‘You Should Have Left’ is a byzantine, paranormal thriller which is also a scalpel-sharp Tinseltown satire (e.g. The rhetoric of a “closed set” is verboten to non- industry outsiders like Susanna’s (Amanda Seyfried) scandal-embroiled husband Theo Conroy (Kevin Bacon) but not the latte delivery boy).

Exceptionally for a supernatural chiller with ombres chinoises, David Koepp glistens the May-December romance between Theo and Susanna with a beguiling afterglow and strangely, the sentient hallway light goosebumps etiolate in comparison to the self-help guru sessions.
Much to the viewers’ chagrin, the Bacon-in-an-Augean-handyman-outfit premonitions, a near car collision in Wales and a child-in-peril nightmare with Ella (Avery Essex) are routinely manipulative for traditionally blanched jump scares. However, Koepp is mischievously reluctant about the staple of the cabinet-mirror-in-the- bathroom gag.

Along with Seyfried, Bacon’s rapport with Essex is irresistibly cherubic such as his hastened answer to her quintessential question as to “why do people have to die?” and when she tenderly fondles her “papa’s” hand after eavesdropping on his melancholia.

The inside-baseball storyline around Theo’s prior wife’s bathtub drowning is a tabloid-fodder version of Natalie Wood and William Shatner’s sensationalized tragedian histories. While this ‘Stir of Echoes’ reunion isn’t as galvanizing, the domestic melodrama is quite strong.

Slide-show photography of Montreal’s Starliner Towers is immediately unnerving despite being pictures of the swanky tennis court and delicatessen. It could be the wryly monotone instructional video announcer and how it culminates with the medical examiner on the premises. David Cronenberg germinates the groundwork for the epidemic thunderclap ahead with those images and how the doorman’s gun is “just an advertising gimmick.”

He doesn’t splurge any time before the hulking Dr. Hobbes brutally strangles a schoolgirl before defrocking her blouse and vivisecting her stomach. It is inscrutably outre and putrid and only Cronenberg could funnel the virus into his own psychosexual depravity. ‘Shivers’ is an unapologetically prickly, wildly titillating cautionary tale about the proliferation of venereal diseases and panic can be communicable.

Since this is a greenhorn Canadian production, the ingenue acting is intermittently callow. Normally the pseudo-scientific jargon about a parasite supplanting the functions of an organ would be a loquacious lull in a body horror film but Cronenberg fully enraptures the audience in the hypothetical pathophysiology and the plight of Nick Tudor (Alan Migicovsky), an office drone, who is hemorrhaging inexplicably.

The potshot about Nick retching a slug onto an elderly woman’s umbrella, is a glance into Cronenberg’s rakish facetiousness. From the zenithal tier of the apartment complex to the laundry room in the basement, Cronenberg ossifies the strata upon which the microorganisms begin to interlope.

The bladder effects of Nick’s abdomen cysts are uncannily repulsive. Honestly, the film might’ve been more consternation-inducing if the slithering invaders were incorporeal and could’ve been paranoid hallucinations. The eel swimming in the foreground of a tank during a conversation is eerily symbolic about the phallic mutants and engorged hormones. Due to the solitude of the high-rise, the film replicates the claustrophobia of the farmhouse in ‘Night of the Living Dead’.

The dreaded, infamous 0% on Rotten Tomatoes is a label to be both reviled for and applauded for. It’s as rare as white peacocks or purple carrots. However, the quantity of the viewers should also be titrated when evaluating whether a goose egg is earned or merely a biased sampling. Before writing my defense of Bob Clark’s offbeat action-comedy Loose Cannons, I found nary a positive review for this. This is a hill I must conquer and perish upon alone.

For starters, the opening is strikingly infernal with the red flares and Teutonic voice of the villain piercing through the docks like a phantasmagorical vision. It’s a Hieronymus Bosch painting and that must be purely the intention of Clark who was an acolyte of seedy horror cinema (especially when a disembodied head is dangling from a fishing hook to taunt the circus performers cowering in the shadows).

