Haywire Movie Review
Maybe I’m just not cut out to review spy movies.
This is the second spy movie in a row that I spent a lot of asking what the hell was going on. However, in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the complexity was the result of a poor adaptation of what is reportedly a great, complex spy novel aggravated by the fact that everyone in the movie looked the same. In Haywire it feels like they just added complexity to give an otherwise simple story a thin veneer of sophistication.
Here’s how I define good movie complexity verses bad movie complexity. Good movie complexity has you pulled in and intrigued by the cleverness of the action. Bad movie complexity is when you find yourself asking “Why didn’t they just…and win?” This movie generates it’s complexity by not explaining anything to the audience ever and adding layer after layer of bad guys who appear on screen long enough have you wondering who the hell the are and how they got involved in all this and then vanish into the void.
That’s not to say this movie is bad. I was really impressed by newcomer Gina Carano (Ring Girls, American Gladiators, Blood and Bone). She is an accomplished MMA fighter and it shows in the action sequences. It is amazing how good fight scenes are when you don’t resort to doing .5 to 1.5 second cut sequences in order to make up for the remarkable inadequacies of the actors martial skills and/or the lack of a qualified fight choreographer. Each of the fight scenes was brutal, cool, and believable without being over the top. Gina shows her skills and manages to use techniques that seem to make up for the fact that she is fighting against guys who weigh 100lbs more than her. I was also really impressed by her acting ability. Coming from the MMA world you wouldn’t think acting was a honed skill but she seems to have some.
The problems with this movie are twofold. The first being the unnecessary levels of pointless complexity for complexity’s sake. The second is the movie was flat for it’s entirety, at least for me. There never seemed to be any kind of buildup or climax. The pacing was as regular as a metronome. Fight-coffee-fight-drive-fight-phone call-fight-shoot guys-fight-meeting-fight-spy stuff-fight. There is no moment I can pinpoint as the climax, introduction, or conclusion. There are no acts in this movie. It’s like a 93 minute steady 3.4 Ricter scale earthquake. Enough to to feel (or, as we say in California, enough to stir your coffee) but not enough to excite you.
I am not going to get into the story too much as it is a spy/mystery one, but let me say none of it really caught me by surprise. The story is of a ex Marine (Mallory-the aforementioned Gina Carano. I anticipate seeing her in other roles soon) who works for a private mercenary spy company (?). She is sent off on a mission and ends up being betrayed in a plot so complex Tolkien would have trouble following it. She tells the story flashback style to a hapless goof (Michael Angarano-Sky High, Almost Famous, Red State) she sort of carjacks after beating the hell out of her former partner Aaron (Channing Tatum-Step Up, the Eagle, Dear John) in a crappy diner. Her former employer Kenneth (Ewan McGregor-Star Wars prequils, Trainspotting, Big Fish) is after her. Somehow two other guys played by Michael Douglas (Falling Down, the Game, Basic Instinct) and Antonio Banderas (Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Zorro) are involved, and she runs into a fellow mercenary/spy played by Michael Fassbender (X-Men First Class, Inglorious Basterds, 300) who gets sucked into the complexity.
Anyway, spy action hijinks ensues. Guys get their asses beaten by a girl (a kick ass girl). People get shot. Not a lot of explosions, which I thought was cool. The completely even keel movie motors its way to a completely even keel ending.
The stars. Excellent fight sequences, with a bonus star for not making me suspend my disbelief too much. Three stars. Gina Carano was good, and shows a lot of talent. One star. 
A really good cast of extremely talented actors with a lot of nerd cred, including the great Bill Paxton (“Game over, man! Game over!” Alien image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) as Mallorys father. One star. Decent camera work. The people on this film know how to shoot fights. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. Overly complicated for no reason. Two black holes. In spite of being an action film, the tick-tock pacing never actually had me excited. Two black holes. As I wrote this review I had to struggle to remember the plot or any of my relevant points. Forgetability is never a good thing in a movie (although in truth there are several that I wish I could forget (cough cough Lucas cough cough)). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A total of one star, and yet another bland middle of the road film. 2012 has not really started off great for films. The problem I am really having with this film is it’s another one that had all the elements to be one of the greatest spy movies of the last 10 years. Excellent action, excellent cast, massive potential. However, the truth is in the execution and this movie fell apart in the editing room, in my opinion. Too bad.
Sorry for the short, kind of boring review but these middle of the road films tend to leave me lacking in inspiration. If you want something really entertaining you have to give me a movie that is either really good or really bad to sink my teeth into. Bland films result in bland review, I guess. Thanks for reading. Still a ton of movies to see, and tonight is $5 night, so look for something tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Awesome news from the Walking Dead
One thing it appears Dave and I agree on it’s that zombies rule and the Walking Dead is one of the greatest TV shows on right now. Great story, great characters, and great zombies. The good news is I just found out is that AMC has just ordered another 16 episodes is addition to the ones they are showing right now in season 2. Excellent choice. Of course it always makes me laugh when AMC does great original TV like the Walking Dead or Breaking Bad when their initials stand for American Movie Classics. Shouldn’t they be showing Gone With the Wind all day or something?
