Thursday, April 05, 2007

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Grindhouse," "The Animation Show 3," "Blades of Glory"

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Grindhouse," "The Animation Show 3," "Blades of Glory”
John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, April 6, 2007
Streaming live on the web and on-demand at http://www.wcbe.org

Clay

"Grindhouse" is Stanley Donen's "Movie, Movie" some twenty-nine years later . . .

John

"Animation Show 2007" is Darwinian Donald Duck . . .

"Blades of Glory" gaily skates around some light laughs . . .

HIT MUSIC ("STAR WARS THEME") THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .


Clay

And I'm Clay Lowe ("Grindhouse: 'Planet Terror' - 'Death Proof'')

Folks, back in 1978 director Stanley Donen paid tribute to 50's double-features with his clever "Movie Movie." Yep, with movie trailers and all.

So, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's "Grindhouse" ain't nothing new. However, their take on the schlock sex-and-action movies of the seventies is, deadly, right on.

"Planet Terror" is pure Rodriguez: blood, guts, and tons of thrown-away body parts. Rose McGowan's one-legged go-go dancer Cherry is one hot momma, and Bruce Willis's tough-nutted army Lt. Muldoon gets just what he deserves.

John

I don’t know the meaning of “tough-nutted,” but I’m getting the idea.

Clay (continues)

I'll bet you are. Anyway, fans already know Tarantino's "Death Proof" is fat too talky, but his car-chase scenes are finally able to get the movie up to speed when his favorite stunt girl (Zöe Bell of Kill Bill fame) spread-eagles into action on the hood of a Dodge Charger.

Wowie, zowie, Zöe.

John ("The Animation Show 2007")

Oh, Zounds!

The Animation Show, with allegedly the world’s greatest animated shorts, is touring with its 2007 edition, locally at Studio 35. It’s friendly to geeky cinephiles liking their images abstract and dark.

What images you ask? How about a defecating dog, a stick figure with Lion King slippers, a failed guide dog, Asian warriors like Wily Coyote, and even voracious old Pac-man.

Clay

Yum, yum.

John

The animation is wildly diverse from kaleidoscopic images in a short called Collision to a hippo, an alligator, and a deer accurately depicted while they argue like jealous humans, to a cut-out animation of a weird rabbit.

I didn’t see Vice President Cheney. Or maybe he was Pac-man digesting his enemies till only he’s left. You can never really tell with these formalistic frolics.

Clay ("The Animation Show 3")

You know, John, if I knew what a "formalistic frolic" was I might agree. But I don't, so here's my take on this collection.

Intro'd by Beavis and Butthead, The Animation Show 3 is a collection of eleven, sometimes clever, sometimes just weird films whose characters could never make it into a Disney movie.


The nastiest is Run Wrake's "Rabbit" which features Dick-and-Jane-like characters who take great delight in cutting open their favorite barnyard pets. The good part is you learn the words printed on-screen next to each of the slaughtered animals.

John (sarcastically)

Nice.

Clay

The smartest film is "Everything Will Be OK" which, these days, is good to know.

And "Guide Dog," the funniest, could have sprung, ironically, from the pages of The New Yorker.

That's it for me, game over . . . Bleep. Bleep.

John ("Blades of Glory")

Not so fast—the ice man cometh.

Clay

Oh, poor ice man.

John

A bit of ballet, precision, and dignity accrue to figure skating, a small world where civility dances with ability. Enter Will Ferrell, the deflator of formula racing and TV broadcasting (among other occupations), to skewer the rarefied competition of Olympic figure skating in Blades of Glory.

With Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite slacker blasting, Ferrell’s mock machismo makes him the Tom Jones and Heder the Owen Wilson of ice. They’re disqualified from competition because of their infantile public combat. They reconcile in time to enter competition as a team.

The climactic competition concludes with an amusingly outrageous assault on JFK and Marilyn Monroe . . .

Clay

Oh, dear.

John (continues his sentence)

. . . An affront to those who revere those icons but a delight to those who see pretense and revisionist history as fair game for Saturday Night Live and Will Ferrell.

Clay

Fair game,sure, but enough of sawed-off legs, stunted stunt men, sliced up rabbits, and gay bladed ice skaters, John, because it's grading time.

John

Holy HARRIED HARES, Hooray!

Clay

Overall "Grindhouse," gets a "B" because it smacks every Grade B movie right where it hurst . . .

John

"The Animation Show" earns a “B” for BLITHELY BURYING an ordered universe . . .

Clay

"The Animation Show" gets a "C" because it's a CLEVER showcase for arrested adolescent development . . .

John

"Blades of Glory" earns a “B” for BLADING close to BANALITY . .

Clay, I think the brother/sister skating couple in Blades is incestuous . . .

Clay

Oh, my.

John

But then I think Ferrell and Heder aren’t gay. I’m so confused I think I’m bipolar.

I'm outta here.

Clay

Ice it, John, because, with global warming and such, being bi-polar today would be more than you could bear.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING THEME MUSIC("AIN'T WE GOT FUN"), THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning It's Movie Time is written and directed by John DeSando and Clay Lowe and can now be heard on-demand at: http://www. WCBE.org.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright 2007 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe