{"id":2992,"date":"2013-08-05T00:33:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T04:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=2992"},"modified":"2013-08-10T00:29:41","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T04:29:41","slug":"netflix-longies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/netflix-longies-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix Longies #2 (Thunder Soul, 26 Years: The Dewey Bozella Story, Rolling Thunder, Mobsters, Batman: The Movie)"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t know what Netflix Longies is, go read the first paragraph of Netflix Longies #1<\/a>. I don\u2019t feel like having to write it out again or copy and paste it or whatever. Anyway, here we go:<\/p>\n

\"thunder\"<\/p>\n

Thunder Soul<\/a> (2010) | Dir. Mark Landsman | 83 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m big into soul and R&B and funk and whatnot. Earth Wind & Fire, Frankie Beverly, Blue Magic, The Stylistics, Tavares, The Commodores\u2014the list goes on. That\u2019s the kind of music I was raised on, instead of Raffi or Barney or whatever. And there\u2019s a channel on Time Warner Cable, in the MusicChoice section, called R&B Classics (channel 608 in NYC) and pretty much every night I\u2019m listening to that while working on my laptop. It\u2019s just calming as all hell.
\n
\nSuffice to say, I was already sure this movie would be up my alley from its description on Netflix. But I think it could even appeal to people that don\u2019t care about soul whatsoever. It\u2019s just a fascinating story: a High School band in the 70\u2019s who were so ridiculously good that they won all sorts of awards nationwide and were basically rockstars, with albums and everything. And these were kids, some of whom hadn\u2019t ever picked up an instrument before High School. The doc follows them 30 years later, getting together to play one last time for their band leader\u2014who’s now in his 90’s\u2014to show them how much he meant to them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very touching, and sad, and happy, and everything you want it to be. I love documentaries like this, ones that are captivating without all sorts of injected conflict and sensationalism. Just a simple tale about people getting together to do a nice thing, told in a way free of any and all preachiness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame this one never really found an audience. I thought it had come out this year or something, but it actually came out in 2010. Where\u2019s it been? If it weren\u2019t for stumbling upon it on Netflix, I\u2019d probably have gone many more years without hearing about it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dewey\"<\/p>\n

26 Years: The Dewey Bozella Story<\/a> (2012) | Dir. Jos\u00e9 Morales | 49 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another great slipped-through-the-cracks doc. Dewey Bozella spent 26 years in prison for a crime he didn\u2019t commit. While in prison, he took up boxing, and discovered he had real talent for it. He competed as much as he could as a prisoner, but never was allowed the opportunity to have an officially sanctioned bout. This doc follows him, now a grown man in his fifties, fresh out of prison, trying to make his dream of a real boxing match a reality.<\/p>\n

The doc is worth it for the story alone, but there are also some phenomenal verit\u00e9 moments where we see Dewey very vulnerable and frustrated as he comes against bureaucratic obstacles standing in the way of his goal. In particular, there\u2019s one scene where he\u2019s on speakerphone that is one of the best dramatic scenes I\u2019ve seen in recent years\u2014and it\u2019s all real.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rolling2\"<\/p>\n

Rolling Thunder<\/a> (1977) | Dir. John Flynn | 95 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

For years I\u2019d heard that Tarantino loved this movie. Hell, he even named his short-lived distribution company after it, so it must be something special. I could never find a way to get a hold of it though. It didn\u2019t have a DVD release for ages, and then when it suddenly did, it was one of those made-to-order DVDs that cost twenty bucks. Way too much for a blind buy. But now it\u2019s on blu-ray, at a fair price, and on Netflix as well. We can all finally see what the fuss is all about.<\/p>\n

Turns out Tarantino loves this one for good reason. It really is quite something. If you\u2019re a fan of Paul Schrader\u2019s writing (Taxi Driver<\/a>, Blue Collar<\/a>, Raging Bull<\/a>) this will definitely be up your alley. Some parts almost feel like parody, they\u2019re so ‘Schrader’. But it never gets too<\/i> cheesy, and also never gets too serious either. It\u2019s a well-paced, well-written, and well-handled film.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want you to know too much about it going in, so don\u2019t go researching it or anything. Just put it on the next time you\u2019re in the mood for a gritty revenge movie and it\u2019ll hit the spot for sure. It\u2019s really everything you could hope it\u2019d be. And Tommy Lee Jones is young<\/em> in it!\u00a0It’s awesome, he looks like Josh Hartnett with a unibrow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"mobsters2\"<\/p>\n

