Upcoming movie rundown
I am slammed with this whole business move and don’t have a lot of time to blog right now. Sunday night I was supposed to see Think Like a Man and in a surprising twist of fate it was sold out. I really didn’t expect to see that happen, but according to the interlink the movie is doing shockingly well. I will try to see it tonight and let you know if it looks at all better than the trailers (who all make it look like it is only slightly more appealing than a case of whooping cough).
However, there seems to be a bumper crop of movies I am into coming out, so I thought I would do a quick rundown on what we can see in the next month or so. Here we go:
The Pirates! Band of Misfits-I am a fan of Wallace and Gromit (I plan to name my first son Gromit (or Gromitina, if it’s a girl. Sometimes I wonder why I’m still single…) and am really looking forward to this one. Definitely kiddy, but the thing about this style of cartoon is it generally makes for entertaining adult fare as well.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits-I am a fan of Wallace and Gromit (I plan to name my first son Gromit (or Gromitina, if it’s a gir). Sometimes I wonder why I’m still single…) and am really looking forward to this one. Definitely kiddy, but the thing about this style of cartoon is it generally makes for entertaining adult fare as well.
The Five-Year Engagement-it rarely bodes well for a movie that I plan to review when I can think of a funny one liner for the subtitle before even seeing it. In this case if the movie sucks or is slow the subtitle would most likely be something like “The Five-Year Movie”. However, watching How I Met Your Mother has recently given me an appreciation for Jason Segel and I will give this rom com its day in court.
The Raven-of all the movies coming out in the next few weeks this one excites me third most. I am a huge John Kusak fan and the story of Edgar Allen Poe fascinates me. A movie based around his life done should be amazing. There is a chance of suck, but for the most part this should be good.
Safe-what can be said about this other than it’s a Jason Stratham action film? I predict decent action, intensity, and an aversion to razor blades.
The Avengers-this is my second most anticipated movie of the early summer. It looks like it could really rule. Unfortunately, the crowbarring in of a couple of the lesser Avengers (Hawkeye?) has all the hallmarks of “design by committee”, so the potential to run off the rails into the abyss of too much/too little remains. I have faith in Joss Whedon as a director. The problem is he is operating with a 300 pound anchor tied to his neck known as “PG-13”. I predict I will enjoy the hell out of it, but the movie will feel short and have too much human not enough action. Also I think the action will be very sanitized.
Looper-I’m really intrigued by the concept of this one. Also, in spite of all his efforts to make me hate him I still love Bruce Willis, and have of late also become a fan of Joseph Gordan-Ellis. We’ll see.
Dark Shadows-I am really enjoying the trailers for this one, which is usually a bad sign for the movie. However, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton is inevitably a winning combination, like chocolate and peanut butter. I expect to love it.
Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter-I am actually getting really annoyed at movie audiences laughing at the trailers for this one. If they don’t understand how freaking cool this movie is going to be they should all shut their lame, ignorant noises holes and stuff Reeces Pieces into their nostrils until they pass out, thus sparing us their stupidity. I think this movie is going to rock. Also, I think America needs to be reminded of the fact that vampires are not romantic dreamboats who sparkle in daylight but rather are evil monster who only want the blood in your veins. (Buffy Staked Edward image courtesy of the Funny T-Shirts category)
God Bless America-this one looks like two of my other favorite movies, Heathers and Natural Born Killers. Check out the trailer.
That’s all I’m really interested in right now. There will no doubt be a number of dross films that I either don’t care about or don’t want to see but have to, so you can look forward to those. However, with this lineup I am actually excited about the upcoming movie season, which is saying a lot as the last two year of seeing everything that comes out has more or less burned out my excitement gland and replaced it with a backup bitterness gland.
Thanks for reading. Look for that dating movie review tomorrow morning. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu or email me at [email protected]. Feel free to post a comment here if you are curious about an upcoming movie and I can look into it and express my poorly informed opinion. Talk to you soon.
Dave
How I Met Your Mother is turning out to be a great show
Last week at the recommendation of my best friend Dave I started watching How I Met Your Mother. I had avoided it prior to that for a number of reasons. First of all the title alone makes it sound like the brainless “family friendly” pap that gave us shows like Full House. The base concept-a guy telling his kids about meeting their mother-sounds annoying to say the least. Furthermore, I figured I had had my fill of young singles living and loving in New York after years of watching Friends, a show that alternated between brilliant and painfully annoying.
However, Dave has yet to steer me wrong so I started watching it. The first few episodes started off slow but after a while I realized that the show is awesome for exactly one reason: Barney. You see, Neil Patrick Harris plays a character named Barney who is a self centered, womanizing egomaniac and like most sociopaths you don’t have to deal with in your life is endlessly entertaining. He is very well written and of course Neil plays him brilliantly. I think he is great.
The rest of the cast is a lot more bland, although that just might be in comparison. The main guy I’d like to see get punched in the face more for being kind of a Ross style putz, and his love interest drives me crazy whenever she’s on screen. Jason Segal found a role that doesn’t suck, and his girlfriend is super cute.
There are good and bad episodes, as with any show, but overall I would say check it out if you haven’t. This Awesomed shirt from the TV Show T Shirt category makes a lot more sense once you have watched the show a little.
Sorry about the short post, but I have been working my butt off getting our new warehouse set up. Movie tonight, review tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Lucky One Review
Count yourself lucky if your girlfriend doesn’t drag you to see this uber chick flick.
Somehow I feel weirder going to see movies like this by myself than I do seeing obvious kids movies such as Winnie the Pooh. It is a bit of a puzzlement for me. I think the reason really has to do with the fact that I can almost feel my testicles shriveling up during the course of the film, whereas with kids films I can feel some level of nostalgia easing me through.
So this is a chick flick in the truest sense of the term. Don’t be fooled by the Iraq war action that goes on at the beginning. It is brief and non graphic as possible. You know how action films will crowbar in some romance to make it at least somewhat palatable to the girls in the audience? The “action” here feels like a reversal of that concept in an attempt to get guys to not pass out during the film.
