FIVE FILMS - THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER, THE WRECKING CREW, GORE VIDAL: UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, BACKCOUNTRY, MUCK

THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER

Take the surreal nuttiness of the cartoon which is often quite adult but skillfully hidden in a children’s show multiply it by 100 and you have this film – One of the most successful TV shows to movies I’ve ever seen.  It works because it pumps up in exaggerated fashion everything that is great about the Spongebob cartoon and fills each moment with hilarious lunacy.  For adults as much as children.  The talking dolphin from the future was my favorite character.

THE WRECKING CREW

Enjoyed greatly this documentary about the team of studio musicians who played on many famous recordings in the 60’s in Los Angeles.  Nice to see a documentary about music that does not overanalyze events and lets the music partially tell the story.  I also liked the reality exposed of working musicians (often without any credits on a record as they were sometimes taking the place of the listed band members) as opposed to rockstars.  I knew a lot of the history already as it is an interest of mine but the story is covered in an organized and succinct way. 

  

GORE VIDAL: UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA

Not a fan of Vidal’s writing at all but that’s okay because that’s not what this documentary film is about.  Rather the subject is American foreign policy, the building of empire, through Vidal’s eyes sprinkled with bits of his personal history.  I totally agree with Vidal’s summation of US history and the idea that events (wars, assassinations etc.) are not a matter of conspiracy (conspiracy used here as a smear word by those pushing an official line) but people working together who just happen to share the same sociopathic outlook on life. The debates from the 60’s between him and William F Buckley Jr. would make a great film in itself.  A viewpoint as told through a story – well done.

  

BACKCOUNTRY

If they ever give an award for best bear attack on a human being in a movie, this film is a shoo-in.  A couple gets lost in the woods, encounter a creepy hiker and a few other foreshadowing events that ultimately add up to nothing.  The bear scenes are truly horrifying and scary, the rest is cliché – Why do people always fall down and hurt themselves in the woods?  Thrilling in places but not consistently.

MUCK

I did not understand this film at all which purports to be the first in a trilogy first made that is as it is actually second in order.  Having already encountered some unknown horror in a swamp, the surviving group of teenage partiers now have to fight a group of cultists.  Plenty of violence and deaths and it is well paced but I would have preferred they start at the beginning as it often felt disjointed and impossible to follow.