Five to one, baby, one in five

"No one here gets out alive." C'mon ... you know the Doors song. Anyone? Anyone?

I suppose if I got off my butt and posted more often, I wouldn't have this problem. But yet again, we've had a bit of a pileup on recently-viewed movies. And since my already low frequency of entries may drop off even more over the next few weeks (see above), I figured I'd go ahead and get these on the record. With that ...

For Your Consideration

While we love the Christopher Guest stuff, the buzz about this one seemed lukewarm at best. Still, it fell into that somewhat rare category of "movies my wife and I both can tolerate," so off we went today. Verdict: Not bad, but probably the least of the Guest's movies.

After tackling small-town theater, dog shows and folk music, Guest goes for independent films and the Academy Awards. All of the usual suspects are on hand -- some making a movie, others talking about its chance for Oscars. The big difference is that nobody actually speaks to the camera this time. It looks and feels like we're peeking in on a work in progress, but the fourth wall isn't broken.

Like I said, it's not bad, but I counted a lot fewer laughs than "Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show" and even "A Mighty Wind." Also, it's pretty scary to see how much Jennifer Coolidge swells up with each movie. Stifler's mom? Yikes.

Nacho Libre

You may recall The Beacon of My World and I trying to catch this as the second half of a drive-in double bill over the summer. Unfortunately, the first movie didn't start until after 9:30 p.m., and we couldn't hang out for Jack Black in tights.

Black plays a monk in Mexico who wants to be a wrestler -- you know, one of those guys who wears the colored masks. He also is sweet on a nun who is new to the orphanage. There may be a few other elements to the plot, but this is all you really need to know, especially since I advise you to skip the movie altogether.

Between the potential for Black to fly around a wrestling ring and the presence of the "Napoleon Dynamite" director, you may think this could work. It doesn't. Black is too subdued, and his Mexican accent and the goofy-dry humor that worked in "Dynamite" falls flat here. Black asks the nun if she wants to eat toast with him. Ha ha ha!

In short, some sight gags, some mildly funny lines, some amusing tumbles, but nothing much overall.

Mr. Jealousy

Here's a movie most people don't know about. It's by the guy who did the first -- and far superior -- "Kicking and Screaming." That was about twentysomethings who couldn't adjust to life after college. In "Mr. Jealousy," our "hero" simply can't ignore his girlfriend's previous life. Specifically, her ex-boyfriends. More specifically, one famous ex-boyfriend.

Eric Stoltz is the jealous guy who ends up stalking a famous author (Chris Eigeman) who dated his girlfriend (Annabella Sciorra). Hijinks ensue, but not in a Stilleresque way. Stoltz ends up in a therapy group with the guy, but has to pretend to be his friend (Carlos "Ramon, the Pool Guy" Jacott, whom I've always liked). The friend's fine with it, since he needs help, too.

It's more than a bit talky, and the narration doesn't help. But I kind of liked the movie as it went along, mainly because I wanted to see how this would all turn out. Not for all tastes, no question, but not bad at all.

Night of the Living Dead

I vaguely recall seeing parts of this horror classic a long time ago, but never the whole thing. Considering how much I like "Dawn of the Dead," I felt obligated to see what spawned this zombie fun. Good thing, too. This movie is all right.

In short, the dead are coming back to life in western Pennsylvania, and we focus on a group of folks holed up in a farm house. As the zombies outside slowly grow in numbers and try to get inside the house, tension grows between a young black man and a husband-father trying to protect his wife and injured daughter.

It's pretty simple, right down to being shot in black and white, and it definitely looks like it was made for $10. (It was actually $114,000, IMDB says.) But at the tender age of 28, George Romero delivered not only a different kind of monster movie -- gross-out, yet suspenseful -- but a decent look at human nature. The ending is a bummer, too, which is kind of nice in this era of at least one person making it alive. Of course, if you die in this movie, just wait a few minutes. You'll be up and at 'em again in no time.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Another low-budget horror classic that I had never seen despite its legendary status. It's certainly worth a viewing, too, although my initial reaction was "That's it?"

A group of kids -- I know, it's always a group of kids -- is driving through the backwoods when they first encounter a demented hitchhiker, then a chainsaw-wielding giant who wears a mask of human skin. Turns out it's one big, happy family of cannibals, and these kids are probably not going to make it back to Central Perk anytime soon.

While the sequence of events in this movie is hardly original now, it was way back in 1974. Consider that this came before "Halloween," "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." Other than "Psycho," I'm not sure any bigtime slasher movies predate "Chainsaw." Between the execution of no-name actors one-by-one and the use of various sharp and blunt instruments, this certainly had some influence on countless horror movies to come.

So yeah, while my first thought was "That's it?" -- and "enough with the screaming, already" -- I realized that when "Chainsaw" came out, it came out of nowhere. Also, and this is kind of important, bonus points for not using the killer-cam. That's right, none of this "Look out behind you! I'm right here! Turn around!"