Two-dollar movie rentals

The national video rental outlets in town must be feeling the pinch from Netflix. They just started renting movies for two bucks if you present a clip-out paper card that I suspect is fairly easy to come by. I mean, I have one…

So anyhow, I went crazy the other day and rented 5 for $10. The rule was, I would only go for stuff that I wouldn’t bother with at full price. Suddenly, the possibilities seemed endless.

Also lucky for me, sleep-deprivation and stress had combined a couple of days ago to leave me vulnerable to a nasty summer cold, so I suddenly found myself with no energy to do anything but sit and watch TV at just the time I had a stack of half-assed movies to watch. Oh happy day.

So here are thumbnail reviews of the first batch of five (my card expires at the end of the month). I apologize in advance for being too fucking sick and lazy to provide all the appropriate links, but I was able to research them all on IMDB and amazon. Without further ado, and in the order I watched them:

“The Contract” with Morgan Freeman and John Cusack. I suppose it played in theaters, but I must have blinked and missed it. Kind of a chase/kid in jeopardy flick, not usually my taste, but the Talent drew me in. The plot is a little thin, so the less said about it the better. Freeman and Cusack both turn in serviceable performances (as do the lesser names) and there’s some pretty wilderness photography that’s kind of under-shot. It’s directed by Bruce Beresford who used to helm prestige pictures like “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Tender Mercies.” Even though the writing doesn’t really hold up to close scrutiny, I liked the performances and pacing enough to recommend “The Contract,” but in the end it felt like everyone was just there to pick up a paycheck.

“The Quiet” starring two super-hot babes (blonde Elisha Cuthbert from “24” and brunette Camilla Belle who recently impressed me in “The Chumscrubber”) I was hoping would hook up or something, but it turns out the nudity that earned the film an R rating is all Edie Falco’s. Not to disparage Ms Falco’s assets, but I was hoping for Jack Bauer’s daughter and instead I got Meadow Soprano’s mother. It’s the classic bait & switch (see cover, left), ‘I thought it was Pepsi but it was milk AAAUUGH!’ scenario. Otherwise, it was straight out of the “Poison Ivy” playbook but with less sex. Actually, no sex at all that I can recall except some offscreen shenanigans that would merit a serious investigation by CPS if the girls didn’t already have a plan for dad... It’s like a foreign film with all the tedium, glacial pacing and knowing looks but without any of the the European va-va-voom. I would have rather spent 90 minutes looking at the DVD cover.

Next up is “Dead Mary,” which I selected for the same high-minded reasons as I picked up “The Quiet” — hot babe on the cover who had previously impressed in a respectable project or two (in this case, Dominique Swain, in “Face Off” and the 1997 remake of “Lolita”). This looked like it might be torture porn (the “Saw” movies, anything with Rob Zombie’s name on it, etc.) from the cover, but happily it was not. If anything, the gore was dialed way back, occurring mostly offscreen. Such pretty faux teens, I was happy not to have watch their fake deaths in excruciating detail. Again, nothing to report in the way of nudity (what the hell is wrong with horror movies these days? Nauseatingly graphic dismemberment and disembowelment is A-OK, but a glimpse of Janet Jackson’s nipple summons the apocalypse? Americans are such fucking hypocrites). All that aside, it wasn’t a bad little horror film at all, beyond the fact that I ID-ed the bad guy the second they appeared on screen. The writing was a little above average and the kids’ personalities had a little bit of time to get established before they started dropping like flies. Recommended, but for a rainy afternoon, not to schedule an evening’s entertainment around.

“Death of a President” should have kicked ass, but it dragged a bit for a film that billed itself as a “political thriller” on its DVD case. You may have heard about this flick. It imagines the assassination of the President, then follows the consequences of that crime on the innocent and guilty alike. (Hint: “President Cheney.”) It’s told in pseudo-documentary form and eventually a bit of plot emerges from what looks for 4/5 of the movie to be a simple police procedural. The way the film is staged and shot, with interviews and flashbacks and rich production values, reminded me of an especially un-banter-filled episode of “The West Wing.” Politically, it’s fairly even-handed on the surface, but I saw little left-wing jabs in it here, there and everywhere. What surprised me was how upset I got at the idea of the President being shot. Safe to say I am no fan of the man or his policies, but if life is precious – as I have to believe it is, being a father – then even the murder of a fascist dolt is unacceptable. And on an even deeper level, Bush may be a fascist dolt, but he’s our fascist dolt. He’s the President. You don’t fucking kill the President, period. Anyhow, it’s an interesting little film, but it doesn’t really raise any questions or issues that haven’t already been brought to light by more able filmmakers.

Finally, “Machine” starring Michael Madsen (from “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill Bill Vol. 2”) and Neal McDonough of TV’s late, lamented “Boomtown.” Actually, though they’re most prominent on the cover, the movie really stars some lug named Michael Lazar. Clearly straight to video, it’s full-frame, grainier than shit and though full of f-bombs, most of the violence happens offscreen. It’s a weird bird. The picture in places is so bad that if I was watching it in Hi-Def, scenes would look like a Seurat painting come to half-life. It crams about 3 hours worth of plot and shootings in its terse 90 minutes. It’s the kind of film where, after the first five minutes, you realize probably nobody in its large cast is getting out alive. And again with the bait and switch cover (above, left). At this point, I have to blame myself, having been fooled so many times. Although Madsen dominates the cover art, as usual, he puts in a miserly, maybe 10 minutes of cumulative screen time. I’d love to know what kind of deal this guys gets for his appearances. But if you’re not there for Madsen and you like simulated cimema-verite, hard-boiled crime movies where everybody shoots and/or beats everybody else to death, “Machine” will really get your engines going.

And now, I believe I hear another marginal five movies calling my name…