Wholly On The Level

They Made An R-Rated Batman Movie In 1995

2012-01-13T07:36:00.001-08:00

It was called VIRTUOSITY.

Haha, 1995, when Kelly Lynch got a higher credit than Russell Crowe. But bear with me here! Now, the Batman analogue in Denzel is pretty flimsy – it doesn’t hold up past him being a tortured, dark (not in that way!), brooding hero with a tragedy who has a personal grudge against the villain and is hunted by the authorities. Russell Crowe as SID 6.7, however, is so Joker it hurts. I mean, at one point the dude is strutting around in a purple suit, for Jerry Robinson’s sake!

SID 6.7 is a virtual training program for police officers of the future, whose “mental algorithms” are comprised of an amalgam of those of 183 serial killers. Denzel is PARKER BARNES (a comic book tough guy name if there ever was one), ex-cop and current convict. He is tormented because he has a hobo beard and Hermes Conrad style dreadlocks. Also, a biotic arm. So basically, our hero is:

Which of course equates to Batman in any sane mind.

Barnes is the only guy who can go ten rounds with SID (an acronym never explained, but I guess it sounds inSIDious or something). But since his fellow convict got brain-fried in the test run, the mayor (played by Louise Fletcher, Nurse Ratched herself) wants to shut this damn program down to the great dismay of the movie’s Asshole CEO (William Fichtner) and SID creator Darryl (played by a guy called Stephen Spinella whom I don’t really know).

In the aftermath of what essentially boils down to a session of Kinect turning into the Ark of the Covenant, Barnes is let back into genpop at the prison. Instead of guards escorting him to his cell, he has to walk there by himself! The future prison is a weird palace of kabuki, where every inmate is a shadow behind an opaque white surface. They still manage to taunt him and throw stuff at him for being a former cop though, somehow! Parker is confronted by a big blonde guy with a “white power” tattoo who wants to kick his ass. He even gives a Hitler salute with his left arm. That’s either a Future Hitler Salute, or this guy is so right wing he turns all the way around to left wing. The scene comes outta nowhere and is generally just there to add a fight scene and also show the audience how cool Barnes’ robot arm is.

Meanwhile, SID is taunting Darryl about how he should stop acting like such a fucking pussy and transplant his programming into some physical vessel before funding gets cut. Why Darryl wants this, I have no idea. The movie never really gives him anything to do but stare wide-eyed at giant computer screens in a vaguely lecherous fashion. Darryl tricks robotics guy Clyde (Kevin O’Connor, aka BENI from THE MUMMY!) into thinking they’re gonna turn SHEILA 3.2 into a real sex lady for the IT guys to sex with. But little does poor Clyde know that Darryl has switched SHEILA and SID’s crystal cubes*!

After a while, SID’s brainwaves are done downloading into the goop o’ nannerbots Clyde set aside for him, and he crawls out of a weird xenomorph-like egg, causing Darryl and Clyde to turn away from their game of chess and gaze in awe at naked Russell Crowe. Seriously, the way it’s shot makes it look like the two geeks had just not been paying any attention whatsoever to the formation of (presumably) the world’s first nanorobot. They’re like “OH SHIT look at that!” when they see the egg.

(video = NSFW due to Crowebutt)

*ding*

SID goes on a rampage of murder, mayhem and buffoonery perfectly exemplified when he holds a dance club (such a NINETIES dance club, too) hostage, and starts recording the patrons’ screams for his SYMPHONY OF TERROR, conducting their output like some sort of deranged maestro. How Joker can you get!

Since Parker is the only guy who could do the training program, he’s reinstated and the chase is on. Kelly Lynch is the single mom criminal psychologist who is to accompany him and give the movie a female presence, but they don’t kiss or anything, because, you know…

Parker being let out of jail is actually the first time we get to see the outside world of this particular future. Before that it had always been labs and hangars and a weird prison, but now we get our first glimpse of the crazy future director Brett Leonard and his team have cooked up for us! And it is…

A bunch of hobos loitering around the prison entrance! You know, a couple push around a shopping cart, a few around a barrel. I guess it’s meant to be DYSTOPIAN but after that wide shot? It’s seriously just L.A. all movie.

Barnes finds out that one of SID’s personalities** is one “Matthew Grimes”, the guy who killed his wife and daughter. He emphatically communicates to his DUMB SUPERIORS (William Forsythe being the one chief with a lick o’sense) that

“You don’t understand! Matthew Grimes was a POLITICAL TURRIST! He would strike at any public display of democracy, as long as there were lots of people! A big audience!”

Well jeez, Parker, that literally sounds like the least-politically motivated terrorist ever maybe? So, it follows logically that SID goes to fuck up a UFC match (on account of his being so political and all) with lots of big screens so he can watch himself lethally troll the audience. He throws a guy super far, and jumps down a balcony a hundred feet and lands flat on his back with a wide grin. SID occasionally does that, but not too often. This movie is quite budget conscious.

Hey, look, I’m not trying to convince anyone to see it here, but Crowe really does turn in a rather hilarious/awesome Joker performance. So if that is your cuppa, by all means go ahead.

If not, let me leave you with this:

WHY SO SERIOUS

*Crystal cubes are the USB sticks of the future. They are much more powerful and are able to carry complex artificial intelligences in their vast memory banks of 50TB -- which is actually a pretty respectable number for a 1995 movie! They can only be transported with golden wands.

**Among the KILLAS used for SID’s programming: Hitler, “Jack the Ripper” (whose identity I guess we figured out by then?), John Wayne Gacy. CGI Gacy is actually programmed into SID’s mind with clown make-up and all. And Hitler shoots little swastikas into SID’s brain.

(This blog post was inspired by the hilarious and informative What's A Nice Actor Like You Doing In A Movie Like This? by the inimitable Dan Whitehead.)

Turtleneck & Chain: Mad Men, v.4

2012-01-10T08:50:00.001-08:00

Here’s a pretty good visual representation of the fourth season of Mad Men:

I had never liked Don Draper as much as I did at the new offices of Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce. Maybe it had to do with his not having to keep up two façades anymore, what with the nuclear Draper family unit having disintegrated. Maybe it had to do with his sudden loss of mojo, resulting in steady frequenting of hookers.

This containment of Hurricane Don and its reduction to fart-in-the-bathtub Don lessened the negative impact he had on those around him. For instance, doing the occasional nice thing for the kids and being lauded for it while his wife has to take care of them 24/7 is now a bit more justified, as he can only see them on certain dates and times. Casual sex with hookers is okay since they don’t really expect anything but reimbursement (and are probably happy to have a client that looks like Jon Hamm for the evening). Of course, Don being Don he manages to hurt at least two women (Fay and Alison) by season’s end, and has to cancel a few visitations due to work.

But hey! He bonds with Peggy in one of the sweetest subplots of the entire series so far (see above screenshot), he takes Lane out to go see some classic kaiju and loses the one woman that knew his entire story – and accepted him as a person – to bone cancer he didn’t even know of.

Yes, 1965 puts Don Draper through the wringer. And the firm as well! After Lucky Strike pulls out, SCDP comes in serious financial dire straits. New accounts are needed, and fast! Unfortunately, no company wants to hitch their wagon to a sinking ship! So Don does a very Don thing and takes a full page ad out in the New Yorker, proudly, opportunistically, desperately proclaiming that SCDP won’t be taking tobacco accounts. Surely this is the superhero move that gets ‘em out of their slump!

Actually it just gets ‘em a non-paying American Cancer Association gig, and Peggy and Ken manage to reel in a small-time stockings manufacturer through good ole gumption ‘n grit. People need to be laid off still. Joan gets a promotion, but no raise to go with it. It’s time to tighten dat belt a few notches!

On a personal level, however, this season, Don came out on top. The season-ending proposal to his heretofore rather peripheral secretary Megan was an unexpected turn to a lot of people, I imagine. Pondering this, I decided it made sense in the end. Here’s a woman that sees him at his absolute lowest point both professionally and personally and still admires and respects him for what little good he occasionally manages to squeeze out (case in point, an example that nearly brought me to tears: Don fronting the $50,000 for Pete when the partners needed to pony up for a new loan). The weirdly angelic shot of Megan picking up freaked-out-and-tripped Sally in an SCDP hallway must have been some sort of precursor to this whose significance I did not yet understand at the time.

Wanna give a shout-out to a seemingly little loved character on the show, the ever-mature and occasionally surprisingly badass Henry Francis!

Betty: “I hate [Don].”

Henry: “Hate’s a strong word, Betty. I hate nazis. My ex-wife bothers me, I don’t like it when she shows up, but I don’t hate her.”

Betty: “You’re horrible.”

Henry: “I’m an adult.”

Coupled with his fairly constant defending of Sally, Henry is (to me, at least) an unsung hero of this crazy show.

I’m hoping for the next season(s?) to focus on the youth culture that has been steadily developing in Peggy’s social circles, and the reactions of people such as Roger Sterling (an increasingly “outdated” feeling guy!) to Abbie Hoffman and Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the like. Get Quarterback Glenn and Flower Power Sally to Woodstock! I want Pete’s reaction to PLANET OF THE APES! More plaid ‘n pastel on the work floor!

God, this show’s turned me into a fanboy.

Here’s Chekov’s music video.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Mad Men, v.3

2012-01-04T14:47:00.001-08:00

The myth of America: that simple, honest men born of her great plains and woods and skies have made a nation of her, and will prove worthy of her when the time is right.

Under harsh light it is false. But a good myth to live up to, all the same.

-- some guy in Preacher who is later suggested he hang himself for actually believing it

I’ll admit it. I was wrong. I was wrong for trying to make out whether or not Don Draper was an asshole or a cool guy. YOU AIN’T SEEN HALF OF IT, indeed!

The third season of Mad Men is all about growing up. About kids who come to realize that their parents are fallible. On the most personal level, Sally Draper had grampa Gene pass away and then later both Bobby and her were confronted with Don and Betty’s divorce. In the greater scheme of things, well, it’s 1963. Take a look at the picture up there. They’re not watching a Mets game. The great disillusionment has begun.

It was funny (not in a ha-ha way, but you know what I mean) watching the JFK episode from a Belgian point of view. Our monarchy was instated in 1831 when our government invited some German nobleman to be our first king. There’s not that supremely American (and I imagine pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate) ideal that The President is the guy who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become The Numba One Representative Of The Nation. To most Belgians (and not even really radical ones), the king is just a guy we have to pay for.

There is a great risk of sounding patronizing here, which I don’t really want to do, but by the time I got to season three’s penultimate episode and It Happened… I felt so sorry for all of these characters for having their collective parents split up. MLK’s assassination and Vietnam alone are going to make sure it’ll be an ugly divorce. I felt sorry for America having to turn into Europe.

Now, I realize that Mad Men is all about showing that America’s Golden Years weren’t all dat but for a privileged elite, but Civil Rights would have come anyway. Vietnam wasn’t like the Civil War (and if you open a book, the Civil War wasn’t really much like “the Civil War” either) where something like abolition happened. It was just Mom and Dad fucking up all around.

Which brings us to Don and Betty, of course. In a cruel twist of irony, Betty ultimately left Don not for his myriad philanderings (his latest one actually spurred on by fatherly Conrad Hilton’s disappointment in him), but because she found a man that fit the daddy archetype better. Hoo boy, nobody can accuse this show of being subtle, huh?

I hear a lot of anti-Betty murmurings (even if I try to stay spoiler-free) on the interwebs. She definitely has her bad sides – vanity, self-centeredness, shallowness… but nobody’s a saint on Mad Men. Betty’s bad luck is just not being “evil” in a FUN way, like Roger. That guy’s a piece of shit most of the time but who cares? He’s hilarious! Additionally, Betty is kind of a princess forced into the role of housewife, and princesses are usually hated by either those who can’t have them or those who can’t be them. I’m looking forward to eating these words next season once more!

I still hope the kids end up at Don’s. Nobody really knows what makes Betty happy, but I’m pretty sure that, again in a shocking parallel with Rusty Venture, it ain’t them kids. Oh man, and Sal being fired for being one of YOU PEOPLE >:[ and that poor German nanny having to take Pete’s peter for helping her out cuz no way was she getting out of that one with her reputation intact.

It’s enough to get you to drink.

But hey, this show ain’t all doom ‘n gloom!

He’ll never golf again! But I will! See you next time, when I’ll pitch ya the (for now) last season of this donnybrook of a show called Mad Men! Very well! Happy Christmas!

Mad Men, pt. II–The Sucking Sixties

2011-12-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

The sixties were a magical and wonderful time.

Unless you were black.

Or gay.

Or leaned to the left.

Or a woman.

Or a man.

I usually don’t return to my previous subject as quickly as this but since my last post on whether or not Don Draper was an asshole or awesome, I’d gotten a few interesting responses from a variety of people. They basically all boiled down to:

You can’t make such statements so early in the show!

…which kinda surprised me, since my general conclusion was simply that Draper could be both extremes (often within the same episode) and that this was the hallmark of a good show. But as always, I like to engage in a dialogue with my audience and since conversation is an art, I would greatly appreciate us chiseling/painting/pooping this one out together as I write something about each season of MAD MEN.

This season was all about confronting Don with his immaturity. After a vaguely un-PC stereotype of a comedian hinted at Don’s infidelity to Betty (with his own wife, no less), Housewraith decided she’d had it with Don’s shit and threw him out. This befuddled Don to such an extent – and Don’s quite a champ at being befuddled – the dude undertook a vision quest to the mystical land of Callehfornayay. I was seriously kinda feeling shades of Heart of Darkness/APOCALYPSE NOW with Anna Draper as a sort of inverted, benign Kurtz who gives Don his (admittedly kinda heavy-handed) rebirth. Full of contrition, Don returned to the East Coast (apparently still not equalling Roger in terms of days off) to face the rather debilitating news that Betty is expecting another baby right as the nukes seem ready to go off – the season finale is set against the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The show has gotten under my skin to the extent that I like the INCEPTION-style uncertainty of the season’s ending leaving hope for a reconciliation. But one thing I really hope both Don and Betty learn is that women don’t have to be Jackie or Marilyn, they can be whoever the fuck they want at any given time. Let ‘em be Anne Ramsay if it makes ‘em feel good. It didn’t even really piss me off that Don had affairs; it pissed me off that he had affairs and then all but calls his wife a whore when she buys a bikini.

Newly (extra) tragic characters this season: the Romanos and little Sally.

Sal and Kitty: god, if they’d met in, like, 2005 they’d probably be BFFs and go shoe-shopping together. Now all they can do is ruin each other’s lives while probably still caring about each other.

Sally Draper: the sweetest kid in television history? If the Venture brothers had a sister, she’d probably be it. Mixing drinks for the grown-ups, clumsily doing chubster-ballet, telling awful knock-knock jokes… every enchanting thing she does just drives it home more painfully that with parents like Don and Betty, this kid is about as fucked as if she really did grow up on the Venture compound.

In comic book news, Housewraith disavowed any affiliation with Boitaku after he spent a couple of days in her… well, not treehouse but… plastic… lawn house? Anyway, Glenn’s creepiness is explained after we find out that he’s a comic book aficionado (I wonder how much actual Silver Age Action Comics and Metal Men cost them, or if they got ‘em on loan or something). Don’t worry little buddy! Platinum will never leave you like that bitch Betty!

OH GLENN CARES ALRIGHT!

I’m greatly looking forward to season 3, if only to find out how much more miserable the lives of the characters can get.

So let’s recap:

Joan is getting married to a guy who randomly rapes her (where the fuck did that come from?)
Roger dumped his wife and daughter for a 20 year old secretary
Is Pete gonna eat that fucking gun after finding out Peggy’s baby is his?
Peggy believes she may be going to hell for renouncing catholicism (thanks, Father Neenan!)

No wait, I would be remiss for not mentioning the lovely Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff) having found herself a schmuck of a husband and Peggy finally getting an office with her name on it and stop-the-motherfucking-presses some fairly consistent recognition from her male colleagues.

U GO GIRL (just keep the gay guy for maintenance okay?)

Bring on season 3!

Don Draper: Awesome or Asshole?

2011-12-26T14:29:00.001-08:00

Like with many a quality show, I jumped on the MAD MEN bandwagon about six years late due to a combination of being behind on a million other quality shows and my well-documented distaste for women both big-breasted and loose.

I had of course heard of its protagonist Don Draper (Jon Hamm, someone I’d only seen in BRIDESMAIDS and superhero manips).

Draper is a polarizing figure. Some people think he’s awesome. Some think he’s terrible. Most have an opinion about him. Based on my hopelessly archaic findings after having seen the first season, the data I have acquired suggests that Don Draper is…

A WELL WRITTEN CHARACTER!

Which means that:

A) He is a cool guy sometimes.

B) He is an asshole sometimes.

He is not a cool guy because he smokes, drinks and womanizes. Pretty much everyone does that at Sterling Cooper, the fictional ad agency Mad Men is situated at. You might as well think he’s awesome for drinking water from the watercooler. In fact, I’m drinking some sweet ass SPA right now. Weak in the knees yet?

But why is Don a cool guy then?

He is not trying to bed that lady as far as I know.

He’s a classy guy, loves his kids, is slick as fuck and seems to treat people in weaker positions respectfully enough (as opposed to some of his coworkers).

But why is he terrible then?

See above picture.

Look, I understand Don’s deal. Death’s been haunting him all his life, ever since his WHORE MAMA died in childbirth. He needs to live like there’s no tomorrow to take his mind off the fact that one day there won’t be.

As he worked his way up in the New York advertising world, he was under the impression that having the perfect wife/house/family would distract him from this terrible fact. Having achieved this, he came to the conclusion that it wasn’t having them, it was pursuing them. Building the idylle.

The moments where I dislike Don Draper are when he gets mad at his wife Betty for totally inconsequential shit. Don may be playing house when it suits him and getting his kicks elsewhere, Betty is living house sans additional kicks. You know shit is bad when a pushy AC salesman appears in the house and instead of being afraid the lonesome lady gets raped, you’re hoping she’ll enjoy some good ole Letter To Penthouse adultery. Seriously, if someone told me that season 1 was just the prolonged origin story of supervillain HOUSEWRAITH and her sidekick BOITAKU (secret identities: Betty Draper and Glenn Bishop) I’d buy it.

My conclusion must end in a COP OUT of Kevin Smith proportions.

A) Don mans the fuck up and starts respecting Betty as a person (the Bruce Willis option)

B) They stop the charade and divorce, disaster for all (the Tracy Morgan option)

C) They tacitly agree to stay out of each other’s way and keep living the Perfect Colgate & Coca Cola lie (the Seann William Scott option)

I’m not going to spoil myself, but I’m hoping for A since B would be too hard on poor Betty and… well… regarding option C…

Don just isn’t ready to smell what Betty’s cooking.

A Long-expected Trailer

2011-12-21T05:20:00.001-08:00

*CRIES*

Preying on our Christmas spirit like a fat man on the last brown M&M, Peter Jackson has released the first trailer for the first part of his HOBBIT duology hitting next Christmas.

It’s sort-of ballsy in that it actually contains a song in the very trailer: something that even fans of the books skipped ahead of, but Jackson wonderfully made work in the LotR trilogy. On the other hand it’s rather shamelessly full of visual cues reminiscent of PJ’s last three movies; besides a once-more gray-clad Gandalf, there’s also a decidedly not-from-the-book Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett). Add to this Bilbo visiting the shards of Narsil at Rivendell and the ominous shot of The Ring in the dirt, followed by Gollum going “preciousssss”, it’s like Peter Jackson is desperate for people to remember LORD OF THE RINGS.

But then the Dwarves all look fantastic and full of character and the fat one breaks a bench with his ass and they all stand up from the table to join their boss in song and it segues into that theme and and and and…

I remember LORD OF THE RINGS. It was great.

Once Upon A Punch

2011-12-11T05:46:00.001-08:00

There’s only a handful of stories, and endless spins on them.

Here’s a fellow that agrees with me: Vladimir Propp.

Contrary to what you might think from his name, Vladimir Propp was not a Death Eater. In the early 20th century, Propp was a literary scholar whose most famous work entailed the deconstruction of the Russian folk tale. Since folk tales by definition don’t have a clear author, what Propp essentially did was call every motherfucker in Russia’s nana a lazy, cheating bitch. But, you know, who can blame her. No mass media around in the Dark Ages! Can you imagine?

Friday, October 12th, 1487 A.D.

NANA TELL US A STORYVITCH

I vill tell you de story of de princess captured in de kessel by her djellus stepmuther!

Saturday, November 13th, 1487 A.D.

NANA TELL US A STORYVITCH

I vill tell you de story of de poor farm girl imprisoned by de draggon!

Sunday, November 14th, 1487 A.D.

NANA TELL US A STORYVITCH

I, uh, vill tell you… SACHA VATCH OUT A BEAR

*sound of breaking glass, hooves galloping off*

Propp proposed (had to do it) that every fairy tale basically had the same structure, and 7 possible “actants” or plot movers.

During Propp’s lifetime, Finnish and American scholars Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson combined forces like some sort of (more) dorky Captain Planet to make the Aarne-Thompson classification system. Well, technically, it was just Aarne’s list, which got expanded upon by Thompson in ‘61, 50+ years after Aarne’s original 1910 publication. That’s when the numbers came in.

We still kinda use these structures in our movies of today! Case in point:

Or as Aarne-Thompson would call it: 310. The Maiden In The Tower. Or, you know…

Jet Li’s tower is a mental one, as he is kept on a leash by Glasgow gangster Bob Hoskins. When the leash is on, he’s a docile manchild who barely speaks. Once it comes off, he kills everyone in the room. Hoskins has built a decent criminal empire based solely on “Danny The Dog” and two comedy henchmen to drive him around. Due to circumstances, Danny is released from Hoskins’ grip and meets up with a BLIND BLACK PIANO TUNER NAMED SAM. Sam (Morgan Freeman) is also the guardian of Victoria, an “18 year old” Kerry Condon who I swear is absolutely lovely on HBO’s Rome but is like a bracefaced Jar Jar Binks here.

The biggest criticism the movie probably gets is how completely saccharine it turns once Jet Li gets taken in by Morgan Freeman and learns to be a real boy. The action completely falls by the wayside in favor of knocking on melons to see if they are ripe and perhaps an ice cream headache or two. Now, if you’ve seen some other Besson movies, this totally falls into his wheelhouse. In fact, I daresay that some of the more “lad-friendly” elements felt shoehorned in to me. In the script stage, Besson was probably totally seeing this as “a martial arts fairy tale” or some shit. Then Louis Leterrier (TRANSPORTER 2!) comes on and adds blue filters and completely out of place titties! I mean, at one point Li is fighting a big mini-boss type and he crashes into someone’s bathroom. He tries to sneak out while the apartment’s owner is under the shower and hasn’t noticed him. Stroking my chin thoughtfully, I wondered if it was going to turn out to be a busty model under the shower (COMMANDO-style) and yep, once the bad guy busts in too, they fight all around the bathroom and… yup.

It’s actually totally funny to notice how the skeleton of the movie has this RAPUNZEL structure, and the actual nitty gritty of the production is straight out of a fucking 80s Cannon production. Extra lulz: When Hoskins brings Li to the UNDERGROUND FIGHTING TOURNAMENT, he might as well have brought the princess to the dark forest – there’s crazy rich people with Goku hair writhing in masses like orcs and the other fighters are armored and carrying fucking SPEARS AND BATTLEAXES. Meanwhile, the mini-boss he fights in the bathroom? He’s so visually distinct from the rest, he might as well be Queen Hoskins’ Black Knight or Chained Dragon or whatever: albino white guy dressed as a samurai.

A last word of… maybe not defense, but clarification. Sam’s character is quick to be deemed a “magical negro”: blind, musical, always chucklin’ and helping our main character out. But I think you have to take into account that this script was written by a Frenchman. Also note that his (white) adoptive daughter shares many of the same qualities. I think an influence that can’t be discounted here is simply the European stereotype of Americans – within five minutes of meeting you, an American will have told you his life story and invited you into his house. This doesn’t entirely excuse making him a blind piano tuner named SAM PLAYITAGGEN (surname maybe not correct), but it at least provides a fresh perspective.

Watch this movie! Jet Li headbutts a bunch of dudes!

The Passion Of The Magneto

2011-12-05T14:17:00.001-08:00

It’s easy to take snipes at THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST nowadays. Nearly a decade after its release, it has safely receded from public consciousness as anything but “that crazy zombie Jesus movie”. But back in 2004, it was a phenomenon nonetheless, so it was hard for me not to immediately see the similarities of PASSION and HUNGER.

Okay, I say “similarities”, but it’s essentially just the most basic plot framework of a man who meets his fate in service of what he believes in. In Bobby Sands’ (Michael Fassbender) case, it is the reinstatement of political status for IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland.

One thing they definitely do not have in common is subtlety. Where PASSION essentially speaks the language of the blockbuster (sweeping music, crane and helicopter shots, CGI effects), HUNGER is a lot more subdued and reserved. It’s a movie that very clearly lays out all you need to know in long, quiet shots laden with information. Prisoners futzing with torn-off bible pages to roll cigarettes, building little drainage systems out of mashed potatoes and poop so they don’t have to sit in their own pee. A prisoner pawing at a fly to play with it out of sheer loneliness. A prison guard’s frustration at his cruel occupation manifesting itself in what appears to be straight up zombieism once the card is punched. And in the midst of it all, Thatcher constantly on the radio assuring everyone that none of the prisoners will get a political status.*

Steve McQueen and Mel Gibson are very different filmmakers, and HUNGER and PASSION are very different movies in the end, despite their similar motifs. McQueen is a craftsman, telling a highly effective story in a highly effective way. Gibson is a huckster, who’ll use every trick in the book to just make his product look slick and sell his message. In what is no doubt the most amazing scene in a movie full of them, Sands meets up with his old buddy Father Dom Moran (Liam Cunningham, who’d join up with Fassbender again in Neil Marshall’s awesome CENTURION) to inform him of his intentions to go on hunger strike. Moran thinks this is futile, as provo goodwill is at an all-time low, and Thatcher can easily afford “a couple of starved terrorists.” In a truly tour de force one-take scene that runs over fifteen minutes, Bobby and Dom lay out the pros and cons of a hunger strike, and we get to know a bit (a lot) more of what makes Bobby tick. He may have become a martyr, but he was never a saint. Dom quite rightly points out to him that the timing is all wrong for a (successful) strike and for god’s sake Bobbeh you have a SON!

The last fifteen minutes are Fassbender wasting away, which is painful to watch, of course, but the movie has given you plenty to ponder while this is happening. I wanted to say “to chew on” buuuuttt…

Whereas PASSION is simply Jesus getting beat up for two hours (context-free!) with very clear good and bad guys (oy vey!) in a story designed to make Christians feel righteously persecuted, HUNGER never takes sides. The provos and prods are both shown to be conflicted about the terrible shit they do. But terrible shit they do nonetheless. Even our protagonist embarks upon a possibly pointless death march, despite living relatives. Conviction and righteousness are there, sure, but Sands is definitely also an arrogant man.**

Sands: Do you think God will punish me?
Moran: If not for the suicide, then at least for your stupidity.
Sands: That’s the difference between us, Dom. You say suicide, I say murder.

With the Occupy movement getting pooped on and the Eurozone slowly crawling out of the financial abyss, HUNGER served as a stark reminder of the absolutely medieval mindset our First World still finds itself in. In the most basic sense of communication, Sands was unhappy about his government. He was jailed for violent actions as a result of that discontentedness. When Sands engaged in peaceful protests to gain political prisoner status (NOT to advance his original cause in any way), he was met with a

Now take it back to the original dispute. Bobby Sands is not happy with his government. Now picture Bobby Sands being Robert Sands, C.E.O. of SHAUNTY O’LEPRECHAUN, Inc. Perhaps a foundry for rainbow-situated pots of some kind. Anyway, Robert Sands, CEO. Can you imagine him in a poop stained cell being starved to death because his demands of being able to talk to his fellow prisoners and receiving letters and parcels were just too radical? Yeah, me neither.

*If you watch the IRON LADY trailer right after seeing HUNGER, its can-do spirit will likely offend you even more than it had before.

**The neutrality of McQueen was not carried over to the network that was broadcasting the film! In a written epilogue, the film tells us about the effects of the strike: twelve people died from starvation, IRA hitmen killed 16 guards over the coming weeks and months and prisoner’s rights were improved somewhat (though never officially given the status of “political”). The network failed to subtitle the 16 dead guards.

The Unbearable Lightness of Dealing

2011-12-01T14:17:00.001-08:00

I’ve never asked for much. I’ve always given. Given, given, given. What would this district be without me? I’ll tell you what it would be. A cattle truck with the wheels off. Not going anywhere, forgotten by its handlers, the inhabitants getting restless. It was me that stopped the pigs from feeding on each other in a frenzy. It was me that brought the cocaine into D13. And with cocaine, came order.

Now, if you live in a walled district surrounded by armed forces, and you are the person with the connections to make the coke flow happen, you’re going to attract a certain type of man. Brutish, uneducated, aggressive men. Hard men. Henchmen, as they say. I welcomed all these men, even though but a fraction of them were useful in any way. Numbers have their own advantages. Besides, if your men fail you and you know that statistically most of them have no skills whatsoever, it’s safe to drop a random guy to intimidate the rest. Odds are, he was no big loss!

Now, if you live in a walled district surrounded by armed forces, and you are the person with the connections to make the coke flow happen, and you are surrounded by henchmen, you are probably going to attract a second kind of man. The kind of man who, for some unconscionable reason, doesn’t like your product going through his block. Usually I send some guys over to talk to a person like this, maybe offer him some recompense for his trouble, maybe take him for a drive, … depends on the person, really. This one guy, though…

He didn’t respond very well to either, really.

And I have to say, I ended up in a pickle thanks to this guy.

I was ready to forgive and forget, too. I mean, six months is a lot of time in my business. Guys get made and broke in six months. So the kid tries to bring me in, right? I tell ya, what a fucking joke. Even if I didn’t own half the cops in D13, they were just about ready to pull out, just like the schools did before them. So yeah, kid gets booked, I take the sister as collateral; we’re fuckin’ quits as far as I’m concerned, you know?

But no. I’m sitting here, telling you this, and someone’s hitting my spots. And I know, I just know, I am fucking positive it’s this kid. He’s got someone with him, some under-who-gives-a-shit-cover cop. And you know what? I’m happy. Really, I am.

Six months without someone like the kid. Without the second type of guy. Just me, and a whole bunch of that first type of guys. Do you have any idea how crazy that makes you? I’m gonna be honest, I’d been hoping the kid’d be back somehow. Sometimes I’d stare at my ceiling at night, sleepless, hoping for someone to just try and come fuck with me. Maybe… shit, why the fuck not, I’ve told you this much. Maybe one of those costumed people. Or one of those super science guys. I mean… I’m good enough, right? I got a hundred motherfuckers. I got a base. I got a fucking fortress. I shoot my own guys when they fuck up and the rest still just keeps listening to me. That should do, right? Christ, I… I tied the kid’s sister to a rocket aimed for Paris. Swear to fucking god, I did. And hey, who knows, maybe the kid’s actually got himself a costume now. You never know, right?

