Shyamalan-a-mania

I was recently discussing with some friends the atrocious track records and massive disappointments (not to mention wastes of potential) of Mike Myers and Nicolas Cage. The poor misguided fools (my friends, not these so-called actors) didn't see things from my perspective (ie, sanity) and got a little riled up. Let's see if I can find some common ground here, or if I'm just going to angry up the blood once again.

(click to enlarge)

I love movies, and right now there's a bunch out that I want to see. The one I'm getting the most flack for is The Happening. I can't help it, I think it looks pretty cool. The problem, of course, is that it's an M Night Shyamalan movie, meaning everyone is hyper-critical of "The Twist." Fine. I am much the same way when it comes to his movies. I loved the Sixth Sense. Not only was it a good movie, but it came out of nowhere, and nobody was expecting The Twist (except for pretentious tools who will claim they saw it coming a mile away). Plus, it was a really good story that could stand on its own merit, even without The Twist. The came Unbreakable, which I feel is underrated. Fantastic concept- a real-life superhero in the regular world. No Metropolis or Gotham, no collective of super-villains. In fact, the supervillain was The Twist in this one. Pretty cool. Some people think Unbreakable was as good as, if not better than, Sixth Sense (hence the shaded grey region in the graph below). Maybe it was the "superhero" content that drives its lack of cinematic respect.

Unfortunately, it was all down hill from there. Signs was horrible. So cliche and ham-handed in its message, and The Twist was downright absurd. What alien would ever invade a planet made of 80% material that is FATAL to it??? Careful, don't want to get up on my soap box. OK, next was The Village, equally absurd and patronizing. It was clear- very clear- at this point that M Night was a one-trick pony, and that trick was The Twist.

In an effort to either prove us wrong, or throw us off track, he made Lady in the Water. No Twist here. Unfortunately, it was even worse in his hugely egotistical decision to cast himself (an annoying trait, especially considering he gave himself larger roles as his career grew. Tarantino tried it and failed, dutifully sparing us the same mistake. Leave this gimmick to Kevin Smith) as nothing less than the savior of the world. So, Shyamalan, pretty impressed with yourself, are you?

For whatever reason, and in complete disregard for the warnings I've received from not only trusted friends but IMDb as well, I can't help but want to see this one. Will it prove the M Night Shayamalan graph correct? Or will this be an anomaly in an otherwise steady decline? I'm willing to gamble the $8 on it.

Summertime Rolls

I guess this is a little overdue, seeing as Iron Man opened last week, but summer movie season is here and I am stoked. I actually haven't even seen Iron Man yet, but I can't wait. Everyone I know says it's awesome, and to be honest I've been looking forward to it since last summer. I was a bit skeptical of Favreau as director, but he seems to have done a good job. And Robert Downey Jr was the perfect choice to star.

Looking back at '07, one can see that the bar wasn't set very high. The much hyped 3-quels (Spiderman, Pirates, and Shrek, not to mention Ocean's 13, which was made for... some reason, and the equally forgettable Rush Hour 3) disappointed, though I am amazed at the amount of money they pulled in. Doesn't speak very highly for my fellow movie-goers.

Also, it was a bad year for comic book movies- Fantastic Four? Please. I'm still not convinced that movie wasn't a joke. Ghost Rider stunk (and, along with the unnecessary National Treasurers sequel, cemented Nicolas Cage's reputation as one of Hollywood's most vexingly overrated actors. Seriously, other than Raising Arizona and Adaptation, name one good movie he did. Go ahead, give it a try. Give up? Exactly).

Die Hard jumped the shark, then shot the shark whilst in mid-air, used a chain to lash it's tail to a helicopter rotor, stuffed some C4 into it's mouth as the rotor subsequently hurled the shark into the sky, only to shoot the C4 (while jumping to safety) so that the shark explodes, and (finally) delivering- in a sly, too-cool, ironic statement tailor-made for the preview reel- the line "I guess we jumped the shark."

Transformers... no need to revisit that travesty, just read my review of it from an earlier blog. How does Michael Bay keep getting work? He's like the millionaire version of Uwe Boll. If you think you don't know who Boll is, he is the reason nobody gets excited anymore for movie adaptations of video games. Wikipedia him if you need to, it's totally worth it.

