Maleficent Review
Kind of OK.
The day will come when I finally learn to not get excited by good trailers but that day is not today. (I also like to tell myself that the day will come where I win the lottery, get Congress to pass my mandatory death penalty for Mimes and Clowns law, complete my unstoppable world conquering army of mutant atomic super men, and get a girl to go on more dates than I have fingers on one hand but that day is also not today.) I have been seeing Maleficent trailers for months and each time I get more and more excited. Angelina Jolie as an evil fairy with horns and wings? A clever re-imaging of a classic fairy tail? A battle between what we in the Warhammer world we would call the Wood Elf Forest Spirits and the Bretonians? Amazing special effects and CGI? How can this be anything less than amazing?
Then I see the movie. I’m not going to disparage it. It’s not bad. It’s just not great. It’s more or less just…there. It really tends towards the standard design-by-committee take no chances pap that every other main stream movie is, counting on visuals and star appeal to make up for the lack of creativity and quality writing. Angelina Jolie is pretty amazing and more or less carries the whole movie on her sexy shoulders but her character is so watered down that everything she does leaks impact from every seam. The CGI is as amazing as a $200,000,000 budget will get you (in case you were wondering, $200,000,000 is enough to send 307,692 children to school in Africa. I’m just saying) and there is not a hint of bad acting. It’s just clear that this film was paralyzed into mediocrity by a fear of doing anything outside of the formula.
In truth I am pretty disappointed by Hollywood’s inability to do the whole fairy tale redo thing and have it do more than just suck. I really want to see some cool stories come from the classic Brothers Grim but instead we are fed dross such as Hansel & Gretel, Snow White and the Huntsman, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Mirror Mirror. 
They didn’t all totally suck (well, Hansel & Gretel did, and Jack the Giant Slayer will put you to sleep in the veterinary sense. Image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) but every time they come out all I see is more wasted potential. It’s like the goal is to come out with the blandest porridge possible, fulfilling all the minimum nutritional requirements but not much more. Pretty much the gruel they ate in the Matrix. I’d put this movie at the top of that list of films but not by more than a nose.
X-Men: Days of Future Past Review
X-tremely good.
First off, sorry I have been so lax on my writing lately. I have had two back to back shows and am still up to my neck in work. However I have nothing lined up for most of June so I hope to get caught up on my movie reviews, as well as Star Trek and the occasional true nerd rant.
So X-Men: Days of Future Past. I loved it. Veteran readers of my blog may see some irony in that statement as I have said that time travel as a plot device is the tool of the amateur scriptwriter (one could also say that sarcasm is the tool of the amateur movie reviewer, but that’s neither here nor there) but I have seen a few films (Looper, for example) where it has been used effectively and this is one such film.
I think it boils down to two factors: how it is used and how it is explained. If you use it as a non-pivotal plot point that propels the story without dominating the flow I think that is good. If you use it as a tool to avoid actually writing a story and/or and carte blanche to destroy a story that is already flowing that is bad. Time travel used poorly is a non-religious version of deus ex machina (another writing tool I rail against). As for the explanation, time travel is constantly rife with plot holes and gaps. This is one of the few times I will say that a major plot point is better used with a minimum of explanation as to how it works, or what effect it can have on the timeline.
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Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 38 Metamorphosis
I have mixed feelings on this episode. On the one hand it was a cool story and involved sex with an alien so weird even Kirk wouldn’t go there (we hope). On the other hand it unleashed the most annoyingly abused character in the Star Trek universe: Zefram Cohrane.
I know I should be cool with him but it seems like every time you turn around another series or movie is digging up his corpse to make another dumb story (before all you Borgphiles and Next Gen fans give me crap I will go on record to say that First Contact was a plot hole ridden disaster who’s poor story is only overtaken by the incredibly out of character portrayal of Captain Picard. In my opinion Next Gen never survived the translation to the big screen. You can all thank Rick Berman).
Also what is the deal with the universal translator? It is introduced here for the first time and in one sense is really cool, but in another sense what the hell have they been using in the previous 37 episodes? Do all aliens speak flawless Midwestern American English? The whole language issue is something Star Trek studiously avoided for most of its existence mainly for convenience sake. By introducing the device here it kind of opens a big can of worms in the whole translation department.
The Zefram Cochrane Memorial Library image I pulled from the Star Trek T Shirt category. Love him or not it’s pretty cool.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Godzilla Review
Too much humans, not enough Godzilla.
This whole “fill the screen time with lame humans instead of expensive CGI” is something of an ongoing issue with movies involving really cool giant whatever. Maybe it’s just me. I bitched about this in Transfomers. I bitched about this in Pacific Rim. I even kind of bitched about this in the Avengers. To me it is the curse of Hollywood these days that a film titled “The Super Awesome Nostalgic Icon We All Want to See” will feature about 10 minutes of SANIWAWTS and 140 minutes of some early 20’s douchebag all true nerds learned to hate when he was getting laid in high school and we were playing Car Wars until four in the morning running around doing crap no one cares about.
To be fair to my own opinion any amount of screen time 0< dedicated to Shia LeBeouf is a waste of time, film, and brain cells. Michael Bay I want about 50 minutes of my life wasted on him in the last Transformers movie refunded please.