Shit, I’d better go and check what that fucking noise downstairs is. You wait here, okay?

The Motion Picture of Dorian Gray

2011-11-28T15:48:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you sort of stumble on a movie and you’re like what the hell, why not! Such was the case for me and 2009’s DORIAN GRAY starring beautiful Prince Caspian (he is an actor named Ben Barnes though he is not really a prince named Caspian).

You’ve probably an inkling of the plot if you live in a First World country with internet access, but Doctor Who has taught me to be mindful of every world so:

Hot young guy comes to London, meets rich assholes. Has picture painted of him, says he’d sell his soul to look DAT HOT forever. Wish backfires when he remains the same but the picture takes on the signs of decay.

Okay, that doesn’t sound like THAT much backfiring but let me tell you, you’re not hanging that picture in your living room unless you’re Tom Savini.*

The two rich assholes are Lord Henry Wotton (Colin Firth) and painter Basil (Ben Chaplin). Both actors are super charming and witty, and make you not really mind that they are rich assholes. They take young Dorian a-drinkin’ and a-whorin’ and seem far more amoral than him. Wotton’s bon mot “There is no finer opportunity to hone one’s skills of deception than in marriage” should say it all. If it weren’t for these two, Gray probably wouldn’t have cursed himself unwittingly, nor would he have gone off the deep end as far as he did. I was actually under the impression (purely from the connotations that the name “Dorian Gray” carries in pop culture) that he would be a more decadent protagonist. But while he does indulge in vices from orgies to murder, it’s not a sudden turn *coughanakincough* from Johnny Appleseed to Stabby McGee. And he’s even repentant quite quickly!

Movies like DORIAN GRAY, to me, are kind of a bitch to try to assess. They’re obviously based on fantastic source material, so what do you review? I mean, it’s based on Oscar Wilde, of course the dialogue’s gonna be fantastic. And if you’ve got people like Firth et al. to deliver it, that’s half your movie right there. Unless you’re planning on spending your entire budget on SCONES AND TEXTING (that’s what British people do, right?) and then shoot it under a single fluorescent light with a webcam from 2003 with grease smears on the lens, I’d say way to fucking go director Oliver Parker!

As you can see in his credits there, Weird Rasta Mutant from NIGHTBREED is also totally the director of the fancy-pants adaptation of a gothic classic.

*Not adding a picture of the, um, picture here since it’s a third act reveal. It’s probably a lot more shocking if you’re an Edwardian lady/gentleman that has never seen THE MUMMY, however.

Quoisabi?

2011-11-24T12:42:00.001-08:00

I’d been picking up some stragglers in the Luc Besson oeuvre, some of the movies he squeezes out between ARTHUR sequels, and happened upon WASABI. Barely 90 minutes long, it seemed a good movie to have on while I worked out (gotta keep my potato chips ‘n Mountain Dew credibility).

Jean Reno is a TUFF COP who don’t work by the book. We’re introduced to him as he punches out a transvestite in a club, and via reprimanding flashback we’re told he wrecked a bunch of other dudes, one of which looks all of fifteen. The fifteen year old kid hilariously gets it the worst, as he is punched down a flight of steps. But alas, he’s the police chief’s son and our boy Jean has to go apologize in the hospital, where he hilariously wrecks the kid some more by accident. Meanwhile, his schlubby partners have had no luck in interrogating the villainous tranny. Big Jean knows a secret technique, however! If your guess was that he punches a tooth outta the guy’s face you are some sort of Nostradamus, sir! The Tranny Gang is pulling a heist at a Parisian bank RIGHT NOW! Why they really needed to get that info from an accomplice is never really answered, as the remainder of the gang is pretty flamboyant and they’re pulling the job in broad daylight with dynamite. I mean, murders in the Rue Morgue this ain’t. Reno does your classic SCREECHIN TIRES ENTRY accompanied with a superior going OH NO NO NOT THIS GUY followed by him going in alone and… Nostradamus, soothsay this scene! Oh he wrecks all the trannies by punching them in the face/nuts? You’re so good, Mr. Damus. Hilariously, one of the trannies is actually a woman, so our COOL GUY hero has spent most of the first act punching women, children and comedy gay guys.

Trying to relax, getting his golf on and stuff, the captain comes to tell Reno he’d better take a leave of absence since the commissioner’s son is gonna spend the next two months in traction. Start a family or something, man! “Buy an Armani shirt and you won’t stay single for long!” Seeing as how Reno is a BESSON PROTAGONIST, he is heartbroken at the realization that all this tough guy posturing is just a front to hide his crushing loneliness! Even a comically awkward date with Carole Bouquet (Melina from FOR YOUR EYES ONLY with her moustache plucked and better hair) just reinforces the idea that the love of his life, Miko, still haunts the cobwebbed chambers of his heart! Coincidentally, a Japanese notary calls him at that exact moment to tell him Miko just passed away and he’s the sole beneficiary. Little did Jean know there’s a Japanese Lil’ Jeanne out there named Yumi!

Together with his ex-intelligence buddy Maurice (Momo)*, Jean’s got his hands full at keeping his cop identity a secret from his delinquent 19 year old while they try to solve the mystery of Miko’s death. Cancer don’t leave traces of cyanide! Yeah, there turns out to be foul play involved, of course, but rather hilariously we only get to see any antagonists at minute 43. The movie is 89 minutes long. With credits.

I’d say WASABI is a good action movie for kids, since the action is very comedic and bloodless, there’s no serious profanity or any nudity, and the scenes of Reno adjusting to his wacky Japanese daughter are sweet. Yeah, it’s pretty broad LOL ZEES ASIANS ARE CRAYZEH stuff but Reno is a very charming and skilled actor and makes it work, even if the actress who plays his daughter (who actually couldn’t speak French and learned her lines phonetically) grates at times.

The title WASABI is there probably just because it sounds cool and Japanese. Okay, in one scene Reno is eating a bunch of it to the comical dismay of Momo and also because his daughter is wild and wacky and crazy like a spicy wasabi meat-ah ball-ah? I dunno man.

My favorite is the one he kicks when he’s down.

*Fat, short, clumsy, big teeth… just needed some floppy prosthetic ears and this guy was literally a human Jar Jar Binks.

Besson-moi!

2011-11-22T14:16:00.001-08:00

Anyone who’s sorta into American movies of the last couple of decades knows about Michael Mann. They could also probably tell you about the kind of movies he makes, in a broad sense. Shit about, like, badasses, man! Total pros kickin ass! The last couple of years (maybe a decade and change?) you could even accuse him of going way overboard on the “pro” aspect, choosing to focus rather exclusively on characters with highly cinematic occupations and the extremely efficient ways they engage in them. This reached its apex with PUBLIC ENEMIES, which some people thought might have been better off just being a documentary, so focused was Mann on procedures and accurately recreated TRUE EVENTS!!!

You know who is not like that? LUC BESSON MOTHERFUCKER

This man cares very much about the emotions of his characters, oh yes you best believe it!

Who is this unshaven, yet affable looking slob? You may have heard of obscure cineasts like James Cameron? George Lucas? Luc Besson is basically the European version of them. When it comes to movies, Besson has all the money in Europe. If you’ve in the last decade at your local cinema watched a sleazy action movie set in Europe that somehow had a big international celebrity in it, chances are Besson wrote and/or produced it.

…you know what I mean. Basically cinematic fast food that manages to taste pretty good too. Not as much McDonald’s as that decent kebab place down the road. These, along with the animated ARTHUR movies you can see Besson posing in front of in the first pic, are the man’s bread and butter nowadays. But he is not some garlic eating Michael Bay, non non non! As I said before, he cares very much about the happiness of his characters rather than the beauty of his explosions. CONSIDER:

THE TRANSPORTER: Jason Statham is a former marine earning a living in the South of France as a wheelman for shady transports. No questions, no opened trunk, no problems! But when he breaks his own rule and finds a beautiful AZN WAIFU in his trunk… perhaps… his heart will be opened as well~?
UNLEASHED: Jet Li is a feral street fighter, kept caged like a dog by Evil Bob Hoskins! But perhaps… beautiful Octavia from HBO’s Rome and kind magical (blind!!) negro pianist Morgan Freeman will show him the more poetic things in life~?
TAKEN: Divorcee dad Liam Neeson is gonna fucking slaughter every smelly Albanian in Paris to get his daughter and nearly-worst-character-on-Lost-and-that’s-quite-a-feat Maggie Grace back from sexual slavery! …but not before we learn what a kind and put-upon soul he is in a soulful first thirty minutes where the biggest conflict is that Liam’s pony isn’t as big as the one Maggie’s new stepdad bought her! Ponies~

Yeah, the kickassery may have made you forget it, but there’s a lotta touchy-feeliness in these movies! As my friend Andrew Clarke once put it: “There’s a surprising amount of action in his artsy movies, and an equally surprising amount of artsy in his action.” Now, don’t misunderstand it, though. Besson’s “artsy action movie” is not that sort of Refn/Kubrick atmospheric, low-on-dialogue-high-on-symbolism kinda artsy. It’s a very old-fashioned type of artsy that is not so much “artsy” anymore as it is treacly and (at “best”) Oscar Baity. BIG Emotions! Suffering, sensitive characters pondering the BIG Questions! In his pre-US movies, Besson’s protagonists are just crazy guys who don’t live by society’s ruuuules, man! And maybe they can open up a buttoned-down lady’s heart to the subtle wonder and beauty of life~

what

In SUBWAY it’s pre-HIGHLANDER Christophe Lambert (already sporting sort of a youthful punk Raiden hairdo) who is a hobo hiding in the subway after stealing some “documents” from a shady businessman after being invited to a cocktail party by beautiful trophy wife Isabelle Adjani for helping her with her groceries (???). Now these “documents” (never explained, by the way) he only stole so that the wife would follow him because he is super in love with her. In the subway he finds a bunch of OTHER hobos that live off of purse-snatchery but dream of making it big with their band (???). SUBWAY is basically a couple of cool chase scenes to go with hobo slapstick and that strange Lambert/Adjani courtship. I don’t even know man. It’s super weird, it’s super 80s, but the actors are actually pretty suave and charming. Along with Besson’s skill at how to set up a chase, it becomes a fascinating the-fuck-will-happen-next kinda movie.

Deceptive trailer does not show spaghetti or comedy matrons.

LE GRAND BLEU is Besson going “waaaahhhh waaahhhh I wanted to be ze diver but I had ze accident so now I have to settle for ze direckteeng waaah!” The underwater shots are super beautiful and dolphins are cute and Jean Reno and his mom are funny (did you know Italian mothers are domineering and make spaghetti?) but 168 minutes of Jean Reno, Little Jacques Nocharisma (Quirky Man) and Rosanna Arquette (Buttoned-Up Lady Falling For Quirky Man) palling around on a Sicilian beach is pretty punishing. And the spaghetti looked weirdly white. Were they just eating it with oil? Arquette’s frutti di mare looked good when she and Reno first meet though.

Funny how the trailer is selling you the movie as a wife-with-a-hitman-double-life story–it’s definitely an origin movie, training montages and all.

NIKITA is probably the movie where it simply all clicked. Anne Parillaud’s (Mrs. Besson for a while) Nikita is definitely a QuirkyWoman but she’s also an irresponsible crackhead who gets good ‘n fucked up by the government as she’s trained to be an assassin. The relatively few action scenes are clear, tense and badass. Nikita starts out as a piece of shit, but she gets pooped on so hard that it’s tough not to root for her.

After NIKITA, Besson moved to sorta-Hollywood with LEON*(/THE PROFESSIONAL, depending which cut you’ve seen) and THE FIFTH ELEMENT. It’s interesting to note how the role of quirkster post-NIKITA starts being taken by the women, who pull the buttoned-down men out of their ruts. Could it be a reflection of Besson’s subconscious desires? Before he made it big he was the rebel, the artist, givin’ it to the boring Euro-establishment. As he grew in power (and responsibility), he perhaps started longing for some muse to pull him out of his routine. It’s perhaps telling that he married two of his leading ladies briefly (Parillaud and Jovovich).

Luc, mon pôte, I hope you are happy. Or depressed. Look, just whatever mood you were in when you decided that this was a good idea:

If you could just be like this mostly, we’re cool.

*Along with NIKITA, probably the best sentimental/badass Besson combo. I’ll give LEON the edge for its hammy Gary Oldman villain.

Why TWILIGHT Sucks (And Why It’s Okay)

2011-11-17T14:30:00.001-08:00

Ooohohoho you are treading dangerous and iconoclastic ground here, Luca! A post denouncing Twilight as sucky? Surely, a vampire pun will soon follow! To which I would say no way man! The level that I am on is wholly above that! Ahem.

I’m going to admit straight up front that this post was inspired by JoBlo tweetin’ at the esteemed Film Crit Hulk over at Badass Digest, asking him whether someone had ever written something intelligent about why exactly TWILIGHT sucked. However I, always looking for DAT EXTRA ANGLE, thought that maybe it’s time that someone who doesn’t really like the series at all took the heat off.

We’re gonna ice-skate up this hill in two parts!

1) Why’s it suck?

Little to no plot: Very little happens in these movies! At least, not enough to warrant their two hour+ runtimes. Movies don’t need a lotta plot, of course, if they have interesting characters.
No interesting characters: Everyone is thin as shit, and in some cases actively unlikable. Edward is possessive yet distant and aloof, Bella is ridiculously co-dependent and weak-willed, Jacob is Jacob, … you name it.
A blank-as-fuck lead: Remember how Lizzie Bennet in Pride & Prejudice was an awesome heroine who didn’t take no guff from the establishment? And how life must have sucked for Austen as she seemed to be mentally two centuries ahead of the curve? Maybe Stephenie Meyer should get in a TARDIS and switch places with Austen: Bella seems very adamant about her life being pretty much worthless without a maaayunnnn in it. In NEW MOON, Edward leaves her (temporarily – don’t worry!) for her own safety and we get a montage of her sulking for months. Hilariously, the camera swirls about her, showing the passing of seasons. OH AND ALSO Kristen Stewart tells us that months had passed in a voice-over. I’m not sure, but there may have been pages falling off a calendar as well. In the book (or so I am told) there is actually a bunch of blank pages to signify how EMPTY her life is without Edwardo. Note that Bella does not come from an abusive family, nor is she friendless. Her parents are divorced and she’s moved to a new town, but she picks up a new clique of friends pretty quickly, and everyone’s generally shown to be nothing but nice to her. But nope! EMPTY!
EMPTY: Vampire-human romance? We’ve seen that stuff before! What unique spin has Meyer put on her story for it to gain such incredible popularity? Well, they ain’t yer grampappy’s vampires! For one, they don’t actually die in sunlight. It reflects off them so beautifully that it looks like they gleam! And… that other thing. That is also original. The… they fight werewolves. They don’t like ‘em. They… uh… no, it’s pretty much the sparkles. *sigh* Look, we’ve got a lot of attractive people in this movie, okay?

2) Why’s it okay for it to suck?

Okay, so we’ve got a lead couple setting gender relations back about five centuries, set in a world where nothing interesting or imaginative happens*, populated by supremely attractive people. Why should we not boycott this with all our might (lol)?

Look, male geeks have been marketed to for decades. Hollywood knows pretty much exactly what they want: explosions, punches, capes, space ships, attractive ladies, … The female geek demographic is a relatively new one. I’d say it kind of started branching off from the herd with Harry Potter in the late 90s. It was a merchandising machine that engulfed many (mainly?) women. So of course movie studios/publishers were gonna push whatever they thought would be the next Harry Potter. And yeah, Twilight happened to push some very base buttons! Super powerful guy who suppresses all his natural kill instincts because you – a super regular girl with no special talents – are so damned gorgeous and special… OMG SWOON! And god… another one exactly like him… and they’re fighting over YOU!!! EEEEEK!!! Surely you’d get psychotically dependent over less than that! Compare it to a movie like BAD BOYS 2: everything that happens on screen is morally wrong… and yet kinda awesome, because it speaks to that Neanderthal side of our brain. Any rational adult can identify lowbrow entertainment for what it is. Yeah, sure, there are people that think the world really needs a Punisher, but they’re the ones that shoot up high schools. Why would a woman NOT be able to say “Yeah, Bella’s actions here are… not healthy.”**
Female geekdom is a relatively new thing, something of this millennium. Geekdom in general as we know it was probably born in the 1920s, with the fanzines popping up around the Weird Tales style pulp magazines. And for many decades, geekdom was a pretty grassroots thing! Hell, when George Lucas made STAR WARS, Fox allowed him to have the merchandising revenue. Geeks just weren’t a market! Female geekdom came into being in an environment that was pretty much the opposite of grassroots. Geek movies are now the biggest blockbusters every year, and if we can count on Hollywood for anything it’s that they’ll push hard for the most easily digestible common denominator crap out there. And if you market something hard enough, it works! I’ve had young students come up to me telling me how awesome AVATAR was, being utterly in disbelief when I told them there were even better movies in the same genre. Another class (kids around 15) had not a single person in it that had heard of Indiana Jones. After some describing on my part, one of them had seen CRYSTAL SKULL.

In summary, TWILIGHT is popular because it appeals to some very base (and basic) desires, coupled with its core audience existing in a very corporate controlled environment. It would, however, be wrong to get up in arms about it, since most fans are (or will be, once they get out of adolescence) rational and critical people who can separate fact from fiction. And then sir, YOU would be the sexist! Some will grow out of it entirely, some will experience it as a gateway to other, better things, but only a minority will end up a female version of this guy***

*In the second movie/book, Jacob takes Bella to an action movie. It’s called something like THE BLOODKILLENING or some such Simpsons joke name. The normal human guy from Bella’s circle of friends that has a crush on her accompanies them, but he quickly blows his chances by getting nauseous from the stomach-churdling violence on screen. I love how out of touch this paints Stephenie “I have never seen an R-rated movie” Meyer to be. She thinks action movies are stomach-churning gorefests.

**Teenage girls are exempt from this, as in your teenage years everything is as dramatic as shown in TWILIGHT. Twi-moms though? They shoot up schools.

***btw every twilight movie is better than the 1986 transformers movie trufax

Truths Universally Acknowledged

2011-11-15T13:17:00.001-08:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any man currently watching a romantic feature film, must not be in want of a wife, elsewise he would be watching a Jason Statham vehicle.

The preference of women for romances that expound upon their characters, as contrasted to men’s preference for romances that pound upon their characters’ faces, is a well-documented and oft-lamented dichotomy. But how the D– do they manage to keep up a productive and joyous marriage? Doth the husband not leave the room in a huff and engage in nine-pins whenever the wife, however dutiful in her disposition, endeavors to consume such literature as rewards its protagonists steadfastness and virtue with secure marriage bonds? And likewise, doth the wife not excuse herself presently to practice the clavichord, should the husband wish to partake in such narratives as engage in pugilism, costumed or otherwise?

My first brush with Jane Austen was an attempt at Sense & Sensibility in my seventeenth summer. I had seen the movie before that, but I remembered little from it besides Kate Winslet getting sick from walking in the rain too much and then marrying Alan Rickman. Since this was on TV before RUSH HOUR ever hit theaters, I had no means of identifying Tom Wilkinson. The book left a similar impression on me, in that I’m pretty sure that if I’d start reading it again now, I’d be taken by surprise by most plot twists. That, and complicated, long sentences.

After years of having it on my Big Pile O’Classics I Should Read Some Day Maybe, I gave Pride & Prejudice a shot a few months back. Maybe it was the years, maybe it was the mileage, but I found myself enjoying it, and a far brisker read than S&S to boot! Something that always irked me in popular fictions of yesteryear was the unflinching tendency of the writers to go phrenological. Not only were their protagonists shining exemplars of goodness, they had all the physical attributes to prove it! The typical symmetric cranium of a philanthropist! A dainty nose signifying inquisitiveness! Strong cheek bones indicative of great moral fortitude! Now, I’m not a big fan of long-winded descriptions (Tolkien is my enemy), so you can imagine that by the time your average 19th century pulp fictioneer was done describing his characters, I’d come to properly hate the character I was to follow for the rest of the book.

Not so with Pride & Prejudice, gentlemen! Granted, it’s not exactly pulp fiction, but people tend to throw “old books” on the same dusty mental pile. Lizzie Bennet, the main character, is actually pretty sharp! She lives in a world where a woman can’t have a job (except that one, I suppose) and all her hopes are set on marriage. Okay okay, I’m scaring the guys off here, but Lizzie totally makes it work! She’s not some marriage-crazed harridan, but rather a more laid back, witty person. She takes after her dad, Mr. Bennet, who also just prefers reading and being left alone. Two Bennet sisters straight up suck – no spoilers, I’ll leave it up to you which ones! Mrs. Bennet is an airhead whom Mr. Bennet admits he just married for her looks way back when (“Alas, they have faded!”). Mr. Darcy, Lizzie’s love interest, is a very singular literary character in that you can perfectly recreate him in ASCII:

>: [

But, you know, gotta give Austen a little leeway! She can’t just come out and call all these bitches out, simply because that shit wasn’t done back then. If you’re thinking Regency England is FOR FAGS BRO, consider this: every character in this book that posesses even a modicum of intelligence thinks the exact same thing! Besides the awesome ice burns Lizzie and Darcy give the norms, it’s kind of a sad meta-look into the life of an author that was mentally just centuries ahead of the curve. If you put some effort into it, you too can enjoy some really sweet burns directed at the establishment, the church and conformism in general. Plus, history!

Now I must address my male readership; I gave you the means to impress your significant other with considerably less effort than it otherwise would have cost you. Remember these things, read this book, wow your lover! If you are the non-book-readin’ type, the 2005 Joe Wright version is about as flashy an adaptation as you could make.

–shire, Surrey, 11 November 2011

Why Cobra Is Cooler Than The Driver

2011-11-12T16:22:00.001-08:00

Since the release of Drive, I’ve been hearing a lot of mumblings over the interwebs about COOL.

Ryan Gosling’s nameless Driver in Drive is COOL. He’s the classic archetypal silent tuff guy, never saying more than needs to be said, doing everything with clockwork precision and deadly accuracy. He even has a recognizable badass getup: leather racing gloves, bowling jacket with a SCORPION on the back, toothpick in his mouth… the works.

But the Driver is actually not cool at all! You know who is?

That’s right motherfucker, Cobra is cool. Why is he cool while the driver isn’t? They both have same over the top badass attitude, they both waste bad guys with aplomb, they even have a similar getup almost sorta! The answer, my friends, is tone!

Let me get one thing out of the way first: I think DRIVE is an excellent movie that I would recommend to anyone with a brain in a heartbeat. I hate doing the apples and oranges thing, but (fuckin’ SIGH) to just really get my ass out in the clear here I’m also gonna state that DRIVE is a much better movie than COBRA.

But alas! Director Nicolas Winding Refn is trolling you, kind sirs! In an excellent interview with the AVClub he calls DRIVE a “fetish film”. And he’s actually very literal when he says that! In VALHALLA RISING, Refn asked us “What is the deal with religion?” (Refn likes Seinfeld, okay?). In DRIVE, he asks us “What is the deal with movie badasses?”. They’re always on top of things! They’re so in control and skilled and successful all the time that they should be pretty much millionaires doing whatever it is they do! Well, how do you get into Carnegie hall? Practice (TCHAWN PRAKTESS)! The Driver is shown to be a socially pretty backwards guy, who basically just spends his free time honing his skills, working on engines, doing getaways and stuntin’ for the movies. When he bumps into Carey Mulligan and her son at the store, he bashfully moves to the other aisle! Now there’s nothing about these things that stands in the way of the Driver being cool. But AH! Yon scorpion jacket betrayeth thee, Madam!

The Driver is a STONE COLD PROFESSIONAL that doesn’t have time for simple pleasures like a family life! He only says what needs to be said! No time for bullshit! But… the scorpion jacket. He wants to look cool. He works really hard at it. He’s got all the skills to back it up, but goddammit… the talking thing is hard. I know! I’ll just let a cool outfit say it all for me! I won’t have to say a thing! The deliberately slow-paced first act is all about letting you know this guy: he’s a creature of habit, a creature of dedication, a creature of awkwardness. But he wants to be noticed. He wants to be found cool. The jacket, the glove, the toothpick… that’s a lot of image building for a guy who doesn’t really have a life.

Now, in COBRA, we don’t really get many scenes of Cobra’s home life. As you can see in the poster, there’s definitely the calculated look. He even has a trademark fifties oldtimer. In the first scene where we see Cobra at his apartment, he gets hassled by some no-good Reagan-era eses. They wanna get rough, but Cobra rips the main guy’s shirt down the front to his belly. This immediately appeases all of them, and they turn into jolly and polite mariachi! He comes in, puts his gun in the fridge and cuts some cold pizza with scissors as he watches the news (which just happens to have a plot-advancing report on).

HEY MAN i hear you say WE ALL PRETTY MUCH GOT THAT THE DRIVER HAD SOME SORTA PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WHEN REFN LITERALLY PUT HIM IN A MICHAEL MYERS MASK to which I say okay man don’t yell jeez. But also I say: this immediately exempts the Driver from being COOL.

Refn is essentially a big troll, telling us a joke and explaining it while he does so. No joke is funny if you have it explained to you. There’s no mystery in a magic trick once you’ve seen how it’s done. Seeing a badass try really fucking hard at being badass negates the effort. Cool is effortless, it’s a funny joke, it’s a magic trick, it’s chemistry.

Some say DRIVE is a triumph of style over substance. I think it definitely requires some viewer participation. The first act is all about simultaneously building up and tearing down the Driver. This is who this guy is, he’s pretty badass, but ain’t he also kind of a loser? And when he starts kicking ass in the second half… who do you root for? This blank, boring wannabe? The nice lady he met (but isn’t really in the film all that much anymore)? Marlin and Hellboy, the infinitely more interesting-to-watch bad guys? Well no, they’re the bad guys. Refn promises you badassery, spends a whole lot of time tearing down the badass, then delivers. But do you still want it?

DRIVE is a very good movie. COBRA is a very cool one.

No Hard Feelings, Japan.

2011-11-09T14:37:00.001-08:00

Look, Japan, I’ve been…

You gotta admit that…

No no no, let’s… let’s start this over.

Japan, we met at a very strange time in your life. America had not too long ago hurt your feelings (twice)* and you were just in a weird place. But I was wrong to judge you on that! So I shoulder some of the blame here too, I think. Look, if a guy loses his leg in a car crash, you don’t expect him to go and run the quarter mile. If a country gets nuked twice within a couple of months, you can’t expect the cultural psyche to be all that and a bowl of miso soup, you know?

I was reading Akira for the first time recently and a certain style of imagery kept poppin’ up.

That’s tsunami water in the last one, not… something else. I mean, I know you’re wary cuz I’m talking Japan and all.

Note: my only manga experience before reading Akira was Berserk, a (real life) decades-spanning fantasy epic which I had mixed feelings about.

Now, I’m obviously a complete newbie at this whole Japanese pop culture thing, but it’s pretty divisive here in the west. You’ve got your overzealous otaku and your crazy cosplayers and your totally justified normal people that just frown upon it all.

I’d recently watched a BBC documentary series called Japanorama, in which the UK’s main otaku Jonathan Ross gives you a pretty good overview of many of Japan’s different crazy subcultures.

May contain some NSFW bits.

Manga (the written one) and anime (the animated one) are often ostracized for being juvenile, perverted and completely self-indulgent. I’m not even going to try and counter that, as even anime that I used to love as a child is complete poop to me as a not-even-that-discerning adult**. Jonathan Ross kept harping on about Akira, one of his absolute favorites you guys, and I decided to check it out.

To my surprise it was a very enjoyable book filled with tension, impressive set pieces, cool characters and amazing art – Katsuhiro Otomo’s city-scapes are (as seen above) mighty impressive. I’m gonna apologize in advance for my next bit of racially dubious praise: although everyone is “realistically Japanese” (ie, no one’s got green anime spikes for hair or whatever) I could, at all times, discern who was who and, as such, had a very clear sense of where everyone was situated in action scenes. This is something many A-list western comics can’t even boast of! Case in point: Composite Superman is an old school DC comics villain. Half Superman, half Batman – green face. Why is his face green? Because Batman and Superman have the same face.

The characters in Akira don’t have snazzy marketable supersuits (except maybe Tetsuo at one point), but I could totally tell who these post-apocalyptic kids were from panel to panel.

The story can be pretty much divided into two big parts: pre- and post-KABOOM. The first half is sort of an X-Files mystery interwoven with a Japanese hybrid of Trainspotting (these kids do love their pills!) and American Graffiti (these kids do love their bikes!). Kaneda and his gang stumble upon a government conspiracy that rounds up kids with psychic powers, after an escapee from the project causes gang member Tetsuo (sorta the Ringo of the group) to crash his bike. The second half I would describe as The Road Warrior meets a truly insane Tom Clancy novel. It’s in the latter half that the story starts sagging a bit, as there is a couple of hundred pages that’s mostly shooting and chasing that could easily have been excised. Otomo’s beautiful art tends to save it, though.

It’s in the Road Warrior half that a gang of wasteland marauders surround Kei, a female protagonist, and threaten to rape her. They get their asses kicked for it by Kei and Chiyoko, a rather hilarious “big Auntie with a rolling pin” archetype. It’s actually kind of… not inappropriate, since you’d think wasteland marauders are rapey types. It was only then that it hit me: I’d read near a thousand pages of this comic at this point, and there had been no sexual deviancy of any kind. Throughout the remaining thousand-ish pages, sexual violence is threatened a few more times, but it never actually occurs. Similarly, in the first half, despite our heroes being pill-poppin’ juvenile motorcycle delinquents, Otomo takes great care in showing they never kill even the most random henchmen. Hell, chase scenes even take on a distinctly slapsticky feel at times (ie, little kids going “DO THAT AGAIN” after a tank rolls through their pants-shitting grandparents’ home).

Akira feels like an enormously therapeutic work, essentially boiling down to “Yyyeaaaah, maybe the bomb fucked us up as a country a little”. Luckily, the (relatively) upbeat – and maybe slightly cheesy – ending shows Otomo’s faith in Japan and its people to crawl outta their tentacled funk and start POPPIN WHEELIEZZ again.

*Don’t feel guilty, we’ve all been there. Big, strapping quarterback; knows all those interesting people… who wouldn’t!

**DBZ consists mainly of obscenely muscled men yelling at each other for twenty minutes, sometimes for episodes on end. I don’t even know how you’re gonna defend that. There’s comments and a Facebook section, so knock yourself out!

