2012

What the eff is wrong with America? I can't believe that this pathetic movie was the top-grossing flick this past weekend. And not just top-grossing, but miles ahead of the competition, nearly tripling the next closest movie (which, by the way, was the equally miserable Christmas Carol; a movie that apparently features that same borderline-creepy "animation" first made infamous by Polar Express). My only consolation is that Zombieland is still in the top 20, as is Boondock Saints, deservingly getting a wider release.

I didn't see the movie, but I saw the previews. And for a movie like this that's really all you need. The effects, in all fairness, look amazing. But once you try to affix some semblance of a plot to special effects, the entire production becomes a shitfest.

How much longer must we suffer the "Disaster Porn" genre (not to be confused with "porn disaster," ie the Jimmy Kimmel sex tape, more recent Jenna Jameson fare, etc)? The Day After Tomorrow- from Roland Emmerich, the same man behind 2012- represents the height (or rather, depth) of the genre, which also includes Poseidon, Deep Impact, Armageddon, and both of those shitty volcano movies, which were so horrible they barely deserve to be recognized as 2 distinct entries. Quite a pedigree, no?

Although one could easily point to Twister as the harbinger of the Disaster Porn genre, with its at-the-time revolutionary scope of realistic effects, I blame Will Smith for Disaster Porn's rise to the forefront of our cinematic culture. Independence Day (not coincidentally, also a Roloand Emmerich vehicle) was not only the first movie to take the "disaster" element to it's hyperbolically titillating pinnacle, with the total decimation of a globally-known landmark (the White House), it also engineered what has evolved into the modern era of the summer blockbuster.

It's coming close in terms of sheer annoyance to the "spoof movie" genre, and in truth I couldn't think of a worse double feature to be torturously subjected to. The good news- it's sure to be dethroned this weekend. But do I take solace in the fact that it's being knocked off by glittery, emo, tween vampires? That's barely a consolation. Sort of like the doctor telling you "Good news, you don't have swine flu. You have SARS."

That these movies continue to be made is a travesty, the likes of which should place Emmerich on the 'most wanted' list with at least equivalent stature as Roman Polanski. That the moviegoing public continues to go see these movies in droves is another issue entirely. Then again, it IS the same country that re-elected Bush.

Ah, fuck it. At least Rob Schneider has stopped (or been stopped from?) making movies. I'm going to see some REAL cinema this weekend- the aforementioned Boondock Saints 2 or Zombieland (for the 2nd and 3rd times, respectively).

The Box

I'll keep this one short.

Overall, very interesting. Pretty cool concept, intriguing details revealed at a tantalizingly slow pace. I felt it took a bit too long to get into the story, but once it took off it was pretty effing great. But then the end was a bit of a letdown.

I would almost relate it to a season of Lost condensed into 2 hours: cool premise, lots of questions raised that really hook you in, answers to questions raise more questions, but then not enough payoff. For me, anyway. I'm all for leaving some loose ends, but you have to be fair and give me a little more resolution.

One of the odd things (to me) was that it's set in 1976. And honestly, it seems like the only reason for this is so Richard Kelly can interject clips from some of his favorite childhood TV shows. Seriously. It's that obvious.

Fun tangent- one of the pre-movie trailers they showed was for a Mel Gibson flick called Edge of Darkness. Brief synopsis: He plays a rogue cop who brutally suffers the loss of a loved one and is driven to revenge at all costs.

Read that again. Because I don't know about you, but I'm not sure Mel can pull a role like that off. Kind of out of his range, doncha think? (go to IMDb and look up how many movies center on either revenge, loss of a loved on, or both. Nevermind, I'll save you the trouble- it's a fuckin' shitload. Signs, The Patriot, Braveheart, Payback, Lethal Weapon, Ransom... fuck it. I give up.)

Last thing about the movie- it further reinforces Richard Kelly's fascination with water and his love of diagrams of people with arrows projecting from their chest.


Oh, and he may be a misogynist. Not sure yet, but the movie supports it.

