Brave Movie Review
Anyway, Brave. If this were a stand alone Disney movie I would have to call it brilliant. As a Pixar film I’m going to have to call it mediocre. Still entertaining, but just not to the standard that I have become accustomed to.
Have you ever known a couple who start dating, move in together, and over the course of time end up looking, dressing, and sounding exactly like each other? This seems to be what is happening with the marriage of Disney and Pixar, except in this case it is Pixar, like the subservient personality in the relationship, that is evolving into Disney, not so much the other way around. 
This film definitely has a Disney flavor to it, and I for one feels this bodes ill for Marvel laboring under the thumb of Disney. Of course, the Avengers was amazing so maybe I don’t have to worry so much. (Marvel Comics Con image courtesy of the Marvel Comic T Shirt category)
Let’s see if any of this sounds familiar to any of you Disney fans out there: a young princess is being cajoled into something she doesn’t want to do by her parents and wants to rebel. She meets a witch who gives her a spell that goes horrible awry and has to spend the rest of the film dealing with the consequences and trying to fix it. This is where I get disappointed in Pixar. I expect them to come out with some thing clever and original, not something so formulaic and Disney cookie cutter.
Not to say it wasn’t fun or entertaining. (some modest spoilers incoming so if you want to miss them skip ahead a couple paragraphs) The story is of young Merida, a Scottish princess and tom boy who loves archery and horseback riding. She is the darling of her giant father the king, Fergus, who lost his leg to a terrifying bear Mordu, and the constant headache for her uptight mother Elinor. She has three young triplet brothers who are total scamps.
Anyway, her mother wants her to marry one of the sons of the three clan heads. She doesn’t want to get married (and given that she is like 14 in this movie I can’t really blame her) and causes all kinds of trouble. She wanders into to forest and finds a witch who gives her a spell to cast on her mother to change her. Her mother gets turned into a giant bear and it is up to Merida to keep her hidden from her father (who is known as the “Bear King” and kills all bears on sight) while trying to figure out how to reverse the spell. Scottish highlander hijinks ensues.
As I do with pretty much all kids movies I will forgo my normal star/black hole rating system. I generally judge them on how the kids in the audience reacts, and in this case they were enjoying the hell out of it. Lots of cute action, bright colors, and funny Scottish accents.
The animation was as amazing as I have ever seen. When you see it I invite you to pay particular attention to the animation of Merida’s horse Angus. It is unreal how cool and real it is, while still being a cartoon. The story is linear and simple enough for kids, but the characters and dialog are entertaining enough to engage an adult. Overall a very good movie. If I were to pick one thing to complain about it’s in calling the movie “Brave”. While no one in the film acts in a cowardly manner I didn’t see anything I would consider examples of extreme bravery. Normally if you call a movie Brave it’s because you want to impart some important lesson about bravery. Maybe a young warrior froze up on his first battlefield and has to face the demon of perhaps being a coward. I didn’t see Merida do a lot that would be considered excessively brave, and her father seemed brave enough when backed up by 200 of his clansmen. The title of this film feels like a final comprise among producers after a long debate. I’d be willing to bet the original working title was something like “Merida” until they realized it was pretty much exactly like Mulan.
So should you see this film? Absolutely. Bring the kids if you have them, or see it with some adults at a late showing. You will not be disappointed unless you are a hard core Monsters Inc. fan. Date movie? Are you kidding? This film was made to be a date movie. If this doesn’t get her blood pumping plug her into a power outlet as her robot battery needs recharging. Bathroom break? Honestly this is one of those movies where it is hard to find a dead space. No one scene is really critical, but they are all entertaining and add to the story. If I a gun to my head (or, more relevantly, a bursting bladder) I would probably say the scene where Merida teaches her mother how to fish. It drags on a while, and while entertaining is not really a critical element to the script. Plus, if you didn’t have to use the restroom before seeing all that splashing water will probably make it a priority, if you know what I mean.
Thanks for reading. Please vote for me in that contest. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this movie or my review feel free to post them here. Any off topic questions or comments email to [email protected]. I am getting super busy in the next two weeks getting ready for Comic Con and the biggest Warhammer tournament of the year for so I might be cutting back on movie reviews for a little while. I will probably see Ted this weekend and if I can find the time and stomach for it Magic Mike, although my early warning suck radar is blaring on that one. Today I’m off the Sacramento, party capitol of the Central Valley. Have a great day.
Dave
Rock of Ages Review
Conclusive proof that karaoke can only be enjoyed while drunk off your ass.
I saw this train wreck last night and truly regretted it. This is another movie that is going to suffer deeply for my personal bias and dislike of the 80’s and hair bands. Sorry about that, and if you are a fan of the most culturally bleak decade of American history maybe take this review with a grain of salt.
1987 holds a special place in my heart. You see, that was the year I escaped the most desolate, horrible four years of my life, high school. However, that was basically a few days of feeling good as compared to 10 years of big hair hell. I can honestly say I am a fan of a lot of 80’s music. However, this movie seemed to specifically target exactly the music and bands I hated with a thermonuclear passion back then, and time has not softened my perception. Ballad bands like Journey, Guns n’ Roses, Foreigner, Pat Benatar, Jefferson Starship, Night Ranger, Quarterflash, Europe, and Poison were to me the musical equivalent of the packing Styrofoam your stereo came in, and that was when it was done competently by the actual artists. When it’s done by some auto tune actor with a soulless studio band backing him or her up it just gets painful.
This movie seems to have a misconception as to what hard core rock and roll really is. The main “plot point” of this film has to do with a local Tipper Gore type protesting against the evils of rock music. 
However, having her protest against the evils of Night Ranger is like the local church group protesting the art theater for showing Gone with the Wind with the word “damn” not edited out. It just has no gravitas (Gone with the Wind image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). Also, having everyone in the movie talk about how hard core “rock n’ roll” they are only to break into an REO Speedwagon song is truly laughable.