For anyone thinking "Hey, what about I Am Legend and 300?" Sure '07 had it's bright spots- those 2 along with Bourne Ultimatum, Knocked Up, and Superbad. But as awesome as those were, they are not nearly enough to counter the dreck that is Wild Hogs, the funny but ultimately irrelevant Simpsons Movie (they're still on TV for free, right?), Evan Almighty, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Norbit. My God… Norbit??? Isn't that alone enough to call 07 a failure?

So if we pare this down to summer vs summer (which mercifully let's Ghost Rider off the hook), we have the horrors of 07 vs Iron Man, The Hulk, The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones, Wanted, and Hellboy 2.

No contest. See you at the show.

Save Yourselves, It's Too Late For Me!

It often takes a momentous event to bring someone out of retirement. Ali, well past his prime, took a fight he shouldn’t have for insane amounts of money. Randy Couture came back because he realized he was still better than the fighters he left behind. Jordan came back because he still had a lot to give, although nothing left to prove. And Bruce Wayne came back in The Dark Knight Returns because he was needed. That’s the category I fall into right now. As I pour out a movie review- my first in years- it’s the Dark Knight’s un-retirement that feels most parallel to my own. Not that I would ever dream of comparing myself to Miller’s single greatest creation (with all due respect to Sin City , Ronin, et al). No, it’s the REASON he came back that I identify with. The planet was going to hell. There was trouble… serious trouble. The likes of which the populace of this world was unprepared for. I’m speaking, of course, about the evils of Transformers.

First off, allow me to make a complaint that is actually no fault of the movie itself. It really grinds my gears (kudos to those of you to catch the first of my many obscure references that pretentiously make me think I am so damn clever) that the plot device is actually called Allspark. It sounds so much like AllSpice that every time they said it, I could think only of a cowboy hat wearing, oil mongering, “W” loving hick sitting eagerly down to dinner with his redneck family. But that’s beside the point.

“More than meets the eye,” indeed. But not in the way you’re thinking, not in the good way. No, this is more than meets the eye like a hot chick you meet at a bar that turns out to be a transsexual.

Curse you, Michael Bay . You tricked me again. It’s bad enough I fell for The Island- even after having known it would be horrible, reading countless reviews that said the same, and having dodged its theatrical release, only to fall victim instead to an HBO showing some 2 years later- now you suckered me into a movie that I honestly believed was going to be good. I have been awaiting this since the first teaser trailer hit. And this… this is how you repay me? You’re dead to me Fredo! I mean, Bay!

And about that trailer, the supposed footage from Mars … with this movie, you not only ruined Transformers, but also ruined what could have been a great premise for a different movie- the disappearance of the Mars Rover. Mars isn’t exactly on the way to Earth, why did one of the Decepticons stop there?

However, I have to love the irony of the trailer. Think about it: Transformers teased us with a vague, uninformative trailer that nonetheless piqued our collective curiosity, and the movie fucking sucked. Yet the movie itself features a similarly ambiguous trailer that is generating quite a deal of buzz, for an as-yet-unnamed JJ Abrams movie, that I can only imagine will live up to its hype just as much as Transformers failed to do so. See, Bay? That’s how you do that.’

But as for the movie in question, its really my own fault. Look at the track record: The Island need not be addressed again; Bad Boys I and II- sucked (go watch Lethal Weapon for a true buddy-cop movie); Armageddon- horrible; Pearl Harbor- atrocious; The Rock- garbage. Yes, I said it. The Rock was miserable. Don’t let Sean Connery fool you into thinking otherwise. The Rock had another overrated element besides Bay- Nicolas Cage. He hasn’t made a decent movie since Raising Arizona, other than the acceptable Face/Off and the entertaining Adaptation, although those owe more of their success as motion pictures to their respective directors, who didn’t so much work with Cage as they overcame him. Rather then go too far off on a tangent (too late?), simply consider that I could write a thesis on how depressingly bad Cage is. He named his son Kal-El, for fuck’s sake!

Where were we? Oh, that’s right- Transformers sucked ass. It did live up to its title (if not its hype) as it “transformed” my Sunday afternoon into a pile of crap. It transformed my sense of wonder into regret. It transformed 150 minutes (that’s right, 2 ½ hours… way to twist the knife, Bay) into mental anguish. I suppose at this point I should thank all of you (sarcasm highly implied if not inferred) who either failed to warn me, or worse, sought to find humor in my suffering, much like playing a practical joke on a friend.

Was it really that bad? IMdB has it rated at 8 out of 10 based on 43,000 votes. Could so many people be wrong? Valid question, but considering who won the popular vote in 2000 as opposed to who has been leading our nation into a downward spiral (not un-reminiscent of Enron), I think the answer is obvious.