So it is with this film. The moments with Godzilla or one of the other monsters on the screen were like playing with a kindle of the cutest kittens ever but as soon as the camera switched to a non Godzilla scene the kittens morphed and merged into a 15 year old smelly bloodhound laying on the porch too lazy to do more than breath and fart. SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT BIG SPOILER ALERT DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU I had real hope for this film giving me someone to engage with outside of Godzilla when they cast the great Bryan Cranston (and featured him extensively in every single trailer) but his character dies after like 25 minutes, leaving us with hunk-of-the-month Aaron Taylor-Johnson to carry the entire rest of the film on his woefully inadequate acting shoulders (that’s not really fair. He has done some decent work but this film did not give him any kind of depth to sink his teeth into).
So about halfway through the film you realize you care more about Godzilla and the other monsters than any actual human on the screen. This has the net effect of making you resent any time spent watching humans without a giant monster turning them into toe jam. That being said the scenes with monsters were freaking amazing. The one thing this movie did better than any I have seen in a long time is it really made you feel what it would be like to be a human running around while Godzilla stomps through your local Pick N’ Save. More than ever I felt what it must be like to be so insignificant that the monsters don’t even notice you. Normally to feel that insignificant and disregarded I have to go out trying to meet women. Truly effective.
Plus the action was amazing, although they did a lot of it at night and obscured by smoke, clouds, or random debris. I got frustrated a couple times when they were lining up for a major battle only to show it for 10 seconds before cutting to video footage on a newscast. They did however push the PG-13 to a level I found acceptable. There was no shortage of destruction, death, and mayhem. I mean, we aren’t going to a Godzilla film to see him destroy an abandoned tenement block and then sort the wreckage into the worlds largest compost pile. When I think of Godzilla I want to see skyscrapers crumbling on top of thousands of screaming humans. Godzilla is serious business. Of course since 9-11 it is super bad PC karma to show anything destructive happen to New York the go to city for mass destruction is San Francisco. I naturally felt an even closer connection to the action when I saw Godzilla stomp on a bar in Chinatown where I have seen a friend of mine puke on the sidewalk.
Some more spoilers incoming so if that is a problem maybe skip the story recap. Five paragraphs. SPOILER ALERT It starts with two Japanese(ish) scientists of some kind (actually if any of you can figure out what they were will you let me know? Were they paleontologists? Biologists? Geologists? Seems like they were whatever the plot needed at the moment. Ken Watanabe-Inception, the Last Samurai, Batman Begins and Sally Hawkins-Layer Cake, Blue Jasmine, All is Bright) being called in to look at a giant sink hole. They climb inside and discover the massive bones of some gigantic monster. Skip a few miles away to a Japanese nuclear reactor and engineer Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston-Breaking Bad, Argo, Drive) living with his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche-Dan in Real Life, The English Patient, An Open Heart) and son Ford (CJ Adams-the Odd Life of Timothy Green, Dan in Real Life, Against the Wild). There is some kind of seismic activity that seems to be traveling towards their reactor. Joe sends Sandra into the reactor to do something and she gets cooked when the whole thing melts down.
Skip ahead 15 years and Ford (now Aaron Taylor-Johnson-Kick Ass, Savages, Kick Ass 2) is now a navy lieutenant in charge of bomb disposal and Joe a weird conspiracy nut, convinced that the reactor meltdown that killed his wife had some kind of other cause than just an earthquake. Ford rotates home to be with his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen-Silent House, Oldboy, In Secret) and son in San Francisco only to find out his father has been arrested again by the Japanese for trying to sneak into the radioactive quarantine zone. He has to fly to Tokyo to bail Joe out.
Once there he gets sucked into Joes conspiracy world with little effort and together they sneak into their old home to recover some old floppy disks of data. Joe is convinced whatever happened before will happen again. They get arrested and taken to a secret compound where something in the ground is being studied.
Honestly you don’t really need to know a whole lot more. The thing in the ground is a gigantic monster called a M.U.T.O. (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that jumps up and wrecks most everything, including Joe. At that exact moment all the character development and story that had been written into the first 40 minutes of the film more or less flies out the window. The Muto also flies off into the night and wrecks Tokyo. Meanwhile another monster is being tracked and turns out to be Godzilla, somehow tracking the MUTO (?) and rapidly identified by the Japanese scientist as an Alpha predator. They fight and the MUTO flies off towards the US West Coast, followed by Godzilla. It’s mate surfaces in Nevada and wrecks Las Vegas (I found that very amusing. I spend way to much time in Vegas for work to have anything other than contempt for the Strip).
During all this Ford is getting involved mainly by hitching a ride on different military transports without any orders. All the monsters seem to be headed towards San Francisco. The military comes up with a plan to lure them together and nuke them all in one fell swoop (I guess they were short on nukes? Seems the prudent thing to do would have been drop three separate nukes on each of the monsters while they were in the in the middle of the ocean or desert but I guess I’m not Sun Tzu). Because the MUTO puts out an EMP pulse they have to put in a mechanical countdown clock on the nuke. The MUTO steals the nuke (oh, yeah, they eat radiation. No violation of the laws of conservation of mass to see here folks. Move along) to feed it’s clutch of eggs. Ford has to parachute into the heart of San Francisco to disarm the nuke now. Godzilla shows up, kicks ass, and leaves San Francisco a physical wasteland to match the cultural wasteland that the tech yuppies are turning it into.
