American Horror Story: Freak Show--Episode 3

4.3: Edward Mordrake, pt. 1

--Let the record show that it took this season of AHS three episodes to introduce all its main characters. I still feel like things are getting overcrowded on this show, but luckily, nothing has felt wasted yet. YET. It’s time for a beloved annual tradition, the two-part, subplot-packed, Halloween-themed WTF-a-thon. But even now, Freak Show is keeping things to a steady pace and not flipping its shit too badly, which, again, means it’s outdoing Coven. Yay!

--If there’s one subplot that may turn out to be pointless filler, it’s The Tale of the Two-Bit Con Artists. We’ve got Denis O’Hare and Emma Roberts as a pair of identity-swapping shysters who were first seen trying to sell a “baby Sasquatch” to an oddity museum. Didn’t work, but the curator did admit she’d pay big bucks for something real. Off went our wannabe villains to Florida where the female half presented herself as a fortune teller named Esmerelda and floored Jimmy with her cherry-red smile. During her audition with Elsa, Esmerelda pulled a Keyser Soze, scanned the room for clues, gazed into her crystal ball, and demonstrated that weak-minded people will find meaning in the vaguest of images, especially if they’re hopped up on opium. Now Esmerelda’s gained access to the heart of freakdom, but isn’t quite sure she’s up for murder. Her male counterpart, meanwhile, is frolicking with a viking-helmet-clad hunk in a hotel room, and apparently possesses an organ of alarming dimensions, which makes him...a bit of a freak? Real men know that it’s not what you got, it’s how you use it.

--The biggest story this week was The Tale of the Bearded Lady and Her Many Misfortunes. Yes, spotlight on Ethel, who was informed by a kindly doctor that she’s dying of cirrhosis (that scene reminded us, not that we’d ever forget, that Kathy Bates is amazing). Rather than swear off booze, she dove back into the bottle with gusto, but that did lead to some quasi-reconciliation with Dell, who does kinda sorta regret being such a shitty father to Jimmy. Dell’s got a different health problem that is fatal only to his machismo: his candle keeps melting, and Desiree is getting fed up. Ah, yes, the most manly men are always the most insecure. Seriously, male frailty was a huge theme this week; we also saw it in...

--The Tale of the Bored Little Rich Asshole. Gloria tried to set up an awesome in-home Halloween party for Dandy, but failed wretchedly, as you’d expect from a woman who named her son “Dandy.” Infuriated (“HOWDY DOODY???!!!”), Dandy made himself a clown costume and soon was prowling the halls in a scene that paid cheerful homage to the most famous Halloween film of them all...Halloween. Sadly for Dandy, his “victim” was Dora the maid (I called her Nora last week but I guess I misheard), who’s way too badass to be intimidated by a whiny little bitch with a kitchen knife and a Bozo mask. So Dandy went to the Dharma van to bully some proper victims and Twisty, meanwhile, abducted an annoying teenage dude who totally deserves whatever clown-themed agonies he’s about to endure. Dora’s so cool. And so doomed. But death’s better than a Woody Woodpecker costume.

--Over in The Tale of the Very Close Sisters, we saw Bette and Dot about to get surgically separated, a bit of deliberately misleading trailer bait that was actually a dream both sisters were having. Thing is, Dot is all but sharpening the scalpels to excise her untalented sister, which will mean death for Bette. Dot thinks Jimmy is her man, but we all know he’s got his eye on Esmerelda, so that’s no good. Speaking of Esmerelda, she randomly made up some crap about a tall, dark, aristocratic gentleman, and unluckily for everyone involved, that happens to be a spot-on description of this week’s eponymous character...

--The Tale of Edward Mordrake, and the reason freaks won’t perform on Halloween. Ethel laid down the backstory: Mordrake (Wes Bentley) was a British noble prevented from happiness by the teensy fact that he had a demonic face on the back of his head, a face which whispered the most horrid things to him, day and night. Ultimately, Mordrake was committed to an asylum, but what Wikipedia leaves out is that he escaped and joined a freak show. And then he murdered all the freaks and hung himself. And if you perform on Halloween, Mordrake will appear and claim a new member of his undead troupe. Elsa called bullshit on that, or maybe she figured an undead Voldemort-faced fanboy is still a fanboy; she got right up on stage for a “rehearsal,” belted out some Lana Del Rey (why the hell not?), and sure enough, Mordrake appeared, ushered in by a cheesy green fog that only this show could pull off. But Mordrake wasn’t much interested in Elsa...

--Nope, he had his two sets of eyes on Ethel. When he visited her in her trailer, it was truly the battle of the awesome fake accents, with Bentley’s “Pahdon me, meddem” more than a match for Bates’ “Dewn’t knew whuuut’s goooin’ awwn!” As apologetic as you’d expect from a well-bred man, Mordrake asked Ethel for some exposition, and boy, did we get it: Ethel’s early, successful Vaudeville days; her relationship with Dell; her utterly failed attempt to do Shakespeare in Europe; and the ultimate shame: Dell turning the birth of Jimmy into a sleazy live event, just to make a bit of dough. Poor, poor, poor Ethel. With the life she’s had, no wonder she kinda started thinking she was ready to be spirited away by Mordrake. But his demonface said no. Ethel’s not the one. But...someone’s soul must be hoovered up by Mordrake on this Halloween night. Whose?

--Silly monkey, that information is for next week. Believe me, I’m as curious as you are.

Marvel Movie Villains

So how about those Marvel superhero movies? I hear people like them or something. Me, I wound up a hopeless convert, going from, “Man, I just can’t make myself give a shit,” to, “MUST...WATCH...ALL...MARVEL...IN THEATER...(except maybe Ant-Man)!” I’ve seen most of them by now, and will continue to follow the mythos as it wends its way toward...whatever the hell they have planned. So maybe I should do a blog specifically about the Marvel movies, yeah? But simply listing them has already been done to death, and I’m not quite highbrow enough to pen an academic thesis on the changing face of blockbusters and what our infatuation with self-kidding billionaire alcoholic Iron Man says about the current American zeitgeist. Not today, anyway.

So let’s critique all the bad guys!

DANG-BLASTED RANKS THE MARVEL MOVIE VILLAINS
(A Work In Progress)

It’s a work in progress because I will continually add to this blog post as new Marvel films come out. Or if I ever get around to seeing Edward Norton’s Hulk. So for all we know, this list will never end. Also, I’m just doing MAIN villains. Sorry, Zola fans. Here we go!