Something that has always amused me about zombies is the guys who are huge fans and are hoping for the big zombie apocalypse (like Dave) are also the guys most likely to end up zombie chow in the first ten minutes. Most of them seem to think hey are going to run around with a shotgun like on this zombie t shirt and be the hero of the wasteland, but based on what I have seen with regards to physical abilities things are going to go badly for them pretty quick. I’m sure if zombie apocalypse took place in Warsong Gulch they would do fine, but anyone remember the scene in Zombieland when the main guy describes the reason cardio is so important?
Jason
Red Tails Movie Review
Ha ha ha Lucas you fail again.
All you regular readers should have figured out by now that I have a very large axe to grind with George Lucas for ruining a cherished childhood memory of mine, Star Wars (Stormtrooper image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirt category). If you don’t understand how he did this, or are to young or dumb to realize how much of an amazing epic the Empire Strikes Back is, then I suggest you spend some time at Red Letter Media checking out the Plinkett Star Wars review for Episodes I-III. I have come to the conclusion that while Lucas has claimed responsibility for Episodes IV-VI, the talented people who actually made the movies what they are were fired after EOS was made, leaving us with freaking Ewoks as a predecessor to the eventual doom manifested in many ways but mostly in the form of Jar Jar Binks.
So it would be fair to say that I went into this movie looking for reasons to trash it, but fortunately for me I didn’t have to look hard. The suck reasons are varied and many, and we will get into them in detail shortly, but while this movie may or may not be a commercial success it is definitely riding the short bus to movies. What gives me even more enjoyment of this failure is Lucas had all the elements to make a truly amazing film: a star studded and talented cast, an amazing true story to work with, and stunning CGI effects. All this and the movie still sucks.
Before we get to much farther into this dog let me say that I am a big proponent of civil rights advancement, and have great admiration for the men of the Tuskegee training program. Theirs is a truly amazing story, and one deserving of a truly amazing film. Unfortunately their story fell into the hands of George Lucas, who is to good movies what thalidomide is to pregnancy.
The movie is, of course, the story of the Tuskagee airmen the first group of African American pilots during WWII who fought with honor and pride against the Germans. It tells of Col. A.J. Bullard (Terence Howard-Iron Man, Hustle & Flow, Four Brothers) struggling with the brass in the newly built Pentagon in the face of rampant racism and negative stereotypes. Meanwhile unit commander Maj. Emanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.-As Good as it Gets, Men of Honor, Jerry McGuire) leads the gang as they start out flying regular patrols well in the rear with outdated aircraft, eventually getting to support a landing and finally flying bomber escorts. He and his crew are punched out of the stereotype paper doll book: there’s the squad leader struggling with alcoholism (Nate Parker-The Great Debaters, the Secret Life of Bees, Felon), the hotshot rogue pilot who can’t obey orders and is constantly on the prowl for women (David Oyelowo-Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the Help, The Last King of Scotland), the younger pilot struggling to prove himself to the veterans (Tristen Wilds-the Secret Life of Bees, 90210 (2008), Half Nelson), the religious nut, the joker (named Joker-anyone remember Full Metal Jacket?), and a couple of country bumpkins. They each have a sub plot and story that does nothing, goes no where, and actually hurts the movie (especially the romance story so worthless and crowbarred it felt like a big weighty dumb story forced into a movie. Hey, I can’t be the king of analogies every day). Each one is an anchor even heavier than the one preceding.
It has been often said that George Lucas is not an actors director, and I don’t think it has ever been more apparent than in this movie. In spite of working with some of the most talented professionals in Hollywood he somehow managed to get them all to act like they were each passing a golf ball sized kidney stone. This combined with dialog that compares favorably only to a flesh eating virus makes each non flying scene feel like being smothered under a burning mattress. The antagonists were even worse. A blatantly racist commanding officer (Bryan Cranston-Malcolm in the Middle and one of my personal favorites, Breaking Bad) was so over the top it was laughable, and the evil German pilot (Lars van Riesen-A Brunette Kiss, Private Peaceful, the Parachute Ball) was laughable cartoonish with lines taken from the Ming the Merciless catchy one liner phrasebook (“Die, you foolish African!”). I guess Lucas can’t do a movie without a goofy fake character with dumb lines.
As for the racism, it was painfully drummed into our heads for the first half of the movie and then somehow just evaporated in the second half. I know Lucas is trying to do something for African Americans (possibly to make up for all the heat he got for racist stereotype Jar Jar) but Spike Lee he is not.
