Movie Review: Attack the Block
Invasion of the midnight black bugbears (why doesn’t spell check call me on that word?)
This movie is one that my friend Dave has been asking me to see and review. I kind of regret not doing it sooner. It wasn’t great, but it was a lot better than most of the movies I have reviewed recently (cough cough Conan the Barbarian cough cough) and I enjoyed watching it. Generally a good experience.
There is one issue I have with this movie, and it is one that has plagued me ever since I started watching Guy Ritchie films: I have a very hard time taking gangsters and gang members with British accents, especially Cockney, seriously or at all threatening. A Cockney accent makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy, and having some guy spout out hard core gangster dialog just makes me giggle. The disparity is like learning that your sweet grandmother is a five star general and listen to her order men to their deaths. It’s just funny.
I guess the disparity stems in part from having lived around some actual bad ass guys (did I mention I have lived in Oakland for 10 years now?) and seeing them all the time in American movies. Also, the relative rarity of guns in the UK makes crime over there seem somehow less threatening and more amusing. I know for sure that this is just a messed up perception on my part, and if I were on the wrong street in South London I would probably get my ass handed to me pretty quick by guys who sound a lot like Benny Hill. Nevertheless, there it is.
By the way, I do take Irish accents to be pretty serious, but that might be from some of my older family.
Anyway, Attack the Block. Since it is almost out of theaters and wasn’t in a lot of them in the first place I am going to assume most of you will not see it and feel a little free with spoiler, so you might want to skip this next paragraph if you plan to seek it out. Anyway, a gang of youthful hooligans mugs a young girl. During the course of their crime a meteor crashes into a nearby parked car. It contains a very small (pretty much Gremlin sized) alien who attacks the leader of the hooligans. They chase it, kill it, and walk around London carrying it like a trophy. Turns out the little one they killed was a precursor for a swarm of others, all the size of a black bear with midnight black fur (cough cough easy CGI cough cough) and glowing green teeth. They are after anyone who has had contact with the first alien (there is a reason for this, but I won’t spoil that much). 
Alien-esque hijinks ensue. Guys get killed. Aliens get killed with a number of improvised weapons. The mugging victim ends up teamed up with the kids. Some annoying pre-teens show up and do annoying stuff. (Alien image courtesy of the science fiction t shirt category)
The stars. Independent film. One star. Nick Frost. One star. Reasonably believable story. One star. The main group of young teenage hooligans rang really true and acted pretty well for young actors, especially the main one, John Boyega. One star. Story conclusion was well done and hardly smacked of deus ex machina at all. The characters worked hard for it. One star. The girl was really cute, but they didn’t try to crowbar in any kind of dumb romance to gum up the story (this is why I love independent films). One star. The dialog, once you got around understanding all the Cockney, was well done and had some really funny lines. One star. Impressive production values for an independent. One star. The one comic relief character was actually comic relief without being freaking annoying or changing the tone of the film. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Alien invaders without any kind of technology. Basically it was like being invaded by a bunch of bears. One black hole. Two little kids kept surfacing and harshing my buzz by being annoying. One black hole. After a while the fact that the kids managed to kill aliens over and over again with basically kitchen knives and the like gets less and less believable. One black hole. That’s it. Three black holes.
I have a couple things in the irksome category. For one, the CGI wasn’t the best I have seen lately. However, I am not going to ding them on it as it is an independent and I have seen really polished Hollywood CGI delivering total crap to us lately. Also, throughout most of the movie I couldn’t help but think these invaders could only pull this off in England, as if they landed in the USA our glorious nine guns per ten citizens ratio would have put paid to melee dependent aliens toot sweet.
So a total of six stars. Nice film, and it’s always good to see a film come out of something other than the Hollywood orifice. If you can still catch it in a theater I recommend you do so. If not put in on your NetFlix.
Movie review: Tree of Life
Film of Boredom
Look, given what I have read by other, more accomplished film critics about this movie my review is going to make me look like a knuckle dragging, low brow inbred white trash moron who can only be entertained by big explosions and bare breasts on the screen. That may well be the case, but the fact is I studied art in college, and took a lot of film and video classes. I know a few things about film theory. I love French surrealist films. Film symbolism and subtle nuance is rarely lost on me. A good independent film is a joy for me, and when I go into one that I know doesn’t conform to the Hollywood model I really try to reset my perception to look for intentions and symbolism I might not see in a movie about a super hero.
As you might have gathered from this so far, Tree of Life was not what I expected, and that’s because what I expected at some point during the movie was SOMETHING. Nothing happens during the entirety of the film. This film as like if you spliced some of the more acid induced elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey with someone’s home movies. There is no plot. There is no protagonist. There is no point. You spend two and half hours (that felt like six hours) alternating between asking “What the frak?” and praying for something, anything to happen. Hell, by the end of it I would have been happy to have had someone pull the fire alarm in the theater. (What the frak image courtesy of the tv show t shirt category).
You know, I realized about 2/3rds of the way through this opus that, if, while in school I had come across 1,000 hours of someone’s home videos and a $2,000,000 CGI effects budget this is probably the the video art project I would have come up with, for which I would have deservedly gotten a B-. For me it screams self indulgent vanity piece, which is weird because most directors do a vanity piece after they do several dozen decent movies, not four, most of which no one has ever seen (the Thin Red Line being the only one of his films I had seen previously and honestly kind of liked it).
I was so perplexed by this that I actually listened to a couple interviews with the actors in the film and found out that the director, Terry Malick, didn’t really have a script or dialog so much as he would give the actors lines as they filmed it, and allowed them to improvise as they saw fit. This actually makes a lot of sense. There is very little actual dialog in the film and what there is seems really unpolished. Instead we get to see a ton of slow panning shots of Brad Pitt’s face shot from under his chin, a lot of Stand By Me style scenes of young boys running around playing and breaking stuff, a lot of mommy bonding with babies and boys while dad is more or less abusing, and a lot of Evil Captain Kirk shot up from the ground two feet in front of him stumbling around as Sean Penn has a mental breakdown. I have said several times that this movie is like watching home movies, and that appears to be exactly how it was shot.