Mobsters<\/a> (1991) | Dir. Michael Karbelnikoff | 104 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one that really took me by surprise. I gave it a shot because I have a thing for cash-in movies\u2014ones that are designed to be similar to a hugely successful movie (in Mobster’s case, Goodfellas<\/a>) and come out in its wake or around the same time.\u00a0Usually they\u2019re half-baked, rushed, way pulpier, and sometimes, a lot of fun.\u00a0The best examples of this I can think of are Top Gun<\/a> \/ Iron Eagle<\/a>, and\u00a0A Bug\u2019s Life<\/a> \/ Antz<\/a>. And in the case of each of those instances, I prefer the latter. And I\u2019m not the only one. I remember reading an interview with David Gordon Green ages ago where he talks about his love of Iron Eagle over Top Gun.<\/p>\n

The modern reigning kings of this moviemaking tactic are The Asylum<\/a>, who are behind such films as Snakes on a Train<\/a>, Transmorphers<\/a>, AE: Apocalypse Earth<\/a>, and literally countless others that aren\u2019t any fun and are clearly just made to confuse old people at Blockbuster or stoners browsing Netflix at 3AM.\u00a0And at first glance, one might assume Mobsters is just as bad as one of these. It\u2019s got one star on Netflix, and a whopping 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. But it\u2019s actually pretty good, and definitely fun.<\/p>\n

Sure it\u2019s cheesy, but it\u2019s not without good performances. Patrick Dempsey gives probably the best performance I\u2019ve ever seen him give, and Nicholas Sadler damn near steals the show as a crazed hitman. Plus, just look at the supporting cast: Chris Penn, F. Murray Abraham, Seymour Cassel, Anthony Quinn, and Michael Gambon, just to name a few. If you can\u2019t have a good time watching these guys, I don\u2019t know what to tell ya.<\/p>\n

Sure, the story is all over the place and the dialogue is beyond cheesy at times, but there\u2019s an elegance to it. Like the hugely underrated and underseen Mario Van Peebles masterpiece\u00a0Panther<\/a>, there\u2019s this ‘street’, tall tale vibe to the whole thing that makes it work and helps you not care about the fact that it\u2019s probably extremely historically inaccurate.<\/p>\n

Apparently, there\u2019s a longer cut of the movie that is much better. Characters that weren\u2019t fleshed out in the version I saw have more scenes, etcetera. I\u2019d love to see that, but it\u2019s only available on VHS. I think I\u2019ll have to hunt down a copy one of these days.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"batman2\"<\/p>\n

Batman: The Movie<\/a> (1966) | Dir. Leslie H. Martinson | 105 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how I went this long never seeing this movie. I guess I always assumed it was some throwaway, beyond-cheesy thing that shouldn\u2019t even be watched. I was wrong. It\u2019s the best live action batman movie. (I’ll do a whole big post about the other Batmans soon, like Greg did<\/a>, but for now I\u2019m just gonna only talk about this one.)<\/p>\n

The 1966 Batman ages the best out of any of them. Sure there\u2019s some dated 60\u2019s humor in it (and humor that was dead on arrival) but a good amount of the humor does<\/em> in fact hold up. Some of it has a Zucker brothers vibe, and some of it even has a David Wain, Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a> vibe. (I’d love to see Wain do a modern version with Showalter and Rudd and Ian Black and Banks and Lennon and the rest of them.)<\/p>\n

Also, the personalities of the bad guys are just brilliantly crafted. I adore Cesar Romero\u2019s Joker. He\u2019s kind of like a lame dad who thinks he\u2019s really funny. And there\u2019s something to the way he takes punches that just makes him seem like he\u2019s made of rubber, almost like an Obie doll or something, like if you kicked him in the nuts he\u2019d clutch his nuts and his eyes would bug out and his mouth would make a big O shape, even though he\u2019d be physically unharmed. Like, he\u2019d go through the motions of the pain without feeling any of it. Does that make any sense? I just find that really interesting and creepy\u2014a bad guy that reacts to pain because he knows he should, but doesn\u2019t actually feel it. And to me, that\u2019s how batman villains should be\u2014beings that don\u2019t feel pain yet go through the physicality of feeling it and ultimately cannot be killed or destroyed and keep coming back forever. Like rubber. I hope that makes sense.<\/p>\n

