We Bought a Zoo Movie Review
The sappiness dial on this movie goes up to 11.
Yes, this movie was sappy like Natalie Portman is hot or the general movie going population is dumb. Does that hurt the movie? In one sense yes. However, if you saw any of the trailers and expected to be anything other than heartwarmed then your problems with perceptions run so deep you wouldn’t notice that your hair was on fire until someone shot you in the face with a fire extinguisher. This movie will play your emotional heartstrings like a cheap ukelele, evoking sadness, happiness, cuteness, frustration and (in the case of Scarlett Johansson and, assuming you are into men, Matt Damon) horniness. (11 Dial image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
The story is, as the title subtlety implies, about a family that buys a zoo. It starts off with the father (Matt Damon-Good Will Hunting, the whole Bourne series) and his kids dealing with the recent death of his wife (Stephanie Szostak-the Devil Wears Prada, Dinner for Schmucks). His annoying 14 year old son (Colin Ford-Jack and the Beanstalk, Push) is dealing by acting out in passive aggressive ways and by drawing disturbing pictures all the time. His daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones-Footloose) seems better adjusted but prone to telling strangers that her mommy died.
Let me just go on an aside and talk a bit about Maggie Elizabeth Jones. In this movie she is comprise of 100% pure weapons-grade cuteness. I can’t stress that enough. She is so cute your face will hurt from smiling every time she is on the screen or says something. Until she turns into another annoying teenage actress she will probably have a lock on every super cute child role for the next six years, and deservedly so. I am not really into other people’s kids, but was smiling every time she said something.
Anyway, the son Dylan gets booted out of school for stealing and the father Benjamin (who by the way, is being stalked by every hot woman in whatever town he lives in. I guess being a hot single widower with super cute kids is quite the turn on for women) decides they need a new start. He ends up buying the zoo based on his love of the house. He opts to get the zoo running again and meets the staff, including the super hot zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson-Match Point, Iron Man 2, the Prestige) who falls into the Hollywood pit of the amazing girl who dedicated her life to animals rather than dating and getting a life, as well as a host of flat, two dimensional stereotypes ( just imagine the kind of hippies who want to work on a zoo for no money and you will have them nailed down). Her younger 13 year old sister Lilly (Elle Fanning-Super 8, Deja Vu, the Door in the Floor) lives there too and gains a crush for emo-Dylan. At that point the story more or less follows the very typical family-business-struggling-in-the-face-of-adversity Hollywood script. They are obstructed by a cartoonish antagonist in the form of USDA inspector Walter Ferris (John Micheal Higgins-Wag the Dog, Fun With Dick and Jane, Bad Teacher) who has to certify them before they open and a host of other incidental problems.
The stars. The movie does what it set out to do, which is yank your emotions around like a fish on a line before landing you in the heartwarming boat. One star. Rosie was painfully cute. One star. Good dialog. One star. Good direction. One star. The main characters in the form of Benjamin and Kelly felt really real, although their on screen romance felt a little artificial. One star. Lots of cute animals to look at. One star. At the end of the film you feel good and don’t feel like your time and money were wasted. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. As real as Benjamin and Kelly felt, almost all the supporting characters felt really flat and artificial. The supporting characters in the Muppets felt more real. One black hole. Pacing really seemed to drag at times. One black hole. The story was predictable enough to set your clock to. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Not bad. Worth seeing with the qualifier that you are not looking for any chases, fights, explosions, or surprises of any kind. It really earns it’s PG rating. I don’t think any of the scenes are of such cinematographic brilliance that they require a large screen, so NetFlix is fine. On the other hand, this is a brilliant date movie, as your girl will love it and the little girl will have her thinking about a family for sure.
That’s it for now. I am working on my Nerdy Awards and think I will start them over the weekend. Nothing to see tonight, but I might actually do some nerd dating advice tomorrow. Some things that happened over New Years kind of got me thinking about it again. Look for that tomorrow. 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
Dream House Movie Review
House of Confusion.
This movie was bitterly disappointing for me. Not because I was expecting something great. I went into it expecting it to suck. It disappointed me because I could see elements of a great movie in here that failed to surface. It’s like the ship the U.S.S. Bad Script sailed to within sight of the Port of Good Movie only to run aground on Fumble Reef. (Titanic image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
The best way to describe this movie is confused, in that it shifts gears several times. It started off as kind of a really interesting psycho drama, then alternates back and forth between a haunted house and whodunit with a miserably predictable ending. It looked great as a psychodrama, decent as a ghost movie, and painfully stupid as a whodunit. I can almost feel the inexorable hand of the studio pulling the puppet strings to cause the tonal shifts.
The other weird thing about this film was the two stars, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, met and fell in love in real life while working on the movie yet the on screen chemistry seemed a little off. I think the problem is they acted like a new couple, which in real life they were, but in the movie they had been married for at least seven years.
Anyway, the movie. Daniel Craig quits his job as an editor in NYC to move to his new house in the burbs. His hot wife Libby (Rachel Weisz – the Mummy, the Mummy Returns, the Constant Gardener, the Fountain) and two super cute daughters (Taylor Geare – the little girl from Inception and Clair Geare, the younger little girl from Inception) are glad he is going to stay home. Things seem idyllic but there is some guy running around outside, and some teenagers holding Black Mass in the basement. Turns out the family that lived there before were all killed by the father.