Secondly, Gene Hackman is a consummate profession who never lounges on autopilot. As Mac Stern, a veteran officer on the vice squad, his quips are acerbic such as when he cites obstreperous lovers under a nonexistent penal code. He also possesses a fastidious edge to his character with his polished, vintage car as a representation of “code in the universe”.

Moreover, Hackman’s reactions to Dan Aykroyd’s paroxysmal, Robin-Williams-stream-of-consciousness episodes are the vicarious sentiments of the audience members (“I’m a cop. I don’t know what the hell he is.”). The immiscible-partner chemistry between Aykroyd and Hackman is trenchantly funny.

In fact, before Aykroyd’s relapse into multiple-personality disorder, Aykroyd’s Ellis Fielding is redolent of his Sergeant Friday from Dragnet as he painstakingly scrutinizes the crime scene down to the most minuscule details such as the knee surgery pin. He is also very affable in the role when he downplays and is trepidatious of the illness.

Akyroyd’s psychogalvanic pop-culture delirium is surprisingly uncanny (specifically his Cowardly Lion). The Dana Carvey-esque flights of mimicry are more infrequent than the abysmal reviews would extrapolate. The schizotypal behavior manifests during the car chases and the prerequisite nightclub brawl. The MacGuffin for the Nazi malefactors is very Promethean- a pornographic film which headlines Adolf Hitler with several males (including the prospective chancellor of Germany) and other historical information.

As long-suffering moviegoers, we should be thankful of several attributes. None of the humor is scatological and a majority of it is amusingly mellow. The twosome don’t needlessly bicker or altercate (e.g. When Mac’s vehicular residence is demolished, Ellis is hospitable to Mac to sojourn in his guest room despite the nocturnal disruptions by Ellis’ id). Maybe it’s a symptom of nostalgia but under today’s microscope, Loose Cannons is a unfairly flayed, reasonably funny, inventively tonic buddy picture.

It’s common wisdom that comedy writer-directors should never moonlight as the main performer in their movies. Mel Brooks could be inconsistent and Seth MacFarlane is mostly inept. However, with the application of Rick Baker’s hirsute makeup, John Landis transmogrifies himself into Shlockthropus and it is not blandishing overstatement to say he is an uproarious silent comedian in the title role.

Shot in 1971 on a shoestring budget of $60,000 over the course of twelve days (probably sans location permits), Schlock was the debut feature film of Landis and first collaboration with the renowned prosthetic artist Baker. The costume is pretty dazzling considering the constraints on the production. The insert shots of Schlock’s eyes are very demonstrative underneath the woolly exterior.

In fact, several of Schlock’s expressions are terrifically funny in the vein of Buster Keaton such as when Schlock grimaces in horror when a car is screeching towards him or a breaking-of-the-fourth-wall moment when Schlock is mistaken for a dog by a blind girl and he turns to camera in head-shaking disbelief at her asinine stupidity.

Surely, the plotline is rather slight and much of it is episodic vignettes of Schlock rampaging around town in pursuit of sustenance (especially bananas during a facetious 2001: A Space Odyssey parody) and a female mate. Anyone parched for an overarching narrative will be disillusioned since the structure is largely undisciplined with stretches of Schlock in fish-out-of-water scenarios.

In terms of spoof purposes, the quartet of teenagers at the beginning are intentionally amateurish with their wooden line delivery (“Whoever did this is clearly bananas”) and the beginning is akin to a zany trailer for the film from a studio with more prestigious credits under their banner.

The scientific explanations are long-winded and nonsensical drivel much like the B-movies that inspired it. As a matter of fact, Schlock sneaks into a screening of The Blob with Steve McQueen. Body language is key to Landis’ pantomime and he slouches in the suit until Schlock must anthropomorphize in a distinctly humanistic fashion (ala pruriently poking the breast of his prey). Some of Landis’ humor is pretty politically incorrect with Schlock stomping on children during his prowling and the blind girl is constantly staggering into doors.

To reinforce the lampooning tone, the tag before the conclusion is a Coming Soon attraction for Son of Schlock with an inanimate puppet being cradled. When characters’ face are begrimed with black soot from a combustible lighter flame, Landis must’ve been an aficionado of Tex Avery cartoons. Overall, Schlock is a spunky, fatuously side-splitting and concise premiere for Landis with many of his trademarks in their zygotic phase including the See You Next Wednesday in-joke.