WARNING: BIG SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

WORST: MALEKITH
Played by Christopher Eccleston
Thor: The Dark World
Let’s immediately address the problem Marvel movies tend to have wherein their villains are bland and cardboard-thin, each Big Bad slotting into the lazy template of “I am evil and therefore I’m gong to use [insert Infinity Stone here] to destroy and/or subjugate this planet/galaxy/plane.” Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in Thor 2, which I liked, but which had THE most fucking forgettable baddie of them all. I don’t remember a single one of Malekith’s lines. I barely recall his backstory. I do recall that he had less personality than anybody else onscreen, including the floating bus and Kat Dennings’ doofus boyfriend. You can kinda blame the comics for the character, but...come on. A whole pantheon of Thor villains and they went with “evil Legolas”? Bonus shame points to Eccleston, who is apparently okay with playing this type of role, but not with returning for Doctor Who specials. And I’m not even a Doctor Who fan. Thank Christ Loki was also in this film. We’ll get to him much later.

JUSTIN HAMMER
Played by Sam Rockwell
Iron Man 2
Not to say that having a personality makes a villain any easier to bear. Case in point is Justin Hammer, the most grating Marvel baddie that we will probably ever have to suffer. Hmm, Howard Stark’s rich, reckless playboy persona might make him less sympathetic over time. Let’s give him a sleazy business rival who’s like him but with the weasely douchebag dial cranked up to eleven. GOD, is Hammer annoying. A Marvel villain should inspire at least a little fear, and Hammer only inspires an itching need to give him a hanging wedgie and beat him with a pool noodle. You never get the sense that he’s a match for Howard Stark, or even his hired goon, Ivan Vanko. He’s just...a pile of suck. Everything he does fails. At the end of the film, he’s all whiny and self-pitying, and it’s like, that’s what you get for sucking THAT HARD. I guess what I’m trying to say is that he sucks. Also, he sucks.

RONAN THE ACCUSER
Played by Lee Pace
Guardians of the Galaxy
Ronan is essentially another Malekith, and it’s possible the only reason I’m putting him higher on the list is that I saw GotG more recently. But, yeah, he’s generically evil and he wants to join the Infinity Stone of the Month Club and wreck all the shit, as you do. In this case, he’s a religious zealot who would like to “cleanse” the galaxy, and he sees his own species as a bunch of wishy-washy liberals who don’t have the balls to lay down holy fury on their enemies. Which at least makes him kinda socially relevant. But it doesn’t make him any less boring, especially in a film as zany and comedic as this one. Maybe that’s supposed to be the joke. Eh, well, at least Ronan has a couple different ways to glower and snarl. Malekith couldn’t even half-ass his evilness. But Ronan is scarcely more memorable.

IVAN VANKO
Played by Mickey Rourke
Iron Man 2
He’s Russian. He’s tattooed and bespectacled. He’s built like a dump truck yet he still has time for blonde highlights. And he wants his bird. No, not that other bird. His bird. Anything else? Ivan Vanko is a scattered collection of vague ideas in search of cohesion, which makes him the perfect poster boy for Iron Man 2 in general. Yes, I agree, his car-bifurcating laser whips are pretty damn cool. But Rourke’s choice to play the character as an enigma backfired, resulting in a baddie who doesn’t really seem like a character at all. His motives are jealousy and revenge, I guess, but is that supposed to make him sympathetic? Even at the end, when he tosses Justin Hammer to the wolves (points for that!) and unleashes his remote robo-suits on our heroes, we don’t know what he actually wants or why. And then he lamely commits suicide and...yeah. Head-scratcher. And nobody cared at the time because they just wanted The Avengers to happen already.

OBADIAH STANE
Played by Jeff Bridges
Iron Man
Jeff Bridges is a good actor and in the first Iron Man, he turns in a good performance. The problem is that the role of Tony Stark’s backstabbing mentor is lame and unconvincing. If you’re gonna roll the dice on a third-act twist -- this “good guy” is actually the Big Bad! -- you need to make the character in question believable as an evildoer. Dunno if anyone remembers, or wants to remember, but in Season Three of Heroes, there was a major villain played by Robert Forster who had the same problem: you didn’t ever buy that he was the most evil person onscreen. Obadiah Stane is just so damn twinkle-eyed and kindly-seeming that his evilness feels tacked on. When the big twist comes, his mouth is saying, “I’m going to murder you and use your company to sell arms to terrorists,” but his face and tone of voice are saying, “Let’s go fishing on Saturday, l’il buddy!” Also, he established the really annoying trend of bad guys in robot suits that hangs over the Iron Man films like the reek of old mayonnaise.

THANOS
Played by Josh Brolin and CGI
The Avengers films (very briefly), Guardians of the Galaxy (slightly less briefly), and...I guess Avengers 3?
High in his asteroid fortress, he sits upon his baroque golden toilet, glowering down at us mere mortals, and waiting....waiting...waiting for a film in which he actually matters. It almost seems unfair to stick Thanos on this list because he hasn’t had a chance to be the main villain yet. We have such a vague impression of the dude, not helped by the overly computer-generated veneer that makes him look like Hellboy’s pedo uncle. At least in GotG, Josh Brolin delivered his three or four lines with decently evil relish. I just worry that when they finally bring Thanos front and center, no one’s gonna care because we’re sick of being teased by cameos. Or it could be the coolest thing ever. Jury’s super hung on this one...so far.

DARREN CROSS
Played by Corey Stoll
Ant-Man
Bald equals bad, we know that -- but, man, one look at Corey Stoll’s shit-smeared grin and you instantly know this guy would murder you in a heartbeat if it improved his market share. Just as Ant-Man is not a very important Marvel film, Darren Cross is not a very important villain, but both have a delicious streak of mojo. Stoll is aware he’s just the latest in a string of Evil Marvel Corporate Guys, so he plays up the self-aware bad-guy details -- the grin, the creepy touchy fingers, the bad suits -- and gets us invested, so that when he finally dons his militarized Yellowjacket armor, he is effectively evil and imposing. Sadly, his screen time is limited and they awkwardly tried to cram in some extra depth with Villain Cliches #413 (The Embittered Former Protege) and #1,936 (Driven Insane By His Own Technology). Darren Cross is one hundred percent throwaway. Still, a guy who literally kills baby lambs can’t help but leave an impression.