Addendum:
I mentioned Kentarou Miura’s Berserk, a story about a revenge-seeking lone swordsman, at the start of this article. It’s an interesting case, cuz it’s sorta the opposite of Akira in its tone. Starting out repellently dark, juvenile and violent, the tale starts adding humor and levity a couple years into the telling (it’s still not finished). I seriously think that, rather than a conscious decision to lighten/darken the mood like Otomo, Miura simply went from producing the comic as a lonely, frustrated otaku all by himself, to having a studio of people working for him. The lone swordsman protagonist ends up traveling with a bunch of friends, two of them kids, another two little Tinkerbell fairies. I hope you stay happy and fulfilled, Kentarou-chan! ( ^_^) arigato

Get In The TARDIS, Ya ‘Tardies!

2011-11-07T12:29:00.001-08:00

Eyes on the ball, homo sapiens! Tonight I will tell you about a strange man. A mad man. In a box.

Doctor Who has been a phenomenon in the UK almost since its first broadcast in 1963. That’s right, this shit’s almost as old as television itself. It ran until 1989, with a failed 1996 TV movie filling in the gap between that and its 2005 reboot.

Over the decades, there have been nearly twice (!) as many actors playing the Doctor (11) as there have been actors playing James Bond (6).

What the shit is Doctor Who about???

The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He lives on his ship, the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space – bigger on the inside), a vessel capable of space and time travel. Normally a TARDIS adapts to whatever time period it lands in, but this one got fucked up and now it’s stuck looking like a 1960s police box, aka that blue sorta phone booth you see in the picture above.* The Doctor has adventures across space and time, usually with a human friend called a Companion. Whenever a Time Lord is killed, his body regenerates and he comes out looking different. Handy in a scrape or when your main actor gets bored with the show!

Oh, and I’m gonna get this out of the way real quick: the TARDIS is a living being that is grown rather than built, and its living computer tricks people’s minds into not noticing it. Also, it sort of “preps” the time traveler for whatever environment he will end up in (ie, end up in Ancient Rome? BAM! You know Latin.)

Why would I watch this? I’ve already seen Quantum Leap!

Beautiful Scott Ba… NO WAIT uhhhh – it’s totally different, really! First of all, the places the Doctor takes his friends are slightly more off-kilter than “the last three decades of US history”. How about vampire-infested Renaissance Venice? Space Britain ruled by weird insert-a-coin fortune teller guys? A dead planet right at the edge of a black hole (the reason why it’s not falling in is too juicy and hilarious and awesome to reveal here)? A decadent luxury cruiser come to watch the end of the world? Stonehenge under Roman rule? This show’ll take you anywhere.

And I do mean anywhere! The show’s not afraid to ask some very heavy questions for what is essentially a family adventure programme. If you can go do anything, anywhere, anytime… why would you ever want to return to your normal life? Likewise, from the Doctor’s perspective, as the Tenth so aptly put it: “You’ll know me your entire life. I’m not that lucky.” At one point, he’ll have to leave you, because he’d rather not watch you die.

On a more light-hearted note, the show is incredibly inclusive. Whenever it (lightly) touches on homosexuality, it’s not preachy or LOLFAGS. That guy likes guys, and that’s it. Black people, Asians, muslims, in positions of authority or just shown as regular people (instead of OMG RESPECKFUL DEPICKSHUN OF NON-CHRISTIAN). It’s totally exemplary.

Doctor Who is essentially a show about the thrill of exploration, the beauty of knowledge, the most wonderful journey of all: self-actualisation. The Doctor took a shine to us crazy hairless monkeys, and there’s nothing he wants more than to see us fulfill our true potential. A trickster/scientist rather than a warrior, pretty much every conflict is resolved in an imaginative and (relatively) peaceful way.

Okay, cool, brah. But damn, that’s a lotta TV to watch!

Don’t worry, Chad or perhaps Trent! There’s a pretty easy way to get into it, with a minimum of baggage.

1) Watch the first two episodes of Season 5 (2010), introducing Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.

With the information you’ve gathered in this blog, you should be well able to start this show in its fifth season. If you think it a bit strange that you’re completely able to skip four previous seasons of a show, that’s where we get to step 2.

2) If you’ve liked what you’ve seen so far, go back to episode 10 of season 3 (“Blink”), followed by episodes 8 and 9 of season 4 (“Silence in the Library”/”Forest of the Dead”), a two-parter.

In these episodes, some concepts are introduced that will be somewhat central to the Matt Smith series.

3) By all means, do continue with seasons 5 and 6!

Why can’t I just start with the first season of the 2005 reboot?

Because you’ll say “What is this cheap fucking shit?” and go back to watching XTREME ANIMAL PHOBIAS. The first four seasons were shepherded by Russel T. Davies, an uneven writer to say the least. The best episodes from those first four seasons are invariably by a man named Stephen Moffat, who became showrunner starting with season 5. He also did the excellent modern day Sherlock re-imagining and Coupling aka “that British version of Friends that you shouldn’t be embarrassed to say you liked”. Seasons 1-4 have their ups and downs, but season 5 is just SO MUCH BETTER it’s kind of amazing.

Why start with season 5, jump back to those couple eps in 3 and 4, then resume 5? Why not just watch those couple episodes, then just jump into 5?

There’s not really any problem with starting with Blink, then working your way chronologically through the rest, but Matt Smith’s first episode is SUCH a killer intro to the character and the series I wouldn’t want to rob you of it.

I dunno if I wanna commit to 40 minutes on a show I’m unsure about…

UUUUGHHHH GOD I HATE YOU

Can you commit to 9 minutes then? Can you? Here’s a little standalone two-parter where the Doctor basically does Portal.

Space!

Time!

*Funny: in the Who-series of decades past, the Doctor would always be explaining sci-fi concepts like “teleportation” or “downloading” to his companions. In the reboot, he’s had to explain the relatively simple concept of “a police box” several times already.

Hide Behind The Couch! The Double Nazis Are Coming!

2011-11-04T16:48:00.001-07:00

2011’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER must have been a tough sell for the good people at Marvel Studios. A wartime hero literally draped in the flag of a country that had lost much of its popularity abroad in the past decade… tough cookie for the marketing guys, especially in these days where the foreign markets are as important as the domestic takes. See for instance the option for certain countries to either promote it with its full title or merely its subtitle THE FIRST AVENGER (guess which three TRAITOR countries went with it?).

Political stuff in movies is sensitive, especially in big mainstream blockbuster movies that need to sell their 100+ million dollar product to those very countries we may have been in conflict with at the time of the story. No, it’s best to tell a story in the general setting of WWII, but with all the principal players far enough removed from real combat to tell our superhero fantasy. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it ends up being executed (pardon mein Deutsch) in a rather muddled fashion when villain Red Skull shows the most cruelty to some nazi stooges sent to check up on him. Otherwise, he pretty much gets his ass handed to him throughout the movie. Now, this is hardly a dealbreaker, as the film has plenty of other good things to recommend it (Can you believe this is an Actor’s Movie? It totally is!).

Now here comes the tricky part. Should we have shown Red Skull and his HYDRA-forces (who have a double-armed salute, hence the titular DOUBLE NAZIS) wreaking havoc upon our boys in uniform, simply to have the need for someone like Cap established? No, not necessarily. There would be other ways to achieve a villain’s credible threat level (here are some SPOILERS): having the Skull directly kill Cap’s pal Bucky, have Zola escape and kill General Tommy Lee in the process (end SPOILERS).

In a world where Battlefield and Call of Duty are using a still ongoing (and much less clear-cut than WWII) conflict for fucking MULTIPLAYER DEATHMATCHES, I think films should be able to get away with using wartime casualties for drama. Is it a bit facile? Yes, absolutely, but films like CAPTAIN AMERICA are big, broad films.

The WWII comic book movies used to be pretty big: Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, The Eagle Has Landed… shit, we had one two years ago in Inglourious Basterds. WWII was such a game-changer in our very lexicon that “nazi” is basically synonymous with “evil guy” nowadays. What’s wrong with having “allied soldier” basically mean “good guy”?

Look, 2000’s X-Men opens with a scene in a concentration camp. It was, in retrospect, a rather on-the-nose mission statement that THAT JOEL SCHUMACHER BATMAN AND ROBIN DAY GLO BULLSHIT WAS OVER MAN SUPERHEROES ARE SARYOS BUSINESS NAO

Flashforward to 2011, and we’re doing an X-Men prequel that – zomg – also opens in a concentration camp. And the movie even stays there longer than the original! And the swastika (imprinted upon a coin) is a recurring motif throughout! First Class is, however, a fun and breezy and not-at-all grim movie. In fact, the most highly praised bits of it were basically the “Fassbender: Nazi Hunter” ones. The nazi stuff just creates a context to show you where Magneto is coming from.

In the UK, “hiding behind the couch when the Daleks show up” is a thing any Doctor Who loving kid empathizes with. Do you remember how freaked out by Judge Doom’s real face you were at the end of Roger Rabbit? Or maybe when the Ark opened in Indiana Jones? Kids movies need that whiff of transgression about them to feel more dangerous, more relevant. They’re really not as soft as you think.

99 Bullets But The Plot Ain’t One

2011-11-02T14:36:00.001-07:00

If a man walked up to you and told you your life was a shambles because of one individual, and he had incontrovertible proof this person was responsible, and he had one hundred untraceable bullets for you to do whatever with… would you do whatever?

A fascinating premise, and surely one that could sustain quite a few one-off tales? And it does. Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets has quite a few one or two issue story arcs that are sometimes exciting, sometimes touching, sometimes funny. A successful comic book series, then!

Oh wait, we’re only two tiny paragraphs in. Nope! There’s problems! Here I address them:

Problem #1:

It is a hundred issues long. There is an overarching story about a shadowy cabal that runs the world in secret, but none of them are terribly interesting. Nor do you get to know them all. Azzarello employs that laziest of all tension-creating devices: the deliberate withholding of information. Everybody’s motivations are so goddamned mysterious and shady and covered in layers of mistrust and lies that you simply don’t know what the hell is going on most of the time. Why does this guy wanna shoot this guy? Who knows! They’re too mysterious to tell you! At one point, there are two factions in The Trust (the aforementioned shadowy cabal) that are at war. I simply couldn’t tell you who was fighting who and why. Small price for keepin’ everyone MYSTERIOUS and COOL, I guess!

Problem #2:

Every character is MYSTERIOUS and COOL at the expense of being likable. If everyone’s mysterious, no one gives a shit, Azzarello! They all just become cyphers! Excuse me for dragging Star Wars prequels into this, but in the end they have the same problem. Characters are blanks because the writer’s more preoccupied with the plot/being badass/”shocking” readers that he forgets to give ‘em, ya know, characters. I will describe some guys from the comic:

Agent Graves: he is the guy with the suitcase that offers people the 100 bullets!
Cole Burns: he looks like Johnny Depp!
Loop: he is a black!
Victor Ray: he is a white!
Jack Daw: he is a boxer!
Lono: Wolverine looking motherfucker who likes rape and money and is pretty much the only fun guy to follow. He’s the equivalent of the Emperor in Revenge of the Sith – he’s still a dumb character, but he seems to be the only one with any passion for anything.
Echo: she wants to steal a painting! Big tits!
Megan: she’s rich! Big tits!

Problem #3:

Big tits! Well, okay, that’s not really a problem, but the book does have a very… teenage view of women and sexuality, and I don’t think it’s a sort of meta-commentary on the inherent immaturity of the hardboiled pulp genre this is supposed to be a modern variant of. 100 Bullets really feels like it’s written by a sixteen year old whose exposure to the world is through movies (and then only ones made post ‘75). A good example: the leader of The Trust is called De Medici. That’s… pretty on the nose, but okayyyy, I guess. His first name is Augustus. Ummm… well. His son’s name is BENITO. Look, you don’t need to be Da Vinci Hanks here to read through all the symbolism – this guy’s family is ITALIAN AND EVIL! There are some issues set in France and Italy, and holy shit, this is so annoying even if you just speak a modicum of either language: it completely reads like Azzarello just ran his script through Bing Translator. QUEL EMBARRASSMENT BAISER CROISSANT

LA CONCLUSIONE:

I’d like 100 Bullets a lot better if it wasn’t seen as a Great Comic (amongst comic book fans, at least). It’s actually exactly the kind of trash teenage boys SHOULD be reading, in my opinion, to eventually be outgrown. It’s full of posing and posturing and violence and nudity basically everything a developing boy needs to sow his teenage oats. But nope, this is supposedly for “mature” readers. You know what gets the T rating? Basically the same shit as this, but with superpowers, and there’s always some Austin Powers contrivances covering the naughty bits. In an ideal world, they’d leave the supers for the all-ages crowds, crank shit like 100 Bullets out for the teenage hormone crowd, and OMG maybe actually try and tell a mature story for the mature crowd?

Who peed in the sandbox?

2011-11-01T15:07:00.001-07:00

For over a decade now, the good folks at Rock Star have visited hilariously entertaining carnage upon is with the freewheelin’, smash-grabbin’ Grand Theft Auto series. Set in a satirical sort of Ultra-America, the various games have used different periods and locations to make every one a unique and memorable experience: Vice City riffed on Scarface and Miami Vice in an 80s quasi-Florida, San Andreas took you to early 90s gangsta not-LA as seen in Boyz N The Hood and Menace II Society, and the latest one – the inventively titled GTA IV – takes a (visually) more subdued turn into 2000s New York and the Russian mafia.

GTAIV’s greatest triumph is the world itself, the semi-New York of Liberty City. Just walking or driving through it is an amazing and completely immersive experience. People have car trouble, get into arguments (or even simple conversations) on the streets, a cop might start chasing a pickpocket, you can walk into bars (and get so drunk your controls and vision get fucked up) or just plain old watch TV in your apartment… and it’s funnier than REAL TV! And hey, it’s good to be a gangster, huh? Having car chases, blowing shit up, pulling off sweet getaways… awesome stuff! Killing dudes, shooting up anything that explodes, trying to get that helicopter or speedboat to go in the general direction you vaguely want it t—wait what?

Yeah, anyone who’s ever played a GTA game after the series went 3D knows its weak spots. Once you have to take control of anything but a car or bike (and even that last one’s iffy) the game’s tone of casually zipping along violence transforms into a no-disturbances-allowed frustration fest coupled with The Math Class effect – it’s in the curriculum, but at least it’s not trigonometry ALL the time.

GTAIV compounds this by actually making the (several stages) long final mission culminate in not only a speedboat, but ALSO a helicopter chase. It’s as if, in the climax of Spider-Man, Sam Raimi intercut Spidey and the Goblin’s fight with Aunt May telling the little black kid next door about which things she thought were the sun that day. The most frustrating moment in my gaming history was when the end boss I was chasing had crashed his own chopper into a crowded intersection. Trying to finally (after about a dozen tries) kill this fucker, I tried as best I could to put the fucking helicopter down relatively near to the downed one, which unfortunately was between a couple of blocks of skyscrapers. I don’t entirely manage to put it down without incident, but protagonist Niko has made it and the thing hasn’t even blown up. OH WAIT WHOOPS THO: red text informs me that The helicopter was destroyed. What??! That text only happens when… the… mission has… failed. And oh yes, I empty an entire clip in Dmitri Da Boss’ head but nope. The helicopter was destroyed.

A sandbox game should mean freedom. It should mean that every time I play this final boss mission, I should be able to kill Dmitri in a different way. I might shoot him out of the sky, both our choppers might break down and finish it on foot, I might simply maneuver him into a skyscraper through my great helicopter piloting skills (surely those players also exist, right?). Basically anything but having to go through pre-set motions to make exactly those things happen as the game designers thought cinematic enough to finish the main storyline. It happens in a few missions actually: shooting cars right in the gas tank doesn’t make them explode as usual (in the game, anyway) but rather the car you are chasing is invulnerable until the “right time” aka where the cut scene is supposed to happen.

If you put a million things in your game, a whole bunch of them aren’t going to be very good. Conversely, quite a few of them probably will be. Rather than force every one of them down a gamer’s throat, have them have a taste to be savored again later, if so desired, and keep the Good Things as the only ones that are mandatory.

And of course, GTA has the music that makes you go HAHAHAHWHATTTTTT

Especially funny if you consider one of Joe’s aliases: Joe Crack.

And what the fuck, this one too.

All in all, it’s atmosphere that pulls GTAIV to the more positive side of the fence, making it a Bad Great Game than a Good Bad Game.

Living In The Material World Without Being An Asshole About It

2011-10-26T11:17:00.001-07:00

Martin Scorsese has made a two-part, three-hour HBO documentary on George Harrison, The Quiet Beatle. It is very good! Here is its trailer:

Scorsese can make things look *cool*, can’t he?

Despite being a bit overwhelming without the comforting HAL-9000 of an overarching voice-over, there’s an incredible emotional truthfulness to the sometimes messy chronology that is bound to resonate with any non-sociopath watching it. Even if you (for shame) don’t like The Beatles, the themes addressed in this doc are so universal – loss, the search for meaning, not fitting in – and brought with such passion, it could rope in anyone, I feel.

A rather funny dichotomy the doc posits is George’s transcendentalism (he was the one who brought Ravi Shankar and the sound of India to the Beatles), his disparaging of material wealth and such against the fact that “he wrote Taxman, didn’t he?”

My nerdy side can’t help but sing “Batmaaaaan” along with the chorus.

George did have a chip on his shoulder, as his strung-out, obviously coke-addled self in the early-to-mid 80s would attest. Scorsese doesn’t really dwell on his problems there, however, and leaves it at “tough times in George’s life.” Which is fine, in itself, since the doc is already rather extensive.

Besides wife Olivia Harrison’s reminder that George wrote Taxman, there’s also the rather incongruous accounts of the relation of first wife Patty Boyd and Eric Clapton’s feelings for each other to the big man himself. Clapton describes Harrison as almost guru-like, advising his friend and then-wife to follow their hearts to whichever destination made them happiest. Boyd describes Harrison as confrontational, possibly wearing a turtleneck-and-chain combo with his Jesus-stache and hair, telling her to CHOOSE ONE OR THE OTHER!!!! Is one lying? Are they both lying? Are they both correct?

It actually wouldn’t surprise me if both were telling the truth somehow. I’ve been reading some Emerson and Thoreau lately, men equally influenced by Indian yogis, just a century before Harrison. Emerson founded the American literary transcendentalist movement in the first half of the 19th century, and was mostly an essayist, more concerned with converting people to his point of view than producing any art.

Thoreau’s book Walden, however, pretty much defines a “transcendentalist lifestyle” as meant by Emerson. Living in a self-made cabin at the edge of Massachussetts’ Walden Pond, Thoreau manages to be a smug asshole about living like a fucking bum for two years and pretty much being the 19th century equivalent of a hipster going “Oh, I’m rejecting a material lifestyle to reach Enlightenment! You probably haven’t heard of it!”

Between Emerson’s mortifying navel-gazery and Thoreau’s terrible smugness, I think Harrison’s emotional confusion comes out as a step forward. He wasn’t a highly educated man like the former two, for one, so it’s understandable that he’d fall back on some less than reputable means of coping with loss. The quest for transcendence/higher knowledge(/God, if you will) is a noble one, but it’s not worth pursuing if you don’t do it in service of your fellow man. Emerson bored you to tears, Thoreau insulted you; Harrison wrote you the BEST SONG TO BLAZE UP TO EVER

Duuuuuuuuuuude…

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer And You Should Have Spent Your Time A Bit More Productively, Young Lady

2011-10-25T17:53:00.001-07:00

In theory, no one under 17 is allowed to see an R-rated movie without adult supervision. In theory. You know, and I know, and Hollywood knows that this rule is broken all the time, however. Witness these toys based on movies no one of toy-playin’ age was technically allowed to see:

So Hollywood definitely knows there’s certain stuff that draws kids in, even though it’s strictly speaking not aimed at them. During my junior high years, slashers were hot shit with the girls. Scream was the culprit, of course, and thanks to Wes Craven’s ironic slasher/giallo homage any Mysterious Killer movie would be met with great enthusiasm, be it Se7en or Valentine.

I Know What You Did Last Summer was already a pretty weak distillation of the Scream-formula, so its sequel (the imaginatively titled I STILL Know What You Did Last Summer) never stood much of a chance. Despite the impressive pedigree of director Danny Cannon (Judge Dredd! Other stuff probably!), ISKWYDLS is one limp ass pseudo-horror movie. Even Our Blessed Lady is not happy to be in this movie:

The movie starts in a dark church, with Jennifer Love Hewitt confessing her sins of the first movie. Also, she’s been having bad dreams. A special no-prize for anyone predicting the gutturally growling priest in the confessional is the kiler, but it’s okay cuz it turns out to be one of JLH’s bad dreams. If you were enthralled by this opening, I have good news for you: the next half hour will consist SOLELY of fake-out scares, from kids throwing firecrackers at poor stressed out JLH’s feet to RnB sensation Brandy sneaking about our heroine’s darkened apartment to borrow a skirt until our fearless Survivor Girl threatens to stab this Dark Shape into submission!

After some bland characterization stuff (JLH can’t relax! Her black friends enjoy parties!) our protagonists win a trip to the Bahamas thanks to Radio Geo-Tardo “where the capitol of Brazil is Rio!” Now, granted, this error in geography is actually a plot point when it is revealed that the radio contest was a fake, set up by the killer. But at this point you either think the movie is REALLY dumb, or there’s something fishy going on and our two heroines are too ill-educated to see it.

In a classic case of slasher-sequelitis, the bodycount has to be upped. So besides Julie and her friends, the completely unrelated holiday resort crew has to die too. Now, I don’t think anybody minds seeing poolboy Jack Black (!) getting some garden shears through the chest but some poor middle-aged Mexican maid getting it is just sad. On that front, actually, is where one of my arguments for the glut of post-Scream slashers being aimed at girls comes from. Sure, people get killed, and there’s blood spatters and stuff, but nobody gets decapitated, disemboweled, … or anything creative, really. There’s just enough gore there to give a teenage girl the thrill of zomg watching a horror movie, but nothing to reaaaally gross her out. Same goes for the absence of customary exploitative slasher nudity. That’s not what the target audience is here for.

One could argue that the low gore quotient is a deliberate choice, wanting to create legitimate tension without resorting to cheap tricks. Well, there’s thirty minutes of fakeout scares to counter that argument. The absence of female nudity is perhaps a paradigm shift away from depiction of women as inferior in a post-Sidney Prescott universe? Well, the plot literally hinges on our two girls getting a pretty basic general knowledge question wrong, and later in the movie they suspect a poor old black janitor who has been nothing but helpful and kind throughout the movie because he’s a private practitioner of voodoo. I mean, what kinda 13 year old’s logic is that?

There was another reason why I was sure the filmmakers didn’t quite have the feminist agenda in mind when I thought up this post but I’m afraid I fo--

True Bleedin’

2011-07-29T08:25:00.001-07:00

Allow me some hyperbole.

Imagine if, after a few seasons, David Simon thought writing a show about the death of the American city and its more alienated underclasses had just gotten too darn hard. Instead, he started focusing on Bodie’s ever increasing baby mama drama and Poot’s burgeoning rap career.

This is essentially what Alan Ball and the writers of True Blood seem to be doing. Instead of using vampirism as an – admittedly heavy-handed – allegory for the LGBT community, they’ve just started indulging in every negative stereotype of THE HOMMER SEKSHUL known to man. Melodrama has always been par for the course in this series, and it’s even part of the fun, but the way everyone’s been acting like shrill, drama-lovin’, artificial conflict-generating divas is akin to having Stringer and Avon wear grillz, trick out their rides and appear on MTV Cribs. I’ll acknowledge that it must be insanely difficult to keep up the breakneck pace and endless cliffhangers of the first two seasons, but there’s been an awful lot of water with the wine (refrained from making a Tru Blood joke there) for the last 1.5 seasons.

I’ll also admit that it’s been slowwwwwly picking up this season, and both 3 and 4 have had awesome moments, characters and plots. It’s that very awesomeness that makes the draggy bits so frustrating. The solution here is relatively simple: keep a certain antagonistic, realistic, threatening, conservative anti-vampire element present in the show at all times. Keep the viewers aware that it’s tough being a vampire; even if you’re the nicest vamp possible, bad people wanna kill you just for who you are. “Threatening” is a key word here, because the writers have been treating the conservative human element as too much of a joke since the Fellowship of the Sun storyline. Which is another flaw that’s been creeping up: the show’s always been tongue-in-cheek, but the ironic distance that’s being created at this point is just getting too high, to the point where it’s hard to care for anyone on screen at all.

True Blood is at its best when dealing with the “real” world’s reactions to the supernatural world, as the veil is slowly lifted to reveal ever more fucked up shit behind it. The diva histrionics as a result of this are the seasonings that make True Blood the delight it usually is. After an awesomely campy start of the season in Fairyland, it’s mostly been treading water and pandering to Sookie/Eric shippers. Bill’s new role as the king of Louisiana and slowly decaying Pam have been the only highlights so far. These are two out of about seven or eight storylines.

Them’s my two cents: keep the politics and non-supernatural dangers fairly prevalent, and the cattiness will become entertaining again.

A Scandal in Cybertronia

2011-07-02T16:12:00.001-07:00

I will recount to you now a case so singular in its peculiarity and obstinacy that it vexed my friend Holmes to such a degree that the poor wretch considered renouncing his rather lucrative self-employment as a consulting detective.

Mrs. Hudson had just prepared breakfast as our boy brought in a gentleman of seemingly certain ill-repute. His unkempt beard was filled with crumbs of an altogether alien nature, his ascot ill-fitting and rather repulsively showing a great deal of his sizable underbelly. The chap had a nervous manner, born no doubt out of intense social reclusiveness. He bore a strange escutcheon upon his chest: a sort of medieval war-helm with two spiked ears on either side, shaped like an inverted trapezoid.

My friend Holmes bade him sit down, and the gentleman did so at once after nodding skittishly at me.

“Have you examined it?” he came right to the point.

Holmes crossed his hands under his great eagle-like nose, as he was wont to do when facing a particularly insidious problem.

“I have. The results were… disconcerting.”

“I don’t care, Holmes, I don’t care! There is a great legacy at stake here! What did that ruffian DO to it?”

“Calm down, my dear fellow. Have a cup of tea.”

“Get to the point, Holmes. I know of your reputation: if anyone can answer these questions, you can!”

I must admit, I was having difficulty keeping my composure at the rude manner of this early-morning intruder. Holmes spoke again before I could, however.

“And indeed, your questions are sure to be many.”

“COUNTLESS! I mean… why did Sentinel Prime not take the Matrix of Leadership when Optimus offered it? If he was going to sell them out anyway, wouldn’t that be a handy thing to have in your pocket?”

The man was mad. My eyes flickered towards Holmes, who seemed to be keeping a steely façade still.

“Allow me to answer a question with a question. Who shot Sentinel Prime down originally?”

What was this? Some sort of code privy only to my friend and this stranger? The man’s eyes widened.

“The… Decepticons, surely?”

“Why would the Decepticons shoot down the only person able to work the device they supposedly made the alliance for in the first place?”

“H-Holmes, stop it… I hired you to ANSWER questions, not… confound me but deeper!”

The stranger clenched his teeth, and started taking on a reddish hue.

“Why did they take the pillars but leave Sentinel on the lunar surface if he was the key? Surely Megatron must have known.”

The fat man brought his hands up to his temples in a panic. I understood the intent, if not the meaning, of Holmes’ words now. He was using the strangely emblazoned guest’s own madness against him, hoping to drive away the unpleasant company and increasingly foul smell.

“Stop it, Holmes… Stop it!”

Holmes rose out of his seat, a terrible sight to behold now in all his fury.

“Where does the Allspark fit into all this? Wasn’t the war on Cybertron originally about that? Why does a robot need a cloak? Is Washington not a much better demoralizing staging point for an invasion rather than the barren wastes of Illinois? Who gave that custodial crew military issue arms? How do a husband and wife of supposed middle-class means procure holiday transportation fit for supremely wealthy African entertainers? Why do robots have facial hair? WHY WAS MALKOVICH EVEN THERE?”

With such a primal cry of despair as I had never heard, and with surprising agility, the heavy-set man arose and flung himself through the window. Still screaming, he catapulted himself through Baker Street until he finally escaped our sight.

“What the devil was that all about, Holmes?”

“There goes a new breed of man, Watson. One that, if unchecked, will mean the downfall of civilization.”

“There are… more?”

But Holmes was, in his typical restlessness of mind, already focusing on a new problem that presented itself.

“Are you free tonight, Watson? I’ve been informed of the presence of a ballet company in town that I have not yet had the pleasure of witnessing.”

I consented, as I thoroughly enjoyed bears in small hansoms.

A groovy kind of mutation

2011-06-03T13:39:00.001-07:00

When the logo for “Bad Hat Harry”, Bryan Singer’s production company, came up right after the introductory 20th Century Fox logo, I was taken slightly aback.

I had completely forgotten that Singer had anything to do with X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. Certainly, the colorful ads that focused on globetrotting adventure and transplanting submarines into an ecosystem incongruous to their survival, coupled with director Matthew Vaughn’s insistence that he wouldn’t be paying attention TOO closely to the other films’ continuity made me believe we’d pretty much be in for a proper reboot.

Not so, then, as the film opens with (almost?) the same scene as 2000’s X-MEN: young Erik Lehnsherr being separated from his parents at the gates of a concentration camp, and using his magnetic powers for the very first time to crush a gate.

Soon, though, we veer off into sillier territory, with Kevin Bacon as a camp (no pun intended, really) scientist interested in this young Jew. The doctor is actually American Sebastian Shaw, posing as a German geneticist. Shaw is very interested in young Erik and mutants in general. His wanton cruelty is both shocking and hilarious in its bluntness, not to mention Bacon’s childlike glee at every bit of “progress” he makes.

In the meantime, we also meet lil’ Charles Xavier, a preteen telepath, catching lil’ shapeshifter Raven Darkholme (lol comic book names) stealing bread out of his kitchen. Delighted that there are '”others like him”, he takes her in and they become the best of friends. It’s kind of sweetly farfetched that Xavier as a young boy immediately surmises that Raven is “like him”. Their abilities are so different that it’s almost like a Dracula meeting a Frankenstein and being elated at their kinship through Universal Pictures licensing agreements.

After the war, Xavier (now James McAvoy) graduates from Oxford or some fancy British institute, officially becoming a superscientist. He’s also a bit of a swinger, picking up girls in bars with talk of “groovy mutations”. Honestly, all he was missing was a medallion. Raven, meanwhile, has grown into Jennifer Lawrence, waits tables and has an enigmatic crush on this doofus who chides her all the time. I included a picture of Ms. Lawrence because she is very inconspicuous in the film and you may want to Google her a few times before heading out or you may not even notice she was there!

Erik (now Michael Fassbender – being awesome) is doing cooler shit though! He’s hunting nazis all over the place, looking for the man who killed his mother, Shaw. Vaughn uses this time to make us think we’re watching a Bond movie, and Fassbender does his best Sean Connery. It’s all very cool.