But is it a good chick flick or a bad one? Kind of? It is as cliche and formulaic as possible, with the only deviation from the typical bad story happening at the end when they opted to go for an even more cheesy and pat denouement. I think the best descriptive for this movie is grinding. It grinds it’s way through the plot and each cliche in turn like one of those industrial rock crushing conveyer belt machines, turning each large, weighty cliche into smaller and much more functional cliches in turn. Long, romantic interludes drag on until you want to watch a more interesting movie on your iPhone while watching this one, and the pacing consistently is reminiscent of waiting at the DMV to get your license renewed.
The other thing that is glaringly missing from this film is chemistry. Zac Efron is a pretty boy, and probably is the heart throb of any number of women out there, but to my perception if he was supposed to be delivering smouldering looks he should have checked to make sure someone had lit his pilot light first. In fact, none of the characters actually read like real people. They all seemed like caricatures of other, better developed characters: the sexy ex Marine who is in all ways is perfect (as described by women); the cartoonish small town sheriff/abusive ex husband; the single mom trying struggling to make it in the world; the precocious kid; 
the fat Southern politician (Dukes of Hazard style. Dukes of Hazard image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts); the worldly wise grandmother. Each of them comes across so locked into their role that in spite of this movie being like 80% character development none of them seem to go anywhere.
Anyway, the movie. Zac Efron (all the High School Musicals plus epicly bad film New Years Eve) plays Logan, a Marine who while on a mission in Iraq finds a picture of a hot girl right before all his friends get blown up. This picture apparently keeps him safe (or something) and when he gets back he decides to try to find the girl. After dealing with some PTSD issues (that are never mentioned again) he decides to find her. She is in Louisiana and the best way for him to get there is to walk from Colorado (seriously, to any women readers out there are you not in the least offended by the blatant pandering that this movie is doing for you?) with his dog Zues (Zues and Logan? Come on. These names put my old friend Studly McSuperpenis to shame). The girl Beth (Taylor Schilling-Dark Matter, Atlas Shrugged Part I (ha ha ha ha ha), Mercy) lives there with her mother and son. Her brother died in Iraq. He arrives at her family owned dog hotel where he opts to not tell her about the picture because…actually there is no reason other than the need to later create plot drama. Seriously, I really doubt she would have had an issue with him returning a lost heirloom of her brother (that’s who’s picture it was) and it might have actually endeared him to her more.
Instead, he makes the stalker move of taking a job at the dog hotel. She runs it with the her mother (Blythe Danner-Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, Howl’s Moving Castle) and her eight year old son Ben (Riley Thomas Steward-the Beaver, Straight A’s, A Christmas Wedding Tail) who is some kind of chess prodigy. At first she is standoffish because…well I guess the movie directors must have needed more conflict than the whole “not tell about the picture” thing. In time she naturally does what all women most do around Zac Effron looking guys (God I hate them all) and falls in love. Meanwhile her ex husband Keith (Jay R. Ferguson-Mad Men, the Killer Inside Me, Campfire Tales) rips off every bad Southern small town sheriff stereotype as an experiment to see if people would love Roscoe P Coltrane if instead of being a bumbling goof he were an abusive jerk (with his father the town judge being Boss Hogg).
I’d like to say stuff ensues, but really not a lot does and what does happen progresses about as predictable as the tides. I won’t ruin the ending completely but will say that true love triumphs as always (at least when you look like Zac Effon. Rot in Hell).
The stars. I will give credit for this film doing what it set out to do. It was built to be a chick flick, and if you are a chick who doesn’t want to think too hard while feeling good this film we succeed in all regards. Two stars. There are a lot of really cool dogs in the movie, especially Logan’s German Sheppard. One star. Taylor Schilling is not super hot, but manages to come across as kind of a natural beauty that worked for me. Also, of all the characters hers was the least unbelievable. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Most of the characters were so over the top that they felt like those giant inflatable balloons they make for Snoopy and Spider Man at the Macy’s Day Parade. Two black holes. Hamhanded attempts at creating conflict out of nothing in order to keep the audience from falling asleep. One black hole. Sluggish pacing. One black hole. An ending at complete odds with the entire rest of the film as well as coming from deep within the writers ass. One black hole. Blatant use of the weather to deliver an emotional point. Happy times? Sunny. Conflict and bad times? Rainy. One black hole. The situation Beth was in with her ex husband felt really fake and archaic. Was this film supposed to be set in the 50’s? One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
A grand total of three black holes. Should you go see this one? If you have any testosterone and self respect at all than hell no. Date movie? Hell yes. This film was created to be the perfect date movie. If she isn’t in the mood to sleep with you (or Zac Effron) by the end of this show you should find a way to discretely check to see that she wasn’t born a man, or perhaps some kind of doppelganger alien. If she has a brain and any kind of film knowledge or taste than she will be offended by the rampant use of romance cliches, but they are cliches because they work.
Thanks for reading. Looks like all chick flicks this weekend. I guess I will suck it up and go see Think Like a Man tomorrow, although I like to believe I already know how (maybe I’m fooling myself). Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Post any comments about this movie or my review here. If you have a specific question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Lockout Movie Review
In space, no one can hear a mediocre movie.
Lockout is Luc Besson’s latest shlock epic. It combines elements of watchability-good action, decent production values, an appealing main character, a camera-with elements that make you wish you were still seeing previews-a simplistic, derivative story (Die Hard in space), paper cut out characters with no development, a soundtrack that seems lifted from a mid 90’s FPS video game, a complete lack of understanding (or disregard) of how zero gravity physics work, and a flicker style editing process used to bandage up the holes in the story progression. In a nutshell dumb but fun.
I know this paints me as a complete nerd, but let me talk a little about science. The concepts I am about to go into are not really hard to understand and I would think one of the 36 member (thank you IMDB) primary cast and crew would know them. 