THE WINTER SOLDIER
Played by Sebastian Stan
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
I have to flagellate myself for being a huge nerd. Yes, I admit, I put The Winter Soldier this far up the list mainly because I think he’s really cool-looking and badass. That’s it, honestly. I like his outfit, his weapons, and the fact that he’s actually a match for Captain America, which few non-Avengers can say. That said, he’s more a plot device than a person. The big “twist” about his true identity -- Bucky! NOOOO! -- wasn’t really a twist, because FUCKING EVERYBODY knew about it, even non-comic-readers like myself. The film was left with the task of cramming the entire long, convoluted Winter Soldier backstory into a brief montage, then starting up the “Who am I really?” machinery so he can presumably go from villain to reluctant hero in Cap 3. He would have been way stronger if they’d focused more of the movie upon him, especially since he’s in the damn title. Still, they didn’t mishandle the character too badly, and as I said, he’s super badass with his face mask and cyborg arm and car-exploding frisbee thing. NERRRRRD.

THE MANDARIN (Not Really)
Played by Ben Kingsley
Iron Man 3
I gotta bow to Iron Man 3 for the iron balls they displayed in first taking one of the comic’s most iconic villains, then re-imagining him as a creepy bin Laden-esque terrorist for the YouTube age, and then revealing that he’s actually a drunk, washed-up British actor hired by the real villain to impersonate a bin Laden-esque terrorist. Somehow, this whole clusterfuck sums up modern life: the intangible threat of “Terrorism” that we can’t quite pin down; the idea of villains as pop culture celebs; the twisting of facts by a desperate, attention-seeking media; the notion of a public figure being a prop for a corporate agenda. All of it. The Mandarin may be one huge red herring, but he’s still a really successful Marvel bad guy because of how utterly plausible he feels now, in the age of such bullshit as Kony 2012. Plus, let’s face it, the reveal of the man behind the topknot was a delicious dose of black comedy when you least expected it. Is he a “real” villain? No, but he makes us wonder what’s real at all.

RED SKULL
Played by Hugo Weaving
Captain America
What’s missing from most of the weaker Marvel villains is a sense of fun. Think about the really entertaining baddies, the Emperor Palpatines and Khan Noonien Singhs. They all relish their own badness. Enter Red Skull, played by one of the best evil-relishers we’ve got, Hugo Weaving. Watch him devour the role. He knows he’s not gonna win any awards for portraying a crazed Nazi occultist, so he just goes for broke, eyes blazing, mouth contorting, the works. He even rocks the maraschino cherry face, a makeup job which would break lesser actors. I imagine diehard comic fans were saddened that Cap’s most tenacious and defining foe was reduced to a single film that’s basically just a feature-length prologue. They could have done more with Red Skull. But what they did is pretty damn entertaining; some evil archetypes never get old.

ALDRICH KILLIAN
Played by Guy Pearce
Iron Man 3
I dunno why it took Team Iron Man so long to get villainy right. But did they ever. Aldrich Killian is just a blast. He combines the backstabbing charisma of Obadiah Stane with the sleazy business rival factor of Justin Hammer, but he’s miles beyond either one. Again, he adores being evil, but unlike Red Skull, he has a personal vendetta: hey, Tony Stark, if you act like a giant asshole and treat people like shit, it comes back to bite you later! Surprise! Finally, someone who’s a real threat to Iron Man, and who hits all the right villainous beats (killing off your own accomplice when they start having second thoughts? Check!). Also, he turns traumatized war veterans into volatile super-soldiers, knowing full well he’s dooming them. BOO HISS! True, the ending bit with the tattoos was a tad goofy, but Killian never lost his charisma even when he bugged out. Last but not least, Killian came closer than any other Iron Man villain to A) boinking and B) murdering Gwyneth Paltrow. Hand him a freaking award.

ULTRON
Played by James Spader and CGI
Avengers: Age of Ultron
In the grand scheme of things, Ultron is not a villain who matters much. That said, it’s hard to imagine him being more entertaining. In a way, he’s one of the most dangerous: a rogue A.I. with a messiah complex who can cyber-surf anywhere, fuck up anything, and thinks our planet’s due for a good, refreshing sterilization. He’s got limitless knowledge and the mindset of a sociopathic teenage boy. And, being born from Tony Stark’s bottomless, insouciant ego, he’s a natural comedian! With the amused malevolence of Spader’s voice and that weirdly hunky vibranium bod (is it creepy to be attracted to an evil robot? Yeah? Don’t care), Ultron makes each scene hum. I do wish he had a better origin story (it felt rushed), less murky motives (was he predestined to be evil due to Infinity Stone mojo, or did the toxins of the Internet and media circus swiftly derange him?), and a cooler death scene (i.e., not upstaged by a talking grape in a cape). You could tell Ultron was a placeholder bad guy. Still, they took the killer-robot concept to its limits, including that cheerfully ridiculous ultimate evil plan of his. He’s elegance and id. Supervillain as self-aware pop art. I love it.

ALEXANDER PIERCE
Played by Robert Redford
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Why is a wise, mild-mannered politico like Pierce so scary? Not just because he’s a good guy who turns out to be evil. Not just because he’s secretly involved with HYDRA, or that he coldly murders innocents when he needs to. He’s scary because he’s real. Nazi conspiracies aside, you just know that our government has plenty of Alexander Pierces right now: men who have perfected the art of seeming to be on your side, while secretly going to any lengths to push their own agendas. I’m no paranoid radical type, but I appreciated Winter Soldier because it taps into our very modern fear that we can’t trust the people in charge of our own safety. As played by Redford -- the most venerable actor on this list -- Pierce never seems like he wants to rule the world or tap into some kooky cosmic power. No...he just wants to make us afraid. To make us suspect our friends. To tear our society apart, and to claim he’s doing it in the name of order and security. He’s real-world evil, rare in comic book movies, but that’s why he’s scary. And a great villain. But not the greatest. We all know who’s coming...

BEST: LOKI
Played by Tom Hiddleston
Thor, The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, presumably Thor 3
Least surprising thing ever. No way am I some hipster who tries to be controversial by not picking Loki as the top Marvel movie villain. America loves Loki. The world loves Loki. A pissy god with major parental issues, played by an actor no one had ever heard of, with a really dumb helmet, and he walked away with the whole damn franchise. Again, he really loves being evil and craving power, but he also packs a well-rounded personality and a dose of personal conflict. Loki is riveting to watch because, even when he’s at his most dastardly, he still can’t help but allow a smidgen of compassion to guide his hand. It’s both strength and weakness, and it means we never know what he’ll do next. Like an evil Iron Man, Loki also has the wit and snark to deflate the arch seriousness of heroes like Thor and Cap. People adore Loki so much that Thor 2 made him into a quasi-hero, but they did it without rendering him toothless. No sappy change of heart here; he’s still happy to impersonate Odin so he can rule Asgard, spoiler alert. I can’t wait for whichever film he pops up in next. It’s gonna happen. Loki rules Marvel villaindom and anyone who disagrees is a mewling quim.