I won’t say it didn’t elicit emotion, as long as depression, boredom, and confusion are emotions. The movie starts off with the parents dealing with the death of a son, and then starts flashing back all over the place. The thing is, home movies can be fun and whimsical, kind of like watching the Wonder Years, but the fact that we start off knowing that one of the three boys is destined to die casts a terrible pall over every scene that follows, and you spend the entire movie wondering which of them it is going to be. Can there be anything more depressing than watching a loving mother bonding with her infant and toddler sons, knowing that in a few years one of them will be tragically killed in some ill defined manner? Of course by the end of the film I was praying for any of the characters to die, if only to break up the monotony.
Sigh. The story, for lack of a better term. The film starts off with Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain playing Mr. and Mrs. O’Brian, a typical 1950’s couple who receive the horrible news that one of their three boys has been killed. Since the news is delivered via telegram I can only assume it was in Korea or Vietnam. We get to sit through some disjointed funeral and dealing with death scenes, which for Mr. O’Brian seems to involve watering his lawn. There are some early references to Job and some highly pretentious voice over passages that all seem to be very Bible related, so I think there was something about the whole “why do bad things happen to good people?” debate in this. Anyway, we are treated to a red lava lamp (that recurs several times) that I think is supposed to represent the creator and suddenly are whipped back to the beginning of time and the creation of the universe. At this point I really wasn’t sure what was going on and had heard someone describe this film as science fiction, so my interest perked in the hope we were actually on a another planet and the dead son was going to be reincarnated as an alien, but sadly this was not to be the case. Instead we were treated to a long zero purpose montage of the creation of our planet from a flaming ball of lava to single celled organism, evolving into fish and eventually into the dinosaurs on the planet. I am not kidding. Basically we got to watch discovery channel for 20 minutes.
I said the dinosaur sequence was a montage, but honestly the entire film is a montage. It is a long (long, long) string of disconnected scenes mashed together with no attempt to have any scenes connect in any way, or for the matter have even a few of the scenes have any plot points or story significance. I doubt there is much dead footage on the cutting room floor, as Terry pretty much shoved in any scene where they didn’t accidentally shoot the boom mike. Anyway, flash forward a few hundred million years and it’s the 50’s in Waco, Texas. The O’Brians are starting their family and have three sons, who rapidly grow up to late pre-teens and pretty much stay there for the rest of the film. You occasionally flash forward even more to modern New York where Sean Penn plays some kind of architect or business owner. He is one of the sons grown up and apparently haunted by the death of his brother, so every time you start to feel even a little warm and fuzzy watching idyllic 1950’s you get a nice reminder of the impending death of one of the three precocious kids. Also, at one point he starts having acid trips and is somehow in his suit out in the desert. The scenes jump around purposelessly. Sometimes it is Brad Pitt as Wally Cleaver, being a great dad. Sometimes it is him being my dad, authoritarian and borderline abusive. Sometimes it is the boys playing, then fighting, then wrecking stuff, then getting into trouble. The thing is every time you think one of these scenes is going to develop into something, it doesn’t. There is a scene where Jack, the oldest boy, seems to have a crush on a girl from school and follows her after school. OMG is something interesting going to happen? No, lets cut to another scene of the boys chasing a frog around and never see the girl again. Jack hates his father in a classic Oedipal complex (I’d like to give the movie some credit for delivering that concept in a subtle manner, but at one point the kid pretty much shouts out that he hates his dad and that his mother only loves him). You see a scene where Mr. O’Brian is working under a car with just a flimsy jack holding it up. The kid is tempted to release the jack, possibly killing his own father. Wow, could this actually get interesting? No, lets show the kid running off and hitting a tree with a stick.
This goes on and on and on. There is a lot of weird crap thrown in too, like a repeating scene of young Jack being inside the house that is flooded and swimming out, and a recurring scene of underwater grass waving. Not sure what that was about. Eventually Sean Penn is in a scene of a bunch of people on a beach, including his dead brother and (possibly dead) mother. I guess it is supposed to be the reuniting of the dead in heaven? I spent the last hour or so praying for the credits to start rolling and then, with no apparently real conclusion or purpose, they do.
The stars. Brad Pitt. One star. Sean Penn. One star. Authentic 1950’s stuff. One star. Reasonably accurate portrayal of what young boys do when left to their own devices. One star. Some very cool old cars. One star. I’d like to give the acting a star, but really I can’t say that is so as none of the dialog scenes actually extend past two or three lines. The director could have easily just taken the top 1% of the scenes they filmed and dumped the rest to make more room for dinosaurs. I will refrain. The film and camera work were actually pretty good. One star. Total: six stars.
Now the black holes. I have to give a couple for the time I spent in the film asking “What the hell is going on?” Two black holes. Bored. Bored bored bored bored bored. Three black holes. No real plot. Two black holes. They kept flashing back to the acid trip lava lamp creator of the universe. One black hole. No real dialog. One black hole. No protagonist. One black hole. Disjointed editing. On black hole. Pacing from hell. One black hole. The actual points I think was trying to be made about either the creation of life, man’s insignificance in the universe, or the injustice of bad things happening to good people were all actually pretty prosaic, not to mention poorly delivered. One black hole. Purposeless journey to the Land of the Lost. One black hole. Total: fourteen black holes.
A less than grand total of eight black holes from me. Why, then, the disparity between this review and so many others? You see, I think this is a prime case of the Emporor’s New Clothes syndrome. This film won the prestigious Cannes’ Palme d’Or award. Cannes’ Film Festival is held in such high regard that no one who has a serious career in movie reviewing can risk going against the consensus of the film intellectual elite. Thus, every critic must say something good about it. Fortunately for you readers I have no serious film reviewing career and can say what I really feel, which is that this film was a steaming pile of pretentious crap. I don’t know. Maybe I am a moron and am missing something beuatiful and deep, but I can only review films based on my actual film viewing experience, and that experience was that at some point during the film I was wondering if the green Exit signs in the theater had actual batteries in them that needed replacing or if they used rechargeable ones they just kept charged up from the power grid. I guess on some level I sort of get what Mr. Malick was going for, and will say he managed to nail the atmosphere brilliantly, but overall I feel like I just watch two hours of random videos off YouTube.
Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Or, I now know which movie from 2011 I most want to own in DvD.
This movie was Smurfing great! (Sorry, I’m still channeling the Smurfs review from a couple days ago). I really can’t say enough good things about it. It’s suspenseful, exciting, well acted, and the apes are unbelievable. I don’t know what kind of pact the animators signed with dark powers to give them the ape visuals, but really stunning.
I don’t mean to gush, but the fact it this is one of the first times in a long time I have been excited by a movie trailer only to find the actual movie exceeds my expectations. Normally I see a really good trailer and am plagued with the thought “That could be decent” only to leave the theater feeling like I vomited in my mouth an hour ago and can still taste a little of it. This film, however, had me leaving the theater just tasting the wholesome goodness of a great movie (and popcorn).
I’m not going to get into the story too much, as most of it can be derived from the trailer alone and also, if you don’t go see this film as soon as possible (like right after reading this review) then you are an idiot of the highest caliber (by the way, I’m still pissed off at movie going America for letting the Smurfs beat out Cowboys and Aliens opening weekend. Really?). Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an origin story without all the origin problems that I have talked about plaguing other origin movies (too focused on the origin of one character, completing the origin in the first half only to have to find a way to fill up the second half, etc.). I actually looked at a couple reviews by other writers (something I really only do for movies that I absolutely love, in case I missed some issue while drifting in my fan boy bliss) and one guy came up with a word that really sums it up nicely: organic. The story is organic and everything that happens seems to happen in a natural order for a completely believable reason.
Anyway, if you have seen the trailer and/or watched Charlton Heston yell at the Statue of Liberty than you know the basic story. Couple minor spoilers coming up so if you get upset at those just skip ahead a little. James Franco plays a biochemist working on an Alzheimer cure in a lab, but the story really isn’t about him. It is about Cesar, the research chimp that he rescues and takes home from his lab. Cesar was infected with the retrovirus the was being worked on to develop the brain cure. He shows unusual intelligence as he grows up. Meanwhile the research 
continues and gets better. Cesar grows up in a loving home but is smart enough to realize he does not have the same rights or identity as the humans. Eventually he attacks a jerk neighbor (played by David Hewlett, of Stargate Atlantis, who plays a jerk better than pretty much anyone else. Dr. Rodney McKay image from the science fiction t shirt category) and gets locked up in a shelter, where he is more or less mistreated by the local white trash handler. It time he escapes, gets a hold of the newer, improved brain cure, and gives it to his other chimp buddies. It might sound a little far fetched, but it all makes total sense when you see it. Ape hijinks ensues. Stuff gets blown up. The apes go a little nuts.
First the stars. Planet of the Apes. One star. The ape animation was so, absolutely freaking good. One star. The pacing and flow of the movie couldn’t be more perfect. One star. You can actually see the humanization of the apes, particularly Cesar, as the movie progresses. Believe it or not, but towards the end you can literally see subtle nuance in the facial expressions of the apes. One star. Great story. One star. They managed to reference the original movie multiple times (Apes on horseback, a barely mentioned but significant missing manned space flight to Mars, even the famous Charlton Heston phrase) without rubbing our faces in it like certain other, lamer directors like to do (suck it, Lucas). One star. The human acting was good. One star. They guy the got to do the motion capture for Cesar was un-freaking-believable. Also, as a baby and young chimp he is super duper cute. Two stars. Jonathon Lithgow (Third Rock from the Sun). One star. James Franco’s vet girlfriend (Frieda Pinto) was so hot she had me channeling my inner primate, if you know what I mean. One star. Somehow the director took a movie about the fall of the human race and made me feel good when the apes won. One star. David Hewlett. One star. And two bonus stars for just a damned good movie. Total: fourteen stars.
As for black holes, I spent a lot of time last night and this morning wracking my brain, but to be honest, can’t seem to find any. I suppose an argument could be made that the apes seemed to go out of their way to try to not kill humans, at least until the end, but that could just be a reflection of Cesar growing up with humans. Another point could be raised out of the fact that, while it was very cool that it was set in San Francisco, there was a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense to a local. We really don’t get mosquitoes, and there is a scene of a guy getting bit by one. We also don’t have a lot of issues with animal cruelty at shelters as there are several hundred thousand animal rights activists who would probably draw and quarter anyone guilty of that. But these are minor and, in a lesser film, would be put in the “irksome but not black hole worthy” category. I won’t disrespect this film with those.
So a grand total of 14 stars, tying for my top score to date. Honestly, see this movie. You will enjoy the hell out of it and hopefully encourage movie makers to keep on doing great films that don’t suck.
On the other hand, for films that I fully expect to suck look for a review for the Change Up later this weekend. This has suck written all over it. Also, I saw another of the Harry Potter movies last night and will continue with my marathon this weekend. Talk to you soon.
Movie Review: Cowboys and Aliens
Before I get into this review of an excellent movie, I want to mention getting one of my pet peeves kicked in the balls before the start of the movie. I went to the mens room to take care of my business and there saw some dirtbag use the urinal and then leave with nary soap nor water touching his hands. You, sir, are the reason we all get sick every year and I hope you catch a cold a week until you learn to wash your hands.
By the way, I say pet peeve but really, if this doesn’t peeve you then you can join your unwashed dirt bag friend down in the sewer. This should be everyone’s peeve.
Anyway, Cowboys and Aliens. Really, really fun. It’s that simple. I mean, it’s a movie about cowboys and aliens! How could that possible go wrong? Well, any number of ways, but fortunatly for the hapless reviewers who have to sit through every piece of tripe that comes down the pike, it doesn’t. John Favreau manages to forge a great genre film out of two different genre’s. All around a positive experience. (Alien image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
I really don’t want to get into the story on this one, as everyone needs to see it and I don’t want to send out any spoilers. I’ll talk about the stuff you should have already picked up from the trailer. Daniel Craig wakes up in the Arizona desert with some kind of bracelet on his wrist and amnesia. He is a very stereotypical high desert lone bad ass, and proves it in the first few minutes. He heads into town where he runs into the rest of the Western stereotypical character types. There’s the grizzled sheriff, the grizzled rich rancher who really runs the town (Harrison Ford), his wimpy, obnoxious son, the upscale fish-out-of-water big town guy who runs the saloon and doesn’t know how to use a gun, the hot gunslinger girl, the Native American raised by whites, and the grizzled preacher. In fact the word grizzled can be applied to pretty much every male character in this film. All of them are really stereotypical, but honestly it’s what we expect from a cowboy movie and so actually adds to the enjoyment of the film. Of course, great acting and directing help keep them from becoming annoying.
