Stella!

Last night, my sister and I went to go see the most recent revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, with Natasha Richardson as Blanche and John C. Reilly as Stanley. And, while I don’t claim to be an expert by any means — At the risk of looking like a rube, I’ll admit I went in with only vague impressions of the Brando-Leigh version, which I found had been interpolated, embarrassingly enough, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — I quite enjoyed it.

At turns willowy and brittle, Richardson’s Blanche DuBois has, as Michael Stipe once put it, that “knowing with a wink that we expect from Southern women.” A pampered schemer whose delicate flower act obscures the grim realizations borne of an all-too-tragic life, Blanche is a fading memory of the Old South — She seems lost without a mint julep in hand and completely out-of-place in rough-and-tumble post-war New Orleans. I expect Richardson’s take on the role is probably slightly less sympathetic than in some other versions — no one deserves Blanche’s horrible fate; nevertheless, Richardson’s DuBois, so insufferable at times in the early going, does an exemplary job in Act 1 of proving Benjamin Franklin’s adage that “fish and visitors stink after three days.”

For his part, John C. Reilly is also memorable as the vindictive, animalistic Stanley (although nobody would argue, except perhaps Stanley himself, that this iteration of Kowalski has any of Brando’s physical magnetism.) Reilly’s Stanley is a hard-living working-class schlub who becomes increasingly more dangerous as the “Every Man a King” prerogatives he expects of domestic life are affronted by Blanche’s continued presence. Most of the time, he sits coiled like a snake, bottle in hand…but, when the moment strikes, Reilly lashes out with a feral fury that’s all the more frightening for being unexpected (he’s definitely not the type of guy you want in your poker game.) And, when Stanley finally gains the upper hand on his unwanted houseguest, his predatory instincts take hold in brutal and remorseless fashion.

At any rate, a good show. I can’t compare it to earlier iterations of Tennessee Williams’ play, but I can say that Richardson, Reilly, and the rest of the cast at the very least do Streetcar justice.

Reveling in Sin.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…and, whatsmore, I liked it. Without a shred of redeeming social value, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City is a film very noir. It’s a sick, depraved, and smutty ride into a crime-ridden hellhole of a metropolis, exactly as it should be. Trust me — Mos Eisley ain’t got nothing on this wretched hive of scum and villainy. The alleys of Sin City are infested with sadistic, blood-smeared torturers, psychopathic, half-naked prostitutes, and trigger-happy, two-timing murderers…and those are the good guys.

As I said of the trailer, I was worried going in that the unique comic book style Rodriguez was attempting here would fall flat (no pun intended), and all that greenscreen work would mean Attack of the Clones-itis or Sky Captain redux: otherwise-good actors looking lost and bored in a muddy CGI-mess. Well, I’m pleased to announce that my concerns were unfounded — Sin City turned out to be a visual marvel and easily Rodriguez’ best film since El Mariachi (for which Frank Miller probably deserves much of the credit — virtually every shot in the film was storyboarded in his graphic novels.) And, a few hiccups notwithstanding (I’m looking at you, Michael Madsen), the wide-ranging and talented cast are all vibrant and alive here (even, as in the case of Benicio Del Toro, when they’re not.)

In fact, in a sinful sea of memorable performances, particularly Del Toro and Clive Owen (who have a great repartee in the Tarantino sequence), Nick Stahl as That Yellow Bastard, and Elijah Wood (continuing the post-Frodo deterioration he began in Eternal Sunshine) as Kevin the ninja-quick cannibal (no relation), the surprising standout of Sin City is a back-from-the-dead himself Mickey Rourke as Marv — even behind a putty nose, a swath of Band-Aids, and a continually applied sheen of blood and viscera, Rourke succeeds in making a (literally) hard-nosed and ultra-violent character compassionate. (There’s also great cameo work by, among others, Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, and Nicky Katt, the latter of whom may well be reprising his role from Full Frontal.)

If I have any qualm, it’s that the best stories came first, and the film may have run a little long. There’s really not much to the Bruce Willis-Jessica Alba tale that closes the film, although I don’t think it wears out its welcome. Speaking of which, I might well have preferred it if Alba and Brittany Murphy could’ve taken a page from a fearless Carla Gugino…But, see, that’s the sin talking. A few hours in this vile, shameless, beastly sinkhole and you too’ll become infected with it, and I mean that in the best way possible.