I will say the time spent showing the action in the air was exciting in the same way the dog fights in Star Wars were fun. The CGI was flawless and only once did I see a flight sequence I know for a fact was literally impossible. The one thing Lucas can do is CGI, and he does use it here. However, for every minute spent in the air with exciting combat you spend like five on the ground grinding through some god awful character development.
The stars. I’ll give one star for the cast, especially Cuba Gooding Jr., although he spent the entire movie with a big dumb pipe in his mouth like he was Gen. Douglas MacArthur. What exactly was that supposed to add? One star. The story of the Tuskagee airmen is one that deserves to be told. Two stars. Decent fight sequences and CGI effects. One star. WWII movie. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes. Acting ran like a chewing the scenery contest. One black hole. Dialog that made listening to drunk guys debate politics sound good. One black hole. Characters so flaccid and ill developed I really didn’t care if and when any of them died. I wasn’t hoping they would die. I just couldn’t worry about them. One black hole. Each sub plot that slowed the story down. One black hole. Very few of the sub plots actually had a conclusion or, for that matter, a point. One black hole. A bonus black hole for the romance sub plot, which pretty much led to the most obvious ending in the history of war movies. One black hole. Pacing and editing from hell. Stuff jumped around in a fast/slow/fast method that made me want to scream. One black hole. At one point Lucas felt the need to channel Hogan’s Hero’s and include a POW escape plot that did absolutely nothing but add in some more worthless ground crap. One black hole. While the African American pilots were heroes of the sky, the portrayal of the Caucasian pilots make them looks like a bunch of undisciplined cowboys, not really reflecting well on the Army Air Corps. One black hole. The scar faced German pilot turned the movie into a comedy. One black hole. The instantaneous reversal of bigotry in such a pat and worthless manner (not so much a resolution as Lucas got bored portraying it and decided to drop the whole thing). One black hole. The film suffered from the war movie “We bought a tank, we are going to show a tank” syndrome. In other words, every scene’s background was so packed with jeeps, trucks, tents, planes, and more jeeps you couldn’t see the ground. One black hole. Some fairly grievous plot holes (If the guys were flying patrols well behind friendly lines, how then did they come across a German train?). One black hole. Total: thirteen black holes.
So a grand total of eight black holes. I feel pretty good about that. The movie, in spite of the great subject matter, was out and out dumb. Of course, the theater was packed and apparently it did pretty well for it’s opening weekend. Odds are very likely that the film will do fine and Lucas will never read this review or if he did even care. He is still rich beyond my biggest dreams. Still, I do feel a bit of satisfaction for this piece of tilting at windmills. I can see why Don Quixote did it. Should you see it? If you like airplanes and combat sure. If you want to somehow support the cause of 1944 Civil Rights sure. If you like good acting, direction, and story telling or want to join me in not supporting Lucas in any way then you should not (incidentally he plans to re release the entire Star Wars franchise in 3D one at a time. I am starting a campaign to not go see any of these and ask you all to join me. Don’t support this. Besides, we all know post production 3D sucks. Don’t fall for the hype)
By the way, Lucas has announced after finishing this dog he was going to retire from film making. I am of two thoughts on this concept. On the one hand I found myself singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” while doing a little dance in my office chair. On the other hand I kept thinking to myself “Why didn’t the house fall on the witch fourteen years ago before she made the Phantom Menace?” I do wish him a happy and relaxing retirement, with lots of sitting a beach somewhere not working on any of those pesky scripts or anything.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. By the way, you will be seeing a lot of smaller posts by my guy Jason, who works for me and is going to be looking for interesting nerd stuff to post about. Basically these long blog posts actually don’t serve the purpose this blog was created for and I need him to make it actually work. He seems sharp enough. Look for my Underworld review tomorrow. 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
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
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
Ever wonder about the Goonies?
I am kind of slammed this week and don’t have time to work on the new Star Trek post, but over the weekend was working on inventory and came across this movie t shirt and it got me thinking about the Goonies again. I saw it for like the 10th time a few months ago, and every time I see it or something like this shirt there is a question that constantly bugs me.
Here it is. One Eyed Willie, the pirate captain who’s treasure the kids are going after, looked to have been one of the most successful pirates of all time based on the massive pile if “rich stuff” he had on his ship. If so, why would he not go off and actually spend some of the money on rum and wenches? Why, instead, did he spend the last 30 years of his life or so building death traps to keep inquisitive kids from getting to his massive pile of gold? And then, in the all time greatest move dedicated to proving a worthless point, he uses his own corpse to build his final self destruct trap? I mean, really. Does he not have any life besides building death traps? And with all that money, couldn’t he have bought material for traps more elaborate than rocks, vines, and sticks? How about some iron hinges?
It actually gets you thinking about buried pirate treasure in general. Why would a pirate with a huge chest of gold bury it and then leave it where any random idiot could potentially stumble upon. How about taking some of that treasure, using it to buy an island, build a castle on it, and buy the most impenetrable safe the 18th century can produce? Hire a bunch of scurvy sea dogs and turn them into land dogs to watch your treasure.