Xavier’s work with the CIA eventually causes him to cross paths with Erik, and they both decide to find others of their kind to fight Shaw and his own devilish mutants. Oh, by the way, when Shaw reveals his plans to our heroes (causing World War III to kill all humans and make mutants more powerful), it’s kind of hilarious that neither Charles nor Erik just says “Okay, Shaw, anyone with any basic notion of science or reality will tell you that this plan is retarded at best.” It’s not that kind of movie. Nuclear war would totally make mutants more powerful in the world of
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, and that is groovy as fuck, dude.

Charles and Erik go out recruiting for their superteam in a comical montage that might just as well have been set to Soul Bossa Nova. A montage in which, by the way, Xavier suggests that he wouldn’t mind a spitroast of an insectoid stripper with Erik. Why does Raven like this dude again?

Unfortunately not actual score.

The best X-Man is no doubt Banshee, a kid whose powers are supersonic screams which make him fly, and looking like a long lost alcoholic Weasley brother. In the comics, Banshee is Irish, but I suppose the filmmakers didn’t want to appear TOO politically incorrect by making the drunken ginger of the team also an Irishman.

Hank “Beast” McCoy is also pretty cool, inventing crazy shit all the time. He’s a total aspie dorkbag, though, as in one scene he insults Raven so badly you’d think he had a bet going with Xavier. No wonder the girl chooses Magneto’s side eventually: the good guys appear to be 4chan posters who will tear down any female that somehow threatens or confuses them.

With all this silly bullshit, you’d think this were another BATMAN FOREVER or something, but the writers keep the focus squarely on character development. So when Emma Frost has to go out in the Antarctic wastes in her lingerie to get Shaw an ice cube, you giggle, when a Raven gets her feelings hurt, you go aawww, and when Banshee screams at the floor so loudly he takes off, you go woo-hoo! What more do you need in a movie like this, huh?

It’s honestly amazing this movie got made at Tom Rothman’s 20th Century Fox, even though it’s made just a little more believable by it having a fairly low budget for its kind of movie, very little marketing and a shooting schedule of about 8 hours (excluding editing).

You’re next, CAPTAIN AMERICA! You’ve got some stiff competition.

Great party, got hammered!

2011-04-30T09:23:00.001-07:00

Early negative buzz surrounding THOR had me worried. Could this be Marvel’s first real misfire? IRON MAN 2 had not been very good, but it was enjoyable none the less, due to some great casting and the film’s subsequent ability to coast on the actors’ natural on-screen charisma. Still, a missed opportunity after Marvel’s strong debut with the first one.

Pre-release clips had been focusing on Thor’s time on Earth, and the fish-out-of-water comedy scenarios it caused. Did Marvel think the crazy camp of Thor’s heavenly realm of Asgard would turn off audiences? Or that their best chance at crossover success throughout all demographics was Chris Hemsworth’s hunky bodaaay? Most likely, and nerds everywhere gathered they had another FANTASTIC FOUR on their hands, another movie (rather unfairly) maligned in those circles for its silly and slight approach to its subject matter.

Kenneth Branagh had talked this movie up as a “superhero LION IN WINTER” which I can totally see. Hopkins can pretty much do the wise father role in his sleep by now, and he’s serviceable as Odin, with only a few moments of raging bravado before he is put into “Odinsleep” for most of the movie. Hemsworth swaggers into every scene with a big, goofy grin and ten pound balls, making him (to me, at least) an instantly likeable character. Tom Hiddleston as Loki is the Iago of the piece, and the actor does a great job finding layers – what?? – in the silly-helmeted god of mischief. I got the feeling that Loki cared far more about Odin’s approval than ruling Asgard, and he’s even reluctant to hurt Thor at times. Renée Russo as Mama Thor has about two scenes and ten lines, which makes me think a few of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

One of my favorite additions to the movie were the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, Thor’s D&D-looking gang of friends. Broadly sketched, but with exactly the right amount of personality for it to be peripheral characters you immediately like. When one of them gets stabbed, it’s not just some random Asgardian warrior or SHIELD agent, but an actual character you sorta liked. Giving Thor friends he hangs out with and makes bawdy jokes with, goes a long way toward grounding a character that would perhaps be tough to relate to.

The much-maligned New Mexico stuff actually works pretty well, as it serves as a good counterweight to the hammy grandstanding of the Asgardians. Natalie Portman’s astrophysicist Jane Foster and her friends (Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgard) are sketched about as thinly as Thor’s friends, but here too do the actors carry their weight well. If there’s a criticism to be lobbed at this section of the movie, is that you don’t really get a sense of why Thor would fall for Foster besides the fact that she’s beautiful and smart – and he seems to have been surrounded by beautiful, smart and capable women all his life, from what we’ve seen. Which reminds me, I think if Marvel’s non-geek centered marketing worked, a lot of girls are gonna be creaming themselves over Hemsworth after this. The dude is charismatic to a fault, chivalrous with a sense of humor and has a couple of TWILIGHTesque pointless beefcake shots.

Kenneth Branagh’s good with actors, but the action stuff got a bit tough to follow sometimes – but even then, there’s quite a few very clear FUCK YEARGH! moments, such as Thor hurtling himself through a dragon’s head, blasting out the back of its skull. Furthermore, Branagh’s weirdly obsessed with Dutch angles, the way Abrams was so enamored with lens flares in STAR TREK. Just like the flares in that film, Branagh’s pot-dealing gay marriage angles didn’t so much annoy as amuse me in THOR. Another minor niggle I had was Asgard’s lack of “normals”. There’s a crowd scene at Thor’s celebration at the start, and another when there’s a feast at the end. I would have liked to see some shots of Asgardians about their normal business, to get more of a sense of a living world. As it is now, it’s mostly the royal family, Thor’s friends, and their guards/servants.

I was apprehensive bout the 3D, but the flying-through-space bits and the Bifrost Bridge were actually a very cool thing to see. Otherwise, not much was added to it, as usual with post-converted stuff.

Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye was cool in his short scene, which indeed feels tacked on, but not as obtrusively HERE ARE MORE MARVEL CHARACTERS REMEMBER GUYS THERE’S A WHOLE OTHER MARVEL UNIVERSE OUT THERE as the SHIELD subplot in Iron Man 2. With a small change, the scene even could have served some plot purpose to the movie.

Stay seated for the post-credits scene, as, again, it isn’t only an announcement for another Marvel movie, but an actual continuation of the movie’s plot.

The audience I saw it with ate it up, and I’m pretty sure others will too. They should have put the “Thor will return in THE AVENGERS!” text at the very front of the credits.

Which brings me to my WotL-exclusive, a screenshot of 2013’s sure-to-be hit blockbuster:

All in the game of thrones, yo.

2011-04-16T10:33:00.001-07:00

Just one more beddy-bye until HBO commences its fantasy bombardment upon the oil fields of your cornea. That’s when the first episode of the long-awaited fantasy adaptation Game of Thrones airs on the prestigious pay-per-view channel. Based on the (too?) long-running George R.R. Martin-penned A Song of Ice and Fire book series, HBO is looking to get back into opulent, MA-rated period television in the style of Deadwood and Rome.

As a longtime fan of the books, I had been keeping tabs on whatever production stuff I could get my eyes on, and found mostly reassuring tidbits. With the pilot nearly upon us, my friend and television boffo Brendan approached me to do a weekly recap of the series. Seeing as how he hadn’t read a letter of the series, I thought or different POVs might indeed prove interesting.

L: What makes you interested in this show, B? I can imagine that for someone who hasn't read the books, it can look a bit “been there, done that”.

B: I've heard it time and time again that this show is THE GODFATHER/The Wire/a political drama that happens to have magic in it. I suppose that's a draw, as is the "totally hardcore brah" sex and violence that I've heard about, though since every pay cable network has a show with totally hardcore sex and violence, that's less so than it may have been in the past.

That said, I like the fact that David Benioff, of 25TH HOUR, TROY, and a draft of WOLVERINE fame, is co-running the show. I think Benioff is one of these talented writers (and a fantastic novelist) who's maybe been strangled by the Hollywood system, and hope that TV will give him and his staff an outlet to shine. From what I've seen of the trailers, it doesn't look cheap, so I like that HBO is putting the same money behind it they did something like Boardwalk Empire.

But if I had to pick one reason why I'm interested in Game of Thrones, it'd be Peter Dinklage. The rest of the cast is filled with people I like -- Sean Bean, Mark Addy, Aiden "Tommy Carcetti" Gillen -- but Dinklage is what draws me to the show. When I was in college, I saw him play Richard III in a very small theater, and he was astonishing. If everything about the show is meant to be very Shakespearian and cunning and filled with whispered conversations in stone castles, I can't wait to see him bring the same energy he brought to Richard on a weekly basis.

L: Well, you're in for a treat. Dinklage is playing fan-favorite Tyrion Lannister, a little person nobleman starkly contrasting against his Aryan god-siblings. George R.R. Martin often described the books as "vaguely based on the Wars of the Roses", and Tyrion is the obvious Richard III analogue in that equation.

B: What do you like about these books/this material? And as someone who hasn't read the books, what should I know going into it? For example, I shouldn't be expecting Mark Addy to turn to someone and go "lightning bolt, lightning bolt," should I?

L: "A Song of Ice and Wire" is exactly how I sold the books to Wire-fans, and The Wire to ASOIAF fans. From what I've read, they've added some sugar to the pill of mostly-set-up Season 1 (think D'Angelo's flashback to the trial in the first episode of The Wire, when he stumbles upon William Gant's body -- a technique never again utilized throughout the show, and enforced by HBO because viewers wouldn't remember the guy from the start of the episode), so I'm hoping it grabs a big audience quickly. You can imagine how ecstatic I was when they cast Gillen as a scheming politician.

Like The Wire, once you start getting who's who, and what everyone's motivation is, the plotting is absolutely relentless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's as good -- it doesn't have any message about society or the human condition as urgent or specific as The Wire -- but the structure is there. You'll be hooked a few episodes in, if they pull it off.

There may be a bit of a tonal shift between certain plotlines that could possibly be jarring. The books' chapters are named after characters, which are dubbed POV-characters in fandom. For instance, it's considered a spoiler knowing which characters might become (or lose their status as) POV-characters in the next book. All but one of these POVs are situated on the continent of Westeros, the story's sort-of British Isles. One of them, though, is set "Across the Narrow Sea", and is much more of a Robert E. Howard barbarian story than a Medieval Wire. I found those chapters a refreshing break from all the plotting and intrigue, but your mileage may vary.

The magic conundrum: you won't hear Mark Addy call for any lightning bolts, because it's most likely his character doesn't believe in such. Magic is this vague, eldritch, unknowable thing, the province of village midwives and traveling mummer's troupes. My favorite example of it is when a bunch of people are cursed, and they start dying off in OMEN-esque ways, yet still in circumstances that aren't too fantastical considering their situations. So, as a reader, you're left thinking "Wait, what? Were they actually cursed? Was the hexer just a character with good insight and a lucky call?" The books don't give you a clear-cut answer.

B: You mentioned that the land in which the story takes place is based on the British Isles. Is this one of those stories where it's a forgotten chapter from human history? Are all the characters "human," or are they other "races"?

L: As far as I can tell, Westeros (the planet is never given a name so let's just call the setting that) is not some forgotten pre-history like Middle-earth or Hyboria. Further proof of it would be the weird seasons. Summers lasting years, winters lasting decades. I think Sean Bean tells one of the kids in a trailer "You've only known summer all your life" as a "You kids don't know how good ya got it!" lecture. So, unless the series is ending with a straight up apocalyptic cosmological shift, this ain't Earth.

There are other races, but it's not like Star Trek where you've got humans and Klingons and Vulcans attending meetings together and shit. Like magic, non-humans are the stuff of legends and the dark places of the world.

You could make a case for the Targaryen siblings being non-human. They are the white-haired princelings in Conan Country who are plotting vengeance against Mark Addy, the usurper of their dynasty. The Targaryens' gimmick is basically that they're 100% inbred, and instead of retard babies, it's like the Super Soldier Serum. The reason for this is that they're like the only bloodline left from "Old Valyria", which is the world's equivalent of Atlantis, as I've understood it.

Is this already starting to confuse you?

B: Not yet! The Targaryens’ "special relationship," though, reminds me of something I've read about the books -- they're apparently pretty graphic, not just in terms of their violence, but in their presentation of sexuality, particularly adolescent sexuality. Given HBO's willingness to indulge the particular kinks of say, Alan Ball, is there anything that you think might not make it in?

L: Nothing as crazy as Bill and Lorena's necksnap sex. A lot of the stuff that might be controversial has already been nixed by casting a 22-year old as the Targaryen sister. I'm betting she's to pull off 16 or something (the character in the book is twelve), which is still shocking enough for most audiences. There's a few orgies that she's in, but nothing worse than what you'd see in Rome, I think.

There's actually one (arguably) healthy sexual relationship between two teenagers, but the show may be canceled before we get to season three.

B: As a fan, what's your best and worst case scenarios for the show? And how receptive are hardcore fans going to be to deviations from the text?

L: Worst case scenario (financially): Bombs after one season cuz people are watching Camelot en masse, cuz it's got "name recognition".

Worst case scenario (artistically): The child actors suck. That's seriously the only worry I have at this point. It looks opulent, there's some great genre actors, and the writers are of similar pedigree. Scott Templeton (I forgot his name)!

I-wouldn't-mind-this scenario #1: The show makes it to season three. With some creative rewrites, it would be a decent enough stopping point for the series.

I-wouldn-'t-mind-this scenario #2: Martin dies, leaving the series unfinished. Show writers just make their own ending. Look at Graham Yost and Mad Men's Chris Provenzano and their aping of Elmore Leonard on Justified.

The fans I've talked to have responded rather positively to the changes that have happened so far. The addition of an introductory scene to Dinklage's House, the aging of the preteens, ... . Might change, of course, but for fantasy fans, they're keeping a remarkably level head.

I feel like I shouldn't give you too much of an explanation on who's who (too late!), since that's something the pilot should explain. I'm really looking forward to seeing your reactions, and how well the writers do their job of getting that fuckload of information across to new viewers.

B: There was a great piece in the New Yorker this week about the whole "finish the book, George" phenomenon that I think says a lot about modern fandom. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

L: I think I share Neil Gaiman's opinion on it (how cool to be able to say that, huh?) in that George should take however the fuck long he wants about it. Playing devil's advocate for a second here, George DOES spend an inordinate amount of time at conventions, and he's a huuuuge merchandising whore. Writing updates? Naw man, but here's a new Song of Ice and Fire collectible figure or replica weapon that you can order for only $19,99!!!

Btw I am really fucking stoked for this show.

B: I'm actually pretty stoked, too. I missed Boardwalk Empire and while I dug Lights Out, I fell behind on it. And stuff like Justified and Sons of Anarchy are on my "to watch" list. But this looks like so much fun.

Game of Thrones premiers tomorrow, but will be repeated on every friggin’ HBO channel throughout the week.

hay dawg I heard u like

2011-03-26T16:46:00.001-07:00

Finish that meme any way you like.

Self-proclaimed VISIONARY DIRECTOR Zack Snyder returns to the screen with SUCKER PUNCH, an ode to everything nerds have ever found cool, ever.

Like that picture? Well, I just saved you a trip to the movies. There is nothing to the heroine of this movie, or indeed the movie itself, but a pretty picture.

The great irony of the movie is that, in all its aspirations to critique female objectification in popular media, it forgets to make its own characters anything more than… well, babydolls.

Emily Browning’s character Babydoll is framed for murder, and expected to be lobotomized within a few days. She hatches an escape plan, and enlists four other inmates. The planning and most of the execution of the escape plan takes place in a fantasy whorehouse in which Babydoll and the other inmates are dancers/whores. Part of the plan involves Baby’s distracting of the staff/johns/pimps/orderlies with her dancing. Those dance scenes are the outrageous action scenes this movie was sold to you with.

I have to disagree with there being “no stakes” to the action scenes. True, they’re a fantasy within a fantasy, and the girls are invulnerable to the point where you think they’re powered by the rays of a yellow sun, but I think the stakes of the action scenes are not so much in “death” as in “mission failure” (to drive home the video game analogy so many are fond of). They fail, they get caught. I also have to admit, I did get a visceral thrill out of them being very well-staged.

The use of the action scene as a titillation, and the true stakes being women trying to escape patriarchal oppression is fine enough. It’s simple Screenwriting 101 where the movie fails: the girls’ goals are never really our own, because we simply don’t get to know them. I’m not asking for hammy Saving Private Ryan-esque “This is what I was like before I came to this HELLHOLE, maaaan!” monologues, but little moments in which we get to know the girls’ characters. As it is now, they’re mostly interchangeable, save for Jena Malone’s Rocket and Abbie Cornish’ Sweet Pea.

Surely, Snyder did not mean for this particular ironic detachment, did he?

I used to think of Snyder as a boozy, coke-addled frat boy. After SUCKER PUNCH, I think I see him more as a slacker pothead. This movie is obviously the result of him and his wife/friends hitting the bong, coming up with some whooaaaa deep stuff, and basing a movie on it.

And hey, nothing wrong with that, I’m sure many great works of art found their original inception (brrraawwww) in the hazes of a Byronic stupor. It’s just that, like the experienced marijuanist, Snyder woke up the next morning, realized he’d actually have to do some more work beyond the ideas he scribbled on his rolling paper and just said “awwww man now I actually gotta do this thing”. I mean, I can seriously picture him showing up to the WB offices, sweating profusely and yanking his collar professor Frink-style, with a binder saying SUKKA PUNTCH SKREPT and it’s just the script to FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE with the title altered or something.

Zack, the next time you have an idea; that’s good, man. Ideas are super. Plato was all about that shit and people certainly don’t talk about Plato saying “Oh man, Ozymandias having a folder on his desktop labeled “Boys”? Gimme a fucking break!”

But what you need to do then is find one of them dudes that takes ideas and puts them on paper so audiences understand those ideas and say “Oh okay yeah, that was pretty cool” instead of “All that and not even a gratuitous titty shot”.

Oh wait, that’s objectifying. GODDAMMIT SNYDER YOU GOT ME

Everything sucks

2010-11-27T07:03:00.001-08:00

It is quite curious, and more than a little amusing, that four of my friends who started watching True Blood did so because of a girl. While my online compatriots’ warm recommendations of the show (ranging from “trashy fun” to “completely retarded but it’s got tits and gore”) were enough to pique my interest, it was, in fact, a girl who lent me her box sets of the first two seasons. So, if nothing else, this show gets you laid. Review over, good night.

Created by Six Foot Under’s Alan Ball, True Blood is what I imagine a vampire story would be like when told by an already fairly tipsy Ian McKellen. Funny, colorful, hammy, dirty, slightly decadent, over the top… in short, good times.

True Blood’s portrayal of vampires as a thinly veiled analogue for the LGBT community (to the extent that the living are referred to as “breathers” – har har) is an interesting one, as it couples the seductive otherness the vampire is usually associated with to themes of tolerance and acceptance. It was quite amusing to see extremely flamboyant short order cook Lafayette live a relatively bash-free life in a small Louisiana town like the show’s fictional Bon Temps. The few people that did get on his case were cartoonishly retarded rednecks who promptly got their asses kicked. It took the show another season for anyone to say anything homophobic again, and once more the character who did it was comically stupid. I think it’s a smart way of circumventing the barriers of some viewers who might not want to think about DEM GAYS too much and just for that, I have to applaud this silly ass show.

It also made me think of vampires in recent popular media, and how wildly different their portrayals can be. Let’s find out!

~xTEH SEXXXY BF VAMPYREx~ <3

Very popular right now, thanks to Twilight and True Blood. They’re just a little different, but not different in the way those weirdos at the RPG store are. More like… sexy-different. Man, if you bagged that, all ya girls would be squinting at you like you were a Steven Seagal villain.

Examples: Edward Cullen and Bill Compton are prime examples of this category.

Oh! the decadent sleaze vampire

Shelly nor Byron could out-ennui him: the decadent sleazepire usually lives in a castle or manor and is just so – fucking – bored with all your human morals and shit. And ho ho ho, bisexual doesn’t cut it! He might as well fuck an armadillo to see what it’s like, later wiping his dick on a Vermeer, claiming the man himself was such a dreadful bore. Often, these vampires will be of frightfully European origin, embodying every blown-up caricature Joe Q. Moviegoer might mentally conjure about LEBBREL YEWREP.

Examples: Lestat, True Blood’s Eric Northman, the background assholes from Underworld, and to a somewhat lesser extent Dracula himself.

The action movie asshole villain vampire

Nothing much to say about this guy but the fact that if you de-fanged him, he might as well be a Lethal Weapon villain. He’s the boss of some organization probably, and he’s got big plans that’ll shake the vampire-world up! Usually slightly decadent, but not moreso than your standard rich mortal douchebag. Like, he might drive a Ferrari, but the interior isn’t made of albino gorilla babies.

Examples: Deacon Frost, Sam Neill’s guy in Daybreakers (pictured), the Master from Buffy.

Eeeeek! The monster vampire!

Sometimes this guy is some sort of ur-vampire, feared by the regular kind as much as humans in the know; sometimes the story’s universe simply depicts vampires as bat-themed zombies. Either way, the monster vampire wants your blood and he’s going to rip you in half trying to get it. Fuck seduction and glamour and decadence, this dude is hungry.

Examples: the reapers in Blade II (pictured), the Mexivamps in From Dusk Till Dawn, Buffy’s Turok-han, the vamps in the Will Smith version of I Am Legend, Count Orlok.

The notion of vampirism in storytelling is as old as the day is long (hort hort), so this by no means an exhaustive list. If you believe there are any glaring omissions, please tell me in the comments below!

No One Leaves Harlan Alive

2010-10-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

Following up the first season of Gossip Girl with the first season of Justified is a bit of a culture shock, to say the least. It’s a looooong drop from the towering spires of decadent Manhattan to the woodland meth labs of ole Kentucky. For the viewer as much as protagonist Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a deputy marshal stuck in his ways somewhere right after the Civil War. Givens is “exiled” to his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky after shooting a dude in Miami. I was immediately endeared to this soft-spoken southern gentleman, seeing as how the reason he shot the guy was basically that he’d shoot him if he didn’t leave town. Towns were not left, guys were shot. For the observant among you, the guy in question is character actor Peter Greene, whom you may remember as baddie Dorian from Jim Carrey’s early hit The Mask. 2010 Dorian looks like he has cancer, aids and drank from the wrong Grail all at the same time.

Givens isn’t happy to be transferred to Harlan. His grifter pappy Arlo, his childhood sweetheart Ava, and a surprisingly florishing drug business all contribute to Raylan’s gentlemanly headache. But most of all, Raylan has his hands full with his former best friend Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins).

Goggins is the show’s ace in the hole. Raylan and Boyd are pretty much on the entirely different ends of the spectrum. Think of “the South” as an idea, a collection of stereotypes you’ve acquired throughout your years/decades of pop culture consumption. Now try to put all the good things in one column, and all the bad ones in another. Chances are the former will be a pretty good description of Raylan, while the latter fits Boyd to a (swas)tee(ka). They’re like Batman and the Joker, if the Joker were a little stupider, and Batman a lot more likeable.

Unfortunately, Boyd gets shot at the end of the pilot and spends most of the remainder of the season in hospital/prison. This pretty much condemns the first half to a “crime of the week” format that unfortunately doesn’t really do the show justice. It is, of course, purely in the realm of comic book fantasy (Raylan is under investigation for shooting a guy, but then just merrily shoots at least one other guy per episode) but the show works best when it’s dealing with themes of friendship, loyalty and betrayal. Hell, Raylan doesn’t kill Boyd in the first episode because they “once worked the mines together. Hell down there.”

There’s an easy, affable charm to Justified, carried mostly on the shoulders of Olyphant and Goggins. It’s really astonishing coming from backstabbing BFFs Serena and Blair to the constantly-giving-each-other-another-shot enemies that Raylan and Boyd are. Is this the difference between a boys’ show and a girls’ show? I haven’t seen enough gender-specific shows to be able to tell. I just know that come February 2011, I’ll be itching to find out what kinda shit Raylan and Boyd have gotten themselves into. I hope that by then the show has gotten a little “bigger”, and escaped its TV feel. I mean hell, I’ll have seen one hell of a western by then.

This one.

The 10 Biggest Annoyances in Mass Effect 2

2010-10-04T15:05:00.001-07:00

After my forays into “icky girly cootie” and “artsy fartsy awardsy” territory in my most recent posts, I thought I’d venture back into safe nerd territory like the wild Kevin Smith after making a PG-13 movie. In yet another first for Wholly On The Level, this article is a collaboration between myself and fellow Gossip Girl enthusiast Matthew “Notorious O.W.L.” Hedgecock.

Mass Effect 2 is a superb action RPG, filled with great writing, amazing set pieces and most importantly the illusion that you, as a player, have a significant impact on the game-world at large. But nerds wouldn't be nerds if we couldn't nitpick. Here are the ten biggest annoyances of Mass Effect 2!

Take it away, Matt!

1.) Kaiden Alenko’s uniform

Sup Kaiden. Boy, I’m sure glad I don’t have to talk to Ashley in this playthrough. Now please take those fucking Christmas lights off your shoulders and quit dressing like an asshole.

Note from Luca: God, I should have known there’d be at least one fashion complaint in here.

2.) Ashley Williams
Urrggghhhh. Remember those spikes of hot regret you felt in Mass Effect 1 after you left Kaiden to die on Virmire? Yeah, they’re back, and they hurt just as much as before. Here you are, back from the dead, having just slaughtered an entire legion of Husks and Collectors and a NIGHTMARE FROM HELL Praetorian all while managing to save half a colony of space truckers and what is your reward?
You get lectured at by racist, trigger-happy Fundamentalist. Thanks SO much BioWare, I really wanted to get sermonized about what an asshole I am by a character who is SO AWFUL that she has the ability to kill Wrex – THE BEST CHARACTER - in the first game! Please, God, let her get roasted on a spit and eaten by Krogan in ME3.

P.S. God help your soul if you romanced her in the first game. Thought you avoided her awful slam poetry this time around? “Commander, you have received a new message on your private terminal.”

3.) Harbinger’s smacktalk
“If I have to tear you apart Shepard, I will. I know you feel this. Leave the dead where they fall. Your form is fragile. Your form is so fat, I thought I was fighting a volus. Pathetic mortals don’t know how to shoot freethrows. Entire squad is babies. I’m not talkin’ about dance lessons, I’m talking about taking it out and chopping it up, Shepard.”

Granted, Harbinger’s constant prattle makes you want to kill him more AND informs you that a powerful enemy is on the battlefield. But who would have guessed that an ancient race of sentient machines with unknowable motives would talk shit like a 12-year-old in a Halo match?

4.) Keiji’s face

Fuck is wrong with you, Kasumi.

Lucanote: Kasumi does redeem herself a bit by going into a haiku-writing lust frenzy for Busta Rhymes-alike crewmember Jacob not long after Keiji’s death.

5.) No female Turians
This is a pretty nerdy complaint because clearly this is a development limitation. But there are good reasons given as to why you don’t see female salarians or krogan, and volus and elcor aren’t common enough to really warrant attention.
But damn – you can fly from one end of the galaxy to the other and not see ONE female Turian? Better watch out, FemShep, you’re gonna have a mess on your hands after Garrus pops that heatsink.

6.) The ramen stand
Just someone tell me why this is here. So Grunt and Kasumi can make one-time comments about it if you just so happen to take them down there? Sorry, that’s not a good enough reason to have that asshole chef shout GOMOSHEVASS or whatever the hell he says every time I pass by him.

The ramen stand is a mystery. A shitty mystery.

Luca NOTES!: Your shameful racism, however, is plain for all to see.

7.) Jaroth’s carelessness
I wish all enemies were careless enough to leave their evil plans out in the open for you to read freely WHILE STANDING IN FRONT OF THEM. Stopping Hitler would have been a lot easier.

Luca sighs: I’ve played this game twice now and I had to look up who Jaroth was. He’s the devilishly crimson salarian who’s the leader of one of the teams trying to take down Archangel. He wants to organize a mafia coup on Omega, but foolishly lets all his iPads lay around for Shepard to read and later tell the don about.

8.) Cerberus acting retarded
About ¾ the way through the game, Shepard is tasked with scouting the inside of a derelict Reaper for the dead machine’s IFF. It’s a great mission – scary, tense, and difficult in a way that few other missions in the game are.
Plotwise the mission is very good, except that it continues the trend of Cerberus behaving like total fucking morons. OK, so a science team has gone missing (of course) and when you get there you find out they’ve been turned into Husks (of course) but what’s more surprising is that the team was apparently LIVING in the Reaper while they studied it.
Come again? Whose idea was it exactly to set up residence inside of a demongodrobot from beyond space? Sure, screw-ups are pretty par for the course for Cerberus – these people have a “Jurassic Park” type incident on their hands every damn week – but this one just seems particularly stupid. I think they know enough about Reapers at this point to know it wouldn’t be a good idea to crawl up one’s ass and make themselves at home.

Eye-rolling Luca: At this point Matt quit writing his “ten” biggest annoyances, mailed me what he had and somehow left a garbled message on my voicemail containing heavy breathing and repeated use of the word “Ga’hoole”. So without further adue, the final two annoyances of Mass Effect 2!

9.) Cockteasing bullshit
For a game company that is deservedly well known for its gay-friendly writing, ME2 is strangely devoid of any possibility of same-sex romance. It’s very likely that this was a time limitation issue, but compared to any previous Bioware games the STR8Z UNLEE limitations stick out like a conservative thumb. The set-ups are still in there: Tali, the quarian mechanic, speaks of her species’ intimacy rituals and shyly suggests that she’d be honored to go through one with the female player. Which is then never followed up on. Jack, the telekinetic criminal tells you of her polyamorous experiences, but rudely shoots you down if you hint at any interest. Sorry, my canuck developer friends, but I don’t buy it when this character

doesn’t at least swing both ways.

10.) Give me ze detonators, Mr. Shepard!
A shady racist organisation that’s not afraid to kill as many beings as it needs to advance “human interests”, headed by a man who does not ever confer his real name AND WHOSE EYES GLOW IN THE DARK, asks you to hand over the base of an advanced alien race you’ve been fighting throughout the entire game. As a player, you’re given the choice to just blow up the base or set off some sort of special bomb that kills every living organism in it. I understand the importance of clear-cut binary choices in a game like this, but come the hell on. Who would ever think under any circumstance that handing over a facility that is somehow able to produce Godzilla-sized Terminator foetuses to an organization of space Republican-Scientologists is even close to a good idea? The only reason I can see for handing over the base to Cerberus (said organization), is just a morbid curiosity for how it would affect the third game. Which I, of course, succumbed to.

Please succumb to your own base instincts and tell us what nitpicks you had with this otherwise quite amazing game in the comments below!

…in which I throw all credibility to the wind.