Aliens show up and start abducting people (anal-probe-a-go-go). Daniel Craig’s bracelet turns out to be a weapon that he uses to shoot down one of them. Other alien/cowboy hijinks ensues. His memory comes back in flashbacks. Native Americans are portrayed as savage killers and then noble warriors. A near inexhaustible supply of cowboys get killed by aliens. Stuff blows up. Other stuff happens. I really don’t want to spoil anything, so I will leave it here. Short review for me, I guess.
The stars. Cowboy movie. One star. Alien movie. One star. Well written story with no visible plot holes. Two stars. Daniel Craig. One star. Harrison Ford. One star. All around great acting. One star. The aliens looked bad ass and their CGI was excellent. One star. Great special effects. One star. Scenery was over the top good. One star. Olivia Wilde was looking pretty good. One star. Generally a fun experience. Two stars. Total: thirteen stars.
Then, because I am a bitter soul who can’t let even a great movie go without dumping on it a little, the black holes. There were a couple of sequences about 1/3 of the way through that kind of dragged. It might be just in comparison to all the other action packed scenes they lagged, but I definitely felt it. One black hole. The aliens motivation for coming to Earth was kind of stupid and childish. One black hole. The writers all obviously had a huge slice of deus ex machine pie before writing the ending. One black hole. Cowboy henchmen who continuously respawn like monsters from a monster generator in Gauntlet. One black holes. Total: 4 black holes.
I don’t have any irksome-but-not-blackhole-worthy items, but I will talk a bit about one limitation from the entirety of the film. It is fun and entertaining, but makes no pretense at being anything more than that. I’m not in the business of telling a great director like John Favreau how to make a movie, but I think that if he had added some plot element to the movie other than the main story it would have made for a deeper meaning. Maybe the aliens might have had a more complex motivation for attacking Earth, or maybe they could have landed in the middle of some big conflict between the cowboys and the Native Americans. Some kind of fight between cow and sheep herders or the like. While the characters were all very good and well developed, it was the story itself that felt 2 dimensional. Very linear with no variance whatsoever. Even the whole “You’re an outlaw we are going to hang you” conflict was resolved in about 30 seconds with hardly any discussion at all. Harrison Ford’s character was portrayed as a brutal hard ass who would destroy anything that got in his way, but after the first 20 minutes never had a chance to display that quality. Again, great movie, but I think it could have been better.
Final score of 10 stars and my hearty recommendation that you all see it in a theater. You will be entirely entertained. Not good date material, but if your girl is a fan of Daniel Craig at all it might work.
Anyway, no posts until Monday. I have a Warhammer tournament I am playing in this weekend. Then I get to watch all the Harry Potter films back to back. At some point I plan to suffer through the new Smurfs film (at the request of my best friend. Thanks a lot, Dave) and review that one, so don’t be surprised if my next movie review has me feeling a little blue (haw!). Also, I need to do my next Star Trek retrospective. Unfortunately I have run out of the good movies to do and am now left with the dregs, starting with Generations. Ugh.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 6: the Undiscovered Country.
I admit I have been putting this off a bit, as this is the last of the “good” Star Trek movies. After this the franchise stops circling the drain and finally goes down. By no small coincidence it was directed by Nicholas Meyer, the man responsible for all the best Star Trek films. They were pretty much done with the actors directing films by this point, although Nimoy did a decent job. (The Undiscovered Country image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirt category)
I have fond memories of this film, and enjoyed seeing it. However, this film really drove home the fact that instead of the young action figures I was used to seeing I was watching some older men kind of fumble around on the screen. When James Doohan was the one to save the day at the end I knew the action days of the Star Trek crew were pretty much over (we’ll talk about Kirk fighting it out with Malcolm McDowell in Generations later).
What was happening in 1991? Well, I was a sophomore in my second try at college. I was grinding my way through the mechanical engineering program and hating it (I would later switch to Studio Art). We attacked Iraqi forces in Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm (good thing we were done there and never had to go back. Oh, wait…). Iraq also agreed to eliminate all WMD’s and, as far as all evidence since has shown, complied. Russia has its first free elections and votes in Boris Yeltsin. A big fire in my home town of Oakland, CA burns thousands of houses. The Prime Minister of India, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandh, is assassinated. South Africa adopts a new constitution that was multicultural. The Balkan war started. Mike Tyson was arrested and charged with rape. The phrase “going postal” started up by a postal worker shooting up a bunch of people. Freddie Mercury died of AIDS. The Rodney King video tape is shown. The Internet is opened to the public and has over 1 million computers on it (ha ha ha ha aha ha). The first web browser is released.
Movies were kind of ok. Good ones included T2: Judgement Day, Silence of the Lambs, Backdraft, Father of the Bride, and Thelma and Louise. Less good ones include Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Hook, the Addams Family, Beethoven, Beauty and the Beast, and the Naked Gun 2 1/2: the Smell of Fear. Popular music included Pearl Jam, Brian Addams, Phil Collins, Guns ‘n Roses, Metallica, Gloria Estephan, R.E.M., U2, Van Halen, the Clash, Garth Brooks, and Nirvana.
So, the Undiscovered Country. The Klingon moon Praxis (by the way, there is a series of books called Dread Empires Fall that talks about the Praxis as a philosophy. Great science fiction, especially if you like space battles that actually take most real physics into account) blows up and more or less wrecks the Klingon Empire. They sue for peace and send Kirk to transport the Klingon ambassador even though it is known that he hates the Klingons for killing his son David, who he knew for all of 2 weeks or so. Kirk is framed for killing the guy, and surrenders to the Klingons. He and McCoy are convicted and sentenced to a prison gulag. Some prison stuff happens, including an attempted escape with the help of a shapeshifter who really plans to kill them. Spock beams them out after he discovers what really happened. They find two assassins dead but trick their accomplice to reveal herself. Turns out it was Samantha from Sex and the City. Anyway, a bunch of Klingon, Romulan, and Federation officers are working together in a conspiracy to prevent the treaty that would allow them all to work together(?). The crew finds the cloaked Bird of Prey that did the original attack and blow it up. They all beam down to the conference and save the presidents life.