This movie is like a birthday cake designed by a five year old. About 1/4 of an inch of actual cake topped with 5 inches of frosting. In this case the cake is the plot and the frosting all the musical numbers. Every bit of this film screams “self indulgent tripe”. The director Adam Shankman (Hairspray, a Walk to Remember, Bedtime Stories) obviously wishes he were directing music videos and therefore finds every tenuously flimsy excuse to stick another song and/or dance number in, usually as a mashup and usually about as pleasant as dropping a bowling ball into your lap. It’s literally like watching karaoke; well produced karaoke, but karaoke nevertheless.
Somehow, in spite of the move literally being 60% or more musical numbers, the plot seems weighty and ploddish. The run time is 123 minutes and you feel every one of them. The story is trite and cliche, the acting for the most part is stiff and dry, and the visuals make you wish you were watching autopsy videos. The movie seems to be a celebration of bad casting: Tom Cruise does not feel like a stoner rock god (sorry but every time I saw him I couldn’t help but think “There goes Jerry MacGuire with long hair), Catherine Zeta Jones does not feel like an uptight church lady, Alec Baldwin does not feel like a burned out creepy rock guy, and the two kids to not feel like human beings, much less rock and rollers. The only characters that felt right for their roles were Russell Brand as the sleazy British guy and Paul Giamatti as the sleazy agent, but that was more happy coincidence based on the fact that they both seem naturally sleazy in their own way.
All that being said, in spite of the poor casting a number of the stars actually do a really good job with the rolls they have all been handed. Tom Cruise inhabits his role as Stacey Jaxx and gives it a steller but one dimensional performance. Alec Baldwin does as well as he can with his club owner role. I am not a fan of Russell Brand (his natural greasiness, both physical and personality, feels a lot like the kind of toe jam you get after stepping in an open sewer and then walking for a few miles. Don’t ask me how I know about that) but he is well cast and he and Alec Baldwin have the best timing, chemistry, and repartee of the film. They certainly have more chemistry than the two straight love interest couples. However, I think the few good performances in the film are more a reflection of the talent of the individual performers rather than any inspiration lent to them by a qualified director.
I secretly don’t even want to go into the story. It centers around the world famous Whiskey a Go Go-sorry, the Bourbon Room-on the Fabulous Sunset Strip (incidentally, in my youth I have spent many a lost weekend at the Whiskey. I will say the movie more or less got the atmosphere of the club right, but the demographic of the bands and audience wrong. Think X more than White Snake) and the people who work and perform there. A young girl (Julianne Hough-Footloose, Burlesque) travels to Hollywood from Oklahoma to be a star. She gets mugged but then meets a pretty boy bar back from the Bourbon Room (Diego Boneta-90210, Pretty Little Liars, Mean Girls 2) who gets her a job there. Meanwhile the club is failing miserably unless the owner (Alec Baldwin-30 Rock, the Hunt for Red October, Words with Friends on a Plane) and manager (Russell Brand-Arthur, Get Him to the Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) can get some money together. They have a big gig with the famous Stacey Jaxx (Tom Cruise-Minority Report, Top Gun, Mission Impossible) that should help with their issues. Jaxx is being interviewed by a hot Rolling Stone reporter (Malin Akerman-the Watchmen(Silk Specter 2), the Proposal, the Heartbreak Kid) whom he seduces in one of the stupider PG-13 sex scenes I have seen. Meanwhile the two kids fall in love, the guy starts his music career, and Paul Giamatti (Saving Private Ryan, the Illusionist, Cinderella Man) plays everyone’s sleazy agent.
The stars. Tom Cruise and a few others were entertaining, if extremely one dimensional. One star. There was some tongue-in-cheek humor poking fun at the now defunct music industry (at this point it’s about as relevant as making jokes about Prohibition laws, but whatever) that was decently funny. One star. There wasn’t a girl in this movie who wasn’t super young and hot. One star. I thought the Russell Brand/Alec Baldwin interaction was actually really good, and wouldn’t mind seeing them in a buddy film. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Oh god the never ending musical numbers. It was like being trapped in the elevator to Hell. Two black holes. The story was stunted and underdeveloped yet at the same time weighty and domineering. I still don’t know how they did that. It was like swallowing the worlds largest plantain whole. Two black holes. With the exception of Tom Cruize and a few others I mentioned, a lot of the acting was mediocre. One black hole. A movie about rock n’ roll that features PG-13 sex, no drugs, and actually very little in the way of rock n’ roll. Whitesnake =/= hard core rock. One black hole. The pacing dragged on so long this movie should be visible from space. One black hole. The use of cover music, mediocre dance routines, and minimal story elements linking them together made this film feel like I was watching 123 minutes of Scion and tampon commercials. One black hole. While I know the choices of music used in this film is subjective and others out there might actually have an appreciation of Quarterflash, I would like to point out that two of the songs they chose (We Built This City and the Final Countdown) were voted as the #1 and 2 worst songs of the 80’s in a readers poll in Rolling Stone. Two black holes. There was a mashup at the end featuring Russel Brand and Catherine Zeta-Jones that I am going to give a bonus black hole to for being particularly excruciating. One black hole. A strip club without nudity (PG-13 a go go). One black hole. Total: 12 black holes.
A grand total of 8 black holes. About as bad as I expected, although I honestly expected to hate Tom Cruise’s character a lot more. It was surprising. Is there anything in here worth seeing? Maybe, if you are a huge Glee fan and want to see a worse version of it. Or perhaps you think the one thing missing from your life is a Twisted Sister/Jefferson Starship mashup. If you think you should go because you are a Cruise or Baldwin fan save yourself the pain. You will actually lose respect for your favorite actor if you see this. Date movie? Perhaps for the right girl, but honestly the girl that enjoys this probably has a collection of human skins in the tool shed out back. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere, and if you are like me after the first 10 minutes you will be almost overwhelmed by the desire to relieve yourself all over the theater floor or perhaps the film projector, but if I had to isolate a particularly worthless moment I would say any of the scenes involving the mayor of Los Angeles (sorry Bryan Cranston. I love you in Breaking Bad but this film is not your ticket out of television).
