10 Phenomenally Overrated Movies

SCARFACE - If I want to spend three hours with a sociopathic irredeemable asshole, I’d hang around my ex-brother-in-law more often. With its awful music score and silly montages, this movie practically stinks of the 80s. Yet it’s more popular now than ever, mostly by dumbass thugs who perceive themselves as badasses, but have never watched a real gangster movie.

AVATAR - Take away the admittedly-great 3-D, and you’re left with a three hour retelling of Pocahontas. This movie also confirms that director James Cameron, despite pushing the technological envelope, doesn’t have a single original idea of his own.


BLADE RUNNER - Probably blasphemy to sci-fi fans, but guys, I’ve tried really, really hard to like this movie over the years (yes, including the director’s cut) but just can’t honest say I care about it. And don’t try to tell me I didn’t ‘get it’. Dekker’s a replicant, I get it. It’s still long, slow and boring.

HEAVY METAL / PINK FLOYD THE WALL - If you were in high school when either of these came out, you probably thought they were totally awesome. You were also probably totally high. Watch them now, without so much as a beer in your hand.

APOCALYPSE NOW - Some of the iconic scenes in this movie are stunning, almost hypnotic at times. Then Brando shows up during the last half hour with his massive gut, mealy mouth and verbal vomit. And where the hell is the ending?

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION - I could probably list any Vacation movie here. Everyone I know loves them, especially this one, but I’ve never found them to be funny at all (I’m also subjected to Christmas Vacation at family get-togethers during the holidays every year). Too bad, because the original stories published in the original National Lampoon are nasty, politically incorrect and absolutely hilarious.

HALLOWEEN - This movie established director John Carpenter as a creative force to be reckoned with, perhaps because it was the first of an endless line of hack-and-slash horror films that followed. And there’s a lot to like here...the music score is perfect, and what lurks in the shadows creates a ton of suspense. But the dialogue is shitty, the characters behave stupidly and the actors look ten years older than the teenagers they supposed to depict. And who the fuck goes trick-or-treating when the sun's still up???

THE SHINING - I love Stanley Kubrick. He made one of my favorite movies ever (Dr. Strangelove). But he was totally the wrong guy for the job. It takes a conscious effort from a tremendous talent to take the scariest book I ever read, slow the pace down to a crawl, then use Jack Nicholson and a Steadicam to dupe virtually every critic in the world into thinking this is one of the greatest horror movies of all time.

FORREST GUMP - I like this movie...a lot. But the Best Picture of 1994? The same year as The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction and Quiz Show? Puh-lease.

JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING DIRECTED BY TIM BURTON - I'm probably the only person on the planet who thinks Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was Burton's greatest film, made long before he became the darling of Emos worldwide. What's actually kind of ironic is that, most of those Burton-worshiping Emos often cite The Nightmare Before Christmas as their favorite Burton film, even though he didn't actually direct it.

THE CASSANDRA CROSSING and the Sinister Urge

Starring Richard Harris, Sophia Loren, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardener, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Lee Strasberg. Directed by George Pan Cosmatos. (1976, 129 min)

            There reaches a point in every young boy's life when he goes through physical and emotional changes; he has reached the apex of childhood and begins the slow, sometimes awkward transition from into becoming a man. These are formative years; what happens during this time plays a large role in shaping the type of adult he will eventually become. No, I'm not talking about puberty and all the embarrassing baggage that entails. What I am talking about usually occurs around the same time, though, when a young man wakes up one summer morning with the compelling urge to blow shit up.
            Unlike puberty, this fiery rite of passage is a communal experience, usually including friends of a similar age who are just as bored as you are (or at least have a stash or firecrackers or M-80s). Also unlike puberty, when you suddenly notice how wonderful breasts are but have no idea what to do with them, the average kid knows exactly what to do when the urge to blow shit up finally comes, which is to find some shit to blow up.

            Some parents reading this may assume such urges are an indication of potentially psychotic behavior. Let me reassure you...just about every boy with easy access to fireworks has engaged in such destructive activity at least once. They can't help it; it is ingrained in the male psyche. To assume otherwise is living in denial. If you truly think your son has never blown shit up for the sake of blowing shit up, it's because he didn't run home to tell you that he just blew shit up, just like he never emerged from the bathroom and said, "Hey, Mom, I just masturbated!"

            Unless you birthed a maladjusted freak who gets his kicks by sticking a firecracker up a cat's ass, the time-honored act of blowing shit up is simply a normal part of the transition to adulthood.

            The most obvious targets of these urges are the toys they have outgrown...G.I. Joes, Hot Wheels, train sets, action figures. It happened to me around the age of 13 or 14. One day, after taking a long hard look at the hundreds of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars I'd spent the better part of my first decade of life collecting but no longer played with, I came to the decision that their retirement would be best-realized by going out in a blaze of glory. And I knew just the guy to help me...my friend, Karl. I may have had the objects for destruction, but he had the artillery, courtesy of his older brother, who often drove up north to an Indian reservation in Washington to get real fireworks, not the glorified sparklers available in Oregon. Hence, Karl's garage was almost always stocked with packages of firecrackers, Roman candles, cherry bombs and M-80s.

            So, one hot summer morning in July, me and Karl trucked off to a remote area with my two cases of race cars and his grocery sack of explosives. Over the course of the next two hours, we blew up every single car to tiny metal bits, and when we were done, I was exhausted-yet-satisfied. I'd sated an urge that had been welling within me for a long time.

            I would even suggest this was an educational experience, though the lesson didn't really sink in for another twenty years, when my wife dragged me along on another one of her antiquing excursions. Displayed behind within a glass display case in one particular store were dozens and dozens of Hot Wheels just like the ones I blew up as a kid, only now priced at $20-100 each.

            What did I learn? Fucking remorse, that's what!

            A word to the wise, especially to those of you young enough to feel the same destructive urges that I had...do not blow up your own toys. Blow up your buddy's Star Wars action figures or your sister's Barbies. Ignore your instincts, take your old toys and stash them in the attic. Twenty years down the road, you can laugh your ass off when some nostalgic boob offers you a hundred times what you paid for them with your allowance money.

            If you're my age, currently beating yourself for trying to launch your G.I. Joe into space with a bottle rocket, don't be too hard on yourself. You were only acting as nature intended. You're normal.

            What's abnormal are the kids who do not outgrow the urge to destroy. Back in the days before CGI took the fun out of special effects, these folks either ended up doing time, or took their love of blowing shit up seriously enough to make a living at it, such as those who created the visual effects for most of the disaster movies in the 70s.

            Today, anyone with computer smarts can simulate a catastrophic train wreck just by firing-up a laptop. Back in 1976, if you were lucky, you could work for a studio that would pay you to blow shit up the same way you once did with Hot Wheels.

