Rating: 
Summary: What in the world were these people thinking?
Review: Straight to Hell (Alex Cox, 1987)Alex Cox made a very fast name for himself in the mid-eighties, releasing two classic films in the space of three years, Repo Man and Sid and Nancy. Then the downward slide began, and precipitous it was. Straight to Hell, Cox's fourth film, may well have been the nadir; it's hard to imagine a filmmaker this talented making a film this bad, and impossible to imagine a filmmaker this talented making one worse. Straight to Hell is a spaghetti western that's ingested a large number of psychedelic drugs. It follows three hitmen (scriptwriter Dick Rude, ex-Clash guitarist Joe Strummer, and the only actor in the bunch, Sy Richardson) through a couple of botched jobs in Mexico, after which they flee to the strangest desert town to be found outside Jodorowsky's similarly muddy western El Topo. In fact, not only the town has Jodorosky written all over it in unreadable graffiti; the whole film, with the exception of the added love interest, could have been cut from the same cloth as was El Topo. There are, no doubt, art film fans who would consider that a boon, but I always found El Topo to be the weakest of Jodorowsky's movies, and Cox undercuts an already unstable base with amateur acting, and then adds the always-annoying Courtney Love in a major role. The project was bound for disaster from day one. If you've seen El Topo (or the better distillation of it that is the last third of David Lynch's film Wild at Heart), you can safely pass this up and head straight for Cox's more recent documentary work. * ½
Rating: 
Summary: Good to be bad
Review: There's a difference between "film" and "movies". Film is a serious endeavor to be studied and savored. Movies are to be enjoyed. This is a great movie in the tradition of "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Santa Clause Conquers the Martians". As film it was a sorry mess. Dang good thing we came to see a movie eh? Many people have made the mistake of expecting a serious drama here or a common comedy. I think the movie was made to be a strange as possible. Come on gang, a gang of Irish coffee addicts terrorizing a South American town? Look at it as good clean fun and silliness and you can't go wrong
Rating:
Summary: Pure Art in Comedy
Review: Though not for everyone, this film is one of the rare examples of pure art in comedy. Sometimes subtle sometimes over-the-top...this film delivers ten-fold. It may also be one of THE most quotable movies of all time, with such greats as: "Franky, we are not a like at all."
"I'll have the weiner now, Carl."
"Hey! Let's make that weiner kid sing his song! Wanna?"
"Look like coffee addicts to me, boys." And many more. If you're into quirky comedies...this is a must see.
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