hospital, Charlie in the back seat. She sticks her head out the window gasping for breath, clawing at her throat – 100 mph – a dead deer in the road – Peter swerves – a lamppost –

With a sickening THWAP!! Charlie’s head impacts the lamppost like meat and bone slammed against a wall. Which is what our simple skulls and brains are – just a bone covered in thin meat. Horrifying… as we see the head come away from the body…

And Annie thought her mother dying was a hard knock…

Here is where writer-director Aster comes into his own. Peter’s reaction, and the way it is filmed, is something we are not used to seeing in blockbuster or “Hollywood” movies. Skidded to a stop, his hands grip the wheel, his eyes staring forward; he cannot, will not, dare not believe what he suspects has happened to his sister. He tries to cast his gaze at the rearview mirror, but draws back. He sits staring ahead fearfully for minutes, before he decides… to drive back home… At this point, we have not seen anything of Charlie’s fate… In long shot, we see Peter pull into the driveway, exit the car – we are on tenterhooks, given no visuals of the back seat – up to his room, onto his bed, facing camera. Blank.

The next morning. A hard closeup of Peter’s face, blank, as we hear Annie and Steve distantly in other rooms, we hear Annie mentioning she is going out to pick up something, we hear the front door open and close… the next thing we hear is a guttural scream that will live with us forever…

And we are only halfway through this horrific journey.

 – – – – S P O I L E R S – – – – –

All through the movie, the weirdness is a slow burn, Aster crafting his visuals to always convey some measure of foreboding. He loves his long shots – one steady camera, with all the characters in the frame far away, acting out their fates while we look on almost like intruders; no cuts, no inserts, just story.

Steve gets a call that Granny’s grave has been desecrated; at a meeting, Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd), to whom Annie opens up about her sleepwalking and how she once nearly immolated herself and her children with paint thinner; after Charlie’s death, Annie sleeps in Charlie’s treehouse instead of her marriage bed; Annie (who makes architectural models/dioramas for a living) creates a diorama of Charlie’s decapitation (which shocks husband Steve); guilt-ridden Peter starts hearing Charlie’s clicking tongue noises near him; what eventually tips the story into unbalanced is when Joan shows Annie how to conjure the spirits of the dead.

Colin Stetson’s jarring, scarring sound design is intended to disorient, to swerve us into unsure emotions, sometimes just cutting suddenly on a scene change (which in itself trips us into discomfort).

When the tale slants into demonic possession, Granny’s grand hereditary plan for the family is slowly revealed. So despite this introduction of magic-who-cares-fuck-you, Aster’s ingenious setups and payoffs create truly hair-raising moments, as Annie and Peter become subject to the whims of Joan’s cult, trying to conjure a demon named King Paimon into a male host, i.e. Peter. (We realize now why Granny always wished Charlie was a boy.) Just when we think things can’t get any more psychopathic, Annie discovers Granny’s headless body in her attic…

Stunning performances, with Toni Collette outstanding as a mother gradually tipping into madness; Byrne as her skeptical husband underplays brilliantly (one of his non-grammatical, disparaging lines toward her conjuring spell, “What language is even that?!”). Young Wolff is called upon to jump from emotion to emotion, the likes of which few humans have actually experienced (I mean, has your sister ever been decapitated? Have you ever been attacked by an invisible entity in class? Has your mother ever chased you into the attic and banged her head like a jackhammer on the door to be let in, while levitating?).

Throughout HEREDITARY’s descent into the occult, we marvel that despite the fact we’ve been suckered into a horror movie with a possession plot (an overdone trope in Hollywood), its atypical directorial choices elevate it above the engine-pit of B-stinkers. Yet for all his originality, Aster succumbs to the Hollywood trope of showing books on demonic rituals with convenient pictures – Horror Movie Shorthand For Dummies (subtitle: Picturebooks for Americans). Also, I find myself asking the obvious question that applies to ALL stories where a cult is summoning a demon into a chosen host: If the demon can already puppet its potential host to supernaturally see, do and say things before it has actually “possessed” them (and can make total strangers break the laws of physics to help its quest to possess the potential host – like levitate, walk around headless, start fires with their mind, telekinesis), then why does it even need to possess the host in the first place? To keep the paperwork in order?

The body horror begins with beheadings. And ends with horny Peter getting what he wanted – naked people on their knees, face-down ass-up worshipping him. Only problem is, those people are doughy white guys. (Now that’s horror!)

END

Take note, gentlemen: Lesbians make love in bras and panties.

Seemin’ Demon.

A young girl is pursued by heretics to sacrifice to their demon, and is saved by a heretic to the heretics.

I have a beef with the title, THE HERETICS. Heretics are classified as such when they go against established religious dogma; the term is especially applicable to baptized Catholics who believe anything other than the “truth” established by Mother Church. Bwohahahahahaha!!! The Roman Catholic Church taking for granted it has a monopoly on “truth”! When all it spews are fairy tales with moral lessons, no better than Aesop’s Fables or Kipling’s Just So Stories. Their truths are readily-apparent altruistic dictums, not some mystical esoterica formulated by supernatural gods (except for that “Worship Me Or Die” shit).

