to the 1992 film Troll 2 and its many fans, new who have dubbed it the “best worst movie” reviews ever made. It’s a dubious distinction, of course, one that this documentary never really examines (many arguments could be made for other far worse movies earning listings THE BACK-UP PLAN D: Alan Poul; the honor instead, and the routes by which with Jennifer Lopez, Alex O’Loughlin, Michaela Watkins, certain films slip into the cultural zeitgeist Eric Christian Olsen, Anthony Anderson, Noureen DeWulf. can often be as unknowable as the films (PG-13, 106 min.) themselves). One needn’t be a fan or Part unfunny sitcom, part post-Gigli career nonfan or even nonpartisan toward Troll 2 film resurrection strategy, and all bad, The Back- in order to enjoy this documentary, which up Plan is the kind of cookie-cutter, strictly is directed by the ’s now-grown- for Lifetime romantic comedy that gives up child star Stephenson. The anchor of the entire storied romcom genre – from its Best Worst Movie is George Hardy, a genial screwball origins in the 1930s with stone Alabama dentist whose one stab at an act- classics such as Howard Hawks’ Bringing ing career turned out to be Troll 2. Once he Up Baby all the way to more angsty con- saw the finished film years after shooting temporary antecedents such as the recent it, he declared it to be execrable, although (500) Days of Summer – a bad name. Troll 2’s recent notoriety (it has a 0% rat- Husbands, boyfriends, and first-daters are ing on Rotten Tomatoes) has him intrigued. absolutely within their purview to flee in ter- Gobsmacked by the adoring turnouts at ror to the nearest Michael Bay explodathon cult-film screenings around the country, when confronted with the grim news that Hardy begins thinking about recommitting The Back-up Plan is on this evening’s roman- to the actor’s life until a deadly reception tic menu (thank goodness some primal bit at a nostalgia convention reveals the truth of Homo sapiens’ reptilian hindbrain still of what Troll 2’s little patch of glory is ulti- kicks and twitches instinctively at potential mately up against. In addition to visiting embarrassments such as this). It’s not that with the actors (one of whom admits to The Back-up Plan, which features Lopez as performing his role while also living in a a giddy Manhattan pet-store owner who has mental institution), Stephenson focuses his herself artificially inseminated and then camera on the fan phenomenon that has promptly meets the man of her dreams, grown up around the movie. Austin’s Alamo is anti-male (although O’Loughlin as J-Lo’s Drafthouse mother ship is, of course, in the post-spermy squeeze – a chèvre dealer no forefront of this craze: Tim League show- less – is about as compelling a specimen cased Troll 2 on a Rolling Roadshow tour, as Mr. Magoo on ’roids). It’s not; although a and the fervent appreciation of Alamo pro- Ajami sterling case could be made that the film, grammer Zack Carlson, who sports a Troll D: Scander Copti, Yaron Shani; with Copti, Shahir Kabaha, Ibrahim Frege, Fouad with its crazed, scatological take on “natural 2 tattoo on his shoulder, is also featured. Habash, Youssef Sahwani, Ranin Karim, Eran Naim. (NR, 120 min., subtitled) birth” and single mothers’ support groups, The only real downer in the documentary is not to mention the whole ticking time-bomb- , the Italian director of Troll Israel’s entry for the 2009 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar of-estrogen thing, is creepily unsympathetic 2, who arrives at a convention expecting to modern gals’ lifestyle choices. No, with vindication, thinking that the attention is the lost out to Argentina’s The Secret in Their Eyes, but that in no its desperate, histrionic tone, obvious and film’s final “fuck you to the critics.” However, too-dumb-to-be-considered-manipulative he is clearly dismayed by the fans’ laughter way means that you should skip over this electrifying and decid- plot machinations, and suicidal overuse of and disparagement, utterly nonappreciative edly downbeat slice of life and death in Ajami – the Jaffa, Israel, godawful un-pop songs to underscore the of the moniker “best worst movie.” Whether already unmissable inner emotions of its or not Troll 2 deserves the honor, Best neighborhood of the title. First-time directors and in a grim, Middle Eastern version of Paul increasingly annoying main character, The Worst Movie is on to something with its look Copti (a Palestinian living in Israel) and Shani Haggis’ Crash, petty misunderstandings, Back-up Plan is that rare kind of cinematic