            Which brings us to The Cassandra Crossing, a fairly minor entry in the 70s disaster sweepstakes, but one which appeals to the inherent destructive nature in most boys.

            The movie itself is actually pretty good, once you get past the terrible dialogue, unbelievably stupid subplots (Martin Sheen has more WTF moments than every other character combined) and the god-awful music score. There's a potentially lethal plague onboard a European commuter train, and only a small handful are immune. That doesn't stop the American government (of course) from trying to deliberately crash the train in order to keep the virus at bay. Their plan is to guide the plague-infested train to toward the Cassandra Crossing, the rickety old bridge practically guaranteed to collapse if so-much as a moth lands on it.

            There isn't a whole lot of action until the train reaches the Cassandra Crossing. But because this is a disaster movie, and because there's been no gloriously destructive payoff thus far, it's a given that the bridge will collapse and the train will meet its end in a fiery crash.

            Here is why The Cassandra Crossing is really awesome: Even back in 1976, it was obvious we were watching a bunch of guys blowing up models. The special effects aren't even the least bit convincing, yet the climactic scene is a lot of fun. We know the collapsing bridge is a model, we know the train is a model, but it's awesome for the same reason we loved destroying our old toys. We look at the climax of The Cassandra Crossing and think, "You know, I should have done that with my old Lionel Train set."

            I think whoever was in charge of that scene really got-off on blowing shit up as a kid. That's what ultimately makes The Cassandra Crossing so cool...not its realism, but its obvious use of miniatures and models that get blown up in the process. Those of us who grew up in the 70s can appreciate the effort involved, just like earlier generations can still marvel at Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion effects from the 50s and 60s. Sometimes, we kind-of like knowing how things in movies are accomplished, especially if we are able to figure it out for ourselves.

ROLLERBALL (1975): The Greatest Game Never Played

Starring James Caan, John Houseman, Maude Adams, Moses Gunn, John Beck. Directed by Norman Jewison. (1975, 129 min)

Until 1968's Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey, science fiction was seldom too serious...alien invaders, time travel, giant monsters, space battles, etc. A lot of those movies made the future look awesome; we cursed our bad luck for being born before flying cars, laser guns, space colonies and giant robots. Mindless fun, and mostly kiddie stuff (some of which I still love).

Then the 70s arrived, along with The Andromeda Strain, Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Omega Man, Westworld, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, Silent Running, A Boy and his Dog, A Clockwork Orange, THX-1138, et al. These mostly-dystopian movies promised us that, not only will the future suck, it's gonna kick our asses. Many directors of these films claimed to use sci-fi as a commentary on the ills of modern-day society. If so, I seldom understood any message they were trying to convey. In some cases, I still don’t. Even now, I’d love to visit Westworld, drill robot hookers and blow away Yul Brynner. And yeah, I’d take the chance on one of them suddenly turning homicidal.

Another of those dystopian nightmares was 1975’s Rollerball, Norman Jewison’s supposed commentary on society’s bloodlust, which depicts a future society controlled by corporations. Nations, war and poverty no longer exist, but the population still has a craving for death, which the world’s corporations provide with Rollerball, an unholy cross between roller derby, football, motorcycle racing and gladiatorial combat.


I’ve seen and read interviews where Jewison (in full-pretention mode) intended the audience to be appalled by the violence in Rollerball. Well, Mr. Jewison, mission failed, because you made the game so kick-ass that we all wished it was a real fucking sport (it makes the NFL look like cheerleading competitions). Hell, even the stunt guys you employed played the game in their free time between takes. If you had any other agenda, Mr. Jewison, it was lost on most folks, at least on me and my friends when we decided to try playing Rollerball ourselves in the summer of ‘76 (a year after the movie was released in theaters, but recently premiered on TV for all of us to behold).

Granted, we didn’t have motorcycles, roller-skates, spiked gloves or a speeding steel ball that could tear your head off, but we did have bicycles, skateboards, gardening gloves, old baseball helmets, a softball wrapped in silver duct tape and two trash cans placed on opposite ends of our cul-de-sac to serve as goals. We were all set.

But unlike the climactic match in the film with no time limit, our own little game lasted about five minutes. That’s when my friend Mark, riding a skateboard, collided with another kid on his bike and smacked face-first onto the street. He broke his nose, two teeth and scraped a good chunk of skin off his cheek. After that, no one seemed too enthused to continue the game, especially after seeing all that blood squirting from Mark’s face.

Looking back on that incident now, maybe it was my first hard-learned lesson (though not as hard on me as it was on Mark) not to imitate what you see in the movies. But even though re-enacting Rollerball was basically my idea, I'm still gonna blame Norman Jewison for Mark's busted nose. Screw the man’s social commentary; he made the sport look like too much goddamned fun for a bunch of bored 13-year-olds to pass up.

There are more reasons why Rollerball’s violence-is-bad message falls on deaf ears...

As brilliantly conceived and shot as the game scenes are, an actual plot is required for most movies, and the plot in this one is flimsy and stupid. Rollerball-champion Jonathon E (James Caan) is a threat to the corporations because his skill defeats the purpose of the game (demonstrating the futility of individual effort). So they keep changing the rules of the game in order to eliminate him. It is never made clear why Jonathon’s continued ass-kicking is a threat, but even if it was, it seems to me that if corporations are able to keep the global population in-check, simply killing one guy shouldn’t be too tough. The last time I checked, one of the few times in history killing just one guy ever had global impact was during World War II, and that was a good thing.

Furthermore, if Rollerball truly does sate the population’s bloodlust, yet it’s obvious everyone loves Jonathon E, doesn’t killing him lessen one’s interest in the game? Wouldn’t you want him to keep kicking-ass, especially since he is such a nice guy off the track? Consider the Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era. I’m not a basketball fan, but even I sometimes tuned into games when he was playing. We loved the guy even when he was kicking the shit out of our own home team. When he decided to finally retire, there was a noticeable dip in TV ratings for NBA games. As a society, we love seeing one man totally dominate a sport, to the point where his absence makes the sport a bit less compelling. Disagree? Then when was the last time you watched a golf tournament in its entirety when Tiger Woods wasn’t playing?

In Rollerball, by trying to kill Jonathan, these corporations aren’t really doing a lot to help their cause. In fact, with every increasingly deadly rule change designed to eliminate him, the sport becomes even more popular when he overcomes the odds and wins anyway. And besides, doesn’t Jonathan’s triumph accomplish the very goals the corporations had in the first place, to placate the passive public’s bloodlust?

But I’m being way too analytical, because I’ve never met anyone who has seen Rollerball that gives two shits about the story anyway. In fact, the chapter-skip feature on your remote was made for movies like this. In-between the most awesome sports-action sequences you’ll ever see are endless scenes of dull exposition, cheesy parties, occasionally nonsensical dialogue or random shots intended to be symbolic. With your remote, it’s possible to enjoy this two-hour film in about thirty minutes, catching all of the stupendous action and still have an inkling of the plot (if you care). We get the gist of the story whenever Jonathan scores a goal or does something awesomely violent; the movie cuts to John Houseman (the evil corporate executive trying to kill him), a stern expression on his jowly puss.

