The Darkest Hour in 3D Movie Review
Is finding a non-moronic reason for aliens to invade the Earth really such a challenge for Hollywood?
This may sound weird, but in my opinion the best reason to invade a movie has come up with in 2011 has got to be Skyline. Stealing human brains to operate the biomechanical constructs makes sense to me. It is a resource you can only get here. The Darkest Hour suffers from the same problem that plagued Battle LA: the aliens are here to steal resources that are easily available any number of other places in the universe that don’t have the pesky natives fighting back all the time.
I don’t know. I guess this premise was slightly more plausible than stealing water, but even so if you are even going to give us a reason spend a little more time thinking about the mechanics of it. Any race capable of traveling light years to Earth should not have a huge problem with asteroid mining and so on.
Anyway, that is my true geek issue with this movie. There are other, more general reasons but that is mine. The movie starts out with two young software engineers (Emile Hirsch-Into the Wild, Milk, Speed Racer, the Girl Next Door and Max Minghella-the Ides of March, Social Network, Agora) flying to Moscow to pitch some kind of social media service to some ill defined Russian group (government? Corporation? Russian mafia?) only to find they are being totally ripped off by their Swedish former business partner (Joel Kinnaman-the Killing, Easy Money). They decide to blow off steam the way any rational human would-by getting hammered and hopefully laid at a sleazy Russian nightclub. There they meet two girls from America and Britain (heartbreaker Olivia Thirlby-Juno, No Strings Attached, the Wackness(?) and hot blonde Rachel Taylor-Transformers, Bottle Shock, Shutter) and talk the night away. Then, sparkly Christmas tree lights land and go invisible. They kill everyone they come into contact with in a very PG-13 friendly instant dissolve. They are invisible but activate light bulbs whenever they get near so you can sort of see them coming, at least in urban areas.
The kids hide in a storage room for a few days, and then have to trek across Moscow. People get dissolved. They discover the only really interesting character in the movie, a Russian electrician (Dato Bakhtadze-Crash, Wanted) who invents a microwave gun that can disrupt the alien shields. Then he gets killed. The group in joined by yet another hot young person (Veronika Ozerova-no other credits) who adds nothing nothing to the group except a sexy Russian accent (“Boris! We have to get moose and squirrel!”). For some reason I hope she does well, if only because this is her first film and she is pretty cute. Anyway, more stuff happens. Toward the end of the film the writers started channeling Independence Day. I mean, they figure out how to make the aliens visible and vulnerable to regular guns, and that is supposedly enough of a fighting edge to let the humans actively resist. They still don’t really address the fact that until the aliens get shot by the gun they are mostly invisible, a tactical advantage on the order of bringing a gun to a knife fight. If you see the movie you will see what I mean. After an hour and a half of plodding but in tone sci fi movie progression in the last ten minute the plot takes a left turn into Cheesy Valley and founds a township there.
Anyway, the stars. Sci fi movie. One star. 
The aliens, when you finally see them, are pretty cool looking although highly derivative (cough cough ripped off cough cough) of Alien (Alien image courtesy of the Sci Fi T-Shirt category). One star. Olivia Thirlby was driving me crazy throughout the movie. If anyone were to ask me what type of girl gets me the most, it’s hers. One star. In spite of some other issues that will come up later in the black hole region, I thought the actors all did an admirable job with the material they were given. One star. Some interesting scientific concepts used here. None of them really possible given the actual laws of thermodynamics, but interesting nevertheless. One star. You don’t see a lot of movies filmed in Moscow that aren’t spy films. One star. Overall pacing was good. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Cheesy ending. One black hole. Stupid reason for the aliens to invade. One black hole. A complete lack of character development from anyone. There was a little bit before the start of the invasion, but it actually made me dislike the characters more than like them. They were all painfully flat and one dimensional. I felt no real connection with any of them and therefore did not really care when they died. One black hole. Somehow a movie featuring invisible aliens did very little to terrify me. It’s like when you see a campy movie where the guy is boxing someone invisible (Cave Dwellers starring Miles O’Keefe, for example). You just can’t really take it seriously, and you suspect the scene is there to spare the movie makers the cost of hiring another villain, or in this case spending more on complicated CGI. In this sci fi horror film I felt little to no horror. Two black holes. This script was a blatant tool to get young hotties on the screen. It’s OK to have someone older than 25 on a screen once in a while. Sometimes their wisdom and experience can offset the brashness of the younger people, and by contrast actually make the young hotties even more hot (let’s just say I was feeling my age watching this, and a movie should not alienate (haw!) parts of the audience if they want to build any kind of loyalty). The one old guy died within 10 minutes of appearing, and in truth he was the most interesting character. One black hole. Remember all that lack of character development I was just bitching about? Well, the movie felt kind of short overall. I know I have been spoiled with good, long films lately but 89 minutes felt kind of short. Seems they could have padded it out with something more on the characters. One black hole. A few glaring plot holes. One black hole. I have kind of stopped bitching about poor 3D and the headache I get watching it, but a weird thing happened in this movie. It was filmed in Moscow, which should make for some cool visuals camera work. However, the 3D managed to make all that look like they filmed the whole thing on a sound stage with green screen and painted on backdrops. I don’t think it added much to the film, and in fact hurt it. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
So a grand total of two black holes. Not nosebleed inducingly bad. You can enjoy it if you just want to see stuff get wrecked and can stomach a lot of cheese. Also, if you saw Skyline and Battle LA this year you might as well complete the mediocre alien invasion triumvirate. Personally I think there is a lot of other stuff out there that is better. The new Mission Impossible and Sherlock Holmes are both hard to not like. Date movie? Probably not. I don’t see any girl really being into this film unless she is a total geek. Pick your battles. This one is not worth the effort to drag her to the show.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Lots more movies coming out, so more to see soon. I have a busy schedule this weekend (Party!) but will try to squeeze in a couple more. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
The Adventures of Tintin in 3D Movie Review
Kind of boring as a film, but kind of interesting as a case study in schizophrenic movie making.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Any family get together where the assorted factions amoung my cousins don’t melt down like Chernobyl is a winner in my book. Plus my mom got me complete Star Trek TOS season 2, so count me happy.