In short, despite all the odds (and be warned — despite a grotesquely debauched moral economy that some people may never get over), Sin City is easily the best movie of 2005 so far, and a welcome omen for other outside-the-box comic adaptations such as The Watchmen. (Graphic Novel-to-Film comparison link via LinkMachineGo and Neilalien.)

Ring-ewww.

When you die, you see the ring. When you’re bored, you see The Ring Two. I thought the first American installment was truly frightening at start and finish, but suffered from an expository middle hour that brought the film to a standstill. I said then that “what everybody involved seems to have missed is that the movie would’ve been much scarier, at least to my mind, if some portions of the tape had just been left unexplained.” And it is with that caveat in mind that I went in to Part Two, hoping just to see this devious little ghost in the machine inflict carnage on more unsuspecting viewers. Oops, my bad. As it turns out, The Ring Two does not explain every little detail that comes up — In fact, it doesn’t explain anything, and the result, after another creepy prologue, is an incoherent, sprawling mess that follows absolutely no rules at all — it’s Thunderdome, Jerry!

The upshot is this: Apparently, Samara now has something of a crush on Naomi Watts, and she wants out of the well and into the body of her son (David Dorfman) for good. To accomplish this nefarious deed, she manifests all kinds of strange and awesome powers that have nothing to do with a videotape, seven days, a well, or anything else that’s come before. Instead, she turns into a cross between Damien from the Omen movies and Freddy Krueger before the wisecracking, dispatching anyone who gets in her way whether or not they still own a VCR (including Elizabeth Perkins, in a brief but welcome sighting as a doubting shrink.)

As it drags on, the film makes less and less sense (unless you can recall the very similar bathtub scene from Constantine), and plot holes emerge that you could throw a larger child than Samara through. How did the studly reporter guy end up back in his truck? The “Dead Don’t Sleep” but they eat PB&J’s? For what it’s worth, Naomi Watts gives this cut rate material as much as she can, but, even with expectations set very low, The Ring Two turns out to be a considerable disappointment. Still, hopefully this burgeoning Scream Queen might soon find the Great Ape on Skull Island a bit more scream-worthy.

Inflated Currency.

Hmmm. A million dollars sure doesn’t go as far as used to. (And you’d think with that kinda cash Clint could have invested in a few more lights around the set.) At any rate, I’m willing to bet I might have thought more of Million Dollar Baby if I had seen it before the hype machine kicked in (and before I knew the twist, since I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.) But, well, MDB was a harmless helping of manipulative schlock, I guess. But even if I hadn’t seen Aliens of the Deep just beforehand, this film would have come off as a woefully two-dimensional enterprise.

At this late date, you probably know the story. Grizzled archetypal trainer Clint Eastwood and his grizzled archetypal sidekick Morgan Freeman run a dark and dilapidated boxing facility, without benefit of loyal title contenders or fluorescent lighting. Into this duo’s endless Who’s More Grizzled repartee steps Hillary Swank, a plucky, gosh-darned-don’t-that-girl-have-heart boxer-wannabe from the wrong side of the tracks, who’s burdened with the scariest, goofiest redneck family this side of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (And don’t even get me started on Cletus, or Forrest, or Danger, or whatever that gimpy kid’s name was.) Soon enough, plucky Swank has even managed to thaw the heart of frosty ole Clint, and together they make that long-awaited title run, until…ack!

Like I said, MDB was ok enough as a hammy diversion, but I’d say its emotional resonance wasn’t too far removed from the Touched By an Angel melodrama of last week’s The Jacket. It’s a by-the-numbers boxing movie that turns into a by-the numbers Lifetime movie-of-the-week. Sure, the acting is polished across the board, but I thought the characters were for the most part shallow and cartoonish. (In fact, Morgan Freeman is barely even playing a character — he’s a Shawshank voiceover tinged with a touch of Bagger Vance.) And the plot barely holds together — I’m sorry, but, Evander Holyfield’s ear notwithstanding, you’re just not going to get away with that many sucker punches in a title fight.

