Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
Filmed entirely on location in the Uncanny Valley.
You know when I did a little research into this bowel obstruction of a movie I discovered it was the first effort of a new company called Clarius. At once I started to feel guilty about the vast load of bile I was about to dump all over it like a forest fighting aircraft who can only tank up on the deepest contents of my gullet. I like to see new studios try new things and I’m not comfortable stomping on first efforts.
Then I did a little more researched and discovered that they claim to have had a $70,000,000 budget and at once felt much better about clubbing this baby seal. You see, now I know what I am dealing with, and that is a bunch of idiots with too much money who assume that making movies is easy and that audiences do not require more than a few flashing lights and cute characters to be mindlessly entertained. The fact that they failed so miserably in the low hanging fruit of kids cartoons says a lot about how much they suck.
Given a budget like that I can name about 20 guys who could do between 2-4 films that would at least recoup the film investment and make money on the back end (including myself. If there are any Hollywood studio types actually reading this review contact me and I will tell you about my idea for a film about a humble movie review writer who develops super powers and saves the world from extraterrestrial zombies. I don’t want to demand too much control over the casting but for the romantic love interest I’m going to recommend Mila Kunis and for the protagonist let’s go with the sexiest movie reviewer in the country, me.) To spend that much money and fail is a sign from god that you should go back to whatever your day job was.
The good news is I have found an animated film from this year I hate more than the Nut Job. That one might have had a bad protagonist but it least it had one. It also managed to skip the whole singing issue entirely instead of subjecting me to the earhole raping that was this film. Given a choice between seeing this bomb, the Nut Job, or eating a pinecone I’d choose the pinecone, the Nut Job, and Legends of Oz in that order.
How did this film fail? Let’s pretend I was the man in charge of this studio. How would I have avoided the pitfalls this film seems drawn towards like a mouse to a glue trap? First off given a $70MM budget the first thing I would do is hire some writers who had more to their writing credits than a few crappy TV shows. You know, guys who’s brains don’t lock up when asked to write more than 22 minutes of story. Perhaps someone who has worked on something that made money. You’ve got $70,000,000. A couple hundred grand to good writers is not going to break your bank.
I would then instruct the writers to do whatever they could to maintain the feel and spirit of the original Oz movie. Specifically keep the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion the same in tone and inclination and NOT turn them into the Three Stooges (I’m not kidding about this. Scarecrow was Moe, Tim Man Larry, and Cowardly Lion Curly and at one point Scarecrow literally calls them all “Lunkheads”. Some days the urge to beat the projectionist is harder to resist than others). Remember how part of the charm of the Wizard of Oz was when the Wizard teaches each of them that the qualities they desired-intellect, emotion, and courage-they already had and needed only to see it in themselves and their actions? Well, forget about that. Now the Scarecrow is an annoying super genius, the Tin Man a big cry baby, and the Lion ready to fight anyone, anytime, for any reason.
I would also instruct them to try to keep these beloved characters involved in the story as much as possible, NOT replace them with three more sidekicks who for the first time ever make Jar Jar Binks look slightly cool (ewww. I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks a lot Legends of Oz). In this film we have a obese know-it-all owl (glorifying obesity in a kids movie is cool, right?), a marshmallow soldier named Marshal Mallow (ohh, I see what they did there), and a walking china doll clearly ripped off from Oz the Great and Powerful (you know how it is. If your Oz movie is going to suck why not rip off other Oz movies that suck?). As a fun note this movie lists Dan Ackyroyd, Kelsey Grammer, and James Belushi as the main voices of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion but they are in this film for about 15 minutes total, leaving us with Oliver Platt, Hugh Dancy, and Megan Hilty.
I’d also like them to keep the tone of Dorothy as a proactive individual and positive role models for girls, not a passive second banana.
Next I would hire a director who has also done a movie or two (oddly enough they did in this case, but this guy must have been asleep for most of the direction. I honestly can’t figure it out). Then I would look at my animation and make sure that the humans weren’t so deeply ensconced in the uncanny valley that you literally get sick looking at them. The human figures in this film were truly off putting in that way that only CGI can accomplish. CGI animation can do some amazing things but it can really suck on the other end of the spectrum. It looks like this film was feeling the budget crunch as nothing interesting was going on in any of the backgrounds. They might as well been painted on backdrops. Perhaps some more traditional animation, or a style that is OK with not rendering every skin pore, might have allowed for the occasional bird to fly by in the background.
Finally I would either hire talented songwriters or scrap the song business altogether. The music in this film gives new definition to the term “lame”. You know how in most musicals there is one song that you automatically skip? In this film that’s pretty much every song.
Anyway, I’m already at 1K words and haven’t really gotten into it. I have things to do tonight so let’s go, shall we?
The film starts off with Moe (I mean Scarecrow. Sorry my bad. Dan Akyroyd-Ghost Busters, Grosse Point Blank, the Blues Brothers) and his cohorts Tin Man (Kelsey Grammer-Cheers, Toy Story 2, X Men Last Stand) and Lion (James Belushi-K-9, Red Heat, New Years Eve) being chased by flying monkeys (with day glow mohawks. Aren’t they cute? In the original movies they used to give kids nightmares). Scarecrow has invented a “rainbow caster” which he uses to try to contact Dorothy (Lea Michele-New Years Eve (will that film ever stop haunting me?), Glee) in Kansas because she is the only one who can do something for some reason.
Time moves faster in Oz apparently so instead of the decades that have passed Dorothy is passed out in her basement after the last tornado wrecked her house. The fact that she is still missing and unconscious does little to concern Aunty Em (Tracey Adams-Parenthood, Gray’s Anatomy, School Dance) and Uncle Henry (Michael Krawic-Ghosts of Mars, Fire Down Below, the X Files) as they catalog the damage done instead of looking for their missing niece (wait a minute. Didn’t Dorothy wake up in a bed surrounded by her relatives, all of whom had been characters in the Land of Oz? Piddling detail, I’m sure). Their house is wrecked but before they can start repairs “the Apprairser” shows up and tells them the house is condemned and they have to leave. Aunty Em and Uncle Henry cave like sheep but Dorothy is suspicious.