Anyway, Tintin. I am in general a Spielberg fan. In fact, I just gave his filmography a look and, except for the first two Transformers movies I love pretty much everything he has ever done. This is not even a case of having done something long ago and riding that into the ground. He recently worked on Real Steel, Super 8, True Grit, and Falling Skies, all of which I have enjoyed immensely. Also, Tintin is based on a comic, which is usually win in my book. So, why then didn’t I love this movie?
Well, to be brutally honest, Tintin the character is kind of boring and two dimensional. I enjoyed Snowy the dog a lot more, and I hate animal characters. Tintin looks like young Howdy Doody got his wish and was transformed into a real little boy. The problem is he is then thrust against gritty, harsh, realistic guys and the disparity is jarring. His motivation to do anything at all is highly questionable. He shows no real emotion and I felt no real connection with his character, which more or less robbed the film of any tension when faced with a life threatening situation. I felt a better connection with Captain Haddock, and felt my pulse quicken a bit when he was involved in an epic sword duel with the baddy. Fortunately, just before my eyes were in serious danger of opening all the way Tintin swung in on a rope and robbed the situation of all tension, allowing me to return to my previously torpid state.
The other problem I had with this movie was I couldn’t figure out who this movie was made for. It seemed at first for kids. Swashbuckling adventure with a young boy and his dog, some really goofy comic relief characters, simplistic story, and no motivation whatsoever says children all over. They really went out of their way in the first half to maintain that PG rating. A guy gets riddled with bullets and is only injured. Another guy falls off a moving ship and gets caught up in some rigging. Bullets miss easy targets in a manner that would embarrass the A-Team producers. Then, all of a sudden we are faced with the brutal and horrific execution of a ships crew (tossed overboard into shark infested water) and the death of the first villain (run through with a sword and left to drown on a sinking ship). It was like they spliced two minutes of the Human Centipede into Winnie the Pooh. Also, the running joke throughout the movie was about a probably terminal case of alcoholism that Captain Haddock was suffering from. The previously child-simple story takes a turn for the extremely complicated. I still can’t decide who that movie was made for, and honestly that is a bad sign.
I can say one thing about who this movie is for, and that is clearly males. There is literally one female character in the entire film, and that is Tintins landlady who has about three lines total. Other than that it’s a total sausage fest. I’m not looking for eye candy in what may or may not be a children’s film (or, for that matter, a cartoon), but it seems foolish to not include any single character for 50% of the potential viewing audience to identify with. I actually find myself in a weird place on this point. On the one hand I despise movies that force characters into existing stories in order to broaden the appeal. On the other hand I really felt this movie would have benefited from a little more estrogen on screen. Take that for what you will.
Anyway, the movie. Tintin is a famous boy reporter who buys a model ship of the famous Deus Ex Machina, I mean the Unicorn. Some other characters offer him large sums of money for it, but he refuses based on his love of this model ship (I guess. His apartment shows no sign of any interest in anything model related, ship or otherwise. I guess he imprinted it (Twilight joke there, fans) Otherwise there is no reason shown that he wouldn’t have flogged it for a serious profit). Turns out there is 1/3 of a secret message from an old ship captain about a lost treasure. Tintin gets his ship stolen but has the message. He gets kidnapped by some merchant marines and then the adventure begins! He meets up with the chronically comedically drunk Captain Haddock (seriously, this guy puts away enough booze to kill my Irish grandfather) and they escape the ship in a life boat. The adventure follows a pretty standard Indiana Jones plot from there, if Indiana was an annoying kid and was also channeling Benjamin Franklin Gates from National Treasure. Repressed memories surface that in fact have nothing to do with actual finding of the treasure, only pad out the screen time. Stuff gets blown up. Tintin and Haddock engage in things that should have had them in jail for life. The story drives through the some gaping plot holes to arrive at a pretty pat ending.
I normally don’t do the stars/black holes things for kids movies, but the ambiguity behind the intended audience on this is allowing me some leeway on it. Stars first. Comic book movie. One star. The animation was really good. Overall really impressive visually. One star. Excellent motion capture, mainly by the great Andy Serkis (Ceaser from Planet of the Apes and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings). One star. A few exciting and/or humorous moments. One star. Snowy the dog was cool. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Tintin as a character failed to interest me in the slightest. I couldn’t have cared if he if he fell off a cliff. One black hole. The pacing dragged at times like a front wheel drive car missing it’s rear axle. One black hole. The whole kids/adult movie question. One black hole. Failure to provide me the slightest hint of why Tintin was doing anything. One black hole. The story was so full of deus ex machina it was brushing it’s teeth with the stuff. One black hole. The ending included a less than subtle pitch for the inevitable sequel. One black hole. No female characters of any kind in a film that really felt the need. One black hole. Ultimately, a film that was sold as really exciting and fun that was actually pretty boring. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
A grand total of four black holes. Pretty mediocre. I know, this movie has done amazing things in Europe and all my European friends will probably yell at me for it, but let’s face the fact: Europeans are weird (Normal People Worry Me image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). 
Tintin has been hugely successful as a comic book in Europe for years and never even approached the surface here in the US. Worth seeing? Not really. Not kiddy enough for your kids and not adult enough for an adult. Maybe if you are European or have a deep appreciation of bad European entertainment. On the other hand, this could actually work for the right girl as a date movie. She may well be impressed that you like something so Euro and pretend to like it herself in spite of being bored to tears. This may translate into her pretending to like you in spite of being bored to tears in an attempt to look like she has traveled farther than Bakersfield in her life. It’s worth a shot. Be sure to talk about all the subtle nuance on the screen and use the line “Americans always have a hard time appreciating the European aesthetic” at least once after the movie.
That’s it. There is a ton of new stuff out this week, so look for a new review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review
Not as depressing as I thought it would be.