So the balls on the Catholic Church to come up with a term for someone who laughs in their faces over their idiocies! Therefore a “heretic” is not exactly an atheist, but a person who believes some other idiocy created by horny men.

Thus the title of this movie – though it aims to evoke a horrific cult – only makes me laugh, because whatever it is they’re worshipping is no better or worse than the horrific cult they abandoned, christianity. And then for one of their cult to go against them and rescue the girl they have marked for sacrifice – well, like Jeopardy, that’s Double Heresy!

The sacrifice is Gloria (Nina Kiri, a young brunette with come-hither eyes not unlike Margaret Qualley), saved on the altar by Thomas (Ry Barrett, young big guy not unlike David Harbour) because he thought she was “an angel” (hey, whatever keeps her from being stabbed, I guess). Ex-communicated from the heretical cult for his act of, uh, double heresy, Thomas now goes on the run with Gloria, with the cult pursuing them. The main hunter? Gloria’s girlfriend, Joan (Jorja Cadence, a plain redhead who wishes she was Emma Stone). [Also: lesbo action! In a B-movie? Brava!] Through Gloria’s sacrifice, Joan aims to conjure a demon named Abaddon. As you can guess, it’s one of those movies laboring under the weight of its own retarded religious logic, and barely watchable only because everyone in it looks like somebody else more qualified.

When movie opens on Gloria’s aborted sacrifice, it immediately loses cred with me because – she’s not naked.

Then it continues with writing missteps and directorial missteps that ruin any “horror” the film is trying to purvey.

WRITING: Joan answers a landline at one point, when every single character – including Joan – communicates by cellphone. Why? So she can slam it down in anger continuously. (Doesn’t look so dramatic with a cellphone, pressing the red phone icon over and over.) The writers (Chad Archibald and Jayme Laforest) couldn’t think of something else just as dramatic, like tipping over a table full of papers…?

DIRECTING: When Joan is searching for the missing Gloria, at first we do not know she is high priestess of the cult, so when she suddenly threatens a stranger with a penknife, asking, “Where is Gloria?!” it derails the movie. She plays it as if she just lost her head, but if it’s meant to be played like her character is revealing she is “something more” than just the girlfriend, Joan should have taken on her dominant high priestess demeanor for a hot second before she backed off to teen chick. Gloria’s sacrifice has to be made that night at full moon, so there is urgency in finding her, but Cadence hasn’t got the acting chops to pull off all those layers. And director Archibald left this milky take in the final cut.

Snot, vomit, batwings and bald patches. A hot date – for The Exorcist.

When Joan stabs a cop and kills Gloria’s mother, her blandness makes us laugh at this audacity. Soon enough, we discover who Joan is; nonetheless, her trail of bodies should garner some repercussions. Nope. Like a David Cronenberg film, where the main characters just exist amongst themselves.

Thomas, meanwhile, is “keeping Gloria safe” by chaining her to a wall on the cold hard floor of a log cabin. If you love her that much, a mattress would go a long way to proving it, dude. We discover Joan is Thomas’s sister, and the cabin is a childhood haunt of theirs. So… it was absolutely the worst place to hide out. It’s like hiding Luke from his father on a foreign planet, then keeping his last name the same as his father’s – Skywalker.

Thomas sounds like the Voice of Reason in the movie, blaring, “There IS no god, no devil, no Abaddon!” Yet, though all atheist voices are welcomed in films about religious nuttery, there is contrary EVIDENCE staring him right in the face, such as…

…oh, Gloria slowly growing a pair of batwings from her back as Abaddon’s essence creeps in. Also, vomit, blood and snot aplenty, as he keeps threatening to shoot her and doesn’t. Exactly what demarcation line is he waiting for – hooves? No – until her vagina becomes unworkable, all bets are still on. Even with the vomit, blood and snot.

And, like all movies that involve magic – no rules.

• Why do they need to find Gloria and perform a ritual if the demon is slowly taking over her body anyway?
• Joan prays to the demon, “Help me find your vessel, so that I may bring you into this world,” – but the demon’s doing a fine job already without Joan’s help, transforming right under Thomas’s nose!
• Joan praying to the demon implies it is omniscient enough to know where Gloria is, and if so, should he need prayer prompting? Wouldn’t he guide her there anyway, because it benefits him?
• To chain Thomas to a wall, the demon conjures a skinny chain – that Thomas hacks through with a shovel. Why not one of those mighty chains you see in shipyards? Why not just bury him alive?!
• Something invisible (Abaddon, we presume) unlocks Gloria’s chain – then she sees Abaddon (Austin Duffy) in another room – then he chases her – hang on! Why didn’t you grab her while you were unlocking her chain?!
• Why was Abaddon unlocking Gloria’s chain anyway? Does she need to be unchained for him to get up in there?
• Joan’s cult chant (after most of Gloria’s transformation happened without them), and Abaddon appears outside the cabin and slinks in toward Gloria, all horns and batwings and mummified face, amongst all the fanatics in weird bark masks (I guess it’s scary to 10-year-olds) – but is he IN her or OUT of her? And apparently he can control anything magically whether he’s in or out, so – wha–?
• In the stupidest bit of magic: Thomas points a shotgun at Abaddon and the demon cajoles him to pull the trigger. Suddenly, Thomas snaps out of it and realizes he is pointing the gun at his own face. So let me get this straight: the demon has the power to manipulate Thomas’s limbs to make him point the shotgun at his own face; has the power to make Thomas’s brain perceive he is pointing it at the demon – and Thomas “snaps out of” the spell 3 seconds later? Why not just manipulate him to shoot himself in the face immediately? Problem solved.