All Saints Day

Troy Duffy, you magnificent bastard! In fact, I'm almost tempted to call you an Inglourious Basterd- that is, if the Troy Duffy we saw in highly entertaining Overnight was the real you- an Inglourious Basterd who took himself out in an amazing blaze of glory whilst leaving his indelible mark on (movie) history.

But we'll stick with magnificent. I have been cautiously awaiting Boondock Saints 2 ever since whispers of it were heard on the internet, following closely on the heels if the underground success of Duffy's first film, an action masterpiece. I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't like Boondock Saints. If you didn't like it, you're obviously a jerk.

So with the massive cult popularity of his first movie, it is understandable that I had a slight degree of trepidation regarding the follow-up. Would Duffy's (allegedly) massive ego get in the way of what should be a fantastic sequel? Would the 10 years (holy shit! Has it really been 10 years?!?) that have passed weaken the integrity of the story?

Fortunately, the movie was effing brilliant. It opened a bit strangely, but didn't take long to find it's footing and re-ignite the amazing dynamic of the McManus brothers.

I will admit, there were a few moments in the first couple reels that made me worry that Troy was going to stray from the path of success that should be inevitable, given the characters and material he left himself to work with. A few instances where it seemed he was trying too hard to recapture his original glory. It's a fine line between recreating brilliance, and stumbling over a too-conscious effort to try and recreate it.

And Troy definitely stumbled a couple times, with groan-inducing lines that were (in my opinion) too calculated, too "Hey, this will be clever!" And painfully obvious re-hashes of things from his first film. Luckily, after these minor bumps in the road, he seemed to stop trying too hard and just let himself be Troy, writer and director of kick-ass Irish shoot 'em ups.

Never was his brilliance more evident than in the words and actions of the brothers themselves. And although this could just as easily be a testament to the acting abilities of Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery, you have to think that Troy- as writer/director/ creator of the insanely cool McManus brothers- had just as much to do with that.

Fans of the original will be greeted with a few familiar faces, and be introduced to some new ones- one of whom I originally thought fell into the 'trying too hard to draw on the first movie' category, but this character quickly smoothed out and hit their stride. Another new character went the opposite direction- too much of a caricature- before settling into a believable and welcomed addition to the franchise.

There are a few surprises, especially regarding some of the old familiar faces. But not bad surprises. Not like he intentionally made "surprising" choices for what happens. Everything that transpires feels natural and fitting for the universe that the McManus brothers inhabit, which isn't to say that it's all welcomed; just entirely plausible.

I almost felt that a bit of backstory that shows up felt forced, like Duffy shoe-horned it in just for the sake of over-complicating the story. But that too developed into a fitting and enjoyable arc that really complemented the movie.

The writing- except for the (thankfully) few instances where Duffy is clearly trying to hard to be Troy Duffy, is tight and well done. Again, the brothers themsleves are pitch-perfect when compared to the first movie. Most of the nods to the original are fun and clever. And on top of all that, Duffy really shows his directing chops with a hell of a lot of visual style that he injects throughout the movie.

Bottom line- holy shit, it was surprisingly awesome! I mean, I was hoping- if not expecting, given the trepidation mentioned above- that this would be good. But it was fucking AWESOME!

Go see this movie right now. Unless you haven't seen Zombieland yet, in which case what the fuck is your problem??? I thought we already talked about that? But as soon as you see Zombieland, go see Boondock Saints 2.

Zombieland = Best movie ever

That's right, bitches! Holy. Fucking. Shit.

SOOOO good, I can't even tell you. It is hands down the best movie I have seen in freaking forever. Better than D9. Better than Basterds. Better than The Hangover. Better than (dare I say it?) Watchmen. That's right, flame on, punks.

If you want a movie that is funny, scary, action-packed, a wee bit sad, chock full of fantastic meta-humor Hollywood in-jokes (and they are really good), with amazing- and I mean AMAZING- cinematography, and even a bitchin soundtrack (from Metallica to Velvet Underground), then get off your lazy ass and go see Zombieland.