This is a good lesson relearned about not listening to people about movies before going to see them. A lot of my friends have read the book, and told me horrific stories about how depressing and chock full of rape it was. To be honest, I was at times disgusted and horrified, but at other times really, really interested and intrigued. It was a good story with good direction that kept me hooked even when it did what I would call running off the rails in a lesser film.
I just did a little research and suddenly realized a major reason why I liked this movie. The director, David Fincher, also directed my all time favorite movie, Fight Club. He also directed Se7en, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the Social Network, movies that I have avoided but now will have to seriously take a look at. If you are male and have not seen Fight Club then order one of those memory improvement courses to try to remember what your testicles look like. (Fight Club image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category)
Anyway, this movie is a perfect example of what happens when you take a great book and make a movie of it without tweaking the story too much to suit your own needs or inflated ego. Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Layer Cake) plays Mikael Blomkvist, Swedish journalist who has just been disgraced by a libel case involving a rich businessman. His situation has caught the attention of another rich businessman, Henrick Vanger (Christopher Plummer-Up, a Beautiful Mind, the Sound of Music), who hires him to to investigate the disappearance and presumed murder of his granddaughter Harriot 40 years before. Prior to hiring Mikael Vanger had him investigated by Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara-the Social Network, Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Youth in Revolt. Weird. She’s the daughter of the owner of the New York Giants. I should hate her for being born rich and then having an acting career, but I like her in this movie a lot), a troubled young girl who is extremely anti social but a brilliant technical investigator, who incidentally has a dragon tattoo.
I’m not going to get into the story too much, as this is a mystery movie and dropping even a hint of a spoiler would quality me for the third level of Hell. Lisbeth gets drawn into the investigation. There are about eight different subplots that not only don’t detract or fragment the main story, but actually greatly enhance it. There is one extremely brutal rape scene that I literally closed my eyes for parts of. I don’t need to see stuff like that. However, it was kind of integral so I won’t hit them too harshly on it. Otherwise, really interesting and intelligent investigation with a cool ending. The other strange thing is once the movie seems over, it keeps going for 2o minutes. Normally that drives me nuts, but it worked really well here. I guess it has to do with the fact that this movie is about the girl, not Daniel Craig really. Once you wrap your head around that fact you can let the run on story go.
The stars. Rooney Mara was unbelievable as the Girl. Two stars. Daniel Craig was good too. One star. In fact all the supporting cast was really good. One star. Great story that expanded as the story progressed. Two stars. Mystery films often times suffer from a lack of proper pacing (fast slow slow slow FAST done etc.) but this one was very well paced. Two stars. No attempt to dumb it down for idiots. One star. I don’t know what the deal is, but Lisbeth started the movie really unappealing, both physically and socially, but I was totally in love with her character by the end of it. One star for excellent character development. Some nice nudity not involving rape. One star. Overall great film, well worth watching. Two stars. Total: fourteen stars.
The black holes. Brutal rape scene, as well as a lot of other discussed and implied rape. It seemed like every woman in Sweden gets raped. Two black holes. A certain amount of frustration with some of the resolution by the end of the movie. One black hole. No one could settle on an accent to run with. Some had Swedish. Some had British. Some had American. Seemed a roll of the dice every time you found a new character. One black hole. Again, the movie is going to pay for my soft American brain, but during the investigation I found it hard to keep track of which suspect was doing what. There were a huge number of old photographs used and honestly I couldn’t tell one suspect from another in them. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a grand total of nine stars. This movie is pretty amazing. I think everyone should see it. It is good in the theater, but if you happen to miss it it will be almost as good on a large TV screen. Definitely not a good date movie, what with all the rape and everything. Also, while it is not as depressing as I thought it was going to be, it was definitely depressing. I am especially glad to have seen it as I know there are two more coming in the series. I am looking forward to them.
Thanks for reading. By the way, I saw the trailer for the Avengers and it looks pretty amazing. I hope I’m not being sucked in by good marketing. On the other hand, the rumors I keep hearing from the new Batman movie are giving me the chills. Please, Christopher Nolan, don’t choke on this one. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol Review
Impossible to not enjoy it.
Another Tuesday, another $5 movie. Thank you Regal. Yes, as much as I enjoy dumping all over main stream movies, I have to say I quite enjoyed this film. I think I can sum it up in three words: great chase scenes. Director Brad Bird (the Iron Giant, the Incredibles, Up, Ratattoule) has revealed a hidden talent for really amazing chase scenes that make most other chase scenes look like three-legged races. Furthermore, not only are they exciting and fun, but he manages to merge them into the story seamlessly. They don’t at all feel forced into the screenplay in an attempt to showcase his ego. Really well done.
Before any of you call to see if I contracted brain fever, yes there were issues with this movie and I will get into them shortly. Just overall a fun time.
Also, what is up with Tom Cruise? And for once I mean that question in a good way. I don’t know if it’s makeup, CGI, Just For Men, healthy living and exercise, or the magic power of the Church of Scientology, but he looks like he hasn’t aged a day in the last ten years. It’s bizarre.
Anyway, the movie. Tom Cruise (Minority Report, Top Gun, Jerry McGuire) reprises his role as Ethan Hunt, IMF super spy. He starts the movie with a really cool prison break scene where he and a disheveled guy bust out of a Russian gulag. He has been rescued by two other IMF agents, the great Simon Pegg 
(Paul, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead. Shaun image courtesy of the Zombie T Shirts catagory) and the hot Paula Patton (Precious, Deja Vu). Their mission is to break into the Kremlin and gather intel on some guy who literally wants to blow up the world (more on that later). Really cool high technology spy stuff happens. They get betrayed and the President has to enable the Ghost Protocol and disavow them entirely. The team is joined by disgraced agent Brandt (Jeremy Renner – the Hurt Locker, 28 Weeks Later) and have to save the world.
Literally. The bad guy (Michael Nyqvist – the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Abduction) wants to start a nuclear war. I don’t want to get too far into the story, as it is good and I expect you all to see it. Spy hijinks ensue. Stuff gets blown up, people get chased, cars get wrecked, there is a pretty cool cat fight (Paula Patton versus Lea Seydoux – Inglorious Bastards, Robin Hood, Midnight in Paris), and none of the action or technology suspended my disbelief so high that it hurt my brain. There is a serious vertigo scene, so if that affects you maybe go to the restroom at that moment. It won’t catch you by surprise.
The stars. Great chase scenes. One star. Overall good story, with a level of complexity normally missing from mainstream movies. They also managed to avoid the burning need to explain everything to the audience, which I appreciate. You could follow the story but you had to pay attention. Two stars. Simon Pegg. One star. The two women were hot. One star. Although it galls me like a hot poker you-know-where, Tom Cruise was pretty good. One star. Overall the action was really good, and they didn’t resort to the quick-cut fighting that bugs me. One star for hiring a fight choreographer. The movie delivered the rarest gift a jaded movie critic can receive: actual excitement. There were a few scenes where I was literally gripping my armrests. The vertigo scene in particular. Two stars. A PG-13 rating that felt appropriate and didn’t need to go up or down. One star. Pacing was awesome. It was 133 minutes that felt like an hour in a good way. One star. Two bonus stars for overall great movie experience. Total: thirteen stars.
The black holes. The most obvious, glaringly stupid one has to be the motivation for the villain. He plans to start a nuclear war because he thinks it would be fun or something. That’s it? There is no political or monetary motivation you could add in to make him more believable? Two black holes. This next one is kind of petty, but one of the things I have always enjoyed from the entire Mission Impossible franchise is the theme music. From the TV show I think it really brought the whole thing home, and added a lot of excitement to any of the shows or movies. In Ghost Protocol there is about a 20 second clip of a modified version of it and that’s it. It’s like they were under contract to use it and did so grudgingly. One black hole. There were a number of tangential plot devices that I felt could have either been expanded upon or dropped entirely. One black hole. In particular there was a seduction scene involving an Indian billionaire that I felt was completely worthless. One black hole for that. Total: five black holes.
In the irksome but not black hole worthy category, I have one. Before 9/11 whenever something catastrophically bad had to happen to an American city it was always New York. After 9/11 New York became sacrosanct and now whenever something has to suck on an apocalyptic scale it always seems to be San Francisco, the city I live 20 minutes from. San Francisco is about as far from the mainstream politics of America as a major city can get. Have movie makers never heard of Chicago, Detroit, Miami, or Los Angeles? Not that I wish ill on any of those cities, but when you really look at it’s value as a military or terror target San Francisco is kind of stupid. I guess it has a distinctive skyline and that’s what Hollywood is looking for.
Final total of eight stars, a great score. If you like fun and excitement see this movie. Do it in a theater as I honestly believe there are a few scenes that would lose significant impact if watched at home. Kind of weak as a date movie in my opinion, as Tom Cruise is still considered hot and a lot of women have been fantasizing about him for years. If you do take a date to see this be sure to talk about how crazy Tom Cruise is.
Thanks for reading. I am starting to work my my end of the year movie awards, and coming up with funny titles and categories like “The Who Brought This Guy Award” for the most unnecessary sequel of the year. Please offer suggestions and comments. I am always looking for input. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again, and have a great Holiday.
Dave
Single, Lonely, and Miserable again this Christmas? Here are some things that help me deal with it.
Astute readers may have perceived that I have been really focused on the movie blogs and have kind of let the dating advice fall by the wayside. This is mainly due to the fact that I haven’t really had the time or money to date, and when I do I seem to fail horribly at it. Thus, I am having a hard time believing in myself enough to give qualified advice.
However, being single and miserable is something I am a Jedi Master at, so here are a few things that might help you get through yet another bleak Christmas of staring morosely at the mistletoe again.
1. Binge drinking. Yes, nothing helps you forget your loneliness and despondence like the the sweet kiss of alcohol poisoning. Go for the gusto this year. Blind, stinking drunk. New Years Eve is the obvious candidate for this, but let’s not forget that Christmas Eve party! Also, getting smash drunk at the local pub may actually help cure your loneliness, while injecting some new and exciting situations into your life. On the other hand, if you are of a melodramatic persuasion and want to make a poignant statement, drink alone on Xmas day in hopes that one of your happier friends will call you to wish a Merry Christmas and you can bum them out a little. (Drinking shirt image courtesy of the Cheap T Shirts category)
2. Video games. This is a old nerd fallback, but it works for a reason. Take some of your misery and frustration out on anonymous losers from around the world. In my mind the guy I just dropped a sticky bomb onto is always a happy, successful man on his way home to his loving wife and kids, only to get caught up in my murderous rampage. Of course, odds are anyone else playing video games on Xmas day is also a single nerd loser, but a man can dream.
3. Buy yourself stuff. Yes, it’s people, not things, that are important in life. However, if you don’t have people then a certain amount of satisfaction can be had from things. Try to find out how much your married coworker spent on his kids toys and spend that same amount on toys for yourself. Then, when you get back to work and he or she is groaning about their credit card bills you can whip out your brand new iPad 2 and show them how a player plays.
4. Create a Holiday card designed to make your married friends miserable. You know those jackasses who insist on sending you a picture of their entire lovely stupid family in front of their Christmas tree? Get a picture of yourself doing something super cool only a single person could do and send that out. Surfing in Bali. Skiing in Vail. Binge drinking in the local bar. Playing video games. Enjoying some new toys. Every married person may or may not be happy with their lovely family, but there is always a big part of them that misses the freedom to just bail out of town on a weekend and visit the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot. And if you didn’t take a fabulous vacation this year and are more the type to sit on your couch all weekend then get good at Photoshop.
5. Peruse some online dating sites. Yes, nothing says single miserable loser like someone sending notes to people on Plenty of Fish on Christmas day. However, remember that if someone else is also on POF to make that observation then that person is more or less in the same boat. Could it be you have found your soul mate? Also, if nothing else I have found just skimming through personals is nice way to kill time without really using your frontal lobe.
6. Try to milk the mistletoe cow. Get one of those hats that has a stick pointing out the front and some mistletoe hanging off it. Either that or go to a Christmas party with a sack full of the stuff and carpet the ceiling. Its got to work at some point, right?
7. Work. If you are going to be miserably anyway, why not use this time to your benefit? Add up all your receipts for the year. Clean your apartment. Get a head start on the next report you need to do for the boss. Add more shirts to your struggling t-shirt website. Then, when you get back to the office and everyone else is talking about how happy their dumb kids were with whatever junk they got, you can drop something super cool onto your boss’s desk and convince him or her that you are exactly the lifeless, dedicated loser he or she needs in charge of something.
8. Hang out with your other single friends. Misery loves company.
9. Try to guilt your married friends to set you up on blind dates. This sort of thing seems to hit home with your married friends harder now than ever before. They are perfectly content to watch you be a lone wolf during, say, April, but the prospect of a friend of theirs single in December galls them. The weird thing for me is something like 50% of adults are single these days, yet none of my paired friends seem to know any. How does that work, exactly?
10. Tell all your married friends that being married is a lifestyle, not a requirement. Yes, trying to convince people that they would be happier single will actually make you feel better about being single. It is a weird phenomenon.
11. Spend a day remembering all the miserable, bad relationships you’ve had in your life. Contrast is the secret to happiness. If you are starting to feel the single blues, just think back to the boyfriend who kept borrowing money from you while cheating, or the girlfriend who hit you in the head with a travel alarm clock. If you have never had a girlfriend or boyfriend then rent Fatal Attraction, Love Stinks, and Sid and Nancy. Also go back and read some of my dating advice posts.
12. Write a bitter, sarcastic blog about it.
That’s pretty much it for today. Thanks for reading. Movie tonight, so a review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
Young Adult Movie Review
There’s Something About Mary meets Leaving Las Vegas.
We were supposed to see Mission Impossible last night, but it sold out two hours before the showing. We then bought tickets for The Sitter, but thought about it and realized we’d rather drive bamboo slivers under our fingernails. We finally settle on Young Adult, and to be honest I kind of wish we’d seen the Sitter.
I don’t know. Was it bad? Not really. Was it funny? In parts, if macabre gallows humor dispensed by despicable people is your thing. So what’s my problem with it?
I guess I had two problems. SPOILER ALTER. First off, the main character, Mavis Gary (Charlize Therone – the Devil’s Advocate, Monster, Hancock, the Italian Job) doesn’t so much as describe a story arc as loop in a full circle. In other words, in a movie filled with personal realizations and sudden moments of clarity, she manages to end the movie in exactly the same place, after spending 90 of the 94 minutes moving towards a change in life. She starts the movie a stuck up, shallow, self centered, addicted, psychotic prom queen living a miserable life by herself in Minneapolis and more or less ends up there. As a guy with bitter memories of high school I have a certain fondness for the popular kids finally getting their comeuppance, but after a few awkward moments she kind of just keeps chugging along. The second issue is the lack of tone from the film. Half the time it is a dark comedy with clever, interesting people and the other half of the time it is a woman screaming a desperate cry for help that all the people around her manage to completely miss. One could say the humor was there to facilitate the dark story, but one could also say the darkness was to enhance the comedy. I couldn’t decide if I should be laughing or crying through most of it.
Anyway, the story. Mavis is a ghost writer for a young adult novel series that it is pretty obviously about herself in high school. She is miserable and alone, except for one night stands, and it is established early on that her life is circling the drain. She gets the announcement that her ex BF just had a baby and decides the sane thing to do is to go back to the small town she grew up in and stalk him away from his wife and child. Once in town she runs into one of the geeks she never talked to in high school, Matt (Patton Oswalt – Ratatouille, King of Queens, Magnolia), who was crippled in a hate crime in high school. She gets hammered and tells him her plan. He is the only voice of reason in this entire movie as he constantly tells her she is crazy and needs help. Stalking hijinks ensue. 
Her ex BF Buddy (Patrick Wilson – Watchmen, Hard Candy, Insidious. I know. I should have gotten a Nite Owl image, as he played Nite Owl. I just like Dr. Manhattan better. Image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) seems completely oblivious to her ham handed approaches and hangs out with her. Oblivious seems to be the word to describe most of the characters in this film, as his wife also seems to miss everything, as well as the parents, even when Mavis flat out says “I have a drinking problem” to their faces.
The stars. I will say Charlize Theron can play a bitch. One star. In fact, all the acting was good. One star. Dialog well written. One star. There were many humorous moments that, when taken out of the context of the movie message, were very funny. Two stars. They managed to capture the small Midwestern town extremely well. One star. And one more star for what is probably a decent movie going experience. Total: six stars.
The black holes. The whole lack of tone thing. One black hole. The story arc that went from nowhere to nowhere. One black hole. Every supporting characters incomprehensible motivations (why exactly would the wife invite the ex-GF to anything involving their family?) and inability to see a problem that is slapping them in the face. One black hole. The lack of consequences for Mavis’s pretty reprehensible behavior. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
Two stars total. You can always spot when I am conflicted on a movie when I don’t give a lot of stars or black holes. I don’t know. Decent movie? Yes. Will you feel good watching it? No. There is nothing in the end to really feel good about. Also either you were popular in high school and will hate what is happening to the popular girl or you were like me and will hate that she doesn’t pay for it. Probably a decent date movie, as none of the guys are over the top amazing and she will probably appreciate the main characters motivations more than you will. Nothing in here really requires a large screen, however, so just wait for NetFlix.
That’s it. It’s late and I played Warhammer all day, so I am beat. I am going to watch an episode of Breaking Bad and go to sleep. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows Movie Review
Pretty damned good.
