Killing Me Softly (2002)

Scrolling through the free on-demand movies, looking for something mindless to fall asleep to, ok, trashy title, read the description, blah-blah-Heather Graham (getting my attention)-blah-blah-"by acclaimed director" and then the [MORE] with the arrow.  Suspense before the movie even begins!

"by acclaimed director.....[press the arrow]....Kaige Chen."

Huh?  Farewell My Concubine Kaige Chen?  Yellow Earth?  Didn't even know he left China.

I try to reconcile my cognitive dissonance while watching this Lifetime-with-benefits sillyfest.  Is there a concubine/ownership of women/East vs West subtext?  I construct a noble director vs. evil producer editing room battle narrative.  May well be true.  I imagine Chen, through an interpreter, slowly unrolling his palimpsest scroll of genres to Hollywood hacks and their only reply is:  "But when does Heather Graham get naked?"

In the end, the studios were so dismayed they didn't even give the movie an American theatrical release.  That's OK.  It happily belongs in Scinemax, straight-to-video, keyword: erotic thriller lateniteland.  By the end, I tossed out the "noble director" script and instead envisioned Chen signing the contract, gleefully doing the dollar to yuan conversion in his mind, looking up and saying, in perfect English:  "Nudity is in Ms. Graham's contract, correct?"

Rating: 7 out of 10
Recommended also: Body Double

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

A thoughtful DVD designer would have a "skip through to the songs" feature.  I guess I will give Frank Tashlin another chance with Artists and Models.  I'll take Shirley MacLaine in her 2nd ever movie over a cartoon woman anyday. 

Rating: 4 out of 10
Recommended instead:  Listening to the 50s on 5 on Sirius

P.S. Jayne Mansfield + Mr. Universe = Mariska Hargitay: News to me.

Goliath (2008)

False advertising, I say.  Look at this poster.  See how the writer/director has mumblecore cred.  The film is 80 minutes long, well within established parameters.  One would think another set of pleasantly awkward encounters amongst 20-somethings was in the cards.

No, no, no.   We are presented with a meanspirited Dwight Schrutish protagonist without beet cultivation skills.  And I know any sensitive cat lover would have to turn away from the screen on more than one occasion.  Let me describe the best gag and save you the pain of the rest of the film.

You know how some cats run to the sound of "food on the way":  the crinkling of the 40 pound bag or the distinctive creak of that one cabinet door.  For Goliath, it was the electric can opener.  So when kitty doesn't come when called, David goes for the cat magnet.  Whirrrrr.  Nope.  Whirrrrrrr.  Oh no.  As he suspects the worst, he opens the kitchen window and angles it outside.  Whirrrrrrrrrrrr.  Eventually, he is roaming the streets of Austin with a portable generator and the opener in his hand whirring through the neighborhood and off onto the highway.

Rating:  2 out of 10
Recommended instead:  Waking Life

24 City (2008)

My grandfather, Edward Andrews (born Hyacinth Slovinski, or so I've been told), worked his whole life for the Dixon Crucible Company.  His 40 year pin is the ornament on the top of my little Christmas tree.  He made it to foreman on the line at the pencil factory.  I never had a sense of the details of his job, but I remember that once he flew to Mexico to share his knowledge with them.  I was able to be there by his side at all of his other jobs:  monitoring the action and locking up playgrounds and gyms for Jersey City Parks & Recreation, being a deacon at St. Paul's Church, being a Cubmaster, working at the polls.

I thought about him a lot watching 24 City.  I wished I could ask him now what his job was like.  Back when he was alive I wasn't interested.  By the time I got blue collar consciousness, my stepfather, Harry Meier, was in my life, but he wasn't talking.  I remember getting some Studs Terkel from the library but dealing with Harry ended with me crying and throwing the book out the car window in anger.

24 City is a dramatized oral history of a Chinese factory which is turned into an upscale apartment complex.  The Movie Gods were clearly speaking to me, as I went home to google the Dixon Company history and saw what is currently at Poppy's workplace.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Recommended instead: Learning the history of work in your family