Another long review. Thanks for reading. Please, if you haven’t by the time you get to the end here go back to the top of this review and vote for my business for the grant. I really appreciate it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment about this movie or review feel free to leave it here. Any off topic comments or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. More movies coming soon. I might even bite the bullet (as it passes into my brainpan) and see That’s My Boy. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Review
Entertaining, but if you read the book you might have an axe to grind with this adaptation.
Sorry I couldn’t resist it. The fact is I have been looking forward to this movie for a while, and during the last few months getting annoyed at fellow movie audience members who laughed at the trailers. Unfortunately they were for the most part correct to laugh as a lot of this movie was fairly comical in it’s need to suspend disbelief. However, if you can raise that disbelief to airline cruising altitude there is a lot worth watching here.
I read the book two weeks ago on my flight to Italy and enjoyed it a great deal. It tells of the secret life of Abraham Lincoln and his quest to rid America of the bloodsucking scourge of vampires. It was very clever and well done, with the vampire elements integrated into a broader story making for a cool, innovative retelling of his life while remaining grounded as much as possible in the actual events from American history. The action seemed realistic, with Lincoln developing his vampire hunting skills over a lifetime and coming up with many clever tools and tricks to make up for his human frailties and the strength and quickness of the vampires.
Tragically this movie took all that, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it into the nearest garbage bin. The story is devolved into the simplest of vampire stories, Abe himself is turned into a male Buffy the Vampire slayer with the speed, skill, strength, and reaction time of ten men, and no attempt is made at all to link the story to the historical events. (Buffy staked Edward image courtesy of the Horror Movie t shirt category)
However, the question that can easily be asked at this point is “What were you expecting, Dave?” Hollywood has shown little to no interest in creating clever, interesting stories or perhaps improving upon the general knowledge of the unwashed masses they cater to so why should this movie be an exception? The fact is if you put the words “vampire” and “hunter” (slayer) in the same sentence the Brownian mentality of the movie going population immediately thinks of Buffy, so you might as well use it as your source material.
I will give massive props to this movie (and the book) for portraying vampires as they should be; arrogant, evil bloodsucking bastards who should be exterminated without mercy. The ugly trend towards pretty, “nice” romantic vampires that started with Interview with a Vampire and continues to plague us with the whole Twilight series (I refuse to call it a saga) has to be stopped somehow. While these vampires managed to not burst into flame in the sun, at least they made concessions towards the fact that the sun hurts them.
The major thing that burdens this movie more than any other is the mind numbing ridiculousness of a lot of the action. I understand the need for suspension of disbelief, but the action sequences here becomes literally laughable. The action also has the problem of obscuring the action. Quick cuts and jumbled scenes of people dressed in similar colors turns a lot of the action sequences into a kaleidoscope-like morass of brown and black shapes. Very hard to follow. Multiple times I found myself asking “What the hell just happened?”, which is rarely a good thing for a movie.
The story is of course of Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker-Flags of Our Fathers, War Boys, Kinsey) and his secret life as a vampire hunter. He starts young with the death of his mother at the fangs of a vampire. When he turns into a young man he goes after the vamp who did it but gets his ass more or less kicked. He is rescued by Henry (Dominic Cooper-Captain America-the First Avenger, the Duchess, an Education), who trains him to fight vampires. Abe takes the axe as his weapon of choice and turns into a samurai warrior with it. He goes out killing vampires at the bequest of Henry and meets his wife Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead-the Thing, Scott Pilgrim vrs the World, Final Destination 3). He dedicates his life to destroying vampires by removing their easiest food source, slaves. Eventually he ends up as president and has to fight against the South, who are aided and abetted by the vampires.
The stars. Very cool concept. One star. I thought Dominic Cooper was pretty good as Honest Abe. One star. Evil vampires. One star. The period scenery was very good and accurate. One star. I loved the book. One star. Pacing was good. One star. Generally entertaining as long as you can dumb your brain down a bit. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. They took a cool, subtle story with strong ties to actual history and dumbed it down to a cheesy Hollywood action movie. One black hole. They also PC’d the hell out of it. In the book the slavery issue, while important, was only one piece of a much bigger story. In this one it was the end all and be all of the movie. They also forced in a black supporting character who looked and felt like they crowbarred him in for political correctness. One black hole. The action, which for most of the movie was kind of dopey, fell off the Great Dopey Cliff into Never Ending Valley of Stupidity towards the end (the train ride was really, really dumb). One black hole. Speaking of crowbarring, the managed to shove in Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad for no apparent reason other than to try to look more correct. It all felt awkwardly out of place and had nothing to do with the book or history. One black hole. The movie in general suffered from the problem of trying to fit an entire lifetime of vampire hunting and politicking (which was all well done in the book) into 105 minutes, and honestly it felt like you were watching a 4 hour movie but skipping ahead by five minute increments periodically. One black hole. At some point you have to ask yourself does the President of the United States not have soldiers and guards he could call on, or does he really have to play security guard more or less solo on a train? One black hole. Total: six black holes.
Sigh. Only two stars total, and to be honest I was being kind on a few of them. Another movie I really wanted to be better. It’s not terrible. In fact, it’s entirely worth watching on a big screen and looks like it would even benefit from 3D. It’s just that based on the source material I think it could have been much better. Almost to the point of being a classic. Instead it’s just another Tim Burton movie (think Sleepy Hollow). Date movie? Meh. You won’t lose anything on this but there is nothing in here terrifying, surprising, or interesting enough to really turn a girl on IMO. Bathroom break? The whole Lincoln/Mary romance could be missed without losing anything. The formal dance where they start to fall in love is an excellent place to void your fluids.
Thanks for reading. I am going to go see Rock of Ages later tonight, so have pity on me. It should really suck. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post comments on this movie or review here, and if you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected].
Thanks again. Have a great night, and look for a review on that rock movie tomorrow.