2010-09-28T03:25:00.001-07:00

In my ever continuing quest to reach a wider audience (15 is my current short-term goal), I decided a while ago to start breaking down gender boundaries with an article on You Got Served. Coupled with the personal minimum of bi-monthly updates I’ve promised myself, I must now subject you to a post that will make the B2K dancing epic look like The Wild Bunch.

Gossip Girl tells the story of self-exiled New York socialite Serena van der Woodsen (future Green Lantern girlfriend Blake Lively) and her return to the NY gossip scene, much to the chagrin of former BFF Blair Waldorf (2010’s Single White Female Leighton Meester). You see, Serena had some drunken sexytimes with Blair’s boyfriend. Instead of just having a catfight and ignoring each other for a while, exile had to happen. An overreaction? Well, if this is a dealbreaker for you, it’s probably for the best you just pass up this show. Drama queen exaggeration is the order of the day here.

Pretty much every problem that drives the plot – what loose plot there is – revolves around the protagonist’s social standing. I had some problems, initially, bringing myself to care about the plight of Serena & co. Social faux pas in my own high school years didn’t seem to have such epic and dramatic consequences. Maybe I adjusted my viewing mode, or maybe the writers found their footing, but a few episodes into it I found myself not only relieved of my skepticism but actually… emotionally involved?

One of the better decisions the writers made was not to draw out the Serena/Blair feud the show started with. Four episodes was more than enough: the stage was set, the players in motion.

Ultraplayer Chuck Bass is perhaps the show’s greatest victory so far. Coming off of not one but TWO attempted rapes in the first episode (!!), this character embodies the ultimate hedonism of the super rich (within the limitations of teen-oriented television, of course). I don’t know to what extent Chuck is supposed to be a villain – everyone kind of is in this morally abhorrent biotope. I do know that his smug face pretty much lights up any scene he’s in with pervy remarks and other general innuendo. There is a strange, kind of touching affection Chuck has towards Blair like some sort of Dolce wearing Gillman. They reminded me a bit of John Malkovich and Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons: veteran players always on the lookout for the next challenge/victim. Which, in turn, brought me to the conclusion that this would probably have somewhat of a geek following if you had the same plots set at some court in 18th century France or something.

The show’s biggest misfire is the Humphrey family and their tribulations. So-called audience identification characters, these woe-is-me bumfucks are a stark contrast to cartoons like Blair, Chuck or Carter Baizen. Besides not being any fun to follow, they even fail at being relatable by simply living in their huge apartment, owning an art gallery and going to the same exclusive school as the rich kids. I guess because the apartment looks like an ironic 90s throwback we’re all supposed to relate. Protip for anyone currently writing that Dick Cheney biopic: make sure there’s an Ace of Base poster in view in the background at all times.

It actually feels decadent to watch this show while I’m struggling to get through something with a social conscience like Treme. It’s been a while since I could actually classify something as a “guilty pleasure”, but here we are. I know I love it.

ECKS OH ECKS OH

The Big Hustle

2010-09-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

It is not in this blog's habit of talking about movies in a serious way. Or rather, it does not discuss movies that are meant to be taken seriously in a serious way. But because I am a flexible fellow who is not afraid to branch out into unknown territory, I will do just that today. Just. That. Don't expect me to thatch Mrs. Poopingsworth's roof cuz I just won't do it. Anyway, let's get it on.

Valhalla Rising tells the story of an unnamed mute Viking warrior portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen. He is a slave, and made to fight other slaves. He's so good that he's bound to a pole, while his opponents get free range. Without fail, he bashes everyone's brains in regardless.

Now, this thing is laden with subtext right off the bat. The title itself and the fact that Mikkelsen's nameless guy is called One Eye by his young companion immediately invokes images of Norse mythology (Allfather Odin is portrayed as having one eye). But that's not really touched upon, outside of a short opening crawl. It's the christians that get the brunt of the screentime. Christianity is seen as an invading force from the get go: The opening crawl describes how monotheism is slowly supplanting the old gods, a rival slave-owner tells One-Eye's master he should sell his prized fighter. "You could use the gold. It's the only language the christians understand."

So here we have christianity as a new way of life. A more civilized one. But director Nicholas Winding Refn isn't intersted in portraying the Vikings as noble Robert E. Howard barbarians, whom civilization had best leave unsullied. They are scared of this change, as any culture in decay who's seeing the new bad boy on the block stand up would be. The first twenty minutes of basically One Eye fucking up other fighters in various nasty ways represents to me that dying culture making waves. Here's our big dick warrior god, doing circus bear tricks! We're still here, choo gonn' do?

But One Eye ain't happy, and he escapes in a bloody fashion. That's basically the fashion One Eye does things in: Silent and bloody. Understandable when you're kept in a cage and only let out to kill dudes in between what looks like blood-soaked acid flashbacks. One Eye leaves a young boy alive because he's not that bad a sort, I suppose. IMDb calls the boy "Are", but I don't recall ever having heard a name. The movie almost works better without anyone having names but One Eye. Maybe I just misheard, but I like the idea that everyone's just a shadow to One Eye. The fact that his name is something the boy came up with just to have something to call him adds to it.

The boy comes up with "One Eye" in response to a christian norseman asking for the mute's name. The christian and his band of quasi-knights are introduced after having just dispatched a bunch of heathens and rounded up their scared, shivering, naked women. Since this is the only scene in the movie in which we even see women, I'm tempted to think the shot is meant to mirror civilization's stripping away of the matriarch's mysticism. No need for mom-witches anymore, we got a big poppa god now, and he works alone. But it's a single shot, and not very much elaborated on.

Things really started to click when the boy explains to the christian where they found One Eye. Spoilers will follow from here on out, so if you want to go in fresh and not knowing anysides the general premise I've laid bare so far, I suggets you quit now.

One Eye was found unconscious and alone on a boat coming from over the ocean. That oughta give you a pretty good hint at what One Eye's motivation is. Surely, he wants to go and kill the filthy injuns what killed his durn crew. And sure enough, he takes up christian dude's offer of going to the Holy Land with (relative) eagerness. Soon, a thick fog rises, however, and the journey takes a lot longer than anyone had anticipated. Some men believe One Eye is cursed -- Are lied that they were both christians. Expectedly for anyone who's been watching the movie from the start, they do not succeed in killing him to lift the curse.

The sea voyage is the thing that made me realize this movie's not meant to be taken at face value at all. There's no way they could have crossed the Atlantic in such a shitty little boat. We're deep in parable country here, brah.

Once in North America, the shit hits the fan. This obviously isn't the Holy Land and there are arrows being shot at them from everywhere. They do what good christians do: go nuts and declare that it is now Stab-N-Rape o'clock. Eventually, there's two christian dudes left. Son of the main christian guy and an old guy whose son died follow One Eye and Are into the wilderness. They ask Are for guidance, as he can somehow read One Eye's mind. Since we as an audience never really hear them commune telepathically, it's up to us to decide if he really can, or if he just enjoys power over grown-ups. An unresponsive god-figure being mediated by someone whom no one is sure actually understands him? With the advice both men get essentially being "fuck off and die somewhere", I'm inclined to think Are likes the power.

In the meantime, One Eye's visions/flashbacks have been getting stronger. Coupled with the death and decay he sees around him, he has realized that violence will only beget more violence and it's something he has no taste for anymore. His ultimate surrender and sacrifice at the hands of the natives is perhaps his way of changing: becoming a Christ-figure instead of the warrior god he's been throughout the movie. Are is absolutely baffled by this, and the film ends with him standing on the beach alone as the native Americans leave him be. This is the second time he's deemed not important enough to kill. Are, ultimately, goes from hustlin' religious type to simple man, always ignorant of the motivations of the truly divine.

This is the first Nicholas Winding Refn movie I've seen, and I'm curious about his other work now. I'm equally intrigued by his strange desire to make a Wonder Woman movie (not that WB will ever give it to him). I wonder how much fetish subtext he could sneak into that one.

It ain't your standard Hollywood Viking epic, but if you go in expecting something akin to 2001: A Viking Odyssey, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Do you absolutely disagree with me on everything I thought this movie meant to say? Great! Tell me about it in the comments.

A Strong Heart

2010-08-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

Young and stupid movie watchers may think Sam Worthington is the only actor around who possesses A STRONG HEART (see: Terminator: Salvation, Avatar, Clash of the Titans), but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, almost a full decade before Worthington showed us the strength of his heart, two other young lotharios impressed us with their cardiovascular fortitude. I am, of course, speaking of those two guys from B2K that made a movie once.

B2K? Well...

Having watched this video again, I have to correct my statement and say only one of the two guys is actually from B2K. The other guy is Roger the annoying neighbor from Sister Sister, a terrible show in its own right.

Anyway, in You Got Served Roger and B2K are street dancers who very much love their craft and hope to strike it big one day. But since this is a movie, the strength of their hearts will be tested before they can gyrate in the background of T-Pain videos. The ultimate way to test it, is to be provoked by a bunch of super white dudes with Dragon Ball Z hair from Orange County. Of course they do not have the moves and subsequently get "served" by our way fresher heroes. This will not stand, obviously, and Goku and his crew challenge our boys to a REAL dance-off at Steve Harvey's dance warehouse. For REAL money this time. Oh shit, it is definitely on.

Naturally, for our downtrodden heroes this is a serious investment of like, college funds and shit, while for Goku and his crew it just means that they can only eat the scrotums of four white tigers this month instead of seven. Sorry, that image is the most decadent brunch I could imagine. Leave comments with more decadent stuff, please! I have only seen a bit of Gossip Girl, so I'm not too versed in it.

Here's where the movie ensures us our leads have strong hearts. Roger doesn't have the necessary funds, so he'll have to ask his grandmammy. I kind of assumed he would make up some bullshit excuse to get $1500 from an old black lady, but no, he really just says SUM SUCKAS FROM DA OC DISSED US AND WE CAN'T GET PLAYED LIKE DAT! Grandma contemplates this for a few seconds, closes her eyes, sighs deeply and proclaims: "You got a stroooong heart, just like yo grampappy." And then he gets $1500. Cuz he can't get played like that. I wish You Got Served came out in like 1990. I'd have gotten a lot more stuff from my parents if I just knew how to negotiate with them.

Anyway, Steve Harvey is a dude who owns a warehouse where he allows kids to dance. He is very insistent on the fact that no one fights in his dancing warehouse. To ensure this, he lays down the law before the dance off starts. And just to make absolutely sure nobody thinks about startin' nuthin', he introduces MISTAH CHUCK. Mr. Chuck is a man of few words and even fewer facial expressions. Harvey assures the dancers that Mr. Chuck is an off-duty policeman friend of his, who will take care of any problems that might arise. This is punctuated by Mr. Chuck showing off his service weapon. I love that in this universe dancing is such a badass occupation that riots regularly arise from it, and an off-duty policeman will literally shoot teenagers who get angry over gettin' served.

Disaster strikes, however, as one of Roger and B's crew has sold them out like an Uncle Tom motherfucker and has totally taught all their best moves to the DBZ crew. Down and out financially, even more tensions come to a head when Roger finds out B is dating his sister, played by the daughter from Damon Wayans' sitcom My Wife & Kids. It's kinda hilarious hearing her try to talk street, since I suppose it sounds about as convincing as when I do it. Bless her for trying, though. Her best line: "This is my CRAZY friend Beautifull!" Way to write at goddamn Saturday morning cartoon/prequel level, writers of You Got Served. Beautifull (2 L's get it rite!!) is, despite the suspicions her name might incur, actually quite beautiful. She's also kind of amazingly offensive as she's essentially just SASSTRON 5000.

Something that didn't even cross my mind while watching the movie is that, while there are two retardedly gorgeous girls in it, neither of them actually dances. It's a guy thing. There are female dancers, but they're in the background. Heh, well. Food for thought. Not really, though. This movie is made for teenage girls. We're supposed to be showing off romantic, athletic, rhythm-havin' dudes. This is never more apparent than just before the final dance-off, where Roger and B both have INTENSE dance rehearsals with their shirts off in the night's pouring rain.

I came to the realization that a dance movie like this is not very different from something like Friday the 13th or Rambo. You don't really come for the plot, or the acting, or the meaningful themes the story explores. You come for the murders/the action/the dance. And yeah, the dance scenes were ultimately very impressive, and the plot and characterization just full of ridiculous enough moments that... well, I kinda have to categorize this movie as a success.

And, you know, you can totally not look gay for watching it cuz these girls are in it.

That's probably the most positive note I've ever ended a post on.

The Masque of the Red Death

2010-08-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Roger Corman used to make a shit-ton of movies. In fact, he'd have made about three in the time it takes you or me to eat a bowl of cereal.

In 1964, he released The Masque of the Red Death. Ever the dealmaker, he shot it in England, taking advantage of a tax loophole and getting subsidies for using a British crew. Additionally, he used sets from Burton/O'Toole/Gielgud epic Becket. The result is a pretty good-looking movie done on the cheap. Kudos, Corman.

What I love about this "horror" movie is that there's barely a scary element. Vincent Price isn't a vampire or a mad scientist. He's just a guy who likes to fuck with people. The plague (the titular Red Death) is ravaging the countryside, and Price's Prince Prospero has invited a bunch of his nobleman friends to sit it out in his castle.

Also there is peasant girl Francesca, played by the lovely Jane Asher. For some reason, Prospero wants to convert her to satanism. Yeah, that's Prospero's scary hook. He has a little shrine to Satan in his castle, which is little more than a small black room with an altar and two pretty rockin' dragon statues on it.

His arguments for Francesca to convert to satanism are pretty poorly thought out, as well. "God is dead!" "The world is evil anyway!" "There would be chaos if no one took control!" But hey, he's Vincent Price. He delivers all that stuff about "Bask with me in the glories of hell!" with such smug gusto that it's a joy just literally hearing him talk.

I love that this movie exists. That there was an era where producers wanted to make money, and what they had to do to get money was film some people getting fucked up in a spooky castle while Vincent Price rambled on about doom and terror and darkness and I don't know he likes Satan or something.

There is also an amazing subplot where Alfredo, one of Prospero's asshole noble friends kicks a lady midget ballerina for spilling his drink. Two minutes earlier, he breathlessly whispered to Prospero that "I want her". The kicker? Corman somehow couldn't get a hold of a real lady midget (??), so it's an actual five year old girl voiced by an adult actress. I was initially confused whether or not Alfredo was a pedophile or just a dude horny for midgets. When Prospero's guy-midget plots to get back at mean old Alfredo, he pledges to his lady love he shall not rest before this wrong is righted. He is a real midget, though. I don't even know who was more uncomfortable the day they had to shoot that romantic scene. In the spirit of equal opportunity discrimination, the male midget is also dubbed by a non-freak actor.

Spoilers ahead, though the movie's almost 50 years old and who gives a shit. The vengeance of Hop Toad (male midget) consists of convincing Alfredo to wear a gorilla suit to the titular masque, since all the other guests will be "cleverly disguised, but still... only human." Hop Toad will be playing the ape's midget handler. During the act, our jilted lover douses Alfredo with brandy, ties him to a lowered chandelier, lifts him back up with his amazing little person strength, and sets him no fire. Everyone is shocked, but Prospero is dying of laughter.

"See to it that Hop Toad receives five sovereigns for this delightful performance! A beautiful reminder of life's little cruelties!"

Wow. I wanna live in that castle. If one of life's little everyday cruelties is a guy in a gorilla suit getting burned alive in front of your dinner party guests, well... you know.

What makes a man a fan REDUX

2010-07-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

I was under the impression I'd shed my fanboy manes last year, with the release of Terminator Salvation.

Rereading the post, I hilariously found that I'd left myself an out in the final paragraph. "Can't say I'm completely cured", indeed! So of course I find myself in the theater watching Predators, a 2010 sequel to a 1987 Alien rip-off that ignores the 2004 crossover spin-off and its 2007 sequel. I'm such a cinephile!

Adrien Brody seems to have become the celluloid king of demasculinization. In Peter Jackson's 2005 King Kong, he played a stammering playwright called Jack Driscoll. The original 1933 Jack Driscoll was the ship's rugged first mate. In the new Predator movie he's a mercenary just like Arnold in the original, and doesn't even really do a bad job with it, but it's still a sobering realization. Just fyi.

Despite not being as good as the first one, or as outrageously silly as the second one, I was mildly entertained.

Flashforward a week and I'm watching Centurion. It's also about a bunch of guys being hunted. Not by skull-fetishisizing (??) aliens, but by barbarians and a few supermodels dressed as such. It's amusing to consider how twelve year old me would have dismissed one in favor of the other based purely upon their villains: an angry girl vs a SUPER BERSERKER PREDATOR BLACK.

Basically, what I'm saying is Centurion is a better Predator movie than Predators. C moves like a motherfucker, while P has some real pacing issues. Both movies find our heroes sheltered by an eccentric at the start of the third act, but it feels like welcome relief in C, as opposed to wtf in P. That last sentence was probably Chinese to anyone over 40. I'm not gonna explain it, though. I'm all Christopher Nolan. Let your waking mind fill in the gaps on its own! Or Google. It's good at that.

The hermits in both movies are ludicrous to varying degrees: C has a beautiful young girl who knows some stuff about healing herbs, but was banished by the villainous king for being a NECROMANCER (god, witch just wouldn't cut it, huh?), while P has a fat black man who supposedly has been living off the land for the last ten years.

The GROUP OF PEOPLE IN PERIL in both movies differs substantially as well. The C-people are a group of soldiers who are painted in broad strokes to be instantly likable. The P-people have been selected by the Predators to serve as BIG GAME on their hunting preserve planet. As you can imagine, Earth's most dangerous aren't exactly the nicest guys, so there's a lot of cock-measuring. This, unfortunately, results in the viewer not even knowing anyone's names. Out of the 9-10 or so humans that are in the movie, we find out a gullible Russian soldier's first name (and even his two boys'!), the eccentric hermit's and the main guy and girl's. Hell, the movie ends with Brody and the chick finally telling each other their names. The characters here are painted broadly, not exactly to be likable (although I didn't hate anyone per se), but to differentiate them enough so that the audience can keep track of who died. In P's defense, C doesn't have a stand-out character like Walton Goggins' inmate.

Predator fanboys, I'm not dissuading you from seeing Predators. I am however strongly encouraging you to see Centurion. Ever since that big bawss Pred tossed Danny Glover a musket, I know a lot of you have been clamoring for a historical Predator movie. This is probably the closest we'll get.

Or maybe this

Look not a gift cloak in the stitching!

2010-06-23T01:52:00.001-07:00

You ever go to the movies and figure "Eh, I'll see what I'll see what I get there"?

I should honestly do that more often, but it's hard to see something that will honestly surprise you if you read as much about movies as I do. Being ill-informed, I was under the assumption the culturally insensitively titled The Karate Kid was playing in a theater near me. It wasn't.

Still jonesing for a dose of cultural insensitivity, I instead opted for the culturally insensitively cast Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I had actually read some things about it, but outside of them being negative I didn't even remember anything particularly scathing. Hoping to mine some laughter out of the whole sordid affair, I sat down to let this gilded Pirates of the Caribbean sandblast over me. (Strangely enough, the little preview screen outside the theater showed STREET DANCE 3D, but it was not to be, unfortunately.)

Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular prince actually manages to be vaguely Arabic looking, something that can't be said for his adoptive brother, played by Coupling's Jeff.

It's like looking at Uday AND Qusay at the same time! Strangely coincidental, the fellow who's walking next to Jeff there is Jack Davenport, another Coupling alumnus who managed to get in a big Disney Hollywood epic as Norrington in the Pirates series.

Besides racial insensitivity and religious pussyfooting (the movie can't seem to decide whether the Persians are mono- or polytheistic, and even then any deities are only referred to as "the gods" or "God"), the film also takes a firmly sexist stand in Gemma Arterton's princess Tamina. Alternately shrill, loud and annoying, the princess causes the deaths of many by not liking Jake very much and refusing to tell him what the deal is with this dagger... of time.

Luckily, the dagger... of time can actually turn back time, hence destroying every chance of drama that may have occurred. You can only turn it back a minute though! If you go back, like, a lot the world will end! But then they do and it doesn't and I'm like ehhhhh I wish I'd seen Street Dance 3D.

Props where props are due, though. Alfred Molina and his NGBAKA friend are actually pretty funny as the comic relief, and sometimes the music is pretty enough. I'm also quite sure the art designers had a blast making this.

The one instance where my friend and I were actually having a blast was when Jake gives his adoptive royal dad a cloak for tribute. My friend whispered to me: "Watch out! It's poisoned!" and then the poor Bernard Hill lookalike king actually started melting from it. Giggles turned to outright guffaws when a courtier shouted: "THE CLOAK! IT'S POISOOOOOOONED!"

The bad guy has a literal trouser snake. But he's still boring. How the fuck, right? Don't see this.

Gosh durn kids!

2010-05-19T02:52:00.000-07:00

When put together, teenagers are a horrible, amorphous blob of noise, bad decision-making, casual cruelty and mindless consumerism. Why I stare down this crater-faced shoggoth on a daily basis, is anyone's guess (hint: I play videogames and watch movies instead of being productive and write). Normal people are always a source of bemusement/irritation to the average movie geek, so I tend to cherish insight into the cinematic tastes of these MUNDANES whenever such an opportunity is presented to me. The last few weeks have been, by some extraordinary circumstances, rather fruitful in this respect.

DRAGONHURRD

Only a few days into my temp, I was tasked, along with a few other teachers, with monitoring around a hundred-fifty students as they watched a movie. It being my second day and all, I had no idea what movie this was until I suddenly got charged with making the beamer work. I had to stifle mad laughter when I saw the cover to dated-as-hell 1995 Rob Cohen opus Dragonheart.

One thing you learn from watching movies with kids is perspective. Fucking hell, is Dragonheart a slow movie! And holy shit is the camera work static! A friend later informed me this was probably because it was made in the early days of CGI, and adding computer shit in post was still in its infancy. Makes sense! Unfortunately, this meant the whole movie felt like retarded ren faire cosplay, and the kids were restless throughout. The few moments that worked were the comedy bits where surly Quaidknight and bumbling Seandragon play off of each other (and then only with the younger kids).

It's tough picking a movie to show such a big crowd of kids, especially with varying age groups, and I'm glad it wasn't my responsibility or I'd have picked Crank or something. Casual cruelty: actively booing the film when the credits started. Oh well, I'm sure Cohen, Quaid and Connery all forgot they made this movie. Poor Dina Meyer, though.

TWELLIT

Where vaginas roam, Twilight festers! From seeing a girl show her copy of New Moon to a friend, to one of the first questions upon learning I was into movies being a smirking "What about Twilight?", it's safe to say the abstinence-saga permeates teenage culture pretty thoroughly. I'm not going to begrudge the twelve year olds their MAKE-AH DE GOOGLY EYES prose -- they are twelve year old girls, after all. Making googly eyes with a pretty boy who wants to do nothing but make googly eyes with you is pretty much walhalla for them.

Hope for the future: I described the plot of Breaking Dawn to a bunch of 17-18 year olds and the entire class was just dying with laughter, while one or two girls confirmed what I was saying. I did not make any additional jokes.

AVADURR

Student: What did you think of Avatar?
Me: It was okay.
Student: Alright.

DURRBRUURRKURRRS

What? Daybreakers, a relatively succesful movie among most kids in one class of 17-18 year olds. Some of the girls were turned off by the gore, but others were actively asking questions about the nature of the world presented by the Spierig brothers. Saddening: one girl was confused because "I thought you can't kill a vampire?".

SOWWW

High school is a weird fucking place sometimes. Can you name one other place where the Saw-franchise is a staple, an icon, an indispensable part of canon? It's insane how unanymously loved this series is among teenagers. I was barely conscious during the 80s, so I'm assuming this was the same way with Freddy and Jason movies back then. Funny: English not being their first language, all the kids pronounce these movies as if they were female pigs.

Because I am not a cranky old man, enjoy this heartwarming rendition of Teenage Kicks!

Iron Man 2: Why should we-e-e even care

2010-04-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

The plot of Iron Man 2 picks up right after Iron Man. Tony Stark has just announced his alternate identity to the world. This displeases Ivan Vanko (the amazingly hammy, but also really entertaining Mickey Rourke) to a great degree. To such a degree, in fact, that he immediately goes to work on a makeshift ARC reactor (the thingamajig that powers the Iron Man suit). Because Russians are all into circuses and bears and shit, he makes two lightsaber whips to go with his half-a-suit. During this suit-making montage (and opening credits) composer John Debney gives Vanko a badass musical theme that is reminiscent of the Soviet national anthem in places (!!).

The movie cuts to Tony Stark being a cool slick badass. Robert Downey Jr pretty much kills it: I don't think there's a smoother motherfucker in movies today. Gwyneth Paltrow's all frowny with him, a dickhole senator wants him to hand over that goddamned suit to the government and Stark's buddy James "Rhodey" Rhodes frowns at him as well (he also faded into a different black man since last movie, namely Don Cheadle). My favorite addition in this Washington DC sequence however, is Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer. Hammer wants to be Tony Stark badly: the suits, the babes, the love, ... understandably. But sucker as I am for awkwardness humor (I pretty much love Borat and Brüno), I just had a ball seeing Rockwell throw himself head-first into a million jokes that get a polite chuckle at best from these huuuge crowds.

A lot of people the action of the first movie wasn't well done. I didn't have any particular problems with it, but it was definitely the first superhero movie where you were actually having more fun when the guy was out of the suit than in it. To those whiners I say: well, the action's a lot cooler than it was in the first one. Unfortunately, they added a whole new problem. Tony Stark ain't got shit to do.

You see, Vanko makes an assassination attempt on Tony. This fails, and the cockatoo-loving (seriously) Russian gangster-inventor (seriously) goes to jail. Justin Hammer, convinced this guy could get rid of Stark for him, busts him out and fakes his death. But he better build him some reaaal good stuff for the upcoming Stark Expo! Hammer's presentation at the Stark Expo is the climax of the film. So, uh... the villains are just kinda workin' on stuff for the remainder of the movie. But we'll get back to you, oohhh you'll see! The drama in the second act comes completely from Stark going on a self-destructive "I don't give a fuck" binge after being unable to stop the ARC-reactor in his chest from slowly poisoning his body. Personally, I really enjoyed Tony Stark coming to grips with his mortality. It's heavy enough to make you feel for Stark, but never too dark to destroy the movie's fun atmosphere.

So yeah, an hour of this movie is literally Stark & Co fucking about, waiting for the plot to happen again at the start of the third act. Beyond the nagging sensation that the movie wasn't really moving forward in any way, I still had a good time with it. That's pretty much due to Downey Jr and the cast. I mean, when things happen like Stark in the Iron Man suit dancing to California Love, pissing himself and then suggesting to Pepper Potts (Paltrow's character) that she drink his piss, well... that's a good time at the movies, you know?

Oh, and Stark has a new assistant, but I can't remember who plays her.

Kick-Ass: A promise kept

2010-04-24T05:52:00.000-07:00

My parents think Spider-Man is a pussy.

They've seen Sam Raimi's original 2002 Spidey outing and decided enough was enough for them. I could see why Raimi's love letter to Silver Age (basically the 50s/60s) comic books was a little hard for them to swallow. Peter Parker becomes a superhero out of guilt over his uncle's death and decides to start fighting crime, as his initial selfish impulses to make money through his powers end in doom. A noble motivation, to be sure, but when Peter's refusal to admit his feelings towards his friend Mary Jane at the end of the film, my parents zoned out. The character was, simply put, "an idiot". Sacrifice is a part of the workaday life of any immigrant fortysomething former coal miner, but this Parker kid was just a masochist to them at this point.

Matthew Vaughn's newest film Kick-Ass certainly doesn't have that problem. Nerdy high school protagonist Dave Lizewski dons a scuba suit for the simple thrill of being talked about and liked. He doesn't even do anything beyond wearing it under his clothes the first few weeks of coming up with the idea. The first time he tries his hand at some actual crime-fighting, he gets stabbed and run over. After a few months in hospital, he's back on the streets with metal plates over most of his bones and damaged nerve endings, granting him a severely increased pain threshhold. Through sheer determination he manages to defeat three hoods beating up some guy, and the video makes the rounds on the intarwebs.

Kick-Ass becomes somewhat of a media figure with merchandising and everything. Despite freakshow fame and an ability to take a punch, Kick-Ass is still outmatched in strength and fighting skill by... well, most people. So much so, in fact, that his life is in danger not soon after his initial victory. He is saved by eleven year old Hit Girl in a slashy rescue most people will find Kill Bill-esque. Hit Girl and Big Daddy (her regular daddy, played by Nicolas Cage who is obviously so happy to be in a good superhero movie he practically jizzes on the camera in every shot) are well-trained, determined and have a target: mob boss Frank D'Amico.

If it weren't for these two intersecting with Dave's life, Kick-Ass would have been an Apatow-comedy with a comic book gimmick. But now Dave suddenly finds himself in league with two people who slaughter cartoon gangsters in their spare time. I've heard a lot of talk about the "switch in tones" the movie makes once the murders start to happen. How it somehow goes from a real world to an over the top action movie from the moment Hit Girl (if this movie makes one contribution to pop culture, however slight, it's probably her) stabs a dude.

I disagree. It never felt to me that the movie was really operating under any kind of reality. D'Amico's crew, for one, are complete caricatures. They wouldn't look out of place in Vaughn's earliest producing efforts (Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). The death of the protagonist's mother is treated as a twenty-second gag in the first five minutes. The mafia seems to rule 2010 New York as if it's 1930s Chicago. These are not exactly the hallmarks of Dogme 95, people.

Some people also believe there's a muddled message being delivered here, seeing as how Dave's character growth culminates with him killing a bunch of dudes, or maybe they come to the conclusion the film isn't meant to have a message at all and just asks you to sit back and enjoy the carnage. Personally, I think Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman kind of hit the nail on the head when it comes to the whole idea of superheroism.

If you go back to the very start, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman wasn't the boy scout he is now. He's a pretty angry dude in his first few appearances, using his super-strength on non-powered thugs. Hell, Batman straight up shot guys before Robin came along. In Gerard Jones' rather amazing Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, Siegel and Shuster are described as sheltered momma's boys, unable to vent their teenage frustrations somewhere constructive.

The term "power fantasy" is often bandied about in regards to superhero comics, and at its very core that's absolutely still what the genre is. Alan Moore already recognized this in his seminal 1986 comic book Watchmen, and Vaughn's Kick-Ass (not to be confused with Mark Millar's Kick-Ass, which is only about terrible things happening to horrible people) basically tells us the same thing: "Superheroes would be pretty fucked up dudes in real life... but holy shit look at this awesomeness!" It's no wonder Dave gets the girl after revealing his secret identity to her, even though she was under the impression he was gay and he'd abused her trust to GET IN DAT ASS. In real life Katie's decision may not make sense -- or at least the speed and eagerness with which she makes it doesn't -- but hey, the hero gets the girl.