First of all, if you are on a station in free fall and you and your hot love interest jump off, you do not immediately start falling faster down towards Earth. The best you could hope for would be to accelerate horizontally away from the station. I don’t want to get into the whole “artificial gravity” thing (another impossibility) but this is not hard to understand. Also, if you do jump out in an EVA suit there is no way you are going to survive the re-entry burn. (Pigs Fly image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirt category)
Another thing that drove me nuts is the realities of zero gravity combat. Even today in the air combats are resolved from kilometers away. In space, with nothing to slow down bullets or missiles, combat would be resolved at a distance of thousands of kilometers. There is no way a bunch of “fighter” spacecraft would have to weave in and out of the spars of a space station (don’t get me started on the impossible physics of that actually happening, Inertia is a bitch) in order to plant a magnetic nuclear mine to it. Furthermore, what the hell is the deal with a magnetic nuclear mine? Has no one on this team ever heard of a missile with a nuclear warhead? Watch the scene and you will see how stupid it is.
Oh, also take a minute and wonder how many bullets and explosions can fly around a space station before there is a breach. According to this movie it’s something like 1,000,000,000.
On the other hand the action is pretty good. Decently done, although they did a lot of quick cuts to make up for the actors inability to perform physically (I think I am going to coin a term for that type of fight sequence editing. From now on let’s call it “granular editing”). Guy Pearce makes the character of Snow work by being sarcastically charming the entire time. All the characters were horrifically one dimensional (Scooby Doo has more depth) but for the most part that one dimension was entertaining, especially the two bad guys. The one thing they did that annoyed was they seemed to have cut out a lot of little 5-10 seconds scenes that kind of explain what is happening. Maybe to keep within budget? It’s like they took the granular editing system (see? The term works) so many action movies are employing these days and extended it to the entire film. Either that or the directors were easily bored with shooting the non-exciting stuff and blew it all off.
The story is simplistic and predictable. Guy Pearce (Momento, Hurt Locker, L.A. Confidential) is Snow, a renegade ex CIA operative who gets framed for the murder of another agent. There is a briefcase with some ill defined evidence that might get him off, but for some reason he feels he needs to have his buddy Mace (what’s with the names in this film) hide the stuff while he goes off the space prison for 30 years. Meanwhile, the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace-Taken, Lost, Night and Day) is working for her daddy inspecting the worlds first prison in space, which was apparently built with all the safeguards of a closet with a sticky door. The prisoners all break out with the help of main baddy Hydell (Joseph Gilgun-Harry Brown, This is England, Emmerdale) and his brother Alex (Vincent Regan-300, Clash of the Titans, Troy). There seems to be some kind of attempt at a police negotiation that goes no where. Snow is sent on board to rescue the girl and has his own agenda as well (his buddy Mace is on board and opted to rot in suspended animation forever rather than give up the location of the suitcase with something(?) inside it). Guns get shot. Bad guys act bad. Good guys act good. Maggie Grace manages to avoid showing any skin above her neck or below her long sleeve arm holes.
The stars. Guy Pearce was entertaining. One star. So was Joseph Gilgun. One star. Action was entertaining in a brainless sort of way. One star. While the story was dumb on a genetic level the dialog was decent. One star. Decent special effects given the budget limitations. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes. Complete and utter disregard of fairly simple scientific concepts. One black hole. The space dog fight, and the freaking nuclear limpet mine (with 30 second digital counter on the outside). One black hole. A space prison with absolutely no prison safety features. Have you ever considered some kind of remote control in case the prisoners do something unprecedented like take it over? Or putting a “lock” on the control room door? One black hole. Not even an attempt at character development, with most of them so flat you could get a paper cut picking them up. One black hole. The editiing out of some key items that might have made things a little easier. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A straight zero, which is about what I expected. This movie is both better and worse than the trailers make out out to be. If you are looking for dumb, dumb entertainment then look no further. Shut down your higher brain functions and enjoy. If you have an issue with pre Newtonian physics and want characters to be more than mannequins from which to hang bullets off of, maybe you should give it a pass. It’s not Taken or the Professional. Date movie? Probably not. Big screen? Meh. Maybe, but most of it was shot inside corridors so I think a home viewing experience would be OK.
Nothing to see tonight, I think. Also I am moving into a new office and have a lot of work to do. I’ll think of something for tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter or email me with questions and suggestions at [email protected]. Feel free to post comments here on this review or movie. Have a good day.
Dave
The Three Stooges Movie Review
This film goes from zero to suxty in 0.00023 seconds.
It’s rare that movies start off sucking from the very first scene. Most films ease into suckage, like a proctologist giving you a Valium and telling you to try to relax before starting the colonoscopy. Either that or they have a few minutes of nice, soothing credits to take your mind off the pain to come. This movie, however, leaps right into the deep end of the suck pool from the very first few seconds with a huge rock tied around it’s feet.
It should be noted that I am in fact a huge Three Stooges fan, which probably contributed to the bile you are about to read regarding this bad idea of a movie. Many a childhood afternoon (and, for that matter, adult) was spent enjoying Larry, Moe, and Curly going through their Stooge antics (and, to a lesser extent, Shemp. Curly Joe we won’t discuss here). They were truly comedic geniuses, combining hilarious characters, brilliant dialog, ridiculous situations, and awesome physical humor into a layer cake that has never been duplicated (nor should anyone ever attempt to do so, a thought I wish had occurred to the Farrelly brothers a couple years ago. Three Stooges image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category).
I would also like to add that I am for the most part a fan of the Farrelly brothers movies. Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary will always rank up as some of my favorite film. I am just going to have to call this one “that movie”. You know. “All the films by the Farrelly Brothers were great except for ‘that movie’.” This will likely be the film that ten years from now in interviews they will point to this film as the one that got away from them, or they were on serious drugs when they wrote the script (I don’t know if they do any drugs, but for the sake of my respect for their movie making skills I kind of hope so). I think my biggest disappointment in this film is that these guys opted to just do a bad remake rather than put the work in to make a good original film.