Actually, that kind of makes me think about Scrooge McDuck. He has a massive money bin where he rolls around in his dough instead of spending it on things he might enjoy in life. For that matter, how does a huge pile of cash in a vault actually keep him rich? Has he never heard of a bank? Some of them actually pay you money for keeping your money in them. It’s called interest. For that matter, you could potentially invest your money and make even more money, although these days a big pile of cash in a vault doesn’t sound like the dumbest plan ever. That reminds me of a Richie Rich comic I read where the family had a problem of too much cash and not enough room to store it all. Even as a kid of appropriate age for Richie Rich I understood the concept of banks. Just kind of annoying, really.
Back to the Goonies. Remeber at the end of the movie when One Eyed Willies ship sailed off uncrewed into the sunset, leaving the kids with some gems they lifted? No one in that shanty town owned a power boat? If reports got out of a boat floating in the ocean loaded with “rich stuff” there would be about 100,000 guys in rowboats looking for the damned thing.
Sorry for the weird tangential rant, but these are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. I really gotta run. Post here if you have any answers to these questions, and follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Movie stuff next time, I promise. Talk to you soon
Dave
I am Singh Movie Review
Like this movie, I am at a loss when trying to come up with a clever point.
So this weekend has been one of the worst for new movies. I guess all the studios simultaneously decided this was the weekend to not really bother. Honestly, a mistake in my opinion. None of the recent movies have what I perceive as real theater staying power, and a good release this weekend would have probably dominated. I suppose Breaking Dawn might still be pulling in idiots, but that’s about it.
So, when the mainstream field is left fallow, that is my opportunity to visit my old friend, foreign and independent films. Honestly, I like a lot of the more “indy” films, but you are really rolling the dice, especially when presented with any Bollywood films. They rarely just produce a moderately good entertaining film. Either you get something brilliant, or you get a script generated by the “million monkeys on a million typewriters” school of story telling.
However, the last Bollywood film I saw was Robot, so I figured “How bad could I am Singh really be?
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes into the film I was praying for an attack by a giant snake made up of hundreds of identical robots. This movie presents me with a conundrum, however. On the one hand, it’s like the writers hacked into my brain, downloaded my personal list of boneheaded movie moves that really bug the hell out of me, and used that as the script. Bad voice over monologues that don’t contribute, 4th wall breaking monologues that also don’t explain things, beating an already beaten dead horse into the ground, trying to make me feel guilty for stuff I had nothing to do with and directly oppose, wooden acting from the English speaking actors, stereotypes ground so far into the earth that they resurfaced just outside Beijing, really bad grammar in the foreign language to English subtitles, really bad grammar in the English to English subtitles (yes, they did that), casting that blatantly points out the director’s obvious fetish for a particular type of woman (basically, blondes who look like Sharon Stone. There were seven different white women I counted who looked so much alike I wasn’t sure if they weren’t all played by the same woman with different hair, including two lawyers, a doctor, a stripper, and a cop), choreographed song and dance numbers with surreal lyrics dutifully subtitled, pointless flash-somethings (I can’t call them flash backs or flash forwards. More like a flash sideways, to people and events that had nothing to do with the story), a courtroom drama that seems to indicate that the writers have no idea how American courts work (or, for that matter, have ever seen another courtroom drama on TV or movies), sluggish story with long, fairly pointless speeches that rhymed remarkable with “tating the sobvious”, forcing me to watch the Twin Towers fall down again, using 9-11 to sell a story, and casting British actors who can’t really bury their accents deep enough to play Americans. On the other hand, when I could put all that behind me and treat this movie as an insight into Indian and Sikh culture, as well as a look at how India might perceive America, it actually got kind of interesting. It’s like a big cake made out of mixed bark and soap chips covered with a delicious frosting.
Anyway, the movie. I think I can sum it up by saying “Don’t discriminated against all Muslims and Sikhs because they wear turbans like the terrorists responsible for 9-11”. The story starts off with an guy living a pretty cushy life in India when he is woken up by a call from his mother telling him his brother is dead and his father is in the hospital. He flies to LA and discovers they have all been the victims of a brutal hate crime by Neo Nazis so cartoonish and over the top I thought they might be CGI generated. He embarks on a quest to find his brother’s killer and also locate his other brother, who is missing. He runs into immediate, pointless resistance from the Pasadena police force in the form of another cartoonish racist cop and finds that his brother was arrested, suspected of killing his brother in spite of witnesses to the contrary. He runs into some of his bother’s friends, who tell him about a rash of hate crimes perpetrated against anyone Muslim or wearing a turban.
I’m going to do an aside here and talk a little about the months immediately following 9-11. There were a number of hate crimes perpetrated, but in all cases that I know of the local police and FBI were relatively quick to investigate and intervene. Maybe it’s because I live in California and never really saw anything grievous here, but since this story is set in California I think it OK to have an issue with this. In no cases do I know of the local police aiding and abetting the criminals.
