Birds and Blood: Two Capsule Movie Reviews

Lynne and I only had intentions of seeing one movie last Saturday, but we got to the theatre too late. So, rather than drive all the way back only to come back for the latest showing (Lynne really wanted to see the movie, and this was probably our last chance), we decided to look for any movie that was starting shortly and ending before the last showing of the one we originally tried for.

And from that decision comes two reviews I just had to have juxtaposed on a single post.

March of The Penguins

Finally, a documentary that will make your parents shut up about how tough things were when they were just starting out.

Seriously, these penguins have it rough, and following their grueling mating ritual makes for a very inspiring story any human can appreciate. Especially women, who no doubt take note of the male penguins' necessary role in ensuring an unhatched egg's survival. That's what I call a partnership.

I'm curious as to what the original narration is like . The original French version reportedly gives voice overs to the penguins. Given that the narrator for the American version is Morgan Freeman, I'm glad that didn't carry over to the US version. Once I saw when Freeman tried to pay tribute to Mark Twain Award recipient Richard Pryor by attempting to do voices (okay, a voice) in Pryor's style, and it didn't really work. Freeman's a man of many talents, but mimicry isn't one of them. His trademark voice and tone work nicely enough here.

I'll tellya, I'll never read the Opus strip again without thinking that the title character is an unappreciative crybaby. Berkeley Breathed doesn't know shit about penguins, man.

The Devil's Rejects

Okay, Lynne really wanted to see this, but so did I. We were both impressed by Rob Zombie's House of A Thousand Corpses film, which was an homage to the 70's no-hope-whatsoever style of horror flicks. Once Rejects ended, Lynne was very disappointed and said a few words about (uh) Zombie wearing too many hats and not having enough good people around him. Reading some of the online reviews days later, I think she let him off lightly in comparison. I'm still trying to figure out the film, and I'm determined to write this before scanning for any Zombie interviews that might list the intentions he had with the movie.

On one hand, I thought it was a gutsy move on his part to basically change the storyline midstream, removing what was apparently inconvenient to him (Lynne kept asking where the hell the underground lab with Dr. Satan went to) and going in an entirely new direction with what were more or less the same characters. On the other hand, I've searched for the possible reason behind such a move, and nothing has really come to mind.

It's like Zombie envisioned his characters to be malleable like cartoon characters. You know, the way Bugs Bunny can work either in a soldier's uniform or a knight's suit of armor, and no backstory is needed. With flesh and blood actors playing evil bastards with more depth to them than the typical Jason/Michael Myers type of killer, it's not so easy. In fact, Zombie just might have proven that it's impossible to do.

Zombie changed from the first movie's style to one that gives an obvious nod to The Hills Have Eyes (obvious even without a cameo from one of the actors from the film). One reviewer even brought up the infamous I Spit On Your Grave (which I admittedly have never seen). Still, I'm reminded most about Natural Born Killers. It seems like Rejects is what Natural Born Killers would have looked like if idea man Quentin Tarantino wasn't saved by Oliver Stone, who attempted to give the story a moral compass and was only partially successful.

Rejects almost seems meta, like four movie villains who strayed from the original story and go out searching for a hero or at least some worthy victims. They don't seem to find any, which makes the story drag on longer than it should have.

But all these thoughts are, when you get down to it, merely attempts to try and piece together something that is a mess compared to the solid first effort by Zombie. Having seen this, and remembering that a director's version of House never emerged as Zombie initially promised, you get the sense that maybe Zombie needs a really good editor all the time.