The problem is the Three Stooges aren’t really about Moe, Larry, and Curly as characters. They are about the comedic genius of Moses Horwitz, Louis Feinberg, and Jerome Horwitz who spent years honing their comedy and had a working chemistry that played brilliantly off each others strengths and weaknesses. You can’t recreate that by getting three guys who look vaguely like them and write a script. You can’t create that genius under direction. Half the time they were ad libbing anyway. They had 20 years of vaudeville experience before ever setting foot in front of a camera, and the thing about vaudeville was if you sucked you got booed off the stage. While the three guys did a decent imitation of Moe, Larry, and Curly they really didn’t have the timing, action, and pacing down well enough to be a tribute.
As I implied in my subtitle, the film starts off badly painfully with a bunch of orphans singing. I consider it a credit to my own humanity that I have never wanted to hit or injure a child in any way, but the opening few minutes really put that whole “never murder a child” resolution to the text. A duffel bag is thrown out of a moving car and the nun opens it up to reveal the three baby Stooges.
This is the first point at which it is driven home that we are not actually watching the Three Stooges (I can’t say the movie ran off the rails, as I don’t think it even knew where the train station was). You see, if this were an actual Three Stooges short or film and they needed baby Stooges the wouldn’t have cast three actual babies with bad hair. The Stooges would have dressed up as babies and continued with the schtick. This is even more driven home when they are shown a few minutes later as ten year old boys. Adult Stooges dressed up as kids with a giant lollypop is hilarious. 20 minutes of ten year olds doing a bad Stooges impersonation is excruciating. It’s like being dragged to the school play of the kid of a guy you see at work once in a while. This scene, which should have lasted 4 minutes (if it was even necessary) drags on as if one of the kid actors was the editors son.
Anyway, we finally get to the Stooges as adults (for the record they are Chris Diamantopoulos-Under New Management, Wedding Daze, Behind the Camera: the Unauthorized Behind the Scenes of Mork and Mindy(???); Sean Hayes-Will and Grace, the Bucket List, Parks and Rec; and Will Sasso-MadTV, Best in Show, Less Than Perfect). The live at the orphanage still doing odd jobs. We are treated to some decent if farcical Stooges-like antics, only to discover the orphanage is being closed if they can’t come up with $830,000. The boys decide to head out and find the money (Mission from God? Anyone else think this smacks heavily of the Blues Brothers? Again, I would have expected more from the Farrelly’s). They head off to the world they know nothing about (again, a failure to connect with the actual Stooges. The three were dumb, but not babes in the woods. In their own way the characters were canny and street wise). A super hot woman (Sofia Vergara-Modern Family, the Smurfs, Four Brothers) and her boyfriend want to kill her husband and promise the Stooges the money they need if they smother him in his sleep.
This is the final nail in the “We’re not in Kansas anymore” Stooges coffin. Sure the couple used some trickery to convince them this was the thing the victim really wanted, but in the real Stooges the three were in all ways decent guys. If they got into trouble with the law it was because they were “victims of circumstance” more than anything else. They always tried to do the right thing within the limits of their abilities (except for the ones where Moe played a spoof of Hitler) and were often motivated to help people.
The plot kicks off from there. The Stooges meet an old childhood chum (Kirby Heyborne-Saints and Soldiers, Pirates of the Great Salt Lake, The R.M.) and reconnect with him. The Stooges failed to kill their victim the first time and are off looking for him. At one point they dress as doctors and nurses and use babies as urine Super Soakers on each other (I have stated that rated R comedies now require baby excrement jokes. I guess PG means baby urine). I wish I was kidding. I can’t really see the Stooges condoning this, although at one point they did give a baby a loaded handgun. Then, just when you think you can’t hate the new Stooges anymore, the cast from the Jersey Shore crops up like a herpes sore. Again, I wish I were kidding. They are here, and not just for a few second cameo. Whatever connection this movie had to the original Stooges is more or less broken irrevocably and the movie is officially transformed into absolute drivel, although I have to admit I did enjoy seeing some of those failed abortions get slapped around by Moe.
As an aside, could the Farrelly brothers found a worse reality TV show to try to tie into? The show has really lost its popularity and even when it was hot it was truly polarizing (between the people who liked it and the people with two functioning brain hemispheres). Overall felt really dated. Kind of like the one reality show that answered the phone the day before shooting started.
The stars. I did catch myself laughing a few times. One scene in particular when the three guys were beating on each other on a stage, and some of the earlier scenes with one of the nuns from the orphanage. Also, there was some entertainment to be had watching Snookie get the double poke in the eyes. One star. Sofia Vegara seems to only play complete bitches in the movies I have seen, but I would probably let her stomp on my fingers for a chance at a date with her. One star. That’s it. Two stars.
The black holes. The whole Three Stooges remake concept in general. One black hole. A failure to really understand what makes the Stooges cool or connect properly with what they do. Two black holes. The film is laced with dopey kids who made me yearn for the quality acting and emoting of young Anakin Skywalker from the Phantom Menace. One black hole. Having three of those kids do a painful Three Stooges imitation for an extended period of time. One black hole. Making the Stooges out to be willing to kill someone. One black hole. Hiring actors not known for their physical comedy to do physical comedy. One black hole. Baby urine squirt guns. One black hole. The Jersey Shore. One black hole. A pat ending drawn from so far out of the the writers ass that it came with a free set of tonsils. One black hole. Total: ten black holes.
A grand total of eight black holes. I would love to tell you to not go see this but really, what’s the point? If you are the type to see it you will regardless of what I might say, and if you have any taste or discretion at all you will most likely have already discerned how much it blows and will avoid it anyway. Besides, it doesn’t matter if the movie bombs in America or not. Anything with this much physical comedy is going to kill in the foreign markets, making us slaves foreign cultures. I will say that while I was desperately searching my armrests for a fast forward button or hidden compartment with a handy cyanide pill in it a lot of the rest of the audience was laughing their (dumb) asses off. The fact that I saw it mid day on a Sunday for $5 might be a contributing factor to the audience’s intellect level, but perhaps I really don’t have a grasp on what people like these days. So if you are entertained by idiotic remakes of things that don’t need to be remade by all means go see it. Date movie? Hell no. Women hate the Three Stooges even when it is good. They don’t have the gene to see the quality of that performance (that’s OK. Men lack the gene that would allow us to find Sex in the City entertaining) and odds are she will hate you for subjecting her to it.
