For Questionable Taste Theatre this week, I present a movie that had only two things wrong with it: GATTACA.

(Those two things are Ethan Hawke. He’s so bad I counted him twice.)

Nutshell: In the near future, when genetic modification of embryos is standard, Ethan Hawke is born as a lumbering “god-child” with no job prospects. Sick of his life (wouldn’t you be if you were Ethan Hawke?), he goes underground and assumes the identity of Jude Law, who at this point was actually someone whose life you’d want to have. Will he make it into space? Will he sound like he even cares?

“That piece can only be played with twelve.”
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It’s time for another Fun with Lobby Cards, wherein I take some promo photos from upcoming movies and try to guess what the hell the movie’s supposed to be about.

Last time, The Duchess of Langeais showed her true colors.

This time, we go into the future – the future… A.D.

Join me for a tour through this Vin Diesel / Michelle Yeoh / Gerard Depardieu / Charlotte Rampling gem.

“In the future, everyone lives in a 1998 Britney Spears video.”
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I’m not a huge fan of Westerns. I can count the Westerns I like on one hand and still have a finger left over. (Which finger depends on if I’m mad at you or not.)

One of these precious few is a we’re-all-out-of-spaghetti Western, Two Mules for Sister Sara, which was distributed in Finland under the name A Fistful of Dynamite, which is weird since that’s a totally different movie, A Fistful of Dollars, which is sometimes distributed as Duck, You Sucker, which is really just proof that I’m right in hating all these double-crossing Westerns to begin with!

Ahem. As I was saying: Two Mules for Sister Sara.

Nutshell: Shirley MacLaine’s Sara is a nun whom Clint Eastwood’s Hogan saves from the hands of three bad guys. As he takes her along with him on his mercenary mission, he gets roped into her cause of helping the revolutionaries, except that might not be her cause. Also, she might not be a nun. Also, Clint Eastwood makes a TON of faces. Also, it features Poldo Bendandi as “Executed Revolutionary.” I love when extras get names related to their job in the movie. Way to be executed, Poldo! You looked good.

The second-biggest reason I love this movie is simple: there’s more dialogue than there is standing around and drinking, and a lot of the best lines go to Sara.

The biggest reason I love this movie is Sara. Westerns, in general, are not huge opportunities for women to do much more than stand around and look worried as the men shoot things. This movie is a total reversal – Sara, who is totally not a nun, is clever enough to stay one step ahead of Hogan for the entire movie while still (mostly) maintaining her cover as a nun until the last possible moment. I really just love her, full stop.

Naturally, I love Clint Eastwood as well; he spends the movie grumpily shooting trains, grumpily dealing with the military, grumpily fighting with Sara, grumpily climbing rocks grumpily fighting kissy-feelings towards Sara, and grumpily chopping the head off a rattlesnake. What’s not to like?

How about this poster?

“THRILL as Clint Eastwood carries the severed torso of Shirley MacLaine through the unforgiving West!”

Oh, the Seventies. What was the matter with you?

It’s really interesting to note, though, that NOBODY knew how to market a Western with very little person-to-person violence and no real standoff scenario. (As I remember, Clint shoots those rapists, and then blows up a train, and then later he and a bunch of dudes attack a garrison full of bad guys, but that’s a general shootout and not a Personification of the American West.) But really, the majority of the movie is Clint and Shirley hauling ass at a mild pace and bickering with each other to great effect.

The trailer below, while it features the action scenes, has almost NOTHING to do with the actual plot of the movie. I’m sort of amazed; it’s like that trailer for The Shining where it’s a romantic drama about a guy who befriends a little kid and his mom.

Also, in case you couldn’t get enough YouTube, you have GOT to check out the opening theme of this movie, composed by genius Ennico Morricone. It incorporates DONKEY SOUNDS into the orchestra and children’s choir stuff. I really…donkey sounds.

This week, Questionable Taste Theatre presents Rough Magic!

Nutshell: Uh, it’s pretty impossible. Okay, so, magician’s assistant Myra Shumway is on track to marry a smarmy young Senator for reasons that are never explained, but she ends up changing her mind and going on the lam when her fiancé pops a cap in her boss. In el refugio Mexico, she’s tracked by Russell Crowe (back when he was still an actor and not that Australian guy everyone hates), a World War II vet and fedora-wearing private eye who falls for Myra like a sack of something heavy. There’s also Mexican shaman women, a gas station attendant whom she turns into a sausage, tarantulas, fire-eaters, a uranium museum, planes, gay butlers, and Paul Rodriguez.

