Saturday, May 15, 2010

Movies: That funky monkey.

There's nothing wrong with Blood Monkey that couldn't be solved by watching another movie instead.

Because I try to keep things snark lite, I'm going to focus on the good parts of Blood Monkey.

First, Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham gives one of the best lines of any mad scientist ever. When asked how he could use humans as bait to lured his carnivorous, super-smart monkey prey out into the open, he answers, "Science, that's how!"

Feel free to use that answer whenever anybody questions an obviously boneheaded move.

Second, there's a scene where the baddie monkeys mark the doomed scientific expedition by urinating on their tents. It's not a short scene. Urine rains down on these tents for several seconds.

This scene isn't good in any noteworthy way. I mention it here because it will make you wonder just why such of long scene of out-of-frame monkeys sending long streams of urine on to a bunch of tents managed to make it into any film whatsoever.

One imagines director Robert Young getting a phone call from producer Chuck Salmon: "Bobby, baby! Love the script. Love it. L U V love. I sometimes take it to bed with me and roll around with it. I wanna have this script's nine little scriptly babies. That's how much I love this script. One thing though. I thought we agreed on more monkey piss."

"We talked about it, sure. But Mr. Salmon, I think we use the monkey piss scene for all it's worth."

"What are you talking about, Boberino? Listen baby boy, in this life, you can't be too skinny or have too much monkey piss in your movie. It's box office golden shower! Orson Welles said that. I'm going to send over another screenwriter. He's a monkey piss expert. He'll help us punch it up. You can thank me when you see all this monkey piss on the screen."

Trying to imagine the logic behind that scene is another joy the film offers.

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