I'm serious. Drop whatever the fuck you're doing right now and go. Nothing could possibly be as good as seeing this movie. Tell your boss you're sick, or call in. Dose the kids up on NyQuil. Whatever it takes, just get your ass to the theater. I guarantee you will love it. And if you don't, then fuck you, because you must be some kind of contrarian asshole (tell DJ Request I said "Hi"). This movie is that fucking good.

Zombieland does everything right, and I mean everything. From taking tired old zombie cliches and dumping them on their head, to refreshing the genre as a whole. You are not going to see a better movie for the rest of your life.

In fact, the only even remotely negative thing I can say is that the protag is essentially a Michael Cera clone. Seriously, actor-kid who starred in this, find yourself a new niche; Cera has forever staked his claim on the style you unfortunately pull off so naturally. And he was here first. But you seem like a genuinely cool dude, so I hope you can reinvent yourself before you get typecast as a poor man's Michael Cera.

The zombie walk itself (before the show) was a bit underwhelming. They were doing free zombie makeup for attendees. And somehow, with 7 or 8 zombie makeup artists, I got stuck with the one who is a closet Twilight fan. Am I right? I mean, what part of my pic says "Zombie" to you? I look more like Ziggy Stardust auditioning for the lead in a Gary Glitter biopic. Sheesh.



But overall the movie was epic. YO GEORGE ROMERO, I KNOW YOU'RE THE KING OF ZOMBIE MOVIES, I'MA LET YOU FINISH, BUT ZOMBIELAND IS THE BEST ZOMBIE MOVIE OF ALL TIME!

Terminator: Salvation. Don't think of this as a spoiler...

...think of it as me saving you $8 and 2 hours. Short version- the only good thing about this movie is that it ended. Read on for the long(winded) review.

McG and I are done professionally, man. How is it not only possible, but permissible, to take something that is so cool, so awesome, so much a part of our pop-culture psyche, and turn it a steaming lump of shit?

For those of you who don't know me, I absolutely hated Transformers. That movie was fucking garbage, plain and simple. And yet knowing what I know now, I would have much rather sat through Transformers 2 than subject myself to the travesty that was Terminator Salvation. Yes, it was that bad. At least with Transformers you know up front that it's a Michael Bay movie. You know to go in with minimal storyline expectations (if any), with a huge lack of accountability towards reason and plausibility. Terminator was almost like a trick. It's like someone saying they're going to take you out for Italian food, and then you end up at Olive Garden. At least with Michael Bay, you know you're headed to Olive Garden from the beginning. This movie masqueraded so deceptively as not just a decent cinematic experience, but as a reinvention of the franchise. To be fair, it was "reinvention." In the same way that excrement is a "reinvention" of the food that you digest.

This would have been a great movie if it came out in the 80's, because it so desperately clings to those once-cool-now-tired 80's cliches. Do you remember Jr High, when your vision of a post-apocalyptic future was crumbling cities, burned out cars, and rag-tag survivors outwitting thier would-be robot overlords with ingenuity and urban resourcefulness? Well so does McG. His vision of the Skynet future is overloaded with burnt out rubble fields where cities once stood- that still have random fires burning among the wreckage; patrolling robots of various types because they are all single-purpose specific; plucky young rebels who get by on heart and wit. Yes, it's all there in glorious detail.

Sadly for McG, storytelling evolves. It has to in order to be interesting. McG lives in the same reality that we as a movie-going audience do. And yet he steadfastly refuses to update his pathetically dated version of a "post apocolyptic future." The original Terminator came out at a time when it was entirely plausible to think that if something like Skynet happened, there could concievably be pockets of humanity surviving in decaying rubble, fighting against machine opressors. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. It was the 80's- we didn't even have the internet. Today we have ipod nanos, flatscreen TVs thinner than Cheney's credibility, and nanotechnology. But for some reason McG takes a technological leap backwards and gives us big, clumsy, slow-moving robots and grimy, smoke-belching factories that produce them. Do you think that's what the inside of Apple R&D looks like?