THE HERETICS would be scary to 10-year-olds if it’s the first religious horror movie they see. And if they haven’t met a catholic yet.

END

Harry Potter and the Horns of Dilemma.

Soon after the mysterious death of his girlfriend, Ig Perrish wakes to find two horns growing out of his forehead. He realizes people are revealing their innermost secrets to him, and Ig figures it must be due to the horns, which no one gives any undue notice. He realizes he can use this bizarre power to hunt down his girlfriend’s killer.

A supernatural murder mystery, with lots of red herrings and lots of red devils, HORNS is a sui generis black comedy from the mind of Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King. Taken from Hill’s novel of the same name, screenwriter Kevin Bunin and director Alexandre Aja craft a compelling tale of intrigue in a small logging town, but cannot sustain the film’s original tone into the third act, which gets caught up in questionable special effects that temper the unique storytelling and well-constructed pacing.

Movie opens with Ig (Daniel Radcliffe) and his girl Merrin (Juno Temple) sharing a romantic moment under a tree. Next thing he knows, Ig is waking up at his place, groggy drunk, with an angry mob outside blaming him for the murder of Merrin.

After Ig spends a bitter night with a barmaid (Kelli Garner), he wakes to find he has sprouted small devil-like horns. Suddenly the barmaid is pigging out on a box of donuts, telling him she’d like to get really fat because people think she’s trash and have to get drunk to sleep with her. Ooookay… we can chalk that one up to chicks being chicks, but then…

When Ig visits a doctor’s office to see about the horns, a waiting patient tells him she’d like to “kick my daughter right in her spoiled ass, and divorce my husband so I could fuck my golf pro again. I’ve never been with a jigaboo before!” Now that’s deeper than chick crazy. The nurse and doctor are no better, confessing deep-rooted fantasies to Ig. In a fit of desperation, Ig tells the doctor to saw off the horns – and wakes from his anesthetic to find the doctor and nurse having sex, with the saw stuck mid-cut through one of his horns! And they’re getting bigger.

While under anesthetic, Ig flashbacks to when he was a little boy meeting Merrin for the first time – but we already know what Daniel Radcliffe looks like as a little boy – and young Ig doesn’t look one bit like Harry Potter!

As Ig’s quest progresses, snakes now drape themselves around him. The priest tells Ig to kill himself, the bartender wants to burn his bar down for the insurance, his own mother (Kathleen Quinlan) spews vitriol at Ig blaming him for the murder, and Merrin’s father (the great David Morse) wants to shoot Ig. The only person who seems sane and unaffected is Ig’s lawyer friend Lee (Max Minghella), who can’t see the horns: “Maybe the horns don’t work on good people…”

When a feather boa is REALLY a boa.

Underscored by a great rock soundtrack (Bowie’s Heroes, Pixies’ Where Is My Mind, Manson’s Personal Jesus, Wanton Bishops’ Sleep With The Lights On), movie is filled with flashbacks that explore Ig’s and Merrin’s relationship and how it might have led to her death. The breakup scene is so real it’s uncomfortable. Fellas, watch carefully: this is how every woman you are madly in love with is going to come at you – suddenly, irrationally, and when you think everything is going swimmingly; there will be a moment when you wonder exactly who you are talking to and how this person got into your girlfriend’s body and mind. But there is another compelling layer here, that Ig (and we the viewers) will find out too late.

Climax finds Ig turning into a giant red devil, rendered so poorly that Hogwarts called and said they’d lend the movie an Expecto Patronus. Final scene repeats the opening scene, showing Ig and Merrin under that tree together, implying this was the final scene all along; implying they are together in death… implying that if devils exist, then so do ghosts reuniting, wearing ghost clothes lying on ghost grass, ending in ghost sex. (Does this make – ghost babies?)

In his quest to break away from Harry, Daniel Radcliffe does a commendable job. (Remember, the last POTTER film was a mere two years ago, 2011. Radcliffe accepted THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012) directly after THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (2011) in a blatant attempt to re-cast his goodboy image – although choosing that film about ghosts thankfully didn’t backfire). The whole cast are ensconced in their tragic roles – except for Max Minghella, who seems miscast and oddly detached, as Ig’s friend and as an actor in the movie.