Anyway, misinterpreted American culture hijinks ensues. The racists surface occasionally only to prove how cowardly they are. We get subjected to the same speech over and over again. The Sikhs and Muslims remain true to the non violent tenants of their beliefs. A number of sub plots that are really all just rehashing of the main plot surface. A few cool messages about he importance of friendship and family, justice, and racial and religious tolerance are forced down our throats, pumped out, and the forced down again ad nauseum.
The stars. I’ll usually give a star for a foreign or independent film, so one star. Those good messages I talked about, while rubbed into our faces for a monstrous 150 minutes, were actually delivered. One star. A somewhat good insight into Indian and Sikh culture. One star. An idea of how India and perhaps some of the rest of the world perceives America was handed out. One star. I kind of liked the Sikh cop character, even if he was as over the top as the rest of them. One star. I always enjoy seeing white people portrayed as the bad guy. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. I am going to try to be kind in these, as I understand a lot of them could be the result of different cultural perspectives, but I have to be honest. Driving a painfully obvious point home, parking it’s car, and making it dinner. One black hole. American stereotypes so painfully obvious it literally hurt my brain. One black hole. The directors obvious blonde fetish. One black hole. The opening and closing monologues made me wish someone would fly a plane into the theater I was in. One black hole. Long, boring, repetitive speeches that just kept on repeating the main theme. One black hole. The film maker failed to hire a single native English speaker to view the movie once to make sure the sub titles weren’t developmentally disadvantaged. One black hole. The American acting and dialog looked and felt like they were also speaking a foreign language (the fact that they subtitled the English into poorer grammar English contributed to this). One black hole. All the weird flash somethings. I’m sure they would be far more significant and less black hole worthy if I were actually Indian, but I spent most of them asking “What the f…?”. One black hole. Three different song and dance numbers. One black hole. Use of odd camera angles that at first looked kind of brilliant but by the end of the film made my eyes cross. One black hole. A complete lack of research into how the American criminal justice system works. One black hole. Using 9-11 to sell the story and forcing me to watch the towers collapse again (I watched it live on the news, and really try not to think about it. That day still haunts me). One black hole. Overall lacking more than the most obvious point. One black hole. Total: thirteen black holes.
So a total of seven black holes. Slumdog Millionaire it is not. I don’t really see a reason to watch this in a theater. Honestly, I don’t really see a reason to see it at home, unless you are really into Bollywood and Indian culture. This could be something to throw on the TV while folding your laundry or whatever. Unfortunately the subtitles require you to stay focused on the screen. I don’t really have a read how this would work as a date film. Might be OK if your date is more hippy 
dippy and appreciates your cultural open mindedness, but if not she could be really bored with it and by extension you. Take her to see Hugo IMO (Hugo Automaton image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category).
That’s it for now. Not sure what I will do next. I should probably finish up my Star Trek Retrospective. I was thinking about it and am going to probably skip Insurrection, mainly because the entire movie plays like a an extended episode of TNG and, to be honest, I really can’t remember much about it one way or another. I will instead dive into Nemesis, a film I have some definite opinions on, and will finally finish up with the 2009 Star Trek and explain why anyone who likes that movie the best out of all the Star Trek franchise is either not a true fan or is a true idiot, or both.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1 Movie Review
Bare chestapalooza.
Yes, I saw it last night and yes, I felt my testosterone level drop as the title credits rolled across the screen. I was with a friend who loves Twilight (and who probably hates me now for the snide comments I was making throughout the film) and a bunch of other women and browbeaten boyfriends.
I am probably going to throw a few spoilers out here, so if you are for some freakish reason a fan who is going to see the film but haven’t read the books (illiterate, maybe? I can’t figure out any other reason. But then, what are you doing here?) maybe skip to the conclusion. Something I heard a couple years ago that is the author of the books, Stephanie Meyer, is an uber Mormon (magic underwear?) who not only hates the idea of premarital sex but sex in general. I know this sounds weird in a story that seems to capitalize on hot, young hairless guys who lack enough money to buy shirts, but when you think about it the main protagonist, Bella, remains a virgin until she gets married (at age 18) where on her wedding night has painful, bodily injuring sex exactly once and gets into the most horribly painful unwanted pregnancy since Eraserhead. Talk about punishment. When you think about it, seems like a certain morality agenda is being forced down the throats of young women worldwide, with some serious damage being done to women’s liberation along the way (Bella is, in almost all circumstances, the passive vessel for all of the what can laughingly be called masculinity on the screen).