I don’t want to get too into the story, as this is a mystery and a spoiler would definitely detract from your enjoyment of it. Mystery/ghost movie/psycho drama hijinks ensue in almost equal portions. The story kind of plods along, and the whole mixing genres manages to take 90% of the horror out of the film, especially at the end. There are a few startling moments, but nothing that really shocked anyone.
The stars. Daniel Craig. No one does intense like him. One star. Overall the acting from all parties was really solid. One star. Some decent camera work to reflect the shifts in tone needed for the psychodrama shifts. One star. Dialog was decent, and most of the relationships on screen seemed solid. One star. Total: Four stars.
The black holes. The movie couldn’t decide what kind of film it wanted to be when it grew up. The genre shift was really annoying, especially at the end. One black hole. The police acted unlike any police I have ever seen or heard of. One black hole. The movie kind of trudged along. Pacing was really slow. One star. The ending had a funny smell on it from being pulled out of the scriptwriters ass. One black hole. A suspense film with little to no suspense and a thriller with no thrills. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of one black hole. Kind of a neutral score, which reflects how I felt coming out of the theater. Not really dissatisfied, but not really satisfied. Is it worth seeing? Not at full price. Is it worth $5 on a Sunday? Sure, if there is nothing else playing. Honestly, if you are looking for scary seen Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. More thrilling Real Steel. Better drama 50/50. I think the biggest problem this movie faces is that there are a bunch of other, better movies out at the moment.
Thanks for reading. Sorry about the short review but when a movie doesn’t really grab me or annoy me I find it hard to write about. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I might do a list tomorrow, or another Star Trek retrospective. I’m up to Insurrection, which means I am almost at the worst of the dross. Oh, well.
Dave
Movie reveiw: Our Idiot Brother
Not as idiotic as I thought it would be
I’m not saying this movie is great. It is not a milestone in road of cinema history. It is not even a cobblestone. On the other hand, it’s not a washed out bridge either. I think the best way to describe this film is with “in-” words. Inoffensive. Pleasantly innocuous. This movie is like watching two dogs play in a park. Fun to watch, but except for a warm, pleasant feeling you won’t gain a lot from it. It sets out to make you feel good, and accomplishes that goal.
I’ll say this has been a lesson for me in the “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” vein, although in this case it’s you can’t judge a movie by it’s poster. I never saw a trailer but when I saw the poster said to myself “There is no way this cannot suck”. I really thought this was another load of excrement dumped into the sewer of bad rated R comedies I have been drowning in all summer. Wrong. It was really not bad. I left the theater feeling OK about the universe.
Not that the movie doesn’t have it’s faults, which I will get into shortly in excruciating detail. I also have a couple of personal issues with the premise, the first being that I have moments of absolute contempt for the whole hippy movement. I grew 
up in the 80’s, and there was very little that annoyed me more than aging hippies telling me how great the free love was back in the 60’s and 70’s. Sorry, but I couldn’t even talk to a girl without tripping on my tongue back then and the whole free love thing had been replaced by leg warmers and big hair. Listening to some long haired smelly old pot head drone on about it is the equivalent of a rich man going to a Greyhound station and telling everyone how great it is to live in a mansion. Screw you, hippy! (South Park image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
The other thing about this movie is I have two sisters, and have been called the idiot brother myself. That being said, I don’t think my interaction was ever this weird with my sisters.
Anyway, the movie. Ned (Paul Rudd, who until now has mostly had supporting roles in movies like Knocked Up, the 40 Year Old Virgin, and Dinner for Schmucks) is a Jesus looking smelly (I assume. None that I have known were renowned for their hygiene) hippy who gets busted for selling pot to a uniformed cop. This sounds like the dumbest move ever, and actually threw up a warning flag for me early on, but as you get to know Ned you kind of get where he was coming from. Anyway, he spends eight months in jail and comes out to find that his girlfriend is kicking him out and keeping his dog, Willie Nelson. I mention this because the dog is pretty much the only motivation Ned has to do anything during the entirety of the film. Anyway, he heads into New York city to couch surf with his three dysfunctional sisters: a bitchy, bossy high strung magazine writer (Elizabeth Banks-the 40 Year Old Virgin, Spiderman), a bisexual girl with no apparent job who can’t control her libido (Zooey (Zoo-ey? How do you pronounce that?) Deschanel-Almost Famous, Your Highness, a bunch of other stuff I never heard of), and a downtrodden housewife married to a complete lame, pretentious intelligentsia filmmaker who is working on making some dumb documentary and raising the wimpiest kid in human history (Emily Mortimer-Shutter Island, Lars and the Real Girl, 30 Rock, and a bunch of other movies I never heard of. Her husband is Steve Coogan, from Tropic Thunder and the horrible Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) who also can’t control his libido (relationship betrayal is something of a theme for this movie). Anyway, Ned is a loose cannon in all of their lives, seemingly wrecking them all, but the truth is he is more exposing the hypocrisy they all had riding under the surface. He didn’t cause any of the people with relationships to get into cheating situation. Just exposed it all. Throughout the film he bumbles along with a faith in people and an innocent belief that if you trust each other you won’t get burned. It is kind of annoying at first but by the end I was kind of buying into the vibe (time to go download some Grateful Dead songs, I guess).
