Shaun Berk's 10 Movie Recommendations- 386th Edition

Welcome to the 386th Edition of my series.  Tonight I will be at the Anderson Buffalo Wild Wings to wach WRESTLEMANIA.  Come on out on Saturday, April 13th to see Action Packed Wrestling where I will be in attendance as a talent agent and personal ring announcer writing all the wrongs started by this promotion.  I will now get to my selections for the week. 

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002):  I start this week out with this film which is directed by George Clooney in his directorial debut and also co-stars as Jim Byrd who is a CIA agent.  This is based on the autobiography by Chuck Barris, played very well by Sam Rockwell.  Chuck Barris is mostly known for hosting THE GONG SHOW but before that produced games like THE DATING GAME and THE NEWLYWED GAME.  Today, these shows may seem a bit tame but at the time, they were considered by many to be filth and were very groundbreaking.  What people did now know about Chuck Barris was his life as a CIA assassin which some say is a lie but I will maintain that it is the absolute truth.  He claims to have lead this life and his tv shows were his front.  The movie is shot some in documentary format and has many of his peers like Dick Clark playing himself and reflecting on the times they had with Barris.  This is a rather dark film but also very compelling. Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay and embraced what the book said about his life as a CIA assassin which is in all likelihood true.  Drew Barrymore co-stars as Penny who is his love interest but finds that Chuck is not an easy person to live with and who would be when they are an assassin for the CIA.  There are many cameos that include Maggie Gyllenhaal, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Rutger Hauer, and many others.  Also look for ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT alum Michael Cera who plays Chuck as a boy.  This is a pretty enjoyable film whether or not you believe in Barris's claims to his double life.  Rockwell plays Barris to perfection but it might be good to watch a few episodes of THE GONG SHOW if you have not seen it yet.

Lady in the Lake (1947):  Robert Montgomery directed and stars in this film-noir as Philip Marlowe, a detective that has been played many times and most notably by Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP.  In this movie, Marlowe is looking to be more of a fiction writer than a detective but when talking to a lady editor, she soon hires him to find the wife of a publisher.  When this happens, like any movie where one hires a detectives, Marlowe finds himself in way over his head.  Montgomery had an interesting concept to film this on the first-person view of Marlowe so the camera mostly followed him around where we do not see the actor very much as we hear him from behind the camera.  This was a good effort from Montgomery while it was not great.  It is worth a look to see this technique that had not been used often and when it, it was very limited while Montgomery did the whole thing from his point of view.

Thugs with Dirty Mugs (1939):  This is my animated short for the week which was brought to us by Merrie Melodies.  This is a parody of the gangster films from this era and was on the dvd of THE ROARING TWENTIES.  A gang lead by a guy named Ed G. Robemsome who plays Killer, an obvious parody of Edward G. Robinson, leads a gang in a bank robbery where the cops have a lot of trouble finding the gang until a very unlikely source happens.  This was a pretty inventive cartoon short in that era and was very controversial at the time.  I found it to be a very enjoyable and humorous short film and worth that eight minutes.  This is available through Youtube.

The Beast from 20000 Fathoms (1953):  This is my sci-fi film for the week and a pretty good one.  Some nuclear testing starts up in the Arctic resulting in a dinosaur thawing out.  Paul Hubschmid stars as Professor Tom Nesbitt who has witnessed it but people will not believe him.  He is able to get a paleontologist to listen and they set off to find that dinosaur.  The animation of the dinosaur is really pretty good even by today's standards which I believe was the stop-animation.  This a time when the luxury of CGI was not available and had to put a lot of effort into them.  Ray Harryhausen was involved in the animation of the dinosaur who is quite possibly the best in the special effects department.  This based on a short story by Ray Bradbury called THE FOG HORN.  Kenneth Tobey and Lee Van Cleef also co-star.  This is said to be this inspiration for the filming of GODZILLA that came out the next year.  This is a must for sci-fi buffs.

Wreck-it Ralph (2012):  This is part two of my two-part John C. Reilly series.  It is also part three of an unintentional Disney series.  This is a very clever film that takes place in the world of arcade where the characters live in their own world where they then go into the game to play their parts.  Reilly plays the title character who is the villain in an arcade game but does not like the life of a villain and sets out to become a hero.  Ralph soon causes havoc in the arcade world but soon ends up in a candy-coated racing game where he meets a young girl named Vanellope, voiced by Sarah Silverman, who is an outcast in that world and a "glitch".  He soon sets out to help her enter and win that race.  Jack McBrayer, GLEE co-star Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, THE OFFICE alum Mindy Kaling, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN alum Ed O'Neill, 24 alum Dennis Haysbert, and many others lend their voice.  Possibly my favorite scene is a group therapy session which has much of the villains from old school games.  This is a great homage to the world of arcade and people born in the 70s and 80s will really appreciate this movie and children of today will be a bit educated about the arcade when we were growing up.