I think this movie should’ve been called SuperBad (the literal meaning, not the hipster ironic version of the phrase), but that title was taken. Worse, a sequel is already in the works. Damn you Hollywood !

The hardest thing about trying to review Transformers (yes, we have finally reached the actual review) is that there is literally too much wrong with this movie to individually point out each flaw. As a counterpoint, and to refrain momentarily from the negativity, allow me to point out a few (very few) high points:

* The only truly funny line was delivered by Bernie Mac, something about busting his grandma in the head with a rock. Beyond that, his very character and scene epitomized the cheesy, forced nature of the movie.
* The robots looked fucking cool. The initial attack by Blackout on the military base, and the ensuing desert skirmish against Scorponox (is that right? Does it really matter?). But that positive leads us to a larger negative. This movie was like CGI Porn. Forget the ridiculous plot and the sub-standard acting, and get to the damn action!

Sadly, that’s really all the good I can recall. The bad is so intensely pervasive, I’m almost not surprised that so many people fell for this cinematic Trojan Horse. I was dumbfounded at the amount of cheering I heard, as well as the sheer worldwide popularity- not only in reviews, but in box office gross- that this movie has been receiving. Initially I was reminded of the tragically humorous Lemmings and there mad dash over the edge of a precipice simply because all the other Lemmings are doing it. As the movie progressed, and I recalled that humans (allegedly) have a much higher intellect than those darn cute, albeit doomed, rodents, I was more inclined to think of this as some sort of massive recreation of the Milgram experiment, wherein the damage inflicted was psychological. But no, that’s not quite right. I most closely identified with the last remaining human in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, eerily arriving at the horrifying conclusion that everyone else in the theatre, and perhaps the world, had been systematically replaced by a pod person. Damn you again Michael Bay ! It still just doesn’t make any sense… I could only glance suspiciously around the theatre and wonder “Did everyone drink the Kool-ade?”

The laughs were so forced, it was almost embarrassing- not just for the script but for the people who actually laughed at the stale jokes and 7th-grade-school-play-style telegraphed deliveries. Some of the most memorable, if not worst, offenders included “The parents are annoying, shall I take them out?” the clearly juvenile-demographic targeted references to “Sam’s happy time.” The pathetically childish “Stop lubricating the human,” with the concept of ‘lubricant as metaphor for urine’ apparently seeming so funny to Michael Bay that he used it twice. The detective, who seemed taken straight out of a Will Ferrell movie, and his innocuously silly questioning about ‘Mojo’ (“Is that what the kids’re takin’ these days?.”) The slyly smug, wink-wink references to eBay. The inept India CS rep for long distance calls- a joke so overused I don’t even hear it at open mic nights at the Comedy Store. Frenzy nonchalantly “walking” from the plane across the tarmac.

As much as the laughter felt forced, the artificial gung-ho, get-the-audience-fired-up rhetoric was even worse. I know I can’t be the only one who smirked at Shia’s little “In fifty years, do you want to look back…” speech. I’m actually laughing now as I write this. Just as bad was Megan Fox’s (who, as the cliché-ridden bad girl with a troubled past, is decidedly not hot, by the way; anyone who thinks otherwise is probably just a victim of the Great American Hype machine) “I’ll drive, you shoot!” And of course, the sagaciously laughable Witwicky family motto, finally finding it’s place in tough-guy, ass-kicking history “No sacrifice, no victory.” Well, attending this movie was my sacrifice. What is my victory?
The acting was equally miserable. Although Shia Labeouf was actually spot on in his over-the-top acting, totally fitting into the smarmy cheesiness of the movie’s atmosphere and tone, everyone else seemed to be actually taking themselves, and this catastrophe, quite seriously. The unnecessary and laughable auditorium full of Young Adult Geniuses seemed so… I don’t know. This movie is depleting my vocabulary as much as it depleted brain cells. I kept expecting one of the college kids to crack under the White House mass recruitment pressure, stand up, and yell “It was the Delta House! They did it!” I am most disappointed in John Turturro, my indie-movie idol. It was as if he kept thinking he was Al Pacino. I was on the edge of my seat waiting, knowing, that he was about to unleash the Heat classic “That robot’s got a GREAT ASS!!! And you got your head ALL UP IN IT!” But no, I was again disappointed. Voight was so hammy, I half-expected him to address the camera with yet another impassioned “If you see my baby Angie, tell her we’re worried…” speech. I was impressed, however, with the contrived “I’m not leaving here without Bumble Bee” line delivered with a straight face. Nice!