Movie is so enjoyable because it doesn’t explore anything deeper than Ig’s revenge quest and the power of suggestion and confession that the horns seem to convey. There is no moral questioning of whether Ig is doing the right thing using his powers to make two officers have homo sex, or whether he should kill the real killer of Merrin. That is, movie is devoid of that weary pondering: Just because someone CAN do something, SHOULD they?

That’s what makes HORNS a devil of a film!

END

Fish Out Of Austria.

Demi-god Hercules visits New York for a lark. And it’s extremely funny. If you’re seven.

Before the world discovered his Herculean physique in the muscle-doc PUMPING IRON (1977), and long before his breakout role as an “actor” in CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), Austrian-born bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger somehow convinced American agents, managers, casting agencies and filmmakers to overlook his utter lack of acting ability and cast him in his very first film role, as the lead in the fish-out-of-water comedy HERCULES IN NEW YORK. (That in itself should tell us what an ambitious, driven young man Schwarzenegger always was, and still is.)

But when your movie’s top billing is the wormy guy from Sinatra’s MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, chinless Arnold Stang, lack of acting ability is the least of your worries.

Stang is Pretzie, a pretzel seller, who befriends Hercules on Earth. Only reason the insufferable, vaudevillian Stang has top billing is because he’s been the longest in the movie biz. He’s no hero, he’s no leading man— hell, he’s barely a man! (Although he was a feline – the voice of TOP CAT in the 1961 cartoon series! Ha! His credibility raised due to playing a grifter alleycat!)

Hercules, bored with his life on Olympus implores his father Zeus (imperious Ernest Graves) to allow him to visit Earth. That’s a big fat no. What reason? Oh, none… Against Zeus’s orders, Hercules leaves anyway and lands in the Big Apple. So begins a mindless tale where Hercules uses every opportunity to point out the absurdity of English phrases, fight people, and take off his shirt.

Hercules’s first act is to tip over a cab that asks him to pay the fare. Message received: Hercules don’t pay cab fare.

His second act is to take off his shirt.

At one point, Hercules shows some college athletes how to throw the discus and javelin. The stupidest reaction is the coach mocking Herc beforehand – a guy who obviously looks like he can throw a building let alone a discus. After he throws the discus a monumental distance, coach then mocks Herc again when he turns to the javelin! This muscled guy is a walking advertisement for athleticism (keep in mind, Schwarzenegger is physically the biggest muscled guy on Earth at this time – it’s a startling, unique visual, a Boris Vallejo painting come to life!) and instead of bonding with him, and learning his training techniques, these athletes poo-poo him – even after he outdoes them! It’s as if the writer thinks this is how to create tension and propel excitement within a scene – must have hero and villain.

Helen (Deborah Loomis, a plain woman bordering on ugly, probably the worst actor of her generation) takes Hercules out on the town, and a guy in a bear suit escapes the zoo. The guy in a bear suit attacks Herc and Helen and—oh, I get it! It’s meant to be a real bear, oh okay. So this, uh, “bear” attacks their horse-drawn carriage and Hercules leaps out to engage, as Helen screams in terror, shouting, “Hercules! Beat him up!” Who in their right mind calls for their boyfriend to ‘beat up’ a bear, instead of calling for help, at the least, running your lazy ass to get a cop?

Helen’s father is a famous That Guy (James Karen) who can actually act.

Hercules becomes a wrestler. The Mob moves in to fix his bouts — well, they’re not the real Mob, just some vaguely Italian-looking guys who think they’re acting how Italian Mob guys act, led by Merwyn Goldsmith, who is probably still eating out on his glory days of being in a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The pointless plot finds its feet when Zeus tasks the goddess Nemesis (Tiana Elg, who looks like someone’s aunty) to bring Herc back to Olympus. No reason is ever given as to why Zeus is so infuriated at Herc exploring Earth – he is simply Old Man Shouting At Cloud – and no reason is given as to why it is so imperative Herc return to Olympus.

Zeus’s current wife, Juno (Tanny McDonald), wants to punish Hercules (again, Just Because) and secretly gives Nemesis a powder to drop into Herc’s drink, that will rob him of his strength. Soon Herc is in a weightlifting competition with Monstro the Magnificent (real life Mr. World, Tony Carroll) and loses on the 1000-pound clean-and-jerk. Don’t look for any moral, though. Herc loses his godly might, but he’s still got enough muscle mass to be an actual strong human, so – No Lesson Learned.

The pivotal climax in any Hercules film – pulling down two mighty pillars – is arrived at in a warehouse stacked with cardboard tubs: Herc has lost his super strength, yet he chases down the Mob car, riding a horse-drawn chariot through New York streets (accompanied by annoying balalaika music, as with all the action sequences), in an iconic image that just screams Gay Pride Parade. After the convoluted non-plot of effeminate boytoy Mercury beseeching Herc to return to Olympus, after Pluto does the same thing, darkening every electric light in the city through magic who cares fuck you, after Mercury sends Atlas and Samson to fight the Mob (in what can only be described as girl-punching), after Nemesis narcs out Juno for making Herc weak, Zeus just grants Herc his strength back – magic who cares fuck you. And the mighty Hercules pulls down two towers of cardboard tubs that topple on his Mob malefactors! Cardboard tubs! Ferocious! They look like pillars if you really squint.