My Voyage to Italy (1999):  This is one of two documentaries for this week.  Martin Scorsese directs and narrates this personal documentary that explores the world of Italian cinema from about the 50s to the 70s.  These are movies he cites as his inspiration to being a filmmaker.  He shows movies from this era that he grew up in from filmmakers like Rossini, De Sica, Fellini, and many others and talks about what the movies mean to him and the effect they had on him as a child and now.  I admit, that I'm usually more into American films and Asian films while I have used many other foreign films.  This is a very informative look towards the Italian cinema in which not only inspired him but filmmakers in other countries like the French New Wave period.  It is also great to see Scorsese's passion and appreciation for these films making me want to focus more on movies like these in the future.  This is a four hour documentary but worth all four hours to hear his great commentary for this era.

The Battle of Chernobyl (2006):  This is my second documentary for the week and is Travis's Co-Op film selection for week.  Last one I featured was a very fun one to watch and this one is far more unsettling but very important.  This talks about a very horrible event which happened on on April 26th, 1986 when one of the reactors at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded.  More than 200 people died of the radiation immediately after the explosion and many others had to be evacuated out of a 30 kilometer radius.  The movie then discusses the aftermath and the next few months of over 500,000 people including military battling this unseen enemy to at least make things better.  It also talks about long-term effects and how people involved still aren't the same and possibly even birth defects happening towards children in that area.  This is an event that was kept secret for many years and even with this documentary, I see it has very little exposure.  I was not able to find this on Netflix, even for a dvd but it is publicly available on http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-battle-of-chernobyl and is one that should really be viewed.  In some ways, this is inspiring seeing the people involved absolutely risking their lives to avoid a second explosion happening.  Travis never ceases to find some very interesting titles to show that many have not seen and I had not heard of this event until I saw this movie.  Mikhail Gorbechev does quite a bit of commentating as he was president at the time of the Soviet Union of how difficult his job was at the time.  I'll say it again, more people need to know about this situation that may very well be just as bad as the nuclear bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972):  Sydney Pollack directed this film which stars Robert Redford as the title character.  Jeremiah was a man who decided he wanted to live a simple life in the mountains.  He soon escapes out there and is taken in by an older man named Bear Claw who teaches him survival skills.  Soon, he finds that the life is not so simple when he gets into a vendetta with the Crow Indians who ruin the idyllic life he has in the mountains.  This movie has some great scenery and a good performance from Redford.  This is based on a real-life person named John Johnston who really was vengeful towards the Crow Indians.  There is not a lot more I can say where I won't be giving it away but it is quite good and worth a watch.

Up in Smoke (1978):  I decided for my next movie, I wanted something from this era and a comedy to have some fun with and what better than these I would original stoners.  Long before we had duos like Harold and Kumar and Beavis and Butthead, we had the comedy duo of Cheech and Chong.  Cheech Marin played the Cheech character and Tommy Chong was the Chong character.  Lou Adler directed their debut film where we first meet Anthony Stoner, played by Tommy Chong, who is quite the black sheep of the family and sets out to make it on his own.  He soon meets Pedro, played by Cheech Marin, who picks him up as a hitchhiker and soon find they have a lot in common with their love for marijuana.  Soon, they unknowingly smuggle a van, made of marijuana, and have the incompetent Sgt. Stedenko, played by Stacy Keach, on their trail.  Strother Martin, Ellen Barkin, and PICKET FENCES alum Tom Skerritt co-star in this great stoner comedy.  As long as you're not absolutely against pot smoking, I think this can be enjoyable for all and is available on Instant Netflix. 

Nell (1994):  I end on what is part two of my two-part Jodie Foster series.  Foster stars as the title character who has been brought up in an isolated world where all she has known is her late twin sister and her recently deceased mother.  Liam Neeson co-stars as Dr. Jerome Lovell and comes across Nell.  Nell speaks in her own language it would seem and many believe she has some mental illness.  Jerome takes an interest to her and becomes fascinated by her speech pattern and other things.  Natasha Richardson co-stars as Paula who is a psychology student and believes she should be observed in a laboratory.  Jerome does not believe she needs observed and feels that she does just fine on her own.  A judge gives three months for them to work with Nell for him to make the decision then.  Foster is great in this role and Neeson is good too as well as less violent than he has been lately.  This is a movie that can really make one think where some thought she needed observation but others thought that this is the world she knows and wants to stay in.  This is a pretty moving film and is worth a look. 

Well, that is it for this week. Tell me what you like and dislike.  Also stay tuned for next week which so far includes Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Lawrence, Judy Garland, John Travolta, Charlize Theron, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Jeff Bridges, and many others.