American Horror Story: Freak Show--Episode 2

4.2: Massacres and Matinees

--Time to divulge something I may have mentioned before: for many summers now, I’ve worked for a circus. It’s a great job and I love it. My particular circus is a youth circus, so all the performers are teens. In general, these kids come from happy, middle-class homes and lead normal lives. Nonetheless, many of them have this sense of not quite fitting in, of seeking some damn thing from life that they can’t quite define, and that isn’t quite fulfilled by family or school. The circus gives them a conduit to something very particular and special that they might otherwise never discover. What I’m trying to say is that I can kind of relate to Dandy Mott. I mean, if he weren’t an annoying little psychopath.

--The ep began with a beautiful establishing shot of Elsa’s freak show, which was appropriate, since the freak show is the only place in this horror-verse that seems real. Think about it: we’ve never actually seen the town of Jupiter, Florida. There are interiors but no exteriors. The world outside Elsa’s little realm is a series of rooms, nothing more. Look at the Motts’ mansion: it’s like a giant-sized dollhouse that no real person could live in. The rooms are too big, yet still seem claustrophobic. The happy, loud, musical realness of the freak show makes it a haven. It’s everything to the performers, and it’s in terrible danger from so many directions. Unlike the hostile environments of the Murder House, Briarcliff Asylum, or Miss Robichaux’s School for Witches, this season’s main locale is a node of good karmic energy. And that’s why I fear for it.

--Jupiter is gripped by terror, the terror of suddenly realizing, “Hey, we’re all dumb as a bag of wood chips!” Seriously, when you’re all alone and you discover blood and/or dead bodies, you do not investigate, you GTFO. Twisty the clown continues his murder spree, which leads to a citywide curfew, which is bad biz for a freak show. Thanks to Jimmy’s murder of the cop, more cops are sniffing about, and Jimmy is torn by guilt and dread. His predicament gets worse with the arrival of Dell Toledo (Michael Chiklis), professional strongman and card-carrying macho asshole, who pleads with Elsa for work and then takes control with the effortlessness of a born alpha male. This pisses off Ethel, and no wonder: they have a history, and Dell is probably Jimmy’s father. Dell’s current squeeze, Desiree Dupree (Angela Bassett), is a female-slanted hermaphrodite with three boobs and the best of both worlds between her legs. I already love her, even though I have no idea what part she’ll play in the story. Dell’s solution to the curfew: just have matinees instead! What could possibly go wrong?

--I realize that, until now, I’ve never seen Frances Conroy play a stupid person. But unless there’s more to Gloria than meets the eye, she’s one dim bulb. She tries everything to penetrate her son’s petulant ennui, and when she spots Twisty wandering by the roadside, she hires him for a playdate. (It’s another blow against the Jupiterites’ intellect that they don’t run away shrieking at the sight of Twisty.) Dandy, meanwhile, believes he wants to join the freak show. It’s his true calling! Even though he has no skills whatsoever! Yeah, I feel the kid’s pain; too bad he’s legitimately crazy. Upon discovering Twisty’s true nature, Dandy was all like, “Neato!” and now he’s helping Twisty keep poor Bonnie and Corey locked up in his Dharma van. I’m really rooting for Bonnie (Skyler Samuels), who’s proven to be way more than a dumb blonde. Too bad she’s probably gonna die horribly. As you do.

--Bette and Dot struggled to find their place in the limelight, and made an ironic discovery. Starry-eyed Bette can’t sing for shit, while reluctant Dot has a voice so fine that she can...induce random blue-collar men into a spontaneous moshpit? Oooookay. Dell, a born huckster, quickly rewrote the show to showcase the Tattler twins and sideline Elsa. Elsa’s face clamped itself into a mask of cold fury, and now she’s conspiring with the jealous Bette to do bad things to Dot. My “one twin’s gonna die early” theory still holds, unfortunately. Elsa and Jimmy also conspired to overthrow Dell (who is wanted in Chicago for snapping a man’s neck) by planting the dead cop’s badge in Dell’s trailer. But Dell proved that he’s a smart macho thug and foiled their plan, and it was poor little Meep, the chicken-chomping gimp, who was arrested. Heartbroken, Jimmy decided to turn himself in, but it was too late, and the ep ended with Jimmy howling in grief over Meep’s battered corpse. See? I knew this season was gonna be tragic.

--So. Terrible events are being set in motion, as you’d expect from this show. We’ve glimpsed what’s under Twisty’s mask: it appears to be a gaping, diseased mouthhole, which is more predictable than I’d hoped, but I’m still eager for the clown’s backstory. We’ve also met the Motts’ maid, Nora (Patti LaBelle), whose facial expression says, “I am so the smartest person in the room.” Smart enough to unearth deadly secrets, perhaps. As for Dell, he seems like a villain, but I have a weird feeling he’ll be a redemptive character in the end. Of course, I thought that about Delphine LaLaurie as well, and all she did was disembowel more black people. Hmm.

--Best line of the episode was Gloria in her car: “Excuse me? Clowwwwwnnnn?” God, what a doofus. But then, she did name her son “Dandy.”

American Horror Story: Freak Show--Episode 1

4.1: Monsters Among Us

--Deah dah-ry, today I finally got to watch the season premiere of American Horror Story after being delayed by the fact that I was selfishly having fun on vacation. How dare I. This show has been haunting my dreams. As in, I am quite literally having dreams about Freak Show before I’ve even seen it. And now I have seen it, and I already like it better than Coven, which is saying something as Coven was a blast and a half. But it was also somewhat juvenile, and so far, Freak Show seems awfully...mature.

--Yes, mature. In an episode where a man uses his deformed flipper hands to pleasure housewives. There was something very understated about this premiere; it moved at a fairly sedate pace, it took its time establishing time and place, and although the expected fisheye lenses and off-kilter editing were present, they neither dominated nor distracted. Hell, check out that opening shot. Wanna hook your loyal viewers? Begin the season with an extended close-up of Sarah Paulson looking haunted. Gadzooks, what horrible things are gonna happen to her this year? Oh, I can only speculate.

--Outstanding opening credits, as usual. This time around, we’re given eerie calliope moans over the main theme, and a stop-motion promenade of clown dolls, deformed skeletons, knife-throwers, you name it. Meanwhile, the names of ten cast members are crammed in, the largest role call yet. Kinda crossing my fingers that the next season dials back the sheer number of peeps. I mean, I get it, once you snag a really awesome actor, you don’t want to let them go. But it’s tough to keep track of all the names while distracted by masturbating skeletons. Hey, but there’s Angela Bassett! ONE non-white person has made it onto the main cast of AHS! Bravooooooooo.

