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Sam Neill Update: Mustache Sam, Bolshevik Doctor, Choppy McAxFace

October 14th, 2011 by pladd

Steven would only consent to watching one of these with me. Guess which one!

Hint: it was this one:

The Triangle (2005 TV miniseries)
This was an hour and a half movie that somehow got stretched out to 4 hours (I assume in the wash by mistake).

Of course it was made by the Sci Fi channel, why would you even ask?

The Movie: Eccentric billionaire Eric Benerall hires a team of “experts” in different fields to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, because he’s sick of it messing up his shipping operations. The team bumbles around, seeing weird hallucinations(?), getting kidnapped by a shady military organization, and eventually traveling back in time to set it all aright. Apparently the Bermuda Triangle is really home to masses of “exotic matter” which the military has known about forever and is secretly monitoring in a massive underwater facility. They know some big, cataclysmic event is coming since the Triangle is getting worse and, of course, plan to use a big explosion to stop it. Except, OH NOES, our heroes discover that it’s actually the explosion that’s going to cause the cataclysm and all along the creepiness of the Bermuda Triangle has just been time shockwaves from the horror the military is about to unleash!!! Luckily, they stop the evil military, and the world warps to a reality where the Bermuda Triangle never existed. Our heroes still remember, and most of them are annoyed when their lives are less cool in this new universe. Especially Hot Australian Meteorologist who went from being a total player to having a wife and kids. Bummer.

The Character: Sam Neill plays the eccentric billionaire, who is mysteriously menaced by a mustached version of himself who’s always standing RIGHT BEHIND HIM looking really accusing:

Mustache Sam judges your clean-shaven upper lip, Normal Sam. Also, he wants you to kill some puppies.

Mustache Sam spends most of the four hours completely freaking out normal Sam, until he is a useless gibbering wreck who refuses to help the main characters stop the military. At one point, our heroes warp into a weirdly fascist alternate dimension, so Steven and I decided that Mustache Sam must be the alternate-reality fascist dictator version of Normal Sam. Who was maybe looking for a way to break into other dimensions and rough up the place! You have no idea how many great scenarios we were able to come up with to explain Mustache Sam in the four excruciating hours of this movie (there wasn’t much else to do, really). Unfortunately, Mustache Sam turned out to be Normal Sam’s brother, who was lost in the Triangle and Sam is haunted by his ghost until he finds the truth. So much less cool. In the end, Normal Sam does save the day by recklessly driving one of his massive oil tankers into the Bermuda Triangle to delay the military in their evil, evil mission. At the very end, in the Triangleless reality, the heroes actually meet Mustache Sam, and he is annoyingly not even trying to eat their skin. Mustache Sam, you let me down. You let me down hard.

What I Learned: Airplane bathrooms are airtight, so if your plane crashes into the ocean, you can totally survive inside one for hours and hours until some psychic scuba divers rescue you! Also, if you travel back in time to the horrible accident where your car drives into the ocean, it might be a good idea to, like, open the windows the second time around or something. Or just act exactly the same and let your friend die, whatever.

Would I Watch Without Sam Neill?: No. Unless it was a movie where my wild explanations for Mustache Sam turned out to be accurate.

Country Life (1994)
This movie is based on the Chekhov play Uncle Vanya except set in the interwar Australian outback instead of 1890s Russia!

The main change is now there's a scene of kangaroos making wild passionate kangaroo love

The Movie: I’ve never seen or read the Chekhov play this is based on, but from a cursory glance at its Wikipedia article, I would say this movie follows the plot pretty well. Wealthy old Dr. Askey returns from his decadent life in London with a pretty young wife! His daughter from his first wife and his brother-in-law have been working the family estate in his absence to support his decadent lifestyle. The brother-in-law and the delightfully alcoholic country doctor both fall madly in love (lust?) with the hot new wife, and Sally, the daughter, is sad that her unrequited love for Drunken Country Doctor can never be. Then Dr. Askey decides to sell the estate to get more money, brother-in-law pitches a fit and tries to shoot him, and everyone goes back to where they were at the beginning of the movie, trying to pretend this whole thing never happened.

Classy, Sam Neill. Classy.