At that point the rainbow lands and scoops her up. She gets half the message before the flying monkeys wreck the machine and dump her in the Oz countryside. Her enemy is apparently the Jester (Martin Short-Mars Attacks!, Frankenweenie, Weeds) who is the brother of the dead witch and cursed to always be dressed as a jester. She hooks up with her fat owl friend Wiser (Oliver Platt-Love and Other Drugs, X-Men First Class, 2012) who, just like in the other movie is motivated to join Dorothy in order to find his…? Self control? Eaters Anonymous? Jenny Craig? The go to Candyland where he proves his ability to curb his appetite by eating everything in sight. Dorothy joins him in his food orgy (showing kids a cartoon hero eating enough candy to give the entire city of Butte, Montana diabetes is a positive message, right?) only to find out that is illegal and is arrested by Marshal Mallow (every time I see that name it just looks more and more clever. Hugh Dancy-Adam, Black Hawk Down, King Arthur). They are convicted in candy court (less cute than it sounds) but are pardoned when the judge learns that Dorothy is the Dorothy who killed the witch. Marshal Mallow joins them in order to find his king or something and perhaps some kind of spine?
They have to go through China and the Jester sends an earthquake to wreck all the china (oh, you thought the major world power? How narrow is your thought process is. Chairman Mao image courtesy of the Political T Shirt category). By the way, if the Jester has the power to summon up a 6.5 earthquake whenever he wants how is it he even has any competition at all? The China Princess (Megan Hilty-Smash, Secret of the Wings) joins up in order to…do something? Maybe ask the Jester to not send earthquakes? There was something about evaluating Marshal Mallow as a possible husband (given that she is 8 inches tall and he is at least six feet I hope she does a lot of yoga). The team opts to bring her along because there is no way an 8 inch girl in a formal gown made of china will be a liability when she falls off a curb and shatters.
Anyway, once the characters are established that’s pretty much it. The Jester sends stuff to stop them and they overcome it, mostly with dumb luck. One of the talking trees (inexplicably voiced by the great Patrick Stewart. How the hell did he get roped into this?) volunteers to be cut down and turned into a boat. Flying monkeys are no match for candy catapults apparently. The movie grinds its way to an inevitable conclusion.
I don’t do the black holes/stars thing for kids movies. That’s a good thing as far as this movie is concerned. I generally judge kids movies by how the kids in the theater were reacting and the kids in this flick (all four of them) were bored stupid. One of them was doing that thing where he insisted on moving to seat after seat and even ended up sitting right next to me (as an aside I have a realistic understanding of how I am perceived in the world and if you see a 6’5″ guy sitting at the very back of the theater by himself in a children’s movie I think it fair to assume he can be found on the Megans Law website. Odds are the responsible parent thing to do is steer your children away from him, and while I am most definitely not on that site I would applaud your parental instinct). If your kids are particularly challenged mentally they might enjoy it, but understand that by bringing them to see this film you are committing yourself to 92 minutes that compares favorably only to falling into an open septic tank and spending the night there. There is absolutely nothing here for the parents (or poor adult reviewers).
Thanks for reading. I’m seeing Godzilla tonight and hope to have time to write it up tomorrow although I have a lot happening this weekend (Big Wow in San Jose, if you live in the Bay Area). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
“The Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 41 The Deadly Years
I’m kind of middle of the line on this one. Not bad, not great. I really liked the Corbomite bluff and it’s always fun to see Checkov used extensively, but the whole Commodore Stocker thing always bugged the hell out of me.
You see, in Balance of Terror it was established that not violating the Neutral Zone was worth any price up to and including the destruction of the ship, but Commodore Stocker, while a base commander with no deep space training, doesn’t seem to be capable of reading regulations and orders or even understanding that his need to shave a few hours off his trip to Starbase 10 could very well commit the Federation to war with the Romulan Empire. I know he was supposed to be a pompous jerk, but this is just annoyingly dumb.
It was also established earlier that the Romulans were pretty much looking for an excuse to go to war. Just because they failed to destroy the Enterprise doesn’t mean that the Praetor and Tal Shiar didn’t at least consider the whole deal an excuse to open a can of whoop ass. It certainly would have warranted a little more concern on the part of Kirk, Spock, and Stocker towards the end of the episode. It just might have behooved the Federation to send some kind of “Sorry our guys are idiots” message or at least a Pick Me Up Bouquet.
Like I said not one of their best. It does seem like whenever something bad or painful but not deadly has to happen to a crewman Chekov is the go to guy. 
Also if you are an advocate of senior rights this one will probably not sit well with you. Even the title “The Deadly Years” could be seen as painfully insensitive. Whatever happened to “the Golden Years”? If someone ever told my mother she was enjoying her Deadly Years I’d koon-ut-kal-if-fee his ass so hard his own parents would feel it. Lord knows I have enough frustrated libido to give me the focus. Feel the bite of my lirpa!
All that being said the squirrel nuts image comes to us from the funny t shirt category. I never said I was sensetive enough to get out of being strangled with an Ahn’woon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Neighbors Review
Some funny jokes that unfortunately got stretched over too much movie.
This is a film that I have to fight past my own prejudices to review fairly. I was a GDI in college and proud of it. I tend to find organizations who’s sole purpose is to get its members drunk and/or laid to be a waste of oxygen (although were I to go back in time I’d probably rush a fraternity if only to get laid once in a while. And that, my friends, is the official sound of me selling out. I’ll leave my punk rock/alternative lifestyle membership card at the door) . I also find Seth Rogan’s humor either really hot or really cold and have yet to forgive him for the Green Hornet.