What it had:
The full crew. Captain Sulu. Captain Spock. Captain Scott(? I guess all the S names got promoted). Some cool space battles. A decently complicated plot that didn’t drive me berserk. Some decent humor. An illustration of the bonds of friendship between the crew that was organic and not shoved down our pie holes in the form of an awkward dumb speech made around a campfire. A dumb cameo by Christian Slater. Super hot Imam as the shape shifter. A shockingly large number of minor continuity failures. A generally good movie experience.
What it didn’t have:
Sulu on the bridge with the rest of the crew. That’s pretty much it. I can’t think of a lot from this one.
So a very positive experience, especially given the dross we were forced to watch in the last one. Unfortunately this would be the last positive Star Trek film experience, pretty much for ever (and don’t give me any crap about the J.J. Abrams movie. If you are really a Star Trek fan than you know it’s garbage). I warn you now that the following retrospectives, starting with (de)Generations, are going to take a much darker and bitter tone so if you feel you need positivity in your life you might want to skip them. It’ll be a couple more posts before I get to it, especially since I am about to go see Friends with Benifits and expect it to burn up my bile reserves pretty easily.
Movie Review: Transformers Dark of the Moon 3D
…Or, Transforming a Franchise that Sucks into Something Moderately Tolerable
Do any of you remember a couple weeks ago when I reviewed Super 8 and said the train explosion was so big it would have embarrassed Micheal Bey? I rescind that statement. There isn’t an explosion big enough for Micheal Bey. If he could figure out a way to have an explosion explode he would. I am totally convinced that if he weren’t a movie director he would be a serial arsonist.
Before I get into this review, let me reiterate this point. In Transformers Dark of the Moon EVERYTHING blows up. A snake like Decepticon punches through a corrugated steel warehouse wall. The wall blows up. An Autobot punches a concrete wall. The concrete blows up. A ship filled with giant robots who have no need whatsoever for any kind of atmosphere crashes on the airless moon and in spite of the fact that there is no oxygen present and never will be still manages to blow up in flames. In the world in Micheal Beys head everything is made of plastique, TNT, and nitroglycerin.
Anyway, the movie. Was it better than Revenge of the Fallen? Yes, but that is like asking if losing one testicle in a tragic lawn mower accident is better than two. Better does not equal good. Is it exciting and fun? Yeah, kinda. Are there any problems? Oh, yeah.
The major problem the movie suffers from is the same problem the other two suffer from: too much of the humans and not enough of the Transformers. In my mind the scenes with humans are like the “acting” scenes that clutters up otherwise perfectly good porn. You are there for one thing. I liken the scenes like Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) getting bitched out by his parents for not having a job to the scene expositions you get in video games while the next stage is loading. It can be good if you are into the story, but if not it’s a great chance to use the restroom, get a snack, and return some phone calls. This movie actually has a little more Autobot character development, but like another 30 minutes of goofy Sam-trying-to-make-his-way-in-the-world crap.
Speaking of annoying humans, Megan Fox completely flushed her own career by bitching out Michael Bey and has been replaced by the slightly less hot (I really do like brunettes) but less slutty Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who plays Sam’s love interest. It first I thought she was a slightly better actor, but then I realized I was being sucked in by her English accent. The sad fact that anyone with an English non-Cockney accent always sounds better in movies than an American. As the movie progressed I thought she might actually be another human form Transformer like in the last movie as she had a really robotic delivery. Also, her character and motivations to do anything (especially date a whiny loser like Sam Witwicky) are horribly two dimensional, and Micheal Bey might as well be shooting porn with the inventive ways he finds to linger on her body in every scene. I will be the first to admit a little eye candy can add a lot to a movie, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if Micheal Bey were not a movie director or serial arsonist he would be a stalker with a laundry list of restraining orders against him.
Anyway, the story, for lack of a better term. I won’t throw in too many spoilers, but this plot (ah ha ha ha) is so dumb you won’t miss much. Autobots have joined the CIA and are doing covert missions for the USA, or as covert as a 100 foot robot painted bright yellow or red can be. Sam has graduated college and is such a spazmo he can’t find a job (here’s a tip, kids. If you are going to a job interview with a major corporation wearing jeans and a sports coat is a bad idea, even when the job market was good). Somehow he has the hottest girl on the planet in love with him who not only gives him sex but pays all his bills. Over the last couple years of collage he did a transformation of his own, from a kind of cool kid with a cool car into a uptight, whiny bitch with a self important attitude and a tendency to occasionally turn into a loud mouth jerk who thinks yelling will do more than calling ahead. He discovers that the only job an Ivy League graduate can get is in the mail room of an accounting firm (I guess he should have done more internships) in the worst go nowhere sub plot in cinima history. In the second worst go nowhere sub plot in cinema history a fellow coworker (Ken Jeong, Mr. Chow from The Hangover) stalks him and passes on some crotch notes (no joke) about humans being killed all over the world in a homophobic scene that just drags on forever. Anyway, turns out an Autobot ship crashed on the moon and the government knew about it all along. 
They go to the moon and find Sentinel Prime (voiced by the great Leanard Nimoy. Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts category), Optimus’s predecessor. Robot battle hijinks ensues. Most of the world blows up. Sam’s super hot girlfriend manages to avoid the advances of her boss after he gives her a $200,000 car (isn’t love grand?). Between the Autobots, Decepticons, and human military about 14 of the all time worst battle plans are devised.
The stars. Transformers. One star. Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime. One star. Lots of action (the final battle seems to go for like an hour). Two stars. The action is generally great. Two stars. Great special effects and CGI. Two stars. Super hot girl on screen. One star. Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) as Dutch. One star. Megatron comes back from the dead a third time, looking cooler than ever. One star. Two of my favorite Transformers, Shockwave and Soundwave, show up, although only Shockwave gets what I consider a fair treatment. One star. As worthless as his sub plot was, I always enjoy seeing John Malcovich. One star. They didn’t pull back on the killing Transformers (or, for that matter, civilian humans) although as per usual none of the main good guys died. One star. One decent plot twist. One star. Buzz Aldrin makes a cameo. One star. Total: 16 stars.