I’m probably being a bit too hard on this flick — it made for a reasonably engaging two hours, sure. Perhaps it even works as an homage to the Hollywood of yore — at times this felt like a Karl Malden vehicle from 50 years ago. But, simply put, this was in no way the best film of last year — I’ll take Eternal Sunshine, The Aviator, Sideways, The Incredibles and a host of others over MDB any day of the week and twice on Sunday. This isn’t even the best Clint film in recent years – Mystic River was much more well-realized, and obviously Unforgiven is head-and-shoulders above this drek. How MDB won the Oscar bout is beyond me…Call McCain — the fix was in.

King of the Underworld

Despite feeling kinda rotten, I did venture out to the movies on Saturday night (armed with a hefty bag of throat lozenges) for an impromptu double feature. At the top of the bill was James Cameron’s IMAX extravaganza Aliens of the Deep and, all I can say is, if Cameron wants to make Battle Angel Alita using this funky 3-D technology, hail to the King. Granted, I haven’t seen a 3-D movie since the days before Captain Eo. Nevertheless, the effect was much improved, and made what could have been a staid underwater documentary comprised of what look to be outtakes from The Abyss into a riveting, jaw-dropping wonder.

I’ll admit, I was also fond of Cameron’s central conceit here, which is that our best bet for finding life in this solar system — at Europa, say — would be of the kind inexplicably thriving around thermal vents in the darkest, deepest parts of the ocean, where the sun never shines (and thus photosynthesis never takes place.) And what strange life it is! Innumerable swarming shrimp scuttle between ice-cold and boiling-hot water with nary an antenna twitch. Strange symbiotic tube worms ensnare food for their inner bacteria, which digests for them. Ethereal jellyfish float by, improbably yet undeniably alive. And, thanks to the 3-D, it seems you can reach out and touch all of these creatures just before your eyes — in fact, you can see them better in their natural habitat than any human being possibly could. It’s really quite amazing.

Like I said, I don’t know if Aliens of the Deep would be everyone’s cup of tea — most of the film just involves young astrobiologists and underwater explorers enthusing over their wild and crazy jobs in tiny little subs. But, whenever a strange new animal popped up on the screen, and particuarly when the camera hurtles past the moons of Jupiter on its CGI-way to far-flung Europa, I thought to myself, “Now, that’s Edutainment!”

No Jacket Required.

Attentive observers of the sidebar might have noticed that I caught The Jacket over the weekend. If I don’t write about it now, I just might forget it completely. Amiable enough as a genre exercise, The Jacket is ultimately a fluffy, ephemeral B-flick. While containing elements of Jacob’s Ladder, 12 Monkeys, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it ends up falling somewhere between an average episode of Quantum Leap and any episode of Touched by an Angel.

The story doesn’t make much sense, even by the liberal standards one must accord time travel tales. But here goes: After befriending a small child and her mother (Kelly Lynch, looking haggard) along the side of the road, recent Gulf War vet Jack Starks (Adrien Brody, better than the material deserves) manages through a series of unfortunate events to get himself locked up in a mental institution somewhere in what looks to be Stephen King’s Maine. At this asylum, despite the concerns of the resident Good Doctor (Jennifer Jason Leigh, not HST), the staff Bad Doctor (Kris Kristofferson, grizzled-as-ever) insists on pumping patients like Brody and Daniel Craig (crazier here than Rhys Ifans was in Enduring Love) full of drugs and locking them in a morgue cabinet for hours at a time. During one of these sessions, Brody’s Starks finds he can visit “the future” (2007), where he encounters the girl he met by the side of the road…all grown up, Knightley-esque, and troubled to the core (you can tell she’s troubled, I presume, because her mouth is open all the time — Knightley pulls off a decent American accent, but that’s about it.)

Got all that? Well, if it doesn’t make sense on the page, it doesn’t do much better on screen, and there are several more narrative jags to go. I don’t want to give the ending away, because that’s all there really is here, but it has very little to do with the first half of the film, in either tone or content. What begins as a dark psychological thriller — the audience spends a lot of time as a mote in Brody’s eye while he writhes and whimpers in the dark — becomes a rather saccharine (and creepy, given Brody and Knightley’s first meeting) romance along the lines of Always. All in all, The Jacket looks menacing but turns out to be harmless — I guess it might make for a decent enough afternoon rental if you’re bored enough. (And here’s one last tip, Brody, next time you find you can travel back and forth through time, think Biff in Back to the Future II.)

