Max, Mike; Movies!

Quick, Mike! You know we’re doing a Fellini film this week, as we re-enter our “Cuz It’s Good For You” series! That means we have to be classy, elegant, refined! This is an art film! One of the greats, apparently! Get your Prada suit on! Get your Gucci loafers ready! I’ve got the Chianti bottle with a melty candle in it, and I just opened a nice bottle of Casa di Velours for us to enjoy. I’m not freaking out, you’re freaking out! I just want everything to be nice and Fellini-esque before we start! Oh, good, the stately procession of pale Archbishops is here. And here come the little people dressed as members of the various branches of the Italian military . . . dammit, where are the disapproving nuns with umbrellas?! How can we discuss Fellini without disapproving nuns with umbrellas? Wait, where are your Gucci loafers? What?! No, Keds is NOT the same thing! Oh god, now I’m hallucinating my grandmother playing badminton with Emperor Franz Joseph in a cemetery! . . . wait, that means everything IS perfect for a Fellini discussion! Molto bene! Give a listen!

Poll question: is there a film that you can’t decide if you like it or not?

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Ah, art! What a joy! I know, I know, everyone thinks Mike is the artist of our team but it’s a lie, I tell you! I, Max, am the undiscovered artistic genius! But all I ever hear is Mike, Mike, Mike. Just because he has “talent” and a “great sense of color and design” and understands “composition and perspective” and has “actually created artwork people have enjoyed,” and because he can “use a paintbrush” or “draw” or “create artwork digitally.” Well, I will be recognized! I’m just ahead of my time, just like the subject of this week’s movie “Basquiat,” in our series “Cuz It’s Good for You”! I’m just like Jean-Michel Basquiat! Sure, I didn’t sleep in a box in a park. Sure, I didn’t hang out with Andy Warhol. Sure, I’ve never actually painted anything, let alone sold it. Sure, I don’t have what the snobs call “talent” or “ability” or “the ability to see more than four colors” but my creations of bubble gum and live raccoons are towering works of artness! You’ll see! You’ll all see! But until my genius is recognized (or institutionalized) give a listen and see what we think of this movie and its surprising cast!

Poll question: Do you enjoy watching bad movies and if so, why? Bonus: what’s your favorite bad movie? Leave a comment or call our Bad Movie Alert Hotline at 617-398-7266 and leave a voicemail!

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Welcome back to “Cuz It’s Good for You,” movies from the Criterion Collection. Friends. How many times has this happened to you? You’re hosting a dinner party. The music is elegant. The hors d’ouevres are delightful. The hamsters are impeccably groomed. You’re set to the host or hostess of the season . . . and then . . . oh no! Those pesky radiation-fed animate brains start coming out of the wood-work, feeding on the occipital lobes of your guests, spilling the drinks, and changing the music to “The Greatest Polka Hits of Ollie Knutson and the St. Joe Fatboys.” Your party is ruined! You become a social pariah! But wait! No more! Now you can stop this horrible experiment in telekinesis gone horribly wrong before it even begins, with new, improved BumpyGuard Brainz-Away! Just install our small, barely-noticeable Brainz-Away Stations^tm in each corner of every room of your house and for a small monthly maintenance fee, we will guarantee your house will remain brain-free, much like the writers of this week’s movie. Don’t delay, order today! Use your brain! Get rid of brains! Give us a listen for more details.

Poll question: what is the most ludicrous movie “science” you can think of? Leave a comment or call our SCIENCE hotline at 617-398-7266

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This week’s installment of “Cuz It’s Good for You” is a spine-chilling tale of horror about . . . cat people! Imagine the nightmare of someone cursed to take on the attributes of a cat! Watch in dread as a beautiful Serbian woman . . . ruins the furniture with her claws! Gasp in horror as she slowly deliberately . . . pushes a glass of water off a table! Shiver in your seat as the hell beast . . . refuses to eat the exact same food she enjoyed yesterday! Can your heart stand the strain as she gazes at the man besotted with her and demands to know if she can, in fact, haz cheeseburger? What twisted mind could concoct such infernal horrors? Well, it’s in the Criterion Collection, so that means you not only have to see it, you have to appreciate it. Turn the lights down, enjoy a feast most fancy, and pray to Ceiling Cat to save your soul from this desperate tail. I mean, tale.