The stars:
Duh. Godzilla movie, and not the god awful Godzilla 1998. Two stars. When you could finally see him Godzilla was the classic, awesome monster. One star. What action there was was really great. Two stars. Bryan Cranston and the first 40 minutes with him was a really interesting, in depth story with great characters. One star. Amazing CGI and effects. One star. Camera work was superb. One star. The film really made you feel like you were in the movie during the action scenes. The term to use is immersive. One star. In truth a really fun movie experience well worth your time. Three stars. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes:
Our time with Godzilla was limited, and a lot of it was really murky and hard to see. The rest of the film was filled with people who might have just been little Godzillas in rubber human suits. One black hole. SPOILER ALERT Once Joe dies all the time spent trying to get us to engage with the characters was totally wasted. One black hole. SPOILER ALERT Also once Joe dies what was a fairly well written and professional story turned into a lazy mishmash of random crap that only distracted us from what was going on. Can someone tell me the point of the little Japanese kid on the train who appeared from nowhere and ten minutes later disappeared like a rogue Spanish swashbuckler from a heaving bosom romance novel? One black hole. With the exception of Bryan Cranston pretty much every scene involving humans was boring military crap or even more boring exposition. One black hole. SPOILER ALERT While I think Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a talented actor his character was really pointless. He treated the death of his father like the passing of a neighbors pet guinea pig and dropped the very interesting obsession with finding what killed his mother in order to become a very boring military guy. I felt a stronger connection with his wife, who spent most of her time starring at a phone, the Japanese scientist of indeterminate nature who spent most of his time off center looking fretful, and Godzilla who spent most of his time underwater. When the guy in the rubber suit has a stronger connection to the audience than your protagonist you need to look at your writing again. One black hole. 
I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help myself: the “science” in this film makes applying leeches to bleed illness out of you look like a valid medical treatment. (I’m just too big a fan of science to let really bad stuff slide. Science is Awesome image from the funny t shirt category) One black hole. Total: six black holes.
So a total of six stars, a solid score from me. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Should you see it anyway? Absolutely. See it on the biggest screen you can find to maximize the insignificance you will feel as another potential grease stain under Godzilla’s might foot. Date movie? If she’s into it. If not she will (correctly) determine that you are subjecting her to your interests and really don’t care what she wants to see. See it with some dudes, dude. Bathroom break? Any scene sans Godzilla or MUTO is a good candidate. There is a scene where they are all standing around planning on how to detonate a nuke that should work pretty well. Also most of the train business could be missed easily.
Thanks for reading. I’m seeing Million Dollar Arm tonight so let’s see if my love of sports films while hating actual sports has me enjoying this one. I’m also a fan of Indian culture (and by “culture” I really mean “women”) and hope to see some good stuff tonight. Disney doesn’t screw up too often so it should at least be fun. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post a comment here if you have a thought on this film or my review and email me at [email protected] if you want to ask an off topic question or make a suggestion. Talk to you soon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 39 Journey to Babel
This is one of the episodes that as a kid I found kind of confusing and as such have a less than fond feeling for. I couldn’t figure out who all these aliens were and why they were on the Enterprise. I liked Sarek and thought the Andorians were cool, but then one of them turned out to be a spy and I thought the fake antennae kind of gross. Also I never liked the Tellarite. Sorry but pig+man=/=great alien in my book.
(Episode image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category)
As an adult I get more from it. I appreciate the sacrifice Spock is willing to make for his duty and the effort Kirk put into getting Spock down to sick bay. I’m still not sure how Thelev knew how to perform Tal-Shaya when he killed the Tellarite. Was he a surgically modified Vulcan? Did he receive training in Vulcan martial arts, like when we study Kung Fu or Krav Maga? Given the differences in alien physiology how did Spock even know that Tal-Shaya was used? If someone were to kill a Horta with Tal-Shaya would it be instantly obvious to another Vulcan? Maybe Tellerites just have naturally weak necks and Gav snapped it when he tripped on his shoelace. What if Thelev just hit Gav in the neck with a big spanner and it looked like Tal-Shaya?
Also I’d like to point out that the trick of shutting down all internal systems to suck in an enemy ship closer had already been used in Balance of Terror. This episode was in the middle of Season 2, so really they should not have been recycling stuff quite so soon. Still, some great entertainment to be had here. If you are clever you can see the changes they made to the Andorian costume from this episode and the one in Enterprise.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 40 Friday’s Child
Another one I actually quite like. I thought the Capellans were pretty cool and the story great. From a social perspective it nicely explored cross cultural negotiations as well as honor and honestly. I also like the idea that bows, having never been invented on Capella, gave Kirk and Spock a distinct advantage (although technically introducing an unknown technology is about as flagrant a violation of the Prime Directive as having the Enterprise lift out of the ocean in plain sight of a primitive species and giving them a brand new god to worship after defiling and robbing their old temple.
However, let’s talk about one of the greatest unacknowledged tools of the the original series: rubber boulders. Yes, these old friends showed up so often it was almost like the Enterprise would seed the transport area with them in order to give Kirk and crew an emergency weapon to hurl or avalanche at their enemies. It’s like whenever they needed something resembling action they would just fall back on the warehouse of rubber boulders and a half dozen PA’s to bowl them down the hill. Sometimes I wish I had a truck full of rubber boulders to have some fun with. They even spoofed it in Galaxy Quest in with the rock monster.
Anyway, like I said I enjoy this episode and would one day like to do some cosplay as a Capellan. My height would work nicely for that and they do have some cool costumes. Of course first I would have to do Ruk from What Are Little Girls Made Of. That would rock (pun intended). Rock image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
Filmed entirely on location in the Uncanny Valley.
