Turbo Kid

turbo-kid-dvd-211x300

One star

There’s nothing surprising in Turbo Kid, you’ll know going in whether it’s your bag or not.  It’s ambitions are meager and it executes them with aplomb.  A penchant for gore & commercial 80’s youth nostalgia above all will get you into this robot girlfriend movie.  It is tired and thoughtless and niche but it has heart.  It’s somehow both sweet and mean.  It’s unfunny and boring.  Shares DNA with the inferior Hobo with a Shotgun and the superior (slightly) Beyond the Black Rainbow.  I watched it with people who loved it and you might too, I dunno man.  Pffffttt.

D & W by: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, & Yoann-Karl Whissell, M & P by: Jean-Phillipe Bernier, More M: Jean-Nicolas Leupi Le Matos, E by: Luke Haigh, FX by: Eric Thivierge, Olivier Xavier, Jean-Mathieu ‘Jib’ Bérubé, etc… S by: Marcello Bezina, Alex Stines, Jean-Francois Robitaile, etc..w/Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, Michael Ironside, Aaron Jeffery, Anouk Whissell, Edwin Wright, Romano Ozari, Orphée Ladouceur etc..93 min, Canada, 2015
Advertisement

Crash

1fc7298954b9318ec29717ddfde23b44

Four stars

I remember reading this thing once where J.G. Ballard said he didn’t get any boners when writing Crash. Like somebody was accusing him of writing a smut book and he was like, “Hey, I did not pop a single bone on it, ok?” Seems like a weird thing to remember, like maybe I made it up in order to feel bad about my own carnal reactions to creative endeavors. Aroused by baking cheesecake, by writing copy.  James Spader dry humps wrecked motorists in dwindling twilight on the turnpike’s on-ramp.  Everybody hot for James Dean.

D & W by: David Cronenberg, More W: J.D. Ballard, P by: Peter Suschitzky, E by: Ronald Sanders, M by: Howard Shore, w/James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arqutte, Peter MacNeil, Yolande Julian, Cheryl Swarts, etc..100 min, Canada, 1996

The Care Bears Movie

220px-CBMI_poster

Two stars

Christian orphans ask Mickey Rooney for a bedtime commercial.  Outer space angels of the Ursidae family keep tabs on sad earth kids.  A magician is named after pasta.  Eventually the bears face off against a dark carnival run by murderous toddler sociopaths.  Some of the bears are bears and some of the bears are penguins, lions, raccoons, monkeys and pigs.

D by: Arna Selznick, W by: Pater Sauder, A by: Anne Marie Bardwell, Charlie Bonifacio, David Brewster, John Collins, etc… E by: Stephen Mitchell, Jim Erickson, Shelia Murray, Gordon Kidd, etc…, w/ Mickey Rooney, Jayne Eastwood, Cree Summer, Sunny Besen Thrasher, Bobby Dermer, Brian George, Janet-Laine Green etc…, 77 min, Canada, 1985

The Brain

brain0

Two stars

This is a great movie for 11 year olds.  Goopy alien monsters infest adults and the principal gets chewing gum on his butt.  A woman chainsaws her husband.  A toilet explodes.  It leans patriarchal and tries to make you think Ontario is America but just remember that Canada is awesome and your Mommy and Daddy love you however you are and you should have fun with some mild extraterrestrial bloodshed.

D by: Ed Hunt, W by: Barry Pearson, FX: Mark Williams, P by: Gilles Corbeil, M by: Paul Zaza, w/David Gale, Tom Bresnahan, George Buza, Cynthia Preston, Ken McGregor, Bernice Quiggan, Carol Lazare, Vinetta Strombergs, etc…, 94 min, Canada, 1988