* The product placement was just bad, as, for example, our computer-geek heroine displayed her assigned product with such command, I can’t help but wonder if she was discovered at an actual commercial audition.
* Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely willing to overlook flaws and suspend disbelief in support of an unrealistic movie. I consider Starship Troopers a classic. But when you let me down on so many levels, in such rapid succession, I am forced to nitpick the details I would normally accept:
* The world’s best hacker plays Dance Dance Revolution in his grandma’s house?
* Why do the robots even have a humanoid form? Is that a universal form of life?
* Why do they have human facial features, teeth, eyelids, etc?
* Why do they have mouths? Or speak out loud instead of over radio waves? And why do they speak out loud, to each other, in English?
* Why do the little ones speak Jawa?
* Why is every “new” robot (created by cube) evil?
* Why did Frenzy survive beheading and go on to change into a phone, but Bonecrusher, Jazz, etc were “killed?”
* And why “Bonecrusher?” Robots wouldn’t know what a bone is.(And then Michael Scott says "That's what she said!")
* How did Megatron know English? He’s been frozen for “eons.”
* Why were Autobots sometimes unconcerned about Shia’s folks spotting them, other times trying to hide?
* And why was Shia so concerned about hiding them from his folks? They were all over the freakin’ news and everybody else in the world saw them too.
* Why did the robots have any type of visual perception at all? Scientifically, the human spectrum of vision is the least efficient way to capture visual media. Bumble Bee shining the Transformers bat signal? Come on… who’s even going to see that outside of a 20 mile radius? Use a radio signal.
* They learned English from the web, but thought a dog was a rodent? And apparently Jazz learned not only the language, but black dialect and mannerism, too. “What’s crackin’? This looks like a cool place to kick it!”
* And of course, thay killed the black guy.
* Megatron can survive space, but not the Arctic ? Do you know how cold space is?


By the time Optimus delivers the wooden “You left me no choice, brother” line over a fallen Megatron, I’m not even sure if he’s saying “brother” like Hulk Hogan does (“Listen up, brother…”) or if they were actually brothers. At this point, I wouldn’t even care, anyway. If you must see Transformers, go see Knocked Up, then catch the last 30 minutes of this movie. That’s all I got.

Sin M.F.in' City

Alright, I'll try to keep this short, but before we get started- do not read this until you've seen the movie. And if you haven't seen it yet, what the hell's your problem? It's been out for a fuckin' year! Frank Miller translating one of his greatest creations onto the big screen, not to mention the most amazing assemblance of B-list talent I've seen at one time since Robert Blake's trial. Robert Rodriguez, who blasted his way into my cinematic awareness with Desperado (if anyone says "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" I'm going Marv on your ass); Benicio del Toro (Fear and Loathing, Usual Suspects, Way of the Gun, need I say more?); Bruce Willis, who has at this point cornered the market on the "burned out, disgruntled, bitter old cop," a near-perfect extrapolation of Mel Gibson's Detective Riggs; Jessica Alba, who although awesome as Nancy, risks tarnishing her performance here with the guaranteed embarrassment of this summer's Fantastic Four; Elijah Wood (outstanding as the vicious Kevin, although he'll always be my sweet little Frodo); Mickey Rourke, in a role he was born to play; a surprisingly good Clive Owen, reminiscent to me of the fearless determination he displayed as the professor whilst pursuing Jason Bourne; Powers Booth, who hasn't been this spiteful since Tombstone; Rutger Hauer- that's right, Rutger fucking Hauer! Are you kidding me? I dragged Sherri to see the first showing on opening day.

Which brings me to an important point (if I may steal from one of the greatest icons of our generation): First rule of Sin City is- you do not take your wife. The second rule of Sin City is- you DO NOT take your wife. Now that we've made that clear, let's go. From the opening scene, you know you are along for the ride on perhaps the single-most stylistically creative movie ever to grace the theatres. That's right, it's so visually stunning that you have to spell "theater" with the "e" at the end: theatre. But don't be fooled, it's not THAT kind of movie. It's as if Rodriguez spliced a video feed into his brain and read the comics, projecting his visions onto the screen. The movie is so true to the stories that it's ridiculous. The guy even resigned from the Director's Guild so he could get Miller a co-director credit on the damn movie! That's dedication. The violence was not toned down at all, though much of the blood was white, and quite a bit was yellow. No need to explain that last part, I hope. The visuals were amazing, like the comic book literally just leapt up onto the screen.