Then there is my issue with Zac Efron. I really, really want to hate him. He is way too pretty a male (I don’t know if I can call him a man) and grievously exacerbates my own image and self esteem issues (sometimes I don’t know if I can call myself a man). He as done not a single movie to date that I didn’t hate (That Awkward Moment in particular, but the Lorax sucked too and I still have nightmares from the festering midden known as New Years Eve) and his success with women makes me sometimes wish for a tragic illegal firework to the groin accident so at least I would have an excuse for how miserably I do.
The problem is deep down inside I suspect that if I were to hear him interviewed on Howard Stern or maybe meet him somewhere and grab some coffee he might just turn out to be a super cool and chill dude and that just isn’t fair. I am so much happier with successful, beautiful people who are soulless douchebags. People who have all that plus are neat damage my mental paradigm. Also I can’t fault Zac’s work ethic. He might be making crap movies, but at least he is making a lot of them. Eventually he might hit a script that doesn’t count on him carrying the entire film by taking off his shirt.
So did I like this movie or not? It definitely had some great moments but honestly it felt like a 20 minute SNL skit stretched out over 96 minutes. Seth Rogan seems to now ascribe to the “if it was funny once, it will be funny four more times” school of humorous repetition. Like so many modern comedies the story is basically the taxi that moves the film from set piece to set piece joke. It also didn’t help that the best running gag of the film (the airbags inserting into normal seats) I have seen in trailers several dozen times.
Then there is the level of stupidity exhibited by the protagonists. Drug movies are funny when you see stoners come up with dopey plans based on the gaps vacated by their long lost brain cells. This is why I love It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts). The problem I had with these characters is they are supposed to be responsible adults with jobs and an infant but are coming out with plans that would seem dumb to Shaggy and Scooby Doo on angel dust. The story is that Seth is an ex stoner who is trying to grow up but it just didn’t seem credible. Also, while the baby was super duper cute and a big plus in the movie seeing her parents getting drunk and stoned as hell but trying to listen to their baby monitor had me squirming in my seat for concern for her. Having both your parents pass out drunk on the floor seems like a recipe for SIDS. Also what was the deal with the two of them needing to have sex in the same room with the baby awake and mobile? You are OK using your baby monitor to keep tabs on your kid from next door at a massive frat party while getting completely wasted and listening to very loud music but you can’t go into the next room and leave the door open a crack to keep from giving your kid some repressed trauma to work on in therapy in 25 years?
That being said there were some really excellent moments. Some of the party scenes with Seth and Zac were really funny (especially the dance off) and if I hadn’t already seen it 50 times the air bag thing would have been hilarious. There was a really cool growing up/bromance/homoerotic undercurrent going on between Zac’s character and Dave Franco’s. I thought Rose Byrne crushed every scene and in my opinion stole a lot of the movie. There were a few rated R topless scenes (including one that I both strongly suspect and hope were prosthetics for Rose Byrne. When you see it you will understand) to keep things interesting and the final scene with Zac and Seth both topless was pretty amazing.
The story is basically the ultimate nightmare of suburban college town living. Mac Radner (Seth Rogan-This is the End, Guilt Trip, 50/50) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne-the Internship, X-Men First Class, 28 Weeks Later) live in suburbia with their super cute infant daughter Stella (played by twin babies Ellise and Zoey Vargas. Kind of a clever way of getting more work out of a baby actor. No other credits, obviously, unless they did some indy “in the womb” piece). Their life seems pristine and Mac still gets to spark the owl with his work stoner buddy Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz-the Awesomes, Eastbound and Down, the Mindy Project).
The house next door gets sold to a frat led by president Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron-the Lucky One, the Paper Boy, At Any Price) and vice pres Pete (Dave Franco-21 Jump Street, Now You See Me, Warm Bodies). The Radners head over to try to make nice and seem to do well. The frat is dedicated to partying epically on all levels and throws a huge one that night. Mac and Kelly head over to ask nicely for them to turn down the music and Teddy is accommodating, even inviting them in to join the party. The two of them rage until dawn (newborn babies sleep all night with epically loud techno music playing next door, right?) and Teddy and Mac bond.
Unfortunately the next night there is another party and they have to call the police. The worst cop ever shows up and rats out the Radners. At that point it becomes a fragmented Animal House with Mac in the role of Dean Wormer. He tries to go to the dean of the school (played very unconvincingly by Lisa Kudrow. Sorry Lisa. I do love you but you looked like you were attending the frat parties, not regulating them. I mean that as a compliment. -Friends, Analyze This, Easy A) who is more motivated to control bad press than make sure students get a quality eduction. Sit com-style episodes start rolling down the chute. Mac finds Stella chewing on a condom, he busts a pipe and floods the frat house basement, the frat makes molds of their erect penises and uses them to sell sex toys (I’m sure that joke looked a lot funnier on paper, and by on paper I mean rolling paper) in order to pay for the damage, Kelly manages to force a wedge between Pete and Teddy, yada yada yada.
Honestly things just keep going until party Armageddon. Eventually everything comes to a head and then later sort of resolves itself in a very tepid and unsatisfying way.
The stars:
Some really funny moments. Two stars. Acting was in general pretty good. One star. Rose Byrne in particular killed it. One star. I thought the sub plot of Teddy and Pete having a serious bromance and facing growing up was better done and more interesting than the main story. Kind of wish they had played that one out more. One star. Every woman in this film was at least super hot (especially Rose. I don’t see any mention of a husband on IMDB. Hmm. Rose if you are reading this and are single it would be my honor to take you out to the most romantic dinner $27 can buy. Tweet me). One star. Some brief but nice topless shots (the Rose one is a wash at best however. It almost earned this film a black hole). One star. If you enjoy watching young people party their asses off and drug/booze humor works for you welcome to Nirvana. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes:
I don’t know about you but I find it very difficult to identify with stupid protagonists. One black hole. After a while the set pieces got old and I found myself yearning for an actual story. One black hole. If this were real life there would be legitimate concern for the safety of the baby and that is something I don’t consider funny. One black hole. I really, really want to black hole this movie for Zac Efron but honestly he did an admirable job (and I secretly suspect he could be cool to hang with). I also want to black hole this film for showing kids having more fun in 10 minutes of college than I had in five years (word to the wise, kids. If you want to enjoy college choose any other UC than Irvine. Really, who wants to call themselves an Anteater anyway?) but this is where I put on my grown up reviewer pants and keep my personal bias out of it. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of five stars, which for me puts it at the bottom of the good category (mediocre tends to be 3 stars down to 2 black holes. I honestly don’t know why but that is how it seems to work out). Should you see it? Sober? Maybe. Drunk and/or stoned? Absolutely. This is a film that will seem 100 times better if you can blaze up and loc it in the parking lot with a fifth of vodka and a pint of orange juice prior. Date movie? Sure. Nothing here to creep her out and if she finds this funny it might help. On the other hand every second she sees Zac Efron with his shirt off (and there are a lot of them) you are bleeding sex appeal so maybe not. Bathroom break? Any of the Dean meetings could be missed with impunity assuming you saw Animal House and understand how double secret probation works (although in this case it’s three strikes).