The Character: Sam Neill plays Drunken Country Doctor! He reminded me a lot of his character in The Good Wife, but perhaps slightly less smarmy. Although he still pretty much seduces the hot young wife in a barn, using kittens as bait. Also, most people in the county don’t really like him because he encourages ecologically healthy farming practices and not killing all Aboriginals on sight. In consequence, he starts a riot in a church while returning soldiers call him “Bolshevik” and beat him up. However, since he’s the only doctor around, he’s not too worried about them killing him for good. He even takes liquor as payment when you should “save your money for the funeral”! What a stand up guy.

What I Learned: The plot of Uncle Vanya. What kangaroo mating looks like.

Would I Watch Without Sam Neill?: Probably not. These kind of depressing family dramas where everyone freaks out about their ennui are not really my style.

The Piano (1993)
Once again Netflix wanted me to think of this movie as a romance, and once again it really, really wasn’t.

Even the woman/piano relationship really goes downhill at the end

The Movie: Ada is mute but loves playing her piano. She, the piano, and her young daughter (from another marriage? I never understood this) are sent to 1850s New Zealand to marry Alisdair Stewart, who seems gruff, but tries to be kind in his way. Which doesn’t include lugging a piano through the muddy jungle, unfortunately. Luckily, one of his workers falls madly in love with Ada and is totally willing to go get the piano, buying it off her husband and then demanding she give him piano lessons. But of course he doesn’t care about playing the piano, he only cares about getting under that sweet, sweet hoop skirt, and eventually Ada returns his love (or lust?). Of course, Alisdair is pissed, gives her some chances to Never See Him Again, but she doesn’t listen and he ends up cutting off her finger. With an axe!! Then he apparently feels sick just looking at her and tells her lover to take her away and never come back. As they’re going away in a small boat, Ada demands that he push her piano overboard because she doesn’t want it anymore. Then she (on purpose?) sticks her foot into a mess of ropes and gets pulled down after it! She contemplates how she’s totes committing suicide and that’s okay for awhile underwater, then apparently has jumper’s remorse and struggles free. Yay? At the end, her new husband(?) makes her a creepy metal finger. The end.

Sam Neill is sorry you forced him to axe your finger off

The Character: Sam Neill plays Alisdair Stewart, Ada’s poor cuckolded husband. At the beginning we see him trying to make her happy, but not really knowing how. He also thinks her desperate longing for the piano is a little crazy, and begins to suspect that she might be insane as well as mute. He actually becomes friends with Ada’s daughter, whom she kind of starts to ignore in the excitement of her affair with the guy who began by coercing her into sex (how romantic!). I know I’m not supposed to like Sam Neill and his finger-chopping-off ways, but really Ada kind of annoyed me. Maybe because I too would probably refuse to carry her giant piano through the rainy, muddy jungle. I’m with you on this one, Sam.

Sam Neill can't understand why his hat doesn't impress you!

What I Learned: New Zealand jungles are like the muddiest places on Earth.

Would I Watch Without Sam Neill?: No. Every other character besides the little girl was pretty tiresome. Although I guess it was pretty interesting to see Ada’s character develop almost entirely through actions and facial expressions.

Next: Husband, Rich Dude, “The Scorpion”
Previously: Total Player, Overbearing Dad, Crackpot

Tagged: movie reviews, sam neill

Posted in Project Series, Sam Neill Marathon |

Sam Neill Update: Total Player, Overbearing Dad, Crackpot

September 27th, 2011 by pladd

The Good Wife (1987)
Apparently the only thing to do in interwar Australian small towns was sleep around!

Can you blame them? Look at those sexy, sexy hats

The Movie: Marge is married to a good guy that she loves(?) but she still seems really bored with her life. So when her husband’s kind of weird younger brother Sugar wants to try out sleeping with her, she basically says “Whatevs”. Oddly, so does her husband. Then a hot new bar tender comes to town and attempts to force himself on her! She says no (eventually), but then spends weeks mooning after him, wondering why he won’t hit on her again. He’s hitting on everyone else! What’s wrong with me?? , she weeps. Eventually she causes a huge scandal, but the bar tender is embroiled in a scandal of his own and forced to leave town. She tries to go with him, but he throws her off the train. Like, literally. He grabs her by the shoulders and pushes her off a moving train. She wakes up days later at home, where she tries to leave (from shame?) but her husband tells her she has nowhere else to go. The end!

That train is maybe the only thing in this movie Sam Neill DIDN'T sleep with

The Character: Sam Neill is the bartender who has won every heart in town! I’m not surprised; he’s clearly trying to channel Clark Gable. He orchestrates a threesome that becomes a foursome, and somehow nobody minds. When someone starts to cause trouble in the bar, he calmly kicks his ass without even breaking a sweat. Plus, he’s not afraid to throw a lady from a moving train.