Let Me Clear My Throat.

As both a path-breaking porno flick and a Nixon-felling secret informant, it may have been surprisingly successful. But, unfortunately, as a documentary, the one-sided Inside Deep Throat is a superfluous and self-congratulatory tale that’s more frustrating than fulfilling. Forgoing any attempt at analytic rigor, the movie seems designed mainly to make the audience feel enlightened and blue-state cosmopolitan just for showing up. The most you can say for it is that it’s Kinsey without the nuance.

In the opening moments, the documentary tries to establish its serious pedigree with a motley crew of left-leaning talking heads remembering their “first time” at Deep Throat: Norman Mailer, Erica Jong, Camille Paglia, Bill Maher, Dick Cavett (looking very well-preserved), Hef, Gore Vidal, John Waters, etc. Ok, so far, so good. But, then the interminably smug Dennis Hopper voiceover kicks in, and the movie begins its slow lurch into irredeemable goofiness.

By the end, that lurch has become a full-on tailspin. The upshot of the film seems to be this: Deep Throat was no mere skin flick. It was about art, freedom, liberating female sexuality, and breaking restrictive social barriers…in short, it was about America.(Conversely, all subsequent porn, particularly in the post-Boogie Nights VHS-era, has been about commerce, exploitation, degradation, and, well, you know.) Moreover, the release of Deep Throat marked an epochal moment in the burgeoning culture wars, and this movie leaves no doubt which side it’s on — various would-be moral arbiters straight out of right-wing central casting are interviewed at times, and naturally they all make Ken Starr look like Larry Flynt. Meanwhile, the admittedly-dubious conviction of Deep Throat-star Harry Reems is treated like the worst threat to constitutional liberty in decades, a cross between the Hollywood Ten and the trial of Sir Thomas More.

While I think Deep Throat‘s artistic merits are vastly overrated here — it’s a ludicrous porno that improbably tapped into the zeitgeist and fell ass-backwards into crossover appeal, no more, no less — I’m generally sympathetic to the case being made in this documentary about First Amendment freedoms and the snickering, adolescent way our culture handles adult sexuality most of the time. But Inside Deep Throat‘s bullheadedly partisan and hyperbolic tone does a disservice to its central arguments. In other words, like the stereotype of the industry it sought to illuminate, Inside Deep Throat turned out to be breathless and brainless…you’d probably be better off watching whatever’s on Skinemax.

Lung Shadows.

At first, after the early director troubles and the casting of Keanu, I wouldn’t have given Constantine a snowball’s chance in Hell. But, while I can definitely see how it might come off as long-winded, somewhat inscrutable, and mostly boring to folks who hadn’t read the comics, I found the movie a surprisingly good adaptation of the source material. Much more atmospheric than your average February release comic book film, Constantine is a well-thought-out, well-constructed (if occasionally overlong) B-picture. As Keanu might say, “Whoa.”

I haven’t read Hellblazer much in the past decade, but what I remember most about the early adventures of John Constantine were (a) his frequent conversations and complicated pacts with the various demilords of Heaven and Hell, and (b) the absurdly short life-spans among his worldwide network of demonologists, clairvoyants, freaks, and hangers-on. To its credit, Constantine gets both details exactly right, with Tilda Swinton, Gavin Rossdale, Djimon Hounsou, and Peter Stormare playing otherworldly nobility to great effect (although I think I preferred Viggo’s take on Lucifer in The Prophecy), and Max Baker and Pruitt Taylor Vince (born to play a Constantine sidekick) layering on the eccentricities thick as unlucky compadres of the man of the hour.

When Constantine falters, it’s mainly in the long, protracted scenes between Keanu and Rachel Weisz, the latter of whom plays twins (one the love interest, the other the McGuffin.) The two (or three, whatever) don’t have much chemistry, and they stop the film cold occasionally in the middle hour. Also, the depiction of the Underworld, which basically resembles Sarah Connor’s nuclear nightmare in T2, has that cheap FX-house look to it, and fails to capture the wry malevolence often seen in DC’s comic-book Hell (for example, in the various torments visited upon Alan Moore’s Anton Arcane in Swamp Thing, or, in a creepy vision that I’ve never escaped, when Grant Morrison’s Kid Eternity encountered his teddy bear in the throes of agony, pleading for respite and demanding vengeance for his abandonment.)

Still, despite these lapses, I found Constantine for the most part an enjoyable and sequel-worthy adaptation, and an auspicious sign for fanboy cinema in 2005. Perhaps this’ll even bode well for FF…Nah.

Luck be a Lady.

“I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll, this time. I feel my luck could change.” Just as it seemed that I’d have to settle into Valentine’s Day weekend with the cloying miasma of Love Actually still wafting in the air, along came Wayne Kramer’s The Cooler (by way of my local Blockbuster.) Stacked with quality performances by William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, Paul Sorvino, and Ron Livingston, The Cooler is an enchanting magical realist tale about the transformative power of love that I found passionate, poignant, and poetic (and not in the Vogon sense.) I thought it managed to capture that first, giddy and glorious flush of a new romance in spades.

The film begins with Bernie (Macy), a guy beat down so low by life he makes Jerry Lundegaard seem like Tony Robbins, ambling around the once-fabulous Shangri-La casino, bestowing bad mojo like a benediction upon any unfortunate gambler in his wake. Y’see, Bernie is such a hard luck case that he infects everyone around him with his awful fortune, and has thus been hired as a “cooler” by Old Vegas mob boss Shelley Kaplow (Baldwin, well-deserving of his Supporting Actor nomination.) But, when Bernie encounters cocktail waitress and amateur astrologist Natalie (Bello), Cupid works some mojo of his own, and soon enough a revitalized, invincible Bernie inexplicably has the Midas Touch, which may not sit well with his employers…

True, you can guess where this is basically going from the opening moments. The Cooler is ultimately a brief genre exercise in noir romance – It’s not reinventing the wheel. But the wry script takes a few jags I wasn’t expecting, and Kramer, Macy, and Bello succeed in fashioning two lovebirds who veer from playful to amorous to desperate for each other in a way that belies the cookie cutter courtship of so many other films. (And while it at first seems that The Cooler has a Sideways problem, it doesn’t, for spoilerish reasons which will be evident if you see the movie.) In sum, if you can stomach the occasional burst of Old Vegas-style mob brutality (usually at the hands of Baldwin), The Cooler is a testament to the notion that even perennial losers can sometimes catch a lucky break, and a touching character-driven romance well worth checking out.

Death, Revenge, Love, and Slyders.

Some short thoughts on recent DVDs witnessed…

Dead Man: Many cinephiles whose opinions I trust have told me to check out Jim Jarmusch’s stuff, so I figured a good place to start would be this black-and-white western featuring Johnny Depp and a slew of my favorite character actors. Alas, I found Dead Man to be slow, scattershot, and for the most part uninvolving. Depp is William Blake, a fellow who is forced to flee the frontier town run by an industrialist strongman (the late, great Robert Mitchum) after an unfortunate love-triangle mix-up, and who, despite being unrelated to the English poet and mystic of the same name, nevertheless encounters enough shamanist mysticism in the wilderness to make even Oliver Stone blush. Blake’s tour guide on his increasingly bizarre escapades outside “civilization” is an Indian named Nobody (Gary Fisher), who speaks in riddle-like profundities (and, occasionally, passages from Blake) in the manner of filmed Native Americans since time immemorial.

Basically, I thought Dead Man was kinda goofy. It never established much of a rhythm or a narrative, and as an episodic travelogue, it’s hit and miss. Billy Bob Thornton as a lonely trapper and Alfred Molina as a priest peddling smallpox blankets probably make the most indelible impressions, but other quality actors (particularly John Hurt and Gabriel Byrne) needed more to do. Frankly, I just don’t think I got it. Why does long-winded, cold-blooded killer Michael Wincott sleep with a teddy bear? Why is frontiersman Iggy Pop dressed like a Willa Cather heroine? (Presumably, the answer for Jarmusch fans is “Why Not?” I suppose I could just as easily question David Lynch’s dwarves or the Coens’ similar non-sequiturs.) Perhaps I went in with abnormal expectations, but I found Dead Man‘s “funny” parts stiff and the “profound” parts stilted. I’ll definitely get around to the rest of Jarmusch’s oeuvre, but, sadly, this counts as a strike against him.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: Mike Hodges’ reinvention of Get Carter was also a disappointment. It strives mightily to be a somber, Unforgiven-like tale of unfulfilling revenge and redemption denied, but turns out instead as a slow, plodding affair that feels a bit like Eyes Wide Shut, in that a great director’s once-pioneering vision now sadly comes off as somewhat stale and antiquated.