at the workings of a cult phenomenon. It (an Israeli Jew) add the weight of their own per- then bullets, and then blood pour out of this train wreck, the kind that makes fans of doesn’t go nearly far enough, however, in its sonally divergent backgrounds to a sprawling initial accidental murder like an arterial spray exemplary romantic comedies (Shaun of unchallenging analysis. Why, for instance, tale that reflects on the virulent pathology of from the neck of a sacrificial lamb. While all the Dead, for instance) rush homeward are such crazy movies made in Utah? Is violence that has been forever endemic to the the characters – Omar (Kabaha), an Israeli from the theatre, eyes bleeding, hearts there something in the water there that Holy Land. Working with a battalion of mostly hellbent on avenging the murder of a fam- faltering, to mainline a massive dose of links up Napoleon Dynamite and Planet of nonprofessional actors and a bare-bones script ily member by a Palestinian crime family; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or pretty the Apes with Troll 2? (In attendance for (allowing for improvisation), these two unlikely Dando (Naim), a Jewish cop; Binj (director much any John Waters film in order to a post-screening Q&A will be Dr. George directorial partners manage to lay to ruin both Copti), a smart Palestinian wooing his Israeli return the known film universe to some Hardy, writer/director Michael Stephenson, sides of the Israeli/Palestinian arug- flame – are working at unknown sort of romantic equilibrium. Not even so Jason Steadman, and others. It will be ment while simultaneously crafting a odds against one another, the bad it’s good, The Back-up Plan is instead followed by an afterparty at the HighBall, deeply affecting film that sides only overall tone of the film is ripped another pointed arrow in man- (and woman-) where Troll 2 will play. See “Something to with the utter absurdity and fruitless- straight from hearts and head- kind’s anti-chick flick quiver. Nora Ephron, Sink Your Teeth Into,” p.52, for an interview ness of the conflict. War is hell, to be ac lines. It’s always been difficult for you’re needed. – Marc Savlov with Hardy.) – Marjorie Baumgarten sure, but the Catch-22-esque idiocies PICK those in the West to comprehend Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, Barton Creek ★★★ Alamo Drafthouse South of planned battle are trumped, again the cycle of violence that’s so Square, CM Cedar Park, Hill Country Galleria, and again, by a centuries-old armed deeply ingrained in the Jews’ CM Round Rock, Southpark Meadows, Highland, DEATH AT A FUNERAL D: Neil conflict that has both blinded the two and Palestinians’ warring, seem- Gateway, Lakeline, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown LaBute; with Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, sides to a peaceful solution and inured them ingly counterproductive factions, and while South, Westgate Zoe Saldana, Luke Wilson, James Marsden, Danny Glover, to the horrific senselessness of their ongoing Ajami doesn’t really make it any easier for Columbus Short, Peter Dinklage, Loretta Devine, Regina but ultimately ineffective state of perpetual us to understand – violence is a virus, Ajami BEST WORST MOVIE Hall, Keith David. (R, 90 min.) martyrdom. Ajami, shot in a deeply cinema-ver- seems to say, and it infects everything and D: Michael Stephenson. (NR, 93 min.) ité style by cinematographer Boaz Yehonatan everyone that comes into contact with it – it The Brits invented the parlor farce and Yaacov, unfolds in flashback and flash-foward, does place the audience squarely amid the One of the breakout hits of South by surely had an early patent on gallows snaking its way through an ensemble cast myriad horrors of a land and a conflict predi- Southwest Film Festival ’09, where it humor, too, but Frank Oz’s 2007 Death of everyday Jaffa residents, including young cated, it appears, on little more than an age- premiered, this documentary is just now at a Funeral was a dud, never finding the narrator Nasri (Habash), who witnesses a old blood feud and Joseph Heller’s concept emerging from the festival circuit and into right pitch at which to play the mounting neighbor gunned down by killers who believe of catch-22. – Marc Savlov a theatrical distribution run beginning with hysteria of a funeral gone cataclysmically the young man to be Nasri’s brother. In turn, ★★★★ Arbor this Austin opening. The piece is a tribute wrong (featuring blackmail, an acciden-

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