Thing I Learned: Women weren’t allowed in bars back then, so they had something called a “Ladies Parlor” or “Ladies Lounge” that adjoined the bar and had a little window through which they could order from the bar tender. Marge uses it to shriek at Sam Neill to come sex her up in front of amused bar patrons.

Would I Watch This Movie Without Sam Neill?: Probably not. Sam Neill’s character was pretty much the one draw this movie had for me. I completely understood Marge’s boredom with her surroundings, but would feel more empathy for her if she had run away or done something awesome, instead of trying to cause scandals and sleeping with her weird brother-in-law.

In Her Skin (2009)

As per Netflix Marathon rules, I made no attempt to restart this movie or see the rest of it at the point the DVD crapped out, probably about 40-60 minutes in. So, I’ve only seen the first part of this movie, and, unlike Merlin’s Apprentice, Wikipedia and imdb are less helpful in reconstructing the rest. I will therefore be reporting on the part I saw, plus what I imagine happened in the lost ending.

I find ballerinas creepy in general; this movie and Black Swan are totes not helping

The Movie: Once again, this movie was based on a true story. Caroline Reid has always been unhappy. She hates her looks, her mom, and pretty much everything about herself, except her dad, who seems kind of distant and annoyed, especially after the divorce. She is fascinated by and jealous of Rachel, who lives across the street and seems to have the perfect life: beautiful, ballet-dancing body, hot boyfriend, loving parents and sisters. So Caroline kidnaps and kills Rachel, and then starts trying to sort of absorb her life, starting with wearing her clothes. Meanwhile, Rachel’s parents, Eowyn and the time machine guy, are frantic, the police less so. That’s about where my DVD cut out, so I am left to assume that Sam Neill brought his horrible daughter to JUSTICE.

Apparently she also goes to the hospital, I assume because Sam Neill pushed her through a window

The Character: Sam Neill plays Caroline’s distant and uncaring dad, who clearly would rather be doing pretty much anything else than deal with his crazy, whiny daughter. Unfortunately, I only got to see him in one scene before the DVD failed, so who KNOWS what kind of awesome things he did in the rest of the movie! We may never know, but I’m imagining he discovers Caroline’s crimes while using her as a test subject of his latest, wildly unstable invention. Yeah, in my version the job he is always too busy with to care about Caroline is Mad Scientist, and it’s awesome. In reality, he seems to care a lot about appearances, so it’s possible he discovers her crimes but tries to cover them up.

Thing I Learned: Gotta watch out for those fat people

Would I Watch Without Sam Neill?: Nope. Fun fact: this is the Sam Neill movie that finally broke Steven. I suspect him of sabotage, because he was angling for me to turn it off even before the DVD “broke”. He then vowed never to watch another Sam Neill movie with me again, crying at the ceiling “WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS TO ME SAM NEILL????” You WISH Sam Neill was in our attic, Steven. Anyway, I admit I was worried that Steven would forsake Sam Neill, making it impossible for us to watch anything together for at least the next few months. But then this week we watched the first half of The Triangle, so I think it’s going to be okay. He’s a born-again Sam Neill fan. But In Her Skin really shook his faith.

To the Ends of the Earth (2005 miniseries)

It’s really great that Sam Neill’s head is gigantic on this cover, since the main character is actually the guy next to him.

The actor's name is Benedict Cumberbatch, which I assume means he is actually an Edwardian butler.

The Movie: This three-part miniseries is based on a trilogy of novels by William Golding published in the 1980s. The story follows young aristocrat Edmund Talbot on his voyage from England to Australia back in the days when opium was a totally acceptable sea sickness cure (1812). Basically, it’s a 19th-century version of Big Brother. Everyone’s trapped on a boat with each other, and everyone is a different brand of crazy. There’s a passenger with two mistresses (one posing as his daughter–awkward!), a scrappy 1st lieutenant from humble beginnings who just wants to prove himself, a crazy crackpot, a disgraced Frenchman, a servant who dies and then comes back and then dies, and a captain obsessed with his on-ship garden. Plus this one time they almost hit a glacier. Eventually, Edmund learns a lot of life lessons about who he is as a man, and successfully makes it to Australia.