Thanks for reading. I saw Lockout this evening and will review it tomorrow morning. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu or send me an email at [email protected] if you have specific questions or suggestions. Feel free to leave comments here if you have something specific to say on this review. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Cabin In the Woods Review
Awesome in almost all ways, but honestly I was expecting a little more from Joss Whedon.
As far as horror movies go, this one is pretty amazing. It is extremely derivative in almost all ways, with elements taken from the Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, Resident Evil, the Omen, and pretty much every other horror movie know to man. However, like a great assemblage artist Joss and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield) have fit the borrowed pieces into a new artwork who’s sum is greater than the combined value of the individual parts.
That being said, there were two things that annoyed me during the course of this film (sorry Joss. I am still a huge fan of all your work). The first one is spoilers. I hate spoilers and work to avoid them in my reviews (or at least throw in a spoiler warning). In this film, however, it opens up to a spoiler and keeps on going. The spoiler element added a different twist on the overriding horror of the story (basically adding an active and malevolent intelligence directing what was going on) but really took away a lot of the adrenaline inducing surprise behind every event. It’s tough to be surprised by a creature when a bunch of guys are watching it approach the cabin on a TV monitor. That being said, there were still plenty of surprises left and you will be jumping fairly often.
The second issue has a tertiary spoiler in it, so if you don’t want it then skip ahead one paragraph. The thing that bugged me was what I like to call “the dumb super villain kill switch”. I am not going to get too far into the story on this one as I really don’t want to throw in more of a spoiler than absolutely necessary, but if you have an evil plan do not put in a big, giant red self destruct button that can be easily accessed by a couple of dopey kids. I have passwords for pretty much everything in the universe. Did no one think to password protect the self destruct button, if not from meddling kids than from the occasional disgruntled employee? For that matter why even put in a single button that can destroy everything? You don’t see ships with a scuttle button on the bridge for the captains girlfriend to trip and fall onto. (Curses Foiled Again image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category).
Anyway, the story is of five college kids (the jock, the slut, the brain, the virgin, and the stoner) head off to a vacation in a cabin that basically has “Impending Doom” written on every board and nail. There are some mitigating circumstances that explain why they are so dumb later but early on you actually want to see them die for stupidity. There are some people apparently running everything from a hi tech secret base underground for nebulous reasons. They make a long series of really bad decisions and are attacked by zombies. Horror hijinks ensue. Secrets are revealed, and more and more horror movies are either spoofed or ripped off. I don’t want to get into the story any more than that.
The stars. The story starts off with you scratching your head and thinking it’s kind of dumb but ends up really cool in concept and execution. Two stars. All of the kids in the movie turn out to be decent actors and deliver a good performance laced with nuance (since I glossed over it they are Kristen Connolly-the Happening, Mona Lisa Smile; Chris Hemsworth-Star Trek, Thor; Anna Hutchinson-Power Rangers Jungle Fury, Go Girls, Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior (sorry about this Anna but I just burst out laughing. I sincerely hope you get more and better roles.); Fran Kranz-Training Day, Donny Darko, the Village; and Jesse Williams-Grays Anatomy, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Brooklyn’s Finest). One star. There are some points that have you jumping out of your seat. One star. Both of the girls are easy on the eyes. One star. Anna Hutchinson does a completely gratuitous (and highly appreciated) topless scene. One star. The creatures are really horrible, and the CGI and special effects really good. One star. The way they got the disparate elements of different movies and genres to meld seamlessly into a great movie was awesome to watch. One star. Overall a fun movie. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The fact that the entire movie has spoilers built in rather than delivering the information in an expository style. One black hole. The whole thing I talked about earlier (that might be a spoiler). One black hole. While I appreciate the purposefully derivative nature of this film, it made the story pretty predictable. You don’t have to have read the script to figure out who was most likely to die. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of six stars. Really good for horror, but honestly not at the level I would expect for a Joss Whedon joint. I left the movie thinking that the man who wrote Out of Gas or Objects in Space from Firefly could have done better. Should you see it? Absolutely, in a theater as soon as possible. It is good enough and different enough to be worthy of your attention for those alone, but honestly we need to keep on supporting Joss so he keeps making great stuff. Good date movie? Yes, as long as she can handle horror. Odds are she will be in your lap with fright pretty early on. If she is a Buffy or Firefly fan you have the perfect excuse to get her to the movie. If on the other hand she doesn’t like horror then maybe you should just go see it with your friends.
Before I go I want to add a thought on what I see as an ugly trend towards the overuse of zombies in media. While I appreciate the aesthetic choice to make zombies the baddies in this one I am afraid we are rapidly reaching the saturation point for zombies. This is of course the inevitable conclusion of any popular trend as Hollywood gets a hold of anything cool and milks it so hard all the internal organs come out of the teats, but I for one am a little disappointed that this trend is coming to an end. I have been a zombie fan since high school (which is a long time ago) and at the risk of sounding like every hipster I hate was into them way before they became cool.
Anyway, thanks for reading. More to see coming up, including the true horror movie of this weekend, the Three Stooges. I expect it to truly suck, which is why I have opted to see it tomorrow on cheap movie day. Lockout could either suck or rule, but the trailers I have seen reek of badly of cheese so we will see. Maybe I will make tomorrow a two movie day. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you have any suggestions or questions email me at [email protected]. Specific comments about this review can be made right here for all the world (wide web) to see. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Titanic 3D review
SPOILER ALERT: the boat sinks.
So I did see this last night and yes, the girl I saw it with teared up. Fortunately I had just recharged my robot batteries and managed to escape without being too affected by it. (If you want to see me cry like a baby show me the last 10 minutes of the Wrath of Khan. Spock’s death scene hits me like nothing else. TWOK image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category)
I have long avoided seeing Titanic for a laundry list of reasons. At the time I didn’t know James Cameron from Adam and had no idea what a talented film maker he was. Also I had issues with Hollywood pretty boys like Leonardo Di Caprio and did not want to support them. Finally, I had a problem with Hollywood using the tragic death of 1500 people to sell a love story.