It is always nice to see something decent after being subjected to the film equivalent of a flesh eating virus. Thursday night I dragged myself to New Years Eve, and truly regretted it. Last night I went to see Sherlock Holmes and was reminded that there is still some good in the world (of movies). This movie is in all ways entertaining and exciting, with great writing, dialog, acting, and action.
It is, of course, a grandiose story of Sherlock Holmes, the greatest fictional detective ever (actually, I would claim Batman as the greatest fictional detective ever, but that’s just a personal preference. Batman image courtesy of the Batman T Shirt category) and his friend Dr. Watson. They are attempting to prevent the infamous Moriarty from literally destroying Western Civilization.
I’m not going to get too deep into the story, as I spent literally hours yesterday writing up that dumb New Years movie and have a lot to do today, but it starts off with Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.-Iron Man, of course) dealing with the impending marriage of his long time companion Dr. Watson (Jude Law-actually, some good movies here that no one but me likes. The Road to Perdition, Cold Mountain, and Enemy at the Gates to name a few). Meanwhile, he rescues a hot Gypsy fortune teller (Naomi Rapace-the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo et al) who’s brother is involved in a secret plan cooked up by Moriarty (Jared Harris-Natural Born Killers, Resident Evil Apocalypse). They are aided by Holmes’ brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry-V for Vendetta, a bunch of other roles calling for a smarmy over-educated pasty white guy). I expect you all to see this film, so I don’t want to throw too much into this. Stuff blows up, Holmes deduces stuff, and a lot of fairly cool action occurs.
The stars. I know I’m a sucker for English accents, but the dialog couldn’t be more perfect. The language and diction was perfectly in period of the late 19th century England. Two stars. Well written story. Two stories. Excellent performances by literally everyone. Two stars. They did this really cool quick cut sequences thing to show how Sherlock Holmes’s deductive brain worked. One star. There were some shooting and running slow motion action scenes that were really cool. One star. A couple of really cool plot twists. One star. There was a ton of really funny humor seamlessly mixed into the dialog. One star. The onscreen relationship between Watson and Holmes felt really real and genuine. I know this is just a reflection of the excellent acting talents of Robert and Jude, but still it was refreshing to see. One star. Mycroft was outstanding in every scene he was in. One star. So was Moriarty. One star. And two bonus stars for a good movie experience. Total: fourteen stars.
The black holes. This is just a reflection of my own stupidity, but the combination of Robert Downey Jr. fast deliver plus the English accent meant I kept missing what I felt were either funny or plot critical points. One black hole, although that’s really for my slow brain. I felt the whole Dr. Watson marriage and his wife’s character were kind of unnecessary. I don’t think they added much to the story, especially once the wife more or less fell off the screen. One black hole. That’s it. Two black holes.
In the vexing but not black hole worthy, I really only have one and it galls me like a burning coal in my gut to say this, but I honestly think this movie would have been better in 3D. Gah, I can’t believe I just wrote that! I hate 3D. However, there were a number of scenes involving artillery shells, knives, and bullets that would have looked cool in 3D. OK, I said it. I’m going to go flagellate myself after finishing this review in punishment.
So a grand total of twelve stars and my recommendation that you see it in the theater. Some of the epic scenes will lose impact on a smaller screen. Good date movie, as your date will probably be entertained by the clever English dialog. Also she could possibly fill you in on any of the dialog you missed (going to the movies by yourself sucks. Trust me, I know).
Sorry about the short review, but when I like a movie I don’t usually find a lot to write about. I am happy to report that the movie I unleashed all the bile in my life upon yesterday, New Years Eve, tanked horribly and is being counted as a film failure in spite of the celebrity lineup. Well, done, America. You reaffirm my faith in humanity. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
New Years Eve Movie Review
There aren’t enough synonyms for “trite” in the English language to allow me to review this movie.
Actually, I kind of like to think of this movie as an experiment in alternative script writing methods that went horribly wrong and, like all bad science experiments is destined to rise up and destroy us all. You see, most bad movies take a crappy story idea and run it into the ground. What the writer of this bomb did (Katherine Fugate-Valentine’s Day, Room in Rome, the Prince and Me (grammar is optional in movie title writing, really)) was take ten bad stories, interweave them into a tapestry of horribleness, and then drape it all over the screen like a death shroud. The funny thing is each story in turn actually magnifies the bland horribleness of the previous one in an exponential manner, so that by the time you get to the 10th sub story you get horrible to the ninth degree.
The whole story chain is weird. The system is a blatant vehicle to cram as many celebrities into one bad movie as possible. The laundry list is endless. Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, Zac Effron, Halle Barry, Alyssa Milano, Jessica Biel, Katherine Heigl, Seth Meyers, Ashton Kutcher, Jon Bon Jovi(?), and Sarah Jessica Parker to name a few. In my mind’s eye I see this movie as the “rock soup” approach to film making. Here’s how I think it works. They get the first star, say Sarah Jessica Parker for example. They write a crappy little drama about her and her daughter. Then they approach the next on the list and say “Hey, we’ve got Sarah Jessica Parker”. The next celebrity joins in and so they write a crappy drama for him or her. Rinse and repeat, and at the end you have a crappy pot of soup made only with a rock!
Of course, with ten different stories in 118 minutes (was it really that long? Felt more like four hours) none of the characters get to in any way develop, or give us any reason to connect with any of them, or for that matter in any way give a crap about anything that happens on the screen. The crappyness of the script might have shot right past the thinking part of each of the actors brains, but it obviously lodged deep into the brain stem and and subconsciously inspired them each to phone in their performances. The acting felt so much like a first or second rehearsal I kept looking to see if the stars actually had scripts in their hands they were reading from. It looks like another draw for each of these people is the fact that they could probably film their respective parts in about a week.
The strange thing (and this is in no way an endorsement or encouragement of this movie) is if you are forced to watch this movie you actually get a little interested in the individual stories, if only to see which of them is going to end the most horribly (the Sarah Jessica Parker one IMO). It’s like watching a leper marathon; you know it is going to be bad to watch and terrible things are going to happen, but you really can’t help but watch if only to see which participant has the most body parts fall off.