Having read all the books, and knowing exactly what was going to happen, did not at all detract from one of my most enjoyable moviegoing experiences of the past year. Even Michael Madsen's horrifically cringe-inducing over-acting (don't get me wrong, I love Madsen. He was Vic Vega for fuck's sake) didn't really bring the experience down. I mean, in a movie like this you almost expect some over the top moments. But trust me, he was so over the top he would've beaten Stallone in an arm-wrestling match. Seriously. That kid who played Stallone's son would've been all "C'mon, dad! Over the top!!" And Stallone would be all "I can't do it this guy is way more over the top than me!" Mickey Rourke, on the other hand, was brilliant. He was so perfect as Marv, he was basically Madsen's polar opposite as an actor; Rourke was John Belushi to Madsen's Jim. Definitely the toughest guy on screen since... I don't know, Travis Bickle? The guy jumps off a building like he thinks he's one of the Boondock Saints, gets shot more times than a rap star, and gets run over repeatedly (and no, I'm not going to do a Paula Abdul joke). And that's at the start of his story. He could whoop ANYONE'S ass. The scenes where he's "asking" people about Goldie, he puts Sargeant Hartman to shame. (Yeah, lots of pop-culture references in this review it's been awhile, I've got to make up some lost ground.) And the way it's filmed, you never doubt for a second how realistic it is.

That's the great thing about Miller's stories, the tough guys are fucking TOUGH. That, and there's lots of strippers. The "Old Town" story is great, Clive Owen is tough as hell, and the strippers are even tougher. Brittany Murphy was even bearable in her brief screentime, which is saying a lot. The only real distraction that took me out of my make-believe world in which it's possible for an old, grizzled, washed-up 60-some year old man to get out of prison after 8 years only to find that a hot, 19-year-old stripper wants to hump his brains out... whoa. Sorry, got a little lost there. Anyway, as I was saying, the zorro-stripper (or were they hookers? I'm not sure) was kind of goofy. But it's such a minor point, what the hell am I complaining about? That's like saying the new Mustang is stu-fucking-pendously cool, except for that lame-ass speedometer design.

One final point before I cut this short to go see it again: the intersecting-trilogy-storytelling (well, there's the hired killer story that bookends the movie, but I don't know a fancy word for "four stories."). At least as cool as Pulp Fiction in that regard. I won't even get into how bad-ass Michael Clarke Duncan is, or how Miho is so deadly that she might even (I said "might") be able to kill the Bride, or how inspired the Dead-Jackie dialogue is, or how Miller's not afraid to kill off his best characters, or that Marv is truly a bad motherfucker in fact, I think Jules should give his wallet to Marv. The guy amputated all Kevin's limbs and fed the rest of him to a dog; who's more of a bad motherfucker than that? The baddest motherfucker I know carries a black-jack around for the hell of it and gets in fights for fun. Maybe he could make it in Sin City I think I should stick to SoCal.

Freddy vs Jason vs free movie tickets

So I had a free pass to the movies, and some time to kill (not to be confused with Kahlil Gibran's "time to live"; this movie is not your friend- unless perhaps you were friends with the dorky neighborhood kid who's just too creepy (albeit unintentionally) for anyone to truly like, and even then, it's a friendship of (in)convenience, which brings us back to the film in question). "Freddy vs, Jason" (incidentally, how did the Brian Bosworth of slasher flicks get top-billing over the godfather of the genre?) beckoned to me from the electronic marquee, like a copy of Warrant's Greatest Hits, shining like a diamond in the $1 junkheap at a flea market- you know it's horrible, and yet you can't help but be drawn to it by some sort of twisted loyalty, an almost perverse attraction: just as much a gateway to your lost youth as a pathetic symbol of what used to, incredibly, pass for "cool". It screams with potential, a scream so distinct (yet equally star-crossed) that it drowns out the feeble voice of reason trying so desparately to steer me towards something more worth-while. Fortunately, it was a slow week for movies.