You know when I did a little research into this bowel obstruction of a movie I discovered it was the first effort of a new company called Clarius. At once I started to feel guilty about the vast load of bile I was about to dump all over it like a forest fighting aircraft who can only tank up on the deepest contents of my gullet. I like to see new studios try new things and I’m not comfortable stomping on first efforts.
Then I did a little more researched and discovered that they claim to have had a $70,000,000 budget and at once felt much better about clubbing this baby seal. You see, now I know what I am dealing with, and that is a bunch of idiots with too much money who assume that making movies is easy and that audiences do not require more than a few flashing lights and cute characters to be mindlessly entertained. The fact that they failed so miserably in the low hanging fruit of kids cartoons says a lot about how much they suck.
Given a budget like that I can name about 20 guys who could do between 2-4 films that would at least recoup the film investment and make money on the back end (including myself. If there are any Hollywood studio types actually reading this review contact me and I will tell you about my idea for a film about a humble movie review writer who develops super powers and saves the world from extraterrestrial zombies. I don’t want to demand too much control over the casting but for the romantic love interest I’m going to recommend Mila Kunis and for the protagonist let’s go with the sexiest movie reviewer in the country, me.) To spend that much money and fail is a sign from god that you should go back to whatever your day job was.
The good news is I have found an animated film from this year I hate more than the Nut Job. That one might have had a bad protagonist but it least it had one. It also managed to skip the whole singing issue entirely instead of subjecting me to the earhole raping that was this film. Given a choice between seeing this bomb, the Nut Job, or eating a pinecone I’d choose the pinecone, the Nut Job, and Legends of Oz in that order.
How did this film fail? Let’s pretend I was the man in charge of this studio. How would I have avoided the pitfalls this film seems drawn towards like a mouse to a glue trap? First off given a $70MM budget the first thing I would do is hire some writers who had more to their writing credits than a few crappy TV shows. You know, guys who’s brains don’t lock up when asked to write more than 22 minutes of story. Perhaps someone who has worked on something that made money. You’ve got $70,000,000. A couple hundred grand to good writers is not going to break your bank.
I would then instruct the writers to do whatever they could to maintain the feel and spirit of the original Oz movie. Specifically keep the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion the same in tone and inclination and NOT turn them into the Three Stooges (I’m not kidding about this. Scarecrow was Moe, Tim Man Larry, and Cowardly Lion Curly and at one point Scarecrow literally calls them all “Lunkheads”. Some days the urge to beat the projectionist is harder to resist than others). Remember how part of the charm of the Wizard of Oz was when the Wizard teaches each of them that the qualities they desired-intellect, emotion, and courage-they already had and needed only to see it in themselves and their actions? Well, forget about that. Now the Scarecrow is an annoying super genius, the Tin Man a big cry baby, and the Lion ready to fight anyone, anytime, for any reason.
I would also instruct them to try to keep these beloved characters involved in the story as much as possible, NOT replace them with three more sidekicks who for the first time ever make Jar Jar Binks look slightly cool (ewww. I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks a lot Legends of Oz). In this film we have a obese know-it-all owl (glorifying obesity in a kids movie is cool, right?), a marshmallow soldier named Marshal Mallow (ohh, I see what they did there), and a walking china doll clearly ripped off from Oz the Great and Powerful (you know how it is. If your Oz movie is going to suck why not rip off other Oz movies that suck?). As a fun note this movie lists Dan Ackyroyd, Kelsey Grammer, and James Belushi as the main voices of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion but they are in this film for about 15 minutes total, leaving us with Oliver Platt, Hugh Dancy, and Megan Hilty.
I’d also like them to keep the tone of Dorothy as a proactive individual and positive role models for girls, not a passive second banana.
Next I would hire a director who has also done a movie or two (oddly enough they did in this case, but this guy must have been asleep for most of the direction. I honestly can’t figure it out). Then I would look at my animation and make sure that the humans weren’t so deeply ensconced in the uncanny valley that you literally get sick looking at them. The human figures in this film were truly off putting in that way that only CGI can accomplish. CGI animation can do some amazing things but it can really suck on the other end of the spectrum. It looks like this film was feeling the budget crunch as nothing interesting was going on in any of the backgrounds. They might as well been painted on backdrops. Perhaps some more traditional animation, or a style that is OK with not rendering every skin pore, might have allowed for the occasional bird to fly by in the background.
Finally I would either hire talented songwriters or scrap the song business altogether. The music in this film gives new definition to the term “lame”. You know how in most musicals there is one song that you automatically skip? In this film that’s pretty much every song.
Anyway, I’m already at 1K words and haven’t really gotten into it. I have things to do tonight so let’s go, shall we?
The film starts off with Moe (I mean Scarecrow. Sorry my bad. Dan Akyroyd-Ghost Busters, Grosse Point Blank, the Blues Brothers) and his cohorts Tin Man (Kelsey Grammer-Cheers, Toy Story 2, X Men Last Stand) and Lion (James Belushi-K-9, Red Heat, New Years Eve) being chased by flying monkeys (with day glow mohawks. Aren’t they cute? In the original movies they used to give kids nightmares). Scarecrow has invented a “rainbow caster” which he uses to try to contact Dorothy (Lea Michele-New Years Eve (will that film ever stop haunting me?), Glee) in Kansas because she is the only one who can do something for some reason.