What’s not to like, right?

This movie, based on book-I’ve-never-read “Myra Shumway Waves a Wand”, is like a comedic version of The Big Sleep with more tortillas. And magic. And Jim Broadbent. Does it make sense? No. Do I love it? Yes.

The dialogue is straight-up Old-School Caper Banter©:

Alex Ross: I’m your guardian angel.
Myra: You don’t look so angelic to me.
Alex Ross: Well, you know, standards are down all over.

Also, I really love them together in this. It’s the only movie I’ve ever liked Bridget Fonda in, and this movie was my second-ever exposure to Russell Crowe — and the dude may be a jerk, but he acts his ass off in this movie, which is more than can be said for some people. (Paul Rodriguez, I’m looking at you!)

If a romantic caper isn’t enough to get your butt in the seat, allow me to direct you to the magical/speculative element. Myra has actual magical abilities the charlatans around her lack. If you dream of movies where women lay eggs that hatch tarantulas, or where someone barfs a playing card representative of a vital organ, this is the movie for you! (If you can’t tell, “realism” is not really in the stars on this one.)

So, they make kissyface until “Doctor” Jim Broadbent convinces Myra to go into the jungle and meet with the powerful shaman women and bring him back their magic potion that has the ability to move the plot forward. She’s very excited about being a novice shamanette and can’t wait to share her, uh, joy with Alex, until her fiancé shows up to take her home and pay Alex for telling him where she was. Oh snap!

So, Myra gets pissed and kills Alex with her mind. Oh, SNAP.

Then she barfs up her own heart, turns it into a playing card, and flushes it. Oh…something.

The new heartless Myra is the sort of gal who lounges poolside in a bathing suit, slingbacks, and a full-length fur, and then storms off to face a now-living Alex (who barfed up the tarantula, he’s totally fine) and sex him mightily!

This scene doesn’t really happen in the movie – he kicks her out in her black girdle when he realizes she’s quite literally heartless – but, you know, whatever, publicity department!

Anyway, she ends up not marrying Senator Fiancé because he drinks some of the magic potion and declares himself in love with his butler (whatever!), so Myra leaves the scene of the wedding in her AMAZING wedding dress and top hat, with a playing card tucked into her bosom by an old lady who may or may not be a shaman (whatever!) and wanders her way right into her dead boss who was never really dead (WHATEVER) and then finds her heart again and runs to Alex’s place, where they turn into bunnies and have sex.

No, for real. The last scene in this movie is bunnies doing it.

…you’re on Amazon right now, aren’t you? You’re sick! Sick!

I have a feeling this movie appeals to the magical realists in the world, also known as “people who can follow along during all the symbolic barfing”. I can’t prove it, though, because every time I watch this movie I just glee around in the bantery dialogue and glaze over during the trip-to-the-shaman and heart-barfing parts.

Rough Magic is another in the seemingly endless collection of movies I track down like it’s an episode of Prime Suspect; my DVD of this movie is a Chinese import that I bought before the movie was even available in the States. Now, of course, you can snag one for 9.99 with Super Saving Shipping, THANKS VERY MUCH, AMAZON.

So, occassionally I will get a bee in my bonnet about a particular actor and go on a fevered quest for everything they’ve ever been in, which is how I end up paying eight thousand dollars for a VHS of The Linguini Incident, and paying a small smuggling operation to get me a copy of I Am Dina to round out my collection of weird-ass Marie Bonnevie movies.

A while back, I got caught up with Queer as Folk (UK) and fell like a sack of bricks for Aidan Gillen. In a fit of glee, I bought up everything of him that I could. “Why,” said I, “if he’s that good in this role, he must have amazing taste in movie parts!”

So I bought Lorna Doone. Used. Which, I would like to point out, is five dollars I will never see again.

(Later, I found out in an interview that Aidan Gillen takes roles based on where they’re being filmed, so he can see different parts of the world, something I wish he’d have let me know before I spent my five dollars.)

I Abridged it. It’s a little over five minutes, down from two and a half hours that feel like five hours. Five, like my dollars.