--Back to Sarah Paulson, or should I say, Sarah Paulsons. The episode thankfully didn’t rush its main plot. An old woman is murdered. Some...entity...is discovered in her house and locked up in the secure wing of the hospital. In waltzes Jessica Lange, sporting an amazing wardrobe and a smooth-as-toffee German drawl, to sweet-talk her way into viewing the patient. Patients. Meet our kinda-sorta audience analogue, Bette and Dot Tattler, conjoined twins who mostly share one body. Leftie Bette is childlike, trusting, and enamored with the silver screen; rightie Dot is harsh and suspicious. And they can communicate telepathically with each other, which barely seems farfetched. Divine acting by Paulson as always, although the special effects work is fairly obvious (notice how, whenever we see Bette and Dot in close-up, they’re very immobile). Lange’s character, Elsa Mars, coerced the twins into working for her, using a mix of flattery and blackmail (Bette murdered Mommy! Oops!). And what is Elsa’s profession?

--Back up. It’s 1952 and we’re in Jupiter, Florida. Everything is pastel-shaded. Elsa presides over a “cabinet of curiosities,” a ragtag jumble of tents occupying some poor rube’s field. Plenty of freaks to be had here! We’ve got tiny people, limbless people, a very tall lady, a British guy with Thalidomide arms. My beloved Pepper the pinhead is back, and she’s got a boyfriend! And this implies that Freak Show and Asylum take place in the same universe! Which is weird! But whatevs. Bette is delighted to exist in such a glitzy realm, while Dot is horrified and disgusted. But Dot’s got an eye for the handsome Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters), a syndactyl greaser who...well, let’s just say that if they made a silicone model of his flipper hand, bored June Cleavers everywhere would be saving up their allowance money. Jimmy’s mother, Ethel (Kathy Bates), is a bearded lady with a vowel-choked Baltimore accent who serves as Elsa’s right hand. The Tattler twins will hopefully inject new life into the freak show and bring in the crowds!

--Enter the Motts. Wealthy, snobby, clueless. Gloria Mott (Frances Conroy Frances Conroy Frances Conroy) is a condescending bourgeois who smothers her unhappy, entitled teenage son, Dandy (Finn Wittrock). They bought out the whole show and took in Elsa’s bedazzling, anachronistic cover of “Life On Mars.” Delighted by the freaks, Dandy asked his mommy to offer up thousands of bucks for the Tattler sisters, but Elsa told the Motts to take a hike. They’ll be back. And my wish about Frances Conroy being a villain? On its way to coming true. I definitely plan to punctuate everything Gloria does by pointing out that this woman actually named her son “Dandy.” I just hope we’re not gonna be as hung up on mommy issues as last season.

--I’m also glad to see Evan Peters returning to villainy! Kind of. Jimmy is fed up with the freak show and thinks the performers should strike out on their own. He rejects Elsa’s belief that for the unusual and deformed, a freak show is the best they can hope for in the cruel, judgmental world of 1952. She’s right, and he’s right. However, when a bigoted police detective showed up to arrest Bette and Dot on suspicion of murder, Jimmy murdered him, then led his fellow freaks in dismembering the body. Now, was that justified? The detective admitted that Bette and Dot’s freakishness would ensure a guilty verdict and close the case. On the other hand, Bette and Dot really did kill their mother. Is Jimmy’s jingoism going to save the freaks’ asses when the chips are down, or will it land them in unspeakable peril? I’m already predicting this season is not going to have a happy ending.

--And then, of course...that fucking clown. Bette and Dot are suspected of multiple murders, but we know who the real culprit is. It’s a tall, hefty man in a stained clown suit and wig, a ghastly grinning mask covering his real mouth. He doesn’t speak. His first appearance, distantly emerging from some shrubbery in broad daylight, was somehow way scarier than if he’d jumped out of a dark corner. He’s prone to berserker rage and stabbing the fuck out of people, but he’s also a showman, and he currently has a teenage blonde and a young boy locked up in his abandoned Dharma van of horror, where he is subjecting them to balloon animals. He’s also lurking at the edges of Elsa’s tent city. What are his motivations, if any? What’s his backstory? What’s under the mask? I can confirm that his name is Twisty and he’s played by John Carroll Lynch, the freaking Zodiac Killer. Further revelations await.

--The final revelation in this particular ep concerned Elsa, who is torn between protectiveness toward her freaks and a selfish desire to hog the spotlight and gain some showbiz glory. Is she merely a faded star, an aging Sally Bowles? Well, yes, but it’s more than that. The final scene shed light on Elsa’s easily wounded ego by revealing that she’s a freak herself: below the knee, her legs are prosthetic. Accident or birth defect? We shall find out. It was a sad and understated ending to a surprisingly restrained episode. Well, restrained by the standards of American Horror Story. But I am delighted by this tonal shift and hungry for the next act. I mean, half the people on the main cast list haven’t even appeared yet.

--Possibilities for what’s under Twisty’s mask: a lamprey mouth. A hole clean through his head. A smaller version of him, fused to his lips. Spider fangs. A giant sphincter. A mouth that opens sideways. The Fiji Mermaid. A really bad harelip. Do-it-yourself orthodontia. Eyeballs. A glorious handlebar mustache. Bees. A speakerphone. Tentacles. A gumball dispenser. Massive novelty dentures. Herpes. A Polish sausage where his tongue should be. Any more ideas?

American Horror Story: Freak Show--Prelude

Prelude

Hoo boy. The more I hear about Season Four of American Horror Story, the happier I get. Viewers may know that this show kinda takes over my blog while it’s airing, as I feel compelled to recap each episode in a manner that is apparently super-passé (RIP, Television Without Pity). The new season, Freak Show, begins its assault on our senses in early October, but let’s do a brief warm-up.

I’m not gonna unpack the plot too much, because I’ll be doing that in the recaps. Freak Show is set in Jupiter, FL, in the year 1952. The titular cavalcade of weirdos rolls into town, owned and operated by a German expat played by the ever-glorious Jessica Lange. Horror ensues. There’s a love triangle involving a bearded lady, a strongman, and a woman with three boobs. The main villain is a psycho killer clown. Tons of familiar faces from last season are back, for better or worse. Since I myself work for a circus, this is all extra-delightful to me. I’m also amused by the fact that AHS is no longer trying to pretend it’s not X-Men. Seriously. It’s doing the exact same “gaggle of outcasts with strange individual abilities” schtick from last season, and the first episode is even called “Monsters Among Us.” Subtle. I think what I’m gonna do here is lay down a wish list of things I hope from Freak Show. I hope...