Anyway, sibling hijinks ensues. All three sisters have their lives turned upside down and then somehow set back upright again. Ned gets his dog back.
The stars. I felt kind of good watching this movie. I can’t put my finger on why, but I left with a warm feeling in my cold, dark heart. Two stars. All the acting was really good. One star. The dialog felt like brothers and sisters arguing. One star. All the sisters were pretty easy on the eyes, especially Elizabeth Banks, and they had a bunch of other hot sophisticated New York women, particularly my future wife Janet Montgomery (the casting person obviously shared my preferences, as there was not a blond to be seen). One star. There was a supporting hippy character that was actually really funny, and his sisters lesbian girlfriend was pretty cool too (Rashida Jones, whom I fell in love with in the Office). Also his parole officer was cool and added to the film. One star. The dog was really a cool looking dog (a beautiful Golden Retriever). One star. They didn’t try to shove a love story into the film for Ned. One star. Ned’s nephew was in training by is overprotective parents to be a victim for life but kind of turned out cool. One star. Overall a pleasant movie going experience. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. Hippies. One black hole. The love interest for the bitchy magazine sister kind of bugged me. One black hole. The three sisters, in spite of having completely different lives, were kind of interchangeable to the point that I had to struggle to keep track of which one was which. The only one that stood out was the housewife, and that was only because she was the only non-brunette. One black hole. While Ned’s innocence and trust was refreshing, I found myself wanting to reach into the movie and shake him for being such a dope. One black hole. The filmmaker character kind of bugged me too. He was sleazy from the get go and gave the film a greasy feeling every time he was on screen, to it’s detriment (greasy film? Me so funny!). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
Total of six stars, a great score for a Rated R comedy. I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience, and this film is a candidate for best feel good film of the year when I get around to doing my end of the year awards (probably some time in June, given how I keep up on these things). Definitely worth watching, definitely a good date film. It won’t stick in your brain and you won’t be quoting it, however. Nothing in this requires a big screen, so if you want to wait for NetFlix that is cool. Thanks again, and don’t forget to sign up for the RSS feed and follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Talk to you soon.
More Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I am sick, so I should have time to finish these off pretty quick. Tonight I saw the Order of the Phoenix. I quite enjoyed it, although I found the lady in pink from the Ministry really annoying. However, if by now Harry hasn’t figured out that whoever takes the position of Professor of Defense Against Dark Magic has ill intents towards him, he must have suffered brain damage when he picked up that nifty scar. The movies have gotten really formulaic in that regards, and it seems obvious that J.K. Rowling has enough love for the other professors to not make any of them the bad guys, so I guess it will continue.
I did enjoy this movie, and magic duel at the end between Voldemort and Dumbledore was pretty damned cool. Not sure what the whole prophesy was all about, but most of the movie seemed pretty cool. I am disappointed that Cedric showed up as a flashback, as I don’t want to see Robert Pattinson gain any more in his so called career, but other than that pretty good. At least there wasn’t any of Dumbledore thrusting his students into dragons mouths or whatever, and he actually managed to act like he cared about Harry for a few minutes.
Of course, I have questions from this movie (Just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t understand image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
First off, what is up with wands? Is a wizard incapable of casting a spell without one? Seems like a wand should be something to help you focus your inner power to aid in a spell and not necessarily be totally required for a spell. The actual magic must come from the caster, implying that they might be able to cast some simple spells and cantrips without a wand. They don’t use wands to pull up their brooms or fly them. Why, then, do they all act like a fish out of water as soon as they get it knocked out of their hands? Also, if I were a wizard fighting another wizard and managed to knock the wand out of his or her hand, why just leave it lying there on the ground for your enemy to pick up and blast you with. I think as soon as that wand was on the ground I would use another spell to set fire to it. Also, if you lose your wand the first movie seemed to imply you could just buy another. It’s not like you are bound to it for life. So if someone burns up your wand could you just pick up a stick off the ground, or a handy No. 2 pencil? They don’t look like they weigh a lot. If I were going into battle I think I would have like eight on me. That way, when the bad (or good, depending on which side of the room you are on) guy blasts it out of my hand I’d be like “Oh, you have disarmed me! I am helpless before your might”. Then, when they look somewhere else, pull out wand number 2 and blammo! How about a wand in each hand?
Second, are there no rules regarding corporal and/or cruel and unusual punishment at Hogwarts? Is the only thing keeping the professors from torturing the students for screwing up Dumbledore’s morality? Snape seems to have a dark bent. If someone pissed him off could he concoct some kind of horrible pain potion, once Dumbledore had been replaced by the bitch in fuchsia? If there are no rules regarding corporal punishment delivered onto the kids bodies that seems like the first step in other kinds of inappropriate contact. Sounds like the happy hunting ground for sexual predators.