Poll question What horror movie gave you nightmares? What monster stayed with you?

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Welcome to another enriching episode of our series “Cuz It’s Good For You”! You know what’s NOT good for you? Rampant consumerism! A culture of cheap, disposable goods! Corporate greed! All the things that go to making a great . . . children’s movie?! Uh . . . sure, why not, because that’s what’s happening here in 2008’s “WALL-E,” a Disney/Pixar production that showcases all these things but also gives us adorable, anthropomorphic robots (who barely speak) who engage our sympathy and interest. There’s even a pet cockroach, realistically rendered, that somehow Pixar makes . . . cute! Remember back when Pixar could do stuff like that? When they thought difficult situations or painful emotions WEREN’T things to be afraid of? Yeah . . . me too. So, is this film one of those? Or, under the claw of the Dark Mouse, is this one that marked the loss of what made Pixar great? Hmmm. If only there was a way to find out . . . Wait a minute! You can give a listen to us! Listen to our opinions! Laughingly discount them and form your own! That’s just fine with us! Enjoy!

Poll question: who is your favorite Pixar (or Disney/Pixar) protagonist?

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Ahhh, mes enfants. Gather around, light up your many, many cigarettes and attendez-vous to this, the latest pointless entry in our series “Cuz It’s Good For You,” our latest meaningless distraction from the misery of existence and our inexorable descent into the grave. You, get me another keg of Pernod. Ah, bon, bon. Oui, this time Michel and I, we choose yet another laughable excuse for art from Le Collection de Criterion, Réne Clément’s, or as you foolish Americans say, Rene Clement’s, slightly-less-insignificant-than-some work “Purple Noon.” This film, she is adapted from le novel by Patricia Highsmith, involving the banal, time-wasting character that is M’sieu Tom Ripley. For those who find such fripperies of interest, this film was remade as “The Talented Mr. Ripley” involving the trivial performer Matt Damon, in yet another purposeless flicker in the darkness that is the world. “Purple Noon” stars some actors whose beauty is as brief and passing as the life of the fruit fly, and whose skilled performances leave us empty and weak. Come, give a listen to our trifling meanderings. Let us offer a diversion from your normal contemplation of the feckless and cruel state that is life. Someone bring me another three hundred Galois. Maintenant!

Poll question: who is your favorite non-U.S. actor? Leave a comment or dial our International Hotline at 617-398-7266 and leave, how you say, the mail of the voice.

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Good morning, children. Is everyone sitting comfortably? Phones away? Good. This morning on Mr Max, Mr. Mike, and Mr. Movies, we’re starting a wonderful new series. Sienna, please put that away. You can play with your tritium vials later. Now Mr. Movies can be lots of fun, can’t he, children? But not all things can be about fun, can they? No, they can’t. Mr. Movies is also good for you! Mr. Movies has many, many movies that you should watch, enjoy, and learn from. Learning is the most fun, isn’t it, children? Dakota, that weighted blanket is NOT a weapon. Unwrap Dyylann’s head, please. We’re going to be selecting movies that are GOOD for you, not just silly stories and spanii. Stop crying, Fidelia, this is going to help you get into graduate school some day. These are very special movies, from a very special library called the Criterion Collection. You make sure to tell your parents that you’re watching good, enriching movies that teach valuable life lessons and promote thoughtful discussion, like “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which helps us learn about hotel management. Or “Fiend Without a Face”, which teaches us that sassing your parents will cause your skull to disappear, leaving your brain wandering around by itself. Or “Scanners,” which helps us understand that if you don’t obey authority figures, your head will explode. We’re starting off with 1940’s “His Girl Friday,” a wonderfully sedate, slow-paced film that explains how girls shouldn’t want to be reporters or anything hard like that; they should just want to be mommies. So we’ll be stopping the movie about the first hour and fifteen minutes or so. Won’t that be fun? Settle in for learning. Ashleigh! Give Ashley back her spleen this instant!

Poll question: what is your favorite movie about journalism or journalists, print, video, or other? Leave a comment or drop a hot tip on our hotline at 617-398-7266

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