For years after A Fish Called Wanda (and the Oscar-garnering exhibition for Kevin Kline), the team behind the 1988 masterstroke dawdled to craft a reunion. While Fierce Creatures isn’t roborean with a heist plotline and the flatulence sound effects are sophomoric, it is an exuberantly funny follow-up with a loopy sense of humor (ex. The high-jinx with an animatronic panda).

Sexual innuendos and double entendres are usually the most indolent forms of comedy but Monty Python alum John Cleese, with his aridly hilarious, high-strung nervousness, is a wunderkind at it. While Rollo (Cleese) is absconding with domesticated animals from a conference call, the results are impeccably riotous (“This is a zoo, not the Playboy Mansion, you pervert.”).

Kevin Kline never sputters with his character’s oafish behavior (ex. He laments that he “never saw the point in [dogs]” because he “never needed anything fetched.”). Much like ‘A Fish Called Wanda‘, Cleese slings some politically charged barbs at the American system of media gluttony and acquisitions as propagated by the fictional Octopus conglomerate (Vince (Kline) bespangles the attractions with product logos and celebrity endorsements).

The Thalian timing between the quartet is still monumentally acute but Cleese is still the superstar here probably because he was complicit in the writing alongside Iain Johnstone. The downside is an ersatz streak of sentimentality when Willa (Jamie Lee Curtis) is suddenly atwitter about her adulation for the menagerie during an epiphanic scene with an unfettered gorilla.

The one performer who is slightly diminished during the love triangle is Curtis who is more bodacious than ever but her nubile assets are almost exclusively the substance for her formerly avaricious character. We can never extrapolate why Willa with such assiduous ambition, would affiliate herself with Rod McCain (Kline again) in the first place.

Anchoring A Fish Called Wanda was the fate of pilfered jewels, jail sentences and a romantic liaison with a barrister. However, in this offering, the dissolution of the zoo and the embezzlement of funds are pendulous in the balance. Not exactly zenithal stakes by investment standards and there is subzero suspense if the pseudo-criminal Vince gallivants away with the stipend despite the presence of a pistol.

Disposal of an assassinated carcass is a shockingly mean-spirited, albeit jocose finale for the film. It’s a Grand Guignol ending that doesn’t quite seem germane after the lighthearted windup that preceded it. Nevertheless, this companion piece sneaks in some of Cleese’s finest screwball misunderstandings and it easily eclipses most late-90’s American farces. 

Shouts From the Back Row’s theme music was composed and performed by Vince Nitro!

In this home video from 1988, 18-year old high school student Ted Cruz claims that he has two aspirations in life: appearing in a sex comedy like The Malibu Bikini Beach Shop and world domination. Well, now that Cruz’s Presidential bid has come to an end, maybe he can focus all his energies in getting a highly anticipated Malibu Bikini Beach Shop remake off the ground.

With a title card like Home Again, fans can be forgiven for believing that this episode is a direct descendant of the iconic Season 4. Alas, there are no inbred brethren around for Mulder and Scully to play around with. But we wouldn’t be asinine to assume that there would be C.H.U.D.’s roaming around in the sewer during the urban rehousing project. As a treatise for the official’s disdain towards the homeless, it was pretty sanctimonious.

Gorehounds’ eyes probably glossed over in bloodthirsty comeuppance when the callous organizer’s arms were dismembered and casually tossed into the back of a waste disposal truck. I, for one, felt like I was watching a bland WWE-produced horror film. It does perk up when those glorious FBI badges flash on the coroner.

I love how slowly but surely Mulder’s gallows humor is making a return visit (“Not even in the right waste basket.”). Also, the upward angles were a bit disorienting. Especially during Scully’s phone call from her brother where Duchovny gawked around like he was impatiently awaiting his cue. Then Scully’s camera-mounted gait down the stairs was equally haphazard. Sadly, Glen Morgan’s shot selection was an assembly of blunders.