I also love that The Riddler is fucking lame. That he\u2019s just this boring pretender and the\u00a0only reason he exists is for his weird nonsensical riddles that he’s not even on screen for.\u00a0He just has this vibe of \u2018I\u2019m the lame guy, and I\u2019m not nearly as interesting as the other guys\u2019. He\u2019s almost the Zeppo of the group, and I don\u2019t mean that as an insult\u2014Zeppo was a fantastic character. The point of Zeppo was that he was this lame boring romantic interest. It was a sendup of the kinda guys you\u2019d see in movies at the time who nobody has any fucking interest in. I love that they accomplished that so well that people will watch the Marx Brothers and just think he\u2019s unfunny and sucks. He\u2019s like the first anti-humor or whatever.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to Batman: The Movie. Penguin is good too, and so is Catwoman. But this section of Netflix Longies is already too fucking long, so I\u2019m just gonna end it. Watch this movie with fresh eyes\u2014it really is a silly, wonderful thing. There\u2019s a lot there to love, and not even in a The Room<\/a> way or whatever. I\u2019m talking legitimately smart and funny shit. Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t know what Netflix Longies is, go read the first paragraph of Netflix Longies #1<\/a>. I don\u2019t feel like having to write it out again or copy and paste it or whatever. Anyway, here we go:<\/p>\n

\"thunder\"<\/p>\n

Thunder Soul<\/a> (2010) | Dir. Mark Landsman | 83 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m big into soul and R&B and funk and whatnot. Earth Wind & Fire, Frankie Beverly, Blue Magic, The Stylistics, Tavares, The Commodores\u2014the list goes on. That\u2019s the kind of music I was raised on, instead of Raffi or Barney or whatever. And there\u2019s a channel on Time Warner Cable, in the MusicChoice section, called R&B Classics (channel 608 in NYC) and pretty much every night I\u2019m listening to that while working on my laptop. It\u2019s just calming as all hell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[2426,2437,2441,2448,2438,2422,2451,2432,2417,2457,2424,2453,2445,32,2365,893,2428,2414,2415,2201,2446,2416,65,2436,2431,2429,1080,2452,2412,965,2449,2455,2435,894,2434,173,1288,2411,2443,2450,2444,2454,2433,383,2423,2421,567,2430,2447,104,185,2439,2419,396,2442,2420,2427,462,2418,2413,2425,2456,722,1206,2440,2458],"class_list":["post-2992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-codysreviews","tag-26-years","tag-a-bugs-life","tag-ae-apocalypse-earth","tag-anthny-quinn","tag-antz","tag-barney","tag-batman-the-movie","tag-blue-collar","tag-blue-magic","tag-cesar-romero","tag-channel-608","tag-childrens-hospital","tag-chris-penn","tag-cody-clarke","tag-david-gordon-green","tag-david-wain","tag-dewey-bozella","tag-earth-wind-fire","tag-earth-wind-and-fire","tag-elizabeth-banks","tag-f-murray-abraham","tag-frankie-beverly","tag-goodfellas","tag-iron-eagle","tag-john-flynn","tag-jose-morales","tag-josh-hartnett","tag-leslie-h-martinson","tag-mark-landsman","tag-marx-brothers","tag-michael-gambon","tag-michael-ian-black","tag-michael-karbelnikoff","tag-michael-showalter","tag-mobsters","tag-netflix","tag-netflix-longies","tag-netflix-shorties","tag-nicholas-sadler","tag-panther-mario-van-peebles","tag-patrick-dempsey","tag-paul-rudd","tag-paul-schrader","tag-quentin-tarantino","tag-rb-classics","tag-raffi","tag-raging-bull","tag-rolling-thunder","tag-seymour-cassel","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-snakes-on-a-train","tag-tavares","tag-taxi-driver","tag-the-asylum","tag-the-commodores","tag-the-dewey-bozella-story","tag-the-room","tag-the-stylistics","tag-thunder-soul","tag-time-warner-cable","tag-tom-lennon","tag-tommy-lee-jones","tag-top-gun","tag-transmorphers","tag-zeppo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2992"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}