Thanks for reading as always. The film world still in Spider-Man recovery so not a lot more to see. I think I will try to catch up on some smaller fish that slipped my net, but I have two shows back to back the next two weekends (Big Wow in San Jose and Kublacon in Burlingame. If you are going to be at either stop by and say hi) and that always screws up my writing schedule. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (<–Rose take note) or email questions and suggestions to [email protected]. Comments on this film or my review can be left right here. Have a great weekend.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 42 Obsession
Another one of my favorite episodes. I like to think that a lot of space horror ideas were sparked here. Alien, for example. Also, this is a good example of how Captain Kirk will always be a better captain than Picard. Remember the TNG episode where the crystalline entity was literally sucking up millions of sentient beings and Picard wanted to find a way to talk to it? This gas cloud kills a couple red shirts (oh, yeah. Also half of the Farragut’s crew) and Kirk is willing to drop an antimatter bomb on it. My kind of captain. The one thing any hapless red shirt could count on is after his or her horrible death if there was someone or something that could be made to bleed for it Kirk would find a way. Good luck with that on the NCC-1701-D. I hope your family receives a copy of the strongly worded letter of protest Picard sent to whatever alien monster snacked on your bone marrow to go with your folded Federation flag.
(Red shirt image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category)
I also liked Ensign Garrovick. There was a series of cool named red shirts who later just disappeared (Riley, for one). I wonder if Shatner ever felt threatened by them and had them axed. I wouldn’t put it past him. I am a massive Shatner fan and Kirk will always be my captain but I freely acknowledge that in general he was a total jerk.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
The Quiet Ones Review
A horror movie sans horror.
While I am an aficionado of all things zombie and sci fi, horror is not a category I can comfortably call myself an expert in (I see zombie movies and horror movies as entirely different categories BTW. I’d be happy to discuss the difference with anyone who actually cares). 
Friday the 13 and Halloween never actually did much for me. I like stories where the protagonists have a chance to fight back, not be hung on a meat hook by an immortal force of nature. (Halloween image courtesy of the Horror Movie T shirt category)
(Incidentally, meat hooks and things hanging from them is something I am way too familiar with. My father was a meat cutter and I spent an unhealthy chunk of my childhood surrounded by dead animals and insanely sharp knives. Good thing I’m so well adjusted today. You know, quiet fellow. Keep to myself for the most part).
That being said I am not illiterate in this area. I have seen most of the classic horror films and understand what works or doesn’t work for them. More importantly I understand what works and doesn’t work for film in general, and unfortunately there is less that works than doesn’t work here.
I’m not happy to say that as I am a fan of Hammer films. They made a name for themselves in the B movie horror film arena with such classics as the Vampire Lovers, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, The Devil Rides Out, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, The Plague of Zombies, Vampire Circus, Hands of the Ripper, and the Camp on Blood Island. Most of these are weirdly amazing and super fun to watch with some friends and some beers on a Saturday afternoon. More recently they have tried to break into bigger budget, bigger name films with the Woman in Black and Let Me In with mixed results.
I won’t say this film was bad. Just that there was an absence of good. The film focused on building suspense to a denouement that really wasn’t a whole lot more exciting than the rest of the film. The “horror” was mainly derived from found footage style surprises, like “wouldn’t it be surprising if we were watching a possessed woman on 8mm film and all of a sudden the nearby radiator blew up with a loud bang?”. Off camera bumps, knocks, and things happening out of the shot or suddenly flying across the screen in a blur that ends up showing you nothing is not the zenith of horror making in my opinion. The net result of this constant build up to next to nothing was 98 minutes that dragged for 92 of them, with lots of time spent watching the creepy professor smoke and bitch his students out.
I also have an issue with the whole “found footage” aspect of this film in that if you are going to commit commit. You can’t go parachuting and hang from the planes landing gear for an hour and a half. The camera shifted back and forth from what was being “shot” by Brian, the camera guy, and a regular film camera. Very little attempt was made to make the shot footage look like it was one on a single camera in 1974 so the shift back and forth really did nothing for the film. They should have either gone all found footage or just blown the whole thing off. Also the sound was flawless in spite of the fact that there was no sound guy. SPOILER ALERT Given that all the found footage was reportedly destroyed by the end of the film it made this aspect even more annoying.
A lot has been said about this film being taken from a true story but if so perhaps there is a reason most movies are written from fiction. The scientist was kind of either comically evil or laughable stupid. The rest of the cast was Shaggy and a slutty Wilma from Scooby Doo, a straight man, and the possessed girl herself. As a whole they seemed like complete idiots in that they didn’t all bug out the first time random evil crap started happening around them. No real reason was given for anyone other than the professor and the possessed girl to hang around, and characters with no sense of self preservation make for incredibly lame protagonists.
Of course regular readers should remember that I hate the ’70s with a burning passion so that definitely colored some of my perception. I think I was fair in my assessment of the film regardless of that. For the record given a choice between traveling back on time to the 70’s or the Great Plague I would have to give serious consideration to London in 1665. At least they didn’t wear bellbottom pants suits.