Is Sirius Black dead, or what? I have had a couple friends tell me what a great character he is, but to be honest he hasn’t had a lot of screen time. I suspect he was banished or something and may well resurface later on.
What is the deal with the Order of the Phoenix, or all the other stuff everyone seems to be perfectly aware of except for Harry and me. It’s almost like J.K. Rowlings keeps coming up with things she thinks is cool, and injecting it into the next book but expecting us to believe it was there all the time. It’s like if I painted my living room green but then when people came over and commented on it was like “What are you talking about? It’s always been green.” Last movie it was the Tri Wizard Tournament, the one before that the Dementors. This is actually one of the big failings in the whole Star Wars prequel series, in that Lucas keeps expecting the audience to accept things that we are both told and not told but never shown. You know, I think it’s OK to have something appear in a movie that is actually a new deal and introduce everyone to it. Like if Dumbledore had formed the Order of the Phoenix during the summer while Harry was getting beat up by his big dumb cousin.
You know, I have pretty clear recollections of my horrible life at age 14 (usually at night, waking up in a cold sweat), and I can say that if there is one thing I and all of my friends would never do is name an illicit group we were all part of after the principal of our high school. There is no way we would have called it Krembes’s Kommandos. So what part of Dumbledore’s Army sound even remotely cool to a 14 year old? Odds are they would have come up with something cooler or possibly sexual, like the Hogwarts Hunters or the Portland Protective Association (tell me where that’s from, kids). It seems an extremely obvious ploy to allow Dumbledore to take the fall when they get discovered.
That’s pretty much it. I am going to take a very hot shower in hopes it clears my sinuses and go to bed. Lots of movies coming out this weekend, so look for something new tomorrow. See you soon.
Movie Review: Priest
So I had planned to see this opening night and pretend I was a real movie critic by coming out with a review close to the opening weekend, but it turned out my girlfriend really wanted to see it and made me wait until last night. She is really into vampires, which is something of a mixed blessing as it sometimes lets me see great films and sometimes has me watching pretty boy vampires sparkle in the daylight while I look for a spoon to gouge my eyes out. (Twilight sucks. Sparkle vampire image courtesy of the novelty t shirt category).
So, Priest, in 3D (not really by choice, but it was my only option). This is not one of the great vampire movies, but it is also not eye-gougingly bad either. It sits, like 99.9999% of the movies I have reviewed since Paul, right on average. It’s like all of Hollywood has hitched up to the mediocrity train and is steaming towards Bland Junction.
The Priest story comes to us from a Korean graphic novel by Hyung Min-woo. It’s good to know their geek culture encompasses something besides Starcraft. The movie Priest, however, comes to us from the Road Warrior, Blade Runner, Dark City, Blade II, and a Fist Full of Dollars with a sprinkling of Star Wars for flavor. It borrows unabashedly from these and about 1,000 other movies and forces them into a arguably decent rehash, or perhaps new to younger kids.
Speaking of younger kids, let me tangent off a bit here and bitch about the fact that the family in front on us had a little boy with them who was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old. The movie was rated PG-13 for a good reason and at times drifted close to R in terms of gore and violence. The vampires would have given me nightmares at 12, to say nothing of 2. My dad took us all to see Orca the Killer Whale at the drive in when I was 8 and that pretty much ruined the ocean for me for the next five years. Seems like most parents I wouldn’t trust with a pet rock, much less a child.
OK, off my parenting soap box and onto my movie reviewing soap box. Priest is set in an alternative world (every other reviewer or whatever likes to say post-Apocalyptic, but the opening credits clearly showed both Medieval and WWI humans fighting vampire armies, so I refuse to imagine this is set in our world. Also, our world has some terrain) that is apparently flat and featureless as a billiard ball wherein humans and vampires have fought for thousands of years and more or less destroyed the planet, except for a Blade Runner-esque steam punk city where everyone dresses like an escapee from the Great Hot Topic Massacre. The city has for some reason purposely blocked out the sunlight, which is established as the humans only real defense against vampires (???). Paul Bettany plays a Priest, a Catholic Church super ninja who had his Ash Wednesday cross tattooed onto his face. His brother, who appears to be living on a farm that literally produces dust, is mortally wounded by a vampire attack and his niece is kidnapped. Priest needs to go back out into the wilds to rescue her and kill the vampires, but the head of the church, who I will refer to as Monseigneur Stupid, decides that, in spite of the fact that vampires were not killed off completely but reside peacefully on reservations (sucking on rat blood, I guess) and he loses absolutely nothing by letting Priest go off and get himself killed, there is no way the attack could have been vampires and forbids Priest to go. He goes anyway on his super ninja electric/solar motorcycle that can exceed 200mph on dirt and hooks up with the local sheriff who told him about the vamp attack.
Anyway, some other Priests are sent after him for no real reason except for the insult the first Priest gave unto the Church, including the new love of my life, Maggie Q. A bad guy in Western drag named Black Hat (possibly for some article of clothing he was wearing, but I can’t be sure) is involved. Vampire hunter hijinks ensues. Vampires and innocent humans get killed. Stuff blows up. Deep dark secrets are revealed. The fuze is lit for a sequel.