Still, the very idea of Rollerball is great (and I do love this film). So even though its anti-violence message is an epic fail, out of sheer respect, I’ll mention at least one valuable life-lesson this dystopian classic does offer with utmost clarity (besides never try to play the game in your cul-de-sac with your friends):

Polyester is not, and will never be, attractive. Especially beige polyester.

19 Things We Learn While Watching THE BLACK HOLE

Starring Maximillian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall, Slim Pickens. Directed by Gary Nelson. (1979, 98 min)

1. Black Holes are not actually black, nor are they invisible. They look more like massive flushing toilets hovering in space. And the further inside you go, the brighter they become.

2. Some robots have southern accents.

3. There may be some Rush fans in the Disney camp. Reinhardt’s ship is called the Cygnus. Two years prior to the film, Rush recorded a song called “Cygnus X-1,” which tells the story of a ship venturing into - that’s right - a black hole.


4. Good robots go to Heaven. Bad robots go to Hell.
5. No matter what the role, Anthony Perkins is always Norman Bates.

6. Maximillian, the evil robot, is a total badass, mostly because he doesn’t talk. No one else in the film ever shuts up.

7. In the future, even though humankind has mastered interstellar space travel, they still can’t design a soldier robot that can aim worth a shit. These guys make Imperial Stormtroopers look like Hawkeye from The Avengers.

8. Joseph Bottoms is no Harrison Ford. But we already knew that.

9. Don’t worry about that massive hull breach trying to suck you out into space. Just hang on to something. You’ll be okay.

10. And even if you do get sucked into space, you’ll be okay without suffocating or freezing to death, as long as your robot buddy rescues you within a few minutes.

11. Hoping to capitalize on the millions George Lucas made in licensing the Star Wars name to toy companies, Disney did the same for The Black Hole, which included sets of action figures. It is with more than a little irony that action figures would be created to tie-in with a movie that has almost no action.

12. On the other hand, who wouldn’t want their own tiny Ernest Borgnine doll?

13. This film must have inspired future designers at General Motors, because the front of the new Chevy Camero looks a lot like the robot, Maximillian (meaning it’s totally badass).

14. If things don’t go their way, some robots will throw such a hissy fit that they’ll short circuit and shut down (sort of like my computer).

15. No need to worry if a massive flaming meteor crashes through your ship and rolls after you like Hell’s bowling ball. Just gawk at it for a few seconds before running away really, really fast.

16. Large spacecraft of the future will include a rail system for convenient transport within the ship, and will suddenly turn into the mother of all rollercoasters when things go bad.

17. Although this was Disney’s first real attempt to move away from cartoons and kiddie comedies, The Black Hole has more laughs than Freaky Friday, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Shaggy Dog, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Superdad and Pete’s Dragon combined.

18. On the other hand, The Black Hole is the only major studio film I can think of that kills-off every single character. No sequel here, folks.

19. After Star Wars, kids could be duped into seeing anything.

THE CAR: The 70s' Ultimate WTF Film

Starring James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, Ronny Cox, R.G. Armstrong, Kim Richards (young child star all us sixth grade boys had the hots for). Directed by Elliot Silverstein, (1977, 96 min)

The concept of The Car, where an automobile from Hell arrives to turn the good and not-so-good folks of a small desert town into road pizza, is proof positive that Robert Evans wasn’t the only studio executive from the 70s doing too much cocaine. Crossing Duel with The Exorcist is an idea that could only be dreamed up by someone who’d just snorted half of Peru. How else can you explain why stuff like this got green-lighted, while Orson Welles was slumming as a wine spokeman on TV?

On the other hand, while Citizen Kane may be one of the greatest films ever made, nobody gets run over by a souped-up, demon-possessed automobile, which is a lot more fun to a 13-year-old (when I caught The Car at the Cinema V, the trusty old second-run theater near my house) than watching a reporter try to figure out who Rosebud is.

The Car is a terminally weird movie, even for the 70s. Maybe even the 60s. Given the deadly serious tone and numerous scenes where nothing is happening at all, one gets the feeling that the producers are actually trying to achieve something as dark and existential as The Exorcist, even though the audience is paying to watch people die.

Weirder still is the character of Amos, a despicable lout who regularly beats his wife. The audience understandably expects this guy exists in the movie just so the car can come along later and pop his body like a tick under its radials, giving us a rousing 'you got what you deserve!' moment. But no, Amos ends up not only surviving, but being one of the movie's fucking heroes (even though we're given no indication he plans to stop beating his wife).

Weirdest of all is Anton LaVey, leader of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible, who's listed as a technical advisor for the film. Really? Technical advisor? Being that the concept of Satan presented in The Car is something that a 13-year-old Grand Theft Auto addict might conjure up, I can't imagine what a card-carrying Satanist could possibly have contributed. I dunno, maybe he argued the devil would drive a badass black behemoth, not some rusty old Pinto.

Or maybe LaVey argued that the devil hates delirious school teachers who taunt him from the safety of a graveyard (sacred ground, where Satan is apparently prohibited from parking...I guess he'd need one of those handicapped permits or something).

This is why pedestrians should use the crosswalk.

Or maybe LaVey was simply handy with a wrench and could fix any mechanical problems during filming. Still, none of those reasons explains why a major studio (Universal) would think including a real-life Satanist in their film's credits would boost the box office

The car itself, created by famous car customizer George Barris (he designed the original Batmobile), looks like a cross between a Lincoln Continental and a bathtub, and is one mean machine. It flattens folks into gooey pancakes, takes out police cars two-at-a-time by rolling over them and drives through front windows of houses to nail its prey (the aforementioned school teacher). Its horn is an unholy cross between a car alarm and Fran Drescher's voice.

The movie stars James Brolin (who would later suffer more misery at the hands of Satan in The Amityville Horror) as a small-town sheriff trying to deal with a mounting body count while keeping a straight face. I wonder, when he and spouse-Barbra Streisand are comparing careers, if he’s ever said, “Sure, Yentl is a fine film, but did you ever see my performance in The Car?” If so, her likely retort would be something like, “Yes, and that’s why you haven't been in any of my movies.”

Still, The Car is a fun film in spite of its seriousness. It’s fun to watch people meeting their demise via vehicular homicide. It's even more fun to wonder why a entity as powerful as Satan would need a car to do his bidding.

SORCERER: Do NOT See This Movie

Starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou. Directed by William Friedkin. (1977, 121 min)

You shouldn’t see Sorcerer.