The story. It starts off with Professor Joseph Coupland of Oxford (Jared Harris-Natural Born Killers, Lincoln, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. By the way, the “real” story they took this from happened in Toronto. I guess the film need the most prestigious university ever to make it work. It makes more sense to me that weirdness like this would come from the Great White North. Hail to our Canadian nerd brethren! You guys rock!) hiring a camera guy named Brian (Sam Claflin-Snow White and the Huntsmen, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) to document a study of a girl he believes to be manifesting ghosts and apparitions with her mind using “dark energy” (? Oil? The theoretical glue of the universe? A generator powered by burning babies? What is dark energy?). His is assisted by tech geek Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne-Vampire Academy, Stealaway) and super blond and slutty ill defined scientist of some kind Krissi (Erin Richards-Open Grave, Breaking In, Being Human).
He introduces him to the subject Jane (Olivia Cooke-Bates Motel, the Signal, Ouija), who looks exactly like she is possessed by an evil spirit that seriously wants to kill everyone. They are recording her with some kind of electronic devices while forcing her to stay awake with the help of Cum on Feel the Noize by Slade. She is sort of a prisoner with no privacy and sort of a volunteer. Joseph’s plan is to force her evil, dark energy filled side out and some how remove it (he is truly short on explanations on how he intends to do anything other than torture the girl and get his grad students killed. At one point he seriously said something about harnessing the dark energy and I swear I thought he was going to add a maniacal laugh and the words “then take over the world!” but that might have made the film interesting). He also thinks that if he can cure Jane he can cure everyone in the world with mental problems (what, and put my poor therapist out of work?).
They lose their funding from Oxford and have to move out to some super creepy house to avoid all the noise complaints. At that point the film turns into about 75 minutes of bad X-Files episodes. You know, the ones where every few minutes you think you are about to see something super cool and interesting but it turns out to be a damned cat? Interesting stuff almost happens a lot, and on the rare occasion something happens it is always off screen. There are some dopey twists and betrayals. I won’t spoil the ending but I was more glad the film was over than anything else.
The stars:
I don’t know. Both of the girls were super hot, and you almost see them naked in a very PG-13 way. One star. I will give credit for an original setting. You don’t see a lot of horror movies set in England. Usually they are outside of some bumbling Bible belt cow town. One star. I do appreciate stories derived from reality. One star. Given an original idea and their obvious attempt to move from the straight-to-DvD world I will award Hammer Films one more star as an A for effort. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes:
Nothing in this film is remotely new or interesting. Recycled from a ton of other films. One black hole. Pacing sluggish as hell. I’ve seen raw security camera footage of nothing happening that seemed better paced. 98 minutes that felt like 198. One black hole. The whole “found footage, not found footage” thing was annoying. Make up your mind. One black hole. Everything that might have been interesting happened off camera. Honestly I think they did it to keep their PG-13 rating. One black hole. A distinct lack of motivation, as in why the hell didn’t any of these people decide being far away from this weird ass girl was more in line with their interest in breathing? I’ll buy people sticking around a dangerous situation as long as you give me some form of excuse as to why. One black hole. At the end of the film I really didn’t know what point was being made. Was she possessed or not? Did she manifest everything with her mind? Was the professor right? One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of one black hole. For me that’s at the low end of mediocre. The film is not irredeemable. Had they tightened up the pacing and given us some actual events prior to the last 10 minutes I might have been much more engaged. However, if you have seen any 10 horror films and the Blair Witch Project you have seen this film. I’d say see it when you are bored at home with nothing else to do. Date movie? Not really. Bathroom break? There’s a scene towards the end when Brian goes back to Oxford for more film or something but really spends a ton of time doing research at the library. Nothing he is doing is explained while he does it and he later reveals everything anyway.
Thanks for reading. Hitting a dearth of film lately. I saw a couple recently and never got around to writing them up so maybe I will do one of those tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Email me any off topic questions or suggestions and if you have a comment on this film or my review feel free to leave it here. Talk to you soon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 43 Wolf in the Fold
This episode was not exactly a pillar of women’s liberation. If one could have a real complaint with regards to this show in general it’s that in spite of all it’s attempts at racial issues, anti war, and social problems the sexism and misogyny were rampant and never so much as in this episode. 
Women are pretty much treated as inanimate sex objects and are more or less helpless in the face of masculine dominance (Not to mention brutally murdered en masse. Problem solved image, while not necessarily funny, comes from the Funny T Shirt category. Sorry it was the best misogynist image I could find). One of the worst quotes from Mr. Spock ever came from this one: “women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species.”
If anything redeeming can be had from this episode it is that if you compare this to any of the TNG shows you can see how greatly the shift in gender parity has progressed. I won’t pretend there aren’t still major issues surrounding this today but in TNG none of this dancing sex slave girl BS would have surfaced. Also for once Kirk wasn’t the focus of the show. It’s nice to see Scotty get his chance at bat.
However, let’s talk about the psycho-tricorder for a minute. So this device records anything that happens to someone for the last 24 hours. Umm, excuse me but wouldn’t that have been the perfect answer to like 85% of the other episodes? Court Martial? Turnabout Intruder? And the Children Shall Lead? The Trouble with Tribbles? Journey to Babel? Mudd’s Women? Space Seed? Dagger of the Mind? Charlie X? The Man Trap? The Conscious of the King? Spock’s Brain? Every one of these episodes could have been solved in short order with the use of the psycho-tricorder. Just strap Kara into one of those and figure out exactly what she did with Spock’s brain. It should have been the most commonly used device after communicators.
Oh, well. I guess sometimes you just invent stuff to keep the episode moving without having to worry about how it will affect future episodes (cough cough kironide cough cough). Also by listing all those episodes I just realized that TOS had some very cool episode titles. Suck it, TNG. Encounter at Farpoint might be the worst title ever.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 44 The Trouble With Tribbles
Ah, a classic. Of course it is in my nature to be a contrarian and as this episode is beloved by almost everyone I should find a reason to hate it, but I don’t. This episode puts a big smile on my face every time. I love the story, I love the Klingons, I love the big bar fight started by Scotty; there is nothing in this episode that does not make me happy.