Anyway, the stars. The animated opening credits were really cool. One star. In spite of the limited material handed them by the dialogue, all the main characters delivered a pretty good performance. Paul Bettany was especially good. One star. The steam punk city and Gothic costumes were pretty cool. One star. The action sequences were decent and made sense (obviously they hired a fight choreography). One star. Except for the attitude of Monseigneur Stupid, the story was reasonably linear and more or less didn’t strain my brain. One star. The CGI was well done but not over used. One star. Overall the visuals were good. One star. Total: Seven stars.
Now the black hole. The dialogue was limited. One black hole. The whole movie was extremely derivative. One black hole. Some of the action sequences strained my suspension of disbelief enough to give it a hernia (sorry, but no one can survive jumping off a motorcycle at 200+mph). One black hole. After 10 minutes in a cool, semi modern dark Gothic city, they then spent the rest of the movie in a much cheaper to shoot open flat wasteland with NO TERRAIN FEATURES WHATSOEVER. It was like they filmed most of the movie in a giant parking lot. One black hole. During the course of the movie they kept hinting at some kind of character development that never surfaced. I can’t help but feel they could have added a lot to the film by exploring deeper the relationship between Priest and Black Hat, or even Priest and the female Priest. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
Also, like I did in my Fast Five review, I have a few things that bugged me but really aren’t worthy of a black hole. First off, the movie was only 88 minutes. I don’t feel like the pacing really suffered for being short, which is why this doesn’t get them a black hole, but if I am going to pay $10 for a movie ticket I want to feel I am getting a decent value. Remember all that missing character development I gave you a black hole for? Maybe sticking a few minutes of that into this movie might have made my wallet feel better. Also, I can honestly say I feel ripped off for paying an extra $4 for 3D. The 3D did absolutely nothing to enhance the film and was hardly noticeable, at least until my usual 3D headache started to kick in.
So, a total of 2 stars. Not bad, not great. If you are a fan of Blade style action see it on a big screen. Don’t waste your money on 3D. I think overall it’s worth seeing in a theater, as a lot of the visuals and action may suffer on a smaller screen.
That’s it. I have an idea for something funny for tomorrow so check back. Have a great day.
Movie Review: Water for Elephants, or Circus Titanicus.
Yes, I’m back on the movie kick. I had planned to see Furious Five in hopes it would both suck and blow, but turns out it’s insanely popular and sold out. The only thing out there I thought even worth considering was Water for Elephants, which appeared to be a movie about water and elephants (there’s a circus in there somewhere too).
I was surprised, as I knew it was based on a book everyone tells me was amazing and I expected the movie to turn into one of my boring “the movie was decent” reviews that I might not even write up the next day. The surprise was not that it wasn’t great or even that it wasn’t bad but that it was painfully bland. Throughout the course of the movie I wasn’t motivated to leave the theater but if the film had broke or aliens broke in from another dimension forcing us to flee the cinema I don’t think I would have been really at all upset. It was kind of like flipping playing cards into an open hat; you gain nothing from doing it, and even if you get skilled enough to hit it 100% no one on the planet will be even remotely impressed.
I was also surprised in that it has been a while since I saw a movie that was such a blatant rip off of another, more successful movie. The movie in question was James Cameron’s Titanic. Does any of this sound familiar? An elderly person finds an excuse to tell a story from the first part of the last century about a star crossed romance between a lower class pretty boy and the married (or engaged. My Titanic knowledge is somewhat limited) wife of a complete jerk on a vehicle that is headed to a disaster of some kind. The only difference between the two movies really is James Cameron had the integrity to let the movie end on a down note, while Water for Elephants drew it’s inspiration from the Disney school of movie writing.
Anyway, the story. SPOILER ALERT: I will probably give away more details of this film than usual for this one, but in a very real sense I am giving away nothing as the story is as predictable as watching a digital clock advance. Trust me when I say there are absolutely no surprises in store for you. Anyway, an old man is found wandering around a circus and finds the flimsiest pretext to tell the manager the story of how he joined the circus back in 1931. Pretty boy, national spokesman for eyebrow growth, and perennial bad actor Robert Pattinson plays a character ironically (or stupidly) named Jacob who, while starting his absolute, final exam at Cornell to become a veterinarian and have a good life and career, is pulled out to be told his parents, whom he had just seen like 10 minutes ago, were killed in a car wreck, leaving him destitute and homeless during the Great Depression. He finds his father bankrupted the family paying for his education and then, instead of going back to Cornell and getting the piece of paper that would get him a life, decides to see what being a hobo (that’s an old fashioned word for being homeless) was like. He jumps a train that happens to have a circus on it. After dealing with some local color he is hired by the owner, played by the awesome Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) to be the circus veterinarian.
Waltz’s policy, apparently in order to avoid the hassle of dealing with unemployment claims, was to toss men he wanted to fire off the train while it was moving. No joke. During one night he tosses nine guys off. You would think the trail of bodies would eventually lead some kind of authority to the circus, but it looked like the police were far more motivated to enforce Prohibition laws. Anyway, just an aside.
