The Marrying Man

Quentin

For one of those movies that plays at 3 o'clock on a Saturday on network television when there's absolutely nothing else on, it's pretty funny. That is, if you don't get annoyed with the main character's persistence to sleep with other guy's dames. Yeah, I kinda got disgusted by the whole uncontrollable male urges thing that this movie features, however his friends do add some comic relief from this. Here's an interesting note, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger's characters marry each other four times in this movie, two years after this movie is made, they marry in real life. Apparently they divorced nine years later, but there's always a chance they could remarry a few times more.

Ben

Charlie Pearl(Alec Baldwin) is set to marry a Hollywood producer's daughter(Elisabeth Shue), but falls instead for singer Vicki Anderson(Kim Basinger), who just happens to be Bugsy Siegel's girl. They get caught, are forced to marry, get divorced, get caught again, married again, divorced again... Altogether, I think there are four marriages and three divorces, various collateral damage, and running commentary from his friends throughout. Oh, and there's Fisher Stevens.

Stevens keeps showing up in these dumpster movies, and I like his stuff, for the most part. Even when he's playing one of Koopa's cousins in Super Mario Brothers, I like him. In this movie, his role isn't so big, but his ass-kissing, song-writing, eager for the big time character, Sam, played beside Baldwin, Basinger, Shue, and Paul Reiser, made it look like he might be moving up in the lists. I guess it didn't happen, although his recent role in "Lost" may help him along a bit. Actually, I'm not so sure making it only as far as he has is that bad for him. It seems to me that some actors, maybe including Stevens, get more interesting work because they don't quite make it to the top. But, who can tell for sure? Maybe he wishes he were higher up there.

Now, let me tell you about one of my pet peeves. I'm a musician, and I'm familiar with how people look when they're playing, both how their fingers move on the instrument, and how their bodies move when they're in the music. Because of this, I can't help noticing when an actor isn't playing how they should be. I know I'm being picky, and some movies deal with this necessary problem better than others, but this movie does not. Kim Basinger is supposed to be a singer, so they feature her in a number of songs, but her lips and body just don't quite match the audio. Oh yeah, and then there's the miracle microphone which "picks up" her voice from every angle and distance. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't give her singing performances such a central role. I'm sure my other pet peeves will be coming out in future reviews, but I'll try to warn you when they do.

This movie isn't that great; it can't make a decision about whether it wants to be a romantic comedy or not. You could do worse than to watch it, but you could also do better.

Silent Rage

Quentin

Ever wonder why there aren't any wandering gangs of motorcyclists terrorizing small towns or any genetically engineered super-humans going on killing sprees? Silent Rage answers those questions and provides other Chuck Norris facts like: Chuck Norris needs little to no reason to take off his shirt and Chuck Norris listens to Muzak while at home (which is a level of bad-ass that I can't even comprehend).
And, do you like nipples? This movie has like twenty nipple shots!*
* Only half of which are female, sorry...

Ben

Have you ever read I am Legend by Richard Matheson? They made a few movies from the novel, the most recent starring Will Smith. It was actually based on factual events, a time when Chuck Norris saved the world from zombies. Silent Rage is a different telling of those same events. Based on what you most likely "know" about zombies, though, it might be hard to tell that this monster is one. Real zombies are different from your standard fictionalized ones, and both Silent Rage and I am Legend try to reflect the true nature of zombies by making them less like what you probably expect. You might say it's just some other sort of undead, and if that's what you need to do for it to make sense, then you go right ahead.

Stephen Furst plays Charlie, deputy to Chuck Norris's Dan. It's a fun early role for Furst, whose third movie was the classic Animal House (silent rage is his ninth, as best I can tell), but he didn't go on to many high profile roles. My favorite role of his, from the few I've seen, is Babylon 5's Vir Cotto, and a great chatacter on the Freakazoid! cartoon. Charlie isn't the best role, but what man's early acting career would be complete without a chance to go ga-ga for gozongas?

The movie title is a pretty good description of the zombie's motivation, but ol' Chucky-boy is pretty silent himself. We really wanted to find some good dialogue scenes for you to watch, but the best we could come up with was with Charlie in his arms, and that scene really belongs to Stephen, not Chuck. I've also come to expect roundhouse kicks from Mr. Norris, partly due to Walker, Texas Ranger, but largely because of Conan O'Brien. Well, I was disappointed. There are plenty of fights, flying kicks, and almost-roundhouses, but nothing is seen of the genuine article. Come to think of it, I was disappointed with him in general.

Still, there are a lot of good laughs here, and you might just learn a thing or two about the true nature of zombies.

State of the Dumpster - 1 Oct. 2008

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that we've got plenty of raw material to work from, and that we'll be getting it up as soon as we can. Our last run yielded some more recent, popular movies (Titanic, Forest Gump, Twister, Jurassic Park), but there's plenty of garbage, as well. We've got some better ideas for the videos, so look for some (hopefully) good changes there, and we're trying to refine our reviews. So, stick with us; we don't think you'll be disappointed.

- Ben