I could talk about the paranoia of the 70’s and how the Klingons were clearly the Russians, but honestly I have always had another question. At one point Kirk goes to the rec room to get dinner and his meal comes out of the replicator covered with Tribbles who had eaten his food. The question is this: did the replicator replicate some live Tribbles? Is the TOS replicator different from the TNG? Is it just a very high speed food processor? If so how did the Tribbles survive being microwaved or whatever process was used to heat up the food? Shouldn’t Kirk have gotten a meal of fried Tribble? Crazy Delicious image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt collection.
Another thing I love about this episode is that is for the first time ever showed Kirk beaten down and at his wits end. The scene where he is walking slowly around the bridge picking up Tribbles pretty much says everything possible about what was going on. When he finally freaks out it the timing and tone is perfect. I also like how he started the episode not taking the grain or Tribbles at all seriously but eventually had to. Kudos to the great director Joseph Pevney.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to throw a shout out to my friend Miles, the Tribble Guy. I have seen him at every Star Trek convention we have set a booth up at and he is a good dude. He and I usually sit around bitching about the assorted conventions we do. He is not hard to spot as he drives a panel truck with giant Tribbles on it. He sells Tribbles of the highest quality, not to mention stuffed germs that are hilarious. You can find them at his site Tribble Toys.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 45 the Gamesters of Triskelion
This episode always brings a big smile to my face. As a kid my favorite episodes always had a lot of hand to hand combat and this episode was nothing but that in all of Shatners greatest shoulder roll glory.
This was also the episode that as a preteen boy most flipped my hormone switch, if you know what I mean. To this day whenever I see a girl with green hair (and/or a silver lame bikini) I flash back to the gorgeous Angelique Pettyjohn as Shahna. My ultimate fantasy would have to be her and metal bikini Leia. Yes, I know I’m a pig. At least I’m a nerdy pig.
This episode also introduced us to the currency I plan to use to replace all world currencies once I conquer this pathetic mudball, quatloos (I also plan to have martial combats be a means of settling legal disputes and caning be an Olympic event). I see the Canadian habit of calling their one dollar coin a loonie a sign of their connectivity with the gestalt human consciousness since I believe quatloos will be called “loos” for short. Kudos to our friends in the Great White North.
On a side note if I were a lowlie crewman on board the Enterprise doing my daily job of mucking out the toilets and exterminating Tribbles I think I would have a problem with Kirk betting my life and freedom in a 3 to 1 fight to the death. I’m pretty sure there is a Starfleet regulation somewhere that says your commanding officer cannot sell you into slavery. Image courtesy of the retro TV show t shirt category.
“the Infamous Dave” Inman
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 3D
Spider-Man! Spider-Man! Does whatever any other crappy comic book based movie can!
There are certain franchises that I have what can only be described as a dysfunctional relationship with. Like an abused spouse I get beaten and belittled, yet come crawling back in the vain hope that THIS time things will be different and the abuse will magically stop.
Spider-Man is exactly that kind of franchise and I have to say it might be time for me to give up on the relationship. Like most relationships the first few months were great (in this analogy represented by the original Tobey MacGuire movie) but had slipped down a steady slope of mediocrity and canon abuse. Each movie has a few points that are fun but the fun elements steadily diminish leading us to this remnant, representing the least fun movie of the franchise. I dread whatever they come up with next. I can only assume a movie so unfun that it sucks the fun out of the movies playing in the theaters adjacent to it.
(image courtesy of the Comic Book t shirt category)
If a few years ago you had told me that one day I would be rooting for Disney I probably would have either laughed or punched you out for impugning my integrity. I have always had an adversarial relationship with the Mouse that started at a security related issue in the Haunted House ride back in my childhood and has grown ever since (in 1987 I went to Grad Night at Disneyland with all of my high school “friends” who ditched me in the first 30 minutes, leaving me wandering the “happiest place on Earth” miserably by myself for 8 hours straight like a lost soul. The contrast was mind bending. That is one of the many childhood traumas that makes me the well adjusted adult I am now). In film in the past I have found them oppressive and formulaic, with little redeeming artistic value. As I work in the licensing industry Disney is a name spoken with fear and dread as they will literally hang you from a tree with a barbwire noose if they catch the slightest whiff of copyright infringement (even on images that should have been public domain 50 years ago).
Yet when shown what they have done with most of the Marvel movies I have to say they are really, really good. Spider-Man needs to be rescued from Sony by the lesser of two evils. When comparing this film too the infinitely superior Captain America: the Winter Soldier the contrast is startling. On paper the two movies should be at the same level. They are both sequels. They are both based on iconic Marvel super heroes. In fact Spider-Man is more beloved and has a richer backstory than Captain America. They both exceeded two hours in run time. So why then does this movie suck and the Winter Soldier rule? In fact rather than just list all the things I hated in this film let’s do a comparison, shall we?
1. Three times the villains =/= three times the fun. There is a weird belief in bad comic book movie making that adding more villains will automatically make the movie better. Joel Schumacher (one of the most hated men in the nerd world) proved that concept Batnipple wrong with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Villains are fun when they are developed like the heroes and have a personal axe to grind. Each time you add another one to the film you cut the amount of time one can spend on character development, making each one in turn that much more uninteresting. The good movies treat villains almost as importantly as the heroes. Sometimes more so in that you can have a team of heroes but only one villain (Magneto from X-Men, Khan from TWOK, Darth Vader). By adding more villains to this film you take away from the value of each one, resulting in a sum that is less than the individual parts (having Paul Giamatti speak with a Russian accent and hate Spider-Man for getting him arrested earlier is not an automatic good villain. What is this, the Rocky and Bullwinkle show?). Disney wisely opted to go with one great villain. These guys went with a bunch.