Dave
Prometheus Movie Review
Whether you were hoping to see an Alien prequel that answered a lot of the mysteries or an intriguing stand alone sci fi effort, prepare to be disappointed.
I think it fair to say that Alien and Aliens holds a special place in my heart, and that place is a deep dark cave of mind numbing pants wetting terror. Alien did serious damage to my ten year old psyche, and Aliens beat it home like kicking a guy in the stomach after he collapses on the ground. To this day I can’t think of a more horrible way to die than to have some alien parasite hug your face, implant eggs in your body, and have a horrific creature come tearing out of your chest (unless it would be being tied down and forced to watch Jack and Jill a second time (Clockwork Orange style) until my brain dribbled out of my ears).
Therefore, as a fan of movies that elicit an emotional reaction (and science fiction) I naturally love both movies intensely (Alien image courtesy of the Sci Fi T Shirts). When I first saw the trailers for Prometheus I was very interested. Then I saw the same trailer at ever movie showing and online opportunity possible (I really think they oversold this film). The burning question on my mind was “What the hell is this movie about?”
Is an Alien prequel or not? The answer, unfortunately, is sort of. I think this is a good example of Ridley Scott and the studio getting greedy and trying to grab too many berries for their hands to hold. By the end of the film they are dropping them all over the ground. This film has a lot of prequel elements: the alien ship is the same, the humanoid aliens are (sort of) the same, there seems to be something about large vases that vaguely resembles the Alien eggs, there is a Weyland Corporation (clearly a nod towards the Weyland Yutani Corp from Alien), and there seems to be some kind of face sucking action going on. However, in an attempt to appeal to both the Alien fan boys and the rest of the unwashed masses (who either don’t care about Alien or were turned off by Alien Resurrection or Alien versus Predator) they added a bunch of dumb elements and major continuity issues, which are really off enough to really annoy the fan boys. There are no actual Alien aliens and the aliens that do appear really don’t look at all scary, except for one Cthulu monster.
Apparently Ridley Scott is a huge fan if both Chariots of the Gods and (the horrible, IMO) Tree of Life because those are the Spackle he used to fill in the terror parts that were completely missing from this film. And like Spackle, they are all pretty beige, boring, and hard to remove. There is something about alien humanoid starting life on earth thousands of years ago by committing suicide so DNA could be entered into the primordial ooze of the earth, and then cave drawings of giant aliens worshiping six dots in the sky.
Let me take a minute to bore you all with how bad the science of this really is. First of all, the the DNA infusion would have had to have happened billions, not thousands of years ago. At one point everyone is stunned that the aliens are effectively human DNA, in spite of the fact that on Earth the DNA in question would have started off as like fish and reptiles and so on, so the odds of the original DNA returning to human is pretty low. Second of all, at one point it looks like the aliens were headed to Earth to do something about 2,000 years ago but had been visiting us for at least 35,000 years. Did they just stop because one or two ships failed to make it?
These are two examples of the astronomical number of plot holes that riddle the script like a Sparklets jug used for shotgun target practice. I often talk about a movie chuck full of holes, but this movie seems to not even care. However, all the the plot holes pale to insignificance when faced with the abysmal stupidity of pretty much every one of the character and the complete lack of motivation by any of them to do anything. There are a couple who stand out in particular for no reason (survival tip #1-if you are trapped over night in a hollowed out mountain filled with grim examples of aliens dying a horrible death try just camping out near the entrance, NOT wandering around looking for your impending death. Also, if you spend 20 minutes jumping at every shadow and worried about how all the aliens died when you are actually confronted with a live alien don’t have a sudden change of heart and try to give it a hug) but pretty much everyone in this movie is dumber than a sack of hammers and we are given not a single reason to understand why they continue breathing, much less joined up on the ship.
I think the stupid, stupid choices every character keeps making is really where all the terror has gone missing. You see, in a good horror movie you feel for characters you identify with. It’s called empathy. You can feel like what is happening to them could happen to you because you like to think you are like them. The thing that made Alien and Aliens so terrifying is Ripley was a very easy character to identify with. Tough, sexy, and above all smart (if you recall her first plan in Aliens was to bail on the planet and nuke the site from orbit). However, if the characters in a film keep doing stupid stuff you can’t identify with them and therefore don’t care when bad stuff happens. In fact, after a while you start to hope bad stuff happens to them just to get them out of your face. It’s like watching a guy lick exposed wiring. You expect him to get electrocuted, and after he does you say “well, he deserved it for being stupid”.
Sigh. 1029 words and I haven’t even gotten into the story yet. I’ll do the short hand version. Aliens created life on Earth. Two archeologist discover cave paintings that lead them to some random planet where they think they came from. They find a buried ship and a bunch of dead aliens. An android with them has his own agenda. Two particularly dumb scientists (for lack of a better term. One of them looked like he just did a dime in San Quentin and the other looked like he ran the concession stand at the local bowling alley) wander off and get chewed on. It turns out the aliens are not the Care Bears everyone assumed they were. Stupid people die in stupid ways. Charlize Theron runs around looking super hot. One archeologist face melts and the other gives herself a Cesarian after discovering she is pregnant with baby Aphoom-Zhah. A really dumb ending is pulled out of an unnamed orifice and simultaneously ruins the last remaining shred of continuity to Alien.
