Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story: written by Flynn Hundhausen and Michael Lee Nirenberg; directed by Michael Lee Nirenberg (2014): Fascinating documentary about the history of Hustler magazine from its creation in the early 1970's to today. I'd never really considered the fact that Hustler founder Larry Flynt "won" the American pornography wars. Hustler is still a vital, successful online porn presence. The other three major American porn magazines -- Playboy, Penthouse, and Screw -- have all either dwindled, been sold off, or completely disappeared.
With the McKinnon-Dworkin Anti-Porn Goofiness behind us, one can see how important porn was to free speech in the United States. Both Al Goldstein's Screw and Larry Flynt's Hustler fought multiple battles against censorship and obscenity laws. That isn't to say Flynt was a saint -- the film does a nice job of laying out all his weird moments, with Flynt himself commenting on his own weirdness with the benefit of hindsight. His completely bananas, muck-raking Presidential campaign in 1984 is probably Flynt's crowning moment as a social commentator.
As the song goes, it's hard to kick against the pricks. Was Hustler important? Yes. How? Well, it de-mechanized the female body in American pornography, following Screw's lead in eschewing airbrushing and other photo touch-ups. It actually ran real investigative journalism. And Flynt was almost fearless. You may not always get the free-speech advocates you want, but sometimes you get the one you need.
Made by the son of one of Hustler's early art directors, Back Issues does fall down in two places. The timeline sometimes isn't clear. And the movie takes vast jumps in time to get to its 90-minute length. But a fascinating documentary nonetheless. Highly recommended.
No Clue: written by Brent Butt; directed by Carl Bessai; starring Brent Butt (Leo), Amy Smart (Kyra), David Koechner (Ernie), Kirsten Prout (Reese), David Cubitt (Horn) and Garwin Sanford (Nelson) (2013): Pleasant spoof of film noir and hardboiled detective movies, starring and written by Corner Gas's Brent Butt. It looks and feels like a nice time-waster of a TV movie, very much in the pleasant, mildly observant comedy tradition of Corner Gas. And it admits that it's set in Canada (Vancouver, to be exact). Boy, though, did the director fall in love with his overhead helicopter shots of the city. Recommended.
The Lego Movie: written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dan Hageman, and Kevin Hageman; directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller; starring the voices of Will Ferrell (Lord Business), Chris Pratt (Emmet Brickowski), Elizabeth Banks (Wildstyle), Liam Neeson (Good Cop/ Bad Cop), and Will Arnett (Batman) (2014): Helmed by the writers responsible for the delightful 21 Jump Street movies with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, The Lego Movie is also a delight. It's as post-modern as all Hell, and the background jokes sometimes whiz by too quickly to be seen by anything other than the sub-conscious.
I'd assume a great familiarity with Lego that I myself do not possess would make the movie even denser and funnier, as some of the jokes relate to the toy's 60-year history and all its iterations. But the writing stands on its own. Is the ending perhaps a bit treacly? Hell, yeah. But it's still tremendous fun for kids and adults, with terrific voice-work from everyone involved, most notably Will Arnett as a completely goofy version of Batman. One in-joke to note: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, from the aforementioned 21 Jump Street movies, voice Superman and Green Lantern, respectively. Highly recommended.
Corner Gas: The Movie: written by Brent Butt, Andrew Carr, and Andrew Wreggit; directed by David Storey; starring Brent Butt (Brent Leroy), Gabrielle Miller (Lacey), Fred Ewanuick (Hank), Eric Peterson (Oscar Leroy), Janet Wright (Emma Leroy), Lorne Cardinal (Davis), Tara Spencer-Nairn (Karen). and Nancy Robertson (Wanda) (2014): I think Brent Butt made a terrible decision in choosing to end the sitcom Corner Gas in 2009 after only five seasons. Subsequent projects from he and others from the show haven't been particularly good. More importantly, Corner Gas still had a lot left in the tank when it went off the air.
This partially-crowd-funded movie seems to be an attempt to rectify that mistake. Released to Canadian theatres for five days before being shown on The Movie Network and then CTV some time in the New Year, it's a solid continuation of the series that moves lots of things around while ultimately putting pretty much everything back in place for any future projects.
Dog River, that grumpy Mariposa of the Prairies, faces a financial crisis that seems to have only two possible outcomes: the decorporation of the town, or the transformation of the town into a giant warehouse to be used by Canadian restaurant chain Coff-Nuts. Will Dog River survive? What do you think? It's all comfort food, anyway, though probably best viewed mainly by people who watched the original series. Of whom there are several million in Canada, admittedly, and apparently a lot overseas.
As an added bonus, Fred Ewanuick, who plays dimbulb Hank on Corner Gas, played a vampiric small-town sheriff on the episode of Supernatural that aired the same week Corner Gas was in the theatres. It's a Hank-tacular! While I don't think Brent Butt ever appeared on Supernatural, he did have brief spots on both The X-Files (a show that, in direct contrast to Corner Gas, stayed around too long) and Millennium. And the Millennium episode featured supernatural dogs. Ha! Recommended.