Time moves faster in Oz apparently so instead of the decades that have passed Dorothy is passed out in her basement after the last tornado wrecked her house. The fact that she is still missing and unconscious does little to concern Aunty Em (Tracey Adams-Parenthood, Gray’s Anatomy, School Dance) and Uncle Henry (Michael Krawic-Ghosts of Mars, Fire Down Below, the X Files) as they catalog the damage done instead of looking for their missing niece (wait a minute. Didn’t Dorothy wake up in a bed surrounded by her relatives, all of whom had been characters in the Land of Oz? Piddling detail, I’m sure). Their house is wrecked but before they can start repairs “the Apprairser” shows up and tells them the house is condemned and they have to leave. Aunty Em and Uncle Henry cave like sheep but Dorothy is suspicious.
At that point the rainbow lands and scoops her up. She gets half the message before the flying monkeys wreck the machine and dump her in the Oz countryside. Her enemy is apparently the Jester (Martin Short-Mars Attacks!, Frankenweenie, Weeds) who is the brother of the dead witch and cursed to always be dressed as a jester. She hooks up with her fat owl friend Wiser (Oliver Platt-Love and Other Drugs, X-Men First Class, 2012) who, just like in the other movie is motivated to join Dorothy in order to find his…? Self control? Eaters Anonymous? Jenny Craig? The go to Candyland where he proves his ability to curb his appetite by eating everything in sight. Dorothy joins him in his food orgy (showing kids a cartoon hero eating enough candy to give the entire city of Butte, Montana diabetes is a positive message, right?) only to find out that is illegal and is arrested by Marshal Mallow (every time I see that name it just looks more and more clever. Hugh Dancy-Adam, Black Hawk Down, King Arthur). They are convicted in candy court (less cute than it sounds) but are pardoned when the judge learns that Dorothy is the Dorothy who killed the witch. Marshal Mallow joins them in order to find his king or something and perhaps some kind of spine?
They have to go through China and the Jester sends an earthquake to wreck all the china (oh, you thought the major world power? How narrow is your thought process is. Chairman Mao image courtesy of the Political T Shirt category). By the way, if the Jester has the power to summon up a 6.5 earthquake whenever he wants how is it he even has any competition at all? The China Princess (Megan Hilty-Smash, Secret of the Wings) joins up in order to…do something? Maybe ask the Jester to not send earthquakes? There was something about evaluating Marshal Mallow as a possible husband (given that she is 8 inches tall and he is at least six feet I hope she does a lot of yoga). The team opts to bring her along because there is no way an 8 inch girl in a formal gown made of china will be a liability when she falls off a curb and shatters.
Anyway, once the characters are established that’s pretty much it. The Jester sends stuff to stop them and they overcome it, mostly with dumb luck. One of the talking trees (inexplicably voiced by the great Patrick Stewart. How the hell did he get roped into this?) volunteers to be cut down and turned into a boat. Flying monkeys are no match for candy catapults apparently. The movie grinds its way to an inevitable conclusion.
I don’t do the black holes/stars thing for kids movies. That’s a good thing as far as this movie is concerned. I generally judge kids movies by how the kids in the theater were reacting and the kids in this flick (all four of them) were bored stupid. One of them was doing that thing where he insisted on moving to seat after seat and even ended up sitting right next to me (as an aside I have a realistic understanding of how I am perceived in the world and if you see a 6’5″ guy sitting at the very back of the theater by himself in a children’s movie I think it fair to assume he can be found on the Megans Law website. Odds are the responsible parent thing to do is steer your children away from him, and while I am most definitely not on that site I would applaud your parental instinct). If your kids are particularly challenged mentally they might enjoy it, but understand that by bringing them to see this film you are committing yourself to 92 minutes that compares favorably only to falling into an open septic tank and spending the night there. There is absolutely nothing here for the parents (or poor adult reviewers).
Thanks for reading. I’m seeing Godzilla tonight and hope to have time to write it up tomorrow although I have a lot happening this weekend (Big Wow in San Jose, if you live in the Bay Area). Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
“The Infamous” Dave Inman
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 41 The Deadly Years
I’m kind of middle of the line on this one. Not bad, not great. I really liked the Corbomite bluff and it’s always fun to see Checkov used extensively, but the whole Commodore Stocker thing always bugged the hell out of me.
You see, in Balance of Terror it was established that not violating the Neutral Zone was worth any price up to and including the destruction of the ship, but Commodore Stocker, while a base commander with no deep space training, doesn’t seem to be capable of reading regulations and orders or even understanding that his need to shave a few hours off his trip to Starbase 10 could very well commit the Federation to war with the Romulan Empire. I know he was supposed to be a pompous jerk, but this is just annoyingly dumb.
It was also established earlier that the Romulans were pretty much looking for an excuse to go to war. Just because they failed to destroy the Enterprise doesn’t mean that the Praetor and Tal Shiar didn’t at least consider the whole deal an excuse to open a can of whoop ass. It certainly would have warranted a little more concern on the part of Kirk, Spock, and Stocker towards the end of the episode. It just might have behooved the Federation to send some kind of “Sorry our guys are idiots” message or at least a Pick Me Up Bouquet.
Like I said not one of their best. It does seem like whenever something bad or painful but not deadly has to happen to a crewman Chekov is the go to guy. 