This is one of those movies hardly anyone I know has ever seen, and the few who have really hated it. I can actually understand why. It's long, slow moving and has very little action until the third act. There are long stretches with little or no dialogue, and most of the first twenty minutes are presented with subtitles. The film is ugly, grimy, humorless, sometimes depressing and doesn't end happily. No handsome actors, no major stars, no quotable lines. None of the main characters are particularly likeable. And most damning of all, the title has nothing to do with the story. There isn’t a wizard, warlock or Sith Lord to be seen.

But for some reason, I love this film. I've loved it ever since I snuck in to see it at the Southgate in middle school, when it was the bottom half of a double bill. Me and my best friend chose it simply because we'd already seen everything else playing there. Greg got bored quickly, and couldn't understand why I'd want to sit through something so confusing and dull when greatest arcade game ever, Space Invaders (this was 1978) beckoned from the lobby. Greg took off to throw away what was left of his allowance; I stayed until the end, totally fascinated.

You gotta remember I was 14 at the time, and kids like me were supposed to be getting off on stuff like Star Wars, Close Encounters and Superman. While I liked all of those movies very much, Sorcerer held a special fascination for me...and apparently me alone. You know how kids sometimes get together to talk about great movies they watched, either because they were the first to see it or to confirm with their buddies how awesome it was? Whenever I brought up Sorcerer, I'd be met with blank stares and comments like, "What's that?" or "Never heard of it" or "What's a sorcerer?" (regarding that last question, I didn’t know what a sorcerer was either...but, man, what a bitchin’ title!)

I'd occasionally try to explain: "It's about these bad guys from different parts of the world who are hired to drive these old trucks 200 miles through the jungle while carrying crates of nitro-glycerin so they can put out a fire, but they gotta drive really, really slow or else they‘ll blow up!”

More blank stares. Sometimes someone would ask, “Why don’t they just fly it there?” I’d try to tell them the nitro is so unstable that the turbulence created by a helicopter makes it impossible. Another kid said, "Then they shoulda just used fresh dynamite." I wanted to punch him because I hate when people point-out massive plot holes in my favorite movies.

Aside from fielding the occasional question, “What’s turbulence?” my 14-year-old summary was enough to confirm this was a movie they’d never watch. Despite its PG rating, Sorcerer was never intended to be adolescent entertainment, and I guess the fact that I found it as cool as Star Wars must have seemed a little weird to them.

I didn’t see the movie again for another 20 years or so. It was eventually released on DVD in 1998, and I snatched it up the second I saw it on the shelf. I hadn’t seen it since I was 14 and hoped it was as good as I remembered. But if not, it would be a fun nostalgia trip. But unlike movies I loved as a kid that became stupider with age (Heavy Metal, Grizzly, Smokey and the Bandit, Halloween and almost every 'soundtrack' movie Paramount released in the 80s), I fell in love with Sorcerer all over again. It was just as suspenseful, hypnotic and exciting as I remembered it 20 years earlier. And even aesthetically, it has aged remarkably well.

I still have trouble explaining to others why I think the movie is so great. Ever since landing it into my movie collection, I pop Sorcerer into my DVD player at least once a year. On more than one occasion my wife has asked, “Why the hell do you like this movie, anyway? It's depressing.” I’d sometimes try to offer some half-assed arguments, such as the movie’s incredible cinematography, which manages to find beauty in its dingy images, or the use of that same imagery to tell the story without a lot of unnecessary dialogue, or the absolutely hypnotic music score by Tangerine Dream, which would seem more at-home in an Italian zombie flick, yet somehow fits this film perfectly (even more amazing when you realize the members of Tangerine Dream never saw a single frame of footage from Sorcerer before composing the entire score), or Roy Scheider’s amazing performance of quiet desperation (he’s truly one of the most underrated actors of all time).

But just as often, I'd just shrug, because I've never been able to convince anyone this movie is any good. Besides, in between the 20 years trying to enlighten my adolescent friends and current wife of the virtues of Sorcerer, I developed a fondness for things just left of the mainstream. One of the reasons I loved Metallica in the 80s was they were too extreme for radio or MTV at the time. I loved their early records, but once the The Black Album made them a household name, it simply wasn’t as much fun to be a Metallica fan. I was also one of the first guys I knew who got his ear pierced in the 80s, but since now that damn-near everyone pierces every conceivable extremity, I quit wearing an earring altogether.

Maybe it’s that same mindset that makes me love Sorcerer even more than I did when I first watched it at 14. It's a bleak and uncompromising film that, although intended to be a blockbuster, wasn't destined to be appreciated by too many people, regardless of age. Maybe part of me loves it because of its relative obscurity. Somehow, the fact hardly anyone's ever heard of it makes it more mine, just like back in the days when I was the only guy listening to Metallica.

I know some of you might be saying this makes Sorcerer a cult film, since today it does have a small share of admirers. But it isn’t a cult film on a level like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Even at the time those were made, their creators were well-aware of the fringe audience who’d appreciate them. Today, a lot of people who champion those films do so because proclaiming your love of Rocky Horror makes you part of the hipster crowd that isn’t really hip anymore, especially since it's one of the most profitable films ever released by 20th Century Fox.

Sorcerer, however, was supposed to be a Hollywood blockbuster, and ended up costing so much money it took two studios, Paramount and Universal, to cover the expense. Considering it was directed by William Friedkin, whose previous two films were The Exorcist and The French Connection, and based on one of the greatest French-language films of all time (1953’s The Wages of Fear) there was little doubt Sorcerer would be huge.

Instead, it bombed. Hardly anyone went to see it, especially with Star Wars cleaning up at the box office around the same time. Again, I can see why. Who wanted a long and depressing flick about four fugitives on a 20 mile-an-hour suicide mission just so they can earn $8000, when you could catch Luke Skywalker rescue a princess and defeat an empire? Hell, the only reason I actually saw Sorcerer was because it was the only movie playing at the Southgate I hadn't yet watched.

There have been lots of movies that totally tanked in theaters, only to be embraced years later, like The Wizard of Oz, The Shawshank Redemption and The Thing to name a few. But there’s been no outpouring of retro-love for Sorcerer. Again, I can see why. It isn’t what one would call a fun movie. Yet after seeing it at least 20 times, I think it’s fun, but still can’t explain why. I read somewhere that William Friedkin considers it his best film, and I share that opinion.

And I’m actually really glad Sorcerer remains an obscure, seldom-seen relic. It keeps the film fresh and fun for me. So, please, if you ever see this available on a used-DVD shelf, an on-demand service or YouTube, do me a favor and don’t watch it. I’d like to keep this one for myself.

By the way, Sorcerer gets its title from one of the two trucks used to transport the nitro, sloppily painted just under the driver’s side door and only glimpsed onscreen for a few seconds.