It was a melancholy choice to cause a rift between the storylines of Mulder and Scully this far into the revival. Scully is visibly shellshocked after the call and Mulder doesn’t insist on visiting her mother in the hospital. What happened to the platonic loyalty? Once Scully arrives in the hosital, the dialogue between herself and the nurse is self-consciously expository (“Charlie is her son. They’re estranged….She didn’t ask for me? Her son Bill? Or her grandkids?….Yes mom and I talked about it after I was in the coma.”).

A flashback to Scully’s coma only heightens our attachment to the misbegotten love between Mulder and Scully and shows how this is a lethargic retrieval of that. Sorry but the Band-Aid Nose Man sounds too much like a Marvel reject and his gimmick is that he is a corporeal, graffiti painting and he turns people into wishbones. Not a very novel or gripping concept. Didn’t abate matters that it was the brainchild of a beatnik hobo who was quite grating to listen to as he prattled on about his irresponsibility to his “art”.

It think it’s safe to say this was the worst of the new episodes so far. Of course, it would be a valley after last week’s humdinger but this might rank among the worst episodes in memory. It was tragically ersatz, laughable (the incongruity of “Downtown” isn’t effective like Johnny Mathis’ “Wonderful” in Home), wildly amorphous and a far cry from the show’s acme.

Rating: 1.25 out of 5

This is hilarious, but make no mistake: with all the nostalgic properties that Hollywood is dredging up these days, it’s only a matter of time before this real-life SkiFree movie becomes a reality. Hmm…now I need to go play SkiFree.

There is usually an ebb and flow to television. Maintaining a level of consistency is almost impossible. In spite of my addiction to the X-Files, not every episode is first-rate. Some episodes resemble the notorious Fly filler from Breaking Bad: padding before the next powerhouse. This is a list of a few of the worst X-Files offerings.

WORST 5 X-FILES EPISODES

1. SPACE (Season 1, Episode 9) – Ed Lautner contorts his face in embarrassing Richard III paralysis. I love that Mulder is in awe of the lionized astronaut Colonel Belt but the whole premise is beyond vague. Why is the ghost sabotaging NASA missions? Since it was 1993, it’s fathomable that the special effects would be dated but they are downright atrocious. They look like unfinished animation from Unsolved Mysteries reenactments. It was ahead of its time for claiming to discover water sources on Mars.

2. SHAPES (Season 1, Episode 18) – At this point, Scully would have to be a dunce to not conjecture that manitou or lycanthropes don’t exist when she has seen the aftermaths of two incidents where a man is shot in lieu of a Manitou. This episode also recycles the autopsy-examination-will-desecrate-the-sacred-body cliché which would easily confirm Mulder’s suspicions. The werewolf costume is threadbare and the episode doesn’t attempt to tweak the animalistic-metamorphosis trope.

3. 3 (Season 2, Episode 7) – After the dazzling two-episode arc with Duane Barry, this brazen cash-in on the Anne Rice romanticism of vampires is a soullessly retrograde misstep for the series. The mingling of biblical references with bloodsucker lore is inefficient. Mulder doesn’t anguish over the whereabouts of Scully which is puzzling after his brutal strangling of Barry in the previous episode. Without the sounding board that was Scully, Mulder just bandies his theories with nondescript agents and tosses dull puns around (“sun” for “son”).

4. FIREWALKER (Season 2, Episode 9) – In what is a liberally plagiarizing redux of Fire, this episode is languid, dunderheaded and insipid. Of course, these are the developmental pains that every show undergoes but this sabotages viewership goodwill. Once again a project leader has become unhinged and their team is being systematically killed by arcane means. A fungus creature won’t be inducing any nightmares and the result is too phallic and goofy to be scary.

5. THE BLESSING WAY (Season 3, Episode 1) – After the potential incineration of Mulder in the Season 2 finale, it’s very anticlimactic that he has somehow escaped to bury himself under a pile of rocks. The shamanic resurrection of Mulder might be the most far-fetched usage of Native American customs since On Deadly Ground. The computer chip in Scully’s neck is much more attention-seizing but the episode devotes an inordinate amount of time on the spiritual rebirth of Mulder and then the Scully subplot crumbles into drivel with Melissa’s regression-therapy involvement.