Sam Neill maintains this level of disapproval for the ENTIRE 267 minutes it is magical

The Character: Sam Neill IS Mr. Prettiman, the crackpot!!! It is amazing!!! He has some historically weird political beliefs and at one point tells Edmund that women’s brains can’t handle Greek, but the best part is that he is “the inveterate foe of every superstition.” Someone brings up how they’re on a ship so shooting an albatross would be SUPER unlucky (Rime of the Ancient Mariner was first published 14 years prior), and he demands that someone give him a gun so that he can PROVE THEM WRONG, and spends the rest of the episode prowling about the deck in the background of the action, looking for an albatross to shoot the hell out of! Then he hurts his leg, gets awkwardly married to an equally disapproving governess, and has many an awk convo with Edmund about what to do with Mrs. Crackpot after his death (hint: it involves a secret letter of sex reportage).

Mr. and Mrs. Crackpot hate your inferior hats with equal vehemence

This Sam Neill might be my new favorite Sam Neill!!

What I Learned: Okay, so if your mast has been kerjiggered out of whack and isn’t in the right position to hoist a sail, just thrust some iron in there and then heat it up. Something about metal expanding or whatever will SOLVE EVERYTHING! Until days later after everyone but Scrappy Lieutenant has gotten off. Then the whole thing will catch on fire! It’s physics!

Would I Watch Without Sam Neill?: Yes, although I would miss him terribly. The other characters were all crazy and entertaining in their own ways, and sailing in an old-timey ship is exciting!

Previously: SuperCroc, Apartheid, Boat Kidnapping
Next: Mustache Sam, Bolshevik Doctor, Choppy McAxeFace

Tagged: hats, movie reviews, sam neill

Posted in Project Series, Sam Neill Marathon |

Sam Neill Update: SuperCroc, Apartheid, Boat Kidnapping

September 20th, 2011 by pladd

SuperCroc (2001 TV)
Not to be confused with the monster movie of the same name, this is a National Geographic documentary narrated by Sam Neill!

It didn't walk with dinosaurs... IT ATE THEM!!!

The Movie: The documentary follows a paleontologist and a crocodile expert traveling the world to study modern day crocodiles in an attempt to make educated guesses about what the ancient supercroc (or Sarcosuchus, if you want to get technical) was like. The documentary began with digging up some Sarcosuchus bones in the Sahara, including a massive skull, but without more of the body they needed measurements and ratios from modern versions to guess at how big supercroc was (answer: about 40 feet long, 8.75 tons). Interspersed with capturing and measuring the world’s different crocodile and alligator species is kind of bad computer animation about what we imagine prehistoric supercroc was like. And it chomping down on dinosaurs.

Also I learned that this exists

The Character: Since this was a documentary he was narrating, I never actually got to see Sam Neill, which, as you can guess, was a bit of a blow since you know I love making fun of his clothes. He was really good at narrating, though, providing some ironic detachment from the alligator expert, who was annoyingly excitable. I think he would do really well recording audiobooks! I still enjoyed this more than A Cry in the Dark; thanks for teaching me something, Sam Neill!

Best Sam Neill Quote: (after annoying alligator guy has captured a big crocodile and tied it down in the back of his pick up, asking can you IMAGINE what supercroc would be like?) “You’d need a bigger truck”.

Thing I Learned From This Movie: Alligators have medicine in their blood that heals their wounds from the inside!

Would I Have Watched This Without the Lure of Sam Neill?: Yes, but only while doing something else, like cooking

Skin (2008)

This movie was based on a true story, so, once again, I learned something! You’ve just spent this week educating me, Sam Neill!

Also, Sam Neill's Afrikaner accent is crazy!

The Movie: Sandra Laing looks black (is black? This terminology is a major issue in the movie too) but both of her parents are white Afrikaners in apartheid-era South Africa. Obvs this causes all kinds of problems, such as is she allowed to attend a white school? And how to stop everyone from being terrible to her there? Who can she marry? Can she legally even live with her parents? At one point a professor explains that she is probably the result of African/European intermarrying at some point far back in her parents’ ancestral past, something he claims most Afrikaners have in their genes at some point. Sandra takes a lot of crap, even from her own family, and eventually runs away with a black man, whom she can’t even legally marry since she is technically classified as white. Their relationship can’t survive their differences in background–he gets really pissed when she keeps trying to contact her mother–and she eventually runs away from him, starting a new life with their two children. Eventually she reunites with her mom, but her dad dies, leaving her money but never speaking to her again. The part I remember the most is just a simple scene without any dialog, showing Sandra and her mother going shopping for a new dress. Because Sandra isn’t allowed inside the store, her mother and a saleslady stand in the window with the mannequins, holding up various choices while Sandra stands outside, pointing to ones she likes and pantomime pleading with her mother for the one she wants.