THE GRUDGE: How To End A Career Before It Begins

Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, KaDee Strickland. Directed by Takashi Shimizu. (2004, 92 min)

The Grudge provided positive proof that just because you have a college education doesn’t mean you are smart.

I’m a middle school teacher in the real world, and like any job, sometimes it's necessary to take a day off for an appointment, running my kids to the dentist or having the house to myself so I can crank-up some Metallica and play air-guitar in my underwear. But unlike most jobs, a teacher’s duties do not stop because you need a day off, so we must arrange for a sub to come and fill-in.

Seems simple enough, right? But it isn’t as easy as that. You have hire the sub yourself through an automated online system, prepare detailed lesson plans in advance and pray your students go easy on whoever shows up; it is amazing how many middle school kids think sub days give them permission to act like shitstains without fear of repercussion. One thing I can’t stand is the attitude that subs aren’t real teachers. They are, and almost all of them begin their career by subbing until they can secure themselves a permanent position. It’s hard work, and not always financially secure; unless it is a long-term gig, you don’t really know from one day to the next how often you’ll be working. Kids do not have the right to make the job harder, but they often do anyway.

On the other hand, while it’s unfair to be subjected to rotten behavior from children, a lot of subs tend to encourage such errant behavior themselves.

Not to belittle the job, but substitute teaching is essentially glorified babysitting. You are required to follow established lesson plans, remind students of their tasks and make sure they follow through. Seldom is actual teaching involved. Most of the time, the subs I’ve hired do that job well.

But every now and then, I’ve gotten some subs who have no business being in a classroom. Some have come in and totally ignored my lesson plans and taught their own (even if totally unrelated to whatever unit we were in the middle of), some have used the period to establish themselves as one of the ‘cool’ teachers who lets kids do what they want, some have come in with an agenda totally unrelated to public education at all (such as one genius who came in and lectured why we should all be more tolerant of transgender individuals).

Then there are those whose very appearance guarantees little will be accomplished. I once had a sub so androgynous that even my colleagues had no idea if the individual was a he or she. Another young lady showed up dressed in a mini-skirt, high-heels and fishnet leggings, boobs threatening to burst from her blouse. Another sandled hipster decided it was perfectly okay to sit at my desk, prop his feet up and cut his toenails. Remember, this is a classroom of 12 and 13 year olds, who are a lot like the elderly...anything which deviates from the norm throws their world into turmoil.

Most of the aforementioned substitutes were young and fresh-out-of-college, with little or no experience even being around middle-schoolers, much less knowing how they think. Unless you are LeBron James or Lady GaGa, they do not think any adults are cool. If you are an educator, no matter how you act, what you let them get away with or how sexy you dress, they do not want to be your buddy.

But that didn’t stop one sub from doing the dumbest thing I’d ever seen an educator do in my classroom. Not only did she have a misguided sense of mutual trust with my class, she pretty-much screwed herself out of ever teaching in the Portland metropolitan area. After arranging a day off to release my inner James Hetfield, our sub-finding system selected this young woman, who’d just recently graduated from Portland State University. My lesson plans were simple: As a reward for completion of a previously-assigned Narrative Writing Assessment, I planned to show The Sandlot, a fine little family film which featured narrative similar to the work they had just finished. All the sub had to do was push play and call it a day.

But, no, this particular teacher was one of those under the misguided impression that her job was to establish how hip she was. When several kids groaned at the idea of sitting through a family film like The Sandlot, she apparently asked the class what they’d rather do. One of my students responded by saying he had a DVD of The Grudge in his locker.

The Grudge is an American remake of a popular Japanese horror film. Starting with The Ring, there was a brief-but-huge trend of adapting Japanese ghost stories for American audiences. The Ring remains the only truly good one, but The Grudge was pretty successful, spawning two sequels. Personally, I thought the movie was derivative and boring, but it was extremely popular with teenagers. Although rated PG-13 in theaters, it was released on DVD in an unrated version, which is what my student had in his locker.

My sub apparently agreed to let the class watch The Grudge instead, as long as everyone promised to keep it a secret. As rationally-thinking beings, I’ll bet you just came up with two immediate reasons why this was a stupid idea...

First, teaching is one profession that's under constant scrutiny by the public in general. The slightest slip-up in the classroom can result in angry parents screaming for your head. Of course I know that most of the kids in my class grow up being allowed to watch stuff like Saw or The Hangover. At the same time, however, I’ve previously been forced to change the name of one of my independent reading units, “Stories of Mystery and Fear,” to the less-threatening “Weird Tales,” simply because a few conservative and religious parents objected. You also need to remember that, as a middle school teacher, I am not allowed to show any movie with a rating beyond PG without first clearing it with both the school’s administrators and every single parent whose kids are in my classroom.

Second, and even stupider, this supposedly-intelligent substitute teacher actually trusted a classroom of 30 kids to keep this a secret. Did she just land on Earth from Planet Stupidia? When I returned to school the next day, standing in the hall before class started, what do you think was the first thing at-least a dozen students said when they saw me?

13-year-old kids don’t give a shit about honoring the trust of some grown-up they just met, no matter how cool they may be.

During the course of the day, both me and my principal were inundated with angry phone calls from parents, understandably upset that a teacher would subject their kids to such horrors without being given permission. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some conservative fuddy-duddy; I often sit with my eight-year-old daughter to view all kinds of cinematic horror. But watching those films with my own kid was my decision, based on what I knew she was ready for. I still wouldn’t want her school to make the same decision without checking with me first.

But my substitute, in an effort to be the so-called ‘cool teacher’, ignored all that and stupidly assumed every one of the students was hip to her plan.

Well, I doubt it was worth it, because after this incident she was removed from the sub lists of at least four school districts in the Portland area, which in-turn precluded her from being seriously considered for any kind of permanent teaching position.

I do not know whether or not my former sub is permanently employed right now, but I do know that spending six years in college and tens-of-thousands of dollars to earn a degree doesn’t automatically make one smarter. This lady screwed herself over a freaking movie. And you know, what’s truly sad is that all this hubbub was over such a shitty movie like The Grudge. I mean, if I was going to throw away my career over a horror movie, I would have at least chosen a film more worth throwing it away over, like, Psycho or The Exorcist.

HEAVY METAL: The Chemically-Dependent Cartoon

Featuring the voices of John Candy, Harold Ramis, John Vernon, Eugene Levy, Jackie Burroughs, Marilyn Lightstone. Directed by Gerald Potterton. (1981, 91 min.)

Ever watch a movie when you were a kid and thought it was uber-awesome, then revisit it years later and think, “Wow, that movie’s actually pretty shitty,” and you’re almost ashamed to admit you once liked it? For me, one of those movies is 1981’s Heavy Metal.

There are a couple of important details the uninitiated need to know about this film before we go any further...

First, Heavy Metal is an animated sci-fi anthology film featuring stories based on a popular adult comic book originally published in France. Right now, some of you might be retorting, “Heavy Metal is not a comic book. It is an adult illustrated fantasy magazine...from France.”