I hope it won’t just be Coven again.

Depending on who you ask, AHS: Coven, with its kooky humor and unfocused tangle of subplots, was either a fun blast or the worst thing this show has ever inflicted on us. I’m pretty much in the first category, because I like that AHS does something different each year. Thus, I’m concerned they won’t. With a couple exceptions, every major player from Coven is also in Freak Show, and as I said, the X-Men vibe is still strong. I enjoyed the heck out of Coven but I don’t want its aesthetic to become the norm. Otherwise folks will abandon this show in a blink.

I hope it will be scary. For real.

Coven wasn’t scary. Like, ever. Previous seasons have had some nicely horrific sequences. I want Freak Show to actually terrify me. It looks promising. I’m not afraid of clowns but this particular clown (played by John Carroll Lynch) has great potential and, from the sound of it, might be horribly deformed or something. Also, Wes Bentley is going to play a guy with a whispering face on the back of his head. Just writing that made me shudder a bit. Freak Show could be the scariest season yet, IF they don’t chicken out.

I hope Emma Roberts doesn’t play Emma Roberts.

Yep. She’s back. Haters, commence whining. For the record, I liked her in Coven because she nailed that particular character (bitchy diva), but I get the sense she’s a one-trick pony. The showrunners should force her to stretch a bit, play outside her comfort zone. Maybe then I’ll respect her for more than her ability to be sleeping with Evan Peters. Speaking of which...

I hope Evan Peters gets an actual fucking role.

I have ranted and moaned so much about this, but it holds true: the past two seasons of AHS were really unkind to Evan Peters. The guy has great acting ability, but he’s been stuck playing an overly derpy nice guy and a slackjawed, dialogue-free zombie, in that order. In Freak Show, he’s the son of the strongman and the bearded lady, and he has flipper hands. And that is all we know. For the love of God, make him interesting and compelling. PLEASE. You’re doing nobody any favors by wasting one of your most valuable actors.

I hope Frances Conroy is a bad guy.

She’s always amazing on this show, and she’s always played characters of intriguing moral ambiguity. What I would love is for her to play a straight-up villain. She’d absolutely slay it. Her Freak Show role is of a wealthy lady whose son wants to run away and join the freaks. Unless she’s way more liberal-minded than your average 1950s socialite, things are looking up.

I hope the conjoined-twins thing isn’t mishandled.

Sarah Paulson is incredible. She can act circles around half her castmates. In Freak Show, she plays a pair of conjoined twins with presumably clashing personalities. That is freaking awesome and could be an acting tour de force for Paulson, who needed an Emmy, like, ages ago. I have two worries: A) the special effects will be crappy, and/or B) they’ll kill off one twin early to save on the SFX budget. That would piss me off. Don’t tease us with story-related promises you don’t keep.

I hope for Lily Rabe.

I am bummed, bummed, that Lily Rabe isn’t in Freak Show. She’s one of their MVPs and has been brilliant in all three previous seasons. This year, she’s off doing some alien-invasion show and almost but not quite appearing in the next Hunger Games. I miss her already. BUT, it’s not inconceivable for her to return later in the season for a guest role. I mean, no one knew that Dylan McDermott was gonna pop up in AHS: Asylum, did they? I’d squeal with delight if they got Rabe back, even for just an episode or two.

I hope they take a break from the supernatural.

Freaks aside, it’s looking like this season may be light on ghosts, monsters, magic, and such. And I’m okay with that. Some of this show’s strongest material has dealt with simple human evil, which can be way scarier than whether or not aliens abducted your sexy wife. I’d enjoy a less out-there season, and how about having dead people ACTUALLY STAY DEAD? Seriously, Coven lost all its stakes when it pulled a Phoenix Down on a deceased character for the five thousandth fucking time. I want stakes. I want to fear for the characters, and feel like the plot could actually have happened. I want less Voldemort and more Dolores Umbridge. You know?

I’m excited. No matter what, this should be a delight. Of course, I’m gonna be on vacation during the season premiere (first world problems!), but maybe I can snatch some time to see it and recap. If not, better late than never. Stay tuned...the creepy calliope music is playing and the curtain is about to open...

To Squee Or Not to Squee: Guardians of the Galaxy

Yep, it’s Cautious Enthusiasm.

Let me preface this by stating that during Summer Blockbuster Season 2014, I went with all the weirdo options. I already talked about X-Men: Days of Future Past, which is way weirder than most superhero franchises when you think about it. After that came the excellent Snowpiercer with its offbeat postapocalyptic chic, and Lucy, in which Scarlett Johansson unlocks Godmode in the video game of life and turns omnipotent with the assistance of Morgan Freeman and stock footage. Hell, even the new TMNT (which I avoided like a bag of angry spiders) is pretty bizarre, albeit in all the wrong ways. If it was the Summer of Weird, then Guardians of the Galaxy was the cumulative jewel in the diadem, and I loved the movie, really I did. What turned out to be most weird was how something this off-the-beaten-path can still slot so neatly into the predictable safety of the Marvel machinery. Which ain’t an awful thing, just...a thing.

The Marvelverse is a happening place nowadays, to the point where I won’t be able to watch Captain America 3 without wishing we were on some other planet or realm or plane where all the real action is. Pretty much every shot in Guardians contains something cool to look at, and the sci-fi setting, coupled with the carefully tailored kookiness (Terry Gilliam visuals are now a bankable default mode), make it different from anything seen before. It’s all the snarky one-liners and strange little side details in all the previous Marvel flicks, brought to front and center. Odd, then, that it opens with tragedy worthy of Up, as a young boy named Peter Quill loses his mom to cancer. As if that weren’t enough, he gets kidnapped by aliens for...some reason. (Hint: if you’re the only Human in the galaxy to get yoinked off Planet Earth, it probably ain’t a coincidence.) Some years later, Quill (Chris Pratt) is a swaggery space pirate so blasé that he backstabs his own pirate buddies with hardly a shrug. “Starlord” is the name given to him by himself and absolutely no one else. Pay attention, though, because his flippant manner hides deep hurt, and the way in which he clings to 80s-era Earth pop culture is at first funny, then poignant.

