Moxie's Movie Review

This week:
Moxie’s movie review

- Cloverfield (boooo!)
- The Principal (starring James Belushi and Lou Gossett, Jr.)
- Robocop (the first one, which was the only one justifiable)


Ok, so no one was looking forward more to Cloverfield than me. Monster? Check. Mass destruction? Check. Unique and appealing marketing/advertising strategy? Double check. The first trailer of this movie (which, enjoyably, has nothing to do with clover or a field) was shown before Transformers, and it had no known title until about a month before the actual release date. That’s like a year of wondering. Couldn’t wait. Even the word “cloverfield” made me tingly over the holidays.



Finally, I saw it. When a stranger accidentally sits on your leg during the previews and doesn’t even apologize, that’s a sign you aren’t about to have an enjoyable movie experience. Plus, we were too poor to buy popcorn and we weren’t at the Alamo, so there was no beer. I won’t ruin the super-cool (not) ending of the movie but let’s just say about halfway through the movie, I began to root for the monster so this horrible cinematic abortion could end. Go, monster, kill the hipster party-goers. My eyes began water and my head started pounding after an hour of bounciness, swerviness, and sidewaysality, even though I didn’t get sick after watching Blair Witch. Maybe I’m just getting old. Cloverfield=predictable, not scary, not impressive monster-making. When are we going to get some monsters who make noises other than the traditional Godzilla roar? SPOILER – it looks like a fucking dinosaur.

THE PRINCIPAL—part of the lovely CW Saturday afternoon lineup. This movie is kind of a cheap knock-off of Lean on Me. Badass (sort of) principal who rides a motorcycle (of course) comes in to clean up the gang-infested, racially charged high school on the east side of Compton or some similar city. To be fair, I didn’t see the first half of the movie. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll forgive Belushi for not being his brother, but it’s asking a bit much to cast him as a “bad-ass.” He plays the role like he knows his beer belly is getting in the way. Lou Gossett Jr is, well, he’s Lou Gossett Jr., what can I say? Ray Dawn Chong also stars as the hot teacher who almost gets raped by White Zack, the revengeful failure student. That’s right, White Zack. Luckily (don’t read further if you want to be inspired) Principal Badass races to her rescue on his….that’s right, his motorcycle! He zooms up the fucking stairs and down the hall to her room, just before Chong gets shlonged. I’m not saying the movie doesn’t have its good points, and as an educator, I give props to any movie that concerns itself with “tainted youth” and the struggle to reach them. It has heart, it’s just horribly 1987.

Fantastic "cleaning up the school" music montage:



The antagonist is Victor, played by Michael Wright who looks a lot like trip-hop artist Tricky. He is what the kids call a gangsta, with fantastic leadership abilities. Why Victor shows up for school in the first place, I do not know, but he’s a bad muh-fucker. The only reason I waited to see the end of the movie is to see whether Hollywood would cop out and give the cheesy educational ending, where Belushi gets through to Victor and eases his pain by giving him a book and he thanks him for saving his life, or the real-life way: beating the shit out of that little shit and sending him to jail where he belongs. I was not disappointed, except for the way they did the cheesy catch-the-about-to-punch-me-fist in the air thing. Oh, and this lovely interchange immediately prior to the riding away in the sunset on his motorcycle:

Kid: Hey, man. Who do you think you are, anyway?
Good kid: He’s the principal!
Belushi: I’m the principal. (cue electric guitar end-of-movie song)

Finally, Robocop 1. Just for the record, Peter Weller himself said he has never seen Robocop 3.

Somehow the 80's came and went and I never saw Robocop. I was 8 when it came out and I imagine my mom wouldn't let me see it. I'm sure she thought it was much too violent. What she didn't realize is how funny it is.

The trailer makes it look just a tad cooler than it really is:


Robocop drives a Ford Taurus. Think about that. Red Foreman plays the bad guy, Clarence Boddicker. There is just something strange about watching Red Foreman do nose candy and shoot people with military guns. I faded in and out of this one, it didn't really offer much other than your typical near-dead hero getting revenge on the bad guys who do a lot of blow, sexually assault hookers, and hang out at dance clubs when they're not doing blow off hookers. Kind of a gritty, Detroit-feeling movie. Juxtaposed between a policeman strike and corrupt corporations that operate out of high rise buildings, Robocop has a lot of work to do, but has a gooey center inside that hard, metallic shell. Blahdy blahdy blah, he throws the bad guy out of said high-rise building window, no one really reacts too much.

Some key Robocop quotes, in case someone brings it up at a party:
"I'd buy that for a dollar."

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

"Bitches, leave!" (That's Clarence Boddicker Red Foreman, to the hookers)

"First, don't fuck with me. I'm a desperate man! And second, I want some fresh coffee. And third, I want a recount! And no matter how it turns out, I want my old job back!"