The stars. I will say visually this movie was stunning. CGI and special effects were outstanding, and if you life sci fi brain candy it rocks. Two stars. Acting was actually really good, as long as it was acting stupid. One star. Charlize Theron was looking hot in her skin tight uniform, and Naomi Rapace in her underwear. One star. Science fiction movie. One star. Alien prequel (sort of). One star. Pacing and editing were decent. One star. If you are OK with stupid characters and a story that is built on plot holes, it can be entertaining. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Stupid, stupid characters (like worse than the dumbest teenage slasher flick). Two black holes. Zero motivation for anything. One black hole. Plot holes that operate like Bags of Holding (bigger on the inside). Two black holes. Is it a freaking prequel or not? I can’t stand fence sitters. One black hole. There were a lot of things and potential character development introduced and then dropped entirely, like some kind of small back story on the death of the archeologists dad and the android watching her dreams in cryo, that got dropped. I don’t think all that missing character development got cut in editing. It really feels like they didn’t bother to shoot it. One black hole. If it is meant as a prequel it suffers from severe continuity problems, and if it is not a prequel than the entire movie really lacks any kind of purpose or real import. One black hole. Some pretty mediocre casting. Why would a trillion dollar project (that’s actually the amount quoted in the film) hire a “scientist” who looks like the roadie from the Sex Pistols? One black hole. No horror in this film. None of the aliens really had that Giger visceral terror. Also, one of the things that made the Alien movies so scary was the build up, but this thing jumped right into pretty much everything. One black hole. Like most bad slasher films you can pretty much predict who is going to live and who is going to die, with the added benefit that due to the loose association this movie had with the Alien movies you pretty much know exactly how it’s going to end. One black hole. And finally, a really dumb ending that had me just closing my eyes and resting my head back in my seat. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
A grand total of three black holes. Very disappointing in my opinion. I think this movie actually is suffering from too much marketing as I had high expectations going in. I have taken a look at other reviews on this and am not really in line with a lot of them, but I think my opinion is colored by my own fan boy status. Worth seeing? Sure, I guess. Visually impressive, so try to see it on a big screen or even IMAX. If you are a fan of Alien you can look forward to a particular hell as you will not be able to pass on it but the lack of continuity will annoy you like an itch in the center of your back you can’t reach. Date movie? Not unless your date is turned on by every Freudian vagina and penis image possible as well as a lot of gross muck. Bathroom break? There is a scene where Charlize Theron is talking to the captain alone on the bridge that leads to them having sex (maybe. This film was rated R for gore, not nudity or adult situations). While it might seem intriguing, like any number of the stunted minor go nowhere sub plots this added nothing to the story or either of the characters.
This review does not sit well with me. I really, really wanted to like this film (which may be why I am coming down so hard on it). However, I have to be honest and as a nerd and Alien fan this movie kind of missed the mark by a few light years. Thanks for reading anyway. I was hoping this would be the last good movie I would see before having to watch That’s My Boy and Rock of Ages, but instead it looks like it will be the first part of a triumvirate of mediocrity. Cool stuff coming out next week. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you agree or disagree or just have a comment on this movie feel free to post it here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Snow White and the Huntsman Review
Not bad if you can swallow a few plot holes.
I saw this right before leaving for Italy and I hope you can forgive me if I have taken my seeing and enjoying this fabulous country more seriously than sharing my opinion of the film. On the one hand I feel guilty about letting this (and a bunch of other movies like Prometheus and Rock of Ages) sit on the shelf. On the other hand really I feel no guilt whatsoever. This is the first real vacation I have had in years.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It does have it’s issues, each hanging over the script like a veritable Sword of Damocles except instead of swords each thread suspends a medium sized bag of dog poo. If you stand in one place too long eventually you will be struck by one.
However, if you can keep moving along with the pace of the movie you can avoid most of the poo and just have to deal with the lingering stench. This film is definitely several steps above the other, more schizophrenic Snow White remake Mirror Mirror. At least it tried to maintain a consistent tone. The acting ran from mediocre to very good, and the story didn’t land too far into lala land (it did, however, take a nice trip through the Valley of Plot Holes).
I’ll get into some of the more egregious plot holes when I do the black holes, but there is one that annoyed me throughout the movie. The Evil Queen Revenna (Charlize Theron-Hancock, Young Adult, the Italian Job) has a spell that helps her stay young and hot as long as she is the fairest in the land. The magic mirror tells her Snow White (Kristin Stewert-Twilight, Twilight, and more Twilight) is destined to out do her in the looks department. Unless as part of the aging process Kristin Stewart was destined to get a full body, face, and personality transplant there is no way she could ever be more fair than Charlize Theron. Charlize is a super hot woman who breathes sensuality into her role with every breath while Kristin Stewart is basically a Real Doll that can move.
Anyway, the story. Honestly, just reread my Mirror Mirror review and you more or less have it, only with the King actually dead. In another impact crater sized plot hole the widowed king meets Revenna after rescuing her from a fake army, they get married 24 hours later, and he dies of natural causes (being stabbed in the chest repeatedly is a natural way to die, right?) in bed with her that night. Somehow no one but some duke we never really get to meet calls shenanigans on this and the kingdom is placed under a terrible curse.
Fast forward 10 years. The magic mirror tells the queen she needs to eat the heart of Snow White in order to remain young forever. She has been keeping Snow White locked in a tower all this time (where somehow she is in awesome shape, can fight with a blade, and is a great swimmer. The tower must also be home to a 24 Hour Fitness) but instead of simply walking up there and gutting her she sends her idiot brother to fetch her. Snow White managed to escape through a sewer and runs into the Black Forest.
At this point the queen does not send in her entire army but rather recruits a local huntsman (Chris Helmsworth-the Avengers, Thor, the Cabin in the Woods) who is the only human to enter the forest and survive or something. He obviously doesn’t want to do it but is coerced by being told Revenna can resurrect his dead wife (zombie wife!). They enter the forest, find Snow White, he has the painfully obvious change of heart, and the rest of the movie is a quest to kill the queen.
The stars. I thought Charlize Theron was excellent. As I said in my review of Young Adult the one role she excels at is the cold, heartless bitch and honestly it rings a lot more true here. One star. While derivative the story was engaging and interesting. Nice twist on a lot of the old story. One star. Excellent visuals and CGI. Everything works well visually. On star. Charlize Theron is always easy on the eyes. One star. I thought Chris Helmsworth did an admirable job with what he was given, and seems to be the only character to actually describe a full arc. One star. Pacing and direction were good. One star. The fight with the troll was excellent. One star. I thought the Seven Dwarfs were pretty cool, although none of them were allowed to develop. One star. Overall very entertaining. Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. While none of the plot holes were truly gargantuan, they were numerous. Two black holes. I can tell you from personal experience the last thing you want to assault a castle wall with is heavy cavalry. Just dumb. One black hole. The idea that Kristin Stewart is supposed to be fairer than Charlize Theron is laughable, and in this movie her performance was wooden and formulaic. One black hole. 