Kick-Ass is a bit like Shaun of the Dead. It's meant to be a satire, but damned if I don't think it's on par with most of the "real" efforts in the genre. It's a total and complete celebration of a geek niche that is, at its very heart, kind of disfunctional. It knows it, it laughs at it, and it's never even remotely ashamed of it. The final shot of the movie echoes that of Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery, one of the very first action movies. Here's Vaughn now essentially saying "Oh, and we've always wanted blood in entertainment to get our kicks lawl". I can't help but think that's very cool of him.

But I have no interest in this whole damned genre! It is infantile and abhorrent to me! Oh really? You must think you're a real goddamned Mr Fancy Pants! You know what the DEVIL has to say about that?

Dreamworks WUT??!

2010-04-04T01:11:00.001-07:00

What the hell just happened? I'm confused. My socks may be on backwards. Did I just bump my head? Was that E I bought off of Johnny Tapia of dubious quality? Did Dreamworks just make a good movie?

How To Train Your Dragon is the story of Hiccup, a witless and clumsy Viking who frankly isn't very good at being a Viking. Jay Baruchel invests Hiccup with a biting wit and sarcasm which lead me to fear this movie would fall prey to Dreamworks' typical TOO HIP FOR DIS SHIT post-ironicism cuz, like, Vikings are totally lame. I was luckily proven wrong in the first ten minutes or so.

Instead of pillaging and raping, the PG Vikings of the town of Berk are comically badass and mostly must defend their island home against raiding dragons. As the title may have spoiled, Hiccup captures a young dragon which he can't bring himself to kill. He dubs the semi-paraplegic reptile (while crash-landing, his tail fin got ripped in half) Toothless. Over the course of the second act, a not entirely unexpected friendship grows between the two outcasts. Of course, a Viking/dragon friendship is akin to an Israeli/Palestinian one, so the shit hits the fan once it is revealed why

While the plot is formulaic and contains no real surprises, it's great character work and amazing design that make this movie reach the heights it does. The chemistry between Hiccup and Toothless, two animated characters of which only one actually speaks, is rather amazing. Chris Sanders' dragon designs are full of personality and all get a chance to shine. They're so good, in fact, you'll be able to name at least three kinds of dragons within the first half hour of the movie.

If you can, catch it in 3D. I can't remember a big deal being made out of this movie's THREEEE DIMENSIONS! but it easily rivals some of the better stuff done in Avatar. Hiccup actually training Toothless, and showing off his work to rival/love interest Astrid are some of the best, most beautiful and uplifting scenes I've seen in a theater in quite a while. And there's not a hint of irony there.

It's not a perfect movie: the title is dreadfully lame, it's kind of grating that all the Vikings parents actually have Scottish accents and the kids American ones (you can just imagine a Dreamworks exec waving money at himself going HATAZ GONNA HATE BUT AUDIENCES GOTTA RELATE) and there are a few sincerity-undercutting ironic groaners in there still.

It doesn't make it any less fun though. Incredible 3D, superlative designs and two central characters that work on that intangible level only the best of movies can accomplish make make this movie a must if you have kids or just like good animation.

Congratulations, Dreamworks. Wonder suits you.

DTV Delirium

2010-02-16T07:57:00.000-08:00

2009 has been good for the action schlock fan. Between Blood and Bone, The Tournament, and the return of the "classic" Universal Soldier franchise with its latest installment dubbed Regeneration, it seems as if a new Pyrite Age has arrived.

Unfortunately, I've come to piss on the pyrite. Regeneration is kind of a bore. It hurts me to say that, really. The action is top notch, and the fights are exciting. Director John Hyams is truly his father's son. Peter Hyams (DoP on this) was a serviceable Hollywood journeyman for a while and even a JCVD alumnus, having directed both Sudden Death and Timecop.

Johnny Boy's a big fan of Children of Men, apparently. A drab, industrial world filled with shabby appartments and dilapidated factories is the one in which Luc Devereaux and Andrew Scott move through this time around. You might say this is just a staple of the cheap Eastern European shooting locations, so typical for DTV action, but Hyams pulls off several long tracking shots that are very reminiscent of the Cuaron film. One in particular during which JCVD dispatches a few dozen men with a knife is amazing.

Besides Hyams' technical mastery, there's really only one other thing the movie has going for it: Dolph Lundgren in a small role (sliiiightly too big to be a cameo) as a clone of the original film's villain Andrew Scott. Scott's clone isn't the colorful psychopath the original was, but his confused existentialism is very amusing, as the answers he seeks aren't as much "42" as they are "kill 42 dudes". He really steals the show in the three scenes he's in.

JCVD plays Luc Devereaux as a man without purpose, grim and joyless. Did Devereaux fall into a depression after the first movie, or was JC just contractually obligated to make this movie and it shows? Either way, he's really boring besides being in good shape still. And that weird lump on his forehead.

Most screen time goes to Andrei "DA PIT BULL" Arlovsky, who I think is some sort of MMA fighter or something. He's menacing, but doesn't exactly exhude charm. There's one pretty good sequence where he's basically parkour Jason Voorhees, destroying 4 nameless Universal Soldiers, but that's about it. He has a Baraka-style armblade, if that gets you off.

How would I have fixed this movie?

*Beef up JC's part. Have him be a soldier of fortune or tournament fighter who is utterly bored with his human opponents, and thus sees DA PIT BULL's hostage situation as a chance to finally have some fun again.

*Make the doctor who created DA PIT BULL and cloned Scott a true Mad Doctor, ranting and raving about his GENETIC SUPERMEN and WORLD DOMINATION.

*Have Scott rebel against his creator as seen in the movie, but have him team up with JCVD to take down the superior PIT BULL model. Then, have Scott betray JC and make their fight the climactic one.

*Jokes.

So there you have it, Universal Soldier: Regeneration: a decidedly mixed bag in the DTV Renaissance of 2009.

Da Illest Villains

2010-01-28T03:27:00.000-08:00

It's always little dull men like you, isn't it? -- Dan Dare to the Mekon

John Hurt in excessive facial prosthetics and a Brian Henson-voiced retarded dog in front of a fireplace telling stories. This honestly would have been enough for me as a 24 year old, but I'm sure 9 year old me would have begged to differ. Jim Henson's The Storyteller series consists of nine episodes recounting Celtic, German and Russian folk tales.

Don't expect Disney-style fairy tales, though: people die, go to hell, meet devils, man-eating griffons and Terrible Things In The Water. But it's all in good fun (even though I recall being quite scared watching this as a child)! There's a very British sensibility to this production, which causes all the monsters and ne'er-do-wells to be strangely susceptible to reason and etiquette which, in turn, kind of causes them to be a lot less scary. Also they are very obvious puppets.

During my week-long odyssey through storyville, I also happened to see 2004's Der Untergang, the "Passion of the Hitler" movie. I didn't know very much about it, save for Bruno Ganz' apparently great performance. No doubt about it that he was good and compelling, but I don't know if I would say I was totally blown away. But perhaps this had something to do with my own preconceived notions. Hitler has become kind of a joke. "Worse than Hitler" has become jokey hyperbole. "You know who also liked [something]? Hitler!"

Now, I'll readily admit I'm not a Hitler-scholar, but the movie didn't really tell me anything about Hitler I didn't already know. Likes dogs, (white) kids, yelling, is a gentleman to (white) ladies, ... I did learn that Eva Braun was the jolliest of beards. Not to knock the film or anything; I always do enjoy a good old "descent into debauchery" tale. One thought that did permeate my viewing: "God, why didn't anyone just step up like Slim Charles and pop two into this decaying asshole's skull? Why does he still have so many followers, even with the Russians at the damn door?". Without delving into demagogy (I'm already pretty proud my initial guess its spelling was correct!), one need only take even a cursory glance at a high school textbook to kinda get the devotion.

I got the idea for this post as I was watching another episode of The Storyteller the next day, and got to thinking about the nature of villainy. A well-known rule of writing is that antagonists should be well-rounded and interesting. Don't just make their actions evil for evil's sake. And then Hitler, one of the bestest examples of real-life supervillainy, is the most boring fuck in the world when he's not being all shouty and murderous. If you look at the private security contractors who're jumping on Haiti right now, they're pretty much COBRA in real life, but somehow I don't think Erik Prince is as entertaining as Cobra Commander.

Don't get me wrong, "real life villains" can make for very interesting stories in their own right. I'm not advocating for cinema to return to ONLY PANTOMIME VILLAINY PLZ, I'm just saying that sometimes you want a man-eating griffon in a castle of skulls. They're the mysterious "other", villains fit for childhood and the terror of the outside world. Denizens of a realm where you would fear to tread, defeatable only by shows of kindness and perseverance and spirit. Hitler and Prince are real-life villains: cunts.

I leave you with the best villain of all time farting:

haha a fart

Reduced Expectations

2009-12-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

James Cameron has never seen The Incredibles.

PLAYBOY: So Saldana’s character was specifically designed to appeal to guys’ ids?
CAMERON: And they won’t be able to control themselves. They will have actual lust for a character that consists of pixels of ones and zeros.

Unfortunately, no one was jumping up from their seats to hump the screen at my showing of James Cameron's latest epic, but it was amusing to see the heads of four male attendees go left and right in the hope of catching a glimpse of alien sideboob. So kudos on that one, Jim.

If you've seen the trailer for Avatar (google it, I'll wait), you've probably kind of got an idea what the movie is about. In fact, if you try to fill in the blanks for the remainder of the movie, it's very likely you've come retardedly close to the actual story.

Nothing in Avatar surprises, but plenty of it dazzles like a disco mutant. It's extremely pretty to look at (catching a 3D-showing is pretty much a must) with its space horses and superpterodactyls and Tokyo Drift neon trees and confusingly androgynous butts, but if you're looking to be somewhat challenged: this is not the droid you're looking for. Go see Crank II or something.

The actors are all serviceable enough, with Stephen Lang and Zoë Saldana as standouts as the man-boobed Colonel Quaritch and the side-boobed Na'vi princess Neytiri. Both of them act like the cartoons their characters pretty much are. Lang is introduced pumping iron, decrying the faggotizing low gravity of Pandora. Throughout the movie, he gets set on fire, breathes the toxic planet's atmosphere without a mask for about a full minute and says things like "PAPA DRAGON OUT". He is in the military. Just so you know.

Strangely enough, Saldana is the only Na'vi who does things like hiss and growl like the panther woman she looks like, while the other members of the tribe generally just act stoic/offended/condescending to the monstrous alien in their midst.

That monstrous alien is paraplegic marine Jake Sully, portrayed by inexplicable movie star Sam Worthington. It's not that Worthington is bad by any means, but he hasn't played anything but grimngritty manly men (and 2010's Clash of the Titans doesn't seem to change that). Lighten up, Sam! You're no Arnold who can get away with that stuff because of a funny accent and a ton of cheesy oneliners -- something this silly as hell movie actually was in dire need of.

I suppose Michelle Rodriguez' "You ain't the only one with bullets, bitch!" was a valiant attempt which some people may actually deem awesome, but then again, I was never much of a fan of the confoundingly popular "Get away from her you bitch" either. In perhaps the only gamechanging aspect of the entire film, Rodriguez plays a character that is likeable from start to finish. Perhaps for the next installment of the Avatar franchise, Cameron should get his script doctored by the people behind 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. I'd love to hear a marine threaten a proud Na'vi warrior with "I'ma kill ya whole generation, muthafucka!". Surely, the MPAA will show some leniency for the sake of poetry?

In the end, I came out thinking I'd seen an alright movie that I probably would have thought amazing, were I still twelve. This is a sign. I should stop wasting my time on such cinematic trifles. I should recalibrate my tastes towards insightf--

lol guess not

HALP HALP HALP

2009-10-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

I've been gone for so long and you've missed me, I know, but I have had horrible things happen to me. Infernal, diabolical and abyssal things! I HAVE BEEN BURGLARISED, SIRS! I stood transfixed as I stepped out of my car to find my place of residence ransacked and in frankly a repugnant state! Tossed around by ruffians and ne'er-do-wells, all my possessions lay in tatters on the floor, or else were missing! I was an emotional wreck: this was almost like watching the trailer to Where The Wild Things Are on a big screen! What to do? Could I do anything? A pang of inspiration hit me: call the police, of course! But...

At that exact moment, the universe knew a schism, a rip, a dimensional rift! My life had become a DC comic or perhaps the film Sliding Doors in which Gwyneth Paltrow misses a train which causes her hair to change colors.

For you see, dear reader, in two wholly different universes, I called two wholly different police forces:

On Earth-CSI, William Petersen and his team of ethnically diverse but highly photogenical underlings immediately cordoned off the premises, choppers were circling and I occasionally see things in x-ray vision.

On Earth-Wire, I'm checking my watch.

On Earth-CSI, some sexy banter is going on between the members of the team that's on my case. A speedboat chase happens.

On Earth-Wire, an stocky bald man and an annoyed-looking black man show up with a notepad. I am asked about whether or not I've seen anything out of the ordinary, but I have a feeling my answers are drowned out by crass remarks about sucking Steve McQueen's dick.

On Earth-CSI, the culprits are revealed to be some of my closest friends, who had motives and agendas I never could have guessed 44 minutes before this earth-shaking reveal. My world is shattered, but amid my tears I gaze upon Team CSI walking off into the sunset with a final pithy remark and rock music and know all is well with the world.

On Earth-Wire my two visitors speed off blasting the "Theme from Shaft". I'm pretty sure I had more blu-rays than this only half an hour ago.

Dear reader, I ask you this question! Which show do you think is still on the air? Lest you fall out of my good graces, reader, I urge you: watch The Wire! Buy it! Borrow it! If your judgment is anything less than "holy fucking shit awesome goddamn" I shall gently weep, my heart in tatters even more so than my libido. But beware! If your judgment be "i dunno man i already watch csi thats pretty cool lol" I name you worse than a failed abortion. I call you... you...

The Seagal Factor

2009-09-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

Out of nowhere, a little direct-to-DVD movie called Blood and Bone hit me like the fist of an angry black man. For years now, Michael Jai White has been trying to establish himself as somewhat of an action movie leading man. You might recognise him as the black mob boss killed by the Joker in The Dark Knight or, if you liked metal in the 90s, the titular character in Mark A.Z. Dippé epic Spawn. Whatever happend to Mr. Dippé?

Dippé aside, Blood and Bone is an entertainig martial arts film, recounting the tale of Isaiah Bone (White). Fresh out of jail, Bone goes to live with a nanny lady played by Marvin Gaye's daughter Nona, an actress you might recognize as Spunky Black Girl in The Matrix Revolutions, if you're unlucky enough.

Bone is looking for some street fightin' action because that is just how he rolls and soon becomes represented by Asian thug-wannabe Pinball. Pinball is played with reckless abandon by Dante Basco. This guy voices Prince Zuko in the excellent Nickelodeon cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, but (slightly) older filmgoers will know him as

in Spielberg's unfortunate Peter Pan re-imagining Hook (that I still manage to watch at least once a year around Christmas time, which I am not entirely sorry for). Together they rise to the top of the underground fighting scene, where they must go up against James, an ambitious gangster with connections to the mysterious Consortium. James is quite a hilarious villain, as he is like an anime geek in the body of a gangster. He's always going on about samurai warriors and shit, and being PURE IN BODY MIND AND SPIRIT I DON'T DRINK SMOKE OR EVEN CURSE. And then he holds his crackhead wife hostage with drugs.

Bone has himself to pick with James for reasons that are altogether irrelevant and frankly, slightly boring. If you know this kind of movie you can pretty much guess and never be too far off the mark. What is very relevant is James' desire to climb higher within the Consortium. You see, his contact is one Franklin McVeigh, a British crime lord played by none other than Julian Sands (yes, the Warlock himself). McVeigh lives in a castle, has some kind of ninja chick bodyguard and very amused by "the high-flying shenanigans of the negro" and finds it laughable that the Consortium would admit one in their own ranks. James retorts with a parable about black men's penises. A tense situation arises, but it is quickly deflated with sympathetic laughter from the two men, followed by a hug. Does that mean McVeigh's racism is nothing but a humorous attempt at edginess? Who knows! It's certainly "internet" enough to go with James' samurai obsession.

These colorful villains (and I haven't even touched James' ten-pills-at-a-time+steroids-while-yelling-his-ass-off-in-the-back-of-a-limo henchman Hammerman) form a great backdrop for Bone to punch/kick his way through. There's no real tension here, as Bone just destroys everyone he comes into contact with, without breakin any real sweat. It even occurs twice in the film that he's set up for some big fight, there's a whole lot of build-up and then Bone just KO's the other fighter in one punch. The other guy's coach then becomes super angry and proclaims loudly for all to hear that Bone and Pinball somehow cheated (even though it is pretty much impossible for him to have done so). He then sends about twenty guys up against Bone, who -- again -- demolishes most of them with a single punch/kick. Twice.

Michael Jai White is the film's best special effect, and director Ben Ramsey chooses wisely to just let the camera linger on him when he does his thing. No doubt, the man's skills are truly a thing to behold. I didn't notice any (obvious) wirework, something that plagues a lot of modern day martial arts movies. So kudos on that, movie!

The movie is very "grindhouse" in that it's all about the fight money shots, its typical revenge storyline, and the fact that Julian Sands appears for about ten minutes throughout the entire movie, if that. It's something so beautifully B-movie to have a semi-famous actor in there, only be able to pay him for a few days' work and still give the dude second billing. Strangely non-exploitative was the lack of boobies. Every single woman in the film offers herself up to Bone (no pun intended, honest!), but being the honorable warrior that he is, the lone wanderer allows himself only the sexual release of teaching Nona Gaye tai chi. Whatta catch, ladies!

Lone Wanderer, indeed! The film ends with Bone taking to the road, ever watchful of new adventures to get caught up in. Well, the film technically ends with something a lot more comical than that, but I don't want to give it away. Instead I will give you the final fight between Gino Felino and Richie Madano in that other classic Out For Justice. Scroll down carefully if you still want to know, I spoil the ending beneath the vid.

You ready? Here it is:

Instead of funny bloopers and outtakes, the credits show us James in prison, being raped. I don't even think I need to come up with a joke around that.

Welcome back, you orthopedical bastard!

2009-08-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

You probably know at least one of THOSE GUYS. A guy who's really smart and talented, but just lazy as hell. Instead of going out there, looking for a job or scoring with loads and loads of babes he's just watching movies at home, smoking weed and playing World of Warcraft. You just shake your head and try to meet him at places that are not his house. Because he really is a funny and cool guy when he wants to be!

Now imagine that one day that fellow knocks at your door. You open to find him the slickest fucking Armani suit you've ever seen, and you're pretty sure you're seeing a Ferrari filled to the brim with fine bitches over his shoulder. Before you can ask him "what's all this, Quentin? Didn't you have a raid on Kharazan tonight?" he tells you to SHUSH because he applied for a telemarketing job and is now president of the world and here's a wad of cash and you're now his minister of Getting Blowjobs From Angelina Jolie.

This a vague approximation of what watching INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (why is spellcheck not picking up on "basterds"?) feels like, especially coming on the heels of Death Proof. Like many of Tarantino's films, Basterds is actually a film about film. FELM. But instead of a super hot babe talking our ear off about a movie Quentin likes, an effort is made to incorporate film in a somewhat organic manner. And lo and behold! It works!

Basterds is an ode to film. Italian exploitation as always, but this time there's Hitchcock as well, the art of propaganda is examined and much more shit goes down I am not big enough a cinephile for to understand. In the Basterds universe, everybody sees film as this big and important thing to be respected. Shosanna Dreyfus, one of the protagonists, at one point tells a would-be suitor that "here in France, we respect directors." It's hard not to see Tarantino's own experiences in Cannes reflected in that line. When Brad Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raines says he's happy a German POW chose being beaten to death rather than giving away his countrymen's positions because "it's the closest thing we get to goin' to the movies" in years, that's remarkable. I mean, you'd think he'd say it's the closest thing they'd had to a baseball game in a while. You could say it's probably just a joke by the Raines character, but in a movie so informed by cinema in general, it's likely to be a contribution to the whole "film is kind of a big deal!" theme. As someone who really enjoys movies, it warms the cockles of my heart to see that one of the few things we find out about these characters is that they miss going to the theater. I don't know why there's cockles in/on/around my heart I am not a whale they shouldn't be there what is happening

If you've read up on Basterds, one thing will probably keep coming back: Christopher Waltz' portrayal of SS Colonel Hans Landa. It is, no doubt, the best performance in a movie filled with good ones. The Jew Hunter, as Landa is called, considers himself a detective. Shit, he's even got a Sherlock Holmes gimmick pipe. Unlike Holmes or, say, Batman, Landa spends his time catching enemies of the state rather than criminals. The state being nazi Germany, it's debatable how dangerous the people Landa was sent to hunt down actually were. Whether or not it's up to Waltz' performance or Tarantino's script, it doesn't really look like Landa cares. He just enjoys fucking with people, regardless of the regime he's currently living under. He doesn't so much verbally bury people as allow them to dig their own grave, stand on the edge and ask them what they would like as an epitaph. In this interview with AICN's Jeremy Smith, Waltz professes to believe Landa is not a sociopath, merely a highly intelligent social chameleon. One course of action he takes near the end of the film makes me doubt that particular statement, but that would head into spoiler territory. You'll know it when you see it.

Which brings me to my final point: fist-pumpery (not that kind). I've discussed in an earlier post the joys of simple black-and-white morality in films. Cheering the good guys on as they vanquish the bad guys, living vicariously through cinematic victory. Inglourious Basterds kind of fucks with those expectations. Every nazi save one very minor character is shown to be kind of irredeemably evil. The Basterds are also, in fact, bastards. They kill, torture, maim, scalp and head-butt. This also applies to defenseless prisoners, which definitely paints them more as a bunch of Frank Castles than Steve Rogerses. But the movie is not about KILLIN NATZEES. It's about film. And through the Basterds' (and Shosanna's) cruelty does Quentin reveal his message. The nazis are simply cinematic shorthand for the vilest of the vile. Obstacles.

During the (frankly fantastic) climax, which I shall attempt to discuss without actually spoiling, cinema changes the world. Shosanna's projection quite obviously symbolizes film. A smaller, more subtle, piece of symbolism in the scene is Eli Roth's character Sgt. Donnie Donowitz. His actions in the scene will have audiences talking and laughing and whoooa-ing on the way to the car, to be sure. But were they necessary? Shosanna and Marcel would have gotten everyone in the room regardless. Where Shosanna's projection symbolizes cinema, the eternal and inescapable force, Donnie symbolizes exploitation cinema. It's there along with "real" movies, and it's definitely doing something as well. That something may be gaudy and over the top and shallow and pointless and ludicrous, but sometimes that's just the thing you remember. Even though there may not have been much of a point to it in the first place.

Sometimes film can change the world. But sometimes film can just make you go "hahaha hooooly shittt". Both types are valid.

Internet I do not get you

2009-08-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

In the desolate wastes of the most remote corners of Internetia lie small pockets of near-civilization, where forgotten, empty shells of humanoids dwell who remember fondly an animated series of the 80s called GI Joe. Paying no heed to the fact that very cartoon was designed solely to sell them toys, these husks of men will tell you the Joeniverse (I made that up, maybe there's another term, I don't care) has a rich mythology made up of complex, multi-layered characters.

A fan favorite is Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes is a silent ninja who never reveals his face or, indeed, speaks. He is one of those ultimate blank slate characters geeks can project all their insecurities upon. Other examples of such awful non-characters are Master Chief and Boba Fett. Fett is probably the worst example of nerddom latching on to someone who "looks cool", since his greatest achievement is calling the cops on Han Solo. At least (movie) Snake Eyes and Master Chief kill a million dudes.

Which brings me to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Stephen Sommers' new opus. My morbid curiosity lay not only in the fact that G.I. Joe was inherently an extremely silly concept, but also the fact that Sommers was involved. Here was a guy who, a few years ago, took the premise of Van Helsing battling Dracula, the Wolf Man and made a movie that no doubt still resides securely within the bottom 10 of all theatrical movies I have ever seen. In the immortal words of William Hurt in A History of Violence: "How do you fuck that up?"

So how epically was Sommers gonna fuck up a concept this easy to fuck up? Well, as it turns out, he made it kinda awesome. Not awesome in a good way, mind. The film is very much the cinematic equivalent of playing with your action figures in the back yard. The funny thing is, Sommers really captures that chaotic vibe of "not having them all" and also using He-Man figures or maybe Jurassic Park dinosaurs and shit we broke a vase don't tell mom we're on a mission here.

The plot is a very perfunctory affair, obviously just designed to get you from set piece to set piece. Heck, we even start out in 17th century France, probably because Jimmy had a knights playset he really wanted us to use. Well, okay, sure!

What really makes the film fun are the retarded character backstories we're given in little snippets throughout the film. The main character Duke and his relationship with the evil Baroness is pretty tied to the main plot, but for some reason Sommers thought it necessary to also give us a glimpse into the past of Snake Eyes and his nemesis Storm Shadow (a much snappier dresser, internet).

Their relationship adds literally nothing to the plot, nor does it give you any insight into a character that actually matters. It does probably provide most of the films laughs, as we learn that Storm Shadow was a vindictive and evil child, stabbing fat, benevolent ninja masters in the back during their lunch break with huge katanas. I was wondering when I first saw the fat man who was supposedly both superninjas' master how that gentleman could be a Master Ninja. Getting stabbed in the back by a kid carrying a huge fucking sword, the fellow confirmed my worst suspicions. This man wasn't a very good ninja at all. Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes must have had awesome ninja textbooks. Well, if the girl from Crouching Tiger got that good from a textbook...

Other amazing moments:

*Scarlett, GI Joe's cute redhead, does not believe in emotions. She literally does not believe they exist. Also graduated college at age 12.

*Sgt. Stone is a happy retarded man they keep around the base for some reason. He is played by Brendan Fraser in a montage where his only contribution seems to have been yelling stuff like "OOOHHHH DATS GOTTA HURT! YEAH GOT YA THERE! DAT'S JOE STYLE!" I like to imagine Brendan Fraser also hangs around movie studios like this and occasionally gets cast in things.

*People are called Dr. Mindbender.

*Destro is a French word meaning Destroyer of Nations.

*Ninjas are trained to run like fags.

In the end, it's kind of amazing how much the final status quo of the movie is similar to the one at the end of the first X-Men: the big villains are incarcerated but still very confident (THIS IS MEEEEERELY THE BEGINNING DUKE!) and one shape-shifting henchman has taken the mantle of a figure of authority. I can't lie, the movie kept me very entertained. This was mostly due to the extreme melodrama everything was handled with and some fine actors who knew exactly how to play the material (Miller, Gordon-Levitt, Eccleston, Lee).

I'm actually very glad Sommers decided to spend so much time servicing fans and devoting a small portion of the movie on Snake Eyes' idiotic background. This is one case where a literal translation to screen was the right decision. Not because it was good in any way, or even made much sense, but because it was so amazingly entertaining. I'd see it if you have a sense of humor about these things. I have included a small litmus test below:

Destro and Baroness GET MONEY Song

The Rise & Foot of Quentin Tarantino

2009-07-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

He's one of those few filmmakers who can get asses in seats with the mere mention of his name in a trailer. One of those infallible names where, if you're talking to a member of the opposite sex and film comes up as a subject, you can't help but look cool. Who is this wondrous Film Festival Favorite who also likes gangsters and ninjas and car chases? God, just read the title.

Pulp Fiction, along with Trainspotting, was a seminal film in my life. It was the first film I'd ever seen that really felt like it was a film for young people. There was an effortless cool that the film exuded, unbound by whatever the coolness norms of the time were. I don't know if it really was what Tarantino intended, but I always thought Pulp Fiction was set in some weird alternate universe where pop culture and fashion stopped around 1978 and people generally talked like slick motherfuckers.

It took me a while to get to see Reservoir Dogs because the networks always aired it around midnight and I never quite made it past the twenty-five minute mark. Fourth time was the charm, however, and I found I loved it about equally. This one being a bit more traditional than Pulp, I decided to introduce my parents to this weird and wonderful world. Sure enough, the Keitel/Buscemi/Madsen triumvirate did its work admirably.

Renting Jackie Brown somewhere around the year '99-'00, my friend and I were disappointed. Of course, by then we'd pretty much learned Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction by heart, so anything "less" than that was bound to let us down. I'm thinking I should probably revisit this one, since I literally haven't seen it since then, and some people whose opinions I generally trust assured me it was the last movie in which Tarantino exhibited some growth as a filmmaker.

Whoo boy, were they right.

After Jackie Brown, Quentin suffered from a burnout. Most likely, making a movie about people who're getting older and realizing they weren't the epitome of cool anymore was akin to coming to terms with his mortality for ole QT. It would take the man six years before he half-finished his next movie, the epic two-parter Kill Bill. For years I thought this was a shameless cash-grab from Quentin and his Weinstein masters, believing they could sell anything under boy wonder Tarantino's name. Recently, however, it was brought to my attention that Tarantino actually just kept shooting and shooting and the Weinsteins requested he give them SOMETHING to release. And hey, other than the head-scratcher that was the splitting of the two movies, I really liked Kill Bill. It was insanely over the top, it was funny, it had some sweet tunes, gory fights, hot babes, ... Hell, I still kind of like it simply by virtue of so much cool stuff being in it. The split is absolutely unnecessary.

Bill, the one who must be killed, is the leader of a top squad of assassins. One of them, the enigmatic Bride, was betrayed and left for dead by them and is now, in typical Revenge Movie fashion, coming to get them all one by one. Bill goes to warn his brother Budd, who works at a shitty strip joint. He doesn't come to warn him at his place of work or anything. We just follow Budd there for a while. For... some reason. The first volume has a ten minute animated sequence detailing the origins of squad member O-Ren Ishii, a character that dies (spoiler lol) almost the moment she's introduced outside of flashbacks. But hey, whatever, it's Tarantino, right? Let the genius work his magic!

That was Kill Bill. A movie with tons of fun stuff, but in desperate need of a harsh editor. Three years later, QT would return with his friend Robert Rodriguez and deliver a project that, by all accounts, sounded fascinating and daring. A return to the double bill exploitation features of yore, brought to you by two of the world's most wacky filmmakers + special guests who brought you crazy little extras. Awesome, right? Hell yeah! It sounded like a party in the cinema and everyone was invited! The whole project, called Grindhouse, didn't take off too well, unfortunately. A major bomb in the US, the Weinsteins decided to cut their losses and release the two films separately in Europe, hoping to just cash in on "THE 6TH FILM BY QUENTIN TARANTINO" at least.

Rodriguez did his part. His Planet Terror was basically what you could call a party. Just a filmmaker and his cast 'n crew having fun, doing silly things, generally delivering an entertaining experience. If Planet Terror were a party, there'd be plenty of booze, pot, and a few hours in some girls would start to make out. If Tarantino's Death Proof were a party, on the other hand, you'd find you'd only know one or two people there. Sure, talking to them is fun, but why is the host so insistent that you check out his anime collection? What's that weird smell? This beer tastes funny, and what does Schwanzenzaft* mean anyways?