For that matter, why do Terminators look human at all? At this point they're still just metal monsters, so what's the point of a humanoid form? That can hardly be the most efficient form for hunting humans. I think something that flies would be much more suitable. Even if Skynet must use human form, why go so far as giving them fingers, mouths... hell, even eyes? Is visual data really that reliable? What about infrared? Motion detectors? Radar? Their main base is actually patrolled by Terminators who are ON FOOT and LOOK for anything suspicious. Fuck me. Anything, really, would be better than visual input. The most ridiculous example of this was a Hunter Killer airship that had tracked a submarine to its location off the West Coast... and for some reason it shined a SPOTLIGHT onto the surface of the ocean. As if it could see the sub down below. Or that a floodlight would help. Haven't we become sophisticated enough as an audience that we need things to make a little more sense now? Maybe not (see "Michael Bay" above).

Why on Earth would these Terminators- these ultimate killing machines- resort so often, so disappointingly, to fisticuffs when trying to kill a target? Sure, they carry guns, but when they lose their weapons, they seem to go into "bar brawl" mode. Not really effective. Certainly not as lethal as lasers, missiles, bombs, poison gas, electrocution. But no, they just punch and throw like a drunken Quinton Jackson.

Technology aside, McG falls victim- well, more like celebrates- so many bad, cheesy movie cliches that you'd think he stopped watching movies himself somewhere around '89. The military leaders are a perfect cross-section of humanity, as well as the brief glimpses of multi-cultural Resistance fighters (who, for some reason listen to Connor's broadcasts- which somehow Skynet is not able to pick up- on shitty old Sony tape deck/radios. Really. Even though they have all manner of helicopters, jets, secret bases, submarines, even medical teams that can peform a fucking heart transplant. Just no decent radios) and yes, even the "good ol' boy" rogue resistance fighters who see a woman and automatically think "Let's rape her!"

Skynet- if not its progeny- is really freaking smart. It has to be to pull off this Usual-Suspects-level-of-situational-engineering caper. Creating Marcus- a nearly-human robot- as a Trojan Horse of sorts, planting it in the desert, nuking it, hoping John Connor survives the nuke, counting on Marcus making his way to LA and meeting Kyle Reese, befriending Kyle Reese, being accepted by Kyle Reese, surviving the ensuing attacks (which, given the compexity of this plot, almost had to be staged), having Marcus witness Kyle get abducted to Skynet's main HQ, having him subsequently get picked up by John Connor's crew, begrudgingly win their trust, and (finally!) lead Connor into a trap. Keyser Soze's a pussy- THAT is a logistical nightmare.

But let's say all that happens. I mean, the Lions could win the Superbowl next year, right? So let's give 'em that. It's the other part of Skynet's master plan that falls apart. Letting the Resistance think they have discovered a secret code that can disable the robots, to the point that 2 robots they test the signal on actually pretend to become disabled... what's that? They weren't pretending, and the signal actually worked? But then why didn't it work on the Hunter Killer that tracked the submarine to the Pacific... oh shit. My brain just cramped.

The only part of the movie that I enjoyed were the nods to the previous installments. But McG even beat the life out of that horse too. The first couple callbacks were kinda funny, clever even. But by the time he used the music from T2, it was such a sad attempt to prove his fanboy street cred I almost felt bad for him.

In the face of all these tremendous failures, it's important to catch all the minor failures as well lest we not give McG enough credit as a top-notch hack.
1) How the hell did they ID Kyle's face? When would they have ever had his face on file somewhere?
2) Why would the terminator motorcycle have any manual controls at all? Or manual controls on the doors of the main Skynet base?
3) How did Marcus know exactly where his "chip" was?
4) Why not just kill Kyle right away and pretend he's till alive? There was no reason to keep him alive at all.
5) What really was the point of leaving Marcus with a human heart? Besides the tin-man-esque metaphor of "heart" conquering the enemy. And the contrived plot device of him donating it to Connor.

Don't even get me started on the exposition- "the signal works!" "We're in a cattle car." C'mon, McG, that's screenwriting 101.

If I ever meet you in real life, I'm asking for my $8 back.

Aliens on TV

Nothing clever or funny to say, I just find the similarities amazing.

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.