2. Have a linear plot without too much to distract from the story. I checked a bunch of other reviewers for this film and the most common joke made was something along the line of “What a tangled web they’ve weaved” or the like. Winter Soldier, while addressing some interesting social issues and having a couple of cool plot twists, had a story that did not verge off into Magical Tangentland every ten minutes. This movie is about what happened to Peter Parkers parents, how he got his powers, how another guy loved and felt betrayed by Spider-Man, Peter haunted by Gwen Stacy’s dead father, his romance with Gwen, Harry Osbourne dying of something and needing Spider-Mans blood, Harry Osbourne haunted by feelings of failure from his father, OsCorp business politics, Spider-Man being abused by the media, Aunt May keeping secrets from Peter, Aunt May’s feelings for Peter, and Harry feeling betrayed by Peter. The film has six different writing credits and it shows. In fact it looks like each one wrote about 20 minutes without ever talking to or meeting any of the others. Also can someone give Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci a job watching paint dry or something? How many crappy scripts are they going to ruin before the literature police show up and arrest them? For the record they did both Star Treks, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, and Van Helsing. I can totally see why they are the best choice for a film with a $200 million budget.
3. Ease back on the romance. Ok, in the comic book I was always more of a Gwen Stacy fan than Mary Jane and love was always a part of Peter Parkers life but jeez, how much of this film is going to be taken up with freaking Gwen Stacy, her option to move to England, her romance with Peter, and the whole thing. I am for sure a fan of Emma Stone and like looking at her on the screen but I’m here to see Spider-Man fight some guy, not watch the two of them eat ice cream. Notice that in Winter Soldier the romance was touched upon and then let rest easy in the background, secure in it’s knowledge that it had contributed just the right amount to the story.
4. No kids. Look, if we learned anything from The Phantom Menace it’s that kids in sci fi action movies suck. They generally suck as actors (not always but often), they take you out of the fantasy of the film into a legitimate concern for their safety (movies like this require suspension of disbelief, something that is hard to do when you see kids on the screen), and rarely add anything to the film. Do the producers really think that more kids are going to want to see this film because some eight year old is on the screen? Kids don’t want to be other kids in a Spider-Man movie. They want to be Spider-Man.
5. Treat the canon with SOME respect. I know I go off on this all the time, but every time you think it might be a good idea to go off canon in the interest of making the movie do something it really shouldn’t take a day to think about it and at the end of the day punch yourself in the balls really hard. If the canon change is worth a punch in the balls go for it. If not stick to the story as written. The fact is the best comic book movies try to stick to the comic book.
6. Don’t give any of your characters back stories that suck. You know, the nerdish guy who had some kind of accident and gained super powers has already been done. He’s called Spider-Man. The Electro back story was as tepid and lame as humanly possible. The whole Harry/Norman Osborne story sucked. They didn’t even bother with Rhino. If you had focused on one villain you could have had more time to develop something more interesting but that’s neither here nor there.
8. Avoiding the temptation to make your cast into a joke. This may or may not be petty but the director of this film is no joke named Mark Webb. Prior to getting on board with the new Spider-Man franchise he had directed absolutely nothing of note. This is purely speculation but I would be willing to bet at some point while considering who to put in charge of this someone at Sony said “This guys last name is Webb! That is fate! Also he must be a huge expert in Spider-Man with a name like that. The fans will love it!” and then proceeded to do more coke. Notice Winter Soldier did not hire a guy named Anthony Shield.
8. Soundtrack. Regular readers might recall me saying I never even notice soundtracks unless it is painfully obtrusive and annoying, and I will just say I haven’t “noticed” a soundtrack this painfully obtrusive in years. It was like sitting in the window seat on a plane and the guy next to you is a 300lbs homeless fan of garlic. The music used in this film would have embarrassed the creators of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica. Again, I never even noticed the soundtrack from Winter Soldier.
I could go on. Bottom line is in my opinion Sony should just sell the license back to Disney and let them make great movies instead of mediocre convoluted BS. Once I am done flagellating myself for coming down in favor of Disney I will feel a lot better about that statement.
The story. There is a lot of potential spoiler material so I am going to go easy on it (also it was so complex I am having a hard time keeping it in order). However a good amount will sneak into this so SPOILER ALERT. Skip ahead to the stars. Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield-the Social Network, I’m Here, Unscripted) starts things off by stopping a hijacking of a truck carrying plutonium (which we are told in one of the lamest plot devices ever is both radioactive and explosive. While the explosive part is sort of true it is not going to blow up like the movie implied. Also plutonium is a solid on this planet, not a liquid. Bad science makes me mad/sad). The hijacker is Paul Giamatti (Saving Private Ryan, Private Parts, the Illusionist) who will later resurface as the Rhino.
While saving the plutonium Spider-Man also saves Max Dillon (Jaime Foxx-Collateral, Django Unchained, Ray), a nebbish electrical engineer working for OsCorp. Max becomes obsessed with Spider-Man and is his biggest fan. Spider-Man goes back to Peter Parker and his college graduation with girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone-Crazy Stupid Love, the Croods, Gangster Squad). They break up for some reason (I think Peter was too worried about her getting hurt and she was pissed off because she’s a big girl and doesn’t need protection? Given that her father died in the last movie 10 feet from Spider-Man I would think his concerns might sit more heavily with her than that, but whatever).
Meanwhile Norman Osborne (Chris Cooper-The Patriot, Adaption, the Muppets) locks down his Father-of-the-Year award by telling his son Harry (Dane DeHaan-Chronicle, Lawless, Kill Your Darlings) how disappointed he is in him and also that Harry is soon going to die of the same ill defined genetic disease (not sure what they called it or if they even gave it a name. For the purposes of this review I am going to call it Shmerpes). Norman dies (without becoming the Green Goblin) and Harry takes over, dealing with internal corporate politics (fascinating, really) before the first symptoms of his Shmerpes kicks in.