Suddenly, the coda. No reaction to the fact Herc has his strength back; no resolution with the Mob; no tying up loose ends with the potential girlfriend; just teleport back to Olympus, leaving Wormy Guy lonely and pathetic and dreaming of all that unabashed shirt removal.

STINGER: after Hercules describes his New York adventure, Zeus takes a flying leap down to Earth with a big smile on his face… Does he have his eye on that sensual Wormy Guy?…

Steve Reeves and the peplum bodybuilders of yesteryear (Sergio Ciani aka Alan Steel, Gordon Scott, Reg Park, et al) were fading from the scene by 1970, and it was inevitable a new strongman would rise in their place. Already a 5-time Mr. Universe (and soon to start his run – from 1970 – as 7-time Mr. Olympia), there was no better visual representation of the Son of Zeus than Schwarzenegger in his prime!

Credited as “Arnold Strong Mr. Universe” (because the marketers of the day believed “Schwarzenegger” was not a name American audiences could digest), Schwarzenegger’s performance is mind-numbingly atrocious. The only factor going for him was his stellar physique. And, like a bad tennis player, Schwarzenegger pulls every actor around him down to his level of suck. The theatrical release of this movie dubs his voice with an American actor, but for the sake of high art, I implore you, DO find the version with Arnold’s voice intact… uh, I mean for the sake of high comedy…

The last written feature by 61-year-old Aubrey Wisberg (who was probably battling for relevance in a world gone supersonic since her birth in 1909), and the first directorial feature by Arthur Seidelman (who just loves his point-of-view shots), we can imagine why HERCULES IN NEW YORK lacks any cohesion, as a young boy tries to nail down the vision of an old woman.

No wonder there was so much hot shirtless action.

END

Touched By A Goldblum.

Mediocrity For Charity.

A charity for Alzheimer’s Disease, organized and hosted by Seth Rogen, HILARITY FOR CHARITY is about as funny as Alzheimer’s Disease.

Filmed onstage before a live audience at the Hollywood Palladium on March 24, 2018, hosted by Seth Rogen sporting a Noah-beard, HILARITY is an annual cavalcade of standups, pre-taped skits and various eclectic bits, the general standard of which is so low for this 2018 Special, the acts almost undermine Rogen’s very admirable cause – raising funding for research into Alzheimer’s.

With a runtime of just over 70 minutes, the most pertinent, poignant bit – a pre-taped mission statement, showing how the charity helps Alzheimer’s victims, and how Seth came to be involved due to his mother-in-law being stricken with the disease – is placed so late in the program, we wonder if it isn’t to wash the taste of the show out of our minds. This segment is preceded by Seth and his wife, Lauren Miller, speaking onstage about Lauren’s stricken mother Adele and showing footage of Adele’s deterioration.

Seth Rogen and wife Lauren Miller, organizers of HILARITY FOR CHARITY.

This segment also shows how Seth and company use the donations to help with home-care for victims. It’s the most touching part of the show, sincere and humane. And to cap it, Kermit the Frog joins them onstage for a sing-along. And I hoped it wouldn’t be Rainbow Connection, because that song has brought me to irrational tears since my youth and – uh-oh… okay, you win, Seth.

This mission statement segment is so sad and honest, I wonder if it couldn’t have been placed earlier in the night, which would have palliated the lackluster performances.

Of all the standup comics, only two felt like they were doing a real comedy set, while everyone else seemed to be trying out B-list bits they cobbled together at the last minute. The two actual funny acts were veteran stirrer Sarah Silverman (looking really sexy, as usual), and Tiffany Haddish, whose energy lifted her last act of the night to end on an upbeat note. Everyone else was simply – as Seth’s Jewish ancestors might say – meh.

Seth himself opens the Special with a pre-taped skit featuring Nick Kroll, where he is sent to hell and meets the devil. It’s uncomfortable when it’s this unfunny. Michelle Wolf (THE DAILY SHOW) is a bad choice for one of the first comics, complaining about men in that horrible nasal whine, which I could only take for 1 minute before clicking forward. Michael Che (SNL) is weak sauce. John Mulaney is a male version of Michelle Wolf, meaning lame jokes done in a mind-searing, nasally chalkboard voice. Fozzy Bear pretends to “die” onstage – but he’s really dying. There is even a gross-out cartoon that features cocks, balls and a close-up anal sphincter defecating. You really have to be as stoned as Seth, to even consider this comedy.

Sarah: killer.

Seth makes a big deal out of “tricking the Netflix algorithm,” so that this Special will be featured in every genre, from comedy to drama to talk show (featuring Chris Hardwick), to animated, etc. Jeff Goldblum cameos as “The Netflix Algorithm” which is kinda funny, because he’s Jeff Goldblum fer chrissakes.

Craig Robinson is band leader (so he really is a muso! – as he was on HOT TUB TIME MACHINE). I didn’t expect much from Kumail Nanjiani, but I expected more from Chelsea Peretti. Even super comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as “Sir David Attenborat” was uncharacteristically average. My point is: if you’re going to call an event HILARITY FOR CHARITY, at least have something be hilarious.