Jacob meets the wife of the circus owner (played by Reese Witherspoon) and, during the course of the movie, proceeds to fall in love with her in one of the worst on screen romances I have ever seen. Seriously, there was much better chemisty between Reese and Christoph at the start of the movie (possibly because Christoph can act). The romance between Reese and Pattinson looked as natural and real as a little girl making her Ken and Barbie dolls kiss.
Anyway, Waltz buys an elephant named Rosie, who is easily the most appealing character in the whole film. Jacob is given the job of training her, which August, Watlz’s character, seems to think can only be done by beating the hell out of her in a couple scenes that will make you want to vomit if you have any love of animals. Jacob, in yet another phases-of-the-moon-like predictable scene tries love which, low and behold, works. Actually, it works when he discovers Rosie apparently only responds to commands given in Polish (???). I guess there was some kind of connection between Polish speakers and elephant training. Also I guess elephants can’t be retrained to listen to commands in any other language once they learned one. Not known for their memories, apparently.
Oh, god. I just did a little research to see if August was at all a common male name in America and have discovered that the most common baby name for boys in 2009 was Jacob. Some days I hate America. Twilight sucks.
Anyway, circus hijinx ensue. Guys get tossed off trains. Love finds it’s awkward way onto the screen in spite of Reese and Roberts attempt to convince you that they both reproduce asexually. A million minor characters are added for color and then disappear like flatulence on a windy night. The big disaster alluded to at the beginning of the movie strikes, leaving the star crossed love birds free to pursue their dreams of a tepid marriage. Jacob finally does what he should have done in the first five minutes and gets his veterinary degree and a career. I won’t give it totally away, but the final conclusion is so insipid and dumb that the movie would not have at all been damaged if alien invaders had landed and probed all the main characters (in fact, it would have been dramatically improved).
First the stars. Watching the HBO show Carnivale has given me a liking of circus themes. One star. Christoph Waltz. Two stars. Rosie the elephant. One star. The depression era scenery and clothing were all pretty good. One star. Reese Witherspoon is hot. One star. The filming and pacing were decent. One star (can you tell I”m reaching here?). Total: six stars.
Now the black holes. Jacob doesn’t get his degree like a moron. One black hole. Romantic chemistry similar to mixing two glasses of tap water together. Two black holes. There is no established motivation for anyone to do anything, especially August to not chuck Jacob off the train first thing. One black hole. A lot of effort is spent trying to establish that the circus performers and roustabouts are all one big family, right before August tosses a bunch of them off the train. One black hole for discontinuity. Titanic rip off. One black hole. I should give one black hole for every seemingly interesting supporting character who disappeared after two lines, but will restrain myself. Two black holes. The plot device of firing people by tossing them off the train when simply saying “You’re fired ” (Trump) would have sufficed really bugged me. One black hole. Animal cruelty, even in cinema, really puts me off my feed. One black hole. There was a distinct lack of grime and despair that one normally associated with Depression era films (see Carnivale if you haven’t). One black hole. Total: 11 black holes.
Grand total of five black holes. Not great. Not even worth seeing in a theatre (I Hate Theatre image courtesy of the funny political t shirts category). Honestly, if you have two hours of you life with nothing better to do watch it on NetFlix streaming. Your mom would probably like it, so if you are looking for something to do with her that won’t cause your brain to shrivel up too much, take her to a matinee.
Incidentally, it does give me a warm feeling to help contribute another nail in the coffin of Robert Pattinson’s career (Twilight sucks), although that wasn’t my intent when I saw the movie. I just wish I didn’t also have to hurt Christoph Waltz’s in order to do it.
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 11: understanding poster’s careers
This is the last I am doing on this sub-category. I think I will try to get a movie review or something else tomorrow to break up the flow.
Guidance Councilor. Sorry, but if a chance to bag on these guys comes along, I can’t let it go by. I remember fondly taking an aptitude test from provided by the school councilor and being told I was best suited to be a farmer. Sorry, I don’t do dirt if I can avoid it. Also I am to much into instant gratification to wait a whole season for payment. Anyway, these people are like high school teachers in that they deal with smart assed teenagers on a daily basis. The difference is they have a lot less power than teachers over the kids in that they can’t actually fail them in anything. This tends to make them either total dicks or floor mats. Also every time some kid asks “If you know so much about career choices why are you a guidance councilor?” they want to kill themselves. I’d say spare yourself the pain.
Contractor. This is a job description guys who are construction workers use in order to convince you they are more than nail pushers. It is usually followed up by “Well, I’m working for another contractor friend of mine, but I have my own contractors license.” They always drive a freaking huge crew cab pickup truck (most often red). If you are into beer drinking, football watching, wife abusing hijinx than by all means date him. There are no straight female contractors. Incidentally, if you should happen to date one and then find out he is a roofer, run away as fast as you can. All roofers are insane. It must be the tar fumes and hot sun all day. Now that I have said that I had better hope I never have to rebuild something. Good thing I rent.
Blue collar worker. This can be almost anything, be it sanitation engineer, factory worker, bus driver, etc. For the most part good guys, in a boring salt of the earth sort of way. Usually they are grateful to even have someone attractive into them. Generally not the most stimulating intellectually, although occasionally you meet one who is a total conspiracy nut whacko, and they are endlessly entertaining.