Gwen works at OsCorp and meets Max on an elevator. Max’s boss tells him to stick around and work when the entire company is going home over the death of Norman. Max has to perform a high tech repair (known as plugging two cables together) and has an accident where he falls into (oh God I wish I were kidding) a tank filled with mutant electric eels, turning him into Electro.
(You know, a guy gets bitten by a radioactive animal and gains the animals powers has already been done. He’s called Spider-Man. This is just lazy writing all around.)
So Electro comes out and is attacked by cops and beaten down by Spider-Man. Meanwhile Harry is desperately searching for a cure for Shmerpes and discovers the fact that Peter Parkers father Richard was working with Norman on some mutated spiders but they were all destroyed. For some reason Harry thinks this venom is a cure and also that Spider-Man must have gotten his powers from these spiders. (Oh, yeah. Radioactive spider venom now has healing properties (cough cough Wolverine cough cough).)
So Harry asks Peter to ask Spider-Man for some of his blood in order to cure his Shmerpes but for some reason Spider-Man knows more about his blood than the entire OsCorp research team and tells Harry that the blood is too dangerous (um, Harry, Peter’s best friend, is dying. What does Spider-Man think the blood is going to do? Make Harry double dead?).
Things go haywire from there. Harry loses control of OsCorp and busts Electro out of the facility where they are torture-experimenting on him (?). They get the company back and Harry discovers that the guy who took over had the spider venom all the time. He takes some of it at gunpoint but it combines with his Shmerpes to do something bad (?). He more or less collapses and only by sticking himself into the Green Goblin suit (it just happened to be lying around) can he survive. Everyone decides they hate Spider-Man for assorted ill defined reasons and wreaking the whole city is worth getting revenge.
The stars:
Action was pretty good. They definitely captured what it’s like to be and/or fight against Spider-Man. Two stars. Visuals and special effects were great. I really liked the look of Electro and the big fight scene between him and Spidey was awesome. Two stars. I really liked Dane DeHaan as Harry Osbourne. He really brought as much heat as he could to the film. One star. As a purist I should probably hate the new Rhino suit but honestly I loved it. Extremely cool. I also loved the new Goblin suit. Too bad we never got more than three minutes of either of then. Two stars. Emma Stone is very easy on the eyes and played her role well. One star. If you don’t feel the need for character development and a coherent story this film is fun. Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes.
Too many villains dammit. Give me a bad guy to get to know and sink my movie going teeth into. One black hole. Way too much going on in the story. One black hole. Way too much romance. Do we really care that Gwen is considering moving to England so much that we have to go with her on her interview? One black hole. The whole parents sub plot and his fathers part in creating Spider-man was also totally unnecessary and stupid (actually those three last words describe most of the sub plots). One black hole. Massive plot holes. How is it spiders created by Richard Parker are still alive to bite 14 years later? How did he get a secret lab built in an abandoned subway platform? Did OsCorp build it? If so why did they not come get all his research after he betrayed them? How is the lab fully functional and spotless with biological samples in Petri dishes 14 years later? How is it Peter and Harry are best friends when they haven’t seen each other in 8 years? The list goes on. One black hole. Going off canon in really stupid directions. One black hole. Bad science. One black hole. The soundtrack felt like I was wrestling Shmoo and lost. Smothering. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
A total of two stars, and me once again frustrated with what could have been. The potential of this film was great but instead they just did the typical Hollywood design-by-committee pap. When I look a this film and the convoluted yet horribly simplified story, the massive special effects, and the lack of real character development I realize that it was clearly made with overseas audiences in mind. This sort of thing will go over great in China. Should you see it? Sure. It’s fun and it’s Spider-Man. However will you want to see it a second time? I do not. Bottom line I am eager to see Winter Soldier a third time but given the prospect of seeing this one again I’d rather watch Tobey MagGuire on DvD. For me that is the mark of a good or bad movie. Date movie? Sure, why not? I don’t think this will get her pants off but it will not keep her pants on, if you get my meaning. Bathroom break? I think the scene with Peter discovering his fathers lab is totally disposable. Either that or any of the scenes with Aunt May. In the comic she was the most boring part of the story and nothing in this film improves upon that. At 142 minutes you will probably need a break somewhere.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try to get something else watched soon. In truth I saw this Thursday night and have been putting off writing it. I know when I find myself reading old blog posts in order to correct grammar errors I really don’t want to write it, and the mundanity of a franchise I used to love does not fire my enthusiasm. Feel free to post comments on this film or my review here, or send me an email if you have off topic questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Also join the dozens of followers I have on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Thanks and have a great night.
“The Infamous Dave” Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 46 A Piece of the Action
Yes I’m back on this. In fact I need to stay on it in order to actually finish this project. I have an idea following this for TNG next.
So A Piece of the Action. I quite liked this episode. The story of how the Sigma Iotians became all 20’s gangster actually made sense, as opposed to “they just evolved into an exact replica of a Paramount backlot”. Sorry but the whole Yang thing from Omega Glory always bugged me (not to mention the Roman Empire from Bread and Circuses).
The other part about this that rocked is it really shows the importance of the Prime Directive. The book Chicago Mobs of the Twenties was left pretty much by accident by the Horizon and rewrote the entire direction of the culture of the Sigma Iotians. Would that JJ Abrams had watched this episode before creating his last abomination (actually, would that JJ Abrams had ever watched a single episode before signing up to direct the Star Trek reboot).
As an aside I recently learned that Star Trek fans at the Vegas Con voted Star Trek Into Darkness the worst movie of the series. Kudos to you all. This is why I love Trek fans and am proud to count myself among your number. Of course the TNG Fanboys voted First Contact the number two best movie in a lame homage to the Borg but as long at TWOK is number one I have no real complaint (although if we were to sit down together I could tell you in excruciating detail why First Contact also sucks. Am I too hardcore in my Star Trek purity? Mabye). I might do a blog about that list some time in the future. It puts a smile on my face.
The episode image comes from the TV Show t shirt category. Yes, I know it has the wrong number on it. I go by release order while my printer goes by production number. It is a bone of contention.
“The Infamous Dave” Inman