Now understand that I’m a big Seth Rogen fan; Seth, like Judd Apatow, is the comedy voice of a generation. He hooked into the millennial funny bone and still rides that fickle tiger. He’s a living example of a stoner who is NOT unmotivated and lazy! But maybe he’s overstayed his welcome, or maybe the worlds of comedy and real tragedy just collide too catastrophically for comfort; whatever the case, this Special just doesn’t work for me. There are laughs from the audience, yes, but is it because of the spirit of the event or because the acts are funny? Who can tell? In the end, when the donations are counted, does anyone care? If it was funnier would there have been more donations? Did the night’s lameness actually make any viewers hold off on donating? Who knows?

Donate, yes. Any cause for debilitating diseases is a good cause. However, this Netflix Special [incoming Alzheimer’s gag] – forget about it!

END

“The nipples! Oh god, the nipples! I just have to touch the nipples!”

Would that it were so sequitur.

Maybe the fault is mine. Maybe I just don’t “get” the Coen Brothers’ vision of the world’s randomness and disjointedness, but here’s another of their writer-director efforts where I just can’t see the point, unless it’s to make George Clooney look like a lovable buffoon again. Or to watch Channing Tatum dance. In both instances, the crotches of our pants suffer intolerable cruelty.

HAIL, CAESAR! seems to be aiming at THE BIG LEBOWSKI but steps off the bus somewhere at BURN AFTER READING.

Set in the 1950s, HAIL, CAESAR! follows one flustered day in the life of movie producer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), as he attempts to keep Capital Studios humming with forward momentum, amidst meeting with religious leaders who all disagree on the essence of The Christ, oversees a big budget musical (featuring Channing Tatum) about sailors lamenting they’re not going to see a dame for months, arranges an unwed female star to adopt her own baby to avoid scandal (Scarlett Johansson), drops off ransom money for the kidnapping of the studio’s prime star (George Clooney), replaces a serious actor with a rodeo cowboy (Alden Ehrenreich) to the chagrin of that film’s director (Ralph Fiennes), and fends off interviews with twin harpie reporters (Tilda Swinton as both Thacker sisters).

The misrepresentative trailer pushes the Baird Whitlock (Clooney) kidnapping angle, because he’s the most recognizable face, but the film is actually about Eddie Mannix, and the kidnapping is one small thing he must deal with in a day brimming with Hollywood dramedy.

Movie is a hodge-podge of intertwining throughlines that create entertaining vignettes, but when we pull back to examine the grand picture, we are lost amongst plot threads that don’t connect in any satisfying manner. For example, the Whitlock kidnapping is carried out by a cabal of communist writers (headed by Max Baker), seeking ransom (that they consider payback) because they are sick of big studios taking their work, not crediting them and not paying them appropriately. Eddie Mannix pays the ransom. And the bag of money promptly falls into the sea accidentally and is lost. The writers watch it sink with a sigh. End of thread. Viewers say Wha–?

Further, Whitlock suffers Stockholm Syndrome, in which he ends up siding with his kidnappers on communistic principles, espousing those views excitedly to Eddie Mannix upon his return, who divests Whitlock of his red leanings simply by slapping him across the face many times. Any further developments on infiltration subplots or, at the very least, comedic insubordination, is simply nixed when Whitlock walks out the door, apparently cured of communism by slapping. Viewers say Whaaa–?

Cowboy Hobie Doyle (Ehrenreich) is rumored to be sweet on a young dancer. They are seen together in public by the gossip columnist Thacker – then Hobie leaves the restaurant alone, following the kidnapper’s ransom and – young dancer just disappears from the film, her plot thread dropped. By now, we’re wondering whether the script consultant was ever consulted at all.

“The nipples! Oh god, the nipples! I just have to touch the nipples!”

But all these plot threads are red herrings. No character develops past their comedic introduction. Because all their threads run through Eddie Mannix, who has the only arc, as he wrestles with the decision to continue in the capricious movie business that he apparently loves, or accept a job offer by Lockheed with better pay, hours and security. The Lockheed rep, practically begging for Eddie’s “fixer” skills in their company, inadvertently insults Eddie when he calls the film industry “make-believe,” portending Eddie’s ultimate decision… As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, the filmmakers seem to have written this “moral struggle” into Eddie’s character to add at least one dimension to this pretty shallow dark comedy.

Cameos: Christopher Lambert as a playboy director who is married; Jonah Hill as a fall guy with strong arms who is bonded; Frances McDormand as a chain-smoking editor who shouldn’t wear scarves; Clancy Brown as a centurion at the foot of the crucifix.

HAIL, CAESAR! refers to the film Whitlock is in the midst of making, about his centurion character meeting The Christ. (A funny point that Clooney is never out of his centurion garb the whole movie.) It’s BEN-HUR meets THE ROBE. And as he has been empowered to do in all his past partnerships with the Coens, Clooney gets to overact to his heart’s content, which he embraces with an ex-communicated nun’s fervor.