A dumb fatalistic sub plot lifted directly from Star Wars (and not good Star Wars. I’m talking Episode 2. Republic image courtesy of the Star Wars T-Shirt category). One black hole. As cool as Queen Revenna was, her dopey brother was dumb and annoying. He was like having Shemp from the Three Stooges shoved into the Godfather. He did nothing but screw up. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad. Well worth seeing, and some of the visuals do cry out for a large screen. However, I think if you have a decently sized TV you could probably survive with NetFlix. Date movie? Meh. Sort of. It wouldn’t be a mistake, but it also wouldn’t be my first choice. Bathroom break? I’d say the scene in town introducing the Huntsman as a drunken brawling loser. Not a lot added to his character there, especially since he more or less doesn’t get wasted enough to impact the movie again. If that is too soon in the movie I’d say any of the scenes involving the duke and his son. Felt very much like filler.
Thanks for reading. I get back from Italy tomorrow about 4pm and may well celebrate by seeing a movie. However, I have some horrible films to see. Rock of Ages and That’s my Boy look to be excruciating. However, as astute and regular readers I’m sure you have figured out the bad ones make for the funniest reviews. I am looking forward to seeing Prometheus, and next weekend promises to be very cool movie wise.
Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments about this review feel free to post them here. If you have questions or suggestions that are off topic you can always email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A Nerds-eye view of Venice Italy Day 8
Actually this should be listed as Florence rather than Venice. I woke up in the morning and hopped on a train to Florence. I find it surreal how close everything is together. Living in California I always assume major cities are at least a few hours apart, but the train ride was only two hours.
If I were to pick a single element that was my favorite about my trip to Italy it is going to be hard to find something greater than riding on the trains. So far EVERY train trip I have taken has resulted in me interacting with one or more very attractive young ladies. The ride out was particularly nice as I met four very cute, very smart South African engineering students (hot engineers? What are they putting in the water down there). They didn’t have assaigned seats and I was kind of lost trying to find mine, so I spent the whole trip in between two cars chatting with them, mostly about the differences between America and South Africa. Most of their impressions about the USA comes from movies, so they sort of had it right and sort of really had it wrong. They were all very friendly and charming.
The trip home was less impressive. There was a drop dead gorgeous girl sitting next to me for a couple stops but either she didn’t speak any English or didn’t want to talk to me. Still, usually when I ride the train back home I get some creepy homeless guy telling me how the government is putting stuff in our food.
Next time I come to Europe I might have to get one of those train passes and just travel from country to country, chatting up all the people I meet since that is where I actually seem to be capable of talking to folks. I’m sure no one has ever thought of doing that in the history of European vacations.
Anyway, Florence was extremely nice. You couldn’t turn a corner without seeing another amazing cathedral or bank of statues (most of which were plagued with man-junk, if you know what I mean). I went into a couple and spent some time just sitting starring at the amazing stained glass windows and paintings. Truly moving.
The other thing Florence has going on is it is another shopping nightmare. The section I was in was a mashup of every mall, strip mall, and never ending swap meet I have ever been to. I saw a lot of US stores, a lot of international stores, and a lot of crappy t-shirt stands selling pretty much the same shirts as every other one.
That’s not necessarily true. I found one t-shirt shop that actually had a t-shirt I liked a lot. I bought one for me and one for my friend John. I think he will dig it. 
They also had an extensive selection of rock t-shirts. Mostly classic rock stuff like Dark Side of the Moon here from our music t-shirt category. While most of this doesn’t do anything for me (Ramones and Misfits is the limit) at least they had something cool for a change. There is a “LOL” shirt out here that is so awful that whenever I see it (at every place that sells t-shirts in Venice) I want to start punching every Italian I see in the face until I randomly get the guy responsible for it.
That’s not really true. I love the Italian people. If I could find that one guy, however, he might have a close encounter of the fist kind in his future.
Anyway, the Italians here are not especially friendly. Not unfriendly, just not that cool. I think my experience here and in Venice is pretty much what happens when locals have to deal with tourists too much. I grew up in a tourist town and we hated them. The friendliest people I have met were in Paduva, which doesn’t seem to get a lot of tourists. Next time I come here I will spend more time away from tourist areas.
Actually, the friendliest people I have met are tourists from other countries. I never tire to talking to anyone from any other country, and for the most part they seem interested in talking to me. I find that very refreshing. I have noticed something else weird here. Whenever two groups of Americans run into each other they seem to want to hang out, talk about what state and town they are from, and hang out in ways they would never do back home. I am honestly trying to avoid talking to Americans as much as possible. I talk to them all the time back home, and will again soon.
At one point I started playing a game I like. You see I have an unusual body proportion. I am very tall, but most of my height comes from my torso. I also have very broad shoulders but am otherwise of normal size for my height. What this does is makes it almost impossible to find jackets that actually fit. I started looking around for a leather jacket. I frustrated two shopkeepers (they do this weird thing where they set up a swap meet booth for leather 10 feet outside their store door) but then the third guy actually had a nice sheepskin jacket that fit me. I had the remainder of my bonus burning a hole in my pocket (plus have managed to do this trip nicely under the budget I set for myself) so after talking him down to 1/3 of his asking price (I’m pretty sure I still got ripped off) have a nice new jacket for when I get home.
Train back, dinner in Venice. I am really getting comfortable with both the area I am staying in and ordering food in something resembling Italiano. It’s fun. I’ve also stopped looking for a plate to put oil and vinegar on to soak my bread in. That is something they don’t really do here, and after the three days with the rest of the sales force I have been trying to not look like an ugly American.
That’s it for now. Today looks to be a very lazy Sunday. I am going to wander around a little looking for some nice gifts for my friends. By the way, I picked up the book the Hunger Games and am already hooked. Really well done.