Time makes fools of us all, however. Avatar made me a James Cameron fan. Granted he doesn’t make the greatest stories, but he makes incredibly effective films that tug at your heartstrings. Watching him in Inception has made me a fan of Leonardo, and I have since watched and enjoyed him in films like Shutter Island and J Edgar. And finally seeing Hollywood take the great tragedy of my time, 911, and turn it into a cheesy story in Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close had more or less hardened me to the exploitation of tragic events that happened decades before I was born.
I am not going to go into the story. If you are like me and haven’t seen it yet I’m sure the story of love found and lost (as told by Shakespeare) has filtered into your subconscious. Either that or you live in a cave somewhere. Nor am I going to do a formal review as it would be a pointless waste of time. The movie is nigh flawless, and except for a couple issues with some forced dialog I really couldn’t find any black holes that would not be total nit picking. The story was seamless, the acting superb, and all the characters believable and cool. I am especially a fan of Billy Zane (see him in Demonknight if you have not). The chemistry between Leonardo and Kate Winslet is very real and makes for a great love story, while the tragic ending is like a punch in the stomach that somehow feels good. Plus we get to see Kate Winslet topless.
I will say that unless the original film was a Hanna Barbara cartoon the 3D did absolutely, 100% nothing. If I hadn’t gotten up to use the restroom I would have totally forgotten about the bad fashion decision on my face. 3D sucks, and post production 3D (15 years post production) sucks even more.
I couldn’t even come up with some funny questions like I did with Harry Potter. I do have some but most of them make sense. Like, for example, in the unlikely event I were ever to set foot on another ship (watching this movie has cured me of that desire for life) and there were not enough light boats, I think I would have grabbed a fire axe and cut enough deck material to make some kind of floatation device. Kate ended up an a big piece of wood. Also, why were crew members given seats on the boats in order to row when there were any number of able bodied male passengers who might have done it?
Actually I do have one funny question. It is navel tradition that the captain of a ship be the last man off and should go down with the ship. If you were given captaincy of a ship you would know that. Why then would you be OK with being on a ship that did not have enough seats for everyone? If you have 2,800 passengers and enough lifeboat seats for 2,799 people guess who gets the short end? Of course, this movie is a study in the error of hubris. This is why no ship since has been called “unsinkable” and why I don’t use phrases like “safe”, “that should work”, or “a good idea”.
Anyway, I did enjoy this movie, and if you are a stick in the mud like I was for years I suggest you get over it. However, the 3D is more or less worthless so I think it OK to see it on a larger TV. On the other hand a lot of the shots were pretty impressive so maybe it’s worth the headache (literally).
Thanks for reading. Not a lot out right now that I want to go see, but I will find something to write about tomorrow morning. If you have a comment about this review feel free to post it here, or follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. You can email me with specific questions or suggestions at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
American Reunion Review
I have no clever pun for my opening subtitle on this one.
If you are a regular reader and have read some of my other reviews on movies based around how much fun high school was (Project X, for example) you should know that I have issues with them, most of them stemming from the fact that high school was four years of miserable, alienating, self esteem destroying bulls*** for me. I spent most days planning to either kill myself or kill everyone else in my school. Consequently, movies about high school kids having fun (and sex) infuriates me as a broken mirror of what I could have had.
On the other hand, I have actually enjoyed the two high school reunions I attended. Granted, I have evolved as far away from Southern California beach culture primordial ooze as possible without ascending to another plane of existence, but the actual events were fun. Most of the popular kids whom I hated with the burning passion of 10,000 stars have all gotten fatter, balder, and lamer while desperately trying to hold on to whatever shred of the fun they had back then (and most still live in San Clemente, the town with all the culture of a Petri dish) while the outcast nerds and geeks have for the most part moved on and experienced amazing lives. Time has a way of balancing the books in the long run, and I love it.
That being said, American Reunion is a lot like attending a high school reunion. However, since I avoided all the earlier movies (my hatred of high school kids having fun movies extends well before my time as a movie critic) it was like attending the high school reunion with a guy you sort of know from work but have never had a personal conversation with. You spend the whole evening drinking and listening to them all talk about all the fun they had in the first three movies (I mean high school) while vaguely wondering if it is worth your time to ask for details on the guy who vomited on his girlfriends dress at the Jr. Prom. Is it fair to review this film without having seen any of the others? Probably not, and if you agree you should probably stop reading now. However, I feel any movie should stand on its own merits without requiring you to see anything prior. There should be no prerequisites for movie watching.
If this film is based on some kind of pie like pastry, than it is a very bland pie made of recycled jokes with a few flavor crystals and a bunch of chicken bones, all of which are named Eugene Levy. I feel guilty saying that as I like Eugene Levy and feel he is a talented and funny actor. However, in this film he was so out of tone with the rest of the movie (especially when talking about his recently deceased wife) that it brought whatever momentum the story had generated to a screeching halt. It was like a clock gear with a bunch of missing teeth. I guess he was supposed to be the funny straight man, but since 90% of this cast was comprised of funny straight men I don’t see the point.
Speaking of cast, it was comprised of Stifler, four other white guys who all seemed like the same character (one guy had a beard, I guess), and a handful of women who more or less lacked all personality and were mostly there to give the guys something to focus their horniness on. Except for the minor physical differences (one guy had the beard and was wimpy, one guy was tall and muscular, one guy had a moon face, and one guy was Jason Biggs) they all had the same delivery, inflection, and more or less variations on the same problems (bored relationship, chance to rekindle with on old flame, etc). In truth Stifler I should have hated the most, but he was the only thing entertaining in the entire film and I found myself grabbing onto his scenes like a drowning man trying to hold onto a piece of driftwood.