Also if you are an advocate of senior rights this one will probably not sit well with you. Even the title “The Deadly Years” could be seen as painfully insensitive. Whatever happened to “the Golden Years”? If someone ever told my mother she was enjoying her Deadly Years I’d koon-ut-kal-if-fee his ass so hard his own parents would feel it. Lord knows I have enough frustrated libido to give me the focus. Feel the bite of my lirpa!
All that being said the squirrel nuts image comes to us from the funny t shirt category. I never said I was sensetive enough to get out of being strangled with an Ahn’woon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Neighbors Review
Some funny jokes that unfortunately got stretched over too much movie.
This is a film that I have to fight past my own prejudices to review fairly. I was a GDI in college and proud of it. I tend to find organizations who’s sole purpose is to get its members drunk and/or laid to be a waste of oxygen (although were I to go back in time I’d probably rush a fraternity if only to get laid once in a while. And that, my friends, is the official sound of me selling out. I’ll leave my punk rock/alternative lifestyle membership card at the door) . I also find Seth Rogan’s humor either really hot or really cold and have yet to forgive him for the Green Hornet.
Then there is my issue with Zac Efron. I really, really want to hate him. He is way too pretty a male (I don’t know if I can call him a man) and grievously exacerbates my own image and self esteem issues (sometimes I don’t know if I can call myself a man). He as done not a single movie to date that I didn’t hate (That Awkward Moment in particular, but the Lorax sucked too and I still have nightmares from the festering midden known as New Years Eve) and his success with women makes me sometimes wish for a tragic illegal firework to the groin accident so at least I would have an excuse for how miserably I do.
The problem is deep down inside I suspect that if I were to hear him interviewed on Howard Stern or maybe meet him somewhere and grab some coffee he might just turn out to be a super cool and chill dude and that just isn’t fair. I am so much happier with successful, beautiful people who are soulless douchebags. People who have all that plus are neat damage my mental paradigm. Also I can’t fault Zac’s work ethic. He might be making crap movies, but at least he is making a lot of them. Eventually he might hit a script that doesn’t count on him carrying the entire film by taking off his shirt.
So did I like this movie or not? It definitely had some great moments but honestly it felt like a 20 minute SNL skit stretched out over 96 minutes. Seth Rogan seems to now ascribe to the “if it was funny once, it will be funny four more times” school of humorous repetition. Like so many modern comedies the story is basically the taxi that moves the film from set piece to set piece joke. It also didn’t help that the best running gag of the film (the airbags inserting into normal seats) I have seen in trailers several dozen times.
Then there is the level of stupidity exhibited by the protagonists. Drug movies are funny when you see stoners come up with dopey plans based on the gaps vacated by their long lost brain cells. This is why I love It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts). The problem I had with these characters is they are supposed to be responsible adults with jobs and an infant but are coming out with plans that would seem dumb to Shaggy and Scooby Doo on angel dust. The story is that Seth is an ex stoner who is trying to grow up but it just didn’t seem credible. Also, while the baby was super duper cute and a big plus in the movie seeing her parents getting drunk and stoned as hell but trying to listen to their baby monitor had me squirming in my seat for concern for her. Having both your parents pass out drunk on the floor seems like a recipe for SIDS. Also what was the deal with the two of them needing to have sex in the same room with the baby awake and mobile? You are OK using your baby monitor to keep tabs on your kid from next door at a massive frat party while getting completely wasted and listening to very loud music but you can’t go into the next room and leave the door open a crack to keep from giving your kid some repressed trauma to work on in therapy in 25 years?
That being said there were some really excellent moments. Some of the party scenes with Seth and Zac were really funny (especially the dance off) and if I hadn’t already seen it 50 times the air bag thing would have been hilarious. There was a really cool growing up/bromance/homoerotic undercurrent going on between Zac’s character and Dave Franco’s. I thought Rose Byrne crushed every scene and in my opinion stole a lot of the movie. There were a few rated R topless scenes (including one that I both strongly suspect and hope were prosthetics for Rose Byrne. When you see it you will understand) to keep things interesting and the final scene with Zac and Seth both topless was pretty amazing.
The story is basically the ultimate nightmare of suburban college town living. Mac Radner (Seth Rogan-This is the End, Guilt Trip, 50/50) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne-the Internship, X-Men First Class, 28 Weeks Later) live in suburbia with their super cute infant daughter Stella (played by twin babies Ellise and Zoey Vargas. Kind of a clever way of getting more work out of a baby actor. No other credits, obviously, unless they did some indy “in the womb” piece). Their life seems pristine and Mac still gets to spark the owl with his work stoner buddy Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz-the Awesomes, Eastbound and Down, the Mindy Project).
The house next door gets sold to a frat led by president Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron-the Lucky One, the Paper Boy, At Any Price) and vice pres Pete (Dave Franco-21 Jump Street, Now You See Me, Warm Bodies). The Radners head over to try to make nice and seem to do well. The frat is dedicated to partying epically on all levels and throws a huge one that night. Mac and Kelly head over to ask nicely for them to turn down the music and Teddy is accommodating, even inviting them in to join the party. The two of them rage until dawn (newborn babies sleep all night with epically loud techno music playing next door, right?) and Teddy and Mac bond.