“Starlord” finds himself in possession of the thing that every Marvel movie has, the Glowy Object That Can Destroy Us All (GOTCDUA), and a lot of people want the latest GOTCDUA (this one’s purple!), including evil alien zealot Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace, not that you’d know under the Goth Vader makeup), who wants to...oh, who cares what Ronan’s motivation is? He’s evil and he wants to kill everybody and he’s boring, thus making him the distilled essence of Marvel movie villainy. The collision of parties interested in the GOTCDUA results in Quill meeting his new future teammates, which include the assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), an alleged villainess who’s itching to switch sides; Drax (Dave Bautista), a vengeful bruiser whose lack of personality is his personality; Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) a pissed-off raccoon with a gun fetish; and Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), a walking tree who functions like a sylvan Swiss army knife. The movie keeps emphasizing how UNCONVENTIONAL and UNHEROIC and RAGTAG these heroes are, how they AREN’T LIKE THE AVENGERS. Only they totally are, because the fuck-the-rest-of-you misfit nature of the Avengers was played up just as much, remember, guys?

What I’m saying is that the anarchy of Guardians is manufactured. I still really loved it. It was very funny, though it got a bit too self-referential at times. (There is more to humor than just pointing out cliches as they occur.) It’s got a juicy mean streak: more people die in this film than in all the previous Marvelverse films put together, and probably all the future ones as well, at least until Guardians 2. The action is a lot of fun, too -- the first “meeting” between all our heroes is a street brawl in which they find ever-new ways to injure each other, and during one space battle, the Guardians use their own ships as pinballs of death. And, again, the film never loses track of the fact that these weirdos have wounded souls. Peter Quill, Gamora, Rocket, Drax -- all use a devil-may-care nature to mask the hurt that was done to them in the past, and their gradual cooperation comes through unspoken acknowledgment of that shared trauma (well, except for Groot, but who knows, maybe he had a horrible childhood encounter with Chestnut Blight or something). I wish the film had been more about what drives its heroes and less about the usual Marvel plot in which an uninspired evildoer uses the GOTCDUA (that’s three Infinity Stones out of six! Are you keeping track?) to be evil because he is not yet quite evil enough. Oh, yeah, and we see more of former post-credits teases Thanos (Josh Brolin...I think) and The Collector (Benicio del Toro), just enough to make us wonder if either one of them serves a point.

It’s all part of the Grand Marvel Movie Plan that may never entirely end. Will our Avengers and/or Guardians ever make it all the way to Thanos, and by the time they do, will anyone still care? Watch yourself, Marvel: you’re riding high, but cinematic trends change over time. The optimistic side of me would like the more bizarro Guardians of the Galaxy vibe to kick off a new movement, just as the original Iron Man kicked off the trend of superhero flicks as interlocking, irreverent, mythological spectacles. This franchise is evolving into all kinds of strange new forms, but for now, the firm hand of of the studio is on the tiller, making sure the core formula remains intact. Guardians didn’t really break the mold; it merely offered a hint that there’s more beyond the known horizon. And that an angry talking raccoon can make you cry. And that the funniest character is the one with no sense of humor. And that Djimon Hounsou is being utterly wasted by Hollywood. And that blue-skinned space redneck Michael Rooker has a whistle-powered harpoon. And that I was able to write the previous sentence at all, which is really all I can ask for as a blogger.

And the post-credits tease...really, guys? Really? I guess it was inevitable. But Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is already shaping up to be even weirder. Exxxxxcellent.

VERDICT: A Marvel squee, which is a squee with an asterisk next to it and a footnote underneath that reads, “You already know everything that happens in this movie.” But squee anyway.

Top 10 Obscure Films

So, so many movies are released every year -- and unless they make millions of dollars, win a bushel of awards, or are notoriously awful, a big chunk of them are destined for relative obscurity. The unwashed masses may flock to the blockbusters and I’m not saying they shouldn’t, but I toil to keep my favorite movies from falling through the cracks. Here’s a collection of films that are somewhat obscure -- because they’re indie-minded, or underrated, or hail from a different era or country, or all of the above. Personally, I think they’re really good and more people should watch ’em. If you’re weary of Summer Blockbuster Season 2014 and are dinosaurian enough to still have Netflix DVD by mail, why not try...

DANG-BLASTED’S TOP 10 AWESOME MOVIES YOU MAY NOT KNOW EXIST

The Court Jester (1955)
Most of this list is contemporary, but The Court Jester proves how timeless humor can be. Guys, this is one of the funniest films ever made. Watch it if you don’t believe me. But put your cynicism on hold first, because this is old-school humor, relying on screwball timing, wordplay, song, and a plot that ignores logic with gusto. The sublime Danny Kaye is a bumbling medieval outlaw guarding an infant prince, and he finds himself impersonating a world-renowned court jester for...complicated reasons. A bitchy princess desires him, a witch hypnotizes him, there’s several heinous plots going on, and I can’t spoil any of the goofy hijinks that ensue. Each meticulous, choreographed gag knocks it out of the park. The script is comic poetry. If you’ve ever heard someone recite, “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true...” they’re quoting this film, and please join us in never letting it fade from memory. PS: Young Angela Lansbury is smoking.

The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
Guillermo del Toro has achieved mainstream fame, and deservedly so. Why not explore his early efforts? Pan’s Labyrinth is the famous award hog, but its “brother film,” The Devil’s Backbone, is just as good if not better, for my money. Both films are set at the end of the Spanish civil war, both star children, both feature a mix of human evil and the paranormal. However, Backbone is moodier, eerier, and more steeped in regret than Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s a ghost story set in a doomed orphanage, and the ghost, a murdered boy, is one of the more unique phantoms you’ll see onscreen, frightening not because he pops out of dark places to scare people, but because he desperately wants to communicate with the living. It’s a gloomy film but the shadows and darkness are alive. It’s del Toro at his most understated, yet his offbeat stamp is everywhere. Don’t just watch Hellboy and then call yourself a del Toro fan; appreciate this as well.

Europa Report (2013)
The Found Footage genre is problematic. Thanks to Paranormal Activity, it’s utilized mostly for horror, and other genres’ handheld inroads have had mediocre results (Chronicle being the notable exception). Europa Report barely appeared in theaters last year, which is a shame, because it’s a very compelling and thoughtful movie, in its own little way. It’s about a manned mission to Europa, Jupiter’s watery moon, that (of course) goes awry and finds more than it bargains for. But don’t expect a horror film or a disaster flick, though there are trace elements of both. Are there aliens? I won’t say. But the events of the film proceed with a somewhat riveting inevitability, helped by the organic outer-spacey special effects, which are convincing precisely because they don’t draw your attention. Apart from Sharlto Copley and Embeth Davidtz, the cast are unknowns, which is good: found footage aspires to ape reality, and with Europa Report, you believe what you’re seeing. You do. I beg of you, don’t get bored and stop watching, because the ending is a one-two punch of tragedy and awe.

