Reviews
Bongwater (1998)
Dirt-weed.
I have a soft spot for the Stoner genre - I can't help it. And, unlike some of the posters about this film, I really enjoyed "Half-Baked" - it was good-natured and humble. Though the cover for "Bongwater" gave me impression of those indie movies given a shamelessly misleading advertising "angle" by companies eager to earn back even a third of the money they spent on it, I took a chance because I like Jack Black and Luke Wilson and there's always room for one more stoner movie. Bad idea. Not a stoner movie (the drug sequences are uniformly embarrassing), not a comedy, and never affecting, "Bongwater" stinks; blighted with a strained script, unfocused direction, and the kind of nebulous yet righteously sadistic morality that belongs in a Joel Schumacher opus, not an indie film. Even more disturbing, this movie shook up my opinions about actors I'd always thought I liked. Luke Wilson, so laconically charming in Wes Anderson's movies, is wooden here, the usually amusing Andy Dick is boring, and comic god Jack Black appears in only one scene that even begins to make proper use of him. And then there's Alicia Witt - I liked her OK in "Cecil B. Demented," but her performance in "Bongwater" is so excruciatingly pretentious, bratty, and shrill (she must have attended the Liza Minelli school of acting) that I pledge to never again watch another movie in which she appears.
Bottom line: I'd take the most braindead of stoner comedies over this tone-deaf, small-minded, and almost utterly unfunny movie. Even if you're a Tenacious D completist, think hard before you spend money on "Bongwater."
Super Troopers (2001)
Enjoyable, but flimsy (teeny spoiler)
"Super Troopers" is a lightly funny indie ensemble comedy about Vermont state troopers that unfortunately doesn't feature the Abba song and can't shake its unpleasant similarity to "Police Academy." I watched it at Austin's SXSW festival and enjoyed it, but got the feeling that watching it a second time would be a bit of a chore. The movie's greatest strength is a kind of warmly amorality - these are cops who smoke pot, engage in swinging relationships, and harass drivers for their own amusement. Unfortunately, this same "who cares" amorality leeches the film of any kind of conflict that would make its plot interesting; the climax of the film centers on a marijuana bust, but who really cares who wins when the only difference between the cops and the drug dealers/users is that the cops get it for free? Additionally, there is a pretty disturbing image of a strangled half-naked woman with her face pushed into a dog food bowl that is never played for anything but laughs, which makes the relative lack of female characters in "Super Troopers" all the more damning.
Skazka skazok (1979)
One of the most beautiful animated films of all time.
Using a mix of puppet, cutout, and cell animation, Yuri Norstein made in Tale of Tales a heartbreaking, tenderly poetic meditation on Russian history as well as one of the most stunningly beautiful animated films ever. Very hard to get, but don't miss a chance to see this film.
Sherman's March (1985)
Slow, long, subtle, and wonderful.
Yowch! Some of these comments are so negative! The anonymity of the internet seems to have spawned this new subculture of jaded dissing. I've seen "Sherman's March" four times (and its sequel, "Time Indefinite," twice) and loved it every time. It's true that this movie is very slow, very long, and very subtle, but those are not necessarily flaws. If you watch "Sherman's March" with that it mind, it can be a tremendously rewarding experience - touching, subtly funny, and thought-provoking. Ross McElwee will never have the commercial viability of Quentin Tarantino or Arnold Schwartzenegger or whoever, but I don't think his "home movies" are intended to be viable. They're just intended to be good old-fashioned well-crafted art. Some people get mad when movies have no freakishly attractive people or satisfyingly pat endings or giant explosions, and some people feel grateful. This movie is for the latter camp.