Yes, it could be a tremendous film- all the ingredients are there: two archetypal icons of the now-laughable horror world (arguably the highest two in the entire hierarchy, possibly only matched by the formerly respected Michael Meyers), together in an orgiastic display of gore never before even dreamed of- imagine the '85 Bears vs the '72 Dolphins in an H G Wells Superbowl, or John Holmes and Jenna Jameson in a mind-boggling ultimate porn. As I tricked myself into believing that someone finally got it right, I imagined how entertaining the movie could be, from a purist point of view. It was as if someone ultimately realized that the public doesn't want to see Jackie Chan act, they want to see him fight Bruce Lee for 90 minutes. Hallelujah! As I strode into the semi-dark theatre, I chose the exact center seat, bracing myself for what must surely be the epilogue to a tired format, the final salvo of the horror movie. Though it was certainly a bad omen, I was curiously pleased to be the only person in the entire theatre.

I feel the need to interupt this review to comment on a preview that was presented before the feature (perhaps unwittingly setting the tone for the experience to come) for a movie called "The Highwaymen". You must see this movie as soon as it opens. Not to enjoy it, but to relive the reckless wonders of your distant teen years. Round up your most obnoxious, loudmouth, smart-ass friends, smuggle in a few 40's of Busch, and prepare to let fly all the juvenile, sarcastic movie comments that you have long ago relegated to your own inner monologue- wasted now as they are on the movies you watch at home from your couch. This movie promises to be the bomb that demands you return to the delightfully annoying practice of yelling at the screen in front of scores of others. Take the sublimely improbable inanity of "The Hitcher" and run it through a 200 watt Marshall amplifier, replacing the bizarro-cool of Rutger Haur with neo-Friends-ish uncool of James Caviezel (who?).

Anyway, back to the task at hand ("task" being a more fitting word than "viewing"). The movie that had threatened to be created for years, promising gore and guilty fun, starts slower than my grandparents having sex, and the script- in record time- hits on every single embarrassing horror movie cliche (as well as some good ones: two breast shots within the first half-hour) that had been spawned by the equally embarrassing 80's. Ahhh, the 80's... parachute pants, Warrant...

Sorry, got lost for a second. I could have accepted it's inconceivable ridiculousness had everyone involved in the film not taken themselves so seriously. It was as if they each truly believed that this was their stepping stone to superstardom, picturing this as some sort of Shakespeare in the Park, except instead of Shakespeare it's Wes Craven, and instead of the park it's the state penitentiary. Watching this bastard of a movie unfold was almost funny, but with a definite sadness to it; like watching the fat kid struggle to get one single push-up in 7th grade gym class. The plot had more holes than Ron Jeremy's mattress, and the anticipation I had built up for this classic battle (as eagerly anticipated as a toe to toe, shiv-weilding prison fight between Marlon Brando and Mickey Rourke) was being slowly, painfully bled from me by the theatrical equivalent of a Rosie O'Donnell monologue: painfully incoherent and brutally unintersting. What had once held the promise of being the "Rocky III" of horror (yes, I realize that was the worst in the series (well, maybe locked in a 3-way tie for worst), the "money shot" of Stallone's saga (not at all as classy as you thought, no matter how good of an idea it seemed at the time), but I'm talking about what "Rocky III" could have been without the dreadful Thunderlips debacle, which turned a great marquee match-up (Clubber Lang... you know you thought he was the shit!) into a precursor to Fox Celebrity Boxing) became more disappointing than the daughter you were forced to raise in place of the son you had always wanted.

When the fight finally materialized on he screen before me- about 73 minutes too late to save this monstrous lump of shit- it was actually pretty good. They at least had the foresight to underscore it with a fucking awesome (if metallicaly generic) Spineshank song. Let's get it on! Aside from the fight, a few other bright spots: Danny Bonaducci as a reappearing Freddy victim; seeing Jason (in adolescent flashbacks) as "Powder;" the comforting (if trivial) knowledge that Camp Crystal Lake is a mere road-trip away from Elm Street; and best of all: a poorly imitated and blatantly ripped off Jay wannabe (from Clerks) uttering this destined to be classic line after Jason hacks his way through a high school rave: "Man, that goalie was pissed about something."

Ubiquitously conscious of being the only person in the theatre, I kept wondering if perhaps, as the existence of such a horrible film is definitely one of the harbingers of the apocolypse (another being Whoopi Goldberg in her own sitcom), I'd leave the theatre afterwards only to find that I was the last man on Earth, having been shielded from the 90 minute holocaust to emerge into my own "28 Days Later" (I'm sorry, but it IS cooler than (prepare for blasphemy) "Omega man")...

Overall, the movie did for horror what Dorf does for golf (if you don't get that reference, ask your dad). It's more embarrassing to its' legacy than "Blues Brothers 2000" was to the memory of John Belushi. Almost worth the price of admission, definitely go see it.