Anyway, is the movie good or bad? Depends on your perspective. If you are a fan I’m sure you can enjoy it. If you are more like me and really only hold a passing interest in the cultural phenomenon generated by the series than it kind of seems sluggish and pointless, with a lot of really mediocre acting and dialog. I think the best way to describe this film is with the word “filled”, as in it is full of filler. You see, as far as I can tell the book Breaking Dawn was not really significantly longer than any of the others, yet somehow the studio has decided they need to make it into a four hour epic (Part 1 was 117 minutes). Every scene seems horribly stretched and elongated to no purpose, with a ton of flashbacks to scenes lifted from 15 minutes earlier. It’s like if you were making an energy bar and wanted to increase the size and weight by throwing in handfuls of sawdust into the mix. I spent the first 45 minutes praying for ANYTHING to happen (and by anything I mean I would have been happy if the Earth had fallen into the sun). Stretching a 2 hour movie into two parts is a way of doubling your revenue, but it really doesn’t add anything to the experience and, honestly, if it works here will set an ugly precedent for future sequels.
Anyway, the movie starts off with Jacob (Taylor Lautner-all the Twilight films plus the horrible Abduction (check out the review I did for that dog)) ripping off his shirt (surprise, surprise. Yes, ladies, he has his shirt off within five seconds of the opening credits ending) and running off into the woods as a wolf, dropping his invitation to Bella and Edwards wedding (Kristin Stewart-wow. She’s got nothing really besides the Twilight series. I guess bland doesn’t translate well to films designed to appeal to groups besides teenage girls. Edward is of course Robert Pattinson, whom I blasted in my review for Water for Elephants. Looks like his new emotion chip failed again). A bunch of other people whom I am sure would be important to me had I seen more than one of the other Twilight films get invitations too. We get subjected to more of the same chemistry-less romance between Bella and Edward and Edward runs off to his bachelor party that we don’t get to see (what to vampire bachelors who don’t actually drink human blood do at a bachelor party? Sounds like a quiet evening at the library to me). The wedding scene seemed to go on for 83,000 years and was overall kind of awkward and painful. Then a flight to Brazil and a romantic beach bungalow (what do these vampires do for money, anyway? None of them seem to have a job, unless being overly good looking pays) where the two of them have sex exactly once and spend the rest of the honeymoon playing chess (no joke. I wish I was joking). Edward is afraid he will hurt Bella because he bruised her or something during that first night.
Bella gets painfully pregnant and starts showing within a couple weeks (isn’t part of being a vampire that your cells are effectively dead, or perhaps crystallized? How, then, can vampire sperm cells fertilize an ovum? And what aspect of that union means the fetus will develop in a month?). They fly back to their estate in Washington (home of Starbucks. I’m not saying that Starbucks is run by vampires, but the evidence is stacking up) where the other main vampire/robot Carlisle (Peter Facinelli, another guy who has nothing else going on, unless playing Zan from the Wonder Twins in a film short counts for something. Everything else is garbage) announces that the fetus, who for some reason has put a lead shield or something around the womb preventing xray or ultrasound (???) from showing it, will probably kill Bella. She refuses to have the child aborted and has to drink human blood, in spite of still being human. Meanwhile, the werewolves come to the conclusion that the baby will be a monster and threat to them for reasons they opted to not really share with the audience. Once again we are treated (subjected) to vampire on werewolf action where no one of any significance dies. Vampire havoc ensues. You are finally given some action, although it is short lived and ultimately kind of pointless.
Before I get into the stars and black holes, I have a few questions I want to ask of any Twilight fans out there. First of all, if you are a vampire and your plush vampire house is surrounded by werewolves who significantly outnumber you, wouldn’t you look for some kind of equalizer? And by that I mean guns. Is there some rule that vampires can’t use guns at all? They seem to have unlimited money. A couple of SPAS 12’s would have put a hurt on the wolves as they came bounding towards you. For that matter, if you have the resources just mount an M2 .50 cal on the roof and surround your house with Claymores. That would put paid to the wolves pretty quick, and it’s not like local law enforcement has any interest in what goes on in the woods.
The second question is when did the Twilight series turn into a Saga? Crowbarring that into the title really bugged me, like adding Part 2 to the Hangover. Saga is a Norse term for an epic tale. Sorry, but there is nothing epic about watching Bella and Edward having “romantic” scenes with all the natural chemistry of a sugar cube being dissolved in water while Jacob skulks around outside.
Thirdly, what ever happened to the vampires sparkling in daylight? This is actually a point that grinds me like nothing else about this series, but if you are going to make it a point of the film please try to maintain it. Don’t just drop it (Sparkly vampire image courtesy of the Horror Movie T Shirt category).
Fourth, what the hell was the deal with those creepy looking vamps and the hot girl during the credits? I know those guys are the bosses from Italy, but what exactly was up with the girl? She didn’t seem to do anything wrong. Also, one thing I kind of liked about Twilight (there are words that I thought I would never type) is they managed to stay away from the Emo vampires, and then at the end there they are. Is there a minimum Emo requirement for any vampire movie?
