Movie Purge: March

Gran Torino was the first DVD that I got when I joined Netflix in December, and it only took me 3 months to watch it.  Lest you think I'm wasteful, I've been taking greater advantage of their streaming service through my Xbox.  This movie is Clint Eastwood to the core, with the nearly 80-year-old actor serving as director, producer, star, and even getting credit for writing music for the film.  It's also vintage Eastwood, playing the type of hard-nosed, no B.S. character that's made him a Hollywood legend.  This time, Eastwood stars as Walt Kowalski, a prejudiced blue collar Michigan veteran who's living in a neighborhood with a growing Hmong population that many, including Kowlaski, aren't thrilled to see moving in.  Kowalski hesitantly bonds with the Hmong family next door and sets out to reform a wayward youth while taking a stand against gang violence.  B

For All Mankind chronicles Apollo 11 and the first manned flight to the moon.  This doc consists entirely of original NASA footage that made the cut from over 6,000,000 feet of film.  There is no voiceover - the only voices throughout the film, aside from a small clip of JFK's 1962 speech declaring that we'd go to the moon by the end of the decade,  are of the astronauts and mission control.  The visual element is awesome.  There's great footage of blastoff, orbit, and landing, as well as clips of the astronauts on the moon.  What struck me most was a shot of the Earth, as seen from Apollo 11, growing more distant -- I wondered at how alternately exhilirating and terrifying it must be to be a pioneer in infinite blackness.  B-

Shakes The Clown is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Long and short, it stars Bobcat Goldthwait as a clown and follows his misadventures living in Palookaville, a community of... clowns. I'd heard that it's got a huge cult following, but I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.  The only redeeming value is a few very bawdy lines from LaWanda Page (Aunt Esther from Sanford & Son).  That still won't raise the grade from an F.

You're Gonna Miss Me is an excellent documentary that profiles Roky Erickson, the lead singer of the 13th Floor Elevators, an underrated 1960's band that was a pioneer in psychedelic rock.  Erickson hovered somewhere around the corner of Genius and Lunatic, and took the 'psychedelic' term too literally.  After battling through LSD binges, schizophrenia, shock therapy, and a stint in which he thought aliens were coming after him, he still hasn't received care enough to fully come back to Earth.  A