Really? Aside from the blood, gore, sex and female characters sporting boobs the size and texture of bowling balls, what’s the difference in the mode of storytelling between Heavy Metal and Archie? Besides the price per issue, that is. No, Heavy Metal is a comic book. A grown-up comic book, perhaps, one lonely guys might even masturbate to, but still just a comic book.

And what’s wrong with something being labeled a comic book, anyway? When did ‘comic book’ become such a four-letter word? Even today, if you’re of a certain age and do not want to be perceived as a maturity-stunted loser, you tend to defend your choice of printed entertainment as a graphic novel or Manga...anything but a comic book. Comic books are for little kids.

You know what? I still enjoy playing with Lego’s on occasion, but you don’t hear me referring to them as ‘simulated architecture.’ Besides, ‘graphic novel’ is simply a more eloquent way of saying ‘really expensive comic book’. As for Manga, the official Japanese definition is ‘really expensive black & white comic book that you have to read backwards.’ Folks, there’s nothing wrong with reading comic books as an adult. You do not need to justify it by calling it something else.

Second, the title has nothing to do with the heavy metal music genre, even though the ‘metal’ soundtrack (which blasted from almost everyone’s car that summer in 1981) was a major promotional tool for the film, featuring songs by numerous bands popular at the time. While it is obvious the filmmakers thought it fitting that a film called Heavy Metal should include songs from metal artists (admittedly a great gimmick), of all the artists who contributed songs for the soundtrack, only two (Black Sabbath & Blue Oyster Cult) could actually be considered metal bands. Okay, you could stretch it and include Sammy Hagar, only because he performs the most ass-kicking song in the movie. But Grand Funk? Don Felder (the guy from The Eagles)? Stevie Nicks? Devo? Journey? Jesus Christ, Journey is to heavy metal what Will Smith is to Gangsta Rap. They were the fucking Nickelback of the 80s.

I gotta admit, the list of music artists (who didn't love Stevie Nicks back then?) was a major factor in me wanting to see this movie, which was somewhat disappointing when I finally watched it. Most of these songs are buried so far down in the mix that their inclusion is perfunctory, even when later remastered for video and DVD. The songs are almost randomly inserted into the film and sound shitty, like they're being played through a transistor radio. I’m not a big fan of disco (in fact, I hate it), but at least the tunes in Saturday Night Fever were prominently featured and added auditory oomph to many scenes. I learned a valuable lesson the night I went to see Heavy Metal: do not choose a movie because you wanna hear songs. That’s what records were for.

Still, at the time, I thought the movie was great, partially because this was an adult animated film, but mainly because I was pretty stoned at the time. Which brings me to the third important detail about this film, and the key to whether or not anyone will enjoy it thirty years after its release: Heavy Metal is only good if you are high.

I went on a double-date to see the movie back in high school, and we all got pretty baked in the theater parking lot beforehand...a good idea for a movie like this, a bad idea for my relationship with my girlfriend, who was almost abnormally jealous. She didn’t even want me looking at another girl. If my eyes were simply cast in the general direction of perceived female competition, she’d throw a hissy-fit. I never realized how extreme her possessiveness was until we watched Heavy Metal, when she stormed out of the theater halfway through because she thought I was getting off on the animated boobs (of which there are plenty). Even though well-snockered, I followed to reassure her that her worries were unwarranted, mainly because, while my girlfriend’s boobs weren’t as epic and spherical as those adorning the animated tarts in Heavy Metal, I still wanted to touch them later that night. Too bad we had this little spat at that moment because, while I was groveling in the theater lobby, I missed the one truly good segment in the film, when a WW2 bomber is overrun by zombies and is forced to crash-land on an island, also overrun by zombies. Even though me and my girlfriend were both pretty messed up, I was able convince her that she was the only woman for me, animated or other wise.

At least her brief tantrum didn’t ruin my high, which made me love the film at the time. For years afterwards I ballyhooed how great it was to others who hadn’t yet experienced it, which they couldn’t easily do because it was 15 years before Heavy Metal became available on video. This was because it took forever to reacquire the rights to use all the original songs from the soundtrack (ironic, since they have no impact of the narrative). Its long absence on home video merely added to the film’s mystique. Sure, it occasionally ran on HBO (which I didn’t have) in the middle of the night, but other than that, Heavy Metal was the title most movie geeks were salivating over to include in their video collection.

In 1996, the long wait was over. Heavy Metal came out on VHS and I snapped up my copy the day it was released. By this time, I was 33, married for the second time and had my first daughter. Partying and drugs were part of my past, which I had long disassociated from my fond memory of this film. I just remembered it being a colorful and violent fantasy. And I assured my wife, a fantasy lover her whole life, that she’d really enjoy it as well.

We sat down to watch it that night, and it was less than five minutes into the film that I noticed two things:

• The animation is shitty, on par with some kind of film school project. There’s also a lot of Rotoscoping (artists tracing over live action), one of several reasons I hate Ralph Bakshi’s movies. The animation in Heavy Metal makes Saturday morning cartoons look like Pixar.
• The soundtrack still sounds terrible. Not a single attempt was made to boost the music more prominently into the audio mix.

And that’s just the look and sound. It only gets worse.

For the most part, the stories are simplistic and stupid, clumsily linked by the recurring appearance of an evil, glowing orb called the Loc-Nar, with god-awful dialogue and one-dimensional characters, none of whom you’ll give a shit about. Almost every story features either tons of gory violence, pandering drug humor (like the producers knew most the audience would be stoned) or impossibly voluptuous female characters, nearly all whom end up naked at some point. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy gratuitous sex and violence as much as the next guy, but in Heavy Metal, it's like watching the fantasies of a 13-year-old. In fact, one of the stories is a fantasy about a 13-year-old, suddenly transformed a lean fighting machine who also screws every woman in sight.

I think it was during the second or third story that my wife looked over at me, raised an eyebrow and said, “You actually like this?”

Suddenly defensive, I told her to give the movie a chance. It might get better. But was I trying to reassure her or myself? This was a movie I’d been championing for over a decade, but not the one I remembered in my inebriated state 15 years before. Interestingly, the aforementioned bomber/zombie segment, which I missed while patching things up with my girlfriend, is the only part of the movie which is still truly effective and creepy.

While I was happy my wife wasn’t too concerned whether or not I was digging the animated boobs, this was where her idea of fantasy differed somewhat than mine. Later on, she said “Looks like whoever drew these women were getting off on their own pictures.”