Sam Neill, as always, at the height of fashion

The Character: Of course Sam Neill is Abraham Laing, her stubborn, domineering father. He is pretty much ace at playing troubled dad characters at this point. He pushes the government continually until they finally decide to determine race based on ancestry, not appearance, and just as stubbornly tries to force Sandra to have a “normal” life, even going so far as to not care when some guy sexually assaults her since at least he’s white. He delivers an ultimatum after she runs off with her black boyfriend: return home now or never see your family again. He then spends most of the rest of the film burning her letters and trying to prevent his wife from seeing her through creepily serious death threats. “If I ever see her here again, I’ll kill them. And then myself.” Towards the end of the movie, when Sam Neill is dying of cancer, he tries to leave the house to find Sandra and apologize to her, but his wife won’t let him, claiming that they don’t deserve her forgiveness. Which is a nice sentiment, but, you know, Sandra is pretty much homeless and starving so maybe put your high horse away, mom. Sam Neill’s Abraham Laing is believably terrible to his family, sticking with the government-sanctioned racism that would definitely have been the status quo at the time this movie is set. I still end up feeling bad for him at the end when he realizes what a dick he’s been. Oh, Sam Neill, it’s so hard to hate you for realsies.

Thing I Learned From This Movie: Sandra Laing is a real person and most of the events in this movie really happened!

Would I Watch This Without Sam Neill?: From reading the description, no, but if I started it I would end up liking it.

Perfect Strangers (2003)

Pretty sure Sam Neill agreed to this movie because he got to spend a lot of it pretending to be dead inside a freezer.

The description made it sound like a romcom, and it is, if you like CRAZY

The Movie: Melanie lives a pretty boring life, until one night she decides to go home with a mysterious hot guy she meets at a bar. Except when she wakes up the next morning she is on his boat, since his home is on a remote deserted island! Plus, he seems to know a lot about her, and keeps saying things like “I would do ANYTHING for you!” Then he cooks them a romantic dinner, burns her old clothes, and insists that they can’t sleep together until she loves him. In her attempts to escape the next morning–since she is apparently too dumb to realize there are two locks on the door hotel room style–she ends up accidentally stabbing The Man (that’s how he’s listed in the credits–we never know his name), and then trying to nurse him back to health. Of course, he ends up dying, but that’s cool, she just stashes his body in the freezer and starts hallucinating him, imagining an elaborate and romantic relationship between them. Eventually some guy she used to know arrives, and apparently it’s really his house but The Man just rents it? And she tries to kill him too? But then he’s cool with it? And they get married? The last scene is her dancing with her hallucination at her own wedding to the other guy! Yeah, supper sweet.

I assume they chose Sam Neill because he makes a great corpse

The Character: Sam Neill plays The Man, and he acts the hell out of it! The Man doesn’t have too many lines, preferring silent mystery/being dead, but in the beginning of the kidnapping I was really unsure if I was creeped out by him or wanted to date him. Then Melanie revealed herself to be crazy to the power of twelve, so Sam Neill definitely now appears to be the most sane, attractive character in this film. It’s like she waited to get Stockholm syndrome until he was already dead, so she just had to fall in love with his corpse/hallucination. My favorite part is when she has a gun out, trying to shoot the Island Owner, and she asks Sam Neill’s specter if you can kill someone twice. Sam Neill shrugs and suggests that she just better try it to see. Then she throws a little pity party about how she never meant to kill him, which is weird since she did stick a knife in his stomach.

Thing I Learned: Pro tip: When the girl you’ve kidnapped locks you out of your own house, the best thing to do is start a smile fire under it and smoke her out!

Would I Watch This Without Sam Neill?: Yes, thinking it was a romantic comedy! Then I’d end up finishing it despite mounting unease out of a morbid curiosity.

Previously: Merlin (again), Erotic Artist, Tragic Dingo Victim
Next: Total Player, Overbearing Dad, Crackpot!

Tagged: movie reviews, movies, sam neill

Posted in Project Series, Sam Neill Marathon |