By Death Proof, it had already been widely known among film buffs that Tarantino liked women's feet. Hell, in Kill Bill 1 we are "treated" to a good minute of staring at Uma Thurman's big toe. Death Proof starts out with a shot of bare feet and has several loving close-ups sprinkled throughout, including one shot of a pretty lady with astonishing disregard for personal safety as she hangs one leg out of the window of a moving automobile. Granted, there's a funny pay-off shot following this, but it's still pretty blatant.

The whole Grindhouse (a colloquial term for cinemas displaying mostly cheap, lurid B-movies) idea was to revive interest in and pay homage to exploitation cinema of yesteryear, most notably the seventies. The problem with this concept is that most grindhouse cinema is pretty bad. There's definitely some interesting stuff in there sometimes, but you really have to wade through an ocean of shit. Roger Corman may have made a gazillion movies a year, but that doesn't mean 500,000 of them are worthwhile.

Rodriguez is almost too talented a technician to pull it off. Renowned for his money-squeezing skills, Rodriguez manages to make a pretty decent-looking movie out of his budget and is creative enough in terms of gags and set pieces to keep the thrills 'n laughs going throughout. Tarantino does not fare so well. Characters text each other, listen to iPods, and halfway through the movie the fake "damaged film" scratches just kind of peter out. What are we left with? Well, there are some great car chases/crashes for about twenty minutes. The rest is 90 minutes of slasher victims talking. If you've seen any Friday the 13th movie, you know that is not good news. In fact, Death Proof kind of plays out like Quentin Tarantino's Friday the 13th. No matter how cool that sounds, believe me when I say it's not. We spend the first half of the movie following a group of girls who are oblivious to their impending deaths at the hand of Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell having fun as the movie's Jason, using a hot rod as his machete). Then they die. Spoiler, again? Look, believe me buddy, I'm saving you a whole lot of pain here. Then we follow a new group of girls, who are eventually also chased down by Mike. I'll be nice and not tell you what happens here. We didn't get a sequel, by the way. Between those two killing sprees, what you get to do is you get to hear two groups of girls talk. And talk. And talk. Nothing particularly insightful or plot-advancing. Rosario Dawson's character likes the movie Vanishing Point. Zoe Bell's character is agile like a cat. I guess that's kind of a planting. John McClane's daughter is in a cheerleader movie.

( O__O)

Oh, and sometimes you get good, long looks their feet. Just saying. I don't know if Tarantino was trying to be all meta by making his movie just as boring as a run-of-the-mill 70s/80s slasher whenever no killing was going on, but the amount of foot shots and talk of obscure movies makes me think Tarantino really thought all the stuff he was putting in there would appeal to people that weren't himself.

I'm still looking forward to Inglourious Basterds. It's not my NUMBAH ONE MUST SEE MOVIE or anything, but I'm still willing to give the guy a chance. He did make some really good movies once, after all. Then again, so did George Lucas.

*It means dick juice.

The Day The Clown Lied

2009-07-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

This depiction of Michael Bay as the tearful clown character Pierrot was meant to be a prelude to an article defending the sensitive artiste Bay everyone was so eager to tear down after his latest opus, Transformers II: Revenge of the Fallen. After a bit of soul-searching, I decided to take it a few steps further than a mere review of the film. I had, however, already commissioned this simply lovely photoshop from my good friend Rutger "Wesley Gibson" Stevelmans, and I present it to you here in order not to let his hard work go to waste.

Suffice to say, I enjoyed Transformers II quite a bit. Internet critic Drew McWeeny from HitFix said it best:

Transformers II is Bay's White Album: it's overlong, not everything works, but everything in it is 100% pure, unadulterated Bay.

If you are like me (a freedom-loving patriot) you love everything that glorious son of a bitch stands for. He is a lulz-provider supreme, and his latest is no exception, even if it is indeed bloated and "a film with no adult supervision" as CHUD.com's Devin Faraci put it.

The last few days I'd been trying to piece together what exactly I liked about the film. As I stood there assembling engines (hey, even without tenure, ya gots ta pay the billz), I realised something rather important. There were things in Transformers II that actually worked for me beyond the "OH LOL BAY WHAT U DO NOW MAN" level. They mostly involved robot king Optimus Prime, his yellow buddy Bumblebee or puny human Shia LaBoeuf doing noble shit. There's something about that crazy over the top "goddamn give me six more insert shots and a fucking orange sunset hell yes" Michael Bay style, coupled with the overly earnest (voice) acting from LaBoeuf and Peter Cullen that just makes their scenes together click so well. Coupled with Steve Jablonsky's Hans Zimmer-lite score, I've pretty much booked a ticket to Soldsville. Cheesy? Hell yes. But it works.

But why? Why does it work? Why should I wonder? Eight hour work days are long, is one thing. If we take into consideration the basic plot of the movie, a lot is revealed. The transformers ran around the galaxy for millennia harvesting suns for their sweet sweet ENERGON (hahahaha). They were cool enough to let planets with life on them slide, though. One of the original seven OG's said fuck that, and wanted to harvest our sun. Us humans, being shitty ass pyramid folk back then, couldn't really stop him. So his brothers did! Lucky for us. He was put into stasis or some shit because they couldn't defeat him and later starts stirring up shit in our time, using his disciple Megatron (the first film's baddie) and his cronies. Talk about some petty shit: this big baby's brothers are long fucking dead and all he wants to do is get back at them by blowing up that dumb sun anyway. Neener neener!

On the other side, we've got Optimus and the Autobots (I know, I know) who think Earth is just swell. In fact, Optimus'll go on about it for quite some time if you let him. The conflict between the Fallen/Megatron's Decepticons (yes...) and the Autobots is never made more clear than in this exchange between Megatron and Optimus:

Megatron: "Is the future of our race not worth one miserable human life?"

Optimus: "You'd never stop at one."

Simple. Easy. Black and white. After that line, Optimus lunges at Megatron and I dare you not to think for even a single microsecond: "Fuck yeah, kick his ass, truckbot!". Because chances are you will, even though you might not want to admit being that into a movie so cheesy.

Transformers II has a few of those scenes of corny-as-shit-but-I'm-kinda-diggin'-it ultra-heroism. I'm a total mark for those scenes. Other examples include Gandalf and Eomer charging downhill in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the ride of the Rohirrim in The Return of the King, Spider-Man's return in Spider-Man 2, "Soo-oo-ooperman" in The Iron Giant, and I could go on. If the movie works, you want to be there. You want to charge down the hill with Gandalf, you wanna slap JJ upside the head for dissin' on Spidey, you wanna pull Oskar out of that pool (I'm treading dangerous grounds with that one, I'm sure), ...

You want to be there because those characters are fighting The Good Fight. And unfortunately, there is no such thing as THE Good Fight. There is no evil robot tyrant or orc horde to dive head-first into combat against. Again, thanks to long hours on an assembly line, I was reminded of a nazi propaganda film we partially saw in a high school history class. Hitlerjunge Quex (or Hitler Youth Quest) is a 1933 is a film detailing the noble sacrifice of a young Hitler Youth paper boy (!) nobly killed in action by socialists (!), giving his life to finish his nazi paper route (!!!). Here's the whole damn thing, if you want:

Now, Goebbels was a clever fella. He done whipped up all of Germany into a frenzy by '39 -- and probably sooner. He knew folks love a martyr -- the most powerful hero is the one that is ended in service of others. I tell myself history has taught us all valuable lessons and I would not be as easy a mark as that. But the thing is, this is some primal stuff.

Humanity has always had their saviors holding back The Night. But now there is scarcely any more Night you'd break out the capital N's for. In the times when Beowulf or even Gilgamesh roamed in the hearts of men rather than the minds of scholars, you'd go to sleep not knowing if the same amount of people in your village would be there in the morning. You see, there was The Night. To hold that back, you could slaughter a chicken to appease the spirits. Or maybe do a wild dance. Or maybe tell a story. Stories of men who faced The Night and came back triumphant, or died saving their loved ones. Did it help? Did telling stories stop a panther from stealing down upon the village and make off with a baby or something? Of course it didn't, most of that shit was just bold faced lies.

But you know what? It made people feel good. It made them feel stronger. Inspired them. Maybe one village's youngsters teamed up and killed that lion who'd been slaughtering cattle, emboldened by the shaman's tales. And so, while the night was still there, The Night had been beaten back, even if just for a bit. This makes the old wise man's lies something more than just lies. That's right. They become Lies.

If there is a form of magic mankind has mastered, it is the power of Lies. Every time you do something that is unnecessary for survival, but you just absolutely feel the need to do, you tell a Lie. A Lie is not a bad thing. In fact, you probably can't imagine a life without Lies anymore. Watch a movie, sing a song, dance, write, love, ... You don't HAVE to do these things to live. But oh, doesn't it all seem a bit less scary now that you have?

Pesci, are you okay?

2009-06-29T08:40:00.001-07:00

A movie like no other indeed. One of cinema's legendary vanity projects, 1988's Moonwalker showed audiences Michael Jackson was truly the world's greatest dancer, singer and all-around performer. But hey, 1988 audiences were pretty sure of that already before going into the theater. What they didn't know, however, was that Michael was also the world's fastest race car, toughest robot and sparkliest jet fighter.

Did you know that? I bet you didn't. But just like my last article's subject We're Back!: A Dinosaur's story, Jackson's seminal film is but a few clicks away on YouTube as well, so you can find out for yourself.

The first 45 minutes or so -- about half the movie -- are just a selection of Michael videos. Your enjoyment of it is pretty much equal to how much you like the man's music, and let's face it: you're watching a movie called Moonwalker. You're probably eating this shit up.

By the time the more traditional narrative segment rolls by, you know you're in for a real treat about one minute in. I'll refer to this bit as Smooth Criminal, after pretty much the only song that gets performed in it. Smooth Criminal tells the story of three street urchins named Sean (white, played by son of John Lennon), Katie (girl, clutching doll) and Zeke (black, dances well). Archetypes: covered! The kids are gathered on a positively marypoppinsian rooftop and express concern on Michael's lateness. The run-down old building they were supposed to meet in is filled with noting but cobwebs, creaky doors and general spookiness. What they were meeting Michael for is never explained, but why they are concerned becomes all too clear quite quickly!

We see Michael exit a terraced house on the other side of the street, and the children excitedly climb down the building. Michael opens the door to the spooky building and a heavenly light emanates from the opening. From between some trashcans, the children look upon the scene, understandably awestruck. As the door closes behind Michael by itself, the children dare to approach the boarded-up windows. As if by magic, the club has now transformed into a roarin' twenties (thirties? I dunno) nightclub and goddamn is Michael gonna rock it. There's a spectacular dance-off with dozens of gangsters and their molls which easily stands toe-to-toe with Jackson's greats. The children outside are, of course, incredibly entertained by all this and Zeke (black, remember?) shows us how uncanny his MJ-impression is. This just raises so many questions. Were they just gonna hang around and dance in that magical 30s club with Michael? Did Michael show up late on purpose so he could dance with his summoned gangsters? Mysteries abound in this Lynchian menagerie. Well, it doesn't matter when the fascist stormtroopers out of Orwell's worst nightmares starts shooting up the place and everyone gets scattered. But oh no, the children are captured, goddamn!

Flashback time, bitches. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away Michael and the three kids are playing soccer in an idyllic meadow. There's even a dog called Skipper. Oh no, Skipper's off with the frisbee! Oh no, he's gone down a skurree cave! Oh no, it's full of icky spiders! Oh no, a secret door! Oh no, Joe Pesci! Joe Pesci? Aw yeah, Joe Pesci. The erstwhile Lamotta brother is cackling, as villains are wont to do. He is also monologueing about his dastardly plan to… wait for it… deal drugs. Michael and the kids gasp from their little hideout. Truly, not since Live and Let Die was I so shocked at the sheer audacity of a villain’s plot! Near school yards! Near playgrounds! A younger customer is a loyal customer! Pesci’s Mr. Big and his whole spider-organization are pretty much Nancy Reagan’s worst nightmare: what seems like an army dedicated solely to getting kids on drugs. The stormtroopers even have little spider-logos on their uniforms. Mr. Big is nothing if not thematically coherent. For the big finale, he even turns the globe he was cackling over (!) so the United States face the camera and REAL LIFE SPIDERS ARE COVERING THE PLACES HE IS GOING TO DEAL DRUGS TO. Personal piece of trivia: this movie, for all its anti-drug advocacy, was the first time I’d heard of several drugs. I vaguely knew about drugs as a bad entity, but not that there were such varieties as heroine, cocaine, crack, speed, etc. Thinking back, I wonder if Mr. Big was going to deal cocaine at only the most posh schools. You know, the type that has executive washrooms to do the coke in. The spider-covered globe freaks Katie out so much that dumb cootie carrier just has to scream and reveal their location. They are forced to flee as henchmen fire at them, and that’s the end of our flashback.
Now, assuming Michael was always a guy who regularly dances with ghost gangsters, why did he take time out from that to go Frisbee with some kids? I mean, that’s an eclectic schedule, right there. If hanging out and playing Frisbee with kids in idyllic meadows was all he did before that traumatic encounter, one can assume he took up a different life to escape from that shadowy organization.

“They’re looking for a guy and three kids! We better split up! I’ll rent a house in the city and you guys live on the streets or something! Don’t worry, I’ll check up on you occasionally!”

Well, phooie! Michael is very bad at sneaking around, since he is caught trying to save Katie at Mr. Big’s mountainous base. Before he is executed, he will see Katie injected with DRUGS!

“You wanna know why I do this, Michael? Huh? I just… I just wanna get everybody high, man! They’re some good drugs, Michael! Heh heh heh!”

Actual quote! What a monster! I have to say, Pesci is pretty rough with Katie. He slaps her a good ten times and even puts his high-heeled (!) foot on her back. Well, this won’t do at all! Michael transforms into a robot in a downright creepy scene of stop-motion and starts blastin’ henchmen, while taking to the skies angelically. Pesci won’t have that and mounts a huge turret gun, blasting the Michaelbot over a ridge. The children have their “Oh no he is dead!” moment, until a glorious spaceship emerges from the flames to blast the evil drug lord to smithereens.
Michael celebrates his victory over the Spider Cartel by taking the children to a live performance of him doing Dirty Diana. Roll credits.

It’s a strange movie and the final number kind of illustrates it well. Michael takes these kids to one of his concerts, and the song played is quite sexual. Now, most children listen to songs with pretty sexual lyrics. I’m aware of that. It’s just that, coupled with the retardedly saccharine outlook on childhood this movie offers, it seems a bit gauche to reward these kids who still wish upon stars with a crotch-thrusting rendition of a song about a woman who is dirty.

But I guess that is the dichotomy of Michael Jackson. His songs are sweaty, sexy, made for the dance floor, and the guy himself seems to live in a perpetual loop of E.T. Still, if you like his music, this movie will likely entertain you. There’s the magic of childhood, robots, spaceships, gangsters, stop motion bunnies, and lots of awesome music. It’s a look into the weird, weird mind of the Moonwalker himself, from my personal favorite period in his career. He looked odd, but not monstrous. I like early MJ as well, but he was just a really good R&B singer back then. With the surgery came the evolution into what seemed like a singing/dancing nobleman from the realm of Faerie.

I have not insinuated anything or made jokes about pedophilia. There's a gigantic lolfest to be mined from Michael without even touching that. Besides, making pedophile jokes can be applied to any pedophile. Michael is/was Michael. He deserves satire with a certain level of je ne sais quoi. And I am wholly on that level, sir.

Happy Birthday, John Goodman!

2009-06-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

I didn't know it was John Goodman's birthday, but let me tell you about the horrible sequence of events that led up to my discovering it.

There's this forum I post at, a place of wonder and bedazzlement, where gentlemen scholars discuss Aristotle and Kant. In one of our weaker moments, we were discussing the end credits to mostly 80s cartoons. Since this was so much below our usual level of conversation, we started to include intros as well. Such as this one:

Fellow poster Andy mentioned that Denver vaguely pissed him off as a kid because his species was ill-defined.

This brought me to remember We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story.

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg (as was wont to happen with cartoons in the early 90s) and released Christmas '93, mere months after another Spielberg-related dinosaur movie the name of which escapes me right now. I got this on VHS in '94 or '95. Never caught it in theaters. I watched it quite often. I mean, it did have dinosaurs in it and all. There were some things that bugged me about it even as a kid, though. Let me recount the basic plot:

A little birdie, tired of getting teased by his older brothers, wants to run off to join the circus. His mama warns him not to get in over his head, since he's not too great at flying, but he takes the leap anyway. Luckily, he doesn't crash to the ground, but instead lands on the top of a tyrannosaur's 9-iron. Astonished at the sight of a talking, golf-playing T-Rex, the birdie wants to find out what's up. Running away to the circus, eh? Well, Rex -- for such is his name -- knew a boy who wanted to run away to the circus as well. Won't you listen to his story? Might as well! See, Rex used to be a mean old dumb tyrannosaur who ate other dinosaurs. Pretty standard T-Rex behavior, you might say. But one day a SPACESHIP FROM THE FUTURE picked him up, and its benevolent commander Captain Neweyes fed him some IQ-enhancing Brain Grain cereal. The retired inventor wants to do some good for the world in his autumn years, and since he is from a time where every species of every planet (see his Jay Leno voiced comic relief alien assistant Vorb) gets along, he'd like spread a little happiness in the less illuminated age of the late 20th century. See, the captain has a radio that picks up on wishes. Since children apparently wish the loudest, Neweyes decides to grant one rather ubiquitous wish among the kids of the 90s: to see a real live dinosaur. So he's arranged that the four dinosaurs he's picked up meet Dr. Bleeb at the NY Natural History Museum for a rather extraordinary exhibition. But they should beware Cpt. Neweyes' evil brother Professor Screweyes, who was driven mad by the loss of his eye. Of course, the four wacky dinosaurs miss their appointment with the extremely near-sighted Dr. Bleeb and, lost in the Big Apple, team up with runaways Louie and Cecilia. The former of which intends to join the circus, bringing us to the apparent point of this story.

Before seeing this movie for myself, I remember Spielberg talking about it in some promotional material. "Ever kid loves a dinosaur," the Beard said, "but Jurassic Park may have been too scary for them. So that's why I wanted to tell a dinosaur story for everyone to enjoy."

Well, that was pretty cool, I thought. Even if I was 8 when I saw Jurassic Park. Sure, I was pretty scared in parts when I first saw it, but that's part of the thrill with dinosaurs, right? But it's cool for Spiel to want to give everyone the pleasure of dinosaurs. It's only years later that I understand what a fucking shark the Beard was (or at least Amblin Entertainment). Yeah, the dinosaur craze swept the nation with Jurassic Park! Shit, it didn't quite catch everyone. PG-13's a bitch. Quick, make something G-rated!

That bastion of reliability IMDb told me Jay Leno did the voice work for his little alien character three years prior to release. And granted, upon revisiting it (YouTube has the whole thing) it looks to good to be a quickie cranked out to cash in on Jurassic Park. Except for the primitive CGI buildings during the flying scenes. You remember the 90s Amazing Spider-Man cartoon with the opening credits featuring him swinging by some reeaaally shitty CGI skyscrapers? It's not quite that ugly, but it really sticks out in an otherwise slick-looking movie.

During my digging for this article I also found out, as mentioned before, that this was based on a 1987 children's book.

The artwork suggested something slightly more mischievous than the overly family friendly animated movie and after some more digging I found a pretty crucial difference in the plot:

The dinosaurs are used as test subjects for a future BUSINESSMAN who wants to sell an IQ-enhancing cereal and then dumped unceremoniously in New York.

Whoa, quite a difference there, huh? No kids, no circus, no evil brother, no wish radio. In fact, this mirrors another similar change made to Jurassic Park. In the book, park owner John Hammond is a greedy businessman. In the movie, he's a dreamer, a Walt Disney-like grandfather. Oh, Steve! It was pretty minor in Jurassic Park. Here, it pretty much destroys the movie. As a kid it was already kinda grating to see the movie treat the normal, badass versions of dinosaurs as "bad" or somehow undesirable. But hey, you're a kid, it's dinosaurs, you're not gonna complain. Hell, I told myself I liked The Lost World for years.

Andy's remark on Denver made me think of this movie and write something about how lame it was a kid. Then, I started thinking about how the movie portrayed the natural, feral state of dinosaurs as somehow undesirable. In the third act, I remembered, the evil professor devolved the dinosaurs back to their old selves to show off in his circus of horrors. The child protagonists were absolutely terrified. Even the herbivore dinosaurs were portrayed as slobbering, roaring monsters the moment they're not goofy cartoon characters anymore. And remember, these were just animals plucked out of their natural habitat to basically get reverse-lobotomized for the entertainment of the children of the 1990s. What the hell's the movie trying to say with that? Things aren't nice until they're made fit for mass consumption?

Hell, I don't mind a movie that features cute or humanized dinosaurs. This movie just tells us that that's the only way a dinosaur can be cool. Imagine if a crack team of (probably Japanese) geneticists devised a way to make hedgehogs and foxes look like Sonic and Tails and then proudly proclaimed this is the real way foxes and hedgehogs should be. So I watched the entire thing on YouTube because I was wondering how the hell they got a T-Rex to eat cereal. Does the Captain douse it in blood? Does he wrap it in a steak? Stick in a cow's butt and let it wander around prehistoric times?

Well, if you're curious: Rex is on the hunt when a spaceship knocks him in the head. It lands and Jay Leno alien flies out. It starts talking about the Rex being selected randomly to test a new product (a remnant of the original book's premise). The dinosaur, of course, doesn't understand a thing the alien says and just snaps at this pesky little fly. Leno manages to get back in the ship, as the hatch closes around the tyrannosaur's neck. Around its neck. Then, two robot arms just JAM THE FUCKING CEREAL DOWN HIS THROAT UNTIL HE TURNS DOCILE. His look even gradually changes from Jurassic Park style T-Rex to the cartoony one you see on the poster.

Rex, now voiced by our birthday boy John Goodman, is allowed on board where he meets the other three dinosaurs selected for this peace mission: a triceratops named Woog, a parasaurolophus named Dweeb (voiced by Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleischer) and a pterodactyl (in name only, she looks more like a rhamphorynchus with a pteranodon crest, but sounds like the UKs favorite butt of the 70s/80s Felicity Kendal) named Elsa who inexplicably wants to fuck Rex. In the ship's conveniently dinosaur-sized chill out room, the three others introduce Rex to a new and awesome type of food: hot dogs.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up. Hot dogs? So... professor Neweyes captured four dinosaurs to show to children of our then-present. He devised a cereal to make them intelligent and friendly. But he didn't bother to make them all vegetarians? Hell, Dweeb and Woog are supposed to be herbivores! I was waiting throughout this scene for the professor to mention that they were veggie dogs or something, but nothing! Goddamn, did nobody think this movie through! And let's not forget that this reinforces the movie's (or my tin foil hat version of it) message of "There's scary stuff out there, kids, but it's cool once treated for mass consumption!" I mean, hunting and killing things is bad, but it's A-OK to eat hot dogs? Best case scenario means you're eating a cow there, Rex, buddy!

Captain Neweyes explains his plan and takes them to the Wish Radio. The children's wishes pop out as bubbles displaying looped holograms of the kids making wishes. The children are hilariously ethnically diverse, too: there's even a lil' sheik! At first, the wishes are pretty diverse too, but one wish soon becomes prevalent -- that of seeing a real dinosaur. Before that one overwhelms the others though, there's a few in the style of "I wish my sister was nicer to me". I just imagined Neweyes sifting through the children's wishes, hearing that girl asking for a better life and going LOL BORING IMA SCROUNGE UP SUM DINASORES!

When the dinosaurs miss the appointment with Dr. Bleeb (holy shit this movie is horrible with names) I can't blame them either. The Captain literally just opens the floor under them and expects them to pull a Temple of Doom with a raft. Come on man, they just barely learned English and how to eat hot dogs five minutes ago!

They meet Louie, a runaway headed for the circus, because his mom "hugs and kisses him, even in public!" Way to make your kid protagonist sympathetic, movie. The little girl, Cecilia, is pretty much neglected by her yuppie parents, so she's got a little more reason to join this ragtag group. Cecilia is voiced by Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson. Smith makes no effort to do another voice whatsoever.

In the movie's big musical number the dinosaurs walk with the Macy's parade. "Look mommy, real dinosaws!" "Dey're jus roebuts, honey." What, as if robots that advanced and gigantic wouldn't be damn impressive, especially in '93? When the song is over, they are somehow revealed to be real and immediately chased by NY's finest. Like, with guns and everything. They're even told that they're under arrest a few times. This movie's been pretty stupid so far, so I can't tell if it's supposed to be a joke or not.

The dinosaurs get separated from the kids, who end up at their circus destination in Central Park. Nobody told them it was a circus of HORRORS, however! And also run by PROFESSOR SCREWEYES (driven to evil due to the loss of his eye -- replaced by a screw)! Paraphrased:

"We wanna work for the circus!"
"Buzz off, kid, you don't know what you're saying."
"No, really."
"Really? Okay, sign this contract."
"It's blank."
"Simpler."
"A pen?"
"Prick your finger."
"Scary!"
"You wanna work for the circus, don't ya?"
"I guess!"

The contract then fills itself in after the BLOOD SIGNATURES have been made. Since Screweyes is from the future like his brother, I'm paying heed to that old Arthur C. Clarke quote saying "any technology advanced enough will appear as magic to primitive eyes". I mean, it would be pretty arbitrary to introduce actual magic with only about twenty minutes to go in this movie. The dinosaurs show up and tell Screweyes he's the one Neweyes (oh god) warned them about, and he better hand over those kids! No no, they're under contract now, Screweyes tells them. He promptly gives the kids Brain DRAIN, which turns them into monkeys. Brain Drain is, of course, Screweyes' counterpart to his brother's cereal. I loved how it was presented all sinister-like in pill-form so it looked more like EVIL DRUGS. It turns the children into monkeys, a pretty useless attraction for a circus of horrors, given how cute both Louie and Cecilia now look. They even have their old clothes still on!

Hell, the movie makes a big spiel about how Screweyes won't let Stubbs the clown (Martin Short, in an utterly baffling role) do his act for the crowd until he comes up with something that makes the old Prof laugh, and he never does. What the hell does he want cute monkeys for? He didn't know they were with dinosaurs, so when Rex proposes they'll take the children's place it's as much a surprise to him as to us.

Sure enough, he devolves the dinos back to their old form. They're all terrifying and shit, and Louie and Cecilia have Stubbs sneak them into the show. Cecilia constantly wonders WHY? WHY WOULD PEOPLE WANT TO BE SCARED? IT'S HORRIBLE! Goddammit movie, stop trying to prove my point. Screweyes does have a pretty impressive set-up going, even though it's more like a horror-themed Cirque du Soleil than anything actually scary. It's in this sequence that the movie tries to comfort its young viewers that it's all only make-believe. Zombie monks are shown to be guys flying through the air with masks on cables, we see the guy doing the pyrotechnics, the sound guy, etc. For a guy who's got technology so advanced it looks like magic, ol' Screweyes certainly isn't interested in pushing the envelopes of showmanship. Shit, our three good guys stealthily sneaking in are dressed as Disneyland mascot versions of Maleficent's little imps.

The dinosaurs get dragged on stage rather impressively: on a dais pulled by about twenty elephants. Inexplicably, the four dinosaurs are chained but not caged. Even more inexplicable is the fact that, feral once more, Rex hasn't killed any of his within-biting-range colleagues. Screweyes informs the audience he will now make the T-Rex do his bidding by mental suggestion! Maybe this was what Carl Denham had in mind when he put Kong on that scaffolding. It's a cool idea, in theory. Unfortunately, one of the omnipresent crows (what the fuck, I know) pecks at a button marked FLARES in the pyrotechnics control room and the bright lights break Screwy's mental hold over Rex. He's about to eat the one-eyed bastard when Louie shows up on stage and tearfully pleads Rex to "be a good guy". Of course this works, and love -- and a well-placed hug -- breaks the spell. But wait a minute... if Rex was returned to his natural state by the Brain Drain... does that mean you can just plead and cry to a T-Rex and make it friendly? No, silly. It works on ANY dinosaur! Louie and Cecilia hug each dinosaur in a montage, turning them all instantly back to their cartoon selves. The crowd goes nuts!

Neweyes shows up in his ship and tells off his brother. This gives Stubbs the balls to quit. He humiliates his boss with honking horns and other clowny stuff. The audience is in stitches. Stubbs drives off in his clown car and Neweyes and the gang take off as well. Lights fade.

"Brother no... don't leave me. When I am alone, I am so... scared of the dark."

The crows gang up on Screweyes and engulf him. For a split second, they form A GIANT CROW until they all fly off again, leaving only his screw-eye rolling on the floor. This is perhaps the most baffling Spielberg-related villain death since Dustin Hoffman in Hook. What confounds me even more is that, seconds before this death, hundreds of people were laughing at the antics of Stubbs getting his little triumph moment. They can't possibly ALL have left in that short time. If I, as a viewer, am completely flabbergasted by this event, imagine how a regular New Yorker who doesn't have all this time traveling background bullshit feels?

Anyways, the dinosaurs get brought to the museum, the kids returned to their parents, Dr. Bleeb runs what is no doubt he most profitable museum exhibit of all time and we all learn that if you hug a rainbow just right, lollipops come flying out.

I don't know what kind of lesson that little bird got from Rex' tale, but I'm 100% sure he's never visiting any circus again. I also realize that, in this universe, birds can talk. Unless Neweyes got REAAALLY generous with his Brain Grain.

John Goodman is 57 today.

What makes a man a fan?

2009-06-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

Everyone is, of course, entitled to their own opinion. If everyone just got along nicely, the world would be a Stephenie Meyer nov- oohhhh I went there. Everyone likes different stuff, and it's kind of pointless to get up in arms about it.

I used to call myself a fan of various things, but as I get older -- and I am a baffling 24 -- I find I can't work up the energy to get vocal about things anymore. One of the big fromages for me was Star Wars. That one was pretty much a perfect storm of reaching into my young mind. I'd seen the old trilogy on Dutch television when I was about ten. That mystical tome also known as TV guide called them classics, and it made me curious. I remember having to stay up till eleven to catch them, eventually retiring at the epically late hour of one. For some reason, the network decided Return of the Jedi was to be aired on a Wednesday instead of a Friday night, and after the amazing cliffhanger of The Empire Strikes back, being made to wait a few extra days (school night, had to tape it!) for the thrilling conclusion made it hit me all the harder. The very idea of a hero who had to resort to non-violence to win the day was completely alien to a kid reared on Die Hards and Lethal Weapons and Predators.