One last thing on the multiple story chains is I didn’t realize they had the hydra-like ability to spawn other story chains. You finally get one of them concluded and somehow another one spontaneously germinates. I’d say it grinds, but this whole movie was such a grind that by the time I got to that part most of my gears were stripped.
Anyway, I can’t really get to into the story without submitting the entire script, so I will just recap each of the stories that stuck in my head enough to talk about it. Robert DeNiro is in a hospital dying of cancer (and while his performance was far sub par of what I would expect from him, at least he looked like he was dying) and Halle Barry is his nurse, who also has a husband in the military overseas. Michelle Pfeiffer is a mousy spinster secretary who quits her job in a huff and bribes Zac Effron to make her bucket list come true in the next ten hours. Jessica Biel is pregnant and her wimpy husband Seth Meyers wants her to give birth right after midnight to win some cash prize but are in competition with some other couple. Katherine Heigl is a caterer who is contracted to do food for a huge music industry party, and her ex boyfriend rockstar “Jensen” (played by an almost lifelike Jon Bon Jovi robot of some kind), who is the uber-prosaic music entertainment for the party and the Times Square deal, wants to win her back with emotionless dialog. One of “Jensen’s” background singers, Lea Michelle, gets stuck in an elevator with loser hipster comic book artist Grinch Ashton Kutcher (loser hipster is not much of an acting stretch for him, IMO) and proceeds to teach him something important about the true meaning of New Years Eve. Sara Jessica Parker reprises her Sex and the City roll with a 15 year old daughter, who wants to run around unsupervised through New York. Meanwhile, her long lost love interest Josh Duhamel plays one of the music company owners and apparently the hottest thing in NYC until he decides to meet Sarah at midnight. That’s most of what I can remember. Oh, yeah. Hillary Swank plays the woman in charge of the ball dropping who has to deal with an edge-of-the-seat situation when a fuse in the ball goes out, and then turns out to be the estranged daughter of Robert DiNero.
Honestly, that’s it for story. There is no actual conflict in any of these stories except for the whole “giant ball fuse” business. No one does any one thing remotely interesting. It was like watching 10 bad after school specials all edited together.
The stars. Honestly, I would normally give one for a guys like Robert DiNero, but he didn’t exactly light up the screen. I would also do one for some of the hot women in this, but for the most part they were bundled up for December in NYC and not that good looking. Also, I don’t know what this movie was doing with a PG-13 rating. It was so tame it was almost a G in my opinion. The only time any one of the characters even implied that sex ever occurred between humans was at the end when Katherine Heigl said something about it with the Bon Jovi-bot, and that image is going to take some drinking to get rid of. I’ve never not given any stars to a movie before. I guess I could give them one for the morbid curiosity the movie generated when I wanted to see which ending would suck the most. Kind of like how you don’t want to look at a car wreck when you drive by but cant help yourself. Total: one star.
The black holes. I’ll give 1/2 a black hole for each stupid sub plot, and call the extra ones spawned at the end a wash. Five black holes. The dialog was god awful. Two black holes. In addition to the dialog from the main characters sucking, the writers felt compelled to inject background dialog that made me want to murder puppies (I would never actually hurt a dog, BTW). One more black hole. A movie with no protagonist, antagonist, conflict, story, or point. Two black holes. Acting reminiscent of the Robin Hood play I had a bit part in back in second grade (I was guard #3. My one line was “I don’t like the forest”. Why can I remember that but not my social security number?). One black hole. Opening the movie with the odious Ryan Seacrest and having him resurface later like a flush that didn’t quite go all the way down. One black hole. Having two different musical numbers coalesce out of the ether like a torpedo launched from an underwater submarine. One black hole. Creating a fictional super star (“Jensen”) in a movie flush with real celebrities acting as themselves. One black hole. Pat endings so sugary sweet they could possibly kill every diabetic in the world. One black hole. The dumbest, slowest car crash in the history of movie making. One black hole. Total: 16 black holes.
So, a whopping 15 black holes, possibly the worst I have given this year. Was it really that awful? Yes. Yes it was. Can some enjoyment be had from it? Maybe, if you are stupid. Or perhaps have a serious case of ADHD. Good date movie? Sure, if your date is stupid or has a serious case of ADHD. Honestly, this movie should not only never be seen again by another human, but the 500+ stars of the film should band together with pitchforks and torches and burn the windmill in which the mad scientist/director Gary Marshal has set up his lab with his assistant/writer Katherine (Igor) Fugate. (A.D.D. image courtesy of the funny t-shirt category)
Wow. This isn’t my longest review, but it definitely took the longest to write. I wish I could just write “It Sucks” and hit the publish button. Oh, well. More movies this weekend. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Don’t see this movie.
Dave
Top 25 Coolest Movie and TV Vehicles
I forget how I got onto this. I was talking to a friend and the idea hit me. There are some super cool vehicles out there, including a few that seem to be ignored by other list makers. I was originally going to go with top 10, but after talking it over with several groups realized I can’t cut it down that far. 25 it has to be. I’ll keep each blurb to a minimum.
25. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I have often wished my 2005 Ford Crown Vic would somehow gain the ability to both fly and float. Six of these were made, custom with a Ford 3000 V6 engine.
24. Herbie from the Love Bug. I have to toss a nod to this one, even though Beetles bug me, mainly because the guy across the street drove one and I’d have to push start it every time we wanted to go somewhere. Also, one time he ran over my foot while I was trying to push it. 1963 Volkswagon Beetle Type 1.
23. Goblin Truck from Maximum Overdrive. This movie definitely taught me to look both ways before crossing the street. Also, to fear goblins. 1977 White-Western Star 4864.
22. Van from Cheech and Chong. Living in Oakland as I do, movies about the illegality of marijuana have kind of lost steam given there are medicinal shops on every block. However, a great movie. Ironically, when they edited it for television the pot mysteriously transformed into diamonds. 1963 Chevrolet P-10 Step Van.