Performer. This is kind of a broad descriptive for anyone who makes money (or claims to) by entertaining people. It could be a comedian, a street guitar performer, a childrens birthday clown, a chainsaw juggler, smoke bubble blower, or a blog writer. With a few exceptions the best way to describe these people is kind of pathetic. They typically make just enough money to survive but not enough to get ahead. They feel frustration at not be acknowledged as one of the worlds foremost one man band performers, and need a girl or boyfriend to come to all their lame shows in the 3rd Street Promenade or where ever and collect the spare change from the jug you just passed around. The decent ones have a day job at Kinkos or something. The bad ones live on their takings. (By the way, if you should happen to find yourself dating a mime, do me and the whole world a favor by stapling a note that says “Learn the words you creepy bastard” to his or her forehead and pushing them off a cliff so they can work on their silent flying man act. I sincerely doubt any sane jury would convict).
Band member. Ah, the Crown Jewel of Losers. These guys (usually. Some girls but I find them to be a little more real) dream of a rock-n-roll lifestyle while performing for the same 9 people as the 7:30pm opening act at the local scum pit. If you want to spend every Friday and Saturday night listening to the same eight badly written, badly engineered, and badly performed “songs” in a bar that smells of stale beer and urine than by all means date him. Just know that if he and his band catches even the slightest whiff of success he will drop you like a live grenade in order to sleep with as many groupies as humanly possible. Even crappy garage bands somehow manage to attract any number of (really) dumb girls willing to jump in the sack with them, so you can expect to be cheated on pretty regularly. As for female band member, I actually went out with one and found myself spending a lot of time assuaging her massive self esteem issues and scraping her off the barroom floor about once a week. However, as far as I know she didn’t cheat on me. These guys inevitably have “day jobs” that somehow turn into “day careers”. Do the human race a favor and don’t give them the opportunity to procreate.
That’s it for today, and pretty much it for the job thing. Tomorrow I will break away from dating for a post or two but when we come back to it I will get into understanding pictures people post, or the “You can judge a book by it’s cover” article.
Yesterday’s question, Lincoln versus Reagan, is quite the puzzler. Lincoln was taller, and actually fought a major war. Reagan was more athletic, and invaded Grenada. Technically he did win the Cold War, but that says nothing about his martial prowess. I think that I will have to bet on Lincoln, unless the rumors of Reagan being the anti-Christ (Ronald Wilson Reagan, 6-6-6) are true, in which case I think he would prevail. (Lincoln image courtesy of the funny political t shirt category)
For today I propose a battle between a great (if stupid human) warrior versus an lame superhero: who would win in a fight between Aquaman and Beef Supreme (from Idiocracy)
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 10: understanding poster’s careers
Sorry I didn’t get anything posted over the weekend, but I had something to do that was WAY more important (and fun) than sniping at jobs listed on online dating posts, and I’m not talking about the Superbowl. However, I will make sure to get something done every day this week, although I might have something to do next weekend as well.
Anyway, I’m getting into more specific jobs, mostly based on what I think I can make the most funny and insightful comments about. Still, I think this could all be pretty useful.
Pharmaceutical Representative. In the world of manufactures sales reps being a pharm rep is the Holy Grail. Great money, low geographic area, and easy to sell products. I have long dreamed of dating a pharm rep, for any number of reasons. First of all, pharmaceutical companies as a matter of course only hire super hot women to do it. Something about trying to convince male doctors to prescribe their drugs. So even if you don’t see a phote, you can know they are probably pretty good looking. On the other hand, they are super busy and honestly are probably shopping for a doctor, so go easy.
Massage therapist. These women fall into three camps. The most first is trained, true massage therapists. They tend to be into Eastern culture and are probably do something like Shiatsu. They take lots of classes and have a ton of certifications which in their mind is the equivalent of a college degree, in spite of the fact that it really isn’t. They tend to be super fit, kind of skinny, vegetarian, and into stuff like meditation. However, if you ever hope to see her naked you can never get her to massage you. These women are so paranoid about being unprofessional that as soon as they dig into your doughy musculature you will forever be considered a client. The second type is less trained, tends to be a lot more hippy dippy, cute in an slightly out of shape granola way, and more willing to give you a massage after sex. She tends to be more happy and into the fun of it, but is flat broke. The third is pretty much a hooker. Usually from another country (Korean, most often from what I have heard) and willing to have sex for money. I don’t know why they would be online, but if they are I would highly recommend not having anything to do with them. It is a mess you don’t want to deal with. If this person is a guy it will either be a super hot, muscular dude or a big, overweight, not terrible attractive guy. If the first, I can almost guarantee he is looking for a sugar mama. If not he is probably pretty sleezy. If the second he is likely to be a decent guy, who actually will be able to give you a killer back rub. See past the bulk if you can.