Fifth, they seem to make sure you see Jacob and the rest of the werewolves rip out of their clothes every time they transform in an attempt to help show how wild and savage they are, but where do they get clothes for their next human scene? The wolves surrounding the house clearly left their territory in wolf form, but when they need to talk all of a sudden it’s like they found a lost truck full of Abercrombie and Fitch merchandise. Do they have secret caches of clothing hidden all over the place? Does the magic that transforms them back to human give them clothes again? I could actually buy that, as it was a premise in a Harry Dresden novel, but why then show the clothes ripping off? Muscle shirts a go go. For that matter, what do the werewolves do for a living as well? Their wardrobe budget would bankrupt a small European country.
Anyway, I could go on, but better get to the stars. I don’t know if this is a accurate assessment, as my liking his acting is only in comparison to the sub mediocre acting from everyone else, but I kind of liked Taylor Lautner’s performance. At least he showed emotion once in a while. One star. The flash back to the 30’s when Edward was killing humans was kind of cool, I guess. One star. I can’t think of anything specific, but will award two stars for not sucking as bad as I thought it was going to suck. Total: four stars.
The black holes. The plot had more holes than a golf course. One black hole. Horrible, deadpan, emotionless, drab acting from almost everyone. One black hole. Long, boring scenes that accomplished nothing. One black hole. Stretching one two hour film into 2 two hour films in a blatant attempt to take advantage of your gullible fans. One black hole. Filler added by recycling scenes from earlier in the movie just to run out the clock. One black hole. A decided lack of motivation on the part of the werewolves. A little more thought and/or expository dialog would have been appreciated. One black hole. The writer seemed to pull the ending from so deep in her ass that she must have bumped her tonsils on the way out. One second you are gearing up for the final, epic battle where someone might have actually been in mortal danger, and the next everyone goes home and orders pizza. One black hole. Robert Pattinson’s eyebrows. One black hole (petty, I know. But still. They are almost hypnotic in how they draw your eyes). Deus Ex Machina set to full power. One black hole. Thinly disguised religious morality message. One black hole. Total: ten black holes.
So a grand total of six black holes. Honestly, before you hate spam me I could have been a lot harsher. On a bad day each of those questions I asked earlier would have been another black hole. And again, if you are a fan I am sure you will find the love for this film. Just do your suffering boyfriend a favor and go with your girlfriends. Date movie? Maybe. I think a lot of girls might look at you weird if you expressed an interest in seeing this. Not the most macho choice you could make.
Thanks for reading this particularly long review. Feel free to post comments here, and as long as you don’t cuss I will approve them and try to respond. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. More coming up soon. Cheap movie night so I should be able to see something. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Jack and Jill Movie Review
So bad it could be considered a crime against humanity.
I know I went off on a huge “What happened to Adam Sandler’s career?” diatribe when I wrote my review for the Zookeeper, but really, what happened to Adam Sandler’s career? How did he go from the Waterboy, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and even serious comedies like Punch Drunk Love to playing, not a cop pretending to be a woman but an actual woman, and himself in a non funny piece of tripe laced with toxic humor that would embarrass a third grader? Is this what happens when comedians sell out? Is this what happened to Jay Leno? All great comedy is laced with tragedy, so maybe the comfort, success and wealth he has enjoyed has permanently damaged his ability to perceive funny. Either that or he fell off a ladder onto his head and this is what serious brain damage looks like.
I will say I did derive a certain amount of satisfaction from the fact that I totally expected it to suck, but based on the trailers any idiot could see that coming. That’s like seeing your dentist pull out the extra big drill and saying “this is going to suck”. However, even I was surprised at how deep the suckage delved. Odds are during the last year and a half of doing these review I have probably overused the phrase “praying for a merciful death”, but during this movie I was really hoping for the sweet kiss of oblivion, or at least a nice restful coma.
What’s really sad is it not that it’s totally bad, but that it’s not totally bad. By that I mean if it was just so bad it was actually comical I could sit back and enjoy how bad it was, like Killer Klowns from Outer Space (Klowns image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category). No, instead we get ghostly images of a decent film. Kind of like seeing a good foundation in a house that is rotting apart and build on a toxic waste dump. There are a few funny moments (mostly involving any of the secondary characters). Al Pacino (more on his participation in the bomb later) was entertaining. The kids were cute and the adopted Indian one was amusing (Elodie Tougne and Rohan Chand. I hope the fact that this movie was each their first role doesn’t relegate them both to reality TV hell). Katie Holmes player her typical bland, no personality supporting wife but does it well and is easy on the eyes. There were a couple other sub plots and minor characters that had potential. But these elements are like small pockets of air you suck on while trapped under the ice, desperately looking for the ice hole.