These were the mid-90s, and if you're somewhat movie-savvy, you remember what happened in '99. And yes, I was, of course, the perfect age for prequel-mania. It took me months, if not years, to realize that maybe... just maybe those prequels weren't as awesome as I thought they were. But those years in between them, oh! how the internet was prequel rumor central. Every dumb Star Wars forum I lurked on, every bit of "news" that Christopher Walken or Gabriel Byrne was going to be in the next one I latched on to. And sometimes I'd hear these names: Mara Jade, Admiral Thrawn, Exar Kun, ... what what? Who were these people? They weren't in any of the movies, new or old. Here's where I found out that there was a whole universe worth of Star Wars besides the movies (an EXPANDED universe, as it were) for good little nerds to consume. The only possible reaction I could have had was obviously AWESOME LET'S GET INTO THIS SHIT. Oh man, my library carries a bunch ohgodohgodohgod!

Let me use this venue to reach out to my no doubt fives of readers and reach out to everyone in my 4th year Dutch class in high school. I am sorry for doing a half hour book report on Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi. It was a very lame thing of me to do, and I apologize.

After having read more than a dozen of these bitches throughout my teens, I finally started reading the first one of Timothy Zahn's Admiral Thrawn trilogy on a trip to Italy when I was about 17-18. I remember finishing it, taking it back to the library and just not really caring what happened next. There's only two other books that got similar treatments from me: Dune by Frank Herbert (about 40 pages in) and Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (18 pages in -- F'lar and F'nor? Seriously?). Even though Zahn's trilogy (fantasy authors have huge boners for trilogies, almost as huge as I have for brackets) was supposed to be the "best" the Expanded Universe had to offer, I was just burned out. I was just going to see the movies from now on, and fuck this neverending supplemental shit.

I don't know exactly which one of these came first. The release of the animated Clone Wars "movie" or a friend of mine asking if I wanted to borrow a Thrawn omnibus. The former was met with a resounding ahongiveafuuuuck. Yes, technically, there was a Star Wars movie playing in theaters, but it was actually just the first three episodes of a new Nickelodeon cartoon edited together and called a movie. A movie concerning the Clone Wars, the fictional conflict set between Episodes II and III. The fictional conflict that already had a series of cartoon shorts dedicated to it: by the great Genndy Tartakovsky of Powerpuff Girls fame, no less. This new Clone Wars movie was fill-in-what-blanks-in-the-timeline-you-can moneygrubbery of the highest order, typical of this (or any) Expanded Universe. The latter was a lot simpler. An offer of giving the so-called best of the EU another shot years after the facts. I'm sorry, but total apathy. The only thrill in this kind of book is in reading about some adventures with familiar characters. You won't find any deep themes or new insights in them. If you already know that Thrawn ends up getting stabbed by his bodyguard who is seduced to the light by one of our heroes -- sound familiar? -- there's little this shit has to offer you.

The point of this Harryknowlesian derail/introduction was to give you a bit of my background as a fanboy. It was a few weeks ago, at one of my RP nights, a group member asked who was going to see Terminator: Salvation. Awkward silence followed, until someone said he was probably gonna wait that one out till it was on TV. The original fella couldn't believe it: a Terminator movie in the theater and you're not going to see it? I asked him if he'd read any reviews, which really were universally terrible. He said he'd form his own opinion, dammit!

I couldn't really fault him, to be honest. After all, a film's meant to bring about emotions, and that's a very personal process. A movie might work on you that wouldn't work on me and vice versa. Would I have enjoyed Terminator 4 if I didn't know the ugly story behind the scenes? If I hadn't the faintest of how a blockbuster came to be or of the concepts of script doctoring or MPAA ratings manipulations (and that one's an entire Wholly On The Level in itself)? I probably would. I mean, I was 14 once.

But I can't say I'm completely cured. I wish I could say I now seek out solely original, independent creations free of franchise fuckery. I do, to some extent. I'm a lot more open to new things. I don't pit "my" franchise against others. Yes, there was a dark time in my life that I tried to tell myself The Phantom Menace was better than The Matrix AND The Fellowship of the Ring. But on the other hand, I'll always click the Iron Man II article before clicking the one about Moon, for instance.

Fuck you, inner child, I'm trying to convince myself I'm cool now.

Here, have this Erick Sermon video.

Aaah yes.

The Retrospective That Was Never On Time, Part 1

2009-06-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna watch every single Star Trek movie and report back here! As a non-fan, my insights shall be refreshing, eye-opening and perhaps more than a little erotic. Like Trekkies themselves, pretty much! This first installment's going to be a bit all over the place, as I've watched the first three on end and I got progressively drunker as the evening went on. The retrospective will probably be quite erratic, as it is my friend Rutger (many thanks for the above Photoshop!) who owns the films on Blu-Ray and I don't really care enough to spend any money or bandwidth on these masterpieces. But let us dive into that wonderful world of Starfleets and Klingons and monster dogs and angry latino gentlemen!

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

I had seen this one already years and years ago, but I remembered precious little of it. What I did know, was that fans often disparagingly called it "The Motionless Picture". I can see why. Robert Wise (The Haunting, The Day The Earth Stood Still -- a real director, not some studio hack!) wants AWE to be the keyword in this movie. And, to be honest, he succeeds. The first time we see the Enterprise in its dock, it's glorious. For a moment, you understand how much Kirk loves her. Even Shatner's underplaying this scene. And it works. For half a minute. Then it goes on for five more. And there you have it. That’s pretty much the movie’s problem. It’s got some damn impressive vistas, it just forgets to populate them.

Original series creator Gene Roddenberry was heavily involved in this film, and his vision of the future that Star Trek was to embody was supposed to be an extremely utopian one, with everyone being politically correct and non-violent and faggy at all times. In fact, so opposed to action and adventure was this man, that in the foreword of the novelization of this film he declared the entire original series non-canon. I invite you to read this fragment, as narrated by Kirk himself.

"Eventually, I found that I had been fictionalized into some sort of “modern Ulysses” and it has been painful to see my command decisions of those years so widely applauded, whereas the plain facts are that ninety-four of our crew met violent deaths during those years-and many of them would still be alive if I had acted either more quickly or more wisely. Nor have I been as foolishly courageous as depicted. I have never happily invited injury; I have disliked in the extreme every duty circumstance which has required me to risk my life. But there appears to be something in the nature of depicters of popular events which leads them into the habit of exaggeration. As a result, I became determined that if I ever again found myself involved in an affair attracting public attention, I would insist that some way be found to tell the story more accurately."

WHO THE FUCK IS HAVING FUN IN HERE? These star treks are serious business, sir! Then again, if you’re reading the novelization of a Star Trek movie, star treks probably are serious business to you. I’d say more power to you, but shit, people who read novelizations need as little power as possible.

Aaaanyways, Galactus is coming. Okay, so it’s not Galactus, but it’s a big fucking space cloud and it just zapped a Klingon ship. Starfleet decides they need Kirk and his Enterprise crew up in this bitch. Tearful reunions abound, except for Spock, who’s been chillin’ on his home planet of Vulcan the last few years generally being a space hobo. The Enterprise itself has been under the command of captain Decker, a man played by the dad from 7th Heaven, the show where Jessica Biel got her start. Three sequels later, 7th Heaven’s mom would appear in The Voyage Home. If that’s not the universe telling J.J. Abrams to put Jessica herself in his own sequel, I don’t know what is.

This was the first time I’d actually ever seen Shatner do Shatner. It’s pretty fantastic. I mean, you hear all the jokes, you see the impersonations, but nothing beats the real thing. During an ill-advised hyperspace jump, the ship is dodging asteroids. At one point, there’s an asteroid coming right their way, and Spock’s the only one who can do something about it (for some reason). Spock’s gone catatonic, though (for some reason). Kirk is not happy!

“Spock! … Spock! … Spock! … Spock! … Spock!”

He must say “Spock” about eight times in exactly the same tone of voice. Nowadays, perhaps only Nicolas Cage could pull off such a feat of thespianism.

In the meantime, space cloud probes the ship and commandeers bald hottie commander Ilea to serve as his herald. No surfboard, so she got pretty ripped off. The rest of the movie is spent trying to convince V’ger (as is the cloud’s name) and its herald that he Enterprise should not be destroyed, while simultaneously trying to get at the heart of this nimbus weirdus to see what exactly makes it tick. Not exactly the most dynamic fare, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Still, you have to admire the balls in making a huge and expensive space movie using well-known characters the year after Star Wars was released and not make it this big action spectacle.

NEXT UP: The Wrath of Khan!

Why you do that, Cage?

2009-06-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

Look at him. Look at his serious face. He's like a chimpansee. I'm not saying he looks like a chimpansee, but going to see a Nic Cage movie is like being in an enclosed space with a chimpansee. You never know what's going to happen. You never know what those crafty eyes are thinking, what that primal intelligence is calculating. He might leave you alone and eat some bananas. He might fling poo at you. He might rip out your jugular. So too with Nic Cage. You might get a Leaving Las Vegas. You might get a Face/Off. You might get a Ghost Rider. Or you might get a Knowing. I think my hair still smells.

By the way, let me preface this by saying a ticket to this movie was bought for me by a friend who was pretty much forced to see this and was in desperate need of entertaining company to see it with. To that very friend, I'm sorry I slept so much.

Knowing is a movie that fits in a long line of movies and TV shows that a friend of mine once called "mystical mumbo jumbo". If I were to hazard I guess, I'd say that its current popularity was jump-started by the success of Lost. How do you make good MMJ movie/show? Simple! Take a premise that is mysterious and vague. Then get your protagonist(s) really worked up about it. They should yell more as the movie progresses, even though it's not always 100% clear what everyone's yelling about, or its importance.

In Knowing, Nic Cage is an astrophysics professor yelling about a little piece of paper with numbers on it. Those numbers were written down by a creepy little girl in 1959, and buried in a time capsule. Their spookiness is cause enough for concern, like any decent astrophysics professor would note. But woe on us all, the little girl was stopped by her teacher before she could finish the sequence of numbers the voices in her head were reciting.

At one point, Nic deduces that one particular sequence of numbers coincides with OMG 9/11 and 2996, apparently the death toll of that fateful day. So he starts looking up other shit and whaddya know? Disasters! Dates! Death tolls! Bejaysis and begorrah, 81 people will die in a few days! That really begs the question: what's a big enough disaster to be on the list? I'm guessing 80 is the minimum here, cuz that list was about 2 pieces of A4 paper long and anything below that just seems like being overly thorough.

Horror! The whisperers also occasionally visit Cage's son, apparently to make him finish that damn list. At this point I know what the list does, I just don't really understand why the whisperers feel the need to finish it.

The whisperers are aliens. I didn't put spoiler warnings up because this movie looked like a turd from the first trailer and if you thought it looked good for even a goddamned fucking second you deserve to be spoiled. Punched as well, but I can't punch you through the internet and like any internet tough guy I would probably be very polite in real life to anyone I insulted online. The whisperers are aliens who like to dress up like Spike from Buffy and they whisper fucking numbers and some people pick up those numbers in their brain and feel compelled to write them down. I guess the logic would be that THE WORTHY get to sidestep all that shit that might happen to them and find the location where the aliens pick them up to start a new life off-world. Okay, I guess.

But Nic Cage is the only one who figures it all out. And the Spikes kidnap his son and the daughter of love interest Rose "No Use Crying Over Spilt Padmé" Byrne. They kidnap them. Cage gives chase, but is ultimately told by the aliens he ain't on the guest list. Tearful goodbyes abound as it is the two children (and, inexplicably, their pet bunnies) that get to hitch a ride on the Chariots of the Tards. Oooookay.

What was the point? Why engineer that whole thing with the list if you're going to pick and choose your own chosen ones anyway? Shouldn't Cage be the chosen one? He was the only guy on Earth who deciphered the signal, and his brain wasn't even advanced enough to pick up the brainwhispers the Spikes were broadcasting. That oughta buy you a ticket, right?

God, fuck this turd. All it has going for it are some cool crashes. It's a cheap goddamn M. Night Shyamalan wannabe punk bitch of a movie. Yeah, that's right. Wannabe M. Night Shyamalan. That's like wanting to be the guy who has the 1,000+ anime DVD collection, but just not being cool enough to pull it off.

What happened to you, Alex Proyas? The Crow was pretty cool and I was even mildly entertained by I, Robot. Dude got locked up in a room with the wrong monkey.

"Will faith protect them from an explosion?"

2009-05-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Faith will probably not protect you from an explosion. Especially not from an antimatter explosion, the biggest and baddest of all explosions.

Suppose you are at the faithiest place on Earth, and someone hid a very antimattery bomb somewhere. Who better to call in than professor Robert Langdon, symbology scholar? If you've answered: "Anyone else, cuz symbology ain't even a real thing", you have already won! Your prize? Enough sense not to watch this fucking movie.

I, on the other hand, enrolled in a movie quiz a few weeks ago, knowing full well this was the movie to be played while the scores were tallied. I still went. On a completely unrelated note, I like women who hurt me physically and emotionally. I'll give it this: while still mind-numbingly boring and stupid, it's marginally less dull than its predecessor. While nothing interesting happens, it all happens really fast, so there's that.

The movie starts with the death of the pope, and the kidnapping of the four candidates for papacy. A threatening puzzle (seriously) is then sent to Vatican HQ, which prompts them to send for Robert "Bigg Dogg" Langdon.

MEANWHILE AT THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER, SWITZERLAND 08:42 AM

An overzealous Demolition Man reenactor stabs a dude's eye out to gain access to the precious antimatter that is stored at that heathen institution. The disoculated corpse's friend and moderate hottie dr. Vittoria Vetro goes to the Vatican to... Fuck if I know. She does know her way around antimatter and that is very important to the plot.

Professor Langdon and dr. Vetro team up for some reason, mostly because the movie is a sausage fest if they don't and an averagely hot lady is better than Tom Hanks and some carabinieri. Ron Howard, you are P.T. Barnum come back to life!

Our intrepid scholar friends must stop the murders of the four cardinals at the hands of a secret society (omg ILLUMINATI), the idea of which is explained laboriously throughout the movie. Never mind that the Illuminati are perhaps the most well-known "secret" society of all time. They were the villains in a Tomb Raider movie, for fuck's sake! So Robert and Vittoria embark on a quest throughout Vatican City and a strange land of computer animations, solving puzzles along the way. None of this is very exciting, because Robert usually just knows what the hell is going on or what to do about five minutes after he arrives on the scene.

Robert Langdon as a character polarizes me. I am torn between dismissing him as a trivia-spouting cypher or the perfect characterization of a hilariously boring man. Every other sentence he says is about Pope Phallicus XI who in 1683 blah blah oh I wish I was watching Crank II. This is coming from a guy who loves history, mind you. He even has the ability to think outside the box. When Langdon and a Swiss Guard are trapped in the glass-sealed Vatican Vaults with the oxygen levels slowly dropping, Langdon escapes by dropping a huge metal bookshelf on his see-through prison, followed by... shooting it with the unconscious guard's gun as a last-ditch attempt. I'm guessing both Langdon and the guard thought the glass would be bulletproof, but I'm also guessing Langdon just solved the mystery of the Vatican Vaults' high heating bills.

Even Hans Zimmer isn't even trying, basically delivering the travel music from Van Helsing in a loop for three hours. Hilariously, this overwrought bombast accompanies such exciting and dramatic shots as three Audis driving to a church. Take notes, Michael Bay!

I must give special credit to our villain (oh come on, you couldn't tell from just the trailer?) Ewan McGregor for hamming it up as the villain with a plot much more defined, idiotic and all-around entertaining than Ian McKellen in The Da Vinci Code. I don't even feel the need to crack jokes about it, let me describe his plan:

Angry at the pope's decision of saying something good about the CERN project, Ewan McGregor's chamberlain character Patrick McKenna murders the fuck out of the old bastard. To ensure nobody says anything positive about science for as long as he lives, he hires a hit man to kidnap the next four guys in line and methodically and publically kill them, making it look like an Illuminati plot against the church. The antimatter comes into play to make McKenna look good. It is to be "discovered" at the last minute, flown into the air right above St. Peter's Square and detonated, while the man himself parachutes to safety. An international hero, the conclave would have no choice but to make him pope. Fuck science.

You gotta admit, the dude has some brass balls to expect THAT plan to go off without a hitch. Certainly if you take into account that he apparently hired the dumbest hit man alive. Txt message "Ur final payment is in dis car". Millions of dollars laying around in a Fiat in the centre of Rome? Why, of course! Nothing is suspicious about this deal whatsoe-- WHAT IS THIS EXPLODING CAR SHIT

The article's title is a McKenna quote, by the way, and along with "WHAT MAN DOES NOT COWER IN FRONT OF THE AWESOME POWER OF LIGHTNING?" is the highlight of verbosity of the film. But will faith protect you from this explosion?

Check mate, Mrs. Howard and Brown. Check mate.

omg kirksnspoxnbuns

2009-05-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

I feel so dirty saying I enjoyed the new Star Trek. This coming from someone who's played Dungeons and Dragons for years, should tell you all you need to know. For years, Trek (like D&D, really) has been associated with the lowest of the low. A fanbase so rabid many, if not all nerd stereotypes derive almost directly from it.

There's an episode of The Simpsons where Comic Book Guy interrogates Lucy Lawless on the switching of horse breeds between shots that her mount undergoes in an episode of Xena. She is bombarded with trivial "criticisms" such as these until she exasperatedly replies "wizards did it". Knowing a few Trekkies personally, I can attest this behavior is not too exaggerated.

I never got into Trek as a child. Whereas Star Wars drew me in with its space monkeys and laser knights and gay robots, Trek never put in much of an effort. Whenever the channel would get switched onto an episode (although I must concede I am talking about The Next Generation here), people would be standing in a computer room talking with very big words. To a child, it was like watching the news, only they never went on location.

Well, J.J. Abrams' film certainly would have entertained my young self. This time there's space monsters, aliens consisting of more than just a few prostethics (though they are there), fistfights, gunfights, swordfights, time travel, planets imploding and by gum, it's funny. A lot of it is pretty damned funny. Intentionally so, even!

Chris Pine as Kirk deserves a lot of credit, but honestly, there's no one in the cast who does a bad job. Even Zachary Quinto as Spock, an actor known mostly from televised abortion Heroes, did an excellent job. His Spock is rigid, by the book and sometimes just a jerk but still strangely likeable.

It ain't all green babes and fisticuffs, though. If I may point out a pretty big weakness, it's that the film is a bit flighty. It's not really about anything. It does its job of getting that crew in their places for further adventures, but I'll be damned if I could tell you what the movie's main theme was.

**MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW**

A planet called Romulus is destroyed when a star goes supernova. Old man Spock is too late to help, although he promised he would. The crew of a mining ship led by Nero, portrayed in growls and grunts by Eric Bana, is pissed at him for being late so they chase him into the black hole he created to absorb the Romulus-destroying supernova. The Romulans and Spock so travel back in time. The Romulans immediately attack a ship going RARGH WHERE'S SPOCK (who wouldn't pop out until a good 28 years later). Among the casualties of that ship are Kirk's father, the death of whom normally occurred a lot later in time. The Romulans have thusly altered the space-time continuum and voila: audiences have a new Star Trek continuity without any baggage.

So Nero and his butt-fucking crew wait almost thirty years for Spock to pop out (hence the butt-fucking) once they realize they've traveled through time, giving our main characters the chance to grow up and become the HEROES THEY WERE DESTINED TO BE.

The villains have beef with Spock, but it's not this reality's Spock. The villains killed Kirk's father, but it was only in a fit of rage and nothing personal at all. I guess you might say that the Nero-posse is just a very transparent excuse to reboot the universe and get THOSE people in THOSE positions at THAT time -- and maybe start a lucrative franchise.

**MINOR SPOILERS END**

It deserves it, I'd say. I was reminded of the first X-Men film, in fact. Fun characters portrayed by good actors, plot kind of flimsy, mostly all set-up for ideas to be fleshed out later. Trek even has some good action scenes (devoid of shaky-cam, even! Strangely enough, a quiet conversation between Kirk and captain Pike shakes like Marty McFly) and there's really no one there as awful as Halle Berry in the mutant movie. Special props to composer Michael Giacchino for writing a score whose main theme I was actually humming on the way to the car.

And how can you not love a movie that introduces its protagonist to the dulcet tones of:

Harry Potter vs Lord of the Rings: whoever wins, you lose

2009-04-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

Nerds like holding pissing contests about stuff they didn't do themselves. Grand Theft Auto vs. Saint's Row. Thundercats vs. GI Joe. Laces in vs. laces out. A biggie used to be Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings (and it is imperative that you only like ONE, okay?) but that's not one I particularly care about, as there is a very clear winner. Harry Potter vs. Lord of the Rings, however? Hoo boy.

The standard reaction here from respectable and intelligent individuals is Lord of the Rings. Surely, those movies have won awards and the books are like... very old... and stuff. And if they're really old and people still read them, they must be good, right? Indeed, it must! Good stuff, short blog post.

No! You are not rid of me so easily, you buttbabies! Much more recently, a new player appeared on the block. The block being a block inhabited by fiction filled with wizards and trolls and shit, so not a very tough block, but still. The literary adventures of boy wizard Harry Potter have been enrapturing the imaginations children of all ages since '97. Quick to jump on what's popular, Hollywood would bring these magical adventures to the screen in '01 starring every British actor who ever lived.

After a good forty years of trying, it was kiwi director Peter Jackson who finally succeeded in bringing that other fantasy story to the screen in the very same year: the first part of the Rings trilogy The Fellowship of the Ring.

Having successful film adaptations come out in the same year, featuring wizards and following a fairly typical Hero's Journey plot are about the only things the two sagas had in common, but it didn't stop them from being mentioned in the same breath in many a conversation. Eventually Lord of the Rings became ACADEMY AWARD WINNER Lord of the Rings, and the LotR (acronyms, something else nerds love) crowd knew "their" series was the better.

I remember sitting in the theatre watching The Return of the King for the first time, when I hear a man in his thirties telling the two ladies he was with that the book was more "spannend", a Dutch word meaning something between "exciting" and "tense". I wonder what book he read, cuz it couldn't have been Return of the King.

The Return of the King I read featured near two-hundred pages of appendices. Appendices featuring exciting stuff like pronunciation of names, chronologies, genealogies, etymologies and little easter egg details like the entire relationship between a main character and his wife.

J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the damned thing, was a scholar, first and foremost. He spent most of his tragedy-stricken youth coming up with far away lands filled with fantastical creatures, even going as far as to make up different languages for different creatures. Dude had a shitty time as a kid (everybody got sick, died), a shitty time as a young man (everybody went to World War I, died) but he managed to pick himself up by the coattails and become a fucking professor of linguistics at some fancy university. You could say the man did pretty well for himself. In fact, he used his knowledge of ancient sagas and legends combined with all that shit he made up as a young fella to tell his kids very elaborate stories. One of those he brought to a publisher and saw the light of day as The Hobbit, a relatively straightforward adventure story about timid tunnel-dweller Bilbo Baggins and a bunch of interchangeable dwarves, one of which was very fat, looking for treasure.

A few years later, the publisher asked for a sequel story. This would become The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien envisioned LotR more as a straight up sequel to The Hobbit at first. Bilbo was still the protagonist in an early draft, accompanied by comic relief hobbit Trotter. Although Bilbo and Trotter eventually became Bilbo's cousin Frodo and his gardener Sam, the early chapters of the work still showcase Tolkien's Hobbit state of mind. Just like in that earlier work, our protagonists just kind of skipped along from encounter to encounter, each step a bit closer to the end of their adventure.

And yes, in the initial chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and Sam get lost in the Old Forest, almost get strangled by Old Man Willow (all trees in this forest are kind of sentient, but Willow's a straight up sociopath) and also almost stabbed by ghosts! Well, that sounds kind of cool, right? That's a lot of adventure in a pretty short period. Well, it would be, if not for the intervention of one of the most baffling literary characters of all times.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tom Bombadil.

Neither Dwarf nor Hobbit nor man, Tom Bombadil is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in shit. For the uninitiated, Frodo and Sam are on a quest to destroy the One Ring, an evil artefact that can grant great power to its bearer, but ultimately corrupts all who come into contact with it. Great kings of men have fallen prey to its will, and now it's up to these little Hobbits to destroy it before Sauron can reclaim it. Bombadil don't give a shit, though. He plays with it, wears it, sings a few songs to it. That's how he rolls. We've just spent a good one hundred pages detailing how evil and awesome and corrupting the One Ring is, only to have Bore-a The Explorer here just casually undermine all that. Oh, and remember all that adventure Frodo and Sam were having?

Trees of the Old Forest moving about to make them get lost? They give up and go to sleep by a riverbed.

Old Man Willow tries to strangle them in their sleep: Tom Bombadil shows up and tells the willow to fuck off. In song.

Stabbed by ghosts? Tom Bombadil shows up and tells the ghosts to fuck off. In song.

For some reason, Bombadil didn't make it into the movie.

If you've noticed song is kind of a big deal here in Middle-earth, you're right. Tolkien loved song, and by gum, don't you wanna hear these poems he wrote? Bet you do! Especially Fellowship is just riddled with them, some of them stretching over pages and pages.

Did you think Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli were cool dudes? Would you like to know more about them? You're in luck! My man J.R.R. will tell you all about where they came from in excruciating detail. He will tell you about Aragorn's grampappy and where he came from! He will tell you who designed the Rivendell shithouses! He will tell you what kind of azaleas Elrond likes to keep! He will... huh? That girl? Uh, yeah, she's Aragorn's fiance or some shit, I dunno. Look, they decided to take it easy, we'll see where we can pick it up from once he's king, okay? Jeez.

You may also remember the classic scene from the movie where wizard Gandalf faces off with a huge demon in an underground kingdom? If not, spoilers follow.

Before the movie, there was a decades-long debate over whether or not the demon had wings. Now, even if you've seen just the above YouTube, you'd think that scene would bear at least a little concrete description. Hahaha fuck that, let's get back to describing trees. Am I glad to be out of that cave! Coincidentally, the first thing they enter after they're out of there is a beautiful elven forest, filled to the brim with beautiful and noble elves descended from even more beautiful and nobler elves.

There's only a few character voices in Lord of the Rings. There's Epic Saga Character (every elf and noble human), British Country Squire (the Hobbits) and Retarded Approximation Of What Blue Collar People Sound Like Because I Am A Professor And I Have Forgotten What That Sounds Like (Sam, the orcs). Character identification? Fuck that shit, I've got some fucking vistas and lineages to describe like you wouldn't believe.

I've heard a librarian once say she thought it was a shame how children who came fresh off of Harry Potter and wanted to read more and what was like Harry Potter please? immediately got forwarded to Lord of the Rings because hey, 's got wizards and shit, right?

Harry Potter's also got a whole bunch of likeable characters, situations easy to identify with and clever mystery plots unravelled by the cunning and bravery of the hero and his allies. Almost every little derail used to enrich the world is also used in the plot somehow and isn't just empty window dressing. It's not great literature by any means, but it's a fun read, which is definitely more than one can say about LotR.

My final argument: a fox calls the Hobbits queer.

"Hobbits!" he thought. "Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this." He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.

I rest my case. Also, this is a deleted scene from Fellowship where the fox sees them.

They see me rollin'

2009-04-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

I was a slothful child. I enjoyed watching television and movies, reading books and comics. My mother urged me to get a hobby. Sports, art, music... anything to get me out of the house and off my ass on days without school. The thing that held me back most was the fact that I didn't want to be the one kid at whatever congregation of other kids somewhere who knew absolutely nothing about the reason for convening in the first place.

Years after my mother had already given up on me, a friend of mine suggests I join her new boyfriend and her in a game I'd only ever heard of on the tube.

That's right: I was introduced to the exciting world pen and paper RPGs. Now look at these people oozing sex. Yeah, I know.

You may have heard the term Role-Playing Game (acronym fun time!) related to videogames. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout, ... all games in which you can customize a character's abilities and skills and have a different experience each time you play, depending on how different you make your guy/gal and the choices you make for him/her.

A video game RPG has -- best case scenario -- a beautifully realized world, with a couple of possible paths your character may take and a whole bunch of options for character building.

In a pen and paper RPG, you sit around with some buds and everyone assumes the part of a character. One of your friends will have to assume the position of Game Master (GM). He's playing every dude in the world you guys encounter, friend or foe. He comes up with the story and sometimes has to be a referee on the fly, when the rules don't cover a certain situation.

As you can see on the picture above, all the players have a sheet of paper. This is aptly named a character sheet. Their characters are represented by miniatures and placed on a grid. That's usually something only reserved for fight scenes. If you're not locked in combat, everything's pretty much resolved by conversation or role-play, if you will. No dice need be rolled in that case.

Best case scenario in a pen and paper RPG: it's a fun mix of board game, improv theater and storytelling. Unless you have cool props or a very good artist as a GM, you'll mostly have to put your imagination to use in conjuring up fantastic landscapes, but in my opinion, that's part of the charm. It's all extremely silly, of course, but not much sillier than playing videogames or looking forward to the third sequel to a movie about a teenage boy bitten by a radioactive spider.

Alas! All is not joy and mirth in the land of make-believe! Quite the contrary to relatively linear video games, there's a huge amount of input from the people you play with in P&P. There's a much bigger difference in replaying the same adventure in P&P with another group of people than by restarting a videogame and making a different guy. Like with any group activity, there's good teams and bad teams. Here are some ways a group can fuck up. Asterisk-marked ones are those I've experienced personally.

1) Players don't show up/show up late.

2) Players express disinterest quite rudely: ie. start playing video games, texting, watching tv, or even fall asleep*.

3) Some players study the rules so intently that they make characters who can pretty much end combat encounters by themselves (this was especially a concern in previous editions of the most popular P&P game Dungeons and Dragons). These players are usually the ones that kind of forego the role-playing aspect of the game. Many times, not always, will be working in the IT sector.*

4) On the other end of the spectrum you've got the snowflakes: my character is so special and dramatic and goddammit I will talk and talk and talk about my character and you fuckers will LISTEN because he is UNIQUE and AMAZING.

5) The game's meant to be a story you all partake in. Some GMs don't agree. Dude's got an awesome story and you're all lucky to be in it, bitches. This guy'll intterupt his players to allow himself to hog some more spotlight. Listen to these two non-player characters talk to each other some more!*

All in all, I'd say the Pen and Paper RPG will be going the way of the comic book in the next ten years. You have to be a certain... kind of person to even come into contact with it, and the majority of them ain't the slickest. I remember browsing through books at the local gaming store with a friend, who was explaining the pros and cons of some system or other. A guy who was almost but not quite invading our personal space started to chip in, slowly encroaching on Poland in the meantime. Description: overweight, bearded, ponytail, bespectacled and not particularly pleasant smelling. Perhaps the only time I've ever literally backed away slowly in disgust.

Unlike comic books, which can actually be purchased at your supermarket or bookstore, P&P games are still extremely niche entertainment, and they ain't gonna come out of hiding soon. I give it five to ten more years, maybe.

Oh, and since you stuck it out based on that title: