Transvestite Snakes on a Plane, starring, written and directed by Edward D. Wood Jr.

[green_queen]

BEST SNAKES ON A PLANE THREAD EVER! And it's at ohnotheydidnt. I usually hate that place. But OMG the cake!
Snakes on a Plane on Wikipedia.
Scorpions in a Limo by speakerwiggin.

As speakerwiggin said, it's gotta be the only movie in history that had reshoots to increase the rating from PG-13 to R. HELL YES.

I'm loving the polarisation this movie is creating on my Flist. You thought Brokeback Mountain was contraversial? Check out speakerwiggin vs. mistressbanshee. LMAO!

In other movie news, The Player

Starring Tim Robbins as a smarmy film producer who tries to get away with murder, this film is a send-up of Hollywood and the Hollywood system.

I think I like thinking about this movie better than actually watching it. I get what it's trying to do and say, but I didn't find it as hysterically funny as I think I was supposed to. Some bits cracked me up but others were just a bit WTF. The movie's another one of those intellectual enterprises more than being an emotionally engaging story, which is something I've never really gotten into. I like to care about the characters and what happens to them. Much as I love Tim Robbins that just didn't happen for me with this, so it didn't really hold my attention - I kept changing back to the TV or wandering off to do other things. I also wasn't a fan of the mock-doc style and the weird sound - it might be better on DVD, but I was watching a video and the sound kept cutting in and out.

As I said, I got a kick out of the premise of it and the celebrity cameos were great. The best part of the film is the end when they screen a film that was supposed to be no stars, no Hollywood ending and it ends up with Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Bruce Willis staging a very Hollywood ending. I also love the self-referential single take opening shot where people wander through talking about great single takes in the history of film. I also liked the character arc where Griffin Mill (Robbins) started becoming a decent and interesting producer after he committed murder. I'm just not that keen on the intellectual nature of the film as a whole. Also, the idea of this Hollywood system, while funny, doesn't always ring entirely true. Most of the pitches just wouldn't work, funny though it may be that everything is something meets something else or a sequel to something (the pitch for The Post-Graduate is particularly funny.) The film is so clever that story is left behind.

Verdict: For absolute film nerds only, more intellectual than engaging.

7 out of 10

O

Retelling of Othello set in a preppy high school and starring Julia Stiles, Mekhi Phifer and Josh Hartnett.

This was sort of the opposite of The Player - not a terribly good film but it had a good enough set-up that I did care about the characters. Plus it had a hell of a lot more eye candy (and HOT BOYTOUCHING, which may have affected my opinion of the film - Mekhi and Josh get very, ver close) than Orson Welles's Othello, which I am going to have to force myself to see in full at some point in spite of my dislike for Welles. *sigh* Anyway, Josh Hartnett makes for a surprisingly convincing Iago and was probably the best performance of the movie, which completely shocked me - I didn't think he had it in him. I'm a bit of a Mekhi Phifer fan so I enjoyed watching him.

I thought the movie started well and set up very convinving relationships but once Iago started his machinations things sort of lost focus and ended up being rather messy. There were also frequent cuts to a hawk and to pretty shots of the school that completely failed and just seemed to be making the movie longer - it was a surprisingly short movie, very strangely edited. However the use of rap music vs. a lovely classical piece over the final destruction was really effective, and the basketball scenes were a highlight. They were shot really, really well. I was surprised to see that the director was Tim Blake Nelson (he's an actor, he's been in Holes and O Brother, Where Art Thou?) but after consideration I decided it made sense - he gets good performances out of the actors and has some dynamic scenes but can't seem to really decide what mood or theme he's going for with the movie.

Verdict: The kids are alright, but if you want a good modern Shakespeare movie stick with 10 Things I Hate About You - it shares some of the cast and is a much more competent film.

5 out of 10

Glen or Glenda

A doctor tells a cop who's just discovered a transsexual who committed suicide about two different cases: Glen, a man who dresses in women's clothes and doesn't know how to tell his fiancee, and Alan, a man who really believes himself to be a woman.

Wow. Just wow. Ed Wood is truly, genuinely amazing. I had only ever seen Plan 9 from Outer Space before this and I'd always thought Ed Wood (which is such a good movie, by the way, everybody should see it) had to be exaggerating, but it seems that he really was like that. He's got a lot of heart and enthusiasm and yet he's like a talent vaccuum. I don't know what on Earth possessed anyone to make this movie with him.

First, I'd like to get one thing straight: Glen or Glenda has a lot to say, and say it it does. Repeatedly. Emphatically. In case you miss lines and scenes the first time, they are actually *repeated*. If you missed out on the fact that Barbara, Glen's fiancee, is "lovely and intelligent" the first time, the narrator says it again. Twice. In other words, in case you missed something, it is repeated. Glen is Glenda, and Glenda is Glen. They are one and the same person, Glen and Glenda. In other words, Glenda is Glen's alter ego. And the point is repeated several times in the movie, because Ed Wood likes to repeat himself.

Get it?

Seriously though, the love story between Glen and Barbara is actually quite sweet, even if its 'psychological' solution is pretty misguided. The film also tells a story about a transsexual, Alan, who has a sex change to become Ann and is happy after that. They're both quite decent, honest and sweet stories that are oversimplified but still quite advanced for 1953, but the way they're told is terrible. Alan goes off to war so there's about 5 minutes of stock war footage in the middle of his story.

Now we get to the truly bizarre part of the movie: Bela Lugosi. Anyone who's seen Ed Wood will know that Bela Lugosi was something of a pet actor for Edward D Wood Jr. In this film he actually sort of presents it, Tales from the Crypt-style, from a haunted mansion. Every time they cut to him lightning and thunder crash across the screen.

What. The. Fuck.

For one thing, there's ALREADY a narrator AND a separate story with a cop and a doctor talking about transvestites and 'pseudo-hermaphrodites' (transsexuals.) Not only that, but Bela Lugosi's part in the movie makes NO SENSE. He rambles about things that have NOTHING to do with the story he's telling and presents it like a horror movie while the rest of the setup is pseudo-documentary style, with the exception of one scene. In a 10-minute sequence in which I can only assume Glen passed out and is dreaming, Glen and Bela both play voyeur to some weird kinky sex games with women tying up other women and various women offering themselves to the camera. Every so often the devil pops up and rants about puppy dogs' tails and fat little snails. Bela raises his eyebrows. Glen watches in horror. Glenda pops up and everybody laughs at her. Weirdest thing ever, I kid you not.
Later, when Glen tells Barbara about himself, we randomly cut to Glen entering the room where Bela's narrating only for Bela to...I don't know, swat him or something, and then he DISAPPEARS.

Seriously, what was Ed Wood thinking when he made this? Was it supposed to be an art film? A documentary about himself? A horror movie?

Verdict: Insane. Rent it now.

Actual merit: 2 out of 10
Entertainment value: 9 out of 10

I'm amused by the fact that the movie I had the most to say about was Glen or Glenda.

Only the infinity of the depths of a man's mind can really tell the story.
Green Queen