Now the black holes. Agent Simmons is back, and twice as annoying as he ever was before. One black hole. A whole slew of unnecessary and ultimately worthless sub plots and minor characters. One black hole. I will award one black hole for every ten minutes I feel the audience was subjected to of worthless human interaction (cough cough filler cough cough). Three black holes. Alan Tudyks fake German accent and dialog made me want to stuff Junior Mints into my ears until I could either hear nothing or suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm. He really isn’t great as a straight man. One black hole. More small (even smaller) really annoying comic relief Autobots who may or may not be based on racist stereotypes. Two black holes (one each). As much as I love explosions, I have to award a hole for overuse of pyrotechnics (you know, there are some circumstances where a robot can punch something and not have it blow up). One black hole. Optimus Prime is less the wise sage and more the bloodthirsty jingoist, and at one point has a little hissy fit and sulks. One black hole. Plot holes you could transport Cybertron through (wouldn’t transporting another planet into orbit around our planet more or less destroy both planets? Why say the Autobots have no way of getting off the planet when just a few minutes ago they flew one of their own ships to the moon and found an even bigger ship? If the Decepticons have been working with humans secretly for decades why did they do nothing to help Megatron the last two times he tried to take over the planet and kill the Autobots? Could they really anticipate him coming back to life three times? If every Autobot is equipped with super advanced rockets and can assault with speed why do they need a human team to sneak in and shoot the big bad thing with a lame human rocket launcher? The list goes on). One black hole. They did that thing that annoyed me so much in Battle: LA where the aliens (or in this case, robots) are unstoppable killing machines at the start but by the end of the film are getting knocked over by human spitballs and bad breath (seriously, a few special forces guys were killing them off left and right. If their plan was to conquer the planet it would seem a well equipped army could really put a hurt in their plans. Also, why is it they can shoot down aircraft with practiced ease but are unable to do anything about a few Tomahawk missiles?). One black hole. If there is one the we all learned from 9/11 it’s that buildings with breaks in the middle have little to no structural stability whatsoever. Apparently Michael Bey and all of his writers have no idea how architecture works. One black hole. There is a decided lack of concern for Sam or his girlfriend, as it is painfully obvious that nothing bad is really going to ever happen to them. This sort of action-without-consequences writing really robs the action of any of it’s punch. I would be more excited by a less epic building collapse if I believed that there was a chance someone important or that I had identified with could die. One black hole. Total: 14 black holes.
In the irksome-but-not-black-hole-worth category I have quite a few. The main one has to do with the treatment of the Decepticon characters. One of the great things about the Transformers cartoon was it really was about the Transformers, not the Autobots with the Decepticons as only their enemies. I mean, each of the Decepticons had a distinct personality that was presented almost as much as the Autobots. Megatron as the ruthless general, Starscream as the cowardly and treacherous second-in-command, Soundwave as the loyal and worthwhile minion, etc. In the movie not only is there no attempt to present any of the Decepticons as more than just spear carriers, they all even look exactly the same (silver and spikes are in this season) and are portrayed as growling, animalistic primitives. Second, there was a pretty serious death that was never even mentioned by the good guys. In fact, there was a scene that could have really impacted the audience and eliminated a lot of the action-without-consequences issues had Michale Bey had the balls to shock the audience, but he wimped out. I’m trying to stay done bitching about 3D, but the 3D effects in this movie did not really add a lot IMO. The sound track was pretty amateurish, with all the subtlety of a frying pan to the face. Also, I should have given them a black hole for stupid title of the movie. Dark of the Moon? What the hell does that mean? It’s not even acceptable grammar. I guess they couldn’t call it Dark Side of the Moon without running into Pink Floyd, but if they had all it would have taken was a little money paid to the band. Might have even helped solved some of the soundtrack issues. Also, what is the deal with Transformers aging? Do they really grow crusty beards and wrinkles as they age or were some of them built looking twice as old as the rest of them? Finally, when did Sam’s chihuahua turn in to a St. Bernard? I guess since his character had turned into such a girly man they felt he needed a more manly pet. Either that or Michael Bey thinks we are all idiots.
So, a grand total of two stars. At least they stayed positive. Will you enjoy it when you see it? Yes, probably. The more you can turn off your thinking brain and just use the stem the more you will like it. See it in 3D on the biggest screen you can find. I just don’t see this thing doing much in repeat business. By the way, there is supposed to be something after the credits, but after 157 minutes of mass explosions I had reached my sensory saturation point and bailed. I’ll YouTube it in a month.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 2: Star Trek the Wrath of Khan
Now to the good stuff. As important and groundbreaking as the Motion Picture was, ultimately it was really a horrible movie, and not just for Shatnar in a body stocking. Overall it was as bad as the most mediocre Season 3 episode (cough cough Spock’s Brain cough cough), only with better special effects. However, it opened the door for TWOK, and for that I will always be grateful. (TWOK image courtesy of the sci fi t shirts category)
So, it’s now 1982. Gene Roddenberry, after the mediocre production of the Motion Picture, was more or less forced out of the movie. The great Nick Meyer was tapped to write and direct the film (this entire blog series, by the way, was inspired by an interview I heard with Nick Meyers on Geektime, Howard Stern’s nerd program on Sirius Satellite radio, where he talked about working on this and all the good Star Trek films (the even numbered ones. 2,4, and 6)). He wrote the script in 12 days. They worked on a shoe string budget, recycled miniatures and footage from the last film, and somehow produced brilliance. TWOK set a record for first day box office gross (which I contributed to) and was the first movie to use a sequence entirely done with computer graphics (suck it, Lucas).
What was happening in 1982? Well, I was in Jr High, the only two year period of my pre-collage education that didn’t resemble a year long water boarding experience. Reagan was president, and in spite of my father’s (a lifelong Democrat) objections seemed to doing good stuff for the country. All nine planets in our solar system aligned on the same side of the sun, and the longest lunar eclipse of the century occured yet in spite of mass doomsday predictions the planet did not blow up. Our good friends to the north were made completely independent from England. The Vietnam Memorial was dedicated. Thriller by Michael Jackson became the biggest selling record of all time (I admit it. I owned a copy). The Commodore 64 was released. And Argentina invades the Falklands Islands, sparking a minor war that was more or less treated like Monday Night Football by most Americans.
Overall, it could be called an ‘up” year, for lack of a better term. The only real downer was the big Tylenol scare, which was like the lottery only the prize was death. I think the cultural time was right for a movie that was, for lack of a better term, kind of a bummer. I am man enough to admit that I cried like a little girl when Spock died, and even to this day I get a little teary when I think about it. Sure, they stuck in that scene with his coffin on the Genesis planet (actually forced in by the studio over Nick Meyers and Leonard Nimoy’s strenuous objections). Nimoy only agreed to come back if they gave him an epic death scene that would end his character forever (I guess money cured that problem for him).
I won’t waste our time going in to the story too much. If you haven’t seen TWOK I don’t know what the hell you are even doing reading this blog. Odds are you should be watching Paris Hilton’s rereprehensible reality show. Khan Noonien Singh was dropped off on a planet by Kirk 15 years ago and then left to rot when the planet turned into a death world. He captures a ship and proceeds to use it to wreak havoc in the universe and track down Kirk. Stuff explodes. Ships fight. Spock dies heroically saving the ship, breaking my heart in the process.
I will say this about the story. I am not unsympathetic to Khan. No one really goes into it too much in the movie but Kirk royally screwed him and all his people. One thing you can say about this movie is that everyone’s motivations are “as clear as an unmuddied lake. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.”
Here’s what TWOK had:
The full cast. A great story. Khan Noonien Singh (I just like saying his name), played by the amazing Ricardo Montalban. Decent low budget special effects. A creepy creature that controls your brain from inside your ear. A call back to a great TOS episode (Space Seed). A non-Hollywood lame happy ending. The great Kobayashi Maru test (which Kirk beat). A great death scene. Kirks long lost son. A cool constructive tool used as a weapon of mass destruction. A computer animated scene.
Here’s what it did not have:
A lame excuse for Kirk to fight Khan face to face (they never actually meet). Annoying new characters, like the now obligatory hot chick for sex appeal (there were a couple, but they didn’t annoy me). Any hesitation to beat the hell out of the Enterprise. Body stocking uniforms (I actually like the Star Fleet uniforms from this film a lot. The best, IMO). Unnecessary aliens (as any zombie movie will teach you, the worst enemies humans have will always be other humans).
The story is tight and clean, with no extra stuff crow-barred in except for the Spock body/Genesis planet at the end. At the time (age 11, crying my eyes out, feeling like my best friend had just died and nothing on the planet was worth doing ever) I grabbed onto that scene like a drowning man grabbing a life saver, but with an adult eye and considering what would come to follow I think Nick Meyers was right and they should have let the scene stand alone. They could have probably forced his resurrection without it, and it would have made for a better stand alone movie.
Honestly, for me Spock’s death was when the series more or less ended for the TOS crew. Sure, there were some decent movies coming up, but the difference was this is where Spock (and to a lesser extent the rest of the crew) transformed from vibrant action stars and turned kind of into old men. In the following movies Spock would have to be the intellectual backbone, and in my opinion never really recaptured the Spock I grew up with. I’m sure there are those who will disagree with me, but that’s just my opinion.
Anyway, that’s the Wrath of Khan. Next up, Star Trek caters to fan boys (like me) with the Search for Spock.
Nerd Dating: the greatest date ever-movie night in Part 7 the arm move
OK, you’ve set up the date, picked a movie, and are ready to watch the movie with your amour. The question that arises is if and when to put one arm around the girl.
This is really a puzzler, to be honest. Given the fact that you are on hopefully your 3rd, 4th, or 5th date (by the way, never try to make movie night your first or second date. It will fail miserably, and if she suggests it it means she has the “let’s-be-friends” main gun locked and loaded) and she is willing to sit on a couch in a dimly lit (by candlelight or just the screen glare) room with you very strongly suggests she is comfortable enough with you to get a little closer. However, don’t forget one of my earliest dating lessons: as much as women want to be in a relationship and this particular one may or may not like you, they are skittish on a level that makes deer look like sea turtles and are eagerly searching for an excuse to dump you and run.
That being said, it is also likely she expects some action and would be disappointed if you didn’t try something. The first step is doing the old “arm around the shoulder” move. How best to accomplish this? And when is the best time?
In my experience, you want to get your arm around her before the movie even starts. This establishes the tone (something I like to talk about in my movie reviews) of the evening from the get go. The safest way to do it (you wimp) is to sit on the couch before she does with space on either side and put one arm up on the top of the couch. She knows what you are doing and if she is into it will sit in the crook of your arm without hesitation. Normally at that point you lower you arm gently (<–important) onto her shoulder. Odds are you will both share some kind of meaningful look or something and start the movie. If she is not into it she will sit on the other side and you can start enjoying your new friendship.
If, on the other hand, she beat you to the couch, or you just brain fizzled or chickened out, and the movie starts without you accomplishing this otherwise trivial goal, you are in trouble. If there is one thing girls hate on a date it’s the scent of awkwardness, and you are stuck hip deep in the awkward swamp. Here are a few ways to get around it.
The yawn-yes, this is really, really dumb move straight out of Happy Days. That’s why you don’t do it seriously. You so over exaggerate it that it will be obvious that you are making a joke. With luck she will laugh and let you proceed.
The creep-I don’t actually recommend this one, as it can be as creepy as it sounds. This is where you try to casually work your arm over the top of the couch and over the course of a couple hours lower your arm onto her. In addition to being kind of creepyish (think boa constrictor stalking it’s prey) it also looks extremely timid and ball-less. However, if you could accurately be described as timid and ball-less, or you have pretty much run out of options, than roll with it.
The break-this is where you get up to use the restroom, and when you return you just slide your arm around her like it was there before. This takes a little practice in order to make it look natural and not like a WWE move, but it can work very well. Unfortunately it is also the technique most likely to get you kicked out or punched, so be sure you know what she is about before you go for it.
The ask-this is one I have had decent success with. This is where, as the opening credits are rolling, you look at her in the eyes and say in your most sincere voice “Would you mind if I put my arm around you?” Most women are touched by this. Also, if they have been kind of waiting for you to do something it will be a relief for them to have you finally get it going. This also works really well if you are dealing with a woman who would describe herself as a feminist. She will appreciate the respect you are showing her (I guess. Who knows what really motivates woman, anyway?)
Rather than try all of these in the course of one evening, I would suggest picking one main and one backup and making those your thing. Pick the ones that seem to fit in with your personality and/or the personality of the girl you are dating. Good luck, and remember that if she is with you alone she wants to be there with you.