The thing (literally) that dominated every moment of the film and you dread seeing throughout it is Sandler’s female character, Jill. She is gross, shrill, whiny, repulsive, and in all ways so fake looking and sounding that she sucks whatever talent or decent dialog is flying around the screen into a black hole that nothing returns from. I liken her character to a parasitic worm that bores its way into your head through your ear hole and spends 91 minutes eating tunnels through your brain, stimulated the occasional pain center or muscle spasm while steadily diminishing your intellectual capacity.
Let me make sure I have explained the character of Jill accurately enough. It’s like if a once talented comedian created an otherwise inoffensive romantic comedy and then, at the last minute, made one of the main characters a walking turd monster. Not a cute one like Mr. Hanky, but an actual, human sized creature made of excrement with arms, legs, and a mouth, and then had everyone else act like it did not look, smell, or feel like crap. Then he gave it a voice that made fingernails on a chalkboard sound like the sound of gentle rain and dialog that made you wish you never learned to understand English, or any other language for that matter. That is the character of Jill.
The weird question that kept rattling through my worm infested brain, however, was not what happened to Adam Sandler, or how any studio was dumb enough to green light this thing, or why there were two other people in the theater with me, but rather what kind of blackmail material must Adam Sandler have on Al Pacino to get him to agree to do this travesty? I mean, is Al that desperate to get on screen? Does he have a secret yearning to do comedy? Aren’t there 1,000,000,000 better scripts he could possibly work with? It’s one thing for an actor to take a role that make him look kind of like a twit. It’s another thing to take a role that kind of makes him look like a twit and give him a romantic interest that no human, man or woman, gay, straight, or anywhere in between, would ever have an interest in. Then, it’s an even bigger thing to take that twit role with the horrid love interest and play it AS HIMSELF! Yes, Al Pacino does not play a weird guy with issues and an interest in a drag queen that makes Divine look feminine. No, he plays Al Pacino with serious issues and an interest in Adam Sandler in a dress. I don’t think there is enough money in the world to make this worth his while. I am a lot less expensive to hire than Al Pacino, but there would have to be a lot of money in it for me to do something like tattoo “loser” across my forehead, which is what I see this role as doing for Al.
So, the movie. Jack and Jill are twins. Jill is everything I just described, plus a nice side helping of serious codependency issues. Jack is an obnoxiously rich and successful (again? Really?) owner of an ad agency that needs Al Pacino to whore himself out for Dunken Donuts. Jill is coming to town for Thanksgiving. She shows up, makes things uncomfortable for everyone (especially the audience), and leaves a Godzilla like path of destruction behind her. Jack and Jill (just putting those words together makes me want to forget that I ever went to kindergarten) have a fight, and in order to make it up to her Jack brings her to a Laker game that he knows Al Pacino is going to be at. Al blows him off, but meets Jill and falls head over heels in love with her. I really don’t want to get to much into the story, as it is giving me a series case of PTSD, but chaos ensues, lessons are learned, and endings are trite and happy.
The stars. Al Pacino was entertaining at times, especially when he was bitching out Jack on the phone. One star. That Indian kid was cute and responsible for most of the laughs. One star. That’s it. Two stars.
The black holes. Adam Sandler has created arguable the worst comedic character ever. Three black holes. I want to give a black hole for every time I wished I was in another theater or possibly another planet with no breathable atmosphere, but I didn’t keep track so I will cut it back to four black holes. Excrement and fart humor. One black hole. A comedy with nothing in it actually funny. Two black holes. Gratuitous product placement. One black hole. Some of the scenes that were supposed to be some kind of development really dragged on for no reason (the theater scene in particular). One black hole. A bunch of semi-cool minor characters and sub plots that disappeared after a couple scenes. One black hole. Miserable dialog. It seems the writers don’t know how to write anything that isn’t whining. One black hole. And finally, two more black holes for taking a five minute Saturday Night Live skit and stretching it into 91 minutes.
So a grand total of 14 black holes. I’m not even going try to be funny here. Please don’t see this film. The only way we can stop the deluge of of crap pouring out of Hollywood is to not support it in any way. This movie has to fail miserable, or we will see sequels and copies until our brains shrivel up and look like giant raisins. Now, if we could only get the foreign markets to stop supporting this drivel we might be able to make a difference.
By the way, for the record Rotten Tomatoes gave this dog a score of 4.7%. I didn’t think a movie could get so low. I thought it was more like the SATs where you get 400 points just for showing up.
Anyway, thanks for reading and sharing my pain. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I’m starting to thing about what I am going to do after the New Year. I want to do some kind of award series for best and worst movie, best gratuitous nude scene, worst action sequence, etc. I need a name for my award, like the Nerdy’s or something. If you have a suggestion post it here or Tweet me. I’m also taking suggestions for humorous award categories. Also, if any of you have a clue how I can start seeing movies before they come out legally (i.e. any studio people reading this and want to have me review your film etc) feel free to post, although after this review I don’t know if any studio will ever want me to see one of their films. I have given good scores too. I liked Tower Heist. I swear!
Dave