Thanks for reading. One more post, probably while I am killing time at the airport, and then a wrap up one. If I get bored tonight I will finally get that last movie review done. By the way, I was extremely gratified to see that horrible movie Rock of Ages failed miserably. The trailers not only made me want to not see that movie (which I will, unfortunately) but never see another movie again. It’s moments like this that I love you, America.
Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Have a comment about Italy or anything in this post? Feel free to comment below. Have a specific off topic question or suggestion? Email me at [email protected]. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A Nerds-eye view of Venice, Italy Day 6-7
The good, the bad, and the nerdy.
Sorry I didn’t post day 6 yesterday, but the “business” hotel I was staying at was under the impression that a functioning internet connection is something business people really don’t need. (By the way, my company saw fit to give me a major award. I don’t want to brag, but the words “of the Year” were part of it, as was a nice cash bonus that I blew on an Italian watch that I don’t need)
My life in Venice has evolved nicely. I still get lost, but now know enough to get unlost with a minimum of effort. I have had a couple of complete conversations in Italian (as long as ordering a single scoop of mint (menta) gelato on a cone (cona) counts as a conversation. Incidentally, I think I have eaten my body weight in gelato), can ride both the train (ferravia) and water bus (vaporetti) reasonably confident I will arrive within a reasonable distance of my destination, and have taken about 200 photos with my iPhone. I will post them up on Facebook so if you want to see be sure to friend me.
I will say I have discovered the difference for me between good days and bad days in Venice, and they all involved having something specific to do. Yesterday our business group was given a scavenger hunt to do with things to do and see and I was off like a racehorse, running from one side of the town to another (I skipped all the ones on the list that seemed outside of my skill set (Kiss an Italian girl) or potentially disease ridden (swim in the Grand Canal, see how many pidgins you can get to perch on you) and therefore lost to a guy in our groups who is a known creep with balls of steel who will talk to any girl for any reason and has no fear (apparently) of tuberculous. However, I had a freaking blast.
Today, however, I was on my own kind of wandering around and found myself subject to the pity pot as I looked all all the beautiful girls I seemed incapable of talking to. I can tell you that my lack of skills in “picking up” girls or even just talking to them is not at all improved when I lack a common language or cultural basis. I can also tell you that when I do finally conquer the world any guy I perceive as being a “ladies man” is going to be sweeping out the inside of a nuclear reactor in blue jeans toot sweet.
Bottom line, I need goals to keep me from dwelling on my miserable loneliness (now that I think about it, that’s pretty much how I keep from driving off the Bay Bridge back home). From now on I plan to have something specific to do each day.
I thought since I am mostly done with the trip and only have two days left I would talk about some of the things I have seen that are amazing, some of the things that seem to suck, and what I see as the nerd influence on this country.
The Good:
The Toilets: I had never imagined that the toilet technology could be so far advanced over the pathetic excuses for plumbing we used back in the USA, but it is true. Each toilet has two buttons on it for flushing. The small one is pretty much for a number one and will eliminate any liquid waste in the bowl efficiently. 
The large button is for number 2 and will eliminate anything in the bathroom that is not securely fastened down. I swear it’s like blowing open an airlock door (“Open the pod bay doors, Hal”. 2001 image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). Your ears will pop from the decompression.
They also have pay bathrooms over here. They cost between 1 and 1.5 Euros. This might sound annoying, but the bathrooms are absolutely spotlessly clean. I swear I would pay a buck each time to use a bathroom that clean in my own apartment.
The Girls: as much as these girls pain me due to my inability to talk to them (I blame my father) there are some of the most gorgeous girls you would ever hope to see. If you have any kind of game at all get your ass on a plane. Just don’t tell me of your success.
The Euro: I have gotten to be a big fan of the 1 and 2 Euro coin. It is super handy. Makes me sad that the gold dollar never took off in the USA, but you know how it goes over there. Most of the ignorant masses can’t wrap their heads around gay marriage, so imagine how their brains must fail when faced with a new coin to figure out.
The Food: obviously. Of course, any ethnic food you eat that is not Italian will have a definite Italian flavor.
The Public Transit: do any of you regular readers remember me bitching about how much BART sucks from a few days ago? Well, the Italians have public transit wired. Easily accessible, efficient (ish), and generally clean.
The Art and Architecture: if you get out here see some churches and museums. Well worth your time.
The Bad:
The Euro: I’m finding money awfully easy to spend over here, and that has to do with the fact that the Euro might look like a dollar but really it’s currently $1.30. That means when I buy a 20 oz (0.5 liter) bottle of soda that costs $1.79 at the gas station down the street back home for 2.50 Euros (by the way, if anyone knows how to make a Euro symbol on an American keyboard hit me up) you are really spending $3.25 or so.
The Technology: while they do have some cool stuff we don’t really use back in USA, most of their technology seems about five years behind the curve. The best internet you can hope for is a WiFi that seems more like dialup, and a lot of people are still using flip phones.
The T-Shirts: I have been looking for cool shirts to bring home with me, but my god are they all awful. They seem to alternate between retro-horrible and just plain dumb. Makes me think about opening a t-shirt shop here just to show these poor people what cool shirts look like. Not only are the shirt dumb, but they are using the most basic and lame printing techniques ever. Ironically, all the shirt blanks are amazing quality, although be prepared to upsize as the XL definitely fits like a L. Also, every t-shirt stand or shop has the exact same shirts as their neighbor.
The Media: Pop music sucks when done competently. Here it all sounds like the dumped a dozen pop singers into a cement mixer, filled it with helium and broken glass, and let it run for a couple hours. The TV is not much better, unless you are into soccer (football). It seems to most closely resemble Mexicali.
The Night Life: Maybe it’s just me (actually it’s probably more than just maybe) but I can’t seem to find any kind of night life here beyond eating dinner and drinking wine. I have yet to find a coffee house, club, or bar that has more than six people in it (in fact, for some reason I can’t find a coffee house to save my life. I swear I would be there now if it existed). Most of the bars are just that: a bar with no seating and no big clientele. I’m guessing that Venice is such a city for couples that they don’t feel the need to help single losers hook up. Either that or I have somehow missed the entire “fun” district.