And she's right. Watching this movie today, one gets the impression the artists really were getting off on their own drawings. This tells me two things. First, that the staff hired to illustrate the movie are all heterosexuals, because every female character has a body you could bounce a quarter off of, making the bikini-clad babes of Baywatch look like contestants on The Biggest Loser, while most of the males are hideous monsters or comedic caricatures. Second, that these guys may be some of the greatest illustrators of all time, since it must take a phenomenally steady hand to draw such glorious female body parts while your other hand is busy. I don’t think that was ever a problem over at Disney (well...maybe for the guys who drew Jessica Rabbit).

Anyway, for a supposed adult cartoon, Heavy Metal is crude, sophomoric and incredibly dumb, even for its time. Today, we may chuckle at the absurdity of 80’s relics like Top Gun, Rambo, Highlander or Footloose. But while those movies may not have aged too well, they were great for their time. I can still watch most of those and enjoy them for cinema kitsch that they are. I can’t do that with Heavy Metal, which was only good in 1981 because I was 17 and stoned. Today, it’s simply a bad movie, and not even in a fun way.

Still, Heavy Metal has its fans. But I’d like to know just how many of those folks have watched it recently, without the aid of narcotics.

LOGAN'S RUN: A Cow's Life

Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Peter Ustinov, Farrah-Fawcett. Directed by Michael Anderson. (1976, 119 min.)

If you could be reincarnated as any animal, what would it be? 

I've had this conversation on numerous occasions in the past, with my kids on long drives to grandma's house, or during my college years, hanging around the dorm on weekends with chemically-altered friends. My answer has always been the same.

I would come back as a cow.

During those hazy college days, someone would inevitably scoff and say, "A cow? But they're stupid, smelly and live just to be slaughtered." Then they'd try to convince me of the awesome life of a predator like a shark or wolf, or a majestic creature like a whale or elephant, or a housepet living in a loving home. But it was always easy to point out why those choices suck.

First of all, most predators are also prey. I'd hate going through life knowing that each day there was a good chance of ending up in another animal's mouth. And even if you’re a wolf or the biggest Great White in the ocean, you have to deal with gung-ho poachers or pissed-off farmers avenging their sheep, not to mention your life depends on a steady diet of smaller animals to catch and kill, many of which are usually faster than you.

A majestic animal? Sure, we all love whales. But do you really think they swim around basking in the knowledge of how wonderful they are? Then there are the whalers worldwide looking to shove a harpoon up your ass. No thanks.

Yeah, on the surface, being a pampered pet sounds like an awesome life, until you realize the first thing your owners usually do is whack your nuts off. You get no say in the matter. And it would be even worse if you were a dog, because you'd spend most of your life waiting...waiting for food, waiting for walkies, waiting to pee, waiting for master to return home. It's that last point which kills it for me, especially after I recently read an article by a veterinary expert who writes that the reason dogs are so excited to see you again is because, each and every time you leave them behind, they think you are never coming back. Dogs suffer from permanent separation anxiety. Since reading that article, I'm plagued with guilt every time I head off to work, seeing my dog Murphy peering out at me through the window with eyes the size of the moon.

Come back as a dog? Fuck that.

No...a cow's life is the life for me. A short life, to be sure, but during my time on this mortal coil, I'd have absolutely no responsibilities. I wander around a field all day and someone else gives me all the food and shelter I need. Granted, I'd be clomping around in my own filth most of the time, but hell, I do that now anyway. All cows generally do is sleep and eat and make more cows. Sleep, eat and mate...aren't those the very activities a majority of people enjoy the most? Why not condense them into just a few glorious years of real living? And absolutely no mid-life crisis!

What's that you say? Time for slaughter? Well, let's see...I've roamed the meadow a thousand times, tapped every female in the herd at least once and gorged myself every day at feeding time my entire life. Yep...I guess I've done it all. Bring on the bolt pistol.

My argument even managed to convince one of my college friends, a new-age chick who enjoyed listening to CDs of whalesong, that life as a cow would be far cooler than life as a humpback.

By that same reckoning, according to Logan's Run, our future’s gonna be cool, too. You live in a massive domed city, protected from the outside world. You get to hang around in your pajamas, dial up free sex with your remote control, indulge in mind-altering chemicals and basically have fun your entire life while a super-computer does all the work. For further entertainment, you can go to an arena to watch other people explode. Sure, you’re about as educated as the average cow, but so what? Do you really care about the meaning of existence when you can get your wing-wang squeezed whenever you want?

Of course, the population must be kept in check, so you must die when you turn thirty. But, like the cows oblivious to their own mortality right up to the moment when they're tagged in the head at a slaughterhouse, the blissfully stupid inhabitants of this paradise have no concept of death; they think they’re being 'renewed' in a fiery ritual called Carousel (where the aforementioned human combustion takes place each day). Personally, I wouldn’t care if there was no renewel. If you got to spend thirty years of your life indulging in your every whim, isn’t that better than 80 years of working your ass off, only to end up in a nursing home with no control over your own bowels?

But some of the folks in Logan’s Run want to turn 31 and try to run away. That’s when guys like Logan (Michael York) step in. Logan is a Sandman, whose job it is to track down and kill runners (if I were Logan, I'd be a little pissed to be stuck with an actual job while everyone else gets to spend their days getting high and banging each other). A few runners have managed to actually escape over the years, so the central computer instructs Logan to pose as a runner, seek out and destroy a place called Sanctuary, a refuge for runners which allegedly exists outside the dome. Accompanying him is Jessica (Jenny Agutter), who still has a lot of years left, but is so charmed by Logan she doesn’t want to leave his side (I’m not sure why, since Logan’s an egocentric douchebag through most of the picture). On their trail is another Sandman, Logan’s former buddy, Francis (Richard Jordan), who’s trying to kill them every step of the way.

Once outside the city, Logan and Jessica make their way to the ivy-laden ruins of Washington D.C. (an improvement over how the town looks today). It's here they meet an old man (Peter Ustinov, actually billed as 'Old Man') and realize it's possible to grow old and spend the rest of your life with someone you love (yeah, because getting old is so fucking awesome). Suddenly enlightened, they decide to go back to the domed city and free its citizens of a horrible existence of recreation and endless sex.

I know we‘re supposed to root for Logan and Jessica, but at this point I really wanted Francis to blow them away. Instead, after Logan is captured, the central computer taps into his mind and becomes so confused the whole city starts to explode. Supposedly, it’s because the computer can’t accept there’s no Sanctuary. It certainly isn’t because of Logan’s own brainpower, since he doesn’t demonstrate an iota of smarts during the entire movie. Maybe the poor computer stumbled upon the previous nauseating scene when Logan and Jessica learn what marriage is and suddenly decide to be married. Still, whatever the reason, it doesn’t explain why a whole city would go up in flames. I've done a lot of things that confused my own computer and not once did it try to burn my house down

Logan's Run is a silly big-budget bastardization of William Nolan’s and George Clayton Johnson’s much darker novel. Despite the unique premise, the script is on par with a rejected Star Trek episode - these people really are stupid, as demonstrated during an awful scene when Logan and Jessica see the sun for the first time and don’t know what the hell it is. Plus, the romantic chemistry between these two is as engaging as watching otters mate. Most of the effort is put into the admittedly great production design, as well as an elaborate miniature set of the city itself. It still looks like a model, but it’s fun to take in all the details, the same way it’s fun to marvel at doll houses. The filmmakers must have been proud of it, too, because when the story calls for the city to be destroyed, they just can’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, we see strategically placed showers of sparks, along with holographic effects superimposed over scenes of people running in panic. We never actually get to see anything crumble, topple or explode. The visual effects won an Oscar, but not even a year later, Star Wars came along and made Logan's Run look like Plan 9 from Outer Space.

