Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Short review: Girl group goes to Hollywood, they fall in with a bad crowd, and just barely make it out again. Funny, odd, a bit dated. With breasts, drugs, and violence. The music was much better than I'd have expected.

Directed by Russ Meyer from a Roger Ebert screenplay. Fox apparently thought they were getting a sequel to Valley of the Dolls at first, but the title card explicitly states this isn't one.

I kinda wish I'd seen Valley of the Dolls prior to seeing this.

D-cup (out of A-, B-, C-, D-, and DD-cup) schlock.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls at IMDB

Valley of the Dolls at IMDB

Another find at the local public library

Hamlet 2

Short review of Hamlet 2 (IMDB page)

It goes for cheap jokes instead of thoughtful ones at almost every turn, but at least it's reasonably clever with the cheap jokes. One early scene has drama teacher Dana Marschz agonizing over a review that tears his production of Erin Brockovich a new one. Then Dana confronts the reviewer and we learn he's probably fourteen. The review was funny, the identity of the reviewer isn't clever though. The movie is filled with those things.

A quote from The Tall Guy now:

Mary: Well, the only other thing at the moment is a new musical that the RSC are doing.
Dexter: Er, what's it about?
Mary: The Elephant Man.
Dexter: A musical of the Elephant Man? What's it called?
Mary: "Elephant", I think - with an exclamation mark presumably.
Dexter: Pity the poor bastard who has to play the elephant.
Mary: Remember dearest, everyone thought Jesus Christ Superstar was a stupid idea.
Dexter: Jesus Christ Superstar WAS a stupid idea.
Mary: True.

Dana learns his beloved drama class is being cancelled, and after consulting with the young reviewer decides to embark upon one last blow-out production to save the class. It's as bad an idea as a musical Elephant Man.

Brie (Dana's wife): Doesn't everybody die at the end of the first one? Dana: I have a device. Brie: "The time machine door opened --" Dana: That, that's the device Brie: "-- revealing Hamlet, Gertrude, Polonius, and Hillary Clinton having what appears to be group sex."

(The actual production lacks that scene.)

Five movie references out of ten.

Erin Brockovich at IMDB

The Tall Guy at IMDB

The Elephant Man at IMDB

Final thought: watch The Tall Guy instead if you've never seen it

Dude, Where's My Car?

Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) at IMDB

I watched this last night knowing just about nothing about it in advance except that it was what the director of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle did before Harold & Kumar.

It's a lot like The Hangover, but instead of increasingly outlandish situations there are increasingly preposterous situations. Something like a Hangover / Earth Girls Are Easy cross.

If you haven't seen any of those, a quick plot summary. Jesse and Chester are potheads who wake up after a party and have no memory of it. They are on a quest to give their girlfriends the anniversary gifts they bought for them, but the gifts are in the car and they can't remember where it is. Along the way they meet a pot smoking dog, a French ostrich farmer, three groups all trying to get some sort of "continuum transfunctioner" from them, a transvetite from whom they have stolen a lot of money, and several smaller characters.

The humor is stupid, and just barely PG-13, but the movie is quick and warm.

Three alien "hot chicks" offering "erotic pleasure" out of five.

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) at IMDB

The Hangover (2009) at IMDB

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) at IMDB

Final thought: the lost car is a Renault 5 with one mismatched door

Rootabagas.

"So far? So early? So soon?" asked the ticket agent wiping more sleep out of his eyes. "Then I will give you a new ticket. It blew in. It is a long slick leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it."

— How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country by Carl Sandburg

But let's start at the beginning.

How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country

Gimme the Ax lived in a house where everything is the same as it always was.

"The chimney sits on top of the house and lets the smoke out," said Gimme the Ax. "The doorknobs open the doors. The windows are always either open or shut. We are always either upstairs or downstairs in this house. Everything is the same as it always was."

So he decided to let his children name themselves.

"The first words they speak as soon as they learn to make words shall be their names," he said. "They shall name themselves."

When the first boy came to the house of Gimme the Ax, he was named Please Gimme. When the first girl came she was named Ax Me No Questions.

And both of the children had the shadows of valleys by night in their eyes and the lights of early morning, when the sun is coming up, on their foreheads.

And the hair on top of their heads was a dark wild grass. And they loved to turn the doorknobs, open the doors, and run out to have the wind comb their hair and touch their eyes and put its six soft fingers on their foreheads.

And then because no more boys came and no more girls came, Gimme the Ax said to himself, "My first boy is my last and my last girl is my first and they picked their names themselves."

It's start of the first of the Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg.

Final thought: Sandburg has also written adult fare, but the kids stuff is great