Narrated by the familiar voice of Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), HAIL, CAESAR! is brimming with meta references; we are constantly being made aware of the edges of the movie frame, with actors breaking character, equipment showing, slates, daily rushes, director asides (“Squint against the grandeur!”), and director Fiennes trying to demonstrate to American cowboy Ehrenreich how to speak (“Would that it were so simple”) in a hilarious depiction of the disparity between American drawlers and English Actors with verbal skills.

If you are old enough to remember the Hollywood studio system of the 40s and 50s, this roman a clef might hold some resonance for you, as I’m sure all these vignettes depict people who once were giants in the film industry. But most people old enough to remember “that Hollywood” are suffering from the dementia “that Hollywood” gave them, and the rest of the viewing public didn’t know there’d be a test or we would have studied.

Would that it were so simple.

In the end, Eddie decides to skip the more lucrative, sensible, steady – boring – job offer, and continue to manage the non-sequitur crises of his day with a spring in his step. It is, after all, only make-believe. And that’s entertainment. And entertaining.

END

Waking from Itself.

THE HANGOVER PART III wipes the slate clean. A brand new comedy with the same beloved characters; focus shifted, personalities disordered, breasts augmented.

Sexpot, Dork and Clueless on another wild ride, with Evil Sprite in tow. Except this time, the evil sprite, Mr. Chow, is inadvertently the leading man! And the least likely of the “Wolf Pack” – man-child Alan – finds his arc of redemption!

The Wolf Pack – sexpot Phil (Bradley Cooper), dork Stu (Ed Helms) and clueless Alan (Zach Galifianakis), along with Wolf Pack-adjacent member, Doug (Justin Bartha) – are thankfully not dragged through the same “day-after-bender” situation, as they were in THE HANGOVER PART 2, but rather find themselves pawns caught in a game between two underworld sociopaths. In Vegas. Stu: “Someone needs to burn this place to the ground…”

One of the sociopaths is the squiggly Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong, who appeared as a B-gangster in the first HANGOVER film, then as a jagged plot disintegrator in PART 2; here, driving the plot and involved in all its twists); the other is bellicose kingpin Marshall (John Goodman, from whom Chow stole 11 million in gold, and who may keel over at any moment from ingesting 11 million in hamburgers).

While transporting Alan to a therapy center, the Wolf Pack is accosted by Marshall’s men and brought before Marshall, who orders them to find Mr. Chow (having just escaped from a maximum security prison, SHAWSHANK style), to retrieve his gold bars. Marshall holds Doug as collateral, effectively excluding Justin Bartha from the body of the script again, relegating him to damsel-in-distress once more. But it doesn’t matter in the least, because while the “action” plot revolves around Chow, the “redemption” subplot seeks to make a man of Alan. That’s why there seems to be nothing at stake in holding Doug. The same goes for Mike Epps, reprising his role as Black Doug, Marshall’s henchman, so when Marshall shoots him offhandedly, it makes not one ripple in our sentiments, or in the pool that Black Doug falls into.

Ken Jeong proves he can hold the camera’s gaze compellingly with a devious, deranged performance as Chow, a perfect mix of venom and pathos, playing the other characters like the bitches he terms them: killing his fighting chickens that he feeds only cocaine… and chicken, conning the Wolf Pack into stealing even more of Marshall’s money, partying like Caligula and killing like a hitman. It’s a powerful jumping off point for leading man roles.

And Galifianakis imbues his Alan with an aggressive innocence/ignorance that overshadows the seemingly well-adjusted characters of Phil and Stu. He starts the movie in the worst immature, baby-man condition he has ever been in – buying a giraffe and killing it accidentally. Alan’s father (Jeffrey Tambor) dies of a stress-related heart attack over him, and Alan gives a distracted eulogy where he wishes his mom had died instead. Alan’s family request the boys accompany Alan to therapy, and Alan only agrees to go because of Phil, with whom he has an unrequited ambiguously gay/hero worship relationship. Phil, in a throwaway line, calls the situation: “He just needs to lose weight and find a girl.” And it is this last happy accident (in the form of a trailer trash Melissa McCarthy) that prompts Alan to grow into adulthood.

Heather Graham cameos as Jade, the stripper that Stu married in Vegas, raising her little boy, who is… Grant Holmquist – the same little boy who was the main baby that Alan carted around in THE HANGOVER. A touching scene when Alan comes face to face with this boy – a serious young actor with a great screen presence – and a part of Alan’s growth as a man.

Co-written by Todd Phillips (who directed all three) and Craig Mazin (who co-wrote PART 2), it is quite surprising how THE HANGOVER PART 3 sneaks up on us, amongst the shooting and screaming and sharing of lollipops (ooweh!). An original story that gives nods and winks to its predecessors, but as homage, rather than desperation. In keeping with tradition, this movie ends with a wedding – Alan’s! – and a post-credits scene that is the best hangover awakening of the trilogy. And the most amazing thing to me is… why this movie is so maligned. Every third movie in a trilogy does not have to perfunctorily occupy the same headspace as THE GODFATHER PART III.