21. Shaggin Wagon from Dumb and Dumber. Remember when Jim Carrey did really funny movies that didn’t involve dancing penguins? 1984 Ford Econoline (Dumb and Dumber image courtesy of the Movie T-Shirts category)
20. Coupe from American Graffiti. I am disinclined to give any kind of props to George Lucas for reasons that should be obvious to any thinking nerd, but this movie was pretty cool and the car even cooler. 1932 Ford Coupe.
19. ETC01 from Ghostbusters. I loved this movie, and when I saw the car converted drive out of the firehouse I laughed my ass off. 1591 Cadillac Miller-Meteor.
18. Batmobile from 1989 Batman. I know, everyone loves the Tumbler, but I think this was the coolest car they did for any of the more recent movies. The fact that it had twin Gatling guns is a huge plus. Custom made out of two Impala Chassis, Chevy V8 engine, and a ton of custom body work.
17. Greased Lightning from Grease. There aren’t many dance/singing movies I can stomach, but this is one of them. 1948 Ford De Lux.
16. Gran Torino from Starsky and Hutch. Bet you thought I was going to say from the movie Gran Torino. This car has been the cool car from a bunch of different movies. It was also the beater car in the Big Lewbowski. 1976 Gran Torino.
15. Ferrari from Ferris Bueller. Another flashback to when a guy had a film career. This car not only ruled in being cool but also in how it finally met it’s end. 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider.
14. A Team van from the A Team. It always amazes me that I enjoyed this show so much, when you really consider how bad it really was. If I recall correctly this fan was BA’s personal property and got totally wrecked in pretty much every episode. 1983 GMC G Series.
13. Bluesmobile from the Blues Brothers. I drive a car often used by police, and get a lot of cop car jokes from my so called friends. However, there is no way my car could ever be as cool as this one. 1974 Dodge Monaco Sedan.
12. K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. If I had a car that could drive itself, that would make texting while driving a lot easier. Heck, I’d probably play video games. 1982 Pontiac Trans Am.
11. the Spinner from Bladerunner. Who doesn’t want a flying car? Original design.
10. Batmobile from the Batman TV show. OK, if any one vehicle can encompass the entirety of camp and ridiculousness that was the show, it was the car. 1955 Ford Lincoln Futura (concept car).
9. Pussywagon from Kill Bill. Not only was it a killer truck, but she didn’t just dump it first chance she got. 1997 Chevrolet 2500 Silverado Fleetside.
8. Deathmobile from Animal House. Remember when this car got totally wrecked on the road trip and then broke out of the parade float as carnage incarnate? 1964 Lincoln Continental MK2.
7. Pork Chop Express from Big Trouble in Little China. Cool truck, cool logo. 1988 FLC120 Freightliner.
6. AT-AT from Empire Strikes Back. Never said this was all cars. It’s obvious the good director before Lucas took over said “I want something slow, menacing, and terrifyingly ominous, like a slow moving tidal wave”. Looks like he got his wish. Of course, than can be taken down with string, so kind of disappointing in that regard. Kuat Drive Yards AT-AT.
5. General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard. Honestly, even more than Knight Rider this is the car that defined the show. I always wondered why Bo and Luke never opened the doors, however. 1969 Dodge Charger RT.
4. M577 Armored Personel Carrier from Aliens. Too bad they never got to fight with this bad boy. Really cool. M577 APC.
3. Christine from Christine. Ever want to be afraid of a car? 1958 Plymouth Fury.
2. DeLorean from Back to the Future. What’s better than a car that flies? How about a car that flies and can travel through time? 1981 DeLorean DMC12.
1. MFP Interceptor from the Road Warrior. I know, there are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this, but if ever I became rich through luck, crime, or hard work, this is the car I would reproduce and tool around in, including the fuel tanks. 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe (only sold in Australia).
I was going to include the tank from Tank Girl, but then realized that it was a Patton when she found it and turned into a Sherman when she was driving around. Continuity issues bug me.
That’s it. I have a headache and want to go play Minecraft. Thanks for reading. More reviews coming up this week. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading.
Dave
Goodbye, Harry Morgan
So Harry Morgan died today at the age of 96. This is actually really sad for me, as I watched a lot of M.A.S.H. as a kid. I loved that show. Honestly, I can’t put my finger on why, as I was always more into military shows with more actual combat. At first I just liked it because it was about the Army, but as I got older I really got into the characters and the horrific situation they were in. Shows where they were doing endless hours working on horrifically injured men, surrounded by blood and gore, really spoke to me. I won’t get into the details of my miserable childhood, but something about those guys somehow in my childhood mind spoke to the daily grind of dealing with all the jackasses who I went to school with and who dared to call themselves my peers (when they weren’t kicking my ass), as well as some other stuff having to do with my family. (M.A.S.H. 4077th image courtesy of the Television T Shirt category)
Anyway, I loved all the characters. Radar was always my favorite, but honestly I like Col. Potter the next most. He was the father figure I always wished I had, tough but fair. I like his aspect as a career officer, and enjoyed him most when he was yelling at people. Honestly, I never missed Henry Blake much when he left, or for that matter Trapper John. The best shows were with BJ, Col. Potter, and Radar.
So this show was a big part of my childhood. Not on the level of Star Trek, which was about the life and friends I wished I had had, but rather about the life and friends I actually had. Harry Morgan was always great. In addition to M.A.S.H., he starred on Dragnet, the great Third Rock from the Sun, an episode of Twilight Zone, the Jeff Foxworthy Show, and a bunch of parts on shows like the Simpsons and the Love Boat. He did make the mistake of starring in the ill fated After Mash, but I forgive him for that for all the years of fun he has given me.
So he passed. I am glad he lived to the grand old age of 96, and will miss him.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I’m headed to LA to hang out with a bunch of my old college friends this weekend. I will try to get a post or two up, especially if I can see some of the movies coming out this weekend. Talk to you soon.
Dave