The story is, of course, of the crew from American Pie coming back for their 13 year high school reunion (I don’t know where they got 13 from other than the intricacies of Hollywood scheduling unless there is some new tradition of scheduling high school reunions on prime numbers, which as a nerd I think is pretty cool). They are Jim Levenstein (Jason Briggs-all the American Pie movies and not a lot else I have heard of. He’s done a bunch of TV stuff including something called I’m in Hell I might have to watch), a married guy with a kid who doesn’t have a lot of sex with his wife these days; Oz (Chris Klein-all the same plus We Were Soldiers, Rollerball) a successful sports caster with a super hot model girlfriend; Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas-Rookie of the Year, Let the Game Begin, Bridge to Nowhere(haw!)) a live at home house husband and architect; Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas-Freddy Got Fingered, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay) a world traveling free spirit; and Stifler (Seann William Scott-Dude Where’s My Car, Role Models, Planet 51) exactly the kind of desperate to get back to high school loser I was laughing at during my high school reunion. They roll into town with their assorted wives and girlfriends. Eugene Levy (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, a Mighty Wind) plays Jim’s Dad (that’s his credit title) and dispenses some homey wisdom and lame missed point sex jokes. Assorted wives and girlfriends tag along to add drama.
At that point the story makes the horrible plot choice pioneered in stupid movies like New Years Eve and fragments into five or more grossly underdeveloped subplots. 
Jim isn’t having enough sex with his wife Michelle (Alyson Hannigan-How I Met Your Mother, Love, Wedding, Marriage, Date Movie. How I Met Your Mother image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts) and, as either a complication or a sub-subplot his super hot 18 year old next door neighbor (Ali Cobrin-One, the Hole, Jack Turner and the Reluctant Vampire) wants him to deflower her (I don’t remember that happening to me at my 10 year. Maybe I should have attended the 13). Oz’s super hot model girlfriend (Katrina Bowden-30 Rock, Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, Sex Drive. Actually the most impressive filmography yet) is a freaky nymphomaniac but he still has feelings for old flame Heather (Mena Suvari-No Surrender, You Man Not Kiss the Bride, Restitution). Finch is supposedly a world traveler but kicks off a romance with Selena (Dania Ramirez-X Men First Class, Quarantine, Brooklyn to Manhatten) who was awful looking in high school but apparently got a full body transplant into a hottie. Stifler is a temp loser with an abusive boss who only wants the party to keep going while he forgets his pathetic life. Jim’s Dad is bumbling through life and stumbles into romance with Stifler’s Mom (Jennifer Coolidge-Legally Blonde, Epic Movie, A Cinderella Story).
All these stories are stunted and undeveloped, mostly serving as a vehicle to call back jokes from the previous movies. None of them held any interest or weight, and I spent most of the movie waiting for Stifler to do something else funny. Each story was painfully predictable and plods along to a series of endings that couldn’t have been more pat if they had all been named Patricia.
The stars. Stifler was funny. One star. Ali Cobrin’s breasts are amazing, and you get more than a two second look at them. One star. I will give this movie credit for taking a very open minded approach to gay issues, having a gay couple engaged and presented in a very positive light. One star. Total: three stars.
The black holes. This film more or less expects everyone to not only have seen the first three movies but be a fan. One black hole. Dull, fragmented story line that lacks a point. Two black holes. With the exception of Stifler all the characters are boring and could have been the same dude. One black hole. The Eugene Levy scenes really took me out of the movie every time. One black hole. These days rated R comedy automatically means we have to look at penis and deal with baby excrement, and this film is no exception. One black hole. Total: six black holes.
A total of three black holes. Meh. Should you see it? If you are a fan of the first three probably. You will get the jokes better than I did and probably have a better connection to all the characters (and therefore be able to tell them apart more easily). Date movie? Maybe if she is a fan. If not the crude humor and negative portrayal of men may hurt you. On the other hand, none of these guys are George Clooney or Brad Pitt so you might compare favorably in the looks department. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere, but do not leave the theater from the moment the group arrives at the lake party until Jim gets Ali into her bedroom or you will miss her topless scene (well worth watching). If I were to pick one scene in particular that could be missed I would say the one where Oz is in a sub sandwich shop with his old high school girlfriend. Not a lot going on there.
Thanks for reading. I am going to see Titanic 3D tonight and will review it tomorrow. This might not seem like a big deal since the movie came out a long time ago, but I have never seen it and feel the need to do so. I don’t think I will do my normal star/black hole since really, what’s the point? Instead I will come up with some annoying questions like I did for all the old Harry Potter movies. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me suggestions or questions to [email protected]. Feel free to post comments here if you saw this movie and either agree or disagree with me. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The great “Fast Zombie/Slow Zombie” debate.
So my best friend and I were discussing zombies this morning and came to the great debate of fast zombies versus slow zombies. Like most things in life I have an opinion on this matter and have no problem sharing with all of you.
Proponents of slow zombies say that this is the classic mode for zombies, from the Romero days and beyond. While capable of the occasional burst of speed when presented with a close victim, zombies have always moved with a slow, lumbering shamble and there is no reason to change that. Slow zombies tend to be the ones who need to be shot in the head to kill and are otherwise impervious to most other damage. They feel no pain or desire other than to eat the flesh (or brains) of the living. They are literally animated rotting corpses and tend to show it (Zombie Target courtesy of the Zombie T-Shirt category). Good slow zombie movies include any George Romero or Lugio Fulci films, Zombie Squad, Zombie Lake, the first two Resident Evil video games, the Walking Dead, Cemetery Man, Dead Snow, and Shaun of the Dead.
On the other hand, fans of fast zombies are quick to point out that the original zombie was not even a walking corpse but rather a drugged human in Haiti, and that the undead zombies are an evolution of zombiehood. Why not then extend the evolution further and have faster and faster moving zombies? Or, for that matter, why not have giant fast moving behemoths that are sort of related to zombies? Most fast moving zombies actually tend to be infected humans and in a weird way are more closely related to the original Haitian zombies. They therefore can be shot anywhere and be affected; however their total lack of fear or pain registration tends to make them pretty hard to put down. They also tend to mutate and grow things like claws and super long tongues that can strangle you, which again calls the whole zombiedom into question. Films that include fast zombies are 28 Days Later, Zombieland, Dawn of the Dead (the Zack Snyder remake), Return of the Living Dead, Dead Alive, and most modern video games like Left 4 Dead.