Stripper. Often listed as erotic or exotic dancer, most likely this woman is actually just fishing for guys to go to her pay website. A women who dances for money who is sincere about meeting someone for a relationship will make up a fake job (which is a whole different kind of problem). Odds are at some point I will do an entire post on dating (or trying to date) strippers, but for now believe me when I say dating a stripper is like being stuck in the accretion disk of a black hole. If the stripper is male and not gay then he is 100% a sleezeball. Basically he is not meeting enough women through his job (where is is surrounded by dozens of women stuffing money into his jock) and wants more sex. On the other hand he is probably pretty good at sex, so if you are looking for a good time and/or a social disease, then go for it. Just know going in he will cheat on you if you attempt a relationship and lie about it constantly.
Waiter/Waitress. Or server, if you want to be PC. Very similar in many ways to a retail worker, in that they can be very fun to date when they are young and absolute hell when they get older. The main difference is if you date one he or she will totally critique your food habits, table manners, the servers professionalism, and how much you tip. Also, if you want to lose any desire to eat at a restaurant ever again have him or her tell you stories of health code violations that they see pretty much every day. Also, they can cause you to eat less by telling you about all the fat bastards who do 10,000 calorie meals every night.
Wactor/Wactresses. This is a waiter/actor or waitress/actress. I have no experience with actual actors or actresses (I actually assume if you are good enough looking to be an actor you don’t need to go online to meet someone) but living in LA I used to meet wactors and wactresses pretty much every day. They usually studied drama in college, work as a server to pay their bills, and fight mounting desperation as each day passes without being discovered. They generally tend to date each other like cockroaches living on each others filth, but once in a while will branch out. However, be prepared to go to a lot of horrible plays and spend a tone of time reassuring them that they are still attractive and can act. If they didn’t actually study acting then there is a pretty good chance they will eventually get into stripping or porn. Kind of fun to date on the front end and generally easy on the eyes, these folks usually turn into a headache of astronomical proportions.
That’s enough for now. I think I will do one more post on this and then move on to interpreting online photos.
For our question last post, a ninja versus a football team’s worth of zombies, I think the Ninja would win as long as he figured out early enough to cut their heads off. If he tried anything else he would probably end up as zombie chow. (Ninja image from the cheap t shirts category)
For today let’s get political. Who would win, Abraham Lincoln versus a young Ronald Wilson Reagan?
Nerd Dating: Making “the Move” part 2: How to Kiss
OK, we are on final approach to Makeout International Airport, but we need to make sure you aren’t going to completely repulse your date with your heinous kissing technique. What you see in movies and TV is not really what you need to do. Like anything else, this requires some research and practice to be not bad.
This is a bit of a tender subject for me, as I didn’t kiss my first girl until a later age. I don’t want to get into the specifics, as they are terribly embarrassing, but let’s just say I was no longer a teenager (may my high school and everyone who ever attended it burn on the 7th level of Hell). It is also a little awkward as the first girl I ever kissed took that opportunity to check to see if my tonsils had been removed with her tongue, and I assumed for years that this was the technique to use on all women. Tragically, this was not the case.
I will get into specific instructions tomorrow, and will actually be referencing some sites to help me, as I don’t consider myself an expert on this at all. For homework I would recommend you all start by checking out a site like this one on how to kiss. Seems like good info, and if you all read that I can save time on specific stuff and stick to the funny. For today I will talk about signs the girl can give you that you have either mistimed your kiss, misjudged her interest in you, or just have some painfully bad breath (by the way, like we discussed months ago, make sure your breath smells good. Mints are not a bad way to go). I am doing this both because I think it relevant and because talking about it is hilarious.
1. She turns and gives you the cheek. This is pretty much the sign that she was planning on giving you the let’s-be-friends speech and was just waiting for the moment to cause you maximum pain. On the one hand, it sucks. On the other hand, you just saved yourself some pain sometime in the future.
2. She kisses you, but does everything possible to keep from 
touching any other part of your body. Girls can do this weird Twister-like maneuver that allows them to kiss you while somehow not in contact with any other part of your body. Maybe it’s all the yoga. If she looks like she is trying to stick her lips through a knot hole in a fence or maybe like poor Flick from this Christmas Story t-shirt than you should probably get the clue. Odds are she isn’t really sure about you but was leaning towards a no. Sorry.
3. She starts kissing you but then pushes away. This is a pretty good sign that your breath stinks (shouldn’t have ordered extra onions) or you have god-awful kissing technique. We will talk more about this but odds are you went too far too fast with her. Practice more.
4. She shoots mace or pepper spray into your eyes. Yeah. Are you sure this is the girl you had dinner with and not the coat check girl? If she is your date you should go home and review your thought process on the entire date. It would appear you seriously need to re-evaluate your ability to properly interpret statements like “I really don’t find you at all attractive and want to pay my half in order to not feel in any way obligated to you.” In fact, I would consider examining all your human interactions. Odds are you misinterpret things from people all the time. It might actually be better if you didn’t reproduce, so consider a career in lighthouse keeping.
That’s it for now. Yesterday’s vs question was Skynet vs JLA sans Superman. The consensus seems to be what without Superman the JLA should be riding the short bus and that Skynet would kick the crap out of them. Personally I like to think that Batman would do something, and Green Lantern is pretty cool, but I think Skynet would be a real issue for them. I would have to vote for Skynet.
Here is today’s question: Who would win, Harry Potter or Gandalf?