The Nerdy:
I can honestly say I think Italy is a county populated entirely by nerds. I’m sure they have their “cool kids” but everyone I see looks and acts like a non English speaking American nerd. They are into weird stuff, wear dorky clothes, and rarely look like they spend a lot of time in the gym. Of course, I don’t know a true nerd who isn’t up until 1am and most of this city seems to be in bed by 10:30pm, but still, if you want to feel kind of cool you can’t go wrong here.
I did check out the local Games Workshop and a few comic book shops around town, but honestly for the most part the customers there looked a lot like the customers I saw in any other shop.
By the way girls here are less inclined to get contacts or laser eye surgery so if you are into the girl librarian nerd you don’t have to look far. Very nice (and frustrating for me).
Thanks for reading. Long post but I had a lot to say. I think I am taking a train ride to Florence tomorrow. More on that soon. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments about this post or Italy feel free to throw them up here, or if you have specific questions or suggestions that are off topic email me at [email protected]. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Goodbye Henry Hill
I don’t know if you saw this, but Henry Hill passed away from heart complications recently. I know he doesn’t have much to do with the nerd world (in fact he is as far removed from nerds as you can be without being from another planet (without nerds)) but as a fan of movies I couldn’t not acknowledge the influence his book, Wiseguy, had on gangster movies.
As any movie buff knows, his book was the basis for one of the greatest gangster movies of all times, Goodfellas with Ray Liotta, Joe Peschi, and the great Robert DiNiro. Of course, all that is aside from the fact that it was directed by the amazing Martin Scorsese. If you have never seen it I don’t know what kind of bubble your parents have you locked in but break out immediately and go rent it.
By all reports Henry outlived his expected lifespan by several decades and lived a pretty fun and wild life, so I don’t feel too bad about him. I used to hear him on the Howard Stern show and he didn’t sound all that remorseful for the crimes he committed (including murder), but he did manage to help set the mold for gangster movies, so I guess I am sad to see him go.
The Goodfellas image comes to us courtesy of the Movie T-Shirt category. Thanks for reading. Coming up-more on Italy.
Dave
A nerds-eye view of Venice, Italy day 5
Kind of a weird day. The first half of the day was international meetings, which were productive but kind of not at the same time. Most of it was marketing, which are rarely as interesting or informative as most marketing people seem to think. Why is it marketing people are usually my favorite people to meet and hang out with but the meetings I dread the most?
Anyway, after a full day of meetings at the modern nightmare that was our hotel we went skating. It was fun, and I got to teach a couple Italians how to skate better. I have always enjoyed that and feel like I ma making the world a better place, at least as far as skaters goes.
We then went to a gorgeous villa for dinner. It is here that I fell into conversation with a beautiful, interesting, and highly intelligent Bavarian girl. To say I was captivated is a huge understatement. It could almost be said I was totally falling for her. We literally talked all the way through dinner, the bus ride home to our hotel, and the hotel bar until about 1:30am. Inexplicably the evening ended without even a handshake. I wasn’t expecting to hook up with her or anything like that but it seemed a little abrupt. It didn’t help that my ass hat American friends kept telling me I should be hooking up with her that night. However, I consider the entire evening more evidence of my hellish Tantalus-esque existence as well as my inability to make any kind of positive impression on attractive females.
I honestly don’t have a lot more to report. I only slept about two hours, mainly because I kept thinking about the girl but my issue was aggravated by the snore my roommate, whom I have roomed with at every sales meeting for the last ten years with nary a problem, seems to have recently developed. Looks like I will be drinking lots of caffeine.
Today is more meetings. Tomorrow we are doing a scavenger hunt in Venice. Given the three days I have already spent there I should have a significant advantage, but the prizes for these things are rarely things I want so I might duck out and finally write up that Snow White review.
I talked to Jason via last night via Skype before bed and he told me Prometheus was pretty cool. He is less the descriminating viewer than I (he liked Priest) but that doesn’t necessarily mean this movie will be bad (Alien image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). I will see it as soon as I get home. Talk to you soon.
Dave
A Nerds-eye view of Venice, Italy Day 4
Actually, Treviso Italy. Not a lot to report today, as most of the day was spent in marketing and operations meetings. I will say the meetings were consistently more productive and constructive than most. Maybe it was the fact that most of crew was severely sleep deprived, or we sat at a new table format, or just the magic of Italy, but we got a lot of really positive energy going across the room.
We spent most of the meetings in this really cool refurbished villa owned by the company I work for. Very nice, although you could find the bathrooms by following your nose. Afterward we went into Treviso, a very cool small walled town nearby. I took a ton of photos and will eventually upload them to my Facebook page once I get home. We wandered the city for a bit and eventually ended up at a small restaurant.
At that point the crew I was with opted to play the part of the drunken ugly American tour. Loud and obnoxious. I love those guys and have fun when they get hammered and tell each other inappropriate stories, but in terms of my Italian experience this was about as far as I could get without actually traveling back to America. Surrounded by drunken English speaking Americans I might as well have been on Riverwalk in San Antonio with my Warhammer crew, although I have to say my company business associated tend to have more respect for me and seem less likely to jump on me for being human. (I Drink Beer shirt courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve known and respected these guys for almost 20 years and like them all to a man. I just feel like we are back in New Hampshire when we all hang out like that.
More meetings today at the ultra modern hotel. I am looking forward to them but am also dreading them, as I tend to check out during certain meetings pretty badly (cough cough marketing cough cough) and am going to be struggling even more due to the fact that a lot of these will be in Italian. Wish me luck on that.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have any comments on Italy or these blogs feel free to leave them here. Any off topic suggestions or questions can be posted here. We are supposed to do some outdoor activities later and it is raining like hell, so I might find time to write up Snow White and the Huntsmen. Talk to you soon.
Dave