People on computers in 2015 are losing their minds. The world is coming apart at the social media seams. So many recent movies released to groans and griping – THE HOBBIT, FANTASTIC FOUR 2015, BATMAN V SUPERMAN, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2… None of these movies has anything substantially wrong with them, the most vitriol coming from know-nothings who think that typing is tantamount to educated opinion.

As Phil says, “It all ends tonight,” meaning their predicament trying to capture Chow in exchange for Doug, but also in the meta sense that the last remaining member of the Wolf Pack has now been married off – their dynamic will never be the same, even if there is another sequel. But what do you social media twits care? Take a picture of your lunch, follow another meme, and text an emoji in lieu of words. That oughta prove how important your uninformed opinion is…

END

High on Schrooms-ical.

Three words describe HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR: Ab. Bombin’. Nation. Once again, choreographer Kenny Ortega directs, and clueless, unoriginal screenwriter Peter Barsocchini writes what will eventually end up a laughing fart from the buttocks of Satan.

Zac Efron returns as Troy Bolton, beefcake boy-beauty of East High School, with his indeterminate-Latina girlfriend Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens, getting whiter and whiter as the series progresses), as do the rest of the principal cast; Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay the overacting villainess, Lucas Grabeel as Ryan, Sharpay’s ambiguously-straight choreographer brother, and Corbin Bleu as Chad, Troy’s token black best friend.

HSM 3 is the first of the HSM series to be released in cinemas (as opposed to the previous two TV releases), with a script copied-and-pasted from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2. Change slug-line from END OF SCHOOL YEAR to SENIOR YEAR and hey presto! Thirteen inconceivably irritating songs later, we have another sequel to belch at a public too incognizant to realize they’re watching the same story and listening to the same songs.

There’s the “We’ve Got This Moment” song, the “We Need To Be Together” song, the “Breakup” song, the “I Need To Be Myself” song, the “What Do I Do With My Life?” song, and the “We’ll Always Have Each Other” song. All with shockingly original titles like Just Wanna Be With You (which Troy and Gabriella sing with absolutely no understanding of what ‘being together’ entails), A Night To Remember (sung by the cast about their innocent prom with no intimation of drunkenness, sexuality or any memorable anecdotes, just an abiding adherence to over-enunciating what fun they’re having), and The Boys Are Back (sung by Troy and Corbin for no reason at all).

Movie follows exact same flow chart as its predecessor, where the hero has to decide between pussy and career (and he somehow wins out on both, because – teen movie), and where the heroine leaves the hero to pursue her dreams and “Go Her Own Way” which apparently means giving up her dreams to follow the hero.

Exact same Troy punch-dance during the “What Do I Do With My Life?” song, called Scream, which he performs in the deserted theater at midnight, where nonetheless, a spectacular lightshow accompanies his enabled white upper-class wailing. While the drama teacher, Ms. Darbus, is sitting in the empty auditorium, watching him like some kind of perve. Sitting in the dark obviously, because until Troy got there, the lights were not on, giving some mimsy excuse on what she was doing – supposedly figuring how to substitute one girl for another in the school play, which could’ve been done in two seconds at her office or house. She reveals she sent a letter to Julliard on Troy’s behalf, which was some kind of damning plot point that we couldn’t care less about at this point. All I want to know is, Why were you sitting there in the darkness, you crazy old bird?

Gabriella on the phone tragically bemoans to Troy that since she’s left town, there is no reason for her to return for the prom, because, “What am I gonna do, come to prom and then leave again? Then come to graduation and leave again?” To which Troy simply whiffles like a bitch, instead of reminding her, “No, you’re meant to come to prom, fuck me, then leave again; then come to graduation, fuck me, then leave again.”

Troy’s father (Bart Johnson), is no help in the girlfriend department, although, just being two years older than Troy, you’d think he’d make a good wingman.

Troy visits Gabriella in faraway Somewhere-U and accosts her from a tree while wearing his full ducky prom suit, whereupon they dance and sing and it’s so romantic and then – they kiss! ACTUALLY KISS! For the first time in any HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL! Who allowed this pornography up in this teen romancical? Satan, was that you? Is this your worm-riddled hand at work?

Whatever the annoyance quotient with the auto-tuned songs, the insufferable band pretending to play their instruments, the overacting and egregious non-plot, we must give credit where it’s due – the dancing by the principals is sometimes quite astounding. You can bullshit all you want on vocal recordings – which the principals are supposedly singing themselves – but you can’t fool the camera when it comes to well-rehearsed dance moves. Well done, bitches! Although, the musical numbers containing these dances are as insulting to our intelligence as the First World Problems these kids bemoan constantly that we’re supposedly meant to give one rat’s ass about.

Though the under-tweens and the gay community will find much to love in this quantum shitfest shot like a rainbow-cannon at their demo, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 is the absolute worst of the trilogy and arguably the most offensive movie ever produced by mankind, irretrievably damning the human race to eternal flame. Game, Set, Match: Satan.

END