Honestly it boils down to tone, and for me slow zombies are what a zombie movie is all about. If you give a zombie anything faster than a stumble you turn the movie from a zombie film to a horror film. The zombies are just bad Freddy Kruggar clones sans sweater and claws, and fast motion belies the brainless nature that makes zombies less an active force bent on your destruction and more an unstoppable force of nature. The menace of the zombies is not in one fast zombie sneaking in under your arc of fire and killing you. It is in being overwhelmed by a stumbling horde of mindless eating machines. True zombie movies are in truth survival movies, and the zombies themselves are just another obstacle to confront the protagonists, along with issues of shelter, food, and gas.
Like George Romero always implies in his films, the real danger in a zombie movie is other humans, not the zombies. When you give zombies human-like abilities it degrades the zombie experience.
Thanks for reading. As for movie reviews, this is one of the bleakest weekends ever for film releases. Not only is there nothing I am excited to see, I can honestly say I am dreading most of them. I will see something later tonight and write it up tomorrow, but I am not really gung ho for it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me here with suggestions or ideas. If you have an opinion on the fast zombie/slow zombie issue please post a comment here. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Raid Redemption Review
Ever wonder what a rated R action movie is supposed to look like? Now you can find out.
Wow. That pretty much sums up this movie in a word. Easily the best action movie I have seen in years, possibly decades. On par with Die Hard, First Blood, Lethal Weapon, or any other top action movie (even the Road Warrior, and if you know me you know that is saying a lot). This film takes the crime action and martial arts genres and melds them seamlessly with great characters and some of the most amazing action camera work ever.
Let me talk a little about the camera in this film. Most action films plant the camera at mid range and then use dumb quick cuts to generate action. If they want to make the audience feel like they are in the scene they don’t use a steady cam and let the Blair Witch effect take over. However, as jumbled up as you may be in a fight scene your eyes don’t really jitter around like that. What this movie does is incorporates the camera into the fight choreography, dodging in an out, panning with the fighters, diving in, and placing you in the action better than anything else I have ever seen. The last time I felt that close to a fight I was one of the ones fighting. Truly great.
The martial arts is also great. The film is Indonesian (with my new favorite director Gareth Evans. Sorry Scorsese. He has also done Footsteps and Merantau, both of which I am going to track down) and most of the stars are experts in Pencak Silat. There are no dumb wire fight scenes. All the fighting seems really cool and brutally realistic. Even the gun action is great.
The story is of young Rama (Iko Uwais-Merentau is his only other film credit), a new officer leaving his pregnant wife after a short training montage to join his team of elite cops. They are raiding crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy-Dilema, Demi Dewl, Jinx), a brutal man who rules his 30 story slum tenement filled with the scum of the earth with an iron hand. He has two main henchmen: amazing martial artist Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian-Merentau. He and Iko did the fight choreography) who lives only to fight, and brain man Andi (Doni Alamsyah-Fiksi, Merentau, Hearts of Freedom), and an army of thugs and psychopaths. The cops stealth into the building, taking out spotters and guards as they progress, but are spotted. Tama wakes up the whole building and all hell breaks loose.
After the initial gun fight sequence (started off in the dark in the coolest way possible) this movie shifts gears smoothly from action to survival/horror. Granted, none of the bad guys are zombies (that we know of) but a lot of really cool horror elements are incorporated, like good guys hiding around the corners while the bad guys are tapping their machetes along the wall looking for them. The survivors of the first big fight split up. 
Rama is trying to save the life of his injured friend Bowo (Tegar Satrya-Negeri 5 Menara) while his Sergent Jaka (Joe Taslim-Rasa, Karma) head in a different direction with Lt. Wahyu (Pierre Gruno-True Love, London Virginia, Ekspedisi madewa) and another red shirt (Dead Man Walking image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category).
This is where the martial arts action really unfolds. Rama kicks and punches his way through a corridor of bad guys (and to anyone who thinks there was too much of the fighting, or that some of the fight scenes went on too long, it is obvious you have never really developed an appreciation for martial arts movies. Perhaps you should go see the Lorax). Some cool plot twists develop, although if you are here for an amazing story I think you walked into the wrong theater.
The stars. Amazing action. Three stars. Really great camera work. Three stars. Fight choreography that is second to none. Two stars. For the most part really good characters, especially the villains. One star. Overall a wonderful film experience. Three stars. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes. I hate giving any, as I loved this movie on almost all levels, but have to be honest. The story was pretty simple and even the plot twists no big deal. One black hole. Some of the dialog felt forced and artificial, especially the cussing. This film was written in English and translated for the actors to speak in Indonesian. It felt culturally out of place. One black hole. I could give a third for some cheesy CGI blood, but honestly it was hardly noticeable. Two black holes.
A grand total of 10 stars, one of the best scores I have given in a long time. Should you see it? Abso-freaking-lutely. You will have to look hard for it since American theaters won’t show anything that doesn’t have Brad Pitt or the like in it, but it will be worth the search. See it in a theater to encourage other good movies to be made and released here. Date movie? Hell no, but drag her ass to see it anyway. If she puts up with it you know she’s a keeper, and who knows? You might awaken a sleeping love of martial arts movies in her and you next date could be a Bruce Lee marathon. Even if she dumps you at least you have exposed her to a great film, thus incrementally increasing the culture level of this country.
The one thing that drives me nuts about this film is not the movie itself but rather that it painfully illustrates how lame the vast majority of Hollywood action extravaganzas are. Action isn’t about how many explosions you can fit into ten minutes of film or who has the biggest CGI budget. It’s about the action. This film is like the svelte, athletic person entering a room full of fat people. All of a sudden everyone in the room just looks fatter. They are already working on an American remake and I would bet a large sum of money that it will not be half as good.
Thanks for reading. Go see this movie. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu or email me with suggestions or questions at [email protected]. If you have a comment about this film feel free to post it here. Something came out recently called Intruders with no fanfare that looks creepy as hell. I might go see it tonight. Talk to you soon.
Dave