Unfortunately the next night there is another party and they have to call the police. The worst cop ever shows up and rats out the Radners. At that point it becomes a fragmented Animal House with Mac in the role of Dean Wormer. He tries to go to the dean of the school (played very unconvincingly by Lisa Kudrow. Sorry Lisa. I do love you but you looked like you were attending the frat parties, not regulating them. I mean that as a compliment. -Friends, Analyze This, Easy A) who is more motivated to control bad press than make sure students get a quality eduction. Sit com-style episodes start rolling down the chute. Mac finds Stella chewing on a condom, he busts a pipe and floods the frat house basement, the frat makes molds of their erect penises and uses them to sell sex toys (I’m sure that joke looked a lot funnier on paper, and by on paper I mean rolling paper) in order to pay for the damage, Kelly manages to force a wedge between Pete and Teddy, yada yada yada.
Honestly things just keep going until party Armageddon. Eventually everything comes to a head and then later sort of resolves itself in a very tepid and unsatisfying way.
The stars:
Some really funny moments. Two stars. Acting was in general pretty good. One star. Rose Byrne in particular killed it. One star. I thought the sub plot of Teddy and Pete having a serious bromance and facing growing up was better done and more interesting than the main story. Kind of wish they had played that one out more. One star. Every woman in this film was at least super hot (especially Rose. I don’t see any mention of a husband on IMDB. Hmm. Rose if you are reading this and are single it would be my honor to take you out to the most romantic dinner $27 can buy. Tweet me). One star. Some brief but nice topless shots (the Rose one is a wash at best however. It almost earned this film a black hole). One star. If you enjoy watching young people party their asses off and drug/booze humor works for you welcome to Nirvana. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes:
I don’t know about you but I find it very difficult to identify with stupid protagonists. One black hole. After a while the set pieces got old and I found myself yearning for an actual story. One black hole. If this were real life there would be legitimate concern for the safety of the baby and that is something I don’t consider funny. One black hole. I really, really want to black hole this movie for Zac Efron but honestly he did an admirable job (and I secretly suspect he could be cool to hang with). I also want to black hole this film for showing kids having more fun in 10 minutes of college than I had in five years (word to the wise, kids. If you want to enjoy college choose any other UC than Irvine. Really, who wants to call themselves an Anteater anyway?) but this is where I put on my grown up reviewer pants and keep my personal bias out of it. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of five stars, which for me puts it at the bottom of the good category (mediocre tends to be 3 stars down to 2 black holes. I honestly don’t know why but that is how it seems to work out). Should you see it? Sober? Maybe. Drunk and/or stoned? Absolutely. This is a film that will seem 100 times better if you can blaze up and loc it in the parking lot with a fifth of vodka and a pint of orange juice prior. Date movie? Sure. Nothing here to creep her out and if she finds this funny it might help. On the other hand every second she sees Zac Efron with his shirt off (and there are a lot of them) you are bleeding sex appeal so maybe not. Bathroom break? Any of the Dean meetings could be missed with impunity assuming you saw Animal House and understand how double secret probation works (although in this case it’s three strikes).
Thanks for reading as always. The film world still in Spider-Man recovery so not a lot more to see. I think I will try to catch up on some smaller fish that slipped my net, but I have two shows back to back the next two weekends (Big Wow in San Jose and Kublacon in Burlingame. If you are going to be at either stop by and say hi) and that always screws up my writing schedule. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (<–Rose take note) or email questions and suggestions to [email protected]. Comments on this film or my review can be left right here. Have a great weekend.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
The Quiet Ones Review
A horror movie sans horror.
While I am an aficionado of all things zombie and sci fi, horror is not a category I can comfortably call myself an expert in (I see zombie movies and horror movies as entirely different categories BTW. I’d be happy to discuss the difference with anyone who actually cares). 
Friday the 13 and Halloween never actually did much for me. I like stories where the protagonists have a chance to fight back, not be hung on a meat hook by an immortal force of nature. (Halloween image courtesy of the Horror Movie T shirt category)
(Incidentally, meat hooks and things hanging from them is something I am way too familiar with. My father was a meat cutter and I spent an unhealthy chunk of my childhood surrounded by dead animals and insanely sharp knives. Good thing I’m so well adjusted today. You know, quiet fellow. Keep to myself for the most part).
That being said I am not illiterate in this area. I have seen most of the classic horror films and understand what works or doesn’t work for them. More importantly I understand what works and doesn’t work for film in general, and unfortunately there is less that works than doesn’t work here.
I’m not happy to say that as I am a fan of Hammer films. They made a name for themselves in the B movie horror film arena with such classics as the Vampire Lovers, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, The Devil Rides Out, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, The Plague of Zombies, Vampire Circus, Hands of the Ripper, and the Camp on Blood Island. Most of these are weirdly amazing and super fun to watch with some friends and some beers on a Saturday afternoon. More recently they have tried to break into bigger budget, bigger name films with the Woman in Black and Let Me In with mixed results.
I won’t say this film was bad. Just that there was an absence of good. The film focused on building suspense to a denouement that really wasn’t a whole lot more exciting than the rest of the film. The “horror” was mainly derived from found footage style surprises, like “wouldn’t it be surprising if we were watching a possessed woman on 8mm film and all of a sudden the nearby radiator blew up with a loud bang?”. Off camera bumps, knocks, and things happening out of the shot or suddenly flying across the screen in a blur that ends up showing you nothing is not the zenith of horror making in my opinion. The net result of this constant build up to next to nothing was 98 minutes that dragged for 92 of them, with lots of time spent watching the creepy professor smoke and bitch his students out.