Grizzly Man (2005)
This feel-bad Werner Herzog doc made a big splash when it came out, but since documentaries tend to have brief shelf lives, I should promote Grizzly Man as a timeless cautionary tale. Herzog is a director fascinated by human folly, which makes him perfect to scrutinize the late Timothy Treadwell, eco-warrior and self-appointed champion of Alaska’s grizzly bears, who, along with his girlfriend, was devoured alive by one of his furry pals in 2003. The film has a hypnotic dread to it: we know Treadwell’s ghastly fate, and so does Herzog’s camera, and as a result, Treadwell comes across not as a noble crusader for ursine rights but as a pompous, self-deluded wannabe messiah who lived in denial of the harsh realities of nature, and of the oblivion he was speeding towards. Werner Herzog is a brilliant asshole, and it took a brilliant asshole to make a nature film that you can’t look away from, no matter how hard you try.

Identity (2003)
What? I never said all these films would be masterpieces. Identity ain’t gonna win any awards (unless there’s something for “Best Use of Rebecca de Mornay’s Severed Head In a Tumble Dryer”), but I believe it was unfairly dismissed as just another horror/thriller. This is a film that’s all about the twist ending, and although I spoiled it not long ago, I won’t do so here, because you enjoy the film more when you let yourself be fooled, misled, and jerked around. First it’s about hapless motel guests being murdered, but then the “murders” start looking more like cosmic bloopers. Every character has a secret, no one can be trusted, and the bloodsoaked mystery envelops the viewer until you can’t look away lest you miss something crucial. And as for that twist ending, it could have been nuke-the-fridge ridiculous, but it somehow works because of how well the film has sold its own internal logic. Hitchcock’s ghost is smirking.

Incident at Loch Ness (2004)
Hello again, Werner Herzog. Compare Incident at Loch Ness with Grizzly Man and you see how unclassifiable the man is. This prankish, head-scratching film is a bizarre mash-up of genres, an “X meets Y,” though the best I can do here is “This is Spinal Tap meets Lake Placid.” Herzog is making a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster, and someone else is making a documentary about the making of the documentary, and there’s a lot of winky-winky humor and Steve Zissou-like hijinks, and then the actual Loch Ness Monster turns up and starts eating cast members, and we have no way of knowing if this was a failed documentary that Herzog repurposed as fiction, or if the whole thing was planned as fiction from the start, or WHAT. You see how I needed a huge run-on sentence to sum up the film, and still failed. It’s that kind of movie, and I freaking love it for breaking every rule there is to break. If you’re confused, ask Herzog. Or just sit back and chuckle at what is, in the end, an excellent black comedy. I think.

Monsters (2010)
It’s nice when talent is recognized. Monsters has shed some obscurity lately due to its director, Gareth Edwards, being handed the recent new Godzilla film. Godzilla 2014 was pretty awesome, and Edwards’ earlier big beastie movie shares DNA. Monsters is a great example of doing a lot with a little. It’s set in a near-future where a big chunk of Mexico has been infested by giant octopoid creatures from Europa (hello again!), and follows two people’s perilous journey northward into the US. There are barely any monsters onscreen. There are barely any actors onscreen. Instead, there is hypnotic intrigue, a slow-paced trek through a world not quite right. But it’s not a horror movie. It ends with a beautiful revelation about the towering alien creatures, their motives, and...their thoughts. There’s a bit of that old trope, We Are the Real Monsters, but this isn’t a preachy movie, just an introspective one. It takes a deep breath, then slowly exhales for ninety minutes. It’s sublime. I knew Gareth Edwards was going places, and I hope Godzilla is just the next stepping stone.

The Secret of Kells (2009)
The Secret of Kells got an Oscar nomination, but in a world where Oscar winners quickly fade into the aether, I fear for its longevity. It should last. Hell, it should be taught in schools. There is no animated movie like this one. It tosses out the tropes of 3D and backtracks to show what is possible in a flat dimension. Appropriate that the story involves Ireland’s mythic Book of Kells, because the images resemble ancient illustrations from a proto-medieval text, brought to life via modern animation techniques. The result is deeply stylized and intensely, eye-poppingly beautiful. The plot is all well and good (vikings! Forest spirits! Brendan Gleeson!) but Kells is really about color, motion, and intense attention to detail. It’s deceptive. It looks cute on the surface but its elegant maturity bubbles up as you view it. Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. This is one cartoon where you don’t even need the excuse of having children.

Tampopo (1985)
Japan is weird. I’ve said it before, and now I can just let Tampopo speak for itself. This offbeat foodie flick is a parody of American westerns, but unlike our idea of parody, Tampopo is less about reference jokes and more about having fun with archetypes. The main plot follows a struggling single mom as she attempts to create the perfect Tokyo noodle shop with the help of a cowboy-like trucker. What makes Tampopo special are its side plots, which are almost more like Monty Python sketches, all involving food. A gangster and his girlfriend treat eating as a sexual fetish. Women take an ill-fated class on how to sup as “quietly” as Americans. A hapless intern humiliates his bosses with his knowledge of gourmet dining. A lot of these scenes contain surrealist elements. Tampopo is not conventionally hilarious, but what it does is whip up an appetite. It’s a film by food lovers, for food lovers, presented as a series of succulent cinematic morsels. Don’t watch it on an empty stomach -- you’ll be diving for your takeout menus.

Waking Ned Devine (1998)
Some of the entries on this list may be a tad hipsterish, but our closer, Waking Ned Devine, is a film without guile, sweet and delightful. In the Irish village of Tullymore, where the population is in the double digits, local geezer Ned Devine drops dead upon learning he has won millions in the lottery. The rest of the village honors Ned in the best way possible: by constructing an elaborate ruse to fool the Powers That Be, nab the prize, and share it equally. This flagrant act of lawlessness leads to some hilarious cat-and-mouse games with the derpy lotto officials, but it also allows us to fall in love with the colorful residents of Tullymore and root for them way more than we’d ever root for Danny Ocean and his numerical posse. This heist is full of heart, and the titular character’s name is a good metaphor for how the pieces of the Tullymorians’ plan fall into place (the fate of the sole villainous character definitely suggests the playful hand of God). It’s a movie that makes you feel like good people really do get their just reward sometimes. Divine.

Now copypaste this list and watch all these movies. I don’t care how, torrent them if you must, just DO IT. You’ll thank me.