In the end, thanks to Logan, everyone is free from their living hell of non-stop luxury and can now fend for themselves, like a once-loved housepet that owners unceremoniously leave behind when they move away.

Just one more reason I’d rather be reincarnated as a cow.

AVATAR: What "Meh" Was Created For

Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez. Directed by James Cameron. (2009, 162 min.)

Meh.

Yeah, yeah, I know...it's the biggest movie of the decade, biggest of all time. But Gone with the Wind might have been too, if they charged fourteen bucks a ticket back in 1939. Yeah, the giant  Smurfs are cool looking and the special effects are incredible. Once again, director James Cameron has pushed filmmaking technology to its limits. Visually, Avatar makes his last movie, Titanic, look like Mega-shark vs. Giant Octopus.

Still...meh.

Of course, I had to see it. We all had to. If nothing else, just to see what kind of film costs as much money as it would take to solve the educational budget problems of an entire state. While I don't usually give in to hype, this is James Cameron we're talking about, whose movies have always been pretty damn cool. And, of course, his groundbreaking use of 3-D has to be seen to be believed. But what am I saying? You know that, because you saw it.
We all did.

Still...meh.

Walking out of the theater after nearly three hours, the first thing I thought wasn't how awesome it was, but the painful throbbing in my ass. Actually, I was thinking that only 90 minutes into the thing, and it had nothing to do with the theater seats. I've sat through longer movies (The Green Mile, JFK, The Right Stuff, Titanic, Grindhouse, even a re-release of The Great Escape at a revival house, even though I already had it on DVD). But those were interesting enough to keep my mind off my posterior. Cheaper, too.

I know I'm in the minority regarding my meh-assessment of Avatar. Almost everyone I know declared how great it was, how astounding the effects were, how incredible the 3-D was.

And it isn't a bad movie. I didn't hate it or anything. Still, part of me wonders if some people felt obligated to love it because they had to sell one of their children to afford the ticket price, or were simply blown away by the admittedly-outstanding 3-D. Avatar is only the second 3-D film I've seen where the gimmick actually made the movie itself better.

The first one was in 1983, when Universal crapped all over its Jaws legacy by vomiting-forth Jaws 3-D. There isn't a person alive today willing to admit that movie was anything but an excuse to throw fake-looking body parts at the audience. But back then, in theaters, 3-D did make the film seem better than it really was, enough that we were willing to put up with the swelling headache (which felt like someone driving a corkscrew into your skull) we developed from wearing those cheap paper glasses. At least we weren't charged extra for the privilege.

But watching Jaws 3-D on TV a few years later, imaginatively retitled Jaws 3 because there was no 3-D TV back then, we saw the movie for the manure it really was. Even the special effects, which looked cool with glasses on, were so cheesy that it made the effects in the original Jaws look like...well, Avatar. I’m sure the producers didn’t mind, having scammed enough cash from us to justify Jaws: The Revenge, obviously green-lit by some misguided bonehead at Universal who assumed Jaws 3-D was successful because of its story. I’m certain that individual found himself unemployed soon after.

Avatar is not nearly as god-awful as Jaws 3-D. It is obvious that every bit of its third-world-nation-crippling budget is right up there on the screen. That’s all fine and good; it makes the film (in theaters) as fun as riding Splash Mountain at Disneyland. However, watching Avatar at home is like watching a YouTube video of someone else riding Splash Mountain. I’ve ridden Splash Mountain, and folks, a YouTube video is not Splash Mountain.

And it’s at home when you truly discover which movies are really worth watching a second time, when the story becomes more important. In the theater, I was blown away by Avatar’s incredible 3-D, at least until the point when my ass started to hurt and deja vu began to creep over me; I’d seen this movie before. And if you’ve ever seen Dances with Wolves, or Pocahontas or Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, so have you. Avatar tells the exact same story. Critics and trolls have been saying the same thing for a few years now. But originality isn’t the problem. Granted, Avatar is far more technically brilliant than all of those films combined, but only if you see it in a theater, in 3-D.

Lack of originality doesn’t really bother me much. The Godfather wasn't the first gangster picture, either. And even though he’s hardly had an original creative idea of his own, I’m a big James Cameron fan. I loved The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies and Titanic, but admit Cameron has always been a thief or borrower. Harlan Ellison, a contentious sci-fi writer who claimed the story of The Terminator was lifted from a few of Ellison’s Outer Limits teleplays, threatened to sue; Aliens is a sequel to Ridley Scott’s classic; True Lies is a remake of the French film, La Totale; the sinking of Titanic had been depicted in at least a half-dozen other movies. Terminator 2 is a sequel to his first film. That leaves The Abyss as the only 100% original Cameron film (ironic, since it is the only movie of his career generally to be considered a failure).

Again...originality? No big deal. If a studio wants to give Cameron $300 million to make Dances with Smurfs, fine with me. If Cameron can make us all grip our armrests as the Titanic sinks, even though we already know it’s going to, that’s saying a lot about his storytelling skill. And say what you will about his enormous budgets; no matter how many peoples he kills, boats he sinks, shit he blows up and effects artists he employs, in the middle of those movies have been characters we cared about (even when they were cyborgs). This is the guy who gave Arnold Schwarzenegger a film career, who made everyone take female action heroes seriously, and even managed to make Tom Arnold funny.

But I didn't care about the story or any of the characters in Avatar, two feats Pocahontas managed to accomplish in half the time. To those of you who saw Avatar only once, in 3-D on a giant 50-foot-wide screen, tell me one single classic & iconic scene, a snippet of quotable dialogue or a memorable performance by any of the actors. Hell, can you even name a single character?

Was Avatar great because it was in 3-D, or was it a great movie that just happened to be in 3-D? Try watching it a second time on your television and convince yourself it’s is as great as you remember it in theaters.

For me anyway, a truly great film is one I can still can still repeatedly enjoy long after the opportunity to see it again in theaters is gone. Avatar doesn’t qualify. Seeing the it without all the bells and whistles confirmed what it really is, a movie by filmmaker more in love with pushing technological boundaries than telling a compelling or original story. Sounds like another genius who once made a great film a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Meh.