I also have an issue with the whole “found footage” aspect of this film in that if you are going to commit commit. You can’t go parachuting and hang from the planes landing gear for an hour and a half. The camera shifted back and forth from what was being “shot” by Brian, the camera guy, and a regular film camera. Very little attempt was made to make the shot footage look like it was one on a single camera in 1974 so the shift back and forth really did nothing for the film. They should have either gone all found footage or just blown the whole thing off. Also the sound was flawless in spite of the fact that there was no sound guy. SPOILER ALERT Given that all the found footage was reportedly destroyed by the end of the film it made this aspect even more annoying.
A lot has been said about this film being taken from a true story but if so perhaps there is a reason most movies are written from fiction. The scientist was kind of either comically evil or laughable stupid. The rest of the cast was Shaggy and a slutty Wilma from Scooby Doo, a straight man, and the possessed girl herself. As a whole they seemed like complete idiots in that they didn’t all bug out the first time random evil crap started happening around them. No real reason was given for anyone other than the professor and the possessed girl to hang around, and characters with no sense of self preservation make for incredibly lame protagonists.
Of course regular readers should remember that I hate the ’70s with a burning passion so that definitely colored some of my perception. I think I was fair in my assessment of the film regardless of that. For the record given a choice between traveling back on time to the 70’s or the Great Plague I would have to give serious consideration to London in 1665. At least they didn’t wear bellbottom pants suits.
The story. It starts off with Professor Joseph Coupland of Oxford (Jared Harris-Natural Born Killers, Lincoln, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. By the way, the “real” story they took this from happened in Toronto. I guess the film need the most prestigious university ever to make it work. It makes more sense to me that weirdness like this would come from the Great White North. Hail to our Canadian nerd brethren! You guys rock!) hiring a camera guy named Brian (Sam Claflin-Snow White and the Huntsmen, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) to document a study of a girl he believes to be manifesting ghosts and apparitions with her mind using “dark energy” (? Oil? The theoretical glue of the universe? A generator powered by burning babies? What is dark energy?). His is assisted by tech geek Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne-Vampire Academy, Stealaway) and super blond and slutty ill defined scientist of some kind Krissi (Erin Richards-Open Grave, Breaking In, Being Human).
He introduces him to the subject Jane (Olivia Cooke-Bates Motel, the Signal, Ouija), who looks exactly like she is possessed by an evil spirit that seriously wants to kill everyone. They are recording her with some kind of electronic devices while forcing her to stay awake with the help of Cum on Feel the Noize by Slade. She is sort of a prisoner with no privacy and sort of a volunteer. Joseph’s plan is to force her evil, dark energy filled side out and some how remove it (he is truly short on explanations on how he intends to do anything other than torture the girl and get his grad students killed. At one point he seriously said something about harnessing the dark energy and I swear I thought he was going to add a maniacal laugh and the words “then take over the world!” but that might have made the film interesting). He also thinks that if he can cure Jane he can cure everyone in the world with mental problems (what, and put my poor therapist out of work?).
They lose their funding from Oxford and have to move out to some super creepy house to avoid all the noise complaints. At that point the film turns into about 75 minutes of bad X-Files episodes. You know, the ones where every few minutes you think you are about to see something super cool and interesting but it turns out to be a damned cat? Interesting stuff almost happens a lot, and on the rare occasion something happens it is always off screen. There are some dopey twists and betrayals. I won’t spoil the ending but I was more glad the film was over than anything else.
The stars:
I don’t know. Both of the girls were super hot, and you almost see them naked in a very PG-13 way. One star. I will give credit for an original setting. You don’t see a lot of horror movies set in England. Usually they are outside of some bumbling Bible belt cow town. One star. I do appreciate stories derived from reality. One star. Given an original idea and their obvious attempt to move from the straight-to-DvD world I will award Hammer Films one more star as an A for effort. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes:
Nothing in this film is remotely new or interesting. Recycled from a ton of other films. One black hole. Pacing sluggish as hell. I’ve seen raw security camera footage of nothing happening that seemed better paced. 98 minutes that felt like 198. One black hole. The whole “found footage, not found footage” thing was annoying. Make up your mind. One black hole. Everything that might have been interesting happened off camera. Honestly I think they did it to keep their PG-13 rating. One black hole. A distinct lack of motivation, as in why the hell didn’t any of these people decide being far away from this weird ass girl was more in line with their interest in breathing? I’ll buy people sticking around a dangerous situation as long as you give me some form of excuse as to why. One black hole. At the end of the film I really didn’t know what point was being made. Was she possessed or not? Did she manifest everything with her mind? Was the professor right? One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of one black hole. For me that’s at the low end of mediocre. The film is not irredeemable. Had they tightened up the pacing and given us some actual events prior to the last 10 minutes I might have been much more engaged. However, if you have seen any 10 horror films and the Blair Witch Project you have seen this film. I’d say see it when you are bored at home with nothing else to do. Date movie? Not really. Bathroom break? There’s a scene towards the end when Brian goes back to Oxford for more film or something but really spends a ton of time doing research at the library. Nothing he is doing is explained while he does it and he later reveals everything anyway.
Thanks for reading. Hitting a dearth of film lately. I saw a couple recently and never got around to writing them up so maybe I will do one of those tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Email me any off topic questions or suggestions and if you have a comment on this film or my review feel free to leave it here. Talk to you soon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
