'Am I Racist?' is boring Borat, 'Beetlejuice' baffles, McCarthy ungrateful 'Brat'

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Damon Packard's movie diary

Damon Packard is the Los Angeles-based filmmaker behind such underground classics as “Reflections of Evil,” “The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary,” “Foxfur,” and “Fatal Pulse.” His AI-generated work recently appeared as interstitials for the 18th annual American Cinematheque Horrorthon and can be enjoyed on his YouTube channel. After a long day making movies or otherwise making ends meet, he likes to unwind with late-night excursions to the multiplexes and art house cinemas of greater Los Angeles. For previous installments of the "Diary," see here.

September 15, "Am I Racist?" (d. Justin Folk), AMC Century City 15

Wobbled into an 11 p.m. show of "Am I Racist?" last night in Century City. As seemingly ripe as this subject matter is for satire, I found it mostly dull and not all that funny.

What struck me is how oddly staged the whole thing felt. These bizarre DEI, white privilege education workshops can't possibly be real, can they? People actually pay that kind of money to attend them? These people are real?

Anyone who still has some brain function knows how ridiculous and reality-manipulating the whole woke thing is — like any mainstream media-driven profiteering scam the dopey brain-dead masses fall for (take your pick, the world revolves around trillions of scams within scams).

So it's all about finding clever and humorous ways to point out the obvious hypocrisies and broken logic.

Walsh is no Borat, Eric Andre, Chris Morris, or Louis Theroux. This kind of humor is tricky, and it takes someone of unique charisma.

September 5, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" (d. Tim Burton), AMC Century City 15

Heading into a nice, completely empty midnight show of this "Beetlejuice" stuff. Perfect night. Everyone wiped out from the heat, this whole place is quiet and empty. Will report back but I can't imagine I'll have anything of interest to say.

[Later]

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" was weird. It included some really odd needle drops — the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, and Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park" (which reappears in the climax in the form of Danny Elfman's orchestral version). Strangest of all was the use of Pino Donaggio's "Carrie" theme at the end.

I wonder if this was just music Burton happened to be listening to while making or cutting the movie. It was nice hearing these pieces in a theater, but do those songs really work for the scene? Eh.

I think Burton is probably an insightful, intelligent person with whom I'd enjoy discussing art, cinema, history, old Hollywood, etc. But for me his films range from mediocre to baffling to awful.

I just don't know what the hell to make of this thing. Danny DeVito frothing at the mouth as a disgusting dead janitor? Too much goofy, cartoony weirdness for this to work for me. And for a guy who loves stop motion, Burton includes some pretty mediocre stop-motion sequences here.

Maybe if I were feeling generous I'd give it a semi-pass — who else is giving Catherine O'Hara lead roles these days?

September 4 "Tightrope" (1984, d. Richard Tuggle)

Watched "Tightrope" (1984) last night at a friend's house. I remember well when this played at the Mann National Westwood. Some have described it as Eastwood's "giallo." It's certainly very stylish, dark, sleazy, and moody and often feels more like a slasher movie than a thriller.

I did wonder if this was originally intended for another actor. Eastwood plays a divorced police detective named Wes Block, who is raising two daughters and five dogs. He also loves to have kinky sex with hookers while on the job. At one point he tells Geneviève Bujold he'd "love to lick the sweat off" her body, which you almost can't believe he just said.

At the time, Gene Siskel praised Eastwood for "risking his star charisma [to play] a louse." The villain is a sadistic psycho killer who creeps around stalking women in bizarre devil masks; he ends up beating and possibly raping Block's daughter. Eastwood cast his own 12-year-old daughter Alison in the role.

September 4, "Brats" (d. Andrew McCarthy)

I did not expect to get through this, but somehow I watched this entire thing. Andrew McCarthy (whom I've always liked for his charming, neurotic quirkiness) did a good job.

At the same time I can't believe he actually had the gall to make an entire movie griping about his career.

Let's see: The world is collapsing in chaos, the starving masses swarm the streets like something out of "Soylent Green," and here comes poor Andrew McCarthy with a 90-minute, soul-searching documentary about how hard it was on him and his rich, beautiful celebrity friends when an article in New York magazine called them the "Brat Pack."

September 3, "Shakedown" (1988, d. James Glickenhaus), CineFile Video

CineFile screening nights continued tonight with James Glickenhaus' spectacular overlooked 1988 action thriller/courtroom drama "Shakedown." Modern, CGI-heavy action movies with bloated $200 million budgets can't even come close to what Glickenhaus could do with $6 million in 1987.

Nowadays you probably wouldn't even be allowed to attempt some of the stunts they pull off. It's a reminder of how competitive the field was at the time. Stuntmen were eager to keep pushing boundaries and would take major risks, especially in small-budget films. You can also notice this in many of the Hong Kong films of the era.

Needless to say, those days are over. Glickenhaus wisely got out of the film biz and now runs a company that makes high-performance race cars.

August 30, "The Hustle — Part 2" (d. The Dor Brothers)

Finally, someone else doing something somewhat creative with AI, showing the true faces of these ridiculous politicians, technocrats, and leaders.

That's exactly what all these idiots on the world's stage are: a bunch of gangsters, rubbing it in our faces like James Cagney with that grapefruit in "The Public Enemy."

August 29

A 3 a.m., Uber Eats delivery dragged me all the way out to Canoga Park on Topanga Canyon Blvd. (I made $20 for the whole night; sad, I know.)

I did get to revisit the former site of a movie theater from my youth, the Baronet: a huge, 500-seat auditorium with sticky floors. I remember seeing both "Damien: Omen 2" and "The Awakening" here at nearly empty showings in the early '80s when I lived in Chatsworth. It closed around 1986.

This isn't too far from the Topanga Twin Cinema, where I sat through "An American Werewolf in London" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" twice in a row in 1981. I believe it's a Crate & Barrel now.

August 27, "A Day at the Beach" (1970, d. Simon Hesera)

This is one of most fascinating films I've ever seen. I watched the entire thing this morning, completely mesmerized.

This was supposed to be a Roman Polanski project, but he ended up handing over directing duties to Simon Hesera. Polanski is credited only as writer and second unit director.

But this strange, dream-like tale of miserable, angry characters on a rainy and cold beachfront is so artfully done that I suspect it's very much a Polanski film — much in the same way that "Poltergeist" was clearly directed by Steven Spielberg, despite being credited to Tobe Hooper.

I'm surprised it's been so overlooked for so many years. It sticks with you.