The movie throws you in in media res, with pretty-boy n’er-do-well Davy Graham (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) dealing to and scamming the London glitterati while his brother Will (Owen) seems to have taken a page from Matt Foley and is now, literally, living in a van down by the river. Very shortly, horrible, droogie-like things are done to Davy by none other than Malcolm McDowell, resulting in the former’s suicide, and lean, mean wildman Will blows back into town to settle the score. The rest of the film consists of Owen slowly seething (to impressive effect) while his former mates and enemies cringe, cower, and — like us — await the inevitable denouement. It eventually happens, but lordy does it take awhile to get there. Jamie Foreman (soon to be Bill Sykes in Polanski’s Oliver Twist) deserves marks as the Graham boys’ flawed and frantic lieutenant, but otherwise there’s not much to go on here. If you want to see Hodges direct Owen, rent Croupier instead.

Love Actually: Oof, where do I start? Ok, I knew going in that this probably wasn’t going to be my cup of tea. But a good friend of mine had it sitting on his TV, he recommended it as “like Sliding Doors” (which, much like Next Stop Wonderland, was a romantic comedy that I really enjoyed), and it had a bunch of actors I like (Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and much of Team Hitchhikers: Martin Freeman, Alan Rickman, and Bill Nighy.) But, as many of you probably already know, Love Actually is, actually, godawful dreck, a schmaltzfest of grotesque proportions. I was complaining about the occasionally saccharine taste of In Good Company only yesterday, but Love Actually makes that film look like Requiem for a Dream.

The film follows multiple couples in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and is set in an alternate universe where no love goes unrequited (among the beautiful, of course), at least without a wink and a kiss. In fact, in this Fairie-England, where Hugh Grant (doing his pre-About a Boy faux-self-effacing schtick) is the new Prime Minister, it’s even considered somehow romantic to make an unabashed play at your best friend’s wife. Look, I know I’m a cynical sort, but my heart warms to certain well-made fare. But this…um, not so much. From a wholly implausible joint press conference (Billy Bob Thornton cameos as a prez who combines the worst of Clinton and Dubya), to Grant cavorting around 10 Downing Street a la Risky Business, to Liam Neeson constantly interacting-cute with his Padawan stepson, to Colin Firth venturing to 19th century Portugal, to the, um, musical numbers, this film all too often made me want to claw my eyes out. Most of the time, I was hoping I’d see more of Bill Nighy, the movie’s saving grace, as an aging rocker trying to make one, last improbable comeback with a sellout remix of The Troggs’ “Love is All Around.” But, by the end, even that storyline gets smothered in sugary sweetness. For the love, actually, of Pete, stay away from this lousy film.

Harold & Kumar go to White Castle: White Castle…hmmm, those are some fine little burgers, particularly in quantity. I haven’t had a 12-pack of Slyders in a dog’s age. In fact, I think there’s a Castle a couple of blocks over at 125th and 7th. Man, how awesome would that be right now? I…I, uh…oh yeah, Harold & Kumar, right. Yeah, that was pretty a funny movie.

Admittedly, Harold & Kumar is for the most part a check-your-brain-at-the-door kinda film. For all of its clever 21st century savvy about 80’s-movies racial tropes, H & K is still ultimately a lowest-common-denominator college comedy. Yet, while some of the vignettes definitely fall flat, I found Harold & Kumar just enough of a variation on the age-old After Hours road-trip formula to be really amusing. John Cho and Kal Penn are both charismatic and engaging as our wayward, famished, and thoroughly stoned protagonists, and Neil Patrick Harris earns special plaudits for showing up as himself (albeit more-than-slightly tweaked) and just going for it. All in all, I highly doubt H & K is everybody’s bag, but — despite the gross-out gags and retro thinking — it is at times a rather intelligent dumb movie.