So this week I have been cropping images of a ton of new Star Trek t shirts and was struck yesterday by how many good and bad movies that franchise has spawned. By that I mean one great one, two mediocre ones, and a whole passel of garbage. Anyway, while cropping the image for Star Trek Nemesis it occurred to me that it would be fun to have a retrospective on my feelings for all the Trek films in order and what significance they had in my life. I think I will be starting that up tomorrow. I will have more dating stuck in there too as well as a couple more movie reviews. I don’t know if it will suck or not, but I will enjoy doing it. Talk to you soon.
Unsung genius Daniel Pinkwater
So a couple weeks I was out with a special person in my life and we stopped Pegasus Books in Rockridge, a suburb of Oakland. While there I looked at some used books and came across The Education of Robert Nifkin, by Daniel Pinkwater. I read the book this week, and was reminded of what a genius the man really is.
My being a Pinkwater fanboy goes way back. When I was about 14 my family was on one of our horrible never ending camping trips. You see, my dad would pile all of us into his ’69 Ford Maverick (replacement for the old Dodge my mom “accidentally” set fire to) every couple years during the summer and we would drive from one end of the country to the other, sleeping in crappy WWII era army surplus sleeping bags and a big dumb tent, usually on rocks and rattlesnakes. Dad would burn himself at least once a trip on his Coleman stove and the car would break down at least a couple times. To this day these trips remain one of the great mysteries of my life, as I for the life of me I can’t get what any of us got out of it, especially the old man. He did nothing but bitch and moan the whole time (or argue with mom), my sister hated it (and would relieve her boredom by torturing me), and I liken it to what I imagined hell would be like (early visions of hell. I was destined to learn what hell was really like when I dropped out of college and worked graveyard shift in a medical lab).
Anyway, we would be on these trips for a month or more and I had nothing to do but count cars, listen to my parents fight, or books (my dad was not big on car games or, for that matter, anything that involved noise from the back seat). As an added bonus the Maverick did not have a functioning radio. So while on one of these trips I picked up the only book that looked remotely interesting at a stand in a truck stop, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, by Daniel Manus Pinkwater.
To say the book was an eye opening experience is an understatement. I had been a avid reader for a while by then but most of the books I read were about adults. The vast majority of “young adult” novels about kids in high school or grammar school were pretty Norman Rockwell-esqe. More or less good kids with good attitudes who were generally well adjusted, happy young Americans. This book was about a couple of chubby introverted kids who hated school, were generally more intelligent than everyone around them, and had weird, messed up family lives. It was like I had discovered my long lost brothers. For the first time in my life I felt slightly less alienated rather than more.
Of course, the kids had some wild adventures involving the worlds greatest detective, a professional wrestler named the Mighty Gorilla, the terror of orangutans, a former South American army major expelled for terrorizing chickens, and a massive thinking computer hooked up to a giant avocado (of death). To say Pinkwater injects a level of surrealism into most of his stories is a bit of an understatement.
Anyway, his books are technically done for young adults, although honestly they are better read as an adult IMO. Also, some of his young adults smoke, drink, and play massive amounts of hooky, so maybe not the best for the soft brains of American youth. Nevertheless, each is in it’s own way brilliant.
What makes them even better are the titles. Here are a few of the better ones that I have read: Fat Men from Space, Lizard Music, Alan Mendleson the Boy From Mars, Wallpaper from Space, Blue Moose; and Return Of The Moose, Spaceburger : A Kevin Spoon and Mason Mintz Story, Fish Whistle: Commentaries, Uncommontaries and Vulgar Excesses, Jolly Roger, A Dog Of Hoboken, and I Was A Second Grade Werewolf are a few good ones, but he has dozens.
Anyway, if you hated high school, were a geek, didn’t fit in, and enjoy surrealism I’d say try out Daniel Pinkwater. If you were popular, fit in well, were well liked, and actually got laid in high school than go jump off a bridge. (Saved By the Bell Bayside AV Club image courtesy of the TV show t shirts)
I’ll be watching Furious Five tonight, I think, which will probably make for a pretty good review tomorrow, although I am headed to a small Warhammer tournament so I don’t know when I will write it up. Thanks for reading, and have a great day.
Movie review: Your Highness
So it’s been kind of hell for the last few weeks, with the show and the move and all sorts of other stuff piling up like you wouldn’t believe, so I decided what I needed to do was unwind a little with a movie that would make me laugh. I have heard a lot about Your Highness on the Howard Stern Show and figured it would probably fit the bill, so I called a friend and we hit the theater.
The movie did not disappoint at all. I laughed my ass off continuously. Really funny and well written.
The story is of Thadius, the libertine nere-do-well younger son of the king (played by Danny McBride of Eastbound and Down. EB&D image courtesy of the television t shirt category) who spends his time drinking, whoring, and getting high and his older brother Fabius (played by Hollywood pretty boy James Franco) who is brave, noble, and in all ways a better than Thadius. Fabius has his bride kidnapped by an evil warlock name Leezar who plans to impregnate her with a dragon. In order to kill Leezar they need to find a magic sword. Along the way they are joined by the majorly hot Natalie Portman (her screen name is Isabel, but I have a hard time paying attention to the details whenever she is on the screen, if you know what I mean). Medieval(-ish) adventure hijinx ensue. Monsters are killed, Thadius comes to grips with his manhood (in more than one way), and a feast of fish sticks is consumed. The script is rife with sleazy puns and double entendres that all seem hilarious in spite of being incredibly juvenile.
First the stars. The movie is hilarious. Two stars. Natalie Portman. One star. Natalie Portman showing a thong rear shot. Two stars (although I heard an ugly rumor that they used a body double for this, in which case reduce it to one star). Every single character, even superstar pretty boy Fabius, is funny and engaging. One star. Leezar is great as a super villain. One star. A couple scenes with some extremely gratuitous nudity. One star. Overall extremely well written. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. Kind of mediocre special effects and CGI (although really, you shouldn’t be here for these things). One black hole. The humor overall is really funny, but after a while it feels like they are beating the homoerotic jokes into the ground. One black hole. I really could have done without the whole minotaur genitalia running joke. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
So a grand total of six black holes, which is a very good score from me for a comedy. This movie is a great second or third date movie, as it will get her thinking about sex without you looking like a total pervert. I think you should definitely see it in a theater if you can, but this movie will also be a great addition to a DvD movie collection as it is exactly the thing to watch if you just want to throw something funny on that doesn’t require a lot of thought.
That’s it. Short this week but I still have about a million hours of work to do. I’ll try to stretch things out tomorrow.
